O happy fault! announces the ancient text of the Exsultet during the Easter Vigil, O truly necessary sin of Adam, it cries, that won for us so great a Redeemer! Our liturgies during the Easter season often seem to call to mind the underlying reasons for our salvation more frequently than at Christmas.

Christians in the Middle Ages, however, honored Adam and Eve as the parents of humanity and used December 24 to recall the Genesis story that tells of their fall. It was a way to prepare for the Christmas feast of the birth of Jesus, who saved us from death—the consequence of their original sin. Some Christian traditions, such as the Eastern Orthodox, explicitly honor these two figures as saints because they were redeemed by Christ during his harrowing of hell, although they are not on the calendar of saints in the Roman Catholic Church.

Why are Adam and Eve important to us? What do they tell us about what it means to be a human being, made in the image and likeness of God? In his collection of homilies on the Genesis narrative, In the Beginning, Pope Benedict XVI writes: “The biblical account of creation means to give some orientation in the mysterious region of human-beingness. It means to help us appreciate the human person as God’s project and to help us formulate the new and creative answer that God expects from each one of us.” Each of us, like Adam and Eve, are tasked with helping God recreate the world.

Recalling Adam and Eve on December 24 is a natural way to highlight the roles that Jesus and Mary play in our salvation. The Adam and Eve story sets the stage for the saving drama of Jesus’ birth because Adam and Eve remind us of why we need a savior at all.

In the Office of Readings for today, the Liturgy of the Hours features a sermon by St. Augustine that says: “Truth, then, has arisen from the earth: Christ who said, I am the Truth, was born of a virgin. And justice looked down from heaven: because believing in this new-born child, humanity is justified not by themselves but by God.”

The disobedience of Adam and Eve gives us a contrast to the obedience and faithfulness of Jesus and Mary. Adam and Eve are figures who remind us that we are trapped by death; Jesus brings us life, and Mary brings us Jesus.

St. Paul refers to Jesus as the “second Adam” who brings new life to all of humanity, and Mary’s “yes” to the invitation to bear Christ to the world is seen as a saving answer to Eve’s “no” to God when she and Adam sinned in the garden. Adam and Eve’s banishment, the promise to Mary, and the birth of Jesus are depicted in this stained glass window from the Basilica.

Medieval Christians celebrated December 24 with what was known as a “paradise play.” They would re-enact the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden around an evergreen tree that was decorated with apples to represent the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Some believe this “paradise tree” developed into the Christmas tree, which is often still decorated with round, red balls that resemble apples. This image shows the Christmas tree beneath the rotunda in the Main Building on Notre Dame’s campus.

On Christmas Eve, let us remember our first parents, Adam and Eve, whose fault our Savior comes to mend—come, Lord Jesus!