Christmas Novena, First Oration

O
Beautiful One in splendor, fairer than the children of this world, in Your
inexplicable love for us, You became a man to show us the invisible beauty of
Your Divinity in the splendor of Your visible body, which You have taken from
the Virgin Mary.  By this, You have attracted us to Your Divine Love, You,
Beloved of the Father and Only Delight of His Heart.


We beseech You, through
Your Pure Nativity and through the intercession of Your Virgin Mother and Saint
Joseph, Your Chosen One, to enkindle Your love in our hearts and enlighten our
minds with the rays of Your heavenly grace, that we may love You with our whole
heart and mind.  May we love everyone in You and for You, You, Who alone
are worthy of the love of all hearts. Amen.

Dolan calls for a truce: don’t mall each other at Christmas

TMD.jpgToday the NY Daily News published a letter written by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York. I am happy that the News published this letter because it is not only a message for Christians, but people of faith, and those looking for the gift of faith. The substance of the Archbishop’s letter can be summarized in this way: this is a time for peace among peoples; for love and reconciliation. And even though not all go about observing this season in the same way, we ought to respect one another! 

Christians, particularly, are preparing themselves to welcome the Prince of Peace, the Wonder-Counselor, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, into their whole being. Others will be observing Chanuka and still others will just try to live the best they now how.
While faith-neural language like “holiday parties,” “Seasons Greetings,” or “holiday sale,” can get annoying, even ridiculous, our attention ought not to be exclusively on how “others” are removing Jesus Christ from view at this point of the calendar. Sure, some of our brothers and sisters are frustrated by this move away from our Christian roots. I am, too. However, I am not giving more power to those who agitate to rid the world of Advent & Christmas.
So we need ask ourselves, is the frustration worth it? Is letting the secularization of our Christian culture “get to us” giving more power to the forces of the faith-neutral ideologues in our lives than need be? If so, they’ve won. Reasonable people of faith and good will won’t think of Christ being removed from our hearts or families or the work place by anyone but ourselves. We can’t blame others for everything. So, the Archbishop’s call for a truce on all that distracts from the real meaning of Advent and the forthcoming Christmastide is well-taken.

I, for one, am going to get back to listening to “Christmas at Ephesus,” the recent album of Christmas hymns recorded by the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles. Perhaps I’ll pray the Joyful mysteries of the rosary.

Richard G. Cipolla celebrates 25 years of priestly service

This past Sunday, the Church gathered to worship God; she observed the Presentation of teh Lord in the Temple; and she observed 25 years of priestly service to the Divine Majesty of one her sons, The Reverend Father Richard G. Cipolla, PhD, DPhil (Oxon). Father Cipolla is a priest of the Diocese of Bridgeport, CT, a teacher, a husband, the father of two, and a great friend. We were colleagues at Fairfield Prep (Fairfield, CT) in late 1990s and I served the Mass he celebrated faithfully at the Bridgettine Convent (Dairen, CT). The homily Father Cipolla delivered on Sunday follows. It bears reading and using for today’s lectio.

Candelmass, 25th Anniversary Mass, 1 February 2009, St Mary’s Norwalk

RGC preaching.jpgShe wraps him carefully, carefully against the cold, not the cold of a New England winter, but cold nevertheless. And as she wraps him she ponders all these things in her heart. And when all is ready she and her husband bring him to the temple, that the law may be fulfilled. And they bring their thank-offering for the birth of their son. They bring him to the temple to dedicate him, to redeem him as the first born with their little gift, meant to be a symbol and yet everything. As they enter the darkened temple the lamp burning before the holy of holies flickers, flickers in recognition of the reality replacing the symbol, the flesh of God enters the place of the symbol of God, and reality is changed, the warp and woof of the universe of space-time explodes silently, as the creator of space-time enters into the man made temple and shatters forever the disconnect between human history and the eternal God.

And you notice that is not the high priest who recognizes this child. It is not the religious authorities who officially wait for the Messiah, the redeemer. They are probably watching their wide screen plasma TV in the rectory. It is the pious old man, Simeon, who waits in the temple for the reality, and who recognizes this reality, mirabile dictu, when he sees it and when he recognizes the reality he takes the child in his arms and sings, he sings in perfect chant: Nunc dimittis. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. And he holds the child to himself, the child who is his creator, and he sees the suffering of this child as a man, he sees what redemption means, he sees the sword of suffering in the heart of the child’s mother. He sees, he weeps, but he weeps with tears of joy.

The wreaths are long gone. The Christmas trees are part of the compost of town dumps. Our houses are bare, secular, waiting for the end of winter. And in the midst of all of this the Church demands that we celebrate the last feast of Christmas, the purification of St Mary the Virgin, commonly known as the Presentation of Christ in the temple, when we bless candles, reminding us that the child born on Christmas night is the light of the world. The world has forgotten Christmas until next Halloween. We, as St John reminds us, are not of the world, so we joyfully celebrate this last of the great Christmas feasts, a feast that is the climax of Epiphany, the feast that is one more answer to the question: who is this child? Who is this man? What does all of this mean? What is the cross? What is Easter? For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples. Quite an affirmation. This is not theoretical or cultural Christianity, no pie in the sky business, no teddy bear in the sky God, no warm fuzzies. The astounding claim that the child that Simeon takes from Mary and holds in his arms is the Logos of the universe, the meaning of existence, the auctor of creation itself: this is at the heart of what the Christian faith is and what we do this afternoon is an antidote not only to the grey and boring secularism that marches on and tramples almost everything in its path but also is an antidote to that reduction of Christianity to right living, to morality, or to personal feeling that is grounded in an individualism that is contrary to the entire New Testament.

RGC.jpgWhen people ask me, as they have for over twenty five years, why did you become Catholic? They ask me this for various reasons, some good, some bad. But in the end what they want is for me to give some sort of personal journey story, something that I could do on Oprah, and would warm people’s hearts. I am not adverse to warming people’s hearts, but that has nothing to do with why I became a Catholic and remain a dedicated Catholic. Why I became Catholic is because it is real and therefore true; it is true and therefore real. Someone with my scientific background could never believe in anything that did not have a grounding in this world of atoms, of electrons, of muons, of the very stuff of the universe, of the stuff of which we are made. An idealistic religion, as some forms of American Christianity have become with all of the attendant corollaries, is something I could never ultimately take seriously. At least classical Judaism takes history seriously, seeing history through the lens of the relationship of God with the Jewish people, not the individual, but the people, the collective, the community. Here the God of Israel is engaged with his people, to say the least, chastising them, goading them on, calling them back, but never less than real in their own history. History. This is the key. Cardinal Newman said: to know history is to cease to be protestant. Now saying this I emphasize my debt and my love for my protestant upbringing which gave me a knowledge of the Bible and which set me upon my path. But when I found out that the Bible has a history and that history is inseparable from the oral tradition of the Church and the living teaching magisterium of the Church beginning with St Paul down to today. When I found out that Christianity has a history and that history is inseparable from the human history of the past two thousand years and that the Church is imbedded and inseparable from that history, then one is forced to the conclusion that either God entered human history with the birth of Christ and therefore the very stuff of human history is forever transformed, or the whole thing is a nice story that gives us a vague hope that Kafka is not right and that we do not die like a dog.

The event we celebrate in this Mass, the presentation of Christ in the temple, is part of human history. If it is not, forget about it. It means nothing. And what we do together this evening is part of human history. It may not be observed by many people, just as the birth of Christ was observed by very few people, just as his death on the cross was observed by very few people, just as his post-resurrection appearances were observed by very few people. But nevertheless it is happening in this world in this place as a part of human history. And what we do here is the context of the Church’s liturgy, in the context of the Mass. We are not just a bunch of people coming together to commemorate a religious festival, like the Romans did with Saturnalia. We are not here to ponder intellectually or mentally or heartfully what
Trinity Botticelli.jpgChristianity means. We do not come here to learn
. We come here to connect and be connected to the pivot event of human history: the death and resurrection of the Lord of history. We come here to worship the God who is above his creation, eternal, all powerful, the ground of being, but who comes among us in the forms of bread and wine, stuff of the universe and pretty basic stuff at that, who comes to us in this church at this altar in this space and time, who comes as the Son to offer himself up to the Father in the eternal sacrifice that alone makes that connection between God and man possible and real. Simeon held the child Jesus in his arms. What a wonderful thing. But we go far beyond that. In this Mass the Son offers himself to the Father, Calvary is re-presented, and the infinite grace of that offering is bestowed upon us, and as we receive Holy Communion symbol and reality become one, as God enters our body to transform us from death into life. This is where worship and life come together. This is where culture and faith come together. This is where beauty and truth kiss, this is where eternity and time intersect. This is where those whom we have loved and who have died in Christ are with us in the most real way as part of the body of Christ. This is where the angels and archangels and the blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints join with us in this offering of sacrifice and praise.

And all of this in sign and symbol that partake of the reality of God in this extraordinary form of the Roman rite. The ordinary form, the Mass of Paul VI, is known as that because it happens to be celebrated in most Catholic parishes today. That is what ordinary means. The form we celebrate here and now, given back to the Church by the courage and foresight of the present Pope, is extraordinary in the jargon of the Church. Extraordinary means here not exceptional but rather not ordinary. This is the rite that is the distillation of the Catholic faith of at least fifteen hundred years; this is the stuff of Catholicism, not man made, not the product of scholarship or committees, but rather the product of organic growth, like a wonderful old house with some funny and strange features, rooms that seem too small or too large, some curious old furniture, and yet when you step into it, you know that this is a home, a home that has been lived in by countless generations, a home that is meant to be enjoyed, contemplated, a place to have fun in, a place that is home in the sense that it is full of that love that makes a home a real home and not merely a house.

Some of you know the ending of TS Eliot’s poem, “Little Gidding”:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The first time I celebrated this form of the Mass, these lines came to me, for I knew this place for the first time as the place for which I was ordained a Catholic priest. And what I have come to realize is that the Traditional Mass has been given back to the Church by the grace of God in order that new generations might know the place for the first time in all its beauty and truth. For how many years was this place deformed by lifeless, legalistic celebrations of the Mass? How long was this place hidden from a laity consigned to being mere spectators at a clerical event? How long was the entrance to this home barred by those who refused to believe that the people of God were intelligent enough and faithful enough and graceful enough to live fully in this home and so built a new home to appeal to a generation that already has grey hair and is as outdated as is the Brady Bunch split level house? This form of the Mass has been given back to the Church as a gift, a gift to be shared, a gift to be cherished, a gift that lies at the very heart of what it means to be Catholic.

Ministers at the Altar RGC.jpgThis task of renewal is indeed formidable. It is much more formidable than that which President Obama faces in this time of national crisis. The liturgical damage of the past forty years is deep; it is as high as a mountain, for it is not only a question of liturgical form, it is that mountain of willful ignorance that has confused worship of God with worship of the self. And there are days when I look at that mountain and say to myself that there is no way to return. But then I look at the great number of young children at the coffee hour following the 9:30 Solemn Mass on Sunday; I see them running around, I see them stuffing a doughnut into their mouths, I see them with their young parents who have brought them to the Mass, I see them as children whose only experience of Mass is precisely this what we do today, the worship of the transcendent God who became flesh: then the mountain does not seem as high. How fitting is that we celebrate this Mass in this church whose lack of an altar rail, whose absent side altars, whose soiled wall to wall carpet, all speak of the liturgical deterioration of the past forty years. And how fitting it is that this parish church, not one of the wealthy parish churches of this diocese, is determined to bring back the beauty of this church, not for beauty per se, but so that it can once again be a fit setting for the coming of God in the flesh to his people and their response of adoration.

Heady stuff, you say. Quite far from the happy-slappy Catholicism most Catholics have know for the past forty years. Quite far from the liberal Protestantism that has joined forces with the secular steamroller, quite far from the radically individualistic evangelical Christianity that draws thousands to the mega-churches on a Sunday. Quite far from the generic American religion that is a cross between vestiges of Christianity and vague moral stirrings. Quite far indeed. As far as eternity. As far as infinity. The infinity of the Logos, of the reason that holds the universe together. The infinity of the God who did not need us yet created us of his will. But ultimately the infinity of love, the love that knows no bounds, no not any, even to death, even to death on a cross for us, pro nobis, death for life, my life, your life, the only infinity that means anything at all, the infinity that became finite in the womb of Mary for the sake of love.

Baptism of the Lord

Almighty, eternal God, when the Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism in the Jordan, You revealed Him as Your own beloved Son. Keep us, Your children born of water and the Spirit, faithful to our calling.
Thumbnail image for Baptism of the Lord.jpgChrist’s Baptism – from the Catechism of the Catholic Church


All the Old Covenant prefigurations find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus. He begins his public life after having himself baptized by Saint John the Baptist in the Jordan. After His resurrection Christ gives this mission to His apostles: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Our Lord voluntarily submitted Himself to the baptism of Saint John, intended for sinners, in order to “fulfill all righteousness”. Jesus’ gesture is a manifestation of His self-emptying. The Spirit who had hovered over the waters of the first creation descended then on the Christ as a prelude of the new creation, and the Father revealed Jesus as His “beloved Son.”

In His Passover Christ opened to all men the fountain of Baptism. He had already spoken of His Passion, which He was about to suffer in Jerusalem, as a “Baptism” with which He had to be baptized. The blood and water that flowed from the pierced side of the crucified Jesus are types of Baptism and the Eucharist, the sacraments of new life. From then on, it is possible “to be born of water and the Spirit” in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

See where you are baptized, see where Baptism comes from, if not from the cross of Christ, from His death. There is the whole mystery: He died for you. In Him you are redeemed, in Him you are saved. (1223-1225)

A Christmas Carol


The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
Nativity Angelico.jpgHis hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.) 

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

 

G.K.Chesterton 

Yesterday, with exultation: In honor of Saint Stephen

Yesterday, with exultation,
Join’d the world in celebration
Of her promised Saviour’s birth;
Yesterday the Angel-nation
Pour’d the strains of jubilation
O’er the Monarch born on earth;

 

But today o’er death victorious,
By his faith and actions glorious,
by his miracles renown’d,
See the Deacon triumph gaining,
‘Midst the faithless faith sustaining,
First of holy Martyrs found.

Thumbnail image for St Stephen.jpg 

Onward, champion, falter never,
Sure of sure reward for ever,
Holy Stephen, persevere;
Perjured witnesses confounding,
Satan’s synagogue astounding
By thy doctrine true and clear.

 

Thine own Witness is in Heaven,
True and faithful, to thee given,
Witness of thy blamelessness:
By thy name a crown implying,
Meet it is thou shouldst be dying
For the crown of righteousness.

 

For the crown that fadeth never
Bear the torturer’s brief endeavour;
Victory waits to end the strife:
Death shall be thy life’s beginning,
And life’s losing be the winning
Of the true and better life.

 

Fill’d with God’s most Holy Spirit,
See the Heav’n thou shalt inherit,
Stephen, gaze into the skies:
There God’s glory steadfast viewing,
Thence thy victor-strength renewing,
Pant for thy eternal prize.

 

See, as Jewish foes invade thee,
See how Jesus stands to aid thee,
Stands at God’s right hand on high:
Tell how open’d Heav’n is shown thee,
Tell how Jesus waits to own thee,
Tell it with thy latest cry.

 

As the dying martyr kneeleth,
For his murderers he appealeth,
For their madness griefing sore;
Then in Christ he sleepeth sweetly,
And with Christ he reigneth meetly,
Martyr first-fruits, evermore.

 

 

Words: “Heri mundus exultavit,” Adam of S. Victor (d. 1192). Translation by John Mason Neale; Music: “Heri Mundus Exultavit,” by Walter Macfarren; Meter: 887 887. Hymns Ancient and Modern. London: William Clowes and Sons, Ltd., 1922, #64, p. 64-5.

Nativity

nativity Giotto detail.jpgImmensity cloistered in thy dear womb, Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment, There He hath made Himself to His intent Weak enough, now into the world to come; But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room? Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient, Stars and wise men will travel to prevent; The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.

Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie? Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high, That would have need to be pitied by thee?

 

Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go, With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

 

John Donne (1572- 1631)

 

Magnum nomen Domini Emmanuel


Birth of Christ.jpg

 

 

 

 

Evangelizo vobis gaudium magnum: natus est vobis hodie Salvator, Christus Dominus.

 

I proclaim to you good news of great joy: today a Savior is born for us, Christ the Lord.

 

 

 

 

God, who gladden us by the yearly expectation of our redemption, grant that we may merit to see Your Only Begotten, our Lord, Christ Jesus, whom we in joy are now receiving as the Redeemer also see in safety when He is coming as the Judge.

 

 

Hodie Christus natus est. Hodie Salvator apparuit. Hodie in terra canunt Angeli, lætantur Archangeli. Hodie exsultant iusti dicentes: Gloria in excelsis Deo! Alleluia.

 

Today the Savior has appeared: today the Angels sing, the Archangels rejoice: today the just rejoice, saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will towards men: Alleluia.

 


Nativity of Mary Pietro Cavallini.jpgT
oday, the twenty-fifth day of December

Unknown ages from the time when God created the heavens and the earth; And then formed man and woman in his own image.

Several thousand years after the flood; When God made the rainbow shine forth as a sign of the covenant.

Twenty-one centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah;

Thirteen centuries after Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt.

Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the Judges;

One thousand years from the anointing of David as king;

In the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel.

In the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; The seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome.

The forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus; The whole world being at peace,

Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
Desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
Being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
And nine months having passed since his conception,
Was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary.

Today is the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

Amen.

 

Fr. Julián Carrón speaks of Christmas & Hope


Jeremiah Duccio.jpgI was struck by the readings that the Ambrosian Liturgy proposes for Monday of the third week of Advent. How must the members of the ancient people of Israel been disconcerted at the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “It will devour your harvests and your bread; it will devour your sons and daughters; it will devour your flocks and herds; it will devour the fortified cities in which you placed your trust” (Jer 5:17). He was telling them that another nation was going to conquer the kingdom in which they had put their trust. “Then, if they say: ‘Why has the Lord our God done these things?’, you will answer: ‘Just as you have abandoned the Lord and served foreign gods in your country, so will you serve foreigners in a country that is not yours'” (Jer 5:19).

It is as if this were said for us; today we see signs that make everyone afraid, it seems that what has supported our history is unable to withstand the test of our times: one day the economy, finance and work, the next day politics and the judiciary, then the family, the beginning of life and its natural end. So, like ancient Israel before a frightening situation, we, too, ask ourselves: “Why is all this happening?” It is because we, too, have been so presumptuous as to think that we can still get along after cutting the roots that supported the foundations of our civilization. In recent centuries, our culture has believed it could build a future for itself while abandoning God. Now we see where this presumption is leading us.

 

Now, what does the Lord do in the face of all we have brought upon ourselves? The prophet Zechariah tells us, speaking to his people Israel: “Look, I am going to send you my servant Branch” (Zc 3:8). Notice the name. It is as if before the crisis of a world, our world – the prophets would describe it with an image dear to them, that of a dried-up trunk – a sign of hope were springing up. The enormity of a dried up trunk cannot prevent the sprouting of a humble, fragile branch in which lies the hope for the future.

 


St Benedict3.jpgBut there is one drawback: we, too, when we see this branch appearing -like those before that child in Nazareth–can be scandalized and say: “How can something so ephemeral be the answer to our need for liberation?” Can salvation come from something so small as faith in Jesus? It seems impossible that all our hope can rest on belonging to this frail sign. The promise that only from this can everything be rebuilt seems scandalous. Yet men like St. Benedict and St. Francis started from that. They began to live while belonging to that branch that had grown through time and space–the Church, and in this way became protagonists of a people and of history.

Benedict did not face the end of the Roman Empire with anger, pointing the finger at the immorality of his contemporaries, but rather witnessed to the people of his time a fullness of life, a satisfaction and a fullness that became an attraction for many. This became the dawn of a new world, small as it was (almost a nonentity compared with the whole, a whole that was in total collapse), but a real world. That new beginning was so concrete that the work of Benedict and Francis has lasted through the centuries, has transformed Europe, and humanized it.

“He has revealed himself. He personally,” said Benedict XVI, speaking of the God-with-us. Fr. Giussani told us, “That man of two thousand years ago is hidden under the tent, under the appearance of a new humanity,” in a real sign that arouses the inkling of that life that we are all waiting for so as not to succumb to the evil in us and to the signs of the nothingness which is advancing. This is the hope that Christmas announces to us, and that makes us cry out: “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Julian Carron3.jpg(Father) Julián Carrón

President of the Fraternity of Communion & Liberation

 

Letter to the editor of the Italian daily La Repubblica,
published December 23, 2008