A Blessed Christmas feast to you and your family. I ended up going to the midnight Mass at the local monastery of Dominican nuns to help with a potential problem of crowds given a C19 crisis at the Catholic parish whose pastor was exposed. Luckily, the crowd was small. Protecting the nuns is of the utmost concern. Since I am in bed nightly at 9:30 I have a renewed appreciation for those who make the sacrifice to spend it in watching –in vigil– with the Lord. So much of the important biblical narratives happens at night thus making the night solemn, holy, peaceful, set-apart. Keeping vigil with the Holy Family refocusses me on the desire to be with the Lord as he gives witness through His Life-giving Incarnation for the life of the world.
On Christmas Day I assisted at my Melkite parish of St Ann (Waterford). The emphasis of the Christmas troparia (the hymns) was not only on the Nativity in the Flesh of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ,
“Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One! Angels, with shepherds, glorify Him! The wise men journey with a star! Since for our sake the Eternal God is born as a little child” (Kontakion).
BUT also to reframe the pagan (unbelieving) crowd who hold to secular and folks tales as true offering them the possibility of salvation with, in and through Jesus Christ –the True Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4). The false beliefs of the pagans of 2000 years ago are the same today: the rejection of the revelation of the One, Triune God in Jesus’ becoming flesh for our redemption. There is a polemic established in the Church’s troparion because it puts aside pagan worship and gives truth and adored. The Church sings,
“Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has shone to the world the light of wisdom! For by it, those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to adore You, the Sun of Righteousness and to know You, the Orient from on high (LK 1:78 also translated as Dawn or Dayspring). O Lord, glory to You!”
The pulsating heart and mind comes to accept and confess that at Christmas we know and love and adore Son of God became man so that man might become divine, sons and daughters of God the Father by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Father Alexander Men (1935-90) was martyred for the Christian Faith by the Soviets. Men is a compelling preaching in part because of heritage a convert from Judaism to the Orthodox Church. My friend Bishop Seraphim Joseph Sigrist posted this poem about Men by Alexander Zorin, “The Candle”. Zorin helps us better understand the mystery we are observing today using the Father Alexander’s a mirror to Jesus the New Light.
The Candle
(A Poem about Fr. Alexander Men)
“He came out to guide us to the gate,
but then became our escort through the forest.
Black on black
the night stood like a wall, close in.
On a rolled-out, starry scroll
super-worldly letters twinkled.
His candle cast its light
and from the darkness–sheds, a brick-pile,
footbridges, ditches, a muddy road
spiraling beyond our comprehension,
leading on through time and ages.
He joked: from here on out this star here
will guide you. Follow it gracefully.
And since it seems no one else here below
will light the way, he raised his candle high.”
Translated by Richard Dauenhauer
(third working draft, Advent 2007)