Faithful
God, by her married life and works of charity you taught Saint Zedislava to
pursue the way of perfection. By her prayers may family life be strengthened
and be a witness to Christian virtue.
Saint Zedislava is depicted as a third order Dominican
(in the Dominican habit on the left in the image) wearing a rosary wound with
roses, lying in the place of a sick person in bed. She is the patron saint of
difficult marriages and people who are ridiculed for their piety.
Lord, pour out upon us the fullness of your mercy, and
by the power of your Spirit remove divisions among Christians. Let your
Church rise more clearly as a sign for all the nations that the world may be
filled with the light of your Spirit and believe in Jesus Christ whom you have
sent, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and
ever. (from the Mass for Unity of Christians)
Our inheritance … is the poor, the poor; pauperibus
evangelizare misit me. What happiness, what happiness! To do what
our Lord came from heaven to earth to do, and by means of which we too shall go
from earth to heaven, to continue the work of God.
Read the Gospel narrative of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-9) from the Family Bible.
Using chalk blessed by the priest, write above the entry way:
20 + C +M + B + 10
Let us pray.
Peace be to this house and all who live here. During these days of the Christmas season, we keep this feast of Epiphany. Through the guidance of a star, the coming of Jesus was made known to the Gentiles. We celebrate Christ made known to the Magi, to John in the River Jordan, and to the disciples at the wedding at Cana.
Today Christ is made known to us! Today this home is a holy place! The Magi came from the east to Bethlehem to adore the Lord. “They went into the house, and when they saw the child with His mother Mary, they knelt down and worshipped him.They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and presented them to Him.” [Matthew 2:11]
Bow our heads and pray for God’s blessing . . .
Lord our God, bless our home and all who live here. May we be filled with health, goodness of heart, gentleness, obedience to Your law, and thanksgiving to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Help us love and respect one another and make your presence known by the way we care for others. May this blessing remain upon this house and upon all who live here. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
+++
The blessing of the home is an Epiphany custom. Chalk blessed by the priest on Epiphany is given to the faithful to mark their entrance door with the current year and with the inscription C+M+B, the initials of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the traditional names of the Magi (as above). In addition to remembering the Magi, the inscription means for the Latin phrase Christus Mansionem Benedicat, which means “Christ, bless this home.”
The Epiphany Proclamation
Dear brothers and sisters, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us, and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of his return. Through the rhythms of times and seasons let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.
Let us recall the year’s culmination, the Easter Triduum of the Lord: his last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising celebrated between the evening of the 1st of April and the evening of the 3rd of April.
Each Easter – as on each Sunday – the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed by which Christ has for ever conquered sin and death.
From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy:
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, will occur on the 17th of February.
The Ascension of the Lord will be commemorated on the 13th of May.
Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter, will be celebrated on the 23rd of May.
Corpus Christi will be celebrated on the 6th of June.
The First Sunday of Advent will be celebrated on the 28th of November.
Likewise the pilgrim Church proclaims the passover of Christ in the feasts of the holy Mother of God, in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints, and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.
To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and history, be endless praise, for ever and ever.
R. Amen.
Lo, God in man is manifest!
tell out the joyous story:
tell how the Wise Men
worshipped the Son Incarnate.
Sages from furthermost Orient stream to bow before His boundless power. Who is the King whom the prophets foretold should come to save both Jew and Gentile?
Lo! He humbleth Himself from His throne of glory, taketh on Him the form of servant. He who is God before all ages now is born of the Virgin Mary.
See fulfilled is Balaam’s prophetcy:
Out of Jacob shall a star arise–
so ’twas promised! See the Wise Men offer Him their costliest presents:
Gold and myrrh and fragrant incense.
Rising up in power and majesty,
He shall strike with dread discomfiture
Moab’s princes.
Offerings significant: incense shows His Godhead;
gold, His kingdom; myrrh, His passion.
Join, then, in one solemn chorus and raise
the melody of praise and glory,
which may betoken oblations most rare
which to our Lord we fain would offer.
Praying that His true protection
over all nations be extended,
now and forever. Amen.
from the Sarum Use of the Mass, Epiphaniam Domino
Saint Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea was one of the
most distinguished Doctors of the Church. He lived c. 329 to January 1, 379.
Theologians place Saint Basil after Saint Athanasius as a defender of the
Church against the heresies of the fourth century (the most destructive of the
faith was the Arian heresy).
Saint
Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 325-389) was also from Cappadocia and a friend of Basil, followed
the monastic way of life for some years. Eventually the Church called Nazianzus to be a priest and later bishop of Constantinople (in 381). Saint
Gregory was given the title “The Theologian” because of his learning
and oratory.
Many icons of Saints Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil include
Nazianzus’ brother Saint Gregory of Nyssa. The group is known as “The
Three Cappadocians.” Some make the claim that Basil outshines Nazianzus and
Nyssa in practical genius and actual achievement. BTW, the icon presented here does not include Nyssan but Saint John Chrysostom.
The liturgical prayer for today’s memorial may be found here.
Saint Basil the Great writes on life’s journey:
We read in the Book of
Psalms: ‘Blessed is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor
follows in the way of sinners.’ Life has been called a ‘way’ because everything
that has been created is on the way to its end. When people are on a sea
voyage, they can sleep while they are being transported without any effort of
their own to their port of call. The ship brings them closer to their goal
without their even knowing it. So we can be transported nearer to the end of
our life without our noticing it, as time flows by unceasingly. Time passes
while you are asleep. While you are awake time passes although you may not notice.
All
of us have a race to run towards our appointed end. So we are all ‘on the way’.
This is how you should think of the ‘way’. You are a traveller in this life.
Everything goes past you and is left behind. You notice a flower on the way, or
some grass, or a stream, or something worth looking at. You enjoy it for a
moment, then pass on. Maybe you come on stones or rocks or crags or cliffs or
fences, or perhaps you meet wild beasts or reptiles or thorn bushes or some
other obstacles. You suffer briefly then escape. That is what life is like.
Pleasures
do not last but pain is not permanent either.
The ‘way’ does not belong to you
nor is the present under your control. But as step succeeds step, enjoy each
moment as it comes and then continue on your ‘way’.
Commentary
on Psalm 1, 4 (PG 29, 220)
Living and dying in Christ in 2009 was way too common.
Especially the dying part. Pope
Benedict’s Christmas homily notes that “The Church everywhere proclaims the
Gospel of Christ, despite persecutions, discriminations, attacks and at times hostile
indifference. These, in fact, enable her to share the lot of her Master and
Lord.” Many of the 37 people killed this past year met hostility for their
acceptance of Christ as Savior, others were easy targets because they were
priests or nuns or in some way connected with the Church. Being killed for
being Christian is not the same as saying the 37 were martyrs for the faith.
Some may be legitimate martyrs, but not all.
God our Father, may we always profit by the prayers of the
Virgin Mother Mary, for You bring us life and salvation through Jesus Christ
her Son who lives and regins with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever.
from Catechism of the Catholic:
Called in the Gospels “the Mother of
Jesus,” Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and
even before the birth of her son, as “the mother of my Lord.” In
fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became
her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father’s eternal Son,
the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is
truly “Mother of God.” (495).
from the Directory on Popular and the
Liturgy: The Solemnity of the Holy Mother of God:
On New Year’s Day, the octave
day of Christmas, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Holy Mother of
God. The divine and virginal motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a
singular salvific event: for Our Lady it was the foretaste and cause of her
extraordinary glory; for us it is a source of grace and salvation because
“through her we have received the Author of life.”
The solemnity of the 1
January, an eminently Marian feast, presents an excellent opportunity for
liturgical piety to encounter popular piety: the first celebrates this event in
a manner proper to it; the second, when duly catechised, lends joy and
happiness to the various expressions of praise offered to Our Lady on the birth
of her divine Son, to deepen our understanding of many prayers, beginning with
that which says: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners”.
In
the West, 1 January is an inaugural day marking the beginning of the civil
year. The faithful are also involved in the celebrations for the beginning of
the new year and exchange “new year” greetings. However, they should
try to lend a Christian understanding to this custom making of these greetings
an expression of popular piety. The faithful, naturally, realize that the
“new year” is placed under the patronage of the Lord, and in
exchanging new year greetings they implicitly and explicitly place the New Year
under the Lord’s dominion, since to him belongs all time (cf. Ap 1, 8; 22,13)
A
connection between this consciousness and the popular custom of singing the Veni
Creator Spiritus can easily be made so that on 1 January the faithful can pray
that the Spirit may direct their thoughts and actions, and those of the
community during the course of the year.+New year greetings also include an
expression of hope for a peaceful New Year. This has profound biblical,
Christological and incarnational origins. The “quality of peace” has
always been invoked throughout history by all men, and especially during violent
and destructive times of war.
The Holy See shares the profound aspirations of
man for peace. Since 1967, 1 January has been designated “world day for
peace”. Popular piety has not been oblivious to this initiative of the
Holy See. In the light of the new born Prince of Peace, it reserves this day
for intense prayer for peace, education towards peace and those value
inextricably linked with it, such as liberty, fraternal solidarity, the dignity
of the human person, respect for nature, the right to work, the sacredness of
human life, and the denunciation of injustices which trouble the conscience of
man and threaten peace. (115-117)