Conor Pope offers “An Ordered Existence,” his entertaining and thought-provoking summary for The Irish Times of two days spent with the Benedictine monks of Glenstal Abbey, Co. Limerick. The article is supplemented by “The Sound of Silence: Conor Pope at Glenstal Abbey,” a five-minute video.
HT to Brother Richard Oliver, OSB
Come, let us worship the Lord, the King of apostles.
On the 3rd Day of Christmas we are given the liturgical memorial of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist.
“[W]hat we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1Jn 1:3).
From what is revealed in sacred Scripture we know that John is present to the central events of Jesus’ life, the many miracles, including the Transfiguration, the institution of the Eucharist, the Lord’s Crucifixion, and the discovery of the Resurrection.
John is “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and the one to whom Jesus confided the care of his mother and the Church. He is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles; later he was exiled to the island of Patmos. He wrote a Gospel, three Epistles, and the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse). Saint John is said to have died at Ephesus (in current day Turkey). On this day the Church blesses wine.
Come, let us worship the new-born Christ; today he has crowned Saint Stephen.
Saint Stephen is known as the first Martyr. After such a brilliant, holy and happy day as the Nativity of the Lord, we are given the sobering liturgical memorial of one of the early deacons.
Stephen was elected by the 12 Apostles to care for the temporal needs of the poor through the distribution of food and clothing (Cf. Acts). He is the first almoner of the Church. Stephen performed many miracles and confounded the religious authorities in theological disputation while facing false charges. At his trial, Stephen preached the risen Jesus as the Christ to his detractors. He was stoned to death. He prayed for his persecutors as he was dying. One of those who conspired against Stephen was Saul of Tarsus, who later converted and became the great missionary, Saint Paul; he faced death, too, because his belief in Jesus as Messiah.
Saint Stephen, pray for us!
To you, dear brothers and sisters, gathered from throughout the world in this Square, and to all those from different countries who join us through the communications media, I offer my cordial best wishes for a merry Christmas!
On this day illumined by the Gospel hope which springs from the humble stable of Bethlehem, I invoke the Christmas gift of joy and peace upon all: upon children and the elderly, upon young people and families, the poor and the marginalized. May Jesus, who was born for us, console all those afflicted by illness and suffering; may he sustain those who devote themselves to serving our brothers and sisters who are most in need. Happy Christmas to all!
Pope Francis’ English message for Christmas 2013
Saint Leo the Great teaches, “Today, dearly beloved, our Savior is born: let us rejoice! Surely there is no place for mourning on the birthday of true Life itself, who has swallowed up mortality with all its fear, and brought us the joyful promise of life everlasting. No one is excluded from taking part in our jubilation. All have the same cause for gladness, for as our blessed Lord, slayer of sin and death, found none free from guilt, so has he come to set us all alike at liberty.
Let the saint exult, since he is soon to receive recompense; let the sinner give praise, since he is welcomed to forgiveness; let the unbeliever take courage, since he is called unto life. For in the fullness of time ordained by the inscrutable mystery of the divine decree, the Son of God clothed himself with the nature of that human race which he was to reconcile to its Maker. Thus would he vanquish the devil, the author of death, through that very nature which had once yielded him the victory.”
According to the Melkite Patriarch Gregory the Great 88 Christian churches have been destroyed or damaged in some way as a result of the civil war in Syria. The majority of the damage is within the Melkite community, but numbers do not matter as this civil war affects all Christians. War is a failure for entire world.
Words of empathy are fine but deeds of love really matter.
This is not merely a local problem but a matter of concern with the rise of radical Islamic groups working to re-establish the ancient caliphate.
As of December 21 this the breakdown:
We pray that the newborn Prince of Peace makes his Presence felt.
O EMMANUEL [God with us], our King and Lawgiver, the Expected of nations and their Savior: COME,and save us, O Lord our God!
The following commentary adapted from The Church’s Year of Grace, Fr Pius Parsch (The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1959):
In the previous six antiphons, our cry was directed to the Messiah as He manifested Himself to the Chosen People, to the Gentiles, and in nature; now He is addressed in person and asked to remain with us as Emmanuel. Reading this final antiphon gives the feeling that a climax has indeed come. The very term Emmanuel [God with us] reveals the kindly, human heart of Jesus–He wants to be one of us, a Child of Man, with all our human weaknesses and suffering; He wants to experience how hard it is to be human. He wants to remain with us to the end of time; He wants to dwell within us, to make us sharers of His nature.
Besides the main title, the Savior is invoked by four other names.
(1) King and Lawgiver are common enough, and the combination is found in Isaiah 32:22: “The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver; the Lord is our King. He will save us.” This is a joyous expression of faith and confidence. Christ functions in all these roles for our benefit. Whatever a lawgiver like Moses, a judge like Samuel, a king like David, accomplished for the good and glory of their people, that and far more the expected Savior will accomplish for us.
(2) The Messiah is next hailed as the expectation of the Gentiles and their Savior. Remember Jacob’s dying words: “The scepter will not pass from Judah, nor a ruler from his thigh, till He comes that is to be sent. He is the expectation of all the nations.” (Genesis 49:10)
The antiphon petitions: COME AND SAVE US! King, let me be Your vassal; Lawgiver, let me be Your servant; Expected Savior, let my longings be fulfilled in You. Our song closes with the words, “O Lord our God!” It is a phrase summarizing all the names and titles used in the O-Antiphons. May our hearts be always so disposed as to use the invocations sincerely and confidently.
The solemn feast of the Son coheres with with the shortness of the cosmic days. Just yesterday we observed the first day of the winter solstice and also the Advent Ember Day. You might say that heaven and earth, the immaterial and material coalesce to point to something richer than any human thought can conceive.
The saints have something to say to us as a locus theologicus: concrete experience of the Incarnate Son of God leads to new ways of conceiving human existence. The saint bears witness to his or her Creator, the Savior of the world and therefore holds up for us a new and deeper way to understand the Divine Mystery.
One only has to meditate on the O Antiphons sung at the time of the Magnificat at Vespers to have a sense of divine action in history. But let’s return to a saint who makes a good connection with what you see out your window and what is placed in the heart, that is, who is given to us by the Almighty.
Saint Maximus of Turin: “Even if I were to keep silence, my friends, the season would warn us that the birthday of Christ our Lord is at hand. The year is coming to an end and forestalls the subject of my sermon. The depressing shortness of the days itself testifies to the imminence of some event which will bring about the betterment of a world urgently longing for a brighter sun to dispel its darkness. In spite of fearing that its course may be terminated within a few brief hours, the world still shows signs of hope that its yearly cycle will once more be renewed. And if creation feels this hope, it persuades us also to hope that Christ will come like a new sunrise to shed light on the darkness of our sins, and that the Sun of Justice, in the vigor of his new birth, will dispel the long night of guilt from our hearts. Rather than allow the course of our life to come to an end with such appalling brevity, we are confident that he will extend it by his powerful grace.”
O KING OF THE NATIONS and the Desired of all, You are the cornerstone binding the two [i.e., Jew and Gentile] into one: COME, and save poor man, whom You fashioned out of clay.
The following commentary adapted from The Church’s Year of Grace, Fr Pius Parsch (The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1959):
Previous antiphons in this series stemmed from a Jewish background. The Messiah would be the fulfillment of Israel’s expectations, and Christians are the “wild vine” grafted onto the original vine of the Chosen People. In several of the antiphons, there are allusions to the conversion of the Gentiles, but this sixth antiphon is the first to address the Savior as “King of the nations and the Desired of ALL.” The reference to the “cornerstone” is to Isaiah 28:16, “Behold, I will lay a stone as the foundation of Zion, a tested stone, a cornerstone, precious and firmly set; if one believes, he will not be shaken.” On occasion, Christ called Himself the cornerstone (c.f. Matthew 21:42), indicating that He is the foundation, the spiritual support of the Church.
In our antiphon, however, the clause that follows indicates a function in reference to the Gentiles: the Messiah will be a cornerstone uniting both Jew and Gentile. This thought is from Ephesians 2:14, where Christ is called the peace-maker between Jew and Gentile, breaking down the wall of enmity between them.
The petition calls for the salvation of all humanity, which has its creation from the clay of the earth as a common bond. The antiphon should call all of us to work for the spread of the Gospel to all who have not yet heard it.
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us.”
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home. (MT 1: 18-24)
Image: Silence of St Joseph by Ruberval Monteiro