Feast of the Epiphany, from St. Basil the Great:
“Stars cross the sky, wise men journey from pagan lands, earth receives its savior in a cave. Let there be no one without a gift to offer, no one without gratitude as we celebrate the salvation of the world, the birthday of the human race.”
The more I examine myself, the more I see that a life devoted to constructing and organizing, a life which produces positive results and which succeeds, is not my vocation, even though, out of obedience, I could work in this direction and even obtain certain results. What attracts me is a vocation of loss—a life which would give itself freely without any apparent positive result, for the result would be known to God alone; in brief, to lose myself in order to find myself.
Father Lev Gillet (A monk of the Eastern Church)
Merry Christmas!
From a sermon of Saint Leo the Great, pope
Christian, remember your dignity
Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.
No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life.
In the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the Son of God took for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with its creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very nature by which he had overthrown mankind.
And so at the birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to men of good will as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvellous work of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?
Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh.
Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.
Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.
In the Byzantine Church, we hear proclaimed the genealogy of Jesus, reminding us how God’s plan of salvation comes through a lot of interesting characters. Every time I hear this gospel passage I am reminded for two things: God uses the imperfect for the revelation of the perfect and therefore gives hope, and that our Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the foretold Christ, is in the middle of our messy and complicated history offering us the gift of salvation. What is true is that God makes his home with us, and He “has a better plan for us” and we are an essential part of that plan.
“Matthew’s genealogy is extraordinarily comprehensive in his theology lf the roots of Jesus’ story in the Old Testament. But that is only one part of the story of Jesus Christ. The story has a sequence as well; and the continuing sequence is what makes the genealogy “good news” for Matthew’s audience and for us. Human being have been empowered to preserve, proclaim, and convey salvation brought by Jesus Christ throughout history. The God who wrote the beginnings with crooked lines also writes the sequence with crooked lines, and some of those lines are our own lives and witness.
A God who did not hesitate to use the scheming as well as the noble, the impure as well as the pure, men to whom the world hearkened and women upon whom the world frowned –this God continues to work through the same melange. If it was a challenge to recognize in the last part of Matthew’s genealogy that totally unknown people were part of the story of Jesus Christ, it may be a greater challenge to recognize that the unknown characters of today are an essential part of the sequence. The proclamation of that genealogy in the Advent liturgy is designed to give us hope about destiny and our importance.
By stressing the all-powerful grace of God, the genealogy presents it greatest challenge to those who will accept only an idealized Jesus Christ whose story they would write only with straight lines and whose portrait they would paint only in pastel colors. If we look at the whole story and the total picture, the Gospels teach us that Jesus’ ministry was not thus; the history of the church teaches us that the sequence as not thus. God’s grace can work even with people like us.” (Father Raymond Brown, S.S.)
Earlier this evening coming home from an appointment Santa and Mrs Klaus jumped off the Branford, CT fire truck to meet this cute, beautiful family.
The Portsmouth Abbey Oblates meet several times a year for prayer, a good meal, communio, and a presentation. This time we heard the witness of Dionne who represented the Portsmouth Oblates at the International Oblate Meeting in Rome back in September 2023. I think it was the 5th time an international meeting of Oblates met in Rome.
The Portsmouth Oblates follow the Benedictine charism of a 1500+ year tradition bequeathed by Saint Benedict and the venerable monastic tradition of monks, nuns, sisters and lay people: prayer, work, and reading (study).
Today is the 10th wedding anniversary of Nur and Razib. As Our says, “We are up to no good….” Whatever they are up to, I know it is good and beautiful! Happy 10th anniversary! Many blessings!
Today marks 15 years since the Lord called Avery Dulles to Himself. The famed Jesuit Cardinal served the Church for several decades as a theologian trying to communicate the Church’s tradition in a time of controversy.
Personally, I miss Avery’s calm voice and steady thinking. For several years we were members of a Communio Circle in Weston, Connecticut with Maria Shrady and several theological bright lights. Sadly, the group has ceased to meet.
Thomas A. Guarino writes an appreciative essay, “Remembering Avery Dulles” in First Things. Guarino fittingly recognizes Dulles’ contribution to the field of American Theology and role of the theologian in the Church.
May Avery Cardinal Dulles’ memory be eternal.
Today is the feast of the defender of the faith and apostle of charity, the bishop Saint Nicholas of Myra. Some of us forget too easily that Saint Nicholas is a significant model of Christian life: truth and love.
The image of Nicholas standing on the back of a devil speaks volumes, don’t you think?
The modern rendition of Nicholas is Santa Claus which too often misses the whole point of who ought to be in real life. Nicholas helps us to see clearly; Claus makes things cloudy.
Today the Order of Malta -Eastern Connecticut Area met at Holy Apostles College & Seminary for the Advent Day of Recollection (meeting, lesson, Holy Mass & lunch). Along with Bishop Peter Rosazza we had Father Peter Kucer, MSA, President/Rector of the Seminary give the lesson and offer Mass.
Our special guests were Dr & Mrs Peter Kelly, the outgoing President of the American Association of the Order of Malta.
We are grateful to the several members of the Seminary community who were generous with the hospitality.
