Christmas hath a darkness;
Brighter than the blazing noon;
Christmas hath a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June,
Christmas hath a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.
Christina Rosetti
Category: Advent & Christmastide
That Nostalgia for the Infinite
There is a phrase of Dostoevsky that accompanies me these days, when I have to speak of Christianity to all kinds of people in Italy and abroad: “Can an educated man, a European of our time, believe –truly believe– in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ?” This question rings like a challenge for all of us. It is precisely on the answer to this question that the success of the faith depends today. In an address given in 1996, the then cardinal Ratzinger answered that faith can have this hope “because it finds a correspondence in human nature. In man there is a nostalgic hope for the infinite that cannot be extinguished.” In this phrase he indicated the condition necessary: that Christianity needs to find the humanity that pulsates in each of us in order to show all the greatness of its claim.
Yet how many times are we tempted to look at the concrete humanity in which we find ourselves–for example the unease, the dissatisfaction, the sadness, the boredom–as an obstacle, a complication, an impediment to the realization of what we desire. Thus we get angry with ourselves and with reality, succumbing to the weight of circumstances, in the illusion of going ahead by cutting away a piece of ourselves. But unease, dissatisfaction, sadness, and boredom are not symptoms of a illness to treat with medicines; this happens more and more often in a society that mistakes disquiet of the heart for panic and anxiety. They are rather signs of what the nature of the “I” is. Our desire is greater than the whole universe. The perception of emptiness in us and around us of which Leopardi speaks (“want and emptiness”), and the boredom of which Heidegger speaks, are the proof of the inexorable nature of our heart, of the boundless character of our desire–nothing is able to give us satisfaction and peace. We can forget it, betray it, or even deceive it, but we cannot shuffle it off.
So the real obstacle on our journey is not our concrete humanity, but disregard for it. Everything in us cries out the need for something to fill the void. Even Nietzsche perceived this; he could not but address the “unknown god” that makes all things. “Left alone, I raise my hands/ … to the unknown god / I want to know you, you the Unknown,/ Who penetrate deep into my soul, / Shake up my life like a storm,/ Beyond my grasp and yet so close to me!” (1864).
Christmas is the announcement that this unknown Mystery has become a familiar presence, without which none of us could remain a man for long, but would end up overwhelmed by confusion, seeing his own face decompose, because “only the divine can ‘save’ man, that is to say, the true and essential dimensions of the human figure and his destiny” (Fr. Giussani).
The most convincing sign that Christ is God, the greatest miracle that astonished everyone–even more than the healing of cripples and the curing of the blind–was an incomparable gaze. The sign that Christ is not a theory or a set of rules is that look, which is found throughout the Gospel: His way of dealing with humanity, of forming relationships with those He met on His way. Think of Zacchaeus and of Magdalene: He didn’t ask them to change, but embraced them, just as He found them, in their wounded, bleeding humanity, needful of everything. And their life, embraced, re-awoke in that moment in all its original profundity. Who would not want to be reached by such a look now? For “one cannot keep on living unless Christ is a presence like a mother is a presence for her child, unless Christ is a presence now -now! – I cannot love myself now and I cannot love you now” (Fr. Giussani). This is the only way, as men of our time, reasonably and critically, to answer Dostoevsky’s question.
But how do we know that Christ is alive now? Because his gaze is not a fact of the past, but is still present in the world just as it was before. Since the day of His resurrection, the Church exists only in order to make God’s affection an experience, through people who are His mysterious Body, witnesses in history today of that gaze capable of embracing all that is human.
Father Julián Carrón
President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation
Corriere della Sera
24 December 2009
Christmas Novena, Ninth Oration
O God, Who in Your very nature contain all the riches
of heaven and earth, You loved the poverty of humanity by choosing to become
one of us. You are the descendant of Kings and the Heir of David the Venerable.
You were satisfied to be born in a stable and a humble manger. We beseech You,
through Your Pure Nativity and through the intercession of Your Mother and Saint
Joseph, Your Chosen One, to grant us an appreciation of voluntary poverty.
May
we be satisfied with only that which is necessary for the maintenance of our lives.
Teach us to flee from excessive luxury and the love of abundance all the days
of our lives. Amen.
we be satisfied with only that which is necessary for the maintenance of our lives.
Teach us to flee from excessive luxury and the love of abundance all the days
of our lives. Amen.
The Christmas tree points to the Divine Mystery
The Pope received the bishop and a delegation from Wallonia, from
where this year’s Vatican Square Christmas tree came from, to say thank you for gift on behalf of the Church. He said, “The role
of this tree is similar to that of the shepherds who, watching through the
shades of night, saw how the darkness was illuminated with the message of the
angels. … Standing next to the nativity scene the tree indicates, in its own
particular way, the great mystery present in the poor and simple grotto. It
proclaims the arrival of the Son of God to the inhabitants of Rome, to pilgrims
and to everyone who sees St. Peter’s Square on television. Though this tree
your land, and the faith of the Christian communities in your region, greet the
Christ Child.” (Benedict XVI)
Christmas Novena, Eighth Oration
O King of Great Counsel, You joined Your admirable power
with the prudence of human judgment when You, the Mighty and All-Powerful God,
fled into Egypt from the face of Herod. We beseech You, through Your Pure
Nativity and through the intercession of Your Mother and Saint Joseph, Your
Chosen One, to grant us good judgment in all our actions, that we may think and
act wisely all the days of our lives as we subject ourselves to Your divine
service. Amen.
Christmas Novena, Seventh Oration
O You Who are One person but also have the Nature of
man; You Who have told us what You have heard from the Father; We beseech You,
through Your Pure Nativity and the intercession of Your Mother and Saint
Joseph, Your Chosen One, to grant us an ardent belief in Your teachings and
good acts to harmonize with them. Do not permit us to lose the reward of our
faith because of our own wrong doings. Rather, make our lives fruitful in
beliefs and good works. Amen.
Bethlehem make ready…friends be alert
Bethlehem, make ready,
for Eden has been opened for all.
Ephrathah, be alert,
for the Tree of Life has blossomed forth
from the Virgin in the cave.
Her womb has become a spiritual paradise
wherein the Divine Fruit was planted,
and if we eat of it,
we shall live and not die like Adam.
Christ is coming forth to bring back to life
the likeness that had been lost in the beginning.
Bethlehem, make ready, for Eden has been opened for all!
(a Byzantine poetic text for the time before the Nativity of the Lord)
Christmas Novena, Sixth Oration
O Word of God, Who comes from the Mouth of God to be
the Life of all men; You Who became Living Bread and was born in Bethlehem,
“The House of Bread,” to satisfy our hunger; We beseech You, through Your Pure
Nativity and the intercession of Your Mother and Saint Joseph, Your Chosen One,
to grant us a piercing hunger for that Bread which is Your Pure Body and
Blood. May we ever approach Your
altar and receive Your Sacred Mysteries with fitting preparation so that our
Communion may be for us salvation and life everlasting. Amen.
2 beating hearts, hidden but present in Mystery
We have all had the occasion by a moment to sense more
intensely the presence of Christ in the Eucharist during the celebration of the
Mass, during Eucharistic adoration, or even in the Tabernacle, when we walk
into a church. There is Christ. He is there whether we sense or experience His
presence. But precisely because this is the case, we are sometimes given
to experience that He is present. Such experience is not the source of faith,
but in some way it is its consequence.
But what about the experience of the
Blessed Virgin Mary during Advent? It is reasonable, like the Fathers of the
Church, to see Mary as the original tabernacle. The Word became flesh and
dwells among us. This being hidden but present among us is first of all
realized during the time of Advent in the home of Nazareth, in the womb of
Mary, under the protection of Saint Joseph. Mary meditated upon all these
things and kept them in her heart. We can reasonably speculate that she read
scripture during this time, in silence, most likely the words of Isaiah, his
prophesies, and found in them a sense of the meaning of what was happening to
her.
Blessed Virgin Mary during Advent? It is reasonable, like the Fathers of the
Church, to see Mary as the original tabernacle. The Word became flesh and
dwells among us. This being hidden but present among us is first of all
realized during the time of Advent in the home of Nazareth, in the womb of
Mary, under the protection of Saint Joseph. Mary meditated upon all these
things and kept them in her heart. We can reasonably speculate that she read
scripture during this time, in silence, most likely the words of Isaiah, his
prophesies, and found in them a sense of the meaning of what was happening to
her.
St. Augustine says that she conceived the Word in her heart before she
conceived the Word in her flesh. So that her maternity was accompanied by an
intensification and growth in faith, in contemplation, in the intelligent
perception of mystery. The Second Vatican Council says that during the time of
her pregnancy the heart of the Incarnate Word beat gently below the heart of
Mary, her immaculate heart. Two immaculate hearts, beating silently and
prayerfully in the night of this world.
conceived the Word in her flesh. So that her maternity was accompanied by an
intensification and growth in faith, in contemplation, in the intelligent
perception of mystery. The Second Vatican Council says that during the time of
her pregnancy the heart of the Incarnate Word beat gently below the heart of
Mary, her immaculate heart. Two immaculate hearts, beating silently and
prayerfully in the night of this world.
(Fr. Thomas J. White, OP, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, DC)
Christmas Novena, Fifth Oration
O Most High, by nature supreme and outranking all men and all things, Who has left the magnificence of Your Divinity and loved the lowliness of our humanity to become for us a model in humility and lowliness; We beseech You, through Your Pure Nativity and through the intercession of Your Mother and Saint Joseph, Your Chosen One, to grant us humility of heart and an accurate estimation of ourselves. Help us to conquer every show of false pride, which would have us choose our own whims rather than Your Will.
May we realize that, compared to You, we are little indeed. Glory be to You, for You alone are holy and great is Your Name. To You be Glory, Magnificence and Power! Amen