Sunday Reflections, 4th Sunday of Advent, Year B; Christmas Day

 

Annunciation

Alessandro Allori [Web Gallery of Art]

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”  (Luke 1:38; Gospel)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 1:26-38 (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

The human being who came to life in her womb took Mary’s flesh, but his existence derived totally from God. He is fully man, made of clay — to use the biblical symbol — but comes from on high, from Heaven. The fact that Mary conceived while remaining a virgin is thus essential to the knowledge of Jesus and to our faith, because it testifies that it was God’s initiative and, above all, it reveals who the conceived being was. (Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus talk, 4th Sunday of Advent 2011).

Adoration of the Shepherds

Caravaggio [Web Gallery of Art]

And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2:12; Gospel, Mass During the Night).

Christmas Day, Years ABC

The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord has four different Mass formularies, each with its own prayers and readings. Any of the four fulfils our obligation to attend Mass. These are:

 Vigil Mass, celebrated 'either before or after First Vespers (Evening Prayer) of the Nativity'; that means starting between 5pm and 7pm.

 Mass During the Night, known before as 'Midnight Mass'.

.Mass at Dawn.

 Mass During the Day. 

The readings from the Jerusalem Bible for the four Masses are all on one page but with links to each individual Mass. When you click on 'Readings' below from the New American Bible you will find links to the readings for each of the four Masses.

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel (Mass During the Night) Luke 2:1-14 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)  

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,

    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge 

From a Christmas Homily of Pope Benedict XVI

Again and again the beauty of this Gospel touches our hearts: a beauty that is the splendour of truth. Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me . . .

. . . The shepherds made haste. Holy curiosity and holy joy impelled them. In our case, it is probably not very often that we make haste for the things of God. God does not feature among the things that require haste. The things of God can wait, we think and we say. And yet he is the most important thing, ultimately the one truly important thing. Why should we not also be moved by curiosity to see more closely and to know what God has said to us? At this hour, let us ask him to touch our hearts with the holy curiosity and the holy joy of the shepherds, and thus let us go over joyfully to Bethlehem, to the Lord who today once more comes to meet us. Amen. (Opening and closing of Pope Benedict's homily, Midnight Mass 24 December 2012).

Tichá Noc (Silent Night in Czech)

Sung by Patricia Janečková

This recording was made about two years ago in the Catholic church in the Czech Republic where Patricia’s funeral Mass took place last October. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2022 and was only 25 when she died. May she rest in peace.

White Christmas

Words and music by Irving Berlin

Sung by Patricia Janečková  

The name of Christ is mentioned seven times in this song as is the Holy Sacrifice of Mass, since the word 'Christmas' means 'Christ's Mass', a name that goes back a thousand years in the developing English language.

Traditional Latin Mass

Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord or Christmas Eve 

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-24-2023, if necessary).

Epistle: Romans 1:1-16. Gospel: Matthew 1:18-21.

Christmas Day

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-25-2023, if necessary). Click on the circle in front of 'Missa prima', 'Missa secunda' or 'Missa tertia' for the specific Mass texts.

First Mass at Midnight

Epistle: Titus 2:11-15. Gospel: Luke 2:1-14.  

The Second Mass at Dawn

Epistle: Titus 3:4-7. Gospel: Luke 2:15-20.

Third Mass During the Daytime

Epistle: Hebrews 1:1-12. Gospel: John 1:1-14.

Adoration of the Shepherds (London)

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art] 

And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger (Luke 2:16; Gospel, The Mass at Dawn). 

 

Christmas Memories of my Auntie Madge

 

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town

Written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie

Arranged by Jim Clements

Sung by Voces8

My Auntie Madge (Margaret Collins) would have been ten or eleven when this song first appeared in 1934. But she never heard the marvellous arrangement above of the song that has just been issued by Voces8, the British choir that I have often used in Sunday Reflections, singing a different kind of music.

Auntie Madge was the youngest of my mother's six sisters Jennie, Nan, Neita, Bridie, Eileen and Madge. I'm not sure where Bridie, who died in infancy, came in the sequence but I often heard my mother, Mary, talking about her. Three boys, Mick, Paddy and Jack, completed the family of my maternal grandparents, William Patrick Collins and Annie Dowd. My grandfather died early in 1945 when I was nearly two but I don't have any memories of him, though I am happy that he knew me, his third grandchild, and that he held me. He was only 59 when he died of lung cancer.

My first experience of the death of someone close to me was that of Auntie Madge on 3 February 1950 at the age of 26. I was a few months short of seven. She had rheumatic fever when she was twelve and it caught up with her in January 1950. I remember my mother and father, John, taking turns, along with my aunts, in spending nights in my grandmother's house when Madge was in her last illness. My father was with her when she died. I heard him say, If Madge doesn't get to heaven there's not much chance for the rest of us. That was his way of saying that she was a particularly kind and caring person.

My mother, God bless her, took me to the wake in my grandmother's home in Blackhall Place, Dublin, where the family had grown up. I still remember that vividly.

Auntie Madge wasn't married but had a boyfriend. Years later I learned from my mother that he also had another girlfriend who died and never married. We often have no idea of the sadness in people's lives.

Blackhall Place, Dublin

My grandmother's house was the sixth to the right of the house with the white door.

I have many happy memories of my Auntie Madge who was tall and pretty. One I treasure is her taking three of us cousins, Joan Martin, Auntie Neita's eldest, Billy Kiernan, Auntie Nan's first-born and myself, all born in 1943, to Pims department store in South Great George's Street in Dublin to meet Santa Claus. That was either in December 1949, shortly before her death, or the year before that. I don't remember specifically meeting Santa on that occasion but what I recall vividly is riding on a 'train' with Joan and Billy. We were in a carriage, the 'train' rocking and the 'scenery' flashing by on the outside. When I was somewhat older I realised that this was on some kind of large spool. That lovely memory has stayed with me down the years.

My Auntie Eileen, who was my mother's bridesmaid and my godmother, was married the following summer. This was my first wedding and the reception was held in the one-storey terraced house where her husband, Willie Gallagher, had grown up. I was surprised when Auntie Eileen began to cry, as I thought you were supposed to be happy at your own wedding. A child doesn't always put two-and-two together and years later I realised that she was still grieving for her sister  Madge. Willie's sister Mona, who introduced her brother to my Auntie Eileen - they were both hairdressers - turned 101 last September, the only one of my parents' generation still living.

A Christmas song I associate with Auntie Madge is one that is unabashedly a tearjerker: The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot, published in England in 1937 and made popular by Vera Lynn. (Nat King Cole had a hit with it in 1953, I think.) I must have heard Auntie Madge sing it or talk about it. It was one of the most popular Christmas songs when I was a child. The little boy wrote a note to Santa for some soldiers and a drum. The soldiers in question were made from lead, were about 7 cms high and many little boys got some from Santa.

I don't have any photos of Auntie Madge with me here but the black and white photo of Very Lynn in the video below reminds me of her, especially the hairstyle from the 1940s.

The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot

Sung by Vera Lynn

Auntie Madge never forgot the 'little boy' who is typing this. And he still remembers her fondly and misses her almost 73 years after her untimely death. And he feels sorry for his younger cousins who never knew their Auntie Madge. One of them is named after her.

Rest in peace, Auntie Madge, and may we meet in heaven.

There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end (from Eucharistic Prayer III when used at Masses for the dead).

'Both Son of God and Son of Man together had one name.' Sunday Reflections, 4th Sunday of Advent and Christmas

The Annunciation, El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Luke 1:26-38 (New Revised  Standard Version, Anglicised CatholicEdition) 

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’  The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

The Annunciation, Gerard David [Web Gallery of Art]

The Incarnation

by St John of the Cross

Then He summoned an archangel, 

Saint Gabriel: and when he came, 

Sent him forth to find a maiden, 

     Mary was her name.

Only through her consenting love 

Could the mystery be preferred 

That the Trinity in human 

     Flesh might clothe the Word.

Though the three Persons worked the wonder 

It only happened to the One. 

So was the Word made incarnation 

     In Mary's womb, a son.

So He who only had a Father 

Now had a Mother undefiled, 

Though not as ordinary maids 

     Had she conceived the Child.

By Mary, and with her own flesh 

He was clothed in His own frame: 

Both Son of God and Son of Man 

     Together had one name.  

                [Translation by Roy Campbell]

In both paintings above Mary has the word of God, the Hebrew Bible, what we Christians call the Old Testament, open in front of her. And when she says, let it be with me according to your word, she is accepting the Word. The opening words of St John's Gospel, read at the Mass During the Day on Christmas Day and read at the end of every Mass in the Extraordinary Form, tells us who the Word is: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Further on, in Verse 14, St John writes those magnificent words that are at the centre of our faith: And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes what St John of the Cross said about this: In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word - and he has no more to say. . . because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.

The Annunciation in an Initial R, Fra Angelico [Web Gallery of Art]

'Silence' is not what most of us associate with the days coming up to Christmas. But the Church invites us to enter into an inner silence during these days, difficult though that may be. The above is on a parchment, part of a Missal, which in the old days included the readings during Mass. Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar, was declared 'Blessed' by St John Paul II in 1982. This work again invites us into contemplation of the wondrous event of the Annunciation, the moment of the Incarnation when God became Man in the womb of Mary.

Julian of Vézelay (c.1080 - 1165), a French Benedictine monk, reflects on the silence into which Jesus entered, the silence that Mary bore in our heart, the silence that God invites us to enter at this time:

There came a deep silence. Everything was still. The voices of prophets and apostles were hushed, since the prophets had already delivered their message, while the time for the apostles' preaching had yet to come. Between these two proclamations a period of silence intervened, and in the midst of this silence the Father's almighty Word leaped down from his royal throne. There is a beautiful fitness here: in the intervening silence the Mediator between God and the human race also intervened, coming as a human being to human beings, as mortal to mortals, to save the dead from death.

I pray that the Word of the Lord may come again today to those who are silent, and that we may hear what the Lord God says to us in our hearts. Let us silence the desires and importunings of the flesh and the vainglorious fantasies of our imagination, so that we can freely hear what the Spirit is saying. Let our ears be attuned to the voice that is heard above the vault of heaven, for the Spirit of life is always speaking to our souls; as scripture says, a voice is heard above the firmament which hangs over our heads. But as long as we fix our attention on other things, we do not hear what the Spirit is saying to us.

Collect

Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord,

your grace into our hearts,

that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son

was made known by the message of an Angel,

may by his Passion and Cross

be brought to the glory of the Resurrection.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

1. The angel Gabriel from heaven came
His wings as drifted snow his eyes as flame
‘All hail’ said he ‘thou lowly maiden Mary,
Most highly favored lady,’ Gloria!

2. ‘For know a blessed mother thou shalt be,
All generations laud and honor thee,
Thy Son shall be Emanuel, by seers foretold
Most highly favored lady,’ Gloria!

3. Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head
‘To me be as it pleaseth God,’ she said,
‘My soul shall laud and magnify his holy name.’
Most highly favored lady. Gloria!

4. Of her, Emmanuel, the Christ was born
In Bethlehem, all on a Christmas morn
And Christian folk throughout the world will ever say:
‘Most highly favored lady,’ Gloria!

The Nativity (Christmas) 

The Census at Bethlehem (detail)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

This was the moment when even energetic Romans

Could find nothing better to do

Than counting heads in remote provinces.

BC : AD

By U.A. Fanthorpe

This was the moment when Before

Turned into After, and the future's

Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing

Happened. Only dull peace

Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans

Could find nothing better to do

Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment

When a few farm workers and three

Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazard by starlight straight

Into the kingdom of heaven.

The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord has four different Mass formularies, each with its own prayer and readings. Any of the four fulfills our obligation to attend Mass. These are:

Vigil Mass, celebrated 'either before or after First Vespers (Evening Prayer) of the Nativity'; that means starting between 5pm and 7pm.

Mass During the Night, known before as 'Midnight Mass'. In many parts of the world it does begin at midnight but here in the Philippines since the 1980s it begins earlier, usually at 8:30pm or 9pm.

Mass at Dawn.

Mass During the Day.

When you click on 'Readings' below from the New American Bible you will find links to the readings for each of the four Masses. The readings from the Jerusalem Bible for the four Masses are all on one page.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Mary's Boy Child

Written by Jester Hairston in 1956. The lyrics are in a Caribbean dialect of English.