Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Showing posts with label St John of the Cross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St John of the Cross. Show all posts
In Ireland, England & Wales the Solemnity of the Epiphany is a Holy Day of Obligation and is celebrated this year on Tuesday, 6 January, the traditional date. In many countries the Epiphany is celebrated on this Sunday, 4 January. The readings below are those for the Second Sunday After the Nativity, observed in Ireland, England & Wales. You will find Sunday Reflections for the Solemnity of the Epiphany here.
Readings(English
Standard Version, Catholic Edition: (England & Wales)
GospelJohn 1:1-18 or 1-5, 9-14(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him
was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the
light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not
overcome it.
[There was a man
sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about
the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came
to bear witness about the light.]
The true light,
which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world,
and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to
his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive
him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who
were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man,
but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his
glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[John bore witness about him, and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He
who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.” ’For from his
fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the
only begotten God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.]
In The Ascent of Mount Carmel St John of the Cross writes: When [God] gave us, as he did,his Son, who is his one Word, he spoke everything to us, once and for all in that one Word. There is nothing further for him to say . . .
Consequently, anyone who today would want to ask God questions or desire some vision or revelation, would not only be acting foolishly but would commit an offence against God by not fixing his eyes entirely on Christ, without wanting something new or something besides him.
God might give him this answer, '"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." I have already told you all things in my Word. Fix your eyes on him alone, becuse in him I have spoken and revealed all. Moreover, in him you will find more than you ask or desire.'
This passage is used in the Office of Readings, Advent, Week 2, Monday.
GospelLuke 1:39-45 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)
In those days Mary arose and went with haste
into the hill country, to a town in Judah,and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted
Elizabeth.And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby
leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,and she exclaimed with a loud
cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of
your womb!And why is this granted to me that the mother of my
Lord should come to me?For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my
ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken
to her from the Lord.”
I never fail to be moved, delighted and inspired by this 'Dance of Life' between St Elizabeth pregnant with John the Baptist and Mary pregnant with Jesus.
About seventeen years ago I celebrated Mass on the Feast of the Visitation in a home for girls where most come from a background of abuse. One girl of 16, whom I'll call 'Gloria', was pregnant. She was from another part of the Philippines and had been working in a restaurant and said that one of her co-workers was responsible. Gloria was very angry and would not accept the baby she was carrying who was by this time around six months, as I recall. I invited her at the end of the Mass to come forward for a blessing for herself and her child. She agreed. With her permission I placed my hand gently on her stomach, as Elizabeth and Mary do with each other in the painting below, while I prayed.
'Gloria' told me afterwards that she could feel the baby moving as I blessed them both - and she had a smile on her face. She was able to go home to her own place some time later where she gave birth. Perhaps you could say a prayer for her and for her child, now aged about 17.
Rogier van der Weyden captures the sacredness of the lives of the unborn Jesus and John the Baptist. El Greco captures the swirl of a dance of life, the flowing blue robes suggesting the joy of the two pregnant mothers, Mary and Elizabeth. Luca della Robbia's sculpture shows the sacred intimacy of the moment that Mary and Elizabeth met, each carrying a precious life, Mary's child the Son of God, God-become-Man.
Today's gospel has particular relevance in the context of on-going public debates in a number of countries about abortion, including Ireland and the USA. When I used this material three years ago the Republic of Ireland was about to introduce abortion on demand up to twelve weeks, the new law to come into effect on New Year’s Day 2019, the Solemnity of the Motherhood of Mary. 6,666 legal abortions took place in that year and 6,577 the following year. In 2023 there were 10,033.
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
+++
One of a number of ministries to both women and men who have been directly affected by abortion is Rachel's Vineyard. I have connections with Rachel's Vineyard, Ireland, which has brought its healing retreat to such places as the Faroe Islands, Hungary, South Korea and Lebanon.
Del Verbo Divino
San Juan de la Cruz
Del Verbo divino
la Virgen preñada
viene de camino:
¡ si les dais posada !
Concerning the Divine Word
St John of the Cross
Translation by Roy Campbell
With the divinest Word, the Virgin
Made pregnant, down the road
Comes walking, if you'll grant her
A room in your abode.
Posada is a Spanish word meaning 'lodging' or 'accommodation' or 'inn'. In many Spanish-speaking countries and communities Las Posadas is a novena in preparation for Christmas. This tradition is a 'cousin' to that in the Philippines known as Simbang Gabi.
Traditional Latin Mass
Fourth Sunday of Advent
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-22-2024 if necessary).
GospelLuke 3:1-6 (English Standard Version Anglicised: England & Wales, India, Scotland)
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius
Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and
Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas
and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah
in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As
it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
This is Handel's setting of the last part of today's gospel.
Charles Kuralt was an American
journalist who worked for many years for the CBS TV network in the USA. He was
especially noted for his 'On the Road' features on the CBS Evening News. These
started in 1967, the year I was ordained, and I became familiar with them when
I went to study in the USA the following year.
I vividly remember one particular story
- they were never from the highways but from the byways of the United States -
about a man somewhat on the older side who lived in a small town somewhere in
the heartland of the country. I forget the particular state. The nearest town
was only a few kilometres away but there was no road connecting the two. People
had to take a very long way around to get from one to the other.
The residents of both towns tried for
years to persuade their politicians to build a road connecting them, without
success. So this particular elderly citizen decided he'd start to build a road
himself, using planks. When Charles Kuralt caught up with him he hadn't got
very far - but he had started.
This man was
engaged in what the Handbook of the Legion of Mary calls Symbolic
Action. The Handbook was written almost entirely by Frank
Duff, the founder of the Legion.
The Handbook says, It
is a fundamental Legion principle that into every work should be thrown the
best that we can give. simple or difficult, it must be done in the spirit of
Mary . . .
But
sometimes we are faced with works which are really impossible, that is to say,
beyond human effort . . .
'Every
impossibility is divisible into thirty-nine steps, of which each step is
possible' - declares a legionary slogan . . .
Observe: the
stress is set on action. No matter what may be the degree of the difficulty, a
step must be taken. Of course, the step should be as effective as it can be.
But if an effective step is not in view, then we must take a less effective
one. And if the latter be not available, then some active gesture (that is, not
merely a prayer) must be made which, though of no apparent practical value, at
least tends towards or has some relation to the objective. This final challenging
gesture is what the Legion has been calling 'Symbolic Action.' Recourse to it
will explode the impossibility which is of our own imagining. And, on the other
hand, it enters in the spirit of faith into dramatic conflict with the genuine
impossibility.
The sequel
may be the collapse of the walls of that Jericho.
I saw
Charles Kuralt's broadcast some time between 1968 and 1971. In the autumn of
1982 I was working in a hospital in Minneapolis as a chaplain on a three-month
Clinical Pastoral Education programme. Charles Kuralt came to town while I was
there to give a lunchtime lecture in an auditorium near the hospital and I went
along to hear him. When he invited questions from the very large audience
someone asked him, What happened to that road the old man began to
build? So I wasn't the only one who had remembered the story.
Mr Kuralt
told us that the man had since died - but that the road between the two towns
had finally been built by the authorities.
The chances are that the man
featured in Charles Kuralt's story, since he was from the heartland of the USA,
was familiar with today's gospel. St John the Baptist is quoting the Prophet
Isaiah and asking each of us to Prepare the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight. He assures us that Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made
straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh
shall see the salvation of God.
Jesus asks
for our cooperation. When he was faced with the hungry crowds he asked the
Apostles what food they had and then told them to feed the people. Their
cooperation with their feeble resources enabled him to show God's bounty in a
way they could not have imagined. At Cana Jesus told the servants to fill the
water containers - and changed the water into the equivalent of about 600
bottles of the very best wine. (I once read a commentary that advised the
reader to take that in a symbolic sense. I really don't see why we should
diminish God's bounty! What Jesus did is indeed a symbol of God's bounty
precisely because it was an act of that bounty in a specific situation.)
We have no idea what
God can do with a seemingly insignificant or purely personal action. When the
young St Anthony of the Abbot went of to live as a hermit in the desert, rather
like St John the Baptist, he had no idea that it would lead to the foundation
of monasteries of contemplatives around the world.
Jesus, through the
words of Isaiah repeated by St John the Baptist is calling us to actively
prepare for his coming, in so many unexpected ways in our daily lives, through
joys and sorrows, through the Mass and the sacraments, and in glory at the end
of time. We are also preparing to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. However,
that First Coming in the flesh has already taken place.
St John of the Cross
wrote in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, When he (God) gave us,
as he did, his Son, who is his one Word, he spoke everything to us, once and
for all in that one Word. There is nothing further for him to say. This is
part of the Second Reading in the Office of Readings for Monday in Week 2 of
Advent.
There is nothing further for him to say.
St John of the Cross goes on to write in the
same passage, Consequently, anyone who today would want to ask God
questions or desire some vision or revelation, would not only be acting
foolishly but would commit an offence against God by not fixing his eyes
entirely on Christ, without wanting something new or something besides him.
God might give him this answer, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well
pleased; listen to him.' I have already told you all things in my Word. Fix
your eyes on him alone, because in him I have spoken and revealed all.
Moreover, in him you will find more than you ask or desire.
The writings of St John of the Cross and of
other great theologians do not reveal to us anything new but rather bring us
into a deeper understanding of the Word. Likewise, the messages that the Church
recognises as having been received in such places as Lourdes, for example, do
not reveal to us anything new but rather emphasise some aspect of the Word, usually
a call to penance and to prayer, in other words, Prepare the way of the
Lord.
God asks us to look to the future in active,
sometimes symbolically active, hope like the old man in Charles Kuralt's story.
Be ready to meet Jesus in whatever guise he comes and whenever he comes, each
day, at the hour of our death, at the end of time.
Antiphona ad Communionem
Communion Antiphon Baruch 5:5; 4:36
Ierusalem, surge et sta in excelso,
Jerusalem, arised and stand upon the heights,
et vide iucunditatem, quae veniet tibi a Deo tuo.
and behold the joy which comes to you from God.
Traditional Latin Mass
The Immaculate Conception
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-08-2024 if necessary).
Feast Day 14 December (24 November in the Old Calendar)
Crisis Magazine today (13 December) carries an interesting article about South African poet Roy Campbell (1901-1957) written by Joseph Pearce, under the intriguing title A Convert Among Communists and Carmelites. I have used translations by Roy Campbell of poems by St John of the Cross (1542-1591) on this blog but never knew until I read Pearce's article of the intimate connection between the poet and the archives of the saint given to him by the Carmelite friars in Toledo, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) for safekeeping.
Two of Campbell's translations of the saint's poems are in the English-language Breviary approved for use by the hierarchies of Australia, England & Wales and Ireland in 1973. Below is one of them in the Spanish of St John of the Cross and the English of Roy Campbell. The English subtitles in the video are different from the latter.
Del Verbo Divino
San Juan de la Cruz
Translated by Roy Campbell
Del Verbo divino la Virgen preñada viene de camino : ¡ si les dais posada !
El Greco's landscape of Toledo depicts the Priory in which John was held captive, just below the old Muslim Alcazar and perched on the banks of the Tajo on high cliffs. (From Wikipedia).
From the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross
(Office of Readings, Feast of St John of the Cross, 14 December)
There are depths to be fathomed in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many recesses containing treasures, and no matter how men try to fathom them the end is never reached. Rather, in each recess, men keep on finding here and there new veins of new riches.
St Johnwrote much of the Spiritual Canticle while he was imprisoned by other Carmelite friars.
From The Ascent of Mount Carmel by St John of the Cross
(Office of Readings, Advent Week 2, Monday)
When [God] gave us, as he did, his Son, who is his one Word, he spoke everything to us, once and for all in that one Word. There is nothing further for him to say.
I've highlighted these two texts because so often we can get caught in what are claimed to be revelations from God but that are not in harmony with the teaching of the Church. Such 'revelations' can lead us away from God.
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