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).
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)
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!”
Linus quotes Luke 2:8-14 (Authorized [King James] Version):
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, 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, good will toward men.
Charlie Brown finds satisfaction in Linus’ answer. He is made joyful. So why is this television special so enduring? Linus’ answer is the perfect Advent message for Christians awaiting the birth of Christ during a time taken over by commercialism [emphasis added]. That’s what Christians who watch this special take away from it.
The above is a quotation from an article by Clemente Lisi, Why 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' Remains Beloved by both Christians and Non-believers. A very perceptive comment on the article reads: I watched the original airing of the show in 1965 as an 8-year-old. Many, many times since then. It just occurred to me as I read your story that one of the main reasons for the profundity of Linus' speech is the silence before and after he quotes Luke. No piano, no laughter, no groaning. Just silence. It sets in our minds the importance of what is about to be said and subsequently what was said [emphasis added].
In his book Jesus of Nazareth, The Infancy Narratives, Pope Benedict XVI writes on pages 66-67 as follows [emphases added].
'And while they were there [Bethlehem], the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn (Luke 2:6-7, RSV).
'Let us begin our exegesis with the concluding words of this passage: there was no room for them in the inn. Prayerful reflection over these words has highlighted an inner parallel between this saying and the profoundly moving verse from St John's Prologue (read in the Mass During the Day): He came to his own home, and his own people received him not (1:11). For the Saviour of the World, for him in who all things were created (cf Col 1:16), there was no room. Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head (Mt 8:20). He who was crucified outside the city (cf Heb 13:12) also came into the world outside the city.
'This should cause us to reflect - it points toward the reversal of values found in the figure of Jesus Christ and his message. From the moment of his birth, he belongs outside the realms of what is important and powerful in worldly terms. Yet it is this unimportant and powerless child that proves to be the truly powerful one, the one on whom ultimately everything depends. So one aspect of becoming a Christian is having to leave behind what everyone else thinks and wants, the prevailing standards, in order to enter the light of the truth of our being, and aided by that light to find the right path.'
+++
Both Rembrandt's painting above and Murillo's at the top beautifully show this unimportant and powerless child to be truly the light of the truth of our being.
2020 has been a very dark year for people throughout the world and most of us have felt powerless at times, in varying degrees. May the words of St John's Gospel be a beacon of hope for all of us:
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it(John 1:5).
Agus tá
an solas ag taitneamh sa dorchadas, ach níorghabh an
dorchadas é (Eoin 1:5).
Extraordinary Form of the Mass
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
Christmas Day.
The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-25-2020, if necessary). Click on the circle in front of 'Missa prima', 'Missa secunda' or 'Missa tertia' for the specific Mass texts.
Authentic beauty,
however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know,
to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
Kyung-Ja Lee from Korea and Angie Escarsa from the Philippines, two Columban Lay Missionaries assigned to Ireland, along with some of the priests here in St Columban's, Dalgan Park, where I live, sing Oíche
Chiúin, Silent Night, in Irish.
GospelLuke 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.
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 dwelt 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.
Here is part of the Angelus address of Pope Benedict XVI on 21 December 2008:
The Gospel of
this Fourth Sunday of Advent proposes to us the account of the Annunciation (Lk 1:
26-38), the mystery to which we return every day in reciting the Angelus. This prayer makes us relive the decisive moment
at which God knocked at Mary's heart and, having received her "yes",
began to take flesh, in her and from her.
The Collect of today's Mass is the
same as the one we recite at the end of the Angelus that in Italian, says: "Infondi nel nostro
spirito la tua grazia, O Padre. Tu che all'annunzio dell'Angelo ci hai rivelato
l'incarnazione del tuo Figlio, per la sua passione e la sua croce guidaci alla
gloria della risurrezione" [Fill our hearts
with your love, and as you revealed to us by an angel the coming of your Son as
man, so lead us through his suffering and death to the glory of his
Resurrection].
With only a few days until the Feast of Christmas, we are
invited to fix our gaze on the ineffable mystery that Mary treasured for nine
months in her virginal womb: the mystery of God who is made man.
This is the
first foundation of the redemption. The second is the death and Resurrection of
Jesus and these two inseparable aspects express a single divine plan: to save
humanity and its history, assuming them fully by taking on the entire burden of
all the evil that oppresses it.
Extraordinary Form of the Mass
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
The Fourth Sunday of Advent .
The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-20-2020, if necessary).
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
GospelJohn 1:6-8, 19-28 (English
Standard Version Anglicised: India)
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.
And this
is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from
Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”He confessed, and did not deny, but
confessed, “I am not the Christ.”And they asked
him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the
Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”So they said to
him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you
say about yourself?”He said, “I am the voice
of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’,
as the prophet Isaiah said.”
(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.)They asked
him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor
Elijah, nor the Prophet?”John answered
them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know,even he who comes after me, the strap
of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”These
things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
In the Philippines the Misas de Gallo, also known as Simbang Gabi or Aguinaldo Masses, the novena of pre-dawn Masses leading up to Christmas, will begin on Wednesday the 16th. For 15 years, 2002 until 2016, I celebrated these in the chapel of St Joseph, Espinos Village, Bacolod City. As I am now based in Ireland, I don't have to get up at 3:30 am in order to start Mass at 4:30 am. These are votive Masses in honour of our Blessed Mother and in thanksgiving for the gift of our faith. The Spanish word 'Aguinaldo' means 'gift' and in this context refers to the gift of faith.
The Covid-19 pandemic this year has affected church services everywhere, including the Aguinaldo Masses in the Philippines. You will find the instructions of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines for this year's celebrations here.
The Church over the centuries has reflected on gifts we have received from God that we could not have received had our First Parents never sinned. A song included among poems for Advent and Christmas in the Breviary published by the hierarchies of Australia, England & Wales, and Ireland is one of those reflections, Adam lay y-bounden. In the Breviary it is given the title O Felix Culpa, 'O Happy Fault'. This particular song marvels at the fact that but for the reality of the sin of Adam we would never have had Our Lady as Queen of Heaven.
The poem reflects part of the Exultet, the Easter Proclamation: O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, /quod Christo morte deletum est! O truly necessary sin of Adam,/destroyed completely by the Death of Christ. O felix culpa,/quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptionem! O happy fault/that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer.
At Easter we proclaim the great reality that God has given us a Redeemer and that he is now risen from the dead.
Coming up to Christmas we reflect on the birth of our Redeemer through the consent of Mary, his and our Mother. Mary is part of God's eternal plan and if we sideline her we distort that reality, as we also do if we put her in the centre and sideline her Son. In the painting above Mary, while being honoured as Queen of Heaven by the angels and saints is adoring God with her whole being, inviting us to do the same. The song too invites us to sing Deo gratias! Thanks be to God!
That is what the Church invites us to do every time we celebrate Mass, the Eucharist, the Thanksgiving. It invites Filipinos in particular at this time of the Aguinaldo Masses to thank God for the great gift of faith and to share it with others. One way in which Filipinos have been doing that is introducing this centuries-old practice to other countries, adapting the custom to local circumstances.
Sung by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, England
Adam lay ybounden,
Bounden in a bond;
Four thousand winter,
Thought he not too long.
And all was for an apple,
An apple that he took.
As clerkes finden written
In theiré book.
Ne had the apple taken been,
The apple taken been,
Ne hadde never our Lady,
A been heaven’s queen.
Blessed be the time
That apple taken was,
Therefore we may singen.
Deo gratias!
This song from England dates from the 15th century. The text here is an adaptation of the original Middle English and the musical setting is by Boris Ord.
Scottish poet Edwin Muir's One Foot in Eden, included in the Breviary for Lent and Easter, also reflects on the theme of felix culpa.
One Foot in Eden
by Edwin Muir
Video and reading by Philip Marshall
What had Eden ever to say Of hope and faith and pity and love Until was buried all its day And memory found its treasure trove? Strange blessings never in Paradise
Fall from these beclouded skies.
Extraordinary Form of the Mass
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
The Third Sunday of Advent .
The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-13-2020, if necessary).
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
This
seasonal carol was written in German and Latin by Blessed
Henry Suso OP in the 14th century. I do not know who made the
arrangement above. For me it retains the original mediaeval flavour of the hymn with a contemporary
Irish twist. The concert took place in Ireland.
On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees
and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every
village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord
was with him to heal.And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralysed,
and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus,but finding no way to bring him in, because
of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his
bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.And when he saw their faith, he
said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”And the scribes and the Pharisees began to
question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can
forgive sins but God alone?”When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered
them, “Why do you question in your hearts?Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are
forgiven you’, or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?But that you may know that the Son of Man has
authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man
who was paralysed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed
and go home.”And immediately he rose up before them and picked up
what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God.And amazement seized them all, and
they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen
extraordinary things today.”
In this book Pope Benedict XVI has a wonderful commentary on today's gospel on pages 43-44.
Jesus himself poignantly raised
the question as to where the priority lies in man’s need for redemption on the
occasion when the four men, who could not carry the paralytic through the door
because of the crowd, let him down from the roof and laid him at Jesus’ feet.
The sick man’s very existence was a plea, an urgent appeal for salvation, to
which Jesus responded in a way that was quite contrary to the expectation of
the bearers and of the sick man himself, saying: My son, your sins are forgiven’
(Mark 2:5) [Luke 5:20]. This was the
last thing anyone was expecting. This was the last thing they were concerned
about. The paralytic needed to be able to walk, not delivered from his sins.
The scribes criticised the theological presumption of Jesus’ words: the sick
man and those around him were disappointed, because Jesus had apparently
overlooked the man’s real need.
I consider this whole scene to
be of key significance for the question of Jesus’ mission in the terms with
which he was first described by the angel’s message to Joseph. In the passage
concerned, both the criticism of the scribes and the silent expectation of the
onlookers is acknowledged. Jesus then demonstrates his ability to forgive sins
by ordering the sick man to take up his pallet and walk away healed. At the
same time, the priority of forgiveness for sins as the foundation of all true
healing is clearly manifested.
Man is a relational being. And
in his first fundamental relationship is disturbed – his relationship with God –
then nothing can be truly in order. This is where the priority lies in Jesus message
and ministry: before all else, he wants to point man toward the essence of his
malady, and to show him – if you are not headed there, then however many good things you may find, you are not
truly healed.
Gospel Mark 1:1-8 (English
Standard Version Anglicised: India)
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is
written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send mymessenger before your face, who
will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness:‘Prepare the
way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
John
appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for
the forgiveness of sins.And all the country of Judea and all
Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river
Jordan, confessing their sins.Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a
leather belt round his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.And he preached, saying, “After me
comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to
stoop down and untie.I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit.”
Charles Kuralt was a reporter with CBS TV in the
USA whose On the Roadstories were a regular part of the Evening News for 25 years. These were
offbeat stories about real persons and were often uplifting. I remember one in
particular from about 1970 when I, then a young priest, was studying in the
USA. It featured an elderly man in a small town in one of the Midwestern
states. His town was about 10 kms from the next town but in order to go from
one to the other you had to travel 20 or 30 kms. The authorities in both towns
were unwilling to build a road to connect them.
So this man started to build a road himself, using logs as a foundation, as I recall.
In 1982 Charles Kuralt gave a lunchtime talk in an auditorium in Minneapolis where I was on a pastoral programme in a hospital for three months, working as a chaplain. I went to hear the broadcaster. Someone in the audience asked him what had become of the road that the old man had begun to build. It turned out that the man had since died. But after his death the authorities completed the road.
This man was engaged in a form of what the Legion of Mary Handbook calls 'Symbolic Action', described in these terms: 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.
The old man featured on TV wasn't thinking of himself but of those coming after him. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
St Mark is repeating the words of Isaiah used in today's First Reading: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isaiah 40: 3).
Fr Alfred Delp SJ, hanged by the Nazis in Berlin on 2 February 1945, is in many ways an Advent figure. Advent of the Heart is a collection of 'Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings - 1941-1944'. The People of Advent is one of his prison meditations, written exactly 76 years ago. I have highlighted some parts.
The herald angel
Never have I entered on Advent so vitally and intensely alert as I am now. When I pace my cell, up and down, three paces one way and three the other, my hands manacled, an unknown fate in front of me, then the tidings of our Lord's coming to redeem the world and deliver it have a different and much more vivid meaning.
And my mind keeps going back to the angel someone gave me as a present during Advent two or three years ago. It bore the inscription: Be of good cheer. The Lord is near. A bomb destroyed it. The same bomb killed the donor and I often have the feeling that he is rendering me some heavenly aid.
Promises given and fulfilled
It would be impossible to endure the horror of these times - like the horror of life itself, could we only see it clearly enough - if there were not this other knowledge which constantly buoys us up and gives us strength: the knowledge of the promises that have been given and fulfilled. And the awareness of the angels of good tidings, uttering their blessed messages in the midst of all this trouble and sowing seed of blessing where it will sprout in the middle of the night.
Then angels of Advent are not the bright jubilant beings who trumpet the tidings of fulfillment to a waiting world. Quiet and unseen they enter our shabby rooms and our hearts as they did of old. In the silence of the night they pose God's questions and proclaim the wonders of him with whom all things are possible.
Footsteps of the herald angel
Advent, even when things are going wrong, is a period from which a message can be drawn. May the time never come when men forget about the good tidings and promises, when, so immured within the four walls of their prison that their very eyes are dimmed, they see nothing but grey days through barred windows placed too high to see out of.
May the time never come when mankind no longer hears the soft footsteps of the herald angel, or his cheering words that penetrate the soul. Should such a time come all will be lost. Then indeed we shall be living in bankruptcy and hope will die in our hearts.
Golden seeds waiting to be sowed
For the first thing man must do if he wants to raise himself out of this sterile life is to open his heart to the golden seed which God's angels are waiting to sow in it.
And one other thing; he must himself throughout these grey days go forth as a bringer of good tidings. There is so much despair that cries out for comfort; there is so much faint courage that needs to be reinforced; there is so much perplexity that yearns for reasons and meanings.
Reaping the fruits of divine seeds
God's messengers, who have themselves reaped the fruits of divine seeds sown even in the darkest hours, know how to wait for the fullness of harvest. Patience and faith are needed, not because we believe in the earth, or in our stars, or our temperament or our good disposition, but because we have received the message of God's herald angel and have ourselves encountered him.
Authentic beauty,
however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know,
to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
