The Matera crib of 2012 in the Piazza. Fr. Edward OP

   From Rome

What would happen if Joseph and Mary knocked at my door?

      

Tags: Pope Benedict XVI, Christmas, Homily

Christmas Homily of the Holy Father Benedict XVI, Vatican Basilica, Midnight Mass, December 24, 2012.

St Peter's Square, December 24, 2012

God became a child
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.

 

Inaugurazione del Presepe "lucano" in Piazza San Pietro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=t7nAAq2Od0c&feature=endscreen

 
Published on 25 Dec 2012

Il presepe del 2012 riproduce i suggestivi Sassi di Matera, sito Unesco che ha ispirato numerosi registi, tra cui Pasolini e Gibson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoy4edfD4nM  

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: edward ...

To: Donald ....

Sent: Friday, 4 January 2013, 22:26

Subject: Some more lines

Dear Father Donald,

I do not know whether Nunraw experiences such strong winds as we have

now. They thump and scream around the house.

I offer you these lines as also a copy for Heather if you have the time!

Blessings in Domino,

fr Edward O.P.

-------- 

Father Edward Booth O.P.

Austurgata 7,

IS-340 Stykkishólmur,

Iceland.

The Matera* crib of 2012 in the Piazza

A re-scaled crib has been created for 2012.

The gigantesque figures designed to be seen also

by those at the back of a vast crowd

have not re-appeared.

From ancient Italy, the Basilicata town of Matera

has been chosen, a back-drop of this small rupestrian city

before which we intrude on the daily business of a hundred inhabitants,

permanent or passing, in its Piazza.

Over all is a simple screen adjustable to various intensities of blue,

enlivened with projected clouds.

The ancient house-fronts, their approach steps lovingly worn

by the feet of centuries, drop with extended homeliness

to the Piazza floor,

peopled with small figures modelled on contemporaries.

The crib itself, placed stage-right in a large grotto,

the ox and the ass in adoration.

All the people present could be imagined as fitting in

crib-visits bei Gelegenheit,

with much care being given to their placing,

all being socially passed on over the centuries.

This rupestrial city seems recollected deeply into God,

some talking, others silent;

they wait with him for the reading not of folklore but of liturgy,

and for the display.

It is a vista of pious poverty, perhaps now being surpassed.

The presepologist has made his name with such contexts

transformed by the passage from reality to eternity.

Repeated motifs abound as the collective yet personal consciousness

stirs into life.

Perhaps in the summer, in the growing and ripening of wheat:

what a splendid transition from hard-crusted casareccio bread (sold by the kilo)

to the yeast-produced aereated, bubble-constructed soft dough

edged with hardening, warm and aromatic!

At the night-vigil domesticity rises into

the spiritual grandeur of “Blessed are you poor!”

The visitors are supplanted from their urbanity.

The music is sung, heart-warm and expressive

under a lady choir-director.

The town is a gem, the country around always verdant

from cascading water draining away, often into lakes.

Contemplation is supported easefully

from the medicinal power of nature

and the fruits of cultivation.                                               

Stykkishólmur 4 January 2013

*Not “Madera” with an allusion to “Our Lady of Madera” (the Patroness of our Sisters), with a possible allusion to another statue in Indonesia, swept out to sea by a Tsunami, swept back and deposited in the garden of Buddhist monk, who returned it to the Catholic Church. There are at least two videos of it: a) Vatican TV recording of the inauguration available on demand under the programmes for 24 December 2012;

 b) A “RomeReport” on YouTube of the Holy Father's visit the the evening. Google Maps (“Matera, Basilicata”)          has two illustrated books, one on the artistic treasures of the place, the other on the surrounding countryside.

Pope 'astronomy'. The Babe of the Magi - Starwatch: Jupiter resplendent.

Sunday, 06 January 2013  

The Epiphany of the Lord - Solemnity

MASSYS_Quentin_Adoration_of_the_Magi

  

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 2:1-12.

...  And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. 
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way. 

  

Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict xvi

Chapter IV The Wise Men from the East ... pp. 98-102

... various stages of human life finds its true meaning and its inner unity in companionship with Jesus.

The key point is this: the wise men from the east are a new beginning. They represent the journeying of humanity toward Christ. They initiate a procession that continues throughout history. Not only do they represent the people who have found the way to Christ: they represent the inner aspiration of the human spirit, the dynamism of religions and human reason toward him.

The horizon at midnight. 'Jupiter resplendent.' on view from Crib window. 

    

THE STAR

Now we must come back to the star which showed the wise men their path, as we read in Saint Matthew's account. What kind of star was it? Was there a star at all?

Distinguished exegetes like Rudolf Pesch take the view that this is not a sensible question to ask. \Ne are dealing with a theological narrative that should not be confused with astronomy. A similar position was put forward in the early Church by Saint John Chrysostom: "That this star was not of the common sort. or rather not a star at all, as it seems at least to me, but some invisible power transformed into this appearance, is in the first place evident from its very course. For there is ... nor any star that moves by this way" (In Matthaeum Homiliae, VI, 2: PG 57, 64). Much of the Church's tradition has underlined the miraculous nature of the star, as in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 100 A.D.), who saw the sun and the moon dancing around the star, and likewise in the ancient Epiphany hymn from the Roman Breviary, which states that the star outshone the sun in beauty and brilliance.

Nevertheless, the question whether or not this was an astronomically identifiable and classifiable celestial apparition was not going to go away. It would be wrong to dismiss it a priori on account of the theological character of the story. With the emergence of modern astronomy, developed by believing Christians, the question of this star has been revisited.

The Babe of the Magi

Johannes Kepler (+ 1630) proposed a solution that in its key elements has been put forward again by astronomers today. Kepler calculated that in the year 7-6b.c., which as we have seen is now thought likely to have been when Jesus was born, there was a conjunction of the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. He himself had experienced a similar conjunction in the year 1604. with the further addition of a supernova. This is a weak or very distant star in which a colossal explosion takes place, so that for weeks and months an intensive radiance streams from it. Kepler regarded the supernova as a new star. He took the view that the planetary conjunction at the time of Jesus' birth must also have been accompanied by a supernova, and this was how he attempted.     

Nevertheless, the question whether or not this was an astronomically identifiable and classifiable celestial apparition was not going to go away. It would be wrong to dismiss it a priori on account of the theological character of the story. With the emergence of modern astronomy, developed by believing Christians, the question of this star has been revisited.

Johannes Kepler (+ 1630) proposed a solution that in its key elements has been put forward again by astronomers today. Kepler calculated that in the year 7-6 b.c., which as we have seen is now thought likely to have been when Jesus was born, there was a conjunction of the planets Jupi­ter, Saturn and Mars. He himself had experienced a similar conjunction in the year 1604. with the further addition of a supernova. This is a weak or very distant star in which a colossal explosion takes place, so that for weeks and months an intensive radiance streams from it. Kepler regarded the supernova as a new star. He took the view that the planetary conjunction at the time of Jesus' birth must to explain the phenomenon of the bright star of Bethlehem in astronomical terms. It is interesting, moreover, that the Gottingen scholar Friedrich Wieseler seems to have discovered a reference in Chinese chronological tables to the fact that in 4 B.e. "a bright star appeared and was visible for quite a long time" (Gnilka, Das Matthausevangelium1, p: 44).

The aforementioned astronomer Ferrari d'Occhieppo has dismissed the theory of the supernova. For him a sufficient explanation of the star of Bethlehem is provided by the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces, which he believed he could determine with chronological precision. It is important here to note that the planet Jupiter stood for the principal Babylonian god Marduk. Ferrari d'Occhieppo concludes as follows: "Jupiter, the star of the highest Babylonian deity, entered its brightest phase when it rose in the evening alongside Saturn, the cosmic representa­tive of the Jewish people" (Der Stem von Bethlehem, p. 52). We need not go into the details. From this planetary encounter, according to Ferrari d'Occhieppo, Babylonian astronomers were able to conclude that there had been a universally significant event: the birth in the land of the Jews of a ruler who would bring salvation.

What are we to make of all this? The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Pisces in 7-6 b.c. seems to be an established fact. It could well have pointed astronomers from the Babylonian-Persian region toward the land of the Jews, toward a "king of the Jews." Exactly how those men came to the conviction that prompted them to set off and led them eventually to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, must remain an open question. The constellation could have set them thinking, it could have been the first signal for their outward and inward departure. But it would not have been able to speak to them, had they not already been moved in some other way, inwardly moved by the hope of the star that was to rise over Jacob (cf Num 24:J7).

If these wise men, led by the star to search for the king of the Jews, represent the movement of the Gentiles toward Christ, this implies that the cosmos speaks of Christ, even though its language is not yet fully intelligible to man in his present state. The language of creation provides a great many pointers. It gives man an intuition of the Creator. Moreover, it arouses the expectation, indeed the hope, that this God will one day reveal himself. And at the same time it elicits an awareness that man can and should approach him. But the knowledge that emerges from creation, and acquires concrete form in the religions, can also become disoriented, so that it no longer prompts man to transcend himself, but induces him to lock himself into systems with which he believes he can, in some way, oppose the hidden powers of the world.

In our story both elements can be seen: in the first instance, the star leads the wise men as far as Judea. It is quite natural that their search for the newborn king of the Jews should take them to Israel's royal city and to the king's palace. That, surely, is where the future king must have been born. Then they need the direction provided by Israel's sacred Scriptures–the words of the living God-–n order to find the way once and for all to David's true heir.

The Fathers have emphasized a further aspect. Gregory Nazianzen says that at the very moment when the Magi adored Jesus, astrology came to an end, as the stars from then on traced the orbit determined by Christ Ccf. Poem. Dog11l. V 55-64: PG 37, 428-429). In the ancient world, the heavenly bodies were regarded as divine powers, determining men's fate. The planets bear the names of deities. According to the concept prevailing at the time, they somehow ruled over the world, and man had to try to appease these powers. Biblical monotheism soon brought about a clear dernythologization: with marvelous sobriety, the creation account describes the sun and the moon-the great divinities of the pagan world-as lights that God placed in the sky alongside the entire firmament of stars (cf Gen 1.16f.).

On entering the Gentile world, the Christian faith had to grapple once again with the question of the astral divinities. Hence in the letters he wrote from prison to the Ephesians and the Colossians, Paul emphasizes that the risen Christ has conquered all the powers and forces in the heavens, and that he reigns over the entire universe. The story of the wise men's star makes Cl similar point: it is not the star that determines the child's destiny, it is the child that directs the star.

If we wish, we may speak here of a kind of anthropological revolution: human nature assumes by God—as revealed in God’s only-begotten Son—a greater than all the powers of the material world, greater than the entire universe.

.........

The horizon at midnight tonight 

http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/astro/esm/hz24  

You will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending. Jn 1:51

Christmas Gift - Introduction

Day Twelve of Christmas

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: DGO <noreply@evzo.org>
To: ....donald...
Sent: Friday, 4 January 2013, 17:03
Subject: The Daily Gospel

Saturday, 05 January 2013

Saturday before Epiphany

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 1:43-51.  ....Jesus answered and said to him, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this."  And he said to him, "Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

Commentary of the day : 

William of Saint-Thierry (c.1085-1148), Benedictine, then a Cistercian monk 
Meditations, VI, 3-4 ; SC 324 (trans. ©Cistercian publications, 1970) 

"You will see the sky opened"

If on earth we see two or three gathered together in your name with you, Lord, in their midst... what are we to say of that place where you have gathered your saints, who have “made a covenant with you by sacrifices”, and where “the heavens” you have made “proclaim your righteousness” (Ps 50[49],5-6)?

For that Beloved Disciple of yours was not the only one to find the way to heaven, nor was the open door revealed to him alone (Rev 4,1)... Out of your own mouth to all and openly you have proclaimed: "I am the door; if anyone enters in by me, he shall be saved" (Jn 10,9). You are the door, then, Lord; and when you say: "if anyone enters in by me," you open, apparently, to all who will. 

But of what use is it to us who are on earth to see the door in heaven standing open, when we cannot get up there? Saint Paul answers thus: "He who ascends is the same also as he who descended" (Eph 4,9). Who is he? He is love. For love in us mounts up to you, O Lord... because the love in you comes down to us. You, who loved us, you came down to us; by loving you we shall mount up to you. You who yourself declared: "I am the door," by your own self I pray you, open yourself to us that you may show more clearly what house you open, and when you open, and to whom.

http://happycatholic.blogspot.co.uk/2009_03_01_archive.html

This Just In and Going Straight by the Bedside

Angels and Their Mission by Cardinal Jean Daniélou

All it took was reading the introduction, so readable, so logical (you know that grabs me!) to make this the next theology book for my spare time.

Here's the description ... I am really looking forward to reading this.

From St. Augustine to John Henry Newman, the greatest among the saints and men of God have lived on familiar terms with the angels; and the Church has always accorded them a very large place in her theology.Recent theologians have dwelt on dry questions about the nature of the angels, but the early Fathers of the Church, with the memory of Jesus fresh in their minds (and of the angels of whom He spoke often) were fascinated with the energetic action of the angels among men and the ways in which the angels have carried out that mission from the instant of Creation through the time of Jesus; and how they will continue their work even unto the end of time.
From the works of these early Fathers of the Church, the late French Cardinal Jean Daniélou has drawn forth threads of knowledge and wisdom which he has here woven into a lucid and bright tapestry that shows us who the ministering angels really are, and how—in every instant and in every way—they are working for your salvation and mine.
Here you’ll find no sentimental cherubs: the Fathers knew that majesty and power cloak actual angels, which is why God gave them the formidable tasks of shepherding not only souls, but entire nations, and the motions of the entire material universe itself.
Open these pages to meet the glorious angels as they were known by the Church’s greatest saints and theologians: Origen and Eusebius, and Sts. Basil, Ambrose, Methodius, Gregory of Nyssa, Clement of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom (among others).

Maximus the Confessor The great mystery of the divine incarnation remains a mystery for ever. (always?)

Day Eleven of Christmas - Family amusements.
11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles

Friday, December 28, 2012

What I did on my Christmas vacation?

The 12 days of Christmas Vacation - so far. (and it's day 5)

Twelve loads of laundry

Eleven adjustments to the wheelchair

Ten days off school (not counting weekends)

Nine of the same jokes over and over and over again

Eight diapers (a day)

Seven different nurses

Six leaking tubes

Five  TRIPS TO THE MALL

Four days of rain (so far)

Three different family parties

Two episodes of respiratory distress

and an 

emergency trach replacement

I love vacation.  School starts Jan 7.

Then the Pipers will start piping!

Universalis

4 January  

Night Office of Readings

St Maximus the Confessor 7C Constantinople & Africa

Comparing the translations in cols.
The choice of words opens chinks of mysteries. 

---

http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com http://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/ The Five Hundred Chapters by St Maximus the ConfessorSaint Maximus the Confessor Early Church Father  This reading for Christmas and Epiphany comes from the Five Hundred Chapters by Saint Maximus the Confessor (Centuria 1, 8-13: PG 90, 1182-1186) A mystery ever new The Word of God, born once in the flesh (such is his kindness and his goodness), is always willing to be born spiritually in those who desire him. In them he is born as an infant as he fashions himself in them by means of their virtues. He reveals himself to the extent that he knows someone is capable of receiving him. He diminishes the revelation of his glory not out of selfishness but because he recognises the capacity and resources of those who desire to see him. Yet, in the transcendence of mystery, he always remains invisible to all.   For this reason the apostle Paul, reflecting on the power of the mystery, said: Jesus Christ, yesterday and today: he remains the same for ever. For he understood the mystery as ever new, never growing old through our understanding of it.   Christ is God, for he had given all things their being out of nothing. Yet he is born as man by taking to himself our nature, flesh endowed with intelligent spirit. A star glitters by day in the East and leads the wise men to the place where the incarnate Word lies, to show that the Word, contained in the Law and the Prophets, surpasses in a mystical way knowledge derived from the senses, and to lead the Gentiles to the full light of knowledge.   For surely the word of the Law and the Prophets when it is understood with faith is like a star which leads those who are called by the power of grace in accordance with his decree to recognise the Word incarnate.   Here is the reason why God became a perfect man, changing nothing of human nature, except to take away sin (which was never natural anyway). His flesh was set before that voracious, gaping dragon as bait to provoke him: flesh that would be deadly for the dragon, for it would utterly destroy him by the power of the Godhead hidden within it. For human nature, however, his flesh was to be a remedy since the power of the Godhead in it would restore human nature to its original grace.   Just as the devil had poisoned the tree of knowledge and spoiled our nature by its taste, so too, in presuming to devour the Lord’s flesh he himself is corrupted and is completely destroyed by the power of the Godhead hidden in it.   The great mystery of the divine incarnation remains a mystery for ever. How can the Word made flesh be essentially the same person that is wholly with the Father? How can he who is by nature God become by nature wholly man without lacking either nature, neither the divine by which he is God nor the human by which he became man?   Faith alone grasps these mysteries. Faith alone is truly the substance and foundation of all that exceeds knowledge and understanding Maximus the Confessor: The Word of God is Always Manifested in the Life of Those who Share in Him The Word of God, born once on the level of the flesh, is always born willingly for those who desire it on the level of the spirit, because of his love for men. He becomes an infant, forming himself in them by the virtues. He manifests himself in just the measure of which he knows the one who is receiving him is capable. It is not through any ill-will that he diminishes the manifestation of his own majesty; it is rather that he weighs the capacity of those who desire to see him. And so, though the Word of God is always manifested in the life of those who share in him, yet because the mystery is transcendent, he remains always invisible to all. Thus the holy Apostle, in wise consideration of the meaning of the mystery, says: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’. He knows that the mystery is always new, that the mind in understanding it will never deprive it of its freshness. Christ God is born, made man by the assumption of flesh endowed with an intelligent soul, he who brought things from nothing into existence. [...] God becomes perfect man, then, leaving aside no element of nature – except sin, and this does not belong to nature. He offered his flesh as a bait, to provoke the insatiable dragon to devour the flesh which he was greedily pursuing. This flesh would be poison to the dragon, destroying him utterly by the power of the divinity in it. But it would be a medicine for human nature, restoring it to its original grace by the power of the divinity in it. By smearing the tree of knowledge with his poison of evil, the dragon destroyed man when he tasted it. But having chosen to devour the Lord’s flesh, he too was destroyed, by the power of the divinity in it. The great mystery of the divine incarnation always remains a mystery. In his essence the Word exists personally in the Father to the full: how is he in his person essentially in the flesh? How can the same person be God by nature and become fully man by nature, in no way deprived in either nature, neither in the divine nature by which he is God, nor in ours by which he became man? Only faith can grasp these mysteries, since it is the substance of things which are beyond intelligence and reason. Maximus the Confessor (580-662): Centuries  1, 8-13, from the Monastic Office of Vigils for January 4th. http://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/maximus-the-confessor-the-word-of-god-is-always-manifested-in-the-life-of-those-who-share-in-him/