Feast of the Holy Family. Sunday in the Octave of the Nativity

Christmas: December 29th

Feast of the Holy Family

December 29, Feast of the Holy Family Today is the feast day of the Holy Family, but also every family's feast day, since the Holy Family is the patron and model of all Christian families. Today should be a huge family feast, since it is devoted entirely to the Holy Family as a model for the Christian family life. As Rev. Edward Sutfin states: "The children must learn to see in their father the foster-father St. Joseph, and the Blessed Mother as the perfect model for their own mother. The lesson to be learned is both practical and theoretical, in that the children must learn how to obey and to love their parents in thought, word and action, just as Christ was obedient to Mary and Joseph. Helping mother in the kitchen and in the house work, and helping father in his odd jobs about the home thus take on a new significance by being performed in a Christ-like spirit." (True Christmas Spirit, ©1955, St. Meinrad Archabbey, Inc.)

Commentary of the day : 

  
Pope Francis 
Encyclical « Lumen fidei / The Light of faith »,     §52-53 (trans. © Libreria Editrice Vaticana) 

Faith and the journey of the family

Faith and the family: In Abraham’s journey towards the future city (Heb 11,10), the Letter to the Hebrews mentions the blessing which was passed on from fathers to sons (Heb 11:20-21). The first setting in which faith enlightens the human city is the family. I think first and foremost of the stable union of man and woman in marriage. This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love... Grounded in this love, a man and a woman can promise each other mutual love in a gesture which engages their entire lives and mirrors many features of faith. Promising love for ever is possible when we perceive a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings, a plan which sustains us and enables us to surrender our future entirely to the one we love. Faith also helps us to grasp in all its depth and richness the begetting of children, as a sign of the love of the Creator who entrusts us with the mystery of a new person. So it was that Sarah, by faith, became a mother, for she trusted in God’s fidelity to his promise (Heb 11:11).
In the family, faith accompanies every age of life, beginning with childhood: children learn to trust in the love of their parents. This is why it is so important that within their families parents encourage shared expressions of faith which can help children gradually to mature in their own faith. Young people in particular, who are going through a period in their lives which is so complex, rich and important for their faith, ought to feel the constant closeness and support of their families and the Church in their journey of faith.

This is what St Bernard of Clairvaux said in this regard, ‘God, to whom angels submit themselves and who principalities and powers obey, was subject to Mary; and not only to Mary but Joseph also for Mary’s sake [….]. God obeyed a human creature; this is humility without precedent. A human creature commands God; it is sublime beyond measure.’ (First Homily on the ‘Missus Est’).

Day Four of Christmas

Christmas: December 28th

Feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs

December 28, Feast of the Holy Innocents The Holy Innocents saved the Child Jesus from death by King Herod by the shedding of their own blood. The Holy Innocents are the special patrons of small children, who can please the Christ Child by being obedient and helpful to parents, and by sharing their toys and loving their siblings and playmates. The feast of the Holy Innocents is an excellent time for parents to inaugurate the custom of blessing their children. From the Ritual comes the form which we use on solemn occasions, such as First Communion. But parents can simply sign a cross on the child's forehead with the right thumb dipped in holy water and say: May God bless you, and may He be the Guardian of your heart and mind—the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. The Holy Innocents Today, dearest brethren, we celebrate the birthday of those children who were slaughtered, as the Gospel tells us, by that exceedingly cruel king, Herod. Let the earth, therefore, rejoice and the Church exult — she, the fruitful mother of so many heavenly champions and of such glorious virtues. Never, in fact, would that impious tyrant have been able to benefit these children by the sweetest kindness as much as he has done by his hatred. For as today's feast reveals, in the measure with which malice in all its fury was poured out upon the holy children, did heaven's blessing stream down upon them. "Blessed are you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah! You suffered the inhumanity of King Herod in the murder of your babes and thereby have become worthy to offer to the Lord a pure host of infants. In full right do we celebrate the heavenly birthday of these children whom the world caused to be born unto an eternally blessed life rather than that from their mothers' womb, for they attained the grace of everlasting life before the enjoyment of the present. The precious death of any martyr deserves high praise because of his heroic confession; the death of these children is precious in the sight of God because of the beatitude they gained so quickly. For already at the beginning of their lives they pass on. The end of the present life is for them the beginning of glory. These then, whom Herod's cruelty tore as sucklings from their mothers' bosom, are justly hailed as "infant martyr flowers"; they were the Church's first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief. — St. Augustine

Saint John the Beloved

COMMENT:  

John the Beloved prompted by Peter,
and to left James nudged Pater

 

Sacristy: Tapestry of the Last Supper 

 John son of Zebedee, Disciple, Apostle. Evangelist, John the Beloved, John the Divine.

The Feast of Saint John in Christmas Octave is especially identified as John the Beloved.
In the college of the 12 Apostle, the name of John is multiplied, (Main Document; Word found 76 items matching the criteria).
Three texts give the best indications centreing on John the Beloved.

1. Only John and Peter were sent into the city to make the preparation for the Last Supper (Luke 22:8). 

2. At the Supper itself his place was next to Christ on Whose breast he leaned (John 13:23, 25). 

3. After the Resurrection John with Peter was the first of the disciples to hasten to the grave and he was the first to believe that Christ had truly risen (John 20:2-10).

James the Less nudged to Peter -
to prompt John - to ask Jesus

Print from Il Cenacolo, Milano

  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The 12 Days of Christmas

Christmas: December 27th

Feast of St. John, apostle and evangelist

December 27, Feast of Saint John St. John was born in Bethsaida, and like his brother James, was a fisherman. He was called while mending his nets to follow Jesus. He became the beloved disciple of Jesus. He wrote the fourth Gospel, three Epistles and the Apocalypse. His passages on the pre-existence of the Word, who by His Incarnation became the light of the world and life of our souls, are among the finest of the New Testament. He is the evangelist of the divinity of Christ and His fraternal love. With James, his brother and Simon Peter, he was one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration. At the Last Supper, he leans on the Master's breast. At the foot of the cross, Jesus entrusts His Mother to his care. John's pure life kept him very close to Jesus and Mary. In years to come John was exiled to the island of Patmos under Emperor Domitian, but lived to an old age. — From the Daily Roman Missal.   CatholicCulture.org  http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2013-12-27

Eve of Christmas, Poem by Sr. Miriam ocso

 

Anthurium plant joins
the Christmas tree gifts

 

Tuesday 24 December

COMMENT on Luke 1:67-79

“Our God from om high will bring the rising to visit us”.

MAGNIFICAT com

MEDITATION OF THE DAY

The Poem 'Where the Pictures Came From"

Angels are seldom overheard. But try.

Go listen.

They might be remembering.

They might be whispering about the night

they seeded the sky with embers

and it caught

All over the place, the sky took fire.

Astronomers, on various corners of the earth,

reported a shower of burning embers.

This was the night-angels will tell you–

when they clambered over the poles

and raced each other through the tundra,

and swam a hundred mountain lakes,

shaking the water off like seals,

and kept on going.

They knew they were wanted.

It had to be night, they'll tell you,

because night is so simple, so all one thing,

even when burnt with embers.

And God had poured himself so flawlessly

into a human heart

that nothing less simple than night

could venture an explanation.

The angels got there, they will tell you.

They ran up the hill, singing a song the colour of darkness,

chanting like sea bells

in places of no horizon.

They stood in a circle on the floor of a cave,

and drew pictures on its walls

to entertain the visitors .

And rocked in their song

an infant of one hour's age,

who was as old as God.

Sister Miriam Pollard, o.c.s.o.

Sister Miriam Pollard is a Cistercian nun
at Santa Rita Abbey in Sonoita. Arizona.

Christmas, remarkable story. Merton Journal

Fr. William H. Shannon 1917-2012

Msgr. William H. Shannon, founding president of the International Thomas Merton Society, died on April 29, 2012.

The Merton Journal is pleased to publish in this Advent issue a Christmas homily given by Bill Shannon in 2009.  ADVENT 2012: VOLUME 19 NUMBER 2   

  Christmas

is No Ordinary Time

 by

Bill Shannon

I am sure you have all had the experience of having an eye examination and having drops put in your eyes that dilate the pupils. When the pupils of the eyes are dilated, wonderful things happen. Your eyes become wide-angle lenses. Your vision is widened and expanded. You see things you could never see before. Headlights on on­coming cars are no longer just white lights: they are all aglow with sparkles spilling out in all direc­tions. And the traffic lights aren't just signals; they are Christmas trees with lights going on and off, flashing first red colours all around and then green. Yes, with your eyes widened and your vision expanded, you see so much that you never see in your more prosaic moments.

That experience, so it seemed to me, may be taken as a kind of para­digm of the Christmas experience. Christmas is a feast that expands our vision. We see the night sky all lit up. The Christmas event-the birth of Mary's Child-has to be placed at night, of course. It just wouldn't work during day time. We must have the night-with brilliant sparkling stars and glorious colours, with angels dancing and sing­ing, and the glory of God shining all about for a people who for so long a time have been sitting in darkness.

Now it's true we don't usually see angels-on ordinary days, that is. But Christmas is no ordinary time. It's a time when we see lights and angels. The angels sing to us, but ... at least so I think ... first they dance and sing lullabies to an infant that is 'one hour's age, yet old as God' (borrowed from a poem by my friend, Sr. Miriam Pollard, OCSO).

They dance and sing for us too. And their song is about God who, in the words of the poet, 'has poured himself so flawlessly into a human heart' (Sr. Miriam again). Lest we see only an infant in a manger bed, the angels expand our vision and we see One who is David's son and Mary's son, yet God's Son as well. And above all, He's a Saviour. That's what they call him: a Saviour who is Lord and Messiah. The angels dilate the eyes of our hearts, and we see what the eyes in the head can never see.

Twenty years ago, while in Jerusalem, I heard a remarkable Christmas story. As far as I know it is a true story. It's about a couple who years ago lived in a home that was built above the Damascus Gate of the Old City. They were a well-to-do couple. They were Christian. And it was Christmas Eve. They locked the door of their home and set out for the short bus trip to Bethlehem. They would get there in time for the midnight Mass. It would be celebrated by the Latin Patriarch in Bethlehem. As they took the road to Bethlehem, they came upon a young couple-younger than they-walking slowly and hesitantly toward the gate. They were obviously poor and the woman was obviously pregnant.

The older couple who were on their way to Bethlehem were moved with compassion for them. 'Can we direct you to wherever you are going?' they asked. The young man said: 'We are poor and we don't really know where we are going.' And the young man and his wife moved on. The older couple hesitated. But, if they didn't hurry, they would be late for the Mass.

The remarable story - recalls my
footsteps at the place in Christmas 2004

 
 

They started walking toward the bus that would take them to Bethlehem. All at once they stopped. As if in unison, they said to one another: 'What are we doing? We are not going toward Bethlehem. We are going away from Bethlehem. Bethlehem came to us and we didn't even recognize it.' The eye of their hearts had been dilated. Their vision was expanded. They turned about, caught up with the young couple and offered them the hospitality of their home. And there in the house at the Damascus Gate, the young woman gave birth to her first-born son. And maybe, just maybe, the older couple saw angels dancing and singing and stars shining brightly ... over the Damascus Gate.

That house over the Damascus Gate still exists. When the older couple decided years later to go elsewhere, they donated their house to the city and it became a hospital. But they would never forget that one night it had been Bethlehem for them.

Christmas is a feast that we can appreciate only if we allow the eyes of our hearts to be dilated. We have to give up our everyday vision: a vision that can see only the little things right before us. We have to hear Paul telling us: 'The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.' We have to look beyond surface facts and see mystery: the mystery of a tiny Child just born who is yet older than the universe.

We have to expand our vision. Like the older couple in Jerusalem, we have to open the eyes of our hearts to see that mystery of Bethlehem is never far away. We will find Bethlehem in the poor, in the lonely, in those for whom our world has no more room than it had for Mary's Child.

Today we should look for Bethlehem in the refugee camps in Iraq, Afghanistan, and so many other places where mothers may be giving birth to children this very day in conditions of terrible misery, poverty and piercing cold, where mothers who have already given birth try desperately to keep their infant children warm and fed-and alive.

Nearer at home, we could very well see Christmas as a time to remember single parents. I recall one past Christmas when a mother, filled with sadness and feelings of helplessness, told me about her daughter who just a few days earlier had given birth to a baby with­out the support of a partner. The woman's husband was terribly upset: he refused to allow their daughter to come home for Christmas. This was a mixed up situation, to be sure, where many emotions were struggling to surface. I think there are many such young women for whom there is no room, as there was no room for God's Son when he came into our midst. Mary would have empathized with such young women. For Mary surely knew what people had been saying about her. ...behind her back, of course. But these were people who had never allowed the eyes of their hearts to be dilated.

Thomas Merton has written:

[Christ's] place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, extermi­nated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst .. .It is in these that he hides himself, [the people] for whom there is no room.

(Raids on the Unspeakable, pp.72-73)

But we can grasp this deepest meaning of today's holy feast, only when we have allowed the eyes of our hearts to be dilated, only when we have let our vision be expanded. For only then can we hear the rustling of angel wings and the songs that angels sing. For isn't it obvious that such songs can be heard only by those whose hearts are opened wide? For otherwise there is no room in which angels can sing.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fr. William H. Shannon 1917-2012  

Msgr. William H. Shannon, founding president of the International Thomas Merton Society, died on April 29, 2012. Fr. Shannon, professor emeritus in the religious studies department at Nazareth College, and a priest of the Diocese of Rochester, New York, was the author of numerous books, including the much acclaimed biography of Merton, Silent Lamp, and Thomas Merton 's Paradise Journey: Writings on Contemplation. He was the general editor of the Thomas Merton letters, and co-author of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia with Christine Bochen and Patrick F. O'Connell, as well as a number of books on spirituality, and has been published in many journals. Fr. Shannon was honoured at the 2009 ITMS

conference in Rochester.

The Merton Journal is pleased to publish in this Advent issue a Christmas homily given by Bill Shannon in 2009.

ADVENT 2012: VOLUME 19 NUMBER 2   

As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Acts 6:59

Thursday, 26 December 2013 St. Stephen, the first martyr
SAINT STEPHEN The first martyr Feast          Saint Stephen is one of the first deacons chosen by the early church in Acts of the Apostles. Upon the death of Jesus, Stephen began to work hard to spread what was then called The Way. He preached the teachings of Jesus and participated in the conversion of Jews and Gentiles. Acts tells the story of how Stephen was tried by the Sanhedrin for blasphemy and was then stoned to death by an infuriated mob encouraged by Saul of Tarsus, the future Saint Paul. He died praying for those who killed him : "Lord, do not hold this sin against them".          Saint Stephen's name is simply derived from the Greek Stephanos, meaning "crown", which translated into Aramaic as Kelil. Saint Stephen is traditionally invested with a crown of martyrdom for Christianity and is often depicted in art with three stones and the martyrs' palm. In Eastern Christian iconography he is shown as a young beardless man with a tonsure, wearing deacon's vestments, and often holding a miniature church building and censer. ***************** Lord, today we celebrate the entrance of Saint Stephen into eternal glory. He died praying for those who killed him. Help us to imitate his goodness and love our ennemies.