Visitors adoring the Christ Child

Ora et labora

Thanks to Edith and William

The hilarious sacred share.

from Donald.                                                                                                                                               

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: William Wardle <williamwardle2bp@btinternet.com>
To: Dom Donald.Nunraw <nunrawdonald@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 25 December 2012, 13:08
Subject: Ora et Labora 

Dear Father Donald,

 

Visitors adoring the Christ Child

I would just love to show you my Christmas present! Edith spied eight little 'biscuit clay' figures modelled on Orthodox monks in the window of a charity shop! I think they must have come from Mount Athos? There is a clear division between the presentation of the characters, 'ora et labora'. Amazingly the figures are exactly the right size to become 'contemporary' visitors to my crib adoring the Christ Child along with the angel, the Holy Family, one representative shepherd and the three wise men!

 

I like best the one holding an icon of Our Lord in presentation of the Christ Child. You are the Patriach, and Fr. Nivard has his lute!

 

Oh the Joy that the birth of Our Lord brings!

 

With my love in the midst of this Joy,

William

+ + + 

Abbot Mark Press Christmas Message

 

East Lothian Courier, 21 December, 2012-12-25

Christmas Messages.  

Pass on the message of friendship this Christmas.

By Fr Mark Caira, Abbot at the Sancta Maria Abbey, Nunraw

Advent in the early Christian tradition was a time of waiting.  The first sense of waiting was for the return of their Lord who had risen from the dead.  The first Christians expected the world to end quite soon.  As time went on they naturally began to look back to the roots of their faith.  Their reflections led them not just to the promise of the messiah contained in the Hebrew Scriptures but also to the actual physical birth and circumstances of Christ.

Even today in the prayer of Christians these two dimensions of waiting are present.  Some can be too concerned and unhappy about the final coming of the Lord.  That time will come some day but probably will be many generations away, whatever the many dangerous and volatile situations in the world today.  In this latter part of Advent, as we get so much nearer the historical birthday of Jesus we look more to his birth and the joy it gave his parents and those who were waiting for the One who was promised.

I’m sure most of us are caught up in the rush to catch the last posting dates for our Christmas mail and planning how we should prepare for things like our Christmas meal and other celebrations with family and friends, especially for the children.  That is good and right.  We ought to celebrate such a birth and use it to build up family bonds and friendships.  That, as we know, is not always easy.  Some ruptures in our relationships in the past are not easily mended.  Perhaps being civil with those we are not happy being with at Christmas can be a beginning to something better in the near future. 

Christmas is not only a remembering of a past birth or the concern of the final coming of Christ at the end of time.  Remembering a birth is a celebration of someone who has grown from a baby to something greater.  Christmas can be, and should be, an awareness of what Christ became.  For us he is now still a living person who knew how to conquer not only death but to face up to cruel powers that hounded him in his life.  He lives now to help us to live for others.  That life and that love lies at the heart of Christmas. 

Our greetings of happiness and joy to others this Christmas can be messages of friendship which hopefully will lead to better relations with all our neighbours whatever their social position or beliefs.

A Happy Christmas to everyone.  May peace and happiness fill your lives in the year that lies ahead.

My soul glorifies the Lord

Monster Icicle under Abbot's window.
Word icicle not in the Bible

Comment by Mary: Wow!  I wouldn't like to be below the "Abbot's window when that monster icicle decides to drop down.  I did notice a trodden path  going past the Abbot's window and I was thinking that you may need to put up a "Hazard" sign. 

Christmas POST-IT

·         September Papal Visit was the ‘Benedict Bounce’ (Cardinal), an uplift for all of us.

·         Fr. Luke (89) ocso b.1921, d.8 Nov 2010, 56^th year of monastic profession

·         Snowed Under November into December and Christmas. Nunraw deepest snow in the Lammermuirs (Met Office), and gave us the Scottish TV exposure as well.

·         3^rd December showing Film “Of Gods and Men – Des Hommes Et Des Dieux”. It is the story of our Brothers, the Seven Monks of Atlas, Algeria.

·         The message is monastic, Ecumenical, Inter-Faith, to inspire love and peace.

·         We share the joy and prayer of Christmas and New Year.

Courtesy of MAGNIFICAT Missalette

The Light Shines in the Darkness
Artwork of the front cover, The Birth of Christ (c. 1520), Giovanni Calcar (c. 1499-c. 1546) [circle ofl, 85 x 57.5 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia, © Artothek.
The Flemish-born painter known as Giovanni Calcar settled in Italy where he studied with Titian and Raphael. It is said that he became so adept at imitating these two masters that even they could not tell the difference between his copies and their originals!
Calcar's fondness for the shimmering caress of fine costly fabrics is on full display here: the gown of the angel in the foreground, in a sumptuous yet restrained hue, is a masterpiece of refinement. The painter's predilection for handsome architectural features is also evident in the background, beyond the manger, in the ruins of the Jerusalem temple. Finally, careful observation of each element of this work reveals his mastery of the art of subtly-honed detail.
Such an accomplished depiction of persons, patterns, and precise details might have distracted attention from the main subject had Calcar not been inspired to make of the newborn Child the source of light which illumines and gives life to his entire composition. Georges de La Tour would later develop the study of light, using the artifice of a candle to express its full beauty. Calcar, for his part, has no need of any such prop to render visible, quite literally, that the Word, "the true light, which enlight­ens everyone, was coming into the world" (ln 1: 9).
                                                                     • Pierre-Marie Dumont