Posts tagged Christmas
A Message from Archbishop Hepworth
Dec 28th
The Octave of Christmas is a time of richness and of confrontation. Richness because of the great liturgical and popular tradition that takes us day by day into events and places that deepen our faith in the Christ Child.
The feasts of Stephen, John, Holy Innocents, and the saintly martyr Archbishop Becket, all follow one another in a tumble of carols and remembrance. But these are also days of martyrdom and mass murder.
The Child was laid in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. These were the clothes in which the Jewish dead would be buried. They were kept in the stable so as not to be within the realm of the living. “His death cast a shadow over His birth, because his death was the reason for His birth.”
The martyrs of His octave, the first of the martyrs, Deacon Stephen, the Anglican Archbishop Becket, the host of the Innocents, the children who died for the comfort of a King, the Apostle whose failed martyrdom led to the Apocalyptic exile on Patmos, these are the ones who accompany our Christmas thoughts, and remind us of the cost of following the Child of Bethlehem.
These are appropriate thoughts in this year’s Octave when the bishops of our Communion receive their formal response to their petition for communion with the Bishop of Rome and those in communion with him in East and West. To be a splinter is not a virtue, it is an irritant destined to fester. A branch unconnected to the vine withers and corrupts.
Catholic communion is not an idea, nor the acceptance of a set of beliefs. It is standing together at the Altar of God, affirming one faith and receiving together the one Body and Blood of the Christ who is God and brother.
Our bishops have realised from the start of our separation from the Anglican Communion that it was a separation of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage must have a goal. Our goal was the healing of catholic disunity, that Anglicans had sought and then abandoned.
There is great integrity in being a pilgrim. If the destination be holy, God sustains on the journey. We will not be rushed or stampeded. Nor will we falter. So in our waiting as the vision of our destination becomes clearer in the mists of our wandering, let us take clear sight of the martyrs who are our Octave companions. Their echoes are all around us, in the destruction of innocent life, in the failure of episcopal teaching, in the denial of the Christ Child’s godliness, in the transformation of love into hate, even within the company of those who bear His Name. The dying Stephen prayed for Saul, and the Church was given Paul, and the world was transformed. These are important days for us, and days that demand that most difficult of prayers. “That we be transformed, so that the Church may transform the world.”
+John
Primate
Urbi et Orbi Message for Christmas 2009
Dec 25th
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world,
and all men and women, whom the Lord loves!
“Lux fulgebit hodie super nos,
quia natus est nobis Dominus.
A light will shine on us this day,
the Lord is born for us”
(Roman Missal, Christmas, Entrance Antiphon for the Mass at Dawn)
The liturgy of the Mass at Dawn reminded us that the night is now past, the day has begun; the light radiating from the cave of Bethlehem shines upon us.
The Bible and the Liturgy do not, however, speak to us about a natural light, but a different, special light, which is somehow directed to and focused upon “us”, the same “us” for whom the Child of Bethlehem “is born”. This “us” is the Church, the great universal family of those who believe in Christ, who have awaited in hope the new birth of the Saviour, and who today celebrate in mystery the perennial significance of this event.
At first, beside the manger in Bethlehem, that “us” was almost imperceptible to human eyes. As the Gospel of Saint Luke recounts, it included, in addition to Mary and Joseph, a few lowly shepherds who came to the cave after hearing the message of the Angels. The light of that first Christmas was like a fire kindled in the night. All about there was darkness, while in the cave there shone the true light “that enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9). And yet all this took place in simplicity and hiddenness, in the way that God works in all of salvation history. God loves to light little lights, so as then to illuminate vast spaces. Truth, and Love, which are its content, are kindled wherever the light is welcomed; they then radiate in concentric circles, as if by contact, in the hearts and minds of all those who, by opening themselves freely to its splendour, themselves become sources of light. Such is the history of the Church: she began her journey in the lowly cave of Bethlehem, and down the centuries she has become a People and a source of light for humanity. Today too, in those who encounter that Child, God still kindles fires in the night of the world, calling men and women everywhere to acknowledge in Jesus the “sign” of his saving and liberating presence and to extend the “us” of those who believe in Christ to the whole of mankind.
Wherever there is an “us” which welcomes God’s love, there the light of Christ shines forth, even in the most difficult situations. The Church, like the Virgin Mary, offers the world Jesus, the Son, whom she herself has received as a gift, the One who came to set mankind free from the slavery of sin. Like Mary, the Church does not fear, for that Child is her strength. But she does not keep him for herself: she offers him to all those who seek him with a sincere heart, to the earth’s lowly and afflicted, to the victims of violence, and to all who yearn for peace. Today too, on behalf of a human family profoundly affected by a grave financial crisis, yet even more by a moral crisis, and by the painful wounds of wars and conflicts, the Church, in faithful solidarity with mankind, repeats with the shepherds: “Let us go to Bethlehem” (Lk2:15), for there we shall find our hope.
The “us” of the Church is alive in the place where Jesus was born, in the Holy Land, inviting its people to abandon every logic of violence and vengeance, and to engage with renewed vigour and generosity in the process which leads to peaceful coexistence. The “us” of the Church is present in the other countries of the Middle East. How can we forget the troubled situation in Iraq and the “little flock” of Christians which lives in the region? At times it is subject to violence and injustice, but it remains determined to make its own contribution to the building of a society opposed to the logic of conflict and the rejection of one’s neighbour. The “us” of the Church is active in Sri Lanka, in the Korean peninsula and in the Philippines, as well as in the other countries of Asia, as a leaven of reconciliation and peace. On the continent of Africa she does not cease to lift her voice to God, imploring an end to every injustice in the Democratic Republic of Congo; she invites the citizens of Guinea and Niger to respect for the rights of every person and to dialogue; she begs those of Madagascar to overcome their internal divisions and to be mutually accepting; and she reminds all men and women that they are called to hope, despite the tragedies, trials and difficulties which still afflict them. In Europe and North America, the “us” of the Church urges people to leave behind the selfish and technicist mentality, to advance the common good and to show respect for the persons who are most defenceless, starting with the unborn. In Honduras she is assisting in process of rebuilding institutions; throughout Latin America, the “us” of the Church is a source of identity, a fullness of truth and of charity which no ideology can replace, a summons to respect for the inalienable rights of each person and his or her integral development, a proclamation of justice and fraternity, a source of unity.
In fidelity to the mandate of her Founder, the Church shows solidarity with the victims of natural disasters and poverty, even within opulent societies. In the face of the exodus of all those who migrate from their homelands and are driven away by hunger, intolerance or environmental degradation, the Church is a presence calling others to an attitude of acceptance and welcome. In a word, the Church everywhere proclaims the Gospel of Christ, despite persecutions, discriminations, attacks and at times hostile indifference. These, in fact, enable her to share the lot of her Master and Lord.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, how great a gift it is to be part of a communion which is open to everyone! It is the communion of the Most Holy Trinity, from whose heart Emmanuel, Jesus, “God with us”, came into the world. Like the shepherds of Bethlehem, let us contemplate, filled with wonder and gratitude, this mystery of love and light! Happy Christmas to all!
Leo the Great, Sermon 21 – On the Lord’s Nativity
Dec 24th
These are the Monastic Breviary Lessons from the second Nocturn of Christmas Matins. The translation used here is taken from the 1961 edition by the Society of the Sacred Cross in south Wales. Pope Saint Leo the Great is most famed for his Tome to Flavian, his authoritative contribution to the Council of Chalcedon (451) which defined how we are to understand the relationship between Christ’s divinity and humanity. The definition runs:
Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin.” He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation (in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter). The distinction between natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.
The Fathers of this Council acclaimed that, through the voice of this great Pope and Father of the Church, “It is Peter who says this through Leo. This is what we all of us believe. This is the faith of the Apostles. Leo and Cyril teach the same thing“. This is a wonderful testimony of the Pope’s doctrinal authority in the early Church.
Anyway, here is the beautiful sermon on the Lord’s Incarnation.
* * *
Our Saviour, dearly beloved, is born today: let us rejoice. No trace of sadness may be permitted on this birthday of Life. This day abolishes the fear of death and fills us with joy by reason of the promise of eternal life. No-one is excluded from a share in this eagerness. The joy is for one and all: our Lord is the Destroyer of sin and death; he finds no-one free from guilt, so he comes to set every-one free.
Let the Saint rejoice, for he shall soon receive his palm; let the sinner be glad, for he is offered his pardon; let the Gentile awake, for he is summoned to life. When the fulness of time was come, that time ordained by the high and inscrutable counsel of God, the Son of God took flesh from our human nature, that he might reconcile that nature to its Creator, and that the devil, the inventor of death, might be overcome by that same flesh which had been the means of his victory.
God joins battle on our behalf, and there is a great and wonderful equity in the battle-array; for Almighty God comes forth to meet our raging foe, armed, not in his majesty, but in our weakness. He meets him with the same body, the same nature, even with a share of our mortality, yet with no spot of sin. How different is this Child’s birth from all others; it is written: No-one is free from tainting sin, not even an infant that has lived but one day on the earth. Now no spot of the concupiscence of the flesh had penetrated into this unique Birth, no trace of the law of sin remained. A royal virgin of the stem of David was chosen; she who was to be pregnant with holy Fruit, conceived mentally before bodily that Offspring of hers who was both human and divine. While the counsels of heaven were yet unknown to her she was troubled at the strange annunciation, and so she learned from her conversation with the Angel that it was by the cooperation of the Holy Ghost that this thing was to happen to her: so she believed that without loss of her virginity she was soon to be the Mother of God.
Let us give thanks, dearly beloved, to God the Father, through his Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit; for God who is rich in mercy towards us, even when we were dead in our sins hath quickened us together with Christ, and made us to be a new creature in him, and a new workmanship. Let us put off the old man with his deeds: and let us obtain a share in Christ’s sonship, laying aside the works of the flesh. O Christian, learn how great you have become, you who have been made a partaker of the divine nature. Do not return to the former vileness of your old and corrupt conversation. Remember the Head and Body of which you are a member. Never forget that you have been delivered out of the power of darkness and translated into the light and kingdom of God.
The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Dec 24th
The Twenty-Fifth Day of December
In the 5199th year of the creation of the world,
from the time when God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth;
the 2957th year after the flood;
the 2015th year from the birth of Abraham;
the 1510th year from Moses, and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the 1032nd year from the anointing of David King;
in the 65th week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the 194th Olympiad;
the 752nd year from the foundation of the City of Rome;
the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus, all the earth being at peace, Jesus Christ, the Eternal God, and the Son of the Eternal Father, desirous to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming, being conceived by the Holy Spirit, nine months after his conception was born in Bethlehem of Juda, made Man of the Virgin Mary.
THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO THE FLESH.
A Christmas Message from Archbishop Falk
Dec 24th
“It was a cold, gray day near the end of December. The East Wind was streaming through the bare branches of the trees, and seething in the dark pines on the hills. As the cheerless shadows of the early evening began to fall the Company made ready to set out.”
So wrote J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings as a small band set off on a rescue mission for their entire world. They knew their task would cost them dearly, but they had steeled themselves, and were ready to begin.
Even so does Christmas come as a beginning. The angels’ song gave glory to God in heaven, but peace on earth (reconciliation with God) could come only with the completion of the work which he had come into the world to accomplish. Much remained before that could happen. Still to come were the long, hidden years of infancy and youth, the brief tumult of the public proclamation of the Kingdom, the preparation of the sometimes slow-learning Apostles, and the agony of Gethsemane and Calvary yet to be endured. It would be a long, hard road, now only just begun. It was still the “bleak midwinter,” and not yet spring.
Yet – even in winter’s cold dusk – Christmas is a time of joy: the “baptismal” kind of joy we feel when a beginning has been made, when things have finally begun to move. At Christmas the angels appeared to shepherds and sang the glory of God. They sang their praises of his plan, made from the day of creation, now beginning to unfold. The manger at Bethlehem, and our Christmas Communion, place us where we need to be if we would be a part of that: on our knees in Jesus’ presence amid the humble squalor of his birth. From there he will take us with him again each year, to walk that road which leads at its end to his heavenly glory, where death and winter have no place.
The shepherds caught just a glimpse of that when the angels sang. Perhaps just a glimpse is all that any of us can bear this early in the healing process. We are not ready; we are only just wayfarers still. But it was a true glimpse, a jubilant harbinger of the full joy that will be ours at journey’s end.
A blessed and happy Christmastide to one and all.
+Louis Falk
