MORE WISDOM FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

 A SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS

We continue our reflections from yesterday, the feast of the Circumcision, as we continue that ceremony that took place on the eighth day of our Lord’s life.  As part of the ritual of Circumcision, it was the tradition to name the new baby also on this day.  However, so important and highly revered is the Most Holy Name of Jesus that we defer mention of it on January 1^st, preferring instead to reserve a day unto itself to celebrate the bestowing for the first time of this most holy of names on the newborn Infant of Bethlehem.  This year, we are celebrating the feast of the Holy Name on the very next day, January 2^nd, and so it only seems fitting to resume our examination of the ancient Jewish practices surrounding this ceremony and how they apply to our own lives today.

In passing, we should observe how diligently our blessed Lady and St. Joseph observed the Jewish law.  In spite of being many miles from their home in Nazareth, confined to a lowly stable with barely any of life’s essentials, they still managed to find a mohel, someone carefully trained in the craft of circumcision.  They made sure he was able to come on the eighth day of our Lord’s life and perform the rituals associated with the ceremony of the brit milah.  On the basis of their careful observance of Jewish law, we may well conclude that they followed as many of the ancient traditions as possible, and it is in these traditions that we’re able to gain a better insight into certain aspects of today’s feastday.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber expressed some of that inspired rationale behind the naming of a child on this day.   He said that every person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique.  Life calls each person to discover that he or she is unique and that there has never been anyone like him or her before. For had there been something like any of us before, there would be no need for us to be born into the world. Our task in this life is to fully develop and fulfill our uniqueness in the world, as a gift to the world.

For this reason, the name chosen by the parents for their newborn is regarded as prophetic.  It is customary for the couple not to discuss the name of their child with others, prior to the naming. The parents should also not call the child by the decided name, even between themselves, until it is bestowed at the circumcision.  It is the great honor of the parents to be the ones who choose the name, and so it was most unusual in the case of our blessed Lord, that it was not Mary and Joseph who decided to call him Jesus.  Who was it that made the decision?  We need to go back to the first chapter of St. Luke’s gospel, to the scene in Nazareth where the Holy Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Blessed Virgin Mary, greeting her with the words “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women.”  When Mary heard these words, she was troubled and asked “what manner of salutation this may be.”  The angel told her not to fear, and then transmitted to her these momentous words that “Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”  It was God himself who named his Son. 

Certainly, this was a prophetic name.  The name of Jesus is derived from the Hebrew name Yeshua or Joshua. Joshua is made up of two parts: Ya, which is short for Yahweh, the name for God which the Jews to this day do not dare pronounce, and hoshea, which means “salvation.  Jesus means “God is Salvation” or “God the Saviour”.  Truly a prophetic name, and one coming not from any mere prophet but from the mouth of God himself.

If every individual is truly unique in the world, never has it been more true than in the case of the Son of God.  For his role as Saviour of mankind, there could be no other to take his place, no substitute, no possible being who could be God and Saviour, the salvation of mankind.  Only Jesus, God and Saviour, could take on this role, and because it is a holy name, we instinctively bow our heads when we say the Name of Jesus, and even when we hear it.  The enemies of God know exactly how holy this name is, and that is why they never fail to abuse it at every opportunity, employing it as a casual curse word, deliberately to offend the Christians who revere it.

At the ceremony of the brit, the circumcision, a chair is prepared and set aside for an invisible guest.  That guest is the prophet Elijah, who the Jews believe is present at every brit.  The reason for this is, that according to mystic tradition, Elijah the Prophet was very critical of the Jewish people. “I vow,” said God to Elijah, “that whenever My children make this sign in their flesh [i.e., whenever there is a circumcision], you will be present, and the mouth which testified that the Jewish people have abandoned My covenant will testify that they are keeping it.” It is for this reason the sages instituted that there be a seat of honor for Elijah at every circumcision.  From our point of view, this is a truly remarkable thing.  Yesterday we spoke of the law of Moses, and the importance of its strict observance by the Jews, including Mary and Joseph.  Today, we draw our attention to that Chair of Elijah, and the presence of this great prophet at the Circumcision of our blessed Lord.  Moses, representing the law, and Elijah, representing the prophets.  The Law and the Prophets… 

Suddenly, we remember another great feast, that of the Transfiguration of our Lord.  Who appeared alongside Jesus at that event, but Moses and Elijah, again representing the law and the prophets.  Jesus came into this world to fulfill the law and the prophecies of the Old Testament, and here, at his Circumcision, Moses and Elijah were spiritually present to witness their fulfillment.  As the Son of God received his Holy Name of Jesus, great must have been the rejoicing of Moses and Elijah as this “God and Saviour” took up his role and shed his Blood.  Jesus would teach that it was necessary to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves.  “Upon these two commandments,” he told us, “hang all the law and the prophets.”  And it would be Jesus himself who would love God and his neighbor more perfectly than any other man before or since.  He would show this love by shedding his Blood for us, his neighbor, and thus doing his Father’s will.  This Blood was first shed at his Circumcision, and his Holy Name of God and Saviour would rightly be bestowed upon him at this blood-shedding.

Along with Moses and Elijah, let us also be witnesses to the scene, as the mohel holds the Christ Child in his arms as those few drops of Blood flow down and he blesses the infant and gives him his Most Holy Name, saying: “Our God and God of our fathers, preserve this child for his father and mother, and his name in Israel shall be called Jesus the Son of God and Saviour. May God the father rejoice in his offspring, and his mother be blessed with the fruit of her womb, as it is written: May your father and mother rejoice, and she who bore you be blessed. As it is said: I passed by and saw you weltering in your blood, and I said to you: You shall live through your Blood; and I said to you: You shall live through your Blood… Give thanks to the Lord for He is gracious, and His mercy endureth forever. May this little infant Jesus become great.”

And indeed the little infant Jesus did become the great Redeemer of Mankind.  The name he bore from this day forth signified not just what he would be, but actually who he was.  A truly prophetic name whose significance for all mankind is so great that we may not utter it without bowing our head in reverent adoration of the God and Saviour who bore that name and who was that name.

PROFANITY

 A REFLECTION FOR THE FEAST OF THE HOLY NAME

The second of the Ten Commandments tells us that we must reverence not just God himself, but his very Name.  So great is the respect that we owe to the name of Jesus that it is forbidden to use it in any context where its use does not bring honor and glory to the Son of God. 

The Name of Jesus means “God, Salvation”, and the original Hebrew term for God in this context is the name of Yahweh, the name which devout Jews, even today, will never pronounce or even write.  Their diligence to avoid speaking the name of God has been passed down to the Church, but with a difference.  We are encouraged to use the sacred Name of Jesus, but only when we have a right and sufficient motive.  We speak the Holy Name in prayer and song, in sermons and instructions; we speak it, in other words, whenever the context of what we wish to say requires it.

But we do, or at least may, commit a sin by introducing the Holy Name into our conversation for any inadequate reason, merely that in moments of excitement our stammering tongues may have some strong or startling expression in which to vent our feelings of astonishment, amusement, or anger, as the case may be.  To do so is to profane the Most Holy Name of the Son of God.

Bear in mind also, that this applies not only to the divine Name itself, but to the names of the saints and of all holy things.  To invoke the name of the Holy Family of “Jesus, Mary and Joseph”, for example is to sin three times, profaning the name of each member of that Family.  Similarly, the invocation of the name of “Mary, Mother of God” to express anything other than reverence for our blessed Lady and her Son, should make us cringe in shame.  Whenever we hear such profanities, we should whisper a prayer of reparation under our breath as well as a prayer of forgiveness for the one who dared utter such things.

In the course of everyday conversation we are meant to use ordinary common words.  But the sacred Name of Jesus is only to be introduced when there is adequate reason for doing so.  To do so without such a reason is a sin which must be carefully avoided because it very easily becomes a habit, and other people are easily led to imitate us. Holy Scripture says that “the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain.”  We pray in the Our Father “Hallowed be thy Name,” and yet often it is we ourselves who dishonor and profane the sacred Name which we profess to venerate.

Let us avoid such scandal by watching what we say, following the words of Psalm 38: “I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my tongue.  I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle, while the ungodly is in my sight.”

TO THE NAME THAT BRINGS SALVATION

 A HYMN FOR THE HOLY NAME

Late 15th century, Translated by John Mason and Robert F. Neill

 

 

1 To the name that brings salvation

Praise and honour let us pay,

Which for many a generation

Hid in God's foreknowledge lay,

But to every tongue and nation

Holy Church proclaims today.

 

2 Jesus--be that name we treasure,

Name beyond that words can tell;

Name of gladness, name of pleasure,

Ear and heart delighting well;

Name of sweetness, passing measure,

Freeing souls from sin's dark spell.

 

3 Name that calls for adoration,

Name that speaks of victory,

Name for grateful meditation

In the vale of misery,

Name for loving veneration

By the citizens on high.

 

4 Name that whosoever preaches

Makes sweet music to the ear;

Who in prayer this name beseeches

Finds divinest comfort near;

Joyful then the heart that reaches

To embrace that name so dear.

 

5 Name by hard-won right exalted

Over every other name;

And when man was sore assaulted

Put the enemy to shame:

Strength to them that else had halted,

Sight to blind, and health to lame.

 

6 Jesu, we thy name adoring,

Long to see thee as thou art:

Of thy clemency imploring

So to write it in our heart,

That hereafter, upward soaring,

We with angels may have part.

 

7 Where thou reignest with the Father,

Thou the everlasting Son,

Where with the eternal Spirit,

Threefold God, yet ever One,

May our eyes behold the splendour

When our earthly course is done.

OLD TESTAMENT WISDOM

 A SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF THE CIRCUMCISION

The tradition of circumcising a newborn male went back many thousands of years before our blessed Lord underwent this little operation on the eighth day after he was born.  When Abraham was 99 years old, God appeared to him and commanded that he and all the male members of his household should be circumcised.  After the circumcision, God sent angels to inform Abraham that his wife Sarah would give birth to Isaac, the long-awaited heir to Abraham’s tradition.  God gave instructions that the ceremony should be performed on the eighth day of life, and Isaac was the first to undergo circumcision on this eighth day.  From that time on, every male Jewish baby has undergone this ceremony on the eighth day, and so today we celebrate the anniversary of the circumcision of the Christ Child when, on this eighth day since Christmas, he shed the first drops of his Most Precious Blood for all mankind.

In Jewish tradition, the circumcision, or brit as it’s called in Hebrew, is the most important of all the ceremonies and regulations of the law.    Indeed, many of the Jewish sages say that the mitzvah of circumcision is equal to all the other mitzvot of the Torah put together.  The obligation to circumcise on the eighth day even supercedes many of the Shabbat laws, so the brit is performed on the eighth day even if it is a day when surgery would generally be forbidden.  It may be delayed only for the most serious reasons, such as the health of the child.

As befits so solemn a ceremony, there are many traditions that accompany it.  Many have the custom to stay up the entire night before the brit studying the Jewish law. In Sephardic tradition, this all-night vigil is called Brit Yitzchak, “Covenant of Isaac.” In some communities, it comes with a celebratory meal of its own. There is an ancient custom that children come over to the home (earlier in the evening) and say verses of Torah in the presence of the baby.  We have no scriptural references to the details surrounding our Lord’s own Circumcision, but we can imagine that his mother and foster father were diligent in keeping the traditions as best they could in the difficult circumstances they found themselves in.

When we study the beautiful laws God gave his chosen people, we may wonder why we don’t obey those laws today.  It’s simply because our Lord fulfilled all these disciplinary laws by his life, passion and death.  Instead, in the New Testament, we focus on the great law with which he fulfilled all the minutiae of the old law: to love God with our whole heart and mind and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  On this new law all the old laws had depended for their existence.  While we retain the natural and divine laws contained in the Ten Commandments, we no longer observe the multiple disciplinary laws of the Old Testament.  We’re quite happy to eat bacon and shrimp thank you very much, and no, we don’t observe the ceremony of circumcision anymore, unless perhaps for its health benefits.  We don’t keep kosher, or follow the hundreds of laws contained in the scriptural books of Moses.  We recognize them as applying only to the people of the Old Testament, to keep them in line with God’s will at a time before the Saviour delivered them from the slavery of sin.

In one sense though, it is a pity we have forgotten much of the wisdom contained in these laws.  While we rejoice in their fulfillment by Christ, our knowledge and understanding of God could certainly be enhanced by studying the profound and often beautiful significance of the ancient ceremonies and traditions that the Jewish people had been commanded to observe.  After all, they were given to them by none other than God himself.  In the case of circumcision, it was a ceremony that created a lasting sign of a man’s personal covenant with God, a bond which transcends the human mind. Through placing this sign of our bond to God at the place of human reproduction, it sanctifies the act of procreation.  It turns it into something sacred, spiritual, and special—beyond the natural. This sanctification of the marital act is in complete opposition to how the world views it, and is the reason why the abuse of the marital act and the natural law is such a desecration of this gift of God.

Another interesting feature of circumcision is that it’s performed on the eighth day of life.  Why the eighth day?  God created the world in the span of a week, seven days.  He began the work of creation on a Sunday, and rested on the Sabbath, the seventh day.  At this point, creation was complete.  The number seven, therefore, has always signified the idea of completion, the rational, natural order of things.  To go beyond this completion, into the eighth day, is to reach beyond the natural, to expand into the super-natural.  We reach out beyond the limits of our world and peek into the infinite. 

This is no doubt why God commanded that circumcision should take place on the eighth day of life.  As a sign of the covenant between God and his people, it was meant to show man his potential to grasp the infinite, the eternal.  Think of the rainbow—long before Abraham, God had made his first covenant with man when Noah’s Ark rested upon Mount Ararat after the Great Flood.  The sign of God’s covenant with man was a rainbow in the heavens.  And how many colors are in the rainbow?  Seven.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.  Together these colors form the spectrum, outside of which we cannot conceive of any other color.  What would an eighth color look like?  We simply can’t imagine it, it is “beyond” our comprehension, in a dimension of the super-natural.  The number eight takes us into this dimension, and today, with our blessed Lord’s circumcision, we enter into that dimension of the infinite, far beyond the capacity of our own limited length and width and depth, past, present and future.

It’s for this reason that the homosexual community chose the rainbow as their symbol.  It was to make a mockery of the covenant between God and man, the covenant that would later be made by the act of circumcision in which a mark was placed in the place of reproduction.  The sanctification of the marital act as the means by which reproduction would occur, was now perverted into the very opposite by making the act an end in itself, with no other purpose than to give pleasure and satisfy the whims, natural and unnatural, of the fallen nature of man.  It was a different kind of covenant, made by man, for man, a desecration of the gift God gave us, and the exclusion of God from this most sacred human act.  God meant us to participate in his creation through the marital act, by which we would share in his creation of a new human, body and soul.

It is no coincidence either, that today is the first day of a new year.  Christ was born on December 25^th and so the Circumcision of our Lord always occurs on the Octave day of Christmas, January 1^st.  It’s the mirror image of Creation, now signifying a supernatural new beginning; the first day of Creation was a Sunday, and so was the eighth day after the beginning of Creation.   In the same way, New Year’s day is always the eighth day after Christmas Day—this year they both fall on a Saturday.  On this eighth day after the birth of our Lord, we pass through the doorway into the New Year, and at the same time celebrate the spiritual  introduction of our Lord into his life of covenant with God.

The traditions of our Jewish brethren, you see, are not to be dismissed out of hand.  “I came not to abolish the old law,” our Lord told us, “but to fulfill it.”  There are lessons to be learned from the Old Testament, and many of those lessons are profoundly spiritual.  It’s no wonder that the Novus Ordo church of Vatican II chose the Feast of the Circumcision as the first Holyday of Obligation to suppress.  Without the lessons we learn from it, our world now finds itself floundering in the sin of unbounded lust, and without the sense of the infinite that enables us to bridle the base yearnings that that deadly sin of lust brings in its wake.  We would do well to contemplate this spiritual lesson of today’s feast, and launch out into the New Year with the resolution to learn it well and obey its directives.

THE MESSAGE OF CHRISTMAS

A SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF ST. STEPHEN

It’s the day after Christmas.  As we return to church, our hearts filled with comfort and joy, it might come as a bit of a jolt to realize that we are here to celebrate the stoning to death of St. Stephen the first martyr.  How can our minds make that leap from the peaceful scene at Bethlehem to the mob violence we witness in today’s lesson?  How do we adjust our psyche from the Silent Night, Holy Night atmosphere, with the stars in the bright sky and the cattle a-lowing, to this new image of a man surrounded by the enemies of God, brutally throwing sharp, hard rocks at the holy deacon Stephen?  And why does the church deliberately place this scene in the liturgy so soon after the peace and joy of Christmas?

The connection may not seem so obvious at first.  But it’s there, present in both these events, obscured only by our own impervious sentiments which, as usual, conflict with the supernatural realities.  God, in his mercy, wants us to rejoice now and again, and we are certainly permitted, even encouraged, to participate in the happiness of Christmas Day and the season that follows.  But we may never indulge that happiness to the extent that we forget the reason for the season—that Christ Child in the manger who now so happily dwells among us for a time, came down from heaven for a reason.  His whole life leads to that sacrifice of love he made for us on the cross, and today we are presented with the first ultimate sacrifice of love that followed his own, that of the protomartyr St. Stephen.

There is no better comparison between Christmas Day and the Feast of Stephen which follows, than the sermon of St. Fulgentius.  Listen carefully to how he draws together the two blessed events:

“Yesterday,” he says, “we were celebrating the Birth in time of our eternal King.  Today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of one of his soldiers.  Yesterday our King, clothed in the robe of our flesh, was pleased to come forth from his royal palace of the Virgin's womb to visit the world.  Today his soldier, laying aside the tabernacle of the body, entereth in triumph into the palace of heaven.  The One, preserving unchanged that majesty of the Godhead which he had before the world was, girded himself with the lowliness of our flesh in the form of a servant, and entered the battlefield of this world.  The other, putting off the corruptible garment of our flesh, entered into the heavenly mansion, there to reign for ever.  The One cometh down, and is veiled in the flesh of his human birth.  The other goeth up, and is robed with a glory which is red with the blood of his temporal death.

“The One cometh down amid the jubilation of Angels.  The other goeth up amid the stoning of Jewry.  Yesterday the holy Angels rejoiced in the song: Glory to God in the highest.  Today they rejoice in the welcome whereby they do receive Stephen into their company.  Yesterday the Lord came forth from the Virgin's womb.  Today his soldier is delivered from the prison of the body.  Yesterday Christ was for our sakes wrapped in swaddling bands.  Today he girdeth Stephen with a robe of immortality.  Yesterday the new-born Christ lay in a narrow manger.  Today Stephen entereth victorious into the boundless heavens.  The Lord came down, one and alone, that he might raise many up.  Our King descended to our low estate that he might set his soldiers, such as Stephen, in high places.”

St. Fulgentius goes on to show how this triumph of St. Stephen was achieved, and how the first martyr was able to conquer the hatred and persecution of the enemies of God.  He bore no arms or armour other than charity.  “The love of God strengthened him against the hatred of Jewry.  The love of his neighbour made him pray even for his murderers.  Through love he rebuked them in their perversities that they might be corrected.  Through love he prayed for them that stoned him that they might not be punished.”

The Jews who stoned St. Stephen that day were helped by one of the chief persecutors of the Christians, a man by the name of Saul.  This was the same Saul who was riding one day to Damascus to continue his persecutions when he was struck from his horse by a bolt of lightning and struck blind.  Christ himself appeared to Saul, who was then baptized and changed his name from Saul to Paul, the great St. Paul, Apostle of the Gentiles.  This intervention by God was no doubt due to the prayers made by St. Stephen as the stones struck him to the ground: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”  As St. Fulgentius puts it, “By the might of his charity he overcame Saul, his cruel persecutor, and earned, as a comrade in heaven, the very man who had done him to death upon earth.”

Charity then, is the link between the joys of Christmas and the violent hatred we witness today.  The very act of God sending his only-begotten Son to die for us was an act of divine charity.  His followers recognized God’s love for them and so were prepared to pass down that love in their own way, by gladly accepting whatever tribulations and crosses they were given, following him, if called upon to do so, even unto death, and freely forgiving those who trespassed against them.  So you see, the Christ Child in his manger and the first martyr St. Stephen have one and the same message of love to pass on to us, and we must now be ready to take up our own cross and follow them both to glory. 

GOOD KING WENCESLAS

 A HYMN FOR THE FEAST OF ST. STEPHEN

By John Mason Neale, 1853

Good King Wenceslas looked out,
on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
gath’ring winter fuel.

“Hither, page, and stand by me,
if thou know’st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence,
underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence,
by Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me flesh, and bring me wine,
bring me pine logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine,
when we bear them thither.”
Page and monarch, forth they went,
forth they went together;
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
and the bitter weather.

“Sire, the night is darker now,
and the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how;
I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, good my page.
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod,
where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing.

COME TO THE MANGER

 A SERMON FOR CHRISTMAS DAY

We have come to think of this world we live in as godless.  A godless world…  What is that, a godless world?  A world without God?  Well, not exactly, because God is everywhere, whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not.  Certainly, for an increasingly greater number of people in this world, God has ceased to exist, at least in their own minds.  He plays no role in their lives, and they very rarely think of him at all, except perhaps when they’re in trouble and demand he perform a miracle for them.  Otherwise, when these folks actually do think of God, their thoughts are like the thoughts of King Herod—‘this God is a danger to us, he is an obstacle, preventing us from doing all the “pleasant” things we want to do, and therefore we must drive him out of this, our brave, new world.’  And like King Herod, they send out their soldiers—the Antifa thugs and Black Lives Matter brigade, the looters in the department stores, the woke politicians in Congress and the military, the propagandists in the schools and corporate media—and they all conspire together to make sure all references to God and his laws are obliterated from the national consciousness.  They try their best to “cancel” God.

So, in this sense, we do live in a godless world.  And yet our catechism teaches us that God is everywhere.  There is no corner of this godless world that actually is godless.  For he is there, whether or not we want him to be there.  He is there from the depths of the ocean to the highest peaks, and even beyond throughout the vast universe he created.  We may not see his presence, we may not hear the heavenly choir in constant praise of his divine majesty—‘Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus’—and yet we know he is there, hidden in every cubic inch of his creation, hidden in every breath we take, every thought we have.  God is present.

He is present in different ways.  His omnipresence in creation is of a spiritual nature.  His presence in a tree does not make that tree God.  We are not pantheists who think that every element of creation actually is a god.  We don’t worship “Mother Earth.”  We merely acknowledge that the earth and all the elements it contains, by their beauty, their form, their very existence, reflect the presence of the Creator within them.

But then, sometimes, God intervenes in our world, and although still hidden, he makes his presence known.  We see this in Holy Scripture, when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and then later, when the Hebrews fled Egypt to go to the Promised Land, the same Moses wrote that “The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light.”

Even today, the same divine intervention comes to us in the Blessed Sacrament, where the Real Presence of Almighty God descends upon our altars, hidden this time under the form of bread and wine.  Hidden, always hidden.  God hides himself, because we mere mortals are incapable of seeing God as he is really us.  Think about it: we have five senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell—each a physical aspect of our own finite, mortal, human body.  How can any of these very limited senses grasp the enormity, the infinite beauty of the divine?  It’s impossible, and so when God appears to us, he does so in a hidden way so that we can know his presence, and yet not perceive it physically.  It’s the way it has to be, if you think about it.

But there was a day, many years ago, in a stable in Bethlehem, when God’s presence took on a whole different aspect.  It took the form of a little Child, who was born and actually dwelt amongst us.  Great kings and mere shepherds were drawn to that Child.  With their own eyes they saw his tiny face peeking out from his swaddling clothes; with their ears, they heard his little baby sounds; they could reach down and stroke his Holy Face.  For the first time, man could see God.  No wonder then, that we call him the Light of the World.  Like the burning bush and the pillar of fire of the Old Testament, God now illuminated a dark world with his light.  Only this time, he didn’t merely appear as a light—he was that Light.  He drove out the darkness of that night with the very light of his presence, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.  This appearance of God in human form that first Christmas did not herald in a physical light, but something far greater.  The Light of Christ would drive out the spiritual darkness of sin, unable to withstand the presence of this God made man.

There are no words to describe the enormity of what took place that midnight long ago in the piercing cold of winter.  And yet, this great event was hidden away in the most unexpected of places, a ramshackle little stable amid the filth of the animals whose home it was.  The Light of Christ was not visible to the surrounding world.  No one would ever have thought to come to the manger and witness this occasion.  And so God sent physical lights, one in a far-off land in the form of a star, which would lead three kings to Bethlehem.  But now, on Christmas night, lights were seen all around the Little Town of Bethlehem.  Most people were asleep, but out in the fields there were shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night.  And “and, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.”  This angel revealed to the shepherds what had happened, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”  And he told them where to go and what they would see when they got there.  “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest.”  For on this night, there was, such as there had never been before, “Glory to God in the highest”.  And from those highest heavens, the herald angels sang that glory to the newborn King.  They sang that glory with great joy, and that Joy was transmitted to the world.  Joy to the world.

What a pity, you might think, that we don’t have this joy today.  For we can no longer behold the divine face of the Christ Child dwelling among us.  When we come to the manger today, it’s to look at a mere statue of a little baby in his crib, but it’s not the real thing.  Oh really?  How easily we forget!  Look for a while at the manger scene, but then shift your eyes over to the right a little way.  The same Son of God who was present on that first Christmas morning, the exact same Son of God who is represented by that little statue over there, is present again at the words of consecration during our Mass.  He may be hidden under the form of bread and wine, but let’s not forget that even in Bethlehem, the dazzling brilliance of the eternal and almighty God had to be hidden under his human nature as a little baby—after all, this was the closest he could come to allowing us to see him.  Yes, we saw him literally “in the flesh”, but this was the Word made Flesh—not merely a man child, but God himself, hidden behind this flesh.  God is always hidden. 

Today, we may no longer see the Christ Child in the flesh, but let’s be conscious of the gift this Child left us at the end of his all too short life.  It was the precious gift of his eternal Real Presence, a presence that would continue, through the continuation of his sacrifice on the Cross in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, a Mass that can never be abolished, no matter how hard his enemies might try.  Hidden here on our altar at Mass, under the form of bread and wine, imperceivable to our physical senses, lies the same divine Being as once hid himself under the form of a Child in Bethlehem.  There is no difference, and we are called to this manger to receive him into our hearts just as the shepherds were called to the stable in Bethlehem to receive him in their midst on that first Christmas morning.  So come to the manger!  Venite, adoremus!  O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord!

THE LEGEND OF ST. WENCESLAS

 A REFLECTION FOR THE FEAST OF ST. STEPHEN

One of the best known Christmas carols is about the holy Duke of Bohemia, good King Wenceslas.  His name is forever linked with Christmastide through an act of charity he performed “on the feast of Stephen,” that is today. Winter had set in over Germany with unusual severity; hedges, fields, and ways, were blotted out in the deep soft snow.  Wenceslas had been sitting next to the narrow window of his castle, watching the sunset as its glory hung for a moment on the western clouds, and then died away over the Erzgebirge, and the blue hills of Rabenstein.  As he gazed forth on the scene, the moon shone down upon a poor man, illuminating his misery and his rags.  This poor unfortunate struggled through the deep snow up to some bushes, and seemed to pull something from them.  Wenceslas called out to his servant Otto, and told him to run out to the poor man on the hillside, to learn who he was, where he dwelt, and what he was doing.

As the King waited for Otto to return, the frost grew more and more intense; the east wind breathed from the bleak mountains of Galicia, the snow became more crisp and the air more clear. When Otto returned, he reported that the poor man was Rudolf the swineherd who lived down by the Brunweiss.  "My liege," said Otto, fire he has none, nor food neither: and he was gathering a few sticks where he might find them, lest, as he says, all his family perish with cold. It is a most bitter night, Sire."

Forthwith, Wenceslas decided to set out into the night to help the poor man.  Despite Otto’s pleadings that there was a freezing wind and that it was at least a league to the Brunweiss, Wenceslas insisted that he would go, alone if needs be.  The loyal servant could not permit that, of course, and agreed to accompany the King.

As the noblemen of the court made merry in the great hall of the castle, a mighty fire went roaring up the chimney, and they bade fresh logs be thrown into the chimney-place.  Their remarks were of the weather, and one said to another that so bitter a winter had never been known in Bohemia.

But in the midst of that freezing night, the King of Bohemia went forth. He had put on nothing warm to shelter himself from the nipping air; for he desired to feel with the poor, that he might feel for them. On his shoulder he bore a heap of logs for the swineherd's fire; and stepped briskly on, while Otto followed with the provisions. He, too, had imitated his master, and went in his common garments over the crisp snow, across fields, by lanes where the hedgetrees were heavy with their white load, past the frozen pool, through the little copse, where the wind made sweet melody in summer with the leaves, and rivers of gold streamed in upon the ground, but now silent and ghastly — over the stile where the rime clustered thick, by the road with its ruts of mire, and so out upon the moor, where the snow lay yet more unbroken, and the wind seemed to nip the very heart.

Still the King went on first: still the servant followed. The Saint thought it but little to go forth into the frost and the darkness, remembering Him Who came into the cold night of this world of ours; he disdained not, a King, to go to the beggar, for the King of Kings had visited slaves; he grudged not to carry the logs on his shoulder, for the Lord of all things had carried the Cross for his sake. But the servant, though he long held out with a good heart, at each step lost courage and zeal. Then very shame came to his aid; he would not do less than his master; he could not return to the court, while the King held on his way alone. But when they came forth on the white, bleak moor, his courage failed.  "My liege," he said, "I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return."  “Seems it so much?" asked the King. "Was not His journey from Heaven a wearier and a colder way than this?  Follow me on still," said St. Wenceslas. "Only tread in my footsteps, and you will proceed more easily."

The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the King: he set his own feet in the print of his lord's feet.  And so great was the virtue of this Saint of the Most High, such was the fire of love that was kindled in him, that, as he trod in those steps, Otto gained life and heat. He felt not the wind; he heeded not the frost; the footprints glowed as with a holy fire, and zealously he followed the King on his errand of mercy.

This legend of St. Wenceslas encapsulates the whole spirit of Christmas.  It is a spirit of love, of charity towards those less fortunate than ourselves.  It is a spirit of giving, one where we give gifts to those we love and perhaps also to those whom we ought to love more.  It is the spirit of God himself, who on this day so many years ago gave us the greatest gift of all, that of his only-begotten Son.

IT'S ALL IN THE PREP!

 A SERMON FOR THE NEW YEAR

It’s all in the prep!  That’s one of those axioms we learn from our mothers early on in life.  When we want to do something, we have to prepare for what we’re going to need when we do it.  If we go outside to build a snowman, we need to put our boots and gloves and winter coat on, take a carrot for the snowman’s nose, lumps of coal for his eyes, and a scarf to put round his neck.  As we get older, we apply the same principle to everything we do.  When we go on vacation, we know we need to apply for a passport, buy sunscreen, pack our bags, book our flight, and so on.  We can’t just get in the car and drive to the airport.  We have to prepare all the things we need.

It’s a principle that comes from no less than God himself.  Because before he created man on the Sixth Day, he spent five days preparing a place for him to live.  He first created light, then a planet on which we could live, a sun to give us heat and light, plants and animals for us to eat, in short, everything man would need in order to live naturally and have a suitable environment in which to save his soul.  And then, later on, he would prepare the world for the arrival of his Son, making sure that when the Messiah was born, man would have no excuse for not believing in him.  He himself announced to Adam and Eve that there would be a Woman who would crush the head of Satan, he sent prophets to tell us that the Saviour would be born in Bethlehem, to describe the events of his life in every way.  At his birth, he prepared a star in the heavens to lead kings from afar to Bethlehem, he sent his herald angels to proclaim the Messiah’s birth.  God carefully prepared the world for his Son, doing everything that was necessary to ensure we would have no excuse whatsoever for ignoring or rejecting him.

The Church follows the example of Almighty God, by giving us the four weeks of Advent to prepare our souls for the joys of Christmas.  Now the season is finally upon us, it is our turn to have no excuse to ignore its true meaning, or reject the lessons we learn from the Nativity of our Divine Saviour.  Now is the time for one such lesson.  A couple of days ago, on January the First, we learned the true meaning of Christmas—that, yes, Christ the Saviour is born, but that the emphasis is not so much on the “born” part, but on the word “Saviour”.  We learned how this tiny Christ Child would be our Saviour, how he would save us all from Satan’s power when we have gone astray.  By shedding his first few drops of blood—the Most Precious Blood that would re-open the gates of heaven, the Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant between God and man. 

Today we commemorate the Holy Name of Jesus that he received at the same time of his Circumcision.  We revere and venerate that Holy Name because he shed those drops of Blood, and would do so again, this time to the very last drop at his Passion and Death.  He saved us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.  And for this we bless the Holy Name of Jesus.

God never stops preparing us, and his Bride, the Church, is always anxious to help God with his preparations.  Do we think perhaps that it’s a coincidence that this first shedding of Christ’s Blood should take place on the first day of January, the first day of a New Year?  That the New and Everlasting Covenant and the New Year should fall on the same day?  The Feast of the Circumcision has to fall on the First of January because according to Jewish law, a male child is circumcised exactly eight days after his birth, and that was Friday, the Octave Day of Christmas.  That day, of course, was also New Year’s Day, and the threshold between the old year and the new year, the doorway between past and future, a new and everlasting future that will never end.  Sure, heaven and earth shall pass away, but the Word of God shall not pass away.  This little Christ Child, with the spilling of his Precious Blood, shall never pass away, and neither shall we, because he has brought to us the gift of eternity!  The promise of everlasting life, a promise or covenant that is truly a new and everlasting covenant.

Have we prepared for the New Year?  Or have we done what most of the world does?  Did we simply walk across that threshold and out into the new year on Thursday night with no preparation whatever, simply partying, drinking ourselves silly, celebrating the movement of a man-made ball a few feet downwards over Time Square in a faraway state?  Was that the extent of our preparation for the New Year?  Or have we made plans for what we need, as we go out that doorway and into the unknown?  Have we taken the time to figure out what we need to take with us?  Have we resolved to do what is necessary to receive the benefits of those first few drops of the Precious Blood spilled by our Saviour?  Have we made our New Year’s Resolutions?  Not the dieting and giving up smoking, not keeping our desk tidy or making sure we don’t have more than one English muffin for breakfast.  I mean real resolutions, ones that will bring us merit in the eyes of God and the blessings and graces that he will bestow upon us if we keep them.  It’s not too late.  We’re only a couple of days into the new year, and we still have that special opportunity for which we shall surely be judged on that dreadful day of reckoning.  Make the most of the opportunity, and prepare for the coming year, for a future which does not end when our earthly life passes away.  It’s all in the prep.

ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME

 A HYMN FOR THE FEAST OF THE HOLY NAME

by Edward Perronet, 1780

 

1 All hail the power of Jesus' name!

Let angels prostrate fall.

Bring forth the royal diadem,

and crown him Lord of all.

Bring forth the royal diadem,

and crown him Lord of all!

 

2 O seed of Israel's chosen race

now ransomed from the fall,

hail him who saves you by his grace,

and crown him Lord of all.

Hail him who saves you by his grace,

and crown him Lord of all!

 

3 Let every tongue and every tribe

responsive to his call,

to him all majesty ascribe,

and crown him Lord of all.

To him all majesty ascribe,

and crown him Lord of all!

 

4 Oh, that with all the sacred throng

we at his feet may fall!

We'll join the everlasting song

and crown him Lord of all.

We'll join the everlasting song

and crown him Lord of all.

THE NAME OF GOD IN VAIN

 A REFLECTION FOR THE FEAST OF THE HOLY NAME

Did you ever wonder why God so emphasized the keeping holy of his Name that he made it the second of the Ten Commandments?  One might be forgiven for thinking that stealing, adultery, and surely murder should be given priority over the idle mouthing of the Holy Name of God…  And yet, there it is, right next to the top of the first tablet of stone that Moses brought back with him from the heights of Mount Sinai:  “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

 

The reason this Second Commandment rates so highly is, of course, because it is a sin against God himself.  Not against our neighbor, who is a mere creature, but against our Creator, our Redeemer, our most blessed Lord, whose Name is holy.

 

The orthodox Jews take this commandment very seriously.  They will not write the word God, replacing it with G-d instead.  They will not even say the Name of God, which has led to our modern-day ignorance of how the word actually should be pronounced in Hebrew, with variations from Yahweh to Jehovah vying for accuracy.

 

We Catholics make it a practice of bowing our head at the Name of Jesus.  It is one of the rubrics at Mass and the Divine Office that the priest and ministers must make a reverence towards the altar whenever the Holy Name occurs in the liturgy.  If the priest is wearing his biretta, he must remove it for the Name of Jesus as well as bowing.

 

For us to utter our Lord’s Name simply in passing, or as part of a joke, an exclamation, or worst of all, as a curse, can be a very serious sin.  We should all instinctively cringe when we hear such language, knowing as we do how offensive it is to God.  We are taught that whenever we hear the Name of Jesus taken in vain, we should immediately make some act of reparation, usually by saying “Blessed be thy Holy Name” or “Blessed be the Name of Jesus”, under our breath or even out loud.  This is a good practice, and should be encouraged in our children, as it teaches them not only reverence for the Holy Name but is also an act of charity towards those who would blaspheme it.

 

Finally, we should give a brief thought to those who take the Name of God in vain deliberately, and in order to offend him.  For them, it is a pure act of hatred, and believe me, there are those who harbor such feelings towards our dear Saviour.  They are often powerful men who seek to influence our culture so that the most sacred of sacred names might become nothing more than a curse word in our society.  God is not mocked, and those who do not bow before the Name of Jesus will undoubtedly one day tremble at his feet as they are judged.

 

Glory be to Jesus!  Glory be to God in the highest!  Our help is in the Name of the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth!