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.

GOOD OUT OF EVIL

 A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

If there’s one lesson in life that it takes many years to appreciate, it’s that God always manages to pull something good out of every bad thing that happens.  So often, our gut reaction to something horrible befalling us is one of profound sorrow, frustration, sometimes anger, even anger at God for allowing it to happen.  Experience teaches us, however, that no matter how bad a situation might become, it is always and without exception, for the greater good.  Sometimes that greater good is meant for us personally; for example, ill health.  Often it takes a serious illness or accident to draw us closer to God as we’re reminded of the fragility of our human body and the true happiness that we can find only in the eternal afterlife.  Other times, the evil that takes place is for the good of society at large; we see this happening right now in politics, where the topsy-turvy thinking of the crazed far-left is finally provoking the long-awaited reaction, a return to common sense by the public at large.  We can only hope that this trend is able to continue, and that the good may eventually triumph.

Sometimes, though, we have a really hard time envisioning God’s plan.  Sometimes, he permits certain things too awful to contemplate.  At times like these, we must, we simply must rely on God’s providence, trying to remain peaceful in the thought that he knows what he is doing and that some good will eventually result, perhaps invisible and unknown to ourselves, that will balance out the awfulness of our own devastating experience.  It takes a lot to resign ourselves to God’s will at times like this, but it is an important aspect of our life, which is, after all, nothing but a test of our own free will and its submission to the will of God.  To fail this test can lead to a loss of hope in this life, even despair.  The consequences are even more dire for the life to come.

We are just six days away from Christmas, so you may wonder what all these somber reflections have to do with the festive season that is now almost upon us.  I mention it, because we have in the persons of our blessed Lady and St. Joseph a striking example of how we are to act when things don’t go the way we plan, and when God seems to take away any fleeting moments of happiness we might have, replacing them with fear, anxiety, discomfort and pain.  These are not things we like to mention when we’re thinking about the beautiful Christmas story and the peace and joy that go with that image of the Christ Child in his manger.  Yet it is precisely this happy Christmas scene that makes sense of the sufferings our Lady and St. Joseph had to endure.  So many sufferings, and yet, such a wonderful result.  The stable of Bethlehem is likewise our inspiration to pass those tests we endure and commit ourselves unreservedly to God’s will.

In the case of the Holy Family, let’s consider that our Lady was just about ready to deliver her Child, all is ready in the family home of Nazareth to welcome the Newborn Son.  Then suddenly, like a kick in the stomach, “there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”  That meant that every head of family, wherever he may be, had to travel back to his own city to pay the tax.  Now St. Joseph was “of the house and lineage of David” and so, at this critical time, not only in his family’s life, but indeed in the larger context of the Redemption, he was forced to take his spouse, in her ninth month, on the long journey from Nazareth in Galilee all the way to Bethlehem in Judea.  In those days, a trip of this length was nothing like what we have today.  There were no rest areas on the way, no motels, no supermarkets to buy provisions, no nice clean bathrooms like we have in the gas stations these days.  Back then it was a real test of endurance at the best of times, but when one of your passengers is all set to have a baby, it most have been the source of enormous anxiety for the good St. Joseph.

When they arrived in Bethlehem, it was only to find that the town was packed with other unhappy travelers, all there for the same reason, called by the Emperor to hand over their money and pay their taxes.  The inns were all full, and there was nowhere except a poor stable for St. Joseph to provide shelter for his family.  It was in the middle of winter, cold and nasty, but it was all he could find, in the straw amidst the farm animals, for the Son of God to be born into this world.  There followed some momentary joy as Mary successfully delivers this Son to a world that is almost completely ignorant of the great event.  But then, the arrival of the three Wise Men a few days later brings with it an angel’s warning that King Herod was seeking the newborn Christ Child to kill him, and so St. Joseph’s journeying resumes.  This time, he has to take his spouse west into Egypt, another long, hard journey, this time with an Infant, and in fear of his life.

There are many aspects of the Christmas story where we wonder how on earth the Holy Family managed to survive.  The physical aspects were bad enough, but the psychological implications of their duty to the Son of God himself must have outweighed everything else, and been a terrible burden on the Mother and Foster Father.  And yet, out of these anxious times came something far more wonderful than the sum of all their fears—the arrival in the world of a Saviour, the expectation of the nations, in whom would be the deliverance of all mankind from his iniquities.

Our Lady and St. Joseph were wise and holy enough to recognize that, out of their own sacrifices and tribulations, God would draw a Good that would be far beyond the evils they suffered.  This faith in God made their troubles bearable, as they put their trust in their Infant Son, upon him whose yoke is easy and his burden light.  They were able to endure these burdens in the knowledge of the great good that would come from them, and they are our role model in the times of trouble we now endure.  They would have gone through even more hardship if God had so permitted, and so must we if and when the time comes.  As we approach the great anniversary of these blessed events, we should set our minds to follow the Holy Family in their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and beyond to Egypt—in other words, wherever Divine Providence takes us—ever conscious of what makes sense of it all, namely that “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

THE LORD WHOM EARTH AND SEA AND SKY

 A HYMN FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

By Fr. Edward Caswall

1 The Lord whom earth and sea and sky

Adore and praise and magnify,

Who o'er their threefold fabric reigns,

The Virgin's spotless womb contains.

 

2 And he whose will is ever done

By moon and seas, by stars and sun,

Is borne upon a maiden's breast,

Whom God's foreseeing grace possessed.

 

3 How blest that Mother, in whose shrine

The very Word of God divine,

The maker of the earth and sky,

Was pleased in fleshly form to lie.

 

4 Blest in the message Gabriel brought,

Blest in the work the Spirit wrought,

Blest evermore, who brought to birth

The long-Desired of all the earth.

 

5 O Jesu, Virgin-born, to thee

Eternal praise and glory be,

Whom with the Father we adore

And Holy Spirit, evermore. Amen.

 

ALL FLESH SHALL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD

A REFLECTION FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

Today’s Gospel is all about St. John the Baptist.  It places us at the exact time of history when our Lord’s cousin began to preach about this Messiah, born long ago, who would now reveal himself to the Jews and to all nations for the remission of sins.  We are given precise details and names of the men governing Judea: Pontius Pilate was already the Roman governor, Herod was the local king or tetrarch, and on the religious side, we see for the first time the dreaded names of Annas and Caiaphas.  Familiar names one and all, and we will see them again as they conspire together to murder the Savior whose way St. John was already busy preparing.

How is it that such mere mortals could imagine they would kill the Son of God, the Word who had begun the work of Creation by commanding to the great empty void “Let there be light?”  That Word now dwelt amongst them, and they would behold his glory, as we read in the Last Gospel of Mass, “the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”  They should not have been taken by surprise in beholding the glory of the Christ.  St. John the Baptist preached that this would happen, and he told all that had ears to hear that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”  Unfortunately, there are many who “have ears but hear not, eyes have they but see not.”  To these, the salvation of God was visible and yet they refused to see it.  They closed their ears to the Word of God, and their eyes to his salvation.  A few did hear and see the manifold wonders of the Saviour:  the old man Simeon in the temple, for example, acknowledged that “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation that thou hast prepared before the face of all people.”  God prepared the salvation of his people, but alas, so few saw it in front of their noses.  Many were called but few were chosen.

The preaching by which St. John the Baptist so carefully prepared the way of the Lord should have been enough to warn everyone to at least be vigilant and watch for any signs that might seem to fulfill the ancient prophecies.  Herod was a Jew and knew the prophecies well enough to be worried that this Messiah might take away his own throne.  The High Priests Annas and Caiaphas were intimately familiar with every word of Scripture, but were so entrenched in the minutiae of their rules and regulations that they refused the one law on which they were all based, that of charity, the love of God and neighbor.  Even Pontius Pilate, who was not a Jew, was warned by his wife who had a dream of billions of people chanting over and over again the words “sub Pontio Pilato”, a reference to the words of the Creed, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate.”  No one, neither Jew nor Gentile, had any excuse for refusing the salvation that had been prepared before all people.

 As the days before Christmas slip quickly by, we are asked by the Church today to take a little time off our secular preparations for the holiday and focus instead on our spiritual preparation.  Forget the Christmas shopping for a while, stop baking pies and decorating Christmas trees, just for a short while, and give some thought to how we must prepare the way of the Lord.  We are asked to “make his paths straight.”  It’s often said that we are all a work in progress, and it’s very true that each person has to set his own goals and walk his own path to salvation.  As the coming of the Christ Child draws nigh, it is time to make sure that that path to salvation is made straight.  It’s time to tighten our grip on the wheel, and avoid all those deviations into sin and imperfection, our wandering and meandering from vices to missed opportunities and wasted time.  Make straight the way of the Lord.  This is the true sense of the penitential aspect of Advent, and one we must not miss.  For if we ignore it, we are apt also to miss the salvation that follows.  Our ears will be too full of jingle bells, our eyes too full of baubles and wrapping paper, our mouths too full of Christmas pudding, to appreciate the sight of the Infant King in his manger, bringing light to the world, and salvation to his people.

KNOW YE WHO STANDETH AMONG YOU!

 A SERMON FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY IN ADVENT

Today is Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete, as you all know by now, is the Latin word for “Rejoice.”  We are meant to rejoice today as we get closer to the Birth of Christ.  We’ve often mentioned how the joys of Christmas are anticipated during this otherwise penitential season of Advent.  Advent, you see, unlike Lent, is not all about doing penance, making reparation for the sins that caused our blessed Lord such suffering.  Advent, it’s true, does have its penances—last week, we had the fast and abstinence on the vigil of the Immaculate Conception; this week we have the three Ember Days to think about, and finally, next week takes us to Christmas Eve, another day of fast and abstinence.  But by and large, we live almost entirely in a different world from that of penance during this month of December.  We’re too busy enjoying the current period of good will and holiday cheer that radiates from a slightly more pleasant world.  That world, unfortunately, takes advantage of this by commercializing our charity, turning our good and loving thoughts into over-indulging and spending money, buying tinsel gifts for each other that ultimately mean nothing.  It’s what we have come to expect from the world, we can’t beat it, so we join it, and that’s okay to a certain extent so long as we don’t lose sight of the real charity that Christmas is all about.

Today, our joy at the approach of Christmas is meant to be that kind of supernatural joy.  We are reminded by the Church to put the “Christ” back in “Christmas”, to remember the reason for the season.  You’ve all seen the bumper stickers, so often in fact that they have become clichés to be ignored and forgotten.  And yet, surely, the fact that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world “to save the world from Satan’s power” should give us that “comfort and joy”, real supernatural joy, that should turn us all into “merry gentlemen”—and ladies and children—whom nothing may dismay!  For Satan’s power over the world was in fact broken on that cold winter’s night in Bethlehem, shattered like a fallen icicle.  The Blessed Virgin gave birth to an Infant Son who was to be the Light of the World, and by so doing she smashed the power of Satan and crushed his head beneath her heel.  Reason for rejoicing indeed!

But there is a serious message also, hidden away in today’s Gospel.  As we read this Record of John, we are warned by him that “there standeth one among you, whom ye know not.”  He speaks, of course, of the Christ, the Messiah sent to save the chosen people, a people who would for the most part reject him.  Another St. John, John the Evangelist, echoes this warning in the Last Gospel of the Mass, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.  He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”  Still today, there are so many who know him not and receive him not.  Those who claim to be God’s own people, members of the Catholic Church, how do we receive our blessed Lord?  So many Catholics today are completely ignorant of their faith, thanks to the wholesale apostasy of their clergy.  They know him not.  And thanks to the abolition of the true Mass and its replacement by an almost certainly invalid mockery based on the denial of the Real Presence, these same Catholics “receive him not.”  They are probably receiving simple bread when they hold their dirty hands out to grasp the host from the old lady whose turn it is this week to dish it out.  They receive him not.

And even here, where we have the true faith and the true Mass, where Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, do we receive him in such a way as St. John the Evangelist describes in the Last Gospel?  Is the presence of Christ within us merely a pleasant but short-lived experience confined to a few minutes on Sunday morning?  Or do we receive him in such a way that we are born again, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God?”  Do we in fact live solely to do God’s will and not our own?  Do we rise to become like those of whom St. John the Evangelist writes, “to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his Name.”

So rejoice today!  We’re surrounded by a multitude of natural reasons for rejoicing, but rejoice above all for the right reason.  If we’re members of Christ’s mystical Body, the Church, and if we’re in the state of grace, then there is no reason why we may not participate in the Gift of the Manger, the Child of Bethlehem, “house of bread”, and receive that Christ Child who brings us the grace of salvation and the power to become ourselves the sons of God.

COME, THOU REDEEMER OF THE EARTH

 A HYMN FOR GAUDETE SUNDAY

By St. Ambrose, translated by J.M. Neale

1 Come, thou Redeemer of the earth,

and manifest thy virgin-birth:

let every age adoring fall;

such birth befits the God of all.

 

2 Begotten of no human will,

but of the Spirit, thou art still

the Word of God, in flesh arrayed,

the Saviour, now to us displayed.

 

3 From God the Father he proceeds,

to God the Father back he speeds,

runs out his course to death and hell,
returns on God's high throne to dwell.

4 O equal to thy Father, thou!

Gird on thy fleshly mantle now,

the weakness of our mortal state

with deathless might invigorate.

 

5 Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,

and darkness glow with new-born light,

no more shall night extinguish day,

where love's bright beams their power display.

 

6 O Jesu, virgin-born, to thee

eternal praise and glory be,

whom with the Father we adore

and Holy Spirit, evermore. Amen.

REJOICE WITH MARY!

A REFLECTION FOR GAUDETE SUNDAY

Many people mistakenly confuse the Immaculate Conception with the belief that our Blessed Lady herself miraculously conceived a Child while remaining a virgin.  The doctrine of the Virgin Birth, however, is an entirely separate doctrine from that of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception.  The latter refers to the conception of Mary herself in the womb of her mother St. Anne.  What makes her conception different from any other is that she alone, of all mankind, was conceived without the stain of original sin on her soul.  While I’m sure we’re all familiar with this distinction ourselves, it bears repeating for the benefit of others who so very often  confuse the Immaculate Conception with the Virgin Birth.  Time and again we hear this error perpetrated, perhaps even deliberately, in movies and on TV, and it is something which could eventually permeate into our own thinking if we are not vigilant.

On this Sunday, we see the juxtaposition of the two doctrines.  As we continue our veneration of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception during the octave of this feast, we find ourselves today approaching ever closer to the very threshold of the Virgin Birth at Christmas.  Today is already the Third Sunday in Advent, Gaudete Sunday, when we yield to the joyful anticipation of Christ’s birth, now so very close.  Mangers are popping up everywhere, and I hope each home will soon display that peaceful yet momentous scene where Blessed Mary, ever-Virgin, delivers her Son, God’s Son, to the expectant world.

In spite of the penitential nature of Advent, the anticipation of the joy we will feel on that day is so great that it must needs spill over into the days leading up to Christmas.  We are reminded everywhere by the beautiful Christmas lights in our towns that the Light of the World is fast approaching, and that unto us, very soon now, shall be born a Son.  The Son of God and man, with two natures, divine and human, every bit the only-begotten Son of Mary as he is the only-begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God.  Our rejoicing can no longer be suppressed, and so today, Gaudete Sunday, we yield to our happiness for 24 hours, before returning, refreshed, to our penances and fasting on this week’s Ember Days.

If you want to celebrate a good Advent and enjoy the true Christmas spirit when the time comes, then enjoy your Gaudete Sunday today.  Do something special, particularly if you have small children.  Take a break from the sorrowful thoughts that sometimes affect us at this time of year, when we’re perhaps haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past and memories of a time long gone.  Instead, rejoice with the Virgin Mother, that the Light of the World shall soon dispel the darkness from our lives, and peace shall fill the souls of all men of good will.

REJOICE, YE GENTILES!

 A SERMON FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY IN ADVENT

During the thousands of years since the original sin of Adam, God had sent prophets to his chosen people.  They foretold the coming of a Messiah, a Saviour who would redeem Israel from all his iniquities.  And so the Jewish people waited.  They waited in expectation of the fulfillment of these prophecies.  They lived in hope until finally, in the reign of the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, there came upon the midnight clear the joyous declaration by the herald angels to a group of shepherds tending their flock by night, that unto them a child was born.  For those who had ears to hear, this must indeed have been a happy day.  The long expectation of a Saviour by a dark and desolate world was finally over, and in that little stable in Bethlehem, a tiny infant lay in his manger, and there was, at last, peace on earth to men of good will.

We know the terrible truth of what happened next.  The local ruler, a man by the name of Herod, fearful that this newborn baby was indeed the promised King of Kings who would usurp his throne and take away his power, did what all corrupt rulers do and tried to consolidate his reign through tyranny and murder.  His slaughter of all the infants two years old and younger is infamous among the annals of history for its cruelty and malice.  But this was just the beginning of the never-ending attacks on our blessed Lord, attacks that would culminate in his elimination by the most agonising and cruel death imaginable.  Most of the Jews, God’s chosen people, would end up rejecting their Messiah, in spite of all the signs and wonders fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament.

Their refusal to recognize their King has sadly endured to the present day.  God, in his eternal knowledge, had foreseen their perfidy.  Through certain manifestations, or epiphanies, he made it apparent and clear to the world that the gates of heaven were no longer reserved solely for these men, once his chosen people.  Henceforth, all of mankind would be welcomed to enter into the eternal kingdom.  Not just Jews but now Gentiles would be able to avail themselves of the life-giving graces that flowed from Christ’s side when he died on the Cross.

This is most certainly good news for us.  For just as he called the three wise men to follow the star to Bethlehem, so today he calls us to follow in their steps.  They were not Jews.  They came from the east, Gentiles from their own faraway lands.  But they had the same goal and endured every obstacle and hardship until the star led them to a humble stable, and they fell on their knees to worship their newborn King.  This is our goal and destiny also.  The Star of Bethlehem meant the beginning of a new salvation for the Gentiles.  And we Gentiles must rejoice today as the old man Simeon rejoiced when the Christ Child was presented in the temple.  “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel.”  A light to lighten the Gentiles.  We are those Gentiles, and we must follow that light.  The light of the star of Bethlehem.  Through field and fountain, moor and mountain, we must walk the path of the Three Kings, despite whatever stands in our way.  We must trudge along through this vale of tears, guided by the light of that star, which is Christ himself.

Like those first three Gentiles who worshipped the Son of God, we too have much to endure on our own road to Bethlehem.  Times are tough, fraught with many dangers.  But God has brought us this far, here, to a church that provides us with the true faith, the true Mass and sacraments.  Like the Jews of old, we have been somehow chosen, through no merits of our own.  But now we must choose.  Are we going to be like the Jewish shepherds who left their fields to come and worship the Messiah?  Or are we going to follow the example of the Jewish King Herod and reject the graces we have been given?  They were all of the same race, they were all Jews equally.  It is not enough, however, to be the “chosen people.”  God has chosen us.  But now we must choose him!

We choose Christ by obeying his commandments.  This much is clear.  But we must do more.  It is not enough to just kneel before him like the Three Wise Men.  They brought with them gifts.  And so must we.  And I’m not talking about the gold we put in the collection basket.  There is gold of higher value that we must offer to God, the gift of our heart.  Yes, that heart by which we feel all those superficial emotions and sentiments of self-indulgence, pleasure, vanity and thirst for material wealth.  Our heart must be turned in a completely different direction, away from these earthly desires.  Our heart must be offered to Christ, to him who is the Sacred Heart, who has shown us so much love, and asks for our love in return.  God’s will be done, not our own.  For us, our duty is ever to please that Sacred Heart by subjecting our own will to his, so that his will may truly be done, in earth as it is in heaven. 

“Rejoice, ye Gentiles” says St. Paul in today’s Epistle.  “Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.”  From the manger in the stable, God gave not just the Jews, but us Gentiles also, the gift of salvation.  As we approach ever nearer to that manger, let us prepare ourselves to give to the infant Son of God our own Christmas gift, that of choosing God above all things.

 A HYMN FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY IN ADVENT

6th Century Latin
Translation by Rev. Edward Caswall

1. Hark! A herald voice is calling:

‘Christ is nigh’ it seems to say;

‘cast away the dreams of darkness,

O ye children of the day!’

 

2. Startled at the solemn warning,

let the earth-bound soul arise;

Christ, her sun, all sloth dispelling,

shines upon the morning skies.

 

3. Lo! The Lamb, so long expected,

comes with pardon down from heaven;

let us haste, with tears of sorrow,

one and all to be forgiven.

 

4. So when next he comes with glory,

wrapping all the earth in fear,

may he then as our defender

on the clouds of heaven appear.

 

5. Honour, glory, virtue, merit,

to the Father and the Son,

with the co-eternal Spirit,

while unending ages run.  Amen.

MORE THAN A PROPHET

A REFLECTION FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY IN ADVENT

Ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed the only commandment God had given them and ate of the forbidden fruit, mankind had deserved to be doomed never again to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Yet God had promised our first parents that, although they and their descendants would thenceforth forever be punished in this world for their crime, there would nevertheless be an end to the worst consequence of their sin, the inability to merit heaven.  For there would one day be a woman whose heel would crush the head of the serpent who had tempted Eve.  She would be a new Eve, a new Mother of Mankind, and from her seed would come the Redemption that only a loving God would ever have deigned to give us.

Since his prediction in the Garden of Eden, he continued to reinforce the hope of mankind in the coming Messiah, sending prophet after prophet to foretell the details of his coming.  Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah, for example, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel,” while the prophet Micah even specified that the Messiah would come from the town of Bethlehem.  The Jewish scribes and pharisees were well versed in their Scriptures, and would have been very familiar with these prophecies.  They would have continually looked for the signs that the prophecies were being fulfilled.

Finally, in the latter days of the Old Testament, there came one last prophet, one who would not only foretell of the Messiah’s arrival, but who would actually prepare it.  “A prophet?” asks our blessed Lord, when describing John the Baptist, “yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet!”  And it is Jesus himself who interprets the ancient scriptures, pointing to John and cautioning the Jewish people that “this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”

But those scribes and pharisees, despite all their learning and knowledge of scripture, failed to grasp the significance of St. John the Baptist’s preaching and preparation for Christ.  They stedfastly resisted the obvious truths of what he said, even when our Lord fulfilled every aspect of the prophecies: “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”  This deliberate blindness is something we today must be aware of and do everything in our power not to emulate.  For today, other prophecies appear to be fulfilled, and the signs we heard about in the Gospels of the past two Sundays seem ever closer…