December 2007 Print

^{FR. JAMES DORAN}

But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. —Lk. 21:28

The two great liturgical cycles of the year are Christmas and Easter. They each have three parts: preparation in violet, celebration in white, and the period of thanksgiving in green. With Advent we begin liturgically a new year and it is always a good occasion to look once again at our spiritual lives.

Have we advanced spiritually from this same time last year?

Following Advent comes the season of the Epiphany. Some would expect me to say Christmas, but in fact Epiphany is the older of the two holidays. Christmas begins the twelve days of festivities which culminate in the Epiphany. The Twelfth Day, Epiphany, is our goal liturgically. The Sundays following the Epiphany are the in green for the period of thanksgiving.

Epiphania is the Greek for Manifestation. The feast of the Epiphany is usually, and almost exclusively, referred to by the Magi; but it is a day which also commemorates the Baptism of Our Lord and the First Miracle at Cana. The Three Kings, the Baptism, and the Changing of Water into Wine each are manifestations of God Incarnate to the world; and because the Birth is also a manifestation, this begins the celebration of the holiday.

Advent is an unusual time. The color is purple but the antiphons are filled with alleluias. One would think that violet and the alleluias would contradict one another, so we are correct in asking why they are both present. This is a question we shall answer shortly.

Advent is also the Marian season par excellence. The Mother of God is the Temple from whom we look for Salvation. Reference is made to the Virgin Mary in the Communion antiphons on the First and Last Sundays of Advent.

The Advent Wreath, though of Protestant origin, sets out well, especially within the home, the liturgical spirit of the time. In some places there is placed in the center a larger blue candle representing the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each time the wreath is lit, both the candle(s) for the week(s) and the central candle are lighted. This is an excellent custom. It marks the devotion as one clearly Catholic and highlights the season as it actually is: Marian. On the night of Christmas, at midnight Mass, all the five candles are changed to white and lit for that Night announcing the Birth of the Child.

We must, however, be cautious, my friends. It is not for us to celebrate Christian Holydays in the manner of the world; rather it is for us to show the world how to be Christian.

And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; that you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world. (Phil. 2: 14-15)

Now the Christmas season is one of the most ruined of all holy days by worldliness. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, store owners (especially in the US) began to market more heavily for the sale of gifts. Department stores even began to sponsor large parades which finished with the arrival of Santa Claus/Father Christmas. This was done on Thanksgiving Day, the last Thursday of November. It was, to their minds, the perfect beginning for the shopping season. Santa Claus was of course there to remind the adults that it was time to buy and in the department store to receive the lists of demands from the children. The spirit is commercialism, not Christianity, but it has been sufficient to invade all. Now even this is insufficient, and we are reminded to begin our "Christmas" shopping at Halloween. Unfortunately, Catholics themselves also now "celebrate" Christmas these weeks of Advent. Advent has been lost, and there is no longer any preparation for the Epiphany as has been done throughout the centuries.

My dear faithful, who among us would ever celebrate Easter in the third week of the Lent? Then why should it be that the Macys and the Walmarts of the world have convinced us to do otherwise for Christmas? What we would not do to destroy Lent we should not do with Advent. The stores have not done to Lent what they have done to Christmas because the market share is not as great. This is an influence of commercialism and cheapens the liturgical observances.

Therefore, we are not to decorate, nor celebrate Christmas and the Epiphany in Advent. There will be the Twelve Days of Christmas for that. Christmas in Advent has the same sense as Easter in Lent.

Regarding the season of Advent, however, one can ask why it begins with the Gospel of the End of the World. The week before Advent presents a Gospel which clearly signifies that time will end: it is the end of the liturgical year/the end of the world. With the First Week of Advent, however, this is not so clear. With the beginning of a new liturgical year we would expect some other Gospel.

In his epistles St. Paul speaks of the return, the manifestation, and revelation of Christ that we await at the end of the world. This expectation of Christ is the reason for both the violet and the alleluias of these weeks. It is violet because He returns in Justice, and we are sinners, but it is filled with alleluias because it is the return of our great King. Thus, Advent is to prepare us ultimately for the Coming of Christ in Majesty at the end of the world.

We commemorate Christmas as the historical birth of the Christ (which can never be repeated), and with the Epiphany we celebrate His Manifestation to the mankind, which will be definitive with His Appearance in Majesty at the end of the world. So important is this theme of Our Lord's return that it is repeated three times today: in the Introit, the Gradual, and the Offertory:

For none of those who wait on Thee shall be confounded.

This appearance at the end of time St. Paul calls the Parousia: parousia. This Greek term means "presence" and is used 24 times in the New Testament. As a technical term it was used originally in antiquity to designate the visit of the governor or king to a province. This visit required a great deal of preparation. It was surrounded with majesty and often was even the occasion to stamp new coins and sometimes even to begin a new era for the region visited. In Egypt this term first took on a meaning of a divine visit as the pharaoh was considered a god. In the New Testament this term took on a specific sense when it was applied to the glorious return of Christ. In II Peter 3:12 it is identified with the Day of Yahweh.

St. Paul uses this term to give perfect image to Our Lord's Presence: Majesty, Triumph, and Gifts. As the king was always in charge, even if not visibly present to his subjects, so Christ is already present with us even now, but at a historical moment in the future He shall reveal that Presence: apokάluyiV:

revealed from heaven, with the angels of his power: in a flame of fire, giving vengeance to them who know not God, and who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. (II Thess. 1:7–8)

Because this Final Day is one of fire and judgment we prepare by penance and the color is violet.

Men withering way for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven shall be moved. (Lk. 21:26)

But the appearance of Our Lord is also a thing to be desired:

But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. (Lk. 21:28)

This Day was so important in the early Church that there was even a liturgical word for it like the other Aramaic words which we have still retained: Amen, Alleluia, Hosanna, etc.

This word was Maran atha: "Our Lord comes" or "Come, Lord."

This term, and its sense, is used in several places by St. Paul, and indeed it closes the Book of the Apocalypse:

Surely I come quickly: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (Apoc. 22:20)

So desirable is this Day of Our Lord's Return that the Church makes reference to it in each of the collects of the Sundays of Advent.

On the first and last Sundays she prays for it directly.

Summon Thy power, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come...

The image in the Fourth Sunday's collect is developed even further: our sins impede this Return.

Our salvation is closer than it was the day of our conversion, i.e., it is closer as each day passes. Now is the day to begin our spiritual life in earnest. The Christian life is a persevering series of beginnings.

Our Lord taught that the purpose of His coming was to give Life:

I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. (Jn. 10:10)

Our Lord is Life and Life He shall give. Life will be given to all the creation whether it wills it or not. When Christ appears at the last Day it will be to give this Life definitively. It will penetrate all creation, animate and inanimate. In His First Appearance Christ was born in humble poverty. He has offered Life, and still offers It in mercy and patience. This continues to this day and we have each been offered mercifully this Life of grace. The Parousia, however, will by the definitive conferral, when Christ shall radiate life to all creation in an instant.

Unfortunately, all creation has been afflicted by the sin of Adam, and the disorder of original sin has penetrated the entire cosmos. St. Paul speaks of this in his letter to the Romans:

Creation also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God....All creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now. (Rm. 8:21-22)

As all creation has been infected with corruption, and men themselves have chosen sin personally, creation is fundamentally wounded in its disposition to receive this Life. It is for this reason that when Our Lord Jesus Christ appears, and Life will radiate out from Him, when it will penetrate every part and particle of creation, it will be to a world which is not disposed to it. When the Son of Man shines forth in majesty the entire cosmos will go into convulsions in contact with this life. We do not know what this will be, but it has been described as fire, earthquakes, and even simply, as in today's Gospel:

the powers of the heaven shall be moved. (Lk. 21:26).

St. Peter writes of this in a dramatic manner in his second epistle:

But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the Day of Judgment and perdition of the ungodly men. (II Pet. 3:7)

All shall hear the voice of the Son of Man when He comes in Majesty. In the midst of all these traumas men will wither with fear. All shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and this includes the dead. These shall also receive life–willingly or unwillingly. Thus this Voice signals the resurrection of the dead.

Those who have died in Christ shall rise to be conformed to Him in glory and triumph. This is the resurrection of the just. The unwilling, however, those who chose death and sin during their lives, these too shall also receive Life, but their twisted souls lack the necessary disposition and they will receive it unwillingly. From this contradiction of will and life, these shall rise in mutilated form because of the sinful choices they had made in life. Their existence will be a contradiction and a horror. They will be stunted in their existence. They will be little more than animated corpses. This is the resurrection of the damned.

We know these times quickly approach:

Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles; till the times of the nations be fulfilled. (Lk. 21:24)

When Our Lord appears time will come to an end, but He is actually and continually among us. The Church is His Body and we are His members. He is present to us, watching us, and, more importantly, aiding us to enter fully into His Life. The ancient iconic form of portraying Christ in Majesty shows Our Lord with an almond shaped aureole surrounding His form. This signifies an opening in the heavens: Christ is now actually present; the Last Day will only make this manifest.

Advent is thus an annual reminder that Christ asks us now to prepare willingly for His return. We do this by looking to the Epiphany here and now and His Parousia to come. This is made a necessity in the Epistle of the First Sunday:

Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. (Rm. 13:11)

Time is running out. We have fewer days to live than we did last week.

Fasting on Wednesday and Friday was once the norm during Advent, even in the Western Church until the 20th century. It remains a traditional practice that we should consider doing ourselves. These days of Advent are precious. St. Peter wishes us to put all our sufferings and penances in proper context:

If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when his glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. (I Pet. 4:13)

Our penance in Advent is in expectation of His Appearance; for this reason Advent is filled with alleluias. Thus this penance is not the same as the reparation we make during Lent. Lenten penance is motivated by the past, by Christ's Passion and His Sufferings. In Advent we look forward to His Coming. The Gospel of the First Sunday continues with the warning of Our Lord:

And take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and that Day come upon you suddenly as a snare. (Lk. 21:34)

 

MARANA THA–COME, LORD JESUS!

CHRISTMAS

Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that the Lord hath shewed to us. (Lk. 2:15)

Miracles draw us to God. Making us wonder, they point us in the direction of things divine. As with the shepherds today, we are moved to seek the reason behind the things we have seen.

Miracles are things or events which exceed natural causes. Miracula comes from mirare: to wonder or marvel. They are sensible: we can see them, or hear them, or touch them. Visible as they may be, they indicate a cause which is unseen. Exceeding natural causes they point to God as cause. The cause, however, remains always invisible; and for this reason miracles cannot and do not give faith. They can only bring us to the threshold of believability. They do not prove but make faith credible. Though aided by miracles, the Faith is always a grace in itself.

And they came with haste; and they found Mary and Joseph, and the Infant lying in the manger. (Lk 2:16)

Thus it is that the shepherds go to see the things which have been told them by the angels. Note well that it is angels who speak to them in the fields, but they go to see "what the Lord" (Lk. 2:15) had shown to them. They see the angels but they hear the Lord. We are not told that they believe; they go to verify these things.

And seeing, they understood the word that had been spoken to them concerning this Child. (Lk. 2:17)

When they see the Child in the feeding-trough they believe. What they see in the fields is a marvel, but what is given to them for the sign to believe is not the presence of the celestial choir, but of a baby they will find in a stable. The mere presence of a baby in a manger is sufficient for them to believe. It is a simple, but unusual event. The Child is both the sign and the source of belief.

The goodness and kindness of God our Savior appeared...according to his mercy, he saved us...(Tit. 3:4-5)

The faith of the shepherds is so lively that they begin to speak to all: to the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, and to all whom they meet along the way. All marvel in turn at the things these simple men speak of. The Blessed Virgin, though, meditates and reflects on their story:

But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart. (Lk. 2:19)

We can note here that the angels do not appear to Mary and Joseph; they appear only to the men in the field. The story of the celestial choir must be told to Mary and Joseph in the stable. Miracles are given rather for the benefit of the simple or the incredulous. The strong, and those whom God wishes to make strong, are not usually the recipients of miraculous events. Here we have an example of this fact.

That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man coming into this world. (Jn. 1:9)

The Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph are given no miraculous signs surrounding the Birth of the Holy One of God. Only an angel appeared earlier to each, in the Annunciation, and in a dream to Joseph. Both these apparitions were to direct the holy couple on their path to God. They were not spectacular miracles as those given to the shepherds. No celestial choirs sang at Nazareth. Only the silence of simple directives was given them.

Hence, in Bethlehem, the shepherds recount their story to the Holy Family. Our Lady guards the words in her heart and ponders the mysteries of God. She is an example to us of the manner in which we are to receive the articles of faith, which now come to us from the revelation of the Word Incarnate.

In these days hath God spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world. (Heb. 1:2)

Doctrine is to be treasured by us. We must come to know ever more fully the contents of the Faith, to penetrate more soundly their meaning, and to cherish our knowledge of them. Doctrine is to be seen as a shining forth of the Divine Word Whose Birth we celebrate today. We cherish the Child; we must treasure His teaching.

As we come to know more deeply the things of God the more easily our love for Him shall increase, and the more faithfully we shall conform our behavior to His. Morality is often difficult because we are ignorant.

Let us then follow both the simple belief of the shepherds, and the depth of meditation of the Mother of God. In this we shall find the Divine Word, and set our steps to seek Him.

And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the brightness of God shone round about them; and they feared with a great fear. (Lk. 2:9)

Our lives are often dissipated and scattered over too many concerns, and we lack the unity of life which we were meant to have. Even the daily, necessary concerns disturb us because we are not anchored in our lives. We must first find a unity of life and establish it before we can ever deal with even the necessities of life. Though once established, even the daily concerns of life will not disturb this unity.

We are like the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. We are occupied by our tasks but are not especially concerned about "higher things." Our lives do not usually transcend mundane worries. Then, suddenly, the night sky is lit by a marvelous light and the shepherds hear voices: "Come higher, men, your lives are worth more than this which is before you." "We announce to you great joy. There is among you One Who, divine Himself, will lift you above the mundane and transform your lives into something worthwhile. This is for all men of good will, that is, for those who desire to find this union with the Divine."

And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people. (Lk. 2:10)

A supernatural good consists in a good which in itself is due exclusively to a higher nature; we can never attain it on our own. This supernatural good is shared with a lower nature only because the latter is raised, in a sense, above its own dignity and power to the level of a nature superior to it. Thus the meaning of the angels is clear; they offer to us the possibility of being raised above ourselves: to become the children of God.

Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. (Lk. 2:14)

Our lives can only be in peace and serenity when they find their purpose. We do not exist simply to have a home or automobile. We do not exist to have affluence and control among our peers. No, we exist to pursue the goals proper to the children of God, which can only be found once our lives are unified in Christ.

Only a cause which is above all other causes is truly supernatural, it overcomes all limited causes, and thus, only God can ultimately be the source of our lives being healed and made whole. Since the Fall, only One Who is simultaneously God and Man can elevate our relation to the Creator, and indeed, elevate all our relations. God alone is capable of making us transcend the turmoil of this world.

We must imitate the simplicity of the shepherds and of Joseph and Mary. The shepherds on hearing these things set off immediately to verify and see the things announced to them in the night. In darkness they were directed to the source of Truth and in response they set off to find a Child.

Our lives are often transformed "in the night." It is when things are darkest that God can finally speak to us. It is not that He is incapable of communicating beforehand, it is simply that, surrounded by the concerns and preoccupations of our lives, we do not listen. Hence, the "night" and darkness of difficulties and doubts is often the only time during which we are prepared to hear.

Mary and Joseph must also be imitated. Note well, they did not see the marvels of the night shown to the shepherds. They have been sheltered in the cave, near the animals, and have not witnessed the glory of the angels shown to the men in the field. Mary and Joseph live by pure faith. They sought their Savior and found Him immediately in a humble Child.

 

Faith is our light; whether we see by it or not is our choice. The illumination of our minds is always possible; the question is whether we are ready to accept it or not.

The man born to the Blessed Virgin, historically, on this night over two thousand years ago, is personally God, the Divine Word. In the Creed we say that "the Word was made man." It corresponds to the scriptural quotation, "the Word was made flesh." Both of these expressions signify the same thing.

There is no change in God; this is impossible. Rather, the Child conceived in the womb of Mary of Nazareth was, from the first instant of His existence, divinized. This God-Man, born to us this day, is source of both our hope and the realization of our potential.

Christ is a man among men, but He is also God among men. He shares with us our human nature and our sufferings, but more importantly, He sets before us the possibility for us to find union with God. A Man among men, we can find our similarity to Him; as the Word Incarnate He seeks to raise us above our limitedness.

To find this path we need to enter in the joy and the message of Christmas. Let us simplify our lives and seek the inner unity which can only be found in the Mystery of the Incarnation:

For the grace of God our Savior hath appeared to all men; instructing us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world. (Titus 2: 11)

 

Fr. James Doran was ordained for the Society of Saint Pius X in 1988 and is currently the prior of St. Francis de Sales Priory in Geneva, Switzerland. He is the former vice-rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary (Winona, Minnesota) and editor emeritus of Angelus Press. This article was collected from several sermons and edited by Mr. James Vogel.