NEW YEAR SAINTS

 

The Second Vatican Council teaches about the saints:

Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness... They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus... So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped.

It a monastic custom to each draw a saint to be our patron/guide throughout the new year. This year we have chosen to concentrate on modern saints who somehow related to the areas of the Ukraine and the Holy Land, that they may be intercessors for an end to the on-going violence that has captured our world.

A BLESSED CHRIST-FILLED YEAR TO ALL.

Above Icons: Kelly Latimore

SHY HEARTS

 

 Tonight when the hoar frost falls on the wood,

And the rabbit cowers, and the squirrel is cold,

And the horned owl huddles against a star,
And the drifts are deep, and the year is old,
All shy creatures will think of Him.
The shivering mouse, the hare, the wild young fox,
The doe with the startled fawn,
Will dream of gentleness and a Child:

The buck with budding horns will turn
His starry eyes to a silver hill tonight,
The chipmunk will awake and stir
And leave his burrow for the chill, dark midnight,
And all timid things will pause and sigh, and sighing, bless
That Child who loves the trembling hearts,
The shy hearts of the wilderness.

 

"Christmas in the Wood" (Frances Frost)

A CAROL

 

Flocks feed by darkness with a noise of whispers,
In the dry grass of pastures,
And lull the solemn night with their weak bells.

The little towns upon the rocky hills
Look down as meek as children:
Because they have seen come this holy time.

God’s glory, now, is kindled gentler than low candlelight
Under the rafters of a barn:
Eternal Peace is sleeping in the hay,
And Wisdom’s born in secret in a straw-roofed stable.

And O! Make holy music in the stars, you happy angels.
You shepherds, gather on the hill.
Look up, you timid flocks, where the three kings
Are coming through the wintry trees;

While we unnumbered children of the wicked centuries
Come after with our penances and prayers,
And lay them down in the sweet-smelling hay
Beside the wise men’s golden jars.

 (“Carol” by Thomas Merton)

(Painting:  "Seeing Shepherds" by Daniel Bonnell)

CHRISTMAS PRAYER

 

 

 

A Christmas Prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson 

O God, our loving Father, help us
Rightly to remember the birth of Jesus,
That we may share in the song of the
Angels, the gladness of the shepherds
And the worship of the wise men.

Close the door of hate and open the
Door of love all over the world.

Deliver us from evil by the blessing
That Christ brings, and teach us
To be merry with clear hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy
To be thy children and the Christmas
Evening bring us to our beds with
Grateful thoughts, forgiving, and
Forgiven, for Jesus’s sake.

Amen.

(Painting:  Solomon Raj- India)

ON HIS MOTHER'S HEART

 

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast, His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning are the kings, But here the true hearts are.) The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart, His hair was like a fire. (O weary, weary is the world, But here the world’s desire.) The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee, His hair was like a crown, And all the flowers looked up at Him, And all the stars looked down. G.K. Chesterton

Painting: Giovanni Battista Sassoferrato- 17th C. Italian

ADVENT SURRENDER

 

As we draw near Christmas, this sense of our own need and of the whole world’s need of God’s coming – never greater perhaps than it is now – becomes more intense.  In the great Advent Antiphons which are said in the week before Christmas we seem to hear the voice of the whole suffering creation saying, Come! give us wisdom, give us light, deliver us, liberate us, lead us, teach us how to live.  Save us.  And we, joining in that prayer, unite our need with the one need of the whole world.  We have to remember that the answer to the prayer was not a new and wonderful world order but Bethlehem and the Cross; a life of complete surrender to God’s will; and we must expect this answer to be worked out in our own lives in terms of humility and sacrifice.

      Evelyn Underhill- The Fruits of the Spirit

Painting: Maija Purgaile- Latvia

ADVENT NIGHT

 

 

Charm with your stainlessness these winter nights,
Skies, and be perfect!
Fly vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors,
And disappear.
You moon, be low to go down,
This is your full!

The four white roads make off in silence
Towards the four parts of the starry universe.
Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth.
We have become more humble than the rocks,
More wakeful than the patient hills.

Charm with your stainlessness these nights in Advent, holy spheres,
While minds, as meek as beasts,
Stay close at home in the sweet hay;
And intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.

Oh pour your darkness and your brightness over all our solemn valleys,
You skies: and travel like the gentle Virgin,
Toward the planets’ stately setting,
Oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!       (“Advent” by Thomas Merton)

(Painting by Melissa Bittinger)

NOT WHAT WE EXPECT

 

A tremendous spiritual event then took place; something which disclosed the very nature of God and His relation to His universe.  But there was little to show for it on the surface of life.  All men saw was a poor girl unconditionally submitted to God’s will, and a Baby born in difficult circumstances.  And this contrast between the outward appearance and the inner reality is true of all the coming of God to us.  We must be very loving and very alert if we want to recognize them in their Earthly disguise.  Again and again He comes and the revelation is not a bit what we expect.

So the next lesson Advent should teach us is that our attitude towards Him should always be one of humble eager expectancy.  Our spiritual life depends on His perpetual coming to us, far more than on our going to Him.  Every time a channel is made for Him He comes; every time our hearts are open to Him he enters, bringing a fresh gift of His very life, and on that life we depend.  We should think of the whole power and splendor of God as always pressing in upon our small souls.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  (Evelyn Underhill)

Painting: Mikhail Nesterov

FAITHFULNESS AND COURAGE- TO BE A SAINT

 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says of the intercession of the saints: “Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace, and the life of the People of God itself” (957).

Part of being a SAINT is accepting responsibility for our life, our choices, our attitude, our behavior, which we all know is not easy in this fast-paced, materialistic world.  We are all called  to live as saints,  focusing on Jesus and the cross.  We remember the saints who went before us, especially the more recent ones, whose gifts and faults- like our own- we more readily see due to modern technology. We can be inspired by their faithfulness and courage and learn from their frailties. 

Honoring saints shows us that God inhabits mortal flesh, and dwells among us.  Through saints – present and past – we can make special friends with those whose experience and conditions speak to our own situation and conditions.  We can value their friendship for what they say to us, how they live and what they do.  Saints bring a local accent to the people.  They speak our language, understand our fears, speak and provide models for action and translation within our circumstances.  

Saints show and remind us that Christianity is not a set of doctrines, but a living faith.  It is a true and living way followed and explored by people.  Saints are personal connectors to the divine and to the life beyond that which we see and know.  Saints make faith seem alive and interesting.  They give us a sense of human comfort, self worth, connection with others and personal meaning.  Saints help us to listen to and affirm and celebrate values, bonds, ideas, and hopes that are important to us. Saints show us the way to the Lord, especially in this Advent season, which culminates in a great Birth.

Art:  John Nava, Ojai, California - Los Angeles Cathedral Tapestries

MOTHER OF THE AMERICAS

 PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE 

 O Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Fair Love, protect our families so that they may always be united and bless the upbringing of our children. 

Our hope, look upon us with pity, teach is to go continually to Jesus, and if we fall help us to rise again and return to Him through the confession of our faults and our sins in the Sacrament of penance, which gives peace to the soul. 

We beg you to grant us a great love of all the holy Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on earth. Thus, Most Holy Mother, with the peace of God in our consciences, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all others true joy and peace, which come to us from your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. - (St. Pope John Paul II.)

Image: Arturo Olivas (RIP)

DON'T CALL ME A SAINT!

 

 

Dorothy Day was famous for saying: Don’t call me a saint.  I don’t want to be dismissed that easily”. She did not feel she was any better than any other Christian seeking Christ, and that holiness was attainable by everyone. Being called to be saints isn’t just for a few super-Christians. We are all called to be saints in our own circumstances. Even in scriptures we see the shortcomings and the infidelities of Jesus’ own ancestors and then His chosen friends. This honesty is meant to give us courage and hope in our own day. 

Through saints we can make special friends with those whose experience and conditions speak to our own situation and conditions.  We can value their friendship for what they say to us, how they live and what they do.  Saints bring a local accent to the people.  They speak our language, understand our fears, speak and provide
models for action and translation within our circumstances.  

Saints show and remind us that Christianity is not a set of doctrines, but a living faith.  It is a true and living way followed and explored by people.  Saints are personal connectors to the divine and to the life beyond that which we see and know.  Saints make faith seem alive and interesting.  Friendship with them and they with us gives us a sense of human comfort, self worth, connection with others and personal meaning.  Saints help us to listen to and affirm and celebrate values, bonds, ideas, and hopes that are important to us. 

Art: John Nava, Cathedral Los Angeles

ADVENT SAINTS

 

Holy women and men do not have easier lives than other people. Indeed, they too have their own problems to address, and, what is more, they are often the objects of opposition. But their strength is prayer, which they always draw from the inexhaustible ‘well’ of Mother Church. Through prayer they nourish the flame of their faith, as oil would do for lamps. And thus, they move ahead walking in faith and hope. The saints, who often count for little in the eyes of the world, are in reality the ones who sustain it, not with the weapons of money and power, of the communications media, and so forth, but with the weapon of prayer.  Sebastian White, O.P. Editor-in-Chief -  Magnificat.

    

                                The Storm (2020), by John August Swanson

This Advent as we prepare for the coming of our Savior, I go back to the main topic of this Blog and that is the SAINTS.  Why this emphasis?  Because we have so many in our midst, unknown and because we too are called to be saints.  Why else are we on this earth?

Because of our uncertain future, due to wars, climate changes, etc. there never was a time when we were so called to be witnesses and a time when holy people seem less likely to appear. Only the Lord knows what is being prepared for us. But we must be prepared. Not only must we look to those who can lead us closer to the Lord, but we must ourselves be leaders of a holy life.

St. Paul was adamant of our call to be followers  of Jesus, which means we are called to sanctity. "To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.   (1Corinthians 1:30)  He asks these people of the early Church, to be united, to learn to live in the mutual love of one another. They  have been given grace and the love of God, freely bestowed and expressed in Christ.  For them he emphasized a shared identity – the communion and community of saints, differentiated in gifts but equal in shared honor. 

Advent is the perfect time to take more time for prayer and reflection, to slow down and ponder who we are, where we are going and why.

Breathe on me, Holy Spirit,
that I may think what is holy.
Move me, Holy Spirit,
that I may do what is holy.
Attract me, Holy Spirit,
that I may love what is holy.
Strengthen me, Holy Spirit,
that I may guard what is holy.
Guard me, Holy Spirit,
that I may keep what is holy.

                                                                                St. Augustine

SHOCKED IN ADVENT

One of our favorite Advent books is  Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings   by Father Alfred Delp, SJ  the heroic German Jesuit priest who was imprisoned and martyred by the Nazis in 1945.  (See Blog  June 3, 2016)  While in prison, Father Delp was able to write a few meditations found in this book, which also includes his powerful reflections from prison during the Advent season about the profound spiritual meaning and lessons of Advent, as well as his sermons he gave on the season of Advent at his parish in Munich. 

He felt that our suffering offers us entry into the true Advent, our personal journey toward union with God. His own life, and great sufferings, illustrated the true Advent he preached and wrote about.

These meditations were smuggled out of Berlin and read by friends and parishioners of St. Georg in Munich.  Here is an exerpt so apt for our own age in our struggle to become saints:

There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more than to be genuinely shaken up. Where life is firm we need to sense its firmness; and where it is unstable and uncertain and has no basis, we need to know this, too, and endure it.

We may ask why God sends whirlwinds over the earth, why the chaos where all appears hopeless and dark, and why there seems to be no end to human suffering. Perhaps it is because we have been living on earth in an utterly false and counterfeit security. and now God strikes the earth till it resounds, now he shakes and shatters: not to pound us with fear, but to teach us one thing – the spirit’s innermost longing.

Many of the things that are happening today would never have happened if we had been living in that longing, that disquiet of heart which comes when we are faced with God, and when we look clearly at things as they really are. If we had done this, God would have withheld his hand from many of the things that now shake and crush our lives. We would have come to terms with and judged the limits of our own competence.

But we have lived in a false confidence, in a delusional security; in our spiritual insanity we really believe we can bring the stars down from heaven and kindle flames of eternity in the world. We believe that with our own forces we can avert the dangers and banish night, switch off and halt the internal quaking of the universe. We believe we can harness everything and fit it into an ultimate scheme that will last.

Here is the message of Advent: faced with him who is the Last, the world will begin to shake. Only when we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see this Last One and get to the bottom of things. Only then will we have the strength to overcome the terrors into which God has let the world sink. God uses these terrors to awaken us from sleep, as Paul says, and to show us that it is time to repent, time to change things. It is time to say, “all right, it was night; but let that be over now and let us get ready for the day.” We must do this with a decision that comes out of the very horrors we experience. Because of this our decision will be unshakable even in uncertainty.

If we want Advent to transform us – our homes and hearts, and even nations – then the great question for us is whether we will come out of the convulsions of our time with this determination: Yes, arise! It is time to awaken from sleep. a waking up must begin somewhere. It is time to put things back where God intended them. It is time for each of us to go to work – certain that the Lord will come – to set our life in God’s order wherever we can. Where God’s word is heard, he will not cheat us of the truth; where our life rebels he will reprimand it.

We need people who are moved by the horrific calamities and emerge from them with the knowledge that those who look to the Lord will be preserved by him, even if they are hounded from the earth.

The Advent message comes out of our encounter with God, with the gospel. It is thus the message that shakes – so that in the end the entire world shall be shaken. The fact that the son of man shall come again is more than a historic prophecy; it is also a decree that God’s coming and the shaking up of humanity are somehow connected. If we are inwardly inert, incapable of being genuinely moved, if we become obstinate and hard and superficial and cheap, then God himself will intervene in world events. He will teach us what it means to be placed in turmoil and to be inwardly stirred. Then the great question to us is whether we are still capable of being truly shocked – or whether we will continue to see thousands of things that we know should not be and must not be and yet remain hardened to them. In how many ways have we become indifferent and used to things that ought not to be?

Being shocked, however, out of our pathetic complacency is only part of Advent. There is much more that belongs to it. Advent is blessed with God’s promises, which constitute the hidden happiness of this time. These promises kindle the light in our hearts. Being shattered, being awakened – these are necessary for Advent. In the bitterness of awakening, in the helplessness of “coming to,” in the wretchedness of realizing our limitations, the golden threads that pass between heaven and earth reach us. These threads give the world a taste of the abundance it can have.

We must not shy away from Advent thoughts of this kind. We must let our inner eye see and our hearts range far. Then we will encounter both the seriousness of Advent and its blessings in a different way. We will, if we would but listen, hear the message calling out to us to cheer us, to console us, and to uplift us.