THE GREAT Os- ADVENT

 

The O ANTIPHONS (also known as the Great Advent Antiphons or Great Os) are Magnificat antiphons used at Vespers on the last seven days (17 to 23 December) of Advent in Western Christian traditions. They likely date to sixth-century Italy, when Boethius refers to the text in The Consolation of Philosophy. For us they are one of the key musical features of the days leading up to Christmas.

The texts are best known in the English-speaking world in their paraphrased form in the hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel".

 Their repeated use of the imperative "Come!" embodies the longing of all for the Divine Messiah. They are verses extracted from the Old Testament prophets, namely Isaiah.

 Each text, in the original Latin, begins with the vocative particle "O". Each antiphon is a title of Christ, one of his attributes mentioned in Scripture. They are:

 17 December: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)

18 December: O Adonai

19 December: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)

20 December: O Clavis David (O Key of David)

21 December: O Oriens (O Dawn of the East)

22 December: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)

23 December: O Emmanuel

 The first letters of the titles, from last to first, appear to form a Latin acrostic, Ero cras, meaning 'Tomorrow, I will be [there]', mirroring the theme of the antiphons. This is formed from the first letter of each title –Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia.

O SAPIENTIA

Latin: O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.   Ecclesiasticus 24:3 & Wisdom 8:1

English: O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.   Icon: Sophia the Wisdom of God, Novgorod 15th Century

BLACK MADONNAS

 

For Advent, I thought it would be interesting to see some of the BLACK MADONNAS from around the world.  We will also consider the GREAT Os  (Antophons sung at Vespers during the last days of Advent).

I think the first Black Madonna I can remember encountering was at the beautiful Abbey in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. The term Black Madonna refer to statues or paintings in Western Christendom of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, where both figures are depicted with dark skin, examples of which can be found both in Catholic and Orthodox countries.

The paintings are often icons, which are Byzantine in origin or style, some of which were produced in 13th or 14th-century Italy. Other examples from the Middle East, Caucasus or Africa, mainly Egypt and Ethiopia, are even older.

Statues are often made of wood and painted, though occasionally are made of stone. About 400–500 Black Madonnas have been recorded in Europe, with the number related to how they are classified. There are at least 180 Vierges Noires in Southern France alone. Years ago, while staying in the French countryside, I can't remember how many small village churches had a Black Madonna.

There are hundreds of copies made since the medieval era. While some are displayed in museums, most are in churches or shrines and are venerated by the faithfiul. Some are associated with miracles, attracting substantial numbers of pilgrims.

One of the oldest Black Madonnas is in the great Benedictine Abbey at EINSIEDELN in Switzerland. In 853, while living in seclusion near a small lake, St. Meinrad (d. 861) had a small chapel built near his cell in which he placed a statue of the Blessed Virgin with the Infant resting on her arm. This statue had been given to him by the Abbess Hildegard, Superior of a monastery in Zurich.

In 948, after a church had been built on the site of St. Meinrad's little cell and chapel,and  just before the ecclesial dedication ceremony for the building, Our Lord appeared and was seen to perform the Mass of Consecration. When Bishop Conrad of Constance arrived for the service, an unknown voice was heard to say: "Stop, brother, the church has been consecrated by God." 

Over the centuries, the church and monastery have been damaged by fire several times, but the statue has remained unharmed. The lineage of the present Black Madonna statue at Einsiedeln is not entirely clear. Today's holy figure is not St. Meinrad's original Virgin from the ninth century, but most likely is a statue carved in the fifteenth century and restored in the eighteenth.

This Madonna did not start out as black, but the faces of the Virgin and Child have been darkened by the smoke and fumes of the many votive candles.

Einsiedeln has evolved into a healing shrine, where for many centuries people have found relief from their mental and physical ailments.

The Black Madonna of Einsiedeln in the Chapel of Grace attracts around 800,000 pilgrims and tourists every year. The feast of Our Lady of Einsiedeln is July 16 and is greatly celebrated in Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

ADVENT SAINTS

 

Last Advent, we focused on SAINTS- the main topic of the Blog. Our future is even less uncertain than it was last year.  Wars have not ceased, our climate is even more unstable with hurricanes, fires, floods, etc., and our political leaders are crazier than ever!  We certainly cannot count on them for leadership, and pop stars, sports heroes are turning out to have clay feet, so they are not examples to look up to.  This is why, more than ever, we need our spiritual friends to show us the way. They have been through what we experience in our suffering, our pain and our joys.

St. Josemaría Escrivá is called the saint of the ordinary” for emphasizing what our lives as Christians today is about: making ordinary everyday life something extraordinary.

 “God doesn’t pull you out of your environment, He doesn’t remove you from the world, nor from your state in life, nor from your noble human ambitions, nor from your professional work... but, there, He wants you to be holy!” 

We are all inspired by people we admire who have admirable qualities, be it members of our own family, friends or even just people we read about. We admire their strength of character, their faithfulness to what they believe, and their courage to forge ahead in difficulties. So should it be for our saints, which the Church has placed before us as examples to learn from- their gifts as well as their frailties. 

Friendship with them gives us a sense of human comfort, self worth, connection with others and meaning in our lives. May we this Advent, as we prepare for the birth of our Savior, ask them to intercede for us, that we too may one day reach the "heavenly homeland".

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

FALLING IN LOVE WITH GOD

 

Fall in Love

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.

It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love,
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

— Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Those who read my Blog, know I have a special love for the Jesuits, having been educated by them. One man in particular has always caught my attention due to his being Jesuit, but also Basque.  One of my grammar school friends was 100% Basque. I was the only one of her friends who loved going to the annual Basque festival. Some of the shepherds could not even speak English, but that did not stop us from enjoying the festivities.  It would start with Mass, a picnic and then dance. From Rita and her parents, I learned to love the culture.

 Last week it was announced that the canonization process for PEDRO ARRUPE, S.J. was going ahead, so he is now Servant of God.

 He was born in Bilbao, Spain in 1907. After receiving his bachelor’s degree with the Piarists, he began his studies of medicine in Madrid for four years. At the same time, he visited the poor quarters of the city, getting to know firsthand situations of the need and misery.

 After a profound spiritual experience in Lourdes, France, he came to understand that the best way for him to respond to these realities was to abandon his earlier plans and to enter the Society of Jesus, which he did in 1927. These were difficult times for him, as the Order was expelled from Spain, necessitating his continuing formation in Belgium, Holland, and the United States at St. Louis University. He was ordained in 1936, and two year later sent to Japan, where he lived for 27 years as a missionary. 

When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, it was  December 8 in Japan. Father Arrupe was celebrating the Eucharist for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception when he was arrested and imprisoned for a time, being suspected of espionage. On Christmas Eve,  he heard people gathering outside his cell door and presumed that the time for him to be executed had arrived. 

However, to his utter surprise, he discovered that some fellow Catholics, ignoring all danger, had come to sing Christmas carols to him. Upon this realization, Father Arrupe recalled that he burst into tears. His attitude of profound prayer and his lack of offensive behaviour gained him the respect of his jailers and judges, and he was set free within a month.

Father Arrupe was appointed Jesuit superior and novice master in Japan in 1942, and was living in suburban Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell in August 1945. He was one of eight Jesuits who were within the blast zone of the bomb, and all eight survived the destruction, protected by a hillock which separated the novitiate from the center of Hiroshima. He later described that event as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory."

 He used his medical skills to help those who were wounded or dying. The Jesuit novitiate was converted into a makeshift hospital where between 150 and 200 people received care. He recalled, "The chapel, half destroyed, was overflowing with the wounded, who were lying on the floor very near to one another, suffering terribly, twisted with pain." In 1958, Father Arrupe was appointed the first Jesuit provincial for Japan, a position he held until being elected Father General in 1965.

 After World War II,  as Superior of the Jesuits in Japan, he traveled all over the world inviting Jesuits from about thirty countries to join this mission. He became well-known because of his sympathetic personality, and his direct concern for each person, and his humility and his dynamism.

 In 1965 the Jesuits elected him Superior General of the order. They saw in him a man of God who was able to understand and face the difficult situation that the Church and civil society were passing through. He was known to be a man profoundly united to Jesus Christ. Father Arrupe spent long hours in prayer every day. When he was asked where he found the time to do so, he usually replied that “it’s simply a matter of priorities.”

He was praised for his efforts to put the Second Vatican Council into practice as well as his profound obedience and fidelity to the Church and the popes.

He also highlighted his evangelizing mission and his “preferential option” for the poor and needy, resulting in the Jesuit Refugee Service that he founded in 1980.

He encouraged and proposed modes of moving forward to a Church that was seeking to live out the teachings of Vatican II. He was a pioneer who entered heretofore unexplored terrain, such as that of secularized and pluralist society and the plight of refugees. He led former students of Jesuits schools to follow these paths, and he invited intellectuals to study the causes of injustice and lack of faith. 

During those years, a good number of Jesuits experienced martyrdom, especially in Central and South America, as a consequence of attitudes promoted by Father Arrupe: serving without distinguishing race or class; living with those who were suffering, to the point of giving one’s life and defending their rights to the very end. As a good friend and guide, he accompanied others in their journey.

Seeing Father Arrupe as "the right man for our time", he was elected five times as the Superior of the Jesuits.

In 1981, during a trip from Asia, he suffered a stroke as a result of cerebral thrombosis. In the midst of his illness, which continued to worsen, he experienced an even greater surrender of himself to God, until his death in Rome on February 5, 1991, the anniversary of the 26 Martyrs of Japan. His final words had been: "For the present, Amen; for the future, Alleluia

"More than ever I find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life from my youth. But now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in God's hands.

1,000 DAYS OF WAR

 

Tuesday, the Holy Father Pope Francis wrote a letter to Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, marking the 1,000th day since the Russian invasion.

 “I am well aware that no human words can protect their lives from daily bombings, console those mourning their dead, heal the wounded, bring children back home, free prisoners, or restore justice and peace.

 May the Lord comfort our hearts and strengthen the hope that, while gathering every tear shed and holding all accountable, He remains close to us even when human efforts seem fruitless and actions inadequate.”

                                                      Ilya Yarovy- Ukraine

On Wednesday, the Holy Father, visibly moved, read a letter a Ukrainian student had sent to him. The student, whose name was not announced,  expressed the desire for the Pope and all pilgrims at the Wednesday audience to know of the faith, and not just the sufferings of the people of Ukraine.

 “I thank God because, through this pain, I am learning greater love. Pain is not only a road to anger and despair; if based on faith, it is a good teacher of love.

 When you speak of our pain, when you remember our thousand days of suffering, speak of our thousand days of love, too, because only love, faith, and hope give a real meaning to our wounds.”

BELOVED YOUTH- NEW SAINTS

Pope Francis announced today that Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, two of our favorite young Catholics beloved for their vibrant faith and witness to holiness, will be canonized during two major jubilee celebrations dedicated to young people 2025.

Blessed Carlos will be canonized during the Jubilee of Teenagers, from April 25 to 27, and Blessed Pier will be canonized during the Jubilee of Youth, taking place from July 28 to August 3. 

ANGEL OF MERCY

 

BL. MALGORZATA LUCJA  (Margaret Lucy) SZEWCZYK was born in 1828 in Szeptówka in Volyn, Ukraine  (now Poland) to a noble family. Orphaned at an early age, she was cared for by her half-sister.   In the difficult situation of partitions and persecution of the Church at the age of 20, she made her tertiary profession in the Third Order of St Francis.

In 1870-1873 she served sick pilgrims in Jerusalem. Afterwards, she went to Zakroczym. Having participated in a retreat led by Bl Honoratus Koźmiński, she rented a flat and began gathering poor and sick elderly women whom she took care of devotedly in her own apartment, as the Russian Tsar , who ruled Poland at the time, banned the Catholic Church from public activity. Gradually, other women joined her work. However, the capacity of the apartment was not enough and she was forced to relocate to a larger house.

With the aid of her confessor Bl Honoratus (Capuchin priest), she founded the Congregation, which with time came to be known as the Daughters of the Sorrowful Mother of God – Seraphic Sisters.

After 10 years, she moved to Galicia. She built a convent in Oświęcim  (Auschwitz) which became the General House of the congregation whose aim is to bring help to the deserted and sick, as well as to educate the children of orphanages and shelters. She died on 5 June 1905.

She was then beatified together with another religious and founder of the congregation, Zofia Czeska-Maciejowska, on June 9, 2013, in the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Krakow. Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over the ceremony on behalf of Pope Francis .

Her feast day is June 5.