ANGELS REJOICE WITH US

Lyuba Yatskiv

Saint John Chrysostom (his name means "golden-mouthed), one of the great  doctors of the Church, was at the same time a Pastor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, where he too preached eloquently at the sacred liturgies each Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

“Behold on Christmas a new and wondrous reality. The angels sing and the archangels blend their voices in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt Christ’s glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth and man in heaven. He Who is above now for our redemption dwells here below, and we who are lowly are by divine mercy raised up. Bethlehem this day resembles heaven, hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices. Ask not how. For where God wills, nature yields. For He willed. He had the power. He descended. He redeemed. All things move in obedience to God. This day He Who is born and He Who is becomes what He is not. He is God become man, yet not departing from His Godhead.”

(Lyuba Yatskiv whose icons I have used for this Christmas season was born in Lviv, Ukraine in 1977.  Her credo is a “search for spirituality in art forms”.   She says her work shows the inner world of man.  For me there is a startling beauty in her warm earth tones , especially in the faces of her subjects, who engage us as we gaze . When I look at her Virgin Marys I see life.  Lyuba has been criticized for not writing icons in the “traditional “ style, but for me there is a fluidity which  is so unlike the static icon, lacking in movement, action, or change.)

REVEALER OF THE FATHER

 

Lyuba Yatskiv

One of my favorite Doctors of the Church, St. Augustine,  wrote: “He is the One through whom all things have been made and, on Christmas, Who has been made in the midst of all things. He is the Revealer of His Father and the Creator of His mother, the Son of God through His Father without a mother and the Son of Man through His mother without a father. 

He is great in the eternal day of the angels but small in the time-conditioned day of men. He is the Word of God before all time and the Word made Flesh in the fullness of time. Maker of the sun, He is made under the sun. Disposer of all ages in the bosom of His Father, He consecrates Christmas Day in the womb of His mother. In Him He remains while from her He goes forth. Creator of the heavens and the earth, He is born on earth under the heavens. 

Unspeakably wise, He is wisely speechless. Filling the universe, He lies in a manger. Ruler of the stars, He nurses at His mother’s bosom. He is both great in the nature of God and small in the form of a servant, but His greatness is not diminished by His smallness nor His smallness overwhelmed by His greatness.”

12 DAYS of CHRISTMAS??

Lyuba Yatskiv

We sing the song 12 DAYS of CHRISTMAS all during Advent (well nuns don’t)  and when the Birth is upon us, we say,  “thank God it is all over”.  Do most people even have a clue what these days are? For true Christians it is only the beginning of the celebration. As the crazy, materialistic world packs up presents, throws out wreaths and  trees, and prepares for the next commercial holiday (New Year’s Day) and pretends  the day after Christmas is just like any other day, we are celebrating new Life in our hearts.

For the whole week after the birth of our Savior, the Church’s celebration continues, reminding us that Jesus Christ is alive still. He is here among us in His Body and Blood, and He will go from this place with us to whatever beginnings we face tomorrow and in the weeks and months to come.

"The mystery of Christmas, which is light and joy, questions and unsettles us, because it is at once both a mystery of hope and of sadness. It bears within itself the taste of sadness, inasmuch as love is not received, and life discarded. This happened to Joseph and Mary, who found the doors closed, and placed Jesus in a manger, "because there was no place for them in the inn"  Jesus was born rejected by some and regarded by many others with indifference. Today also the same indifference can exist, when Christmas becomes a feast where the protagonists are ourselves, rather than Jesus; when the lights of commerce cast the light of God into the shadows; when we are concerned for gifts but cold towards those who are marginalized. 

The shepherds grasped this in that night. They were among the marginalized of those times. But no one is marginalized in the sight of God and it was precisely they who were invited to the Nativity. Those who felt sure of themselves, self-sufficient, were at home with their possessions; the shepherds instead "went with haste" 

( Lk 2:16). Let us allow ourselves also to be challenged and convened tonight by Jesus. Let us go to him with trust, from that area in us we feel to be marginalized, from our own limitations. Let us touch the tenderness which saves. Let us draw close to God who draws close to us, let us pause to look upon the crib, and imagine the birth of Jesus: light, peace, utmost poverty and rejection. Let us enter into the real Nativity with the shepherds, taking to Jesus all that we are, our alienation, our unhealed wounds. Then, in Jesus we will enjoy the flavor of the true spirit of Christmas: the beauty of being loved by God. With Mary and Joseph we pause before the manger, before Jesus who is born as bread for my life. Contemplating his humble and infinite love, let us say to him: thank you, thank you because you have done all this for me."

                                                                                               (Pope Francis, Christmas Homily 2016)

CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS

Lyuba Yatskiv- Ukraine

 Today is born unto us the Hope of our world! Today our Savior is born, and we are born anew.  Today the Church is filled with new life.  Glory to God in the Highest.

"The birthday of the Lord is the birthday of peace: for thus says the Apostle, "He is our peace, who made both one; through Him we have access in one Spirit to the Father." And it was this in particular that He taught His disciples before the day of His passion which He had of His own free-will fore-ordained, saying, "My peace I give unto you, My peace I leave for you;" and lest under the general term the character of His peace should escape notice, He added. "not as the world give I unto you."  (Sermon for Christmas St. Leo the Great)

L. Yatskiv

MARY IN HASTE

Belles Heures- 15th C.

We have an unusual set-up this year in Advent as we celebrate the 4^th Sunday and then go right into Christmas, as Monday is the eve, and for us  as Benedictines we sing the first  Vespers of Christmas, the trees are  lit  and we ready ourselves for Matins of Christmas.

In the Gospel for the 4th Sunday,  St. Luke tells us that Mary undertook in haste the long and perilous journey from Nazareth to a village in the hill country of Judea. Did she go along?  How long did it take her.  The emphasis here is haste!

In his commentary on Luke's Gospel, St. Ambrose, one of the great doctors of the Church, describes this haste with an almost untranslatable Latin phrase, "nescit tarda molimina Spiritus Sancti gratia," which means, literally: "the grace of the Holy Spirit does not know delayed efforts."  Mary's free choice to move in hast to the Spirit within her is reflective of a decision taken deep within her heart.

"She goes eager in purpose, dutiful in conscience, hastening for joy."

I know in past Blogs I have given you the lovely poem by Thomas Merton, but I never get tired of it-  and he so vividly paints the scene as we imagine her cloths like sails as she flies by all she passes.

The Quickening of John the Baptist

On the Contemplative Vocation

Why do you fly from the drowned shores of Galilee,
From the sands and the lavender water?
Why do you leave the ordinary world, Virgin of Nazareth,
The yellow fishing boats, the farms,
The winesmelling yards and low cellars
Or the oilpress, and the women by the well?
Why do you fly those markets,
Those suburban gardens,
The trumpets of the jealous lilies,
Leaving them all, lovely among the lemon trees?

You have trusted no town
With the news behind your eyes.
You have drowned Gabriel's word in thoughts like seas
And turned toward the stone mountain
To the treeless places.
Virgin of God, why are your clothes like sails?

The day Our Lady, full of Christ,
Entered the dooryard of her relative
Did not her steps, light steps, lay on the paving leaves
like gold?
Did not her eyes as grey as doves
Alight like the peace of a new world upon that house, upon
miraculous Elizabeth?

Her salutation
Sings in the stone valley like a Charterhouse bell:
And the unborn saint John
Wakes in his mother's body,
Bounds with the echoes of discovery.

Sing in your cell, small anchorite!
How did you see her in the eyeless dark?
What secret syllable
Woke your young faith to the mad truth
That an unborn baby could be washed in the Spirit of God?
Oh burning joy!

(Basilica of the Visitation in Ein Karem,

in the hill country of Judea where

John the Baptist was born.)

What seas of life were planted by that voice!
With what new sense
Did your wise heart receive her Sacrament,
And know her cloistered Christ?

You need no eloquence, wild bairn,
Exulting in your hermitage.
Your ecstasy is your apostolate,
For whom to kick is contemplata tradere.
Your joy is the vocation of Mother Church's hidden children -
Those who by vow lie buried in the cloister or the hermitage;
The speechless Trappist, or the grey, granite Carthusian,
The quiet Carmelite, the barefoot Clare, Planted in the night of
contemplation, Sealed in the dark and waiting to be born.

Night is our diocese and silence is our ministry
Poverty our charity and helplessness our tongue-tied
sermon.
Beyond the scope of sight or sound we dwell upon the air
Seeking the world's gain in an unthinkable experience.
We are exiles in the far end of solitude, living as listeners
With hearts attending to the skies we cannot understand:
Waiting upon the first far drums of Christ the Conqueror,
Planted like sentinels upon the world's frontier.

But in the days, rare days, when our Theotokos
Flying the prosperous world
Appears upon our mountain with her clothes like sails,
Then, like the wise, wild baby,
The unborn John who could not see a thing
We wake and know the Virgin Presence
Receive her Christ into our night
With stabs of an intelligence as white as lightning.

Cooled in the flame of God's dark fire
Washed in His gladness like a vesture of new flame
We burn like eagles in His invincible awareness
And bound and bounce with happiness,
Leap in the womb, our cloud, our faith, our element,
Our contemplation, our anticipated heaven
Till Mother Church sings like an Evangelist.

EXPECTATION OF MARY

The Feast of the EXPECTATION  of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY was a  feast that was originally celebrated in Spain, but  later spread to other Catholic countries.countries. It is not on the universal calendar, but is still commemorated on December 18 in places such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland as well as in a few religious orders.

The feast owes its origin to the bishops of the tenth Council of Toledo, in 656. The accompanying of the expectant Mother of Jesus became a prominent theme that spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and Italy during the Middle Ages. A High Mass was sung at a very early hour each morning during the octave, and it became customary that all who were with child would attend, that they might honor Our Lady's Maternity, and seek a blessing upon themselves. "

The feast heightens the anticipation of Christmas and makes the last few days of Advent unique opportunities to meditate on what Mary must have been pondering in her heart."  

This feast sometimes goes under the name of Our Lady of O, or the feast of O, on account of the great antiphons which are sung during these days, and, in a special manner, of that which begins O Virgo virginum (which is still used in the Vespers of the Expectation, together with the O Adonaï, the antiphon of the Advent Office)..

The feast heightens the anticipation of Christmas and makes the last few days of Advent unique opportunities to meditate on what Mary must have been pondering in her heart.

Most just indeed it is, O holy Mother of God, that we should unite in that ardent desire thou hadst to see Him, who had been concealed for nine months in thy chaste womb ; to know the features of this Son of the heavenly Father, who is also thine; to come to that blissful hour of His birth, which will give glory to God in the highest, and, on earth, peace to men of good-will. Yes, dear Mother, the time is fast approaching, though not fast enough to satisfy thy desires and ours. Make us redouble our attention to the great mystery; complete our preparation by thy powerful prayers for us, that when the solemn hour has come, our Jesus may find no obstacle to His entrance into our hearts.

                        Abbott Prosper Louis Paschal Guéranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year,

                                      Vol. 1    Advent.Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1948,

                                               Translation by Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B.

THE GREAT ANTIPHON TO OUR LADY

O Virgin of virgins! how shall this be? for never was there one like thee, nor will there ever be. Ye daughters of Jerusalem, why look ye wondering at me? What ye behold, is a divine mystery.

The feast heightens the anticipation of Christmas and makes the last few days of Advent unique opportunities to meditate on what Mary must have been pondering in her heart. And it gives us the chance to ponder new life in our own hearts!

GAUDATE SUNDAY- THE GREAT Os

This third week of Advent is filled with choice morsels giving us much food for thought in the Liturgy as we await the coming of our Savior.

First of all this Sunday is called GAUDETE SUNDAY, because of the first word in Latin of the antiphon that begins, Gaudete (Rejoice).  The presence of the Lord is acknowledged to be here, right now, in our midst. Catholics should be a people full of joy today and everyday of our lives, as this Jesus who is to come, has given us the lasting gift of Himself in the Eucharist.

 The Epistle again incites us to rejoicing, and bids us prepare to meet the coming Savior with prayers and supplication and thanksgiving, whilst the Gospel, the words of St. John Baptist, warns us that the Lamb of God is even now in our midst, though we appear to know Him not. The spirit of the Office and Liturgy all through Advent is one of expectation and preparation for the Christmas feast as well as for the second coming of Christ, and the penitential exercises suitable to that spirit are thus on Gaudete Sunday suspended in order to symbolize that joy and gladness in the Promised Redemption which should never be absent from the heart of  all God's people..

In his 2014 Gaudete Sunday homily, Pope Francis said that instead of fretting about "all they still haven't" done to prepare for Christmas, people should "think of all the good things life has given you."

Then the next day begins what we monastics call the GREAT Os. Each O Antiphon gives to Jesus a title which comes from the prophecies of Isaiah, which anticipate the coming of the Messiah.

Each of the "O Antiphons" carries Old Testament biblical figures. At the same time each one carries an element of the New Covenant . These two characteristics are juxtaposed and a third dimension emerges which serves as a point of meditation when considering the Incarnate Word, the Son of God made flesh.

These antiphons are sung at the Magnificat, to show us that the Savior whom we expect is to come to us by Mary. 

On Monday, December 17,  we pray “O Sapiéntia”.  O Wisdom Who camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come and teach us the way of prudence.

Wisdom is something which we deeply desire. It is also a human attribute, not just a divine attribute, though authentic human wisdom is never separated from a relationship with God. We understand (if we are wise) that wisdom is more than mere knowledge. It is something more than love.  Rooted as it is in fear of the Lord, true human wisdom is both love and that knowledge of God that seeks to understand, the knowledge that is completed by faith. 

Jesus is coming, both at Christmas as the Christ Child and  at the end of the world as the Judge and King. This is a cause to rejoice.  But it is also cause to prepare prudently and well the way of the Lord and make straight His paths before He comes, as we heard  on  "Gaudete" ("Rejoice!)  Sunday.