As the Holy Feast of Christmas approaches, I wanted to
offer you a few thoughts to assist in your Advent
preparations for this great holy-day. This sort of
more "pastoral" or "homiletic" approach is somewhat
different from my usual apologetic/polemic approach,
so I trust you'll bear with me.
As I sifted through the various texts of Sacred
Scripture that I might use as my springboard text, it
slowly became clear to me that I could have the best
of all worlds if I just used the Rosary itself as my
guide. So we will look at several texts, in light of
the Joyful Mysteries, and try to approach these things
from a more meditative and contemplative perspective.
We begin with young maiden, a virgin from "a city of
Galilee named Nazareth," who has just been confronted
with an angelic apparition. The "shock and awe" of
this meeting is hardly one-sided. Certainly, Our Lady
"was troubled at his saying and thought with herself
what manner of salutation this should be," but it was
the angel who first exclaimed, in wondrous amazement,
"Hail, Full of Grace!"
It is the angel who now contemplates the absolute
purity of this holy virgin, who has (it now becomes
clear to him) been prepared by God from the foundation
of the world to serve as the tabernacle of God's
presence: "et Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in
nobis." The word "habitavit," which we translate as
"dwelt," or "inhabited," comes from a Greek word
meaning "to fix one's tabernacle, have one's
tabernacle, abide (or live) in a tabernacle (or
tent)." We must let the Old Testament imagery fully
illumine our understanding here, for it was precisely
in a tabernacle, in a wilderness, that God first chose
to dwell among His people Israel.
Now it is Our Lady who is His tabernacle, and the
angel makes this perfectly clear when he says, "The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the
Most High shall overshadow thee." We cannot help but
see the Old Tabernacle, being filled and overshadowed
with the glory cloud of God's presence, now fulfilled
in this holy virgin who has been preserved, from the
very moment of her conception, so that she might be a
fit dwelling for Him Who is All-Holy.
In Mary we see Eve, and we see the two virgins moving
parallel to each other: they both approach the angel,
Eve to Lucifer (the angel of Light), Mary to Gabriel;
the angels speak, Lucifer inviting Eve to a world of
autonomy and independence from God's dominion ("you
shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil"), Gabriel
inviting Mary to humility and voluntary submission to
God's rule ("Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it
done to me according to thy word").
So it is with us. Every moment of every day is (in
the words of one writer) "claimed by God, and
counter-claimed by Satan." Every beat of your heart
is a confrontation with one of two angels, and the
decision must constantly be made: will you reach out
in independence to take the forbidden fruit, and thus
conceive death in your soul, or will you speak the
humble fiat of Our Lady, and conceive life?
We carry on from this scene to the Visitation, where
Our Lady traces out the path we all must follow, if we
are to be her children. Much is said today in our
modern parishes about social justice and reaching out
in love to others, so much that sin, judgment, grace,
mortification, virtue, etc., are excluded. I will beg
your patience, then, while I speak a little bit about
true love of neighbor, knowing that I will have to use
terms and phrases that have, unfortunately, become
loaded with modernist sentiments.
Our Lady hastens at once to the house of St.
Elizabeth, who is also carrying a child in her womb, a
child who is there because of God's intervention. At
the greeting of Our Lady, we learn that the Holy Ghost
filled St. Elizabeth, and our Holy Faith points to
this as the moment when St. John was sanctified ("as
soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my
ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy"). What is
this, but a picture of Our Lady, in the simple act of
rendering her corporal works of mercy to St.
Elizabeth, mediating Divine Grace to the Forerunner?
Note the Charity of Our Lady. She is now carrying Our
Lord in her womb, but her first thought is of her
already six-months-pregnant cousin, an elderly woman,
no doubt in need of much assistance. We too, in
reaching out to help those in need, must also bear
Christ and bring His grace to the world. Often this
can be accomplished in silence, without the need for
cleverly crafted arguments. Conversely, "if I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
charity," the Charity which manifests itself in good
works ("So let your light shine before men, that they
may see your good works, and glorify your Father who
is in heaven"), then "I am become as sounding brass,
or a tinkling cymbal." A bad example can all but send
a soul to Hell, for a scandalous action on the part of
a Catholic can cast a shadow over the whole Faith.
How many souls will never receive the Faith of the
Church today, all because of the recent scandals that
have rocked the body of the clergy?
Let it not be so with you. As you must say "be it
done to me according to thy word" along with Mary, and
so conceive life in your soul, so you must also walk
the path of self-giving Charity with Mary, and bring
grace to the world through your works of mercy.
At long last, we come to Bethlehem, to the scene of
the Nativity. We come near to Christmas, to the
moment in time and history that millions of souls
waited for throughout the Old Covenant.
Have you ever stopped to consider how great a grace it
is that you were born in this age? You well could
have been born in the years of Babylonian Exile, or in
the years before Noah and the Flood. You could have
lived your life waiting for the Messiah to come, but
because of a singular grace of God, you live here and
now, not to yearn and long for the Christ-child, but
to celebrate the accomplishment of His birth. Do not
let the significance of this escape you. If Abraham
was able to be faithful to God, to walk the path to
holiness and sanctity, while he looked forward in time
to the birth of Christ, then what excuse do we have,
who live after His birth, and to whom Heaven is nearly
handed on a silver platter? With the abundance of
graces which are offered to us on a daily basis (apart
from the Holy Mass, we have a plethora of devotions,
including the Holy Rosary, which are capable of
calling down a flood of grace from Heaven), have we
any reason at all to be anything but saints?
This is the consideration we must make during Advent,
as we prepare for the coming of Christ at the feast of
Christmas. Have we advanced in holiness since last
year's feast? Are we still struggling with the same
besetting sins? Have we become so distracted by the
destruction of the Modern Church that we have
forgotten to care for our own souls? A personal story
is in order here, to draw the analogy:
Months ago, I was driving my car on the highway, on my
way to an appointment. A large semi-truck in the
right lane was obviously having trouble. The back
wheels were enveloped in white smoke, and it seemed
obvious that I would have to be dodging pieces of tire
in a matter of moments. As I kept a close eye on the
situation, I forgot to watch the road in front of me,
and thus I did not see that we had entered a
construction zone, and all of the traffic had come to
a dead stop. You know what's coming. I barely had
but a fleeting moment to turn around and see the back
end of a really nice Mercedes before I slammed into it
at full speed and was blinded by my own airbag.
You may wince with me, and you may laugh at the irony
of the story (I was trying to avoid flying tire
pieces, and I ended up destroying two cars in the
process), but are you currently in the same situation,
spiritually speaking? Have you become so morbidly
interested in the latest jaw-dropping scandals of the
Novus Ordo Church, that you do not see the traffic
that has stopped in front of you, and now risk even
greater wreckage yourself?
Then come with me to this manger scene. Come with me
into the little village of Beth-lechem, the town
named, literally, "The House of Bread." Come with me
to this manger, this mangere, this "eating trough," in
which is laid the living Bread from Heaven. Do you
think it a coincidence that He was laid in a trough
from which animals eat?
Now hear the multitude of angels, singing in chorus,
"gloria in altissimis Deo et in terra pax in hominibus
bonae voluntatis." That should sound familiar to you.
It is a part of the Holy Mass, wherein we pray,
"Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus
bonae voluntatis; laudamus te, etc."
The occasion for the first singing of this hymn was
the Incarnation, the Son of God coming to earth as
flesh and blood. And so it is with every other
occasion of the singing of this hymn at the Mass, as
we prepare for the Son of God to come to earth once
again, in His body, blood, soul and divinity, in the
Holy Eucharist. What the Incarnation was in
Bethlehem, it still is today in the Holy Mass: a
meeting point between Time and Eternity, and a source
of Grace for us sinners.
See the "woman" standing over the manger, wrapped up
in meditation and contemplation of the mystery before
her eyes. Ask this "woman" to help you, at the Feast
of Christmas, to help you contemplate and assimilate
the mystery that is before your eyes on the altar. In
each case, a great deal of Faith is required, for
reason does not admit the possibility that this baby,
so very small and so very helpless, or that this thin
wafer and chalice, once created the universe and all
Life within it. Still less does reason admit the
possibility that these weak and frail signs of nature
are dispensers of real Grace, and that they can in
fact save your soul. This Baby can save your soul, if
you look past His flesh and see Him - with the eyes of
Faith - as God Almighty. This wafer and chalice, as
well, can quench the stirrings of sin in your soul,
and lead you to eternal Life, if you look past the
bread and wine and see Him - once again, with the eyes
of Faith - as the Messiah, the Christ.
These are staggering mysteries. "The Word became
flesh." The Eternal is clothed with the Mortal. But
therein lies the hope for you and for me and for
anyone else who is taking a mental inventory and
realizing that there has been far too little spiritual
progress since last Christmas. He took on human flesh
precisely so that my human flesh, and your human
flesh, could be taken up into His Immortality, into
His loving Vision.
So approach Him this way when you celebrate Christmas
in 2003. Approach the Living Bread, both on the altar
and in the manger, and ask His holy Mother to
accompany you there. With the help of this
serpent-crushing woman, lovingly contemplate the Holy
Face of the newborn Babe, and request that His birth
be more than just an occasion for a secular holiday
for you. Like His Mother, take Him with you into the
world, to mediate Grace to others, and in the process,
pray that this same Grace captivates your own soul.
These are just a few thoughts to keep in mind this
Holy Season.
God bless you and yours, and have a very Merry Christmas.