The celebration of Christmas revives our hope

 In 2007, Gracewing published  a collection of monastic conferences and homilies by the then Dom Hugh Gilbert, who at the time was the Abbot of Pluscarden Abbey. It was entitled Unfolding the Mystery (a more recently published set of reflections is entitled Living the Mystery). At the beginning of a conference for Christmas Eve, Dom Gilbert asks his brethren what it is that they might with justification expect from the celebration of the coming of Christ. 

We can expect, each of us can expect - through the celebration of Christ's Adventus - a revival of our faith and our hope and our love.

In addressing the subject of hope, he indicates three ways in which the celebration of Christmas revives our hope.

[The Christ child] revives, first, the hope of a better world here and now, of a change for the good. His birth coincides with the lengthening days. It gives fresh energy in the doing of good: ordinary, daily, mundane good. It sends us out to battle once again. Our sense of it all being somehow worth it finds itself strangely rekindled by that Mother and Child.

And secondly:

[The Christ child] revives the hope, looking higher, of the Kingdom to come. He's already a fulfilment, by way of cross and resurrection, of the hopes of the Chosen People: those hopes of God reigning and idols toppling, of a new covenant, of a gather people and Gentiles converted, of a new Presence, of a new purity and inward renewal, of the forgiveness of sins, of the Messianic king. All these promises have a first, unfinished but real, fulfilment in the Church and in her saints.

He revives our hope, thirdly, personally, for heaven. In the Collect for Christmas night, we pray to "enjoy in heaven the joys of him whose luminous mysteries we celebrate on earth". The best is yet to come, for each of us. 

The Paradoxes of Christmas in Pope Francis' Christmas homily

 My familiarity with G K Chesterton is very limited - the Father Brown stories being my main reading of Chesterton. I understand, however, that the paradox is a staple of his prose, and I do have a memory of trying to read a passage of his that became incomprehensible as the paradoxes tripped over each other one after another.

Pope Francis' opened his homily at the Mass of Christmas this year with paradoxes that makes one think of Chesterton:

The Gospel emphasizes this contrast. It relates the birth of Jesus beginning with Caesar Augustus, who orders the census of the whole world: it presents the first Emperor in all his grandeur. Yet immediately thereafter it brings us to Bethlehem, where there is no grandeur at all: just a poor child wrapped in swaddling cloths, with shepherds standing by. That is where God is, in littleness. This is the message: God does not rise up in grandeur, but lowers himself into littleness. Littleness is the path that he chose to draw near to us, to touch our hearts, to save us and to bring us back to what really matters.

Brothers and sisters, standing before the crib, we contemplate what is central, beyond all the pretty lights and decorations. We contemplate the child. In his littleness, God is completely present. Let us acknowledge this: “Baby Jesus, you are God, the God who becomes a child”. Let us be amazed by this scandalous truth. The One who embraces the universe needs to be held in another’s arms. The One who created the sun needs to be warmed. Tenderness incarnate needs to be coddled. Infinite love has a miniscule heart that beats softly. The eternal Word is an “infant”, a speechless child. The Bread of life needs to be nourished. The Creator of the world has no home. Today, all is turned upside down: God comes into the world in littleness. His grandeur appears in littleness.

Let us ask ourselves: can we accept God’s way of doing things? This is the challenge of Christmas: God reveals himself, but men and women fail to understand. He makes himself little in the eyes of the world, while we continue to seek grandeur in the eyes of the world, perhaps even in his name. God lowers himself and we try to become great. The Most High goes in search of shepherds, the unseen in our midst, and we look for visibility; we want to be seen. Jesus is born in order to serve, and we spend a lifetime pursuing success. God does not seek power and might; he asks for tender love and interior littleness.

Pope Francis then goes on to tease out the message of this littleness for us today:

This is what we should ask Jesus for at Christmas: the grace of littleness. “Lord, teach us to love littleness. Help us to understand that littleness is the way to authentic greatness”. What does it mean, concretely, to accept littleness? In the first place, it is to believe that God desires to come into the little things of our life; he wants to inhabit our daily lives, the things we do each day at home, in our families, at school and in the workplace. Amid our ordinary lived experience, he wants to do extraordinary things. His is a message of immense hope. Jesus asks us to rediscover and value the little things in life. If he is present there, what else do we need?  Let us stop pining for a grandeur that is not ours to have. Let us put aside our complaints and our gloomy faces, and the greed that never satisfies! Littleness and the amazement of that little child: this is the message.

Yet there is more. Jesus does not want to come merely in the little things of our lives, but also in our own littleness: in our experience of feeling weak, frail, inadequate, perhaps even “messed up”. Dear sister or brother, if, as in Bethlehem, the darkness of night overwhelms you, if you feel surrounded by cold indifference, if the hurt you carry inside cries out, “You are of little account; you are worthless; you will never be loved the way you want”, tonight, if this is what you are feeling, God answers back. He tells you: “I love you just as you are. Your littleness does not frighten me, your failings do not trouble me. I became little for your sake. To be your God, I became your brother. Dear brother, dear sister, don’t be afraid of me. Find in me your measure of greatness. I am close to you, and one thing only do I ask: trust me and open your heart to me”.

To accept littleness means something else too. It means embracing Jesus in the little ones of today. Loving him, that is, in the least of our brothers and sisters. Serving him in the poor, those most like Jesus who was born in poverty. It is in them that he wants to be honoured. On this night of love, may we have only one fear: that of offending God’s love, hurting him by despising the poor with our indifference. Jesus loves them dearly, and one day they will welcome us to heaven. A poet once wrote: “Who has found the heaven – below – Will fail of it above” (E. DICKINSON, Poems, P96-17). Let us not lose sight of heaven; let us care for Jesus now, caressing him in the needy, because in them he makes himself known. 

Advent

 Posted following a suggestion from our parish priest as to one way in which we might look forward to the coming of Christ in our homes ...

...for us...

 I think Pope Francis gave us a very beautiful homily at his Christmas Mass, focussing on those words "for us".

To us a son is given.  ..... the birth of Jesus is the “newness” that enables us to be reborn each year and to find, in him, the strength needed to face every trial.  Why?  Because his birth is for us – for me, for you, for all of us, for everyone.  “For” is a word that appears again and again on this holy night: “For us a child is born”, Isaiah prophesied.  “For us is born this day a Saviour”, we repeated in the Psalm.  Jesus “gave himself for us” (Tit 2:14), Saint Paul tells us, and in the Gospel the angel proclaims: “For to you is born this day a Saviour” (Lk 2:11).  For me, for you.

Yet what do those words – for us – really mean?   They mean that the Son of God, the one who is holy by nature, came to make us, as God’s children, holy by grace.  Yes, God came into the world as a child to make us children of God.  What a magnificent gift!  This day, God amazes us and says to each of us: “You are amazing”.  Dear sister, dear brother, never be discouraged.  Are you tempted to feel you were a mistake?  God tells you, “No, you are my child!”  Do you have a feeling of failure or inadequacy, the fear that you will never emerge from the dark tunnel of trial?  God says to you, “Have courage, I am with you”.  He does this not in words, but by making himself a child with you and for you.  In this way, he reminds you that the starting point of all rebirth is the recognition that we are children of God.  This is the starting point for any rebirth.  This is the undying heart of our hope, the incandescent core that gives warmth and meaning to our life.  Underlying all our strengths and weaknesses, stronger than all our past hurts and failures, or our fears and concerns about the future, there is this great truth: we are beloved sons and daughters.  God’s love for us does not, and never will, depend upon us.  It is completely free love.  Tonight cannot be explained in any other way: it is purely grace.  Everything is grace.  The gift is completely free, unearned by any of us, pure grace.  Tonight, Saint Paul tells us, “the grace of God has appeared” (Tit 2:11).  Nothing is more precious than this....

The angel proclaims to the shepherds: “This will be a sign for you: a baby lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12).  That sign, the Child in the manger, is also a sign for us, to guide us through life.  In Bethlehem, a name that means “House of Bread”, God lies in a manger, as if to remind us that, in order to live, we need him, like the bread we eat.  We need to be filled with his free, unfailing and concrete love.  How often instead, in our hunger for entertainment, success and worldly pleasures, do we nourish life with food that does not satisfy and leaves us empty within!  The Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, complained that, while the ox and the donkey know their master’s crib, we, his people, do not know him, the source of our life (cf. Is 1:2-3).  It is true: in our endless desire for possessions, we run after any number of mangers filled with ephemeral things, and forget the manger of Bethlehem.  That manger, poor in everything yet rich in love, teaches that true nourishment in life comes from letting ourselves be loved by God and loving others in turn.  Jesus gives us the example.  He, the Word of God, becomes an infant; he does not say a word, but offers life.  We, on the other hand, are full of words, but often have so little to say about goodness. 

And towards the end of the homily, Pope Francis offers a thought provoking quotation from a short poem by Emily Dickinson, which reads in full:

WHO has not found the heaven below

Will fail of it above. 
God's residence is next to mine, 
His furniture is love. 

 

Christmas 2020 and religious illiteracy

 As I write, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just announced "Tier 4" restrictions (of a tier system that only included Tiers 1, 2 and 3 before today) for London and other parts of East and South East England, effective pretty much immediately on his announcement. The announcement also included a significant modification of the previous rulings with regard to household mixing over Christmas for the whole of England, modifications that have been mirrored in Scotland and Wales.

The London Evening Standard website headlines its report: Tier 4 rules for London as Christmas cancelled by stay at home lockdown.

Even before Boris Johnson's announcement, the London Times newspaper for today was carrying two letters suggesting that the celebration of Christmas could be moved to another time.

Sir:

Surely it's all in the marketing. Were the government to declare that Christmas is banned there would be a surge of resentment  and many people would carry on regardless. However, if it were to change its pitch to: "Clearly, celebrating Christmas now is not in anybody's interest, so the government declared Christmas will be celebrated at Easter 2021", this would offer hope rather than despair. Countless lives would be saved and millions of people would breathe a sigh of relief.

Sir:

Given the restrictions, perhaps we could instead follow the example of Australia. "Christmas in July" would give us six months to vaccinate everyone and would allow families to enjoy the festivities out of doors.

 Whilst allowing for a measure of the tongue-in-cheek, particularly with the first of these letters, nonetheless a sense seems to prevail that the celebration of the Feast of Christmas can readily be moved or cancelled at legislative or social whim. 

The first component of the religious illiteracy that gives rise to this prevailing sense is the feeling that the celebration of the feast has its essence in the gathering of family and friends on Christmas Day. This certainly forms a part of our celebration of the day, when we are able to so gather; but it is not the essence of the Feast, or of what we celebrate in the Feast.

The essence of the Feast is the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, the birth in human flesh of the Son of God, who is both true man and true God. When the gathering of friends and family, and the special lunch that may accompany it, becomes completely separated from this celebration of belief in the mystery of the Incarnation, it ceases to possess the character of a piety that reflects a religious faith; it isn't a celebration of Christmas. (Though I would add, in passing, that even where the celebration of Christian faith is weak, there is still the potential for the family gathering to point, even in an indistinct way, towards the event of faith.)

The second component of religious illiteracy that gives rise to this prevailing sense lies in the failure to recognise the connection in the life of faith between the Feast being celebrated and the specific day given over to that celebration. This is about the religious character of time, expressed in the Christian religion by the Liturgical calendar, but also found in Judaism, Islam and other religions which assign their feasts to specific days. The celebration of these religious Feasts simply cannot be moved arbitrarily by powers outside the relevant religious communities, and even within those communities any movement of feasts is constrained to a very high degree. Whilst we cannot expect everyone to share belief in this understanding of a religious character to time, is it too much to ask of journalists and public figures to at least show by how they write or speak about our Feast days that they have an understanding of the concept?

So, in 2020, while the human aspects of the celebration of the Feast of Christmas may be curtailed, the essentially religious celebration remains in its full splendour.

We come like the shepherds who followed the call of the angel ....

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa is the preacher to the Pontifical Household, and has been so for many years. One of the tasks associated with this office is that of preaching the sermons to the Holy Father and his co-workers in the Vatican during Advent. The text of his fourth sermon for Advent 2016 is at the Vatican Radio website, and is worth reading. The prayer offered below the extract from Fr Cantalamessa's homily is one that I used one Christmas with children and families in a parish several years ago.

St. Augustine distinguished between two ways of celebrating an event in salvation history: as a mystery (in sacramento) or as a simple anniversary. In the celebration of an anniversary, he said, we only need to “indicate with a religious solemnity the day of the year in which the remembrance of the event itself occurs.” In the celebration of a mystery, however, “not only is the event commemorated, but we do so in a way that its significance for us is understood and received devoutly."

Christmas is not a celebration in the category of an anniversary. (As we know, the choice of December 25 as the date was chosen for symbolic rather than historical reasons.) It is a celebration in the category of a mystery that needs to be understood in terms of its significance for us. St. Leo the Great had already highlighted the mystical significance of the “the sacrament of the Nativity of Christ” saying, “Just as we have been crucified with him in his passion, been raised with him in his resurrection, . . . so too have we been born along with him in his Nativity.”

A prayer for a visit to the Crib during Christmas time

[This prayer was adapted from a meditation of St Edith Stein]

Dear Jesus, your hands reach out to us as we come to the Crib.
We come like the shepherds who followed the call of the angel.
We come like the wise men who followed the star.
“Follow me” say your little hands.

May we always listen to you when you call us.
Keep us together in faith and in hope.
Dear Jesus, your open hands welcome us, and they ask us at the same time.
They ask us to be at the service of your Peace.

Open our hearts to people who are suffering.
May each of us offer signs of friendship and welcome to people who are less well off than us.
Dear Jesus, your open hands welcome us, and they ask us at the same time.
They ask us to give our lives to you.

May we choose the way in life that you want us to follow.
In the light of Christmas, may we face the problems of life today, together with people of other Churches and religions.
Mary, you are the Mother of Love.
You praised the great things done by the Lord.
You sang about how God kept his promises to the people of Israel.

Mother of Love, protect our families.
Help them to stay together.
Give them the happiness of loving and passing on life.
Amen.

Christmas - according to Jeremy Corbyn

When one reads Jeremy Corbyn's counterpart to David Cameron's Christmas message, which appeared in the Sunday Mirror on 19th December, one can appreciate a political dimension of Mr Cameron's observations about Britain as a Christian country and his affirmation of the birth of God's only Son. There would appear to be a deliberate establishing of clear water between the atheism, or at best agnosticism, of Labour/Jeremy Corbyn and a Christian faith of Conservative/David Cameron.

And that is an interesting development.

Christmas is also a time for reflection, and it is worth considering the poignancy of the Nativity story. It is about offering shelter to a family in need and to those who find themselves refugees fleeing evil....

.... the Christmas story holds up a mirror to us all. "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" - that is the essence of my socialism, summed up in the word "solidarity". Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive". It is a similar maxim that inspired our party: "From each according to their means, to each according to their needs". 

 For the Christian believer, however, the Nativity story is not about offering shelter to a family in need or to refugees fleeing evil. That represents an utter and complete derogation from what a Christian celebrates at Christmas: see my post God is with us!  I think we should be generous towards Mr Corbyn's use of the word "story", as we should not expect a non-believer to affirm that which he does not believe. However, I am inclined to be rather less generous towards his mis-representation of the content of Christian belief. And more generous towards Mr Cameron for his countering of it in his own Christmas message.

There is a much more positive observation to be made about Mr Corbyn's quotation of the "Golden Rule" of doing unto others what you would want them to do to you. This represents the possibility of dialogue and does, for example, represent a foundational term in the spirituality of unity of the Focolare. Mr Corbyn should, I think, be taken seriously in this regard as a potential partner in dialogue, even with those who would radically disagree with his point of view about Christianity..

Further comment on the two messages: The Cameron and Corbyn Christmas messages – full text and some brief reflections

God is with us!

 

Image credit: Philippine Sowerby

 

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light.

On them the sun has risen.

 

 

At Christmas, the Christian celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, born in a humble stable in Bethlehem, into a poor family. Simple shepherds were the first witnesses to this event. (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church n.525)

 

This unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church n.464).

 

This is what is celebrated as we kneel during the profession of faith at the words "... and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man".



To the Roman Curia: what Pope Francis actually said ....

On the 21st December, Pope Francis met with the workers of the Roman Curia, for the annual exchange of Christmas greetings. I link to the English translation at the Vatican website, but also to the Italian, which I am presuming was the language in which the address was delivered. There are a couple of points where the Italian communicates a nuance that is not successfully translated into the English.

Pope Francis opened his address as follows:

Vi chiedo scusa di non parlare in piedi, ma da alcuni giorni sono sotto l’influsso dell’influenza e non mi sento molto forte. Con il vostro permesso, vi parlo seduto.

Or, in the English translation:

Forgive me for not standing up as I speak to you, but for some days I’ve been suffering from a cold and not feeling too well. With your permission, I’ll speak to you sitting down. 

The "effects of influenza" in Italian have become "suffering from a cold", and "I do not feel very strong" has become "not feeling too well" in the English.

Pope Francis offered his Christmas greetings to his audience, to their co-workers in the service of the Curia and to their families:

I am pleased to offer heartfelt good wishes for a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year to you and your co-workers, to the Papal Representatives, and in particular to those who in the past year have completed their service and retired. Let us also remember all those who have gone home to God. My thoughts and my gratitude go to you and to the members of your families.

After referring to his two previous meetings with the Curia on the occasion of Christmas, Pope Francis observed (the "diseases" being a reference to his "catalogue of temptations" of last year's address - and do remember that that catalogue was offered as an examination of conscience in preparation for the celebration of Christmas, with a clear sense of self-inclusion on the part of the Holy Father):

.... diseases and even scandals cannot obscure the efficiency of the services rendered to the Pope and to the entire Church by the Roman Curia, with great effort, responsibility, commitment and dedication, and this is a real source of consolation. Saint Ignatius taught that “it is typical of the evil spirit to instil remorse, sadness and difficulties, and to cause needless worry so as to prevent us from going forward; instead, it is typical of the good spirit to instil courage and energy, consolations and tears, inspirations and serenity, and to lessen and remove every difficulty so as to make us advance on the path of goodness.”

It would be a grave injustice not to express heartfelt gratitude and needed encouragement to all those good and honest men and women in the Curia who work with dedication, devotion, fidelity and professionalism, offering to the Church and the Successor of Peter the assurance of their solidarity and obedience, as well as their constant prayers.  

Moreover, cases of resistance, difficulties and failures on the part of individuals and ministers are so many lessons and opportunities for growth, and never for discouragement. They are opportunities for returning to the essentials, which means being ever more conscious of ourselves, of God and our neighbours, of the sensus Ecclesiae and the sensus fidei.

The central part of Pope Francis' address was then dedicated to an acrostic of the Latin word for mercy, Misericordia, using each letter of the word to indicate a virtue or strength that might be emulated by those who work in the Curia. Pope Francis cites Fr Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary to the Far East, as having done the same thing. I have not yet tracked down Fr Ricci's text, but it may be interesting to place it alongside Pope Francis' address.

[It is Pope Francis' fifth section, entitled in Italian as "Razionalità e amabilità" and in English as "Reasonableness and gentleness" where I feel there is some difference in nuance between the Italian original and the English translation, and perhaps some loss of the essential point being made, namely that an equilibrium is needed between rationality and friendliness in our dealings with others.]

Needless to say, those same virtues or strengths might well be addressed to each and every Catholic whatever their state of life or form of work. Though addressed immediately to the Curia, I think we should take them as addressed to the whole Church, perhaps particularly to those who hold some form of ecclesial office, but also to the lay faithful who could emulate these virtues and strengths in their places of work. Do read them all.

I finish, not with the prayer that Pope Francis cited, but with his citation of St Augustine, earlier in the address:

Christmas is truly the feast of God’s infinite mercy, as Saint Augustine of Hippo tells us: “Could there have been any greater mercy shown to us unhappy men than that which led the Creator of the heavens to come down among us, and the Creator of the earth to take on our mortal body? That same mercy led the Lord of the world to assume the nature of a servant, so that, being himself bread, he would suffer hunger; being himself satiety, he would thirst; being himself power, he would know weakness; being himself salvation, he would experience our woundedness, and being himself life, he would die. All this he did to assuage our hunger, alleviate our longing, strengthen our weaknesses, wipe out our sins and enkindle our charity”.

The grace which was revealed in our world is Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, true man and true God.

On this night, like a burst of brilliant light, there rings out the proclamation of the Apostle: “God's grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race” (Tit 2:11).

Pope Francis' homily at Midnight Mass.

The text itself is beautiful. But also moving is the image of Pope Francis venerating the statue of the Christ Child.

It's all about love, isn't it

In the context of the new evangelisation, and the wish within that context to express a "primary proclamation" of the Gospel, I have more than once in the last couple of weeks or so heard Christmas described as the celebration of the coming of the love of God for humankind into the world.

At the same time, the debate about the attitude of Christian Churches towards those who experience same-sex attraction can be expressed in much the same terms. It is all about love, isn't it, and why should the love between a same-sex couple be treated any differently than the love between an opposite-sex couple?

The Church of England has got itself into a hopeless muddle on this last, being unable to offer a consistent witness of any kind: Church of England drops gay bishop opposition. It perhaps arises from a willingness to identify a person by a sexual orientation; the Catholic articulation recognises the attraction contained in the orientation but does not allow that it identifies a person. The Catholic Church in the UK seems to be moving to a resolution of its mixed witness, with the changes to the arrangements for Masses organised by the Soho Masses Pastoral Council: statement at the website of Westminster Archiocese. The exact working out of these changes is yet to be seen.

But what about that question of love? Pope Benedict XVI provides us with two key teachings that shed light on the meaning of the term, and enable us to answer the apparent contradiction contained in the first two paragraphs of this post.

In Part I of his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, he describes the relationship between love-as-eros and love-as-agape. This might be summarised as recognising that love-as-eros (as attraction or as an experience of a type of instinct) requires a process of purification if it is to become love-as-agape (as a chosen care for the other, a self-sacrifice for the other). And in the opening paragraphs of the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate, the Holy Father gives an account of the relation of charity to truth, and its dependence on truth.

Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth. In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living. This is a matter of no small account today, in a social and cultural context which relativizes truth, often paying little heed to it and showing increasing reluctance to acknowledge its existence.

And so there is no contradiction in characterising Christmas as the celebration of God's love for us and at the same time teaching that not every form of sexual attraction is one that can be licitly carried into practice in a morally upright life. It is the need for purification at the level of the individual behaviour and the relation to truth at the level of teaching that abolishes the contradiction.

Archbishop NIchols Christmas Homily - and a laugh at our expense

Archbishop Nichols caught the headlines over the Christmas period because of his remarks about gay marriage in a BBC interview. Reporting somewhat mixed this interview with the text of his homily at Midnight Mass for Christmas, giving the impression that the latter was significantly given over to the question of same-sex marriage. It wasn't, and the full text of the homily is here. It is worth reading the full text to capture the balance of the homily.

Some parts of the homily have a clear two-fold nature as far as what one might call "target audience" is concerned. They are addressed first of all to the faithful present at the Mass, and to the wider faithful of the Catholic community, calling them to "purification". But they also have a secondary address to society as a whole, challenging it to a similar purification, a recognition that not everything and anything is right and proper.

Yet, as St Paul reminds us, if this promise is to be realised in its fullness, then we need to be purified. There are, he tells us, things that we have to give up as they do not lead directly to God. There are aspects of our lives that cannot be lifted up to heaven without that purification.

Sometimes our charity is formed more out of self-interest that genuine compassion for the other. Perhaps we have more than half an eye on the onlookers who will be impressed by our public generosity so that we are seeking the glory that will be ours rather than the relief of need. Sometimes patterns of work and business are simply exploitative of employees, suppliers or customers. A corrosive disrespect can fashion the culture of a business and put in it need of refashioning.

Sometimes sexual expression can be without the public bond of the faithfulness of marriage and its ordering to new life. Even governments mistakenly promote such patterns of sexual intimacy as objectively to be approved and even encouraged among the young.

This Christmas is then a time to make fresh resolves that what we bring to the crib may be more readily, through the Lord's mercy, raised to heaven and become fittingly part of God's good work.

[The homily that I heard on Christmas night could be entitled A laugh at our expense.]

Is the child a commodity to be chosen?

BBC News are reporting today on proposed changes to arrangements for adopting children in the UK, proposals which would allow prospective adopters to view the register of children awaiting adoption. The underlying intention is to speed up the adoption process so that children can be placed more quickly; there is not an underlying intention to allow adopters "choice" in the children they wish to adopt. But against the background of the impact of equalities legislation with regard to adoption of children by same sex couples - which was premised on the idea that approval for adoption was a service provided to the prospective adopters - one is entitled to wonder what the on-the-ground experience will turn out to be if these proposals go ahead.

Adoption is not the only context in which it is poignant to ask the question, on the eve of Christmas, as to whether or not the child is a commodity to be chosen or a gift to be received. Medical practices such as IVF treatments and direct abortion of children found in the womb to have a risk of being born with a disability convey the same question.

Is the Child a commodity to be chosen or a Gift to be received? Pope Benedict does not ask the question in these terms when, in the first chapter of his book on the Infancy Narratives he poses the question posed by Pilate in St John's Gospel: "Where are you from?" The answer to the question is both known - he is the son of the carpenter from Nazareth - and yet unknown - he speaks with an authority that comes from elsewhere. When the Church teaches that the office of parents with regard to the generation of new life is a participation in the creative work of God, the same can be said of any child. We do know where they come from - a mother and father can be identified. But at the same time their origin is hidden in that creative act of God.

For those baptised as Christians, this two-fold origin comes to its fulfilment. Pope Benedict ends his first chapter, referring to the prologue of the Gospel of St John:

... those who believe in Jesus enter through faith into Jesus' unique new origin, and they receive this origin as their own. In and of themselves, all those believers are initially "born of blood and of the will of man." But their faith gives them a new birth: they enter into the origin of Jesus Christ, which now becomes their own origin. From Christ, through faith in him, they are now born of God.

So John has recapitulated the deepest meaning of the genealogies [of the Synoptic Gospels], and moreover he has taught us to understand them as an interpretation of our own origin, our true "genealogy".

I do not think a simply pietistic/emotional idea of the child as a gift received from God is a sufficient ground for a pastoral or prophetic mission to family life by the Church. If such an understanding of human origin is to be shared by others outside the Christian family (or even within it), remaining at that level is insufficient. The Christ-Child bears testimony to a supernatural destiny for every child, and some sense of that can be accessed outside of explicit religious belief. It is such a sense that can enable society to experience the child as a gift rather than a commodity to be chosen.

""If we glorify God, we shall enjoy his peace": Patriarch Twal's Christmas homily

Our faiths – Muslim, Jew and Christian – are as one in saying that the adoration of God is a fundamental duty of love: “Give to the Lord, you sons of God, give to the Lord glory and might; give to the Lord the glory due his name. Bow down before the Lord’s holy splendor!” (Ps 29:1-2)

As I am usually wont to say, it is important to read the whole and not rely on an extract. The homily preached by Patriarch Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for Christmas Day can be found on the website of the Patriarchate, here.

The homily has some very clear political references. For readers in Europe or the United States, those references are instructive.

At a time when Christians in other countries of the Middle East feel threatened, there is an interesting report on the Patriarchate site of a visit by the King of Jordan to a majority Christian town in order to offer Christmas greetings to the people of the town, and through them, to the whole people of the Kingdom of Jordan, and to Christians in general: The King of Jordan meets Christians at Fuheis. This is the King's first such visit. As Patriarch Twal said on that occasion, the model of life in Jordan is a good example of mutual respect, respect for the rights and freedom of each one. It is also an example that cannot be ignored in the Middle East.

Christmas 2011

From Queen Elizabeth II's Christmas Broadcast:

The importance of family has, of course, come home to Prince Philip and me personally this year with the marriages of two of our grandchildren, each in their own way a celebration of the God-given love that binds a family together.

For many this Christmas will not be easy. With our armed forces deployed around the world, thousands of service families face Christmas without their loved ones at home. The bereaved and the lonely will find it especially hard. And, as we all know, the world is going through difficult times. All this will affect our celebration of this great Christian festival.

Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: ‘Fear not’, they urged, ‘we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.’

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general (important though they are) – but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.

In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, there’s a prayer:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us we pray
Cast out our sin
And enter in
Be born in us today

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.

Whilst these words speak indirectly of events affecting Britain in the course of the last year - the armed forces in action in Libya and in Afghanistan, the financial crisis, the disturbances in some of our cities during the summer - these words of Her Majesty also speak more directly to two current public debates in British society, debates that are not unconnected. These are the debates about the nature of marriage and about the place of Christian faith in the public life of our country. Whilst preserving entirely the courtesy towards our political processes that is a hallmark of the British Monarchy, I did feel as I listened to these words yesterday that the Queen was offering her own testimony about these matters.

There is a certain parallel between some of the Queen's words and these from Pope Benedict's homily at Midnight Mass in St Peter's Basilica:

Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus’ Nativity in Bethlehem will find that the doorway five and a half metres high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter the building, is now largely walled up. Only a low opening of one and a half metres has remained. The intention was probably to provide the church with better protection from attack, but above all to prevent people from entering God’s house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus’ birth has to bend down. It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis [of Assisi] – the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions – the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby.

 UPDATE: A post at St Paul's - The Queen's Christmas Message - makes rather more explicit the thoughts that I indicated above:

In her Christmas message Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth highlighted the importance of family. This was taken up by the media, but what they did not choose to highlight was the uncompromising references Her Majesty made to Christmas being a Christian festival and to the Christan faith.

Christmas Day Homily

For the Octave Day of Christmas, I link to the homily that I was able to hear at Christmas Midnight Mass.

Mary and the Epiphany of the Lord; Mary, Mother of the Saviour

One of the Masses in the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary, allocated to celebration during the Christmas season, is that of "Mary and the Epiphany of the Lord".  The preface of this Mass is as follows:

Through the ministry of the Blessed Virgin
you draw the families of all peoples
to faith in the Gospel.

The shepherds, bathed in your glory
and enlightened by choirs of angels,
acknowledged Christ as the Saviour
and became the first fruits of the Church
form the people of Israel.

The wise men, inspired by grace
and led by a shining star,
entered a lowly house,
found the child with his mother,
and, as the first fruits of the Church from the Gentiles,
worshiped his as God,
proclaimed his as King,
and acknowledged him as Redeemer.

It is interesting, in the light of the discussion about the coming of Christ as Saviour and as Redeemer, that the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary contains, in the section for the Christmas season, a Mass of "Mary, Mother of the Saviour". Whilst the texts of this Mass do seem to reflect the distinction between the manner of Saviour and the manner of Redeemer referred to in my earlier post, one might say that the text of the preface, for example, contains an implicit reference to the manner of Redeemer in its expression of the manner of Saviour:

When Mary brought forth her child
from the secret shrine of her virginal womb
you revealed as a light for all nations
the sign and source of our salvation,
your Son, Jesus Christ.

Like the rising sun,
the Bridegroom of the Church
has dawned upon us
to rescue us from darkness and the shadow of death
and to make us a kingdom of unfailing light.

Given the shortness of the Christmas season, I feel that some of the Masses allocated to the Christmas season could be reasonably celebrated during the period of Ordinary Time between Christmas and the beginning of Lent without thereby losing their meaning for the time of the Liturgical Year. The Mass of "Mary and the Presentation of the Lord" could clearly be celebrated on the Saturday nearest the Feast of the Presentation, for example, if other celebrations permit. The Mass of "Our Lady of Cana", because of its reference forward to the Lord's "hour", could I feel be justifiably used just before the beginning of Lent, or perhaps even on the first Saturday of Lent.

St Thomas Becket: patron of the pastoral clergy of England and Wales

In the ordinary form of the Roman Liturgy, the days following Christmas Day see the celebration of the Feasts of St Stephen, Saint John (or the Holy Family - I had reason to celebrate St John, as I went to a Mass celebrated by the Community of St John for their patronal feast on Sunday) and the Holy Innocents. The following days are those of the Octave of Christmas.

Except here in England and Wales where the commemoration of St Thomas Becket in the universal calendar has the rank of a Feast. Since St Thomas Becket is the patron saint of the pastoral clergy in England and Wales, it seems a very appropriate day, during the Year for Priests, to pray particularly for parish priests.

It is with the benefit of hindsight, as this only occurred to me this morning, but perhaps you could pray a Holy Hour for your parish priests at some point today? Before the Blessed Sacrament, if possible, or at home if that isn't possible?

Go here, and follow the links therein (the Catholic Encyclopaedia article is perhaps the easiest read), to learn something of the story of St Thomas Becket.

UPDATE: Stella Maris indicates (Becket, Peter and the Church) an aspect of St Thomas life - his teaching with regard to the office of Peter in the universal Church. This is, I suspect, the underlying principle behind St Thomas resistance to the incursions of Henry II with regard to the rights of the Church in England, that is not necessarily apparent in the purely historical narrative. It is also worthwhile to follow the link from the first comment at that post to read an Anglo-Catholic commentary on the feast day: St Thomas Becket: the struggle between Church and State.

[Reading about the conflict between the King, Henry II, and Archbishop Becket over the rights of the Church in relation to the secular power raises an interesting question for today. In so far as I have understood the story, the key point was the Council of Clarendon in 1164 and the provisions insisted on then by the King. We live now in a time when the separation of the state power from religious authority is taken for granted, what Pope Benedict would see as an "appropriate secularity"; but, in the times of St Thomas, the power of state and the exercise of ecclesial jurisdiction overlapped. As a deacon, for example, St Thomas was chancellor, one of the highest positions of state. One provision of the Council limited excommunications by a need for royal permission in certain cases; another insisted that clerics convicted and sentenced in ecclesiastical courts should also be subject to possible punishment by state authorities (remembering that, in those times, a penalty imposed by an ecclesiastical court could be a material penalty and not just a spiritual one; the ecclesiastical penalty overlapped to become one that we today could consider as a state punishment). In the context of contemporary child abuse scandals, particularly in Ireland, it is interesting to see that the principle that offences committed by ecclesiastics should be the subject of the due processes of state law is now central to the Catholic Church's response to those scandals. Today, though, the ecclesial/legal significance of that principle, which appears as being strongly opposed by St Thomas, is rather the opposite than it would have been in 1164. Nowadays ecclesiastical penalty - if it had been applied in the cases of child abuse, which it appears not to have been - would lack the material penalty that it would have included in 1164. That ecclesiastics are also subject to the processes of state law restores that material penalty.]

Benedict XVI's Christmas Eve homily

Other bloggers, with a primarily Liturgical intent in doing so, have highlighted a passage from this homily in which Pope Benedict urges his listeners to put the things of God first in their lives, quoting from the Rule of St Benedict:

The Gospel tells us: God is the highest priority. If anything in our life deserves haste without delay, then, it is God's work alone. The Rule of Saint Benedict contains this teaching: "Place nothing at all before the work of God (i.e. the divine office)". For monks, the Liturgy is the first priority. Everything else comes later. In its essence, though, this saying applies to everyone. God is important, by far the most important thing in our lives. The shepherds teach us this priority. From them we should learn not to be crushed by all the pressing matters in our daily lives. From them we should learn the inner freedom to put other tasks in second place -- however important they may be -- so as to make our way towards God, to allow him into our lives and into our time. Time given to God and, in his name, to our neighbour is never time lost. It is the time when we are most truly alive, when we live our humanity to the full.

However, as usual with Pope Benedict XVI, it is worth reading the whole homily. The full text can be found here at ZENIT. What the Holy Father does in his homily is take the shepherds of the Christmas story as an example of how we should respond to the invitation that God puts forward to us, not only in the mystery of the Incarnation, but also in the signs of his presence in our lives. It is the urgency and promptness of their response to the invitation to go to Bethlehem that Pope Benedict proposes as an example for us to follow. Whilst the passage in which he refers to the Liturgy and our Christian response in charity to our neighbour (cf the two part treatment of Deus Caritas Est - first God's love for us and our call to love God, and then, inseperable from it, our call to love of our neighbour) is most immediately addressed to those who might be called "practising Christians", other passages are addressed to those who might be non-Christian or lukewarm in their Christian practise.

In the second paragraph there is a call to adherence to the truth, another typical Benedictine them:

The first thing we are told about the shepherds is that they were on the watch -- they could hear the message precisely because they were awake. We must be awake, so that we can hear the message. We must become truly vigilant people. What does this mean? The principal difference between someone dreaming and someone awake is that the dreamer is in a world of his own. His "self" is locked into this dreamworld that is his alone and does not connect him with others. To wake up means to leave that private world of one's own and to enter the common reality, the truth that alone can unite all people. Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another.

Pope Benedict goes on to talk about man's receptivity to God:

Awake, the Gospel tells us. Step outside, so as to enter the great communal truth, the communion of the one God. To awake, then, means to develop a receptivity for God: for the silent promptings with which he chooses to guide us; for the many indications of his presence. There are people who describe themselves as "religiously tone deaf". The gift of a capacity to perceive God seems as if it is withheld from some. And indeed -- our way of thinking and acting, the mentality of today's world, the whole range of our experience is inclined to deaden our receptivity for God, to make us "tone deaf" towards him. And yet in every soul, the desire for God, the capacity to encounter him, is present, whether in a hidden way or overtly.

The section of the homily that caught my eye, however, was one in which Pope Benedict suggests that the shepherds "went over" to see the Christ child at Bethlehem rather as if they were going to visit a neighbour (my italics added, because I was very attracted by this sentence - not that I think it applies to me!).

Some commentators point out that the shepherds, the simple souls, were the first to come to Jesus in the manger and to encounter the Redeemer of the world. The wise men from the East, representing those with social standing and fame, arrived much later. The commentators go on to say: this is quite natural. The shepherds lived nearby. They only needed to "come over" (cf. Lk 2:15), as we do when we go to visit our neighbours. The wise men, however, lived far away. They had to undertake a long and arduous journey in order to arrive in Bethlehem. And they needed guidance and direction. Today too there are simple and lowly souls who live very close to the Lord. They are, so to speak, his neighbours and they can easily go to see him. But most of us in the world today live far from Jesus Christ, the incarnate God who came to dwell amongst us.

And, to try to summarise, using two passages, one from near the beginning and one from near the end of Pope Benedict's homily:

For you the Saviour is born: through the Gospel and those who proclaim it, God now reminds us of the message that the Angel announced to the shepherds. It is a message that cannot leave us indifferent. If it is true, it changes everything. If it is true, it also affects me. Like the shepherds, then, I too must say: Come on, I want to go to Bethlehem to see the Word that has occurred there. The story of the shepherds is included in the Gospel for a reason. They show us the right way to respond to the message that we too have received.....

Let us once again listen directly to the Gospel. The shepherds tell one another the reason why they are setting off: "Let us see this thing that has happened." Literally the Greek text says: "Let us see this Word that has occurred there." Yes indeed, such is the radical newness of this night: the Word can be seen. For it has become flesh. The God of whom no image may be made -- because any image would only diminish, or rather distort him -- this God has himself become visible in the One who is his true image, as Saint Paul puts it (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). In the figure of Jesus Christ, in the whole of his life and ministry, in his dying and rising, we can see the Word of God and hence the mystery of the living God himself. This is what God is like.

Christmas Mass

On Christmas morning, I went to Westminster Cathedral for the 10.30 am Mass celebrated by Archbishop Nichols. When Mass is celebrated "saying the black, doing the red", with an ordinary obedience to the rubrics, the experience of the lay faithful is quite different. The Liturgical texts can speak to you, of themselves, and with a quite unexpected force.  Familiar texts can gain a life they otherwise would not have.

The readings were proclaimed from the pulpit, part way down the nave, and not from the sanctuary. I had two thoughts on this. The first was that the pulpit was a much more worthy place from which to read the Scriptures than the "music-stand" style stand at the front edge of the sanctuary that is most often used. The second was that it created the opportunity to listen to the Scripture without seeing the person reading. The focus is then much more on the Word being proclaimed than on the person reading. [The essence of this can be achieved when readings are proclaimed from the sanctuary by keeping one's focus on the altar or the crucifix - the "internal east", in the language of Pope Benedict.] It also creates the opportunity for a procession with the book of the Gospels from the high altar, across the sanctuary and into the nave among the people, and on to the pulpit, before the reading of the Gospel. Which enhances the dignity with which we regard the Scriptures, and at the same time places that enhancement within the context of the Liturgy.

Texts like the Gradual text and the Allelulia, sung by the choir, gained a wonderful richness on either side of the reading from Hebrews, a real sense of the coming of Christ being announced to the whole world:

All the ends the earth have seen the salvation of our God; sing joyfully to God all the earth.

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets;  but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.  He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,  having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs.


For to what angel did God ever say, "Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee"? Or again, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son"? And again, when he brings the first-born into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him."

A hallowed day has dawned upon us. Come, you nations, worship the Lord, for today a great light has shone down upon the earth.

The anticipation as we turned to face the pulpit for the reading of the Gospel was almost palpable, and powerfully moving (to me, anyway):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ....