O Lord and Ruler . . .

 

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, 
qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti: 
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.. 

O Lord and Ruler of the house of Israel, 
who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai: 
come, and redeem us with outstretched arms

Meditation: As Moses saw the Lord in the burning bush we can see Him in the flaming skies of sunrise and sunset. We can see Him in all that occurs between those boundaries between day and night, night and day. We hear in the third Eucharistic Prayer at Mass the words, "You never cease to gather a people to yourself so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name."   Some time today ask yourself, where, how, or in whom did I see the Lord today?

Prayer: 
Longing for Christ (c. 10th century)

Come, true light.
Come, life eternal. 
Come, hidden mystery.
Come, treasure without name.
Come, reality beyond all words. 
Come, person beyond all understanding.
Come, rejoicing without end. 
Come, light that knows no evening. 
Come, raising up of the fallen. 
Come, resurrection of the dead.

Tell Out My Soul (Mary's Magnificat)

These O Antiphons precede and follow the recitation of the Magnificat which is prayed every night at vespers.  The lyrics are a version of Luke’s prayer that begins, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, My spirit rejoices in God my savior .  . . . “

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz-FkqobgXY

 

 

 

Tabernacle on the main altar of the Sanctuary of Loyola, the birth place of St. Ignatius.

O Holy Wisdom

 Over the next week I will be posting each of the seven "O Antiphons" that begin and end the Magnificat.  Each post will include the antiphon in both Latin and English, a meditation, a prayer,  a music clip from YouTube and a photos.  

DECEMBER 17, 2024

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, 
attingens a fine usque ad finem, 
fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: 
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.  

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, 
reaching from one end to the other, ordering all things: 
Come and teach us the way of prudence. 

Meditation: One of the sad realities today is that wisdom is ignored or dismissed in favor of quickness, the snarky comment, cynicism, or an easy laugh. The great gift the aged have given to all societies throughout history is wisdom, a virtue gained only through experiences of victory and defeat, mistakes and right decisions, joy and sorrow, and life well-lived. Even those who are dying can instruct us if we allow them. The desire to kill the inconveniently sick or the demented elderly in the name of a false mercy is one of the great sins of our world. It is the antithesis of wisdom, prudence, and understanding.  

Prayer:  
Suscipe (St. Ignatius of Loyola)

Take Lord, and receive 
all my liberty, my memory,
my understanding, 
my entire will, 
all I have and call my own. 
You have given all to me,
to You, Lord, I return it. 
Everything is yours; do with it what you will. 
Give me only Your love and Your grace,
That is enough for me.

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

One of Bach’s great chorales played on piano in her own arrangement by the great British pianist and harpsichordist Dame Myra Hess.  The photo of the Christmas Market was taken in Ljubljana on a misty and miserably cold night before Christmas. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGsPdEm3FfI

 

Overlooking the Christmas Market in Ljubljana, Slovenia

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Rejoice Always: Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday)

 

Zep 3:14-18a

Phil 4:4-7

Lk 3:10-18

 

Gaudete in Domino semper,

iterum dice gaudete. 

Dominus enim prope est.

 

“Rejoice in the Lord always;

again I say rejoice! 

The Lord is near.” 

 

Gaudete means “rejoice, thus the traditional name for the 3rd Sunday of Advent

Gaudete Sunday or Rejoice Sunday.  Gaudete is one of two Sundays of the year

on which priests have the option of wearing either purple vestments or, ideally, the dusty rose vestments that visually hint at the joy that is to come. Note:  the color is dusty rose NOT Pepto-Bismol pink.  There is an enormous difference.

 

We rejoice because in the words of the antiphon we know:  Dominus enim prope est:  The Lord is near.  The Lord is very near.  We rejoice because Jesus was born in the same way we were, and into same world in which we now live and breathe.  He walked upon the same earth on which we work and relax, rejoice and mourn.  Fully human, Jesus knew cold and heat, hunger and thirst, joy and sorrow.  He knew the feel of the earth under His feet and gentle breezes caressing His skin.  We celebrate because Jesus; fully divine and fully human,

like us in all things but sin, walked this same planet.  We rejoice because Jesus brought us forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life. 

 

The readings highlight the rejoicing.  Zephaniah tells us:

 

"Be glad and exult with all your heart . . .

The Lord has removed the judgment against you . . .

the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst,"

 

When the judgment against us was removed eternal life was opened for us.  The responsorial psalm confirms what we know,

 

"My strength and my courage is the LORD,

and he has been my savior.

With joy you will draw water

at the fountain of salvation."

 

The Lord has been my savior. The Lord is my savior.  The Lord will be my savior.  Always.

 

Paul is direct in his letter to the Philippians. "Brothers and sisters: Rejoice in the Lord always.  I shall say it again: rejoice!"

 

Our rejoicing will increase over the coming days until the Gloria in Excelsis Deo of Christmas explodes throughout the known universe and then travels beyond the edges of the universe.  On Tuesday December 17, the Church’s anticipatory joy will enter another phase as we chant or recite the first of the seven ancient “O Antiphons” that introduce and end Luke's canticle at vespers:

 

"Magnificat anima mean . . . "

 

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord

My spirit rejoices in God my savior."

 

The antiphon on Tuesday is: "O sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti . . . .

 

“O Wisdom, O holy Word of God. 

You govern all creation with strong yet tender care. 

Come and show your people the way to salvation.”  

 

The final antiphon on December 23 celebrates Emmanuel, God with us:

 

“O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver,

desire of the nations,

Savior of all people, come and set us free,

Lord our God.”

 

There is a hidden message in the antiphons.  If one takes the first letter after the “O” in the Latin antiphon and reads from the last to the first one discovers a Latin anagram: Ero Cras, that means, tomorrow I will be, tomorrow I will be there,

tomorrow I come.  The Messiah was foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament.  He was announced by John the Baptist, the bridge between the Old and New covenants,  John the Baptist of whom we heard in the Gospel, who exhorted the people and preached to them the Good News.

 

Jesus was borne of Mary, whom we honor nightly when we pray the Magnificat,

the prayer with which Mary responded to Elizabeth's greeting at the Visitation.  The time of waiting is coming to an end.  Only one more Sunday stands between us and the great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord.

 

Expectant waiting will be replaced by unfettered joy. Ero Cras will come to fulfillment.

 

Gaudete in Domino semper,

iterum dice gaudete. 

Dominus enim prope est.

 

“Rejoice in the Lord always;

again I say rejoice! 

The Lord is near.”  

 

________________________________________________________

Winter photography is deeply satisfying.  The photos below were taken a few years ago in Vermont when I was stranded on Mt. Equinox for three days in a blizzard accumulating 17 inches.  It was very  cold, the snow was mostly powder and there was no wind.  Took undreds of shots.

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent

 

Baruch 5:1-9

Ps 126

Phil 1:4-6,8-11

Lk 3:1-6

 

A favorite memory from my time Temple Medical School in ‘72 was the night six of us scrounged together enough money for dinner at a restaurant in Center City Philadelphia after which we walked to the Forrest Theater to see "Godspell" a rock musical that had opened on Broadway in 1971.  Godspell is subtitled, “A Musical Based  Upon the Gospel According to St. Matthew.”  It was quite a romp.  Though it was later made into a movie I much prefer the play. Today’s readings bring back the memory the joyful opening number. 

 

After blowing the shofar the John the Baptist character intones the words, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord” which he repeats several times. Then the instruments kick in along with the cast singing.  The command to prepare the way of the Lord morphs into a celebratory and very energetic production number.  The joy in the music was and is infectious.  The joy in the reading from Baruch is similarly infectious.

 

Baruch is a small book of uncertain provenance that is canonical for the Catholic Church but considered apocryphal by Jews and Protestants. The author described the return of the exiles to Jerusalem in exquisite poetic images.  Led by the Lord, Jerusalem will welcome them back to enjoy a new era of prosperity and peace.  That joyful return however, will require preparation and a change of heart; it will require a conversion.  It will require preparing the way.

 

Paul prays for that kind of conversion in his Letter to the Philippians when he writes, “that your love may increase ever more and more. . . to discern what is of value.” That discernment is increasingly complicated in this modern world of competing values.   But, what better way to prepare for the coming of the Lord than to look into ourselves in prayer to discern the values that guide us? 

 

Luke's gospel describes a necessary element of that preparation, John the Baptist.

 

The degree of John’s kinship with Jesus is unclear.  Luke’s magnificent first chapter described the first encounter between John and Jesus, “. . . and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit cried out in a loud voice and said ‘Most Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.” 

 

Who was this herald known as John? 

 

In some art work, avant-garde movies, and whacked-out novels, John is oftentimes depicted as somewhere between drugged out hippie and a wild-eyed lunatic who dressed in animal skins and ate a diet that, by modern standards, would be considered inedible, except by the fat guy on the Food Channel who ate bizarre foods for a living. 

 

Fortunately, we have credible testimony about John from a variety of contemporary sources.  Luke’s Gospel, in particular, situates John’s appearance around A.D. 27.  In addition to being attested in all four Gospels,  John is mentioned in the Antiquities of Josephus, an historian who lived from about A.D. 37 to 100.  He wrote the following about John: “He was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice toward their fellows and piety toward God, and in so doing to join in baptism. . . (a baptism that) was a necessary preliminary if baptism  was to be acceptable to God."  Josephus went on to explain that baptism was not to be used so as to gain pardon for whatever sins an individual committed, but as a consecration of the body because the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behavior. 

 

John’s non-PETA approved mode of dressing was no different from that of any other desert dweller.  The animal skins were necessary during cold desert nights.  His diet had nothing to do with radical vegetarianism, veganism, low-fat, or other fads.  His diet was driven by the much more prosaic need to maintain ritual purity of his diet.  His dress and diet are irrelevant during this holy season. His message, however, is as relevant to us today as it was to the ancient Judeans, both those who sought him out and those whom he criticized. 

 

As Josephus noted, he “exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice toward their fellows and piety toward God.”  Justice toward one's fellows and piety toward God.  What better way to prepare the way of the Lord? 

 

Truly, the Lord has done great things for us.  Let us be filled with joy as we prepare His way.  

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

The photos were taken at the Charterhouse in Pleterje, Slovenia when I was doing some work there.  It is old, was founded as a charterhouse, had several changes of "ownership" and eventually returned to the Carthusians.  It I very large as it functioned as a "double" community when some French Carthusians had to go into exile.  

 

A small chapel used for the daily private Mass celebrated by all priests after the conventual Mass.

Lunch.  The monks are vegetarian.  The food was very good and wine very cold. 

The monastic church.  The bells are rung by hand, thus the knotted rope.

The stalls are intricately carved

The rood screen in the church. 

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD