Christmas Eve 2015

"O Come All Ye Faithful"

"Silent Night"

"O Holy Night"

"Joy to the World"

Simply hearing the titles of beloved Christmas hymns can trigger the melody in our minds. The evocative words and familiar music have the potential to bring back memories. They may be memories of THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!! , the Christmas we were being crushed with pain, or something in between.  We may recall our first childhood Christmas memory, the first Christmas as a newlywed, the last Christmas in the old house, the final Christmas with a loved one, the Christmas when we knew nothing would ever be the same, or the first Christmas when we understood its true meaning.  Sit with those memories.  They arise for a reason. 

The fantasies of what Christmas should be, the secular and commercial message of Christmas, is oftentimes at odds with our experience.  But, the truth of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, always fits our lived reality. The Feast of the Nativity is never at odds with our experience, be it the experience Christmases past, the Christmas we are living right now, or Christmases yet to come. 

Lifetime Channel.  Hallmark cards.  Sappy advertisements.  Dreadful 24/7 Christmas music stations. They have it all wrong. They have it all wrong with Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, and Brenda Lee singin' about rockin' around the tree.  Sloppy sentimentalists have it all wrong when they say,  "Christmas is for children."  It ain't.  Never was.  As a society we get the kind of Christmas we want and deserve.  Many Americans want little out of Christmas.  And that is what they get, an expensive sweater that doesn’t quite fit and a lot of stress. 

It need not be that way. We can have the Christmas we want, the Christmas we deserve . . . the Christmas we desperately need.  And we can have it despite government sanctioned and ACLU driven attacks on all things religious, sacred and true, the criminalization of Christianity.  This evening we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man. Son of the Father. Son of Mary. Jesus, like us in all things but sin.

St. Ignatius makes a crucial point in one of the meditations from the Spiritual Exercises.  It is a point we cannot forget or ignore unless. . .  we want or are satisfied with a Holly Jolly, Hallmark, Red-nosed Rudolph, Winter Wonderland,  Rockin Around the Christmas tree drunken bacchanal.  Stuffed from overeating.  Hung-over.  Gifted with way too many Starbucks gift cards.  Ignatius wrote: “Mary and Joseph journeyed and struggled so that our Lord might be born, so that after his labors and hunger, his thirst and work, and after insults and outrages, that He might die on the cross.  And do this for me.”

"That he might die on the cross. And do this for me."

Go to the manger in your imagination.  Enter the scene as if you were stepping into the action of a movie.  Are you standing close to Jesus or hiding in a corner?  Are you gazing at our Lord or looking for a place to stay warm, dry and fed?  Are you conversing with Mary and Joseph, or mentally finishing your Christmas shopping while fuming about the fruitcake that Aunt Bertha gave you again?

Never forget that the scene of Jesus' birth was, and is, a slice of real life.  It was experienced by real people, in a specific place, at a particular time. It was neither clean nor neat, childbirth rarely is.  Jesus' birth changed history. It changed the nature of the universe.  Jesus' birth is not the end of the Christmas story. The so-called Christmas story cannot stand alone.  It is only a beginning. It is only the beginning of the story of our redemption. The story of our redemption did not end with the Gloria in Excelsis Deo of the angels. Our redemption was not secured when the magi departed.

Gaze at the manger again. The wood of the manger in Bethlehem led to the wood of the cross on Calvary.  It could be no other way.  Without the cross the manger means nothing.  Without Christ's passion, death, resurrection and ascension Jesus is just another cute kid born in Bethlehem a few thousand years ago.  Without Jesus' death and resurrection there would be no reason to celebrate today.

Dag Hammarskjold, second Secretary General of the U.N. who died in a plane crash in what is now Zimbabwe, traced the entire arc of our salvation in a seventeen-syllable haiku.  Hammarskjold captured the real meaning of Christmas in twelve short words

On Christmas Eve, Good Friday

Was foretold them

In a trumpet fanfare

                                   

           

Only because of Good Friday and all that followed, can we proclaim with great joy to the sound of that trumpet fanfare this evening.

Venite adoremus Dominum.

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Just returned from the Christmas Vigil Mass at St. Patrick Nursing Home, part of the complex founded by the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm.  The chapel has the seating capacity of a small church with a lot of room for wheelchairs.  It was packed with patients at St. Patrick, some from Carmel Terrace, the assisted living facility adjacent, a family visitors.  It is becoming an increasing challenge to sit upright.  So I will post some photos of the chapel and call it a night.  Back to Carmel Terrace in the morning. 

Have a most Blessed Christmas

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Lk 1:39-45

The dates on the calendar are disappearing fast, not unlike the cinematic device of pages dropping off a calendar or turning rapidly so as to show the passage of time.  In just a few days the last of the "O Antiphons" will have been chanted. They will be replaced by Gloria in Excelsis Deo.  The tone of the readings is changing.  The penitential and apocalyptic tenor is fading into the background and being replaced by a cautious note of hope and joy.

"from you shall come forth

one who is to be ruler in Israel;

whose origin is from of old,

from ancient times."

We are approaching the apogee of the genealogy that was proclaimed on Thursday.  He who was present before the beginning of time is prepared to enter into time and space. Indeed, today's gospel describes that he is already in time and space.  He will soon set foot on this same earth on which we walk, the same earth in which we work and relax, pray and struggle, weep and sing.   

"Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste."

Ignatian meditation demands that the imagination be fully engaged with the Gospel.  Each exercise entails preparatory preludes followed by points for meditation on specific gospel narratives. 

The first prelude consists of meditating on the story, meditating on the facts underlying the mystery.  Mary has been told that she is to be the Mother of Our Lord.  She hastens to visit Elizabeth.  She is probably still a bit taken aback by the angel's message.  Nonetheless, she sets out for Judah in the hill country. 

The second prelude is something referred to as the composition of place.  Today's narrative supplies scanty information.  This is where the imagination comes into play.  This is the kind of imagination that undergirds the work of many artists who tried to depict the scene, some more successfully than others.  (Try to skip the chubby cherubs hovering above.)

Mary undertook a 90-mile journey. Imagine the road from Bethlehem to Judah. Was it smooth or rocky?  Wide or narrow?  Were there grass or gutters on the sides?  How steep were the hills?  What was Mary carrying with her?   How was she dressed?  (I suspect she was not traveling in watered silk studded with seed pearls and rhinestones.)  What did Elizabeth's home look like?  Were there many windows?  How wide was the door?  How was it furnished?  Then comes an application of the senses.  Is it hot or cold?  Dry or damp?  What aromas tinged the air?  You want to place yourself in the scene as if you were stepping from your seat in the theater into the action on the screen.  Once the scene has been composed in as much detail as you would like enter into the meditations.

This particular narrative detailed Mary going to Elizabeth's house and John's recognition of Jesus presence.  Merton described this moment in exquisite imagery in his work, "The Quickening of John the Baptist" a portion of which reads,

"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."

One question preoccupied me while meditating on this narrative. What did Mary and Elizabeth talk about?  What did they discuss?  They were two first time mothers. One was young and the other significantly older.  Both pregnancies were unexpected.  Both pregnancies miraculous, each in its own way. How did they sound as they talked?  An interesting meditative excercise would be to write the dialogue for this scene, the part the follows after the Magnificat. Write the dialogue and create the scene for other moments during Mary's three month visit with Elizabeth.

O Clavis David

veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,

sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David, . . .

come, break down the prison walls of death

for those who dwell in darkness

and the shadow of death.

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Thought I would put more on the blog during Advent but time got away.  A late-planned trip to PA took more time than planned.  Many Masses during this season in a variety of places. I spent this final weekend of Advent at the Abbey of Regina Laudis celebrating Mass daily.  I got down every several months in part to help the nuns out as they do not have a resident chaplain and as a way of getting some very quiet time away from here.  Also get to exercise the camera.  Alas, Saturday was cold and very windy.  Way to windy to photograph and maintain feeling in my fingers, at least outdoors. 

I got dragooned into helping put the lights on the tree in the monastic church.  Good way to fill up several hours on an otherwise nasty rainy and windy day.  

Some outdoor photos first. 

There is a broken bottle on a bunch of railroad ties.  It is fascinating as a study in shape, texture and light.  

  

As noted above it was rainy, misty, foggy and damp.  My camera is not weatherproof so I spent little time outdoors.  When the sun did come out it was very cold and very windy.  This is the land just outside the men's guesthouse (St. Joseph). 

The Madonna and Child at the main entrance near St. Joseph. 

St. Joseph from the meadow. 

The monastic choir and altar taken from the back of the church. 

Candles on the altar.  When I celebrate Mass I am facing the nun's with back to the congregation from outside. 

Cruets prepared for Mass the next morning. 

The Christmas tree light crew including my long-time buddy Karl who as visiting for a day.  

Have a Blessed Christmas

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

First Sunday of Advent

Jer 33:14-16

Ps 25

1 Thes 3:12-4:2

Lk 21:25-28, 34-36

"Veni, veni, Emmanuel

captivum solve Israel."

"O come, o come Emmanuel

and ransom captive Israel."

The word Advent is derived from the Latin:  ad meaning "to or toward" and venire meaning "to come"

Thus, Advent means: to come to, to move toward, to approach, to near.  English supplies many options in transations.

Advent is not a stand-alone season.  It is the beginning of the Church's liturgical year.  Advent is not a synonym for frantic shopping.  It is a time to prepare for the Nativity of Our Lord.  Advent was not created by Martha Stewart as a time to decorate and do useless craft projects.  Despite secular messages to the contrary, despite a government and many universities that would relish removing all religious associations from the word Christmas, if not banning the word itself,  Advent is a penitential season, thus, purple vestments.  No Gloria at Sunday Mass. It is a time for prayer and meditation, a time to contemplate what we will soon celebrate.

We heard in the first reading from Jeremiah:  "The days are coming when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah." Despite the promise of the covenant, those to whom God made the promise turned away repeatedly.  They forgot all that He had done for them. They placed faith only in their own selves, their own abilities, their own concept of freedom.  How very much like us when things are going particularly well.

"I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land."

That is the promise we recall as we prepare over the coming weeks to celebrate the Incarnation of Our Lord, the coming of Jesus toward and into our world.

The Gospel from Luke comes from the last half of Chapter 21, the end of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem.  Chapter 22 begins the narrative of the Last Supper.  Jesus isn't saying anything new here.  He isn't saying anything that he hasn't already said many times.  He hints at the the return of the Son of Man, and cautions, as He did many times, against being caught unawares, of not being prepared for that coming.  The imagery is vivid and frightening.  Signs in the heavens.  Turmoil upon the earth.  Dying of fright.  And the Son of Man coming on a cloud.  BUT . . . we do not, we cannot, and we will not know when.  Unfortunately that fact has not stopped doomsday preachers and others, from precise calculations of the timing, and sometimes even the exact location, of the parousia. 

Remember the insanity fifteen years ago when the "new millennium" began?  Remember the prognostications?  Many were beyond bizarre, as were the individuals making them.  People hung onto the words of self-appointed evangelists and pseudo-theologians who were nothing more than amateur soothsayers, graduates of the Chicken Little School of Divination and Alarmism.  They spread fear and perhaps reaped a little profit—profit with an ‘f’ not a ‘ph’.  The rapturists expected to be taken up bodily.  Major craziness to be sure.  A good rule of thumb is: The more specific the prediction as to time, place, and other details of the parousia, the second coming of Jesus, the rapture, or the end of time, or whatever one chooses to call it,  the more worthy it is of derision or, if you are so inclined, hysterical, fall-on-the-floor-while-wiping-tears-from-your-eyes laughter. 

As we begin this holy season, as we gaze at the single candle in the Advent wreathe, a wreathe that will be fully lit before we have time to catch our breaths, we are called to sing in gratitude with the psalmist:

"Your way, O Lord, make known to me

teach me your paths,

Guide me in your truth and teach me. . .

All the paths of the Lord

are kindness and constancy

toward those who keep his covenant. . .”

Veni, veni, Emmanuel

captivum solve Israel.

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First Sunday of Advent.  Finally.  It is the beginning of the new liturgical year.  The Gospel of Luke will predominate on Sundays.  And the readings from year II will take over the weekday Masses.  It is one of my favorite times of the year, in some ways more so than the post-Christmas days.  

Black and white photography is my first love.  My first role of film was ASA 400 black and white.  When I went to England in 1977, the reason I bought the camera, some of the best work was black and white.  Alas, I no longer have the negatives or the prints that I made.  It is easier to focus on texture, light, and shape in black and white than in color.  Some photos only work in black and white.  One of the joys of digital photography is the ability to change color to black and white and then adjust.  Ansel Adams and other pioneer photographers worked very hard in the darkroom to dodge (lighten) and burn (darken) black and white photos.  I can do the same without taking my hand off the computer mouse.  And there is no exposure to chemicals.  

These pine cones of some type were OK in color.  Black and white allowed me to play with the light, contrast and texture.  

There is a cemetery at Sevenhill, South Australia where we made the tertian long retreat.  The representation of the Jesuit seal represents a lot of work on the computer as the seal over the entrance was suspended by two iron bars.  I erased them. 

 A fence around one of the grave plots illuminated with flash.

A Celtic cross atop a hillock in the cemetery. 

Black and white also records more complex scenes beautifully.  This was taken toward the end of the retreat on a chilly threatening morning.  

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD