Recently in Advent-Christmas Category
I hope everyone is simply having a wonderful Christmas time (please note the present tense). After all, Christmas begins on December 25 and carries on until Epiphany on January 6.
So if you've already taken down the icicle lights from the gutter and the plastic tree is in pieces and stowed in the basement, you're doing it wrong. Don't worry; I'm doing it wrong too. Last year I decided to leave the outdoor lights up until after Epiphany, gleefully squandering those pretty 50-degree days that always seem to pop up after Christmas in Kansas City with smug happiness that I was keeping them up until Christmas was OVER, not just as it was beginning.
Enter January with all her cold wind and ice...
Yeah.
My wife got fed up with it, dug out the ladder and took them down about a week before St. Patrick's Day. And told me about it until a week after Easter. Sheesh.
So don't narc me out to the Liturgical Christmas Season Police, but our peppermint scented candles are tucked away for their long summer's nap until it begins to look a lot like Christmas 2009. Hell hath no fury like a wife up on the rooftop (click click click!). She doesn't care that Christmas doesn't end until the Three Kings bring Baby Jesus that combo Christmas-Birthday present that all the people that were born in December complain about.
It is not a matter of discussion.
You know, it would be a lot easier to bring your true love all that stuff for the 12 days after Christmas. And with all these after-Christmas sales like they've been, it's probably a big money saver. You're probably the only guy buying pear trees and hiring pipers this time of the year, so you're in for a deal. Did you know that someone actually calculates the cost of all that stuff and tracks it every year? PNC Bank calls it the Christmas Price Index and it's one measure of inflation: http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/. Save your nickels, Scrooge, if you're buying your True Love all that Bric-a-Brac this year, you'll need to show up to the Aviary, Jeweler and Labor Ready outlets with $21,080.10 in your pocket.
Us poor boys can't come up with that kind of change, pa rum pa pum pum. And since my wife doesn't care for incense and since we've already sent all our gold to that guy on television who is going to mail us a check for its value, we're just down to the myrrh. Don't hold your breath, True Love. I'm still paying Citibank back for the Lords-a-Leaping I got you in 2003.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: it's still Christmas Season. Here on St. Sylvester Day, New Year's Eve and the Vigil of the Solemnity of Mary, while we're popping the corks on our $4 bottles of sparkling wine (it's a recession, who's got money for Champagne?) and Aulding our Lang Syne in the living room, take a moment and wish Baby Jesus a happy belated birthday. He's earned it. And I'm keeping my Santa Hat on for another week.
A Child is Born. The Three Kings from Orient are on their way. I gotta look my best, right?
Two Thousand Five Hundred and Thirteen years after the great flood,
Two Thousand Twenty years after the era of Abraham,
One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty years from the exodus from Egypt,
One Thousand years after the rule of King David,
Nine Hundred Seventy Two years after King Solomon's temple,
Seven Hundred Fifty Seven years from the Foundation of Rome,
One Hundred Years after the birth of Julius Caesar,
In the 184th Olympiad,
Under the rule of Augustus Caesar,
In the reign of King Herod,
in a lowly manger in Bethlehem upon a midnight clear,
unto us a Child is born.
God bless us, every one.
In the months before Christ's birth, Mary went to see her cousin Elizabeth-- herself pregnant with John the Baptist. This moment is still celebrated by the Church on a day called "The Visitation" every year on May 31 (in the new calendar for you missal hawks). When they greeted each other, the baby leaped in Elizabeth's womb and she instantly knew that Mary's baby is the Lord. She exclaimed:
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.Elizabeth's child would grow up to become the herald of Christ as Jesus began his ministry, much like Elijah was the prophet of the Lord in the Old Testament. But all of that would happen 30 years later from this tender moment between two women preparing for the birth of their children.
Elizabeth's exclamation of Mary's holiness because of her fiat, the consent to let the Lord's will be done, is a special moment-- Mary replies with one of the most beautiful moments in Christian history when she responded that by accepting His will was for His glory. Her words are called the Canticle of Mary or the Magnificat.
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.
He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy:
As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.
The Magnificat is considered the first and best Christmas Carol proclaimed by a Jewish woman (paving the way for Barbara Streisand in 1967). It is also the moment in Christian history where Mary takes the title of the Blessed Virgin.
Mary would stay with Elizabeth for a few months in these days, but would soon have to move off with her Husband to Bethlehem. The Roman government was taking a census and all men were to register their families in the family's city. Bethlehem was a small village (O Little Town, after all) and was not well suited for the influx of visitors complying with the orders of the governor, but comply they did anyway.
If you've ever been around (or been) a pregnant woman in the few days before childbirth, you know they are fairly fragile people. From my experience, women in their 8th month of pregnancy don't like going anywhere (from the store to the bathroom); imagine Mary making the 90-mile cross-country trip from Galilee to Bethlehem. Kansas Citians might imagine walking from Lawrence to Manhattan Kansas on foot by dirt roads with a pregnant woman.
Poor Mary!
(And poor Joseph!)
And when they got there, there was no room at the inn; no place to lay their head.
The silent night is coming.
A few days ago, I commented that the only well known Advent song is "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". There is a lesser known song that I like just as much--but I doubt that you'll hear it on that radio station that's been playing The Carpenters Christmas Album since Halloween. It's a church song written by a lifelong Catholic, Eleanor Farjeon back in 1928: "People, Look East!" I was reminded of this song at Church on Sunday--it was the closing Hymn (more properly called the Recessional) as Father picked up his Today's Missal Music Issue to sing his way out of Church.
I remember hearing this song from time to time as a kid in Church, but I didn't think too much about it. It doesn't make much sense, really.
People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
What's with all this emphasis on directions? The house I grew up in faces West, if I looked East and started singing, I'd stare at the back door and get strange looks from my older brothers. Today, my house faces North. So I'd sing at the garage wall (which is conveniently situated for me to set the table while I trim an imaginary hearth) and my wife quietly gets out the straightjacket for her off-the-deep-end husband. But that day may be coming anyway, singing to the garage or not.
That song doesn't make much sense in a modern context. No Christmas songs do if you think about it. Roasted Chestnuts are gross, no one other than Andy Williams tells scary ghost stories, and even if you accept that Frosty the Snowman comes to life with a magic top hat--where'd you get a top hat with "some magic" left in it? Frankly, if I'm laying on my deathbed and some future progeny of mine is out hitting up strangers to cover the cost of some stupid Christmas shoes, I'm gonna be pretty ticked off about it. But Christmas is about the coming of Faith, Hope and Charity, so if Love the guest is on the way, I guess I better be looking out for him.
But why East?
In ancient Rome, all of the churches had an Eastward direction. The exact reason seems to be lost to history (not that some people will stop inventing well-researched reasons), but they were probably focused on the rising sun (and the Rising Son). There might have been a utilitarian purpose as well--Edison wouldn't invent the lightbulb for several hundred years later, so some utility should be given for morning church services--but that's just conjecture on my part. In any manner, people sat on the West side of the building, the altar was on the East side, thus people literally looked East. The priest, too, faced East at the base of the altar, his eyes gazing towards the crucifix--an image of Christ unjustly slain--in whose honor each Mass was offered as a re-presentation of the sacrifice on Calvary's hill.
Church buildings in the Eastern Catholic tradition (instead of, say, the Roman Catholic) still largely face East, but Roman Catholic churches do not typically strictly follow this convention. Heh. The most famous Latin chapel in the world--the Sistine Chapel even faces West. But the term still stuck, and for most of Christian history, the Holy Mass was offered ad orientem (Latin: to the East) facing the crucifix. Even if they weren't facing directional East, the priest was leading the congregation to liturgical East, bringing his flock to the risen Son of God--a fact more important than a compass point.
Today this convention still lives on in the Tridentine Latin Mass as the priest and the people face the same direction in worship. It is the essence of Catholic liturgy; the whole purpose of Mass is for the glorification of the Lord.
But sometime around the point in Catholic history where the iconoclasts were tearing down the rectangle churches to build round spaceships so everyone could look at each other, the priests started turning around and facing the congregations. This direction of worship where the priest faces the people (Latin: versus populum) was designed to bring the Mass closer to the congregation. A noble goal! The altars were moved from being grand and glorious focus points of the entire church to being tables in the middle of a round room. Father, as celebrant of the Holy Mass facing the devout churchgoers, was put in the strange position of turning his back on the crucifix. Literally speaking, Catholic priests turned their backs to God.
It was a theological shift that's hard to sum up in a pithy 1300 word post on a blog. And I'm using some serious overgeneralization when I say this, but Catholic worship went from being considered the holy sacrifice of the Mass to a celebration of the Eucharist; the Mass changed from a re-presentation of the sacrifice on Calvary to a re-enactment of the Last Supper. To me, this is an understandable and logical desire of mankind--it's even theologically sound (though I'm no theologian). Indeed, even in the Tridentine Latin Mass, a part of the ritual was of celebration, it was a real thanksgiving (whose Greek term gave us the word Eucharist), but it was given in the context that the Holy Mass was about the glorification of the Lord, not a time for gladhanding or self-congratulation or self-esteem; it wasn't about getting something out of Mass--though people could certainly get something out of worship. Going to church wasn't--and still isn't--some Godly motivational seminar. Perky music followed by coffee and doughnuts are fine, but that's not the point. Mass isn't a concert, it's not a comedy show, it's not Mass: the Musical!. It's about God, not me. Which is a bummer. Admittedly. I like it when things are about me.
Of course, going to church shouldn't be a downer either. And the old Latin Mass had a tendency to be a real downer. Ask some old-timer to tell you about whatever awful Irish priest they had who said "the Lowest of the Low" Mass (whatever that means) and even liturgical fuddy-duddies like myself will admit that some of those businesslike daily Low Masses leave a little bit to be desired, asthetically speaking. So why is it that going to the Ordinary Mass turns into such a downer too, with a round church full of Catholics who can't sing (and don't want to sing "Gather us In" no matter how loud the wood block player clacks his dowel against the 2x4). It's not just the music, either. But I digress.
The point is that Catholics of my generation don't have a proper understanding of what it means to turn towards the Lord; 
we've lost the ability to orient our lives or our worship. It's strange that when Pope Benedict XVI offered Mass ad orientem in the Sistine Chapel, it was fairly big news in Catholic the media; particularly strange because Catholics offered and witnessed the Holy Mass offered in exactly this manner for centuries. Good Father Zuhlsdorf who writes the Catholic blog What Does the Prayer Really Say often notes that even the Novus Ordo Mass (the form of the Mass with which most of today's Catholics attend) was written presuming ad orientem worship, but in the excitement zeitgeist of the 60's, liturgists kind of did whatever they wanted regardless of what the proper form of the Mass said. I'll have to take his word for it; I don't speak or read Latin, so I can't read those original Novus Ordo rubrics. Nonetheless, Rome has ruled that a Mass offered versus populum is a valid Catholic Mass--and it's the predominant way that Mass is celebrated in the world.
With Father's back towards Jesus and the congregation facing each other.
It makes you wonder who, exactly, we're all there to worship. Doesn't it? God? The Priest? Each other?
People, Look East!
*****
"People, Look East!"
By Eleanor Farjeon (1928)
1. People, look East. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
2. Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.
3. Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.
4. Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.
5. Angels, announce with shouts of mirth
Christ who brings new life to earth.
Set every peak and valley humming
With the word, the Lord is coming.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.
It was sometime after I wrote those words that life really started to bottom out for me. I'd go on a string of broken jobs, rubber checks and empty bottles of wine. It's hard to remember, exactly, how I got to that point and why I didn't just *snap out of it*. I didn't want to snap out of it. Eventually I decided that I'd failed at everything I tried to do by myself--and looked for some help from above. When I started this blog, I briefly wrote about that moment in the 
But this is the season of Advent, not the season of Christmas, and it's the time where we're getting ready to receive Christ our Lord. The churches are getting ready right now, they've got little envelopes in the pews and notes in the bulletins that they're accepting donations for Christmas flowers and poinsettias with which they will decorate the church. 
