Today, in Mercy, we welcome the hope of 2019. When we were young nuns, we were introduced to the custom of letting the first thing we wrote in the New Year Be this phrase:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph
I’ve always kept the custom. It is good to remember with whom we step into this next moment in time.
Praying with our Gospel today:
It is good to rest with the infant Jesus in unconditional trust in the Father’s plan.
It is good to ponder with Mary that each moment’s meaning extends into eternity.
It is good to be with silent Joseph in listening trust and holy readiness.
As we begin again in hope and grace, let us do so in the company of this Holy Family. Let them bless us in mercy, as our psalm prays.
May we have simple trust in their presence with and care for us. May this give us the courage to live another year with renewed faith, courageous hope and transformative love.
Happy New Year, dear friends!
Music: from our beautiful Responsorial Psalm 67, rendered here in Gaelic. (English below)
God be merciful to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us.
That Your way may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy!
For You shall judge the people righteously
And govern the nations on earth.
Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
Then the earth shall yield her increase;
God, our own God, shall bless us.God shall bless us,
And all the ends of the earth shall obey Him.
Today, in Mercy, on this New Year’s Eve, our spirits are occupied with the passage of time – the endings and beginnings that compose a life.
In the public domain, this night is often characterized as one of wild celebrations, almost as if we need to prove our endurance within time.
But in the privacy of our hearts, there are the moments of quiet nostalgia, bittersweet memory, and vulnerable gratitude for all that has been in this past year and the years preceding.
On this Sacred Eve, as people of faith, we will hold time’s hourglass up to the Light of eternity, knowing that – in God – there is no time.
In God, there is only love – the only human capacity which endures beyond time. In heaven, we will not need faith because we will see. We will not need hope, because all will be fulfilled.
But we will always need love.
In the end, there are three things that last –
faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13
So before the tolls welcome midnight, let us raise up to God our Eucharist of 2018:
those whose lives have been completed; those who have just begun
the efforts we made which succeeded; those which failed
the dreams secured; the dreams abandoned
the opportunities for grace that we seized; those lost which we hope to have renewed
the prayers answered as we had desired; the prayers answered in ways we didn’t recognize
all that we have loved; all that we hope to love more worthily
As John says in our first reading, “Children, it is the last hour …”
May we let it go with gratitude, wisdom and joy.
But as John also says in our Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God …
…. and from his fullness we have all received,
grace flowing upon grace …
May we welcome this grace of eternal life and hope given to us in another New Year.
Blessed 2019, dear friends.
Music: Amazing Grace ~ Salt Lake City Vocal Artists
Today, in Mercy, our prayer is turned to the Holy Family, that unique configuration of love which nurtured the developing life of Jesus. Can you imagine how tenderly the Father shaped this triad, this nesting place of love for God’s own Word?
We look to the Holy Family so that we might be strengthened in the virtues that will help us build our own families: sacrificial love, reverence, courage, unfailing support, committed presence, shared faith, gentle honesty, unconditional acceptance.
“Family” is the primordial place where we learn who we are. The lessons it teaches us about ourselves – for better or worse — remain with us forever.
Not everyone is blessed by their family. Family can ground us in confidence or undermine us with self-doubt. It can free us from fear or cripple us with reservation. It can release either possibility or perpetual hesitation within us.
Some families are so dysfunctional that we spend the rest of our lives trying to recover from them. But some, like the Holy Family, allow God’s dream to be nurtured in us and to spread to new families, both of blood and spirit.
The challenge today is to thank God for whatever type of family bore us. Lessons can be learned from both lights and shadows. Let us spend time this morning lookingat our own families with love, gratitude, forgiveness, understanding. Where there are wounds to be healed, let us face them. Where there are belated thanks to be offered, let us give them. Where there are negligence and oversights to confess, let us use them as bridges to a new devotion.
For some, it may seem too late to heal or bless our family. Time may have swallowed some of our possibilities. But it is never too late to deepen relationships through prayer, both for and to our ancestors.
May this feast strengthen us for the families who need us today.
Music: God Bless My Family ~ Anne Hampton Calloway
GOD BLESS MY FAMILY Words and music – By Ann Hampton Callaway
1. It’s Christmas time
Outside the snow is falling
Like a million stars
Like a million dreams
All dressed up in white
I’m writing Christmas cards
A joy that’s tinged with sadness
As I think of friends
Some are here and some are gone
But our love goes on and on
Like the snow tonight
CHORUS And oh, what a family
My life has given me
From the corners of the earth
To the reaches of the sky
We touch eternally
And though my heart aches ev’ry day
This Christmas I will find a way
To let each face I’ve ever loved
Shine out in me
God bless my family
2. As years go by
The carols we sang as children
Gather memories
What was just a song
Now feels like a pray’r
Welcoming us home
To fathers, mothers
Sisters, brothers ev’rywhere
Some we’ve lost and some we’ve found
As love circles us around
In the songs we share
CHORUS
So fly, angels of my heart
We’ll never be apart
Tonight I say a pray’r
For loved ones ev’rywhere
CHORUS/CODA
You’re a part of my family
That life has given me
From the corners of the earth
To the reaches of the sky
We touch eternally
And though my heart aches ev’ryday
This Christmas I will find a way
To let each face I’ve ever loved
Shine out in me
God bless my family
You’ll always live in me
God bless my family
Today, in Mercy,our first reading offers us John’s perfect honesty and simplicity:
Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments
is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
But whoever keeps his word,
the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him:
whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked.
Yes, it’s that simple and that hard!
Then, in our Gospel, we meet Simeon who speaks with the holy confidence of a long and well-lived life. His lifelong dream was that he might not die before seeing the Messiah. That dream now fulfilled, Simeon intones one of the most beautiful prayers in Scripture:
Lord, now let your servant go in peace;
your word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which you prepared in the sight of every people,
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.
If we live in the Light, we too will see the Messiah within our life’s experiences. We too will come to our final days confident and blessed by that enduring recognition.
For as John also assures us:
Whoever says he is in the light,
yet hates his brother or sister is still in the darkness. But whoever loves his brother and sister remains in the light …
Let’s pray today for those who are dying, that they may know this kind of peace.
Let us pray for ourselves, that when our time comes, we too may experience this confidence.
Music:Nyne Otpushchayeshi ~Sergei Rachmaninoff (translated Nunc Dimittis, Now Let Your Servant Go). This was sung at Rachmaninoff’s funeral, at his prior request.(For musicians among you, point of interest: Nunc dimittis (Nyne otpushchayeshi), has gained notoriety for its ending in which the low basses must negotiate a descending scale that ends with a low B-flat (the third B-flat below middle C).
Church Slavonic text Ныне отпущаеши раба Твоего,
Владыко, по глаголу Твоему, с миром;
яко видеста очи мои спасение Твое,
еже еси уготовал, пред лицем всех людей,
свет во откровение языков
и славу людей Твоих Израиля
English translation Now let Your servant depart in peace,
Lord, by Your word;
My eyes have seen Your salvation,
Which You have prepared,
In view of all the people,
A light revealed to all tongues
and to the glory of Your people, Israel
Today, in Mercy, we are lifted to Light by John’s sacred words in our first reading:
Beloved: This is the message that we have heard from Jesus Christ and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.
Simply hearing it, we long to abide in that whole and healing Light.
But then we read our Gospel, among the saddest accounts in all of Scripture – the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. Their needless deaths come at the hands of a power-crazed and fearful man.So hungry for his own aggrandizement, he tries to assure it by killing a generation of children.
It sounds impossible, doesn’t it, that anyone could be so hardened by evil? It sounds impossible that good people would execute this order of a mad man! It sounds impossible that human beings could be so blind to the sanctity of another’s life!
Dear friends, we must confront our own blindness. We must look into the eyes of our 21st century children – the border children, the children of Yemen, Syria, … the children of war, violence, drugs and poverty.
We must hear the cry of God, their Mother, and choose legislators and leaders who will honor life; who will shape global policies and relationships recognizing the common life we share in God – who will make true pro-life choices regarding gun control, arms sales, and an economy of endless war.
Our attitudes, our advocacy and our votes will either condemn or exonerate us when that Great Light ultimately reveals our hearts. When a society’s children become the victims of its indefensible corruption, we must say “Enough!”
Music: The Mediaeval Baebes – Coventry Carol
The “Coventry Carol” is an English Christmas Carol dating from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry, England as part of a mystery play called “The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors”. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Matthew’s Gospel. The carol itself refers to the massacre of the Holy Innocents in which Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, and takes the form of a lullaby sung by mothers of the doomed children.(Information from Wikipedia)
Today, in Mercy, and for the next two weeks, our first readings take us into the beautiful mind and heart of John the Apostle, whose feast we celebrate today.
John, as I have met him in his Gospel and Letters, is a lover and a poet. He is, at the same time, a precise and exquisite engineer of thought and insight.
Often, a single word or phrase of John’s writing captures more than our minds can hold. Thus, praying with his writings should be a slow savoring, morsel by morsel, of Eternal Light captured for us in an elegant word.
Let these phrases rest with you in prayer today:
“What was from the beginning …Jesus, Uncreated, pre-existent Word of God
what we have heard, … Whose voice John heard
what we have seen with our eyes, … Whose acts of love John witnessed
what we looked upon … Whose crucified body John held
and touched with our hands … Whose wounds he wept over
concerns the Word of life …this Jesus is John’s whole life.
And John proclaims this treasure to us today so that our joy may be complete — so that we, too, might find our whole and eternal life in this Beloved Word of God.
In our Gospel, John remembers the moment when he “saw and believed”. It was at the first Easter morning when he was very young. As he writes today’s epistle, John is very old. Thousands of acts of faith have spread across his long life like so many sunrises. But he still remembers that first amazed belief at an empty tomb.
Do you remember your first faith? Do you cherish its many dawns over your life? It might be good to pray with John about these things today.
Representation of St. Stephen from The Demidoff Altarpiece by Carlo Crivelli, an Italian Renaissance painter of the late fifteenth century. This many-panelled altarpiece or polyptic painted by Crivelli in 1476, sat on the high altar of the church of San Domenico in Ascoli Piceno, east central Italy. It is now in the National Gallery in London, England.
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of St. Stephen, first martyr for the Christian faith.
The commemoration and readings are a drastic turn from singing angels and worshiping shepherds.The Liturgy moves quickly from welcoming a cooing baby to weeping at the death of innocence. Why?
One thought might be to keep us practical and focused on what life in Christ truly means.
Stephen, like Jesus, “was filled with grace and power, … working great wonders and signs among the people.” He, as Jesus would, met vicious resistance to his message of love and reconciliation. He, as Jesus would, died a martyr’s death while forgiving his enemies.
The Church turns us to the stark truth for anyone who lets Christ truly be born in their hearts. WE will suffer as Jesus did – as Stephen did. The grace and power of Christ in our life will be met with resistance, or at least indifference.
We may not shed blood but, in Christ, we will die to self. When we act for justice for the poor and mercy for the suffering, we will be politically frustrated and persecuted. When we forgive rather than hate, we will be mocked. Powerful people, like the yet unconverted Saul in today’s second reading, may catalyze our suffering by their determined hard-heartedness.
Our Gospel confirms the painful truth:
“You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.”
Tomorrow, the liturgy picks up the poetic readings from John’s letters. These are delights to the soul.
But for today, it is a hard look, with Stephen, at what Christmas ultimately invites us to.
Music: Gabriel’s Oboe from the movie “The Mission”, played by Henrik Chaim Goldschmidt, principal oboist of The Royal Danish Orchestra in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The miracle of Christmas lies in this Latin word, “hodie”.
The Divine Immediacy of it! The Eternal Regeneration of it! The Omnipotent Presence of it! Hodie – Today!Now!
Christ is born in this moment, in this effort, this thought, this choice, this breath of my life.
As this Christmas morning dawns, indeed we commemorate an historical event that has redirected history toward Grace.But hidden in that sacred observance is the deep mystery of what we truly celebrate.
The birth of Christ, Eternal Love, is not contained by time. Every breaking moment bears Christ to the world. As history rolls on beneath this mystery, every generation – every human being – becomes the agent of His birth.
Christ was born in Bethlehem, and we rejoice.
But Christ is born in me – today, and today, and today. And we are awe-struck by Eternal Love.
I open my heart in humility, readiness and worship for Emmanuel’s Presence in my life.
This is the “Christus Moment”, where those passing vagaries of time which conspire to break our hearts, to break our lives, to break our world, are rendered soulless.
This is the moment when death is eviscerated, sin erased, division healed, brokennesssoothed, and hope blazingly restored. This is the “Hodie Moment” of Christ’s eternal birth in my heart, in our Church, in our world.
As we listen to the glorious chant of Christmas morning, “Christus Natus Est”, may we let our lives proclaim its transforming melody by:
every peaceful word we speak
every forgiving glance
every courageous stretch to hope
every grateful generosity
May Christ be born in us today
by our active love for Him in suffering humanity
by the vigor of our merciful justice
by our steady dismantling of selfishness to allow Him the fullness of glory
May Mary, who carried Jesus to life, teach us and guide us to be Bearers of Christ today – “hodie” – and every day.
Music: Hodie Christus Natus Est
Merry Christmas and God’s blessings to all of you and your loved ones!
Today is Christ born; today the Savior has appeared;
today the Angels sing, the Archangels rejoice;
today the righteous rejoice, saying: Glory to God in the highest. Alleluia!
Hodie Christus natus est hodie Salvator apparuit:
hodie in terra canunt Angeli, laetantur Archangeli:
hodie exsultant justi, dicentes: Gloria in excelsis Deo, Alleluia.
We can imagine the manger in any way we choose: perhaps a small rest in a cold, wooden barn, or a hard pallet for a soft newborn. I choose this year to imagine it as warm comfort and a circle of love.
Advent has been an unusual journey for me this year. Just two days after it began, I had my right knee replaced. It might not seem like a big deal. Thousands of people have it done every day. But it’s a big deal when it’s your knee.
I knew what to expect from my surgery and healing process. What I didn’t expect is that the time, coincidental with Advent, would take me to a new place in the heart of Jesus.
You see, what I had planned on was my surgeon’s expertise and my own determination. Like Mary and Joseph, I had set out wholeheartedly, knowing where I had to go and why.
But I had taken an inadequate measure of my vulnerability.
I had not considered my need for a compassionate stable owner; for the warm, living breath of other beings, for the wonder of shepherds, or the songs of angels to lift me up to my hopes for wholeness. Still these came to me in the most wonderful ways!
After an unexpected complication, I was welcomed at our nursing facility for a slightly longer stay than planned. It was my stable on a night that turned out chillier and longer than expected.
My sisters, family and friends – both near and far – breathed their comforting prayers over me, day after day. I saw that holy vapor rising even when I struggled through the first nights with pain or uncertainty. One even brought her prayers crocheted into a shawl under whose warmth I sought my healing.
People did all the things for me that I forgot I would be unable to do, all the time assuring me how well I was doing. Nurses, physicians and amazingly compassionate aides lifted me up – literally and figuratively – with hope and encouragement.
We may not think to find a shepherd’s smile or an angel’s song in such ordinary things as a cup of tea, a Payday candy bar, a soothing towelette, a warm pot pie, a vase of flowers, or a pan of kugel.
We may forget to recognize the heavenly host in a phone call, a card, a peek in the door to see what small service is needed.
But this is how God comes to us. This is the real Advent. It isn’t on a calendar.
Good people gave me many gifts through my Advent journey, the greatest of which was this: a crystal recognition of how much we need one another – even in the simplest of ways. No gesture of companionship or compassion is too small to foster the promise of healing and hope.
Nothing is truly born in isolation from love.
Our human fragility can be an uncomfortable companion, or it can be that just and relentless teacher whom we appreciate only after graduation.
I come to this Christmas Eve with a grateful desire to be more aware of the journeys of those beside me; to reach out my hand with prayer, compassion and help – to be a manger for the birth of everyday miracles. This was the enduring gift of this blessed Advent.
As we close this holy season, we each may want to consider the “manger” within us. Warm? Circled in light? Open to Angel songs? What welcome will “Christ in Every Person” find in me? How has God brought me to the moment of Christmas?
“We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all eternity…. But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me.” ~ Meister Eckhart
Music:Emanuel ~ Tim Manion (Lyrics below)
Baby born in a stall,
Long ago now and hard to recall
Cold wind, darkness and sin
Your welcoming from us all.
How can it be true
A world grown so cold now,
How can it be new
Sorrow’s end; God send,
Born now for me and you.
Emanuel, Emanuel,
What are we that you have loved us so well?
A song on high,
A Savior’s night,
Angel host rejoice thy glory to tell.
Lord, lead us to know,
You lay like a beggar so humble and low.
No place for your head, and straw for your bed
The glory of God to show.
Babe on mother’s knee,
Child so soon to be nailed to a tree,
All praise ‘til the end of our days.
O Lord, you have set us free.
Today, in Mercy, our readings offer a harmonious exultation of Mary, beloved mother of Jesus.
The prophet Micah foretells the time “when she who is to give birth has borne.”
Even the ancient voices spoke of Mary, long before time knew her name. Their hope depended on her cosmic“Yes”, long before she spoke her first childish word.
Hebrews speaks of the Body of Christ, that physical place where the grandeur of God took flesh, that tabernacle woven of Mary’s own body and blood, that temple made possible by her “Fiat”.
The Gospel gives us two loving women, Elizabeth and Mary, rejoicing in God’s power manifested in their lives. They need no proclamations, executive orders, bills, or injunctions. Just a soft greeting, a leap within, a confirmed trust carried in each other’s eyes.
This poem by Mark Strand captures their moment for me. These two women had waited with all Creation for the redeeming Messiah. Now it was about to happen within their lives:
The Coming of Light Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
Music: Agni Parthene (Greek: Ἁγνὴ Παρθένε), rendered “O Virgin Pure”, is a Greek Marian Hymn composed by St. Nectarios in the late 19th century. The dulcet melody is sung here in both Greek and English. Lyrics are below.
O Virgin Pure
by St. Nectarios
Refrain: O Rejoice, Bride Unwedded.
O Virgin pure, immaculate/ O Lady Theotokos
O Virgin Mother, Queen of all/ and fleece which is all dewy
More radiant than the rays of sun/ and higher than the heavens
Delight of virgin choruses/ superior to Angels.
Much brighten than the firmament/ and pure than the sun’s light
More holy than the multitude/ of all the heav’nly armies.
O Rejoice, Bride Unwedded.
O Ever Virgin Mary/ of all the world, the Lady
O bride all pure, immaculate/ O Lady Panagia
O Mary bride and queen of all/ our cause of jubilation
Majestic maiden, Queen of all/ O our most holy Mother
More hon’rable than Cherubim/ beyond compare more glorious
than immaterial Seraphim/ and greater than angelic thrones.
O Rejoice, Bride Unwedded.
Rejoice, O son of Cherubim/ Rejoice, O hymn of angels
Rejoice, O ode of Seraphim/ the joy of the archangels
Rejoice, O peace and happiness/ the harbor of salvation
O sacred chamber of the Word/ flower of incorruption
Rejoice, delightful paradise/ of blessed life eternal
Rejoice, O wood and tree of life/ the fount of immortality
O Rejoice, Bride Unwedded.
I supplicate you, Lady/ now do I call upon you
And I beseech you, Queen of all/ I beg of you your favor
Majestic maiden, spotless one/ O Lady Panagia
I call upon you fervently/ O sacred, hallowed temple
Assist me and deliver me/ protect me from the enemy
And make me an inheritor/ of blessed life eternal.
Lavish Mercy 