Marian Solidarity

In the second chapter of the Book of Matthew is recorded the story of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, an event which recalls the Pharaoh’s instructions to midwives during the time Israel was enslaved in Egypt:

Exodus 1:15-16, 22:
And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews: of whom one was called Sephora, the other Phua, Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive…

…Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive.

Moses was saved from this murder when his mother placed him in a little ark and floated him in the river. Moses’s sister watched from afar as the Pharaoh’s daughter found the child (Exodus 2). The massacre from which Moses was spared is a type, a foreshadowing, of the massacre of the holy innocents that took place soon after Christ was born.

As to the slaughter of the Innocents in the New Testament, first some background: Herod the Great, the Governor of Galilee, was an Idumean Jew whom History describes as an extremely cruel man: he was a man who killed several of his wives and his own sons when he suspected they were plotting against him. Challenges to his power were met with a swift and final response, and he even tried to ensure that his cruel campaigns survived him when he arranged that on the day he went on to his eternal reward, hundreds of men in the area would be killed so that there would be mourning at his funeral. Though this arrangement was never carried out, it speaks well of Herod’s nature.

And during this tyrant’s reign, the Magi — whose adoration of Baby Jesus is rememberd on the Epiphany (6 January) and its Eve (Twelfthnight) — saw the Star of Bethlehem and went to Jerusalem, asking where the new King of Jews may be found. Herod heard of their asking around about the newborn King and, calling the high priests to find out about this this Child, was informed that it was prophecied that the Child would be born in Juda.

Threatened by this prophecy, he sent for the Magi to find the Child and report back so he could go and “worship,” too. The Magi found Jesus but, knowing Herod’s heart after having it revealed to them in a dream, didn’t go back to tell Herod of His wherabouts.

Meanwhile, the Holy Family, warned through St. Joseph who was visted by an angel in a dream, makes their flight into Egypt.

Herod became enraged at the Wise Men’s “betrayal,” and killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger.

The fourth day of Christmas commemorates these baby boys, who are considered martyrs — the very first martyrs (St. Stephen, whose Feast was commemorated 2 days ago, was the first martyr of the Church Age). As Bethlehem was a small town, the number of these Holy Innocents was probably no more than 25, but they are glorious martyrs who died not only for Christ, but in His place. Vestments will be red or purple in mourning, and the Alleluia and Gloria will be supressed at Mass.

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by Fr. Catalino G. Arevalo, SJ

It is a lovely story, and all manner of lessons might be drawn from it: how a child-like spirit can create fresh ways of bringing the Gospel to people; how altar and manger become one at Christmas night, the newborn savior being our true life’s bread; how over the crib falls already the shadow of the cross. But perhaps the simplest and best thought is just this: Bethlehem teaches us, that at the heart of being a Christian is loving our Christ, Mary’s Son, with all our heart and soul. The deepest meaning of the Christmas mystery is that God became one of us, “born of a woman, born under the law”. He became a child, so that in him and in his flesh, as the Nativity Preface has it, we might see the beauty of God which is invisible to the eyes of the body, and seeing, we might fall in love with thr God we cannot see.

 For Jesus of Nazareth, the Savior of Israel’s amid all humanity’s long expectation, “desire of the everlasting hills”, who “sits now at the right hand of the father”, is not a distant figure now lost in the mists of ancient history. He is not even someone once sent by God who has disappeared ”into the incomprehensibility of God”. No, Jesus of Nazareth, by His life, death, and resurrection forever lives truly as the Crucified and Risen One. He lives now. He lives among us, remaining forever true man, a real historical person, present to the world and to us, near to us, – a person we can love, a person around whom we can throw our arms in friendship and affection, and in the simplicity of unfeigned love.

 Of the great and somewhat fearsome German theologian, Karl Rahner, we are told that he once found himself engaged in a lengthy and rather abstract discussion on Jesus Christ, with a learned university professor, a rather rationalistic academician. Let Rahner himself tell us what happened:

At one point, I intervened with, “Yes, you see, you are actually only really dealing with Jesus when you throw your arms around him and realize right down to the bottom of your being that this is something you can still do today.” And my professor-friend replied, “Yes, you’re right of course, if you don’t mean it too pietistically.”

 Like Francis at Greccio, we must be able to hold Jesus in our arms as the Child of the manger; or look lovingly upon the Nazarene walking his via dolorosa; or clasp to our breast the Crucified and Risen One dwelling among us and within us. We must, in faith, come truly to love him as Friend and Brother.

 In the modern classic children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, we are told that in order to become real people, we have to allow ourselves to be loved, loved “strongly and even somewhat roughly”, loved as humans love each other, with all the wear and tear that such loving involves. Only thus, over long, often painful and scarring years, will we become real. True, true. But I often think of what Fr. Robert Griffin CSC once wrote: “The Velveteen Rabbit has it wrong. If you love something, someone strongly enough, it is you, and not the loved object, – who becomes real.”

 Through his incredible faithful life, Francis learned to love Jesus “strongly and passionately enough”, and over the years, he grew to become real and more real: real like his Master, in all the longings of his soul; real like his Master even to the bearing of wounds on hands and feet and opened side; real and like his Lord as perhaps no other person has ever become.

 May our hearts be simple enough this Christmas to kneel with Francis before the belen. May we become enough like little children to let the radiant beauty of God in the Christ-child touch our souls and open them to mystery and faith. In the half-light of the cave of Bethlehem, may we be embraced by amazement and longing, so that Mary’s child and God’s own Son may enter into our lives again, as a gift which is greater than all we could hope for. May all our pain and weariness, our anxiety and distress, our fears and doubts, fall from us, and may “the dear Christ” touch with all newness all things within us so that we may believe and know, that we are truly accepted by the Father; that we are infinitely cherished and incredibly loved.

by Fr. Catalino G. Arevalo, SJ

One of the best-known and best-loved stories connected with Christmas is that of Francis of Assisi’s belen at Greccio. Francis called it the presepio, the crib, and we are told that he first put up his nativity scene in a dark little cave at a hillside just off the valley of Rieti, in 1223, on Christmas eve. Greccio is a little town hidden away among the hills, and was one of Francis’ favourite retreat places.

 “For Francis, Christmas had always been the ‘Feast of Feasts’, the feast of light and hope in a dark world,… the day when ‘heaven and earth are made one’, when ‘God condescended to be fed by human love’. Autumn 1223 had been a time of special difficulty. Even if Pope Honorius III had just approved his Rule, Francis was suffering from severe depression. Perhaps he felt that his public career was now over, and he had henceforth to begin the final chapter of his own life, a final chapter that would mean making the passion and dying of his Master, Christ, more totally his own, reliving the final mysteries of Jesus in his own flesh.

 As Advent was ending, he called his old friend Giovanni Bellita, a landowner in the region. “Go before me to Greccio and prepare everything as I tell thee. I desire to represent the birth of the Child in Bethlehem in such a way that with the eyes of our bodies we may see that he suffered for lack of the things for a new-born Baby, and how He lay in the manger between the ox and the ass. At midnight we will clelbrate Mass over the manger before all the people.”

 Friend Giovanni hastened to do as Francis had asked him. A manger was filled with straw and hay; and an ox and an ass were brought in. The friars and their friends in the neighbourhood were told of the coming celebration.

 St. Bonaventure has described the scene for us. The people came, walking through the woods, over the winding roads, going up and down the hills, bearing torches and singing hymns in the night; a particularly clear and lovely night, we are told. “The forest resounded with their voices,” Bonaventure writes. “That memorable night was made glorious by many brilliant lights and joyful psalms of praise. The entrance to the cave was open, and the multitude crowded the slopes around it, those craning their necks to get a view of what was happening within.”

 The priest, with great devotion, used the manger itself as an altar, as Francis bade him do. Ox and ass watched from either side. Francis, in the full regalia of the deacon (for he was a deacon), had a time cast off his depression, and was as excited and joyful as a child might be. He read the Gospel in his strong, clear voice, and then preached to the people, “of sweet things on the birth of the poor king in little Bethlehem. Whenever he announced the name of Jesus,… his mouth was filled not only with his voice, but also with the tender overflowing emotion he felt his soul.” All those present were moved powerfully by his words, and all their attention was focused on the mystery of the holy birth of the Babe in the manger. As for Francis, at that moment “he was no longer in Greccio; his heart was in Bethlehem.”

 In the small chapel at Greccio today, this inscription is to be found: “Ïn hoc sacello Franciscus reclinavit Christum in Praesepio” (“In this chapel, Francis laid Christ in the crib.”) Some documents report that the image of the Babe of Bethlehem, placed there in the manger, was the wooden image of a child asleep. But Giovanni Bellita is said to have sworn that as Francis took the figure in his arms, the Babe awoke and had become a real child lying there in Francis’ embrace, and smiling up to him. And Francis, all lost in wonder and tenderness, his face shining in the radiant light that came from the Christ-child, seemed wholly transported to heaven. The dark night of the soul which had for so many weeks possessed him seemed to have lifted for a while on that Christmas night which no one present would ever forget – the Christmas night, which a few months later, would be followed by a miracle at La Verna,  the searing Vision of the Winged Seraph, and then the wounds of the Lord burned into his own body; not his spirit only, but his flesh also, transformed into the image of the crucified Christ.

 To be continued tomorrow.

An Underground Catechism

You’re all familiar with the Christmas song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” I think. To most it’s a delightful nonsense rhyme set to music. But it had a quite serious purpose when it was written.

It is a good deal more than just a repetitious melody with pretty phrases and a list of strange gifts.

Catholics in England during the period 1558 to 1829, when Parliament finally emancipated Catholics in England, were prohibited from ANY practice of their faith by law – private OR public. It was a crime to BE a Catholic.

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” was written in England as one of the “catechism songs” to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith – a memory aid, when to be caught with anything in *writing* indicating adherence to the Catholic faith could not only get you imprisoned, it could get you hanged, or shortened by a head – or hanged, drawn and quartered, a rather peculiar and ghastly punishment I’m not aware was ever practiced anywhere else.

Hanging, drawing and quartering involved hanging a person by the neck until they had almost, but not quite, suffocated to death; then the party was taken down from the gallows, and disembowelled while still alive; and while the entrails were still lying on the street, where the executioners stomped all over them, the victim was tied to four large farm horses, and literally torn into five parts – one to each limb and the remaining torso.

The songs gifts are hidden meanings to the teachings of the faith.

The “true love” mentioned in the song doesn’t refer to an earthly suitor, it refers to God Himself. The “me” who receives the presents refers to every baptized person.

The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge which feigns injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings, much in memory of  the expression of Christ’s sadness over the fate of Jerusalem:
“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered thee under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but thou wouldst not have it so…”

The other symbols mean the following:

2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed

Calls It God’s Answer to Mankind’s Search for Peace

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Christmas is much more than the season of Santa Claus and sugar plums; it’s God’s answer to mankind’s yearning for peace, says Benedict XVI.