Sadness For the Children

Today's feast of the Holy Innocents hasn't much lifted my spirits today. Perhaps it's because of this week's news of two particularly brutal incidents: first, the kidnap, murder, and savage dismemberment of a 9 year old girl, and then the tragic fire in Connecticut which claimed the lives of three young daughters and their grandparents. In either case, I can't begin to imagine the depth of the pain, the desolation, the emptiness which has seized the hearts and lives of the families left behind. How does anyone deal with such tragedy? Not a shred of good, for anyone, seems even possible in the face of the two realities. Or, for that matter, in the face of any similar violence and death dealt to children or young ones, whether accidental or deliberate.


Faith tells me otherwise, but what a stretch I'm feeling to accept that! The graphic words of the prophet Isaiah in the first Lesson of Morning Prayer did bring some comfort, probably because of the graphic imagery which Isaiah uses to bring it to a more personal level. "...the Lord has comforted God's people, and will have compassion on God's suffering ones." When the people object to him that God has forsaken them, forgotten them, Isaiah replies: "...Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands..." 


It's unknown who all was actually involved in the massacre of the Holy Innocents, reported by Matthew (2:16-18), or how many children were slaughtered. Some estimate it may have been as few as six or as many as twenty. The numbers really don't matter, in a way: neglect, abuse, violence, or the death of a single child or young one is far too costly and is cause for unbridled lamentation. It helps, perhaps, to be reassured that the compassionate, loving God never forgets a child or young one, indelibly imaged in the palms of God's creative hand and in God's heart of love. Nevertheless...


And so we fervently pray on this day: "Receive...into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Savior..." 

Will The Real "Beloved Disciple" Please Stand Up

St. John the Evangelist (יוחנן Yoḥanan =  Yahweh is gracious) lived c. 1 - c. 100 A.D.). John is the conventionally named author of the fourth Gospel. Traditionally he has also been identified with the author of the other Johannine works in the New Testament: three Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation, written by a John of Patmos. He is likewise referred to as John the Apostle and the Beloved Disciple, mentioned in the Gospel. However, at least some of these connections have been highly debated since about 200 A.D.


John's Gospel speaks of an unnamed "Beloved Disciple" of Jesus who bore witness to his message. The editors of the Gospel seem interested in the author's anonymity. Apparently this disciple of Jesus had not been well known, but had greatly outlived Peter.


Surely the apostle John was a historical figure, one of the leaders of the Jerusalem church after Jesus' death. Some scholars believe that he was martyred along with his brother, James (Acts 12:1-2), although many other scholars doubt this. The tradition that John lived to old age in Ephesus seems to have developed in the late 2nd century, although the tradition does appear in the last chapter of the Gospel. By the late 2nd century, the tradition was held by most Christians.


The late Fr. Raymond Brown, S.S., was/is, if not the greatest Johannine biblical scholar, certainly one of the world's top experts on John the Evangelist. His monumental two-volume commentary on the Gospel of John (Volumes 29 and 29A of The Anchor Bible series) is still the standard in biblical study of the fourth Gospel. In his Introduction, Fr. Brown, in the simple, clear style for which he was noted, says this about the person wrote the Gospel of John: "...A distinctive figure in the primitive Church preached and taught about Jesus, using the raw material of a tradition of Jesus' works and words, but shaping this material to a particular theological cast and expression. Eventually he gathered the substance of his preaching and teaching into a Gospel, following the traditional pattern of the baptism, the ministry, and the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Since he continued to preach and teach after the edition of the Gospel, he subsequently made a second edition of his Gospel, adding more material and adapting the Gospel to answer new problems. After his death a disciple made a final redaction of the Gospel, incorporating other material that the evangelist had preached and taught, and even some of the material of the evangelist's co-workers. A theory of two editions and a final redaction by a disciple would not be extraordinary among the theories of the composition of biblical books..."


And so, the final redactor of the Gospel of John could say in conclusion: "...there are many other things that Jesus did. Yet, were they ever to be written down in detail, I doubt that there would be room enough in the whole world for the books to record them." (John 21:25) Fr. Brown's comment, at the end of the second volume of his commentary, is: "...having added another long commentary to the already ample bibliography on the Fourth Gospel, and still feeling that much has been left unsaid, the present writer is not in the least inclined to cavil about the accuracy of the Johannine redactor's plaint that no number of books will exhaust the subject."


Though we may never know exactly who the "Beloved Disciple" was that wrote the Gospel of John, Fr. Brown assures us of one thing: the general message which St. John wanted to convey. "Serving as a preface to the Gospel, the Prologue is a hymn that encapsulates John's view of Christ. A divine being (God's Word [1:1-14], who is also the light [1:5,9] and God's only Son [1:14,18]) comes into the world and becomes flesh. Although rejected by his own, he empowers all who do accept him to become God's children, so that they share in God's fullness -- a gift reflecting God's enduring love that outdoes the loving gift of the Law through Moses..." (An Introduction To The New Testament, ABRL Doubleday, 1997)

Crowned With Love

Stephanos, in Greek, means crown, wreath. How apt a name for St. Stephen the Deacon, first martyr of the Christian community. Luke the Evangelist tells Stephen's story in Chapters 6:1-8:1 of his Acts of the Apostles, noting his connection with Saul, persecutor of the early Christian community, who later underwent a dramatic conversion and became St. Paul the Apostle. St. Fulgentius (c. 465 - 527 or 533), Bishop of Ruspe in North Africa, also writes beautifully of St. Stephen in one of his sermons:


"...Strengthened by the power of his love, [Stephen] overcame the raging cruelty of Saul and won the persecutor on earth as his companion in heaven. In his tireless love he longed to gain by prayer those whom he could not convert by admonition. Now at last, Paul rejoices with Stephen, with Stephen he delights in the glory of Christ, with Stephen  he exalts, with Stephen he reigns...This, surely, is the true life, beloved, a life in which Paul feels no shame because of Stephen's death, and Stephen delights in Paul's companionship, for love fills them both with joy. It was Stephen's love that prevailed over the cruelty of the mob, and it was Paul's love that covered the multitude of his sins; it was love that won for both of them the kingdom of heaven. Love, indeed, is the source of all good things; it is an impregnable defense, and the way that leads to heaven. Whoever walks in love can neither go astray nor be afraid: love guides, protects, and brings the one who loves to the journey's end. Christ made love the stairway that would enable all Christians to climb to heaven. Hold fast to it, therefore, in all sincerity, give one another practical proof of it, and by your progress in it, make your ascent together." 

God's Deepest, Most Beautiful Word

The Nativity, by He Qi

Throughout Advent you and I, who are the Church, have longed and prayed in hope for the coming of Jesus the Holy One. The word for “coming” in Greek, parousía, is a verb form, and refers not so much to the past, as in the birth at Bethlehem, nor to the future, as at the end-times culmination of our world, but rather to the very real on-goingness of God’s coming now, continuously, into our lives through Jesus. That “coming” is God’s promise over and over again in Scripture, and the uniqueness, believability and power of God’s message lies in the fact that what God promised really happened and continues to happen in Jesus. But as we ponder the birth of Jesus and its implications for us, we realize that the hope which this great event brings isn’t just a warm, cuddly kind of hope, as the surrounding culture likes to depict it, but rather a sobering hope.

Back in 1990 I read this little Advent meditation: “Two women who were dressed in their finest were having lunch at a very exclusive restaurant. A friend saw them and came over to their table to greet them. ‘What’s the special occasion?’, she asked. One of the women said, ‘We’re having a birthday party for the baby in our family. He’s 2 years old today.’ ‘But where’s the baby?’, the friend asked. The child’s mother answered, ‘Oh, I dropped him off at my mother’s house. She’s taking care of him until the party’s over. It wouldn’t have been any fun with him along.’ How ridiculous -- a birthday celebration for a child who wasn’t welcome at his own party! Yet, when you stop to think about it, that’s no more foolish than going through the Christmas season, with all of its festivities, without remembering the One whose birth we are supposed to be honoring. And that’s the way many people celebrate Christmas. In all the busyness -- the party-going, gift-shopping, and family gatherings -- the One whose birthday they are commemorating is almost completely forgotten.”

It’s quite interesting to note that none of the readings on today’s Christmas feast mentions the birth event of Jesus in Bethlehem, other than a very general reference in John’s Gospel: “...and the Word became flesh…”  Rather, the Epistle passage from the unknown author of the Letter to the Hebrews (1:1-4) seems to act as a bridge between the proclamations of Isaiah in the first reading (52:7-10) and of St. John in the Gospel reading (1:1-14), connecting the profound realities about the Messiah, the Word of God, who was Jesus.

The writer of Hebrews says: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son...through whom God also created the worlds…” He goes on to describe God’s Son, Jesus, as the icon of God, the mirror-image, pointing to and reflecting “God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very 

being…”, a being and existence which you and I share by God’s grace. The passage points back to the prophet Isaiah, in the first reading, who describes the Coming One as the bearer of Good News, as one who comforts God’s people, as one before whom “all the nations”, i.e., all the powers that be in the world: political, governmental, economic, academic, etc., fall silent in awe, respect, and submission.

The writer also looks forward to the Gospel passage, referring to “a Son” about whom God has spoken to us. John the Evangelist, in that magnificent Prologue to his Gospel account of Jesus‘ life, identifies this Son as “the Word...the Word [who] was with God...the Word [who] was God.” John confirms the description of Jesus, God’s Son, given by the writer of Hebrews: “[The Word] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him...What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people…” Scripture speaks of deep darkness and chaos, both at the beginning of creation in Genesis, and in the world into which Jesus came, the son of poor Jewish working class people. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us [literally, pitched his tent among us]. You could almost say, in today’s terms, it was an “Occupy World” event!

John also refers in the Prologue to Jesus‘ cousin, John the Baptizer, also called The Forerunner, who introduced his cousin to the people among whom Jesus lived and preached. John the Evangelist tells us that the reaction to “the Word”, the “True Light”, was under-whelming, to say the least! “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him,; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” ...Except for a few people whom Jesus empowered, including us, right down to the present, to become “children [family members] of God.”

You and I continue to be followers of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, because someone took the time to share him and his saving message with us. We continue to struggle in making sense of “the Word” in our own hearts and in our society. We try our best to learn how to share that Word with those whom we love and respect, and with others in whom we recognize an openness to and a hunger for Jesus‘ saving Word.

So, where’s the Christmas Baby? 

The Baby is the One who grew up in a simple Jewish home, the One who ever more deeply, as he grew to be a man, felt the increasing need to reach out to anyone who would listen and speak to them “the Word”, God’s message of Good News, by his life.

The late Fr. Karl Rahner, one of the 20th century’s greatest theologians, writes in his book, The Eternal Year, a most stunning description of what Christmas implies for us as we try follow Jesus. He says: “God has come. He is here in the world. And therefore everything is different from what we imagine it to be. Time is transformed from its eternal flow into an event that with silent, clear resoluteness leads to a definitely determined goal wherein we and the world shall stand before the unveiled face of God. When we say, ‘It is Christmas,‘ we mean that God has spoken into the world his last, his deepest, his most beautiful word in the incarnate Word, a word that can no longer be revoked because it is God’s definitive deed, because it is God himself in the world.

And this word means: I love you, you, the world and humankind. This is a wholly unexpected word, a quite unlikely word. For how can this word be spoken when both humankind and the world are recognized as dreadful, empty abysses? But God knows them better than we. And yet he has spoken this word by being himself born as a creature. The very existence of this incarnate Word of love demands that it shall provide, eye to eye and heart to heart, an almost unbelievable fellowship...between the eternal God and us...

And now there is stillness in the world only for a little while. The busyness that is proudly called universal history, or one’s own life, is only the stratagem of an eternal love that wills to enable us to give a free answer to its final word...In the trembling of my heart that quivers because of God’s love, I should tell God, who as a human person stands beside me in silent expectation, ‘I‘ -- no, rather say nothing to him, but silently give yourself to the love of God that is there because the Son is born.”

  

O Virgin of Virgins

Though there were originally seven O Antiphons, this final one is not even found in many of the lists of O Antiphons. According to Benedict D. O’Cinnsealaigh: “[It] appears in both the Gallican (France) and Saerum (England) liturgies. Although it is difficult to establish just when this antiphon was first introduced, it was certainly known in the Middle Ages.” The following text and English translation is from John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore, eds., Hymnal Noted - Parts I and II, London: Novello, 1856, p. 209:


O Virgo Virginum, quomodo fiet istud?
quia nec primam similem visa es,
nec habere sequentem.
Filiæ Jerusalem, quid me admiramini?
Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.


O Virgin of Virgins, how shall this be?
For neither before thee was there any like thee,
nor shall there be after.
Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me?
The thing that ye behold is a divine mystery.


Below is a prose translation from Cynewulf, The Christ of Cynewulf, trans. Charles Huntington Whitman (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1900):


“O thou joy of women in heavenly glory, fairest of all maidens throughout the regions of earth, so far as ocean-dwellers have ever learned, reveal to us the mystery that came to thee from the skies, how thou didst ever conceive so that a child might be born, and yet hadst not at all carnal intercourse after the manner of men! Of a truth we have never heard that in days of old there came to pass such a thing as thou didst receive by special grace, nor may we look for such an event in time to come. Truly a noble faith dwelt in thee, for thou didst bear within thy womb the Lord of glory, and yet thy splendid virginity was not defiled. All the children of men, as they sow in tears, even thus they reap—they bring forth unto death. Then spake the blessed maiden, the holy Mary, ever full of triumph: 'Why marvel ye thus, why grieve ye and sorrowfully lament, ye sons and daughters of Salem? Ye ask in curiosity how I preserved my virginity, my chastity, and yet became the mother of God's illustrious Son? Verily the secret is not known unto men, but Christ declared that in David's beloved daughter all the guilt of Eve is blotted out, the curse removed, and the weaker sex exalted. Hope hath arisen that a blessing amid the joy of heavenly angels, with the Father of righteousness, may now abide for both men and women evermore through all eternity.”

O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver,

the Expected of nations and their Savior:

Come, and save us, O Lord our God!

Emmanuel or Imanu'el (Hebrew עִמָּנוּאֵל "God [is] with us" consists of two Hebrew words: אֵל (’El, meaning 'God') and עִמָּנוּ (ʻImmānū, meaning 'with us').

The Morning Office for this day prays at sunrise: "Behold, all things spoken by the angel of the Virgin Mary are now fulfilled." The Church's liturgy eagerly anticipates the celebration of the Holy One's coming, and concludes by addressing its plea to the Messiah in person: Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus the Christ is one of us: true God and true man. He identifies with all that a human being is: all joys, pleasures and human happiness, as well as all weaknesses, suffering, pain, doubt, insecurity, depression. Even all these centuries later, this reality is still very hard for most Christians to swallow. Somehow there lingers the slight doubt in many of our minds that Jesus is really like us. We nurture that doubt to our own detriment, allowing a distorted image of God with us to distort our vision. 

The Holy One is God who reigns in our hearts, in the world, in nature, in the events of history ("our King"). He is the One who sets the guidelines for wise and holy living together ("our Lawgiver"). He is the One for whom the human heart, from the beginning until now, longs and desires. He is Yehoshua, Jesus, the One who saves.  The main verse of the chant "O come, O come, Emmanuel" is so descriptive in its plaintive reaching out for God to be with us always as we stand amidst the limitations, indadequacy, and pain of human life as we know it. "O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come, O Israel!" 

O King of the Nations

"O come, Desire of Nations, come, bind
Into one the hearts of all mankind.
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace."


Another version puts it this way:


"O King of the Nations and the Desired of all, you are the cornerstone which binds two into one: Come, and save poor humankind whom you fashioned out of clay."


Jeremiah (10:7) refers to "O King of the nations". Isaiah (28:16) also refers to the coming Messiah as a "cornerstone", as does Matthew (21:42). In this sense Jesus the Messiah is like a cornerstone, uniting separate entities, peoples, nations. He is the shalom-maker par excellence: the King of Peace who integrates groups of people and brings wholeness and integration within each person. With him there are no boundary lines, setting any group or person off from another. In the words of St. Paul: "There is no Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:29)