Abbey-Roads2

Wrapped in swaddling clothes…

“He was a little infant like any other with nothing unusual about him, just a little child like you yourself were, without much charm those first hours and first days. He became a tiny baby crying from the cold as he lay there on the straw in a state of total helplessness which he took on out of love.

That is how our God first appeared and God wants to be contemplated and adored in this state not only by the lowly but also by the great for God accepted the adoration of both shepherds and wise men and even led them by a star into the presence of this little baby without grandeur or majesty.” - Little Sister Magdeleine of Jesus, 1898-1989

You must visit Jeffrey’s blog, “Frozen Music” - he is posting Nativity scenes every day during Christmas. 

Once again - Merry Christmas to all!

How one Christmas eve, St. Clare miraculously attended Mass and heard the Divine Office recited by the Friars Minor at the Church of St. Francis.

ONCE St. Clare was grievously sick, so that she could not go at all to say the office in church with the other nuns; and when the festival of the Nativity of Christ was come, all the other nuns went to matins, and she remained abed, sad at heart because she was not able to go with the others and partake of that spiritual consolation. But Jesus Christ, her spouse, willing not to leave her thus disconsolate, caused her to be miraculously carried to the church of St. Francis and to be present at the whole office of matins and of the midnight Mass, and, besides this, to receive the Holy Communion and afterward to be carried back to her bed again. Now the nuns returned to St. Clare, when the office in S. Damiano was over, and said unto her: “O our mother, Sister Clare, what great consolation have we had, this holy Christmas Day! Would that it had been God’s will that you had been with us!”

 And St. Clare made answer: “Sisters of mine and dearest daughters, I give thanks and praise to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, because in every solemnity of this most holy night, and even more than you, have I had my part to the great comfort of my soul; because, by the intercessions of my father St. Francis and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I have been present in the church of my venerable father St. Francis, and with the ears of my body and of my mind have heard all the office and the music of the organs which was made there; and in the same place have I taken the most Holy Communion. Wherefore, for such a grace vouchsafed unto me do ye rejoice and give thanks unto our Lord Jesus Christ.” - Fioretti: Chapter XXXV

And it was because of this miracle that the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII proclaimed St. Clare of Assisi the patroness of television.  (Other stories have it that the Saint had witnessed the Mass and office as if it were a moving picture on the wall of her dormitory.)

My prayers and best wishes for all of you who read me and for all in my blog roll.  I hope all of you enjoy a very blessed Christmas!

An incredible website to shop for a hat to give your favorite priest, bishop, or cardinal.  The Pope seems to like it.  Although, some priests wouldn’t be caught dead in such things!  (Which makes me wonder how Bishop Christensen is doing in his new clothes.  He once told me he hated cassocks and all that stuff: “Wouldn’t be caught dead in it!”  He said, he did.)

H/T to Fr. Z for the biretta resource.

Room with a view. 

I have painted this image many times - not a copy of the above depiction - rather the subject.  I have created icons and a few retablo style paintings of the dream of St. Joseph.  One image in particular, which I could never show - was my favorite, and often reminded those who saw it of Frida Khalo’s work.  (I felt it was more influenced by George Tooker, shown below.)  Unfortunately, I never had any of these images photographed professionally, and all of them are “lost” - that is, I do not remember who bought them or where they have ended up.

The scene of the annunciation to St. Joseph - in my imagination - does not include the Blessed Virgin, except as imaged in a faint apparition of the Virgin of the Sign - but not at all as if she is in the same room.  In my mind, Joseph is young, troubled in sleep, with the angel appearing to him preceding the vision of the Virgin.  The angel is also male in appearance - almost a mirror image of Joseph - and closely resembling the young Christ.  (Joseph would be the supposed father of Jesus, hence, I like to imagine Christ as resembling him.)

Perplexed and conflicted.

I think the image of the dream of St. Joseph is very much for men - it is about an ordinary man, the critical choice which he is presented with, and one that will affect him for the rest of his life.  It seems to me that on some level, the decisions Joseph faced are similar to the issues many men must deal with in life.  Such as the anxieties concerning life’s purpose and meaning, as well as issues of accepting the responsibilities in life which affect a man’s vocation and career.

More deeply, a man of faith may well encounter a similar dark night to what Joseph experienced, perhaps challenging him morally and affectively.  Though St. Joseph was perplexed, he remained faithful, and as the Gospel tells us, through the message of an angel, the Saint was permitted a view of  God’s plan for him. 

Joseph can be a model for us, but more importantly, and effectively, an intercessor when we are confronted by life’s challenges.  St. Joseph, being a just man, could not abandon his responsibility towards the Blessed Virgin.  Even though one could say he had been emotionally conflicted, Joseph nobly decided to put the holy Virgin away quietly.  Of course, God intervened, and St. Joseph was no longer afraid.

Photo: The children’s Christmas tree in the upstairs Playroom, after 1902

A house of many Christmas trees.

“…On Christmas there were usually three fir-trees decorated in Tsarskoe Selo - there was one downstairs in the Empress’s Big Living Room, another one upstairs in the nursery and the third one also upstairs in the passage and was meant for the Palace’s servants. The first fir-tree to be lit was that in the nursery and it was the time when the children got presents. Sometimes their presents were very expensive but the Tsar’s children never thought of how much they might cost. They were equally happy when they got a small crafted thing or a cheap toy. They could use their costly presents only during official ceremonies.  Aleksey was often given tin soldiers, miniature tanks, etc. He liked to play with them and Anastasia who was three years his senior and a naughty child, used to tease him breaking the even rows of soldiers after which she stood in the posture of a victor on the battle field. At first Aleksey got very offended but then he stopped paying attention to his sister’s tricks.

Once Aleksey got a clockwork train for Christmas. He and his father often played with it making it stop suddenly between two stations or making train crashes, etc.

The second fir-tree to be lit was that for the servants. They also got presents - souvenirs and money. Later the same evening the Tsar and the Tsarina went to the Big Living Room to their fir-tree. They usually got a lot of presents from their relatives living both in Russia and abroad. The Tsarina sent her maids-of-honour a miniature fir-tree and gifts.

The holiday was crowned with a church service. The Tsar and the Tsarina took their children either to St.Petersburg to the church of the Anichkov Palace, residence of the widowed Empress, or to Gatchina if the widowed.Empress was there. On the next day the fir-tree was lit in the Manege of Tsarskoye Selo for the regiments guarding the Palace. Each private got a gift of silver money; officers got costly presents. The presents were handed to them by the Grand Duchesses.” - The Home of the Last Tsar 

“It was always said of him he knew how to keep Christmas well…” - Dickens

For me, Christmas is always rather nostalgic, the sensible joy of the season ebbs and flows, sometimes from moment to moment.  Yet when the joy is absent, a deeper, spiritual joy seems to emerge when I’m able to change the focus from myself onto the Infant Jesus, who in turn redirects my attention upon the needs of others.  Especially those who suffer during this season - and a lot of people do.

For many, Christmas is a time when depression sets in, somehow grabs hold, taking one mercilessly through memories of Christmases past, as well as fears of Christmases future, only to return to the challenges of living through Christmas present.  The holidays can be a time of great suffering for some.  I wouldn’t presume to tell another how to live through these experiences, I can only unite myself in prayer, with and for those who suffer through Christmas.  However, I think it is safe to affirm, there is no right way to “keep Christmas well,”  especially since literature, family traditions, along with the marketing of materialism, have unrealistically raised the expectations of what the Christmas experience should  be.  For many, it is not the one long celebration popular culture makes it out to be. 

On a dark and silent night.

Unlike some people, I happen to like many of the aspects of a commercial Christmas.  People light up their homes and businesses, advertisers often present feel-good Christmas ads, department stores decorate windows, the streets have Christmas lights.  It is nice.  However, this is where people can get themselves into trouble - especially when our anticipation can be exaggerated by the secularized misrepresentation of Christmas - or directed by the expectations others seemingly place upon us.  Whatever the case may be, our focus upon the Little Jesus can easily be obscured.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.

It is good to try to keep Jesus as our companion in the days approaching Christmas, especially if the holidays tend to depress us.  Privately, we do not have to “pretend”  he is going to be re-born on Christmas eve, engaging our imaginations in an artificial waiting game, pretending he will suddenly appear like Santa Claus, and take all of our troubles away.  Not at all, Emmanuel means Christ is with us now.  

Christ is present with us now - the Eternal Now.  We can sit silently with him now; in the Blessed Sacrament, or simply while gazing upon an image of him.  If one can not find solace in and through the liturgy of Advent and Christmas, these personal intimate encounters help a great deal.  Silence is a teacher, Jesus is the text book.  His poverty and helplessness reflect our own poverty - even our inability to manage our emotions, our health, our finances, sometimes our very lives.  His poverty and humiliation not only mirrors, but embraces our misery.  He is Emmanuel - God with us - both in our sorrows and our joys - right now.

Seeking perfect joy.

Holy father St. Francis knew what it was like to be miserable.  We read how he praised holy poverty - even wedded himself to Lady Poverty, hence we imagine his extreme poverty - so conformed to the poverty of Jesus - was a jolly good time.  Not so much.  I often think, that in our obsession with always wanting to be happy, especially at Christmas, we forget the poverty and suffering of the Infant Jesus… which, by the way, did nothing to obscure the great joy of that holy night.  Often, by realistically recalling his suffering, our own suffering is often assuaged, and our unrealistic expectations tempered.

Blessed Angela of Foligno, speaking of the sufferings of Christ, writes:  “Christ’s third companion was that of the which he had the most experience, and which did endure continually.  This was supreme suffering, the which did instantly afflict his soul when it was joined unto his body.  For in that moment wherein his soul was united with his human body it was instantly filled with supreme knowledge.  Wherefore was Christ possessed of understanding even in the womb of the Virgim mother.  He did instantly begin to feel the utmost suffering…” - Divine Consolation, chapter XIV 

The perfect joy of Christmas. 

Amongst the stories in The Little Flowers of St. Francis, is the blessed  Francis’  description of perfect joy.  I like to think of it in relation to Christmas mainly because it takes place in winter, and the story reminds me of Our Lady and St. Joseph seeking lodging in Bethlehem on that first Christmas.

“Now when this manner of discourse had lasted for the space of two miles, Brother Leo wondered much within himself; and, questioning the saint, he said: “Father, I pray thee teach me wherein is perfect joy.” St Francis answered: “If, when we shall arrive at St Mary of the Angels, all drenched with rain and trembling with cold, all covered with mud and exhausted from hunger; if, when we knock at the convent-gate, the porter should come angrily and ask us who we are; if, after we have told him, `We are two of the brethren’, he should answer angrily, `What ye say is not the truth; ye are but two impostors going about to deceive the world, and take away the alms of the poor; begone I say’; if then he refuse to open to us, and leave us outside, exposed to the snow and rain, suffering from cold and hunger till nightfall - then, if we accept such injustice, such cruelty and such contempt with patience, without being ruffled and without murmuring, believing with humility and charity that the porter really knows us, and that it is God who maketh him to speak thus against us, write down, O Brother Leo, that this is perfect joy.”  - Fioretti 

For me, the story of perfect joy mirrors the humility and poverty of Christ; the rejection, scorn, and contempt he received from the world.  It seems to me, St. Francis imitates the Savior perfectly in his non-judgemental forgiveness and acceptance of injury by the doorkeeper who refused him hospitality.  Somehow, when we behold the Infant Jesus in his abject poverty, that same poverty he shares with us - especially those of us who suffer - we can  experience that perfect joy St. Francis revealed in this story.  And of course, St. Francis went on to exhibit this perfect joy in the living Nativity he staged at Greccio.

Perhaps - even in sorrow or depression and sadness, one may experience something of the perfect joy of Christmas.  At least, this is my prayer for anyone (and everyone) who may not know how to “keep Christmas well.”

As for me, I do my best.

“‘There, in the forest the fearsome bear wanders, terrible and ferocious, and not at all guilty for that.’  And I told him of how a bear had once come to a great saint, who was saving his soul in the forest, in a little cell, and the great saint felt tenderness for him, fearlessly went out to him and gave him a piece of bread, as if to say, ‘Go, and Christ be with you.’  And the fierce beast went away obediently and meekly without doing any harm.  The lad was moved by the story about the bear and how the bear had gone away without doing any harm, and that Christ was with him, too.  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘how good it is, how good and wonderful all that is God’s!’” - From the Life of Elder Zosima

[Art; St. Sergius of Radonezh and the bear.]

“A hermit said, ‘When you flee from the company of other men, or when you despise the world and worldings, take care to do so as if it were you who was being idiotic.” - Sayings of the Desert Fathers