Per Christum

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tomb, bestowing Life! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

- Byzantine Kontakion for Easter

Christ is risen! Al-Masih qam! Ha-Mashiach qam! Khristos voskrese! Christus resurrexit! Christus ist auferstanden! Christos aneste!

Brothers and Sisters…this Christmas the Christians of Gaza, both Catholics and Protestants, are having to lay very low out of fear. Many are, it is reported, leaving homes, jobs, friends, and getting out. Pray for them and for our fellow Christians all over the Middle East. These are trying times for them.

Visit, we beseech You, O Lord Jesus Christ, those of Your children and servants who dwell in the Holy Land, granting them peace, safety, security, and deep faith. Guard their lives, preserve their souls, and, whatever they may face, confirm them in that Faith that will bring them to everlasting Life, through the prayers and intercessions of the Mother of God and of all Your saints. Amen.

I found a book this early afternoon while browsing a local shop and have spent the past two hours devouring it! I would like to recommend it to 1) all Catholics who are engaged in apologetic and apostolic work, and 2) to all non Catholics (especially Evangelicals) who hold to disparaging ideas about the Church’s role in history.
The book is “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization”, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph. D. In the book Dr. Woods does exactly as his title proclaims - he shows by clear, well-documented examples that, indeed, the best of Western Civilization is built upon the principles, insights, and doctrines of the Catholic Church. He lays to rest many of the negative myths and misconceptions about the Church. Inspiring, informative read. Get it, folks; you won’t be sorry.

Today is the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Savior gave John the highest praise, saying that there was “none greater born of Woman.” In the Church, after Our Blessed Lady, the highest veneration goes to John the Baptist. In the East his ikon is prominent on the ikonostas before the Holy Table and in the West he is confessed to in the traditional Confiteor…”I confess to Almighty God…to Blessed John the Baptist…” And yet, Jesus said, “the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.”

What?!! The LEAST in the Kingdom is greater than the Great Prophet?! I promise you, Our Lord was not denigrating His cousin; He was driving home a Great Truth: John was still in the Old Dispensation, the Old Covenant, dying before the Lord’s Crucifixion and Resurrection; we, believers post those events, have become partakers of and witnesses to the fulfilment of all God’s promises in Christ. We have become partakers of “the Divine Life through Him”, as St. Peter tells. We are not, in ourselves, greater than John the Baptist, but filled with the Holy Spirit and being part of the Body of Christ, we have become a priestly and prophetic People, the Kingdom of God. As Pope St. Gregory tells us: “Christians! Be conscious of your dignity!” We, through Christ, have become equal-to-the-prophets…even the least of us. Thanks be to God!

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” Malachi 4: 5

Holy John the Baptizer, Elijah’s spiritual return, pray for us! Amen.

A blessed St. John’s Day (and traditional Midsummer Day) to one and all.

Dec. 19, Vespers:

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel, qui aperis
et nemo claudit, claudis et nemo aperuit: veni et educ
vinctum de domo carceris sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David, Scepter of the House of Israel, who opens and
no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens: Come and lead the
captive from prison, the one seated in darkenss and the shadow
of death!

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt regos os suum,
quem gentes deprecabuntur:
Veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare!

O Root of Jesse,
Standing as Sign for the people,
before Whom kings keep silence,
Whom the nations will adore:
Come to free us - delay no more!

“O Wisdom, proceeding out of the mouth of the Most High…come and teach us the way of prudence.”
- the O-Antiphon for 16 Dec.

At Vespers this past Friday evening (for those of the Western Tradition) the O-Antiphons began. These fairly ancient verses are, by custom, chanted (or recited) right before the “Magnificat” at Vespers. Sung each evening from 16 Dec. through 23 Dec., these antiphons
celebrate some attribute of the One whose birth we will soon commemorate - Christ the Wisdom of God, Christ the Lawgiver and Redeemer of Israel, Christ David’s heir, Christ the Harrower of Hell et al. While many Catholics and Protestants may not be familiar (any more) with the Antiphons in their Divine Office form, they will surely be familiar with the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” each verse of which is a paraphrase of an antiphon.

As an enhancement to daily devotions, whether alone or with others, I will, starting today, write out each antiphon for that day’s Vespers in both Latin and English. I hope that they will be a meaningful addition to your daily prayers. (There is absolutely no reason why an Orthodox Christian or a Byzantine Catholic may not use these Antiphons too. A suggested place to insert them would be either right after the Trisagion Prayers or as antiphons before the evening Psalms.)

For Vespers, Sunday, 17 Dec.:

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moyse in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et in ei in Sina legem dedisti: Veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

O Adonai, leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave the Law on Sinai’s height: Come to redeem us with outstretched arm!

Today is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi…you know, the peacenik, animal-loving saint whose statue is, after Our Lady’s, the most popular in yards and gardens. Oh, and how many Catholics and Anglicans took their pets to have the Sign of the Cross made over them at the annual Blessing of the Animals? Or at least thought about it? C’mon, raise your paws…I mean, hands.

St. Francis’ Day is a wonderful day and he is a wonderful saint, “Everyone’s Saint” and “the most Christ-like person after Christ”. I want us to look more deeply at who he was and is, though. Yes, Francis gave up riches for poverty, he loved and cared for all the creatures of God put in his path, and he was a profound man of peace. But, do you know what Francis would really want to be remembered for? His deep love for and total abandonment to Jesus Christ, crucified for poor sinners. THAT was the Source of Francis’ embracing of poverty and the poor, his deep concern for the animals, and his working for peace among men.

You see, we can work to help the poor, we can work for animal protection and rights, and we can strive to bring peace on the earth but, “unless the Lord build the house, the workers labor in vain.” For Christians, Jesus…who gave His Life for our salvation and for the eventual redemption even of the whole created universe…is to be the Source and Centre of even the best and most worthy efforts. For us who “love His appearing”, keeping Him before our eyes, is the best, the only way, really, to make a redemptive impact on this fallen world. Just as St. Francis did.

O Francis of Assisi, pray for us, to Christ our God, the Source of all good works. Amen.

It is almost Michaelmas (Friday, Sept. 29th), also called the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. It was one of my favorite days in my Episcopal youth and seemed to be a favorite with most Anglican parishes in those days. There was usually a “sung celebration” of Holy Communion that often began (at least in the parishes I attended) with the glorious hymn “Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones”, one of the few hymns in the Protestant repertoire that actually directly invokes the angels and archangels, the prophets, martyrs, and apostles, and…can you believe it?!…the Holy Virgin herself!! Although the Catholic Church still has the Feast of the Archangels, not much is made of it and most Catholics will take no notice Friday unless they are daily Mass attenders. Sad, it’s a glorious day and feast.

A little history: The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels originated in AD 400s and quickly became a very important day in popular Christianity. During the Middle Ages in the West it was a BIG feast indeed since Michael the Archangel was the patron of all knights and particularly of the Crusaders.

In Great Britain and other European nations Michaelmas was one of the four “quarter days” when rents and bills came due and also the beginning of university terms. It is an ancient custom to eat roast goose on Michaelmas because, well, a flying goose suggested an angel on the wing! It was customary to pay part of your rent or bills with a goose. (Just try that now!)

An English proverb has it: “Feast on goose on St. Michael’s Day, ‘twil keep all poverty at bay.” I don’t know about the truth of that saying, but doing something to honor the Holy Angels on their special day might just keep the Old Serpent at bay!

Almighty God, You have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and of mortals: Mercifully grant that, as Your holy angels always serve and worship You in Heaven, so by Your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.

- collect for Michaelmas

Yesterday was the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul; today is the commemoration of the First Martyrs of the Church at Rome. Unfortunately, most non Catholic/Orthodox Christians, and nowadays even many Catholics, are like, “So what? What’s the big deal?” We live in a world where the past is just that, past and done with, where someone’s clothes or hairstyle is ridiculed with a flippant, “That’s so five minutes ago!” What matters in our fast food, up-to-date technologized, past mocking “culture” (I use that word very loosely here) is how with the latest fad one is…the latest song, clothing style, meditation technique, and on and on. But for Catholics who know what and why they believe the past is not gone and over with for the words and deeds of the Saints form a golden chain of Life that reaches into our own, often silly and frivolous, time.

In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer collects for the feasts of the Saints and other holy days are often introduced with these or like words, “Almighty God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance…” To remember those who have lived and died for Christ in ages past and now live IN Christ in Eternal Life is to be “made glad”. Glad that we have their examples, glad that their witness kept the Faith alive and continuing, and glad that, by commemorating them before God, we may even NOW, TODAY have participation in their prayers and praises. No fad-followers, they staked their very souls on the Truth of the One who is the same “yesterday, today, and forever”. Following them, remembering them, and asking their intercession, let us do so as well.

O God, You make us glad with the yearly remembrance of Your first martyrs at Rome: Grant that we who hallow their memory may be encouraged by their examples and aided by their prayers and, following them in authentic and holy living, may come at last to the joys of Your Kingdom, through Christ our Lord. Amen.