CHRISTMAS READING

A READING FROM THE TREATISES ON ST JOHN BY ST AUGUSTINE

The Lord himself comes, the teacher of love, full of love, ‘shortening the word upon the earth’, as was foretold of him. He shows that the law and the prophets depend on the two precepts of love.

What those two commandments are, brethren, recall with me. They ought to be most familiar, and not come to mind just when they are mentioned by us; rather, they should never be blotted out from your hearts. Always, at all times, reflect that you must love God and your neighbour: God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; your neighbour as yourself. 

At all times these must be pondered, they must be meditated and retained, they must be practised and fulfilled. The love of God comes first in the order of command, but the love of neighbour first in the order of action. The man who would teach you this love in two commandments should not commend to you first your neighbour and then God, but first God and then your neighbour.

You do not yet see God, but by loving your neighbour you gain the sight of God; by loving your neighbour you purify your eye for seeing God, as John says clearly: If you do not love the brother whom you see, how will you be able to love God whom you do not see?

You are told: love God. If you say to me: ‘Show me the one I am to love’, what shall I answer, except what John himself says: No one has ever seen God? Do not think that you are altogether unsuited to seeing God – no, for John states: God is love, and he who dwells in love is dwelling in God. Love your neighbour therefore, and observe the source of that love in you; there, as best you can, you will see God.

So then, begin to love your neighbour. Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see the naked, cover him, and do not despise the servants of your kinsfolk. If you do this, what will you obtain? Then shall your light break forth like the morning. Your light is your God to you he is ‘morning light’, because he will come to you after the night of the world; he neither rises nor sets, because he abides always.

By loving your neighbour and being concerned about your neighbour, you make progress on your journey. Where is your journey, if not to the Lord God, to him whom we must love with all our heart, and with all soul, and with all our mind? We have not yet reached the Lord, but we have our neighbour with us. So then, support him with whom you are travelling so that you may come to him with whom you long to dwell.

St Augustine, In Ev Jo 17, 7-9 (PL 35), from The Divine Office Vol. I

CHRISTMAS READING

 A READING FROM THE TREATISE ON THE HOLY SPIRIT BY ST BASIL THE GREAT

            If a man no longer lives according to the flesh, but is led by the Spirit of God and is called son of God and is conformed to the image of God, he is described as a spiritual man. As the power of seeing is to be found in the healthy eye, so the working of the Spirit is to be found in the purified soul.

The word is in the soul; sometimes as the thought of the heart, sometimes as spoken by the tongue. So too the Holy Spirit is in the soul: at one time he joins with our spirit in bearing witness and cries out in our hearts: Abba, Father; at another time he speaks on our behalf, as we are told: It is not you who will be speaking: it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking in you.

Again, the Spirit is understood, in relation to the distribution of gifts, as a whole in its different parts. We are all joined to one another as different parts of one body, and have different gifts in accordance with the grace God has given us. Therefore, the eye cannot say to the hand: ‘I do not need you’, nor can the head say to the feet: ‘I do not need you.’ On the contrary, all the members together make up the body of Christ in the unity of the Spirit, and mutually contribute the necessary service in accordance with the gifts received.

God arranged the organs of the body, each one of them, as he chose; but these different parts have the same concern for one another in accordance with their sympathetic interaction, born of the spirit which they share. And so, if one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it; if one part is honoured, all the other parts share its joy. As parts in the whole, so are we, individually, in the Spirit, because we were all baptized in one body into the one Spirit.

Just as the Father is seen in the Son, so the Son is seen in the Holy Spirit. Worship in the Spirit suggests the activity of our intelligence, which is carried on, as it were, in the light, as may be learned from the words spoken to the woman of Samaria. She was misled by the custom of her country into the belief that God was worshipped in a place. Our Lord corrected her; he said that men must worship in Spirit and in truth, and by ‘truth’ he clearly meant himself.

We speak of worship in the Son, which is worship in the one who is the image of God the Father. Similarly we speak of worship in the Spirit, as the one who shows in himself the divinity of the Lord. So then, to express it properly and in order, through the illumination of the Spirit we behold the radiance of God’s glory, the Son; and through the Son, the stamp of God’s very being, we are brought to the one to whom belong the stamp and the identical seal.

St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 26, 61.64, from The Divine Office Vol. I

SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD

115. On New Year's Day, the octave day of Christmas, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Holy Mother of God. The divine and virginal motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a singular salvific event: for Our Lady it was the foretaste and cause of her extraordinary glory; for us it is a source of grace and salvation because "through her we have received the Author of life".

The solemnity of the 1 January, an eminently Marian feast, presents an excellent opportunity for liturgical piety to encounter popular piety: the first celebrates this event in a manner proper to it; the second, when duly catechised, lends joy and happiness to the various expressions of praise offered to Our Lady on the birth of her divine Son, to deepen our understanding of many prayers, beginning with that which says: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners". 

116. In the West, 1 January is an inaugural day marking the beginning of the civil year. The faithful are also involved in the celebrations for the beginning of the new year and exchange "new year" greetings. However, they should try to lend a Christian understanding to this custom making of these greetings an expression of popular piety. The faithful, naturally, realise that the "new year" is placed under the patronage of the Lord, and in exchanging new year greetings they implicitly and explicitly place the New Year under the Lord's dominion, since to him belongs all time (cf. Ap 1, 8; 22,13).

A connection between this consciousness and the popular custom of singing the Veni Creator Spiritus can easily be made so that on 1 January the faithful can pray that the Spirit may direct their thoughts and actions, and those of the community during the course of the year.

117. New year greetings also include an expression of hope for a peaceful New Year. This has profound biblical, Christological and incarnational origins. The "quality of peace" has always been invoked throughout history by all men, and especially during violent and destructive times of war. 

The Holy See shares the profound aspirations of man for peace. Since 1967, 1 January has been designated "world day for peace". 

Popular piety has not been oblivious to this initiative of the Holy See. In the light of the new born Prince of Peace, it reserves this day for intense prayer for peace, education towards peace and those value inextricably linked with it, such as liberty, fraternal solidarity, the dignity of the human person, respect for nature, the right to work, the sacredness of human life, and the denunciation of injustices which trouble the conscience of man and threaten peace.

VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS for the beginning of year 2013

From the Enchiridion of Indulgences:

26

§ 1. A plenary indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in a church or in an oratory, are present [take part] in a recitation or solemn chant of: ... 

1° the hymn Veni Creator ... on the first day of the year, imploring divine assistance for the whole of the coming year...

NEW YEAR'S DAY PRAYER

O Almighty God, now that we have lived to see another year, we thank Thy goodness and Thy incomprehensible mercy, that, from the moment of our birth, we have escaped so many dangers which have threatened our health and life. Would that we had never abused the precious time of our life to sin! but, alas! it is done, and we therefore pray Thee, through Thy Son, and through the precious blood He this day shed in His circumcision, to look, not upon the multitude of our sins, but upon Thy infinite mercy; we promise to be henceforth pious, just, and virtuous; strengthen us in our weakness; increase in us faith, hope, and charity; keep us, by Thy powerful grace, from all sin, dangers, temptations, and adversities of soul and body; enable us, we beseech Thee, to offer up to Thee, from this day henceforth till the hour of our death, all our senses, thoughts, words, and deeds; to subject them all to Thy holy will; to oppose successfully every evil habit, and to practice every virtue. Grant, O Father, that we, living and dying in Thy only true faith, may enjoy in Thy kingdom, where one day is better than a thousand upon earth, an everlasting New Year of eternal happiness, and that we may praise Thee with all Thy angels and saints, forever and ever. Amen.

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O God, Heavenly Father of Mercy, God of all Consolation! we thank Thee that from our birth to this day, Thou hast so well pre­served us, and hast protected us in so many dangers; we beseech Thee, through the merits of Thy beloved Son, and by His sacred blood which He shed for us on this day in His circumcision, to for­give all the sins which, during the past year, we have committed against Thy commandments, by which we have aroused Thy indig­nation and wrath against ourselves. Preserve us in the coming year from all sins, and misfortunes of body and soul. Grant that from this day to the end of our lives, all our senses, thoughts, words, and works, which we here dedicate to Thee for all time, may be directed in accordance with Thy will, and that we may finally die in the true Catholic faith, and enjoy with Thee in Thy kingdom a joyful new year, that shall know no end. Amen.