Holy Innocents: A thought for the day

A fitting thought on this chilling Christmas "feast":

The Son of God took flesh

and died

in order to punch a hole

in the hard wall

surrounding

the human heart.

Gregory Collins, OSB

Meeting Christ in His Mysteries: A Benedictine Vision of the Spiritual Life

Blessed Christmas!

It is our glory

to kneel

and adore

the Incarnate Christ.

(Byzantine Liturgy)

Finding the Christmas Tree in a Sycamore

If anyone was sleeping during meditation this morning, Sister Mary A. woke them up with her heart-rendingly desperate cry for help. Her panic was not at something particularly life-threatening. The poor soul felt stranded at the top of the five steps leading down to chapel: someone had left the electric wheelchair lift at the bottom, and Sister forgot about the gentle bell that would summon a helper without raising the collective heartrate. We have a few sisters like her, whose weaknesses can be a bit distracting, if not unsettling. 

But Christmas is a mystery of weakness. We won't see God as Emmanuel, God-with-us, if we don't get used to the idea of weakness; if we don't come to see ourselves as weak and needy.

Yesterday I came across some meditation notes from November, when the day's Gospel was the encounter of Jesus with Zaccheus, the man in the sycamore tree. In some unexpected ways, I “heard” that Gospel today as a Christmas story. This is what I mean:

In the Incarnation, and on that road through Jericho, Jesus moved toward those polite society shrinks from, the people who are too needy, clingy, erratic, demanding, unpredictable, intrusive. I tend to move quite rapidly in the opposite direction of people who might challenge me with their unexpected helplessness or their violation of societal expectations. I don't want to be put on the spot. Jesus doesn't mind at all. In the Incarnation, Jesus “came to seek and save what was lost.” He did not protect himself from those he had come for: he identified with them.
 

Zaccheus may not have known this at first. Of course, he was “looking to see Jesus” (we are made for that), but he hid himself in the generous leaves of the sycamore tree so as not to impose his need on Jesus, or expose himself to the rejection of his townspeople. After all, he was a tax collector, “a sinner,” a member of an undeserving class, unwelcome wherever people gathered. It was a weird, symbiotic relationship: Zaccheus profiting from his role as local sinner to extort as much as he could from his tax collector's post, while his fellow citizens could feel vindicated in their resentment and secure in their civic virtue every time they looked at him.

Naturally, then, he was the one Jesus called out to, just as at the Nativity it was the misfit shepherds (lazy, thieving types who were dismissed as outside the Law, since their profession prevented them from observing all the religious prescriptions) and the pagan scholars (pagans!) who received celestial invitations to the manger. God comes to all, but only the weak or excluded seem to recognize him.

It can be so easy to get the Gospel wrong; to think it is for “good people,” or that Jesus' (or the Pope's) presence and nearness is a reward for getting it all right. Today's moralism seems to know only reward or punishment, and sees “fraternizing with the undeserving” as a dismissal of wrongdoing rather than an invitation to a new life. Whether we identify more with the “losers” or with the “in crowd,” we can miss the invitation to go out on a limb and receive the Kingdom of God like a little child if we want it to only confirm us in our way of thinking and keep our hierarchies of power or values in place.

Most of us won't hear these readings on Christmas Day, so why not read them as part of your Christmas preparation? "He came unto his own." He comes to us. What comes next?

Christmas in Damascus: a Parish is Born

We did a little something different this year in our Christmas concerts. Every three songs or so, one of the sisters gave a short reflection, told a story, introduced the song in a unique way. My turn came between "Carol of the Bells" and "There is Born a Child." I started by saying that the birth of every child is a sign of hope for the world; a sign that life is stronger than death; that no matter what we see or undergo, life wins in the end. Of course, the Child whose birth we celebrate this week was more than a simple "sign" of the power of life: He is LIFE itself ("In him was LIFE and the life was the light of all people"), and he did, in his own flesh, accomplish the definitive victory of life over the power of death.

In a way that is being experienced by our Christian brothers and sisters in Syria. In the very midst of destruction and death, life refuses to back down. Here is the Christmas message from the Maronite bishop of Damascus:

Most of our Maronite families of Damascus live away from the Cathedral in Bab Touma, the only Maronite church in Damascus. Since 2007 we have celebrated Liturgy with Syriac Catholics in Douwaylaa Jaramana and Greek Catholics in Kachkoul.

Coming together for an hour and a half a week is sufficient to form a parish. Despite the war, economic and social problems, our priests and faithful have launched three projects to develop three chapels in the three aforementioned areas. This is in order to better connect the community, to organize catechesis and Bible evenings, and for the catechumenate. Christ continues to allure and attract people to him.

The name of the first of these three Maronite churches is Church of the Blessed Brothers Massabki, Martyrs of Damascus (1860). It will be inaugurated at Kachkoul, in the eastern suburb of Damascus, on January 8, 2016 at 4 P. M.

In the middle of destruction this new chapel appears like the Star of the magi which leads to the Divine Child.  It is a true Christmas present; an oasis of prayer and a sign of joy and of hope in the middle of a world of violence, of intolerance, anguish, fear and death.

To build a Church in times of war and desolation expresses the will to overcome death and the courage of living the Faith. Our modest faithful choose to row against the current and to renew their confidence in Jesus Christ in this dark night. This year Christmas in Damascus merges with the Resurrection.

                                                   +Samir NASSAR

                                         Archevêque Maronite de Damas 

Concert Season

Sister Bethany will be our sound
engineer this year. (Learning on the
job is an FSP tradition.)

The scattered members of the Daughters of St Paul choir gathered here in Boston on Thanksgiving (with one arrival from Honolulu arriving the next day), and rehearsals commenced almost immediately. I could use two or three more dry runs myself, but as the old song goes, "my bags are packed; I'm ready to go" (more or less), not on a jet plane (for those old enough to actually remember the old song) but in a Tuesday morning caravan of minivans.

Monday morning photo shoot handled
by one of the novices.

This year the vehicles have to accommodate not only the ten singers and their luggage and two "tech" sisters with the sound equipment, but four crates of props, one very large prop and a harp. Sister Julia Mary learned how to play the harp this year, so we are including one song in the program with live accompaniment on this new and very charming instrument. (All our other music will be from the pre-recorded instrument tracks that will be used in the album we hope to record next summer.)

This calypso carol called for a costume change.

Check our Facebook page for the complete concert listing; our first event will be Wednesday night in Piscataway, NJ. I think this may be the 5th year in a row for Our Lady of Fatima Parish. Thursday night is our annual fundraiser on Staten Island (proceeds go toward our new convent there) and Friday we fly to Cleveland to sing in the Cathedral that evening. After that, Ramsey (NJ) and Philadelphia, and then the Boston area concerts (three of my sisters are coming for those!). Through it all, we will be using the new microphones sponsored by fans of the choir in last year's fundraiser. (Thanks!)

My time is not my own during the concert tour, so updates from the Nunblogger will continue to be irregular. I hope your prayers will be constant, though! I am really counting on that to help me get all my notes in the right order! And I do hope that if you are anywhere near one of the concert venues you will have the opportunity to take a concert in.