2010 12 24 Nightmass 2
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE by Fr. ALEJANDRO SALCEDO GARCIA op St. Dominic priory prior
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Christmas is finally here.! These four weeks of Advent we have been waiting and praying for the coming of Christmas. And now Christmas is here. There is no time as rich in traditions, dreams, hopes and images than Christmas. It is a time, which helps us tell our story of who we are, where we come from, what we believe in, and what our goal is.
The Christmas story is a story of faith so simple that any child you ask to, would tell you what happened on that night in Bethlehem. However, even after 2000 years, it is still such a big mystery that the richness of its meaning remains unlimited.
The angels are bringing us the good news of great joy for all the people, for to us is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. The good news of great joy that we proclaim during Christmas is for all the people of God. As people of God we have a claim to the joy and the peace that the birth of Christ brings to the world. But how do I personally enter into this “great joy” of Christmas? Christmas rings out “joy to the world,” yes, but how do I make this joy my own? This is an important question, for, even though God has declared joy to the whole world, there are still many among us who do not flow in this joy, many among us who do not know how to claim this joy and make it their own personally.
For many people this Christmas will not be a happy time. It will be a time of loneliness, a time when a departed one is most greatly missed, a time when may people will spends this day far away from family and home, or when, because of alcohol or gambling, it will become a night of violence and abuse. Do I have it within my power today and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to ensure that those around me find happiness, at least in so far as I can contribute to that?
The joy of the Word made flesh is not a philosophy, a theory or a concept to be merely discussed, debated, pondered, or sung about. But the Word became flesh: a person – a real person – to be followed, enjoyed and loved. That is what we are about, or should be about, at Christmas and throughout the year. The work of Christmas is to tell another story to each other and to the world. The story of how peace is possible, of how love came into our midst in a child, of how life can be born from death. We tell the story as much by our lives as by our words, we tell a new story by opening our hearts to the ones who have more obvious needs. We are called not just to receive the Word of life, but to live it and to share it with others by the way we live and love.
We are called not just to celebrate Christmas, but to BE Christmas for others, to be Christ’s presence in our world, to let others know what God looks like in human form. To remind each other that because of what happened 2000 years ago, in the little town of Bethlehem, we have become one human family, with God as our Father.
As we celebrate together the greatest event which has ever taken place in history. I would like to invite you to reflect on the meaning of the birth of Christ into our world, a world that needs good news as much as the one He entered 2000 years ago. A world that needs a new story to help us imagine that love is possible, and peace can be real.
The shepherds were given the message and went to Bethlehem and see for themselves what the angels announced them. Our life as Christian is a journey from revelation to faith. It involves coming to find out for ourselves the truth and the reality of what I had been told by my parents, teachers, or preachers in church. Our live as Christians is based in between two phrases: “come and see” and “go and tell.”
Like the Wise Men following the star, we are given a way in which to walk, and the gospel is a map for the journey. Jesus himself is our Moses, as well as our manna. The gift, the call and the work of Christmas is to let Christ be born in our hearts and in our homes, and to make the people in our families, our friends, the people we will be meeting tomorrow see in us what Jesus looks like. Only like this, then what happened in Bethlehem some two thousand years ago is a cause for us to celebrate.
The big celebration begins, a festival of light and love, of joy and laughter, of family and community and world. May the Lord pour on us all and our families and friends the joy and graces he brought with him on that Holy Night 2000 years ago.
Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!
A Christmas Message by Bro Bruno Cadoré op Master of the Order
Advent opens once again the blessed time of expectation for the Incarnation. It is a blessed time because it tells us about the mystery of the coming of our God in our humanity, One for the salvation of all. This lies at the very heart of the mission of the Order. Young and old, people from North or South, brothers or sisters, laity or clergy, all of us were one day so touched by this astounding news that we dedicated our lives to make it known to the world: God comes in our world. Through this dialogue with the world and its cultures, he opens the time for the new creation. This waiting for the Incarnation forms the background of our apostolic fraternity and, at the same time, it is its most solid support.
The news of the coming of God, which was one day heard in the darkness, had the power to awaken the shepherds and to make the multitude of simple people go in haste to the inn. It attracted the learned so much that they set out on unfamiliar routes. It worried the mighty baffled by the resistance that gentleness and love can oppose to the vain pretentions of power. God came among men and women; and all of a sudden those who thought that they were forgotten by everybody found that they were invited to occupy the first place in the fulfilment of the promise. Those who felt tired of life stood up again, and those who felt crushed by guilt and sin grasped the hand that helped them rise again.
God comes personally to dialogue with his people, and the “delicate silence of a gentle breeze†covers the world and opens the time of hope for a new creation. Everybody can dare to be born again; the world can be renewed. It is possible to build a future of justice and peace starting today, as long as one is inhabited by the hope that, through human hands, God himself is working to shape a new creation. It is this extraordinary news of God’s dialogue with his people, with each and every one of us, that led us to start moving, and it is through it and for it that we wish to live! Is it not this news that, even today, should keep us awake?
Our order is the servant of the coming of God and of the dialogue this coming inaugurated. This is what made Dominic choose the way of apostolic preaching. This is what encouraged Pedro de Cordoba and his friars when, through the sermon delivered by Montesinos, they preached the need for an alliance for a common dignity. It is in this coming that we want to discern the signs of God through dialogue with traditional and modern cultures, and with technology and science. It is also because of this coming that we wish to be vigilant by participating in the new worlds of the arts and of digital communication. Everywhere, we join our contemporaries in order to listen to them, and with them listen to the footsteps of God who is coming, to discern with them the signs of hope for a new world that is being born.
The Order is also the servant of this dialogue of God with humanity when, through fraternal life, He invites the brothers to be witnesses for each other of God’s dialogue with each one of us, in spite of our weaknesses, notwithstanding the shortcomings of our lives, or maybe even starting from them. Preaching in our Order is done in community, of course, in that together we try to keep ourselves awake in order to discern in the world and in human cultures the signs of the coming of God, opening up this dialogue through which He makes all things new. But it is also a community preaching, “a holy preachingâ€, because the friars, in the adventure of fraternal living, dare to be witnesses for each other of this coming of God in each one of us, of the promise of a new birth. We live in expectation for the coming of the Lord through which we want to bear witness by welcoming Him ourselves and by offering Him to the world as the promise of a new birth.
May this time of Advent and the celebration of Christmas be for you all a time of joy that gives us such hope!
Bro Bruno Cadoré op
Master of the Order
FOR A NEW CHRISTMAS by the Provincial of Our Lady of the Rosary Province Fr. JAVIER GONZALEZ IZQUIERDO, OP
FOR A NEW CHRISTMAS
One naively believes that Christmastime brings Good News to everyone. Unfortunately it is not so, paradoxical though it may look. To start with, Christmas leaves indifferent to those who do not believe in the Child of Bethlehem; Christmas causes annoyance to those who used to believe in Him but who later abandoned their faith; Christmas turns sad to those who are in terrible pain, victims of natural calamities, abuses or injustices; and Christmas makes “less Christian†those who are egoistically engrossed in their selfishness, for whom nothing else exists. I imagine that for most of these people Christmas messages are a waste of time, to say the least.
And to us, friars, what kind of News does Christmas bring? Thanks God, to most of us Christmas brings home a message of renewing hope and joy; to a minority of friars, however, (I pray to be not among them!) my fear is that Christmas means nothing or very little, in practical terms. Please, do not take scandal at this latter expression: it is not a judgment but a simple personal apprehension. To me it is not even surprising, especially since I heard from one of our recent Masters of the Order the shocking statement that “faith cannot be taken for granted any more today in all the religious.”
Anyway, as Provincial, my Christmas message is for all the members of the Province; friends and enemies; those who are near and those who are far away.
It contains, first, a prayer: That the Lord may assume our history to enkindle it with his love, so that we may never stop cherishing the gift of faith He has given us nor allow the evil existing in the world (and henceforth in ourselves) render meaningless our religious profession.
It contains, too, a wish: May God’s Peace continue dwelling in you and in me. This Peace demands from us, missionaries, that we show Jesus to those with whom we live and work, and besides that we contemplate Him not only in Bethlehem but also in each of our brethren.
With my sincere gratitude, A Blessed Christmas! A Prosperous Year 2011!
Javier
Renewal of profession
On December 8, Feast of the Inmaculate Conception,
Bro. Joseph Lee renewed his profession for one year,
during a solemn Mass at our Chapel.