Mother of God

An address by Pope Benedict XVI to the General Audience
Paul VI Audience Hall, 2 January 2008

"Mother of God",Theotokos, is the title that was officially attributed to Mary in the fifth century, to be exact, at the Council of Ephesus in 431, but which had already taken root in the devotion of the Christian people since the third century, in the context of the heated discussions on the Person of Christ in that period. This title highlights the fact that Christ is God and truly was born of Mary as a man: in this way his unity as true God and true man is preserved. Actually, however much the debate might seem to focus on Mary, it essentially concerned the Son. Desiring to safeguard the full humanity of Jesus, several Fathers suggested a weaker term: instead of the title Theotokos, they suggested Christotokos, "Mother of Christ"; however, this was rightly seen as a threat to the doctrine of the full unity of Christ's divinity with his humanity. On the one hand, therefore, after lengthy discussion at the Council of Ephesus in 431, as I said, the unity of the two natures - the divine and the human (cf. DS, n. 250) - in the Person of the Son of God was solemnly confirmed and, on the other, the legitimacy of the attribution of the title Theotokos, Mother of God, to the Virgin (ibid., n. 251).

After this Council a true explosion of Marian devotion was recorded and many churches dedicated to the Mother of God were built. Outstanding among these is the Basilica of St Mary Major here in Rome. The teaching on Mary, Mother of God, received further confirmation at the Council of Chalcedon (451), at which Christ was declared "true God and true man... born for us and for our salvation of Mary, Virgin and Mother of God, in his humanity" (DS, n. 301). As is well known, the Second Vatican Council gathered the teachings on Mary in the eighth chapter of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, reaffirming her divine motherhood. The chapter is entitled "The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and the Church".

Thus, the description "Mother of God", so deeply bound up with the Christmas festivities, is therefore the fundamental name with which the Community of Believers has always honoured the Blessed Virgin. It clearly explains Mary's mission in salvation history. All other titles attributed to Our Lady are based on her vocation to be the Mother of the Redeemer, the human creature chosen by God to bring about the plan of salvation, centred on the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Divine Word. In these days of festivity we have paused to contemplate the depiction of the Nativity in the crib. At the centre of this scene we find the Virgin Mother, who offers the Baby Jesus for the contemplation of all those who come to adore the Saviour: the shepherds, the poor people of Bethlehem, the Magi from the East. Later, on the Feast of the "Presentation" which we celebrate on 2 February, it will be the elderly Simeon and the prophetess Anna who receive the tiny Infant from the hands of his Mother and worship him. The devotion of the Christian people has always considered the Birth of Jesus and the divine motherhood of Mary as two aspects of the same mystery of the Incarnation of the Divine Word, so it has never thought of the Nativity as a thing of the past. We are "contemporaries" of the shepherds, the Magi, of Simeon and of Anna, and as we go with them we are filled with joy, because God wanted to be the God-with-us and has a mother who is our mother.

All the other titles with which the Church honours Our Lady then derive from the title "Mother of God", but this one is fundamental. Let us think of the privilege of the "Immaculate Conception", that is, of Mary being immune to sin from conception: she was preserved from any stain of sin because she was to be the Mother of the Redeemer. The same applies to the title "Our Lady of the Assumption": the One who had brought forth the Saviour could not be subject to the corruption that derives from original sin. And we know that all these privileges were not granted in order to distance Mary from us but, on the contrary, to bring her close; indeed, since she was totally with God, this woman is very close to us and helps us as a mother and a sister. The unique and unrepeatable position that Mary occupies in the Community of Believers also stems from her fundamental vocation to being Mother of the Redeemer. Precisely as such, Mary is also Mother of the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. Rightly, therefore, on 21 November 1964 during the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI solemnly attributed to Mary the title "Mother of the Church".

It is because she is Mother of the Church that the Virgin is also the Mother of each one of us, members of the Mystical Body of Christ. From the Cross, Jesus entrusted his Mother to all his disciples and at the same time entrusted all his disciples to the love of his Mother. The Evangelist John concludes the brief and evocative account with these words: "Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!'. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (Jn 19: 27). This is the [English] translation of the Greek text "εiς tά íδια", he welcomed her into his own reality, his own existence. Thus, she is part of his life and the two lives penetrate each other. And this acceptance of her (εiς tά íδια) in his own life is the Lord's testament. Therefore, at the supreme moment of the fulfilment of his messianic mission, Jesus bequeathes as a precious inheritance to each one of his disciples his own Mother, the Virgin Mary.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

You're all familiar with the Christmas song, The Twelve Days of Christmas I think. To most it's a delightful nonsense rhyme set to music. But it had a quite serious purpose when it was written. It is a good deal more than just a repetitious melody with pretty phrases and a list of strange gifts.  

Catholics in England during the period 1558 to 1829, when Parliament finally emancipated Catholics in England, were prohibited from any practice of their faith by law—private or public. It was a crime to be a Catholic. The Twelve Days of Christmas was written in England as one of the catechism songs to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of the Church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

The True Love one hears in the song is not a smitten boy or girlfriend but Jesus Christ, because the True Love was born on Christmas Day. The partridge in the pear tree also represents Him because that bird is willing to sacrifice its life if necessary to protect its young by feigning injury to draw away predators. According to Ann Ball in her book, Handbook of Catholic Sacramentals:      

• The two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.  

• The three French hens stood for 
  the Theological Virtues
  —faith, hope, and love.

• The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.            

• The five golden rings represented the first five books of the Old Testament—the Pentateuch—which describe man's fall  into sin and the great love of God in sending a Savior.

• The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.    

• Seven swans a-swimming represented the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the seven sacraments.
  
• The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.         

• Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit—Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience (Forbearance), Goodness (Kindness), Mildness, Fidelity, Modesty, Continency (Chastity). To fit the number scheme, the originator combined the 6 similar fruits to make it into 3. The fruit in each parenthesis is the that was not named separately. There are actually Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost.
  
• The ten lords a-leaping were the Ten Commandments.     

• The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful Apostles.     

• The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve articles of faith in the Apostles' Creed.
  
  
  Sources:Catholic Online/Catholic News Agency

The Gate of the Year

"I once knew someone who spent a year in a plaster cast recovering from an operation on his back. He read a lot, and thought a lot, and felt miserable.

Later, he realised this time of forced retreat from the world had helped him to understand the world more clearly.

We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock. Be it through contemplation, prayer, or even keeping a diary, many have found the practice of quiet personal reflection surprisingly rewarding, even discovering greater spiritual depth to their lives." - Elizabeth II's Christmas Message, 2013

It is a tradition since 1932 for the reigning monarch in United Kingdom to give her annual Christmas message to all her subjects from her home to the far places of her kingdom's overseas territories. Families would gather around radio, PC and TV sets on Christmas just to hear the Queen giving messages of hope and peace to all the peoples, particularly to those who are in need and those who mourn for the loss of their beloved. She also highlights her family's recent activities and events that gave joy to them and a reason to ponder the importance of it.

For the Queen, it is important for us to have a look on ourselves: whether we have accomplished our plans for this year, whether we overcame our own challenges and were there any changes happened in you based on our experiences we had this year. We in the seminary were required to have our own "journal" and must be submitted to our spiritual director. That is why we need to write our thoughts everyday in our journal, without any leaf unwritten. But because we need to focus on our academic duties and other commitments, not one single leaf was written.

I used to have my own journal, though not really committed to write daily. In your journal, you can write your own personal grievances, you can write your thoughts on this particular thing or an event, your personal prayer for today, your joys and your sorrows. Of all your entries, you can sum up everything that you've written to find an answer to your questions, a solution to your problems and discover something that would become a basis of pursuing for greatness.  It feels good to have one. I hope that I have the zeal to commit myself to write my journal entry everyday and for the rest of your life. 

World events and key events in our life are considered unwritten journals, but in our carefree minds we are very unaware of it. The year 2014 was both worth spending and a year rocked by wars, epidemics and numerous difficult challenges. We celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Regional Major Seminary and the opening of the Jubilee Gym. We were very delightful to hear that Pope Francis will visit Philippines and now we are spiritually preparing as well as physically preparing for his arrival in a few days' time. Lastly, we would like to share some events that made us happy, moved us and helped us realize that life is worth living but we are too shy to share the details of it. 

But not everything happened in 2014 was good. The war in Ukraine made us realize that in all things, we must become self-reliant in order to achieve something, to make our lives better and not to rely too much on other foreign powers. They have their own problems, too, to solve. The ISIS problem made us think that it is evil to use religion to achieve the desires of the flesh. The Ebola crisis also made us realize that life is too precious and it cannot be reclaimed once we die.  Lastly, our own problems and bad experiences in life helped us change the way we think and ponder these lessons of not doing it again. 

As we end this year, we pray that the past events happened would become our guide on improving ourselves and another step on pursuing greatness in our own lives by taking uncomfortable risks. We pray to God that may the year 2015 be good to us and may we receive more blessings. 

God knows. His will Is best. 
The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.
- Minnie Louise Haskins

What's In for Christmas? (A liturgical backgrounder)

Well, we all know that Christmas is a very joyous occasion for all of us in the Church. But let us remember that the next days are reminders for us to live out the joy of Christ's birth in our lives.

Tomorrow, we will celebrate the feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr. Following the example of Jesus, let us humble ourselves and make ourselves willing to offer our lives at the service of what we believe.

On the twenty-seventh, we will celebrate the feast of St. John the Apostle/Theologian/Beloved. Just like John, we are loved by the Lord in a special way. We must lift up our eyes and contemplate on the mystery of God present before us: the Word who became flesh and lived among us.

The twenty-eighth is a double feastday for us Christians. On the table of liturgical precedence is the feast of the Holy Family. On the other hand, many also celebrate today the feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs. On this day, let us remember the dignity and sacrality of the family. The Holy Innocents were victims of the persecution of Herod, who sought for Jesus in order to slay him. Today, many children are victims not only of persecutions, but also of the greed of their own parents for personal benefit. Let us pray for them and for their parents, and let us not also forget to pray for our families.

On the first of January, we will celebrate the feast of the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God. It is fitting and proper to entrust the beginnings of our year to Mary. Far from our drunken reverie and intensive eat-outs, let us try to follow the example of Mary, who pondered the mysteries of her Son in her heart. As we ask the Lord for peace in our hearts, in our country and in the whole world, let us commit ourselves to be messengers and protectors of peace in our lives as Christians.

On these days of Christmas, let us offer to the newborn Jesus the gifts of an authentic Christian life: a life of witness, of contemplation, of sacrifice and of peace. Our Christmas should be a celebration of joy and happiness, but it should not distract us from our Christian commitment to justice, peace and charity. 

Christmas is a mystery. It is not a celebration that is to be felt with our human senses. It is a feast that primarily speaks to the heart. God speaks to us today in our hearts; let us listen to Him!

A Christmas Greeting from Seminarians' Musings

                        


" God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. 

He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. 

He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. 

He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. 

God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him."   



 (Pope Benedict XVI, Homily on the Solemnity of the Lord's Nativity-Mass at Midnight, December 2006).

_______________________________________________________________ 

Tonight, we would like to greet everyone: our dear readers, Facebook followers, brother seminarians, beloved Fathers, and most especially our families a blessed, solemn and peaceful celebration of the Solemnity of our Lord's Nativity.

And with our greetings, is this simple but elegant prayer written by Fra Giovanni in the late 1500's, hoping and praying that we will all experience the abundance of God's love this Christmas.

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A MONK'S CHRISTMAS PRAYER

"I am your friend and my love for you goes very deep.                                       

There is nothing really that I can give you this Christmas that you do not already have. 

But there is much, very much that you can discover for yourself this Christmas, even if I am not the one to give it to you.  

So I pray that you will find peace, which is in the hidden places around us today. The gloom of our world is really only a shadow.  Beyond that gloom, yet still within our reach, is happiness. 

I pray that you will discover happiness in your heart this year.  There is light and glory in the darkness around us, if we only could see it.  To see the light in the darkness we only have to look. 

I pray that you will look for the light this Christmas.  Life is actually a very generous giver, but because we judge the gifts by their covering, we cast them away as ugly, or heavy, or hard.  Remove the covering from the gifts of life and you will find beneath it a living splendor that is woven of love.  Life is full of meaning and purpose. It is full of beauty beneath the covering. 

I pray that this Christmas you will discover that earth is only a cloak for heaven.  

This Christmas, I send you greetings. They are not exactly the kind of greetings that the world sends.  But I send them to you with great love and with a prayer that, for you and for all those you love, this Christmas and forever, the dawn will break and the shadows of night will flee away."

Merry Christmas from all of us in Seminarians' Musings! We wish you all the best today and for the upcoming year 2015! God bless you!

Adam, Eve & the Paradise Tree

Elaine Jordan

What is the origin of the delightful custom of the Christmas tree? 

I am happy to state definitively that it had nothing to do with the heresiarch Martin Luther, who is often reported to have set up the first Christmas tree. There is absolutely no scholarly basis for this legend. It is just another Protestant attempt to steal from the Catholics and deny the enormous legacy of good that came from the Middle Ages.

The Paradiese Tree was one of the most popular medieval mystery plays

For the roots of the Christmas tree are medieval, and it is the Germans, with their innate sense of the innocence of Christmas, who spread the custom. Let me tell the true story. 

Christmas Eve is the feast day of our first parents, Adam and Eve, who are commemorated as Saints in the calendars of the Catholic churches of Eastern rites. Their veneration spread also to the West and became very popular toward the end of the first millennium. Although the Latin rite of the Catholic Church never officially introduced their feast, it did not oppose their popular veneration. In many old churches of Europe their statues may still be seen among the images of the Saints. 

Around the 12th century the custom began of celebrating this feast on December 24 with the Paradise Play, which became one of the most popular medieval mystery plays. The Paradise Play depicted the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and their banishment from Paradise. The play ended with the promise of the coming Savior and His incarnation. 

One of the few props in the play was a large evergreen tree called a Paradise Tree, its branches laden with red apples. 

The Germans enter the picture 

With the rise of Humanism, Renaissance and Protestant Revolution the customs of perform the Paradise Play vanished. In fact, Germany had no theater for several centuries. But the German Catholics did not abandon the Paradise tree. 

There, it became the custom to put up a “paradise tree” in the home to honor the first parents. This was a fir tree laden with apples, the symbol of Adam’s fall. They also decorated the tree with white wafers, representing the Eucharist, the symbol of man’s redemption and salvation. It was customary as early as the 16th century in Germany to ring the tree with candles because the Paradise Play was enacted in such a ring. (1)

Christmas in Germany, 1881

In fact, we find first mention of the Christmas tree as early as 1419 at the Freiburg Fraternity Baker’s Apprentices of the German Alsace. We also have a letter written by a Strasbourg resident in 1605 who describes the established custom, "At Christmas they set up fir trees in the parlors at Strasburg and hang thereon roses cut of many-colored paper, apples, wafers, gold-foil, sweets.” (2) 

Until the 19th century, mostly edible items were used as tree decorations. Then, in 1880 glassmakers in Thuringia, Germany, discovered how to make blown glass balls and bells, and these soon replaced the apples. 

The custom spread naturally. From the Alsace the tree made its way to other regions of Germany and France. German settlers and soldiers brought the Christmas tree to America in the colonial period. The German born Queen Victoria formally introduced the Christmas tree in England in 1841 where it was warmly received, and soon the English were pretending that it was their idea, as is their habit. 

Thus, we find the roots of our modern Christmas tree: It is actually the medieval Paradise tree, a reminder of the fall of our first parents and the promise of the coming of a Savior. 

Other Adam tidbits 

In addition to our Christmas tree, we owe many expressions in our language to Adam. 

When we speak of "the old Adam" in us, we mean that part of us that tends to yield to temptation. 

When St. Paul speaks of "the last Adam" (1 Cor 15:45) he means Christ, who by his obedience repaired the disobedience of the first Adam. 

Since God ordered Adam to till the ground after his expulsion from Eden, gardening is called "Adam's profession," and in fact Adam became a Patron Saint of gardeners. 

Lastly, that prominent cartilage in the human throat, especially the male throat, is called "Adam's apple" on the theory that one piece of the forbidden apple stuck in Adam's throat and we have all inherited a visible mark of his sin. 

1. Tristam Potter Coffin, The Illustrated Book of Christmas Folklore, Seabury Press, 1974, pp.18-19
2. B. Brunner, Inventing the Christmas Tree, Yale University Press, p. 3

Posted December 17, 2014

Source: http://traditioninaction.org/religious/f031_Tree.htm

"O" Antiphons: December 17-23

“From December 17 onwards, the liturgical texts of Advent are more directly concerned with the immediate preparation for the Christmas feast. The mystery of God’s love, the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God (Eph 3:9), is the foreground. God realized it in the Lord’s ancestors and proximately in the infancy of John the Baptist and in the persons of Our Lady and St. Joseph” (Ordo 2015).

Thus December 17 marks the start of the “O” antiphons where it is recited or sung before the Magnificat during Vespers. “These moving ‘O Antiphons’ were apparently composed in the seventh or eighth century when monks put together texts from the Old Testament, particularly from the prophet Isaiah, which looked forward to the coming of our salvation. They form a rich, interlocking mosaic of scriptural images. The great ‘O Antiphons’ became very popular in the Middle Ages when it became traditional to ring the great bells of the church each evening as they were being sung” (D’Ambrosio, The Great "O" Antiphons of Advent).

Every antiphons give highlights on the different titles of the Messiah. “In the first, O Sapientia or O Wisdom, takes us to a backward flight into the recesses of eternity to address Wisdom, the Word of God. In the second, O Adonai or O Sacred Lord, we leap from eternity to the time of Moses and the Law of Moses. In the third, O Radix Jesse or O Flower of Jesse’s Stem, we come to the time when God was preparing the line of David. In the fourth, O Clavis David or O Key of David, we come to the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open’ (Isaiah 22:22) In the fifth, O Oriens or O Radiant Dawn, we see that the line of David is elevated so that the peoples may look on a rising star in the east, and hence in the sixth, O Rex Gentium or O King of all the Nations, we come to know that He is the king of all the world of. This brings us to the evening before the vigil, and before coming to the town limits of Bethlehem, we salute Him with the last Great O, O Emmanuel” (J.G. Miller, Catholic Activity: O Antiphons - December 17 - 24).

There is also a particularly fascinating feature of the “O” Antiphons on the first letter of each invocation. According to Fr. William Saunders, the Benedictine monks arranged these antiphons with a definite purpose. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one—Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia—the Latin words Ero Cras are formed, meaning, "Tomorrow, I will come". Therefore Jesus, whose coming Christians have prepared for in Advent and whom they have addressed in these seven Messianic titles, now speaks to them: "Tomorrow, I will come." So the "O Antiphons" not only bring intensity to their Advent preparation, but bring it to a joyful conclusion. However, the way that these antiphons were arranged to form Ero Cras is somewhat dubitable. It is because Ero Cras actually meant “Tomorrow, I will be.” “There is little or no evidence in the sources that this is anything more than a coincidence” (Martin Connell, Eternity Today: On the Liturgical Year).

Misa de Gallo Reflections: December 17

Liturgically, the Church today emphasizes its intense longing and waiting for the coming of Christ. The collects and the readings of the day note the imminence of his Coming, of which we must intensely prepare ourselves for.

Today's readings then speaks of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the "family tree" from which Christ came forth. With this, allow me then to share two points of reflection.

1. We all must belong- Jesus was no exemption. Even if he was not conceived by human design, he still placed a lot of respect for the members of his family. Families aren't really that perfect a bunch of people, but let us see that our families are indeed circles of love, which flows directly from God's love for each one of us.

2. We must see God's hand in everything that happens- Note that the number of each generation who lived in a particular epoch of Jewish history- fourteen. Fourteen is seven doubled, which according to Jewish tradition is perfection. God always works in perfect timing, and this is well manifested in his sending of Jesus in the 'fullness of time".

God is immensely good. He not only makes sure that we belong and are guided by his love, he puts us first on his list- of whom to love, care and save. He knows what we want and what we need in the right moment. Thus, we should ask ourselves in this second day of the Misa de Gallo: Do we prioritize God in this season of Advent? Do we try to make an effort to take care of God's special ones; the poor, needy and oppressed? Do we make them feel that they belong and that they have our special concern?