Kidnapped Baby Jesus (Mid-week)

 

 

Kidnapped Baby Jesus (A Christmas Memory)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 25, 2013

When my family and I were living in Hong Kong for the first time, in 1987, we had a challenge in making our holiday traditions fit into our new and very strange surroundings for our children, aged at the time 5, 8, 10, and 12.  Every year, we had done a careful series of Advent activities, and we studiously kept the figure of the Baby Jesus stored away, to be placed in his manger in the crèche on the coffee table only on the morning of Christmas Eve. 

This year, we could not repeat many of our annual traditions, because they were local and not available in China.  Here one of our holiday meals was to be dim sum luncheon at a giant restaurant with dozens of steaming, mobile carts moving between the chattering, jasmine-tea fragrant tables, we had to be imaginative.

The morning of Christmas Eve, the children all crowded around the small box that usually held the Baby Jesus.   They opened it, and found it empty,  In the place of Jesus, a note, of letters cut from a magazine and pasted onto white bond, read “Jesus has been KIDNAPPED.  If you want him safe, follow all instructions, find the notes with next instructions, and get ready for a great treasure hunt.  First instruction, go and bathe, brush teeth, and dress for a busy day. When done, find next instruction in the refrigerator door.”

The next instruction was to eat breakfast, the next (found in the front hallway) to clean bedrooms, finish Christmas presents.  Finally, they were told to pack an overnight bag with one change of socks and underwear, toothbrushes and a jacket.  They were told to walk down the hill to Bowen Road, and find the next instruction taped under the first park bench there: catch a cab and go to the outlying islands ferry, where they’d be given the next instruction.

When they realized they were leaving the apartment for overnight, on CHRISTMAS EVE, the children got a little worried.  Would Santa visit them where they were mysteriously going?  Did he visit empty apartments?  How in the world were we going to have a proper Christmas Eve and Christmas day with an unexpected journey to GOD KNOWS WHERE thrown in? 

As they walked with Elena along Bowen Road, and took the cab, I went to the apartment and finished Santa things.  I hurried and got to the ferry pier before them.  The instructions were to take the tickets I gave them and go with Elena and me to Lantau Island, to a small harbor called Tai Shui Hang, there they would find the Baby Jesus. 

We had to change ferries on Peng Chau, the small island we went to in the hot weather to go to the beach and eat at waterside seafood restaurants.  When we finally arrived at Tai Shui Hang, the children realized our destination:  the Trappist Monastery.  I finally told them that we had reservations to spend Christmas Eve night there.  After a simple cabbage soup and bread dinner, we took a nap so we would be ready for Midnight Mass. 

 

 Young Trappist Monks Flee China in 1949. 

The Mass itself was luminous.  Half in Latin, with the rest split up between English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, most of it was sung. Lit with hundreds of candles, and scented with clouds of sweet frankincense, the divine was clearly present.  Most of these old monks had fled monasteries in Mainland China after the Communist takeover and the start of systematized murder of all class enemies, including priests, nuns, and monks.  Most had lost brother monks in the red terror and fled to the British colony in desperation.  It was there they had founded their new home, the Trappist Haven Monastery dedicated to Our Lady of China.    A few young novices were in their midst, but most of the monks were obviously so very old that the children wondered if maybe in their youths they had been with the shepherds with Jesus in the stable. 

After a final singing of Silent Night in German, we retired to our beds, bunks all together in a common room with thick quilted ticking to keep us warm in the chilly small hours.  In the morning, we had coffee and milk with bread and cheese, and then prepared to catch the ferry back.  We arrived back at our apartment on Hong Kong Island at 11:00 a.m.  Santa had been there, all right, and the children were very relieved. 

We never again went to a monastery for Midnight Mass together.  But the memories of that special day stayed with us.  The children reminisce about it to this day. 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+

Res Miranda (Christmas Day 1)

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Res Miranda

Christmas Day (Year A)
Isaiah 9:2-7 ;Titus 2:11-14 ; Luke 2:1-14(15-20) ; Psalm 96

Homily delivered at Trinity Parish Ashland (Oregon)
24th December 2013: 11:00p.m. Sung Festal Eucharist

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

The other evening, at the Repertory Singers’ Sing We Joy! Concert, we heard the Chamber Chorus from North Medford High School sing a wonderful new arrangement of the Medieval Carol to the Blessed Virgin, “There is no Rose of Such Virtue,”

“There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu;   Alleluia.

For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space;  Res miranda.  (A thing to be wondered at)."

Wonder is what Christmas is all about, at least what it’s supposed to be about.  At this darkest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, we put up lights on the streets, the shops, and our houses, and try to drive the dark away.  We sing and listen to a wonderful special repertory of music set aside for this time in all the year.  We bring in greens and flowers to our homes and churches to remind us that summer will once again come.  We tell our children little stories of delight, of a world where a benevolent elf gives us our heart’s desire, and, keeping a list and checking it twice, rewards good and corrects naughtiness.  We open our churches and our homes to loved ones and strangers alike, and give gifts to each other.  We give extra gifts and support to those most in need.  Wonder is what Christmas is all about. 

The stories about why we celebrate Christmas, the ones we read in Churches at this time of year, are the ones most fraught with wonder, most freighted with joy.

Sometimes familiarity and repetition of these stories means we don’t really hear them.  They are wonderful indeed, and so strange as to stretch our hearts and minds. 

A young woman gives birth without ever having been with a man?  Really? 

Angels appear to her and her intended husband, guiding them and reassuring them that this child is holy, the fulfillment of his people’s deepest hopes for justice and setting things to right, and will be the rescue of all people?  What are angels, anyway, and these prophetic stories of hope and awe?

Angels appear to poor shepherds, telling them to find this child in diapers snuggled in an animal’s feeding trough.  They break into a joyful chorus praising God.   “Peace,” they sing.  When has there ever been peace really?  

“The grace of God has appeared, bringing rescue to all” says the epistle reading for today.  What is grace?  How has it appeared?  Rescue for all people?  Really? 

Res Miranda.  Wonder, wonder, wonder.

One of the great joys I have as a priest is helping teach and counsel people about faith, about wonder, and about how faith, wonder, and joy lead us to worship, service, and more faith, wonder, and joy.

A question I often hear in such classes and sessions is “How can I have faith?”

 “I am full of doubt!” “Science explains the whys and hows.  It gives us techniques to effectively control the world about us.  Why do we moderns need these old stories about Deities and miracles that seem most of the time about as incredible as Santa Claus?” Sometimes even, “I don’t really think I believe in a God.  Does that make me a bad person? And what point is there in the Church for someone like me?” 

Beyond that, some say, “Making a living, advancing my career, having a family and taking care of them—this is what matters to me. But it seems not to be enough.  I feel a need for meaning and direction in all this good technique.”   

And here I have the great blessing of being able to share my own experience of faith, as pitifully sparse it appears to me at times.   Listening to others talk about their doubts, their fears, their hopes, tells me that we are all pretty much the same on these important core issues of meaning and value.  It’s all a question of how honest we are willing to be about our hopes and doubts.  

Faith is not about explaining stuff.  Faith is not about defining things.  It is not about techniques to control things or on how to get ahead.  It is about trust, about openness.  It is an orientation of the heart, not a content of opinions or positions we subscribe to, or even rules of technical mastery or of success. 

When we say “I believe in God,” we are not saying “I am of the opinion that an entity referred to as God exists.”   The word believe, though it now usually means “hold as true,” actually is related to the old Germanic word for heart, Lieb, and it means “give my heart to.”   As Professor Marcus Borg often says, we might better use the word “belove” rather than “believe.”  

“I believe in God” actually means something like, “I trust God,” or even, “within God, in relationship with God, I love for all I’m worth.”   

This is clear when we look at one of the other lines of the Creed, “I believe in the … Church.”  We are not saying, “I believe the Church exists,” but rather, within the context of the Church, within the embrace of its loving community, I love for all I’m worth.” 

And why believe in God, especially when God, both in history and in many of our personal lives, has been so misused as a tool of control and abuse?  

Faith is about wonder.  It is about trust.  It is about hope, having an ultimate optimism that all will finally be well, despite the risk, horror and darkness that seem to be so much a part of life.  It is not wish fulfillment, as Freud tried to explain it.   Tied up, part and parcel, with story, narrative, song and ritual, it is a transcendental way of processing our life experience and giving us a sense of meaning and value.  

The fact is, metaphor is the basic idiom of the language of faith.   One of the great Theologians of the Church said it was “the analogy of being.”  These stories we tell are ways not to explain how things happen, but point beyond the how and details or process to meaning, to the ultimate “why.”  Light shining in the darkness, the desire of nations coming to us to save us, God taking on all that it means to be human—these are images pointing to the basic experience we have of God rescuing us from what is the matter, whether ignorance, loneliness, failings, guilt, addictions or obsessions, or ill health.

This does not mean that faith language is not true, or doesn’t say what it seems to say.  It means that if we reduce it to mere proposition or opinion, and take it merely as literal, it ceases to be the language of faith.  It loses the wonder.  It becomes a dead thing, stale, and utterly unable to move us or give us hope.  No surprise that literalistic or overly dogmatized readings of faith language general repel people and turn them away from the hope that is God.  

One of the reasons we in the Episcopal Church want to welcome all, and desire all types of people to come to us, is that we believe that we are all in this together, all with our doubts and hopes.  Our life—indeed, our faith—is only enriched by the wonderful diversity of God’s creatures with all their different views and perspectives.    

The joy of a new baby’s birth is a universal human experience.  In this story of this baby born who is to be the fulfillment in strange, sheerly unexpected ways, of all our hopes, we find joy.  In this story of light in the darkness, we feel warmth and hope.  In this story of a young woman taking on the world for justice’s sake, despite censure and prudish critique, we find courage. 

Church, prayer, meditation, and rules of life that bring focus to our service to  others—all these are methods of helping train our hearts to be open and full of trust.  They are not a technique to please God or get ahead.  Their purpose is to open our hearts to the love that is already there at all times and in all places. 

As we celebrate Christmas, let us remember to open our hearts to love and life.  Let us allow ourselves to feel, to wonder.   In the words of the carols, let us look upon this Res Miranda, this thing to be wondered at.  And then let “every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.”

In the name of God, Amen.

Beloved Joseph, Joseph Mine (Advent 4A)

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Beloved Joseph, Joseph Mine
Isaiah 7:10-16; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year A)
Homily delivered at Trinity Parish Ashland (Oregon)
22nd December 2013: 8:00 a.m. Said Eucharist

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Today’s homily is very short, given that at the 10 a.m. service we had a dramatic presentation from the children from Godly Play in the place of any homily at all. 

We saw last week the importance of the Blessed Virgin and saw this reflected in the Magnificat, her song of praise in Luke’s Gospel.  Though today is Mary Sunday, we hear actually very little about her in today’s Gospel.  That is because the cycle of Gospel readings for this year is from St. Matthew, and in general, Saint Matthew does not focus on women as closely as does Saint Luke, source of last year’s readings.  The principal figure in Matthew’s infancy story is not Mary, but Joseph.  There is no annunciation to the Blessed Virgin here, only an unexpected pregnancy and a dream explaining it to Joseph, her promise soon-to-be husband.   Joseph is patterned after the patriarch by the same name, he of the coat of many colors, of many dreams and prophetic interpretations, who saved his family by taking them into Egypt. 

Given how overwhelming the figure of the Blessed Virgin is in Luke and in early and later Christian faith and devotion, I find it somewhat comforting, as a man, that a figure like Joseph shows up in Jesus’ family.    The German carol, “Josef Lieber, Josef Mein” (Beloved Joseph, Joseph Mine), sums up well his role, “hilf mir weigen das Kindelein” “help me rock the baby to sleep.”  Foster, not biological father, yet father all the same. 

  

There is an important detail in this story: “because he was a just man, Joseph did not want to publicly denounce Mary, so he decided to divorce her quietly.”  The assumption here is that according to the Law, he could stand on his dignity and male pride: an engaged woman who was found to be unfaithful to her intended was guilty of adultery and could be denounced and publicly stoned to death to satisfy the honor of the male who was seen to have had his property rights violated.  But Joseph is just, and can’t conceive of such a harsh and bitter way of treating Mary, although it is within his rights according to that society’s laws.  He decides a quiet divorce is the kindest way out of the difficult position Mary has put him into. 

But he has a dream, and an angel tells him that Mary has not betrayed him, and rather, that the child to be born is holy.  He is to foster it, and even give it the heroic, patriotic name Joshua. 

In our lives, there are many times when we are faced with a threefold choice.  We can live the law of selfishness, of nature, or of getting by with what we can get away with.  Or we can, like Joseph, be just or righteous.  We can be “nice,” or “good people.”   And that is far better than just insisting on our rights and dignities. 

But on occasion, God intervenes and talks to us, whether in dreams, or scripture, or contemplative moments, or in the advice of friends.  And sometimes God will tell us to go beyond good, beyond nice, and truly sacrifice ourselves to make God’s love become flesh in our lives and the lives of others. 

This principle lies behind the repeated saying in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard it said (or the Law says), but I tell you….”  

Joseph is an example of listening to God and sacrificing ourselves, not for the good, but for beyond good, beyond law. 

May we follow his example and follow this call when it comes to us. 

In the name of God, Amen.

A Poem ABout St. Joseph (Mid-week Message)

 

 

A Poem about St. Joseph

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

December 18, 2013

 

Last Sunday, we talked about the Magnificat and Luke’s story of the annunciation to the Blessed Virgin.  Luke’s story is the main source of the “Hail Mary” devotions of Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Old Catholics, Coptic and Armenian churches, as well as many Anglicans and some Lutherans.  (Martin Luther himself said a “Hail Mary” was a good devotion to the Mother of our Lord, and thus to our Lord himself, and not a prayer, as long as you stick to the Biblical language and don’t lard it with extravagant petitions to Mary for intercession that sound like petitionary prayer.) 

 

This coming Sunday, we will hear Matthew’s very different story about the Virginal Conception of Jesus, this one focused on St. Joseph rather than St. Mary.  My friend Susan Church shared with me the following poem by a Benedictine monk about St. Joseph and this coming Sunday’s reading, told in Mary’s voice: 

 

       JOSEPH, I’M PREGNANT 
       BY THE HOLY GHOST

-- Killian McDonnell

“Her Husband Joseph, being a righteous man…
planned to dismiss her quietly.”  —Matthew 1:19

Life was simple before that angel
pushed open the kitchen door,
announced light and trouble, as though
a foe had roiled the bottom of the well
and now the pail brings up only

murky water. I’m chosen for some
terrible grace beyond the well.
After short light long dark,
left to stumble through Sinai

Desert. No manna to gather, no quail
to catch. Nothing. When I tell Joseph
I’m pregnant by the Holy Ghost,
he stares, ox dumb in hurt. I’ve asked

him to believe that I, God’s
Moses-girl, part seas, give Torah. He turns, leaves
without a word. Why should my dearest

love believe? Yahweh’s not fair.
Where is the voice of light? Where
the pillar of fire? My man drops
me cold, as though I were a concubine

dismissed without a drachma for cheating
on her master’s blanket with that
swarthy Roman soldier from the barracks.
Joseph doesn’t expose me; I will not

be stoned. My heart eats Yahweh’s
cinders; I drink the last date wine
gone sour at the dregs.
God does nothing. But I carry life.

 

 

Grace and Peace,  

Fr. Tony+  

Fierce and Joyous (Advent 3A)

Yolanda Lopez, Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe

 

Fierce and Joyous
Isaiah 35:1-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11; Canticle 15
Third Sunday of Advent (Year A)
Homily delivered at Trinity Parish Ashland (Oregon)
15th December 2013: 8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist

The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Today is Gaudete Sunday, “Rejoice Sunday,” when the priest wears rose and we begin to settle into the joy of our rapidly approaching redemption.   Joy is what our faith is all about.   God is crazy about you and me, and that makes all the difference.  The faith we have in God taking on everything it means to be human in the conception and birth of Jesus is at heart a message of “gladness, of great joy.”  It seems at times to be too good to be true, yet even so, the angels simply had to break into song that night.  Joyous song. 

Today’s Gospel reading hints at the underlying message of joy at the coming of the Lord.  St. John the Baptist sends a message from prison to Jesus and asks bluntly, “are you the one who is to come?”  Jesus’ reply is a message of joy, not of condemnation or judgment:  “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the poor have the good news brought to them,” and you ask me am I the one who is to come?  “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” 

This last phrase is curious:  it uses the verb skandalizethsai, “allow oneself to get tripped up, hit a stumbling block, to be scandalized.”   In modern parlance, it means, “happy are you if you don’t let me annoy or anger you.”

If you take offense at Jesus, or at any of the thin places in our lives where God and the unseen world is close, or any of the people who are working God’s blessings and will in our life, you stop seeing the good things, the blessings of God about you, and you stop rejoicing.   Dissatisfied with blessing, you cut yourself off from the fount of joy. 

But rejoicing and giving thanks is the opposite of this.  It opens our eyes further to the good things and people about us, and brings further joy:    “Happy are they who take no offense at me.” 

We sang a joyful Canticle today instead of a Psalm.  It is the Song of Praise on the lips of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Luke’s Gospel, the Magnificat.  The Lectionary gives us a choice to use it today because it is so joyful, and because it points forward to next week’s Sunday before Christmas, or Mary Sunday. 

Mary is a model for the joy and acceptance that connects us with God, Jesus, and all good. 

In the Lucan story, the Angel Gabriel greets her with the words, “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you.”  He declares to her she will become pregnant with a holy child who will bring about the great setting of things straight hoped for by Israel’s prophets.  She asks how this can possibly be, since she has never been with a man.  She obviously knows as well as we do about the birds and bees.  The angel replies that it will be a pregnancy without any man involved—God’s power alone will do.  Despite the dubious credibility of such an announcement and all the trouble such a pregnancy obviously will entail, Mary focuses on what the angel says this baby will be and do.  So she accepts the angel’s saying, replying “Behold the Lord’s handmaid, may it happen to me just as you have said.” 

He Qi, The Visitation

In the story, she conceives by the action of the Holy Spirit alone, and then hurries off to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who the angel had told her was also pregnant, similarly in decidedly odd circumstances, given her previous sterility and advanced age.  After the baby leaps in Elizabeth’s womb for joy at the sight of Mary, Elizabeth says to her, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child in your womb,” Mary then replies with the Canticle: 

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
    for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
    the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
    in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
    and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
    for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
    to Abraham and his children for ever.

Note here that she trusts the angel’s word enough now to speak about the salvation of Israel’s poor as if it has already happened. 

Sara Miles has written the following about the Blessed Virgin,

“Mary, Mary, Mary. Gentle virgin, meek and mild. For centuries, the church has tried to portray Mary as submissive, and thus paradigmatic for female lives on earth. The church has suggested, not subtly, that just as Mary turned over her will to God, so should women turn over their wills to God’s representatives on Earth: that is, to serving the church and its officials.

“This archetype of Mary glosses motherhood––the fiercest, most powerful and passionate occupation known to humans––with sentimentality. It bathes a revolutionary risk-taker with the glow of goodness and docility. It twists Mary’s obedience to God into the suggestion that the weak owe obedience to powerful humans: priests, husbands, masters, rulers.

“But … Mary sings a new song[, t]he Magnificat … It is, of course, profoundly unsettling news: Mary doesn’t need a man to have a baby. She isn’t going to follow worldly social norms. In fact, she prophesies the overturning of the whole social order, proclaiming that the lowly will be lifted up, the rich turned away empty. She doesn’t ask permission of kings or family to step off the precipice into unprecedented experience. Her proclamation that God is at work in her body shows us, even before Jesus does, what it means to truly submit––not to the world but to God.”

This young Jewish girl, probably 13 or 14 at most, is unafraid to say yes to the new, the strange, not that she is submissive, meek and mild, but because she is open to the wildness of a God who does surprising acts. She is willing to offer herself, her body, her reputation, her life, to see through the wonderful things God has in store, whatever they may be. 

We don’t like the word submission in our culture.  Apart from its use to describe a sexual kink, the word is usually pejorative, describing the desperate act of a coerced person becoming a tool of the system or the Imperium.  It is about putting oneself at the mercy of the Powers That Be. 

We want independence, autonomy, and freedom.  Do your own thing; follow your bliss; to your own self be true.  Submission in our culture has bad, bad overtones: victim, doormat, tool. 

Mary’s submission is not that.  It is not to the system, but to the Unseen Love that drives the world.  It is joyous, and it is fierce.  She is joyous and she is fierce. 

Walter Wink describes what is at issue here, when he discusses how Jesus teaches and shows us to fight the Powers of Evil without violence. This is far from resignation to oppression, “passive aggressive” attitude, or even “passive resistance.”  It is an active engagement to undermine and subvert the institutions and culture of wrong and their manifestations in daily life.  Jesus’ “Third Way” is not simply giving up and allowing evil to have the ground, or stooping to the enemy’s level and fighting back with all the violent and coercive weapons in Evil’s quiver.  Rather, Jesus tells us to let our hearts be untroubled, confront the Powers, and don’t give up.   Turn the other cheek so that an arrogant abuser must slap with his palm rather than the back of his hand.  Go the second mile and force the Roman occupiers to violate their own regulations.  Puncture the propaganda of the religious authorities with images like whitened sepulchers, spawn of vipers.  Stand silent before Herod; question Pilate’s authority.  Accept death on a cross with prayers for your torturers. 

It all comes down to heart.  If we are picky and choosy, and peevish, if we insist that God do things the way we want or that we find comfortable, we do not, with Mary, sing “my soul proclaims the Greatness of God!”  We sing bitterly, “I did it my way.” We take offense at this or that, let Jesus or Mary become a stumbling block or scandal for us.   Farewell to the fierce joy of following a living God, a God of surprise, of wildness.

 

The prophet Mary stands before us, with her fierce and joyful song, her example of putting everything on the line for the love of God and Good. Blessed among women, she says “yes,”  “yes,” “yes,” to God, before even knowing what God has in mind.

“All generations will call me blessed,” Mary sings, but what a harsh blessedness!  Joyous moments, to be sure, but also a life involving fierce pain, humiliation, terror, and the bitter loss of her child.  

But the joyous truth behind “all generations will call me blessed” is even greater than she suspects:  resurrection on the third day, a recognition that Christ was fully God in fully human form, and that this young Jewish girl was in fact the means of God’s incarnation, the Theotokos, the God-bearer, the Mother of God.  

The Magnificat is a song of fierce joy, of shared blessing and our common lot.  Yet its words hint at the passion of Jesus, in both senses, foreshadowing Jesus’s commitment and his sufferings.   Mary empties herself as Christ empties himself when he says,  “Now my soul is in turmoil, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!  (John 12:27-28).    Jesus’ emptying himself is not a hierarchical obedience but a total surrender, one coming from his deepest heart’s passion.  It expresses who he his, both God and human being.  And he learned such passion, such fierce joy, from his Mother.

Sisters and brothers, this week let us pray, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the God-bearer, to accept the wild and surprising spirit of God in our hearts and very bodies.  Let us accept God’s blessings, whatever they may be, and have God lead us to the deeds needed for his reign to come.  May we not let surprises or the unexpected trip us up.  Let us share, in our actions and in our words, the glories and beauty of a God who turns the world on its head, who has done wonderful things for us, and never forgets his promise of mercy. Let us be joyous and fierce. 

In the name of God, Amen.

The "O" Antiphons (Fr. Tony's Mid-week Message)

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

December 11, 2013

The “O” Antiphons

I remember the first time I heard the carol “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”  I was 8 or 9.  I remember thinking that it was a very ancient song, with old, old feelings and sounds.  It sounded very “Old Testament,” and that marked it as ancient for me.  I was surprised as a teenager to learn that the English hymn we sang was from the mid-1800s.  And though it had originally been written in Latin, it was not all that ancient—probably first published in its Latin present form in the 1500s.

But the fact is, the hymn itself is a poem drawn from a series of very ancient liturgical texts, from as early as the 6^th century. 

In monastic daily prayer, Psalm and Canticle texts were often given “headers” and “footers” to set them apart, ornament them, sum up their ideas, and make the chanting seem not so monotonous.  These lead-ins and codas are called antiphons.   In the seven days leading up to Christmas, the normal daily evening singing of the Blessed Virgin’s Canticle of Praise The Magnificat (“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…”) was set off by a special set of antiphons, one for each day.  Each of these began with the word “O” and calling upon Christ with one of the various titles and images for him in these early Christians’ reading of their Old Testament.  Each is a meditation on Christ, and on the prophetic vision of the Hebrew prophets. 

The “O Antiphons” were a way for the monks to prepare for Christmas.  In an 8^th century manuscript, each of the officials of the monastery are given a separate antiphon to chant on one of the days—together with the responsibility of paying for that day’s wine or holiday snacks for the monks after service or in the upcoming holiday feast! 

The titles used all come from prophetic passages, mainly Isaiah:  Wisdom (Sapientia), Lord (Adonai), Stem of Jesse (Radix Jesse), Key of David (Clavis David), Rising Sun (Oriens), King of the Gentiles (Rex Gentium), and, of course, Emmanuel.  The choice of names in this order was intentional:  when read backward from Christmas Eve, the first letter of each title spelled out the message ERO CRAS. “Tomorrow, I will be there!” 

In daily morning prayer in the Church at Trinity, we will be singing the O Antiphons, one for each day, in the days leading up to Christmas. 

I encourage all of us to take a little time each day December 16-23 to read aloud and reflect on the antiphons.  I have included them here, plus a few of the scriptural passages behind them.  Simply reading one a day, either once through or with a Lectio-style repeated reading with contemplation, would make a good addition to our private prayers and devotions as we approach the Holiday. 

Grace and Peace,  Fr. Tony+

ANTIPHONS FOR THE FINAL 7 DAYS OF ADVENT

THE “O” GREAT ANTIPHONS

  

Dec. 17

O Sapientia (O Lady Wisdom):

 “O Lady Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and reach from one end of the earth to the other, mightily and sweetly putting all things in order: come and teach us the way of being present!”

“The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah11:2-3); “Wonderful is His counsel and great is His wisdom.” (Isa 28:29).

 

Dec. 18

O Adonai (O Yahweh; Lord):

“O Adonai, ruler of the House of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush; on Mount Sinai you gave him your law: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.”

“But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.” (Isa 11:4-5);  “Indeed the Lord will be there with us, majestic; yes the Lord our judge, the Lord our lawgiver, the Lord our king, he it is who will save us.” (Isa 33:22).

Dec. 19

O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse):

“O Root of Jesse, you stand as an ensign for all peoples; before you kings stand silent; all nations bow in worship: come and save us, and do not delay.”

“But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” (Isa 11:1),  “On that day, the root of [David’s father] Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious” (Isa 11:10).  “But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel”  (Micah 5:1).

Dec. 20

O Clavis David (O Key of David):

“O Key of David, and scepter of the House of Israel; you open and no one closes; you close and no one opens: Come and deliver us from the chains of prison, we who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

“I will place the Key of the House of David on His shoulder; when he opens, no one will shut, when he shuts, no one will open” (Isa 22:22);  “His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over His kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever” (Isa 9:6).

Dec. 21

O Oriens (O Eastern Dawn):

“O Rising Dawn, brightness of the light eternal, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown” (Isa 9:1).

Dec. 22

O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations, Gentiles):

“O King of all the nations, and their desire, you are the cornerstone that binds two into one: come and save the creature you have fashioned from clay.”

“For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:5); “He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again” (Isa 2:4).

Dec. 23

O Emmanuel (O God with Us):

“O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Savior: come and set us free, O Lord our God.”

 “The Lord himself will give you this sign: the Virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel” (7:14). 

Images by Sr. Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ