+JMJ+ A BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTMAS SEASON -- DAY SIX Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. - Hamilton Wright Mabie A CHRISTIAN MEDITATION ON THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS...... On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: Six Geese A Laying … symbolizing the six days of the creation. Eggs are also a universal symbol of new life. As each egg is a whole new life of creation, so each day of creation, something new came into existence. Prayer: God, Creator, Sustainer of Mankind, we are reminded this day that there is holiness in the ordinary. There is holiness in the birth of a new child, in the creation of life and in the ordinary task of raising those children. We are blessed to all be Your children, brothers and sisters in Christ. Help us to bear our unique responsibility to bring forth into the world the gifts we have received….good news, salvation, holiness, children. Lord, let us see the holiness in our children’s faces this holiday season. Amen. Christmas: December 30th - Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas {It would be ideal if we could devote several days of the Christmas octave to quiet contemplation, entering ever more deeply into the sweet and profound mystery of the Incarnation; yet much of the time is devoted to the saints. All the more precious, therefore, is this day, an unencumbered Christmas day.} GOD BECAME MAN. Utterly incomprehensible is this truth to our puny human minds! That the eternal God whom heaven and earth cannot contain, who bears the world in His hand as a nutshell, before whom a thousand years are as one day — that this eternal, omnipotent God should become Man! Would it not have been a tremendous condescension if for the redemption of mankind He had simply sent an angel? Would it not have proven His loving mercy had He appeared for a mere moment in the splendor of His majesty, amid thunder and lightning, as once on Sinai? No, such would have shown far too little of His love and kindness. He wanted to be like us, to become a child of man, a poor child of poorest people; He wished to be born, in a cave, in a strange land, in hostile surroundings. Cold wind, hard straw, dumb animals — these were there to greet Him. The scene fills us with amazement; what other can we do than fall down in silence and adore! In heaven only will we comprehend the profound implications of Christs redemptive acts, surely one of the exquisite joys of celestial blessedness. But some points Mother Church allows us to anticipate here below. She, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is ever the recollected woman who meditates on all the words of God and keeps them in her heart. She tells us: God became Man that we might share His divine nature. Isnt that mankinds long-cherished dream? You shall be as God, knowing good and evil, Satan whispered into mans ear in paradise; and his whisper was believed. What a miserable betrayal! Indeed, man experienced good and evil, but he had not turned divine. Thousands upon thousands of years of dreadful distance from divinity, with nought but failure in scanning the skies! Not by pride can man become God, but by submission, humility. Bethlehem gave the great revelation. God put on the beggars garb, became a tiny, crying Babe in order to show man how to become divine. In paradise a fallen angel had promised: Eat of this fruit and you will be like God. He ate and became a prisoner of hell. On Christmas night another angel (the Church) stands before man, offers him a Good and says: Eat of this and you will be like God. For the divine Food, the Flesh of the incarnate Son of God, makes us partakers of the divine nature. — The Churchs Year of Grace, Pius Parsch A SONG ABOUT THE SONG, THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS In Those Twelve Days (Also called A New Dyall.) (1833 compiled by Sandy in Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, to a traditional English melody.) In those twelve days let us be glad, In those twelve days let us be glad, For God, by his grace, hath all things made. What is that which is but one? (Repeat) We have but one God alone In heaven above sits on his throne. What are they which are but two? Two Testaments, we are told: The one is New, the other Old. What are they which are but three? Three persons of the Trinity, The Father, Son, and Ghost Holy. What are they which are but four? Four Gospels, written true, John, Luke, Mark, and Matthew. What are they which are but five? Five senses we have to tell God grant us grace to use them well. What are they which are but six? Six ages of this world shall last; Five of them are gone and past. What are they which are but seven?
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 03:56:55 +0000