Real Catholic Blog

This is a Christmas prayer I came across on a card with a Nativity scene. There is no attribution. However, It touches on some of the elements of the previous post. Remember, the Christmas season in the Church is more than just a few days in December, nor a week that stretches into the New Year, and certainly not a shopping season that starts in November. It is a holy time of year that remains with us for a few weeks still. Let the glow continue. Pray on!

Holy Infant Christ, born 2,000 years ago into a cold and hostile world and deprived of all simple human comforts, help us to replicate the example of Bethlehem and Nazareth in our daily lives.

If there is no room at the inn of men’s hearts for you today we shall make room in our own. Whether our stations in life are simple and impoverished as the Shepherds, or resplendent as the Wise Men of Old, we will bow in adoration before your majesty. Like the Star of Bethlehem and the Heavenly Choir of Angels we will lead men to sing your praises.

From you who deigned to lower yourself to partake of our humanity and its miseries, enable us to partake of your Divinity that we may experience a truly spiritual incarnation this Christmas-tide. 

In the post before last, I mentioned in quick succession a few aspects of the season, but aspects that nonetheless are intergral to each other and are central to our being as Catholics, not just during the Advent and Christmas seasons. As we celebrate a New Year and the Feast of Mary, Mother of God (ChurchYear.net), a Holy Day of Obligation, at a vigil tonight or at Mass  tomorrow, it is an appropriate time to flesh them out a bit.

First is the hope that the glow of the season stays with us all year long. We celebrate during Christmas God’s divine touch on us in the form of the Mystery of the Incarnation. Just because we celebrate Jesus’ birth now doesn’t mean he goes away the rest of the year. God becomes man through the incarnation. Inconceivable! It is worth celebrating all year.

We do that by constantly reflecting Jesus by our actions to others. Inspire them to the Lord by how we act and explain the Divine Mysteries. We especially need to instill the love of the Lord in those who at least show a perfunctory acknowledgment of God. Many people attend Mass twice a year. Let’s try to bring them home to the Church while there is an immediate Christmas warmth in their hearts. While this mission to bring to the salvation of the Church to others includes Christians, non-Christians and non-believers alike, we have a special obligation to show wayward Catholics the way home (see Catholics Come Home).

Bringing all this together is the central thought that the Wood of the Manger is the Wood of the Cross. While it is warm and fun to celebrate a birthday and exchange presents, God humbled himself to become man for one reason: To die for our sins. That is why we must “celebrate” Christmas all year. Not the gift-giving, but the life giving that Christ gave us by His birth — the everlasting life He gives us. For, if not for His birth, He has no human life. Without His Incarnation, we do not have His sacrifice on the Cross for our redemption and forgiveness of our sins. So the wood of the Manger is the Wood of the Cross. After all, even at Christmas, where we celebrate His birth, the central part of the Mass, what we truly celebrate, is the Holy Eucharist, Christ’s Body and Blood made available to us only by His death and Resurrection.

Sister Vicki Ix is probably tired of all the cooking nun puns and the comparisons to Sally Field (The Flying Nun). But you have to admit, her approach to vocations is unique.

Sister Vicki is the vocations director for the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia. She is combining new media technology and her love of the culinary arts —she’s a culinary school graduate and once worked as a restaurant chef before entering the religious life — to reach out to women who are interested in a life of religious vocation. She’s as adept at the tools of the Internet as she is with her cooking utensils. She has a YouTube channel, where she posts cooking lessons, and a blog, Monastic Journey. She has become a bit of a trans media sensation, receiving publicity this year across the new and traditional media spectrum, including Friends Eat Blog as well as the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which wrote a profile on her (and did a recent follow-up), and the religious media, such as the Arlington Catholic Herald. 

As she told the Times-Dispatch in late May:

If St. Paul were alive today, his letters would be going out on the Internet. It can be used for good things, really good things.

That makes sense and we agree. Congratulations Sister Vicki on some well-earned and deserved attention to a important need in the Church — vocations to the religious life. We add our prayers to your efforts.

Here is her “Cooking Pasta 2″ lesson (part one is an introduction):

Pasta and prayers: Sister Vicki Ix cooks for her Benedictine sisters and also works tirelessly and innovatively for vocations.

Please accept our video wishes for a warm and joyous and Holy Christmas. We hope this Advent has been a meaningful time as prepare our hearts to welcome our Lord and Savior. While this season has much secular fun and frolic — fellowship with family and friends is not to be discounted — we pray that the glow from the Christmas Season remains in all of us throughout the year, that it especially transforms those who only know Christmas for its secular celebration into God loving and committed Catholics. For those who once knew the joy of the Church, and celebrate only in a perfunctory way twice a year, we pray that you come home for good. It is up to all of us to do our own part, to reflect Jesus in every way, in order to bring His light to others now, in December, and throughout the year. We cannot ever forget the joy of Christmas is that Jesus came to die and atone for our sins. The wood of the manger is the wood of the Cross.

From Brother John and myself, and the Real Catholic team, we wish and pray for all God’s Blessings upon you, now and in the year to come. Please enjoy the following videos to help put you at peace through these frantic times, to reflect as Advent ends and the Joyous time arrives!

We expectantly wait. We look to rejoice. Oh, Come! Oh Come, Emmanuel!

Silent night, Holy night! Let the peace of it overwhelm you with joy.

He came so that man would no more die. How great a gift!

You might not think that 2009 was much of a year of hope — contrary to Orwellian rhetoric that emanates from our progressive secular rulers in Washington these days. But Brian Burch of CatholicVote.org lists 10 reasons why 2009, despite the government’s move toward rationed health care, taxpayer paid abortions and removal of conscience protections for medical professionals, among many other goals to debase the culture, gives us reason for real — not demogogic — hope. Here they are:

10. It’s Cool to be Pro-Life

Across the popular culture spectrum, the younger generation is, on average, more pro-life than their parents. Whether its reality-TV star Kourtney Kardashian telling People magazine about her decision to keep her child or the multiple opinion polls that show more and more Americans self-identifying as pro-life. Even the show Law & Order included a powerful courtroom scene that compelled a character to question her ‘dogmatic’ support for Roe v. Wade. Hope for the unborn is en vogue.

9. You – the Members of CatholicVote

Over 400,000 members of CatholicVote working to build up the Church and our world made 2009 truly memorable. Back in January the Super Bowl didn’t like the message, but millions of people watched a commercial by CatholicVote.org that reminded America of the dignity of every human life, including an unborn Barack Obama. The inauguration of a strident pro-abortion president was very disappointing, but the proud members of CatholicVote.org responded with the first in a series of ads in our “Life: Imagine the Potential” campaign that also included an ad during the American Idol finale, and a summer ad commemorating the historic achievement of Apollo 11. All of this work and more was made possible by you. Through hard work and prayer, you and I are building a movement. A movement we can be proud of.

8. Death of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

The death of a man is a sign of hope? Only in the sense that Fr. Richard John Neuhaus once explained: “We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already underway. The work of dying well is, in largest part, the work of living well.” In that sense, Fr. Neuhaus died well, evidenced by the lives he touched, the intellects he captivated, and the winsome pen that delighted and moved thousands of hearts and minds during his rich life. Fr. Neuhaus is no longer with us, but his ideas, and spirited engagement with the world — uniquely as a person of faith — most certainly are.

7. Priests, Religious, and More Priests

From Ireland to New Zealand to many dioceses across the United States, Catholic seminaries are recording record numbers of new seminarians after years of decline. Wherever you look, large numbers of young men and women are bravely choosing to serve Christ and his Church in a world that so urgently needs the witness of courageous, self-sacrificing men and women of God. Perhaps not coincidentally, Pope Benedict XVI designated the second of half of 2009 and first half of 2010 the ‘Year of the Priest.’

6. Maine Delivers for Marriage

During the spring and summer of 2009 a few states in New England, including Maine, legalized so-called same-sex ‘marriage.’ In November, the voters struck back at the ballot box and overruled their Legislature by returning marriage to the traditional definition of one man and one woman. This means that marriage has won 31 out of 31 times when put before the people for a vote! Maine’s triumph effectively put the brakes on efforts to legalize same-sex ‘marriages’ in New York and New Jersey.

5. Religious Leaders Unite to Sign Manhattan Declaration

Invoking the legacy of the late Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, Catholic, Evangelical and Orthodox leaders released a powerful 4,732 word document renewing their commitment to the defense of unborn human life, marriage as a sacred union of one man and one woman, and the rights of conscience and religious liberty no matter the cost. The leaders drew a line in the sand stating their willingness to defy any edict that violates these foundational principles. You too can join over 300,000 people who have already signed the Declaration here.

4. Bart Stupak and the Rise of Pro-life Democrats

The deeply disappointing capitulation by Senator Ben Nelson is still fresh on our minds. But it is worth noting as a sign of hope the strengthening voice of pro-life Democrats in the House. For years these pro-life Democrats would vote for life, but remained relatively quiet and rarely publicly challenged their party’s leadership. But with Democrats in control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, pro-life Democrats couldn’t stay silent any longer. In the end it was the reckless power grab by the abortion lobby to hijack healthcare reform that spurred Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) into action. Stupak helped rally other pro-life Democrats to oppose any healthcare bill that included abortion funding, eventually forcing even Speaker Pelosi herself to buckle. As we write this, the final fate of the pro-abortion healthcare bill remains unknown. But the efforts by Stupak and other Democrats represent a sign of hope for a party that all too often is shamefully beholden to the powerful abortion lobby.

3. Smashing Success of the 40 Days for Life Campaigns

Community organizing at its finest. Volunteers who pray and witness outside abortion clinics across the country have always been the unsung heroes of pro-life activism. But the 40 Days for Life campaigns, begun in 2004, are exploding and have now included hundreds of thousands of participants in nearly 300 cities. Their efforts have shut down multiple clinics, saved countless lives, and have pro-abortion advocates grasping for a way to respond. There is none. Modeling prayer efforts on the biblically-based 40 days of prayer and fasting practiced by Our Lord himself is inspirational and paying dividends. Big time.

2. The Conversion of Abby Johnson

The 40 Days for Life campaigns began in Bryan/College Station, TX. In November, the Executive Director of the local Planned Parenthood in this same city was overwhelmed by the evil of abortion and walked out. After watching an abortion on an ultrasound, and seeing the warmth and joy of pro-life activists holding vigils outside the abortion mill, she walked down the street and joined the 40 Days for Life effort. This episode confirms that the conscience of every person is always burning, and nobody is a lost cause. In military terms, the pro-abortion forces suffered a major defector, as Ms. Johnson also revealed what we already know to be true – abortion is heavily pushed for the money and profits, not because it helps women. This story confirms the power of prayer in our fight for justice, and represents one of the most inspirational pro-life stories of 2009.

1. Bishops With Backbone

Someone check what the Catholic Bishops are eating for breakfast — it’s more than Wheaties. Who could have predicted the vocal stand by almost 70 Catholic bishops, led by His Excellency John D’Arcy of South Bend, Indiana, in opposing the bestowal of honors by Notre Dame on our pro-abortion President. The courage displayed over the scandal at Notre Dame carried over into the fall when the USCCB became one of the biggest opponents of health care “reform” because of provisions that included public financing of abortion. Their outspoken opposition prompted more than a few public leaders to call on the Church to be silenced, stripped of its tax-exempt status, and worse. The year also saw more than a few bishops speaking out more forcefully on the fundamental issue of life and its treatment by Catholic politicians. The laity is cheering as more and more bishops are becoming brave to the bone.

At his Angelus blessing yesterday, the fourth Sunday of Advent, Pope Benedict gave what might be a preview of his Christmas homily, the mystery of Christmas.

From the Vatican:

Pope Benedict, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, said, Christmas is “God’s answer to the human drama in search of real peace”, not “a fairy tale.” He was speaking before the Angelus prayer in St. Peters Square.

In this time full of expectation and hope, the Pope invited everyone to turn their gaze to Bethlehem, which he called “the city-symbol of peace in the Holy Land and throughout the world.”

The Pope acknowledged with deep regret that “Unfortunately, nowadays, the city has not achieved a stable peace, but a peace strongly sought after and desired.”

Pope Benedict: Come to recognize the mystery of Christmas. It is not a fairy tale.

Not exactly, but he does encourage Catholics to use the Internet, responsibly, to spread the Gospel. We’re during our part. Join in our discussion: While the Vatican and many dioceses have sophisticated media operations, as do independent Catholic organizations (think EWTN, Catholic Online) and some orders, what do you think Catholics groups and layity can do better to spread the Truth via new media and technology?

Pope Benedict: Catholics, get online and spread the Truth!

Senator Robert Casey, Jr., (D-Pa.) (contact here) is a central figure in the ever important abortion debate within the larger debate on the U.S. Senate’s pending health care legislation. The Catholic son of the late Democrat, staunchly pro-life, Pennsylvania governor, campaigned as one who was as adamantly pro-life as his dad. That’s pretty hard to be, especially for a Democrat. His dad was censored from speaking at the 1992 Democrat National Convention for his pro-life views.

Now, he is one of the few Democrat senators who can possibly derail the government takeover of the American health care system, which is one-sixth of the economy, and preserve the ban on federal funds for abortions, reject mandates that insurance companies provide abortion coverage, and maintain conscience clause protections for medical professionals. The entire bill may come down to abortion and whether self-proclaimed “pro-life Democrats” live up to their word.

Unfortunately, Senator Casey thus far in his term has cozied up to the pro-abortion-on-demand leftists who monopolize his party’s leadership. In fact, Senator Casey has introduced “compromise” abortion language to Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) health care monstrosity (see Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review’s Health Care Blog). The National Right To Life Committee responded quickly, dismissing it as language that does almost nothing to improve the overall bill’s policy on abortion (see letter here). Besides, how does one compromise on abortion? Are there “half-way abortions”?

Still, there is some expectation he can be a moderating voice on abortion within the Democrat Senate caucus. Now, many are asking him to show the courageous leadership his father displayed during his distinguished career. Helping to remind him, Catholic Vote Action has entered the debate and has bought television time in Pennsylvania to encourage citizens there to contact Senator Casey and encourage him to stay true to his proclaimed pro-life position, and vote against the health care legislation.

If you live in Pennsylvania, contact Senator Casey and ask him to stay true to principle, not to mention the Truth. Or, if you know people there, forward them this link and ask them to contact Senator Casey as well.

Pennsylvania Catholics have the responsibility to ask Senator Robert Casey, Jr., to not let them down.

Monday was the Feast of Saint John of the Cross (DoctorsoftheCatholicChurch.com). He is one of the Mystical Doctors of the Church and his writings are considered some of the most remarkable and beautiful prose and poetry ever written — in any context. They also are powerful and extol on the power of prayer drawing you close to God and the joy of faith.

John lived an impoverished life. He grew up poor because his father, born into nobility, was disowned by his family for marrying a commoner. But his parents raised him well, with proper values for love of God. When his father died, his mother held the family together, but it was difficult to find work. John worked several difficult jobs, but hearing the call of God, he became a priest and joined the Carmelites. Saint Teresa of Avila (see Women for Faith & Family) saw a grace in him and asked him to help her in her reform movement. But John’s own Carmelites were suspicious and persecuted him. They put him in solitary confinement and was beat three times a week before he escaped after nine months.

During those nine months he fully opened himself to God, despite living in utter despair, and wrote his mystic prose and poems. He realized that God alone is the source of joy and that seeking happiness in the world is like “a famished person who opens his mouth to satisfy himself with air” (Catholic Online).

Saint John of the Cross is worthy of study and his Feast this time of year is appropriate as we prepare the way of the Lord. He tells us to fully open our hearts to God, to find Him within ourselves and not through the secular world, and to let Him fill us with an ever deepening faith. That’s the true meaning of Christmas and that’s how we find real joy.

Saint John of the Cross’ mysticism still brings people closer to God. Prayer is at the center of developing a closer relationship with God and where you will find joy.

From Saint John of the Cross:

What more do you want, o soul! And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfaction and kingdom — your beloved whom you desire and seek? Desire him there, adore him there. Do not go in pursuit of him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and you won’t find him, or enjoy him more than by seeking him within you.

This prayer is a translation from the Arabic and is from LebaneseSaints.com.

O Heavenly Father, the source of all holiness, You are glorified in your saints. You have bestowed grace upon Mar Nimatullah, so He forsake the world to live for You and with You in the solitude of the monastery.

O Lord Jesus, the Holy One of all saints, You have called Mar Nimatullah and filled Him with Your grace and blessing. So He could follow You on the harrow path of perfection and holiness. He followed Your path carrying His cross with joy, the cross of communal life, by which He was sanctified.

O Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of saints, You have inspired our patron Nimatullah, so that He became a monk and lived with His brethren in the monastery, where He educated them and managed all things wisely and prudently. He was ideal and encourager to Saint Charbel His disciple and many others.

We beseech You, O Holy Trinity, through Mar Nimatullah to enlighten the path of salvation before us, for You are the first and last aim. Bring us back to You so that we may renew the image and the likeness that You have installed in us.

We thank You and glorify You with our mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, of whom Mar Nimatullah was a devout, and with Yous saints, You who live and reign in holiness for ever, Amen !