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.

We rarely get commercial here, but, after all, we are part of a retail operation. So, as a reminder, if you like the devotional, spiritual and moral  elucidations of this blog, and would like to give someone or some people a gift that truly reflects the season, please visit RealCatholic.com, our Ave Maria online store, where we can fulfill all of your Catholic and Christian religious goods needs: Bibles, Christian art, books from numerous authors on almost any subject, including those authored by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II (or books about them); or books about Church history and saints; or sacred or contemporary music, devotionals, Rosaries, prayer cards, you name it. We offer quality merchandise and competitive prices and ship anywhere in the world.

So, we thank you for letting us take this commercial time out, and hope you have the opportunity to visit us at RealCatholic.com. We hope you have a very Merry and Spirit-filled Christmas.

Every Sunday at Mass, whether we realize it or not, we pray for the unity of the Church. It’s something we should all keep in mind to do on our own. That, for example, there is a split between the Vatican and the Eastern Orthodox surely brings sadness to the Holy Trinity.

Today, however, brings great news! Although it won’t happen before Christmas, and maybe not for a long time still, a potential breakthrough was made in reunification efforts between Catholics and Orthodox.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I said the presence of a Vatican delegation in Istanbul, “confirms the desire to eliminate the impediments accumulated in the course of a millennium to attain the fullness of communion.” (ZENIT via Catholic Online.)

Along with Pope Benedict’s recent overture to traditional Episcopal and Anglican churches and dioceses, there is hope that people of great faith, who perhaps because of human failings throughout the ages, manipulated by the circumstances of their day, were split apart, now have re-unification in one Holy Catholic Church within sight.

Just as Angels greeted the shepherds with news of great joy on the day of our Saviour’s birth, we have our own great news in our day. What a perfect and appropriate season to hear it.

The national holiday season, Thanksgiving, is over. Now we enter into the holy day season, Christmas. Or, more precisely, we’re in Advent, preparing for the joyous day of the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Here is a beautiful video, from Totus Tuus Productions/YouTube, that explains Advent and our liturgical and worship traditions.

The reason for the season is Christ and the season is Advent.

Here is a message from Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests For Life, from last week. It’s succinct, but powerful. We cannot let the soon to be hectic time of year distract us from the importance of the health care legislation pending in Congress, for it most assuredly will undermine the sanctity of the unborn.

Advent is upon us when we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, the miracle of the Word made flesh. How can we celebrate that birth but forget the destruction of millions of unborn children each year, each a miracle itself, miracles denied by abortion? Please pray vigilantly for the end of abortion.

Dear Friends,

Sunday (was) the Feast of Christ the King and the last Sunday of the liturgical year. The following week, Advent begins and the Church focuses on the coming of Christ, both at Christmas and at the end of time.

Christ is truly king over heaven and earth. How important it is for us to remember that in this battle for health care reform to protect the unborn. This battle is ultimately about who rules over us; it is about who our King is. Our worship of Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords impels us to communicate with our elected representatives and urge them to do what is right.

God bless you.

- Fr. Frank Pavone