Thoughts for the Christian year

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ie Christian Year.

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Advent, 1

II. The Nativity, 11

Chapter II. The Nativity

" O little town of Bethlehem!

How still we see thee lie; Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting* Light; The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee to-night."

There is an inexpressible tenderness and pathos in the fact, that while the highest and most powerful classes of the worldly wise were unconscious of the glory that overshadowed them, the King of kings came to earth in the guise of a little child, to save and redeem those very ones who had forgotten the promise of His coming. In imperial Rome the thousands of spectators who flocked to the amphitheatre, and the senators who were offering divine honors to their cruel emperor, were desirous of no Messiah, neither did they await

His advent. In cultured Greece, the wise philosophers knew not that He who would teach the true philosophy was about to come to earth; while in Jerusalem, the proud Pharisee and the learned Scribe, fulfilling the letter of the law but neglecting the spirit, were longing for a Messiah who would come with a retinue and pomp which would surpass any that earth's proudest monarch had possessed. But here and there, in both heathen and Jewish lands, some simple and holy souls were gazing heavenward with an earnest hope of better things to come.

Christies natus est! But what depths of humility! Not in palace of the Caesars, not in sculptured dwellings of the Greeks, must we look for the Christ, but in the rude stable, in a manger. " Where the beasts at morn will champ their bean-straw " lay the Holy Babe, waited upon by the adoring Virgin Mother and the devout Joseph. But the glory of the invisible world centred in that humble cave. Angels and archangels knelt in awe, for the Almighty had said, when He brought His First Begotten into the world : " And let all the angels of God worship Him ! "

THE NATIVITY 13

Strange and mysterious was the Divine selection, that out of all the myriad worlds, God chose our little one for such scenes of transcendent import; and of all the cities of our earth, chose the little town of Bethlehem, nestled among the hills of Palestine, as the birthplace of the Saviour of mankind.

" So many hills arising, green and gray, On earth's large round, And that one hill to say: 1 1 was His bearing place.' "

In the study of God's dealings with the world, with a nation, or with an individual, we find mysterious connecting links. Bethlehem, the house of bread, had a history long before the culminating event of our Lord's birth made it forever memorable in the annals of the world. Here, within a mile at least, Benjamin was born, as Jacob was returning with his family, flocks, and herds, to his native land; here Ruth became the wife of Boaz and ancestress of our Lord; here David, a type in many ways of the true Anointed, was also born; and it was King David who gave to Chimham, the son of the hospitable Barzillai, as a possession forever, his own ancestral home in which Euth and Boaz had lived. More than four hundred years after, this same house, called the house of Chiniham, and now become the khan, or public inn, was the refuge of Jeremiah in the days of heathen persecution.

Thus link joins link, until the types which foretold the great event had passed away, and then two weary travellers sought at this same khan a night's lodging. But there was no room for them in the inn, so in the adjoining stable, a part, really, of the establishment, they found a humble resting-place. Mary, the holy and uncomplaining Maid of Nazareth, tired with her long and tedious journey, had no earthly companion save Joseph, her divinely appointed guardian. But surely she, blessed above all other women, was conscious of the presence of the heavenly attendants who filled the rude shelter.

The Nativity is presented to us in a twofold aspect, the heavenward and the earthward. Looking at it in its heavenly aspect we see the Only Begotten of the Father, Who from all eternity reigned co-equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit, leaving His glory, resign-

THE NATIVITY 15 ing His throne, and veiling His Divinity by taking to Himself our flesh, and becoming for us a little child. Truly, the angels must have desired to look into such a mystery of divine love, and it was fitting that they should appear visibly on earth to announce the joyful tidings that the Saviour, Christ the Lord, was born.

" What sudden blaze of song

Spreads o'er the expanse of heaven? In waves of light it thrills along, The angelic signal given. * Glory to God! on high, on earth be peace, And love towards men of love, salvation and release.' "

Then take the Nativity on its earthly side. Though the kings of the world heeded not His coming, a few humble shepherds, tending their flocks by night, thought and talked of the promised Messiah. To these men, lowly and humble of heart, following the occupation of David who tended his father's sheep, the celestial vision was vouchsafed. They only, with the three Wise Men, seers from the everthoughtful Orient, were prepared for the " glad tidings of great joy." The shepherds, types of humility, and the sages, types of that heavenly wisdom which is first pure and then peaceable, alone were chosen.

" So many simple shepherds keeping flocks, In many moonlit fields! bnt only they, So lone, so long ago, so far away, On that one winter's night, at Bethlehem, To have white angels singing lauds for them."

There is an indescribable something, verynear to heaven, that surrounds every little babe ; how infinitely more did it irradiate the Christ-Child. And He, the Holiest, sleeps, apparently unconscious of that life of suffering into which He had entered:

" Sleep, my Saviour, sleep, Sweet on Mary's breast; Now the shepherds kneel adoring, Now the Mother's heart is joyous, Take a happy rest.

" Sleep, my Saviour, sleep, Sweet on Mary's breast; Crucified, with wound and bruises Bleeding, purple, stained, disfigured, One day Thou wilt rest."

For a moment imagine ourselves in the place of the humble shepherds. They have seen not merely one angel, but a multitude of

THE NATIVITY 17 the heavenly host, singing and praising God. And now to them, as so often to the devout and lowly, a sign is given to confirm the vision: " Ye shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger." "Would we not have hasted, even as they did, to see this glorious sign which the angels had given?

" Therewith hasted they By olive-yards, and old walls mossed and gray, Where in close chinks, the lizard and the snake, Thinking* the sunlight come, stirred half awake ; Across the terraced levels of the vines, Under the pillared palms, along the lines Of lance-leaved oleanders, scented sweet, Through the pomegranate-gardens sped their

feet; Past David's well, past the town-wall they ran, Unto the house of Chimham, to the Khan."

Who in all the wide world, save the Holy Family, and the three Wise Men, who, even now, were travelling from the land of the rising sun, would have believed the story of the simple shepherds' vision? The haughty Pharisee, and the learned Rabbi, the cultured Greek, and the voluptuous Roman, would they have given credence to a tale of the supernatural? Ah, no! even as to-day the world 2

18 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHKISTIAK YEAR

would have laughed at their faith. Dreams, superstitions, overwrought imaginations, these are the terms by which the shepherds' vision of angels would be designated by the sceptical and heartless multitude.

Outwardly, the world remained the same, buying and selling, tyrannizing and oppressing, not recognizing the fact that the Son of God had come to dwell amongst them, bringing to all a message of peace.

" Peace on earth and good-will, Souls that are gentle and still, Hear the first music of this Far-off, infinite bliss."

The great lesson for us to learn from the Nativity of our Lord, is humility. What insults, what degradation, what slights can the world offer to us compared with those our Saviour endured from the time He left His heavenly home to be born in a rude stable, until, after thirty years of lowly and patient toil, and three years of teaching and ministering to an ungrateful world, He pillowed His dying, thorn-crowned head upon the hard wood of the cross, and so consummated the Great Sacrifice of His mysterious earth-life.

CHAPTEE in.

" Witness them entering, these three from afar, Who knew the skies, and had the strange white

star To light their nightly lamp, thro' deserts wide Of Bactria, and the Persic wastes, and tide Of Tigris and Euphrates, past the snow Of Ararat, and where the sand winds blow O'er Ituraea; and the crimson peaks Of Moab, and the fierce, bright, barren reeks From Asphaltitris; to this hill — to thee Bethlehem-Ephrata ! "

To us, who are " the dwellers in the uttermost parts of the earth/' the Gentiles, who were not included in the Covenant which the Great Jehovah made with His chosen Israelites, the festival of the Epiphany comes with transcendent import; for in the adoration of the Orient sages, we behold the first-fruits of the Gentile Church. As one of our bishops says: " There seems a great propriety that we should keep the feast with a willing and a holy worship; presenting ourselves before God on its recurrence as living witnesses that those who sat in darkness have seen a great light."

This day, so wonderful in its supernatural and practical teachings, is known by different names. With us, Twelfth Mght, and the Epiphany, signifying in the Greek, " the Manifestation," are the usual appellations. In the German language the day is called Dreykonigstag, and in the French, Les Rois y while in the old Moz-arabic ritual it is called Apparitio Domini, and in the Spanish Apparicon.

One of the most natural questions to ask is, who were these wise men, who travelled from the distant East to worship the Christ-Child, and is there any information concerning them that may be gleaned from the Bible or from tradition? In the Old Testament prophecies there are many references to the visit of the Magi, which reveal their rank and nationality. In that grand psalm of prayer for Solomon, lifting up his eyes, David beheld the scroll of the future unrolled, and declared: " The Kings of Tharsis and of the isles shall give presents; the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts." In one of the lessons for the day, perhaps the most glorious among the prophecies of Isaiah, we find many allusions to the wise men. " And the Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising. . . . The multitudes of camels shall cover Thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord." And again: " Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring Thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord Thy God."

St. Matthew, alone of the four gospellers, gives an account of the story, in which he describes them merely as " wise men from the East."

Of traditional teaching concerning the Magi we have much that is interesting. They were men of high rank, for the prophecies speak of them as kings, and in the East it was the learned priests and men of high rank who were devoted to the study of astronomy and mystic lore. In early Christian sculpture and mosaics they are always represented as three in number, and alike in appearance. Later, we find them portrayed in art as types of three great nations. The names given to them are Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar; and it is believed that returning to their own country, they spent the remainder of their lives in the service of God, and in due time were baptized by St. Thomas, the Apostle to India.

The thought arises, how did they, not being the children of the Covenant, know that which was revealed to so few in the land of God's chosen people? There can be but one solution of the question; their foreknowledge was supernatural. The Birth of Christ was surrounded from the first by supernatural events, in which the ministry of the angels forms a prominent part. An angel announces the Advent of our Lord to the Blessed Mary; the same information is given to St. Joseph in a dream, and the angels appear to the shepherds; hence we may safely assert that the joyful tidings were revealed by angels or dreams to the three devout sages who waited upon God to learn His will. To them the miraculous star was given as a sign, that star which

Balaam, the son of Beor, foretold should arise out of Jacob. Says a prominent Church historian : " It does not appear, on a study of the whole narrative, that the star went before them as a guide from their abode in the East to Jerusalem."

We see from St. Matthew that after obtaining the information they desired, they left Jerusalem and wended their way toward Bethlehem; then " the star, which they saw in the East, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was." The next verse plainly indicates that on the journey they had been without the visible sign. " "When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." An ancient commentary on St. Matthew says the star had the form of a radiant child bearing a sceptre or a cross. Whatever its form, it was startling and unusual, and thus easily discerned by the wise men, for whose benefit it alone appeared. It must have moved along close to the earth, in order to indicate the very house in which the Holy Family were dwelling. The fact that these kings were of the despised Gentile race, and yet were chosen to be the recipients of such marvellous supernatural revelations, confirms what St. Peter declared: " In every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him."

Many learned men among the Orientals were thoughtful and devout, striving to ascertain and perform the will of the God Whom they longed to know. The author of " Ben Hur " depicts Gaspar as saying: " I gave myself up to waiting for what every breath was a prayer — for revelation. Believing in God, invisible, yet supreme, I also believed it possible so to yearn for Him, with all my soul, that He would take compassion and give me an answer." God never refuses the gift of Himself to the soul that yearns for Him. " Delight thou in the Lord and He shall give thee thy heart's desire."

Very beautiful is the description of the appearance of these Eastern travellers by one who is conversant with Oriental manners and customs :

" The Indian silk affords, with many a folded braid of white and gold, Shade to their brows; rich goat-hair shawls did fold,

hemmed, Shod their brown feet; hair shorn; lids low, to

think — Eyes deep and wistful, as of those who drink Waters of hidden wisdom, night and day, And live twain lives, conforming as they may, In diligence, and due observances To ways of men ; yet, not at one with these ; But ever straining past the things that seem To that which Is — the Truth behind the Dream."

By the teaching of the Holy Spirit they knew the Christ-Child, and when they beheld Him with His ever-blessed Mother, they fell down and worshipped Him; and then having thus offered Him first the gift of themselves, they opened their costly treasures, for they had not come empty-handed to worship Him, and presented Him with a wealth of the rarest treasures, gold, frankincense, and myrrh — symbolic gifts, which the Spirit had directed them to bring.

" Sacred gifts of mystic meaning, Incense doth the God disclose, Gold, the King of kings proclaimeth, Myrrh, His sepulchre foreshows.' 5

Then the sacred narrative tells us that God warned them in a dream (thereby giving us the clew as to the first revelation) not to return to Herod, and, mindful of this heavenly warning, they obeyed. The unscrupulous Herod, enraged at being thwarted in his brutal and sacreligious purposes, issued the infamous edict that all the little ones in Bethlehem and the coasts thereof should be slain.

Did the foolish monarch imagine that he could frustrate the workings of Divine Providence, or readjust the plans and counsels known to the Blessed Trinity from all eternity? Did he believe that there were no holy angels who would guard the Christ-Child from the profaning hands of the soldiers who were bidden to execute his barbarous plans? Truly, it is a vain thing to fight against God! He only added to his own sins and filled to overflowing the cup of his iniquity. True, many little ones were slain, but oh! what infinite compensation in the celestial world atoned to them for the loss of their life here. For now they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and are without fault before the throne of God.

The Holy Family, surrounded by angels, journey in peace and safety to the land of the Egyptians, while :

" The Eastern Three Wind homewards, lightened of their spice and

gold; And those great days, that were to be, unfold In the fair fields beside the shining sea Which rolls, mid palms and rocks, in Galilee."

CHAPTEE IV.

THE ANNUNCIATION

" Ave Maria! blessed maid!

Who can express the love That nurtured thee so pure and sweet, Making thy heart a shelter meet For Jesus' holy Dove?"

— KeMe.

To all thoughtful and devout Catholics the Annunciation suggests the most profound as well as the most humble meditation. For nearly a score of centuries, poets, artists, and theologians have delighted to portray that scene which was of such stupendous consequence to our fallen humanity, the Incarnation of the Son of God.

With reverence we may think of that pure, thoughtful maiden, robed in spotless white, as she knelt at her evening devotions, desiring in her heart of hearts the coming of the Messiah. Ancient prophecy had foretold that He should restore to favor His chosen people. "With

THE ANNUNCIATION 29

folded hands she must have prayed to the great Jehovah that the Desire of all nations might come to a sin-laden people to release them from their bonds ; that the Star of Jacob might arise; that the Prince might be born, and that the promise made to Eve might be fulfilled!

But not to herself did she dream that this honor was to be vouchsafed ! She prayed not that she might become the mother of the Messiah. Hers was a humility too deep to have imagined herself worthy of such an honor, but she prayed only that the time of the great Advent might speedily come.

All Jewish matrons longed for the honor of becoming the mother of the promised Messiah, but to none of them, wealthy, gifted, and religious, came the celestial Messenger; it came only to a simple and devout village maid, of the little town of Nazareth.

Even as now the still, small voice speaks not to the devotee of fashion, nor to the gay worldling, nor to the proud and ambitious leader, but to the humble and pure, who seek not publicity and notoriety, but strive to do the will of God with a gentle and unobtrusive spirit, wherever it hath pleased Him to call them.

As Mary communed with her Maker, a heavenly light filled the apartment, and the great angel of the Presence chamber, he who said to Zacharias, " I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God," appeared to the humble maid with the angelic salutation : " Hail ! thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee : Blessed art thou among women!"

It was not the appearance of the angel that troubled her. St. Luke says, " She was troub led at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be." It may not have been her first glimpse of a celestial visitor. The pure in heart are sometimes vouchsafed communion with the heavenly inhabitants; Abraham, Manoah, Jacob, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel, Zacharias, and others were, even in the old dispensation, permitted to see angels. In the words of an eminent writer of our day: " Angels have power to make themselves visible or to remain invisible to men; men may see or not see angels, according to their own mental or spiritual state."

Very tenderly the heavenly visitor reassures her, telling her not to fear his saying, for she has found favor with God. Her prayer is an-

THE ANNUNCIATION swered; the Christ is coming, but, wonder of wonders, He is coming to that pure, humble maiden ! Ah, what faith, what humility, what prompt, implicit obedience is hers, as Gabriel explains to her the honor that has been bestowed upon her !

It was not a sudden spirit of obedience, it was the habit of her life, young as she was, that prompted her to say, with lowly submission: " Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word!"

The heavenly radiance fades from her vision, but with angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven, she is worshipping the Triune God ; the Word is made flesh, and God has tabernacled with mankind !

" And her soul was filled with a sacred light, And she knew that to her was given A crown eternal, surpassing all The glories of earth and heaven."

And now the glory of heavenly life that Eve lost for her race, is again vouchsafed to us by the faith of the Blessed Virgin, the mother of our Redeemer, of Him who has opened the gates of Paradise to all believers! The Day

Star has indeed risen above the horizon, the night is far spent, and dawn of a day that knows no ending is at hand. All generations shall call her, Mary of Galilee, blessed above all women.

" Upon the virgin's brow

Sits innocence enthroned, And motherhood's sweet presence now Its lighter lines have toned.

Thou hast no jasper palace trod, nor unveiled

glories seen, Yet o'er thee rests the aureole of heaven's untinted sheen."

CHAPTEE Y.

THE VISITATION

" Hail ! fair Madonna, hail !

O'er all thy sisterhood, Transcendent image of the True, The Beautiful, the Good, All generations shall rise up, and welcome thee,

the blest, As in the holy calendar that heralds thy high feast."

It seems to be a characteristic of the record of God's dealing with men, that signs, as a confirmation of faith, are seldom vouchsafed to the doubting, the incredulous, or to those who, like the chief priests and scribes, demand a sign, in scorn or derision of sacred persons and things. The Blessed Virgin did not doubt God's message to her, but to strengthen her sincere faith, the angel gave her a sign.

It was in the early spring that the holy Maid started with all haste, up through that lovely fertile country to a city of Judea, situated among the beautiful Judean hills, there to confer with her aged cousin Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, upon the joyful events which the future had in store for them. The birds must have carolled more joyfully at her coming, and the early flowers put forth their most beauteous blossoms, as they heard the approaching footsteps of the Bride of heaven. The meeting of the two relatives, one so aged, and the other so young and fair, is graphically described by St. Luke. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Ghost and in her humility cries: " Whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me ! " prefacing her remark with the exclamation: " Blessed art thou among women!" Then, unable longer to conceal the rapturous joy with which her pure, devout heart was overflowing, Mary breaks forth into those inspired strains of praise, which are the priceless heritage of the Catholic Church.

" My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

This hymn is the first intimation that we have of the Holy Maid's apprehension of the

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great things which she had seen and heard. It deserves the most careful and devotional study. In comparing it with the ninety-eighth Psalm we find a similarity of thought.

" O sing unto the Lord a new song, for He hath done marvellous things With His own right hand, and with His holy arm, hath He gotten Himself the victory."

In the Magnificat, Mary says: " He hath showed strength with His arm, He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. " In the fourth verse of the Psalm, David says : " He hath remembered His mercy and truth toward the house of Israel; and all the ends of the world have seen the salvation of our God." While the Blessed Virgin says, " He remembering His mercy hath holpen His servant Israel."

The Psalms and prophecies must have been very familiar to one of St. Mary's devout habits of thought, and further proof of this may be found in comparing her song with that of Hannah, the joyful mother of Samuel. In her thanksgiving, after having dedicated her little son to the service of the temple, we notice some similar thoughts, as in the following quotations, some of which are abbreviated:

" My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord, because I rejoice in thy salvation. ■& # * * * * # *

The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich; He bringeth low and lifteth np:

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, to make them inherit the throne of glory. . . . He will keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail."

Then Hannah breaks forth into an inspired prophecy of the judgment and the exaltation of the Christ :

" Out of heaven shall He thunder upon them; the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and He shall give strength unto His King, and shall exalt the horn of His anointed I "

And as Hannah gave her son to the Lord, so holy Mary, although knowing that a sword should pierce through her own soul, yet hindered not her Son and Saviour from entering upon His work, willingly bearing such sorrow and anguish as no other woman ever experienced.

The Gospel says that Mary abode about

THE VISITATION 37

three months with Elizabeth. Oh! how elevated must have been the unrecorded intercourse of these three months. What a feast of spiritual things ! What an interchange of religious thought, and what a study and searching of the prophecies which foretold the coming of the Messiah, and of Elias, His forerunner. There is a beautiful legend connected with St. Mary after her return to Nazareth. It is said that a certain stream where the maiden came and dipped the linen garments she was making, became possessed of miraculous powers. The story is beautifully told in a poem from which a few verses may be quoted:

" By Nazareth, in waters fair,

The Virgin dipped the robes of white; A woman washed beside her there Her linen, in the rosy light.' '

The woman tells St. Mary of the wonderful

healing power the waters now possess, and

says :

" Have angels stirred the mystic pool? The Virgin whispered: ' Praise the Lord.'

And Mary smiled with secret thrill, Not yet the time ! And dreamed her dream,

Sweet soul, and still she came, and still, She dipped small garments in the stream."

Fondly the imagination lingers around the Holy Maid who knew the secrets of heaven, and " pondered them in her heart;" and many are the lessons we may draw for ourselves from these sacred and historic events.

Again, an angel from heaven appears in Nazareth, but this time to the aged Joseph, and appoints him the guardian of the mother and her Holy Child, that Child who, the messenger announces, shall save His people from their sins.

There is one thing that we do well to meditate upon, and that is the supreme blessedness of Mary. In the angel Gabriel's message to her, he says: " Blessed art thou among women." And Elizabeth, speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says: " Blessed art thou among women;" and also, " Blessed is she that hath believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord." And again, Mary, who was full of grace, says of herself, " All generations shall call me blessed."

"What other woman so fitted to be the model for the women of our day, as the Mother of our Lord ? She, who shows the calm spirit of recol-

THE VISITATION 39

lection and humble obedience, wherever we meet with her in the sacred record. At the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Presentation, throughout our Lord's earthly life, and even standing at the Cross, " her watchful station keeping."