In our Monastery, we like to keep the Season of Advent as much as possible. We begin to decorate for Christmas only a few days before Christmas. This year was unusual because the Fourth Sunday of Advent was also Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve is the threshold into the great Season of Christmas. We begin the day with an ancient monastic custom of Solemn Chapter after Morning Prayer. The Christmas Proclamation from the Roman
martyrology* is sung by one of the nuns and a sermon given by another nun on the Mystery of the Incarnation.
*In olden days, this was a reading of all the saints to be celebrated the following day.
A Traditional Translation of the
Christmas Proclamation
On the twenty-fifth day of December;
In the year five-thousand one-hundred and
ninety-nine from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth;
In the year two-thousand nine-hundred and
fifty-seven from the flood;
In the year two-thousand and fifty-one from the
birth of Abraham;
In the year one-thousand five-hundred and ten
from the going forth of the people of Israel out of Egypt under Moses;
In the year one-thousand and thirty-two from the
anointing of David as king;
In the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy
of Daniel;
In the one-hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
In the year seven-hundred and fifty-two from the foundation
of the city of Rome;
In the forty-second year of the reign of the
Emperor Octavian Augustus;
In the sixth age of the world,
while the whole earth was at peace—
JESUS CHRIST eternal God and the Son of the
eternal Father,
willing to consecrate the world by His gracious coming,
having been conceived of the Holy Ghost,
and the nine months of His conception being now accomplished,
was born in Bethlehem of Judah of the Virgin Mary, made man.
The birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to
the flesh.
Our Sister-Preacher this morning gave a beautiful talk in poetic form which we would like to share with you. To read it,just go to the next picture and it is below it.
Also, on Christmas Eve after Vespers, our Chaplain usually comes inside the enclosure and blesses the Nativity Scenes in our Community Room and Refectory.
One dark
night,
Fired with
love’s urgent longings
Ah, the sheer
grace!
I went out
unseen,
My house
being now all stilled
A canopy of
stars puncturing the black sea of space
The eyes of the
animals transfixed
Transfixed on
the newborn baby in their midst
Did they
think of Noah perhaps?
The Noah who
spared their species when the dark seas of earth
Raged over
the landscape with unrelenting fury?
Obliterating
the stain of somber memory?
A new heavens
and a new earth.
In silence he
comes forth
Unseen
Shrouded
Obscure
Poor
“Behold I
make all things new”
On that glad night
In secret, for no one saw me.
Nor did I look at anything
With no other light or guide
Than the one that burned in my
heart
A frigid
chill with its high-pitched scream
forces its
way in between the timeworn slats of their dilapidated shed.
Yet, a light
shines in the darkness
And the
darkness does not overcome it.
Here burns
the true light of the world
Like the dove
Creating in
the hushed silence of primordial earth
Here burns the
light of the world
The quiet
voice raised above the din to meet Elijah’s waiting ear
“I am the
Alpha and the Omega
The beginning
and the end”
“How long
have I loved you beauty ever ancient ever new
How long I
have loved you.”
The slow
counting of eons gone by
All consumed
with a single purpose
Each
expectation whose signs may be read in constellations and stars,
In giant expanse or a grain of sand.
In the time
deemed right by Thine omnipotent hand
The time has
come
Has come to
save.
“Who is man
that You take notice of him
Or the son of a man that You make account
of him?”
The Word made
flesh
Clothed in
the creature He had made
Reaching out
with love’s silent longing
To grasp the
rag enfolding Him
With hands no
bigger than a pebble on the shore of the sea
He comes:
Vulnerable
Lowly
and Fragile
“But now, O
Lord, You are our Father;
We are the clay, and You are our potter;
And we all are the works of Your hand.
(Isaiah 64:7)”
Upon
my flowering breast
Which
I kept wholly for Him alone
There
he lay sleeping
And
I caressing Him
There
is a breeze from the fanning cedars.
The
crunch of dried hay beneath footsteps
A
cloud, like smoke, escapes the lips that are cold and dry
Bursting
and shredding it explodes upon the scene
Smothering
the voice of the cricket in the night
The
eyes of the shepherds
Stabbed
with light
Behold
an angel praising glory
Glory
to God in the Highest and Peace to men of good will.
After
the angel
Stillness
Stillness
except for one thing
The
bleating of the innocent lambs
A
sacrifice for a forgotten temple
While
their true Master and Creator
Was
flogged without mercy
In
its wake
Amid
their cries for freedom.
Humanity
No
longer saved by the reddened door posts of old
Or
the staff resting in Aaron’s hand
To
pay the ransom we had incurred
The
ransom so many knew not when.
Such is our life
And
such is our hope
Imperceptible
For
now, in peaceful slumber,
Cruelty
hides its wrath
For
now, the creatures have their king
For
now the Shepherds and angels adore
And
For
now, a single kiss
That
will soon give way to a crown of thorns
For
now he is Lord
King
of the Universe
He
is our salvation and redemption
Our
God
Of beginning and eternal end.
A
hand pressed into an arm
Shivering
from want
The
mother picks up the child for the shepherds to see
I
abandoned and forgot myself
Laying
my face on my Beloved
All
things ceased; I went out from myself
Leaving
my cares
Forgotten
among the lilies.
I came to
bring fire upon the earth,
and how I
wish it were already kindled! (Luke 12:49)”
—Sister Mary Dominic, OP, ©2017
