Christmas Novena 2024 - Day 2

17th December : O Sapientia...

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High

reaching from one end to the other,

mightily and sweetly ordering all things:

Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Based on Isaiah 11:2-3 and Isaiah 28:29... the antiphon recalls the most popular attribute given to the Spirit of the Lord and the Word of God which is seen active in creation and order of the universe. It is this Word, who becomes flesh to dwell among us (John 1:14).

The Symbol used is often... the eye within the triangle, which symbolises the Omniscient God... the Wisdom of God. The Jewish or the Davidic lampstand (with 7 sticks) is used to refer to the Wisdom of God which has accompanied the people of God right from the origins of history!

Wisdom, we know is slightly different from knowledge and could be even considered a level higher, because even a person who lacks the so-called knowledge may possess the finest wisdom, while a person with all possible knowledge may prove miserably unwise! Wisdom would be that capacity to not just know, but to use what we know at the right moment in the apt manner. In our daily decision-making it amounts to actually, prudence!

The Prayer today is for PRUDENCE... to be guided always by the Lord, the Lord who dwells among us, that the Lord may accompany and illumine our pilgrimage of hope, all our life.

The Joy of Gathering in the Reign!

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace with Joy - the Nature of the Journey!

Third Tuesday in Advent - December 17, 2024

Genesis 49: 2, 8-10; Matthew 1:1-17

One of the pronounced purposes of the coming of the Son of God, in history, is to “gather the people of God”, especially the scattered people of God into communion with the Lord. The name that Jesus gave to this experience was, the Reign! This is not just a phenomenon post-Christ-event… the Old Testament too has the resonances of this in the words of many a prophet. For a quick instance, we can think of Jeremiah who speaks of God who gathers the people (cf. chap 23) or of Jesus who speaks of God who wants to gather Israel as a hen would like to her chicks (cf. Mtt 23)!

In the first reading we find Jacob gathering his sons around his death bed… a sign of gathering them into one communion… that they do not fight and part ways after the death of the father who united them, who shone as the point of gathering. The Gospel gives us an account of how these gathered, stayed on, until the promised coming of the Messiah actually took place. It is an assuring account of theological history, in terms of the promise and the fulfilment, the generations and the communion, the plan of God and its nature of eternity (in the sense of timelessness).

The important highlight for us, is the rallying point, the locus of gathering – Christ, the Lord who is to come, who will gather us in the Reign. It is an ongoing experience, not just an experience to be awaited. Hence, the meaning of waiting of the Saviour who would gather us, is to start working towards that communion; it is getting together as people of God, as people of the Reign. That is the call of the Wisdom, the Wisdom of the Most High.

Christmas Novena 2024 - Day 1

CHRISTMAS NOVENA - a tradition so lovely

Novena...'O' Antiphons...Oh what a Tradition we have!!! 

Naturally the last days of the Christmas preparation are a great excitement...

The Church has a beautiful tradition of

the Novena in preparation of this wonderful festival of love...

Specially this year with the Jubilee Year to be inaugurated on December 24, 

we have an added reason to celebrate the PILGRIMAGE OF HOPE we began with Advent. 

And within this novena...

leaving out the first day and the last day...

there are 7 verses from the prophecies from the Old Testament (Isaiah)

which announce the coming of the Lord's Messiah...they are named "O" Antiphons.

each of these antiphons, so meaningful and beautiful...

We pray them as Antiphons before the Gospel at the Eucharist these days...

those who pray the daily prayer of the Church (Breviary) pray it in the evening

with the hymn of our blessed mother, the Magnificat.

16th of December begins the Novena...

on this day, the antiphon, though not an O Antiphon...

sets the tone for the next 9 days...

WE BEGIN A SPECIAL SEASON OF WAITING FOR AN IMMINENT COMING OF THE LORD

The Joy of Seeing the Reign

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace with Joy - the Nature of the Journey!

Third Monday in Advent - December 16, 2024

Numbers 24: 2-7, 15-17; Matthew 21: 23-27

If the first week of this Advent pilgrimage that we began, commissioned the journey of hope and the second explained it to us as a journey to peace, this week shall impress on us the nature of the journey we are called to take – a journey with joy.

The Word today highlights the joy of seeing, the joy of seeing what the Lord wants us to see! The oracle of Balaam which praises the far-seeing eyes, thanks the Lord for making us see, and looks forward to see the scepter that arises from Israel, is the objective of the advent journey. This is what we are called to train ourselves towards, to develop the capacity to see.

The Gospel presents to us the unfortunate scenario of those who lack this capacity to see. It is not because they are not given the faculty to see, but because they refuse to use that grace that the Lord has given to see. They were stuck somewhere, and no matter what effort Jesus put in, they were unable to grow out of their obstinacy. And this is the challenge that the Word has to post to us, today!

If we have to begin to see the Reign, we need to begin to see what the Lord makes us see! As Balaam makes us reflect, blessed are those eyes that learn to see what the Lord wants them to see. It is in seeing that, we shall behold the Reign wherever we are. We begin the Novena to Christmas today, and the antiphon before Gospel, is a perfect fit to this thought. Let our today be: let us see your Mercy, O Lord!

A PILGRIMAGE OF HOPE TOWARDS PEACE, WITH JOY