Christmas Novena 2024 - Day 4

19th December: O Root of Jesse

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;

before you kings will shut their mouths,

to you the nations will make their prayer:

Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

Based on Isaiah 11:1, Isaiah 11:10, the title Root of Jesse, refers to the promise of the Lord to raise the Messiah from the line of David (the son of Jesse). It is a promise of deliverance that the Lord gives the people of Israel, and to everyone who believes in the Lord.

The Symbol is that of the shoot flowering... signalling the hope that the Lord offers in times when everything seems dark and dead. Look at the exodus event, the miracles in the desert, the water from the rock, the guidance by day and night - everyone of these was a sign of God's promises being fulfilled. The final fulfillment and the pinnacle of everything was - Incarnation, that which we are preparing to celebrate.

Promises of the Lord will never fail... it may look like it, but things will change. There may be enemies plotting around, there may be situations that go out of control and there may be evil all around me - I will give up and compromise when I think there is no hope. But when here is hope, when I stand on the promises of the Lord, I will never give up!

The prayer today is to reinforce that HOPE... that we may always look forward to the deliverance that the Lord can offer! Note that the readings of the liturgy too relate to the same sense of hope in the Lord who accomplishes marvels for us! Let us never let anyone rob us of our hope, reminds us often, our Holy Father.

The Joy of Being Chosen for the Reign!

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

Third Thursday in Advent - December 19, 2024

Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25; Luke 1: 5-25

None of us is here by chance, we are here by choice; not our choice but that of the Lord - the Lord’s choice for the Reign to come! The Lord, as St. Paul would affirm in his letter to the Ephesians, has chosen us before the foundation of the world. The Lord’s care for the human race, is best manifested with the amount of thought that has gone before events of salvation and the quality of those thoughts right from eternity.

The first reading recounts to us the announcement of the birth of Samson; and the Gospel reports the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist. The pre-announced choices are signs given to us to highlight two important facts: that we are loved and the Lord knows what is happening in our world.

One of the clear signs of love that one has for another is in the care that one shows. This care is exhibited in the form of forethought, a typical trait of a mother or father, or anyone who cares. Samson, John the Baptist, and many other similar persons of God, stand witness to this fact, and thanks to their faithfulness, God’s salvific plan has unfolded itself in phases although the times.

Secondly, the Lord is aware of what we are going through. At times people, or nations, or the powerful ones think that they are dictating everything in the world. But not too late, they do come to realise that they could be gone as a whiff in the wind. The Lord of history is forever in control and no one can gainsay that.  

The Saviour to come, referred to as the root of Jesse, is an affirmation of this exact truth: that our God is the Lord of History.

Christmas Novena 2024 - Day 3

18th December: O Adonai... 

O Adonai, and leader of the house of Israel

who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush

and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

Based on Isaiah 11:45 and Isaiah 33:22, the title Adonai, refers to the Lordship of Yahweh, that the people of Israel always stressed on. From a generic universal history that yesterday's "Wisdom" reminded us of, today's "Adonai" comes down to the particular experience of Exodus, the watershed of the Spirituality of the people of Israel.

The Symbols are burning bush, to remind the experience when Moses surrendered to Yahweh and the stone tablets of the commandments, the symbol of Israel's surrender to Yahweh. What is stressed is the Lordship of Yahweh, which is the key to the God-experience of the Israel and our faith-experience today.

The Lord of Israel, our God is Supreme over all beings of the earth or the heavens, the Lord of history and the Lord of the future. This is nothing that God would insist on holding on to, because God stands to gain nothing whether we accept or reject God's losrdship; it is we who stand to gain or lose! When we accept the Lordship of the Creator, we find meaning, significance and purpose in everything that happens in our life; when we do not surrender, every bit of what happens can become a concern and a cause for sadness and dissatisfaction. Hence the call is to Surrender, to the lordship of the Lord.

The prayer today is that of a SURRENDER to the redeeming power of God, to be led by the Lord's hands always - from darkness to light, from folly to wisdom, from death to life! 

The Joy of Integrity of the Reign!

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

Third Wednesday in Advent - December 18, 2024

Jeremiah 23: 5-8; Matthew 1: 18-24

 

The Lord-our-Integrity is a profound title we see given to the Lord in the experience of the Old Testament people; it is today correlated to another title – Emmanuel, God-with-us. The first reading and the Gospel together present to us a great grace that God offers us and a challenge that accompanies that.

The grace is that the Lord-our-integrity is with us! When we see the times that are so treacherous and unpredictable, value stripped and sometimes even malicious, if we still live with out faith and hope, we thank the Lord, the Lord of integrity, who is with us and who strengthens us. With that grace alone can we go ahead and remain sane and grow saintly.

The challenge is that the Lord-our-integrity is with us, and we are challenged to live up to the presence of the Lord, in righteousness and justice, nobility and integrity. The presence of the Lord-with-us is not conditioned by the Lord in anyway, because it is an unconditional presence, by the very fact of the covenant and the choice of the Lord to come amidst us. It is conditioned by our choices – like Joseph, are we ready to do what the Lord wants us to do? If not, we create a condition where the Lord cannot be with us, because we choose to be away from the Lord and the Lord’s ways.

O Adonai, Ruler of Israel, we call out to the Lord in the O Antiphon of the Novena, declaring the Lordship of our Saviour who wishes to come and be with us. Do we mean that declaration?

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

 

Peace is letting go... it's letting God!

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Saturday in Advent - December 14, 2024

Ecclesiasticus 48: 1-4, 9-12; Matthew 17: 10-13 

We are on the last day of this second week of Advent and tomorrow we shall already be solemnising the Gaudete Sunday, our call to rejoice and repose. We are prepared being prepared already for the week ahead, by the Word. We began this week with the promise of the coming of the prophet, and tomorrow we shall encounter that person. It was about him, elsewhere (Mtt 11:7), that Jesus asked: what did you go out to see in the wilderness – reed swayed by the wind? Even today, the person of John fills us with awe, simply because of his total dedication to the mission of the Reign. 

Where do we see this dedication manifested – in his capacity to let go, and to let God’s plan come alive. In fact, it is this attitude that makes John special – he was single minded in his dedication, letting go of even the most ordinary things that one could have in life; and he did that not to prove anything to anyone, but to let God be seen and expressed in history. When we let go and let God, we shall experience a special peace, which no one would understand and no one can take away from us. 

The Peace that the Lord gives is striking, it is glorious. It is like being taken up in the whirlwind and it shall turn the hearts of the entire people. But to possess that we need a great strength, to let go and to let God into our lives. That is the grace that we should ask the Lord today