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

Peace is Child's Play! It's Obedience!

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

Second Friday in Advent - December 13, 2024

Isaiah 48: 17-19; Matthew 11: 15-19

Peace is child’s play, seems to suggest the Word today. We mean it… in the very sense of the idiom – it is a child’s play, if we are keen about understanding the commandments of the Lord and ready to live it to their spirit. That is what Jesus said – I have not come to abolish the law, after all the changes that he was bringing in, like the fire he wanted already ablaze. Yes, he wanted the fulfilment of the law, the summation of all the commandments, in love!

In the Gospel today, we see Jesus narrating that parable to bring home to us the classic difference between what is childish and what is child-like! To become like children is not to become childish – wanting to do all that one wishes to or feels like, and worse still, wanting every one to do what one wants or desires! Growing childlike, is growing in obedience. Is that not why, one of the most oft-repeated instruction to a child, in any society, is: be obedient to your elders. Obedience is the essence of childhood! 

Peace, therefore, is child’s play, or a child’s way of living life. Obeying the commands of the Lord – listening to the Word and making it our life – that is a sure way to Peace. It is obvious, because by obedience we do away with anxiety, preoccupations, burden of judgement, temptation of egoism and occasions of rebellion. In short, we become children… and for children, peace is an ordinary state of being.

Peace is inheriting the Reign

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

Second Thursday in Advent - December 12, 2024

Isaiah 41: 13-20; Matthew 11: 11-15 

We began this week with the prophecy about the voice in the wilderness, John the Baptist and the readings prepare us to encounter the person of the prophet, the greatest of all born of women! It is very clear that John is brought in to underscore the proximity of the coming of the Lord. And what Jesus seems to say is, the ultimate aim of everything that we say or do, is to arrive at the Reign, to inherit the Reign – by doing that, we become no less than the great Baptist himself.

So, what do we do? Not much! Because the Reign is God’s doing, says the first reading. In that short passage of the reading, we see a rampant self-reference of God – I the Lord, I will do, I will help… it is simply a means to make us understand how the Reign of God, is God’s making. All that we can do is, listen, cooperate, and behold the Reign. Those who do that, inherit the Reign, they inherit peace! 

We could fret to do a million things, and finally feel helplessly empty, when we are up to our own designs. That is what the world suggests today in the name of self-realisation! But what is important is that we choose God, and choose God’s designs, with a trust that God shall work everything out in God’s right time, and we shall experience peace, we shall inherit the Reign

Peace is resting in the Lord

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

Second Wednesday in Advent - December 11, 2024

Isaiah 40: 25-31; Matthew 11: 28-30

On our journey of hope, towards understanding what peace is all about, we are instructed today: peace is resting in the Lord. Resting, not in the sense of passive inaction, but in terms of active surrender to the Lord. There are two reasons given today to surrender to the Lord apart from the one usual cause – our helplessness. We try all our possibilities and resources, and when we find everything is failing, then we turn to the Lord and say, we surrender. That surrender is a sign or result of failure and it will not have anything to do with peace or serenity; it will be filled with remorse and revenge.

The real peace-giving surrender to the Lord, instead comes from, first and foremost the profound belief that God is my strength, as the first reading teaches to us. This is the fundamental disposition that I need to grow in – simple measures that we have been taught from our earliest age: beginning anything we do with a prayer, beginning the day with the act of faith, the act of love etc., are means to remind ourselves that the Lord is our strength. All the capacity that we have comes from the Lord, without whom we are nothing. That is one unfailing source of peace. 

A second reason for surrendering to the Lord is a realisation of our limitedness. Our limitedness need not disturb us, discourage us or dissuade us from our ongoing journey! For when the Lord is with us, we shall run but shall not grow weary, we shall walk and never tire, because “His Grace is sufficient for us.” When we rest in the Lord, our hearts are at peace! “Come” the Lord invites, that is an invitation to surrender ourselves in hope to the Lord. How disposed are we?

Peace is inclusion, not seclusion

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

Second Tuesday in Advent - December 10, 2024

Isaiah 40:1-11; Matthew 18: 12-14

At times in the name of peace, we play the game of closing our eyes. It is like when we wish to urgently clean a surface, we push the rubbish under the rug and make everything appear neat on the floor. That cannot be peace. When we have a problem, the solution is not, to do away with all those who seem to be creating the problem. The solution would be to find out what really is the problem and what could be the right way of solving it. That alone can lead us to true and lasting peace.

The Lord never rejects us just because we are problematic, or because we are unfaithful or faint hearted. The Lord goes on trying with us endlessly; the Lord never grows tired of being merciful or of consoling us. In spite of knowing how fragile and vulnerable we are, we go on with our haughtiness! But the Lord never gives up; like a shepherd feeding his flock, the Lord gathers us in his arms and leads us to rest.

That is the peace we are promised. That peace will come only when we decide to come back to the embrace of the Lord. The Lord shall never forsake us, nor reject us. But we need to come back to the Lord, when we stray away from him; we need to get back to the bosom of the shepherd, like the sheep that lost its way. Then there shall be peace. 

Peace would not come into a house, or a family, or a community, by trying to eliminate the one causing the problem, we do not arrive at peace! It is the same with our selves too – by eliminating or hiding or repressing that part of ourselves which causes problem, we do not grow up to the salvation promised by the Lord. The Lord calls us to an integral conversion, a total transformation after the heart of the Lord – from where our peace shall come!