 A Homily for the feast of the Immaculate Conception
+ The fact that the rubrics of the Missal permit the feast of the Immaculate Conception to supplant the Second Sunday of Advent—with its haunting question of St John the Baptist: “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”—is quite extraordinary. Older rubrics, and even newer ones, would retain the Advent Sunday and transfer the Immaculate Conception to the next free day (tomorrow) as is the rule for other first-class feasts. Why, then, this exception? The answer is not found in the fact that it is a Marian feast. Normally feasts of Our Lady rightly give way to the Sundays of Lent and Advent and to feasts of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. She does not stand in His way! Rather, the answer to this seemingly odd rubric may be found in that this particular feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is itself intrinsically ‘advental’, as it were. That is to say that this feast is itself essentially about the preparation for the coming of the Lord—specifically, the preparation by Almighty God of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the bearing of His Son as man by ensuring that she was free from the stain of original sin and was thus a worthy vessel to bring Him into the world. This, as the Church teaches, is a singular privilege given to one human person in the entire history of the human race—only one person after the Fall, that is, for Adam and Eve were created sinless, and only their abuse of the freedom with which God the Father so lovingly trusted them brought sin into being. This privilege granted to the Virgin of Nazareth makes her the model of unfallen humanity, of humanity in the state in which it was created in the image and likeness of God Himself. It is very important to underline this. The Blessed Virgin Mary is not somehow ‘super-human’. She is humanity as it should be. She is not a demi-goddess or a person who is so privileged that she is simply beyond our reach or comprehension. No. She is a human person with free will as are we all. She is singularly privileged, certainly, But she is ‘one of us’, as it were, she is the “first fruit of our race,” specially prepared to receive the Incarnate Son of God and to bring Him into the world. Rightly, then, do we utterly maculate creatures seek to imitate her virtues as they are presented to us in the various feasts and seasons of the Church’s year—from her willingness to accept God’s utterly astonishing plan for her life at the Annunciation, through to her silent suffering at the foot of the Cross on Calvary. And rightly do we turn to her and ask her intercession when we need help in saying “yes” to God, or in persevering in the face of suffering, etc. The Church’s traditional treasury of Marian feasts and devotions is a rich storehouse from which we ought not fail to draw. For the Blessed Virgin Mary is ‘one of us’; she is ‘on our side’, as it were. She is there to help by her example and by her prayers. And rightly too do we turn to the Immaculate Mother of God on this feast in Advent as we concern ourselves with preparing for the coming of her Son at Christmas. We, who do not share her privilege and who are only too used to the stain of sin and the damage it does in our lives and in the world—be that due to our own sins or to those of others—need help. We need encouragement. And if Our Lord is to come to us this Christmas we need to be appropriately prepared. We need to be free from sin. The Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady was and is a singular privilege about which it is not for us to quarrel. Almighty God may choose whomever He wishes for His purposes. Regardless, by virtue of His saving death on the Cross, freedom from sin is offered by Our Lord to each of us through the Sacrament of Baptism, and if we sin gravely after Baptism, through the Sacrament of Confession. After a good, integral confession, our souls are as pure as on the day of our baptism—now matter how seriously we have sinned. Hence, we may worthily receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. Hence we may go out anew bearing Christ and witnessing to Him and to the Truth in the different circumstances of our daily life. We may not have been immaculately conceived, but when our souls are cleansed by the absolution received after a good confession and we are in a state of grace, we lack nothing necessary worthily to receive Our Lord. In celebrating the Immaculate Virgin Mary on this Second Sunday of Advent, then, the Church is wisely calling us to that fundamental preparation without which Christ coming to us this Christmas will be impeded if not blocked. Our Mother is calling us to attend to the necessary cleansing of our souls through a good, humble, honest confession of our sins. May the humble, Immaculate Virgin Mary intercede for us! May her example of trust, faith and perseverance give us the courage so to do! +  Samedi prochain 7 décembre à 06h00, Messe Rorate
chantée à la lumière des bougies en l'honneur de la Sainte Vierge. (Les laudes seront exceptionnellement à 05h30.) Messe basse de Saint Ambroise à 09h00.  + Amidst the impending distress, fear and troubles prophesied by Our Lord in the Holy Gospel of this Mass—a prophecy which is made anew to each of us this morning by virtue of its liturgical proclamation by the Church—we are commanded to do one thing: “respicite, levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” “Look up,” we are told, “lift up your heads: for your redemption is at hand.”
This is surely not our first inclination. In the face of fear and distress we often bury our heads. When trouble confronts us it is so much easier to look away. These reactions do little to deal with the problem—they probably only serve to prepare us a little to suffer the realisation of our fears. They are natural enough reactions. We employ them in the face of confrontations of all sorts, in suffering serious health problems and even in respect of our continual battle against sin, the world, the flesh and the devil. But the Gospel teaches us that such a natural reaction is insufficient. We who are baptised into Christ are to react to tribulation of any sort in a supernatural manner: “respicite, levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” “Look up,” we are told, “lift up your heads: for your redemption is at hand.” For it is precisely in these moments of danger, temptation and trial that our Redeemer comes to us to save us. He is there to rescue us if only we will look to Him. And yet, how often we look anywhere and everywhere but unto Him! How often we look to ourselves and place our faith in our own self-sufficiency. “I can manage,” I tell myself, knowing all the while that I am utterly afraid of the fact that I cannot. How often we seek redemption elsewhere—in activism, frenetically busying ourselves with anything at all simply to avoid confronting the problems before us; in the pursuit of pleasure (legitimate or otherwise) to dull the pain our inadequacy gives rise in us; or even in aggression for its own sake, for as they say, ‘attack is the best form of defence’ (it at least gives us the consoling pretense of being powerful). None of this is appropriate for a Christian. If we have been given gifts, most certainly we may use them, and there is no question but that we must rightly busy ourselves with many things in this life. So too we may freely enjoy its legitimate pleasures. At times we may need to use the strength and resources we have at our disposal to defend all that is good, true and beautiful and of God. None of these correct behaviours, however, can be exaggerated to the extent that they deny the Source of all that we have at our disposal, or replace Him with ourselves. Rather, the correct use of any capacity, gift or resource at our disposal in good times or bad is in humility and gratitude to Him for what has been entrusted to our care, ever seeking to make better use of such gifts according to His Will. If this first Sunday of Advent has any message for us it is this: “Respicite, levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” “Look up,lift up your heads: for your redemption is at hand.” No matter what illness, evil, persecution, strife or other trouble confronts us today, or tomorrow, the answer is not to run away or to hide or to seek some anesthetising substitute. No, the answer is to lift up our heads in faith and to look to the Lord, Our Redeemer, who comes to save us. The Introit and the Offertory both sing the same message: “Ad te levavi animam meam: Deus meus in te confido…” To you I lift up my soul: my God in you I place my trust… We are to turn and look to the Lord who comes: in Him—and not in counterfeit substitutes or our own or of others’ making, howsoever attractive, innocent or even partially good they seem to be—shall we find salvation. The psalmists often encountered difficulty. The realities they faced were frequently quite desperate, as their verses explain in great detail. But the psalmists sing of greater realities, which is why they are the foundation, the very bread and butter as it were, of the Church’s prayer. Psalm 17, which we sing at Prime on Friday, is one example. “Laudans invocabo Dominum, et ab inimicis meis, salvus ero,” verse four of psalm 17 sings. “I call upon the Lord with praise and shall be saved from my enemies”—words which the Church’s traditional Roman liturgy has the priest pray just before he receives the Precious Blood from the Sacred Chalice at Mass. Let us note that the Psalm teaches us that “I shall be saved from my enemies by calling on the Lord with praise.” This is the attitude of the Christian—not to curse and swear, but to find salvation in being faithful to the Praise of Almighty God. This is our defence in any situation, just as it was the defence of so many martyrs and other saints throughout the ages. Amidst the sufferings in the Church, the world and our families at this time we would do well to adopt this disposition anew for ourselves this Advent. “Levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” Our wise Mother, the Church will repeat this call in one of the antiphons at the first vespers of Christmas. Let us heed her wisdom and insistence in the weeks before that great feast and prepare ourselves well—most certainly by making a good confession—so that when the Lord comes we shall ever more ready to turn to the Lord and to look to Him as his sons and daughters and thus partake fully in the redemption He comes to bring. +  Notre lettre aux amis pour l'Avent 2024 est maintenant publiée sur ce lien.
SVP soutenir le monastere ici. Our Advent 2024 newsletter is published at this link. Please support the monastery here.  + “When you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his mantle.” Thus does Our Lord—and through her Sacred Liturgy, Our Holy Mother, the Church—instruct us in respect of encountering the cataclysmic happenings that will usher in the end of the world and the final and general judgment of all people.
There is more than a sense of urgency here. We are commanded to flee to the mountains without turning back or taking anything with us in a tone far more insistent than the gentil instructions about taking no personal belongings with us in the case of an evacuation that we are given before an aeroplane flight. Our Lord does not ask us calmly to evacuate. No, he orders us to flee immediately. There is real danger to escape. Now. One might be forgiven for asking why this is necessary for His “elect”—that is, for those who have become sons and daughters of God through the Sacrament of Baptism and who thereby have the promise of eternal life implanted in their very being. From what do they (do we) need to flee? The Gospel is instructive in telling us that for the sake of the elect, the final tribulations will be shortened, otherwise “no human being would be saved,” but this, of course, nevertheless implies the possibility of being lost. That is to say that the grace of Baptism is not something we can regard as a supernatural suit of protective armor that will ensure that no harm will touch us. As we know only too well, our baptismal dignity can be, and is, sullied by sin. The life of Faith, Hope and Charity that Baptism implants in our souls can be lost to our eternal perdition. Here, if I may, I wish to venture to opine that when hearing the apocalyptic passages of Sacred Scripture we would do well not to concern ourselves too much with the cosmic end-times to which they refer, but to focus on the raging war between the forces of good and evil, the battle for our own souls that the devil wages at every opportunity he possible can. Obsession with the coming of the end of the world can be an insidious trick of the devil which can distract us from that with which we must deal here and now. Yes, certainly, the Word of God teaches us that God and His Truth will ultimately triumph after the cosmic battle is over, but there is absolutely no guarantee that any one of us will be amongst those who are saved. To be saved we must persevere in the grace of Christ, in fidelity to the teaching of His Church, and—as we are taught this morning—we must know when and from what to flee for the sake of the safety of our own soul and salvation. Our secondary patron, Blessed Ildephonse Schuster, put it this way: “There are some kinds of evil spirits with whom it is too dangerous to engage directly in hand-to-hand combat, particularly the spirit of impurity, the spirit of scandal and the spirit of apostasy from the faith. The best means of obtaining victory over these temptations is always to flee the occasions that lead to them. When, therefore, the soul perceives this ‘abomination’ it must, following the advice given in the Gospel, flee for safety to the mountains—that is to say it must seek the high places of faith and of holiness, taking refuge in the wounded heart of Jesus.” (The Sacramentary, vol. III p. 192) Blessed Schuster is teaching the classical adage that we must flee from the occasions of sin just as we must flee from sin itself. However, in line with the Gospel he notes that some kinds of evil are simply “too dangerous to engage directly in hand-to-hand combat.” We cannot achieve victory on our own. We need to flee to safety lest our souls be lost. We must flee to the mountains, those places that are nearer to God, as it were, to the “the high places of faith and of holiness”. My brothers and sisters, whether or not the end of the world is nigh, the spiritual battle for our souls is real and ongoing. And it is waged in a world that is more and more dangerous for those who seek the life of Christ—a danger which is exacerbated at times by the obfuscation of His teaching even in the Church and by the weakening of the channels of His grace in which her Sacred Liturgy serves to immerse us. This is precisely why some of us take refuge in monasteries. This is precisely why so many today, particularly young people find, refuge, consolation and strength in the older forms of the liturgical rites. And this is why our monastery can never renounce those very conduits of life and grace handed on to us in Tradition that flow from the wounded heart of Christ. Thus, no matter what abominations the devil succeeds in placing before us in the world or in the Church, no matter what tribulations the future holds, let us be confident that if we take refuge in Christ and seek the grace and healing that the sacraments of His Church provide, we shall be counted amongst the elect who shall be saved. +  + “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
In contemplating the content of this familiar parable it is worth remembering that when Our Lord taught it he was—as it were—‘merely’ an itinerant preacher from Nazareth. He had not suffered the ignominy of the Cross, nor had he conquered it by His glorious resurrection from the dead. Yet these parables of Jesus of Nazareth attracted crowds. People found something in them that they did not find elsewhere. Probably unknowingly, they encountered nothing less than the definitive revelation of God in human history Who, through His parables, taught and made plain than that which “has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” Through the Sacred Liturgy it is our privilege to encounter Him anew, just as did the crowds during His time on this earth. So too, it is our duty to attend carefully to His voice and to digest His teaching. In so doing this morning we are confronted with the image of a mustard seed—one tiny seed, alone, planted in a field. It is in fact hard for anyone to do this: trees are more often grafted than grown from seeds. Years, if not decades, would pass before a shoot from a seed would grow even into a reasonable-sized shrub, let alone a viable and productive tree. And yet this is the analogy Our Lord uses—a seemingly foolish practice is, in fact, the beginning of something truly great. No. It is more. It is the beginning of that reality, the Kingdom of God, in which all can come and find a home—indeed, an eternal home. It is perhaps worthwhile recalling Our Lord’s teaching from the Gospel of John when, after triumphantly entering Jerusalem and knowing that His passion and death were imminent, He states: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (12:24) The mustard seed ‘dies’ in the same way, it is buried, and it rises again to bear great fruit. So too, then, must we—at least in the sense of dying to oneself and living in and for Christ that St Paul explained to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (2:20) The teaching is familiar. Just as our mustard seed must be planted in the earth in order to grow, just as the grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die, so St Paul teaches that we must be crucified with Christ in order that Christ shall live in us. No doubt few if any of us are particularly zealous for crucifixion, death or burial in the ground. And yet if the Kingdom of God is to live in us and grow through us, this is precisely what is required! Before we recoil in terror, let us recall that this is precisely what has already taken place in us through our Baptism. This is easier to understand for one who is baptised as an adult, but even those (rightly) baptised as infants are in fact immersed into the saving death of Christ and are washed clean of all sin, original and, where necessary, actual. Baptism makes us members of the Kingdom of God and sons or daughters of God in our very being. The mustard seed has been planted in us. The grain of wheat has, through the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, fallen to the ground and died. The very life of Christ has been implanted in our hearts minds and souls. Of course, very often it may not feel like the life of Christ is at the core of our very being. We who at least try to live as members of God’s Kingdom know only too well how often we fail to live up to the dignity of our Baptism: temptation and sin is a reality which we must confront. Thankfully, though, in this we are not alone: Christ has conquered sin, and by His grace we can share in that victory through the Sacrament of Confession, which is a renewal of that of Baptism, if sin conquers us. By means of such renewal—let us call it a conversion of life, which is so often the case for those fallen away from the life of Christ, or for those who have never attempted to live it—the Kingdom of God can grow in us and through us anew. Amongst those who heard this morning’s parable from Our Lord were the twelve apostles—the very pillars of the One, True Church He founded. They did not expect to become great apostles, but by their cooperation with God’s grace, the Kingdom of God spread to all corners of the world. We may not expect to work such wonders, but in hearing this parable this morning, here, before the altar upon which His Sacrifice shall be renewed, let us open ourselves anew to God’s grace (and resolve to remove what obstacles to it there may be) so that in us and through us, in ways perhaps only known to God, His Kingdom may grow in us and through us. +  For those who have been following the progress of our Maremma sheepdogs—who have been successfully guarding our livestock since their arrival in January—we are happy to share the news that we received confirmation from the Veterinarian this week that our female, Nebbia, is expecting a litter of puppies shortly before Christmas. Quelques nouvelles concernant nos bergers de Maremme d'Italie: depuis leur arrivée en janvier dernier, ils ont accompli fidèlement leur devoir en gardant parfaitement la basse-cour! Une heureuse nouvelle est également tombée cette semaine; notre vétérinaire nous a confirmé que Nebbia, la femelle, attend une portée de chiots qui devrait arriver juste avant la grande fête de Noël. Some photos of Nebbia (and of Leo, our 14-month-old – still technically a puppy). Quelques photos de Nebbia (et de Léo, ayant désormais 14 mois mais étant techniquement toujours un chiot!). |
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