We Celebrate Christmas !

Christ is Born!   Glorify Him!
Christos Razdajestsja!  Slavite Jeho!

God is with us! God is with us! Give ear, O you nations!  Be humbled, for God is with us!”

God is with us!  God is with us!   The words of the hymn sung at the Great Compline, the evening prayer service introducing the Vigil of the Nativity (Christmas Eve) announce the joy which is Christmas: the coming of a Savior, the Messiah, for which all Christians gratefully rejoice.  What a marvelous gift, a mystery and event of such magnitude that the entire history of the world is changed forever.

Pause for a moment and consider that.  The history of the world transformed by the arrival of a tiny baby  — a plan of God so amazing and actualized in such a way that transcends all human reasoning.   In our limited vision we find ourselves at a loss to understand, and like our Blessed Mother Mary, we can only repeat, “How can this be?”

This is the timeless gift that God gives us in His mercy and desire to bring all to eternal life.  This is the perfect gift that has no equal.   No product or act of human creation can approach God’s gift to us, and we deceive ourselves if we believe otherwise.  This is a gift freely given, but ours to receive, if we so choose to live in relationship with Christ Jesus.

In Christmas, hope becomes reality.  God comes to us.  God lives among us.  Christmas is the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament.  The wait is over.  God takes on humanity to save humanity.

The words chanted in the Liturgy on Christmas Day:

I see a strange and marvelous mystery, heaven is a cave; the cherubic throne, a Virgin; the manger has become the place in which Christ the incomprehensible God lies down. Let us praise him and extol Him.

We celebrate Christmas on December 25.  Our Orthodox brothers and sisters also celebrate on January 7.   Christmas does not end on those days.  The world puts an end to Christmas on December 26th, but our celebration is different.   Our celebration is more than all that Christmas has become.

When we continue to keep holy in our hearts and minds the revelation of our Lord in His Nativity in the days following Christmas, we are proclaiming that we are different.  We do not follow what the world wants us to be.  We are more.  We are encouraged to be a visible sign to others of who and what we are, just as God came to us as a visible sign.

With the end of pre-Christmas distractions and Christmas Day, the post-festal period of Christmas begins.  This post-festal time is from December 26 to December 31.  We now have the time to spiritually reflect in the peacefulness found between Christmas and the Feast of Theophany.    But if we are not careful, we might become sidetracked again in the post-holiday frenzy or the rush to hide it all away as no longer relevant, and in our haste to clean it all up and push it off, totally miss the special holiness of this time.

Our guide to growing in the virtue of perseverance is found in the familiar stories from the bible. The Wise Men were single focused and intent upon finding Baby Jesus, the real treasure.  And they would not allow anything to lead them off course.  Or to give up in the many months their travels must have taken.

We might consider ways to find the treasure of the Christ Child not just before and on Christmas, but in the post-festal days also. God comes to us when all is calm, all is bright.   No one can do it for us, that is, to experience God.  But we can make the time in sitting quietly for a few minutes, listening to beautiful music, talking to God in prayer, reading a spiritual book we had no time earlier, or just pausing in the middle of the day and being aware of God.    And all that Jesus in the form of a little baby really wants from us is simple. Why do we find it so difficult?  Jesus only asks us in to cradle him close to our hearts and offering our “self” as a gift in return.

Don’t celebrate everything else and miss the best gift of all.

Keep Christ and Christmas in your heart and soul – alive and renewed!

Christ is Born!  Glorify Him!

Royal Doors – Annunciation; Nativity Icon on the tetrapod (table); Theophany Icon (Christ’s Baptism) right side altar

Christmas Carol:                   Angels From Heaven

Angels from heaven came to you shepherds; Have no fear! Have no fear! Hasten to honor Him, born near in Bethlehem; Offer gifts, though poor and small.
There in a manger, you will behold Him, Son of God, Son of God.  Child whose humility, veils his Divinity, our true Savior, Christ the Lord.

Merry Christmas from the parishioners of St. Michael and St. Nicholas parishes!

 

One of the lesser known fasting cycles in Eastern churches begins on November 15 and ends on December 24, Christmas Eve.

Many people readily identify Advent with the approach of Christmas. So it may be new to learn of another fasting period called Phillip’s Fast. It is also called the Nativity Fast, and like Advent, is a period of time focusing on spiritual preparation for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Phillip’s fast overlaps with Advent – the four weeks prior to Christmas traditional in the Roman Rite. The Eastern tradition starts earlier on the liturgical calendar – the day after the feast of St. Phillip (which is the source of its name but only that in common). Phillip’s Fast is a full 40 day period in which abstinence and penance are recommended disciplines. Unlike the Great Fast of Lent, this pre-Nativity fast is voluntary.

Voluntary fasting allows the faithful the option to abstain or not abstain from certain foods on days aside from what is normally required on Fridays. One of those options is to abstain from meat on Mondays and Wednesdays in addition to Fridays. As with any fasting cycle, spiritual value is seen in formative practices such as acts of charity or service, and reserving time for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The intention of Phillip’s Fast is to contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the significance to our redemption and salvation. All throughout the Old Testament prophecies, the hopes and promises of a Messiah are foretold with long awaited anticipation, the span of which can only be realized in looking back in time. In the New Testament, we see again, many examples of waiting and hopeful expectation, of disciplined patience expressed by Jesus himself, even exasperation over human misunderstanding of his message to others. Jesus emphatically reminds his own apostles and disciples of the importance of prayer and fasting in affecting change, whether in self or others.

Hopeful expectation requires slowing down and patient acceptance of the wait. The goal of the Phillip’s or Nativity Fast period is to move deeper in personal interior preparation at a time when everything is moving faster. This involves using our time and resources in ways different than what others want us to believe is important. Jesus came in complete humility and in doing so modeled to his followers the Way to eternal life. The challenge during Phillip’s fast is to enjoy the anticipation during this season (as there is much joy in it) while retaining what makes this waiting time distinctly Christian. It’s also a reminder that the church recognizes this time before Christ’s birth as a penetenial period, with the true celebration of Christmas reserved for Christmas and the time following.

An even greater challenge is keeping and making time amid the busyness of shopping, decorating, and gathering with others, to reflect on what God wants, and less on what we want that is apart from God. Doing so is to grow in Christ and the means to do this is through prayer, reading Scripture, participating in the Sacraments including Confession, making sacrifices, and sharing with others (almsgiving). But hardest of all, is finding distraction free quiet. Noise and distractions pull us in other directions, and these are the background static we habitually lean upon to avoid what we fear, and that is realizing the personal relationship God wants with each of us. What God desires is very different than the temptations that are more prevalent at this time of year.

♥ It is necessary to make a conscious choice to see past what the world identifies as Christmas and instead see with spiritual eyes.

One of the benefits of a fasting period before Christmas is it helps us form this deliberate awareness. With renewed awareness, and without contradiction in enjoying this time of year, is found the ability to maintain a clear focus. The world may glorify a manufactured joy, but we as Christians can celebrate the Glory of Our Lord in the time appropriate for celebration. Our joy then becomes the “joy of the Gospel” — the kind expressed by the early disciples of Christ — a joy that is continued in our present age, in our discipleship as Christians now. In doing so, we affirmatively acknowledge that Christ’s birth celebrated on Christmas Day is just the beginning. The Nativity of Jesus Christ is not merely a one day event, but a revelation leading to the greatest gift of all.

♥ Let us prepare our hearts to welcome Jesus, the true Light of the World.