Christmas - Mirth is also of Heaven's Making

Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven's making.

Leigh Hunt

Pralinen

Pralinen
by Edward B. Gordon

Here's a look at delicious indulgence as we continue the Christmas season.

The Adoration of the Magi

The Adoration of the Magi by Edward Burne-Jones

Christmas Isn't Over Yet!

Christmas, my child, is love in action.

Dale Evans

New Year's Day Postcard

New Year's Day postcard circa 1900

Twain on New Year's Day

Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.

Mark Twain

Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

Image from Chant Art

All the feasts of Our Lady are great events, because they are opportunities the church gives us to show with deeds that we love Mary. But if I had to choose one from among all her feasts, I would choose today's, the feast of the Divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin ...

When the Blessed Virgin said Yes, freely, to the plans revealed to her by the Creator, the divine Word assumed a human nature, with a rational soul and a body, formed in the most pure womb of Mary. The divine nature and the human were united in a single Person: Jesus Christ, true God and, thenceforth, true man: the only-begotten and Eternal Son of the Father and, from that moment on, as Man, the true son of Mary. This is why Our Lady is the Mother of the Incarnate Word, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who has united our human nature to himself forever, without any confusion of the two natures. The greatest praise we can give to the Blessed Virgin is to address her loud and clear by the name that expresses her highest dignity: Mother of God.

St. Josemaria Escriva, Friends of God

The Christian prism and our books

I'm a theological novice, but I simply assume that the Christian prism tends to inform Christians, whatever they are reading.

William F. Buckley, 1977 interview

Books and Culture

Amen, amen. It's why I recently found support for my faith in a couple of parts of a space opera I was reading. I don't think that Sharon Lee and Steve Miller put those bits into Carpe Diem and Plan B in order to inspire but it worked out that way anyhow. Because the prism focused on those bits.

Fiesta in Figueres

Salvador Dali, 1916, Fiesta in Figueres
via WikiPaintings

Doesn't this capture a feeling of movement and the excitement of fireworks? I love this! It seems just perfect for New Year's Eve.

1907 Christmas Card

A 1907 Christmas card with Santa and some of his reindeer

Christmas with Charles Dickens

The best sitting room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark-paneled room with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens, were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles burnt bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry voices and light-hearted laughter range through the room.

Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

Fifth Day of Christmas: Optional Memorial of St. Thomas Becket

The Church celebrates the optional memorial of St. Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr. He was born in London and after studying in Paris, he first became chancellor to the king and then in 1162 was chosen Archbishop of Canterbury. He went from being "a patron of play-actors and a follower of hounds" to being a "shepherd of souls." He absorbed himself in the duties of his new office, defending the rights of the Church against Henry II. This prompted the king to exile him to France for six years. After returning to his homeland he endured many trials and was murdered by agents of the king.

Source: Catholic Culture

See also this entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Noel by J. R. R. Tolkien

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o’er hill and dale.
The world was blind, the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O’er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven’s towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.

The Nativity, 1858, Arthur Hughes

 This poem was published in the 1936 Annual of Our Lady’s School, Abingdon, Tolkien’s “Noel” was unknown and unrecorded until scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull discovered it while searching for another poem in June 2013.

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Holy Family, Albrecht Durer

Between Joseph and Mary there existed a holy affection, a spirit of service, and a mutual desire for each others' happiness. This is Jesus' family: sacred, holy, exemplary, a model of human virtues, ready to carry out God's will exactly. A Christian home must be an imitation of the house of Nazareth; a place where there is plenty of room for God so that He can be right at the centre of the love that members of the family have for one another.

In Conversation with God: Advent and Christmastide

This feast day falls on the first Sunday after Christmas. When a Sunday does not occur between December 25 and January 1, this feast is celebrated on December 30. (The Church — they understand schedule conflicts!)

I have a special fondness for this feast, engendered largely because of my fervent prayers to the Holy Family in a very trying time, after which Tom and I were given a miraculous sign. Life in the Holy Family is one of my favorite subjects of contemplation, whether when formally in prayer or in little flashes as our family goes through the weeks and years with good and bad times alike.

Christmas with Washington Irving

 

It is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling--the season for kindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Washington Irving, Old Christmas

Fourth Day of Christmas: Massacre of the Holy Innocents

Duccio di Buoninsegna. Maesta (front, predella): The Massacre of the Innocents
via Wikipedia.

Nor must we forget that our greatest happiness and our most authentic good are not always those which we dream of and long for. It is difficult for us to see things in their true perspective: we can only take in a very small part of complete reality. We only see the tiny piece of reality that is here, in front of us. We are inclined to feel that earthly existence is the only real one and often consider our time on earth to be the period in which all our longings for perfect happiness ought to be fulfilled.

There is anguish for us, twenty centuries later, in thinking of the slain babies and their parents. for the babies the agony was soon over; in the next world they would come to know whom they had died to save and for all eternity would have that glory. For the parents, the pain would have lasted longer; but at death they too must have found that there was a special sense in which God was in their debt, as he had never been indebted to any. They and their children were the only ones who ever agonized in order to save God's life ... (F. J. Sheed, To Know Christ Jesus)

In Conversation with God: Advent and Christmastide

Read more about the Holy Innocents here.

Christmas - Our hearts grow tender

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Third Day of Christmas: St. John the Evangelist

Piero della Francesca. St. John the Evangelist. c. 1465.

In his extreme old age he continued to visit the churches of Asia. St. Jerome relates that when age and weakness grew upon him so that he was no longer able to preach to the people, he would be carried to the assembly of the faithful by his disciples, with great difficulty; and every time said to his flock only these words: "My dear children, love one another."

This makes me think of John Paul II in his last years. Read more about St. John here.

The Keepsakes and Customs of Christmas

It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. Those humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart.

Marjorie Holmes

Second Day of Christmas: St. Stephen, The First Martyr

Byzantine icon, 11th century

We have only just celebrated the birth of our Lord and already the liturgy presents us with the feast of the first person to give his life for this Baby who has been born. Yesterday we wrapped Christ in swaddling clothes; today, he clothes Stephen with the garment of immortality. Yesterday, a narrow manger cradled the baby Christ; today, the infinite heaven has received Stephen in triumph. (St. Fulgentius, Sermon 3)

The Church wants to make us realize that the Cross is always very close to Jesus and his followers. As he struggles for perfect righteousness - sanctity - in this world, the Christian will meet perfect situations and attacks by the enemies of God. Our Lord has warned us: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you ... Remember the word that I said to you; a servant is not greater than his master: If they persecuted me they will persecute you. (John 15:18-20) Since the very beginning of the Church this prophecy has been fulfilled. And in our days too, if we really follow Our Lord, we are going to suffer difficulties and persecutions in one way or another and of different kinds. Every age is an age of martyrdom, St. Augustine tells us. Don't say that Christians are not suffering persecution; the Apostle's words are always true ...: All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Tim 3:12) All, he says, with no one being excluded or exempted. If you want to test the truth of this saying, you have only to begin to lead a pious life and you will see what good reason he had for saying this. (St. Augustine, Sermon 6, 2)

In Conversation with God: Advent and Christmastide