Category: Catholic

Let us strive to comprehend the mystery. The reason God is in the flesh is to kill the death that lurks there. As diseases are cured by medicines and assimilated by the body; and as darkness in a house is dispelled by the coming of light, so death, which held sway over human nature, is done away with by the coming of God.

And as ice formed on water covers its surface as long as night and darkness last but melts under the warmth of the sun, so death reigned until the coming of Christ, but when the grace of God our Savior appeared and the Sun of Justice rose, death was swallowed up in victory, unable to beat the presence of true life. How great is God’s goodness, how deep his love for us!

Let us join the shepherds in giving glory to God, let us dance with the angels and sing. Today a Savior has been born to us. He is Christ the Lord. The Lord is God and He has appeared to us, not as God which would have been terrifying for our weakness, but as a slave so as to free those who live in slavery.

Who could be so lacking in sensibility and so ungrateful as not to join all here present in our gladness, exultation and radiant joy?

The feast belongs to the whole of creation. Let everyone join in and be grateful. Let our voices too ring out in songs of jubilation!

Saint Basil the Great

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

Story Of The Origin Of Jesus Christ And The Rest Of The Names — Matthew’s genealogy is extraordinarily comprehensive in his theology of the roots of Jesus’ story in the Old Testament.

But that is only one part of the story of Jesus Christ. The story has a sequence as well; and the continuing sequence is what makes the genealogy” good news” for Matthew’s audience and for us.

Human beings have been empowered to preserve, proclaim and convey the salvation brought by Jesus Christ throughout history. The God who wrote the beginnings with crooked lines also writes the sequence with crooked lines, and some of those lines are our own lives and witness.

A God who did not hesitate to use the scheming as well as the noble, the impure as well as the pure, men to whom the world hearkened and women upon whom the world frowned– this God continues to work through the same melange.

If it was a challenge to recognize in the last part of Matthew’s genealogy that totally unknown people were part of the story of Jesus Christ, it may be a greater challenge to recognized that the unknown characters of today are an essential part of the sequence.

The proclamation of that genealogy in the Advent liturgy is designed to give us hope about our destiny and our importance.

By stressing the all-powerful grace of God, the genealogy presents the greatest challenge to those who will accept only an idealized Jesus Christ whose story they would write only with straight lines and whose portrait they would paint in pastel colors.

If we look at the whole story and the total picture, the Gospels teach us that Jesus’ ministry was not thus; the history of the church teaches us that the sequence as not thus. God’s grace can even work with people like us.

Father Raymond E. Brown, S.S.

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

The Great Feast — This familiar parable is read in the Church each year just two Sundays before the feast of our Lord’s Nativity. In it we are reminded of the great care with which God prepared the way of His incarnation. All of the Law and the Prophets look forward to this moment, the moment wen the God-man Jesus Christ comes into the world.

He is, in fact, the fulfillment of the law and the Prophets — the goal towards which they were all aiming. The whole world was prepared by them for this great event.

As the parable tells us, the King — that is God — has prepared a great feast for us and has invited us to come and enter into that joy that He has prepared for us.

Today we begin in earnest to move toward the feast in the birth of our Incarnate Savior Jesus Christ.

Today we are called to see the great preparation that has gone into this event, to marvel at the great love and care of God for us that He would labor so long and with such great care for us.

Today we look back at the whole of the history of the people of God and see that it is the history of God’s preparation all leading to the moment when He would take flesh, become incarnate and enter the world as a child.

We have been given an invitation to come and join the feast, to abandon the world and enter the Kingdom of God, to leave our own life and receive instead the Life of Christ.

We have been invited – chosen by God. Well we accept the invitation and choose Him?

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

Cleansing And Gratitude — Once, as Jesus was passing through Samaria on His way to Jerusalem, 10 lepers met Him.

They stood far off and cried “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

Jesus saw them and said: “Go show yourselves to the priests.”

So in this case, He did not touch them. Instead, He tested their faith to see whether they would obey and go to the priests to get a certificate of healing even before they had been healed.

They obeyed and were healed.

And one of them returned and with a loud voice glorified God and fell at His feet giving Him thanks. He was a Samaritan. And Jesus said: “Were there not 10 cleaned? Where are the nine? Were there not any found to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

And Jesus said to him: “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

The Samaritans accepted Christ as the Messiah and became Christians, while the Jews rejected Him.

The Fathers of the Church see a lesson in this for us. The 10 lepers signify mankind. We are all leprous, but only one in 10 give thanks to God for the salvation He has brought to us. In the same way, only some of the seed sown by God — in the Parable of the Sower — brings forth good fruit.

We can all be cleansed by Him, but if we do not return to Him in gratitude and to glorify Him, we cannot be saved.

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

Cleansing And Gratitude

The Legendary Saint Nicholas — The absence of “hard facts” of history is not necessarily an obstacle to the popularity of saints as the devotion to Saint Nicholas shows. Both the Eastern and Western churches honor him, and it is claimed that after the Theotokos, he is the saint most pictured by Christian artists. And yet, historically we can pinpoint only the fact that Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor.

As with many of the saints, however, we are able to capture the relationship which Nicholas had with God through the admiration which Christians have had for him — an admiration expressed in the colorful stories which have been told and retold through the centuries.

Perhaps the best-known story about Nicholas concerns his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age. Rather than see them forced into prostitution, Nicholas secretly tossed a bag of gold through the poor man’s window on three separate occasions, thus enabling the daughters to be married. Over the centuries, this particular legend evolved into the custom of gift-giving on the saint’s fest which is Dec. 6.

In the English-speaking countries, Saint Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus — further expanding the example of generosity portrayed by this holy bishop.

The critical eye of modern history makes us take a deeper look at the legends surrounding Saint Nicholas. But perhaps we can use the lesson taught by his legendary charity, look deeper at our approach to material goods in the Christmas season and seek ways to extend our sharing to those in real need.

The Legendary Saint Nicholas

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

The 7 Calls Of Saint Andrew — The first call that shaped Saint Andrew’s life was the very timing and place of his birth. The second call came through John the Baptist. Andrew must have been an alert young man longing for the coming of the Messiah when he first heard the preaching of John.

Andrew’s third call came from Jesus himself. The fourth call was to follow Jesus, to be his disciple in daily contact, walking and talking, listening and learning from the Master as from a rabbi.

The fifth call was his selection by Jesus as one of the 12 apostles, to give witness and to bring others to Christ.

His sixth call came through pious Greeks at the Passover in Jerusalem. They wanted to see Jesus, to be introduced to Him. The boy from Bethsaida began using his language skills and his understanding fo Greek and Roman culture to bring Gentiles to Jesus.

Saint Jerome and Saint Paulinus tell us that after Pentecost, Andrew became an apostle to Greece, its bordering lands, and, as tradition tell us, ultimately to Byzantium.

The final call in Andrew’s life was to martyrdom by crucifixion on an X shaped cross at Patras in Achaia.

Saint Andrew’s vocation, and ours as well, wasn’t given all at once. Seven calls from the Lord built one upon the othe. Andrew’s response to each gave new shape to his life and prepared him for the next gift of God.

This courageous young man by purity of heart and docile obedience to God’s will became in Saint Bede’s words, “The Introducer to Christ.”

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

Why The Rich Man Shouldn’t Have Built The Bigger Barn — The land of a rich man produced abundant harvests and he thought to himself: “What am I to do? I will pull down my barns and build larger ones.”

Now why did that land bear so well when it belonged to a man who would make no good use of its fertility?

It was to show more clearly the forbearance of God, whose kindness extends even to such people as this. He sends rain on both the just and the unjust, and makes the sun rise on the wicked and good alike. But what do we find in this man? A bitter disposition, hatred of other people, unwillingness to give. This is the return he made to his Benefactor. He forgot that we all share the same nature. He felt no obligation to distribute his surplus to the needy.

His barns were full to the bursting point, but still his miserly heart was not satisfied. Year by year he increased his wealth, always adding new crops to the old.

The result was a hopeless impasse. Greed would not permit him to part with anything he possessed, and yet because he had so much there was no place to store his latest harvest. And so he was incapable of making a decision and could find no escape from his anxiety: What am I to do?

You who have wealth, recognize who has given you the gifts you have received. Consider who you are, what has been committed to your charge, from whom you have received it, and why you have been preferred to most other people.

You are the servant of the good God, a steward on behalf of your fellow servants. Do not image that everything has been provided for your own stomach. Make decisions regarding your property as though it belonged to another. Possessions give you pleasure for a short time, but then they will slip through your fingers and be gone, and you will be required to give an exact account of them.

Saint Basil the Great

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

Reflection On The Good Samaritan — First, we must pity the ill fortune of the man who fell unarmed and helpless among robbers, and who was so rash and unwise as to choose the road in which he could not escape the attack. For the unarmed can never escape the armed, the heedless the villain, the unwary the malicious.

Malice is ever armed with guile, fenced around with cruelty, fortified with deceit, and ready for fierce attack.

He poured in wine, that is the blood of His passion, and oil that is the anointing of the chrism, that pardon might be granted by His blood, sanctification be conferred by the chrism . . .

The wounded parts are bound up the heavenly Physician, and contain a slave within themselves. By the working of the remedy they are restored to their former soundness.

Having poured in wine and oil, he placed him upon His beast . . .

For the Inn is the Church which receives travelers, who are tired with their journey through the world, and oppressed with the load of their sins. It’s here the wearied traveler casting down the burden of his sins is relieved, and after being refreshed is restored with wholesome food. For outside is everything that is conflicting, hurtful, and evil while within the Inn is contained all rest and health.

If you see anyone oppressed, say not surely he is wicked, but be he Gentile or Jew and needs help, dispute not, he has a claim to your assistance, into whatever evil he as fallen.

 St. John Chrysostom

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081. Services are 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m., Sundays.

Reflection On The Good Samaritan

The Rich Man And Lazarus –Lazarus, the beggar, is called by his name because he was a saint, but the man who is rich and proud is not deemed worth of a name.

The meaning of Lazarus’ name is boethoumenos, one who has been helped. He is not a helper but one who has been helped. He was a poor man and, in his poverty, the Lord came his assistance.

“Who lay at his gate, covered with sores.”

The rich man, in purple splendor, is not accused of being avaricious, nor of carrying off the property of another, nor of committing adultery, nor, in fact, of any wrongdoing. The evil alone of which he is guilty is pride.

Most wretched of men, you see a member of your own body lying there outside at your gate and have you no compasion?

If the precepts of God mean nothing to you, at least take pity on you own plight, and be in fear lest you become such as he.

Why do you save what is superfluous to your pleasures? Give in alms to your own member what you waste. I am not telling you to throwaway your wealth. What you throw out, the crumbs from your table, offer as alms.

“Who lay at his gate.” He was lying at the gate in order to draw attention to the cruelty paid to his body and to prevent the rich man from saying, “I did not notice him; he was in a corner; I could not see him; no one announced him to me.”

He lay at the gate, you saw him everytime you went out and everty time you came in. When your throngs of servants and clients were attending you, he lay there full of ulcers. If your your eyes disdained to look upon putrid flesh, did not your ears, at least, hear his plea?

“Who lay at his gate, covered with sores.”

He did not have just one sore. His whole body was sores, so that the magnitude of his suffering might arouse your utmost compassion.

Saint Jerome

Saint Jerome was born in Dalmatia in what is now Croatia in about 340 A.D. and died in Bethlehem in 420. He is considered to be one of the Church Fathers.

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh Bearers Church in Swarthmore, Pa.