Waiting in Hope - O Oriens

As we prepare for Christmas, Br Matthew Jarvis offers a reflection on today's great O antiphon, O Oriens, in this video specially pre-recorded for Godzdogz.

Provincial Assembly 2011

On the 14th-16th December Blackfriars, Oxford, hosted the Provincial Assembly of the English Dominican friars. This gathering is an opportunity for as many friars as possible from all round the Province to get together and discuss the Province’s life and mission, and happens every four years in preparation for the Provincial Chapter, the meeting of superiors and elected delegates of the brethren which makes decisions about such things, and which will happen in April next year.

It is also an opportunity for brothers to share their experience, telling each other about approaches, events, or resources which they might have found particularly useful or effective in their ministry.

The work of the New Evangelization being promoted by the Holy Father was one of the central topics of discussion, and our involvement in Internet projects such as Torch and, of course, Godzdogz itself, was recognised as important for that.

Besides the official business, the Assembly was also an occasion for brothers from different parts of the Province to pray together the Liturgy of the Hours, which lies at the centre of the religious life we share, as well as catching up with brothers from other houses over a cup of tea between sessions, or at recreation in the evenings.

Very useful discussions were had, which will feed into the work of the commissions of friars preparing reports on various subjects for the Chapter, and it was also a good opportunity to prepare for Christmas together in a spirit of fraternal charity.

One of the secretaries of the assembly at work

Listening to a presentation

Enjoying the occasion

20th December - 'Thy Will Be Done'

Today’s gospel passage from Luke is deceptively familiar. So familiar that it can be easily lost on us. When we hear these words spoken, do we really listen to them? Do we fail to appreciate that what we hear is the greatest ‘Yes’ ever uttered in history; the beginning of the greatest story ever told?

If we fail to hear, it’s probably because our own stories, our own lives, with all their clamour and noise, with all their drama – both good and bad – deafen us. Listening is a virtue, which requires much practice. It is the virtue of obedience. Obedience, from the Latin, oboediens, means to listen, harken and obey. When religious take a vow of obedience, it is a vow of listening to God’s word, often mediated by superiors. Few of us are naturally great listeners, but we have to persevere because when moments of change and trial are upon us – that is when we need to listen most.

Our lives, as Blessed Mary’s, have their life changing moments. The kind of moments, after which, nothing is ever the same again. Sometimes we may not immediately recognise them, but on looking back we can see them. We may fall in love; get married; change career; first come to faith; find our vocation; lose a loved one. Nothing is ever the same again. Depending on circumstance, change can be easy for us or very hard, and we can respond to such change in two ways; we can face up to it or we can run away and pretend that nothing has happened. We can ignore our responsibilities to each other; to our families; to God and the Church. Or we can we face them as Christians, listening in faith to God, that he will walk with us and guide us, regardless of what we may face. We have to make our choice. We have to listen.

For Blessed Mary, that day of the Annunciation was perhaps the most alarming imaginable. We read that, ‘she was greatly troubled’, by Gabriel’s words. She had every right to be so; this was no ordinary day. She must have felt that all was to change and that though such change would bring with it great joy, there would follow an inevitable suffering. The Angel seeks to reassure her; ‘do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favour with God’. On being told that she will bear Jesus Christ, ‘the Son of the Most High', she responds will a simple question; ‘how can this be since I have no husband?’ Her words are few; she is attentive. She has long listened in her heart to the word of God and seeks only clarification. In the stillness of her heart she is prepared to face the momentous change to come; she is happy to face such change, in spite of all hardship, in order to serve the God she has always pondered in her heart. Ultimately she is reassured that, ‘with God nothing will be impossible’.

Now Mary, though sinless, was otherwise like us. She was a human being, with all the hopes and fears common to our state. She had free will; she, just like us, had the power to choose. In faith, with a listening ear, she placed her trust in God. She said yes. She uttered the Fiat – let it be done - that would forever change her life and the life of all humanity. Such courage, such trust and humility, can only come through taking time to listen. It comes through taking time to be with God in the stillness of our hearts.

The Incarnation; that great moment in salvation history – when the Word was made Flesh - was made possible by a humble woman’s faith and trust in God. Our Lady knew that her true happiness and fulfilment lay not in running away from this great responsibility but in facing it in faith. She had learned to listen to the Word of God and to trust, to let go and allow God to be God. She had learned to say; ‘thy will be done’. I wonder, amid the clamour and noise of Christmastide, can we do the same?

Advent – 19th December: Elijah, John, Jesus and the Coming of the Lord.

Judges 13:2-7 & 14-25a; Ps 71; Luke 1:5-25.

It was a common belief among the Jews at the time of Jesus that the prophet Elijah would reappear and prepare the people for a visitation of the Lord in holiness. Elijah was thought to have been caught up into heaven at the end of his life (2 Kings 2:1-14). Since he had not died, he would be able to reappear before the Day of the Lord (See Malachi 3:23-24.) When he came, he would preach conversion, holiness, and reconciliation among the people.

In the gospel accounts of the public ministry it is clear that some people speculated that John might be this return of Elijah (John 1:21) and some thought Jesus was fulfilling this role (see Lk 9:19; Mk 8: 28; Mt 16:14). Jesus made clear in Matthew (17:9-13), Mark (9:9-13) and less directly in Luke (7:24-27) that he considered John had fulfilled this role. In today’s gospel, the annunciation of the angel to Zechariah about the future role of his son also makes this clear: ‘with the sprit and power Elijah, he will go before him to reconcile fathers to the children and the disobedient to the good sense of the upright, preparing for the Lord, a people fit for him (Lk 1:17). It seems that John did not take this identity upon himself but simply saw himself (Jn 1:21) as articulating the words of Isaiah 40: ‘prepare the way of the Lord’ (Jn 1:22-23; Lk 3:3-6 and also the Benedictus, Lk 1:76-79). However, it is highly significant that Jesus and the early church following him, ascribe the role of Elijah to John. It makes him a very great prophet, bringing their line of looking forward and witness to its climax and end. At the same time he heralds a new age and so stands on the threshold of two ages, or phases of God’s providence for his people (see Luke 7:24-30; & 16:16).

Giving this significance to John as Elijah, points to a still greater significance for Jesus. If John, not Jesus, is Elijah, then Jesus is connected far more closely with the actual visitation of God to save his people. He is the Lord come in person to save his people. Jesus is also called the Christ as well but this was understood to mean he was a divine Christ, one caught up into the heavenly realm and more closely associated with God than a very earthly Christ who many expected (Lk 20:41-44). ‘Elijah’ then, prepared for this heavenly Christ, who is the Lord. John was right in saying he was unfit to undo his sandal strap. And neither are we!

The God who comes at Christmas is a God of immense holiness and for whom only God can prepare us by grace but this can only happen with our co-operation. It is for these reasons that each Advent the Church represents John as Elijah, calling ‘prepare the way for the Lord’. Jesus made it clear that the people of his day in general did not heed the message to prepare for the Lord and they would thus reject Jesus too (Mk 9:11-13; Mt 17:9-13; Lk 7:29-30). Will we do any better? Are we responding to the message of John as we prepare for Christmas? Let us not be distracted or misled by cute cribs and beautiful babies! The conception of John points to the mercy of God and to God’s power to change hopeless human situations. Given hope by this, are we preparing for Christmas by a focus on the Lord, and, in the light of this, by moral conversion, by being reconciled to those around us, by acting justly, by humility of heart (Lk 3:7-18)? Or will we in effect ignore or reject Elijah, John and Jesus this year, however much religion, carols and festivity we get caught up in? Each of us must choose, and each of us must face the consequences of that choice. They may be a lot worse than losing our voice for several months …

Fourth Sunday of Advent - The Awesome Gift of Holiness

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-5.8-12. 14.16, Psalm 88(89), Romans 16:25-27. Luke 1: 26-38

Holiness, according to the Old Testament, is not primarily a kind of moral goodness, but a characteristic of God, and a terrifying characteristic at that. Holiness for the ancient Hebrews is like a fire, it needs to be treated with respect and caution lest it burns up and destroys what is profane. This is why the levitical law has such strict purity laws, it is dangerous to approach God when unclean. Only those people and things that have been given a share in the holiness of God can survive His presence. Israel, unlike the gentile nations, is able to endure the presence of God because she has been set apart, because she has been consecrated: Israel, as the chosen people, participates in the holiness of God.

It is important to note that Israel did not earn her holiness, she was chosen: her intimacy with God is a grace, a gift. This explains why in our first reading the well meaning King David is unable to build a dwelling for God. No human construction, no matter how glorious, can be fit to recieve God; we cannot achieve holiness by our own strength, consecration is a gift. Instead God promises that one of David's offspring will 'build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever' (2 Samuel 7: 13).

This promise, both of a temple and an everlasting Kingdom, was of course preeminently fulfilled in Christ - Son of David and Son of God. John's Gospel tells us that when challenged to explain why he had expelled the money changers from the temple, Jesus declared: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up' (John 2: 19). Where in the desert Israel met God at the Tent of Meeting, and after Solomon in the temple in Jerusalem, now Israel meets God in human flesh and blood - in Christ Jesus himself. God's love for Israel gives her a fertility that enables her to bring forth a divine life, the one who will give new life to the world.

In some sense, then, we have in today's Gospel, very fittingly for the last Sunday before Christmas, the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The Angel Gabriel tells Mary: "the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God" (Luke 1: 34). In Mary, then, the vocation of a nation is actualized. Just as Israel had been made holy, able to bear the terrifying and destructive holiness of God in the desert, Mary - immaculately conceived and protected from sin - was holy, able to bear the holiness of God in her womb. Mary was made able to 'tabernacle' the Incarnate God, and as such becomes an image of the church - the new Israel. Through our baptism we are made a limb of Christ: we are made part of his body, sharing in his holiness, sharing in the eternal and infinite love and life of the Trinity. This is an awesome gift, one that we ought not to take for granted. Through our union with Christ we stand in a holy fire of divine love. As we approach Christmas, let us make sure we are properly prepared, lest we get burnt.

Waiting in Hope - Preparing for Christmas with the Dominican Students in Oxford

In the lead-up to Christmas, the Dominican students brothers in Oxford will be giving reflections on the coming feast on the three days before Christmas Eve (21^st, 22^nd and 23^rd December), taking their inspiration from the great O antiphons that fall on those days. For those of you in Oxford, the details are on the poster below: for our readers from further afield the talks will also be specially pre-recorded and put up on the blog.

17th December - "Son of David, Son of Abraham - Wisdom of God"

Readings: Genesis 49: 2, 8-10; Psalm 72; Matthew 1: 1-17

As we enter this final stage of Advent, when the Church expresses her yearning for the coming of the Saviour in the great ‘O’ antiphons, the contrast between the text of today’s antiphon, O Sapientia, and the day’s Gospel is striking. In the antiphon, we refer to Jesus as the wisdom coming forth from the mouth of the Most High that powerfully and sweetly orders all things. We contemplate him as the one who was with the Father from all eternity, sharing in his act of creating and sustaining all things: we apply to him the many and exalted things the Old Testament has to say about the Wisdom of God.

Then we turn to the Gospel: here, we find ‘the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham’ (Mt 1: 1). What clearer way could there be of emphasising his humanity? He is born in a human family, with a human history: he is a human being like us.

Of course, it is precisely this contrast which lies at the heart of the mystery of Christmas: the one of whom we prepare to celebrate the coming as a helpless infant, born in a stable to a human mother, is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Son begotten of the Father before all ages.

Christmas can sometimes become an overly familiar celebration: every year we hear the same readings, sing the same carols, and we all feel like we know the story. In this final week building up to Christmas, then, the Church in her liturgy presents us with this striking juxtaposition of Jesus the son of Mary and Jesus the pre-existent Wisdom of God: to prepare us to celebrate the feast, we are to be shaken out of our complacent familiarity by this amazing truth of the Incarnation.

O Wisdom, who came forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, powerfully and sweetly ordering all things: come to teach us the way of prudence.