“May He bring His gifts to perfection in us, since He did not shrink from making His own our tiny beginnings; and may He make us into children of God, since for our sake He was willing to be made a child of man.”
Advent season into Christmas season greetings to dearest Sisters in Christ,
It is said that more people return to their Christian faith, or open the door to it for the first time, during the Advent and Christmas seasons. Yes, even more than at Easter. What heart doesn’t soften with the tenderness and sweet love of a newborn? One can perhaps approach the Babe with greater ease than He Who is bearing the vulgar cruelty of wounds and death.
God’s plan is a masterful marvel. As GK Chesterton, prolific writer and Catholic convert, muses, “Bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet… where heaven meets earth. … God comes to make a home in the world and finds himself homeless. … the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.”
The King of kings arrived in the lowliest form – an echo of every creature’s beginning. In this detail of LeNain’s painting, Nativity with a Torch, it is striking how Mary’s hands grasp the swaddling cloth. The artist has captured a seemingly deliberate pause, a uniquely profound suspended moment. In it, perhaps Mary is aligned with St Mother Teresa’s thoughts expressed centuries later: “I can understand the greatness of God, but I cannot understand His humility.”
Each priest is bestowed innumerable graces for an ever-deepening identity with Jesus. That identity includes every aspect of Christ’s life – even that of the Christ Child. Vulnerability. Trust. Tenderness. Dependence. Conduit of love. Recipient of love. Needing silence. Needing rest. A reassuring ordinariness. An evident uniqueness. Bearer of pain, joy, truth, peace. Humility.
As Seven Sisters we have the opportunity in this Advent season of perhaps praying for a more heightened awareness for the priest/bishop for whom we are committed to pray, of a recognition of this aspect of his priestly identity. Christ came, and comes now, that we may have life and life to the fullest (John 10:10). The priest exists for the same. He grows too, in wisdom and stature.
The priest is ever-connected to Calvary. Caryll Houselander in The Passion of the Infant Christ (1949), reminds that Bethlehem holds the imprint of Calvary: On Calvary Jesus was naked, stripped of His garments and all He had. In Bethlehem the same was true. On Calvary He was lifted up, helpless, and held up for men to look upon. In Bethlehem, likewise. “Lo, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me!” On Calvary Christ was laid upon a wooden cross. In Bethlehem, within a wooden manger. By the Cross stood Mary, by the crib knelt Mary. Jesus was mocked at His birth by Herod. At His death, by the crowds and the Roman soldiers. Angels were near at His birth and so too stood beside the empty tomb. In Bethlehem Christ slept His first sleep in His Mother’s arms; on Calvary He slept His last sleep in the same arms. Through a deepened understanding of his identity with the Infant Christ, the priest understands that here too he is indisputably linked with the passion of Christ.
Houselander continues: “Christ came out of the darkness of the womb… (and the tomb). He is the Light of the World. He came to give the world life. … At Bethlehem, Love and Death met in the body of Christ, and Love prevailed.” His Resurrection perpetuates the mission. The priest is called into the immortalization of this mission! Over and again he is called afresh and anew to both the altar and to crossroads of life to be the Light bearer, the conduit of Love, the one who reminds that Love prevails. Through the conference of the sacraments, through prayers and blessings, through wise counsel, through presence and silence … the priest is sent to remind of Love. He is the ambassador of love. The aspects of the Infant Child assist: tenderness, vulnerability, dependence on God for all. We are privileged to pray for this fullness of identity in Christ in each priest/bishop.
Our God does not disparage smallness. He put Himself there. He entered the world as a baby. Later his arms were stretched on the wood of the cross which, against the expanse of the sky, appeared miniscule. In the most seemingly absurd move, He makes Himself smaller still, more vulnerable, lowlier – as our Bread of eternal Life. Oh, sublime condescension! He fore-ordained that He would call simple men to humbly follow His Way and in turn they would shepherd others to embrace the Way.
The seeming smallness of our weekly hidden-to-the-world prayers likely impart substantial delight to Our Lord and are fated to great merit in His economy. He has a Way of making small things colossal! Let us continue in our committed prayers and sacrifices in this Season where many hearts will return to life through the Faith and where many priests are needed to be the conduit. Our prayers significantly support the extra labors of the priests in these days of additional Liturgies, confessions, counsel, home visits, hospital calls and in the crossroads of both life and death.
St Therese of Lisieux articulates our eternal way of love as a Seven Sister in united partnership of prayer for our priests: “I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places…in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love…my vocation, at last I have found it…My vocation is Love!”
A most heartfelt Blessed and Joy-filled Advent and Christmas season to you – as we together embrace Love beyond all telling – both now and forever!
SAVE the DATE: National Seven Sisters Pilgrimage – Washington, DC. 18-20 Sept 2020. Check Website for details and registration info. Our prayerful presence here is significant!
United in prayer and mission…
that our prayers may find the heart of every bishop and priest…
… eternal gratitude continues as you each remember to offer a wee Hail Mary for me every day…. “One Ave Maria makes hell tremble” (St John Vianney). Pray that I will not ‘spoil the beautiful work that God has entrusted…’ (St Teresa of Calcutta)
… your kind emails and notes and phone calls and generous support always arrive to my heart door at the right moment! Your financial sacrifices are for 100% furtherance of Apostolate. THANK YOU! The letters of testimony are so beautiful and edifying! What glory is given to God through your writing! Eternal gratitude is mine for YOU! Be assured of my continued daily prayers for you at the altar.
Janette
+JMJ+
sevensistersapostolate@gmail.com