The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Pauca Verba (a few words)
It is the First Sunday of Advent: Advent is the liturgical season of 4 weeks prior to the Feast of Christ’s Nativity. But it’s not so simple as getting everything ready for Christmas. We feel the absence of Jesus in our world and in our lives. We listen to the Prophet Isaiah, that the Lord would not delay in sending the long awaited Messiah – the Christ – the great kind, greater than all the other kings, including David! We are encouraged to open ourselves to the Lord’s coming. Saint John the Baptist tells us to prepare – to get ready – to come to our senses and to set up an inner way for the Lord. This takes some doing – more than a little attentive insight and honesty. “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,” we pray in the Nicene Creed each Sunday. Do I believe it? Christ coming again? Does Christ have a straight path to my soul? It’s not just about God’s coming to us at Christmas, but that Christ will return, and that Christ wants entrée to my life today – even now! What might this mean for me?
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Rorate Coeli Mass: Traditional for the Saturday mornings of Advent – the Rorate Mass (Roar-ah-tay Chay-lee). Mass in honor of the Virgin Mary – celebrated by candle light – at dawn! Her presence in the gospel is not for nothing, we say.
How beautiful is this?! Getting up before dawn – sign of readiness, willingness, anticipation: like sailors ready to sail at first light. I long for Jesus. I await Jesus.
Everyone is invited, of course. But coming to this early Mass will require a sacrifice. We’ll have to be awake at 5:30 A.M. on Saturday and set out for the chapel at 5:45. At the bottom of the hill, where the paths converge before ascending to the chapel, we’ll be given a candle. Name the darkness! Protect the little light if the day is windy or wet. Walk by this little Light of Faith – one step at a time. Get it? Wow! A dawn Mass is full of meaning for us!
Think about if you’d like to participate. They’ll be a sign-up this week. We also might briefly ponder the past – perhaps having come home at dawn after a bad night out. A little reparation, for the love of God.
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Rorate Coeli, desuper, et nubes pluant justum, asperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem.
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior.
Don’t we need the heavens to drop down dew on our earth, parched with wars, death, self-promotion, injustice, human folly? Don’t we need the heavens to rain down justice for us? Don’t we need the earth to open and green with new faith in the teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ? Of course, this dew, this rain, this opening, this budding must begin in my own life first! You understand.
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Saint Matthew’s Gospel tells us: “Jesus continued around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.” (Matthew 4:23)
What does it mean to continue? To press on, to carry on. But don’t continue on a fool’s errand. Don’t continue living in ignorance or on a wrong path. Don’t continue in wrong-headedness, sin or evil-doing.
But when I’m feeling war-weary: to continue.
When I seem to take 2 steps forward and three back: to continue.
When I question the value of what I’m doing: to continue.
When my prayer seems sleepy, dry or distracted: to continue.
When fear wants to reduce me to hiding, quitting and paralysis: to continue.
There’s a little pamphlet on the altar step this weekend to help us grow during the Advent time. Pick one up and let it be a holy companion for the 4 weeks of Advent. My mind is a hard drive, isn’t it? Like a dirty room, cluttered with every kind of nasty thing, it will take time to clean it out and restore it to order and beauty. That’s why there are bulletins and pamphlets and other things left for us to read each week at Mass. They are like spiritual brooms.
A Few Words