Sunday within the Christmas Octave
Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia
Sunday within the Octave of Christmas
Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia…while all things were in quiet silence and the might was in the midst of her course, Thy Almighty Word, O Lord, came down from heaven, from Thy royal throne.
Beloved in Christ, these opening words of today’s Mass liturgy introduce an atmosphere of inexpressible peace, mystical reflection and heavenly bliss. For today is the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas and the whole of its liturgical text continues to express the mystery of the Christmas festival. We are reminded again of the coming of God into our very flesh while our solemn worship speaks of the effect of Christ’s advent in our lives.
In the Mass today we are led to reflect on the mar-vel of the Incarnation and the grace it signifies. We are given time to realize why these events have taken place and where we may find the moving power behind them all. It is for this reason that Holy Church opens to-day’s Mass with two verses from the Book of Wisdom: When all things were in quiet silence…
The Jews of the Old Testament treasured sacred scripture and had a particular veneration for the wis-dom literature. But they did not realize the fullest meaning of these writings. This passage which com-prises Introit of today’s Mass, and repeated in the anti-phon to the canticles at both Lauds and Vespers of to-day sets this passage from Wisdom in its true, Messia-nic, context:
When a profound stillness encompassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent . . .
We should reflect on how often God works His wonders of grace while the world sleeps. The birth of Our Re-deemer took place in forgotten Bethlehem at midnight. During His public ministry Jesus often withdrew to spend the night alone in prayer with His heavenly Fa-ther. It was during the night that the Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist. It was also in that same night that the stillness was broken by the mob coming with clubs and swords to take Him to His bitter Passion and the world’s salvation. At the moment of His death upon the cross the very day changed to night. Indeed, Thy almighty Word, O Lord, leaped down from heaven’s royal throne.
As often as the Jews read this passage they never grasped its true meaning. But on that first Christmas night, when His own knew Him not as Saint John the Evangelist tells us The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word spoken from all eternity by the heavenly Father was His only-begotten Son. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This one line from the Gospels, so often repeated in the liturgy is a pro-found meditation on the mystery of God’s love for us. Could there be a more apt description of the eternal generation of the Son of God?
Here then, in the course of a long-lost winter’s night, the luminous clarity of God’s eternal splendor descended from heaven and laid in the poverty, the obscurity, the rejection of an animal’s manger. Born to this rejection by men the Savior’s birth was heralded by the angelic host instead: Glory to God in the high-est… and though the story is so familiar we must not forget the reality it represents.
Our Lord’s appearance among men was not in the presence of Kings and royal splendor. The first human witnesses apart from His mother and St. Joseph were simple shepherds watching their flocks. It is in deep-est conformity to the reality of the Savior’s mission that His birth should have taken place in such poverty, cold and obscurity. For this Child is a sign of wonder and contradiction: He is the corner stone for some and a stumbling block for others. Christ, by His mere presence, implies a choice for the world on its busy and oftentimes mindless path. It is for us to welcome into our lives Him Who each one – for his salvation or eternal perdition – must receive or reject.
As Saint Paul teaches us in today’s epistle reading, it is through Jesus that we may become sons of adop-tion, and through that, heirs to eternal life. But this remains, always, a choice of our own making even when sufficiently aided by divine grace. Shall we re-ceive this Almighty Word into our lives by a true con-formity to His reign over us? Or shall we remain dead to His grace by only the outward appearances of re-ligion – a faith which is more of an illusion created for others, or worse still, a shallow deception of ourselves?
Jesus was born so that we might be saved and God is at pains that we come to know the fullest im-plication of this teaching. Today, already, the Gospel anticipates the last day of the Christmas season. Je-sus had just been presented in the Temple: Old Sime-on asks God to take him from this world since now, at last, his eyes had beheld the Light of Salvation. And Anna the ancient prophetess confessed this infant to be the long awaited Redemption of Israel. And yet who believed this astonishing witness? It, along with the angels, the shepherds, the Magi of the East and Her-od’s ferocious jealousy, all had passed, seemingly, into oblivion when Christ changed water into wine at the Wedding feast of Cana.
Beloved, let us join our hearts and voices to those of the angels, the shepherds, Simeon and old Anna. Let us bravely and openly confess this Child to be our God and King. Let us live for Him without equivoca-tion. Let us lead others to Him by the charity of our souls and the generosity of our spirit in love for God and our neighbor. For here, lying in this crib is none other than the eternal Word of the Father.
By this lowly birth of mine
Sinner, riches shall be thine,
Matchless gifts – and free.
Willingly this yoke I take,
And this sacrifice I make,
Heaping joys for thee.