Dom Damian Kearney, O.S.B.
Newsletter, December 1983

What we hope for as Christians is that this Kingdom of God will become more of a reality among the greatest number of people as soon as possible. One of the things which characterized the primitive church more than anything else was the sense of urgency, of immediacy of salvation; it was not something which could be put off. Becoming a follower of Christ was a total commitment; one’s whole life, not just a part of it, was affected. He was the true center of their existence and the goal to which they were tending. The second coming seemed imminent: gradually, when this did not take place, they realized that trying to fix a time to an event which transcends time was a misconception; that they were making the same kind of error as identifying God's Kingdom with glory, power, wealth and domination.

“The Legend of Montserrat” designed by
Alfonso Ossorio ’34 while a student in 1933;
from monastery Christmas card in 1990’s.

During the season of Advent this can be the focus of our meditation: what we as Christians are hoping for, and what we are prepared to do to realize these hopes. The brotherhood of man has become a trite phrase, especially at Christmas time; the term it is easy to become cynical about in an age which seems to ignore the practical validity of this ideal. But we can, like the primitive Christians of old, make a start in our own small communities. If the incentive comes from within us - and if we respond to the word of God, it will – a beginning can be made and the hope become a reality of all men becoming one in Christ through Baptism, annihilating all divisions and making true, complete brotherhood possible: then there shall be “No more Jew or Gentile, no more slave and freeman, no more male and female, since we are all one person in Jesus Christ.”

Dom Damian Kearney, OSB
Newsletter, December 1984

Mary with Infant
(Della Robbia, Linenfold Room)

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice, for the Lord is near.”

Some years ago Philip Barry wrote a play called "The Joyous Season", referring to this season of Advent, and, as I remember it, the title doesn't become truly significant until the final scene of the play which takes place on Christmas Eve. The play is about a large Catholic family which has lost its moral bearings, and as a result, the individual members are in various stages of misery and depression. Since the play is a comedy, by the time the curtain falls in Act Three their broken lives are put back into some sort of order by a wise old nun (Ethel Barrymore when I saw the play) who reminds them of what season it is, why they have much to be thankful for, and they all end up going to Midnight mass, with their differences, at least temporarily, patched up.

This is one way of looking at Christmas and the season of Advent which precedes it: a time of mutual forgiveness, of reconciliation, of new beginnings and increased confidence. For us who live in the "have" nations it is not hard to find reasons for joy and optimism; there are many ways of distracting ourselves from nuclear fear and Third World poverty and even, though this is getting more difficult, from international terrorism. But this kind of joy has to do with tangible reality, something solid, pleasurable and immediate, and therefore necessarily of very short duration.

But this is a very different thing from what the Church has in mind when it bids us at this season to rejoice. We are asked to recall an event which occurred two thousand years ago and to reflect on how the lives of each one of us have been affected by it. In one of his sermons Monsignor Knox poses the question, “What would the world be like if Christmas hadn't happened? And he answers that question by drawing our attention to things that we take so much for granted that it never even occurs to us to ask why they have come about: things like our changed attitude to slavery, to the status of women, to the unity of mankind through the idea of universal brotherhood in the breakdown of the barriers which divide nation from nation, and race from race, and a higher concept of the dignity of the individual, higher because based on a truer notion of what makes a man really human. All of these ideas are still very much with us in the 20th century, mainly because they embody ideals which have still to be realized. The message of Christ provided us with a blueprint. It rests on us to implement these ideals, all of which are summed up in the principle of unity: “In Christ there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of us are one in Christ Jesus.” This quotation from Paul's “Letter to the Galatians” epitomizes the Christian ideal of complete equality and therefore perfect unity: no national, ethnic or religious divisions; no man enslaved by another, whether economically, politically or socially; no woman discriminated against because of her sex. We are still very far from achieving this goal. And part of the reason may be that we have forgotten (or never have been aware of) its origin. We need to be reminded of what makes us brothers and sisters of one another, of the high destiny to which each of us has been called, of the reasons why hope and faith in the future are the hallmarks of the Christian response to the unsettled conditions of the world we live in. This is exactly what the annual celebration of the coming of Christ means, and what it ought to bring to mind.

Dom Damian Kearney, O.S.B.
Newsletter, January 1987
 

Gifts of the Magi (Linenfold Room)

At this season of Christmas, the various names and titles that are given or attributed to Jesus are a way of helping us understand the meaning of the mystery of salvation. Jesus (Saviour), Emmanuel (God with us) and Messiah (Christ, the Anointed One) are the obvious ones, but the one that has exercised the greatest appeal to the imagination as well as to the intellect, to artists, composers and theologians alike, is the symbolic portrayal of Jesus as the Lux Mundi, the Light of the World. We are now in the darkest time of the year, when the nights are much longer than the day hours, but the Church has placed the birth of Christ at the precise time when the days grow longer and the light gradually increases for the next six months. The Old Testament prophecies have been fulfilled, John's witness has become a reality, and the Divine Light has entered our order to reveal to us the depth of God’s love for humanity in the context of his triune personality.

When the shepherds received the Good News of the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem, the “glory of the Lord shone round about them” as their fear was turned into joyous hope; the Magi were guided to Bethlehem by the star which went before them until it rested over the place where the child was, causing them to rejoice with an exceedingly great joy; and finally, bringing to an end the Christmas season, the manifestation of the messianic character of this child to Simeon and Anna in the Temple at the time of Mary's purification, when Simeon blessed God for allowing him to see “the light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to Israel." Three different groups representing different kinds of faith and different degrees of knowledge, but all sharing the same effect of the light which has shone upon them and illumined their understanding: a profound sense of joy, elevation of spirit, hope for the future and of a goal accomplished.

For the shepherds - simple, plain, ignorant, the lowliest element of society - the Light of Christ was to make a radical change in their outlook on life. Like the first disciples of Jesus when his ministry began, the shepherds responded instantly to the angelic message, made the journey to Bethlehem not far distant, and were not disappointed in finding the Messiah born in such humble circumstances; too much learning or misinterpretation of Scripture could be for them no barrier to the light of revelation, as it was for the official representatives of religion: the priests, the scribes and the pharisees. For the shepherds, the birth was cause for rejoicing; their response was faith and a desire to spread the news which they had been the first to receive. Again, the apostles were to act in the same way, sharing the message they had been given, relying on the special light which Jesus, the Word of God, had accorded them.

The Magi too are a symbol of those scholars who truly seek the light, and when it appears, are willing to forgo their own preconceptions and accept what has been revealed to them. The Magi were the scientists of their day, looking to the stars for an explanation of the world about them and revered by the people for their learning. The wise men were not Jews, as Matthew is careful to point out, but were from the East, and, therefore, Gentiles. Not to the official religious establishment but to outsiders is the great revelation made. The reaction of the Magi is exactly like that of the shepherds: acceptance of the revelation, responding to it with joy and alacrity as they set out on their arduous way to Bethlehem, and humbly acknowledging the child as the true king of the Jews, the long-awaited messiah, when they reach the end of their journey, a journey which paradoxically turned out to be the beginning, not the goal and completion of their quest.

Detail from Gift of Magi
(Monastery collection)

But for the final group - the aged, devout and righteous Simeon and Anna, the last of the infancy epiphanies was the goal, the realization and fulfillment of their expectations. To them was given an insight into the nature of the child, one who was to be the cause of the rise and fall of many in Israel, for the redemption of Jerusalem. For this child Simeon and Anna had been waiting expectantly all their lives; for them as for the Magi and the shepherds, the most important event that could have occurred changed their mode of thought: from faith and hope, they were given knowledge through vision; their journey, their quest was at an end; they were ready for the new beginning, the new birth, the new kingdom of promise which was not to be inaugurated. They could depart this life in peace.

For us who live today there are parallels to all three groups: the unlettered, the learned, the devout. The light of God, the Light of the World, shines upon them equally; and each of us, whichever group we may find ourselves in, must respond to that light as a special gift from God, one which we should value and treasure as the most important thing in our lives, as it was for the three groups who recognized and gave witness to the visible reality of the Child-King, the Infant-Messiah, the beacon of hope for both Jew and Gentile. We must allow this light to shine upon us and through us, so that our lives reflect the splendor of the Word made flesh, and so that we too, like the shepherds, the Magi, Simeon and Anna, may act as beacons for others, spreading the good news of the message of Jesus, not just through our words, but through the example of our lives. The day-star has appeared to us. Let us allow it to be our guide.