Saints and Feasts
December

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- This Season in Heaven
  
  Dec 24, 2020 - Jan 9, 2021
  Blake Billings, Ph.D.
  We enter into the joyful season of Christmas, the “twelve days” of celebration of the fulfillment of God’s Incarnation among us. In time and space, in human form, in history. We proceed from the celebration of our Lord’s nativity through a series of related moments and events. We celebrate the Holy Family, whose feast was moved into the Christmas season in 1969. We shall celebrate Epiphany the following Sunday, January 3. We officially complete the season with Our Lord’s Baptism, on Sunday, January 10. Another highlight of the season is the celebration of Mary, Mother of God, the solemnity of the new calendar year. The intervening days are “seasoned” with significant feasts: Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The Holy Innocents, the first martyrs for Christ. These days commemorating martyrdom remind us, amidst the joy of Christmas, that the Incarnation is also the embrace of mortality, and is initiates a life destined for the Cross. We will recall Thomas Becket, himself a martyr a millennium after Stephen and the Holy Innocents. Yet, if a thousand years are like a day in the eyes of the Lord, we may consider the proximity of all of this to our own time. We may consider the words of John, apostle and evangelist, whose feast this year is suppressed by Sunday’s feast of the Holy Family, of which he ultimately became an adopted son: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... to all who believed in His name He gave the power to become children of God.” (Jn. 1)
Francis Xavier, religious and priest
- Feast day: December 3
  
  Francis Xavier is known as "Apostle of the Indies" and "Apostle of Japan," and is considered by some the greatest apostle since Saint Paul. Originally from Navarre, this 16th-century Jesuit, one of the early members of the order and confrere of Ignatius, was canonized in the early 17th century by Pope Gregory XV. He died on Shangchuan Island in his attempt to evangelize China.
John Damascene, priest and doctor
- Feast day: December 4
  
  John Damascene, a personage of prime importance in the history of Byzantine Theology, a great Doctor in the history of the Universal Church. Above all he was an eyewitness of the passage from the Greek and Syrian Christian cultures shared by the Eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, to the Islamic culture, which spread through its military conquests in the territory commonly known as the Middle or Near East. John, born into a wealthy Christian family, at an early age assumed the role, perhaps already held by his father, of Treasurer of the Caliphate. Very soon, however, dissatisfied with life at court, he decided on a monastic life, and entered the monastery of Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. This was around the year 700. He never again left the monastery, but dedicated all his energy to ascesis and literary work, not disdaining a certain amount of pastoral activity, as is shown by his numerous homilies. His liturgical commemoration is on the 4 December. Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him Doctor of the Universal Church in 1890. Read Complete Article
Nicholas, bishop
- Feast day: December 6
  BISHOP OF MYRA (4TH CENTURY)
  
  One of the most popular medieval saints, both in the Eastern Church and the Church in the West, was Nicholas of Myra. Nearly nothing is known of his life aside from his being a Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor during the 4lh century. This, however, has not prevented the creation of a multitude of legends or readings, to supply the need for a colorful life of the saint. Although Myra is the site of Nicholas’ episcopate, Bari in Northern Italy is the place where his reputed remains lie, the result of the theft from his tomb by Italian merchants in 1087 in order to provide a pilgrimage center where miracles could take place through the saint’s intercession. Venice procured the relics of Saint Mark by a similar theft from Alexandria in 468 for the honor attached to the shrine of an evangelist and securing his patronage. Such pilfering is often given the euphemistic name of translation and celebrated by a special feast day commemorating the transferal.
  Read Complete Article
Ambrose, bishop and doctor
- Feast day: December 7
  Father of the Church
  
  Holy Bishop Ambrose died in Milan in the night between 3 and 4 April 397. It was dawn on Holy Saturday. The day before, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, he had settled down to pray, lying on his bed with his arms wide open in the form of a cross. Thus, he took part in the solemn Easter Triduum, in the death and Resurrection of the Lord. "We saw his lips moving", said Paulinus, the faithful deacon who wrote his Life at St Augustine's suggestion, "but we could not hear his voice". The situation suddenly became dramatic. Honoratus, Bishop of Vercelli, who was assisting Ambrose and was sleeping on the upper floor, was awoken by a voice saying again and again, "Get up quickly! Ambrose is dying...". "Honoratus hurried downstairs", Paulinus continues, "and offered the Saint the Body of the Lord. As soon as he had received and swallowed it, Ambrose gave up his spirit, taking the good Viaticum with him. His soul, thus refreshed by the virtue of that food, now enjoys the company of Angels" (Life, 47). On that Holy Friday 397, the wide open arms of the dying Ambrose expressed his mystical participation in the death and Resurrection of the Lord. This was his last catechesis: in the silence of the words, he continued to speak with the witness of his life.
  Read Complete Article
The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
- Feast day: December 8
  
  This feast recognizing the conception of Our Lady, free of original sin, is the patronal feast of the United States of America.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Feast: December 12
  
  On December 9, 1531, Juan Diego,an Indian peasant about 50 years old was walking near an ancient pagan site near Mexico City, a hill once sacred to the earth goddess, Tonanzin. Suddenly, he saw an apparition of Our Lady, who told him to go to the archbishop and erect a church on this spot which was to be dedicated to her. In the pattern of subsequent apparitions of Our Lady in France, Portugal and most recently in Croatia, the message was greeted with skepticism until a miracle confirmed the apparition. This took the form of roses sprouting at the site which Juan Diego gathered up in his cloak at the command of the Virgin and brought to the archbishop three days after the first vision, on December 12. When he opened his cloak, the roses fell on to the ground before the archbishop and on the cloth was a miraculous painting of Our Lady portrayed as she is in the Book of Revelation, with a crescent moon at her feet and 12 stars at her head, clad in a blue robe decorated with golden stars surrounded by rays of the sun. Supporting her is a cherub with Indian features. Mary likewise has the face of an Indian. Ever since, Our Lady has had a central place in popular devotion in Mexico, her cult spreading quickly throughout Spanish America and beyond.
  
  Read complete article
John of the Cross, priest and doctor
- Feast day: December 14
  
  This 16th-century Carmelite, born in Fontiveros, Avila, was important in the Spanish Counter-Reformation, and benefited greatly from the direction of Teresa of Jesus. Already an ordained priest, John encountered her in 1567, and was diverted from his plan to become a Carthusian, founding a Carmelite monastery. Violent disagreement within the Carmelites led to his imprisonment and torture for about eight months. Escaping, and recovering, he later gained greater leadership of the reformed Carmelites known as "discalced" (without shoes). His writings, Spiritual Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul, are considered masterpieces of spirituality and of Spanish poetry.
- O Antiphons
  
  December 17
  O Wisdom which came from the mouth of the Most High,
  reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
  come to teach us the way of prudence.
  December 18
  O Adonai, leader of the House of Israel,
  who appeared in the bush to Moses in a flame of fire, and on Sinai gave him the Law:
  come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
  December 19
  O Root of Jesse who stands as a sign for the nations,
  at whom kings shall fall silent, who the Gentiles shall seek:
  come, deliver us and do not delay.
  December 20
  O Key of David and scepter of the House of Israel,
  who opens and no man shuts, who closes and no man opens:
  come, bring forth prisoners from the house of bondage,
  those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
  December 21
  O Dayspring, brightness of eternal light and sun of righteousness:
  come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
  December 22
  O King of nations and their desire; the cornerstone who makes the two be one:
  come and save mankind whom you formed out of clay.
  December 23
  O Emmanuel, our King and Giver of our Law, the Desire of the nations and their Savior:
  come and save us, our Lord and our God.
  
  DECEMBER 24
  
  Christmas Eve. Depending on when you attend Mass to celebrate the Nativity of the Lord, the Scripture read will be different. Spend time reading these four excerpts from the Gospels today: Matthew 1:18-25 (Vigil Mass); Luke 2:1-14 (Mass during the Night); Luke 2:15-20 (Mass at Dawn); John 1:1-18 (Mass during the Day)
Stephen, deacon and martyr
- Feast day: December 26
  
  Stephen... "filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed upon him together. They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning Stephen, he called out 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'”
  
  (see Acts 6-7, first reading of the day)
John, apostle and evangelist
- The Abbey's sacring bell - John's icon
- Feast day: December 27
  
  The Beloved disciple, the fourth evangelist, and the young apostle, the only apostle not martyred. John was a central figure in the early Christian church and continues to shape it through his words now in the canon of Scripture.
Holy Family
- Flight to Egypt, in Abbey church
- Sunday after Christmas (December 27, 2020)
  
  "When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. ...When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him."
  
  (Luke 2, from the gospel of the day)
Holy Innocents, martyrs
- Feast day: December 28
  
  "When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet:
  
  A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children,
  and she would not be consoled, since they were no more."
  
  (Matthew 2; from the gospel of the day)
Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr
- Feast Day: December 29
  
  Thomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the church in England, until his infamous murder in 1170. He has remained an important figure, particularly to the church in England.

Saints and Feasts December

Saints and Feasts
December