Saints and Feasts December
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Home ⇰ The Current ⇰ Previous Issues ⇰ December Saints
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December 18-24, 2022
This week presents us with several feasts of note. After celebrating Gaudete Sunday, with its anticipatory antiphon of Christmas joy, we move to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the greatest Marian apparition of the western hemisphere. Her shrine near Mexico City draws about 20 million pilgrims each year. The week then reminds us of Lucia, saint of sight and light, followed by John of the Cross, saint of the dark night of the soul. This contrast fits well our northern hemisphere’s dwindling light and its Advent preparation, as it again awaits the True Light which is to enter our world and our souls. The week ends with the start of the special days of preparation before Christmas, an octave of heightened preparation accented by antiphons acclaiming Our Lord with special titles. These comprise verses of the hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel and their first letters (Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, Emmanuel) spell out in reverse the Latin words ERO CRAS, meaning, "Tomorrow, I will come."
Adoration in Advent
Portsmouth Ordo, Fourth Week of Advent
Sunday, December 18: Fourth Sunday of Advent
Monday, December 19: O Antiphons (Radix)
Tuesday, December 20: O Antiphons (Clavis)
Wednesday, December 21: O Antiphons (Oriens)
Thursday, December 22: O Antiphons (Rex)
Friday, December 23: O Antiphons (Emmanuel)
Saturday, December 24: Christmas Eve: Vespers I, Midnight Mass
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December 11-17, 2022
This week presents us with several feasts of note. After celebrating Gaudete Sunday, with its anticipatory antiphon of Christmas joy, we move to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the greatest Marian apparition of the western hemisphere. Her shrine near Mexico City draws about 20 million pilgrims each year. The week then reminds us of Lucia, saint of sight and light, followed by John of the Cross, saint of the dark night of the soul. This contrast fits well our northern hemisphere’s dwindling light and its Advent preparation, as it again awaits the True Light which is to enter our world and our souls. The week ends with the start of the special days of preparation before Christmas, an octave of heightened preparation accented by antiphons acclaiming Our Lord with special titles. These comprise verses of the hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel and their first letters (Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, Emmanuel) spell out in reverse the Latin words ERO CRAS, meaning, "Tomorrow, I will come."
Portsmouth Ordo, Third Week of Advent
Sunday, December 11: Third Sunday of Advent
Monday, December 12: Our Lady of Guadalupe
Tuesday, December 13: Lucy, virgin & martyr
Wednesday, December 14: John of the Cross, priest & doctor
Thursday, December 15: Advent Weekday
Friday, December 16: Advent Weekday
Saturday, December 17: O Antiphons (O, Sapientia)
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December 4-10, 2022
Our journey in Advent continues, with several feasts evocative of the season. We celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Mary patronage of the United States under this title dates from 1846, as designated then by the American bishops. This Marian feast reminds us of the grace of her choice as the mother of the Incarnate God. Also leading us toward the Christmas feast is St. Nicholas, 4th-century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, who through legend and tradition has come to be seen as the bearer of Christmas gifts. We also this week commemorate Ambrose, another great bishop of the 4th-century, and the earliest of the four traditional Doctors of the Church.
St. Nicholas
Portsmouth Ordo, Second Week of Advent
Sunday, December 4: Second Sunday of Advent
Monday, December 5: Advent weekday
Tuesday, December 6: Nicholas, bishop
Wednesday, December 7: Ambrose, bishop & doctor
Thursday, December 8: Solemnity of Immaculate Conception
Friday, December 9: Advent weekday
Saturday, December 10: Advent weekday (Mass: B.V.M.)
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November 27 – December 3, 2022
The year begins anew for the church, as we prepare for our Lord’s coming. Two apostolic saints share the week with us, as we celebrate Andrew and Francis Xavier. Andrew is known as the first of all apostles, directing his brother Peter to the Lord. He is associated with many regions, whose traditions assert that Andrew carried the gospel far abroad to them. Still more claim his spiritual patronage. Some fifteen centuries later, Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, brought the gospel around the world, suffering death on Shangchuan Island in China. May this apostolic zeal serve as inspiration to us, that we may, in this new liturgical year, carry the message of Good News to those we are called to serve.
Designed by Oblate Jose Soares
Portsmouth Ordo, First Week of Advent
Sunday, November 27: First Sunday of Advent
Monday, November 28: Feria
Tuesday, November 29: Feria
Wednesday, November 30: Andrew, apostle
Thursday, December 1: Feria
Friday, December 2: Feria
Saturday, December 3: Francis Xavier, religious & priest
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Francis Xavier, religious and priest
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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.
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John Damascene, priest and doctor
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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
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Nicholas, bishop
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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
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Ambrose, bishop and doctor
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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
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The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
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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.
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Our Lady of Guadalupe
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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
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John of the Cross, priest and doctor
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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.
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O Antiphons
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Stephen, deacon and martyr
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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)
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John, apostle and evangelist
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The Abbey's sacring bell - John's icon
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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.
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Holy Family
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Flight to Egypt, in Abbey church
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Sunday after Christmas (December 26, 2021)
"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)
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Holy Innocents, martyrs
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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)
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Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr
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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.
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