Mother and Child

The Christmas Program this year was simple (due to our extra duties with Sister Mary Bernadette’s declining health) — but very lovely. The elementary students (grade k-6) put on a pageant focusing on the shepherd and the gift that Our Infant Lord desires (our hearts!). The junior and senior high school students played several complicated (three-part) Christmas carols. Click the link for pictures. DVD’s of the program are available from the SBC bookstore ($5 plus shipping and handling — call 603-239-6485).

[I realize that the Christmas season just ended; but one of our Sisters gathered these quotes, and I don't wish to wait another year to share them with you. Sr. M. Ph.]

Dominus dixit ad me, Filius meus es tu; ego hodie genui te.  The Lord said to my Lord, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. That was taken from Psalm II. For one thousand years all the holy men and women repeated it. The royal, poetic prophet David, who was inspired to give us the 150 Psalms, was privileged to hear this sentence uttered in eternity. This is overhearing talk among the eternal Persons of the Trinity.

God the Father said to the Eternal Son, You are my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Some people, like Saint Louis Marie de Montfort and our very beautiful eastern saint (who was long before him but had the same genius), Saint Ephrem, see Our Lady in everything.  Now this sounds like a sentence heard thundering in eternity. And you say, Where is Mary? Well I will show you where Mary is.

There is only one other person that could make that same sentence, and that was the Blessed Virgin Mary.  That same sentence, exactly as it was uttered by God the Father, thundering in eternity before the world was created, could be said by the Blessed Virgin Mary on the first Christmas. Thou art my Son; this day I have begotten Thee.

And don’t think that the Holy Ghost Who inspired that sentence to be there, to be chanted, to be repeated, to be meditated on for a thousand years before the first Christmas occurred, did not notice that that sentence was a common statement that could only be said by two Persons, God the Father in eternity, and the Blessed Virgin Mary in time.

Dominus dixit ad me, Filius meus es tu; ego hodie genui te. The Lord said to me, Thou art my Son; this day… This day (that’s the now of eternity; that’s the day of eternity) God the Father is saying it at this instant, because eternity over-arches all of time.

But the Blessed Virgin Mary is saying it on the first Christmas, on the first day in which Jesus was a baby in our world.  And somehow, because when time and eternity unite, eternity takes over, Our Lady can be saying it right now, as if it is the first Christmas.  (12/24/1978 Brother Francis Talks I # 11 unedited)

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Viderunt omnes fines terrae salutare Dei nostri. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. All the ends of the earth. That, in a way, is a wonderful phrase in defense of our position. They pretend today that there are millions and millions and millions of people that don’t even know that a Savior was given to us.  And therefore, because they don’t know, you can’t blame them. And because you can’t blame them, they will all be canonized saints in Heaven. And we say that is not at all realistic. All the ends of the earth…

That is probably the greatest miracle that this world knows. Can you tell me, if you were  watching that little crib on the night of the first Christmas, with oxes and asses, little cats running around, very poor father and Mother, little Baby, can you say that they would be able to have a campaign of publicity, of advertisement, to announce what was happening there to all the ends of the earth? You say, “Where would they get the finances? Where would they find the billboard company that will spread the news” and so on?

How did the Faith of what is happening on Christmas come to you and me? How did it
survive? In one way, it’s terrible that there isn’t more realization that Jesus is God, that there are still hundreds of millions of people that have followed some other leader, as if they could find as much from him as they could find from our little Baby of Bethlehem. It’s terrible that that should be so!

But just imagine, to look at it now a little bit from an encouraging angle. Imagine with the frailty of every one of us, all the human problems, everyone of us could be discouraged, give up. Saint Francis every time he saw the worst criminal would say, There, but for the grace of God, go I. Any one of us looking to see the privilege by which we do have the Faith could see how we could easily have missed out on it…

With all that frailty, still on the face of this earth now, from Still River in Massachusetts (whoever would think that that’s the way to start?) to the remotest island, there is hardly a human being   old enough to know what time of the day it is, or what day of the week, that doesn’t know that tomorrow is Christmas, and doesn’t somehow know that Christmas is the Birthday of God.   (12/24/1978  Brother Francis Talks I # 11)

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Just imagine the eternal God in swaddling clothes, the garments of helplessness!

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Puer natus est nobis.  A Child is born to us.  Filius datus est nobis.   And a Son is given to us.  Cuius imperium super humerum eius.  Whose empire is on His shoulders. What does that mean?  It means that we don’t vote Him into office.  He comes with royalty vested right on His own Person.  We can ignore that authority, that royalty, only at the risk of our eternal salvation.  He is a KING, and He is NOT a king by any human institution.

Et vocabitur nomen eius, and His Name shall be called magni consilii Angelus, the Angel of great
counsel. Now what tremendous power is found in these few words!

First let me go to the two words, Child and Son. Our Lord is a Child. Our Lord is a Son. Child immediately makes us think of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A child is born, is mothered. A Son emphasizes more the Father.  When the Father’s voice spoke from Heaven to tell us Who Jesus Christ was, one of only three times that the voice of the Eternal Father was heard on this earth, He didn’t say, This is my Child. He said, This is my Son.

So Our Lady would say, This is my Child. God the Father would say, This is my Son. He is both at the same time.

Now it doesn’t mean that God the Father cannot, in some sense say, He is my Child. It does not mean that the Blessed Virgin Mary cannot say, in some sense, This is my Son. It just means that, this is where again we say, our motto at the Center, as Father used to say, We distinguish; we do not divide.

When you call Him Child you think first of Mary and, via Mary, of the Eternal Father.  When you think of Son you think first of the Eternal Father and, via the Eternal Father, of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  That’s where the greatest Supreme Being Who is God, and the greatest creature ever made, the masterpiece of creation, the source and fountain of the life of grace, the exemplar of all sanctity, that’s where They speak the same language.  That’s where They have something definitely and uniquely in common.  No other person in the world can enter in on it.

When God the Father sees His Son, and Mary sees Her Child in the crib of Bethlehem, that is the
salvation of the world.  All the issues of the world boil down to one question.  Every Catholic will have to answer it!  Every Protestant will have to answer it, all the different billions of varieties they have!  Every Jew will have to answer it!  Every Moslem will have to answer it!  Every Buddhist will have to answer it!  Who – is -  that – Child – in the crib of Bethlehem?

Don’t tell me that they haven’t heard about it.  Don’t tell me that there are millions of people that don’t know that at least some people say that this is the Birthday of God.  What’s that question?  Who – is – that – Baby – in – the – Crib? The Child of Mary, we all know, the Son of God, the same, one Person, two clear, different natures.  Every nature presupposes a birth. Born in eternity, born in time.

A Child was born to us.  Notice; a Son was given, the Child was born.  A Child was born, and a Son was given.  Born from the Virgin Mary, given by the Eternal Father.

His Kingdom, His Empire is on His shoulders.  We don’t vote Him into power.  He is there, our King.  Take Him or leave Him.  We leave Him only by going to hell, that’s it, by choosing to go to hell.  God intended, and we go along with it, every man is free to decide to go to hell; there is nothing you can do to stop them.  You are free to do it.  I am free to do it.  Every living man is free to do it.

If they want to go to Heaven, there is only one way to do it.  They have to come to this Savior and to the things He instituted for salvation.  That is the truth that Father taught us.  That is the truth that we promised Father that until they cut us in pieces we are not going to betray!

…We know very well that there is not going to be any revival of the strong Church, the great Church, the sacred Church, until they come back to this doctrine.

Puer natus est nobis et filius datus est nobis, cuius imperium super humerum eius, et vocabitur.  His Name shall be called the Angel of the great Counsel? What is the great counsel in this world?  Simply the counsel that lets us know that eternity is greater than time, that there is no success in this world unless it leads to salvation.  That is the great counsel.  That’s wisdom.  Everything else is nothing but folly.

A man could be the most learned man, the most educated man, the most sophisticated man, he could use big long words from the dictionary – he is a big fool if he thinks there is any other success on this earth short of
saving his own soul.  What good does it do him to be a professor at Harvard and spend his eternity in hell?  (12/31/1978  Brother Francis Talks I # 12 unedited)

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Let me see anybody invent a competition for Christmas.  Let me see them try it.  That is a great miracle.  We watch it every year happening.  The whole world is full with a joy, with a spirit, even the purity of the air, no other time of the year is capable of repeating it.  So, if Jesus is not God, try to explain how this came to be.

Now the Gloria IS a Christmas song.  And the Gloria is not a song that men started; it is a song that the angels started.  Some of the books I was reading the last couple of days, it says that while the angels knew, in some abstract, angelic way, that God loved men, and was going to go to live their life and be with them in order to bring them
salvation, while they knew that, they still couldn’t believe it when they saw it realized.

And that the song wasn’t something that some super angelic intellectual sat down and wrote, it was the way they exploded in sheer amazement to see God on the straw between an ox and an ass.  And they shouted-the whole choir of angels.  They say not one angel was left out of it.  Every angel in Heaven spontaneously shouted, Gloria to the Highest!

So that is Christmas, and if we have Gloria in the Mass, every time it is said it is Christmas put in the Mass again.  So Gloria is that great Christmas hymn.  (Brother Francis Talks I # 11   12/24/78)

Close-up of our front hall Madonna

A blessed Epiphany to you! The Three Kings have arrived at all the Nativity scenes. We have had more snow and ice (it is snowing right now). However, we have power, school has started, and everything is “back to normal.” Deo gratias!

When hands are too cold to take any more pictures, you get this!

On New Year’s Eve I took a few night-time pictures of the Christmas lights. I was so cold by the time I was done, I checked the temperature: -5 degrees, with a wind-chill of -20. Enjoy the pictures!

The entrance to Saint Paul's House - inside & out

Lumen de Lumine

The chapel entrance

The chapel windows glow warmly (the window were a high school art project - painted - some six years ago or so.)

Our Lady of Fatima with a luminous cloud

Infinite God - Mary's Babe

Lights are some much fun to play with and can create such interesting effects:

Our Lady in the front hall

The school hallway - Christmas cards are still arriving; we may need to add a fourth row. On of the high school boys designed the lights around the picture frame.

The school creche - made from salt dough (more than ten years ago) by the students and modeled after a Mexican Nativity set. The Three Kings haven't arrived yet.

The Infant Jesus seeks a welcome in your heart!

Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year to all our readers!

We are having a lovely Christmas season that started with the three Christmas Masses. The weather has been strange: rain and wind, but now it is snowing and now it looks properly festive outside .

All the manger scenes include the Holy Family and the shepherds, but the Three Kings still have another week to travel. So in these pictures, if you look for the Magi, you’ll have to look at a distance from the stable.

You are all in our prayers that your hearts will have made room for the Divine Infant – that He may receive a Royal Welcome. Click on “continue reading” for more pictures of our Christmas decorations.

Here are some outdoor pictures to start with:

The shepherds worship at the manger in a snow-storm.

The Kings travel in the same storm.

Here is the sanctuary of our chapel. It is little, but full of love.

A dear friend gave me some tips the other day on how to take good panoramas. Here I tried to put them into effect. These two pictures were taken today. (If you click on the picture, you will get a larger image.)

A wider view of the chapel - can you find the Three Kings?