Tag Archives: Gaza

Saving Advent and Christmas

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Wikipedia’s article on Advent offers a description about how Christian denominations– Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist– approach the feast of Christmas, through devotional prayers and practices like the Advent wreath, the Christmas tree, musical performances like the Nine Lessons of Carols and Handel’s Messiah. Purple is the color of the season in most of these churches, blue in the Scandinavian countries.

The Wikipedia article features the devotions of Advent. Little is said ofGreek church’s Nativity Fast or the Roman Catholic liturgy of Advent. The Catholic liturgy of Advent “remained unchanged until the Second Vatican Council introduced minor changes,” it says.

That’s not accurate. The Roman Catholic Advent liturgy underwent a major change after the Second Vatican Council. A better schedule of readings and new Eucharistic prefaces were introduced to the liturgy; morning and evening prayers and other parts of its liturgy were enhanced. The Catholic Advent liturgy is a ringing affirmation of hope.

Advent hope is nourished by the first coming of Jesus Christ, but also by the promise of his second coming. It’s hope defying human calculation or human logic – an impossible hope. A hope spelled out in the devotions like the Advent wreath and the Christmas tree, but above all proclaimed in the Advent scriptures and liturgy.

Isaiah’s oracles from 8th century Judea are heard in the first few week of Advent, They proclaim that kind of hope.  Even as Assyrian armies capture and destroy his land, Isaiah sees a sign, the root of Jesse, set up before the nations. 

“His dwelling shall be glorious. The wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; The calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD, as water covers the sea.”

Wolves and lambs, leopards and kid goats, calves and lions lie down together on God’s holy mountain. The impossible becomes possible. That’s the  kind of hope we need today. 

Our Christian holidays and seasons are suffering more and more from secularization and commercialization. Like Santa Claus they need to be saved. They celebrate a greater hope than human imagination dares – hope in God and the promises God offers in Jesus Christ.

Let’s celebrate that hope in our liturgy.

St. Procopius of Gaza

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St. Procopius of Gaza (yes, that Gaza,  a thriving Christian center when that saint wrote) says that Christ has “as his dwelling-place, the whole world in which he lives by his activity.”  It’s not one place, or one time where he dwells, but the whole world and all time. He dwells in Gaza too.

We are all made in his image “which is partly seen and partly hidden from our eyes.” We’re called to grow in Christ’s image, the saint says, by the gifts we have been given through his Spirit. No place should be without human flourishing.

Its not a spiritual growth alone we’re called to achieve, but our growth comes from discovering God’s will as it is “revealed in the laws by which the entire creation is governed.”

So, St. Procopius, intercede for your land of Gaza today, so bereft of  basic things like food, shelter, schools, access to the world beyond. Help your people, made in God’s image, to grow according to God’s will. Help them have what’s due to them according to their human rights.

St. Procopius of Gaza

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Saint Procopious of Gaza. He’s the saint who offers a beautiful reflection on wisdom in the Office of Readings today. But from Gaza, that poor broken place of violence today? He wrote long ago when Gaza was a thriving Christian center, of course.  But still, as we see in broken places like Egypt and Iran, wisdom still builds a house, even in the midst of destruction. As we listen to his words, can we hope for renewal in Gaza and Egypt,  and also in our own land?

“Wisdom has built herself a house. God the Father’s Power, himself a person, has fashioned as his dwelling-place the whole world, in which he lives by his activity; and has fashioned humanity, created to resemble God’s own image and likeness and with a nature which is partly seen and partly hidden from our eyes.

“And she has set up seven pillars. For humanity, which was made in the image of Christ when the rest of creation was completed, Wisdom gave the seven gifts of the Spirit to enable us to believe in Christ and to keep his commandments. By means of these gifts, strength is stimulated by knowledge and knowledge is reflected in strength until the spiritual person is brought to completion, solidly founded on firm faith and on the supernatural graces in which he shares.

“Our nature is made more glorious by strength, by good counsel, and by prudence. Strength brings a desire to seek out all manifestations of the divine will through which all things were made. Good counsel distinguishes what is God’s will from what is not and leads us to ponder, to proclaim and to fulfil the will of God. Prudence, finally, leads us to turn towards the will of God and not to other things.”

God’s Wisdom is at work everywhere, even in Gaza.