Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

It’s Christmas night as I’m writing this bulletin letter, and we’ve finished the first day of the Octave of Christmas. For the past seven days, as you read this, the Church will have been celebrating Christmas Day.

The idea of an Octave is unique to Christianity, and it is applied to the two great feasts of Easter and Christmas, when the Church is celebrating the pivotal Mysteries of Christ which have changed everything.

Many people may not have even wondered about it before: why do you think that we can begin the celebration of a solemnity (Sunday, for example) with a Vigil Mass the night before? This idea comes from the shabbat (Sabbath) celebration of Judaism, when the Jewish people believe that the Lord, in his rest on the seventh day (Saturday), is so present in their celebration that the mere 24-hour day observance cannot contain him. The enlarged day begins at dusk the evening before.

For this reason we, too, observe Vigils on Sundays, and days like Christmas Eve, All Hallows Eve the night before All Saints’ Day (October 31), and most of all the great Easter Vigil of the Resurrection of the Lord. Attendance at a Vigil Mass is the same as attendance on the day itself, because it is the day which begins early.

For the great feasts, like Easter, the Church teaches that what Sunday is to the week, Easter is to the year. So days like Easter and Christmas, by their very observance, witness that the Presence of the Lord is too great to be contained even by a week’s time. The week is enlarged from seven days to eight, an octave of days.

There is, already in Christianity, an understanding that the Presence of Jesus Christ has taken the original seven-day week and extended it to a new Sabbath—for Christians, Sunday—so that the Christian week begins on Sunday and ends on Sunday (the "Lord’s Day"), symbolizing Christ, whose Unity is both Alpha and Omega. The Eucharist we celebrate on the Lord’s Day is both Source and Summit of our life; God creates on the first day, and after the original rest, acts again and recreates on the eighth day, thus renewing, restoring, and bringing back to life that which is dry, or lost, or dead.

Sunday was known in patristic writings as "the eighth day." For this reason Christians have been called "People of the Eighth Day," and the Octave represents the fullness of time in Christ.

Therefore, this year, the Octave of Christmas continues through this Sunday, Today. Merry Christmas! But that is still not the end of the Christmas Season: Christmas continues through the feast of the Baptism of the Lord—this year celebrated on Monday, January 9.

. . . . .

Our thoughts now turn to the new calendar year. It is my prayer for all of you that the Presence of Christ in our experience of this new time might transform our lives into the fullness of time for each and for all. May we grow together spiritually and as a community; may our dreams come to fruitfulness and may we commit to help one another attain them; may we be people who turn more and more away from ourselves and toward God and each other, seeking to help, encourage, heal and build up. We see so many examples everyday how destructive people can be to one another: consider an equal or even greater potential we hold in our hearts to be people of mercy and love, reconciliation and peace. So may this year be for all of us.

And let us be people of thankfulness. I am grateful to all of you who have stepped forward in friendship and given me so good a welcome here at a new home. To all who give so freely of themselves in service, who power the many ministries already underway, and those who will build new ministries and bonds in our community in the year to come. I am grateful for our hardworking parish staff—your parish staff—who have jobs because you support Saint Bernadette.

I am especially thankful to all those who made our Christmas liturgies this year prayerful and beautiful, who led our hearts in worship of the invisible God, now visible in Jesus: priests, ministers of Communion, servers, readers, musicians, ushers and decorators. The symphony comes together in one beautiful sound from the many parts who make their own small but necessary contribution. So may our parish family be in the coming year, church and school, as we grow together.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

That night was, by all accounts a cold night and people were seeking shelter. Everyone is uprooted like you, making the arduous journey from Nazareth over rough terrain through unsafe lands to make your way back to the place of your ancestors. You must be counted in a census required by the occupying soldiers of the Roman Empire. You try to get just a little farther, though darkness and cold is falling, to get to Bethlehem. Arriving late, there is no place left to stay. You are frustrated because you want to protect and provide a safe night for your wife. Or, you are wondering where this is going: is that a contraction that you just felt, here in the middle of nowhere? Is it time for this baby? Am I ready?

The air of the cave is damp and full of the smells of the nearby animals. Seems like an unlikely way for God’s plan to unfold, from our perspective today. There in that cave nobody knew exactly what was happening, only that it was miraculous. The light, the peace, the angels and shepherds. Something remarkable is underway.

He will gather together all the nations starting with the two groups who surround him tonight: those who are looking for something (only God knows what) who daily risk the chance of not recognizing him even when he stands in front of them, and those who are not looking for him at all. At Jesus’ time there wasn’t a group of faithful who embraced his birth, nobody celebrated. Nobody knew it was happening, any more than they knew that the Incarnation of Jesus had already taken place nine months before when Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that the child would be great and holy, and would be given the throne of David, his father, a Kingdom with no end. "How can this be...?"

Unfortunately the story, in history, can seem so distant and defined. It isn’t scientific, there isn’t a video of it you can pull up. Even though there are centuries of writings about this event that followed, the fact is that the earliest Gospel doesn’t even mention it. Its impact has grown in our awareness as we realize the effect of the full reality. It isn’t a thing, or a piece of evidence intended to be scrutinized by personal opinion. Jesus can’t be put into a neat package, even with the finest scholarship.

Even our language fails to grasp the full reality, though we try our best. When St. Jerome translated St. John’s word Logos (λογος) into Verbum, or Word, even here we failed to grasp the truth of the moment. Verbum, or Word, is a thing; "The Word became flesh" doesn’t capture the living teaching of the Gospel, because Logos is a word that involves one who gives that word, an agent who acts. A better translation might have been to say "The speaking became flesh." That way we would have a deeper understanding of what happens, how the ongoing action of God is what became us.

God, who is not limited by time and space, is always speaking the Word, the Word is always being begotten, the Word is always becoming flesh, we are always being transformed by the Pentecost Spirit, the Last Supper and Cross always and for ever extends to all moments in history. It isn’t as easy to understand as science. The "Today is born our savior" is a word that speaks to all time. Literally, Today.

The event of the Incarnation is, perhaps, most clearly the event that challenges us to look deeper into the reality of God who cannot be contained simply in the data of his creation.

The story continues to unfold today. Jesus continues to come into this same world where only he knows our potential for goodness and peace. He will come to those who don’t know him, he will come to those who are not looking for him at all. He will break into the noise of our world in silence, and he will bring about change. He will continue to touch souls, bring them back to God, and bring to his loving embrace all those who know nothing of him at all. He will bring peace.

Since we are a part of the story still unfolding, we have a role in this plan, a real, concrete role. Something is lost if you do not do something about it. The fact of this role does not depend on your doubts or even in how unlikely this seems, or how unworthy you might feel. Jesus chooses you Today, he becomes you, he begins the possibility of living Communion with you, and calling you to be the fullness of your created being as a person made in his image. He is love, he loves you.

Enter into this mystery of life and our being called together to act in his love. May this great Feast of love and mercy touch our hearts and make us like he is, may our world together know his joy, and his peace.

God bless you, merry Christmas!

Fr. Don