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| Bishop Speaks | ||||
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| December 16, 2004 Edition | ||||
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Blessed Mother:
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Dear Friends,
It seems to be getting harder and harder to celebrate Christmas in our country and in our culture. The news stories disclose that the signs of Christmas in terms of the nativity scene or Christmas caroling seem more and more to be forbidden in public places and schools, or at least present much controversy. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are increasingly denied to the followers of Jesus Christ unless the religious expression is confined to the home or to the church. But the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is not a private person whose presence and worship should be hidden away from our country or culture at large. What could be more outrageous!
'Chrismukkah' is unacceptable
The difficulty of celebrating Christmas has been increased in a new way in recent days by the suggested celebration of "Chrismukkah," to provide for Jewish-Christian intermarried couples. Clearly two words have been combined to name this new celebration, the word "Christmas" and the word "Hanukkah," the seasonal festival of lights celebrated by our sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith. It is interesting that the Board of Rabbis in New York have declared Chrismukkah a completely unacceptable approach. I would join them in their correct judgment.
Chrismukkah is not a genuine religious observance - it is a contrivance of those who are determined to be politically correct and "inclusive" at any cost. In the case of Chrismukkah, the cost of being "inclusive" is the rejection of the principle of noncontradiction, which is the foundation of all logic and reason. Those who celebrate Christmas believe Christ is the Messiah. Those who celebrate Hanukkah do not believe that Christ is the Messiah. Thus to put those two religious observances together is to reject the principle of noncontradiction. This is deconstructionalism, the exaltation of meaninglessness in language, raised to a new height, American style. It is a further distraction to our Jewish brothers and sisters, whom the Holy Father affectionately calls our older brothers and sisters, and to ourselves as we try to celebrate appropriately, each within our own tradition. The most ironic thing about the concoction of the term Chrismukkah and its failed attempts somehow to join Christian faith in the Messiah and Judaism, is that this concocted deconstructionalizing language overlooks the truth and mystery that there already exits a point of union for the Jewish tradition and our Catholic faith. And during these later days in Advent we celebrate her.
Look to Blessed Virgin Mary
The Jewish longing for the Messiah, and the birth of the Messiah, and His reception are in fact joined in the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary (her Hebrew name was Miriam) was and is a completely Jewish person. We see in the Gospel accounts that she was very careful in her observance of all the Jewish customs and laws even after the birth of Jesus. And yet she waited for the Messiah as no other Jewish person has ever waited and as no other person in the world could ever have waited. The "yes" of her maternal cooperation with the Trinity welcomed Jesus the Messiah to take flesh in her womb. She is the only one who waited for and was present to the birth of the Messiah from the moment of His conception. No one else except Joseph her husband even knew during those early moments that indeed the Messiah had come, revealed through the mystery and miracle of the Annunciation made by the angel Gabriel to Mary.
Thus the longing for the Messiah, the waiting in sure hope for the Messiah, the welcoming of the birth of the Messiah, and the living out of perfect discipleship of the Messiah all find their perfect home in our Blessed Mother. Thus she brings together perfectly the Jewish messianic longing and its fulfillment in Christ. She is rightfully and uniquely called the Beloved Daughter of Zion by our Holy Father as he reflects the tradition in the Old Testament and in our Church.
At times our faith in the Blessed Mother has been seen as an obstacle to ecumenism, and this is why even some Catholic faithful ceased devotional practices to Our Lady after the Second Vatican Council - this was done in the name of ecumenism. In fact Pope Paul VI shortly after the Vatican Council indicated that the two prayers that best summarize the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the Church in the document Lumen Gentium are the Rosary and the Angelus, both looking to Mary as Mother of the Church and model of the Church, precisely as the Second Vatican Council taught at the end of the decree Lumen Gentium.
Find messianic longing in own hearts
Because we find ourselves in the later days of Advent, it is time to turn to Mary our Mother and ask her to intercede with Christ that we might find within our own hearts a messianic longing which would imitate her own. The Advent liturgy tells us that we hope to be found "watching in prayer, our hearts filled with wonder and praise" at the coming of Christ. Let us seek to receive the gift of imitating the messianic longing of Mary herself based on her wholehearted yes to all that the Lord might ever ask of us. Let these later days of Advent be a time for stirring up an authentic devotion in our hearts to Mary, that Beloved Daughter of Zion, seeing in her the greatest of all human ecumenists who joins in her own person the depth of Jewish messianic hope and its complete and final realization in Christ.
The Jewish and Christian believers who have intermarried should find concord in a joint prayerful reflection on Our Lady and all that she means both for our Christian faith and their Jewish faith. Chrismukkah would best be forgotten at the earliest moment. We have Our Lady!
Thank you for reading this. God bless you and yours as Christmas Day draws near. Praised be Jesus Christ!
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