First, we prepare ourselves for the anniversary of Christ’s nativity, called Christmas through fasting and prayer. Second, we renew our desire to be reborn in Him, in fulfillment of the promise of Christmas through fasting and prayer. Third, we ready ourselves for His coming again, in the end of days, to judge the quick and the dead through fasting and prayer.

It will be seen, that apart from merriment and indulgence, Advent is a season of fasting and prayer. Not on the scale of Lent, before Easter, and barely half the duration of Lent; nor filled with the quality of sorrow and ashes, that marks the Lenten season. Still, fasting and prayer. There will be time enough to celebrate through the twelve days of Christmas, when irreligious men and women are recovering from their own celebration of they know not what. (They have their reward.)

In previous years, I made something like these points at Christmas, but it strikes me now that the first Sunday in Advent would be a more appropriate moment to express regret, and exhortation.

In England, once, I was invited for Christmas to the house of old family friends in north Oxfordshire. I was very poor then, and had thus had a sober and humble Advent, if largely against my will. It was in fact my first Advent as a believing Christian. The train ticket I’d bought, to take me from London to Banbury, was a major expense, and a luxury. Surprise: the train stopped at Oxford town, twenty-something miles short of my destination, and I was turned out on the platform. I hadn’t realized that, under the laudable old socialist regime that Lady Thatcher later swept away, all British Rail trains shut down in a kind of general strike, wherever they happened to be, as midnight approached on Christmas Eve.

Don’t get me wrong: it is one of the things about socialism I miss. England in the 1970s was quite dysfunctional. This made it cheap to live there. And around, you could see the decay of what
had once been a great capitalist nation, and the seat of a vast Empire. There is beauty in decay. I miss the chill of the English winter, when the coal miners all went on strike. I miss the candlelight, when the electricity went down. I miss the rotting Brussels sprouts from New Covent Garden. I even miss the pomposity of the working class heroes, running the country into the ground. I remember it all through the pink lens of nostalgia. Ah to be young again, and in England.

And on that platform at Oxford. The couple of miles from Banbury to my friends cottage in the village of Adderbury would have been a fine evening’s stroll. But I would now have the pleasure of
walking right through the brisk clear winter night, without even the companionship of the crescent moon that was sinking on the western horizon. I found the Banbury Road, and set along on foot. There were no cars on it, either. None.

I remember it as one of the happiest evenings of my life. Just me, and the stars, and the dark world around me, mediaeval under starlight. And the sense that I was walking towards Christmas. (Which of these is the star of Bethlehem?) When I was cold, I sang carols to myself.

I arrived in Adderbury, some time towards dawn. Having no watch, I could guess the time only by the constellations. I knew it was too early to knock on my friend’s door. The whole village was sleeping, and the only light was in the sacristy of the ancient church. I went into the churchyard, among the gravestones. I felt at one with forty generations of the English dead.

Suddenly there was a peal of bells, some miles away in the direction from which I’d come. Then another, nearer, at Bloxham. And then, right above me, the bells of St Mary the Virgin, Adderbury, pealing out, deafening in their joy. Bells, everywhere right across England! The bells were pealing, to announce Christmas Day.

This is what I want to share today the bells of Christmas morning with my reader, who is Christian, or lapsed; or never having been a Christian, wonders what it might be like. To hear their glory, we must fast and pray

Many of us will celebrate the annual tradition of this coming Thursday as Thanksgiving Day. Our national tradition goes back to 1621 to the giving of thanks by pilgrims and their Native American neighbors at Plymouth (although history argues that many of the details of the first Thanksgiving are more myth than anything else). The tradition continued through the years finally being fixed by President Lincoln by decree in 1863 that a national fay of thanksgiving should occur on the last Thursday of November. The date was fixed again in 1941 by an Act of Congress declaring that the fourth Thursday of November would be the date for Thanksgiving each year. This was a compromise between Republicans and Democrats. President Roosevelt had wanted Thanksgiving on the second to the last Thursday of November to provide for a longer Christmas shopping season to help the American economy. Republicans wanted to keep Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November, as Lincoln had declared, as an honor to the former present. The compromise allowed for both sides to get what they wanted, depending on how many Thursdays were in November in a given year.

No matter what Thursday the holiday is celebrate on, what is important is why the day is celebrated. This is the one federal holiday that is designated as a day of offering thanks to God for the gifts and blessings that he has bestowed on the nation. While many of us will gather with family and friends to give thanks in the afternoon or evening, I invite you to first come to Mass at the Cathedral at 9:00AM as there is no better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than with thanksgiving. It is through the prayer of the Mass that we are given the Eucharist and the Mass is sometimes referred to as the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The word Eucharist in Greek means “thanksgiving.” Every time we gather for the Mass, we are gathering to offer thanksgiving to God for his goodness, his mercy, and his love.

Long before the pilgrims at Plymouth gathered for the “first” Thanksgiving, thanksgiving had already been offered on these American shores in the Mass. When that happened exactly, no one is quite sure. If you ask the Irish they will tell you it was by St. Brendan all the way back around the year 512 (one of the windows on the south side of the Cathedral commemorates this tradition). We know that Mass was offered on Epiphany on the island of Hispaniola as a part of Columbus’s second voyage in 1494. Finally, most likely by 1498, Henry Cabot’s expedition was exploring Newfoundland and Augustinian friars were among those in his party so Mass was surely offered on the continent.

What is important for us is the need for our lives to be marked by thanksgiving. Thanksgiving must be a way of life for the Christian and not simply a day on the calendar. Acknowledging that God is the giver of all good gifts and that our talents and resourcefulness emanate from him keeps us humble and open to receiving the continued graces that he wants to bestow on us. On behalf of Bishop Paprocki, Father Maher, Father Stock, Deacon Smith, Deacon Keen, and all of the Cathedral Parish and School staff, I wish you and yours a blessed and happy Thanksgiving. God bless you!

The colors of fall seem to have exploded this past week, but the beauty of creation in autumn is also a harbinger of the coming of winter when much of creation will enter into its deep sleep. While the winter may be cold and dark, we know that light and warmth will return again as springtime will call creation back into new life, yet we still must face the winter. The same is true in our lives as this earthly life must come to an end. We must be mindful of that reality. As we continue through the month of November, the month of All Souls, it is good for us to be reminded of what the Church terms the Four Last Things: death, judgement, hell, and heaven.

They say that there are two unavoidable realities in life: death and taxes. That statement is only half true. You can avoid taxes, I don’t advise it, but people do try and some are successful. Some people try to avoid death but no one has succeeded there. Life is the time and opportunity for us to accept God’s grace and to cooperate with it. While death is perceived as the natural course of life, death is also seen from a religious perspective as an aberration, as a consequence of sin. A disciple should be able to see a distinction between death and Christian death. The notion of Christian death points to the underlying belief that death is nothing more than a doorway to a new and greater life with God in Christ.

This year on the Solemnity of Christ the King (two weeks from now) we will hear the Gospel of the Last Judgement proclaimed to us at Mass. While the Scriptures speak of this general judgement the Church also speaks of particular judgement that all of us will face at the moment of death. Our own innate sense of justice moves us to believe that there must be some final reckoning concerning what good, or lack thereof, that we did in our earthly life. This judgement is not so much about God rendering a decision regarding us but rather fulfilling the choice we made by how we lived, as St. Paul teaches us “for we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor 5:10). From this judgement, we then enter into one of two destinies: eternal life or eternal damnation.

For those who live and die in God’s friendship, they can be assured of everlasting life with him in heaven. This eternal destiny may be entered into immediately for those who die without any attachment to sin or after a period of purification for those who die, not in mortal sin but, with an attachment to venial sin. This process of purging is known as purgatory. Every soul in purgatory is destined for union with God in heaven. The pain of purgatory is not an intentional punishment inflicted by God but rather it is the result of the pain of separation experienced by the soul until it achieves perfect union with God.

For those who die in a state of mortal sin, having made a clear, manifested choice against God, the Church teaches that those souls suffer the eternal torments of hell. The suffering of hell is not one of fire and brimstone, but one of complete and everlasting separation from God, having full knowledge of what has been lost. The Church teaches that hell does indeed exist, as the Lord Jesus warns us of in the Scriptures, but the Church does not formally teach that anyone is there except the devil and hi fallen angels.

Death and judgement are realities that all of us must one day face, but for those who strive daily to live in God’s friendship, sinners though we are, we have nothing to fear for we have a loving and merciful God. Let us keep our hearts open to that love and mercy every day.

This month is a good time to reflect on the blessings we have and how we can share those blessings with the community around us. As intentional disciples, we tend to give more, pray more, and serve more. As we come closer to the Giving Tuesday , a national day of giving, we are encouraging all within the parish to consider how they can live out their faith as stewards this Giving Tuesday, Nov. 28th. Consider how you can #Give1Hour to pray, serve, or generously give an hour of you pay with us. More details coming!

Our Veteran’s Day Ceremony was a heart warming experience for our students, and many were moved to tears. We are so grateful for those who have served our country! Cathedral School says THANK YOU for your service! A special thank you to Mrs. Janine, Mrs. Wellman, Mark Gifford, Debbie Ross, Heath Erwin, Dan Wellman, and Karl and Cheryl Lercher for putting on our ceremony this morning!

 

 

 

This coming week, November 1st, is the Solemnity of All Saints, the day we honor all those in Heaven, especially the “small s” saints who are not canonized and whom God alone knows. The saints are not just our models they are also our friends. They cheer us on in our earthly struggles and support us with their prayers so that we might eventually join them in the praise of our God in Heaven.

The veneration of the memory of the saints (not worship or adoration) goes back to the earliest days of the Church, to the middle of the second century precisely. It was recorded that the memory, as well as the bones, of St. Polycarp were honored by the early Christians following his martyrdom. It was around the martyrs in general that the veneration of saints began and by the sixth century that veneration extended to other men and women who themselves did not die a martyr’s death, but who nonetheless lead lives that were models of holiness.

In the early seventh century, following successive attacks on Rome, during which the catacombs were raided by barbarians, the bones of the martyrs in Rome were all gathered together and buried beneath the Pantheon, a pagan temple dedicated to all the Roman gods. The Pantheon was then dedicated by Pope Boniface IV as a church to the honor of the Blessed Mother and all the Martyrs with the feast being celebrated on May 13. A century later, Pope Gregory III dedicated a new chapel in the first St. Peter’s Basilica that was dedicated to the Apostles and all saints on November 1, suppressing the former feast celebrated on May 13. Some have attributed All Saints Day being on November 1st because of the Irish pagan traditions of celebrating the dead at that time. This is historically dubious since the November 1 celebration of All Saints did not begin as a universal feast but started in Rome, then spread to Germany, and finally to the rest of the Church.

Immediately following All Saints Day, the Church remembers all the faithful departed on All Souls Day (November 2nd) as well as through the whole month of November. The Church is especially mindful of those souls who, while dying in the state of grace, died with some remaining attachment to venial sin and are experiencing a process of spiritual cleansing and perfection in purgatory. The custom of praying for the dead is found in the Scriptures with one of the primary references found in 2 Maccabees 12: 26, 32 which says, “turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. Thus they made atonement for the dead that they might be free from sin.”

Beginning on All Souls Day, the Book of Remembrance will be placed in front of the baptismal font so that within it you may inscribe the names of family and friends who have died. They will be remembered at all Masses throughout the month of November.

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Father Christopher House is the Rector-Pastor of the Cathedral and serves in various leadership roles within the diocesan curia, specifically Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.