This is being written in the balmy month of October with temperatures in the high 80s and sunny, but that does not deter from the sense of expectation we should always have for the mystery of the Incarnation. One would expect a dark cloudy Fall weather, "for those who have been living in darkness have seen a great light," whereas here in Northern California we move from "Glory to Glory." God became man and Jesus is the Man for all seasons, in season and out of season, favorable or unfavorable weather. Archimandrite Boniface reminded us that we are defined by our expectations of life, and these, too, can be stormy or tranquil. Our expectations are realized in ways that can surprise us or can leave us disappointed when we feel they are not realized. This time of year can be a disappointment if we have a Scrooge-like approach to it, one that is cynical or focuses on the commercial side of Christmas instead of focusing on Jesus as the reason for the season. Our former Bishop Michael Wiwchar once told a Marian Conference meeting in Arizona around the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe that we should exchange gifts on the feast of St. Nicholas on December 6, and reserve December 25 for Jesus alone, which is the Eastern tradition in the old country.

The Christmas Fast, which begins November 15, heralds the season of expectation. We can attain to partake of the grace of the feast to the extent we are prepared to so. This preparation takes, in part, the form of a Fast - not so much to whet our appetite for the physical feast, planning and anticipating the feast far in advance, but to heighten a greater sense of prayer. We know it is by fasting and prayer that we can work on the resolutions we must make at any penitential season, for a total conversion of life and to make amends for the way we have led our lives up to this point. In the spiritual life we either advance or retreat from living out our vocations. We have to strengthen our resolve to intercede for one another and to help each other get to Heaven.

Another name for the Christmas Fast is Philip's Fast, because it begins the day after his feast day, and tradition has it that upon his martyrdom he did not forgive his oppressors. So, the early church dedicated a six-week fast and prayer for his intention, a powerful intercession that freed his soul from purgatory. So, let us pray for one another and fast for one another, that we may come to share more fully in the graces of this feast.

—Administrator Theodore

It was sometime in mid-September of this year, shortly after the 20^th anniversary of my ordination to the holy priesthood of Christ. There is a moment in the Divine Liturgy at which the priest takes into his hands the Lamb of God, the Bread from Heaven, and elevates it, saying: "Holy things for the holy!" Coming as it did shortly after the feast of the Exaltation (lifting up) of the Precious and Life-giving Cross, this lifting up of the Lamb had special significance, for the Holy Eucharist contains, expresses, and communicates sacramentally and mystically the whole mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ.

At the moment of the elevation of the Lamb, and conscious of the presence of the Blessed Virgin in the sanctuary—and also feeling unworthy even to approach this awe-inspiring Mystery of Christ, let alone take the Lamb in my hands—I received an inspiration that must have come from the Holy Spirit. As I extended my hands to touch the Flesh of God, I begged the heavenly Mother: "Teach me how to hold Him!" Mary knows better than anyone else how most lovingly and worthily to do this. She carried Him in her womb for nine months, then in her arms during his infancy and childhood. That graced moment at the Liturgy opened up for me some fruitful reflections that I'd like to share here with you.

My awareness of Our Lady's presence at the Holy Sacrifice offered at the altar is not merely a self-generated perception, but rather is based on objective reality. There is something I learned about this a while back—a beautiful but often unacknowledged element of the celebration of the Eucharist—from the writings of Blessed John Paul II: "In the [Eucharistic] 'memorial' of Calvary, all that Christ accomplished by his passion and his death is present. Consequently all that Christ did with regard to his Mother for our sake is also present. To her he gave the beloved disciple and, in him, each of us: 'Behold, your son!' To each of us he also says: 'Behold your mother!' (cf. Jn. 19:26-27). Experiencing the memorial of Christ's death in the Eucharist also means continually receiving this gift. It means accepting—like John—the one who is given to us anew as our Mother. It also means taking on a commitment to be conformed to Christ, putting ourselves at the school of his Mother and allowing her to accompany us. Mary is present, with the Church and as the Mother of the Church, at each of our celebrations of the Eucharist. If the Church and the Eucharist are inseparably united, the same ought to be said of Mary and the Eucharist. This is one reason why, since ancient times, the commemoration of Mary has always been part of the Eucharistic celebrations of the Churches of East and West" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #57, italics in original).

I have been reading (actually re-reading, since it was so rich the first time around) the life of St. Gemma Galgani (+1903), who has quickly and quite unexpectedly become my favorite saint—short of the Queen of Saints, of course! There's a lot I could write about her, but that will have to wait for another occasion. I mention her here because of a vision she experienced that got me thinking about holding Jesus. Her biographer, the Venerable Germanus, C.P., writes: "On another occasion the Holy Mother appeared with her Divine Son as a beautiful child, and with her own hands placed Him in Gemma's arms. She, trembling, pressed Him to her heart and kissed Him with much love. The Divine Infant did the same, and having instructed her on heavenly matters, ended by giving her His blessing. She gave Him to His Mother, and the vision vanished."

I can hardly imagine how profound and awesome such an experience must be. I get nervous enough when some beaming young mother plops her newborn into my arms (thank God this doesn't happen much around here), but what would I do if the Queen of Heaven placed her Divine Child in my arms? Probably I would say the same thing I said at the altar: "Teach me how to hold Him!" It is interesting to note from the above vision of St. Gemma, that even when the Lord chooses to appear as a small child in his Mother's arms, He is still the Son of God, the King of Glory and the Eternal Wisdom. That is why the Divine Child "instructed her on heavenly matters" and "ended by giving her His blessing," and didn't just make little baby-sounds like an ordinary infant.

As the time of Advent commences and Christmas approaches, we are naturally drawn to reflect on the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and his birth for our salvation. We will see many images of the Madonna and Child, of the tender love they shared. We may, if we are so inclined, meditate on the Gospel accounts of the conception and birth of Our Lord, and perhaps wonder what it might have been like if we were there to share in those blessed moments that changed human history and destiny forever. What if we approached them, trembling, unworthy, yet irresistibly drawn—like the shepherds and the Magi—and what if Mary asked us if we'd like to hold her newborn Son? If I didn't faint from love and fear and adoration and joy and awe, I might dare to approach, but I would surely ask her to help me to hold Him worthily and lovingly.

We don't know for sure if the shepherds or Magi held Him, but we do know that forty days after his birth St. Simeon received the Child from the arms of Mary and held Him in his own, blessing God and uttering prophecies. What did he experience? I can imagine that upon seeing St. Joseph and the Mother of God, with the Radiant Child in her arms casting invisible grace all about Him, the old man's heart beat loudly in his chest, and tears streamed from his eyes. Perhaps he even heard faint echoes of the angelic hymns that had filled the astounded ears and hearts of the chosen shepherds forty nights before. It was the crowning of his whole life, and so he informed God in prayer that he was now ready to die, having seen the promised Savior, the Light of universal revelation, the Glory of Israel.

As he returned the newborn Savior to Mary's arms, Simeon laid grave words upon the Mother's heart, words which probably made her hold Him all the more tightly to her bosom, as if to shield Him from the lance whose fate it was to pierce his precious heart: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against—and a sword will pierce through your own soul also—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." The shadow of that sword would be cast over her whole life, while the Child innocently grew up, unaware (at least initially) of his dreadful destiny. Finally, that prophesied sword—which would become a traditional symbol of the depth of her motherly love and sorrow—would be thrust clean through her pure heart as she witnessed the terrible spear forced into the side of her Son, our Savior.

Then she would hold Him again. Not this time as a darling newborn, whom she had pressed to her heart and fed from her breast. She would have remembered this, though, and perhaps longed to hear Him crying for her again, so she could rush to comfort Him. Now there was no longer any sound that escaped from the lips of the slaughtered Lamb—his final cry was: "It is finished." Still she pressed Him to her heart and let his precious blood run all over her robes and down her face and neck like crimson tears, as she kissed those wounds by which we are healed. No one could begin to comprehend the sorrow and the pain of her sword-pierced heart that not only contained, as it were, the grief of all bereaved mothers of all time, but which drank deeply of the bitter chalice of the very anguish of God as the Incarnate Son—whose body was made out of her body, whose eyes, whose smile, came from her—was savagely crushed for our offenses, sacrificed for our sins. Now his body was torn, his eyes were closed, his smile but a memory. But she still held Him, oh, how she held Him!

On the third day all things were made new. This time Mary held her Son in awestruck wonder and irrepressible joy. She knew He had predicted his resurrection—and this was the hope that sustained her—but perhaps it still seemed like cold comfort as she witnessed the unspeakable agony of the One she held in her womb and at her breast, and who grew to manhood before her adoring eyes. She suffered like no human person ever suffered, because she loved like no other loved. The Passion of Jesus broke open her heart to give it a unique capacity for suffering, beyond any grief or pain we can imagine. But her heart, thus opened, also received a similar capacity for joy when her Son returned to her, victorious and radiant, and she rushed into his open arms. And oh, how they held each other in love and in gratitude to God!

Mary, then, has a lot to teach us about how to hold Him. Perhaps we would like our lives to be a perpetual Christmas. We like the sweet and hushed mysteries of the Holy Night, with angel-song, the lovely smile of the pure young Mother with her shining Babe, the ambiance of grace and the warmth of love, and a hint of the glory to come. We can hold Him then, if she invites us, and we will receive the tender Infant and press Him to our hearts, and we will go on with our lives renewed, like the shepherds, praising and glorifying God. These are all precious and wonderful things, and we ought to enter into them as fully and lovingly as we can.

But will we still be there a short time later, when fearful prophecies are uttered, when dreams are shattered and harsh swords are foretold? Will we still hold Him, when to do so means throwing in our lot with One who will be despised and rejected, condemned and crucified? We need to ask Mary to teach us how to hold Him after the aged prophet speaks his piece, how to continue to cherish the One who will ask us to follow Him to the Cross. The Blessed Mother held her Son Jesus throughout his infancy and childhood, knowing (at least in general terms) what would befall Him, knowing as well that she would suffer with Him. She did not fear but only loved Him the more. We too need to remain with Him, as his presence "grows" within us, as we mature and advance in grace and wisdom. For if we are not holding on to Him all during our lives, we will never have the strength to stand with Him at the Cross—and worse still, we are likely to go astray and "draw back and no longer accompany him" (Jn. 6:66).

There is, then, another way to hold Him that Mary cannot teach us, for she knows nothing of it in her own life, but she can warn us about it. There's someone else who embraced and kissed Jesus. His name was Judas, and he did it only as an act of betrayal. When we come to the manger and the Mother searches our eyes and hearts to see if we are sincere, she may ask us, "Why have you come here?" Then we will beg her to place the Divine Infant in our arms, if only for a while. But what happens if we turn away from the Lord as our life runs its twisted, weary course? We may think we can hide from his eyes, but He will find us in the very time and place we are about to betray Him through sin, and He will say, with pity and pain and wounded love: "Why have you come here?"

What shall we say then? Will we let the eyes of Jesus burn into our hearts and then fall weeping like the repentant Peter? Or will we, like Judas, flee from Him and run still farther into the dark and dreadful night, only to discover demons of despair preparing our final exit?

If we are willing to hold Jesus as a sweet little Infant at Christmas, we must also be willing to persevere all the way to the Cross. We eagerly ask Mary if we can hold her precious bundle, for this is pure joy and doesn't really cost us anything (except making sure we don't approach Him in a state of sin). But when we see Mary at the Cross, holding the lacerated, pierced, dead body of her Son, while her own body is racked with spasms of grief, will we ask her if we can hold Him then—knowing that our sins have brought Him to this bitter and painful end, that they have also pierced her heart with a sword? Can we dare to read the pain in her eyes and let it pierce our own hearts? Yet we must, and she offers Jesus to us, urging us to embrace the price of our Redemption, to know what it cost Him, and then to adore and give thanks to Him with all our hearts, all our love. This experience must mark our lives indelibly, for once we have held Him with love, our lives can never be the same. If the intensity of our experience fades, and we begin to drift again into mediocrity or apathy, we must beg Our Lady to teach us anew how to hold Him. She will always be there to draw us back to the Source of love and grace and mercy.

A few days after I started writing this article, I held the Lamb once more at the Divine Liturgy, asking Mary again to teach me how to hold Him in a manner that would please her. What came to me then is implied in all the above, but a little more nuanced: "Hold Him with tenderness," she said to my soul. This adds something special to adoration, to gratitude, even to love. One can worship perfunctorily, give thanks half-heartedly, and perhaps speak words of love more or less superficially, and maybe even hypocritically. But I wonder if anyone can speak and act tenderly toward Jesus without it coming from the heart. In any case, I saw that is was good; I held Him tenderly and it warmed my heart.

So perhaps that is of the essence of the Mother's mission in our lives, and the goal of our own efforts at spiritual growth and maturity. We need to learn how to hold Jesus tenderly, both as a Baby in Bethlehem and as a sacrificial Victim on Golgotha. We can do this if we are not seeking our own comfort or advantage in our relationship with Him, if we are instead simply offering ourselves to Him. The more we learn of Jesus' love for us, the more we want to love Him in return; the more we understand what He has done and suffered for us, the more we want to do and suffer for Him.

Let's face it, there are very many in the world today who are ignorant, indifferent, or even hostile to Christ and what He stands for, who even hate and despise Him and his precious Cross, and thus reject his offer of salvation. Will we be there to hold Him tenderly as his loving Mother did, to kiss his wounds and resolutely assure Him that we will be faithful, no matter what? It's not that He needs our affection, but we owe Him everything we can possibly give, and also—this is very important to Him and should be to us—we can thus win mercy for many who have not received all the graces that we have received.

Even though only the priests hold the Lamb at the holy altar, you don't have to be a priest to hold Him tenderly. As often as you receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, you hold Him in your heart. And, if you are attentive, you will be shown other ways to bear his presence and his love, and to share it with others as you live your daily life.

During this Advent and Christmas season, let us begin by preparing to approach Him in purity of heart—through prayer, fasting, quiet reflection, repentance and confession— honoring the immeasurable sacrifice He made by taking to Himself our humble form and entering this world of darkness as its Light. Let us receive Him from the arms of his Mother and hold Him tenderly, and thus commit our lives to Him irrevocably. As we place Him back in her arms, let us pause for a moment, for her eyes are seeking us out. Let us see in them the silhouette of the Cross against the light of the Resurrection, and let us realize that Christmas is only the beginning. There are miles to go before we sleep in heavenly peace.

We can do this, however. We can love because He first loved us; we can hold because He first held us. The Grace of God and the Heart of the Mother will teach us all things, if we wish to learn—if it means everything for us to be taught how to hold Him, to bear his Mystery within us and at length discover it all fulfilled, to our everlasting delight, in the Paradise of Heaven.

—Fr. Joseph

Yes, the peaceful, gentle, rhythmic cadence of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (or Summa Theologiæ) and of the magnificent lines of the Gothic Cathedrals may have occurred during a tumultuous era, for all I know; yet, they were there, and can impart the sense of peace and good order we would like to associate not only with Heaven but with the holy lives we aspire to lead. Many don't find it, though. We're certainly in a tumultuous era, nowadays. Not only have we many and widespread dire events going on, but the entire Western culture seems to be crumbling in so many growing ways that it seems more and more a veritable avalanche.

We continue, nonetheless, in Christ. We have faith; we have grace; along with grace come virtues — and we seek to live our faith, that in gratitude we may return our little love for our Lord's great love for us, expressed in His humble Incarnation and saving Passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven, which open the way for us to follow Him in living holy lives on earth, as He did, and in attaining Heaven and, eventually, complete resurrection.

Now, faith without works is not a very lively faith, as we all know; virtues without their exercise do tend to wither away. We strive to implement our faith and virtues — we want to grow - and is something missing, that it often seems so impossible?

In early Christian sources — in the Conferences of St. John Cassian, the Ladder of Divine Ascent of St. John of the Ladder, in the Discourses or Sayings of St. Dorotheos of Gaza, in the various Sayings or Apothegms of the desert fathers, and (judging by the evidence of lively interaction between homilist and congregation in the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom) — we find that Christians in those earlier centuries would gather to hear wisdom concerning the ways and means of applying faith and virtue to daily life. Judging also by the expansion of the faith in early centuries, the discussions were fruitful; the advice, practical. Is anything missing, today? I think there might be something missing.

In St. John's Ladder (Step 4, n.100), we can read, "Let the zealous be particularly attentive to themselves, lest by condemning the careless they themselves incur worse condemnation. And I think the reason why Lot was justified was because, though living among such people, he never seems to have condemned them." We modern folk, however, may often be perplexed as to just how to get from here (habitual criticizing and condemning of others) to there (refraining from same).

St. Dorotheos, discoursing "On Enduring Temptation Calmly and Thankfully," wrote: "Suppose a man for some reason dives into the sea: if he knows the art of swimming, what does he do when a great wave comes along? He ducks under until it goes past and then he goes on swimming unharmed. But if he is determined to set himself against it, it pushes him away and hurls him back a great distance, and when again he begins to swim forward another wave comes upon him, and if again he tries to swim against it, again it forces him back, and he only tires himself out and makes no headway. But if he ducks his head and lowers himself under the wave, as I said, no harm comes to him and he continues to swim as long as he likes. Those who go on doing their work this way when they are in trouble, putting up with their temptations with patience and humility, come through unharmed. But if they get distressed and downcast, seeking the reasons for everything, tormenting themselves and being annoyed with themselves instead of helping themselves, they do themselves harm." (p.194, E.P. Wheeler's translation, Cistercian Studies Series #33; 1977). Now, that's fairly practical, and certainly easy to visualize. Can we translate it into action? Not always, we moderns. Dr. Schwartz at UCLA medical center, though, came up with a good four-step self-help method for obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it's useful for quieting some of those huge waves of feelings that tempt us or shove us around, when we're otherwise at wits end how to manage it.

Again: it's easy to find many commands to do something. When you try, and find that you can't, you ask "How?" How do you pray or meditate on mysteries, when you find you "can't"? How do you avoid sudden, violent, wrong desiring, when you "can't"? How do you avoid resenting, being angry, hating… when you "can't"? And so on. You want to practice sober-mindedness while praying the Jesus Prayer — only to find that you "can't." You want to uproot such and such a vice, or plant and grow such and such a virtue, and find that you "can't" —then what? The usual sources go into only so much detail, and then (of necessity, to be sure) leave it to each of us to figure out the practical application: how to apply it to our own, peculiar circumstances — but (again), what if you can't?

That seems to be the point at which good spiritual direction and good spiritual discourses, conferences, and the like, came in handy, traditionally; in our times, I've come across a fair number of authors, on prayer and ascetics, who admit that although spiritual direction is "necessary" to safely pursue this or that kind of prayer or program, those good spiritual directors are scarce and hard to find — and then what?

Well, sometimes we fill in with "outside sources": with modern, perhaps non-Christian sources, who have figured out how to fill in some of those missing details — details that were probably available in our traditional discourses, conferences, and spiritual directors in a living tradition that's now suffering from the cultural avalanche. These modern supplementary sources sometimes bring us close enough to where we can adapt them to our situations. Just as you can mass-produce clothing, but may need to tailor and adjust a little, so we adjust, becoming like the classical "divine honey bee" of the Patristic Era: taking the pollen and leaving the rest behind. (The modern version? "Take what you want, and leave the rest," as some 12-step groups put it.)

For our ascetics, we might supplement our spiritual reading with some of the more canny exercise and nutrition programs. (My favorite exercises have been from the 1970s, the Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Program; thence I learnt to pursue fitness slowly, steadily, and ever so gradually, which is perfect as one gets older. Nowadays, I'm looking at Mark Lauren's You Are Your Own Gym, an excellent body-weight exercise system, requiring neither gym nor weights. It's flexible and adaptable, as well as effective. I plan to take to it gradually.)

For those strong impulses and compulsions that ambush us suddenly, even violently, with temptations, or beset us with depression, anger, etc., we might supplement our spiritual reading with something like Prof. Edelstein's Three Minute Therapy (my current favorite in psychology; a very helpful book). Between events, people, and situations that "make me" be this or that way, or that "make me do" this or that thing (sudden temptations, for example), on the one hand; and those feelings, on the other hand, you find your thoughts — habitual, perhaps semi-conscious thoughts or beliefs — our mental response to the events. Observe carefully, and you find that the feelings aren't responding directly to the events, but to those thoughts and beliefs. In the case of troublesome feelings, these thoughts are quite often mistaken ones that you can argue with yourself about, and can change. They're likely to be thoughts that exaggerate the necessity of the outcome you expected but didn't find, or that turned relative matters into absolute ones. Edelstein explains it far better than I, and a quick search will find you his book to view online (or to order in a nicely bound form, if you wish), I think it works rather well, is simple, and helps to fill that gap we might have, in applying our faith, morals, and ascetics to our daily lives.

Those were only personal examples, and other folk may have their own, but wouldn't it be a good thing if the faithful could sometimes share with one another, put their heads together to trade helpful, practical hints like those, to fill in those gaps and make our following of Christ more sure and purposeful? Perhaps among one's relatives and friends, or within one's parish or religious community, there might be room for some mutual encouragement and fruitful, spiritual friendships, in which people can help one another to attain worthy, shared goals, to advance and deepen their lives of prayer, and of living the faith. It would be something like a practical section of the Communion of Saints on Earth, or like a School of God-Pleasing Virtues, like a chapter of Sinners Anonymous, or of Spiritual Works in Progress.

Cultural Avalanches haven't yet stopped the Church or the spread of the Gospel — though avalanches are dangerous to souls. The One we follow has been through the great "avalanche" we call the Passion, on purpose, and rose from the dead; we're in the business of so living, and so dying, as to rise also, in Him. As faith works along with reason and will, so grace works with nature: let us, as St. Paul wrote, "encourage one another and build each other up" (1 Thess. 5:11), and "carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2).

—Br. Seraphim

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