In the second installment in a mini-series on the liturgical seasons, our fictional novice Sister Mary Rosaria reflects on the incarnational joy of Christmas celebrations in the monastery. This post is part of our Vocation Letters series.
Ave + Maria
Dear Mom and Dad,
Merry Christmas! I can still use this greeting now at the very end of the Christmas season. That is one of my favorite things about Christmas in the monastery: we really begin our celebration at Christmas, and it overflows through all the many feast days of the season.
First, the anticipation of Advent increases in intensity right up through the singing of Matins before Midnight Mass. A different Sister takes each of the sung readings from Scripture, culminating in the traditional Dominican chant of the Genealogy according to St. Matthew. Finally the Prioress and Subprioress intone the exultant strains of the Te Deum, the hymn of praise of God, when all the Christmas lights go on and the Infant Jesus is uncovered in His little crib in the stable! Then, Midnight Mass! The Holy Sacrifice of the Word Incarnate: Jesus Himself becoming present again on the altar in order to unite us with Himself in His own offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit for the redemption of the world, the real purpose of Christmas. And this, in the middle of the night, amid the glory of the poinsettias and the ardent love of our hearts, so ready to receive and give ourselves to Him again in these mysteries of Christmas after the longing of Advent.
(This really makes sense of why I can’t think of our Christmas celebrations without thinking of the Eucharist: the celebration of Christ’s birth is the celebration of Emmanuel, God-with-us, and He is with us now in the Blessed Sacrament. He is with us in the Eucharist here in the monastery all the time, with our Eucharistic Adoration, but each season of the liturgical year brings us the special graces of the mysteries of His life that we celebrate.)
The Infant Jesus came to bring “grace upon grace,” as we read in the Gospel, and the feasts that follow Christmas one after the other show that this grace is already overflowing: St. Stephen on the 26th, St. John the Evangelist on the 27th, and the Holy Innocents on the 28th. (This last is a very special feast day for the Novitiate!) We begin the New Year with a Holy Hour and the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and then Epiphany brings more of our Christmas traditions (such as a current favorite, marking the doors with blessed chalk in honor of the Three Kings). Even today’s feast of the Baptism has a special community tradition passed down from the early days of our community when the Second Sunday after Christmas was the feast of the Holy Family, with the Gospel reading about Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. All our little traditions bring these feast days alive for us, helping us enter into the mysteries more deeply and discover their treasures anew each year.
I hope you also have enjoyed the celebrations of the Christmas season, and many graces from the Infant Jesus!
With love in Our Lady and the Infant Jesus,
Sister Mary Rosaria, O.P.
You May Also Like:
- Read about how a young woman becomes a Dominican nun: Stages in Formation
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