Message of Abbot Paul - Saturday 18th December
Message from Fr Paul for Saturday, 18th December 2021
You will be pleased to hear that Toby’s visit to the vet yesterday went very well and that he is making good progress. Nevertheless, he still has to take very little exercise and rest a good deal, continue with his antibiotics and pain killers and always wear his Elizabethan collar, when left unsupervised. The situation will be reassessed this coming Tuesday. He is in good health, eating well and contented with his lot. Deo gratias.
Today we keep the Great Advent Feria “O Adonai.” Here is the traditional translation of the Antiphon. “O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel, who appeared in the bush to Moses in a flame of fire and gave him the Law in Sinai. Come and deliver us with an outstretched arm.” O Adonai touches on the ancient title of God himself, who was called ‘Adonai’, meaning Lord, in the Old Testament, because his sacred name, the four letters known as ‘The Tetragramaton’, could not be uttered by unworthy human beings without blasphemy. But the Advent hope was that this unknowable, utterly holy Lord, who could not even be named, chose out of his own free will and out of love for us, to become known, to bear a name, and to meet us where we are. The antiphon reflects on the mysterious, awesome manifestations of God to Moses on Mount Sinai in the sign of the burning bush. For early Christians this bush, full of the fire of God’s presence, yet still itself unconsumed, was a sign of the Lord Jesus Christ who would come and who would be fully God and yet also fully human.
Our Gospel passage comes from Matthew, (Mt 1: 18-24), and follows on from the genealogy, recounting the annunciation made to Joseph. It’s so delicately written and profoundly theological, that we must read it all.
“This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together. she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son
and they will call him Emmanuel,
a name which means ‘God-is-with-us.’ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.”
It’s not possible to comment on it all, but here are a few observations. Joseph only appears in the Infancy Narratives and is very much an Old Testament figure. So much so, that God always communicates with him in dreams. He was. “a man of honour,” and always obeys God’s command as revealed to him in his dreams, doing what is best for Mary, who had conceived through the Holy Spirit, and for the child, who is to be born. It is Joseph who is to name the child and so Joseph becomes legally the boy’s father. Then we have the name Jesus, meaning Saviour or “he who will save his people from their sins.” In addition, the quotation from Isaiah, that the virgin’s son would be called Emmanuel, the Messianic name meaning, “God is with us” or “God with us,” thus making it abundantly clear that this child, born of Mary and conceived through the Holy Spirit, would be God incarnate, fully man and fully God. Before this mystery we kneel in silence and awe, thanking God for his loving kindness towards us.
