Mystic Nativity

The Baptism of the Lord, this Sunday’s feast, is a pivotal moment in the Church’s year.  The last day of the Christmas season, it concludes the narrative about Jesus’s “hidden years” and it launches him on his three-year public ministry with a wonderful testimony to his divine sonship, as the Father’s voice is heard from heaven and the Spirit descends on him like a dove.  Some would argue that this was the moment at which the man Jesus received his mission.  That is not the view of the Church, indeed the whole point of the infancy narratives is to explain that his mission predated even his birth in Bethlehem, but it is certainly the moment at which the man Jesus became fully aware of his mission and was revealed as the Son of God to those privileged to witness this moment.

 

That is why the Baptism in the Jordan was chosen by Pope St John Paul II as the first of the “mysteries of light” that he added to the rosary just over 20 years ago.  The five mysteries chosen, each from Our Lord’s public ministry, are all moments of revelation, moments that disclose the divine identity and mission of Jesus our Saviour.  For this reason, many theologians throughout the history of the Church have seen this feast as a further “epiphany” - the other side of the coin from the Visit of the Magi that we celebrated last weekend.  Indeed, the motet that the Choir is to sing during the Offertory at Mass on Sunday, Palestrina’s Tribus miraculis, is a setting of the Magnificat antiphon from the feast of the Epiphany which explores this very idea - “three wonders  mark this day we celebrate”, the three wonders being the manifestation of the infant Jesus to the Magi, his Baptism in the Jordan and the miracle at the marriage feast of Cana - about which more next weekend.

 

Palestrina, incidentally, was born in 1525, so this year marks his quincentenary.  There are to be a number of concerts featuring his music in St James’s Church in the course of the year, as part of the Wigmore Hall concert series - but more of that in due course. 

 

Next week we return immediately to Ordinary Time, as it is rather prosaically known in English, although there is nothing “ordinary” about the mysteries of salvation that we celebrate throughout the Church’s year.  It is a time when we return to green liturgical colours (except on saints’ days), after the predominant white of the Christmas season.  Green indicates growth, life and hope, and its use is most fitting as we move from the particular events of Our Lord’s infancy to the principal narrative of his ministry among us.

 

This year, of course, is a Jubilee year, when we are encouraged to focus particularly on our identity as “pilgrims of hope”.  CAFOD is organizing an online introduction to the Jubilee year on the morning of Saturday 18 January, for which it is possible to register at cafod.org.uk/jubilee.  A particularly appropriate way to mark a Jubilee year is, of course, to make a pilgrimage.  Elsewhere on the newsletter there are advertisements for a pilgrimage to Marian shrines in France, led by Father Thomas Crean OP,  and for our own parish pilgrimage to Rome in October of this year.   

 

This past week has seen the start of the First Holy Communion and First Reconciliation catechesis for our young children.  The First Reconciliation will be celebrated in early February, while the First Holy Communion will take place on Saturday 10 May.  This Sunday sees the return of the children’s liturgy during the 4pm Mass as well as the start of the Confirmation classes for our teenagers, to be held in the Social Centre after the 4pm Mass.  The Confirmation itself is scheduled for Sunday 18 May during the 4pm Mass, when Bishop Nicholas Hudson will come once again to celebrate the sacrament with us.  

 

It should be noted that adults requesting the sacrament of Confirmation should seek to join the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults), rather than the classes for teenagers.  The RCIA process begins in the autumn and is aimed principally at the Easter Vigil, when adult candidates for baptism and confirmation typically receive those sacraments.  

 

Next weekend sees the start of the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, a time when that worthy intention receives a particular emphasis in our prayer.  Originally conceived in 1908 by the co-founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, Fr Paul Wattson, it spanned the period between what was then the feast of the Chair of Peter in Rome and the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul - giving a very Roman flavour to the Octave.  

 

This year, the Octave of Prayer makes particular reference to the 1700th anniversary of the great Ecumenical Council of Nicea, held in the year 325.  As well as being a significant anniversary of this key event in the life of the early Church, it has a particular resonance for the intention of Christian Unity, since belief in the creed formulated at that Council is something that unites the principal Christian traditions, despite the tragic divisions that occurred later in our history.  Every Sunday we profess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed - Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem cæli et terræ, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.  The faith that unites us is what gives hope and direction to our lives, however stormy the seas we are called upon to navigate.  As Saint Paul said in his Letter to the Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).