Total consecration of the Son

CCC 534: The finding of Jesus in the temple is the only event that breaks the silence of the Gospels about the hidden years of Jesus¹. Here Jesus lets us catch a glimpse of the mystery of his total consecration to a mission that flows from his divine sonship: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's work?²" Mary and Joseph did not understand these words, but they accepted them in faith. Mary "kept all these things in her heart" during the years Jesus remained hidden in the silence of an ordinary life.

1. See Luke 2:41-52.

2. Luke 2:49 alt.

The transfiguration of the beloved son

CCC 444: The Gospels report that at two solemn moments, the Baptism and the Transfiguration of Christ, the voice of the Father designates Jesus his "beloved Son"¹. Jesus calls himself the "only Son of God", and by this title affirms his eternal pre-existence². He asks for faith in "the name of the only Son of God"³. In the centurion's exclamation before the crucified Christ, "Truly this man was the Son of God"⁴, that Christian confession is already heard. Only in the Paschal mystery can the believer give the title "Son of God" its full meaning.

1. Cf. Matthew 3:17; cf. 17:5.

2. John 3:16; cf. 10:36.

3. John 3:18.

4. Mark 15:39.

To find the hundredth sheep

Both His Words and His Works proclaim the reason of His Coming: to find the hundredth sheep, that had strayed, He has hastened down from the mountains; and that the mercies of the Lord, might, more clearly, give glory to Him; and His wonderful works to the children of men (Psalm 106:8), He came for our sakes. Wondrous dignity of the Lord, Who comes seeking, wonderful the dignity of men, so sought for! And in this if any man should wish to glory, he shall not be foolish; not because he appears to be something, as from himself, but because He that made him is mighty. For all riches, all the glory of this world, and all whatsoever in it that is desired, is less than this Might; neither is there anything with which to compare it. Lord, what is man that thou shouldst magnify him? Or why dost thou set thy heart upon him? (Job 7:17).

—Saint Bernard, The Advent of the Lord and Its Six Circumstances, PL 183, 35-40 (Homily 1), quoted in The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, vol. 1, page 24; 2000, Ignatius Press

Our Lady's Saturday

Found in John Saward's The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty: Art, Sanctity & The Truth of Catholicism:

On this silent Saturday, this terrible Shabbat, while the Jews' Messiah sleeps the sleep of death, who burns the lights of hope? Is there no loyal remnant? There is, and its name is Mary. In the fortitude of faith, she keeps the Sabbath candles alight for her Son. That is why Saturday, the sacred day of her physical brethren, is Our Lady's weekly festival. On the first Holy Saturday, in the person of Mary of Nazareth, Israel, now an unblemished Bride, faces her hardest trial and, through the fortitude of the Holy Spirit, is triumphant.

The womb and Sheol shouted with joy

From Saint Ephrem the Syrian (+ 373 A.D.), doctor of the Church and the greatest poet of the patristic age. His feast day is 9 June.

The womb and Sheol shouted with joy and cried out about Your resurrection. The womb that was sealed, conceived You; Sheol that was secured, brought you forth. Against nature the womb conceived and Sheol yielded. Sealed was the grave which they entrusted with keeping the dead man. Virginal was the womb that no man knew. The virginal womb and the sealed grave like trumpets for a deaf people, shouted in its ear.

—Hymns on the Nativity 10, 7-8; Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium v. 187, 59.

Faith in the Incarnation

Saint Hilary of Poiters, Hymn on Christ 11-13, CSEL 65, 218:

Gabriel pronounces; Christ is received into the Virgin's body. The womb swells because of the holy Offspring. We are exhorted to believe in something new, and never seen before: A childbearing Virgin.

Christmas hymn

Mary's prayer from a Christmas hymn by Saint Romanos the Melodist (+ ca. 560 A.D., celebrated in the East on 1 October):

Tell me, my Child, how were you planted in me, and how were you formed in me? I see you, O my womb, and I am stunned. My bosom is full of milk, and I am not married. I see you wound about with swaddling clothes and perceive that the seal of my virginity is still intact, for it was you that kept it intact, when you deigned to be born, my little Child, God before all ages! High King, what do you have in common with our sorrows? Creator of heaven, why do you come among the inhabitants of earth? Were you taken with desire for a cave? Are you in love with a manger?

—On Christmas 1, 2-3: P. Maas and C. A. Trypanis, Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica Geniuna (Oxford, 1963); Cantica Dubia (Berlin, 1970)

Shoot of immortality

From Theodotus of Ancyra (+ before 446 A.D.), bishop of Ancyra (modern Ankara) and one of Nestorius' most tenacious and fierce opponents. He was the quasi-official theologian of the Council of Ephesus.

The fruit of your womb is not autumnal; rather, it is a shoot of immortality. It is not a harvest that came as a gift of nature but a flower sprung from a divine seed. For you gave birth to the Beginning who has no beginning, a child who is before all ages, the Virgin's Son, the Eternal who is nurtured in your womb, to him who is older than his mother yet is nursed by her, to him who nourishes all creatures and who clothes himself in human form, to the Splendor of God who presents himself as a pauper, to the King who will have no successor. Therefore I salute you, O Virgin full of grace, Mother among virgins and Virgin among mothers, archetype of both mothers and virgins, but superior to both.

—Homily 6, 12; Patrologia orientalis 19, 331. Quoted in Mary and the Fathers of the Church, Luigi Gambero, page 261.

The Christmas mysteries

From a sermon by Saint Bonaventure (+ 1274 A. D.), Franciscan theologian and Doctor of the Church:

The mysteries are these: the blessed fecundity of the undefiled Virgin; the humility, at once sublime and singular, of the superblessed Child; the courteous devotion of Blessed Joseph; the devout credulity of the simple shepherds; the new mirth of the angelic spirits; the beginning of the happiness of the whole human race; the beginning of the radiance of the Christian religion.

—Saint Bonaventure, In vigilia nativitatis Domini, sermo 6; Opera omnia, ed. Franciscans of Quaracchi (1882-1902), volume 9, page 95.

Smitten by sinners

From Saint Symeon the New Theologian (949 A. D. — 1022 A. D.), abbot of Saint Mamas Monastery in Constantinople.

Jesus our Lord and God, who has never fallen into sin, was smitten so that those sinners who imitate Him should not only receive the forgiveness of the sins they have committed, but also become partakers of His divinity (II Pet. 1:4) because of their obedience. He who does not accept this in humility of heart because he is ashamed to imitate the Master's sufferings, of Him will Christ also be ashamed in the presence of the angels (Mk. 8:38) and of His Father who is in heaven (Matt. 10:33). This is what I mean to say - He was God, but He became man for the sake of us men. He was slapped, spit upon, crucified, as though He who is impassible in His Godhead were teaching and telling each one of us for whom He suffered: `O man, if you wish to become a god and obtain eternal life and to be with Me, that which your ancestor failed to obtain because he wished for it in an evil way, then abase yourself even as I abased Myself for your sake. Cast aside the boastful pride of the devilish mind; accept being beaten, spat upon, buffeted, and endure those things until death and be not ashamed of it.'

— Saint Symeon the New Theologian, The Discourses: XXVII sect. 9, Paulist Press pg. 291