URBI ET ORBI - CHRISTMAS 2008
URBI ET ORBI MESSAGEOF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI
CHRISTMAS 2008
"The grace of God our Saviour has appeared to all" (Tit 2:11, Vulg.)
Dear brothers and sisters, in the words of the Apostle Paul, I once more joyfully proclaim Christ’s Birth. Today "the grace of God our Saviour" has truly "appeared to all"!
It appeared! This is what the Church celebrates today. The grace of God, rich in goodness and love, is no longer hidden. It "appeared", it was manifested in the flesh, it showed its face. Where? In Bethlehem. When? Under Caesar Augustus, during the first census, which the Evangelist Luke also mentions. And who is the One who reveals it? A newborn Child, the Son of the Virgin Mary. In him the grace of God our Saviour has appeared. And so that Child is called Jehoshua, Jesus, which means: "God saves".
The grace of God has appeared. That is why Christmas is a feast of light. Not like the full daylight which illumines everything, but a glimmer beginning in the night and spreading out from a precise point in the universe: from the stable of Bethlehem, where the divine Child was born. Indeed, he is the light itself, which begins to radiate, as portrayed in so many paintings of the Nativity. He is the light whose appearance breaks through the gloom, dispels the darkness and enables us to understand the meaning and the value of our own lives and of all history. Every Christmas crib is a simple yet eloquent invitation to open our hearts and minds to the mystery of life. It is an encounter with the immortal Life which became mortal in the mystic scene of the Nativity: a scene which we can admire here too, in this Square, as in countless churches and chapels throughout the world, and in every house where the name of Jesus is adored.
The grace of God has appeared to all. Jesus – the face of the "God who saves", did not show himself only for a certain few, but for everyone. Although it is true that in the simple and lowly dwelling of Bethlehem few persons encountered him, still he came for all: Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, those near and those far away, believers and non-believers… for everyone. Supernatural grace, by God’s will, is meant for every creature. Yet each human person needs to accept that grace, to utter his or her own "yes", like Mary, so that his or her heart can be illumined by a ray of that divine light. It was Mary and Joseph, who that night welcomed the incarnate Word, awaiting it with love, along with the shepherds who kept watch over their flocks (cf. Lk 2:1-20). A small community, in other words, which made haste to adore the Child Jesus; a tiny community which represents the Church and all people of good will. Today too those who await him, who seek him in their lives, encounter the God who out of love became our brother – all those who turn their hearts to him, who yearn to see his face and to contribute to the coming of his Kingdom. Jesus himself would say this in his preaching: these are the poor in spirit; those who mourn, the meek, those who thirst for justice; the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness’ sake (cf. Mt 5:3-10). They are the ones who see in Jesus the face of God and then set out again, like the shepherds of Bethlehem, renewed in heart by the joy of his love.
Brothers and sisters, all you who are listening to my words: this proclamation of hope – the heart of the Christmas message – is meant for all men and women. Jesus was born for everyone, and just as Mary, in Bethlehem, offered him to the shepherds, so on this day the Church presents him to all humanity, so that each person and every human situation may come to know the power of God’s saving grace, which alone can transform evil into good, which alone can change human hearts, making them oases of peace.
May the many people who continue to dwell in darkness and the shadow of death (cf. Lk 1:79) come to know the power of God’s saving grace! May the divine Light of Bethlehem radiate throughout the Holy Land, where the horizon seems once again bleak for Israelis and Palestinians. May it spread throughout Lebanon, Iraq and the whole Middle East. May it bring forth rich fruit from the efforts of all those who, rather than resigning themselves to the twisted logic of conflict and violence, prefer instead the path of dialogue and negotiation as the means of resolving tensions within each country and finding just and lasting solutions to the conflicts troubling the region. This light, which brings transformation and renewal, is besought by the people of Zimbabwe, in Africa, trapped for all too long in a political and social crisis which, sadly, keeps worsening, as well as the men and women of the Democratic Republic of Congo, especially in the war-torn region of Kivu, Darfur, in Sudan, and Somalia, whose interminable sufferings are the tragic consequence of the lack of stability and peace. This light is awaited especially by the children living in those countries, and the children of all countries experiencing troubles, so that their future can once more be filled with hope.
Wherever the dignity and rights of the human person are trampled upon; wherever the selfishness of individuals and groups prevails over the common good; wherever fratricidal hatred and the exploitation of man by man risk being taken for granted; wherever internecine conflicts divide ethnic and social groups and disrupt peaceful coexistence; wherever terrorism continues to strike; wherever the basics needed for survival are lacking; wherever an increasingly uncertain future is regarded with apprehension, even in affluent nations: in each of these places may the Light of Christmas shine forth and encourage all people to do their part in a spirit of authentic solidarity. If people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart.
Dear brothers and sisters, today, "the grace of God our Saviour has appeared" (cf. Tit 2:11) in this world of ours, with all its potential and its frailty, its advances and crises, its hopes and travails. Today, there shines forth the light of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High and the son of the Virgin Mary: "God from God, light from light, true God from true God. For us men, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven". Let us adore him, this very day, in every corner of the world, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a lowly manger. Let us adore him in silence, while he, still a mere infant, seems to comfort us by saying: Do not be afraid, "I am God, and there is no other" (Is 45:22). Come to me, men and women, peoples and nations, come to me. Do not be afraid: I have come to bring you the love of the Father, and to show you the way of peace.
Let us go, then, brothers and sisters! Let us make haste, like the shepherds on that Bethlehem night. God has come to meet us; he has shown us his face, full of grace and mercy! May his coming to us not be in vain! Let us seek Jesus, let us be drawn to his light which dispels sadness and fear from every human heart. Let us draw near to him with confidence, and bow down in humility to adore him. Merry Christmas to all!
© Copyright 2008 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Feast of Holy Innocents explained - From Catholic Encyclopaedia
Holy Innocentstt=23
The children mentioned in
St. Matthew 2:16-18:
Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending killed all the men children that were in
Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the
prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
The Greek Liturgy asserts that
Herod killed 14,000 boys (ton hagion id chiliadon Nepion), the Syrians speak of 64,000, many
medieval authors of 144,000, according to Apoc., xiv, 3. Modern writers reduce the number considerably, since Bethlehem was a rather small town. Knabenbauer brings it down to fifteen or twenty (Evang. S. Matt., I, 104), Bisping to ten or twelve (Evang. S. Matt.), Kellner to about six (Christus and seine Apostel, Freiburg, 1908); cf. "Anzeiger kath. Geistlichk. Deutschl.", 15 Febr., 1909, p. 32. This cruel deed of
Herod is not mentioned by the Jewish historian
Flavius Josephus, although he relates quite a number of atrocities committed by the king during the last years of his reign. The number of these children was so small that this crime appeared insignificant amongst the other misdeeds of
Herod. Macrobius (Saturn., IV, xiv, de Augusto et jocis ejus) relates that when
Augustus heard that amongst the boys of two years and under
Herod's own son also had been massacred, he said: "It is better to be
Herod's hog [ous], than his son [houios]," alluding to the Jewish law of not eating, and consequently not killing, swine. The
Middle Ages gave
faith to this story;
Abelard inserted it in his
hymn for the feast of Holy Innocents:
Ad mandatum regis datum generale nec ipsius infans tutus est a caede. Ad Augustum hoc delatum risum movit, et rex mitis de immiti digne lusit: malum, inquit, est Herodis esse natum. prodest magis talis regis esse porcum.
(Dreves, "Petri Abaelardi Hymnarius Paracletensis", Paris, 1891, pp. 224, 274.)
But this "infant" mentioned by Macrobius, is Antipater, the adult son of
Herod, who, by command of the dying king was decapitated for having conspired against the life of his
father.
It is impossible to determine the day or the year of the death of the Holy Innocents, since the
chronology of the birth of Christ and the subsequent Biblical events is most uncertain. All we
know is that the infants were slaughtered within two years following the apparition of the star to the Wise Men (Belser, in the Tübingen "Quartalschrift", 1890, p. 361). The
Church venerates these children as
martyrs (flores martyrum); they are the first buds of the
Church killed by the frost of
persecution; they died not only for Christ, but in his stead (St. Aug., "Sermo 10us de sanctis"). In connection with them the Apostle recalls the words of the Prophet Jeremias (xxxi, 15) speaking of the lamentation of Rachel. At Rama is the
tomb of Rachel, representative of the ancestresses of
Israel. There the remnants of the nation were gathered to be led into captivity. As Rachel, after the fall of
Jerusalem, from her
tomb wept for the sons of Ephraim, so she now weeps again for the men children of Bethlehem. The ruin of her people, led away to Babylon, is only a type of the ruin which menaces her children now, when the
Messias is to be
murdered and is compelled to flee from the midst of His own nation to escape from the sword of the
apparitor. The lamentation of Rachel after the fall of
Jerusalem receives its eminent completion at the sight of the downfall of her people, ushered in by the slaughter of her children and the banishment of the
Messias.
The
Latin Church instituted the feast of the Holy Innocents at a date now unknown, not before the end of the fourth and not later than the end of the fifth century. It is, with the feasts of St. Stephen and St. John, first found in the Leonine Sacramentary, dating from about 485. To the Philocalian Calendar of 354 it is unknown. The Latins keep it on 28 December, the Greeks on 29 December, the Syrians and Chaldeans on 27 December. These dates have nothing to do with the chronological order of the event; the feast is kept within the octave of
Christmas because the Holy Innocents gave their life for the newborn Saviour. Stephen the first
martyr (
martyr by will,
love, and blood), John, the Disciple of Love (
martyr by will and
love), and these first flowers of the
Church (martyrs by blood alone) accompany the Holy Child
Jesus entering this world on
Christmas day. Only the
Church of
Rome applies the word Innocentes to these children; in other Latin countries they are called simply Infantes and the feast had the title "Allisio infantium" (Brev. Goth.), "Natale infantum", or "Necatio infantum". The
Armenians keep it on Monday after the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Armenian Menology, 11 May), because they believe the Holy Innocents were killed fifteen weeks after the birth of Christ.
In the
Roman Breviary the feast was only a semi-double (in other breviaries a minor double) up to the time of
Pius V, who, in his new
Breviary (1568), raised it to a double of the second class with an octave (G. Schober, "Expl. rit. brev. rom.", 1891, p. 38). He also introduced the two
hymns "Salvete flores martyrum" and "Audit tyrannus anxius", which are fragments of the Epiphany
hymn of Prudentius. Before
Pius V the
Church of
Rome sang the
Christmas hymns on the feast of the Holy Innocents. The proper preface of the Gelasian Sacramentary for this feast is still found in the Ambrosian
Missal. We possess a lengthy
hymn in
honour of the Holy Innocents from the pen of the
Venerable Bede, "Hymnum canentes martyrum" (Dreves, "Analecta hymnica") and a sequence composed by
Notker, "Laus tibi Christe", but most Churches at Mass used the "Clesa pueri concrepant melodia" (
Kehrein, "Sequenzen", 1873, p. 348). At Bethlehem the feast is a Holy Day of
obligation. The
liturgical colour of the
Roman Church is purple, not red, because these children were
martyred at a time when they could not attain the
beatific vision. But of compassion, as it were, towards the weeping mothers of Bethlehem, the
Church omits at Mass both the Gloria and
Alleluia; this custom, however, was unknown in the Churches of
France and
Germany. On the octave day, and also when the feast falls on a Sunday, the Roman Liturgy, prescribes the red colour, the Gloria, and the
Alleluia. In
England the feast was called "Childermas".
The Roman Station of 28 December is at
St. Paul's Outside the Walls, because that church is believed to possess the bodies of several of the Holy Innocents. A portion of these
relics was transferred by
Sixtus V to Santa Maria Maggiore (feast on 5 May; it is a semi-double). The
church of St. Justina at
Padua, the
cathedrals of
Lisbon and
Milan, and other churches also preserve bodies which they claim to be those of some of the Holy Innocents. In many
churches in
England,
Germany, and
France on the feast of
St. Nicholas (6 December) a
boy-bishop was elected, who officiated on the feast of
St. Nicholas and of the Holy Innocents. He wore a
mitre and other pontifical insignia, sang the collect, preached, and gave the blessing. He sat in the
bishop's chair whilst the choir-boys sang in the stalls of the canons. They directed the choir on these two days and had their solemn procession (Schmidt, "Thesaurus jur eccl.", III, 67 sqq.; Kirchenlex., IV, 1400; P.L., CXLVII, 135).
