Tag: Catholic

The Annunciation Revisited

“The Annunciation” by Lynn Miyake (Egg Tempera with 23K Gold Halos)

(This post was originally published back in March. Here it is again for the Christmas Season.)

Have you ever heard that the date for Christmas (December 25) was selected to coincide with a pagan holiday? Don’t believe it. The calculation is actually based on Scripture.

Every year on March 25, the Church celebrates the day when the Angel Gabriel announced the conception of the Christ to Mary. March 25 is exactly nine months prior to December 25. To see how the date for Christmas was calculated, first we need to go back to September 25, when the Angel Gabriel announced the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah. (Remember, during the Annunciation to Mary, Gabriel tells Mary that her cousin Elizabeth has also conceived, and Elizabeth is in her sixth month. See Luke 1:36. September 25 is six months prior to March 25.)

September 25 fell at the end of the Jewish season of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. (The date for the Day of Atonement falls on the tenth day of the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. It varies from year to year, falling in September or October.) During the ten day period prior to the Day of Atonement, Jews amended their behavior, prayed, repented, and gave to charity, in order to seek forgiveness from God.

According to Luke 1:9, Zechariah was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary to burn incense. The Jewish priests could only enter the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement. (See Ex. 30:7-10.) Gabriel says to Zechariah, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John.” (Luke 1:13)

So, here is the timeline:

  • September 25 – Gabriel announces the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah.
  • March 25 (six months from September 25) – Gabriel announces the birth of Jesus to Mary.
  • June 24 (nine months from September 25) – the Church celebrates the birth of John the Baptist.
  • December 25 (nine months from March 25) – the Church celebrates the birth of Jesus.

There you have it, Gentle Reader.

Presence

Today, I visited a deserted chapel on my morning walk with my husband. I had tried to visit the chapel a couple of times during ‘social distancing’, but someone else was always there before me. This morning, finally, the chapel was empty. I went to visit the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. But was He really there?

I looked for the red sanctuary candle. Yes, it was lit. He was there. I was reminded of the ending of the great English novel, Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh: “…There I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.”

Fortitude

Yes, the purple ones really are purple.

Every year in my Discalced Carmelite Secular Community, we draw names to pray for each other and to pray for the priests, deacons, and religious in our diocese. We also draw the name of a virtue to practice during the year. For the last three years, I have drawn the virtue of fortitude. The first year, I thought, that’s interesting. The second year, I thought, what a coincidence! This year, when I drew it again, I realized that I needed to give the virtue of fortitude some serious thought.

Pondering this virtue, I used to think of it in relation to the unpleasant tasks I needed to complete. Don’t give up, I would tell myself. Practice fortitude! Now, as my husband and I, along with so many others, must ‘shelter in place’ to avoid the Coronavirus, I realize that fortitude also pertains to all the things we would like to do but can’t, at least for the foreseeable future. In a way, ‘sheltering in place’ is a desert experience. We are separated from all the unnecessary activities with which we often distract ourselves.

The cacti in my garden practice fortitude better than I have ever done. In recent years, I have not paid much attention to them in favor of whatever was blooming in the garden. Yet, they have continued to survive, and even to thrive.