Point Of Grace - Not That Far From Bethlehem

ERO CRAS

The O Antiphons are rich with meaning and make a truly wonderful Catholic tradition! All you do is sing or pray them.  Singing is praying, btw.

Why they are called the “O Antiphons”?

Each night for the octave (8 days) before Christmas, we ask Christ to come, and call him by a different name. Each of these names starts with “O”, such as “O Come O Come Emmanuel”. An antiphon is a liturgical composition, and they are traditionally sung. Therefore, they are called the O Antiphons.

When do the O Antiphons start?

The O Antiphons start on Dec 17 and run through Dec 24. This time is known as the “second part of Advent” or “The Golden Nights.” The O Antiphons are taken from the Liturgy of the Hours (specifically, evening prayers, or “vespers”). So because they are traditionally said in the evening, there is not one for Dec 24 because the evening on Christmas Eve is already the vigil of Christmas, so we are no longer waiting.

What do the O Antiphons mean?

The O Antiphons get across 2 messages: each one highlights a different title for the Messiah (listed below), and each one refers to the prophecy of the Messiah from Isaiah.

§  Dec 17: O Sapientia (Wisdom)

§  Dec 18: O Adonai (Lord and Ruler)

§  Dec 19: O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)

§  Dec 20: O Clavis David (Key of David)

§  Dec 21: O Oriens (Dawn of the East)

§  Dec 22: O Rex Gentium (King of the Gentiles)

§  Dec 23: O Emmanuel (God With Us)

§   

What’s with the “ERO CRAS”?

If you take the first letter of each name and write them backwards, you get “ERO CRAS.” This means “Tomorrow, I will Come” in Latin. So that’s why you see that written in a lot of places with the O Antiphons.

Micah's Oracle

LECTIO:

Reading 1MI 5:1-4A

Thus says the LORD:
You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah
too small to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel;
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient times.
Therefore the Lord will give them up, until the time    
when she who is to give birth has borne,
and the rest of his kindred shall return
to the children of Israel.
He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock
by the strength of the LORD,
in the majestic name of the LORD, his God;
and they shall remain, for now his greatness
shall reach to the ends of the earth;
he shall be peace.

STUDIUM:

Micah has significance to us Christians.  Micah 5: 2-4, announces a righteous shepherd who will come out of Bethlehem-Ephrathath, which is just Bethlehem.  And He will rule as God.  The Gospel of Matthew quotes Micah (Matt. 2:6) in support that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  

MEDITATIO:

I see how great Jesus is from this oracle proclaimed by Micah.  And He shall be peace, not a conquering hero.  So different than what is expected.

ORATIO:

Lord, Prince of Peace, see how your flock is scattered in terror.  You are needed as the Good Shepherd.  We await Your Coming.

CONTEMPLATIO:

Come Lord, Jesus.

Goya Coca

It’s a Christmas party in Spanish class. My task was to bring a non-alcoholic drink.  Just before class, I went to the store                                                                                               and looked at the various products.

I wanted something obviously Spanish and not something we drink all the time.  So coconut water was not a choice.  I almost purchased coconut milk but I thought coconut cream would be richer.  That's the reason I bought Goya Coco.

However, I was very disappointed when I opened the can and instead of a liquid, it was a solid.  I tasted it and it's very sweet.  

I'll have to look up some recipes using coconut cream.  I imagine you could use it like you use marshmallow.

BTW, no one in Spanish class thought it was funny.  We had nothing to drink.

And You Thought Hockey was a Game The One True Faith · Post

Hockey is a character in the novel, Beartown by Frederik Backman.  And it's more than that.  It's a philosophy, theology, and science.  It's life.

Beartown is the name of a small, sleepy suburb, next to the town of Hed.  They're separated by a forest.  It's a hockey community.  And I live there, now.  My town is a hockey town, my family is in that book.  My husband played and coached.  My son played and still does in his thirties.  My two son-in-laws played and still do.  One of them is a hockey coach.  So my frame of reference lives in this book.

The story is about the kids in the game and everyone is in the game.  Beartown's soul is the game.  Emotions run high and so do the readers. The team's best player fails everyone.  The General Manager's daughter and her friend center the action.  They ice the game.  Some of the old guard stand and lead opinions.  It's tense.

Characters change; well, they're teenagers so of course they change and grow.  But the adults struggle with their values, too.  Everyone evolves.  There are some good quotes:

“Religion is something between you and other people; it’s full of interpretations and theories and opinions. But faith . . . that’s just between you and God.”   And hockey is a faith.

That's one of my favorites.  

Here's another.  There are no atheists in the last period of the game and your losing.  But I already knew that one.

Jordi's Witness

Here's a witness (re)conversion story from my favorite Lay Dominican Postulant about St. John of the Cross. 

"Con la autoridad del Sumo Pontífice Gregorio XIII..."
With these words San Juan de la Cruz hears his prison sentence pronounced. Around him, Tostado, Maldonado and other unkind faces glare at him with no sign of Christ in their rotten hearts. The only loving face he sees when he closes his eyes is the image of Jesus and his last visit with Teresa de Cepeda, that wonderful woman who sang so beautifully, even when she was feeling ill, who understood him and could hold intelligent conversations with him better than any man, about real things, not material things.

Saint John of the Cross was the first saint I reached out to in my first dark night of the soul in Denver, Colorado. The elders at the Denver Church of Christ, a Fundamentalist Born-Again non-denominational church that I had served for months, deemed my views heretical and when they found me with my friend Leete, also a Born-Again Christian, but from a different Fundamentalist Church that allowed musical instruments in worship, they condemned me to house imprisonment and corrective instruction under the tutelage of a kind man who explained how worried he was for my soul.

It was the day I found Sanctuary at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and Erin, who was going through her own dark night herself. We felt like St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, and we found sanctuary at the Altar of Peace and answers from a Priest who never made an appearance in the news for all his good deeds, and never will. The news doesn't care for such priests, for the news and the false Christians all serve the same false god of nationalism, pharisaical rules devoid of spirit, and hate.

I returned to my Catholic faith that day, and gained a female friend who wanted nothing more from me than my friendship, and that can be just as beautiful as any other road.

We Meet the Author

The Intergenerational Book Club met today to discuss Guitar Notes by Mary Amato.  The time flew by.  We had a bingo game as an icebreaker.  We had to walk around the room and talk to each other in order to find people to satisfy a square on the bingo card: are you left-handed, have you been to Paris, can you whistle a song, etc.

We also had food, with pomegranates prevalent because they were important in the story.  While eating we conversed with the author, who was on live via video chat.

Mary Amato is a wonderful, fun, and open person.  She told us how she goes about writing.  Her method is more or less cloud gathering. She takes large easel size paper and writes her characters on different sections of the paper.  Then her ideas that go with the characters are written around the character.  That's what works for her.

It is not unusual for her to make 40 revisions, or to scrap an entire book.  She sometimes writes two stories at once.  Her work schedule usually is set but if the spirit moves her, she'll stop writing and grab an instrument for a break or write a song.  But she is a disciplined perfectionist, like Lyla, the character in Guitar Notes.

That was one of the questions we asked; "are the characters based on real people?"  The answer was mostly "no."  Although Lyla had that one trait of perfectionism.

The interviewing with the author flew by.  All too soon, Mary Amato said, "just one more question."  I think the author had a good time with us.  I know we all did.  It was great fun.

Personally, I enjoyed the book.  I thought the telling of the story was unique.  Mary Amato told the story through messages passed between two people, Tripp and Lyla.  So there were two points of view.  The characterization was well drawn.  Tripp and Lyla were real typical teens.  The storyline appealed to all ages.  We, seniors, were once teens and parents so we could identify.  The teens are living the same story, presently.  The book was a hit.