Christmas

Christmas! God Incarnate! Unbounded Love Manifest!

Centering Thought All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them *in her heart**. (LK:2)*

Welcome to the Christmas day retreat! This online retreat is offered with the hope that it will provide you with an opportunity to enter into a time of prayer, reflection and action during this season of Advent. This is our Christmas reflection.

The retreat has three parts:

Presence: You are invited to enter into the retreat through silence or by song. This is a time of preparation to receive God’s word into your heart.
Prayer: Following Saint John Baptist De La Salle’s Method of Interior Prayer reflect upon this week’s Sunday Gospel.
Participation: How is the Holy Spirit calling me to enliven the reign of God in my life, my family, my community, and the world? God’s reign—one that is reflective of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness and justice.

Presence

Light a candle as you pray “Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.” or “Let me remember that I am in the holy presence of God.”

Prayer

Saint John Baptist de La Salle Method of Interior Prayer. The Sunday Gospel as reflected in the process of De La Salle’s Method of Interior Prayer. (DLS Method of Interior Prayer: Br. William Mann FSC)

First Movement: Remember God’s Presence

Pause for a few minutes to quite yourself and to remember that God is, even in this very moment, present to you.

In all of creation, everything around you.
In your very self, keeping you alive.
In the midst of those with whom you are praying
In the Eucharist and in the Word of God
In you by God’s grace at work in your life.
In the young and the poor.

Second Movement: Contemplate the Mystery of God’s love at work in the world.

Read today’s Gospel a few times slowly. What word or words especially catch your attention? Listen to what is being said; watch what happens; try to become part of the Mystery; lovingly contemplate Jesus.

Reflect on the Mystery of God’s love at work in your own life.
Does today’s Gospel have any relevance to your life?
How do you try to share the message of this Gospel with those with whom you live and work? With those who have been entrusted to your care?

If you choose to allow this Scripture passage to come alive in you now, what would you have to change in your life? What are the obstacles to this change?

A Reading from the Gospel of Luke 2:15-20

When the angels went away from them to heaven,
the shepherds said to one another,
“Let us go, then, to Bethlehem
to see this thing that has taken place,
which the Lord has made known to us.”
So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed
by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen,
just as it had been told to them.

Third Movement: Resolve to be open to the Spirit working in and through you.

Where is the Spirit drawing you to sacrifice yourself today that others might have a happier, fuller, holier and more love-filled life?
Take a few minutes now to thank God for this time you have spent in prayer and to reoffer yourself, as far as you are able, to the accomplishment of God’s will…God’s plan.

Participation: A Reflection from Brother Dennis Malloy’s past Welcome Letter…

Through the mystery of Christmas incarnation as we ourselves take on his flesh … to mend the breach, to bind up wounds, and to announce good news: the savior is within us as well as in our midst.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world.
Yours are the feet with which Christ is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now.

— St. Teresa of Avila

Fifth Meditation

Those Chosen by Providence for the Work of Education Must Fulfill the Functions of Guardian Angels Towards Children (5)

[That those chosen by Providence for the education of children must fulfill the functions of Guardian Angels for them]

Commentary

The very title of the meditation is a challenge. The challenge is that you have been chosen by God. Don’t gloss over this. These are very strong words that you have been given your unique vocation.

The focus here now shifts from a Spirit of Faith to a Spirit of Zeal. You are encouraged to recognize the dignity of the position of teacher and to recognize it not as a job but as a call and that you are thereby an instrument of God.

Angels are more enlightened than humans and have a better understanding than humans, especially children.

God in His goodness has given us angels to guide and protect us. In the same way God has given children teachers (Lasallian, that is you) to guide them and show them the way. The Founder emphasizes, that we are to admire God’s goodness in providing for all. So, in your prayer you are invited to do just that: admire God’s ways and that you are part of that way.

Rom. 12: 6-8 shows that teaching is one of God’s gifts. Society may not rank your ministry as one of the most lofty, but Jesus, in plan of things, does. Do you?

In the Second Point it states that it is not enough for you to just teach the mysteries and doctrine but you must also provide maxims from the Gospels to guide your disciples. You are to guide and take care of your students as our guardian angels act towards you.

In the Third Point you are reminded that there are many obstacles to salvation and that is why the Father has given us guardian angels. You are to ask the Father for the grace to watch over children because this is what he will be judged upon.

You need to be careful that you do not become distracted by the Founder’s reference to Guardian Angels. You need to keep in mind that the Founder is writing in a different time and different theological understanding and a very different cultural context. The world of Seventeenth Century Europe is a different world from the world in which you presently live in.

Keep the focus on the reality: God has taken care of you. As God has taken care of you, God has now called to be collaborators in His (Her) caring for your students. You do what God cannot do. This is a very strong statement but St. Paul is the one who has introduced us to this reality. Are you able to accept that you complete what Jesus did not finish?

In the Third point you are again encourage to ask Jesus. When you do ask Jesus, what are the feelings that well up within you?

Fifth Meditation: First Point

It can be said that children at birth are like a mass of flesh. Their minds do not emerge from the matter in them except with time, and become refined only little by little. As an unavoidable consequence, those who are ordinarily instructed in the schools are not yet able by themselves to understand easily the Christian truths and maxims. They need good guides and visible angels to help them learn these things.

Angels have this advantage over us, that they are not bound to a body and to all the functions of the senses, without which ordinarily our minds rarely operate. Angels, therefore, have intelligence far superior to ours, and can contribute much to our understanding, no matter how very unsullied the level of our minds might be. The angels who guide us share with us the understanding and the knowledge they have of the true good. By this sharing of the enlightenment of the Guardian Angels we can have a more penetrating knowledge of God, of his perfections, of all that is related to God, and the means of going to him.

If that is true of all of us, it is incomparably more true of children, whose minds are more dull because they are less free of their senses and of matter. They need someone to develop the Christian truths for them in a more concrete fashion and harmonious with the limitations of their minds, for these truths are hidden from the human mind. If this help is not given, they often remain all their lives insensitive and opposed to thoughts of God and incapable of knowing and appreciating them.¹

For this purpose the goodness of God has provided children with teachers who will instruct them in all these things. Admire this goodness of God, providing for all the needs of his creatures, taking the means to procure for us the knowledge of the true good, that is, the salvation of our souls. Offer yourselves to him for this purpose, to assist the children entrusted to you as far as he will require of you.

Fifth Meditation: Second Point

To be saved it does not suffice to be instructed in the Christian truths that are purely doctrinal. As we have said already, faith without works is dead;² it is like a body without a soul; consequently, it is not sufficient to help us achieve our salvation.

It is, then, not enough to procure for children the Christian spirit and teach them the mysteries and doctrines of our religion. You must also teach them the practical maxims that are found throughout the holy Gospel. But since their minds are not yet sufficiently able to understand and practice these maxims by themselves, you must serve as visible angels for them in two things:

1.You must help them understand the maxims as they are set forth in the holy Gospel.

2.You must guide their steps along the way that leads them to put these maxims into practice.

For this they need visible angels who by their instructions and by their good example will encourage them to appreciate and practice these maxims. By these two means, then, these holy maxims will make a strong impression on their minds and hearts.

Such is the function you ought to perform for your disciples. It is your duty to act toward them as your Guardian Angels act toward you. You must win them to practice the maxims of the holy Gospel, and to this end you must give them means which are easy and accommodated to their age. Gradually accustomed to this practice in their childhood, they will be able when older to have acquired them as a kind of habit and practice them without great difficulty.

Fifth Meditation: Third Point

You encounter so many obstacles to salvation in this life that it is impossible to avoid them if you are left to yourselves and your own guidance. This is why God has given you Guardian Angels to watch over you, as the prophet says, to prevent you from falling by tripping against some stone,³ that is, some obstacle to your salvation. Your angels inspire you and help to keep you away from the path where you might encounter any obstacle.

How much easier it is for children to fall over some precipice, because they are weak in mind as well as body, and have little understanding of what is for their own good. Therefore they need the light of watchful guides to lead them on the path of salvation, guides who have an adequate understanding of things concerning piety, and a knowledge of the ordinary faults of young people. Thus they will be able to help them to be aware of pitfalls and keep away from them.

This is what God has provided in giving children teachers whom he has charged with this care, and to whom he has given the concern and the vigilance⁴ not only to prevent anything whatsoever harmful to their salvation from capturing their hearts, but also to guide the children through all the dangers they meet in the world, so that under the guidance of these attentive leaders, and under the protection of God, the devil does not even dare approach them.

Ask God today for the grace of watching so well over the children confided to you, that you will take every possible precaution to shield them from serious faults.

Ask him to be such good guides for them through the light which you will procure for yourselves by recourse to God, and by the fidelity with which you do your work, that you will see well every obstacle to the good of their souls, and keep away from the path of their salvation everything that could harm them.

This is the principal care you must have for the children entrusted to you, it is the main reason why God has entrusted you with so holy a ministry, and it is on this that he will call you to give a very exact account on the day of judgment.

Scripture recommendations:

1 Cor. 2: 15-16 tells us to have the mind of Christ.

This reflection was prepared by Brother Vincent Pelletier