Bread of Life

BREAD OF LIFE
 this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. (john 6: 50)
The miracle of God’s physical presence to us at every Mass is the truest testament to Christ’s love for us and His desire for each of us to have a personal relationship with Him. Jesus Christ celebrated the first Mass with His disciples at the Last Supper, the night before He died. He commanded His disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). The celebration of the Mass then became the main form of worship in the early Church, as a reenactment of the Last Supper, as Christ had commanded. Each and every Mass since commemorates Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross through the Holy Eucharist. Because the Mass “re-presents” (makes present) the sacrifice on Calvary, Catholics all around the world join together to be made present in Christ’s timeless sacrifice for our sins. There is something fascinating about continuing to celebrate the same Mass—instituted by Christ and practiced by the early Church—with the whole community of Catholics around the world…and in heaven.

THE REAL PRESENCE

Why does the Catholic Church believe Christ is really present in the Eucharist?
The Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence is the belief that Jesus Christ is literally, not symbolically, present in the Holy Eucharist—body, blood, soul and divinity. Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because Jesus tells us this is true in the Bible:

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” - John 6:48-56
Furthermore, the early Church Fathers either imply or directly state that the bread and wine offered in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is really the body and blood of Jesus Christ. In other words, the doctrine of the Real Presence that Catholics believe today was believed by the earliest Christians 2,000 years ago!

This miracle of God’s physical presence to us at every Mass is the truest testament to Christ’s love for us and His desire for each of us to have a personal relationship with Him.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

THE FIRST SILENT NIGHT

It’s difficult to imagine today, but there was a time when “Silent Night” was not virtually synonymous with Christmas. As recently as the nineteenth-century, Christmas was not widely celebrated in the English-speaking world.

The Puritans ignored it because the Bible was silent on the topic, while New Year’s was the traditional day of gift-giving in Britain. Carols, though, were popular, and the first significant collection of carols was published in 1833. Though it contained classics like “The First Nöel” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” it, and its 1852 successor, make no mention of “Silent Night.”

That changed with the Victorians. When the German-born Prince Albert married Queen Victoria, he brought many of the traditions of his native land to Britain, including the Christmas tree, gift-giving, and cards. In 1848, the Illustrated London News published a drawing of the royal family celebrating the holiday around a Christmas tree, and the practice quickly caught on around the country. Victoria and Albert also presided over the revitalization of many carols, setting old words to new music. It is probably during this period that many British people were first introduced to “Silent Night.”

The song we know as “Silent Night” was born as “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” in a small Austrian village in 1818. According to legend, the church organ was broken on Christmas Eve, so the organist and town priest collaborated to create the carol with a guitar accompaniment in order to ensure that the people of Oberndorf did not go without music on the holy night. The song was translated to English by an American Episcopal priest in 1859.

Though Christmas had become a national tradition by World War I, “Silent Night” was far from the dominant song of the season. But by the time of the famous 1914 Christmas truce—100 years ago this Christmas—the carol played a crucial role in bringing about the temporary break in the fighting. All along the trenches, two sides started singing carols at each other. After the musical icebreaker, some of them met in No Man’s Land, exchanged presents, and played makeshift soccer games.

Legend has it that “Silent Night” was the only carol the two sides had in common, but in reality the Germans were much more familiar with the carol. They were the ones who most frequently sang “Stille Nacht,” while the English responded with a variety of tunes, from “Good King Wenceslas” to “The First Noel.” One rifleman, Graham Williams, wrote later that the Christmas truce “was actually the first time I heard this carol [“Stille Nacht”], which was not then so popular in this country as it has since become Williams was not alone in his unfamiliarity with “Silent Night.” Robert Graves called the carol “Stilly Nucked” in his 1962 short story, “Christmas Truce,” suggesting that it was relatively unfamiliar to the soldier-protagonist as well.

The two sides bounced carols back and forth until “O Come All Ye Faithful” united them, since the Germans knew the words in Latin. “And I thought, well, this was really a most extraordinary thing,” wrote Williams “two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” Christmas music in general took off in the two decades after World War I, coinciding with the rise of radio and the music industry. Bing Crosby, whose Christmas album is one of the most popular of all time, first recorded “Silent Night” in 1928. In the almost nine decades since, the song has been recorded and re-recorded by countless artists. Time magazine found that “Silent Night” is by far the most recorded carol in America since 1978, outstripping runner-up “Joy to the World” almost two to one

A 2010 study showed that the same applied to Britain. Of the top 10 highest-selling Christmas albums of all time, no less than seven feature the song. (Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand are the only two artists who passed.) In 2011, UNESCO declared “Silent Night” part of our “intangible cultural heritage,” but 100 years ago, it wasn’t nearly the cultural fixture it is today. Since it’s humble origins in an Austrian village almost 200 years ago, the song has come a long way, featured on countless recordings and helping to bring together nations entrenched in the bloodiest war in modern history.