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The Christmas Cycle
“to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, . . .
Jesus, who hath delivered us from the wrath to come” (Epistle).
“Grant us . . . to do what is pleasing to Thee” (Collect). Then we are truly spiritual when
we accomplish what is pleasing to God. The slightest trial or tribulation, when accepted with
the proper motive, is pleasing to God. If we have the proper spirit, we accept all things that He
sends us, suffer joyfully all trials that we meet, and according to our light do all things that are
pleasing to Him in our state of life. All our actions will be pleasing to Him if we perform them
with the purpose of doing His holy will. A true Christian sets aside his own will and seeks first
what may be the will of God. He no longer lives for himself, but for God alone. He seeks perfect
cooperation between his own will and the will of God, and seeks to live in the most intimate
union with Christ. The chief purpose of our liturgy is to establish this disposition in our souls.
It would have us say with Christ, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me” ( Jn 4:34).
In the daily Sacrifice of the Mass the liturgy instructs us systematically in the Christian life.
The Epistles and Gospels give us the principles and the application of these principles to our daily
lives. Every Christian who makes a serious effort to apply the principles of the Gospel to his life
becomes, in a sense, an epiphany, a manifestation of Christ in the world. Christ manifests Himself
in their lives; in them He “hath built up Sion and He shall be seen in His glory” (Gradual).
The liturgy concerns itself chiefly with those who have been baptized. Having restored us to
the supernatural life through baptism, Holy Mother the Church seeks to transform us, to fill
us with grace, to enlighten us, and to perfect our union with Christ. Let us examine ourselves
and learn how far this transformation has been accomplished in our soul. If we have not made
progress, it is because we have placed some obstacle in the path of grace.
Many of us, perhaps, will discover that we have made very little progress. We may discover,
upon investigation, that we are still more concerned about the things of this world than we are
about the things of God (Col 3:1 f.). We may learn that our yearning “to be dissolved and to be
with Christ” is very weak indeed (Phil 1:23). The thirst for holiness and the desire to become
detached from the things of earth may hardly have touched our soul. The spirit of faith and
of complete dependence on God may scarcely have moved us at all. How far we still are from
that disposition of soul which made St. Paul cry out: “We know that to them that love God, all
things work together unto good”; for He has predestined us “to be made conformable to the
image of His Son” (Rom 8:28 f.). Therefore He has justified us.
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us? He that
spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not also with
Him given us all things? Who shall accuse against the elect of God? God is He that justifieth.
Who is he that shall condemn? Christ Jesus that died, yea, that is risen also again; who is
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who, then, shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger?
or persecution? or the sword? . . . But in all these things we overcome because of Him that
hath loved us” (Rom 8:31–37).
Prayer
Grant us, we beseech Thee, O almighty God, ever to fix our thoughts on reasonable things and
to do what is pleasing to Thee both in words and in deeds. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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