John Saward - Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery

CRADLE OF REDEEMING LOVE

JOHN SAWARD

The Theology of the Christmas Mystery

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Edith Typica copyright 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Cover art: The Nativity, at Night
Geertgen tot Sint Jans
National Gallery, London
Copyright National Gallery
Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum

2002 Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 0-89870-886-9
Library of Congress Control Number 2001091855
Printed in the United States of America

Ad honorem
Beatae Marine
semper virginis
Matris pulchrae dilectionis

In memory of
George John Saward
Marjorie Elizabeth Saward
Robert John Thomas
Muriel Ivy Thomas

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatta mundi
dona eis requiem sempiternam .

CONTENTS

1 How great the mystery!
The Mysteries of the Life of Jesus

2 Begotten all ineffably
The Two Births of the One Person of Christ

3 Mother and Maiden
The Ever-Virgin Mother of the Incarnate Son of God

4 Born to raise the sons of earth
The Purpose of the Temporal Birth of Christ

5 Once in royal Davids city
The Time and Place of the Saviours Birth

6 To the Gentile world displayd
The Manifestation of the Newborn Christ

ABBREVIATIONS

Unless otherwise noted, quotations from Scripture are generally taken from Bishop Challoners revised version of the Douay Bible (The Holy Bible, Douay Version, new ed. [London, 1956]). Psalms are numbered according to the Latin psalter. However, the spelling of Biblical names follows the conventions of the Revised Standard Version: for example, Hosea is called Hosea, not Osee.

References to Papal encyclicals are in most cases to the paragraph numbers in the collection of translations edited by C. Carlen IHM, The Papal Encyclicals (Raleigh, 1981).

Bethlehem Frederick William Faber, Bethlehem (London, 1860).

CA Catena Aurea : commentary on the four Gospels collected out of the works of the Fathers by St Thomas Aquinas; English translation edited by John Henry Newman; new edition with an introduction by Aidan Nichols OP, in four volumes (Southampton, 1997). (In some places I have modified the translation. The number refers to the volume, and therefore the Gospel: thus CA 1 is the Catena on St Matthew, CA 2 on St Mark, and so on.)

CCC The Catechism of the Catholic Church .

CCCM Corpus Christianorum: continuatio mediaevalis .

CCSL Corpus Christianorum: series latina .

CSCO Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium .

DCOO Doctoris ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani opera omnia .

DS Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum , ed. H. Denzinger and A. Schnmetzer SJ, 36th ed. (Rome, Freiburg and Barcelona, 1976).

EH W. J. Birkbeck et al., eds., The English Hymnal , new ed. (London, 1933). (References are to hymn numbers.)

ET = English translation.

FT = French translation.

Greene R. L. Greene, ed., The Early English Carols , new ed. (Oxford, 1977).

GT = German translation.

L-R J. Leclercq OSB and H. Rochais, eds., Sancti Bernardi opera (Rome, 1957 ).

Ledit J. Ledit, Marie dans la liturgie de Byzance (Paris, 1976).

LG Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium .

Menaion The Festal Menaion , trans, from the original Greek by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London, 1977).

OCB Francois Bourgoing, ed., Oeuvres completes de De Berulle , new ed. (Paris, 1856).

PG J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia graeca .

PL J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia latina .

Q St Bonaventure, Opera omnia , ed. Franciscans of Quaracchi (1882-1902). (In the notes, the volume numbers are given as Roman numerals.)

Rationale William Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum . (This work is cited by book, chapter, and paragraph from the critical edition in CCCM, vols. 140 and 140A.)

RSPT Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques .

RSR Recherches de science religieuse .

SC Sources chretiennes .

SCG St Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles .

Sent. St Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum . (The number preceding Sent , refers to the particular book of Peter Lombards Sentences being expounded.)

ST St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae .

Suppl. Supplement to part three of the Summa theologiae .

Triodion The Lenten Triodion , translated from the original Greek by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London, 1978).

WH D. Mathew et al., eds., The Westminster Hymnal (London, 1939). (References are to hymn numbers.)

PREFACE

Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone around the Christmas fire; and made the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete.

As I grow older, the Christmas mystery seems ever greater, or rather the sense I had of its greatness when I was young and my eyes were still bright is, with every years passing, more and more confirmed. When I was a child, Christmas did indeed encircle all my limited world: it was the goal of the year, the glorious summation of everything that was good. Even when Christmas began to be something I could remember from what little past I possessed, it still seemed each time altogether new, like the very first Christmas of all. When I looked up at the jewels in the black cope of the sky, I was sure I could see the beaming brightness that guided the Magi and hear the angels bringing glad tidings to the shepherds. This strange intuition was renewed twenty, thirty, forty years later when I was the father of a family. Our little ones were like icons of the Child-God of Bethlehem: in them I could see the likeness of His littleness and hear the echo of His preaching: Such I became for you, and such you must become if you want to enter my Kingdom. Now, decades after my own and my childrens first Christmases, I remain convinced that the Christmas mystery, in both its liturgical solemnities and its familial festivities, recapitulates the whole of the Catholic religion, inaugurates Easter, anticipates the Parousia and contains within it the source of the worlds restoration.

Cradle of Redeeming Love is the sequel to Redeemer in the Womb .

What follows is a work that is theological in the strict sense: it is concerned with God and other things in relation to God, which for two millennia has captivated the intelligence of Fathers and Schoolmen; activated the genius of poets, painters and musicians; and, in even the bleakest of midwinters, brightened the eyes of little ones when they have knelt by the Crib.

It is the dogma that is the dramanot beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving-kindness and uplift, nor the promise of something nice after deathbut the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen, and they may not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that a man might be glad to believe.19 March 2002Solemnity of St Joseph

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I must thank His Eminence Christoph Cardinal Schnborn of Vienna for having invited me, four years ago, to join the faculty of the International Theological Institute in Gaming. Cradle of Redeeming Love is the fruit of these four happy years and of the intellectual fellowship of colleagues who are also dear friends. I am also grateful to Donald J. Uitvlugt of the University of Notre Dame for reading some of the chapters, and for his unfailing support and encouragement of my work.

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