The Altar of the Former Abbey Church Decorated ... - St. John's Abbey

EMMANUEL
by Daniel Durken, OSB
There is one word that sums
up the message of Christmas
and the New Year.
The word is EMMANUEL. It
means “God is with us.”
Only in Matthewʼs Gospel (1:
23) is EMMANUEL found in the
New Testament. Good Jew that he was, Matthew picked
up the word from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. Just
when king and people were convinced that God had deserted
them at a time of impending destruction and death,
Isaiah promised that a child named EMMANUEL would
soon be born. Before the child grew up the crisis would be
over and God would still be with them.
“Perfect!” thought Matthew. The newborn child of Mary,
this Jesus would deliver everyone from a more pervasive
enemy than Isaiah faced, namely, sin. Jesus is our new
EMMANUEL. He is truly “God with us!”
Later in the same gospel Jesus reconfirms this name when
he tells his disciples, “Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (18:
20). His name is still EMMANUEL for he is with us.
The last words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel reaffirm this
name. Just when we think Jesus will leave his disciples he
tells them, “Behold, I am WITH you always, until the end
of the age” (28:20). Jesus remains EMMANUEL, God
with us.
What a powerful and exciting name is EMMANUEL!
What a pity that there is not one Catholic church in the
whole of Minnesota named EMMANUEL Church! We prefer
the names of obscure saints like Columbkill, Clotilde,
Eloi, Finbarr, Gall, Hedwig, Kevin and Wendelin rather
than a thoroughly biblical name like EMMANUEL.
Let me recommend that EMMANUEL become our mantra
for the New Year. EMMANUEL is more than a name.
EMMANUEL is a prayer, the renewal of our faith, hope
and love of our God who is not against us, not above or beyond
us, not far away from us. In Jesus God is with us. In
fact, Jesus is more than with us. Wonder of wonders, Jesus
is God WITHIN us!
I wish you all a MERRY EMMANUEL!
Terrorism and
the Birth of Jesus
by Abbot John Klassen, OSB
FROM EDITOR AND ABBOT
Terrorism is a symbol of
the inhumanity of our
world. Our world is decidedly
different today because
we can see “everything.” In the
past, violent tragedies could be
ignored because they were not visible. In the nineteenth
century, the Red Cross was founded when photography
allowed people to see the tragedies that occurred in other
parts of the world. However, today we suffer from visual
overload. We see too much. Violence is served up to us in
living color, twenty-four hours a day.
It is important to note that the past ages were not less inhuman
than ours. Whole groups of people could die from
plague, starvation or environmental catastrophe and very
few of the world’s people would ever learn about it. And
wars of ethnic cleansing have happened throughout human
history.
In the face of this situation, we experience disorientation
and confusion. What are we to do? Pessimism begins
to close us in on ourselves. Every thought begins with
ourselves, our community, our family. Even if a door to
possible healing action is open, to us it seems closed. We
lose our capacity to view the world with compassion.
In this season of Advent and Christmas, we celebrate the
love and compassion of our God for the very world we live
in. In the gift of the Son to the world, God does not disengage
from the suffering and inhumanity of our world but
moves toward it. Jesus, newborn son of Mary and Son of
God, stands for humanity, for compassion and for reconciliation.
Jesus does not turn away from the inhumanity of
his own time but brings the message of the Reign of God
to it.
As his followers we have a role in the legitimization
of a vision of peace, a vision of compassion, a vision of
humanness in our world. It is a vision that may be very
small, like a child, but be brought to its full development
by the Spirit of God to something beyond our imagining.
The Abbey Banner Winter 2004 page 3