CHRISTMAS PASTORAL

The Great Jubilee of the year 2000: a yearlong celebration of the Nativity

Christmas message of Bishop Basil Losten of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford, Conn.

To the Reverend Clergy, the Venerable Monastics and all the Devout Faithful of the Eparchy of Stamford:

Khrystos Razhdaietsia! Christ is Born!

Every year we rejoice to keep Christmas, the feast of the Nativity of the Lord. But this year our rejoicing is special, unique. We are entering upon an entire year of celebration of the Birth of Our Savior, the Great Jubilee, marking 2,000 years from that pivotal moment in history when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem from the Holy Theotokos, the Blessed Mother of God, Mary, the ever-Virgin Mother, who is also our Mother because in baptism we are joined to Christ and we become Christ's brothers and sisters by adoption.

People have often voiced the sentiment that it would be nice to have Christmas "all year round." That moment has come: the Great Jubilee is, as it were, an entire year dedicated to the Nativity. Certainly we shall have all the feast days and fast days provided by the Church calendar, but we shall retain the Nativity in our consciousness throughout the Jubilee Year. In turn, we shall also reflect on the connection of Christmas with the other feasts of the Church calendar.

Immediately we think of the Annunciation, the moment when Mary received the Angel, informing her that she had been chosen to become the Mother of the Messiah - and the moment when Mary agreed to accept this most special of all vocations. Almighty God does not force His grace upon us; we must accept His grace of our own free will if we desire to have His grace at all. But when the Virgin Mary said to the Angel "Be it done unto me according to your word" (Luke 1:38), she spoke for all of us. Taking flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, God the Son accepted the human nature that all of us have in common with Mary, and thus God the Son became, as St. Paul tells us, a Man like us in all things save sin" (Heb. 4:15).

Since the Virgin Mary spoke for all of us in her response to the Annunciation, we for our part may sing on Christmas "What shall we offer You, O Christ, Who for our sake has appeared on earth as a Man? The Angels offer a hymn; the heavens, a star; the Magi, gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; the earth, its cave; the wilderness, the manger; but we offer you a "Virgin Mother," the Blessed Mother, the Holy Theotokos, which is the highest gift we can offer Jesus Christ for His Nativity. Jesus Christ has accepted this, our gift, and shares this gift with us, in declaring, as He did from the Cross, that His Mother is our Mother (John 19:27).

Above all, Christmas leads us to Pascha. In the Christian life, and above all during the Great Jubilee, we celebrate God's love for us, knowing that God loved us first, before we loved God. The New Testament begins with the Incarnation: Annunciation and Christmas. From Bethlehem the Gospel leads us to the Flight into Egypt, to Nazareth, to Our Lord's public life, to His Passion and Death on the Cross, and ultimately, joyfully, to His Resurrection. It is for this reason that some of our older liturgical books call Christmas a "winter Pascha"; our thoughts on Christmas move us towards the Resurrection.

Through the prayers of our Blessed Mother, the Holy Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary, I wish all of you, all of your families, and all those who are dear to you a joyful Christmas and a Year of Jubilee filled with an abundance of God's grace. May you truly have Christmas throughout this year; may you be filled with childlike wonder at each new revelation of God's love for us.

Asking your prayers that our whole Church and all the Ukrainian people may be richly blessed during this Great Jubilee, I remain, as ever,

Sincerely yours in Christ,

The Most Rev. Basil H. Losten, D.D.
Eparch of Stamford
(New York and New England)

Given December 8, 1999, the Feast of the Conception of St. Ann, in the Cathedral of St. Vladimir the Great.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 2, 2000, No. 1, Vol. LXVIII

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