“BLACKCATHOLIC Fervorinos 3: Christmas Happens in Real Life Again at Every Mass” Video Transcript
Here’s another late post of the transcript for one of my BLACKCATHOLIC Fervorinos videos. This one was posted last month on my social media extensions. Luckily, this is the last one, so I am all caught up! Praise God on that one.
The following is an approximate transcript of my “BLACKCATHOLIC Fervorinos 3: Christmas Happens in Real Life Again at Every Mass” video released on my Facebook page and spread to Twitter on December 24, 2021. The transcript below strives for a balance of both a word-for-word account and careful editing for better reading. With [notes] and [additions] for clarity and flow.
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How you doing? This is Justin the BLACKCATHOLIC, and I’m coming at you from my Christmas parish assignment here in middle Tennessee, the Diocese of Nashville.
It’s dark outside, so it’s kind of dark in the church. And so I just came over to the church from the rectory to spend some quality time with Jesus.
Me and Him just chilling.
I’m coming at you with another BLACKCATHOLIC Ferverino.
I haven’t done this in a while, but I wanted to pick back up with it. As you know, BLACKCATHOLIC Ferverino is just something that has come to me in prayer, especially during the liturgy, and it’s just something to present to you to help increase your faith just a little bit with the little faith insight that I’ve had.
So, the faith insight that I’ve had came earlier this week leading up to Christmas, and so I don’t even really have a title for it yet. Maybe I’ll put a title for it once I post this video. But this has to do with Christmas and the Incarnation, Jesus’s genealogy, His historical lineage, and what goes on at the altar.
The point came to me while I was altar serving at this very parish. It was on Monday, or Tuesday (I believe it was Monday). In the gospel that we had was the genealogy of Christ as given from either the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of Matthew. [Either way,] it was the genealogy of Jesus, and so it was saying Jesus is the son of Joseph, who was begotten by such and such, who was begotten by such and such, who was begotten by such and such, [etc.]. So, the gospel paints Jesus in a historical lineage, and we know that Jesus did come from a historical lineage, [and] that lineage was a lineage of blood. He was related by blood to other people, and we know He wasn’t related by blood to Joseph because Joseph was his foster father. But He was related to Mary in blood because Mary actually gave birth to Jesus. God, in Jesus, received His humanity from the flesh of Mary. Jesus received both His true flesh and blood from somebody who was true flesh and blood, which was Mary. Because of that, Mary has a genealogy as well. Anna and Joachim begot Mary, and her parents were begotten by such and such, and it goes on.
So we know that Jesus not only had a mother but He had a grandmother, and He had cousins, and He had uncles, and He had great grandfathers and great grandmothers through the lineage that He received from Mary. And that’s something to ponder upon itself, how God became man and became a part of the human family but also part of, quite literally, a family in which Jesus had cousins; He had uncles and everything. But that’s not the point I want to bring up in particular.
The point I want to bring up is how during Mass I thought about what was in the gospel and how Jesus has a historical lineage, and that historical lineage of blood comes through Mary because He received his flesh of blood from Mary.
We’ve gone into, by this point, the liturgy of the Eucharist, and Father is at the consecration, and He’s lifting up the host.
“This is my body.”
And he lifts up the cup filled with wine.
“This is my blood.”
And so we know the Eucharistic change happens. We know from transubstantiation the complete change from [bread and] wine into the body, blood, soul, and divinity.
We know that in the chalice is the blood of Christ. We know that in the chalice it’s not just the blood but, of course, the body and the blood. We know that in the chalice is the blood of Christ in a truly substantial way. It’s no longer wine, but it is the true body and blood under the appearance of wine. When Father lifts up the chalice, in that chalice (and, of course, on the paten as well) is the very same blood, the very same flesh, that is mentioned in the genealogy that Jesus received 2,000 years ago at the Incarnation. So, all of that historical lineage, the very same blood of Jesus’s earthly family that He received through Mary, becomes present for us on the altar, on the paten with the body and in the chalice with the blood. That very same historical lineage becomes present to us because it is part of the humanity of Christ that was united perfectly and inseparably to the Divine Person. And that thought hit me: during Mass when Father raises the chalice, in that [chalice] sloshing around (hopefully, Father’s not sloshing it too much) is that blood of the historical lineage of Jesus that makes His humanity.
That is what we’re celebrating this Christmas and every Christmas – that
God became man, truly. And we celebrate that not [only] by what’s going to be going on in that stable over there and in a stable near you (what’s going to be in there), but also we celebrate Christmas by what’s going to be going on at that altar here and at an altar near you this Christmas (and in that tabernacle).
Christmas is about the celebration of God becoming man and being born a historical person with historical blood – being born. On the altar is the re-presentation of Calvary, but it is also making present that very same Man, [the] historical person that had historical blood in a lineage. And so I just want to call to that mind that point that in the chalice and on the paten when Father raises up the host and raises up the chalice that very same blood that was united to the Divine Person 2, 000 years ago is the very same blood that is made present on our altars today. And it is very same blood that we’re going to celebrate Christmas this
Saturday. But the very same blood, the historical lineage, is going to be on the altar each and every Mass. And we celebrate that especially [on] Christmas.
So, the last point I want to say is that this hopefully gives you something to contemplate as you go into your Christmas Mass this upcoming weekend, and you realize how we’re celebrating Christmas, an event that’s not just something in the past but is something that takes place now in a sense because 2,000 years ago the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men in a stable. But when we come to Mass on Christmas we see the Word made flesh again on the altar, on the paten, in the chalice – Christmas happening again in real life. Just like Christmas happened 2,000 years ago in real life Christmas happens in real life every time on the altar.
So, when we come and we celebrate Christmas and the Word is made flesh again on the altar remember the implications of our celebration of Christmas – how just as Scott Hahn said in his book Joy [To] The World in the tag line “How Christ’s Coming Changed Everything (And Still Does).” And that’s true. We can experience that on an intimate level at Mass when the Word is made flesh again, and that changes everything. Because if God really became man 2,000 years ago and died on the cross and rose again and ascended into heaven, that changes everything. That refocuses all of human existence, all of existence itself. Then that very same change, that very same reality, we get to participate [in] intimately at every Mass. And that very same game-changing reality becomes present for us once we behold the Word made flesh again in the Eucharist and receive the Word made flesh in our hearts, in our very bodies.
So that Christmas can not only just be in the history books that we celebrate, but, more importantly, Christmas is in us when we come to worship God at Mass.
This is Justin the BLACKCATHOLIC.
Peace.