Catholic Replies
Q. In your Christmas Quiz, the answer to question 26 said that the Magi visited Jesus, Mary, and Joseph “in a house.” But don’t we always see the three kings in the stable at Bethlehem? — T.W., via e-mail.
A. Yes, we usually do see the Magi in the stable, but the Gospel of Matthew says that after their audience with King Herod, “the star that they had seen in its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary His mother. They prostrated themselves and did Him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way” (Matt. 2:9-12).
So why should we accept the traditional scenario with the Wise Men in the stable? Well, for one thing, Matthew and the other three Evangelists were not as concerned about precise historical chronology as modern-day historians are. They were more concerned with reporting the events in the life of Jesus than in giving us the exact order in which they occurred. For another thing, it makes sense to capture the whole infancy story in one tableau that includes shepherds and the three kings.
But in reality, the chronology surrounding the birth of Jesus might have gone like this: Jesus was born in a cave in Bethlehem and was circumcised eight days later. The crowded conditions in Bethlehem apparently had lessened so that the Holy Family was able to move from the stable to a house. While the Magi are traditionally placed in the cave, it may actually have been some weeks after the birth of Jesus when they brought their gifts to Him. We know that Jesus was presented in the Temple 40 days after His birth, and it’s unlikely that Mary and Joseph would have felt safe traveling to Jerusalem if they knew King Herod was trying to kill Jesus.
Once Herod realized that the Magi were not going to report back to him on the whereabouts of the Child, he ordered his soldiers to kill every boy in Bethlehem two years of age and younger. That’s when the angel warned Joseph to flee to Egypt. We don’t know how long the Holy Family was in Egypt — it may have been only a few months, but once they got word that Herod had died, they returned to the land of Israel, not to Bethlehem of Judea, where Herod’s more evil son Archaelus was ruling, but rather to Nazareth in Galilee, where Herod’s less evil son Antipas was in charge. Jesus would run afoul of him 33 years later.
Q. (1) I have had a non-Catholic ask me if the Holy Mass is a meal. How should I answer him? (2) Mary says that “all generations will call me blessed.” How did she know this? Do you think she knew all that would happen according to the lyrics of the song, “Mary, Did You Know?” — E.N., California.
A. (1) Holy Mass is both a sacrifice and a banquet (not a meal). In the words of the Second Vatican Council: “At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and Resurrection, a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 47).
(2) Mary may have been a teenager when the angel appeared to her, but she understood that something unique was going to happen to her. Not only would she bear a son without disturbing her virginity, but that Child would be called “Son of the Most High” and “Son of God,” and His kingdom would have no end.
As a faithful Jew, she would have been familiar with the Old Testament heroine Hannah, who offered her son Samuel to God and sang a song of praise that began, “My heart exults in the Lord, /my horn is exalted in my God. /I have swallowed up my enemies; /I rejoice in my victory ” (1 Samuel 2:1). And with Judith, who also sang a canticle of praise to the Lord after cutting the head off the enemy General Holofernes (cf. Judith 16:1-17). When she returned to her people, they sang, “You are the glory of Jerusalem, /the surpassing joy of Israel; /You are the splendid boast of our people” (Judith 15:9).
Another link between Judith and the Virgin Mary occurred when the elder Huzziah hailed Judith for her bravery, saying: “Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, the creator of Heaven and earth, who guided your blow at the head of the chief of our enemies. Your deed of hope will never be forgotten by those who tell of the might of God” (Judith 13:18-19). The inspiration of the Holy Spirit was also surely involved in Mary’s Magnificat. In his encyclical Mother of the Redeemer, Pope St. John Paul II said: “These words used by Mary on the threshold of Elizabeth’s house are an inspired profession of her faith in which her response to the revealed word is expressed with the religious and political exultation of her whole being towards God. In these sublime words, which are simultaneously very simple and wholly inspired by the sacred texts of the people of Israel, Mary’s personal experience, the ecstasy of her heart, shines forth. In them shines a ray of the mystery of God, the glory of His ineffable holiness, the eternal love which, as an irrevocable gift, enters into human history” (n. 36).
In his Life of Christ , Giuseppe Ricciotti said that one could not imagine a “more unlikely prophecy,” namely, that a “little girl no more than fifteen years old, without any fortune or social standing whatever, unknown to her fellow countrymen and living in a tiny village equally unknown, was confidently proclaiming that all generations would call her blessed.” He said that “twenty centuries have passed since then and we may compare the prophecy with reality. History now has had all the time it needs to discover whether or not Mary’s prediction was correct and whether humanity today really does exalt her above Herod the Great, the arbiter of Palestine, and above Caius Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus, then master of the world” (p. 232).
Q. Due to COVID regulations in our diocese, if you wish to receive Communion on the tongue, you must be at the end of the line and then the priest must use hand sanitizer between each communicant. Our experience is that the Eucharist has the strong taste of the sanitizer. These sanitizers are labeled with “external use only” warnings. It appears that COVID paranoia trumps peoples’ safety. More importantly, it seems extremely sacrilegious. What is your opinion? — M.M., Iowa.
A. First of all, you are in one of the few dioceses that permit Communion on the tongue at all. So that’s a plus. Second, we have noticed the taste and odor of sanitizer after receiving in the hand and placing the Host in our mouth. This is because the priest sanitizes his hands before he gives out Communion to the faithful. We don’t consider this to be any kind of a health threat, anymore than we believe that the virus itself could be spread through the sacred Body and Blood of the Lord.
Third, the situation you describe is not sacrilegious. Sacrilege involves the deliberate desecration of persons, places, or objects set aside for the worship of God. This includes grave irreverence to the Eucharist, such as receiving Communion while in a state of mortal sin, throwing the Host on the floor, or using the Host in some obscene or diabolical ritual. None of these examples even remotely resembles the situation you have described, so we don’t think that any sacrilege is involved.
