It was once the custom for each chapter of the Dominican friars to hold a solemn chapter meeting on Christmas Eve. As it moved towards the midnight mass they read the story of Jesus: the Veni, Veni Emmanuel is sung as the last of the Advent Antiphons, and the following was read aloud by the cantor:
‘Be comforted, be comforted, my people, says your God. For in the year 5199 from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created heaven and earth. in the year 2957 from the flood, in the year 2015 from the birth of Abraham, [they go through the years since Moses and the Exodus, David, Daniel, the Olympics (the 194th Olympics if you’re interested), how long since the invention of ‘the city’ and in the ‘sixth age of the world’]… Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, willing to hallow the world by his most gracious coming, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and nine months having passed since his conception, was born in Bethlehem of Juda, made man of the Virgin Mary.’
This highly elaborate references, a rhetorical ornament, using Hebrew, Greek and Roman ways of computing time, all to highlight the significance of one obscure and rather messy birth. All times are relative to this birth, all events are relative to this event. For in this one event, the whole of human history takes its meaning, shape and coherence. By this one event all times are judged: this is the norm, the measure of all worth. So human time is not a continuum, measured by reference to our own experience. Time becomes time before and time after Christ. For in this simple, concentrated event all times fall before the one time: God’s time with us.
Revd Sally Hitchiner
