Beloved Family,

I am taking the liberty of sending you a second video just four days following that of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” on Christmas Eve – because I encountered on the New Liturgical Movement website (www.newliturgicalmovement.org) what is, to me, an exquisitely splendid film of a Christmas Eve Mass celebrated in 1962, in the “Extraordinary Form”, which was, of course, the “Ordinary” form of its day. It is, to me, simply Heaven on Earth – Heaven come to Earth.

Certainly, not all of us, coming from our multiple backgrounds and experiences, share the same sense and perspective of the Mass. Yet, as our culture has tended toward what is fast, instant and disposable, it has become increasingly difficult for many to enter into the comparatively lengthy, un-instant, un-disposable and indispensable depth of beauty and meaning that our Lord has poured into His creation – His new creation – demonstrated and lived in the video below.

In my youth, the Passover in our Jewish home took several hours. The dried lamb shank on our Seder Table merely pointed to the One who was to come. Should not the reality be greater than the sign? If we, as the Hebrew People of God, could spend two to three hours recounting the deliverance of our People from slavery in Egypt, should we, as Catholics – the new Israel of God – hesitate to spend such time at the Holy Mass which is the Passover fulfilled in the final Passover Lamb – the Lamb who delivered us from slavery to sin and gave Himself a ransom for many?

Beauty takes time – time to see, time for truth and grace to penetrate the soul, time for the things of Heaven to invade, dispel and sanctify the things of earth, most especially our hearts.

For those who love what you are about to see – and more, who take the time to enter in – I wish you every ounce and treasure of grace that the human body can hold.

My love to you on this Feast of the Holy Innocents. May you enter fully into the love and adoration of the Son of God, who is God the Son – the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, O.S.B.