Bishop prayed, offered Mass at holy sites with ties to Christmas

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Bishop W. Shawn McKnight celebrated Christmas on Oct. 23 this year.

Christmas Mass, that is, at the place of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem.

“Whenever you visit one of the sites in the Holy Land, the Mass for the corresponding feastday is offered there,” the bishop explained.

What’s more, the prayers and readings for that Mass include the word “hic” — Latin for “here” — whenever appropriate.

As in: “While they were here, the time came for (Mary) to have her child, and she gave birth here to her firstborn Son.”

“That really drives home that something very important happened, and you’re standing right where it took place,” said Bishop McKnight.

“It makes the historicity of our faith really stand out,” he asserted. “As a pilgrim, it helps you encounter the mystery all the more fully.

“It’s not just a myth, it’s not just some moral story. It’s reality,” he said.

To Jesus through Mary

Bishop McKnight led an Oct. 17-28 pilgrimage to the land of Jesus’s birth, ministry, passion, death and resurrection.

The pilgrimage afforded him, as a bishop, several opportunities to pray alone at holy sites, including the Grotto of the Annunciation, the Grotto of the Nativity, and the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem.

The latter commemorates where the Blessed Mother fed and took care of the Savior of the World while He was a baby.

“Mary is a fellow disciple to all of us, but as mother of our Lord, she stands out from the rest,” the bishop noted.

“In our Catholic faith tradition, we see that Mary’s role continues today, showing a mother’s concern for all, especially those who are suffering,” he said.

In the Church of the Nativity, Bishop McKnight kneeled and prayed at the place where Jesus was born.

He also offered Mass on the Plane of the Shepherds, outside Bethlehem, where the men tending their flocks heard the angels’ hymns on the night of Jesus’s birth.

In Nazareth, the bishop got to lead prayers in the Basilica of the Annunciation, built at the place where Mary said “yes” to being the mother of the Messiah.

The bishop and his fellow pilgrims arrived at the basilica shortly before the praying of the “Angelus,” which calls to mind Mary’s obedient “yes.”

“I was invited to go down into the grotto and lead the praying of the ‘Angelus’ from there, and to give the final blessing to all the pilgrims,” he stated.

It was quite an experience, he said, to stand and pray “where it all began with Mary’s ‘fiat’ and her openness to the will of God in her life.”

That “yes” led her to Bethlehem and eventually to Jerusalem, where her Son would suffer, die and rise from the dead.

Above the valley

The first place Bishop Mc­Knight and the pilgrims visited was Mount Carmel, where God in the time of the prophet Elijah had proved Himself to be the one and only God.

Bishop McKnight celebrated Mass in a small church on the mountain.

“The view was breathtaking,” he recalled. “I can see why the Lord always wanted to go back to Galilee. It was His home, but it’s also very scenic, very beautiful terrain.”

The bishop pointed out that pilgrimages often call for sacrifices.

“It’s hard work, even with our modern conveniences and how we travel,” he said. “I marvel at pilgrims back in the Middle Ages. It was quite the penance for them in terms of making the physical trip.”

Waiting to get into various holy sites can be a vivid exercise in patience.

“But all of a sudden, you’re there and it’s overwhelming, and you realize it was worth whatever you had to do to get there,” he said.

He’s convinced that anyone who makes a Holy Land pilgrimage is changed forever.

How they celebrate Christmas, Easter and the other important feasts of the year is noticeably different.

“Before you go, your imagination is at work when you listen to the Scriptures being read,” he noted.

“But once you’ve been to the Holy Land, you’ve actually seen the place and you now have a historical frame of reference.”

Assurances of faith

Memories of the pilgrimage are helping Bishop Mc­Knight cope with the recent death of his mother, Mary Schaffer.

“The whole devotion to our Sorrowful Mother, who witnessed the death of her Son, takes on added significance,” he noted.

“And the article of faith that we as Catholics uphold about the Communion of Saints is much more poignant when we’ve lost a loved one,” he said.

“I see more clearly now in our celebration of the Eucharist the connection we have with those who have gone before us,” he added.

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