Saturday, December 14, 2024
Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Catching up
How about if today I share some of the beautiful, mysterious, magical words I’ve been reading during Advent? I don’t have room for any more in my treasurebox, and I know more will be coming, because Advent brings out the best in writers of all kinds. So … enjoy.
Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. All flesh shall see the salvation of God.
Preparing
The prophet cries, “Prepare the way!”
and we know he means justice and purified hearts—
well … and shopping and decorating and baking
and cards and programs and family plans …
Either path is OK, for a bit. But whichever you are on,
stop. It’s OK to let it all go.
Prepare for something to happen inside you
that can’t happen with too much stuff going on.
Clear the space. Stop pruning in the vineyard, and walk away.
Dress warmly, and go out into the dark. You may go alone,
or with others who can hold candles in a cold wind
without masking the dark silence with familiar songs.
Sit at the empty manger, and let its emptiness speak.
Make room for newly conceived life… unknown longings.
All of who you are is present, as is the Holy, approaching.
This retreat may take a lot of time. Cookies may be neglected.
Sit in the not-yet-ness, the awful silence.
Sit with the holy family. Joseph goes off to find a safe place,
and Mary regards the manger within. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes
As the songs from Amahl and the Night Visitors follow me back into the kitchen, I am ignited with my own litany of longings: For a king whose miracles aren’t only for those who can afford them. For a king who will shut down hospitals because our healed bodies don’t need them. A king who will stabilize energy grids, food supply, and erratic weather systems. A king whose beauty and bounty dismantle the appeal of terrorist organizations and boundary demarcating. A king under whose rule no innocent would perish. A king whose everlasting peace marks the end of evil. For such a king, I too have waited all my life. – Kelsi Folsom in Plough Magazine
There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself —
Finite infinity.” – Emily Dickinson
Did you notice
God
standing over in the corner
or behind a tree
shy
naked
longing for your attention
hoping that you stop doing
whatever it is that preoccupies you
and keeps you from looking up
and squinting to find Her
—even if the busyness you are doing is for God—
gently, patiently, secretly hoping
you stop it
if only for a little while
to allow loving gazing at each other
holding hands
breathing each other’s breath
and remembering
really remembering
why you exist? – Clarence Heller
Finally, after posing a question for Charles Dickens which Dickens can’t answer, having passed away 154 years ago, Garrison Keillor has a few things to say about Christmas, personal, political (I left out those parts) and theological.
Dickens’ message of cheerfulness and sharing in the face of selfish greed is all well and good but it’s not the same as the story of God come to Earth to be made man to show His love for us. One is neighborliness and the other is a miracle and a mystery.
The shepherds tending their flocks by night in Judea who were summoned by the angel to go to Bethlehem to see the wondrous thing did not go to find jolly people around a Christmas tree with nice gifts and a turkey dinner with a fine wine and rice pudding. They went to confront a miracle that every Christian must believe or not believe or sort of believe or some combination of the three for your entire life, the idea that the Creator had a Son who was made incarnate and grew up Jewish only to be crucified as a fake Messiah. It’s not about snow.
After a Christmas spent with a very pregnant wife sort of clarified the idea of Advent, we’ve come to love the quiet Christmas. I do four Christmas shows this year and at each one the audience will stand in a darkened theater and sing, a cappella, about the silent night calm and bright, and the sound of a thousand people singing from memory and in harmony about the Holy Infant, the quaking shepherds, the radiant beams. This is Christmas enough for the old man.
It is a blessed time of year as I hike to church and if indeed God became one of us in Bethlehem then a great weight is lifted. Ignore the dark, wait for the light.
These are indeed the Advent days that the Lord has made. And tomorrow we can light the third candle.
(Sirach 48, Psalm 80, Luke 3, Matthew 17)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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