Category: christmas

Paper or Plastic?

JMJ
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A NEWBORN BABY, we are told (by Mr Google) has about 1 cup of blood. An adult human has about 1.5 gallons. In the Middle Ages may in Europe became fascinated with how many drops of blood that might be. How many drops of blood were shed by Jesus on the Cross? This quest became quite the source of many devotions. 28,430 is a good figure, but not believable: Mr Google converts 1.5 gallons to 113,562 drops. I imagine the number of drops would be closer to the 1.5 gallon total rather than only 5 cups or so, but I may be wrong. Perhaps drops were bigger then. ANYWAY, the point of this fascination seems to be the mechanics of the atonement. How exactly did it work? What is the process whereby Infinite God became Finite Man while remaining Infinite God in order to redeem Finite Man? And, once the Great Reduction had begun, how did the Finite Man, who was also Infinite God, effect so great a salvation?

Earlier I had to write an essay on the theology of atonement. I think it was actually a bit to scholarly for a homily, although, perhaps, it was a homily for a well catechized small group at a daily Mass. I pretended it was the Feast of the Sacred Heart which allowed me to take many things as read. But I’ve been meditating on these things since then. I want to unpack the central paragraph in that post.

On the cross, Jesus was made to be “sin for us” ​​(2 Corinthians 5:21) and by allowing the perfectly pure Son to experience the natural consequences for our sins God restored us to him. This is the masterstroke against sin, for by the cross those consequences of rejection, pain, and even death become the pathway of the Father’s love to us. (Atonement, 129, footnote 97) As Jesus surrendered perfectly to God’s will, even the worst parts of our world of violence and sin become ways in which God can (and does) reach us. The Eastern Church says Christ has “trampled down death by death.” That’s why the Sacred Heart, wounded by cruelty, is the symbol of love’s triumph.

When I was in 5th Grade or so, my friend Andy received a Magnavox Odyssey for Christmas. You played the games by placing plastic overlays on your TV. They adhered because of the static electricity. If you took the overlays off, you just had lighted blobs on your TV. There were six cartridges but it played 21 games by means of the overlays. Adding different graphics to the screen (on the overlay) changed what the lighted blobs appeared to do on your TV. There was, for example a “hide and seek” game that, depending on the overlay, was either a first person shooter, a haunted house, or a fox and hounds. The basic program was only two lighted blobs. But add a different overlay and you’re in a new world suddenly.

“Changing the overlay” is the way I want to look at atonement. I’m not talking about mechanics or how many drops of blood, but rather life, itself.

Since Eden, mankind has been cursed with three things: dysfunctional relationships, nature that will not cooperate to give us food, and pain in things that should be natural processes. Eve is cursed with “pain in childbearing” but that – coupled with Adam’s ‘sweat of his brow’ – seems, by analogy, to indicate all the pain in the world. All the things we love that can cause us pain – even good things.

In the fallen world, all human beings experience all these things. There are times when “everything sucks”. Life just is that way. All the time – even when it’s good. It’s filled with injustice. There are times when it’s impossible to even do the right thing without hurting someone else. We’re left picking the lesser of two evils even when we’re grocery shopping. How is the world like this? We broke it in the fall. How can it be fixed?

In the Incarnation, God became one of us. God became man. God – the infinite, eternal, radiant IS – became finite. One cell. Two cells. Four cells. Eight cells. God. Not even able to speak or form thoughts. God. Sixteen cells. And after 4 or five days, Implanting in the wall of the Uterus. Embryo. God. Nine months later, between blood and water, God gasping and panting. And then screaming as all babies do. Then crying, wetting himself and his parents. The manger. Cow dung. Fleas, probably, but maybe not. God. Dirty diapers, falling over while learning to walk. Giggling parents as he does embarrassing things while the grandparents are here. God. Awkward physical changes. Voice cracking at Bar Mitzvah. Parents moved. Blushing as he talks to a girl. Yeshiva classmates whose parents can count to 9 and gossip. God.

This continues on for 30 or more years.

Everything that we can think of, from economic downturns to political oppression. From rude neighbors to parties on the block, from games in the back yard to friends’ weddings and more. God has done it all.

Just like you and I – but without sin.

And then things get dark. And God does that too, without sin. Pain. Grief. Rejection. Betrayal. Loss. Depression. Blood. Wounds. Death. God.

The colored blobs are the same. God has changed the overlay. The game now leads to eternal life instead of death.

God has not even changed the system’s wiring or engineering. What we had, we’ve always had. What happens is what has always happened. But if we go through with God’s pattern now, the end result is entirely different.

That’s the atonement. The music is the same. The dance steps are the same. But now the end is glory.

Joey, Joe, or Joseph?

JMJ
✙

THERE IS A TRADITION that St Joseph was older that the Blessed Virgin when they were betrothed. One saint suggests that Jesus’ Foster Father was 91 when he married the Blessed Virgin! Other, more realistic teachers, suggest mid-fifties. The reason for this tradition is generally understood to be the idea that an older Joseph would have been more likely to not be tempted by his beautiful young wife. An older man is seen as better protecting the teaching of Mary’s perpetual virginity. This is a bit of hogwash as anyone who has ever seen a “Trophy Wife” knows. Lechery is not undone by age and, in fact, it is often a product of it. Then there is the logic of the issue. “Old men don’t walk to Egypt!” As Mother Angelica once said. So, at several points in the Church’s history, the idea that Joseph was young arose.

Fulton Sheen has a wonderful meditation on St Joseph’s age in his book, The World’s First Love:

To make Joseph appear pure only because his flesh had aged is like glorifying a mountain stream that has dried. The Church will not a ordain a man to the priesthood who has not his vital powers. She wants men who have something to tame, rather than those who are tame because they have no energy to be wild. It should be no different with God… Joseph was probably a young man, strong, virile, atheletic, handsome, chaste, and disciplined; the kind of man one sees sometimes shepherding sheep, or piloting a plane, or working at a carpenter’s bench. Instead of being a man incapable of love, he must have been on fire with love….Instead, then, of being dried fruit to be served on the table of the king, he was rather a blossom filled with promise and power. He was not in the evening of life, but in its morning, bubbling over with energy, strength, and controlled passion.

That passage was quoted in a book I’m currently reading as I do a devotion call Consecration to St Joseph. And it had me wrestling for a few reasons. Why does Joseph need to be Mary’s age? Why does he need to be 90? Then – in the same book – the author discusses at length how an elderly man cannot raise a child, and how God would have wanted a proper father for the Infant Jesus. This makes sense to me: when I was 39 someone suggested to me that I should adopt a child and I knew that that would be selfish as I would not be able to be a proper parent. By the time the baby was old enough to walk and play I would be too old to play, and by the time the baby was old enough to graduate I would be too old to walk. So the idea that God would have wanted Jesus to have a father open appropriate age make sense. But what is an appropriate age? It used to be common to see Joseph portrayed with grey hair. Right now it’s common to see him portrayed as about Mary’s age.

Some writers have suggested that the Blessed Virgin was around 15 when she was betrothed to Joseph. The idea of a fifteen-year-old Joey being able to navigate the emotional and political turmoil of the nativity seems unlikely to me. I cannot imagine a fifteen-year-old Joey and a fifteen-year-old Mary in a Manger in Bethlehem knowing what to do when labor started I can imagine them going into full-scale panic. I can’t imagine these two 15 year olds being much comfort for each other – even though that’s a good time to get married in this culture. AND a 15 year old Joey would not be on his own yet, the head of the family would still be Joseph’s father. The patriarch of this clan would have led them all to Bethlehem.

This idea that God would have wanted the father of appropriate age is counteracted but other benefits offered by an elderly Joseph: wisdom, experience, strength. At a time when marriages were often contracted in the teenage years an older man would know how to move through the world on his own, he would be running his business and would not be afraid of tax collectors, would not be very stressed out by discovering that there was no room at the inn, and would not be afraid of having to walk to Egypt. This man, Joe, would be much better able to think on his feet with all these strange people and happenings that were about to come into his life. He would not be impulsive: he would plan. Discovering that Mary was pregnant Joe might actually think about it for a while, where the teenaged Joey might just get angry. Joey would not yet have his own house to bring Mary into, but Joe would.

Generally it’s not good to just throw out traditions of the church because we don’t like them or because they don’t feel good: this goes with (T)radition and also with (t)radition. So while I do see the argument for Joseph not being 91 – or even 51 – as completely valid, it seems silly to just toss it out of something the church made up. In fact it seems downright modernist to do so.

There may be an answer in another tradition that hangs on the Nativity. St James, called Jesus’ brother, is often understood to be the Child of St Joseph by an earlier marriage. Traditional icons show James leading the donkey:

The Real Holy Family: Joseph, Jesus, Mary, and James

Theoretically, if Joe had been married originally had 15, if his oldest son was now 10, and he was 25 – not 91! – he would know what to do. He would have been in at least one most likely more births already, he would be a strong young man like Fulton Sheen imagines, old enough to care for the Blessed Virgin, to calm her down and to take care of her. He would be old enough to walk to Egypt and not so old that that would be impossible.

This idea of a 20-something Joe with a teenaged Mary makes sense. He would still be young enough to still need to train his impulses, and old enough to have done some work on that already. His virtue would still be a struggle for him but his experience and piety would be firmly rooted. This seems to resolve both sides of the age issue while keeping the tradition intact.

The other thing that’s curious about Joey vrs Joe is it Joseph is gone from the story by the time Jesus is a man. It is generally assumed in the Church’s tradition that Joseph died before Jesus began his Teaching Ministry. Is Joseph was 25 when Jesus was born he would have been in his 50s before the Teaching Ministry begin. It’s possible that he would have died by then: a poor man and a laborer, his life would have been hard. I can imagine such a man dying in his 50s and yet being a strong, shining example of a father and a man all though Jesus’ life to adulthood. Yes, the young Joey might also have died young, but I think imagining Joe becoming an elder and dying at an old age (for the time) makes much more sense.

There is no doctrinal requirement one way or the other on the age of St Joseph – this is all (t)radition. But I think there is a way where this tradition can fit with some logic, where Joe can be a man without needing a walker to get to Egypt, and where he can be a young, virile man, without needing to be a kid. Joey and Joseph can give way to Joe.

A Child’s Christmas in Wurtsboro

JMJ
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IT BEGINS when, prompted by the Wurtsboro Village Council and borrowing a truck from his employer, Orange and Rockland electric company, my grandfather puts up the village lights. Driving slowly through town in a cherry picker, Grandpa puts up the aged white candles, the green wreaths, the red-lighted garlands. Snow has fallen. Trees have been placed on stands in living rooms and decorated. Houses have been lighted. I take a trip into the evergreen forest in Wilsey Valley to bring back a huge bag of greenery. Lights and boughs spiral around my parents’ house and drape off the stairs.

In mad anticipation my mother cooks, my grandmother cooks, my great grandmother cooks. Aunt Linda cooks. Aunt Marie cooks. Aunt Karen cooks. Families visit from hither and yon, and friends make more attempts to be friendlier than normal.

Timmy, the paper boy, spends longer in his daily stops. During his last monthly trip to punch our card and get things taken care of, he actually comes inside for a sip of hot cocoa and maybe yes, thank you, some cookies. In a few days he’ll find a box of them along with a five dollar bill and maybe some gloves in the paper box as he drops off our copy of the Times-Herald Record. At the post office Mom spends far too much time chatting with Mr Olcott, the postmaster, and a trip to Jerry Gaubard’s tiny Grocery Store can begin to take hours. The Greenwalds have decorated their drug store. The bandstand in the village park is filled with pine and lights. The Canal Towne Emporium positively reeks – well out into the street – with scented candles, potpourri and cinnamon. The Old Valley, filled even in the feria times with Black Forest coo-coo clocks, covered steins and hand-carved picture frames is now decked out in Germanic Yuletide finery: nutcrackers and candle-lighted pyramids. Uncle Jimmy has tiny wreaths on the tables in the dinner.

The Emma C Chase Elementary School has their Christmas pageant: a chorus and a few holiday songs, maybe a poetry reading, then one hora danced to tzena-tzena as we explain the Festival of Lights. The Monticello Central Middle School has its Christmas Concert: a two part choir and a band. The Monticello Central High School has its Christmas Concert: a four part choir, a stage band and an orchestra plus a show-stopping all-out choral and orchestral finale. And now School has closed for Christmas Break. After weeks of build-up the day arrives.

Late in the day on Christmas Eve the menfolk vanish off to the firehouse. The women vanish off to the Methodist Church. The kids, hyper-excited, over-extended, exhausted, try to get a nap in: maybe if I sleep now, Santa will come now. But there is to be no such luck for no one is allowed to nap for too long on Christmas Eve.

At 6:30 PM everyone is off – in layers of coats and scarves and hats and gloves – to the firehouse for the village carol sing. The fire trucks have been moved outside, and we all stand around inside the Garage, the largest enclosed space in the village. We are a village of 900 souls gathered around an upright piano that is tuned once a year for this very event. Even in such a small town this is the only time when some of us will see each other. Old friends, not having seen each other since last Christmas Eve, greet each other with warm hugs. Children return from college and stand happily with their parents. Older children return with their own spouses, their own children. Forming huge continents floating in the sea of fellow villagers, they stand with their parents and grandparents, as now my own father stands with his wife and kids, next to his father and mother, his grandparents and six generations total – my sister having her own grandchildren now. My grandmother and my Aunt Marie, wife of the Fire Chief, serve doughnuts and coffee. My great grandmother smiles as her husband, the former chief, is greeted with honour by all.

The Dutch Reformed Pastor, the Rev. Wing, invokes. Sally or Michael plays the piano and the familiar carols roll out of books that have not been reprinted since the 1970s – and are collected every year for re-use. They were donated by the local bank and they open, too easily, to a centerfold containing A Visit from St Nicholas. The community singing is interrupted twice by soloists: Aunt Betty sings O Holy Night. Nelson Hall sings, White Christmas. There is an irony in a scion of the only black family in town singing White Christmas. But no one seemed to notice – or at least talk about it.

The Methodist pastor, the Rev. Pinto, blesses. Then, spurred on by Uncle John, the Fire Chief, we begin to sing Jingle Bells. We sing loud and lustily – the younger children blasting it out. There is a sound from outside: the tocsin of bells and the claxon of horns and finally the scream of the sirens sliding up the doppler scale as a fire truck comes down the street from beyond the red light at the corner. We sing louder now as the garage doors roll up in joyous welcome and the kids stream out – herded to safety by parents and uniformed firemen. Santa Claus has come to us on our own candy apple red and white truck. When the kids draw near Santa usually greets them all by name – for he is their own uncle, or their neighbor or even my Dad or Grandpa or Uncle Tommy, seated on the side of the truck handing out small boxes of hard candies and cookies.

After a brief trip home to remove some layers and to add finer clothing, all depart again to their houses of worship. Aunt Marie and Mrs Semonite have decorated the Methodist Church. They have polished and dusted until, even in the pre-candle darkness, the wood shines and the brass cross seems to reflect the lights beyond. Pastor Pinto is in rare form this Christmas eve, as his three rural congregations come together in this one building to sing and pray. There is the Nativity Play, kids wearing too many towels and the latest baby born playing the starring role. And then candles are handed out and lit. The quiet, expectant darkness seems to take a musical quality. We sing now in awed reverence, Silent Night. And we walk into the cold to discover that it has begun to snow.

In the busy evening, somehow, Mom and Grandma have conspired to get some after-church coffee and snacks ready. The family rests a bit for a chat, gathered in Grandma’s den around the woodstove. Kids get sleepy. Adults get conspiratorial. WALL radio, 1340AM begins to broadcast reports every quarter of an hour about where Santa’s Sleigh has been spotted. WPIX begins its annual telecast of The Yule Log, the first ever virtual fireplace.

Children pass out. Parents hide them in cars, asleep next to presents that were also hidden with the neighbours or in some relative’s garage. For the child it is only a short ride through the dream-filled snowy night until Christmas Morning. For the parents it may be a longer passage, a bit of a delay next to the tree assembling a bike or a stereo. For the older children it may be a bit of a pain, programming a new betamax for Mom or stumbling around in the dark wishing to be, again, a child who believed in Santa.

And then this Christmas day dawns – the snow has stopped during the night, but there, on the porch, and on the greenery wrapped around the pillars, there is just enough snow to look beautiful. The lights, ablaze even in the quiet sunlight of Christmas Morning, seem to shine out. The family gathers in the living room for presents. And then moves into the kitchen for a snack.

Turkey is stuffed, potatoes are peeled, yams are candied. In other houses of sundry relatives, slaw is made, salads are tossed, pies are baked. Sausage and cheese balls are laid out, on platters with beef stick and hot mustard. Olives are toothpicked and cheese is sliced near crackers. Candied fruit is dipped and the chocolates are powdered. Nuts are laid out in wooden baskets with pliers and picks. Wines and beers, sodas and sweet tea, mulled cider and hot cocoa cover the table. Guests arrived and the prepared foods are merged and arranged into a Christmas Feast. Grace is said, eggnog is whipped and chilled, turkey sliced, bellies stuffed, children served on card tables and 65 plates – the good china and then some – are all laid to rest in the dishwasher as 6 generations and sundry partake of the holiday table.

After dinner, children play Show and Tell with their holiday loot as Grandpa and I retire to the den and the roaring fire. We lock the doors behind us for a heart-to-heart over too much eggnog in the growing heat. Children pound on the door and we laugh. Mom comes and forces us to liberate ourselves for socialising. Aunt Sally and Uncle Ray depart, Grandma and Grandpa too, and so with relative after relative until only Mom is left in the too-hot kitchen, and Dad patrolling the darkened house for cups and plates. Or else lighting a fire in the barrel outside, a massive offering of wrapping paper and ribbons and shredded tissue and boxes.

Phone calls are made. My cousins Faith and Roger, our friends Steven, Marc and Jody, Michael and Michelle arrive and converge in the dining room again for some late night desserts – coffee and plum pudding or mincemeat pie – and a long night of gaming and reliving high school, of smoking and staving off the winter chill with fond memories made and shared.

Merry Christmas, we whisper in the darkness, saying our goodbyes softly so as not to wake my parents. Merry Christmas and much love.

In our small town of Wurtsboro, NY, the rituals of Christmas rarely changed when I was growing up, only the participants. Only in such a place could a writer compile a perfect Christmas Memory. In parts of this story I’m 11, in other parts 25 or 53… but the pattern was always the same. A lot of these folks have passed now; the old Firehouse, too. But the dance is always there in my mind, and I’m standing in the Firehouse waiting for Santa on the truck. I always hated the hard candy in the boxes though.

The Gift

JMJ
✙

ONCE UPON A TIME, back in the days when you could go to see Santa Claus in the department store and he would give you presents that were not just sticky candy, two best friends, Jimmy and Billy, went to their local Belks before Christmas. They stood patiently in line and, when their turns came, each one went into a little house made to look as if it were made out of gingerbread and told the man inside what they wanted for Christmas. What they did not know was that the man inside was actually Saint Nicholas, the Archbishop of Myra and Lycea, venerated all over the world as the patron of children, which is to say he was the real Santa Claus. I’m not sure what he was doing there, but the important thing to know is he was the real Santa Claus. As each boy was finished telling Santa Claus what they wanted for Christmas he smiled and gave each an apple. It was the same apple he’d given to all the other children in line: it was gigantic! It smelled amazing! Being polite boys they knew better than to eat it outside where they could get their clothes messy, so each took his apple home.

When Jimmy got home with his apple, he knew immediately that he wanted to eat it and share it with his family. His parents were amazed at the delicious smell it gave off and they wanted to eat it as well. It was big enough to share, so Mom and Dad and Jimmy sat down to supper, and then, for dessert, sliced up the apple and chatted as they ate. Mom added some really superb cheddar cheese which she sliced up, and, to make the evening extra special – even though it was Advent – Dad brought out a bottle of tawny port. Jimmy tried this and, at least in little sips, it was ok. When the fruit was all gone, nothing left but the core and the seeds, Mom said that this was such good tasty, fruit maybe they should plant the seeds and see if they could grow some more. Everyone agreed.

So, Jimmy got himself a project for Christmas that year. He planted the seeds into little seedling pots and waited to see what would happen. In time there were four sprouts which he took outside in the Spring and planted in the backyard. They all did very well and they became young saplings, although it was several years before they bore fruit. Not being grown in Saint Nicholas’ own garden as the first apple was, these apples, though amazingly tasty, were ordinary-sized apples. They smelled much better than the ones you could get in a store, though. Mother canned some every year and baked some into pies. These were coveted gifts even after Jimmy went off to college and then Seminary. He was called James by this time, of course. When he became a priest, he would give these apples, grown in his parents’ own back yard, to folks year after year. In time, when his parents fell asleep in the Lord, Jimmy would take breaks from ministry to go rest in the house, praying for his parents, and offer Mass for their souls in the back yard under the shade of four apple trees he never knew came from the real Santa Claus.

The story of Billy’s apple is different, though. When he reached home, he knew immediately that he would share it with his family. He and his parents were amazed at the delicious smell that it gave off: it seemed to fill the house with a sense of Christmas. They sat it on the mantle thinking they would enjoy the smell for a bit and, in the light of the Christmas Tree, it suddenly seemed to reflect, filling the room with twinkles. They were surprised the next morning to discover it still smelled like Christmas in there! They couldn’t bring themselves to eat the apple, but when friends came over – as friends do in the holiday season (even though it is Advent) – everyone commented on the beautiful smell. Billy’s house seemed to be especially filled with the Christmas Spirit that year. And, when Epiphany came round and it was time to take down the decorations and move on with regular things, Billy and his parents realized this was something of a magical apple (although they didn’t know the giver was the real Santa Claus) and they placed it away gently in a small wooden box filled with excelsior, and they stored it safely.

When they took it out the following year it was still whole, fresh, and smelled like Christmas. Year after year the apple from Santa Claus continued to fill their house with hospitality and Christmas spirit. Invitations to their house at the Holidays were almost like being invited to a royal banquet. Billy’s family was known for their generous table and their love and care for their guests all year round, but never so much as at Christmas time. And didn’t the house literally smell like Christmas?

In time, when his parents fell asleep in the Lord, Billy inherited the house – and the apple. He was called William, by this time, of course. He and his wife and their children were known far and wide for their hospitality in this house that was filled with the smell of Christmas. They knew it was a magic apple, of course, and Billy knew it was given to him one day when his parents took him to Belks, but they never knew that man in the mall was Saint Nicholas, who always gives gifts anonymously.

And then goes away quietly to pray for us.

A Mission, OP

JMJ
✙

Always on Christmas, there is a sense of disconnection for me. Back when I thought I was going to be an Episcopal Priest there was the same sense of disconnect. My Family was hundreds (and later thousands) of miles away. My friends all did their family things. Later I discovered the “orphans’ Christmas” which was a collection of people getting together because they had no other place to go. It always seemed to be at least as dysfunctional a gathering as the families we were all avoiding. I stopped going after a while. We are meant to be with blood-Family, I think, on Holy Days. Family is the smallest unit of the church and it’s not replaceable. So while I can call home on Christmas (and I do) I miss the gathering of 65 people (or more) that were all my relatives in one small town – that was a Holy Day. All I have now is a day off from work with religious obligations.

So I was struck after Midnight Mass by a tweet from a friar calling attention to the Christmas Message of the Master of the Dominican Order. The Master hits on this curious point in the First Christmas story:

At times, we tend to “sanitize” the disturbing details of the Christmas story. The nativity scene in our churches and convents appears to be a tender and warm picture of a loving and peaceful family. But as we pause and ponder, we realize that it must have been extremely painful for Joseph to be homeless in his hometown,  for he could not find a single relative who could give them a room for the night, thus they had to look for a room in an inn. Probably, Joseph’s kinsmen shunned him for having a young wife who got pregnant even before they were married. It must have been terribly difficult for Mary to deliver a child in a smelly stable and then have a manger for his bed. It must have been terrifying to know that a king who feels so insecure threatens their newborn son and has ordered the killing of many innocent male children. The Gospel on Christmas day speaks about the world rejecting the One they needed the most: He came to his own yet his own people did not receive him (John 1:11). There is a “dark side” to Christmas. No matter how big or little they are, the sadness and emptiness we feel even during Christmas day is part of that dark side that we have to acknowledge in order to let Jesus, our LIGHT, shine through that darkness. 

Fr Gerard Francisco Timoner III, OP

I’ve never actually thought about it before. Our culture turns the Holy Family into Politically Correct stand-ins for political refugees, migrant workers, or homeless people. Then Christians fight over this reading. The Biblical text tells another story that will be far more familiar to any Christmas Orphans out there. In this story, the Dysfunctional Family of David tried to ruin the first Christmas. …[I]t must have been extremely painful for Joseph to be homeless in his hometown, for he could not find a single relative who could give them a room for the night, thus they had to look for a room in an inn. Probably, Joseph’s kinsmen shunned him for having a young wife who got pregnant even before they were married…

After St Joseph’s experience, the Church spent the first 300 years of her life rescuing not only lost souls, but also those who were rejected by their families: babies, elders, and the infirm who were abandoned on the hillsides. Families could literally throw people away. These are not just the “poor and the homeless” as we think of them today in our cities: these were the rejected, the broken, the used up. Slaves that could no longer to the tasks allotted them, daughters who dishonored their families by getting children outside of wedlock, elders who were too sick and drained the family wealth, unwanted babies (especially girls), or the blind, the deformed, the mentally ill. The Christians went out to the edges of the city and brought these folks in, healed them, raised the babies, comforted the dying. In this way, the Church evangelized literally by action: the religion of your Pater Familias abandoned you to die on the hillside. The religion of your rescuers told them to love and told you to forgive. The early Church didn’t ask these folks to change as the price of admission to love (as Roman Paganism did) but rather these folks changed their lives as a result of the love they experienced from God through the Church.

Pope Francis calls us “to the peripheries”. Speaking before he was elected Pope, then-Cardinal Bergolio said:

The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.

Today on the peripheries we might better think of our homeless encampments as more of the same: adding drug addiction and even prostitution to the list of ways that men and women might end up on this list of Unwanted Family. When I read a newspaper story earlier this year about the Homeless of San Francisco, I was surprised by how many of them had family – but couldn’t go to them.

So, not just peripheries of geography (are there any peripheries there any more?) but the Church also has a mission to the peripheries of sociology.

Many of the homeless men and women in my neighborhood are rejected by their families for issues around sexual morality. This is especially true of the youth. I wish it were not the case, but “Get out of my house…” seems a horribly common thing for religious parents to say to their children. How are we supposed to act, as Christians, in this case? I know there are some who want to use this sort of story as an argument for changing the Church’s teachings. Sed Contra, I see it as a chance to enforce the Church’s teachings on charity, love of family, and mercy. We should make it a mission of the Church to welcome in those who are shunned and even shamed by their families.

One Christmas, after Midnight Mass at the Episcopal Cathedral of St John the Divine in NYC, I went down to what I used to call “My Parish” in Greenwich Village. If you go into any gay bar you will find men who are angry at the Church. But on Christmas you’ll find something else entirely. In NYC the bars close at 4AM, but by 2AM on Christmas morning you’ll find the real orphans: the men who have no “orphan Christmas party” to go to, who have no other place to be, who are lost. When I walked into Ty’s the only people in there were the Bartender (he had a home to go to, but he was at work…) and a drag queen who was in “boy drag” as the saying goes, sitting all alone. The bartender greeted me warmly, gave me a drink (4 actually) without charging me and left me to chat with the other patron as he went about cleaning up. We were watching Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.

It was all chitchat. We sang along to the movie. I shared about Mass and the guy remembered St John the Divine and commented on the beauty there. And he grew wistful talking about fond memories. There’s no religious conversion here, but when I moved away from NYC, I got a going-way card from the man who thanked me for that night of friendship in a bar when it was very dark in his life. Sometimes, that’s all that’s needed.

Let me point in another direction: as many of our parishes become rest homes for aging members of the over 6os set, who wish to be unchallenged in their cultural hegemony, we should realize the peripheries also contain Techies and other Millenials who are very successful in the world but, for exactly that reason, are disconnected from their families and any social structures. Many of them lack the social sense even needed to recognize the need for religion in their life. But they need God as much as anyone. I mentioned this once to an Parish Council as was greeted by stony silence. These folks need Jesus, too.

Fr Timoner points out that “Christmas is not just a celebration but a mission.” We each have missions, of course, but the Church’s special mission has been outreach – we go beyond. Beyond the boundaries of the Jewish People, she embraced the gentiles. In Roman culture, she embraced the outcasts. She reached out to the Barbarians – the enemies of the Roman State. She embraced other cultures and peoples at every turn.

This is the Church needed today. This is the Church we have, to be honest, even though there are some who try to deny this along the lines fear of the Other in all forms: race, nationalism, populism, and sexual morality. We have forgotten again that the way to bring folks in is not to demand they change as the price of admission, but rather to let them change as a result of being loved. “…[T]he mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery” lives on the edges of our lives: usually just outside of our doors or in the discard pile of our social media.

Can the Church reach out in these directions: on the one hand to the lost, the marginalized, and on the other hand to the folks who seem to reject us as quaint and old fashioned? Again, the interesting point is that from a societal, political point of view, each of these groups is “successful” in some very worldly ways. But how can they find the Gospel unless they hear it first, and how will they hear it unless it is preached?

The Three Christmas Gospels

+JMJ+

There are three masses on Christmas. In fact this has been the case in the West since at least the 7th Century when Pope Gregory mentions it (see below). Each Mass has its own readings and its own prayers. Recently some friends and I, being Church Geeks, were comparing missals and became quite happy to note that these three masses, and their three readings, are transferred fully into the Novus Ordo. The Divine Office for this day (in the Extraordinary Form) is also in a special format, set up to wrap around these three masses.

Matins for Christmas precedes the Midnight Mass. This is a form that Byzantines would recognize: for them the Matins service is always part of the Sunday Morning (or Saturday Evening) rites. This Mass commemorates the Angels’ singing. The Gospel stops at “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men.” After the midnight Mass, Lauds is prayed. (This is not a separate service in the East where the Laudate Psalms are sung at the end of Matins.) The verses at Lauds ask the Shepherds (as they are coming in from the fields) what has happened. To commemorate the Shepherds at the Manger then, there is a Mass at dawn – when would normally be sung Lauds – and then a Mass after the third hour of the day when the office of Terce has been sung. This Mass, “of the Day”, is the most-ancient of the three. At it the Gospel Reading is not from the Christmas Story. Rather it is the opening passage to St John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In the West the office of Matins often has assigned as a reading the Gospel for the day – especially on Sundays and Major Feasts. Then there is a Patristic commentary or homily on the passage. (This is one of my favourite qualities of the EF office.) This day is no exception – but because there are three Gospels, there are in Matins, three different commentaries:

St Luke 2:1-14 (The Midnight Gospel)

At that time : There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.  And so on, and that which followeth.

A Homily by St. Gregory the Pope
By God’s mercy we are to say three Masses today.  Hence there is not much time left for preaching on this passage of the Gospel.  Nonetheless the Feast of the Lord’s Birthday constraineth me to speak a few words.  I will begin at once by asking why this numbering for taxation took place at the Lord’s Birth, and why all the world was enrolled?  Was it not to make us mindful that one had now appeared in the flesh who would enroll his elect in the book of life?  And note, on the other hand, how the Prophet saith of the reprobate : Let them be wiped out of the book of the living, and not be written among the righteous.  Note also that the Lord was born in Bethlehem, which same signifieth the House of Bread, and thus was meetly the birthplace of him who hath said : I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven.  The place, then, where our Lord was born was already called the House of Bread because therein was he to appear who would feed the souls of the the faithful unto life eternal.  Not in his Mother’s house was he born, but away from home.  And this should make us mindful that our mortality, in which he was born, was not the home of him who is begotten of the Father before all worlds.

St Luke 2:15-20 (The Dawn Gospel)
At that time : The shepherds said one to another : Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.  And so on, and that which followeth.

A Homily by St. Ambrose the Bishop
Behold the beginning of the Church.  Christ is born, and the shepherds keep their watch.  Yea, they keep their watch like as becometh those who would gather together the scattered sheep of the Gentiles (which had hitherto lived like as brute beasts) and lead them into the fold of Christ, that they might need no longer to suffer the ravages of spiritual wolves in the night of this world’s darkness.  How wide awake are those shepherds whom the Good Shepherd stirreth up.  Their flock is the people.  The night is the world.  For these shepherds are the Priests.  And perhaps that Angel, too, is a shepherd to whom in the Apocalypse is said : Be watchful and strengthen.  For God hath ordained to watch over his flock not Bishops only but Angels also.

St John 1:1-14 (The Morning Mass – “of the Day”)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And so on, and that which followeth.

A Homily by St. Augustine the Bishop
Lest ye consider what I have to say as worthless, which is the judgement ye so often pass upon the word of a man, ponder this : The Word was God!  Now perhaps some Arian unbeliever may have the audacity to say the Word of God was made, and is therefore a creature.  How can the Word of God be a creature, since by him all things were made, and he is thus the Creator?  If the Word of God be a creature, then there must be some other Word, not a creature, whereby he was made.  And what Word is that?  If thou sayest that it was by the word of the Word himself that he was made, I answer that God had no Word other than his one only-begotten Son.  But unless thou sayest it was by the Word’s own word that the Word was made, thou art forced to confess that he by whom all creaturely things were made was not himself made at all, but is himself the uncreated Maker of everything that was made.  Wherefore, believe the Gospel.

There is also a longer Patristic passage that is really a heart-stirring joy to read. It pairs well with the Paschal Homily of St John Chrysostom.

A Homily from St Leo the Pope
Dearly beloved brethren, Unto us is born this day a Saviour. Let us rejoice. It would be unlawful to be sad to day, for today is Life’s Birthday; the Birthday of that Life, Which, for us dying creatures, taketh away the sting of death, and bringeth the bright promise of the eternal gladness hereafter. It would be unlawful for any man to refuse to partake in our rejoicing. All men have an equal share in the great cause of our joy, for, since our Lord, Who is the destroyer of sin and of death, findeth that all are bound under the condemnation, He is come to make all free. Rejoice, O thou that art holy, thou drawest nearer to thy crown! Rejoice, O thou that art sinful, thy Saviour offereth thee pardon! Rejoice also, O thou Gentile, God calleth thee to life! For the Son of God, when the fulness of the time was come, which had been fixed by the unsearchable counsel of God, took upon Him the nature of man, that He might reconcile that nature to Him Who made it, and so the devil, the inventor of death, is met and beaten in that very flesh which hath been the field of his victory.

When our Lord entered the field of battle against the devil, He did so with a great and wonderful fairness. Being Himself the Almighty, He laid aside His uncreated Majesty to fight with our cruel enemy in our weak flesh. He brought against him the very shape, the very nature of our mortality, yet without sin. His birth however was not a birth like other births for no other is born pure, nay, not the little child whose life endureth but a day on the earth. To His birth alone the throes of human passion had not contributed, in His alone no consequence of sin had had part. For His Mother was chosen a Virgin of the kingly lineage of David, and when she was to grow heavy with the sacred Child, her soul had already conceived Him before her body. She knew the counsel of God announced to her by the Angel, lest the unwonted events should alarm her. The future Mother of God knew what was to be wrought in her by the Holy Ghost, and that her modesty was absolutely safe.

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us give thanks to God the Father, through His Son, in the Holy Ghost: Who, for His great love wherewith He loved us, hath had mercy on us and, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, that in Him we might be a new creature, and a new workmanship. Let us then put off the old man with his deeds; and, having obtained a share in the Sonship of Christ, let us renounce the deeds of the flesh. Learn, O Christian, how great thou art, who hast been made partaker of the Divine nature, and fall not again by corrupt conversation into the beggarly elements above which thou art lifted. Remember Whose Body it is Whereof thou art made a member, and Who is its Head. Remember that it is He That hath delivered thee from the power of darkness and hath translated thee into God’s light, and God’s kingdom.
—

Agnósce, o Christiáne, dignitátem tuam: et divínæ consors factus natúræ…
Learn, O Christian, how great thou art, who hast been made partaker of the Divine nature…

Glory to God in the Highest!
Christ is Born!

A Child’s Christmas in Wurtsboro

IT BEGINS when, prompted by the Wurtsboro Village council and “borrowing” a truck from his employer, the electric company, my grandfather puts up the village lights. Driving slowly through town in a cherry picker, Grandpa puts up the aged white candles, the green wreaths, the red lighted garlands. Snow has fallen. Trees have been placed on stands in living rooms and decorated. Houses have been lighted. I take a trip into the evergreen forest in Wilsey Valley to bring back a huge bag of greenery. Lights and boughs spiral around my parents’ house and drape off the stairs.

In mad anticipation my mother cooks, my grandmother cooks, my great grandmother cooks. Aunt Linda cooks. Aunt Marie cooks. Aunt Karen cooks. Families visit from hither and yon, and friends make more attempts to be friendlier than normal.

Timmy, the paper boy, spends longer in his daily stops. During his last monthly trip to punch our card and get things taken care of, he actually comes inside for a sip of hot cocoa and maybe yes, thank you, some cookies. In a few days he’ll find a box of them along with a ten dollar bill and maybe some gloves in the paper box as he drops off our copy of the Times-Herald record. At the post office Mom spends far too much time chatting with Mr Olcott, the postmaster, and a trip to Jerry Gaubard’s tiny Grocery Store can begin to take hours. The Greenwalds have decorated their drug store. The band stand in the village park is filled with pine and lights. The Canal Towne Emporium positively reeks – well out into the street – with scented candles, potpourri and cinnamon. The Old Valley, filled even in the feria times with Black Forest coo-coo clocks, covered steins and hand-carved picture frames is now decked out in Germanic Yuletide finery: nutcrackers and candle-lighted pyramids. Uncle Jimmy has tiny wreaths on the tables in the dinner.

The Emma C Chase Elementary School has their Christmas pageant: a chorus and a few holiday songs, maybe a poetry reading, then one hora danced to tzena-tzena as we explain the Festival of Lights. The Monticello Central Middle School has its Christmas Concert: a two part choir and a band. The Monticello Central High School has its Christmas Concert: a four part choir, a stage band and an orchestra plus a show-stopping all-out choral and orchestral finale. And now School has closed for Christmas Break. After weeks of build-up the day arrives.

Late in the day on Christmas Eve the menfolk vanish off to the firehouse. The women vanish off to the Methodist Church. The kids, hyper-excited, over-extended, exhausted, try to get a nap in: maybe if I sleep now, Santa will come now. But there is to be no such luck for no one is allowed to nap for too long on Christmas Eve.

At 6:30 PM everyone is off – in layers of coats and scarves and hats and gloves – to the firehouse for the village carol sing. The fire trucks have been moved outside, and we all stand around inside the Garage, the largest enclosed space in the village. We are a village of 900 souls gathered around an upright piano that is tuned once a year for this very event. Even in such a small town this is the only time when some of us will see each other. Old friends, not having seen each other since last Christmas Eve, greet each other with warm hugs. Children return from college and stand happily with their parents. Older children return with their own spouses, their own children. Forming huge continents floating in the sea of fellow villagers, they stand with their parents and grandparents, as now my own father stands with his wife and kids, next to his father and mother, his grandparents and six generations total – my sister having her own grandchildren now. My grandmother and my Aunt Marie, wife of the Fire Chief, serve doughnuts and coffee. My great grandmother smiles as her husband, the former chief, is greeted with honour by all.

The Dutch Reformed Pastor, the Rev Wing, invokes. Sally or Michael plays the piano and the familiar carols roll out of books that have not been reprinted since the 1970s – and are collected every year for re-use. They were donated by the local bank and they open, too easily, to a centerfold containing A Visit from St Nicholas. The community singing is interrupted twice by soloists: Aunt Betty sings O Holy Night. Nelson Hall sings, White Christmas. There is an irony in a scion of the only black family in town singing White Christmas. But no one seemed to notice – or at least talk about it.

The Methodist pastor, the Rev. Pinto, blesses. Then, spurred on by Uncle John, the Fire Chief, we begin to sing Jingle Bells. We sing loud and lustily – the younger children blasting it out. There is a sound from outside: the tocsin of bells and the claxon of horns and finally the scream of the sirens sliding up the doppler scale as a fire truck comes down the street from beyond the red light at the corner. We sing louder now as the garage doors roll up in joyous welcome and the kids stream out – herded to safety by parents and uniformed firemen. Santa Claus has come to us on our own candy apple red and white truck. When the kids draw near Santa usually greets them all by name – for he is their own uncle, or their neighbor or even my Dad or Grandpa or Uncle Tommy, seated on the side of the truck handing out small boxes of hard candies and cookies.

After a brief trip home to remove some layers and to add finer clothing, all depart again to their houses of worship. Aunt Marie and Mrs Semonite have decorated the Methodist Church. They have polished and dusted until, even in the pre-candle darkness, the wood shines and the brass cross seems to reflect the lights beyond. Pastor Pinto is in rare form this Christmas eve, as his three rural congregations come together in this one building to sing and pray. There is the Nativity Play, kids wearing too many towels and the latest baby born playing the starring role. And then candles are handed out and lit. The quiet, expectant darkness seems to take a musical quality. We sing now in awed reverence, Silent Night. And we walk into the cold to discover that it has begun to snow.

In the busy evening, somehow, Mom and Grandma have conspired to get some after-church coffee and snacks ready. The family rests a bit for a chat, gathered in Grandma’s den around the woodstove. Kids get sleepy. Adults get conspiratorial. WALL radio, 1340AM begins to broadcast reports every quarter of an hour about where Santa’s Sleigh has been spotted. WPIX begins its annual telecast of The Yule Log, the first ever virtual fireplace.

Children pass out. Parents hide them in cars, asleep next to presents that were also hidden with the neighbours or in some relative’s garage. For the child it is only a short ride through the dream-filled snowy night until Christmas Morning. For the parents it may be a longer passage, a bit of a delay next to the tree assembling a bike or a stereo. For the older children it may be a bit of a pain, programming a new betamax for Mom or stumbling around in the dark wishing to be, again, a child who believed in Santa.

And then this Christmas day dawns – the snow has stopped during the night, but there, on the porch, and on the greenery wrapped around the pillars, there is just enough snow to look beautiful. The lights, ablaze even in the quiet sunlight of Christmas Morning, seem to shine out. The family gathers in the living room for presents. And then moves into the kitchen for a snack.

Turkey is stuffed, potatoes are peeled, yams are candied. In other houses of sundry relatives, slaw is made, salads are tossed, pies are baked. Sausage and cheese balls are laid out, on platters with beef stick and hot mustard. Olives are toothpicked and cheese is sliced near crackers. Candied fruit is dipped and the chocolates are powdered. Nuts are laid out in wooden baskets with pliers and picks. Wines and beers, sodas and sweet tea, mulled cider and hot cocoa cover the table. Guests arrived and the prepared foods are merged and arranged into a Christmas Feast. Grace is said, eggnog is whipped and chilled, turkey sliced, bellies stuffed, children served on card tables and 65 plates – the good china and then some – are all laid to rest in the dishwasher as 6 generations and sundry partake of the holiday table.

After dinner, children play Show and Tell with their holiday loot as Grandpa and I retire to the den and the roaring fire. We lock the doors behind us for a heart-to-heart over too much eggnog in the growing heat. Children pound on the door and we laugh. Mom comes and forces us to liberate ourselves for socialising. Aunt Sally and Uncle Ray depart, Grandma and Grandpa too, and so with relative after relative until only Mom is left in the too-hot kitchen, and Dad patrolling the darkened house for cups and plates. Or else lighting a fire in the barrel outside, a massive offering of wrapping paper and ribbons and shredded tissue and boxes.

Phone calls are made. My cousins Faith and Roger, our friends Steven, Marc and Jody, Michael and Michelle arrive and converge in the dining room again for some late night desserts – coffee and plum pudding or mincemeat pie – and a long night of gaming and reliving high school, of smoking and staving off the winter chill with fond memories made and shared.

Merry Christmas, we whisper in the darkness, saying our goodbyes softly so as not to wake my parents. Merry Christmas and much love.

In our small town of Wurtsboro, NY, the rituals of Christmas rarely changed when I was growing up, only the participants. Only in such a place could a writer compile a perfect Christmas Memory. In parts of this story I’m 11, in other parts 25 or 53… but the pattern was always the same. A lot of these folks have passed now; the old Firehouse, too. But the dance is always there in my mind, and I’m standing in the Firehouse waiting for Santa on the truck. I always hated the hard candy in the boxes tho…

Come. Buy and Eat.

✙

JMJ

The Readings for the Baptism  of Our Lord:

Omnes sitientes, venite ad aquas, et qui non habetis argentum, properate, emite, et comedite: venite, emite absque argento et absque ulla commutatione vinum et lac. Quare appenditis argentum non in panibus, et laborem vestrum non in saturitate? 

All you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that have no money make haste, buy, and eat: come ye, buy wine and milk without money, and without any price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which doth not satisfy you? 

Isaiah says “come and buy” but he adds “buy without money”. Then he adds, “that which is without price.”  Why do we spend money on useless things?

I made a decision moving into the new apartment not to have internet other than my phone here: my phone only works in one corner of the kitchen. It sits there with the wifi tether and it’s easy to get my work done on the computer as needed.

There’s no extra money for this feature (above my phone bill) and it is all kinds of weak. I’d not be able to stream a movie this way, or download anything larger than that graphic above. Everything is as slow as DSL, which, essentially, this is (internet data over phone service with the phone as a modem). Apart from my job, the internet is a huge distraction for me. Mind you: it is my job to be on the internet. It’s been so since Dec of 2010, and for much – but not all – of the previous 12 years as well. Welcome to life in the 21st Century. I am part of the distraction industry. (You’re reading this now, right?)

And we get you to pay for it. Since many of us now use cable for the internet, let’s talk about having 200 plus channels and nothing on. Yet we pay for that too.

Extra clothes. Cabinets filled with extra food (just, you know, cuz it was on sale). Guns, bullets, fur coats, vegan burger mixes, extra folding chairs, 30 black tshirts, 8 pairs of converse in various colors…

Does any of this satisfy? Well, in the short term, yes.

Do we have any savings? (Some of us do.) OK why? And those of us who don’t what do we do with the money we’re not saving? Spend so as not to feel alone, generally speaking.

Come, if you’re thirsty. Come if you’re hungry. Come to the waters. Milk and honey. Bread without cost. Wine of infinite value.

It is said in the Baptism of our Lord, that he descended into the waters and took off his Robe of Glory and clothed himself in our human nature of sins which he nailed to the cross. But the robe of glory he left in the water for us to pick up, each one of us, in our baptism. In his Baptism he restored all of the water to it’s original purity, the water of Life. So it is taught, that in the seasonal blessings of water that take place in the Byzantine Rite Church of the East and West, all the waters of creation are restored to Edenic quality. If you go to Byzantine Parishes this week (on the Gregorian calendar) or on the weekend of the 20th (for those places on the Julian calendar) you’ll see everyone drinking Holy Water, blessed by the priest on this feast.  In the liturgical West we get our houses blessed with Holy Water also done on the feast. We bring the Baptism of our Lord into our homes. The Robe of Glory comes with us where ever we go.

This is something truly worth buying – that can never be bought. All of God’s gifts are given to us freely, even though in receiving them we are changed. 

And what should we do with all the money we have left?

The Fathers say all of our surplus, all of our surfeit, all of our extra, and – God help us – all of our waste is stolen from the poor.

The clothes you do not wear, the shoes you cannot wear, the food you are not eating… this all belongs to the poor.

But preacher man! You say. I have my family to feed and I don’t need to go to the store every day… and all that’s well and good for a culture that didn’t bathe all the time, but I need fresh clothes to go to work!

Therein lies a curious thing, a turning, a twist: we’ve found a way to justify even our hoarding of wealth.

We have to lay it all aside in the water, though: or we’ll never get to grab on to the robe of glory. Best to entrust our goods into the hands of the poor who will treasure them.

God has a use for your money that is not what you intended. 

The things that are actually important are free. What else will you buy today?

Venite Adoremus

✙
JMJ

The Readings for the Solemnity of the Epiphany of Our Lord:

Prout potestis legentes intelligere prudentiam meam in mysterio Christi: Gentes esse cohæredes, et concorporales, et comparticipes promissionis ejus in Christo Jesu per Evangelium.

As you reading, may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ: That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and copartners of his promise in Christ Jesus, by the gospel.

This is the real Christmas Joy and let us celebrate it today, the Epiphany, which is the Crown of Christmas. In twelve days all of the Mystery of the Gospel is Revealed – and I don’t mean the song, thank you.

Bishop Barron, in his Catholicism, starts this story with “God’s answer to human dysfunction was forming a people after his own heart.” God called Abraham out of the family of Man to be the Patriarch of that people, and of the seed of this man was born the people of Israel. God gave them the Law and the Prophets, and the Kingship. God gave them his own Temple, the place where God lived on earth, and called that people out from among the nations – time and again. And then from that people, God himself was born to us. But that was not the goal, per se. God was tearing down all the divisions, all the ways we keep ourselves apart. God started by tearing down the division between himself and us, then between his people and the rest of us. God is uniting all peoples into one in himself, in Christ.

This is why Epiphany is so important: the Magi represent the peoples of the Gentiles as they were known in the world at that time (traditionally, Caucasian, Asian, and African, hence three kings, although the Bible doesn’t say how many there were) coming to God’s people, the People of Israel, to honor their king and own him as King of the World. Epiphany is the Crown of Christmas. God is not just born for the Jews, but for all of us.

To us, today, this sounds odd. There are no real differences, to us, we even imagine we can ignore science in this regard and pretend our chromosomes don’t exist. What is this idea of a division between peoples? But this idea of no division is something our Modern Secular state actually inherits from the Church, which was intended to be the Mother of All Peoples. God is unifying all into himself. It was she who taught it to tribe upon tribe of gentiles, coming from beyond the Pale to join the Israel of God. We are no longer Saxon and Celt, but one in Christ. We are no longer Vandal and Roman, but one in Christ. We are no longer Barbarian and Greek, but one in Christ. We are no longer Slav and Byzantine, but one in Christ. We are no longer Black and White, but one in Christ. We are no longer K’iche and Spaniards, but one in Christ. 

Still, we all have our reasons for staying apart, do we not? We, each of us, have our petty sins and our most treasured vices that we would hide alone, cutting us off from our neighbours and thereby holding us further from God at every moment until we are all alone in the shadows. How are we to be united if we insist on holding on to the very things that tore us apart in the first place?

Epiphany, the Crown of Christmas, is the feast of the undoing of our Divisions. We have only one King. But how is this to be lived out? St Paul is full of ideas and we’ll read them over and over in Ordinary Times of the Church Year. Today, though, we hear the proclamation that all the peoples of the Earth, Jews and Gentiles, all races and nations, all have now only one King. Born in an animal feeding trough, in a town named after the staff of life, he is the real food come down from heaven and given to us all. 
Come let us adore him!

Questions Not for Cowans.

✙
JMJ

The Readings for the 8th Day before the Ides of January:

Si testimonium hominum accipimus, testimonium Dei majus est
If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.

St John is writing to believers and not to the unbelieving. This argument that follows is of no import to those Outside the Church of St John. That’s important to understand. Much of John’s text (in the Gospel, in the Epistles, in the Apocalypse) is entirely meaningless to those outside of the Faith. This is as it should be. This is why John’s texts are so important after Christmas and Easter: they are for the initiated only; those who have decided to accept the teaching of the Church and are ready to go further up and further in.

We are, though initiated, all of us sinners, still. There are times when St John will sound to us as he does to the cowans, to use the technical term, the uninitiated, the Gentiles. But this one verse should call us back.

We accept the testimony of men, so God is greater.

It’s evident is it not? Even if we are pretending today (as we must all do, from time to time) just to get by as Catholics: you fake it til you make it. Even in that mode, it must be self-evident, if we believe in a “God” that his testimony must be greater than the testimony of men, right? We’re not talking about a “higher power” or anything like that.  We’re talking about the Creator of the Universe, visible and invisible, even if we have trouble today, believing in him, if he exists, his testimony must surely be greater than that of any man, right?

So, why – when it comes to Matters of Sex, of Maternity, of politics, and of morality, why in these and other cases are we all too willing to reach out to a man’s testimony that makes us feel better?

And we will even do that in our most “I’m Faithful to the Church’s teaching” phases.

So I’m wondering why. Half wondering, mind you, as I’m tempted to go off on either a judgement drive or else my own despair-driven sinfest. But when we hear someone whose teaching we like, because it comforts us in our sin, doesn’t ever give you pause, how much of God’s testimony you had to ignore to get there?

If you’ve found the one Catholic or Orthodox priest in your diocese who will support you in your sexual choices, why did you go looking for him? Because he says that God says something you like. Does it strike you as odd that the rest of the Church’s tradition (and people) should disagree with that priest? If you’re willing to listen to that one priest, why are you so certain all the others (in space and time) are wrong?

Why do we put the testimony of men before the testimony of God?