Tag Archives: Christmas

February Journal, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Posted on February 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

This year the Feast of the Presentation of Christ lands on a Sunday, today, February 2, Epiphany 4, shining light on the act of the giving, of the presenting, of the offering of Christ to the world, indeed, to you and me (Luke 22+).

Mary and Joseph are fulfilling Jewish law, presenting their son to God. But what touches me about this story is Simeon and Anna, two prophets who have waited for the Messiah, fasting and praying, having been promised they would see the child before they died. When Mary and Joseph arrive with Jesus, Simeon knows immediately that his promise has been fulfilled.

Simeon’s response glorifies God and is a part of our Anglican Evening Prayer, so it is well known and often prayed by the faithful each evening. It is called the Song of Simeon and the Nunc Dimmitis, Latin for the first words of the canticle. Simeon knows this is the promised one and raises him up in his arms, praising God:

Nunc dimittis. St. Luke ii. 29, BCP 28
LORD, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

And just so, in this scene, we see another epiphany, or perhaps many, as the Holy Child is recognized by the Jewish world and presented to the gentile world as a light to lighten their way. God offers his son to us, presents Him to each one of us, a great and holy gift.

We also learn that Anna “gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”

The presentation of Christ to the world is thus effected through the rituals of the time, uniting us with the Judaic history back to Moses, connecting us with this offering in the temple, bringing that past into our present, to become part of the Christian year on February 2.

This presenting, this ultimate epiphany of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, dramatizes this glorious, momentous, event for all the world. The world has been prepared with the choosing of the People of God, the People of Israel, and their journey through time to this moment. And then the impossible becomes possible, God enters our world as a baby in a stable. The stars change course. Shepherds hear angels. Kings travel on camels to lay gifts at his feet. The world will never be the same.

And yet the presentation is also the offering of Our Lord to each one of us. Do we accept the gift of Love incarnate? Or are we ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified?

Light of the World, by Holman Hunt

I believe this offering never ends, at least in our lifetimes. He will knock again and again at the doors of our hearts. Some will not hear the knock. Some will hear it late and miss out on early glory. Some will open their hearts to the Lord of Hosts on the first knock, the first presentation.

And will those who invite him in celebrate his presence, sing him songs, love him as he loves us?

For when this happens, another amazing presentation happens. We turn about, and we make our own presentation of the Lord to others. We point to the child born in the stable, this salvation for all people, this light to lighten our way through this life and into the next. We raise him high as Simeon did, praising his mercy and grace.

Luke writes that “the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” When we accept this Savior of the world as our savior, we too will wax strong, be given wisdom and grace. We too will sing songs of thanksgiving and praise. We too will look for every chance to present him to others, to knock on the doors of their hearts.

Deo gratias.

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January Journal, First Sunday after Epiphany

Posted on January 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

Holy Family of Nazareth, Denise Gosselin Gravel, Iconographer

This year, Epiphanytide, swinging on the date of Easter, a moveable feast, runs a full five weeks. The longest it can be is six weeks, so we are close to hearing all of the lessons appointed for this season of light. Today, the first Sunday after January 6, Epiphany, the Gospel lesson reveals another revealing of the Christ Child, who he is and why it matters.

The story is told by Saint Luke, thought to have been particularly close to Mary, and thus this writer also gives us the main narrative of Christ’s birth. It touches me, as a mother, for we forever worry about our children. My son is fifty-two, and when I learned there were raging fires in Los Angeles on the day his plane was due to arrive from Bangkok (Wednesday) I doubled, no tripled, my worrying. The plane arrived safely and one day I will find out what he saw in those skies, but for now I am grateful he made his connection home to Denver, albeit in the middle of the night. It is moments like these that make me grateful for cell phones, messaging, and even FaceBook. How did we ever manage without instant communication?

But returning to the story in today’s Gospel, about the boy Jesus in the Temple. We are told he is twelve years old and goes missing, at least his parents cannot find him. When they do, they fuss over him asking what was he thinking going off like that. (Sounds familiar.) And of course he replies that he was about his “Father’s business.”

An epiphany. A light shines on Jesus and who he really is.

The story produced other epiphanies in my little brain. He was born a baby, a human baby, and would have grown as we all grow, learning from our environment. He must have absorbed the lessons of the local synagogue, the readings, the conversations, as he grew up, for he needed to know these things, the history and rituals of his people, their prophets, their challenges. And so he is drawn to the temple in Jerusalem when they visit for the Passover feast. Luke writes that they had gone there every year (!) as was the custom. And yet we only have this one account of Jesus questioning the rabbis.

Given the choices all writers make, I have often thought the Gospel accounts were carefully curated. When there is a feeding of five thousand, this is only one account of many feedings we do not hear about. The healings too are probably too numerous to list, both of soul and of body. How many did Christ the Lord raise from the dead?

And just so, Mary and Joseph most likely were challenged with the boy Jesus and his remarkable parentage and his ways of learning, led by his Heavenly Father, guided by the Holy Spirit. This was their twelfth Jerusalem Passover, but Jesus is now of an age – a precocious age as mothers know – when his mental and physical growth take new turns. We call it adolescence. They called it becoming a man.

Today we ponder our time on Earth, Jesus’s time on Earth, and the accounts we are given, so carefully and prayerfully written “for our learning.” We are told in the Collect for Advent II to “inwardly digest” the Word, Holy Scripture. For indeed, these accounts, historical accounts, are food for our souls. Scripture tells us what is important in life, what is good and what is bad. Scripture, and those who interpret these Holy Words for us, gives meaning to our time, meaning to our individual lives. These words set us on the right path, shining a light in the dark forest of our days.

I for one am glad and grateful, for with every lesson, new epiphanies reveal more glory here and now and then in Heaven and eternity. What we don’t know, what we don’t understand, doesn’t matter. What matters is in the pages of this book called the Holy Bible. What matters is what we do about these matters in our own lives.

Are we part of a church community, one that welcomes us on board to sail the seas of our time? For community is one of the pillars found in Holy Scripture – community that teaches us, feeds us, leads us through the rough waters. It is the church family that gives us the songs to sing, the prayers to pray, the eucharists to strengthen our hearts and souls.

The answers to life’s questions are here for the taking. We need only trust and obey as the old hymn goes. Looking for happiness? Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

One of my grandchildren said she couldn’t find a church she liked. I suppose she thought there was a perfect one, just for her, as if she were at a buffet table, trying each dish. Alas, I told her, every church community is fallen, for it is made up of fallen men and women just like you and me. Find one close by and attend regularly. Be slow to judge and quick to forgive.

For without being a member of the community we call the Bride of Christ, the Church, we will die a slow death from spiritual starvation. We need to be fed, and this is where Christ is, feeding his sheep, caring for you and me. Don’t go it alone, or even imagine it is possible. Hermits are few and far between.

If you want to experience epiphanies of heart and soul, walk through those doors, take a seat, and sing with all your might. Pray prayers of repentance, prayers of petition, and prayers of thanksgiving. Listen and learn from the lessons read and the sermons preached. And do these glorious things with others, your new brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. One day you will be in their shoes, and you will be given parish children, grandchildren, in your church family. One day you will open the doors for those outside who want to come inside, in from the cold, the damp, and the dark of our world.

One day you will see them from Heaven and you will hear the words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Welcome home.” You will turn and see the Master, the one who questioned the rabbis in the temple and set our worlds in motion. And you will know the ultimate epiphany, Christ himself.

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January Journal, Second Sunday after Christmas

Posted on January 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

My novel in progress, The Music of the Mountain, is set in the month of January 2023. It is a dark and stormy month, a time of short days and long nights. And yet January is a month of epiphanies, of new beginnings, of seeing what we didn’t see before. An epiphany is a sudden thought, a conclusion, an answer. January unveils these day by day, week by week.

But most of all, being the first month of the new year, time itself commands attention. What have we done or left undone in the past year? What do we regret? What would we do differently if we had the year to do over again? We make resolutions to be better.

It is unfashionable to admit fault, to judge oneself, to admit we are not all we should be. We are told that judgment is judged to be unkind, and above all, we must be kind to ourselves, looking for excuses, reasons why we didn’t love enough, circumstances that would send the judge and jury home for good.

Falling short of the mark hurts.

And so during Mass this morning I was glad to be reminded of my failings in the General Confession and the Absolution following. It is a crucial, cross-bearing reality, that we are human beings subject to moral law who will face God’s judgment one day, like it or not. I for one need reminding in this world of no fault, grievance, and victimhood.

And so we acknowledged and bewailed our manifold sins and wickedness we have committed by thought, word, and deed, provoking God’s wrath and indignation. We repent and are sorry. The burden is intolerable… we call on God for forgiveness.

It is good to be reminded of reality. It is good to repent on a regular basis after holding oneself up to the bright light of Heaven. In this way, we choose the best path to take in the new year. In this way we see ourselves as we are, not as we imagine, and allow God to carve away the darkness and bathe us in his light.

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas; tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. Epiphany, of course, is when the Magi or Wise Men arrive in Bethlehem, bringing gifts to the Christ Child. Epiphany, then, is the good news sung to the rest of the world, not just the shepherds and the holy family. We are included in this epiphany of light; we travel to the creche and kneel and worship too. We bring our gifts – ourselves. We too have followed the star in the heavens, wondering where it will lead. Could something so grand and cosmic as a star in the night sky shine upon the meager manger in Bethlehem? And yet angels appeared to the shepherds, the great choir singing to the lowly herders.

Christmas tells how the little becomes large, how flesh houses spirit. God becomes tiny and humble; kings follow a star and kneel before him.

To find answers to the human condition, the whys and the wherefores, look to the manger bed and see who kneels before the Christ Child. If kings and shepherds kneel, we can too. If they see, we can see too.

January is the month of the Holy Name of Jesus, so that we give the baby in the manger a holy glory by intoning his name, breathing the name, calling his name.

January is the month of life granted through this Holy Child, but it is also the month of death decreed with the slaughter of our own innocents through abortion. For half a century this month proclaims our grief, prays our petitions as we walk for life all across this nation.

The star is bright in the night sky as we embark on this year in time. We divide our time into months and days and hours, stepping through the squares on our calendars, trying to pay attention to each precious, passing minute. It is too much for our ashen earthiness, and so we take an hour on a Sunday to bundle the time into meaningful notes, and sing a melody of penitence, absolution, eucharistic feeding, and by the end of the hour we see epiphanies meant only for you and me.

We go to church for an hour each Sunday and kneel alongside the people of God, the bride of Christ. For in that humility, epiphanies are born, and we see again. We see the path laid out for us, at least for the next day and week, as we step into the woods of time, marking another year.

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December Journal, First Sunday after Christmas

Posted on December 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

We are in the middle of Christmastide, those twelve glorious days of Christmas ending on Epiphany, January 6.

I have celebrated seventy-eight Christmases on this good earth. If I don’t remember each one, they remember me. 

With each year I have added another layer, another garment, to my Christmas past to create my Christmas present, which becomes indeed a yearly present presented to my heart, mind, and soul. The past does this to the present if we pay attention, or even if we don’t, for today’s Christmas is partly the memories of earlier ones and perhaps even the anticipation of ones to come.

Thus rituals and traditions color our world. We sing the same songs and add new ones. We decorate our homes as if a king were arriving, for indeed he is, and did arrive on Christmas Day. We turn earlier saints into messengers, and invite Saint Nicholas to gift us, arrive on the roof and come down through the chimney to place delicacies in our giant stockings hung with care in hopes he will be there. 

We build anticipation in the weeks before, trying to be good, greeting one another with holiday cheer, wearing holiday colors and hats and tees, singing about a reindeer named Rudolph with a red nose who was humble and then great, or so the story goes.

We prepared for Christmas by thinking of others, teaching our hearts to expand to include another in our thoughts and plans. We bake for them, give them gifts that are wrapped in bright paper with shiny and curly ribbon, so that the joy becomes even more special for it has been hidden, as Jesus is hidden in history and mankind’s retelling.

In these rituals we tell the story of God becoming Man and walking among us. The story is too fantastic to tell. It is too amazing to fathom. So we tell it in our preparations, in our humble human attempts to shine the light on the glory of God and the laughter of his love.

Like Our Lord, Saint Nicholas comes down from stary skies and gives us wonderful gifts. The gifts do not compare to the gift of Christ and Eternity, the gift of God and incarnation, the gift of life over death, joy over sorrow. They do not compare, but they remain our meager attempt to reveal Christmas, the birth of the Son of God, the Messiah, the long awaited one here to set us free from our own captivity of self.

And so we try to be like Saint Nicholas and give gifts and reflect Our Lord Jesus who gave himself to us.

And we try to be like the angels and sing to him in his manger. We sing of the miracle and mystery of that unlikely birth, we harken to the herald angels singing glory to the newborn king, we sing of a silent and holy night when away in the manger there was no crib for his bed, we tell of the little town of Bethlehem and what happened on that midnight clear when the glorious song of old was heard as angels touched their harps of gold, for Christ is born of Mary, and while mortals sleep, the stars proclaim the birth and peace to men on earth.

Indeed, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Love of You and Me, was born that night over two thousand years ago, and today we sing carols layered upon earlier carols, as humankind tries to express the inexpressible with words and melody.

We teach our children the songs, so that they will teach their children. To help them remember, we dress them to play parts in a stable in Bethlehem. We clothe them with the story of the Christ Child. They act out the greatest story ever told, and each year they add to their own library of Christmas rituals and traditions.

And so I have been graced with seventy-eight years of Christmases. The time is rich and glorious and I wear a tapestried robe of many colors and notes and words. I live out what I have been given, a humble life of gilded mystery and miracle, for each day brings its own gifts of healing, seeing, hearing, being. Every minute is birthed by Christ. We breathe Christmas all year, birthing this Bethlehem child who births us.

We follow the star of Christmas and find ourselves at the cross of Easter. In this journey in time, we learn to love as God loves us, wrapping our hearts with the bright ribbons of Christ, to give ourselves to one another.

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December Journal, Third Sunday in Advent

Posted on December 15, 2024 | Leave a comment

Today is Gaudete Sunday, or Rose Sunday, and Heaven Sunday too. The Third Sunday in Advent is rich with meaning as we prepare for Christmas and the Incarnation of God, come to us to live with us and in us. Such miracle and mystery often astounds me.

The name “Gaudete” meaning “Rejoice” refers to the introit for the day (translated from the Latin):

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” (Wikipedia)

Indeed, the Lord is near at hand, to be born in Bethlehem soon and reborn in us daily, hourly, with each breath. We need only ask. It is a reminder to be at peace, reconciled to God, with His birth among us, in us. We request what we need and give thanks for the life we have been given. We need not be anxious, but are called to rejoice in the Lord always. It is a good reminder to do so in our worldly world.

We place roses on the altar (no flowers during Advent except for today) and vestments are rose-colored. We consider the “last things” once again, but in the lighter light of Heaven. Having considered Death and Judgment so far, today we hope in Christ to defend us when we die, when we face our examination, or court appearance as it were, that we see what we have done or not done, repent, be absolved and step through the gates of Heaven into the New Jerusalem. It is a good reminder to practice our repentance here on Earth.

The fog drifted into our valley this morning and settled around the hills, obscuring the lower hamlets and allowing the peaks to emerge into light. I watched it swirl and change and move on, as other mists born by the breeze came in, changing shape with each second, opening and closing the planet to the sun.

We too are obscured by the swirling mists of not seeing or not knowing or not being sure of what we believe or who we are. And yet we have a path given to us, a way of parting that fog, if we so desire. We have reasonable arguments for certainty handed to us by the church and a heritage of believers, witnesses who testify to what they have seen and what they know to be true. We need only say “yes” we want to believe, we want to step further into the world of faith, hope, love, and joy. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s true.

And so we look to Mary who said those words, her “fiat”, her “yes”, her “be it unto me…”, to allow her body to be the home of Christ Jesus. We travel with her through Advent, to learn how to say yes as she did, to step into this miracle given to each one of us, Christmas. We walk alongside her, and she with us, for she is our mother.

There is a wonderful icon of Mary and the Holy Child Jesus hanging in the great basilica of Mary Major, Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome. It is said to be painted by St. Luke. Tradition and first century carbon dating testify to the probability that it was. Under the main altar lies the wooden creche. 

We light our three candles today, including the rose candle, and we recall our ultimate destination, Heaven. As we do, we experience a moment of Heaven on Earth. The candles flame, testifying to the Lord of Lords to come, to be born on Earth and reborn in our hearts.

Yes, come Lord Jesus, come.

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December Journal, First Sunday in Advent

Posted on December 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

The nights have been clear and cold here in the Bay Area. We can see the stars and I reach to touch them, they seem so close. Advent is the time of stars in the heavens. Advent is when we follow the star to Christmas. We reach and we follow the star.

There’s a good deal about light and dark in today’s assigned lessons as we leave behind thanksgiving and open the door to Advent. Light and dark, life and death, judgment. We are told the four last things are to be considered in these Advent Sundays: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. Indeed, these are the four last things we will face when we die, and it appears they are also the four last things to consider when we are alive, if we want to live life to the full.

And so in today’s Epistle, Paul writes to the Roman church (13:8). He speaks of the night being far spent and the day at hand. He tells us to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, walking honestly as in the day. He even tells us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” which I would assume means wear Him like a garment, a protection against the dark and the judgment.

These are big things, subjects we would rather avoid. Especially judgment. We define deviancy down and further down, so that we can deny judging anyone and thus not be judged ourselves. And yet we know deep within there is a moral law all mankind senses, reckoning that a standard has been set, a standard we don’t meet. And with law there is judgment.

What happens when we die? Where do we go? Will we be held accountable for our life on Earth? Christian theology answers these questions in ways that make sense and that have proved true. For in the last twenty years+ witnesses to Heaven have returned to give testimony to what happened to them there. A great deal of literature has been collected, depositions, great clouds of credible witnesses.

And so we face the light and the truth of who we are, in Advent. Today we face death, that it will happen to each one of us some day… today, tomorrow, in fifty years. We are told to live each day as if it were our last, to savor each moment, for these minutes will not return.

We light our first Advent candle in our Advent wreathe. It is only one small flame in the dark, but it will light the others, each week, until we see the light of Bethlehem, the light of the world, the light of Christ.

Our preacher said that yes, we are in the Endtimes. For Catholic teaching says that the Endtimes – the Apocalypse – began with the birth of Jesus. Each of us has a role to play, a job to do, a vocation assigned to live out fully. Each one is a precious bead in the great rosary of the universe, in the miracle of time itself. Each one of us is necessary to complete the picture of man’s salvation. What is your vocation, job, role? What is mine?

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s birth. He led the West into the light of freedom, away from the dark of tyranny. He was a great leader for he sensed his destiny was to act at certain times. He was unpopular often, as many leaders are, for he listened to what he thought was right and wasn’t swayed by opinion. They say he wasn’t a religious man, but I say he listened to his head and heart and the angels that hovered about him. He knew the road to take to win freedom back. He worked long hours and slept little. He was brave. Steady. True. Industrious. “Never, never, never give up,” he said. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” And some humor alongside: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something.”

Reminds me of a certain political figure who recently won the White House. And it is interesting that President Trump had an American mother and a British father; Prime Minister Churchill had an American father and a British mother. Both leaders were (are) brash and committed and decisive… and fearless.

It is good we practiced gratitude for our blessings this past week. Gratitude humbles us. Gratitude says, we owe something to someone else. Indeed. We owe much to those giants that have preserved the West, and fought for our freedoms through war and peace. We owe much to our local church, filled with good souls who try to love us. We owe much to our own families who try to put up with us. We owe much to Our Lord who gave us life itself and continues to breathe life into each day we live.

We open the door to Advent, to the advent of Christ among us, that we may be worthy of His gift of life. We light our little candle and watch it flame and flicker, knowing that we are growing green with each day of penitence and prayer, until we complete the circle of pungent pine and shine our little lights on the Light of the World.

We begin at the beginning, the first day of the Church Year. In this new year we open the gates of Jerusalem – and our hearts – to the Messiah as our Gospel reading describes. Today the story begins, and each one of us will play a vital part in the greatest drama of all, life overcoming death, eternally, minute by minute.

We follow the star and see where it leads.

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A Light in Time

Posted on December 27, 2015 | Leave a comment

Advent St. JIt is a season of renewal, a time when we review the old year and make resolutions for the new one. We judge our time, our spending of time, our use or abuse of the year 2015. Each year is a gift. It is a unique segment of our lives, a year we cannot retrieve and a year that will never be repeated. We are given only one chance with our lives, only one chance with the time given.

And so we look back and consider what habits to discard and what to keep, what to repent and what to repeat, what to affirm and what to deny. Sometimes confusion reigns even in hindsight, and the better path not obvious even from this vista point, perched as we are on the cliff at the end of the year, getting ready to jump into 2016, a new segment of time granted to us, this new year. 

“She had the time of her life.” We say this to emphasize a moment of great exuberance and joy, a peak time amidst the other valleys. But all time is of our lives. All time is holy.

As I look back on my year, I do indeed see confusion and chaos. A good friend and mentor left our earthly time and entered eternity, leaving us behind. Another friend is getting ready to leave, in hospice care. Her bags are nearly packed and she is peacefully waiting the chariot.

In the past year there have been many risings to occasions and putting best feet forward and keeping stiff upper lips. There have been duties and responsibilities not always heartfelt, actions ordered by God’s law of love. There have been dark times in shadowy valleys where answers could not be seen, where the fork in the road had no signpost, or the sign had been lost, thrown into the bushes.

And yet looking back at 2015 I also see clarity and order. My good friend and mentor in Heaven left me many gifts that live on bridging our separation, gifts of wisdom and love, ways to see and believe, the necessity of humility and its fruit, repentance. My friend waiting for her journey to Heaven continues to gift me in her last days, but I can see clearly now that her friendship itself was given to me to make sense of my own time.

The risings to occasions, the duties and responsibilities not eagerly engaged, rewove my own heart to be of stronger stuff, not so easily thwarted by dismay and danger, informing my soul again with God’s law of love. The dark times through the journey of 2015 led me to the altar of my local church, pushing me to my knees in penitence and prayer, and when I re-entered the world I found myself on the top of a mountain of light with a clear view of the surrounding countryside.

We do indeed live behind the veil of eternity. Some of us glimpse the brilliant color and catch the fragrance and sensory delight on the other side. Some of us hear the music, the choirs of angels and the songs of the saints. Some of us don’t know how to lift the curtain or even believe that it can be lifted or that it is there at all, thinking this world is all there is.

And so as I stepped through the dark days of Advent, those short wintry days, I watched and I prayed and I worshiped God in his Church, calling for Christ’s coming, singing with his people. Slowly, a light shined in the darkness, revealing my place in the world, my place in my moment of time. I observed the rituals and rites of Christmas with their sacramental signs, knowing they would lead me to the light to see again.

I garlanded the evergreen in our bowed window and strung twinkling lights through the branches. Ornaments from the years of my life were resurrected from tissue nests in boxes, where they had lived since last Christmas. The figurines and balls and tassels hanging from bits of wire released memories from the prison of my mind, giving them air, and a stained-glass gathering of family and children and loved ones crowded happily with one another in my heart.

In the days before Christmas – after the parish pageant on Advent IV – I set up our large crèche figures on the hearth and dangled a golden star from the mantel. Fresh white candles found holders in all the rooms so that I would not forget the great light coming soon to the world to banish the dark, the darkness of winter, the darkness of my soul.

So the confusion of life, after all, I learned once again, can be cleared. There is a way to lighten the darkness, as described by St. John whose feast we celebrate today:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not… That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

John 1+, Gospel reading for Christmas Day

And in one of John’s letters to an early church:

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”             I John 1+

And so, as my good friend in Heaven taught me, one must walk in the light – that is, penitently – in order to see in the darkness. He also gave me the gift of the Church, the Body of Christ, that leads me to the light. For only by entering the doors of Christ’s Body can we experience clarity amidst confusion. Only by walking up the aisle to kneel at the altar can we know the love of God and his forgiveness. Only by observing our time, each day, hour, minute, within the seasons of the life of the Church, can we find our way forward into the New Year that awaits each of us.

I look back upon 2015 and see a map of love through time. I want to follow that path that journeys with Love incarnate. I look forward to 2016, every minute, every hour, every step of the way, lit by the light and love of Christmas, Emmanuel, God with us.

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Advent Editing

Posted on November 30, 2015 | 1 comment

writingSince signing a contract with eLectio Publishing earlier this week for the publication of my novel, The Fire Trail, to be released May 10, I have been rereading the manuscript, polishing, fine-tuning. Words and phrases are deleted and replaced, sentences are shaved and reshaped, paragraphs and pages and chapters judged as honestly as possible.

It would seem an appropriate work to tackle during Advent, a season of penitence and preparation as we wait for the celebration of Christ’s advent at Christmas. For like the examination of my words, Advent is also a time to examine my heart, to see what should be deleted from my life and replaced, discouraged or encouraged, torn down or shored up, what should be shaved and reshaped, what should be confessed, judged, and absolved. It is a time when we ask that God’s law be written on our hearts.

For Advent is about change, about the editing of our lives.

When I edit a manuscript I measure it against certain standards. I’ve learned and hopefully continue to learn the craft of writing fiction, the structure of the novel, the way words, story, plot, and character weave together. I try to fill my ears and eyes and mind with good writing, to absorb vocabulary and symbols and images, to improve my own attempts to hold my manuscript up to a standard. I listen to language, the rhythm and syntax and flow of dialog and description, attending to the music of words and their dance, be it a minuet or a waltz.

Editing is about choice, choice based on a standard. And for mankind those standards were given to us when God wrote his law on tablets of stone, and Moses carried them down the mountain to God’s chosen ones. That law was fulfilled, filled with fullness, made perfect, when Jesus the Christ was born in a hillside cave outside Bethlehem. That law was fulfilled with his life, his death, and his resurrection from death into life, his shattering of the veil between man and God, his making them at-one, in his Atonement.

In the season of Advent we look to Christmas, to the celebration of the birth of Our Lord. We do this by editing our lives using his standards, his rule of law, his law of love. We want to be ready to receive him into the words and pages of our days, weeks, years, to welcome him to live in our chapters and breathe life into our own stories. To be ready we need to edit ourselves.

Some of us think we have nothing to delete or add to our lives. We are fine the way we are. The problem of sin is for others, not us. It is time then to begin with beginnings: the Ten Commandments. Curiously, they are difficult to keep in today’s culture of distraction. The first four are considered sins against God; the last six are sins against one another. Today we’ll look at the sins against God. These will be challenging enough to suggest a robust humility:

  1. God spake these words: I am the LORD thy God; Thou shalt have none other gods but me.
  1. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and show mercy unto thousands in them that love me and keep my commandments.

Do I worship false gods? Do I spend too much time, talent, or treasure on anything that is not to God’s glory, not a part of his plan for me? Has my own selfishness hurt my children, and taught them how to be selfish too, to in turn hurt their children, my grandchildren?

  1. Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain. 

The everyday use of “OMG” today is astounding. The commandment not to use God’s in vain would seem the easiest of all, and yet saying the name of God frivolously, without meaning or reverence, that is, in vain, is a common transgression. We say it. We hear it. We read it. Bestsellers and mainstream movies use this language liberally without thought to the power of words, whether spoken or written. I can edit my tongue, and edit my reading list, but it is more difficult to edit what I hear. A friend’s solution to this oral pollution was powerful: when someone says “God!” or “Christ!” my friend offers up her own prayer by adding “be praised!” The addition, I’ve found, invites holiness into the moment, making each word spoken precious.

  1. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day.

For Christians, Sunday is the Sabbath, celebrating Christ’s Resurrection. I must confess I don’t always feel like going to church on Sunday, but I’m always glad I went. I’ve found that regular worship edits my soul, fine-tuning it, regulating its rhythms and guiding its dance. What happens in that simple hour of song and Scripture and sacrament is mystifying, miraculous. I am changed. Words do not fully explain it but I’ll try a few: I enter disordered and leave re-ordered, I enter guilty and leave absolved, I enter sorrowful and leave joyful, I enter depressed and leave enlightened, I enter dying and leave reborn. Keeping Sunday holy by uniting with Christ’s Body is crucial to the editing of the soul.

And so the manuscripts of Me and You are works-in-progress, to be published in Heaven, on our personal release dates, our new birth-days. There is, for me, much to work on, many areas to refashion and rebuild. The editing is ongoing, with the help of sacrament and song and Scripture, with the advent of Christ in history in Bethlehem, the advent of Christ today in the Eucharist and his Spirit in daily prayer, and the advent of Christ at the end of time.

Lord, have mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.

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Barbarians at the Gates

Posted on January 11, 2015 | 4 comments

starWe headed for church this morning to celebrate the Epiphany, the coming of the Wise Men to worship the Christ Child, the following of the star to the manger. We drove through a thick fog, a bone-chilling fog. The damp fit my mood, as I reflected on the horrific massacres of this past week. For wildfires breached once again the fire trail of Western civilization. The barbarians entered the gates of Paris and the free world. Where was that Epiphany star?

The killers were attacking the West by trying to silence us. I, for one, prefer logical debate to satire, respect to ridicule. It troubles me when Christian images are ridiculed and defiled; I know how it feels. But we in the West discuss our differences in peaceful forums.

Peggy Noonan recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

“Without free speech no difference of opinion can be resolved, no progress made in the law or in politics, no truth found and held high, no scandal unearthed and stopped…We know on some level that this is how civilization keeps itself together.”

So the issue in the Paris massacre is not that the publisher should have been more restrained. The cartoonists were not “at fault” for their caricatures. The issue is how civil society deals with disagreement. We do not grab a rifle and shoot. We express our grievances through debate, speech, the courts.

Clearly terrorists who kill in the name of their god do not agree with our laws, or how we choose to redress insults. They are not interested in converting us to their beliefs through debate and apologetics. They are interested in forcing our submission, and submission is not peace. Submission is not freedom. We in the West honor freedom.

There are many trends in Western culture that I find disturbing, and so I wrote a novel about them called The Fire Trail (just finished the first draft). One of the themes is the need for individuals in our culture of freedom to practice self-discipline, to consider one another’s feelings. But without faith institutions to curtail excesses in word and image, we seem to be at a loss. We do not want to, nor should we, limit speech by legal means. It is far better, to be sure, to limit ourselves, to control our urge to ridicule.

In many universities some who see themselves offended have tried to limit free speech, by naming offensive speech “hate speech.” This is a dangerous road to travel. I would rather be offended than to criminalize offensive (hate) speech. Protection of free speech is far too important, far too intrinsic to who we are as a people. We need this First Amendment right in order to survive.

Perhaps it is simply easier to claim offense than to engage in debate. It is easier to ridicule than to reason. Perhaps both sides – the offender and the offended – act and react simplistically out of laziness, mental sloth. Perhaps they are used to easy and not trained in the difficult.

Much has been written about the need for the return of virtue to the public square. The West was built on Judeo-Christian virtues, blended with Greek virtues. As faith recedes, how do we return faith’s virtues to the public square? Without the authority of that Judeo-Christian God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, how can we survive and still be free?

The Jewish legacy of the Ten Commandments gave us laws to honor God and one another. The Greeks spoke of the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, courage. Christianity added faith, hope, and charity, giving us seven virtues to battle the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride.

I have often thought that if we practiced these virtues, or confessed and repented the vices, the sins, we would have little need for legal restraints. But we are children of Adam and Eve. It is difficult to practice these all the time; we are constantly tempted. It is easy to envy and be angry, even easier to be gluttonous and greedy. It is easy to lust, encouraged by the soft porn all around us. And pride honors all sins and has no need for virtues, not admitting they exist. Pride lives in denial. It’s blinding.

How do we infuse the public square with the desire to be good? We cannot legislate goodness. We cannot legislate love, honor, respect for one another. This is the great question of the twenty-first century, how to revive the legacy of faith as faith dims, as churches close and their lights go out.

So my little novel is my small peaceful contribution to the debate, a quiet call to recognize that the barbarians are on our borders, to admit our pride and our denial. I fear such admission and recognition may be too late for Europe, as one commentator lamented, but America has hidden strengths and is used to changing course and doing battle. Never before has there been such a need for such a change of course.

As the great Anglican scholar, C. S. Lewis, wrote in Mere Christianity: 

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

So as I gazed this morning in church upon the Christ Child in the manger, I knew it would all work out, in the end, for God’s glory. For there are still wise men who will bring their gifts to him and, in so doing, to our world. There are still shepherds who will bow before the Christ Child, who will care for the sheep who cannot care for themselves. There is still the love of Mary and Joseph, who show us how to practice virtue, how to say “yes” to God and how to hear his voice, in vision or dream or word or sacrament.

The great gift of Christmas, our preacher said this morning, is also the great gift of Easter. It is the gift of life itself, life on earth and life in eternity. And they are the same, he said, for eternity is now.

The great gift of Christmas is the gift of God to our world, the light shining in the darkness. It is the gift of love, and yes, the gift of Western Civilization, of civilized culture. For our culture – our freedom – has been built upon that gift, and that world is now threatened. We value life and love and freedom; others do not. The choice is clear. We must look to the star of Bethlehem, to the Shepherds, to the Wise Men, and to Abraham and Isaac.

We must return virtue to the public square and to the world.

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Joy to the World

Posted on January 4, 2015 | 3 comments


Parish churchFrom time to time news reports announce the closing of churches worldwide. Recently the Wall Street Journal reported that in the Netherlands two-thirds of the 1600 Roman Catholic churches will close in the next decade and in Holland 700 Protestant churches will close in the next four years. When I see these reminders of the state of Christian churches in the world I often reconsider the nature of these sacred buildings.

Many of these churches in Europe are sold and become condos, bars, restaurants, museums, libraries, and hotels. Entering these reclaimed spaces can be, for the Christian, a bit disconcerting. But, after all, the materials were simply that – matter, stone, wood, building blocks. Why should the Christian be troubled?

Catholic and Anglican churches are consecrated when used for holy worship, and when they are put on the market, they are deconsecrated. So, I say to myself, why be sentimental?

Why indeed?

But another voice whispers in my ear. There is the history of prayers here, it says, remember all the sacraments, all the baptisms, confirmations, weddings, communions, funerals. Remember all the celebrations and seasons, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost.

So as I knelt at the altar to receive the Eucharist this morning in my parish church, I gazed upon our Christmas creche, set up a few feet away. There was the Lord of Lords in his bed of straw, surrounded by Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, the animals. The outline of the figures followed the pitched lines of the stable roof, peaked like hands praying. A star hung from the central point.

The nativity scene was, I thought, a church in itself, a little church. The manger was the altar, the Son of God in the center, the Holy Spirit descending in the star and twinkling lights, Mary and Joseph like the clergy preparing and caring for God-with-us, the shepherds and wise men like the congregation, some herders of sheep and some herders of words. The crèche was a mini-church.

Then I looked beyond the stable to the pitched roof of our own sanctuary-stable, the altar with its tabernacle holding God-with-us, the Holy Spirit weaving through our prayers and incense and flaming starlight, the clergy offering God to us and us to God, and we kneeling in pews and at the altar rail in adoration as the shepherds and wise men once did, bringing the gifts of our hearts, minds, and bodies.

And of course, in the end, there is the church of our hearts. Like the inn of Bethlehem, there is not always room for God in our hearts. But some of us try to make room and offer a rough stable where he can live and breathe, where Eternity can take root and make us immortal. In this way each of us, if we so choose, is a crèche cradling God, just like the Christmas crèche and just like the church sanctuary.

It is good to have the crèche to express the story of salvation, and it is good to have the church to enact the sacrament of salvation, to help us enter the mystery itself, making us one with God. Other expressions of our deepest held beliefs live in the physical church – the architecture of domes and aisles and sacred space, the baptismal font, the stories in stained glass, the Lady Altar with its bank of flaming votives. Music, prayer, ritual all give us ways to express who we are as created beings, who we are meant to be, and how we become what we are meant to be in eternity.

Church comes from the word ekklesia, a body of believers called together by Christ. So of course the church is foremost the living church, Christ’s Body. But people need structure, need poetry, need symbol. The physical church provides these things, enables communal worship in a common space and time.

In Europe villages grew up around churches, so the town came to be identified with the parish church, and in many cases took the church’s name. Today, when these communities no longer have this unifying central building, they have indeed lost something valuable, something that brought them together. Hence there is an outcry in Europe today among nonbelievers as well as believers. But closing the church is merely a symptom of an earlier closing, a greater closing, the closing of hearts to God, and this loss of faith has been going on for the last century. The only cure for such a death is a re-opening of those hearts, a resurrection of spirit.

America is younger and her history is less village-focused. Her cultural landscape is seeded with many varieties of belief and building and ekklesia. But here too, churches are sold, parishes consolidated. What is a believer to do?

It is a time for believers to find one another, to share in worship. It is a time to keep candles aflame and incense billowing. It is a time to sing a joyful noise unto the Lord so that the singing bursts through the doors and weaves through our communities, relighting the world with the good news of Christ. It is a time to tell the wondrous story, that God sent his Son to become one of us, one with us, Emmanuel, in a crèche, the first ekklesia.

It is a time to sing together, Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king… so that the world may become a crèche too.

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