7th Day of Christmas

Merry Christmas! Day 7!  Today dawned with this beautiful reflection of sky in the newly, barely frozen lake. (Clicking on the picture enlarges it.)
I'm convinced that the best way to a happy new year is to make more time for contemplation.
After the shepherds visit to the manger, Luke says,"Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart."  "Treasure" involves taking great care to keep something in mind so as not to forget it or lose it.  "Ponder" involves knocking ideas and memories up against each other, like stones being polished, until we get some glimmer of meaning.
Mary's contemplation is a model for us in the new year.  Contemplation takes different forms, depending on the individual.  For me it's best sitting still in centering prayer or walking alone in my quiet neighborhood.
Michael McGrath, in Saved by Beauty, says it's essential to find what works for you, what puts you in a place of inner peace.  Journal, garden, paint, draw, sing, dance, chop vegetables and make soup, bake bread, listen to music, carve a piece of wood, fish, hunt, or just get up 15 minutes earlier than you like, make a cup of coffee or tea, sit in your favorite chair and "simply pay attention to God, who you will see has already been up for hours paying attention to you."
God wants to draw each of us into a deeper love.  All we have to do is put ourselves at God's disposal, make time for contemplation.  That's the best way to a happy new year.

6th Day of Christmas

Merry Christmas! Day 6!  The snowflakes yesterday were so big that they showed up in this picture.  We have had a lot of snowing and blowing.  (Clicking on picture enlarges it.)
I decided today not to go out.  I spent the day reviewing the past year, reading my journal and writing some thoughts about 2012.  I did some reading and praying and listening to music, all in a quiet Christmas atmosphere in my living room, colored lights and manger scene.
I finished a lovely book I've been reading about Dorothy Day, my favorite American of the 20th century.  It's a coffee table size book by an artist Michael O'Neill McGrath with a lot of his paintings and references to St. Francis de Sales.  I found it a brief, insightful look at Dorothy Day and an inviting introduction to St. Francis. 
One of the pieces of Christmas music that I listened to was Berlioz' "L'Enfant du Christ."  It ends with a Muslim family taking in the Jewish family, Joseph, Mary, and the Child Jesus, when they arrive exhausted in Egypt.  The host is also a carpenter and tells the listener that Joseph worked with him for ten years before returning to Nazareth.
As I looked back at the year the best memories revolve around the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of my ordination.  The pilgrimage I made to Canterbury Cathedral was also deeply satisfying.  These and other happy memories helped to put some of the bad ones in perspective.
Adding to the mellow feeling of the day was a phone call from an old friend and another from one of my nephews.

4th Day of Christmas

Happy 4th Day of Christmas!  The sun came out around 1 PM and showed off the snow that we have been accumulating.  This farm is always photogenic.  (Clicking on the picture enlarges it.)
I continued to read and reflect on "Finding Jesus in the Temple."  Father Ray Brown's little booklet from long ago, An Adult Christ at Christmas, and Luke Timothy Johnson's fairly recent commentary on Luke for the Sacra Pagina series were both helpful. 
Luke tells the story so that the heart of it is verse 49.  Brown translates it the same as the lectionary, "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"  Johnson prefers, "Did you not know that I must involve myself in my Father's affairs?'  The Greek seems to imply "things," but there is no noun after the article "the."  In any case it seems that the point of the story is that Jesus is referring to God as his Father.  Up until this point in Luke's Gospel it has been others who have been saying that he is divine.  Here Jesus says it himself.
I'm not sure how a homily on this Gospel would focus on the Holy Family.  A sermon might focus on how Jesus as God and son makes the family holy and how God living in each one of our family can make our family holy.  (A homily is developed from the meaning of the Scripture passage; a sermon can be on any topic, no matter what the scripture readings.)

3rd Day of Christmas

Happy Third Day of Christmas!  Instead of turtle doves or French hens, we got 9 inches of snow and lots of wind.  It was too miserable yesterday morning to go for my walk.  Here's a picture that I took on today's walk.  There were still times that the wind was so fierce that I walked backwards into it.
I started meditating today on Sunday's Gospel, Luke 2: 41-52.  Family life at the time of Jesus was so different from now that I wasn't finding much to pray about in the behavior of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. The last verse is the one that I ended up spending time on, both for research and for prayer: "Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man." 
I looked at eleven English translations, plus the original Greek.  Phillips' sense translation is helpful: "As Jesus continued to grow in body and mind, he grew also in the love of God and of those who knew him."  That the Son of God needed to grow and change can encourage us.  God couldn't possibly love us more than God loved us when we came into existence.  I guess we can grow, however, in God's estimation of us and and the way we go about our lives.  Hopefully we can grow in the estimation of those who know us and in our ability to accept love from them.  Committing ourselves to continued growth with the help of Jesus will enrich our relationships with our family.

Love is Born at Christmas

Five year old Bobby says, "Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas, if you stop opening presents and listen."
In the First Letter of John the author says, "God is Love."  How do we know?  "God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him."  A few lines down, John repeats, "God is Love and whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them." (4:8,9,16)   I think "Love" is a nearly perfect name for God.
A long time ago in Bethlehem Love, moving through dimensions we can only imagine, took on human flesh; and, in doing so, Love embraced the whole human race.  That saving embrace reaches across the ages and enfolds you and me right now.  We need never be lonely again.  In Love we live and move and have our being.
The ever present media brings us news of war and shootings and more war.  Our own experience tells us that people can be mean and hurtful.  Looking honestly within ourselves, we see selfishness and greed and resentment.
The Love who comes into our world at Christmas joins us in our suffering.  Love even goes to the Cross to take upon himself all human misery.
With such a companion we can never be really lost.  This is the last of loneliness.  With five year old Bobby we stop and listen for Love being born at Christmas.

2nd Day of Christmas

Well, here's a Christmas cactus that got it right.  It started blooming about a week ago.  I wonder why there are no blooms on the top, not even buds.
I know some people count today as the first day of Christmas.  Somewhere  a while back I read that it is different in different countries.  I have always counted with the church.  So expect two turtle doves.  Twelfth Night then is  the night before January 6, the original date of the feast of Epiphany.
I had a wonderful First Day of Christmas with the very large family of one of my sisters.  As I count, thinking back, I come up with 37.  Lots to eat and good company.
When we love someone we want to be with them, we want to spend time with them.  Love longs for union. 
God loves us and wants to be with us, spend time with us.  In fact God wants to spend all of time with us.  Whether we image God as Father, Mother, Friend, God is this Tremendous Lover who longs for total union.  In Jesus divinity and humanity are united.   We're not just talking about the humanity of Jesus.  In the mystery of the Incarnation God draws the whole human race into an eternal, loving embrace.
In these Days of Christmas God communes with us heart to heart.  For many of us the busyness of getting ready for December 25 is over and we do have time to be still and pray, read some favorite Christmas story or listen to some quiet Christmas music. 
Even more our entire human community is bound together in God's love, and peace is possible.

Divine Dimensions

The blizzard that we had didn't seem to produce a lot of snow.  The wind blowing from the northwest, however, was so fierce that it wrapped around these pines and stuck snow on their southeast side.  Today's early morning sun made them look like they had been whitewashed.   Clicking on the picture enlarges it.  
For two years now I have been trying to use dimensional metaphors to try to grasp what it means for God to come from heaven to take on flesh and become one of us.
I don't find it helpful to think of God coming "down."  The preposition that I find more helpful is "through."  Christmas is God moving through dimensions we can only imagine to become one of us.
It's as if divine dimensions and earthly dimensions coincide.  They ocupy the same space and time.   
God is everywhere, so God fills all dimensions.  In these earthly dimensions, however, we can't experience God with our senses.  We see and hear and feel God's presence in the Goodness and Beauty around us, but we don't experience God directly with our senses. 
God wants to be completely available to us.  So God moves through dimensions we can only imagine to enter Mary's womb and take on human flesh.  Without ceasing to be divine, God becomes fully human.  God lives in our earthly dimensions as one of us.  Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the magi see and hear and touch God in this human baby.  Love, another name for God, is born at Christmas.