One God

I was surprised to find out that the earliest explicit confession of monotheism in the Bible is Isaiah 44:6: "I am the first and the last; besides me there is no God."  In case we missed it he repeats his confession twice in 45: 5-6: "I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god....there is no one besides me; I am the Lord and there is no other."
The author of the second part of Isaiah, chapters 40:1-55:13, was living in Babylon during the Exile about 540 years before Jesus.  He probably did not arrive at this revolutionary insight all by himself. No doubt, he and his fellow Jewish thinkers in exile arrived at this conclusion as they looked askance at the many "gods" of the Babylonians.  The remarkable insight that there is only one God is so mind-blowing that it colors our whole way of reading the Old Testament even before Isaiah.

Unrestrained Joy

"Unrestrained joy" is the phrase that Father Ray Brown uses to describe the scene in Luke's Gospel where Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth (1:39-45.)  The Divine saturates the scene and  envelops the two women and they brim over with joy.  Even the baby in Elizabeth's womb jumps for joy.
Teilhard de Chardin says, "Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God."

Dark Lady

I have seen Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast is today, referred to as "The Dark Lady." She came in the color and appearance of a Mexican Indian to Juan Diego, a Mexican Indian.  It's the reason this story appeals to me.  Mary comes in the form with which Juan Diego is comfortable.
God's way with us is to take our way, to become Flesh.

In Our Midst

"O come, O come, Emmanuel!" we sing during Advent.  Emmanuel means "God with us," yet we are asking God-With-Us to come.  This Advent tension is present throughout the season.  This coming Sunday the prophet Zephaniah assures us, "The Lord your God is in your midst (3:17.)"  When we pray for God to come, it is not to bring God closer; God couldn't be any closer. We are praying that God will sharpen our awareness of God-With-Us and enlarge our welcoming love.

Year 2 Begins

My heart attack happened a year ago yesterday.
Love Who love us, thank You.

All Humanity

When Luke quotes Isaiah in 3:1-6, he goes one line further than Mark and Matthew to include Isaiah's "and all humanity shall see the salvation of God."  Luke continues it to include the promise of universal salvation, a prominent theme in his Gospel.

Seeing Him

Sunday I read Truman Capote's A Christmas Story.  It comes closer than any fiction I know to capturing the significance of the Incarnation, God becoming flesh.  Capote tells how as a 7 year old he made Christmas preparations with his friend, who was "sixty something, though still a child."  Near the end of the story, as they lie in the grass, watching their kites cavort in the sky, she exclaims,
"I've always thought that a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord.  And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark.  And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling.  But I'll wager it never happens.  I'll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself.  That things as they are, just what they've always seen, was seeing Him.  As for me I could leave the world with today in my eyes."