New Years celebrates te creation of the world.

Sunday, 1/1/12

When I was young the Catholic name for New Year’s Day was the “Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord.” With teachers having trouble explaining that to little girls, the Church switched to calling New years Day “The Octave Day of the Nativity.” But, then, the Church gave up on celebrating octaves. That had them settling on calling it “The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.”

Seeing that we have a Gospel in which Mary reflects on everything in her heart, naming the feast for her motherhood seems like a good idea. However, as Catholics we have always been proud of the deep roots of our liturgies, so we don’t like our feasts taking on new names.

We should notice that New years is celebrated by all nations and peoples. It might not hurt us to be in step with the rest of the world. Now, what all other people celebrate at New Years is the creation of the word. Why shouldn’t we too celebrate that?

Now when those other people celebrate creation they don’t commemorate heaven’s making everything out of empty space. Rather, they believe that there was always chaos there, and creation consisted in heaven bringing order out of the original chaos. That might sound foreign to us, but actually our Bible starts in the same way. The opening line of Genesis is  “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth the earth was a formless wasteland.” The original Hebrew for “formless wasteland” was tohu-bohu which sounds like clothes being flung around in a dryer.

An odd thing about the New Years celebration for all primitive peoples is that it consists in acting out their own creation myths. All those people believe that heaven showered the world with blessings on the day of creation. Their myths follow that up with the story of the first people doing something awful, which is their version of  eating the forbidden fruit. That caused the gods to run away, wanting to have nothing more to do with sinful peoples.

Primitive peoples act out their creation myths in the hope that they can make the gods think they are back at the beginning when people were innocent. They try to trick the gods into coming back, once again showering the world with blessings.

 There is a little of that ancient tradition in the second reading of today’s Mass when we plead to God to “let is face shine” on us.  

Nw years celebrates the creaion of the world.

Sunday, 1/1/12

When I was young the Catholic name for New Year’s Day was the “Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord.” With teachers having trouble explaining that to little girls, the Church switched to calling New years Day “The Octave Day of the Nativity.” But, then, the Church gave up on celebrating octaves. That had them settling on calling it “The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.”

Seeing that we have a Gospel in which Mary reflects on everything in her heart, naming the feast for her motherhood seems like a good idea. However, as Catholics we have always been proud of the deep roots of our liturgies, so we don’t like our feasts taking on new names.

We should notice that New years is celebrated by all nations and peoples. It might not hurt us to be in step with the rest of the world. Now, what all other people celebrate at New Years is the creation of the word. Why shouldn’t we too celebrate that?

Now when those other people celebrate creation they don’t commemorate heaven’s making everything out of empty space. Rather, they believe that there was always chaos there, and creation consisted in heaven bringing order out of the original chaos. That might sound foreign to us, but actually our Bible starts in the same way. The opening line of Genesis is  “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth the earth was a formless wasteland.” The original Hebrew for “formless wasteland” was tohu-bohu which sounds like clothes being flung around in a dryer.

An odd thing about the New Years celebration for all primitive peoples is that it consists in acting out their own creation myths. All those people believe that heaven showered the world with blessings on the day of creation. Their myths follow that up with the story of the first people doing something awful, which is their version of  eating the forbidden fruit. That caused the gods to run away, wanting to have nothing more to do with sinful peoples.

Primitive peoples act out their creation myths in the hope that they can make the gods think they are back at the beginning when people were innocent. They try to trick the gods into coming back, once again showering the world with blessings.

 There is a little of that ancient tradition in the second reading of today’s Mass when we plead to God to “let is face shine” on us.  

New years Eve realls chaos in the universe before creation.

Saturday, 12/31/11

This is the last day of the year, and many people see the old year out with parties when they dress up, blow horns and beat on pans. These customs have deep, pre-historic roots.

In the 1970’s American Catholics were poled as to what feast days they wanted to keep as holy days of obligation. Most people wanted to keep New Years Day as a holy day of obligation, and that was a surprise, because most of them were not sure what the day celebrated. Their attachment to the day came down to them from ancestors who lived before humanity learned how to read and write.

What we find in studying prehistoric peoples in Africa, Asia, and America is that New Years recalled the creation of the world. Oddly enough, most peoples believed that at the beginning everything was chaos, and creation consisted in God or a number of gods bringing order out of chaos.

Even our Bible shared that ancient view. In its opening words it says, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth the earth was a formless wasteland. The original Hebrew words for “formless waste land” was tohu-bohu, which sounded like clothes being spun around in a dryer.

In Japanese lore the gods came down on Mt. Fuji from where they pushed back chaos, creating a holy place where people could live. With Hindus and Buddhists the gods came down on Mt. Meru. In the legends of Iraq it was a struggle between male and female gods that bought forth a world we could live in.

Tonight, if you make merry, you might bring to mind the thought that like people for thousands of years back you are recreating the original chaos out of which we pray God will bring holy orderliness.

God rewards us richly for being kind to any of his children.

 

Friday, 12/30/11

The picture of Mary, Joseph and Jesus together in the stable turns our thoughts to our own family life. There is a fine reading about family life in the Book of Sirach. It lists five benefits that come to those who are good family members. They atone for their sins. When they pray they are heard. They store up riches in heaven.  They will be given long lives. And, in turn, they will be gladdened in their old age.

There is a story about three generations of a Chinese family. (To me it backs up the Bible' promise that in our old age we will be treated in the same way we treated the elderly when we were young.) The grandfather in the story had lost the ability to enjoy life or to be useful, so his son put him into a wheelbarrow, and  wheeled him to the top of a long bridge over the Yangtze River. His son came along to help heave grandfather over the railing. When the heave-ho time came the son said, “Don’t throw the wheelbarrow over.” “Why. Son?” the father asked; and the boy said, “I’ll need it to wheel you up here someday.”

 That reading from the Book of Sirach promises rewards that are particularly meant for young people. But what family life can old people have? Well, it is there for them if they can get out of their selves. People are paying three hundred dollars for good seats at Monday’s Gator Bowl. That doesn’t allow them to suit up and to catch passes. It just let’s them share in the feats of the young fellows on the field.

Once when someone standing nearby told Jesus that members of his family were waiting to see him, Jesus told them that his family included all men and women, old and young, who attempt to live according to God’s law. I say that living in accord to God’s law is a small price to pay if it lets me be counted among Our Lord’s close family.

Look around you. All you can see are God’s children. He loves this one, that one, and that one too. He appreciates it no end when you become a brother or sister to any lonely ones who are his children.

If we rid ourselves of all hatred "The dawn from on high will brealk upon," and we will see the bright side of life.

12/29/11

In his First Letter St. John says, “Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going.” That is a clear statement. It could help many people to clear up the confusion in their lives.

People who are confused and muddled could clear their minds by ridding themselves of all vestiges of hatred. It is the gripes they harbor that cloud their vision. Those damned Democrats and those damned Republicans are not really malicious and worthy of hatred. They simply have been hooked into ways of thinking that have become like flypaper from which they can’t disentangle themselves.

All hatred is based on mistakes. Get rid of hatred, then, as Zechariah said for us Saturday, “The dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness, and to guide our feet in the way of peace.”  

The story of Herod slaughtering the Innocents might not be factual. Whether it is or not, we have this day to evoke our prayers and sympathy for suffering innocent children.

12/28/11

In Chapter Two of his Gospel Luke described how when the child Jesus was forty days old Joseph and Mary brought him to the temple where he was recognized by Simeon and Anna. Luke followed that by relating, “When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.”

If it happened that way it could not have happened the way Matthew described it. He told us that the Holy Family remained in Bethlehem for up to two years before they went down to Egypt, staying there for years, then going to settle in Nazareth for the first time.

This is a hard, but necessary, thing for people to grasp: the incidents related in Bible stories are often not factual. Though not factual, they are true in that they convey true concepts. When Matthew and Luke sat down to write their Gospels they settled on the stories going around that backed up the message they were writing their gospels to teach.

The story of the massacre of the babies in Bethlehem cannot be fitted into Luke’s Gospel;  and, there is a good chance it never happened. The Jewish historian for those years, a man named Josephus, didn’t approve of Herod, and he wrote about all the heartless things King Herod did; but he makes no mention of such a massacre.

The story of the slaughtering of the Innocents is there to turn our attention and pity to such children as those who are victims to AIDs, Cholera, and starvation. That is what this feast is meant for. It should make us protectors of today’s innocent ones.

In the Gospels St. John symbolizes personal holiness.

12/27/11

Today we honor St. John the beloved disciple. Our Gospel story is one of several that pair and contrast Peter an John. In today’s reading they both run, but John runs faster. However, on reaching the tomb John waits to let Peter enter before him.

We might take this story along with the story of the Last Supper. When John was laying against the breast of Jesus Peter told him to find out which of the disciples would betray Jesus, and John did was Peter told him to do.

We see them again partnered in the last chapter of the Gospel when John’s heart tells him that the man on the shore is Jesus, but he lets Peter dive in to be the one to meet up with Jesus.

Taking all these stories together we are brought to see Peter and John as symbols. Peter symbolizes church authority, while John symbolizes personal holiness that brings one closer to Jesus.

In recognizing John’s role Peter tells us that church authorities must honor holiness. In recognizing Peter’s authority John shows us that respect for church authority must be a part of a holy life.

Both Peter and John symbolized important roles in the Church. Peter represented Church authority, while John represented the need to be close to Jesus. They need to honor each other.

Today, in honoring St. John, the Beloved Disciple, we note the passages where he is contrasted with St. Peter. At the Last Supper, when John was lying against Jesus, Peter instructed him to find out from Jesus who his betrayer would be.

In today’s Gospel they ran together to the tomb of Jesus. John ran faster than Peter, but then he waited to let Peter go in first.

Next we see them together when they breakfasted with Jesus by the Lake of Tiberius. Jesus took Peter aside to give him charge over his sheep. Then, when Peter asked what John’s role would be, Jesus answered, “What if I wish him to remain until I come?”

In each of those instances John recognized Peter’s authority, while Peter recognized John’s deep relationship with Jesus.

The lesson for us there is that we must have respect for the authority of Church leaders, while they must have respect for good peoples' closer relationship with the Lord.

The young men who stoned Stephen thought they were performing their religious duty.

Monday, 12/26/11

On the Feast of St. Stephen I always like to say a word for the men who stoned him. Sure, they did a terrible thing, but their religious convictions made them feel they were doing the right thing.

St. Luke in his “Act of the Apostles” identified Stephen’s killers as “members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen.” He went on to say they were Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and people from Cilicia and Asia.

Let’s look at the way their synagogue came about. Rome had a way for preventing rebellion from the Jews scattered around all of the Mediterranean’s ports. Rome rounded up five young Jews from each place, confining them as hostage in Rome for five years. The threat of executing those boys kept the people at home from rebelling.

The boys chosen as hostages were not very religious to begin with, but after being confined for their beliefs, they usually began taking those beliefs more seriously. Many of them became so religious that when their five years were up, instead of returning to their homes, they settled in Jerusalem to take part in the temple worship. They formed their own “Synagogue of the Roman Freedmen.”

They had come to believe that being religious meant observing kosher, and they were angered by Stephen who was telling people that observing kosher wasn’t all that important.

Of course it was wrong for them to stone Stephen, but God, knowing their good intentions, might have forgiven them.

One thing that inclines us to be understanding of their motives is the fact that their was a young man watching over the coats they took off to throw better. That young man who was encouraging them was Saul, the future St. Paul.

The case of Saul and those young men should warn us against hating people for views they ling to in all honesty.

Let's go one beyond putting Christ back in Christmas. Let's put Christ's Mass back in Christmas.

Sunday, 12/25/11

Good people are always campaigning to put Christ back in Christmas. Let’s go one further. Let’s put Christ’s Mass back in Christmas.

Back before there was any Santa Claus. Even back before  the birth of Santa’s prototype of St. Nicolas; people celebrated the birthday of Jesus with a special Mass. The Mass was so central to the celebration that it was called Christ’s Mass Day, later shortened into Christmas Day.

I like having the opening chapter of John’s Gospel for today. It is great in describing Christ’s pre-existence.  As the Son, or as the mirror image of the Father, he was the Father’s model for all he created: for music, for DNA, for clouds against blue skies.

 I love John’s phrase, “In him was life, and the life was the light of the world.” To my mind, in saying his life was the light of the world John was saying that Christ’s life is the source of all terrestrial energy: of electricity and human thought.

The great thing about John’s account in his Chapter One is that John tells us that the immensity of the Son for us was constricted into the form of one helpless baby. 

I say, “Let’s put Christ’s Mass back in Christmas.” Let’s fully rejoice at the moment when Christ becomes present on our altar, much as he became present in Bethlehem. This is the real celebration of Christmas.

The dawn from on high will break upon us and guide our feet in the way of peace.

Saturday, 12/24/11

The Gospel has Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist speaking prophetically. He said, “The dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Zechariah has us wanting not to see Santa coming down the chimney nor to listen chestnuts roasting by an open fire; or not even to hear Tiny Tim saying, “God bless us everyone.”

No, he has us gleefully anticipating the “dawn from on high breaking upon us.” Christ coming into our lives is the bright dawn bursting over our minds, over our futures, over relationships that had been swaddled in darkness.

I love St. John’s description of the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles the December before Christ died. We find it in John, Chapter Eight. All that week the people were oohing and aahing over an immense torch in the temple courtyard. The torch represented the cloud of fire that led the Israelites through the dark nights of their forty years in the desert.  

Sadness came over the throng in the temple courtyard that last night of the feast. They knew the great torch was about to be distinguished for another year. They were gripped with silence the moment the torch was snuffed. Then, a great voice broke out over the crowd. It was Jesus calling out, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you will not walk in darkness.”

He is the dawn from on high prophesied by Zechariah. He will dispel the shadow of death. He will guide our feet in the way of peace.

Christmas is a time for families. We hould contact each other, and we should pray for each oher.

Friday, 12/23/11

The Old Testament concludes with God’s promise that he will send Elijah to prepare his way. Then, Jesus told us that God’s promise referred to John the Baptist. The Prophet Malachi briefly explained John’s mission. He said he would come “To turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers.”

That is a cryptic message. What is meant by turning the hearts of fathers to their children, and turning the hearts of children to their fathers?

I don’t know. It could mean that we are to reinforce our family ties.

That would have us mending any family relationships that have suffered from disagreements. It could mean renewing and reinforcing family ties that time and distances have slackened.

Let’s look to that. Lets use our phones or our e-mails; or lacking those, let’s use our prayers to wish a Merry Christmas to each of our kin.

Things of beauty in nature are weak reflections of beautiful aspects of God.

Thursday, 12/22/11

I was taken with yesterday’s Gospel story of John leaping in his mother’s womb when Mary and Jesus came in. I would like to have that kind or reaction to Jesus. The other day when I stood holding up the host before Communion I saw one face lifted up with deep love, and I thought, “I’d like to be as loving as that.”

I have been playing around with the idea of stirring up more real love for the Lord, and something came to me today.

For several months now I have been meditating each day on the phrases in the first chapter of John’s Gospel. I number the phrases like this: 1. “In the beginning.” 2. “Was the Word.” 3. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 4. “All things came to be through him, and nothing came to be without him.”

The thought that number 4 usually generates in me is that the Father, looking at his mirror image in the Son, finds there images he incorporates into creatures.

Today that phrase generated a new thought for me. It was this: as John said, “God is love.” What the Father, Son, and Spirit were doing for all eternity was exchanging love. So, God created for one purpose. It was to spread around what he found lovable in himself.

I was walking down a neighboring street when that thought came to me. Looking around at cloud, and flowers, and symmetrical constructions; and listening to birds I thought, “These things are imperfect reflections of the lovable aspects of God.

Lately I have been loving the world so much that I have not wanted to die, but the ideas God gave me today make me feel that in God I will find the much more beautiful originals of these things I love here. 

As she travelled south Mary thought over and over about the miracle taking place in her.

The Gospel brings back for us the meeting of the freshly conceived Marry with Elizabeth who was in her sixth month. Their meeting gives us the opportunity to look anew at the wonderful condition of carrying a baby.

Sixty years ago I was vacationing with a couple who had two young daughters. The mother, Jane, was laughing over a mother-daughter chat she had with little Pattie. Pattie wanted to know where babies came from, but when Jane gave her a clinical description of the process Pattie just got angry with her. She said, “Nobody could believe that!” I am with Pattie on that. It is unbelievable.

We had at St. Paul’s a lady named Louise Fields, and Louise had been a nurse in the delivery room at St. Vincent’s for forty years. I asked her if when she watched the first child come out into the world, if she thought it was an unbelievable miracle.

“Yes, Father. I thought the first child was a miracle from God. And with the last of a very long line of them I saw born on my final day, I saw it as the same wonderful miracle.   

The Bible says, “You knit me in the womb” and it says, “I am wonderfully made.” These are grand things to think about. They make God so real for us

I was ordained fifty-nne years ago today I thank God for letting me associate with some saintly, scholarly, kind men.

Tuesday, 12/20/11

I was ordained a priest fifty-nine years ago today. I have never remembered the day or thought of it as an anniversary, but I just received a card reminding me that it will be sixty years in 2012. The priests ordained in Ireland that day are meeting over there next August. They asked me if I’d come. I don’t think I will. I am in a rut, liking what I am doing here, and not wanting a change.

On December 20, 1952 I was ordained in Omaha for the Columban missionaries. There were seven of us. We had been together for six year without one boy leaving. Only one of the others is alive now, and I am not sure that he in good health.

One change for the better over these years is that as priest we are usually treated like normal humans, rather than as part of the gentry. Before she lost Jack Kennedy, Jackie used to say the worst thing that happened to her was that she lost her anonymity. I know what she meant. I like being a stranger in stores and on the buses. I like black people who always exchange greetings, making us one family.

I am saddened by stories about priests molesting kids. I just read the statistics from Belgium on this sad subject. It said the occurrence of molesting between clergy and the general public is about the same. It showed that molesting among non-Catholic clergy is the same as among Catholics, but we do seem to get more attention. The only priest molester I ever knew was an otherwise wonderful man who hit on a handsome seminarian. I feel sorry for both of them.

I hate it when dirt is cast on wonderful priests. On the anniversary of my ordination I thank God for letting me associate with so many saintly, scholarly, kind men. 

When Zechariah took so long folks knew God had made his presence felt.

Monday, 12/19/11

We might try to picture the scene when Gabriel appeared to Zechariah. It says, “He was of the priestly division of Abijah.” That meant he was a descendent of Levi, one of the sons of Jacob. From the time of Jacob on it was established that all male descendent of Levi would function as Israel’s priests. Levi had twenty-four male grand children. Zechariah was descended from one named Abijah.

For two weeks every year all of his fellow descendents of Abijah would go up to serve at the temple. They had hundreds of functions, many dealing with preparing animals for sacrificing. One of the prized gigs would be to enter the Holy Place to burn incense. For six hundred years the temple had been deprived of the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies where it had rested in Zechariah’s time contained only a table of incense and the invisible presence of God. Still, entering the Holy Place was a great privilege; and people always felt that something extraordinary might happen there. When Zechariah came out, unable to talk, people were filled with excitement, knowing God had made his presence felt.

We use the words of ancient Catholics to honor Mary.

Sunday, 12/18/11

The Gospel allows us to look in on Mary in those minutes when the angel was telling her she was to be the mother of the Messiah. Catholics seven hundred years ago wrote this account of the scene. 

I syng of a mayden

þat is makeles,
kyng of alle kynges
to here sone che ches.

He came also stylle

þer his moder was
as dew in aprylle,
þat fallyt on þe gras.

He cam also stylle

to his moderes bowr
as dew in aprille,
þat fallyt on þe flour.

He cam also stylle

þer his moder lay
as dew in Aprille,
þat fallyt on þe spray.;

 

Moder & mayden

was neuer non but che –
wel may swych a lady
Godes moder be.

 

The second line is “bat is makeless.” The “bat” is “that.” “Makeles’ could mean that she was eternal, never made; but it is also a Medieval pun, where a “make” was a word for a boyfriend.

The geneology given by Matthew shows that Jesus is the Messiah, and that non-Jews can belong to God's people.

Saturday, 12/17/11

Today’s Gospel gives the genealogy of Joseph, the purported father of Jesus. The Hebrew word for such a genealogy was toledoth, and something we must know about their toledoths is that they were not expected to be at all accurate listings. In a similar toledoth in Luke’s Gpspel there are forty generations between David and Joseph, while here there are only twenty-eight; and the names are mostly different.

What’s more, the time lapses are all wrong. For the eight hundred years between Abraham and David there are fourteen. For the four hundred years between David and the captivity there are fourteen generations. For the six hundred years between the captivity and Joseph there are fourteen generations.

It might be that Matthew was playing with an old superstition about numbers. Three fourteens is six sevens. That has Jesus starting a seventh seven which is a position only for one with a heavenly destiny.

All through his Gospel Matthew stuck to his purpose in writing his Gospel which was to show that mixing with non-Jews did not make Jesus unclean. In this toledoth he gets that message across by putting into his list three non-Jewish women: Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba. They were direct ancesters of the simon-pure King David.  

We must be considerate of aliens.

Friday, 12/16/11

The first reading today brings up the matter of how we are to deal with aliens. Isaiah  was not discussing the offering of citizenship to foreigners, he was discussing welcoming them into our religion. That is a different matter, but there is enough similarity for it to have some bearing on what our conduct should be to immigrants. God is quoted as saying that if they keep the rules “Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.”

On this subject we read how Moses cautioned the Israelites, saying, “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourself s in the land of Egypt.”

None of us were aliens in the land of Egypt, but when our ancestors arrived here by ship they took the Statue of Liberty at her word.

A few years ago I read the story of a teenaged girl from Ghana, who feared castration preparatory to being sold as a third wife to a wealthy Muslim. She stowed away, making her way to America where she thought she would be acceptable as one fleeing persecution. Jailed immediately she spent three years here in a series of prisons for such people. For sizable stretches she was in solitary confinement. As one in a million she got her story of Oprah, and was freed.

When highly Christian Politicians are being praised for similar tough measures one wonders if they would associate with the Good Samaritan

The Lord will always take us back.

Thursday,12/15/11

In the first reading God speaks to the Israelites who had been captives in Babylon for seventy years. He said they had been like an unfaithful wife whom he needed to put aside for a while. But now they have redeemed themselves, and God welcomes them back with open arms. The message for us is that if we have sinfully turned away from God he will always welcome us back when we turn from sin.

This reading is an example of the fine poetry we have from Isaiah. A few of today’s lines found their way into a popular Bible song.

Though the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust,
 yet the love of the Lord will stand as a shelter for all who will call on his name.
 Sing the praise and the glory of God.

Could the Lord ever leave you?
 Could the Lord forget his love?

Though a mother forsake her child,
 he will not abandon you.

Thought the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust, yet the love of the Lord will stand . . .

St. John of the Cross was in love with God.

Wednesday, 12/14/11

Today we honor St. John of the Cross. In comparing his stories to that of other saints from the Middle Ages, John stand out for being a man with no nobility in his family line. His father died when John was eight, and for the next nine years John supported his mother and brothers with cleanup work at a hospital. Under those harsh conditions he read at night, and at seventeen won entrance into a Jesuit school. Joining the Carmelite Fathers at twenty-one, he was sent to the University of Salamanca where a professor had violated Church law by translating into Spanish the “Song of Songs”  from the Old Testament.

Now, such books as the prophesies of Hosea and Jeremiah had pictured the mutual love of God and his people as a romance between a lover and his beloved. That metaphor was at its strongest in the “Song of Songs” where some lines sound almost like porno, but to John they gave voice to his soul’s romance with God. An example would be this line: “Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth! More delightful is your love than wine.”

St. Teresa of Avilla happened to be present at John’s first Mass. Both of them had been finding the noisy comings and goings of convent life as a major distraction to  their quiet prayer. As a smooth politician Teresa won the right for them to found convents and monasteries where the prayer life came first.

Ten years later a new Carmelite superior looked on those separate places of prayer as harmful. To rid John of his “Fancy Prayer ideas” the superior confine John to a narrow cell for nine month, even beating him. In that time John wrote one of the classics of Spanish literature, his “Dark Night of the Soul.” One verse went like this: 

                                    One dark night, fired with love’s urgent longings

                                                            Ah, the sheer grace of it,

                                       I went out unseen, my house being now at rest.

By saying his house was at rest John was saying that people cannot enter into a deep love with God until they have done away with desires that interfere with their peace of mind. His major prose work “On the Ascent of Mount Carmel” instructs learners on how step-by-step they can gain that important peace of mind.

St. Lucy is the patron saint of the blind.

Tuesday, 12/13/11

Today is the Feast of St. Lucy, or Sancta Lucia, who was put to death in 303 during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian. None of the stories about St. Lucy can be authenticated, but the abundance of fond Christian traditions dealing with Lucy earn her a right to attention.

Lucy’s mother Eutchia  was a lady who for years had suffered from dysentery. That had the pair journeying from their home in Syracuse Sicily to the tomb of St. Agatha in Catania Sicily. Eutychia received her cure, and Lucy heard the prophecy that her tomb in Syracuse would be as famous as Agatha’s in Catania.

Before her father died he left Lucy’s dowry money with her mother Eutychia. So, when Lucy vowed her virginity to God, Eutychia promised to bequeath to the poor the sum she held for Lucy’s dowry. At that Lucy told her mother that it would be much more pleasing to God if Eutychia gave it while she lived. That had Eutychia immediately giving the dowry money to the poor.

When Lucy’s intended learned of Lucy’s unwillingness to marry him, and when he heard of Eutychia’s giving to the poor the money he had been counting on he reported Lucy to Diocletian’s soldiers as a Christian. When the judge sentenced Lucy to life in a brothel she replied that as long as she withstood sin in her heart nothing she was forced to endure would be sinful for her. We cannot be forced to sin against or will. When the soldiers tried to haul her off, her weight seemed to have increased to too many tons for the soldiers to budge. Even after hitching her to a team of oxen they could not move her, so they finished her off with a dagger into her throat.

Lucy is the patron saint of blind people. One tradition has it that her fiancée had a fondness for her eyes, and he received a gift of them at her execution. Dante gave Lucy, holding her eyes, a very high place in his Paradiso.

Gyadalupe seems to be Nahuati for "Woman who crushes the serpent's head."

Monday, 12/12/11

Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron feast of all the Americas. Every year we hear its story. In 1531 Juan Diego, a simple Nahuati Indian, was hastening into town for medicine or for a priest for his uncle when he was confronted by a beautiful woman who told him to tell the bishop to build a grand church on this site.

The bishop, perhaps to get rid of him, told him to go back and ask for a sign. Juan again met with the woman, and she told him to gather roses into his poncho. The season for roses was long past, but turning, Juan saw an out of season bush blooming gloriously. He gathered its buds in his pancho, then hurried back to show them to the bishop.

When he unrolled his bundle the bishop and those with him saw the colorful image of a lady standing above a new moon, crushing a serpent under her feet. (The painting on the pancho of rough burlap does not seem to be a trick.)

Perhaps you know the story better than I do. I had always wondered what the name Guadalupe meant. (As a Spanish non-speaker I took a very wild guess at it’s meaning “River of Wolves.") Anyway, I just saw a fair explanation. In Juan Diego’s native Nahuati branch of  Aztecs it would mean “The lady who crushes the snake.” That would refer back to Chapter Three of Genesis where we read that God would put enmity between the serpent and the woman, and she would crush the serpent's head.

Behold the Lamb of God!

Sunday, 12/ 11/11

We have a reading from Chapter One of John’s Gospel. It is one of the most mysterious passages in all of Scripture. Let’s look at it slowly.

John said he was sent from God to testify to the light. In saying he was sent from God he was saying that his whole life was a mission. The purpose of that mission, as he described it, was to testify to the light so that all might believe in the light.

By saying he was sent to testify to the light we presume he meant he was to testify to some person who was worthy of the all-embracing title “The Light.”

One day Jesus came quietly and joined all the others who waded out to be baptized by John the Baptist.  The next day John spoke of that historic confrontation. He said, “I did not know him. Even though the reason I had come baptizing with water was to make him known, I didn’t know him.” But after Jesus came up from the water a dove came down and settled on him, and from that John knew that Jesus was the Messiah.

Later in this Chapter One we read how John had been told that when he saw the Spirit come down and remain on someone that would be the one for whom he was sent. Let me quote just what he said in verse 31 of this chapter. He said, “I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain he is the one who will baptize with the holy Spirit.’”

There he said, “The one who sent me told me.” Now, you might think I am crazy about this, but I have wondered just how did the one who sent him go about telling him to look out for the Spirit coming down on someone. I mean, did God’s words come to him in a dream, or did they come as a voice from the sky, or what?

I believe that when we meditate on the Scriptures we are supposed to let our minds wander over possible explanations for mysterious happenings. That’s what I did. Listen to my flight of imagination.

   

On a day like any other day in the thousands John had spent alone in the desert his  attention was caught by a green hillside that was out of place in the dry  landscape. When he came closer to that patch of green he saw a lovely white lamb resting on the grass. He stood, amazed by the beautiful scene, then as he watched, he saw a dove flutter down from nowhere and not only touch on the lamb, but come to rest on the lamb.

He took that to be a sign from God telling him that would be the way he would recognize the Messiah. If it had happened that way it would explain why when he pointed out the Messiah, instead of saying, “Behold the Messiah!” he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!!”

As a work of literature, abounding in figures of speech, the Bible's sacred messages are distorted by Fundamentalists who insist on reading every part of it literally.

Saturday, 12/10/11

In the Gospel the disciples asked Jesus, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”

What led the scribed to say Elijah would come first was that in Second Kings they read that without dying Elijah had been taken up to heaven. Then, Malachi the prophet quoted God as saying, “I will send you Elijah, the prophet before the day of the Lord comes.”

In reply Jesus said that Elijah had already come, but had not been recognized. From that the disciples rightly surmised that Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist.

From that we can learn that the words of the Bible should not always be taken literally. Scholars who know the Bible well tell us that symbolic numbers like 3, 7, and 40 occur time after time. And they tell us that the numbers are not actually to count of things, but they carry some other message. The number Three is often used to tell us we are entering into mystery. It was on the third day that Moses came to the spot for sacrificing Jacob.

As works of literature the books of the Bible are enriched with symbols and figures of speech. People who demand that the numbers be taken literally should not read the Bible.

The just are like trees planted by living water. They bear fruit in all seasons, and ther leaves never fade.

Friday, 12/9/11

The Responsorial Psalm today is Psalm number One in the Book of Psalms. It is a summary of the message of all hundred and fifty Psalms.

It says that if you fall in with the wrong people, picking up bad habits from them, your life will become like the chaff the wind wafts off. It can be a spooky sight. Let me explain.

In primitive countries the farmers beat and beat the ripe heads of the harvested wheat or rice to crack open the tough husks of the grain. Then, when the farmers fling the grain and husks high into the air the wind carries off the ultra-light husks, while the grain falls down to the threshing floor.

In Korea I have sat late into the night watching farmers winnowing their rice. They would set up torches around the threshing floor, and after they had flung the grain and husks high I would gaze at the yellow clouds of husks wafted off by the wind. There was something sickening about those clouds. The First Psalm compares them to hoards of sinners wafted off to perdition.

In the First Psalm the fate of the just is altogether different. They are like trees planted next to flowing streams of grace. They bear fruit the year round and their leaves never fade.