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Christmas Advent: The Thirty-Third Day

12/17/2012

THE BRIEF AND POTENT PRAYERS OF THIS WEEK of the Advent season so beautifully weave together all the many themes of Advent.  They have been used at least since the seventh century in [Western Christian] monasteries, which are among the few remaining communities still singing them to mark the week beginning December 17 as a special time in the Advent season. Some Benedictine hospitals keep this tradition as well; only in the pediatric ward will you see

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Third Day

12/07/2012

SOMEONE TO SURRENDER TO And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. – JOHN 1:14 Let me begin with a quote from twentieth-century writer G.K. Chesterton: “When a person has found something which he prefers to life itself, he (sic) for the first time has begun to live.” Jesus in his proclamation of the kingdom

Christmas Advent: The Fifteenth Day

11/29/2012

AN INDELIBLE IMAGE: two pregnant women, one of them just beginning to show, the other round and heavy, who is startled when her infant leaps in her womb. It’s a joyful scene, both everyday and extraordinary. For Elizabeth’s child, we are told, recognizes that Mary bears the Savior long promised to Israel. Mary is, as Elizabeth suddenly exclaims—no doubt after being kicked hard by John—the mother of the Lord. It usually takes a good kick

Christmas Advent: The Fourteenth Day

11/28/2012

TODAY WE REFLECT ON A MYSTERY: when our lives are most barren, when possibilities are cruelly limited, and despair takes hold, when we feel most keenly the emptiness of life—it is then that God comes close to us. This is a day for those who are  grieving or suffering loss during Advent, lamenting that just as we are suffering, and need to weep, the world force-feeds us merriment and cheer. But we are not without

Christmas Advent: The Thirteenth Day

11/27/2012

THE GENEALOGICAL LINE OF JUDAH’S DESCENDANTS given in Matthew’s Gospel follows the history of the nation all the way from its father, Abraham, to the birth of Jesus, the fulfillment of all messianic prophecy, the One “who is called Christ.” This grand finale is what we celebrate in the weeks of Advent. The planting of the male “seed,” which was to germinate and ripen in the furrows of successive generations, was a vital responsibility as

Christmas Advent: The Sixth Day

11/20/2012

GOD, THE SUPREME AUTHORITY, has spoken since the beginning of Creation, and continues to speak, in thunder and flood, in light and darkness, in seasons of rain or drought, in war and peace. We are bound to listen to his voice, for there is no other. And because he sent us his Word, and there is no other, our ears must be open to hear it. When God speaks the entire world must answer. Some

Christmas Advent: The Fifth Day

11/19/2012

CONSIDER THE WORDS “SOILED, DEFILED, OPPRESSING”—spoken of God’s people—and the human character qualities that follow them in the book of Zephaniah—deaf, obstinate, untrusting, distant. These words express the Almighty’s disgust and disappointment that his chosen ones, given multiple opportunities to live in the realm of his blessing, have ignored or despised him. Now listen to the exuberant contrasts uttered a few verses later about the same people by the same prophet: “The LORD . .

Christmas Advent: The First Day

11/15/2012

ANTICIPATION LIFTS THE HEART. Desire is created to be fulfilled— perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages. Isaiah uttered his prophetic words about the renewal of the natural Creation into a wilderness of spiritual barrenness and thirst. For him, and for many other Old Testament seers, the vacuum of dry indifference into which he spoke was not yet a place of fulfillment. Yet the promise of God through this human mouthpiece (and

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