incarnation Archives - Page 8 of 12

Superstition and the Material God

02/15/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 23, 2015 People gather at the end of Church for a “travel blessing.” A priest chants a prayer and sprinkles water over them with a brush. They cross themselves and have some sense that their travels will now be better. Many modern people watching this procedure would describe the process as “superstitious.” It appears to them that physical actions (sprinkling water) are expected to have some remote effect on later

The Tenth Day of Christmas. The Created Order.

01/03/2019

The created order, according to Christianity, is not an illusion, not a vague representation of another perfect world, nor a dream that will one day vanish into oblivion when a sleeping deity awakens. No, it is a matter of something far more specific. God is the ground and basis of all reality—one might say that He is the ultimately real reality, alive and dynamic in everything that is. God provides the world and everything and

The Ninth Day of Christmas. Unimaginable Love.

01/02/2019

[The] Gospels state that God has embraced humanity and entered into its suffering with unimaginable love. His Christ is the one who arrives not in royal purple but in silence and simplicity, far from the cheers that attend Augustus and Herod. A king he surely is—hence the swaddling bands and the treasures that are his due—but a new sort of king who makes no claim to worldly authority. In infancy as during his life on

The Fourth Day of Christmas. Tomorrow’s Feast of the Holy Children (December 29).

12/28/2018

TOMMOROW’S FEAST (December 29) OPENS UP ANOTHER WAY TO LOOK AT THE INCARNATION. Until now we have been gazing at the child in the cradle, the scene of the Nativity, the angels rejoicing. But Herod’s story was one of rage, jealousy, and fear. Herod the Great, despite his high office as the Tetrarch of Galilee, was afraid of the long-promised Messiah. When he heard from the Magi that such a royal heir had been born

The Third Day of Christmas. Feast of Saint Stephen, the First Christian.

12/27/2018

THIS DAY is set aside as a memorial of Stephen, the first Christian. Once again, the church seems to take a counter-intuitive approach, reminding us of sin and suffering hard on the heels of the joyful celebration of the Nativity. But it is possible to see the reason behind this decision. In Advent we were reminded that our longing for the light of Christ is conditioned by the darkness that often surrounds us. In remembering

The Second Day of Christmas. Synaxis of the Holy Theotokos

12/26/2018

ON [this day] the Church celebrates the [Synaxis of the Holy Theotokos], the Mother of God, meditating on Mary’s intimate connection with the Incarnation. The feast of the Mother of God is the oldest of the Christian church’s feasts honoring Mary. The placement of this feast within the Christmas season emphasizes its connection to the mystery of Christmas. Because this feast is about the motherhood of Mary, it helps us to grasp more deeply the

CHRIST IS BORN! CELEBRATING CHRIST’S NATIVITY.

12/25/2018

As much as any other Christian feast, the significance of Christ’s Nativity comes to expression by means of paradoxical affirmations that speak of the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation by juxtaposing apparent contradictions. The most obvious of these is found in the prologue of St John’s Gospel, which declares that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14). As the context makes clear that Word or Logos is the Person of the eternal

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. Emmanuel, God with Us.

12/11/2018

Christmas is about Emmanuel, God with us. The accent is on the immanence of God. We cannot understand the miracle of the immanence unless we understand the glory of the transcendence, and the other way around. “In the poorest of the poor we see Jesus in distressed disguise.” So said Mother Teresa as she and her nuns ministered to the abandoned babies and dying aged whom they gathered in from the streets of Calcutta. Disguise

The Sixth Day of Christmas Advent. Every Human Birth

11/20/2018

Birth, every human birth, is an occasion for local wonder. In Jesus’ birth the wonder is extrapolated across the screen of all creation and all history as a God-birth. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—moved into the neighborhood, so to speak. And for thirty years or so, men and women saw God in speech and action in the entirely human person of Jesus as he was subject, along with them, to the common

The Second Day of Christmas Advent. The Meaning of Christmas

11/16/2018

[My] journey began on Christmas morning, 1988, in Ottawa in a small Anglo-Catholic church called St. Barnabas. It was my first encounter with what my high church friends call “smells and bells.” Throughout that Christmas service a translucent ribbon of incense lingered just above eye level. Its constant presence provided a gentle introduction to the physical elements of the Christmas service that I had not experienced before—the Eucharist, the processions, the sights, sounds, and, yes,

Archive

Superstition and the Material God

The Tenth Day of Christmas. The Created Order.

The Ninth Day of Christmas. Unimaginable Love.

The Fourth Day of Christmas. Tomorrow’s Feast of the Holy Children (December 29).

The Third Day of Christmas. Feast of Saint Stephen, the First Christian.

The Second Day of Christmas. Synaxis of the Holy Theotokos

CHRIST IS BORN! CELEBRATING CHRIST’S NATIVITY.

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. Emmanuel, God with Us.

The Sixth Day of Christmas Advent. Every Human Birth

The Second Day of Christmas Advent. The Meaning of Christmas

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