“No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (Jn. 1:18).
With a heart full of gratitude, I wish each of you and your families a very merry Christmas.
With prayers in this holy season,
Amy
The iconic image of wise men breaking open their treasure chests before the child Jesus is a powerful one (Mt. 2:11). The magi travelled a great distance to bring gifts of wealth and luxury, gifts fit for a king. This is how they paid him homage.
The beautiful story of the magi may lead us to ask what gifts we will bring Jesus. What does he want from us?
To understand what Jesus wants, we must first ask why he has come into our hearts and into our world. The Gospels answer clearly: “He will save his people” (Mt. 1:21). This is not just a King but a Savior! Can the gifts we bring acknowledge this even more magnificent mission?
Yes, they can and they should. We must bring him the things a Savior wants most – the things within us that need saving. We need not travel from east to west but only deep within our own hearts, to bring out the things that lie hidden. These are the gifts Jesus wants. This is how we worship a Savior.
Lord Jesus, I lay before you the gold of my sins and weaknesses, the incense of my painful memories and relationships, and the myrrh of my fears and anxieties. These do not seem like gifts fit for a King, and yet I know they are gifts worthy of a Savior. I offer them to you from the treasure-chest of my heart, knowing that you can transform and redeem them. I come to you open, empty and vulnerable; be a quiet, loving, saving presence in me. Amen.
For the past year or so, I have enjoyed a “creative correspondence” with a gifted poet named Scott Eagan. I was delighted to discover that Scott lives and farms at Madonna House, the ongoing apostolate of one of my heroes, Servant of God Catherine Doherty. Within the Madonna House community, Scott lives the simplicity and quiet of the Holy Family of Nazareth. He works the land, he prays and writes.
Scott’s poems reveal the heart of a farmer, one who is close to the land. In a time when so many of us are somewhat disconnected from nature, Scott’s poems provide an intimate window into the beauty of rural Canada, the changing seasons, farm animals, wild animals, harvests and crops, sun, moon and stars. My own world is broadened by the images he shares and his interpretations of life and nature.
As the longest, darkest days of winter approach, and as we wait with both patience and impatience for the birth of our Savior, I wanted to share with you one of Scott’s poems: “Winter Time.” If we learn to appreciate the gift of each season, the rhythm of life that God has prescribed, then no time is ever fallow, no season wasted.
And so before we look forward to spring, may we pay winter our respects, and find in her darkest night the Gift that, like nature herself, can never be rushed – the unity between God and human beings.
Thank you, Scott.
Winter Time
Times change
what once was our summer
warm sun and rains
almost as if God had smiled on
every solid working day
and every blessed night of rest …
then autumn passed
crimson and gold washed away
by cold, grey rains
through gusty winds ofpassage
and we are left with winter.
Our axis has tilted
our face turned north of the sun
almost as if His face has frowned
warm rains become white flakes
cold on the cheek, melting
on our summer passed by
washing across our autumn
now clinging to winter time.
Know that if we wait
if we may learn to enjoy frost
the cold and the crystal
the days when our face, low
to the sun’s waning light
- yet a loving face nonetheless -
perceiving the distant possibility of spring
and its rising warm smile to return
then time is always ours.
Scott Eagan
November 23, 2015
Claude Monet, Grainstacks at Sunset, Snow Effect, 1891
During Advent, we always meet John the Baptist in the Sunday Gospel readings. John is a colorful figure, and we all love him for it. But we might not love him so much if we met him in the desert! Especially if he was shouting in our direction!
There’s a wonderful question in Luke’s account of the birth of John the Baptist. When John was born, people asked themselves: “What then will this child become?” (Lk. 1:66).
What did John become? And why is he still so important?
Luke's Gospel identifies John as the prophet who came to smooth rough ways by levelling mountains and filling in valleys. That sounds like hard work. And it is. Because when it comes to the human heart, most of us have no interest in having our mountains levelled or our valleys filled in. We go through our days saying, “I’m just fine thank you,” continuing right along the same rough path as always. It was John’s momentous task to convince people that they are not fine. As Jesus would later explain, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do” (Lk. 5:31). It is hard work convincing people that they need a physician. How often have you put off a visit to the doctor? How often have you ignored pains and symptoms, hoping they would go away on their own? John’s preaching convinced people that they could no longer ignore the symptoms. And they repented, making way for a healing Savior.
John was a sight to see, a man of the desert, and I imagine his prophetic voice was quite loud. We still need that loud voice ringing in our ears, that strange sight of someone so different telling us that something is not right in our lives, in our world. Our own spiritual blindness, our self-satisfied complacency, is the impenetrable fortress John wanted to knock down.
This was the work of the one who was not even worthy to loosen the thong of Jesus’ sandal! This was the preparation for something even greater. So imagine – imagine – what Jesus can do in our hearts if first we listen to the voice of the Baptist!
The Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God (Jan. 1) marks the Octave of Christmas. Next Sunday, we will celebrate Epiphany, and the Sunday after that, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. As we transition from the Christmas season back into Ordinary Time, as we pack up the outward signs of Christmas, we want to find some small way of keeping Christmas – its meaning and its light – with us. Has Christmas changed us? How?
An image from an Edith Stein poem is a simple way to express the change that should take place within us every year: “My heart has become your manger.”
Meister Eckhart in his own mystical way makes a similar point, and one which expresses the longevity of Christmas in the enduring power of the birth of Christ: “But if it does not happen in me, if this child is not born in me, what does it profit me? What matters is that God should be born again in me.”
Has your heart become a manger – a refuge – for him? Has he been born – in you? How will you share him with the world?