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Dec
31
O Lord, my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot in your hands (Ps 16:5)
The background of this Psalm verse is the ancient image of the cup containing the lots for each man, and God holding these lots. Yet in this image two different conceptions about the meaning and challenge of time collide, conceptions that even nowadays still determine our struggle for the future.
The pagan world view was also familiar with the image of the lots, but with entirely different premises: the world is a game of luck governed by the one rule - blind chance. Time, altogether blind, spews out the lots, of this kind and that. The Bible has fundamentally transformed this frightening image. Indeed, there is the cup with the lots, containing winners and losers. But this cup with the lots is held “in your hands”, in the hands of eternal Wisdom and eternal Love. This is the indispensable premise that alone can provide for man any hope at all. Because the cup is in his hands, the only losing lot would be the refusal to accept at all the lot from his hands.
The Latin translation of the Bible has conferred on this inexhaustible Psalm verse still greater depth: In your hands, there rests my time. In purely linguistic terms we could also translate: In your hands, there rest my temples. Thus an image arises of ourselves entrusting our head, our temples, to God’s good hands. It also becomes evident that man’s time is not merely the time reckoned by the revolutions of the sun, the earth, or the moon. Far from it! With man a new center of the world has appeared, a new unit of calculation: a heartbeat, constituting the measure of his existence, even the new measure of all being as such, and a new center of the world.
To draw our existence out of this time, to acknowledge this time as our true time, and out of this awareness to model this our world - such is the call of this Psalm verse. The time of the heart is transformed into sunlit time by the fact that our heart does not beat in a vacuum: our heart, conferring rhythm also on our brain and our mind, finds the true timing of its beat by putting itself into the hands of him who holds all our time in his hands - into the hands of eternal Wisdom, which is eternal Love and so our only true Hope.
And so the, we put this new year, the new time and our future, into the hands of God: Lord, do accept us, and grant us your blessing!
From: Ordinariatskorrespondenz, no.1 January 4, 1979
Dec
31
The Beauty of “Feminine Genius”
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by Source | December 29, 2007
This week I was delighted to receive an unexpected e-mail from an old friend, whom I have not heard from in more than twenty years. I met Gondar while I was on a short-term teaching assignment at a Christian school in Senegal, West Africa. He and I were part of a church music group comprised of five African college students, our pastor and his wife, and myself. The group welcomed me into their lives, and took it upon themselves to look out for me — the clueless, unmarried American.
I vividly recall one occasion when Gondar came to my rescue one evening after music rehearsal as I got into my car and found a strange African man in my back seat. As I cowered, dumbstruck, Gondar forcibly evicted the indignant stranger from the passenger side of my car. Then he sent me on my way with a pleasant, “Have a good evening.”
Shaking all the way home, I thought of my grandmother, who had lectured me about the foolishness of my going to the jungles of Africa without a husband. (She wasn’t impressed when I informed her I was going to be living in the capital city, in a house with both electricity and indoor plumbing.) At the time, I was determined to show that I didn’t need a MAN to take care of me. In retrospect, I recognize that these friends greatly enriched my cross-cultural experience — their friendship provided a measure of security that, as a single woman, I needed more than I cared to admit. Read more
Dec
31
John 1:1-18
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1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God;
3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.
8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.
9 The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.
11 He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.
12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God;
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
15 (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”)
16 And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.
17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
Dec
31
St. Augustine
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Every morning you put on your clothes to cover your nakedness and protect your body from inclement weather. Why don’t you also clothe your soul with the garment of faith? Remember each morning the truths of your creed, and look at yourself in the mirror of your faith. Otherwise, your soul will soon be naked with the nakedness of oblivion.
– St. Augustine
Dec
30
On Christmas we do not merely celebrate the birthday of some great person, of whom there are many. Nor do we merely celebrate the mystery of being a child. True, the freshness, the innocence and openness of the child are reasons for hope. They give us the courage us to expect new possibilities for mankind. Yet should we cling too tenaciously to this expectation only, to the new beginning of life in the child, we might be left, in the end, with nothing but disappointment: this new beginning, too, will one day be used up. The child, too, will become part of life’s competition; the child, too, will be absorbed by life’s compromises and defeats, and in the end he will be conquered by death as all of us are.
If we has nothing else to celebrate but the romanticism of new birth and of childhood, we would be left, in the end, without even such romanticism. In that case, there would be nothing but the eternal coming and going; there would be reason to suspect that being born is cause for sadness, for it inevitably will result in death. For this reason is it so very important to realize that much more has happened here: the Word became flesh. ” This Child is God’s Son”, as one of our beautiful old Christmas carols has it. Here the outrageous has happened, the inconceivable and yet the always expected, even the necessary: God has entered our world. He has established a union with man so inseparable that this man truly is God from God, light from light, and yet always true man as well.
The meaning of the world has come to us in such a real way that it can be touched and seen (Jn 1). For John’s “Word”, in Greek, stands at the same time also for “the meaning”. Thus we would be entitled to translate, “the meaning has become flesh”. But this “meaning” is not merely a general idea inherent in the world. This meaning relates to us. This meaning is a message, addressed to us. This meaning knows us, challenges us, guides us. This meaning is not some general principle, in which we might play a certain part. No, it addresses each one of us personally. It is itself a Person: the living God’s own Son, born in a stable in Bethlehem.
From: Licht, das uns leuchet, pp.43f
Dec
30
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
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13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt,
15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”
19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying,
20 “Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
21 And he rose and took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.
22 But when he heard that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.
23 And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
Dec
30
St. Pope Leo the Great
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Invisible in His own nature, He became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, He chose to come within our grasp. Existing before all time began, He began to exist in a moment in time. Incapable of suffering as God, He did not refuse to be man, capable of suffering. Immortal, He chose to be subject to the laws of death.
– St. Pope Leo the Great
Dec
29
The first Christmas carol of history, which determined for all times the inner harmony of Christmas, had no human origins - Saint Luke records it as the song of the angels who were the evangelists of the holy night: Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth among men, those with whom he is pleased, those of good will. This song sets a standard; it helps us understand what Christmas is all about. It contains the key word, which, in our time especially, commands people’s interest more than just about anything else: peace.
The biblical term shalom, which is usually so translated, implies much more than the absence of armed conflict; it means the right order of human affairs, well-being -a world where trust and friendship prevail, where neither fear nor want nor treachery nor dishonesty is found. Yet the song of the angels first lays down a precondition, without which there can be no lasting peace: God’s glory. This is the message of peace at Bethlehem: peace among men results from God’s glory. Those who are concerned about the human race and its well-being have to be concerned about God’s glory first of all.
God’s glory is not some private concern, left to the personal choice of the individual; it is a public affair. It is a common good, and wherever God is not honored among men, there man as well will not remain honorable. The reason why Christmas affects the peace of man lies in this: because it has restored God’s glory among men.
From: Lob der Weihmacht, pp. 36f
Dec
29
Luke 2: 22 - 35
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22 And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”)
24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
27 And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law,
28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,
29 “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word;
30 for mine eyes have seen thy salvation
31 which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel.”
33 And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him;
34 and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against
35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”
Dec
29
St. Ephraem the Syrian
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In this day in which the Rich became poor for our sakes, let the rich man make the poor man share with him at his table. On this day came forth to us the Gift, even though we had not asked for it! Let us therefore bestow alms on those who cry and beg from us.
– St. Ephraem the Syrian
