Dear Beloved Parishioners,
Merry Christmas from Fr. Johnson, Deacon Mark, the Parish Staff and myself. May these days be indeed merry and bright…
For those who joined us remotely, I am aware that the Creche scene does not appear in our livestream feed. So, here is a little view…
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I had thought I had this cued up to go on Christmas day, but user error on my part struck again, and then, I was so busy with family celebrations, these last two days (a brother and wife in from Texas) that I am just now getting back to this… But, since Christmas is an “Octave” celebration in the church, we really have 8 days to unpack the mystery…
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SO, just a quick word about the timing of the feast of Mary, the Mother of God, on January 1st. Because this feast falls on a Saturday, though it remains a Holy Day, the Obligation to attend Mass is dispensed. So, we will have one Mass on Jan. 1st – at 9:00am.
And, because of the secular feast of New Year’s day, we will not have an anticipated Mass for the Feast of Epiphany, but, like this past weekend, only the usual Sunday morning Masses of 7:30, 9 and 11.
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The Deeper Dive into the Feast of Christmas, comes to us from Fr. Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation.
Only One Message
And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. —John 1:14
Father Richard describes the Christmas message ultimately as union, the healing of our separate selves and world through Christ:
I know because it’s Christmas Eve, you’re surely hoping for some very special meditation. I don’t think I have one, because there’s really only one message. If we’re praying, it goes deeper and deeper and deeper. If we’re quiet once in a while, even on a busy day like today, it goes deeper and deeper and deeper still.
There’s really only one message, and we just have to keep saying it until finally we’re undefended enough to hear it and to believe it: there is no separation between God and creation. That’s the message. But we can’t believe it.
And so this Word, this Eternal Word of God that we read about in the prologue to John’s Gospel, leapt down, as the Book of Wisdom [18:14–15] [1] says, and took its abiding place on Earth, in order to heal every bit of separation and splitness that we experience. That splitness and separation is the sadness of the human race. When we feel separate, when we feel disconnected, when we feel split from our self, from our family, from reality, from the Earth, from God, we will be angry and depressed people. Because we know we weren’t created for that separateness; we were created for union.
So God sent into the world one who would personify that union—who would put human and divine together; who would put spirit and matter together. That’s what we spend our whole life trying to believe: that this ordinary earthly sojourn means something.
Sometimes we wake up in the morning wondering, what does it all mean? What’s it all for? What was I put here for? Where is it all heading?
I believe it’s all a school. And it’s all a school of love. And everything is a lesson—everything. Every day, every moment, every visit to the grocery store, every moment of our so-ordinary life is meant to reveal, “My God, I’m a daughter of God! I’m a son of the Lord! I’m a sibling of Christ! It’s all okay. I’m already home free! There’s no place I have to go. I’m already here!” But if we don’t enjoy that, if we don’t allow that, basically we fall into meaninglessness.
Friends, we need to surrender to some kind of ultimate meaning. We need to desire it, seek it, want it, and need it. I know no one likes to hear this, but we even need to suffer for it. And what is suffering? Suffering is the emptying out of the soul so there’s room for love, so there’s room for the Christ, so there’s room for God.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Really Only One Message,” homily, December 25, 2016.
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The Song of the Day –With so many songs to choose from, it is almost unfair to have to pick one… So, you get two today..
The first is probably my favorite version of my favorite Christmas song – O Holy Night, but Jon Anderson from the band “Yes” on a little known Christmas album called Three Ships. Among the many things which endears this song to me, is that you hear the SECOND verse of this song – which is probably one of the most stirring in all of hymnody. You can listen to it here…
The second, I doubt that any of you know. If comes from a very esoteric album by a man named David Crockett called The Basic Stuff. And though it is not a “Christmas song” per se, it expresses exactly the theology of the descent of God into our human condition. It is titled: The Depth of God’s Love and it can be found here:
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Blessings,
Fr. Bill