Winter Solstice: Half-spent was the Night

"Light! More light!" -Goethe

Christmas falls very close to the winter solstice: the shortest day of the year is the 22nd of December.

I have noticed that many Christians seem uncomfortable with the proximity of one of Christianity's holiest days to the ancient, pagan celebration of solstice. "Pagan" elements in the celebration of the Nativity are regarded with deep distrust. Christmas trees, yule-logs, gift-giving, Father Christmas, even the Christmas ham are identified as "heathen" intrusions in an essentially Christian holiday. And this suspicion is not new: in the 17th century Protestants in Britain and the United States banned the celebration of Christmas for its heathen notes (and its idolotrous "trappings of popery.")

Non-Christians also enjoy pointing out the (supposedly) pre-Christian roots of many Christmas traditions, implying that, after all, the "authentic" holiday was pagan, earth-centered, and has survived *despite* Christianity's appropriation of the solstice symbols.


A person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature, but rejecting superstitious vanities and deploring and avoiding those who 'though they knew God did not glorify him as God...'

I have never understood either of these approaches. What was true and good and beautiful re-Christian pagans is true and good and beautiful always and for all. Or, as Augustine wrote, "truth belongs to the Lord, wherever it is found." The pre-Christian Europeans might have celebrated the return of light in the midst of darkness. But this longing for LIGHT, the joy at light's return--these impulses are fundamentally human and universal. They are the foundation of any religious desire, any quest for truth. They are, in the end, our desire for God. "My soul waits for the Lord," the Psalmist sings, "more than the watchmen wait for the morning. More than the watchmen wait for the morning."

Before the first Christmas both the psalmist and the scop in the dark Germanic woods, both the priest in the Holy of Holies and the ordinary man in the field--all waited with foreboding and longing for the advent of light: literal sunlight in a dark season--but also divine brilliance to pierce the soul's darkness.

In the centuries before Christ the prophets of Israel looked forward to a real incarnation of Light: the "Son" who is dimly suggested by the "sun" in the sky.

The People who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.

Meanwhile, the fertile imagination of the gentiles waited for the solstice and invented myths to illustrate the same hope: tales of gods who died and rose again--Dionysis, Mithras, Osiris. For us--we are gentiles--Christmas was the day of fulfillment, the day that "myth became fact."

Gentile that I am, I balk at the idea of throwing out the "pagan" elements of Christmas celebration. I have no qualms about celebrating the winter solstice. My Christmas tree is full of light. If these things are partial they have been fulfilled in Christ. If they were pagan, they have been baptized.

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night

Remember 2010

I built this video intending to post it in January 2011. Life happened and my technological abilities are...nil. So, um, six months later I present to you my 2010 remembrances.

2010
was
a
very
good
year.

Now is the Hour of Mercy (and Not Just Because the Baby is Sleeping)

As I type this post the hour of 3 pm has come and gone. Three o’clock: Christians call it the Hour of Mercy because it was the hour when Jesus died. Now is the Hour of Mercy.

But we are also living the Octave of Easter, which lasts from Easter Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday. This whole week seems permeated with a profound joy and a joyful awareness of the Mercy of God, which St. Faustina identified as His most important characteristic: God reveals Himself and defines Himself in and by His mercy.

So in this week and at this hour I try again to be aware of God’s mercy.

The Hour of Mercy is now--this hour and this week especially. BUT The Hour of Mercy is always Now. And I must remember this, even when 3 o’clock passes, when the Octave of Easter is over, when the Easter Season turns over into Pentecost, when the fire of Pentecost is replaced by…Ordinary Time.

The Hour of Mercy is Now, Now in the ordinary time.

After all, Now is all we have, the hour of decision: “Choose this day whom you will serve.”

"Take no thought for the morrow...Sufficient unto the day..."

Today is the only day we have access to.

Now is the only moment we can choose to love.

I read back over what I have just written and I fear I am becoming "preachy. This is not my intention. Or rather, if I preach, I preach to myself only. If I write, I write to myself, because this is the lesson I am learning. Or (more accurately) this is the lesson I have such difficulty learning, have learned and lost over and over and over again. Must learn once more.

Recently someone asked me what I hoped to “get out of” blogging. I didn't know the answer, and so (partially in defense) I told her what I disliked and feared about blogging. That I fear that blogging is fundamentally self-serving, self-centered, a call for affirmation, fundamentally narcissistic, a revelation of insecurity, etc. etc. This week I have continued to reflect on “what blogging is” and what it should be. What it could be for me. Though I still maintain the dangers of this form of media, I recognize this blog as a possible location of sanctification, where I might begin to work through my weaknesses and defeat my most insidious fault.

That fault being: my inability to be content with Here and Now, my refusal to be silent in this Moment, to be STILL and witness the world as it settles and lifts around me: right here, right now. Now is the Hour of Mercy.

I know I need to defeat this. For I have missed so many hours. Am I missing this now?

Am I missing my child sleeping in the sunlight, her lips, her small tongue?

Missing the gold leaves becoming green?

Missing the clouds and sky with the electric blue, the slate blue, the cerulean, the sea grey, the smoke, the silk, the blinding white?

I don't want to miss my life.

So now, at the Hour of Mercy, I am rededicating this blog to here and now: the life I have been given in this moment. I offer it to you, my Cloud of Witnesses (whoever, wherever you are!) with as much humility as God will grant me.

Jesus I trust in You.

Nativity

This year, my Advent and Christmas meditations have--not surprisingly--been informed by my own recent experience of BIRTH.

Advent: During Advent we wait for the coming of the Christ-child, God with us, Emmanuel. It is a pregnant pause in the church calendar, if you will. This Advent I thought a lot about my own pregnancy. I spent nine months contemplating the coming child, imagining her face, how my life would change. Nothing, nothing, nothing could prepare me for the revolution this baby brought with her. The joy, the depth of love--things I cannot describe--have become my reality. How much more will the expectation of Advent be fulfilled and exploded by the reality of Christ's birth? Christmas is come, Christ is here--but His birth is, we find, too much for us to bear. We learn slowly--have needed so many Advents to begin to understand. Will need so many more to fully comprehend.

Christmas Eve: On Christmas Eve this year I remembered my own labor and delivery as I thought about Mary--who labored on Christmas Eve to give birth to the Savior. As always, I hope follow our Lady, and I hope that in some real way the pain of my labor was joined with hers--that my suffering will, like hers, produce good fruit. "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation but we ourselves...groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons."

Christmas Day: On Christmas day I remembered Harriet's first day: the shock, the exhaustion, the strange sense of well-being and safety as our little family huddled in the hospital room. Animals and angels did not attend, but we were well taken care of by nurses and our wonderful family. (And, might I add, a manger would have been more comfortable than Hattie's plastic hospital cradle!) On Christmas Day Devin, Hattie and I drove around the city. The quiet, the empty streets always surprises me. Is this a quiet echo of the first Christmas? Did creation pause, the sky grow still, the hills fall silent? "Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright!"

Feast of the Holy Family: On this feast I thought about the "silent years" of Jesus' childhood, where he lived quietly with Mary and Joseph, learned to walk, to talk, to feed himself with a spoon (or whatever utensil Joseph carved for him out of wood). How blessed Mary and Joseph were to see Jesus as I see my child: all the joy at seeing Him grow, and the sadness to see Him grow up. I ask God to make us a holy family also, to raise our baby so she can see beauty, so she can love purely.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents: Today is the dark day of Christmas, the day we remember the babies killed by Herod as he tried to destroy the infant Jesus. I have never understood this feast like I begin to understand it now. Lord God, preserve my child. Today I mourn with those mothers, whose suffering foreshadowed the suffering of Our Lady as she also watched her child die: "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be comforted, because they are no more."

But, as we know, Love conquers death. The Holy Innocents, the first martyrs, are glorious now. And though Christ died, Christ is Risen, and Christ will come again! So Merry Christmas to all. A Christmas full of Joy which lights up the darkness.

Little Saint

Last weekend Harriet Paloma was baptized. Our little family gathered in Our Lady of Good Counsel parish and the venerable and most aged Monsignor Blacet poured water over Hattie’s unruly mohawk and cleaned out her little soul "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." She screamed. “Don’t worry,” said Monsignor, “it’s just the Devil coming out of her. Scream, little baby, scream!” After she had been duly dunked, dried, and sealed, we were given back our “new little saint.”

Hattie won’t remember her baptism. Or rather, she won’t remember it until she has a child and stands at their baptism to renew her baptismal vows:

“Do you reject Satan?”

I do.

“and all his works?”

I do.

“and all his pomps?”

I do.

“Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?”

I do.

“Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?”

I do.

“Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting?”

I do.

“This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it, in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Amen.

Devin and I renewed these vows last Sunday. We witnessed both the promise and the responsibility of this sacrament as we stood by at the baptism of our first child. Our new little saint. And as the water dried and her mohawk re-erupted, Harriet had indeed become a little saint. That is, after all, what we believe--that the waters of baptism create a new Christian, cleansed by God’s grace from the stain of Original Sin.

As I spoke the baptismal vows on behalf of my child, my mind was drawn back to my own salvation, which I must continue to work out “in fear and trembling.”

Becoming a mother has forced me to realize--again, and in a new way--that I AM NOT MY OWN. My salvation, my personal holiness, is not merely “between me and God alone.” I stand as a mother at a child's baptism. I am responsible for another soul. In some real way Hattie’s faith depends on my own. I am one of the "great cloud of witnesses” who surround her. I must learn to be a holy witness in her life. I must learn to be a saint.

This work of love, this journey to holiness is difficult. Impossible even. As difficult and impossible as a camel going through an eye of a needle.

Yesterday I was reminded of this fact as I read this story which Thomas Merton relates in his book The Seven Story Mountain:

…[he] suddenly turned to me and asked me the question:

“What do you want to be, anyway?”

I could not say, “I want to be Thomas Merton the well-known writer […]” or “Thomas Merton the assistant instructor of Freshman English […],” so I put the thing on the spiritual plane, where I knew it belonged and said:

“I don’t know; I guess what I want is to be a good Catholic.”

“What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic?”

The explanation I gave was lame enough, and expressed my confusion, and betrayed how little I had really thought about it at all.

[He] did not accept it.

“What you should say”—he told me—“what you should say is that you want to be a saint.”

A saint! The thought struck me as a little weird. I said:

“How do you expect me to become a saint?”

“By wanting to,” he said, simply.

“I can’t be a saint,” I said, “I can’t be a saint.” And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility which makes men say that they cannot do the things that they must do, cannot reach the level that they must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin,” but which means, by those words: “I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments.”

I must throw off my sins and my attachments. I must throw off everything that hinders, the sin that so easily entangles, and run with endurance the race marked out for me.

I also must become a saint.

Holy Week and the Gates of Hades

Thomas More and I just returned from the Eternal City, where we enjoyed Triduum and very much wonderful Italian food. Instead of a lengthy post describing the trip I am including the video we made (see below), which I hope you will enjoy!

I will say this: this Lent has been a particularly difficult time for me spiritually. Scandal in the Church--which has created anguish in the hearts of ALL faithful Catholics--has also troubled me deeply. I had hoped to spend Lent in prayer for both the victims of abuse as well as for the Church universal--that we all might have renewed hope in Jesus who saves--who HEALS. As part of the Church Body I also wanted to participate in the penance that the Church must undergo as part of this healing process. When one part of the Body sins, when one part becomes corrupt, the healthy members must take responsibility for the corruption. We must lay our lives down for our brother and sister (both sinner and sinned against).

My hope of fruitful and penitent prayer was only partially realized this Lent. I found myself severely distracted by the sick media coverage of the Church scandal here in the UK. In all likelihood you understand perfectly well what I refer to, and don't want to hear any more about it, so I won't go into further detail. But I will say this: The current media hysteria places the faithful Catholic in a strange situation. The Church is in mourning for the damning sins that were committed under her roof. We want to repent corporately, to cure the disease, to cleanse our Body. But we are, at the same time, forced to defend every tenant of our religion (theology, structure, discipline, morality) to an angry secular world/media who uses the sins of the few to cast shadows on the many.

This Lent, I hated that I allowed myself to be driven from a posture of prayer, penance, and faith into a defensive stance--into anger (justified!--journalists were lying!). However justified my outrage, I allowed my mind to wander from the figure of Christ who stands at the center of Lent: the fasting, suffering Body who paid for the sins of the Church and the sins of the world--who paid for the lives of whores and adulterers, hypocrites and pedophiles--who paid for those sins too--even those.

Going to Rome for Triduum reminded me of what I had nearly forgotten: the suffering Christ, the Risen Lord who will defend His Church and strengthen her. I was deeply touched by the thousands and thousands of people crowded around the Colosseum for the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, all trying to pray the Our Father together in a hundred different languages. I was moved by the multitude of worshipers on Holy Saturday in St Peters--thousands of priests and religious, thousands and thousands of kids in their twenties, praying together in line hours before Mass. I was blessed by receiving the Body of Blood of Christ along with all these, and with all Catholics all around the world.

During the Vigil Mass T.M. and I sat in one of the transepts facing the high altar. We had a perfect view of one of my favorite mosaic-paintings in St Peters, which depicts Peter walking on the waves towards Jesus. Or rather--Peter FALLING INTO the waves--with a look of desperate panic etched on his face. And Jesus catches him as he falls.

Doesn't He always--catch us?

"And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Matthew 16:18