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Thursday, December 26, 2019

Born To Do This


Recently I read the suggestion reading a chapter of the Gospel of Luke each day in December before Christmas. With twenty-four chapters, you finish on Christmas Eve. It sounded like a good idea, and surprising myself, I stuck with it.

As I got closer to Christmas, the chapters in Luke led up to Christ’s crucifixion and death.

Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and when he had said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:46

On Christmas Eve, the Gospel recounted Christ’s resurrection, appearance to the apostles and ultimate ascension into heaven.

They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?  He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.”  Luke 24:5-7

A few hours after reading the last chapter, at midnight Mass we heard in the gospel, also from Luke, the story of Jesus’ birth.

While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son.  She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock.  The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.

The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”  Luke 2:6-12

The juxtaposition of the stories of the birth and death of Christ struck me as odd, at least until I thought more about it.  It made sense once I remembered a quote attributed to St. Joan of Arc.

I am not afraid... I was born to do this.

The birth and death of Christ. One without the other is meaningless. Had Christ been born but not suffer, die and been resurrected, he most likely would have been considered a great prophet, not the Son of God he was. Christ had to be born human in order to die for our sins.

When we celebrate Christmas, we praise more than the birth of a baby two thousand years ago.  We glorify the salvation of our souls.



Merry and Blessed Christmas!
AMDG

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

An Open Book: December 2019


The cold, darker evenings have made snuggling up with a book my go-to entertainment of choice lately.  Some of the more memorable ones are below.


A Minute to Midnight by David Baldacci is the second in the Atlee Pine series. The FBI agent takes some mandated time off from her job to help deal with her unresolved anger at the abduction of her twin sister some thirty years ago. With her assistant, Carol, Atlee heads back to the scene of the crime, a rural small town in Georgia. While investigating the decades old crimes a series of new, ghastly murders take place. Are they related or just coincidence?



Gifts: Visible and Invisible by eight different authors is a collection of short stories that explore the true meaning of the Christmas and holiday season.  Each of the stories is entertaining and well written.  What a joy to read such positive and uplifting prose!




The Christmas List by Hillary Ibarra is a sweet story of a poor Tennessee family facing a austere Christmas.  Parents Jack and Karen Hoyle barely scrape by living off what they can earn harvesting a variety of items found in the mountain wilderness.  When an unexpected event limits their source of income, the holiday appears to be bleaker than anticipated.  This is a perfect read for this Advent season for both teens and adults alike.





Head on over to Carolyn's for more An Open Book.
AMDG

Sunday, December 1, 2019

First Photo - December 2019

No profound thoughts today.  Not even any mildly pithy ones.  I'll leave all that to GKC.

Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.
– “The Streets of the City,” The New Jerusalem

AMDG