Comites Christi

Today we can’t imagine it.  We take Christmas with lots of sugar.  And we take it in a day.  Though we’ve been baptized into his death, we have little time for or patience with how that death is told at Christmas, a death that confuses lament and praise forever.

-Gabe Huck

Feast of Stephen

Feast of St. John 

Holy Innocents

These feasts, the feasts of the Comites Christi, the companions of Christ, appear to remind the Church of the dangerous life that is the life of the Word made Flesh.  There is no such thing as a solitary Christian.  Loving and caring always involves an-other.  The neighbor at my side is my companion.

Christ made love the stairway that would enable all Christians to climb to heaven.  Hold fast to it, therefore, in all sincerity, give one another practical proof of it, and by your progress in it, make your ascent together. 
-Fulgentius 6^th Century, feast of Stephen, office of readings

Quickly!

Thursday, December 24^th 

The Collect for Today:

Come quickly, we pray, Lord Jesus,

And do not delay,

that those who trust in your compassion

may find solace and relief in your coming…

Lord

May my trust in your compassion increase

for my own peace and hope

And

May I participate in the quickness of your love made visible
for the solace and relief of others

Lift Up Your Head's and See!

Psalm 25

Lift up your heads and see…sounds like good advice to all of us who have our heads bowed…in our cell phones!  I am ever guilty!

Lift up your heads and see;

your redemption is near at hand.

Your ways, O Lord,

make known to me;

teach me your paths,

Guide me in your truth and teach me,

for you are God my savior.

That's enough for this Wednesday of Week 4!

Lift up my head

and SEE

and be GUIDED

and be TAUGHT

Off I go!

…and the women sing!

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

1 Samuel 1:24-28

Luke 1:46-56

Hannah and Mary are filled with Joy and Thanksgiving!

Hannah inspires awe in me as she takes Samuel to the Temple to fulfill her promise.  She approaches the priest and reminds him of their meeting three years prior.  What she doesn't do is draw attention to his former obtuseness…how he mistook her genuine and passionate prayer for drunkenness.  He certainly should have been able to tell the difference.  But she doesn't go there.  Her joy and thanksgiving occupy her heart completely.

And Mary too; awe-worthy for sure.  When I read this passage out loud and while walking around I can sense just how honestly Mary erupts.  She is so a part of the Biblical story…she actually lives in the drama itself…her speech draws on the echoes of the Biblical women of old.  

I think today of all the religious women who have and continue to claim the church as their home.  I am thankful for their tenacity and steadfast faith.  I pray to be inspired by the gift of their lives of service on the front lines caring for the world's poor and poor in spirit.  Perhaps I might erupt with joy and thanksgiving a bit more often and a bit more honestly…joining that long caravan of women in service to the People of God.

In thanksgiving for the Marymount Sisters who watched over my early education…
…and to the Ursuline Sisters who took it from there…
…and to the Benedictine and Dominican women who continue to play such an important role in my ongoing Theological and Pastoral formation

Hannah and Mary
Pray for us all!

The Power of Small

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Micah 5:1-4

Psalm 80

Luke 1:39-44

(Not a real full-fledged homily...more like lengthy musings;)

A lot of smallness in our readings...

The Lord says:
You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah,
Too small to be among the clans of Judah, 

and then from that smallness:

From you shall come forth...
…and then greatness
...reaching to the ends of the earth.

not particularly predictable

And then to think of the story of Mary and Elizabeth
The Visitation...as a meeting of wombs.
Wombs housing such smallness

But that is the very cool thing about the incarnation

So small
so seemingly insignificant
So... so... so... particular…that it is scandalous

Why Mary, Why Joseph, Why Jesus,
Why then, and why there???

Why? 
Because it had to be
some-time, some-where, among some-folk…

Otherwise all there would be is
another idea about God,
another proposition about God,
another theory about God

We learn to love because
we are first loved
by persons…not ideas or propositions or theories

No…loved into being by God
and loved into fullness
by particular and fleshy persons

The incarnation
…the christmas miracle

is our believing that our own particularity
…little ole me and little ole you… 

WE...in all of our seeming littleness,

We...can... together...
give flesh to the body of Christ
and when we get that right
that Christ in us thing
There is mighty power!
...power to change the world

I married into a small family...large in numbers,
but size-wise, on the petit side.
What I have learned is that small really does predict a certain mightiness.
And of course that fits in with the gospel message of reversal...the first shall be last etc. 

Mary was a nobody...small in many ways. 
Bethlehem, the same.
And soon we will find Mary
giving birth in the small Bethlehem stable
and changing the world!

Perhaps my own smallnesses,
the things I'd rather not draw attention to,
are exactly those things God might treasure in me. Perhaps those smallnesses
are what the world at my door needs?

Of Mary's smallness was born Jesus who is called the Christ

What am I birthing out of the gift of my life and faith?

What are we as a Christian community birthing?

There is no such thing as
too small

too insignificant

too lowly

Today

Micah,
Elizabeth and John,
and Mary and Jesus

Are making that most perfectly clear!

A Tale of Two Tidings

Saturday of the Third Week of Advent

Judges 13:2-7, 24-25

His wife was barren and had borne no children.  An angel of the Lord appears to the woman and said to her, "Though you are barren and have had no children, yet you will conceive and bear a son"

Luke 1:5-25

But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard.  Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you shall name him John"

These are stories of the birth of Samson and the birth of John.  Both of them are accompanied by angelic tidings.  And in both, the womb is one sacred and holy place.  The consecration of the child Samson begins in the womb.  And John will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.

When I allow myself to let go for a bit
when I breathe extra deeply
and let my shoulders drop
and if I happen to be attentive to God's presence
I experience a womb
a safe, warm, encompassing...being-in-God

A good prayer for today
to find some rest in that womb
and to be a womb for another
let it be so

Sharing Our Tradition

BERNARDIN FAMILY

LITURGY OF THE INCARNATION

DECEMBER 24, 2015

Mary played by ______________
Joseph played by _____________

Angel played by _______________

Shepherds played by ­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________
and ___________________

 (no auditions necessary…costumes and make-up provided;)

Opening Prayer

ALL SING:
Silent night, Holy night
, All is calm, all is bright
'
Round yon virgin, mother and child

Holy infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, Holy night
. Shepherds quake,
at the sight
.  Glories stream from heaven afar

Heavenly, hosts sing Hallelujah.

Christ the Savior is born,
 Christ the Savior is born.

Reader 1:
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled.  So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.  And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child
(Mary and Joseph,  arrive in town and seek a place to stay, knocking on doors asking for room a la Bernardin tradition…finally they find shelter in a barn…infant Jesus delivered by stage right)

Reader 1continues:
There 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.
(shepherds approach)

Reader 2:
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 awe.
(Angel stands over the child with arms raised in praise)
The angel said to them,
(Angel reads his/her line)
“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.”

Reader 2 continues:
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the Angel, praising God and saying:

All:  Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.

All Sing:
Angels we have heard on high
sweetly singing o’er the plains
and the mountains in reply
Echo back their joyous strains.
            Gloria in excelsis Deo!
            Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your Joyous strains prolong?
Say what may the tidings be
which inspire the heav’nly song.  (refrain)
            Come to Bethlehem and see
            Him whose birth the angels sing;
            Come , adore on bended knee
            Christ the Lord, the newborn King.  (refrain)
See him in a manger laid
Whom the angels praise above;
Mary, Joseph, lend your aid,
While we raise our hearts in love.  (refrain)

Reader 3 continues: When the angels went away from them to heaven, the

shepherds said to one another,
(shepherds have their moment to shine)
Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.

Reader 3 continues:
So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.  When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.  All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.

All:…And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

Intercessory Prayer

Offer of Peace

ALL SING

Silent night, Holy night
.
Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from thy holy face

With the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord at thy birth,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.

Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, all is bright
'
Round yon virgin , mother and child

Holy infant so, tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.