Emmanuel: God With Us

Tags

dawning of light, Emmanuel, Son of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

So we have arrived and the Son of God has arrived and now we can more easily intuit what that means. There are bells and songs, feelings (perhaps) of comfort and joy, but truly the depth of meaning is in the heart space of all those who desire to participate in the mystery of God in us, Christ appearing in flesh to be with us—as St Augustine said: “closer to us than we are to ourselves.” The dawning of the light is slow and incremental but has been growing through these past weeks, gathering strength. The fullness is now upon us. Perhaps for some the light appeared like the glow of a Christmas tree lighting or flicking on all the lights in the house at the same time. It seems to me that this year the process was more onerous, like turning on the lamps one by one. That is probably why I turn to the St. Louis Jesuits for their song, Emmanuel. It starts so quietly, seeing only a baby in a stall, but grows and grows until the name cannot remain inside but bursts from us in recognition of the miracle asking, Emmanuel, Emmanuel, what are we that you have loved us so well?

May you be bathed in the music and the mystery, knowing that you are well-loved.

A Christmas Prayer

Tags

Emmanuel, generosity, Joyce Rupp, kindness, love, Prayer Seeds, respect, reverence, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Joyce Rupp has a meaningful Christmas prayer in her book, Prayer Seeds, that seems appropriate for this sixth day in the octave of Christmas, to remind us that the spirit of the feast lives on beyond a one-day celebration. Won’t you pray it in connection with all those reading this post?

Emmanuel, God-with-us, you chose to come for each person, the destitute and the wealthy, the unfortunate and the privileged, the troubled and the peaceful, the healthy and the ill.

You came in human form with a message of extravagant love, showing us how to be with those who have much less than we do. You came offering a gesture of respect and reverence instead of indifference and disdain; giving courteous kindness in place of thoughtless disregard; contributing ongoing support rather than a mere holiday handout.

Change my heart. Turn it inside out, toward the larger world. Remind me daily of those who struggle with their basic existence. Lead me to help change social systems that contribute to this ongoing struggle. Enlarge my awareness. Increase my generosity. Guide my choices of how I live, what I purchase, and how I use my material wealth.

Remind me often of your presence in those I tend to ignore or forget. Boundless Love, thank you for cherishing each person on this planet. (p.2-3)

Christ Is Coming Soon!

Tags

Christmas, Emmanuel, Isaiah, Jesus, Malachi, radiant dawn, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

When I read the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ offering of the lectionary readings for the day, I am occasionally stopped by a line or two that rankles or makes me squirm a little. We’re very close now to Christmas, the “feel-good” holiday. It’s surprising, I guess, that I would be experiencing the opposite feeling two days before Christmas. I’m singing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and loving the titles given to Christ by Isaiah’s writings (e.g. O Radiant Dawn or O Key of David…) not expecting Malachi’s insertions of counterintuitive questions such as the following:

Yes, he is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. But who will endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire…he will sit refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi…

Does that include us? Must we leave our “heaven and nature” singing of “joy to the world” because “the Lord is come?” I think not, but there is a caution in this message from the prophet Malachi. Jesus was born into this world – this great and wonderful world – to show us the way to navigate all the joys and sorrows, the gifts and tests that help us grow into our true selves, to become more conscious with each turning of the earth that we are beings of light, made in the image of God, here to mirror that image to the world each day. The celebration of Christmas reminds us of the privilege and the responsibility of that birthing that is ours in imitation of the Christ who is coming to walk the path with us with new vigor each time we experience this commemorative moment.

The sun is strong this morning. Let us now prepare for Christmas, as the “Radiant Dawn” appears in the sky of our lives, offering to us the Word of Life!

Home Again

Tags

Emmanuel, gladness, prepare, savior, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Winter Solstice

I’m sure there is a wondering about my whereabouts in the minds of some readers of this blog, just as I am wondering how an entire week has passed since I wrote! Time and events have a way of interrupting the flow of “regular schedule” and rarely has that been clearer to me than in the past two weeks. Flying across the country – back from California to Boston – called for adjustment in the “loss” of three hours to my body clock. Two days of weather delay in driving the last leg of the journey – from Boston to my home in small-town New York State – pushed me further away from routine and caused a major shift in my calendar. (I check it at least five times a day to make sure I haven’t missed anything.)

Today is not only a new day but the Winter Solstice, announcing in my neighborhood what we have experienced in the weather already: cold and snow and the shift to the interiority that comes from bundling up and staying inside as much as possible. For me it means unpacking my suitcase, cleaning out my car, clearing e-mails, scheduling appointments and making phone calls – all in the service of readying myself for the great celebration of the Incarnation and hope of new birth.

Today’s lectionary readings are replete with messages that prepare us. Hark! my lover – here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills…Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged! The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior; he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love…O Emmanuel, come to save us, Lord our God!

Three days more. Are you ready?

Inter-abiding

Tags

Emmanuel, God, good, grace, Jesus, joy, letting go, O Antiphons, presence of God, seek love, soul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, true self

Today we are on the edge of the greatest Christian mystery: God becoming one with us in human form in order that we may abide in God in a way beyond our capacity to comprehend with our “ordinary mind.” We can only approximate the reality if we try to think ourselves into it. We need to be willing to “go to the lengths of God,” as Christopher Fry has said, letting go of the mind to a place of soul that is reached only as gift. The paradox is that we cannot get there by striving but we must continue to seek in love for love. Moreover, each of us must make this journey to our true self (where God lives) as ourself. Ultimately, no one can tell us who God is at the deepest level of knowing. That is a secret held only in the depths of the heart, a gift of grace. We can only open our heart – in our own words, with our own gesture – to this most welcome guest.

O Emmanuel, God with us, come now and abide in us that we may abide in you for the good of the world and the joy of knowing that you love us each as a precious and unrepeatable presence in you.

Almost There

Tags

Christ, Emmanuel, enlighten, hope, Joseph, journey of faith, King of the Nations, Mary, O Antiphons, radiant dawn, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Although away from the internet for two days, I have been very present to the O Antiphons. My favorite (except for the last but easily twinned with it) is the fifth, translated variously as “Rising Sun,” “Morning Star” or “Dayspring.” I prefer my own rendition (which I did not invent but heard somewhere along my journey of faith). As I wait today for the light to come, signaling a new day, my heart hopes for the sun to break forth over the mountain across the river. Such a powerful symbol of returning light can awaken me to a new day as nothing else can and so is best described as “Radiant Dawn.”

O Radiant Dawn, splendor of light eternal and sun of righteousness, come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

The sixth antiphon, wherein Christ is called “King of the Nations,” breaks all the definitional laws of how the world sees a ruler. Coming as a helpless baby to a poor family, living as a carpenter’s apprentice and then an itinerant preacher and lover of all certainly topples all notions of kingship. Isaiah describes his reign as follows: He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they train for war again. (IS 2:4) Is this not the king we long for? The one we know to bring us to a new “radiant dawn?”

O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.

This is the one we call Emmanuel, God with us. I will save consideration of this Great Light until tomorrow when the birthing begins and the promise is ready to be revealed.

Emmanuel

Tags

comfort, death, Emmanuel, God is with us, grief, loss, Nativity of Mary, Peace, presence, sympathy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Later this morning I will attend a memorial service for the son of a woman for whom I have great admiration. His death preceded his 54th birthday by just a few weeks and was quite sudden. The shock was compounded by the death of my friend’s husband just three weeks previous to that of her son. No words of sympathy or attempts to assuage such grief are adequate for one who bears the loss of those she calls the two great loves of her life. All we can offer is presence. And so I go. I suspect that this event will be a lesson in diversity of belief about God and life while also manifesting a depth of unity brought about by relationship and community.

Today is also the feast of the Nativity of Mary, Mother of Jesus, a woman of great love who could never have dreamed of what her life was to hold of joy and pain. We never know but can only hope to live into the happenings of life as we grow and change and accept and endure what comes to us. I take comfort during troubled times as I read and believe lines of the prophecy trusted throughout the Hebrew Scriptures that “the favored one” would “bear a son and call his name Emmanuel, which means God is with us.” May God be with us today and may wives and mothers and all who who endure great losses know peace and comfort in the memories of the love they have given and received.

 

 

 

 

 

Epiphany

Tags

Christ Child, discovery, Emmanuel, epiphany, essential nature, gifts, intuitive, light, Magi, manifestation, Matthew, message, perception, presence of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

“What gift will you bring to the Christ Child?” we were always asked in Catholic school when we were young. Our answers were all about ways in which we could be “good boys and girls” – behaviors that would make the Christ Child smile and our parents happy. There was certainly a devotional value to that practice, a teachable moment that gave us a sweet and kind image of God “in flesh” to whom we could easily relate. Of course there was still the hope that we might get the gifts for which we were so longing, usually in those days rather simple and less expensive gifts than what is “expected” in today’s society.

The story of the gifts brought by the Magi from far away lands perhaps factored in to the consideration of what our gifts to the Baby Jesus would be. We needed to give him our best. Reading the gospel this morning for this feast of Epiphany (MT 2:1-12) brought back those memories as well as songs about the little drummer boy (with his drumming) and the shepherd boy (with his lamb). Importantly, in the end, the child who had nothing to give determined to give Jesus his heart.

The dictionary meaning of the word epiphany is a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking, or an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure: a revealing scene or moment. We think of the Magi’s search for and meeting with God-come-to-earth as indicative of the world-wide importance of the Incarnation. Their recognition of Emmanuel (God-with-us) was intuitive and clear.

It is for us in our day, I believe, to recognize the presence of God – however we perceive this presence – and to spread the message of that presence in deeper and broader ways. May each of us be open to on-going epiphanies in our lives so that we move toward the light that we are seeking and share that light with the world.

Joseph the Dreamer

Tags

angel, assurance, dream, Emmanuel, faith, Mary, Matthew, message, St. Joseph, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, thoughts

Often when I wake up in the morning I know I’ve been dreaming but I rarely have any idea of the content of the dreams. Sometimes I feel as if I have been very busy in the night and I wonder what I have been working out during sleep, but my mind usually goes quickly in other directions so I hope that my soul knows any message that I was supposed to hear. I am confident that if God wanted me to know something of import in a dream, it would remain clear enough on a conscious level for me to grasp it upon awakening – but perhaps I should revisit my “Awakening the Dreamer” materials (a self-taught course from long ago). I wouldn’t want to miss anything…

These thoughts were occasioned by the story of Joseph in today’s gospel and by a conversation with nine women a week ago as we reflected together on the Incarnation. I was asking their opinions on Joseph’s state of mind and heart when he learned that Mary was pregnant…and then after he was visited by an angel in a dream (MT 1:18-24). Our compassion for Joseph was great. We listed shock, helplessness, betrayal, love, disappointment, loneliness, compassion…and more as our thoughts of what it must have been like for him. We concluded that it would be difficult for us who live in such a different culture to apprehend all that he faced even after his dream directing him not to “divorce Mary quietly” but rather to take her into his home. Neither he nor Mary could possibly have fully understood what was happening. It was, we decided, his love for Mary and his trust in God that allowed him to move forward as he did.

And Scripture offers one more point of affirmation. In speaking of the child to be born, the angel echoed the message of the prophet Isaiah – a message that Joseph had surely known since his early youth. Both texts tell us that a virgin will conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel. And Joseph likely knew, as the angel reminded him, that Emmanuel means God is with us. With this assurance, and our faith as assent, the way forward – for us as for Joseph – becomes possible.

A Covenant Forever

Tags

Abraham, Christ, covenant, Emmanuel, family, Jesus, King David, Lord, love, promise, psalm 89, religious community, Scripture, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today all the Scripture readings highlight the God’s relationship with King David, his ancestors and his descendants – a secure, unbreakable covenant of unfailing love for all time. Although I have never borne children and cannot trace my ancestry back many generations, I feel the fullness of the concept of covenant in the family stories that I do know and in the larger “family” that I inhabit in my religious community and in the “family” of the eastern part of the USA. It is not an easy time for us; destruction and unrest seem the order of the day. Underneath it all, however, I have a hope that we will survive because of the promise that God made to Abraham, renewed in Christ and manifest in ways seen and unseen in all of us. As we anticipate the blossoming forth of Emmanuel this night we might reflect on the words of Psalm 89 from today’s liturgy.

Your love, O Lord, I will forever sing, your faithful friendship shall be the subject of my song. For I have come to know your love as fountainhead, it’s ceaseless source not here, but in your high abode. And you yourself have made this oath of faithfulness to us and all of David’s line, a covenant  proclaimed to all you chose, a promise made to us that never ends. The heavens are the witness, Lord, to what you say and do, your steadfast love to us is clear. (Ps. 89:1-5)