December, 1999 Monthly Feature : Each month I have been putting together some of my favourites to share with you. Archives
Winter Thoughts
Day by imperceptible day, the sun drops lower in the sky. The days become shorter and the nights become longer. The temperature drops. The snows arrive. By winter solstice, the light is least and the darkness is greatest. This is the deepest, most inward time of the cycle that our Earth completes on its journey around the sun - and is it not in the darkest part of night that the light of a star shines most brightly?
There is a story of a star that haunts us still. In St John's story of the birth of the God-child, he uses the analogy of light to explain what occurred. He doesn't want us to get lost in sentimentality over the inn with its manger at Bethlehem, he wants us to realize that something tremendous happened, and so he said, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:4-5)
St Matthew tells how the wise men, called Magi, followed a bright star that led them to Jesus. It is an old, old story. It happened long ago and far away. Yet how new and real for us, for here is the eternal parable of the soul.
Bethlehem is a place on the map, but Bethlehem is also a condition of the soul. For us a journey to Bethlehem is not easy. Many things clutter up the starlit highway which our spirits should be traveling these days. Follow in the footsteps of the wise men. Behold the star as it reveals, and we too might ultimately find our way to the old inn door, and there throw open our hearts, so that the radiance of Bethlehem might flood our souls.
The Incarnation is not merely an event which took place once in history or myth, long ago and far away. It is an experience continually reproduced in those who, like the wise men, kneel and give their treasured gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh - their all.
The world is still dark and precariouly poised between friendship and hate, but that hatred can be overcome. If we are true, the light will shine through us. It will shine where we work, where we play and where we rest. It will pierce the darkness of the world around us and bring hope, love, peace, and goodwill.
Happy Holy Days.
K.M.G.
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I salute you! I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got, but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look! Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty - beneath its covering - that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home. And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away. Fra Giovanni |
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