OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
May Christmas Come
Can I if she moved to this side of the border . . . without documentation?
Even though the wages she gets for picking coffee for us to drink is not enough to feed her family?
May Christmas Comeby Alan JonesThe rough beast slouchingtoward Bethlehem,still waits to come to term.Christmas comes and goesas we expect.Nothing changes.This year in New York, Jerusalemand Kabul,the Innocents are slaughteredaccording to Herod’s schedule.His rage, unchecked,still does its work.Yet this yearthings could be different.September 11th adds urgencyto thebirth,making this the time of choosing.The choice is oursto miss the point orsee Mary and her childin every mother and her baby,and adore, absorbingthe rage and terrorand with a loving heartrebuild the world,making peace our gift.May Christmas come.Source: http://www.thewitness.org/agw/jones.121901.html (11/5/07) – found on The Education for Justice website.
The Second Coming
This poem by Yeats is very dark indeed. Yeats lived from 1865 to 1939 – some of those days must have seemed apocalyptic to many. In spite of the problems in our world, though, we continue to live in hope. Advent is the time of looking for that hope, and the symbol is the birth of a tiny and vulnerable child. And so I repeat the use of an image that I created months ago and posted here on March 7th, during Lent. And try as I might, I can’t find amongst my photos anything that captures the sense of the Yeats’ poem better than this.
The Second Comingby William Butler YeatsTurning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand:The Second Coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out of Spiritus MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desertA shape with lion body and the head of a man,A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,Is moving its slow thighs, while all about itReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again; but now I knowThat twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Source:The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, W.B. Yeats. New York: Simon &Schuster, 1996 – found on the Education for Justice website.
The Christmas Tapestry
Do you remember the song “Silent Night – 7 O’clock News” by Simon and Garfunkel?
The Christmas TapestryBy Michael Hare DukeThe humdrum duties of the land,feeding the beasts, mucking out the strawprovide the dull hessian backgroundof the Christmas scene.Suddenly the tapestry is litby glory’s goldand smirched by red threads of violence.First the angel songcaroling the Word made flesh,then the murderous fire of Herod’s fear
slaying the InnocentsIs conflict part of the perennial patternof our response to Love’s story?Colonial might, conversionproceeding from the barrel of a gunbetray the gracious Christ;the fear of might and moneybreed Terror.Innocents of Palestine,Arab and Jewbleed from the bombs and gunsthat violence deploys;the flash of gunfirerapes the night’s tranquility over Baghdad;the mothers of Breslan weep for their childrenand will not be comforted.Meanwhile there’s far within;as each of us grows oldblack crows of death and diseasedarken our days.Come Love anewlet the angels’ songcounterpoint our tearsand lace the clouds with glory.Give us an unambiguous blessingby the Birthto paint a rainbowabove our hearts’ distress.With love and prayers for Light to overcomethe current darkness, political, ecclesiastical and personal.Source: http://thewitness.org/agw/hareduke010305.html (11/5/07) – Found on the Education for Justice website.
The Slip
I love Wendell Berry’s poetry, so I was delighted to find this in the Advent collection on Education for Justice.
The river takes the land, and leaves nothing.Where the great slip gave way in the bankand an acre disappeared, all human plansdissolve. An awful clarification occurswhere a place was. Its memory breaksfrom what is known now, begins to drift.Where cattle grazed and trees stood, emptinesswidens the air for birdflight, wind, and rain.As before the beginning, nothing is there.Human wrong is in the cause, humanruin in the effect–but no matter;all will be lost, no matter the reason.Nothing, having arrived, will stay.The earth, even, is like a flower, so soonpasseth it away. And yet this nothingis the seed of all–the clear eyeof Heaven, where all the worlds appear.Where the imperfect has departed, the perfectbegins its struggle to return. The good giftbegins again its descent. The maker movesin the unmade, stirring the water untilit clouds, dark beneath the surface,stirring and darkening the soul until painperceives new possibility. There is nothingto do but learn and wait, return to work
on what remains. Seed will sprout in the scar.
Though death is in the healing, it will heal
Source: The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, by Wendell Berry. Washington,D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999.
What Is True?
AdventBy Daniel BerriganIt is not true that creation and the human family are doomed todestruction and loss —This is true: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begottenSon,that whoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination,hunger and poverty, death and destruction —This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word,and that war and destruction rule forever —This is true: For unto us a child is born, and unto us a Son is given,and the government shall be upon his shoulder,And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,the Everlasting, the Prince of Peace.It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek torule the world —This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth,and lo, I am with you, even unto the end of the world.It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted,who are the prophets of the Church, before we can be peacemakers.This is true: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,your young shall see visions,and your old shall have dreams.It is not true that our hopes for the liberation of humanity, for justice,human dignity, and peace are not meant for this earth and for this history —This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that true worshippersshall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope.Let us see visions of love and peace and justice.Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage:Jesus Christ — the Life of the world.Source:Testimony: The Word Made Fresh, by Daniel Berrigan. Maryknoll, NY:Orbis Books, 2004 – found on the Education for Justice website.
Prayer: A Progression
This Jessica Powers poem was found on the Education for Justice website.
Prayer: A ProgressionYou came by night, harsh with the need of grace,into the dubious presence of your Maker.You combed a small and pre-elected acrefor some bright word of Him, or any trace.Past the great judgment growths of thistle and thornand past the thicket of self you bore your yearningtill lo, you saw a pure white blossom burningin glimmer, then, light, then unimpeded more!Now the flower God-is-love gives ceaseless glow;now all your thoughts feast on its mystery,but when love mounts through knowledge and goes free,then will the sated thinker arise and goand brave the deserts of the soul to givethe flower he found to the contemplative.Source: “Prayer: A Progression” from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers,edited by Regina Siegfried, ASC, and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO:Sheed & Ward, 1989
We Celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe
Today is the Feast of La Virgen de Guadalupe. I share a stylized image from a photo that I took in the National Shrine in Washington, DC, and I had to include a YouTube video of the people in the cathedral in Mexico City singing “Las Mañitas,” which is traditionally sung in la madrugada (early in the morning). After all, the words, “Despierta, Madre, despierta” are meant to awaken her! The processions, the prayers, and the Mass are also customarily followed with tamales and champurado (a very special chocolate drink)!
¡Con mucho gusto!
And the lyrics to the song are:
Las Mañanitas
Estas son las mañanitas, que cantaba el Rey David,
Hoy por ser día de tu santo, te las cantamos a ti,
Despierta, Madre, despierta, mira que ya amaneció,
Ya los pajarillos cantan, la luna ya se metió.
Que linda está la mañana en que vengo a saludarte,
Venimos todos con gusto y placer a felicitarte,
Ya viene amaneciendo, ya la luz del día nos dio,
Levántate de mañana, mira que ya amaneció.
Mary Oliver’s Wisdom
Making the House Ready for the LordBy Mary OliverDear Lord, I have swept and I have washed butstill nothing is as shining as it should befor you. Under the sink, for example, is anuproar of mice –it is the season of theirmany children. What shall I do? And under the eavesand through the walls the squirrelshave gnawed their ragged entrances –but it is the seasonwhen they need shelter, so what shall I do? Andthe raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboardwhile the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow fallingin the yard and the fox who is staring boldlyup the path, to the door. And I still believe you willcome, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, knowthat really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come
Source:Thirst, by Mary Oliver. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. p. 13 – Found on the Education for Justice website.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Grand
Can there be anything more grand than the magnificent mountains?! And we are fortunate in California to have one of the grandest mountain ranges, the Sierra Nevadas. Its grandest and tallest peak is the tallest in the contiguous 48 states, Mt. Whitney, and it rises to 14,505 feet.
Adventby Sr. Christine Schenk, CSJI waitwith quickened hopefor crooked pathsto straighten,with tough-soul’danguish,while blindedkeepers of the keysshut outGod’s own.(If such a thingwere possible.)I wait,and will not bedismayed.For tiny shootof Jesse treetook root in meto lovetransform,give sight
set free.Source: National Catholic Reporter, December 12, 2003 – found on the Education for Justice website.
Advent Calendar
I remember the Advent Calendar of my childhood. Mother would pull it out of the box of decorations every year, and every day I would open a new window or door and see the delightful picture behind it. I don’t recall that it felt like a particularly spiritual experience, and it was a Christmas-y (with Santa) kind of decoration. Nonetheless, it still had its spiritual lessons – to count the days – to wait patiently – to experience expectancy and anticipation of something good. We need that still in this darkest time of the year – and in all the darkest seasons of our lives. It’s the lesson for a child and for us.
Advent Calendarby Rowan WilliamsHe will come like last leaf’s fall.One night when the November windhas flayed the trees to bone, and earthwakes choking on the mould,the soft shroud’s folding.He will come like the frost.One morning when the shrinking earthopens on mist, to find itselfarrested in the netof alien, sword-set beauty.He will come like dark.One evening when the bursting redDecember sun draws up the sheetand penny-masks its eye to yieldthe star-snowed fields of sky.He will come, will comewill come like crying in the night,like blood, like breaking,as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child
Source: The Poems of Rowan Williams, by Rowan Williams. Grand Rapids,MI: William B. Eerdsman Publishing Co., 2004. Found on the Education for Justice website.
