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Merry Christmas!
Loose Canon was thinking of leaving the tree lights nestled in their box this year, but then I read the pope's latest audience:
There are so many beautiful readings about light. One of my favorite is the reading from Isaiah that many Christians will hear Christmas Eve night:
"A people who walked in darkness have seen A great light; upon those who dwelt
in The land of gloom A light has shone."
In my youth and childhood, I heard inevitably this read in a heavy southern accent, which seemed incongruous but reminded me of how far the gospel had been carried, over land and sea, from the ancient world to a tiny church in Mississippi, the very edge of the civilized world (some may say beyond!) with rosy-cheeked acolytes in festal red and candles flickering on the altar.
Many today, of course, do not think Christ brought light into the world and would like to snuff out what they regard as a backwards faith. But here's a nice piece from an atheist in England who would not like to see it put out:
"The modern Left exercises a militant anti-Christianity not so much because of a cultural cringe in the face of immigrant minorities, but because of its general wish to dismantle history. Once you have erased Christianity, you have erased (or at least made appear irrelevant) much of the past 1,400 years. 'Modernisation' in all its political forms is about the tabula rasa, and there are few ways of creating one of those so effective as the destruction of the traditional faith."
The Christmas tree is a sign of the 'brilliant light' of Jesus, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this Saturday when receiving in audience a delegation of Austrian pilgrims, including civil and Church representatives, who had donated the Christmas tree which now adorns St. Peter's Square. The 30-meter (100-foot) fir is from the forests of Eferding.
"At Christmas the joyful announcement of the birth of the Redeemer resounds in all parts of the globe: The hoped-for Messiah was made man and dwelt among us," the Holy Father told his guests in the Hall of Blessings in the Apostolic Palace.
"With his luminous presence," Benedict XVI continued, "Jesus has dissipated the shadows of error and sin and has brought to humanity the joy of divine blind love, of which the Christmas tree is a sign and a reminder."
The Pope recognized that, in this sense, the Christmas tree is an invitation to receive in one's heart the gift of the joy, peace and love of Jesus.
"To believe in Christ means to let yourself be encompassed by the light of his truth that gives full meaning, value and sense to our existence, given that precisely to reveal to us the mystery of his Father and of his love, he also reveals man fully to himself and shows to him his lofty vocation," the Pontiff concluded.
There are so many beautiful readings about light. One of my favorite is the reading from Isaiah that many Christians will hear Christmas Eve night:
"A people who walked in darkness have seen A great light; upon those who dwelt
in The land of gloom A light has shone."
In my youth and childhood, I heard inevitably this read in a heavy southern accent, which seemed incongruous but reminded me of how far the gospel had been carried, over land and sea, from the ancient world to a tiny church in Mississippi, the very edge of the civilized world (some may say beyond!) with rosy-cheeked acolytes in festal red and candles flickering on the altar.
Many today, of course, do not think Christ brought light into the world and would like to snuff out what they regard as a backwards faith. But here's a nice piece from an atheist in England who would not like to see it put out:
"The modern Left exercises a militant anti-Christianity not so much because of a cultural cringe in the face of immigrant minorities, but because of its general wish to dismantle history. Once you have erased Christianity, you have erased (or at least made appear irrelevant) much of the past 1,400 years. 'Modernisation' in all its political forms is about the tabula rasa, and there are few ways of creating one of those so effective as the destruction of the traditional faith."
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