Solstice

This year, the darkest date of the year will be even darker than usual, thanks to the occurrence of a lunar eclipse, beginning around 12:30 a.m. tomorrow. Lunar eclipses happen with some frequency, but tomorrow's will apparently be the first recorded lunar eclipse to coincide with the winter solstice since 1638. (There will be a shorter wait for the next one on December 21, 2094 – but I am not expecting to be around for it!).

The lunar eclipse certainly adds something to the experience of the longest night of the year. Unlike Easter, however, which is directly dependent on the cycle of the moon as it intersects with the solar cycle of the seasons, Christmas itself is connected solely with the solar cycle and specifically with the winter solstice. The 4th century assignment of the Roman Church’s celebration of Christ’s birth to December 25 is widely believed to have been a successful adaptation of a pre-Christian Roman winter solstice festival. This was not the famous Saturnalia – a week-long Roman festival of revelry and merriment that began on December 17 and has contributed much to our treasury of Christmas traditions – including gift-giving and evergreen decorations. It was, however, a more explicitly winter solstice festival on December 25, “the Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun” (Dies natalis solis invicti), itself introduced into the Roman imperial calendar relatively late (in A.D. 273), that likely became the basis for the Roman date of Christmas. (In the Julian calendar in force until the 16th century’s adoption of the Gregorian calendar, December 25 was reckoned as the date of the winter solstice). The winter solstice is, by definition, the darkest day of the year – the shortest day and the longest night. Very quickly after the solstice, however, one begins to notice how the days start gradually getting longer. Hence, the two key elements of the festival’s title – the birthday of the unconquered Sun.

With the 4th century triumph of Christianity over Roman paganism, it was a simple step to replace the celestial sun with Christ the Lord. But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays [Malachi 3:20].

The brilliant illumination of our homes, streets, and city skylines during this darkest time of the year apparently taps into something deeply rooted in human experience throughout the northern hemisphere. The fear and anxiety associated almost universally with long, dark nights are fought off by our holiday lighting - symbolic of the more substantive victory of Christ, the light of the world [John 8:12] whose birth we celebrate in lieu of celebrating the winter solstice.

As I said in my homily yesterday, there is a good reason why we don’t celebrate Christmas in June, when the sun is high and the days are bright and long - why we celebrate Christmas in December, when the days are dark and short. For we celebrate Christmas in a chaotic and perplexing, often threatening and frightening world, where the bright light of God’s own life among us seems hidden in darkness (like Joseph’s dream). Jesus Christ, the sun of justice and the light of the world, is, however, God’s dream for the salvation of the world, the divine dream that brightens even the densest darkness. That is why Christmas remains so necessary, as well as wonderful.

God With Us

This story of St. Joseph [Matthew 1:18-24] always makes me think of my grandmother, who was born in Sicily in the late 1870s and died in New York City in 1967. She gave birth to a total of 9 children, of whom 6 survived to adulthood. But there were 3 boys, each of whom had Giuseppe (Joseph) as one of his names, and each of whom died within 1 year of his birth. Having lost 3 sons in succession, my grandmother took out some of her anger on St. Joseph. “Mai piú chiameró un figlio doppo San Giuseppe,” she’s supposed to have said. (“Never again will I name a child after Saint Joseph!”) In fact, she decided not to name her next child at all. Whatever day he or she happened to be born, that day would decide the name. And so it happened, that her next child was born - on March 19 (the feast of Saint Joseph) – my Aunt Josephine. After that, my grandmother remained faithfully devoted to saint Joseph, and not a day went by without her lighting a candle in church in front of his statue. That I stand before you here today as a priest, I have little doubt, is one of the many blessings bestowed on me, thanks to those decades of countless candles illuminated by my nonna’s fervent prayers to San Giuseppe.

We know next to nothing about Saint Joseph. We know he was descended from King David. There were, of course, plenty of other people around also descended from David. Royal ancestry did not somehow single Joseph out in his society as someone special. But it was still extremely important, because being legally Joseph’s son made Jesus David’s descendant too, thus fulfilling the requirement that the Messiah must come from the royal family of David. But, as today’s gospel so poignantly makes clear, Jesus was biologically Mary’s son, not Joseph’s. Joseph may have had the greatest of ancestors, but his son was not his own.

So where exactly does that leave Joseph? He never says so much as a single word in any of the gospels. What he does is dream. True, the gospel says it was the angel of the Lord who appeared to him in a dream. But it was still a dream. The contrast with the familiar story of the angel’s appearance to Mary is striking, isn’t it? Mary even got to talk back and ask a question! Joseph just had a dream. But, when he awoke, he did as his dream directed.

Now prior to all this, Joseph had presumably been leading a relatively normal-seeming life, with normal expectations. The gospel calls him a righteous man, which means he faithfully lived according to the Old Testament Law of Moses. Presumably, he expected to live by the Law and be enlivened by it in return. Then, all of a sudden, what was expected was taken away, and all his hopes for the future seemed to fall apart. Being a righteous man meant no marriage now (at least not to Mary). His most precious relationship had been ruptured in the most unexpected way. What a jolt that must have been! But Joseph still loved Mary, and struggled with what he should do. And God was with that love, hidden in Joseph’s dreams.

Even so, how confused and perplexed must he have been by what had happened! How confused and perplexed must he have been as he struggled in the dark, trying to decide what to do, wondering what had happened to all of his plans and hopes! Joseph here stands for everyone who’s ever been confused or perplexed, living from day to day wondering what will happen next, doing the best one can in situations which are bigger and stranger than we can ever understand.

Of course, God was already present in Joseph’s situation. We might even say that God was literally “starting to show” in Mary. But God’s growing presence in Mary’s womb was not what anyone was expecting and was not necessarily so welcome. Joseph’s dream was just as unexpected – and confusing. It didn’t conform to the Law. It didn’t even conform to common sense. Just imagine Joseph waking up and explaining how he’d decided to marry Mary anyway – all because he’d had a dream! Joseph’s dream defied common sense, but it did repair his relationship with Mary – and so set the stage for the salvation of the world and the repairing of all its ruptured relationships.

We don’t celebrate Christmas in June when the sun is high and the days are bright and long. We celebrate Christmas when the days are dark and short. And we celebrate it in a chaotic and perplexing, often threatening and frightening world, where the bright light of God’s own life among us seems literally little more than a dream. The marriage of Mary and Joseph was a marriage built on a dream – but a dream which brought to birth Jesus Christ, God’s dream for the salvation of the world, the divine dream that brightens even the densest darkness.

This Christmas, let us join Joseph in his dream. And, when we awake on Christmas morning, let us also do as the angel of the Lord directs.

Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, December 19, 2010.

Emmanuel

In his 1st book, Questions of the Soul, written in 1855, Isaac Hecker, the future founder of the Paulist Fathers, wrote: "If Christ is to be for us a savior, we must find him here, now, and where we are, in this age of ours also; otherwise he is no Christ, no Savior, no Immanuel, no ‘God with us’.”

I began my Saturday morning homily with those familiar words of Hecker's - fittingly enough since today's Gospel (which is also tomorrow's) includes Matthew's reference to Isaiah 7:14: "the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," a word which Matthew then translates as "God is with us." Hecker's words were especially appropriate this morning because, of course, today is the 191st anniversary of Hecker's birth on December 18, 1819.

Hecker's spiritual search as a young seeker was all about finding the God who is with us. Having found him in the Roman Cahtolic Church, Hecker devoted the rest of his active life to helping others like himself to find Emmanuel also. While still a Redemptorist misisonary, Hecker wrote two apologetical books, Questions of the Soul (1855) and Aspirations of Nature (1857). His purpose in writing them "was to explain the Catholic religion in such a manner as to reach and attract the minds of the non-Catholics of the American people."

In furtherance of that goal, Hecker eventually founded the Paulist Fathers in 1858. The evangleizing mission of the Paulist community was immediately incarnated in their first parish - St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. Shortly after the first church on the site was opened, the parish began its first Paulist mission - from December 18 to 25, 1859 - attende by 725 adults and 75 children. I think that today we would be thrilled to get anywhere near that many people to come to anything. For those first Paulists, acting out of an abundance of zeal, that probably seemed like just a good start!

Isaac Hecker died at the Paulist parish in New York on December 22, 1888. In the eulogy at his funeral, the Jesuit Provincial Superior described Hecker’s deathbed blessing of the Paulist community he had founded. “His feeble hands were raised, and like a soldier dying on the field of battle he reconsecrated his followers in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for the struggle in which they had chosen him as Leader.”

Hecker's whole life was all about finding the God who is with us and helping others to do the same. Ultimately, that's what Christmas is all about and what the Christian life is all about in this interval between Christmas and the end.

Words That Matter

This year marks the 45th anniversary of that much loved Christmas TV classic, Charlie Brown's Christmas. It's a well done, beautiful, inspiring program in virtually every respect. The dramatic centerpiece of the story occurs when Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas by reciting Luke 2:8-14. The text is taken, of course, from the "King James Version," the 400th anniversary of whose publication will be coming up in 2011.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

In 1965, that text was about as familiar as any in English literature. The "Authorized Version" (as the KJV is officially called) was just that - "authorized," an official translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) to use in the Established Church of England. While not the first English translation, its official status quickly catapulted it to become the most commonly used one among English-speaking Protestants. Four centuries - and many translations later - the KJV remains today the most widely read English translation of the Bible worldwide. What a tribute to the staying power of beautiful, uplifting English!

Some perhaps might be tempted to dismiss the KJV's as excessively archaic for a modern audience (despite the fact that it is still the most read English Bible translation in the world). In fact, the KJV was always archaic - deliberately so. As I understand it, the translators used not the contemporary Jacobean English but the Elizabethan English of a generation earlier - familiar enough to be completely comprehensible but just archaic enough to sound special. Not just good English, but mildly archaic-sounding English was apparently seen as the vehicle for conveying something so special, so elevated, so sacred as the word of God.

Growing up in a pre-ecumenical era, I was, of course, aware of the KJV from literature, movies, TV, and politicians' speeches, but I was much more familiar with the "Douay-Rheims" version of the Bible in English - the approved Catholic translation (which had actually undegone several translations and revisions since its initial late 16th century version). Based upon the Latin Vulgate, the Douay Bible differed noticeably from the KJV in certain spots famously, for example in its translation of the angelic hymn in Luke 2:14 - Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. Even so, it shared with the KJV a special way of sounding that, while understandable, was obviously different from daily, pedestrian English and so conveyed sacredness by the very sound of the words.

In the 45 years since Charlie Brown's Christmas first appeared, there have been many newer translations, some eminently scholarly, some primarily popular, which have tried to render the inspired text in accessibly contemporary English. I have no qualifications to assess the scholarly merits and linguistic accuracy of any of any of these various versions. As a consumer of scriptural and liturgical texts, however, I am quite aware of how a text sounds and whether it has the power to lift one beyond the contemporary and the pedestrian. Words really do matter.

Christmastime Thoughts on an Icy Day

Since my first visit to Knoxville last June, I have occasionally murmured how our house's 3 front steps really need a railing or bannister. Sure enough, this morning I slipped on the ice-covered steps. (I'm somewhat sore, but otherwise I suspect I'm OK). The result of the ice storm, however, has been the cancellation of just about everything - including, regrettably, our parish staff Christmas party, scheduled ages ago at a Knoxville landmark restaurant. Since that restaurant is soon to go out of business, that's one Knoxville landmark I may never get to see!

Naturally, I felt really bad about having to cancel our parish staff Christmas party, but there didn't seem to be much alternative. (Hopefully, we will soon find some other suitable occasion to be together without a work-related agenda). Meanwhile, I am spending the day here at home, doing very little. At least I've mailed most of my Christmas cards already!

I still enjoy sending Christmas cards. Christmas presents are another story. I used to like buying presents - especially when my nieces were little and I could get them fun toys or really nice children's books. But now they too are grown up - grown enough to have their own tastes and preferences. So increasingly in recent years, the few gifts I give are just money (or at best a gift certificate, which is essentially the same thing but at least has more of the appearance of more personal effort having gone into it. Yet, while that certainly makes sense (and is certainly more convenient) I really do sometimes miss the experience of actually wrapping and giving a real present. There is something about gift-giving that just seems so congruent with this season.

Of course, there still remain opportunities to give gifts to people who really need them. I think that is why "Giving Trees" have become so popular in recent years. In a world in which most of our charitable giving has been bureaucratized into cash donations (as with my personal gift giving probably the most efficient option really for both giver and recipient), "Giving Trees" provide an outlet for giving that is organized and efficient, but still preserves some sense of the personal.

In the religious version of the secular "War Against Christmas," it is fashionable sometimes to denounce the "commercialism" and "materialism" underlying so much of our Christmas giving. Yet, as with much of our modern secular Christmas, there is something fundamentally good about our custom of gift-giving. "Giving Trees" and other such holiday practices help us anchor our annual shopping and buying spree somewhere closer to the heart of what this season is supposed to be all about. Surely one way to give thanks for God's Christmas gift of his Son to us his helplessly needy creatures is to give gifts ourselves not just to those who will respond with presents of equal or comparable value but especially to those who not only actually need the gifts they get but, being anonymous, will never even thank us, let alone reciprocate with more presents we really don't need.