06—January

-
Today’s entry in The Celtic Book of Days, is titled, “Wise Kings on a Long Journey.” And, as one might anticipate, since today’s the Feast of the Epiphany, the entry’s about the Magi and their gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh.

The first gift, the gift of gold, represents wealth. But Simpson notes that the person bringing this gift realized that wealth couldn’t buy the most important things in life “love, truth, eternity;” that it can’t “fill the heart.” And so, humbly, it’s given to the Holy Family.

The second gift, the gift of incense, represents the rituals of religion and scholarship. And while these thing can be good, too, they can often leave one empty and unfulfilled. They can represent cold repetition and logic, and lose their sense of mystery. When this gift was given, the person recognized all ritual should lead to a sense of “wonder at the smallest things, and all life becomes a sign of God’s Presence.”

The final gift, the gift of myrrh, Simpson explains, was used in burial rites. This person realized that all of life is fleeting and intuitively knew of the “early death that was to mark Jesus’ life.” This gift shows us that we can approach our mortality with acceptance and dignity.

What I love about these thoughts is that they’re of “heaven” and “earth.” They don’t separate the into the sacred and the profane but we can see that, even in the birth of a child, the sacred and the secular are intertwined, that there really isn’t a separation of the two. In the story of the Magi we see that all life is sacred, even the most human parts.

Finally, Simpson ends with this prayer:

High King of the universe,
we offer you our possessions, make them all your own.
We offer you our mindsets and we place them at your feet.
May we be filled with your Presence as incense fills a holy place.
We offer you the shadows of our lives, the things that are crushed;
our little deaths and our final death.
May these be like the straw in the stable.
May something beautiful for you be born in all this straw.

I really like the line, “May we be filled with your Presence as incense fills a holy place.” This is my prayer on this Feast day of the Epiphany.



~~~
In the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linux Mint 5

-
Image
It's been a while since I did a technological (read: geek) blog, so I thought I would update you on what's going on. As you are aware, I am a full-fledged geek by trade and passion and I have gone from Windows to Mac to Linux.  My Linux evolution went from Linspire to Mepis to PCLinuxOS to Ubuntu .  I stayed with PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu for the longest.  However, I have always read good things about another distribution called Linux Mint .  It's based on the latest Ubuntu release but with a lot of add-ons.  The latest version is called Linux Mint 5, Elyssa.  So, at the office, I downloaded the latest iso and tried it out to see how it all worked. First of all, there are always some things I keep in mind when trying any new Linux distro, the primary thing being, 'How would the average user feel about using this OS?'  'Is it (very) simple to install?  Is it easy to use?  Is it easy to get help?  Is it easy to add or remove applications?  Is the terminal (command
Read more

Series: New Testament Eschatology

-
Image
From time to time, I hear a lot about the early church’s understanding of the “end of the world” or their belief that the “Second Coming of Jesus” would take place within their generation. And it’s usually not in a very good light. “They were obviously mistaken,” is often the remark I hear most. I know it’s hard to imagine but what if we’re mistaken? What if we’ve misunderstood what they meant? I’m hoping that this series on some of the major statements from the New Testament about the “end of the world” will show that they weren’t mistaken in their understanding of the “signs of the times.” Before we begin, however, let’s look at some terms that will have to be used. As most of you know, I try to refrain from using big “church” words. My reason for this is because those words are like suitcases where ideas and thoughts and understandings are packed into them. To explain the words would mean a long time spent unpacking the suitcases and explaining their contents. While such a pil
Read more

'Sick to my guts...'

-
I usually don't make posts like this because I'm way outta my element. But I am sick of all of the hype I see in the media. The whole one sided take on journalism. Each program has an agenda. As my wife says, 'You find what you're looking for'. It would absolutely kill a mainstream media person like Olbermann to say President Bush has done something good and right. Likewise it would kill a 'talk radio' media person like Limbaugh to say that Senator Clinton or Senator Obama did something good and right. We are a country shown the extremes. Most of the mainstream media are such Bush haters, that's right I stated 'haters', that they would actually explode if they had to report on the good that he has done. Likewise 'Fox' news and talk radio hosts are such Democrat haters that they, too, would explode if they had to report on any good that they have done. 'Fair and balanced' my butt! Everyone, everyone has their agenda. I
Read more