Inspired by these teachings, spiritual director Jenn Giles Kemper created Sacred Ordinary Days, with resources like a liturgical planner and a podcast to guide people through the liturgical year, which begins a bit before the calendar year with the start of Advent. This practice of prayer, reading, and contemplation isn’t the same as a Christianized, or monasticized, version of New Year’s resolutions.

“Goals and intentions are task-based and work best within a quantifiable measure of success and an easily marked ending point,” Giles Kemper explained to me. “Something more process-oriented is helpful when you’d like to reorient toward ”˜being’ over ”˜achieving.’”

Giles Kemper uses the language of “play” as she talks about trying certain spiritual practices (“playing with silence”), which makes it seem more inviting””and less like there is a right and a wrong way to approach spiritual disciplines. She finds flexibility in her experience with the Rule of Life, a grace and freedom to shift, grow, and practice, in a constant posture of a learner.

Read it all.

Looking back at 60 years removed, we can say several things about the poem [from Matthew Arnold]. Yes, mainstream churches have indeed suffered a collapse in loyalties in Europe, and especially in Britain itself. Bodies like the Church of England are struggling to find solutions for thousands of unneeded buildings. Having said that, there are any number of new and rising churches across the continent ”” many immigrant, others native. Not, of course, that Larkin was trying to write any kind of social science, but that does provide a needed perspective.

I think, though, that the point in the last stanza demands our attention. Even when people abandon churches and religious institutions, those basic needs and hungers remain, and surprisingly often, they try to satisfy them in explicitly religious ways. That is why it is not ridiculous still to count as Christian the millions of Europeans who label themselves in that way, but whose actual participation in religious activities is close to nil. They still seek and need the “serious,” and where else to find it but in places linked to the dead, and to bygone traditions?

When assessing the appeal of religion, in any era, never ever forget that need for connection to the “serious” past.

Read it all.

O Heavenly Father, as we celebrate again the nativity of thy Son our Saviour, we pray that, like the angels, we may sing his joyful praise; like the shepherds, we may go even to Bethlehem and see the Child lying in a manger; and like the wise men, we may offer to him our worship, and give him the love and loyalty of our hearts; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frank Colquhoun (1909-1997)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

–Ephesians 6:10-12

And lastly, He is given us in premium; not now to be seen, only in hope, but hereafter by His blessed fruition to be our final reward when where He is we shall be,O and what He is we shall be; in the same place, and in the same state of glory, joy, and bliss, to endure for evermore.

At His first coming, you see what He had on His shoulders.At His second coming He shall not come empty, Ecce venio, Lo, I come, and My reward with Me; that is a kingdom on His shoulders. And it is no light matter; but, as St. Paul calleth it, an everlasting weight of glory. Glory, not like ours here feather-glory, but true; that hath weight and substance in it, and that not transitory and soon gone, but everlasting, to continue to all eternity, never to have an end. This is our state in expectancy. St. Augustine put all four together, so will I, and conclude; Sequamur 1. exemplum; offeramus 2. pretium; sumamus 3. viaticum; expectemus 4. premium; Let us follow Him for our pattern, offer Him for our price, receive Him for our sacramental food, and wait for Him as our endless and exceeding great reward.

–From a Christmas sermon in 1606.

Christina Rossetti’s words pierce my heart at Christmas, year after year:

“Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas, Star and angels gave the sign.”
It is worth pausing and pondering the answer to the question: how deep and how broad was that love?

To move with me toward an answer, journey to a small chapel in Cartmell Fell, a little known holy place in the North of England. If you know where to look when you arrive there ”“ the stone is half hidden in the chancel ”” you can find a 1771 inscription with elegant lettering:

“Underneath this stone a mouldering Virgin lies,
Who was the pleasure once of Human Eyes.
Her Blaze of Charms Virtue once approved
The Gay admired her, much the parents loved.
Transitory life! Death untimely came.
Adieu, farewell, lonely leave my name.”

The words describe Betty Poole; she was a little girl who died at age three.

Christina Rossetti also wrote:

“In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone”¦”

It is only when the bleakness of this world and its iron hardness is fully felt, that the miracle of melting which began at Christmas can penetrate and shock us into appropriate awe. God’s love enveloped the whole moaning, stony, sin-sick world. It is broad enough to embrace it all, in this world and the next.

I imagine being with Betty Poole in Heaven and hearing her say with a smile, “God’s love was bigger than I thought!”

–The Rev. Dr. Kendall S. Harmon

….one could learn a great deal from the question, “What do you hope to get for Christmas?” For if you know our hopes, you fairly well know us. If you want to know who a person really is, and plans to be, inquire into what that person is hoping for.

What are you hoping for?

I expect that is what most of us think religion is about, the fulfillment of our hopes. We hope to find peace in our anxious lives. So we come to church on Sunday morning hoping that the music of the hymns, the words of scripture and preaching may fill us with a sense of peace.

We hope for thoughtful, reflective lives. So we come to church on Sunday morning hoping for an interesting sermon, something that will help us to use our minds, something that will test our intellects, make us think about things in a way we haven’t thought before…..

The trouble is that the Gospels seem to engage in a continual debate with people’s hopes and expectations. Jesus came, light into our darkness. But the problem with Jesus was he was not the sort of light that we expected. That is where the trouble started. Jesus was the hope of the world. But he was not the hope for which the world was hoping!

Read it all.

From here:

Whatever the coming of the kingdom means, it cannot mean that the healing, reconciling, non-combative Christ we know was an imposter, just biding his time until he could beat down his enemies under his feet. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence. If we seek the kingdom by violence, then the violent will bear it away.

I don’t know why we would be disappointed to discover that Christ comes again as he came the first time””working through small things, not big things, among little people, not powerful people, with local effect, not cosmic effect””except that we find great armies on thundering horses a more adequate display of power. I don’t know why we would be disappointed to discover that the kingdom of heaven operates under the sign of the cross just as the Coming One did, except that we have always been disappointed by God’s reluctance to give us the kind of world, the kind of life, the kind of savior we want.

“And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me,” he said, knowing better than anyone the disappointing, redemptive ways in which God works–sending a human child into the world instead of a mighty king, sending servants instead of troops–sending people like you and me instead of real disciples to do the work of the Coming One until he comes, for in just this way the kingdom of heaven draws very, very near.

Just oh so uplifting–KSH.

You see, the researcher that they’re filming, a guy named Harry Harlow [in 1960], was trying to prove– and I know this is going to sound crazy. He was trying to prove that love is an important thing that happens between parents and children.

And the reason why he felt the need to prove this point was at the time– and again, I know this is going to sound kind of out there. The psychological establishment, pediatricians, even the federal government were all saying exactly the opposite of that to parents.

Deborah Blum: It’s actually one of those things that you say, how could they have thought that? But psychology just didn’t believe in love. And if you go back and you pull any of the psychology textbooks, really almost pre-1950, you don’t even find it in the index because it was not a word that was used.

Read it all or better listen to it all (emphasis mine).

…there are three ways we can make Christmas Eve if not perfect then at least good. These come down to us from the pages of the Bible.

First, a good Christmas Eve is when God’s Savior is received. Hear the words of the Angelic messenger: “Do not be afraid.” Though sin, guilt and shame lurk in the closets and storage rooms of our lives, though insecurities and imperfections are at every turn, and debts and failures abound””“”¦unto you is born a Savior”¦.” The One born in Bethlehem, who lived a perfect life in obedience to his Father dying a shameful death bearing the sins of the world, and rose from the tomb in the power of the Spirit, is alive today. He speaks a word to each of us: “Behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice I will come into him and sup with him and he with me.” When we open to him, accepting his forgiveness, his perfection is draped over us and our true dignity is restored. In the words of a famous carol, “When charity stands watching/and faith holds wide the door/the dark night wakes, the glory breaks/and Christmas comes once more.”….

Read it all.

A Berliner and longtime member of St. Mary’s church choir, Christian Beier attempts to explain the mystique and tradition behind this piece of music….

“It makes Christmas Christmas,” he adds with a chuckle.

But as gorgeous as the music is for Beier, the core of this yearly event is something deeper.

“It is getting into some dialogue with God. It is being moved by whatever is around us,” he says.

Read or listen to it all (audio for this highly encouraged).

There is only one God, brethren, and we learn about him only from sacred Scripture. It is therefore our duty to become acquainted with what Scripture proclaims and to investigate its teachings thoroughly. We should believe them in the sense that the Father wills, thinking of the Son in the way the Father wills, and accepting the teaching he wills to give us with regard to the Holy Spirit. Sacred Scripture is God’s gift to us and it should be understood in the way that he intends: we should not do violence to it by interpreting it according to our own preconceived ideas.

God was all alone and nothing existed but himself when he determined to create the world. He thought of it, willed it, spoke the word and so made it. It came into being instantaneously, exactly as he had willed. It is enough then for us to be aware of a single fact: nothing is coeternal with God. Apart from God there was simply nothing else. Yet although he was alone, he was manifold because he lacked neither reason, wisdom, power, nor counsel. All things were in him and he himself was all. At a moment of his own choosing and in a manner determined by himself, God manifested his Word, and through him he made the whole universe.
When the Word was hidden within God himself he was invisible to the created world, but God made him visible. First God gave utterance to his voice, engendering light from light, and then he sent his own mind into the world as its Lord. Visible before to God alone and not to the world, God made him visible so that the world could be saved by seeing him. This mind that entered our world was made known as the Son of God. All things came into being through him; but he alone is begotten by the Father.

The Son gave us the law and the prophets, and he filled the prophets with the Holy Spirit to compel them to speak out. Inspired by the Father’s power, they were to proclaim the Father’s purpose and his will.

So the Word was made manifest, as Saint John declares when, summing up all the sayings of the prophets, he announces that this is the Word through whom the whole universe was made. He says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through him all things came into being; not one thing was created without him. And further on he adds: The world was made through him, and yet the world did not know him. He entered his own creation, and his own did not receive him.

–from St. Hippolytus’ treatise against the heresy of Noetus

Large claims have been made for a small baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger: according to Saint John he is the “Word of God made flesh”, who “dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten [Son] of the Father, full of grace and truth”. The Jews were familiar with ”˜the Word of God’ – the Word that was spoken in the beginning, by which the world was made; the Word spoken to the fathers by the prophets, and the Word that was written in the Scriptures. But when John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, he is not only saying that Jesus spoke the Word of God, like any prophet, but that he himself was the Word of God. Anyone can bring a message: but to be the message? That’s harder!

Read it all.

One Sunday, having waded through a call for volunteers, I said, “You know, I should probably say this every Sunday, but if you’ve come here this morning feeling brokenhearted or anxious about something, don’t leave without talking to one of the pastors about it. That’s why we have coffee hour””to get to know each other well enough so that when things fall apart we can share what we’re going through. Talking to you is what we’re here for.”

So I had no one to blame but myself when the first person out the door skipped the pleasantries and came straight out with it. “I get the God part,” he said; “I just can’t get the Jesus part.” That was it. No worries about a husband showing signs of dementia, a brother’s divorce, or a whistle-blowing scenario at work. He was saying that the biggest issue in his life””something he was desperate to talk to someone about””was . . . God. So I said the first thing that came into my head. “I think Jesus is God saying, ”˜I’m not far away and long ago and theoretical; I’m here and now and in your face.’ Do you want a God who’s a nice idea, or a God who’s about everything now and forever?” He said, “The everything God.” I said, “Well then I think you do get the Jesus part.” Then he left. Maybe I’ll never know if he wanted my answer or would have preferred a listening ear.

More worshipers came through the line. Then the last person out the door, who’d clearly made sure he was the last person, said (and I’m not making this up), “I get the Jesus part. I just can’t get the God part.” I was even more dumbfounded than the first time. To meet one person in the heart searchings of faith might be a wonder; to get two made me think that they had a bet and were pulling my leg. But this man was genuine. He had hung back for a real sit-down conversation.

Read it all.

The Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, yesterday, consecrated three bishops with a call on them to be good shepherds over their flocks.

Consecrating the bishops at the Cathedral of All Saints, Ughelli, Delta State, Primate of the Anglican Communion, Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, charged them not be wolves but rather good disciples of Jesus Christ and good disciplinarians.

Those consecretated bishops are Foreman Nedison (Bishop of Jalingo); Bishop Olubunmi Akinlade (Bishop of Ife) and Bishop Andrew Olu Igenoza (Rector, Crowther Graduate Theological Seminary, Abeokuta).

Read it all.

Most merciful God, for whose chosen handmaid and her Holy Babe there was no room in the inn at Bethlehem: Help us all by thy Spirit to make room for the Christ in our common days, that his peace and joy may fill our hearts, and his love flow through our lives to the blessing of others; for his name’s sake.

–Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

Will you not give us life again, that your people may rejoice in you?

–Psalm 85:6

SOCOLOVSKY: Well, I think conservative churches want to draw lines. They want to say, “This is what we think about marriage. We are not anti-gay, we just think that marriage should be between a man and a woman,” and the challenge for them is going to be to voice that and express that in what appears to wider society to be a very humane way.

LAWTON: And without changing their positions in some cases. So, you know, there’s talk about being kinder and gentler on the issue, but the reality is many of them aren’t changing their position. I’m going to be watching especially this year the United Methodist Church, a mainline denomination, will be having its general meeting, and this is a denomination that has really struggled on this issue because it’s a very diverse denomination. There are people from Africa as well, church members in other parts of the world that are more conservative on this issue. And that church has been trying to figure out what do we do? There are ministers within the denomination that want to perform same-sex weddings, and there are many that are very opposed to it, so how does that denomination try to straddle both of those points of views?

DIONNE: They are the ultimate big church, or they are one of the ultimate big churches. When you think historically, they have gone politically from right to left. And just think in recent years, Hillary Clinton is a Methodist, and George W. Bush was a Methodist by marriage. He used to go to a Methodist church. They both speak for real traditions inside that church, and theoretically they’re all part of the same church.

DE SAM LAZARO: But the growing congregations are the most conservative, are they not, globally speaking?

JEROME SOCOLOVSKY: That’s correct. In Africa, in Latin America, in Asia. And there is also immigration to this country from those countries who are helping the ranks of, let’s say, Pentecostals or conservative evangelicals. In America we sometimes forget that we are a minority on this view worldwide, and some of these churches like the United Methodists have congregations overseas, too.

DIONNE: It’s a real challenge to be more liberal traditions, or to more liberal people inside big churches, Methodist, Catholics, and others””

LAWTON: Episcopalian, Anglican.

Read it all.

Watch and listen to it all.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

–Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

Christian joy thus springs from this certainty: God is close, he is with me, he is with us, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as a friend and faithful spouse. And this joy endures, even in trials, in suffering itself. It does not remain only on the surface; it dwells in the depths of the person who entrusts himself to God and trusts in him.

Some people ask: but is this joy still possible today? Men and women of every age and social condition, happy to dedicate their existence to others, give us the answer with their lives! Was not Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta an unforgettable witness of true Gospel joy in our time? She lived in touch daily with wretchedness, human degradation and death. Her soul knew the trials of the dark night of faith, yet she gave everyone God’s smile.

In one of her writings, we read: “We wait impatiently for paradise, where God is, but it is in our power to be in paradise even here on earth and from this moment. Being happy with God means loving like him, helping like him, giving like him, serving like him” (The Joy of Giving to Others, 1987, p. 143). Yes, joy enters the hearts of those who put themselves at the service of the lowly and poor. God abides in those who love like this and their souls rejoice. If, instead, people make an idol of happiness, they lose their way and it is truly hard for them to find the joy of which Jesus speaks.

—Pope Benedict XVI (my emphasis).

The plain meaning therefore is, that the Speech begotten by God before all ages, and who always dwelt with the Father, was made man. On this article there are two things chiefly to be observed. The first is, that two natures were so united in one Person in Christ, that one and the same Christ is true God and true man. The second is, that the unity of person does not hinder the two natures from remaining distinct, so that his Divinity retains all that is peculiar to itself, and his humanity holds separately whatever belongs to it. And, therefore, as Satan has made a variety of foolish attempts to overturn sound doctrine by heretics, he has always brought forward one or another of these two errors; either that he was the Son of God and the Son of man in so confused a manner, that neither his Divinity remained entire, nor did he wear the true nature of man; or that he was clothed with flesh, so as to be as it were double, and to have two separate persons.

–John Calvin (1509-1564)

But the object of divine action in the Incarnation is man. God’s free decision is and remains a gracious decision; God becomes man, the Word becomes flesh. The Incarnation means no apparent reserved, but a real and complete descent of God. God actually became what we are, in order actually to exist with us, actually to exist for us, in thus becoming and being human, not to do what we do-sin; and to do what we fail to do”“God’s, His own, will; and so actually, in our place, in our situation and position to be the new man. It is not in His eternal majesty”“in which He is and remains hidden from us”“but as this new man and therefore the Word in the flesh, that God’s Son is God’s revelation to us and our reconciliation with God. Just for that reason faith cannot look past His humanity, the cradle of Bethlelhem and the cross of Golgotha in order to see Him in His divinity, Faith in the eternal Word of the Father is faith in Jesus of Nazareth or it is not the Christian faith.

–Karl Barth (1886-1968)

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves…..

Read it all.

A grandmother shot by a stranger while going out for lunch. A mother of three whose car was riddled with bullets fired by people who mistook her for someone else. Nine targeted by a gunman during a Bible study because of their race.

A steady wave of violence touched victims from many walks of life in the greater Charleston area, making 2015 one of the deadliest years in modern history.

In Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties, 77 people were slain, surpassing the 2014 total by 10 killings and matching the area’s 15-year high set in 2006, according to The Post and Courier’s homicide database. Dorchester County, typically the most peaceful, saw more than twice the slayings it recorded in 2014. There, a special law enforcement team formed because of the violence will soon hit the streets in hopes of suppressing crime.

Read it all from the local paper.

O Saviour of the world, who as in this season wast called Jesus, according to the word of the angel: Fulfill unto us, we beseech thee, the gracious promise of that holy name, and, of thy great mercy, save thy people from their sins; who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest one God world without end.

Eternal God, who makest all things new, and abidest for ever the same: Grant us to begin this year in thy faith, and to continue it in thy favour; that, being guided in all our doings, and guarded all our days, we may spend our lives in thy service, and finally, by thy grace, attain the glory of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.

–Psalm 66: 8-9

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

–Robert Southwell (1561–1595)