January 6, 2020

"It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks."
Luke 6:46
Dear Parents and Friends of St. Michael’s School,

Today marks the celebration of Epiphany, one of the oldest Christian feast days. Epiphany comes from the Greek verb meaning “to reveal.” On this day Christ is made manifest to the Magi who, guided by a star, came to pay homage and present gifts to Our Lord.

What gifts do we offer to the Christ Child? I stumbled on a tidbit on social media over the break that speaks to this topic. I don’t know where it originated, but I am sharing it here for your consideration:

Imagine you are holding a cup of coffee and someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm and makes you spill your coffee everywhere. You could say that you spilled coffee because someone bumped into you. But the truth is, you spilled coffee because there was coffee in your cup. If there had been water in your cup, you would
have spilled water. Whatever is inside the cup, is what will spill out.

Every New Year it is customary to set goals or improve our habits. This year is perhaps a bit more profound, because we not only reflect on the past calendar year but also on the past decade. Would you describe your experience of the past ten years as a cup full of adventure, excitement, and thrills , or perhaps overflowing with prosperity, blessings, and happiness ? Maybe, instead, you see the decade as having been fraught with stress, anxiety, and sadness ? How we distill our experiences is what ends up filling our cup and what spills out of our cup for others. What we cultivate, what we think about and focus on, become what we practice, and is what will spill out of our cup, in good times and in bad. So, in January 2021 or January 2030, when I look back on the coming year or the decade that lies ahead, I want to make sure the gifts I give will be pleasing to me, to my family, and more importantly to God. However our past year or decade played out, we all have the opportunity to redirect our attitudes in response to the future week, month, year, and decade.

Finally, as we close this Christmas Season, I share with you one of my favorite carols, In the Bleak Midwinter , written by Christina Rossetti, and first published in January 1872. It was later set to music by Gustav Holst in 1906, and is sung here by the Choir of Kings College, Cambridge. The lyrics are included below.
In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
 
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
 
Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.
 
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
 
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

#speaklife #kindnessmatters
In Mission,