Holding Joy for each other in Complicated Joy |
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Reflection from our
Co-Pastors, Tuesday Dec 14, 2021
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Fr. Michael Nicosia celebrated with us on Gaudete, or Rejoice, Sunday! It was a joyous celebration indeed!
And as we near the time of our Saviour’s birth, we enter this third week of Advent with joy in our hearts as well as being harbingers of joy to others.
Today’s reflection by Jan Richardson—artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church—guides us to a deeper and more contemplative place from where we might ponder joy in our mind, heart, soul and spirit.
May the relationships and connections we experience at Mary of Magdala and with our 301 Partnership continue to reflect the joy of God in our lives!
A COMPLICATED JOY
Every occasion of joy I can think of is linked to an experience of connection.
If I were to make a map of my joys, to trace a path of the points where it has entered my life, every X on that map would mark a location where some kind of relationship has been at work—where I have connected with another person or with a place, or where I have been visited with the understanding that I belonged to something larger than myself, and I knew in my bones that I was not alone.
Joy loves company. It depends on relationships, on connections, on becoming larger than itself. It is full of doors that have the power to open when we least expect and to draw us where we did not imagine to go.
Even as joy thrives on connection, it can sometimes seem fragile or fleeting when our sense of connection falters. We know the things that can chip away at what holds us together, how joy can become more difficult to find amid all the ways that pain manifests in the world and in our own lives.
Joy can get complicated. Our lives grow convoluted. So often, when joy comes to us, it is accompanied by other emotions that seem to be in conflict but somehow enter our lives all mixed together:
joy and sorrow and gratitude and grief and...
Yet when I think about joy being complicated, I am not thinking only about how it frequently has to make its way to us in the midst of other emotions. A complicated joy has to do with an older sense of what complicate means.
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Complicate has its roots in Latin words that mean to fold together, as when a recipe calls for an ingredient to be incorporated into the mix: an intentional introduction of a substance that is brought into concert with everything else in the bowl.
The word refers to more than simply combining things; it gets at how they become intertwined and entangled.
When it comes to joy being complicated, it’s not just that it is so much of a piece with sorrow and other emotions, so bound together that they cannot be separated again.
It’s that we are bound together, linked together, folded together so inextricably that we are forever altered. A complicated joy means that joy is born of those connections.
It means that our joy is not isolated from that of others. It means we hold joy for one another when it is hard to hold it for ourselves.
This kind of joy recognizes the realities of the world; it does not come from naiveté or from ignoring what makes this life hard.
We see this with wondrous clarity in the stories that accompany us in the seasons of Advent and Christmas.
When Elizabeth calls out in welcome to Mary, and the child she is carrying leaps with joy; when Mary raises her voice in the Magnificat; when Zechariah sings his canticle; when Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to the temple, and the prophets Anna and Simeon cry out in recognition and delight—in every case, these people are not unmindful of the state of the
world.
Each one gives the impression that the joy that courses through them, that radiates from them, is a habit and a practice; that it’s something to which they have routinely made themselves available, not by resisting the world but by entering more deeply into it, so that they can welcome the God who shows up in the midst of it.
The joy that animates the characters of Advent and Christmas is something distinctly other than a personal joy they have hoarded in their own private reserve.
This is the joy that infuses creation. They have developed a capacity to tap into it, to let it enter them, to tangle itself up with them.
They have allowed it to complicate things in the way that matters most. They know that joy is what becomes possible when we turn toward one another; that it is a blessing we make together.
Amen
When joy is difficult to find, are there people or places that help? If you were to make a map of your joys, what locations would you mark with an X? What do you notice as you remember those spaces of refuge?
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This Week's Advent Schedule
301 Faith Partners
In church and live on Zoom
Advent Compline – Wednesdays, Dec 15, 22 - at 8:00 pm. End your day with a 30-minute sung Compline service. Host, St. Paul's or join via this Zoom link. The passcode is 419433
Live Christmas Nativity – Dec 21, 22, 23 – from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Featuring Larimer Co. Chorale singing Christmas Favorites
Weekly Contemplative Time – In the Sanctuary only, Friday’s at 2:30-4:00 pm
No Zoom link, join us in the Sanctuary.
Christmas Services - In Church and on Zoom
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Dec 24 - 3:00 & 5:00 pm Christmas Eve- Trinity Lutheran
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Join live via this link
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Dec 24 - 7:30 pm Christmas Eve - St. Paul’s Episcopal
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Join live via this Zoom link. The passcode is 419433
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Dec 25 1o:00 am Christmas Day – Mary of Magdala, Ecumenical Catholic
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Join live via this link
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Dec 25 5:00 pm Christmas Day – Trinity Lutheran
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Join live via this link
For complete Calendar for Advent and Christmas visit our website here
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Send Your Christmas Photos |
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Nativity Set and Christmas Pictures Due December 15
Please send any Christmas decorations, Christmas selfies, and nativity set pictures to Tom Moos at tjmoos@aol.com
We would love to have photos from new members and from those who didn't share photos for last year's advent season.
Pictures should be saved as jpeg files and as large as possible. These photos will be used in our Christmas morning liturgy. Please send by end of day Dec 15th.
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Christmas Cookie Exchange |
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Cookie Exchange with the Hospitality Committee
Please join us after Mass on December 19th for some social gathering time together.
We’ll briefly meet to exchange some Christmas cheer, with masks….no eating, just sharing. Here are the details for the cookie exchange:
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Bring a covered plate of 6-12 Christmas cookies, or whatever holiday treat you bake. Write the name of the baked good on the covered plate and if it is GF, DF, V, etc.
- Plates should be plastic, paper or something you do not want returned. A good time to use the many Christmas tins you’ve acquired
- If you bring a plate, you take a plate home. Bring two and take two home.
- If you have extra cookies, bring an additional plate for those who do not bake: we ‘ll label a table “Merry Christmas” for your treat donations.
- If you don’t bake anymore, please stay to share time together and take home a plate from the “Merry Christmas” table.
Since we cannot have pizza or soup suppers, due to safety Covid restrictions, this will be a lovely alternative and allow us to gather after Mass.
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Volunteer and Giving Opportunities |
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Request for Volunteers
Mary of Magdala is in need of more Eucharistic Ministers and Lectors.
If you can be part of these valuable ministries please contact:
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Homelessness Service Opportunity
New member and CSU student, Gray La Fond, is seeking help to bring blankets, socks, jackets, cash, gift cards, wipes/toiletries, and Christmas cookies to the homeless until the 19th. If you would like to help him, please contact Gray at graylafond@gmail.com or (858) 281-3042.
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Praying for peace, health, and well-being through challenging times
+Yvonne Keefe - member
+Michael Juranek, recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, friend of David and Mary Lou Devlin
+Everly Parks - 4 year-old with cancer, friend to Lynne and Jim Barnes, members.
+Joyce - for her cancer treatments, friend to Suzanne King, member.
+Harry, 11 year canine companion to Gray La Fond.
+Allison and Madison- Granddaughters Cousin Nancy and Sister-in-law Judy - Dick and Sandra Life, members.
+Dan Scace, Tom Dykers and Monte
Bowthorpe - friends of Dick Life, member
+Charli - in thanksgiving for prayers answered, friend of Jean Christen
+ Mary Etta Fothergill - friend of member Cathy Engel
+Dorothea Grimm - Mother of Rosanna Bateman, member
+Mary Detweiller - member
+Jerry Padilla, father and Ryan Cordova nephew of Lisa Jones - member
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+Joanne Gallagher - member
+Rosemary - Fr Michael's mother
+Dani - niece of the Cloyds - members
+Mike Gudim
+Suzanne King - member
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A blessed and peaceful repose of souls for those who've passed and comfort for the friends and families.
+Joan and Bill Wertzberger - friends of member Cathy Engel
+Michael Beavan, brother of Anne Beavan, member
+For the niece of Steve and Cheryl Backsen (of Trinity Lutheran) and the entire Backsen family
+Fr. Denny Dempsey - and in gratitude for his spiritual presence in my life - Gaston Lopez
+Leo Six – Father of Michael Six, member
+Dr. Barbara Immroth - sister of member Joanne Gallagher
+Dolores Orsi - mother of member
Jared Orsi
+Herman Phillip - friend of Brad Rouse
+Adrian - Son of Joe & Ann - friends of
members Cindy and David Cloyd
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Sunday, Dec 12, 2021 - Recording, Second Sunday in Advent
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Past Recordings, Bulletins, and Announcements
For all bulletins, reflections, Sunday recordings during, visit our webpage. Please contact us with questions, concerns and ideas for better connection with and for the community - marymagdalafc@gmail.com. And feel free to call the office at 970 493-9536.
Newsletters of Trinity Lutheran Church and the St. Paul's Episcopal
What are our partners in ministry up to? Go here for the Trinity Lutheran Church monthly newsletter, "Tidings". And here is St Paul's weekly bulletin
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Who Are the 301 Faith Partners? |
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The 301 Faith Partners have a Vision, Mission and Values statement that guides our relationships, interactions, and shared projects and ministries.
Our Vision – ‘Our guiding Light’
Weaving a tapestry of love, hope and justice for the world.
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Read the Vision, Mission, Core Values and Covenant here.
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