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Greetings, SBT Readers!
Walking along the frozen creek at the Portiuncula Center for Prayer, Frankfort, IL, camera in hand, I was mesmerized by the reflections which created a surreal landscape. The mirror image beneath the distant bridge, for example, made it seem as though there were an oval opening for boats or water fowl. Elsewhere, reeds and trees preened themselves in patches of flowing water. Ice and water, the real and the illusory co-existed as with numb fingers I tried to capture the scene. There was something breathtakingly beautiful about the creek, but it was also fragmentary, deceptive, almost cruel. "What is real?" I asked myself, staring at thin-fingered branches which seemed to be reaching out to me -- or for me. "Where do I belong in this picture?"
When we enter silence, questions surface; when we move into solitude, memories flood our consciousness; when we trudge through the stillness of the forest, voices demand to be heard. Perhaps this is why we avoid forest wandering or gazing into icy creeks, especially on the cusp of a new year. As I suggest in my poem, "Between Years," it is easier to enter into revelry than to face what has been, what may be and what is unlikely to be, even if the "unlikely" represents our greatest desire.
As I write, 2022 is fading into the past; the new year is anxious to be born. Before welcoming 2023, let us gaze into the mirror and ask ourselves who it is we want to become in the new year
-- what illusions must we jettison and what realities must we accept? How can we let go of fear and walk boldly across the threshold, ready to embrace whatever 2023 sends our way?
Happy New Year!
Elizabeth
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
Link to the Sunday Readings
When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law,
to ransom those under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters.
As proof that you are sons and daughters,
God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying out, “Abba, Father!”
So you are no longer slaves but sons and daughters,
and if sons and daughters, then also heirs, through God.
Gal 4:4-7.
In many ways, Luke's shepherds were no better than slaves-- or, at least, while they were technically "free," they were most likely despised outcasts who along with tax collectors would have been at the bottom of the social ladder, excluded from social gatherings, barred from public worship and unable to testify in court. Some scholars suggest that public opinion about shepherds declined during the years the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt-- a time when Egyptians found all shepherds "abhorrent" (Gn 46:34). True, Abraham, Moses and David were shepherds but according to some sources, at the time of Christ's birth, shepherds had a reputation for being unclean, dishonest sinners. In The Jerome Biblical Commentary, the late Rev. Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P. suggests there was a "double tradition" surrounding shepherds: that they were "the innocent ones to whom Divinity reveals itself" and, conversely, that "they were so destitute as to be always on the point of stealing" (44:41.8).
Either way, shepherds were the "poor ones" to whom the message of Jesus' birth was entrusted. In receiving this message, the shepherds experienced God's loving acceptance, their own "adoption" as God's sons and daughters. Glory not only shone around them but within them. Angelic strains awakened in their hearts the certainty that they were God's chosen ones and off to Bethlehem they hastened, leaving behind their mundane lives to kneel before the King of Kings. Lowly though they were, they were the first to behold the Holy One lying in the manger -- and they were the first to proclaim the Good News, becoming prophets of the Most High, despite being illiterate.
The shepherds' transformation in Luke's infancy narratives invites us to become more than we think we are. Whether we suffer from self-loathing or from notions of grandiosity, we are still living as "slaves," chained by false self narratives. The personas we adopt, the masks we wear, the lies we tell are merely pathetic attempts to be socially acceptable or to impress others. The real story, however, liberates us from the need to fabricate: the Word was made flesh not only for us but also within us. Like the shepherds, we have seen his glory, "the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14).
Glory to God in the highest, and peace on Earth
to those of good will!
+ + +
Pray
that sanity will prevail
and that all those suffering
on account of the terrible conflict in Ukraine
will find the comfort and resources they need.
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