Wednesday\u00a0 January 8<\/p>\n
If you see poinsettias here and there it might mean that someone has not cleaned up after Christmas yet.\u00a0 Or it might mean that someone celebrates the Christmas season in following traditional Christian practice –\u00a0 Begins with the burst of\u00a0 wonder and light on Dec 25 and extends to the 12 day, traditionally January 6, the feast of Epiphany, the three strangers (sometimes called Kings, sometimes Magi {learned ones} coming out of nowhere looking for “the one who is to be born”\u00a0 following that one star.\u00a0 Technically, Epiphany is a big feast and it’s remembered for 8 days, so this week carries the taste of the 3 strangers.<\/p>\n
Christmas centers on giving birth —\u00a0 the miracle of courage, exhausting labor and wrenching pain and finally,\u00a0 a new person, exquisite beauty and amazing tenderness.\u00a0 Maybe humanity at its most beautiful.<\/p>\n
Epiphany has wonder also, the three strangers actually find the one they are looking for.\u00a0 But the wonder is set around with confusion and suspicion, with\u00a0 political intrigue and deception.\u00a0 And, finally, with soldiers and flight.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a sober reminder — grace is never far from loss and loss is never far from grace.\u00a0 Epiphany concludes with an angel in the night waking the little family, telling them to pack what they can and run, soldiers are coming.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe this week could be a time to pay attention to the millions of men and women and children on the roads of the world or in refugee camps that last too many years without becoming home.\u00a0 The Mercies and the Jesuits both engage refugees around the world;\u00a0 UDM engages too;\u00a0 last year our many clinics worked with over 32,000 people mostly from Detroit.\u00a0 Something to be proud of, no?<\/p>\n
They say tomorrow it will warm up.\u00a0 I hope so.<\/p>\n
john st sj<\/p>\n
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Here’s today’s poem.\u00a0 T. S. Eliot, say some critics, came to dominate the literary landscape of the mid 20th century.\u00a0 Here’s his sardonic account of the three strangers, burdened with their hope and with elitist expectations of travels without troubles . . .\u00a0 written in 1927.<\/p>\n
Journey of the Magi<\/p>\n
‘A Cold coming we had of it,
\nJust the worst time of the year
\nFor a journey, and such a long journey:
\nThe ways deep and the weather sharp,
\nThe very dead of winter.’
\nAnd the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow.
\nThere were times we regretted
\nThe summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
\nThen the camel men cursing and grumbling And running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
\nA hard time we had of it.
\nAt the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, sayiing That this was all folly.<\/p>\n
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
\nThen we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins, But there was no information, and so we continued And arrved at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place;\u00a0 it was (you may say) satisfactory.<\/p>\n
All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down
\nThis:\u00a0 were we led all that way for
\nBirth or Death?\u00a0 There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt.\u00a0 I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different;\u00a0 this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
\nWe returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods.
\nI should be glad of another death.<\/p>\n
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p.s.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This Youtube Eliot reads the poem.\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BCVnuEWXQcg<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wednesday\u00a0 January 8 If you see poinsettias here and there it might mean that someone has not cleaned up after Christmas yet.\u00a0 Or it might mean that someone celebrates the Christmas season in following traditional Christian practice –\u00a0 Begins with … Continue reading