Holy Days to Make a Holy People
December 1, 2024
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
The root of holiness is that someone or something is set apart for God's purpose in the world. Jesus was thus the 'holy one of God.’ As followers of Jesus each of us is called to holiness as well, to allow the holiness of Jesus' life to germinate, root and burgeon in us, splitting open the husk of our former lives now left behind. We are called to discover the unique form of holiness that is already waiting in us, a dormant seed within our personalities, our possibilities and limitations right now, our life situations and social contexts. This seed is waiting to be stirred into life by the water of inspiration, the warmth of love, the turning over of our lives’ soil by suffering and challenge. And as the great saints have pointed out, even the smallest growth towards holiness does not make us bland, but makes us more vibrantly ourselves. We become more fully alive and able to give life and blessing to others.
No one in the parish would claim to be holy; this would be ridiculous. But all of us can and should yearn to turn our lives over to God. We can and should notice what in our lives is opening us to the holy life of Jesus as we see manifested in him and the Saints, and seek more and more to surrender to this life. We say Jesus is our Lord several times each Sunday; growth in holiness is attempting to make that more true in the character of our daily living.
As we enter the Advent season, we are entering a series of holy days - days set apart for the celebration of God's intervention in human history — which is to say: God’s interruption, intervention, and call in our lives right now.
Why do we do this year after year? Why do we go through these holy seasons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter) year after year, and celebrate the same feasts year after year? We do this because one year, one pass through, is never enough. We are like gardens, and the Divine Gardener uses these holy seasons, days, and celebrations to turn over lives once again, to remove stones and thistles, to feed and nourish us with truth and inspiration, to strengthen and gladden us with celebrations and fellowship that foreshadow God's Kingdom. Each time we go through this cycle of holy days and seasons, the life of holiness can be strengthened and deepened in us, and made more fruitful.
Advent is a strange season. It begins with apocalyptic readings showing us that the present world is not aligned with God, not designed for our fulfillment nor our happiness, regardless of what Amazon says. The world is show as open to God's judgement and so inherently unstable. It’s already falling apart - stars falling from the sky as nations war against nation. That, Advent, proposes, is the context for our waking up to the call to life with God.
This call comes alive in Advent with John the Baptist, inviting us out of the chaos of this falling-apart-world to rededicate ourselves to God' calling and promise which transcends this world. It ends with the blessed Virgin Mary, surrendering to God’s intervention, and traveling pregnant, oppressed by political powers to give birth to God's Word for the whole world, even for the Angels’ joy.
Christmas, all twelve days, gives us the mystery of God with us, God between us, God within us. The medieval mystics saw in the Christmas feast a celebration of the life of Jesus begotten in Nazareth, 2000+ years ago, and in us, now. God’s life is begotten in us, we become little theotokois in the wold, and turned over more and more to God’s purpose and find our soul sustenance in prayer, the Eucharist, and scripture. But still, even in Christmas, the threat of the world is not entirely banished. December 26 marks the martyrdom of St. Stephen. December 28, King Herod slaughters the holy innocents of Bethlehem. There is always the shadow of the Cross over the Cradle, for Jesus, and those who gather in joy, adoring him.
Epiphany, all the way to Ash Wednesday, is a season marked by several feasts all showing forth the divinity of Jesus and the extension of his Lordship into all human lives. We can let the theologians worry about the ramifications of that for interfaith dialogue (!) because the real point here is about you and me. What we have to struggle with is not a complicated theological questions, but the extension of Jesus' life and ministry and meaning into our own right now, in North Carolina. Will we let him shape our lives, more and more bringing his holiness alive in us. That is the question, and only after making that surrender can we be trusted with theological questions. The season ends with Jesus' transfiguration on the Holy Mountain, revealed as God's son in dazzling light at the same time as he is consenting to his rejection and death in Jerusalem. The Voice from Heaven says, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” And so we follow him.
God bless us all in these holy seasons. May they make us more and more a holy people, turned over to God’s desire and purpose for this world.
Robert+