Prompt 33: January 1, 2024
The world is not simply what it is made of. The failure of the materialist worldview has forced us to recognize that existence is not apparent in any thing, but in the participation of all things. This is still a mystery to neuroscientists (those self-proclaimed experts on consciousness). Where understanding fails us, we are left to paradox.
He lies in a manger but he holds the whole world in his hands
He sucks his mother’s breasts but feeds the angels
He is swaddles in rags but clothes us in immortality
He is suckled, but also worshiped.
He could find no room in the inn, but makes a temple for himself in the hearts of believers
It was in order you see that weakness becomes strong, and strength becomes weak
Let us therefore rather wonder at him and make light of his birth in the flesh and there recognize the loneliness on our behalf of such loftiness
For there, let us kindle charity in ourselves in order to attain to his eternity.
….
The maker of man, he was man so that the director of the stars might be a babe at the breast.
That bread might be hungry
And the fountain thirsty
And the light might sleep
And the way be weary from a journey
That the truth might be accused by false witnesses
And the judge of the living and the dead be judged by mortal judge
That justice might be convicted by the unjust
And discipline be scourged with whips
That the cluster of grapes might be crowned with thorns.
And the foundation be hung up on a tree.
That strength might grow weak
Eternal health might be wounded
That life might die.
St. Augustine of Hippo – Sermon 190
He was poor that he might make us rich
He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God
He took our flesh that he might give us his spirit
He lay in the manger that we might lie in paradise
He came down from heaven that he might bring us to heaven
That the ancient of days should be born
that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle
That he who rules the stars should suck at the breast
That a virgin should conceive
That christ should be made of a woman, and that woman which himself made
That the branch should bear the vine
That the mother should be younger than the child she bore
And the child in the womb, bigger than the mother
That the human nature should not be God, yet one with God
This was not only amazing, but miraculous!
Thomas Watson
Though we are finishing out the holiday season, Christmas is coming. Let us take this prompt to savor the depth of the tradition in order to start the new year in wonder at the immaculate conception; how something came from nothing.
The thread is open. Create boldly, and may the Spirit guide us all