A Tangible Faith

Sorry for the brief hiatus in posting.  Christmas was, as usual, a bout of joyful madness in our normal lives.  We were out late every night for a week, visiting family and friends and generally merry-making.  Of course, we all managed to catch a nasty sinus cold.  Now that I finally feel like a person with a sinus infection, as opposed to a walking set of infected sinuses that are somehow expected to fulfill human responsibilities, I figured I'd manage a post.

I love that the long joyful celebration of Christmas falls right in between the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent.  Penance is necessary and withdrawing from material things is an excellent practice to draw our eyes heavenward, but for us earth-bound humans it is good to remember that Christ sanctified the material world with his incarnation.  "In the Bleak Mid-Wintertime," as the old carol goes, we are given the gift of a God who is physically with us, in our dirt, our cold, and our imperfect bodies.  I was recently reminded of the beauty of our tangible religion by the Midnight Mass homily given by Father Z of internet fame and by Helena,an excellent novel by Evelyn Waugh.

In his Christmas sermon, Father Z reminded us that it is at Christmas time that Christ calls us out of our philosophizing and theologizing and comes as a child.  We can theorize all we want about the nature of God, but when God Himself steps into nature, He does not ask that we know the answers, only that we love him.  Father Z points out that although the learned Magi follow the star to Christ, it is the simple shepherds who get there first.  Christ does not speak only to those who study the heavens and chart the stars, but also to those of us living our simple material lives, getting by one day at a time.  His epiphany is not just to those who can give him appropriate gifts, but also to those who bring nothing but themselves.

Often like the shepherds, we are not even on the lookout for the Messiah.  His angels take us unawares.  Yet, we are brought to the place where we can see him and touch him.  He knows that we need this, that we are not all mystics.  This is why he steps into history, into a specific place and time.  Christians alone can say, "My God lived here, breathed this air, saw these men, touched these things, and died this death."    And for us today, He continues to step into our history, not just in a vague spiritual way, but anywhere and everywhere the Mass is offered, Christ steps down from heaven again to be touched, seen, and tasted.

In Helena, the title character finds the other religions of her day to be "bosh," because they cannot, like Christianity, answer her childish questions of "how?" "why?" and "when?"  They demand acceptance of mystery by the "enlightened" without ever reaching out to their human lives and understanding.  Helena eventually embraces Christ who stands out from the other gods, as one who"calls children to him."  After her conversion, Helena reflects on how the Christians of her day--Arians, gnostics, political Christians, and constant theological debaters-- needed something to "knock their heads against," and sets off on a mission to find the wood of the true cross.  This rings as true to me today as did to Helena in her day and Waugh in his.

We are a curious mixture of gnostics and materialists nowadays, so quick to theorize God and look skeptically at the "trappings" of the faith, and yet so desperately needing a reminder that our world is infused with grace.  We do not need to understand God, we need to touch Him and to love Him.  This Christmastide, let us rejoice with a childlike joy in the "Magnum Mysterium" of the Incarnation: light, Word, God, become man.  In this great mystery, everyday things become signs for us: every child is a picture of the Christ child, every light in darkness a reflection of that great star, every simple song in good company a reverberation of the heavenly "Gloria."  Our Incarnational religion breathes life into the valley of death, because God Himself came here to make all things new.



Some New Finn-isms

Christmas Morning

• When Finn sees bare skin, whether it's because you are getting dressed or your shirt is just not quite long enough for your growing belly, he gets a look of glee in his eyes, hunches up his shoulders, and lunges for it with his bare hands. This elicits shrieks of horror from Mama or Dada and of pure joy from Finn.
• On his own accord, having only seen a handful of football games his entire life, Finn invented a "football dance."  Whenever he sees or even thinks about his new football, he shifts his weight from one foot to another, both arms out and rocking, and repeats "huh-ball, huh-ball, huh-ball."  It's like he's doing his victory dance in the end zone.
• He loves riding his rocking horse, his "nay-nay", so much that he started demanding it when up at 4 a.m.  He is also spell-bound by youtube videos of dressage.  He gets very upset when you use the computer for anything besides pictures of "nay-nays," doggies, or babies.
• Now Finn is learning names, not just of "Mama", "Dada", "Nana" and "Papa" ("Buppa," really), but also of his aunts and uncles, (some favorite pronunciations: Uncle "Hess" for Seth, Uncle "Duck" for Ryan, Uncle "Ro Ro" for Rory, Aunt "Wo Wo" for Noelle, and Aunt "Ah-ple" for April), his cousins ("Nom Nom" for Tommy,  "Ince" for Vince, and "Jar-Jar" for Audrey, to name a few), and friends.  He will even try saying a name the first time you ask him.  Sometimes they are more accurate than others, but it's always fun.  
• He's even learning to correct his vocabulary over time. For example, toast used to be "dos, " but now sounds like "toaf."  Fly and fry used to be "fowf" and are now more like "fwy."  Finn's also putting words together in little sentences.  When I had a headache yesterday, he said, "Mama Ouch."  You can almost have conversations with him now and you can certainly tell he understands when you talk to him and ask him questions.  If you don't believe me, just ask him if he wants a healthy food ("no-oh") or chocolate ("Choc!").

first taste of hot chocolate

Today is: The Feast of St. Raymond of Penafort in the season of Christmastide
Finn is: Almost one and a half!
Mama just finished reading: Helena by Evelyn Waugh
Littlest One is: 34 and half weeks along