“The soul is the delicate yet durable cloth woven
by the merciful strokes of God’s Passings…
And the sheen of our soul is the ever-glowing
awareness we have of this sacred-stitched fabric.”
There is something deeply mystical about the skies of Mexico to me. I cannot describe it, but there is a vastness that I feel underneath those skies that is both intensely personal and universal at the same time. As I stood in the night sky of Mexico a couple of days ago, I was mesmerized by the stars that dotted the dark blanket above accompanied by the strong caressing invisible wind blowing. It was as if I was feeling the great space wind created by these living and dying beautiful markers of Light traveling ever on. The Light from the Beginning was shining in fierce force as it comes into our world, even when we don’t see it.
This year has been marked by so many spots of darkness for all of us, on personal, social, national, and international levels. It is sad that we fail to celebrate the season of Light beyond December 25th. We forget that Christmas is a season. It is so hopeful to me personally that we cross into a New Year within the Christmas Season itself. It is the Child and the Mother who carry us into the New Year. The Child who from the Beginning of all time brings light through death into Life! As the evangelist reminds us in today’s Scriptures (JN 1: 1-18):
“What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it”
And it is the beautiful Mother of personal and Universal Love that cares for the Child and all of the Beloved offspring born in Hope, as we celebrate on New Years Day itself (LK 2: 16-22):
“The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this, they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart!
Mary’s way of “keeping all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” is no nostalgic snow-globe image of what the coming of Christ means, but rather a powerful reality that reaches out in Joy through suffering. As Our Lady of Guadalupe tells us, it is the embracing of diverse cultures even amidst oppression and injustice that we can begin to see and become the Truth (Cantos Y Flores) Real Light of Life. The Light travels in and through darkness, and many times that is the only way we will encounter it. There is no “reason” that I can think of for why this is so, but this does seem to be the pattern of how we encounter God in our lives.
Yesterday’s celebration of the HOLY FAMILY reminds us that God is family. We have a history of imaging God in the Western Church as only a Father image, but this Season of Light reminds us that God is family – Father, Mother and Child. We encounter God through relationship because God is relationship. And as many times as we embrace the diverse encounters we have with God in our everyday lives – at work and play, in pleasure and suffering, in naming our own needs and responding to others’ needs, in embracing each other as co-heirs of God’s Life – we become “pregnant” with the fullness of God that is our birthright as Children of God. We become the vessels through which the Light of Life can Shine!
Love in its authenticity can do nothing other than give “birth” over and over again, spreading Newness that draws us together in a beautiful fabric that we can call our Soul, which is in Truth God’s own Soul. We are woven together into the fabric of God’s very Soul every time we recognize, receive’ and allow God’s Love to pass through us!
Upon our return from Mexico, we were amazed and gratified to find that our Amazon Lily, also known as the Eucharisia (Thanksgiving) Lily, has 4 stalks that will bloom in the New Year. My prayer is that we all will hear and be able to respond to the Love of God that comes, as it did for Juan Diego on Mt Tepeyac, as the “beautiful song of birds,” by cultivating gratitude so that the flowers of compassion springing forth from God’s soul will grow into our own. Then compassion and True justice will Shine as a sacred cloth laced in the Light of our Soul!
Peace
Thomas
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the earth.” – RUMI