A Positively Poetic Priest

 "Love came down at Christmas Love all lovely, Love divine; Love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign" Christine Rossetti's poem is a lovely one. And the hymn is wonderful too. A lovely Christmas song for Advent. Christmas is actually not the first manifestation of divine love. Christmas is not even the first manifestation of divine love in a person. Adam was. However, divine love did come into being at Christmas as the baby Jesus. This is the love waited for something understandable and relatable and able to be proved, well, as long as you believe Jesus... God exists and is present. And yet. This is definitely not how we approach Christmas. My husband knows how difficult I am to watch Christmas movies with because any time a movie starts going into 'the true meaning of Christmas' and they don't talk about the salvation of the cosmos from sin and death through love manifest... which never happens, I will say, you're wrong! to the television...

Merry Christmas! Today is the last day of the twelve days of Christmas. Have you all seen the Home Alone movie? The movie focuses on Kevin, the youngest of the family and the cousins who gets left home by accident. The family was going to Paris for Christmas to visit relatives and there was an accident and the parent's alarm didn't go off. They were woken up by the doorbell ringing with the bus pick up service. Kevin, asleep on the third floor, after being sent there as punishment the night before doesn't hear the hustle and bustle when they all run to the buses to get to the airport to go on their vacation. The oldest of the kids is told to do a headcount, but she comes up with the right number because she accidentally counts the neighbor boy who has come to see them off. It's not until they are on the plane over the ocean does his mother realize they don't have Kevin with them. She screams his name and passes out. I can imagine...

Greetings! Glory to God! Merry Christmas! I suppose I have already made some first impression on you all already can't change it now, huh? I thank you all for coming this evening to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity here at St. John's and Grace. I am thrilled to be celebrating this joyous occasion with you. We all know from life experience that first impressions are important. The way we greet people,  for the first time ever,  or for the first time in a day, makes a huge difference in how our relationship is going to be. If I got up here and yelled at you,  you wouldn't feel that great about me and our relationship would probably suffer for it. If your spouse texted you something mean every morning without saying Good morning, it would cause some problems in your relationship. But when someone greets you nicely and happily it shares the joy and makes our relationships better. When we listened to the gospel passage for ...

Today. We don't have a king. We threw off the monarchy in 1776 here in the United States. There have been jokes over the years about some of our presidents acting like kings. But we don't have one. There are countries who do have monarchs, kings or queens. But our understanding of what makes a kingdom has changed over the centuries. Today. we have come to the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar. We have come to what is known as Christ the King Sunday. Where the focus of the gospel passages is always Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection in some way. Why do we get the end of the story on the last Sunday of the church year?  Why do we go from Christ the King to Advent where we are waiting for Christ?  We know the story and we have to remember where it is going, we have to remember what will be at the end why the story of the baby in the manger is important because Jesus is the one who dies for us, the eternal king of kings and p...

"So make up your minds NOT to prepare your defense in advance;  for I will give you words and a wisdom  that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict."  (Luke 21:5-19) I'll let you into one of my nightmares, because that is exactly what you want right this minute. I am an introvert  and the idea of getting up before a crowd, a judge, even standing here now, without anything prepared to say, is terrifying to me. Down right terrifying. When I was in high school I was terrified of public speaking.  I remember my first public speaking class,  when I wasn't able to complete a short speech  because I thought I was going to throw up.  At the time I knew I wanted to become a priest  and I knew from watching the priests of the church I went to,  that I was going to have to speak in public someday  and that I needed to work on it.  I asked God for help  and God pro...

Teacher, "In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?" Why do they need to know whose wife this poor woman will be? Hasn't she gone through enough hassle already? Seven husbands??? Give the poor woman a break! Jesus was such a storyteller its not often we hear him going through the paces with  legal logistical argumentative proofs. However, if you remember your ancient Greek rhetoric at all (which I totally understand if you don't...) you'll notice what the Sadducees are doing  and how Jesus responds in kind. The Sadducees who speak to Jesus are using a case study to prove that there is no resurrection. The Sadducees were a group who didn't believe in resurrection, they didn't believe in an afterlife. Yet, they know Jesus does believe in resurrection, he keeps teaching and preaching about the kingdom of God. So they decide to take him on in some old style debating.  They offer a proof that ...