Steven P. BarrettFORK IN THE ROAD, Pt. 2
August 22nd 2008 00:42
By Steven Barrett
The other day while waiting for my ride to the church where I volunteer at, I just pulled out a book to read and it happened to be a small book written by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -Pope Benedict long before he succeeded John Paul the Great in 2005, Images of Hope: Meditations On Major Feasts, (Ignatius, '97 & 06.) The book led off with a small sub-chapter describing St. Francis' original creche in Greccio, a small village northeast of Rome. The creche in Greccio is said to be the first nativity-scene creche in Europe.
Creches have always fascinated me since I was a boy. They aren't just structures and figures for kids to play with, although by and large most kids when playing with are likely reenacting the Nativity Story out of Luke's Gospel. The Greccio creche isn't the first one ever because St. Francis of Assisi, who established this creche, got the idea while travelling through Crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land.
Creches bring this miracle of God becoming man and upsetting all the preconceived notions man has had of God's almighty power. They raise the level of imagination and desire to learn more in children and help to melt the hardest hearts of adults long hardened because of the various layers of one hurt, one abuse and one broken relationship, etc. after another. Yet the very presence of a creche possesses the power to penetrate this hardened outter shell we call our individual histories.
Francis decided the creche would be a live creche with live animals, particularly an ass and an ox
" Ox and ass are not simply products of a rich fantasy. They have become companions of the Christmas event through the faith of the Church in the unity of Old and New Testaments. Isaiah 1:3 states; 'The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.'"
As the future pope pointed out, all of the animals we normall associate with a creche scene, the shepherds, the Magi, and Mary and Jospeh -- they recognized him, but in nearby Jerusalem, it is the high, and the mighty, beginning with Herod, who do not. Ratzinger hits his readers with this probing question:
"Who are the ox and the ass today, who are 'my people', who do not understand? Why is it the case that non-reason knows and reason is blind?' (Emphasis, mine. s/b)
I simply preferred the creche of Christ and what it stands for in sharp contrast to the Herodian world. It was time to stop paying more attention to what goes on in Herod's palace when what goes on in my heart is more important. Not that this makes me any better a believer or person than another wri ter who wants to find out what our Herods are up to. But whenever I looked at a creche I can't help lately I couldn't help wondering what I should really be up to. After reading this from Benedict, I knew it was time to pay more attention to Bethlehem than the palace.
A few moments ago while watching one of the evening national news shows, I saw segment about some dust-up over how many homes John McCain had and the fact he couldn't remember. Who cares in the long run. It's our relationship with the little man in the creche that counts (for myself at least) and not the number of things our kings and potentates have to their names.
My days of regularly covering this kind of "beat" for the Herodian Herald are done. What Herod has interests me in the least. (Even though McCain is hardly "herodian" in any sense of the word.)
Thank you Pope Benedict for helping me to pull myself off of a treadmill and guiding me back towards what I need to be doing more often.
Thank you fellow Orble writers, S.L., Damo, Ruby, Jim, Morgan -- even "Anonymous." Fret not, however; I'm not going permanently. I just need to pull back and do more what I believe, after a lot of soul-searching, (some of it pretty negative insofar what I thought God was trying to tell me through the Pope and my life's experiences and deep interests in) to pour my heart and soul and energies into my woodworking endeavors.
Keep me in your prayers.
Steven
Pope Benedict XVI
The other day while waiting for my ride to the church where I volunteer at, I just pulled out a book to read and it happened to be a small book written by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -Pope Benedict long before he succeeded John Paul the Great in 2005, Images of Hope: Meditations On Major Feasts, (Ignatius, '97 & 06.) The book led off with a small sub-chapter describing St. Francis' original creche in Greccio, a small village northeast of Rome. The creche in Greccio is said to be the first nativity-scene creche in Europe.
Creches have always fascinated me since I was a boy. They aren't just structures and figures for kids to play with, although by and large most kids when playing with are likely reenacting the Nativity Story out of Luke's Gospel. The Greccio creche isn't the first one ever because St. Francis of Assisi, who established this creche, got the idea while travelling through Crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land.
Creches bring this miracle of God becoming man and upsetting all the preconceived notions man has had of God's almighty power. They raise the level of imagination and desire to learn more in children and help to melt the hardest hearts of adults long hardened because of the various layers of one hurt, one abuse and one broken relationship, etc. after another. Yet the very presence of a creche possesses the power to penetrate this hardened outter shell we call our individual histories.
". . . No barrier of majesty or distance divides us from him. He has drawn us so near to us as a child that we unabashedly address him familiarly and can have d irect, personal access to the child's heart
In the child Jesus, the defenselessness of God is apparent. God comes w ithout weapons, be cause he dos not wi sh to conquer from outside but desires to win and transform us from within. If anything can conquer man's vainglory, his violence, his greed, it is the vulnerability of the child. God assumed this vulnerability in order to conquer usland lead us to himself." (p. 12.)
In the child Jesus, the defenselessness of God is apparent. God comes w ithout weapons, be cause he dos not wi sh to conquer from outside but desires to win and transform us from within. If anything can conquer man's vainglory, his violence, his greed, it is the vulnerability of the child. God assumed this vulnerability in order to conquer usland lead us to himself." (p. 12.)
Francis decided the creche would be a live creche with live animals, particularly an ass and an ox
" Ox and ass are not simply products of a rich fantasy. They have become companions of the Christmas event through the faith of the Church in the unity of Old and New Testaments. Isaiah 1:3 states; 'The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.'"
As the future pope pointed out, all of the animals we normall associate with a creche scene, the shepherds, the Magi, and Mary and Jospeh -- they recognized him, but in nearby Jerusalem, it is the high, and the mighty, beginning with Herod, who do not. Ratzinger hits his readers with this probing question:
"Who are the ox and the ass today, who are 'my people', who do not understand? Why is it the case that non-reason knows and reason is blind?' (Emphasis, mine. s/b)
"Now the one who did not recognize him was Herod, who comprehended nothing as he was told about the child. Rather, he was only more deeply blinded by his lust for power a nd by the paranoia from whichh e suffered (Mt. 2:3). It was 'all Jerusalem with him' that did not recognize (ibid.) It was the men in soft raiment, the finer soci ety, who did not recognize him (Mt 11:8). It was the learned who did not recognize, the scripture scholars and exegetes, who to be sure knew the right passage but nevertheless comprehended nothing (Mt 2:6).
What about us? Are we far distant from the stable because we are too fine and sophisticated for it? Do we, too, not get so caught up in scholarly interpretation of the Bible, in establishing the inauthenticity or the genuine historicalplaces, that we become blind to the child himself andperceive noth ing of him? Are we not all too often in 'Jerusalem', in the palace, inside ourselves, our own vainglory, our own fear of persecution, rather than able to hear the angel voices in thenight, to go there, and to worship?
So let us look in this night at the faces of the ox and ass asking: My people does not understand; do you comprehend the voice of the Lord?
Depiction of the First Franciscan Creche Scene, 1223 A.D.
I simply preferred the creche of Christ and what it stands for in sharp contrast to the Herodian world. It was time to stop paying more attention to what goes on in Herod's palace when what goes on in my heart is more important. Not that this makes me any better a believer or person than another wri ter who wants to find out what our Herods are up to. But whenever I looked at a creche I can't help lately I couldn't help wondering what I should really be up to. After reading this from Benedict, I knew it was time to pay more attention to Bethlehem than the palace.
A few moments ago while watching one of the evening national news shows, I saw segment about some dust-up over how many homes John McCain had and the fact he couldn't remember. Who cares in the long run. It's our relationship with the little man in the creche that counts (for myself at least) and not the number of things our kings and potentates have to their names.
My days of regularly covering this kind of "beat" for the Herodian Herald are done. What Herod has interests me in the least. (Even though McCain is hardly "herodian" in any sense of the word.)
Thank you Pope Benedict for helping me to pull myself off of a treadmill and guiding me back towards what I need to be doing more often.
Thank you fellow Orble writers, S.L., Damo, Ruby, Jim, Morgan -- even "Anonymous." Fret not, however; I'm not going permanently. I just need to pull back and do more what I believe, after a lot of soul-searching, (some of it pretty negative insofar what I thought God was trying to tell me through the Pope and my life's experiences and deep interests in) to pour my heart and soul and energies into my woodworking endeavors.
Keep me in your prayers.
Steven
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Maybe you'll post pictures of your creations to share with us?
Comment by Jim Stillman
Political Certainty
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd Blog
PS: Smart money on Biden. Again, Democrats pick upside down ticket. Like that fork in the road, dejavue all over again.
And Jim, I hope to God you don't have a soggy house. If W finds out you used to do some work for the ACLU he might send you a FEMA welcome wagon.
Comment by Damo
Come back when you when you ready and it is enjoyable to write.