St. Philip Parish and St. Clare Mission

One of my favorite Christmas Christian slogans, along with “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the reason for the season”, is this one: “Wise men still seek Him”. Wise men still seek him. Seek who? Justin Trudeau? Donald Trump? No, no, no, wise men still seek Jesus, to be their Lord, their Savior, their King. It is true wisdom to seek Christ.

It turns out, according to an article I was reading on X (formerly “Twitter”) online, this saying is not just true, as it were, spiritually, but also, literally. According to the writer, many intellectuals, having started out as atheists or agnostics, are now converting to faith in God. Many of these intellectuals are scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, who, hitherto, believed that all the secrets of the universe could be explained by recourse to science and reason. In other words, reason and science have revealed most of the facts behind the making of our universe, and those things that remain unexplained, will be answered in the near future. It turns out, according to the article I was reading, that, not only are there still many more secrets to be explained than first believed, but even the questions  that science thought had been solved, have created many more sub-questions to be investigated 

 Furthermore, these former atheists have discovered that, while science and reason can explain a lot about human existence, there is a whole dimension to human life which they cannot. That dimension embraces the whole realm of the spiritual, this instinctive reaching out on behalf of humanity to that which is beyond the limitation of the human senses, the innate search to “touch the face of God”, as one poet described it, All the mainstream religions of the world, of course, have always understood this, and sought to trace the contours of that search over thousands of years.… Read more...

There was a pop song put out a few years ago, with the title “You say it best when you say nothing at all”. The song is a love song from the man to the woman in his life, describing the different ways she communicates her love to him without needing to say a word. He picks up on all the unspoken signals of her love she is putting out. Myself, I have always thought that this title would make an excellent caption for all the events we are celebrating at this time. God is demonstrating his great love for us without needing to say anything, or hardly anything, at all.

This afternoon, during the 4.30 pm Masses, we had our Christmas pageant. My gosh, we had dozens of shepherds, wise men, sheep, cattle , as well as the familiar figures of Joseph and Mary, with her little baby, Jesus.  Each of the characters did have a few words to say for themselves, but not much. And indeed, the great tradition of the Christmas pageant, stretching back hundreds of years, would not have had any words at all, or any need to. Everybody watching those tableaux knew what was being depicted, without anybody having to explain it. Just looking at the scene as it was displayed was enough to evoke memories and feelings of heavenly joy, love, peace and warmth in the spectators. Many of those watching, way back in history, would not have any education, or not much and would not have been able to read the events of the Christmas event in the Bible. And so, for them, the pageant was a “silent witness” to the wonderful, magical events being celebrated.

 Indeed, whenever I saw the manger scene in the church in the week before Christmas Eve came round, and noticed the empty crib, because the time to celebrate the birth of the Christ-child had not yet come about, I felt the emptiness of the scene.… Read more...