PHOTO: Mary van Balen
“How small and gentle his coming was. He came as an infant. The night in which he came was noisy and crowded; it is unlikely that in the traffic and travelers to Bethlehem, the tiny wail of the newly born could be heard.

God approaches gently, often secretly, always in love, never through violence and fear. He comes to us, as God has told us, in those we know in our own lives…”
Caryll Houselander, The Passion of the Infant Christ, p. 46

This Christmas, after a long day at work and then baking and cleaning at home,I attended midnight mass at my parish. Walking through the parking lot, I saw candle flames flickering behind stained glass windows, and voices of the choir and congregation singing Christmas carols drifted across the snow covered neighborhood. The area, a mix of business and poor homes, looked transformed by a fresh fall of powdery snow.

Once inside, I found some friends and sat with them as we prayed and sang our way through the liturgy. A few times while standing, when my mind began to wander or my eyes closed, I caught myself from falling, sleep having descended on my in a flash.

“Why are you here,” a voice seemed to say,”when you are so tired?”

I knew. I wouldn’t miss it. I love to celebrate in this little church where the mix of ethnicities, instruments, and voices fill the small building with energy and joy. A variety of real pines strung with tiny white lights provided a backdrop for the altar and creche. Even though I could not close my eyes and ponder the mystery of the incarnation for more that a couple of seconds without tempting sleep, the profound mystery of the incarnation seeped into my mind and heart.

God comes to me in this place and with these people, not only in the word and Eucharist, but in the people themselves. The Incarnation continues through all of us, through family, friends, and strangers. I might have been on the verge of sleep, but these people did not mind. We were gathered together to remember and to worship, and in doing so, we brought Christ to one another.

When mass was over and pleasantries exchanged, I drove home and snuggled under my covers. Tomorrow I would pick up one of my daughters who had traveled back to Ohio for the holiday. We would celebrate along with my dad and other daughter, then welcome a friend for an afternoon of games and conversation before heading out to my sister and brother-in-law’s to catch up with cousins and their spouses and a fiancee.

The day would be full and I knew I would be battling sleep again, but, for the moments before drifting into pleasant sleep, I was wrapped in sweet contemplation of the coming onto the earth of its Creator.

Merry Christmas!
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen
One tradition I never have difficulty keeping is having last minute preparations to do on Christmas Eve. Try as I might, I am never quite ready by December 24. This year I am close, though. Today I decided to bake more cookies than I had originally intended to make.

My daughter was in the dining room, sewing away. Christmas music sung by Cambridge College’s King’s Choir played in the background. (We both missed other CD’s that are packed away or given to someone else. The Cambridge choir is technically perfect, but as my daughter said, lacks energy and enthusiasm. Eventually we turned it off.)

I pulled out my standard Christmas recipes, handed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. Ginger snaps were the first. As I worked in mom’s kitchen I remembered decades of Christmases when the house filled with sweet spicy smells of ginger cookies baking. I don’t think a more tasty breakfast exists than one of ginger snaps and tea.

This batch was the best I have made since moving back. “The oven was used to Grandma,” my daughter said. “It was HER oven and resented someone else. I guess it’s getting used to you.”

I can’t imagine how many cookies mom and my grandma Becky made over the years. As I moved through the room, washed loads of dishes, and scooped flour and sugar from her spun aluminum canisters, I could hear their voices, feel their presence.

Next came pecan balls. I used a food processor instead of the old glass nut grinder. As a child, I looked forward to grinding pecans. I think most of us as well as our children, liked feeding whole nuts into the grinder, turning the handle, and seeing the glass jar filling up with bits of pecans. Food processors are faster, but not as much fun.

Finally, my daughter and I began our Christmas ritual. I don’t remember when we began to make springerle cookies, but she and I have baked them for years. One must have the “anise gene” to enjoy them, and we do. One year, after struggling to pry sticky dough out of wooden molds carved with lovely designs, we hit on a non-traditional but efficient way of making the cookies.

“They could be round, instead of rectangular,” I said. My daughter agreed and we began using a biscuit cutter and ceramic cookie stamps. We have the routine down and turn out a hundred and fifty cookies in half the time we used to take. Still, mixing, rolling, cutting, and stamping late at night, can be daunting.

“It’s what we do,” my daughter said when I told her how tired I was and that I wouldn’t have done it alone. “We make springerles every year.”

Another tradition. Something that binds generations together, that gives us a sense of rootedness and belonging. Becky and Mom, and my daughter, and me. We were all in that kitchen, celebrating the holidays and making memories that are as sweet as the cookies.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen
Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’ Lk 1, 43-45

The alarm sounded at 2:30am. For a moment, I couldn’t remember why. The eclipse! I bounded out of bed, stuffed my fluffy-socked feet into warm black boots, threw on my coat over the white robe wrapped tightly around me, and opened the door into the night. Crunching over snow, I walked to the backyard and looked upward.

Clouds. During the night hours, a solid lid of clouds had clamped down around my part of the world, obscuring the once in a lifetime view of an eclipsed moon hours from the winter solstice. I wandered to the front yard, unable to accept the obvious: This is one cosmic event I will not see.

Back in bed, I watched a live feed on NASA’s site for a while, then shut down the computer and snuggled under my comforter. Somewhere above me, something magnificent was occurring. A silver orb was glowing copper-red and the planet I rested on was passing between sun and moon. Not seeing the event did not negate its reality.

I remembered a conversation I had after Mass with my then 5-year-old daughter.

“It isn’t fair,” she said. “If Jesus is real, I don’t know why he doesn’t let me see him. Even for just a minute.”

I am not sure what I said to my little theologian who was always asking difficult questions. Twenty-some years later, different variations on the same theme occur to me. This morning’s eclipse provided an apt metaphor. Not being able to see something does not mean it is not there. Some realities are perceived by a sense that transcends the usual five. Some require faith beyond understanding.

In today’s gospel, both Mary and Elizabeth believed in a reality neither could comprehend. Elizabeth called her cousin “Blessed” for her faith in God’s improbable promise.

Resigned to missing the eclipse, I drifted to sleep knowing that it did not need my witness to dazzle others across the planet. I was reminded, too, that I had good company in not perceiving God’s hand in my present life events, or knowing what lay ahead. I am asked to believe in God’s promise, “I will be with you,” and I, too, am blessed.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO:Unknown source

DEFEATED BY LOVE

The sky was lit
by the splendor of the moon
So powerful
I fell to the ground

Your love
has made me sure

I am ready to forsake
this worldly life
and surrender to the magnificence
of your Being
– Rumi

The moon has inspired poets since verses were first written. Those living in North America will have a good view of a particular lunar beauty: a total lunar eclipse during early morning hours of Dec. 21. This is the first total lunar eclipse in three years. The next one will not be visible here until 2014, so, if the skies are clear where you live, stay up and enjoy the sight.

The eclipse begins at 12:29am. EST. The moon enters totality at 2:41am and leaves it at 3:53am. the eclipse is completely finished at 6:04am EST.

The moon does not disappear during a total eclipse, but changes color, appearing coppery red to deep red or even gray. The color depends on the earth’s atmosphere at the time it stands between the moon and the sun.

Events like this always make me aware of the incomprehensible expanse of the cosmos and my small place in it. As we contemplate the Incarnation, what better reminder of God’s glory than the beauty and wonder of creation?

To read about the twelve stages of the eclipse and to find links to related articles, visit Space on msnbc.com

This poem ponders the earth and its people through its shadow thrown across the moon during an eclipse:

AT A LUNAR ECLIPSE

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon’s meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven’s high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?

Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?
By Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

© 2010 Mary van Balen

IMAGE:Picasso Peace Dove Two

He himself will be peace.
Micah 5,4

These words, taken from today’s mid-morning reading (Terce), speak a profound message to us as Christmas approaches. The world is filled with violence and injustice, from our own neighborhoods to countries on the other side of the planet.

Overwhelmed, we can become paralyzed or apathetic, not because we don’t want to do something, but because we don’t know what to do or where to start.

We are called, like Jesus, to BE peace. In order to be peace in the world, we must be at peace with ourselves. Thomas Merton says “We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.”

Through the Incarnation, Jesus shows us how to respond the the Gift of Divine Spirit given to each of us, enabling us to become a reflection of God in the world.

As we grow into a deeper relationship with the Holy One, we grow also into our ability to be peace in our families, our communities, our world.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen
Send victory like a dew, you heavens,
and let the clouds rain it down.
Let the earth open
for salvation to spring up.
Let deliverance, too, bud forth
which I, the Lord, shall create.
Is 45,7

Thinking of something budding at this time of year is hopeful. At the beginning of Advent, I bought a small Christmas Cactus plant for that reason. The first blossom has emerged, but a number of the tiny magenta buds have dropped. I don’t know that that means; I hope not that no more buds will open.

Today’s first reading reminded me of my new plant, and of the cold blanketing bulbs and plants outside. When I think of the earth being “open,” as Isaiah writes, I think of spring planting when farmers plow and gardeners turn over soil with spades and trowels. But, thinking of the earth’s openness in this season brings something else to mind.

The earth must be “open” to receive cold, snow, icy rain, and longer nights, in order to be ready for spring growth to rise from its dark embrace. Some seeds need to freeze to germinate while others need to survive heat of a fire.

My heart must be open to “cold” seasons when darkness lasts longer and no growth is evident. Openness is not just for warm, comfortable time. We can cultivate an attitude of openness to God’s Word at all times in our lives: times of joy and light, times of sorrow and darkness; times of security and times when the future is a menacing unknown.

God is always sending grace our way; sending the Word to take root in our heart no matter the season within or without.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO:

At 12:30a.m. I slipped on my long, almost to the ankles down coat and stepped outside into the very cold night. I had not planned on staying up to view the Geminid meteor shower. The cloudy afternoon sky left over from the first real snow the day before had showed no sign of clearing, but sometime between 5:30 and 9, it did.

The neighborhood was quiet. No cars driving by to crunch the icy streets. Christmas lights from a few houses glowed brightly against white snow-flocked bushes and trees. I remembered childhood Christmases celebrated in this same neighborhood. Our Jewish neighbors had four children. Debbie told me years later that she and Julian stayed up on Christmas Eves and peered down through their second floor window into our living room where Mom and Dad were decorating our tree. She wished for a Christmas tree. I had wished for the eight-day gift giving of Hanukah.

Debbie’s house now holds a Catholic family with four children and a Christmas tree and lights were still burning into the night. The moon was setting, but my location in an old suburb not far from the city’s center is not ideal for meteor watching. The wind began to pick up and I pulled my coat’s hood over my head, cinching up the cords to tighten it around my head.

“If any children were watching now,” I thought, “I would be the strange old lady in her puffy blue coat who stood out in her driveway late at night looking at the sky.” I smiled at the thought, not minding being considered a bit eccentric.

Despite the light pollution, the sky was breathtakingly clear with Orion keeping watch. The majesty of such a view always puts me in prayer mode, and I stood long, mindful or existing in the Presence of the Creator. Mindful, too, of my tiny part in the cosmos. Cold feet broke into my reflections, and I wished I had taken time to put on my warm winter boots. I would not be able to stand much more in my thin-soled ankle boots. Happily, I didn’t have to.

A shooting star streaked across the sky, then another and another. I thought of my sky-gazing friend who had come over earlier that day for a late lunch, and wondered if she were watching from her home beneath a very dark country sky. Another meteor flashed by. I stood a while longer, then content to have taken time to witness a small part of the wonder of living on a planet that moves through space scattered with asteroids and planets and stars.

I nodded toward Orion, my guardian, and stepped back into the house. I snuggled down beneath my comforter and slid into sleep, knowing the sky above the roof was raining stars down on me.
©2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen
As the messengers were leaving, Jesus began to talk to the people about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swaying in the breeze? No? Then what did you go out to see? A man wearing fine clothes? Oh no, those who wear fine clothes are to be found in palaces. Then what did you go out for? To see a prophet? MT 11

Taken from today’s gospel reading, these words challenged me. Sometimes when I pray and try to discern where God is in my life and what I am called to do, I am surprised by what I discover. I don’t always like what I “hear.” For example, as I continue to look for full time employment with no luck, I don’t want to hear “trust in me.” I want to hear “We’d love to have you!”

But trust is what I am asked to do. Work hard, apply for jobs…and trust.

Or, when I am faced with something I would rather avoid but must meet head on and no amount of prayer makes it any easier, I wonder…why do I pray?

Jesus’ words struck deep today. What did I expect? Instant change? An easy path? When I look for God in myself and in the world, what do I expect to find?

If I truly desire to be faithful to who God made me to be and to follow God’s call, I must be ready to grow, to change, to trust.

Some who went to see John in the desert were curiosity seekers interested in seeing a strange man who was causing a stir, but the true seekers went to see a prophet who would ask them to repent and change their lives.

“Be careful what you wish for,” someone once told me. “You may get it and be surprised if you get it.”

When we go into the desert of our hearts to be still with God, we should remember who we desire and what walking with him may mean.

PHOTO: Christ and John the Baptist – Church of the Divine Wisdom, Istanbul
Jesus spoke to the crowds: ‘What description can I find for this generation? It is like children shouting to each other as they sit in the market place:

“We played the pipes for you,
and you wouldn’t dance;
we sang dirges,
and you wouldn’t be mourners.”
‘For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He is possessed.” The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Yet wisdom has been proved right by her actions.
Mt 11,16-19

Today’s gospel reading may resonate with many of you. You can’t win. A child wants you to do one thing, your spouse another. Your boss has a vision for your project, but the people who will be putting it into action have their own ideas. And somewhere, at the bottom of the list is what you want to be doing. So, no matter what you do, some people are going to be unhappy. What are you to do?

This passage is similar to one found in Luke: a short parable followed by an explanation. The last verse in Luke is a bit different, and most biblical scholars think it is the original. Instead of wisdom being justified by her actions, she is justified by her children. The ending is where we discover how Jesus and John dealt with the dilemma.

Each remained faithful to who they were. John was a prophet, sent out to preach repentance, conversion, and to baptize those who received his message. He was to go before the Messiah and prepare his way. His austere lifestyle reflected his call. When Jesus came, John recognized him, identified him as the “One who is to come,” and receded into the background as Jesus’ public ministry began.

Jesus came to be with his people and to reveal to them and to us the face of God. He went were the sinners were. He ate with them, drank with them, and talked to them. Sick and suffering people sought him out and he healed them. Jesus’ immersed himself in people places. He retreated to the desert and quiet places for prayer, but his active ministry was in the heart of humanity.

Wisdom was proved right by her children. Jesus and John were faithful to who they were. The expectations of others did not determine their life choices. Those were made to follow God’s call.

Next time you feel torn in many directions and different people have different expectations of you, take time to be still with God, as John and Jesus did, discern what really matters and don’t worry about the rest.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

IMAGE:Our Lady of Gudalupe

The Mother of Heaven was standing in the very same place where he had first seen her. He knelt before her and said:
“Lady, my Child, tiniest of my children, I went to fulfill thy command. I saw the prelate and related to him thy message. By his reply I realised he did not think it to be thy order. Send, Lady, a person of mark that he may believe it. My lady, I am a paltry fellow, a man of straw, a bumpkin, a commoner and Thou my child, my lady, didst send me to a place I go not, where I stay me not. Forgive me the great grief I cause thee, lady and mistress mine.”

“Listen, my son, least of my sons,” the Most Holy Virgin answered him, “Many are my servants whom I can charge with my message; yet I wish it to be thou to make my petition, to help by thy mediation my will to be accomplished. I charge thee, go again to the bishop, tell him again that the Holy Mary, Virgin Eternal, Mother of God, sends thee.”
from Nican Mopohua 1545 by by Don Antonio Valeriano

The small parish church I attend has a large number of Mexican members. For a few Sundays over the past month they have held a food sale featuring a wide variety of homemade Mexican dishes from tamales to tres leche. Everything is $1 and I never go away hungry. The sale raises money for the procession and celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The feast commemorates the apparitions of Mary to a poor Indian, Juan Diego, in 1531. She requested that a church be built at the top of the hill where they stood and instructed Juan Diego to carry her message to the bishop. He did, but the bishop did not believe him. Juan Diego returned to the hill and spoke with Mary, who sent him back to the bishop with her request.

On his fourth visit with Mary, she instructed him to gather roses growing on the snowy hill. She arranged them in his cloak and sent him back to the bishop with a sign he had requested. When Juan was admitted to see the bishop and opened his cloak to show him the flowers, the blooms tumbled onto the floor revealing an image on the inside of the cloak of Mary as Juan had seen her. The bishop fell to his knees and soon the church project was underway.

Over the years, the validity of this story has been questioned, as all miraculous events are. Scrutinized by unbelievers or others curious about such things, the cloak is preserved and displayed at the church on the hill of Tepeyacac near Mexico City. Juan Diego was canonized a saint in the Catholic Church in 2002.

Whether or not one believes that the image appeared miraculously on Diego’s tilma or not, the story has something to teach us.According to the account by Don Antonio Valeriano, after the bishop’s first refusal to believe his message, Juan Diego returned to Mary and told her that she had the wrong man. Send someone of higher social ranking, someone who would go to places like a bishop’s office. Diego was not comfortable in such surroundings, and the bishop did not give much credence to a poor Indian’s story. “Piety,” the bishop thought, and imagination.

One cannot fault the bishop for wanting more evidence than the story, but Juan Diego’s comments are telling, and not much has changed. Many of those in positions of authority do not give proper respect and consideration to the poor and/or uneducated who come before them. Instead the assume that the person is unreliable, or ignorant, or basically inferior. One wonders what the bishop’s reaction might have been had the messenger chosen by Mary been wearing a suit or a cardinal’s hat.

Once, a while working in a grant funded family literacy program that served poor young mothers, I overheard one of them recounting a recent meeting with her caseworker.

“Last time, she didn’t listen to me at all, so THIS time I took Jane with me. Everyone there knows Janet. She is smart and her husband is a lawyer. So, anyway, Janet and I walked in and everybody was nice and, you know, ‘Can I help you,’ and all that. I didn’t have to wait and when we went in my caseworker’s office, she was smiling and everything like that. And she listened to my problem and got it fixed up.”

My student smiled. “Next time, if you need something, take Janet!”

Juan Diego must have felt like that. Why would Mary entrust someone like him with such an important message? Why would she speak to him at all?

“Am I not your mother?” she had said. “Am I not here with you?”

Jesus sent the Spirit to dwell in every person. Each of us carries some part of the Divine into the world. Mary’s response to Juan Diego, whether spoken from her lips or invented as part of a story, reflect Jesus’ call to reverence the life in every person.

In a world where media hawks the “perfect look.” and success is measured by paychecks and possessions, respect for those who have none of the above can be difficult to find.

As we wait for the feast of Christmas, we do well to remember that the Creator of all that is chose to enter our world in poverty and in the form of an infant, the most vulnerable of us all.
© 2010 Mary van Balen