Welcome to a new
Liturgical Year, and welcome also to Sunday Snippets, A Catholic Carnival. Sunday Snippets is a weekly gathering of
Catholic bloggers who share their posts from the week past here, at This That and the Other Thing under
the benevolent gaze of our leader in snippetude, RAnn.
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| The view from Principium et Finis World Headquarters Wednesday, 26 Nov. |
Today is also the
First Sunday in Advent, the beginning of a special penitential season set apart
to prepare ourselves, as I say in yesterday’s post, “for the coming of Jesus,
not only at Christmas, but at his second coming, and also his coming for each
one of us individually.”
Now, you might be
afraid that I’m one of those people who is prone to ranting about keeping Advent
and Christmas in their own appropriate seasons and not celebrating Christmas
too early; and you’d be right, but I’m not going to do it today: there will be plenty more opportunities
for that over the next four weeks. I’m
thinking more about the meeting each one of us will have with Christ at the end
of our own lives – or maybe more accurately, the meeting that I
will have with Him at the end of my life. It may seem that the Creator of so immensely
vast a universe would have little time for me or you. Jesus tells us otherwise:
Are not two sparrows sold for a
penny? And not one of them will fall to
the ground without your Father’s will. But even the hairs of your head are all
numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are
of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31)
The details matter, the particulars matter. God chose a particular people to preserve his
Word and to nurture the Word made Flesh, who came forth as a real individual
person, as a tiny baby, in a specific town, at a definite time, not in some
indefinite mythological past; for which reason the Evangelist Luke made sure that we knew that Augustus was the
emperor and Quirinus the governor. The
Nicene Creed similarly named Pontius
Pilate as the Roman procurator under whom Jesus was crucified. And because people matter, not just
collectively but as individuals, we relate to the Church through the lives of individual
Christian men and women, the Saints, and we call upon them by name so that they
might speak for us before the throne of God.
The Season of
Advent, then, is a reminder to us that the infinite God has enough time and
attention for each and every one of us.
Christ is coming, and we will meet him, face to face. There will be no hiding in the crowd, no
slipping past unnoticed. We are given a
reminder, and the opportunity to prepare ourselves: let’s not pass it up.
Now, moving from
the sublime to the . . . well . . . less than sublime, let us say (although I
do my best), let’s look at the past week at Principium et Finis. This was actually our busiest week in quite a
while:
Monday – It’s
ironic that perhaps the only reason Antonio Salieri’s music is played today at
all is that he was turned into a monstrous caricature in a very successful play
and film; he wasn’t a murderer, of course, and he was a gifted composer: “
Salieri: Requiem in C minor – Sanctus & Benedictus” [here]
Tuesday – Unlike
Salieri, St. Catherine of Alexandria has not seen her reputation blackened (aside
from the accusation that she is only a fabrication), but she certainly merits
more attention than she receives today: “St. Catherine of Alexandria, Patroness
of Modern Women” [here]
Wednesday – The
old “clump of cells” canard: “Abortion Myth #10” [here]
Thursday – For
what should we be more thankful than God’s love? And what better time to bring back my
favorite photo of my bare feet in the surf than a Thanksgiving Day blessed with
10 inches of snow? “What Is Man That Thou Art Mindful Of Him? (Thanksgiving
Throwback)” [here]
Saturday – The
discovery of a long-unnoticed flaw in my trusty rosary is the occasion for
reflection on God’s perfection, my own lack thereof, and the coming of the Christ:
“Be Vigilant At All Times” [here]
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