Minute Meditations
The Shocking Beauty of Christmas
Pope Benedict, who addressed 250 artists in the Sistine Chapel before Michelangelo’s half-naked, and often grotesque, images, said quite brilliantly, “An essential function of genuine beauty is that it gives humanity a healthy shock!” And then he went on to quote Simone Weil who said that “Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is in fact possible.” If there is one moment of beauty, then beauty can indeed exist on this earth; if there is one true moment of Incarnation, then why not incarnation everywhere?
All Good Comes from God
Whatever is good, true, or beautiful comes from a single source: God. The generosity and faithful love that God showed in creation can become a constant reminder of our need to live out a generous and faithful love. Our ability ...
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How Can We Grasp This Truth?
I have long felt that Christmas is a feast that largely celebrates humanity’s unconscious desire and goal. Its meaning is too much for the rational mind to process, so God graciously puts this Big Truth on a small stage so ...
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The Incarnation Invites Us to Compassion
We need to show compassion for those in need during this season and year-round. We miss the point of the Incarnation if we feel that feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless are activities for this season only. Educational theorist ...
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The Incarnation Changes Everything
The custom of setting up a Christmas crib in one’s home—not simply outside a church—reinforces the personal challenge represented by the Incarnation. The Incarnation changes everything in human history. We become different people because of it. In Francis’s day, many ...
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Invitation to Prayer
One day when Francis was in a lonely place by himself, weeping for his misspent years in the bitterness of his heart, the joy of the Holy Spirit was infused into him and he was assured that all his sins ...
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A Celebration of the Jesus Vision
People usually think of Christmas as a traditional and sentimental festival, but not as a celebration of the Jesus vision it commemorates: a philosophy of profound reform. The child lying in the manger would become perhaps the most radical of ...
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