Advent with the Masters

The Virgin of the Dry Tree,
Petrus Christus, c. 1465. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

The tree is dead, all thorns and bare limbs, and Our Lady stands in it holding the Christ Child, as if she had grown there. The Thyssen-Bornemisza ties the work to the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Dry Tree, to which Christus and his wife belonged.

This is what I received in my inbox after signing up for Advent with the Masters. Beginning the first Sunday of Advent, this free program delivers one of the Church’s great paintings each morning through Christmas, chosen by the liturgical calendar and captioned only from the holding museum’s own record.

This looks like a lovely way to begin each day and I'm looking forward to what Advent will bring to my in-box!

Thank You to Our Veterans

Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it… it flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it. —Unknown

This is just so darned true. Our soldiers and veterans are so worthy of our thanks and pride. I think of my brother who has said several times, with becoming modesty, that he really just wanted to help other people. 

This moving photograph shows Chief Master Sgt. John Gebhardt, superintendent of the 22nd Wing Medical Group at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, holding an injured Iraqi girl. The picture was taken in October 2006, while Sgt. Gebhardt was deployed to Balad Air Base in Iraq. According to the Air Force Print News, the infant girl Sgt. Gebhardt held in his arms "received extensive gunshot injuries to her head when insurgents attacked her family killing both of her parents and many of her siblings." An Air Force Link article about the sudden fame he gained as the subject of this photograph reported that:

The chief had a knack for comforting [the injured Iraqi girl] and they often would catch a cat nap together in a chair. "I got as much enjoyment out of it as the baby did," he said. "I reflected on my own family and life and thought about how lucky I have been." While deployed to Iraq, the chief tried to help out any way he could. He figured holding a baby that needed comforting that would free up one more set of arms that could be providing care to more critical patients. "I pray for the best for the Iraqi children," he said. "I can't tell the difference between their kids and our kids. The Iraqi parents have the same care and compassion for their children as any American."

Source: Snopes

I haven't said it enough because none of us really can but to our veterans as well as those serving now ... thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels

Kenneth Bailey grew up in the Middle East and spent a good portion of adult life there. He tells us what Middle Easterners would have thought of Jesus' teachings, parables, and actions. He's also a scholar so this is rooted not only in practical cultural experience, but in an ancient Arabic translation of the Bible, Jewish midrash and more. He takes us through Jesus's birth and some key moments of his life, the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, parables, and his interactions with women. Each time I learned something new, whether large or small, that helped me see Jesus better. 

For example, there is the story of the vineyard owner who keeps hiring men throughout the day and then gives them all a full day's pay, Since moving to Texas, I grew used to seeing certain parking lots with men waiting in the morning for a truck to pull up and say how many workers are needed. What I didn't think about is that Bailey points out the vineyard owner keeps checking back throughout the day to see if more men are looking for work. He says this isn't because more workers are needed but because he was checking back to see if anyone gave the unchosen men some work. The owner hires these men because he knows how much a day's wages would mean in their households. This shows the story with a point to the compassionate employer. I never thought of this, but it makes tons of sense and holds true with what I myself have observed. Those parking lots don't have guys hanging around all day. They know the choosing has been done for the day.

This sort of insight is continually brought up and really gives us a clearer, multi-faceted look at the treasure held for us in the Gospels. Certainly it helps me see more of who Jesus is and what he is telling us.

Forest Wilderness

Forest Wilderness, J. E. H. MacDonald

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Lateran Basilica — Major Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica Cathedral 

of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, 

Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World

This has never been a feast that made sense to me. A feast for a church in Rome. Granted it is a very old church and the Pope's seat as Bishop of Rome. Okay, fine, but nothing for me here in America to get excited over (just to be provincal about it!).

Then I read this.

A church's walls do not make one a Christian, of course. But a church has walls nonetheless. Walls, borders, and lines delimit the sacred from the profane. A house makes a family feel like one, a sacred place where parents and children merge into a household. A church structurally embodies supernatural mysteries. A church is a sacred space where sacred actions make Christians unite as God's family. Walls matter. Churches matter. Sacred spaces matter. Today the Church commemorates a uniquely sacred space, the oldes of the four major basilicas in the city of Rome. The Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Rome and thus the seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome.

That really hit me where I live. I love my church building. And the people in it. It is home and they are my family. During the pandemic shut-downs we yearned to be able to gather together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

This feeling was strengthened when I read today's devotional meditation in the Special Feasts (vol. 7) of In Conversation with God. It talked about the history of the temple, beginning with the Tent of Meeting in the desert where Moses spoke with the Lord as to a friend. It wasn't a temple, of course, but it was the place where man could meet God. I loved that connection going so far back in salvation history. 

There Christ nurtures us from the Tabernacle as he used to care one by one for those who came to him from all cities and villages. We can present him with our deepest desires to love him more and more with each passing day, and entrust to him our preoccupatoins, our difficulties and our weaknesses. We should cultivate a profound reverence forour churches and oratories since the lord awaits us there.

Today the world would be considerably different if Christ had not wanted to remain with us. In front of the tabernacle we can draw strength for our interior struggle and leave all our worries in his hands. On how many occasions have we returned tothe hustle and bustle of ordinary life with renewed hope! We cannot forget that the Sacrifice of infiinite value which the Lord offered on Calvary is renewed each day in our churches so as to draw down upon us form heaven innumerable graces of divine mercy.

Okay, I finally get it!

Choir and apse of the Lateran Basilica

We must certainly be in a novel

We must certainly be in a novel; What I like about this novelist is that he takes such trouble about his minor characters.

G.K. Chesterton

As a minor character, I like that too!

Gary Cooper

Gary Cooper as The Virginian
via mardecortésbaja.com's post on the novel

I love the book. I love this picture.

What a book provides

A book provides more than what's between its covers. It's a relationship that stays with us for a lifetime. It is always faithful. And usually it is kind.

Stephen Tobolowsky

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Bayeux Tapestry

I'd never even heard of the Bayeux Tapestry when my husband and I went to France after just being married a couple of years. He'd always wanted to see it and couldn't believe I'd never been told about it.

I remember the huge church where it had originally been hung and then the museum next door where you could walk around and view the entire thing. Which we did with a field trip of English school kids who had crossed the Channel to see this part of their heritage. I had no idea that English and French heritage overlapped (yes, I was just a touch ignorant). Or of the beauty of this hand-sewn tribute to the Norman invasion of England.

It was simply amazing.

Here's a wonderful book about it - which I may need to reread. 

This made me look at Wikipedia where you can look at the entire thing in one piece. This is really neat.

Individual scenes may be examined close up at this Wikipedia spot. Also neat.

Notes on Mark: Radiant Glory and the Cloud

Transfiguration by Alexandr Ivanov, 1824

MARK 9:2-8
I like the way Mark's description translates to my mind's eye. It is much different than I had pictured, which was more of a white, glowing process. Also, it is fascinating to see connect the overshadowing cloud with events from the Old Testament.

... Mark tells us that the garments of Jesus became radiant. The word he uses (stilbein) is the word used for the glistening gleam of burnished brass or gold or of polished steel or of the golden glare of the sunlight. When the incident came to an end a cloud overshadowed them.

In Jewish thought the presence of God is regularly connected with the cloud. It was in the cloud that Moses met God. It was in the cloud that God came to the Tabernacle. It was the cloud which filled the Temple when it was dedicated after Solomon had built it. And it was the dream of the Jews that when the Messiah came the cloud of God's presence would return to the Temple. (Exodus 16:10, 19:9, 1 Kings 8:10, 2 Maccabees 2:8.) The descent of the cloud is a way of saying that the Messiah had come, and any Jew would understand it like that.

The Gospel of Mark
(The Daily Bible Series, rev. ed.)

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Sources and Notes Index