9 January 2016
Saturday after Epiphany
The season of Epiphany is ending, and with it the Christmas season. The lights, the joyful gatherings, the feasting – all these help us get through the darkest time of the year. On the natural level, the sun is now getting perceptibly stronger, if only slightly, the days inching up a bit longer.
On the spiritual level, the entire Christmas season is a tremendous gift of joy. The joy is irresistible, in spite of all the disasters that can surround family gatherings and office parties. The babe in the manger, the soft lights on the Christmas tree, the marvelous sounds and smells inviting the senses to remember another, a better world – all these give us new heart, even as winter has really just begun. That is, even as winter really gets into it in earnest, the sun tells us that winter’s cold is already being drawn inexorably into spring.
Let us rejoice that we have known – and, more importantly – that we are known by God, and gifted with His Son, to be our savior. For though we now hover over the newborn child, and tend to His needs, yet, He is the one who tends to our needs. The one who elicits the best in us and gives us new heart, and new hearts; the one who will lead us through all the darkness into the light from which He comes. With this quiet joy, with this quiet confidence, let us then embark on the apparently calm seas of “ordinary time.”