In these dark days of pandemic and concern, we remember the Star that shone over the birthplace of Christ.
Let us renew the hope, peace and love that is in our hearts because of His coming.
A Merry and Blessed Christmas to you all.
Thank you for reading my blog,
Anthony Massimini
A young musician who was studying conducting was paying almost all his attention to the notes of the composition he was preparing to conduct. His teacher told him he was missing the most important point. The notes, he said, do not exist by themselves or for themselves. They exist in patterns, in melodies. It is the patterns, the melodies, that turn the individual notes into music. If he did not see and conduct the patterns, he would conduct individual, disconnected sounds and miss the music that is greater than the individual notes and greater than himself.
Unhappily, that is what happens to many of us Christians when we read Bible passages that were not meant to be taken literally. Like the young conductor, we can easily read the words and miss the music, which is the symphony of God-with-us. Without our consciousness of the presence of God in the entire Bible, we are liable to give the texts our own meaning, with all our human limitations, including our errors and prejudices.
To us Christians, God-With-Us has a name. It is Christ, or the Christ Reality, Who is God-With-Us within and throughout the entire universe from its very birth, 13.8 billion years ago. With respect to our Jewish cousins who gave us what we call, The Old Testament," we Christians see the grand symphony of God-With-Us, Christ, beginning with the very first sentence of Genesis, which tells us that a mighty wind, the Spirit of God, swept over the initial dark abyss, bringing Divinity into the birth of the entire universe.
In the New Testament, St. John describes the same reality as God "speaking" Christ, i.e., Divinity's presence, into the newly created universe. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (1:Jn 1)
The "notes" of the Old Testament give us beautiful and wonder-filled music. The story of Adam and Even in the garden of Eden is a mythic wonder, i.e., a story that is not historically true but that beautifully expresses the "music" of our creation by God, and our human frailty. When we learned the scientific and historic truth of evolution, we were able to see ourselves from our very beginning as imperfect, yet deeply blessed and loved children of God.
The symphony grows and develops in the wonder stories of the Great Flood and Noah's Ark. Even the deliberately funny story of Jonah in the Whale carries the melody of love and resurrection. And what poem or song can match the music of the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd...?
And when the ancients sent discords into the symphony of God, they had Prophets to call them back from their cacophony.
For us Christians the symphonic music of the Bible builds until the blessed day when Christ, God-With-Us appears physically in the world in the person of Jesus. Jesus is our Divine Way, Truth and Life. (Jn. 14:6)
In Christ Jesus there is no place for hateful views of those who are different from us, racially, culturally, politically, etc., etc. And there is no room for depressed and depressing predictions of the imminent end of the world, or for "infallible" predictions of election results, or for adamant refusal to accept true election results.
In Christ Jesus there is room only for love for everyone without any exception. And there is room only for loving confidence that Christ Jesus will get us through whatever crucifixions life may send us.
At this crucial moment in our beloved country's history we must keep in our mind and heart our love of Christ Jesus, God-With-Us. In him we find the beautiful music that is the symphony that is Christ, God-With-Us, who is the true melody of our lives and of our beloved America.
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