187/365 That reading from Corinthians

You know the one. The one at all the weddings (but not mine--we had a reading from the letter of James). The one with the list of what love is. Love is patient, kind, enduring, and so forth. The greatest of these is love.

I used to hear it and think how sweet it was. How it belonged on a 1970s era poster with children with big eyes and round bellies holding daisies in front of them, surrounded by puffy little kittens.

I didn't get it.

It wasn't until after I was teaching that I read about this passage, and then learned about it in an overview class I took in order to teach religion in the Catholic schools--you'd think a minor plus some in theology would have been enough, but I needed to take two more classes to be legit. One of them was about the grueling topic of presenting human sexuality to middle schoolers. In the end that turned out to be a pretty amusing thing to teach, but learning about it was akin to kneeling on gravel.

The other class went through the virtues and the sins against said virtues. Faith, hope, love, temperance, etc. And he brought up this reading in regards to the virtues. The greatest of these is love, he said, because it is the one that does not fail, does not pass away. The whole point about seeing indistinctly, but there we will see face to face? That has to do with faith. Once we are one with God, faith passes away. We don't need it anymore. It has been fulfilled. And hope, not the mundane idea of hope, like "I hope Maeve has a good time today," but the hope of eternal life, the hope of one day being with God forever, well, it is fulfilled too. It passes away.

Love remains. And therefore, of these three virtues, it is the greatest.

Once it was explained to me that way, once the words had real meaning, it made so much more sense and got to me for the first time. Now, anytime I hear it read at weddings I just find myself taking a deep breath and really letting the words sink in.

And I don't care if it's a wedding reading. That second part? I want that at my funeral.

273/365 I have a plan

I have two plans, in fact.

1. The Presbyterian Plan: I'm doing two banners, 36" wide by 58" long, to flank their sanctuary, basically. When I sat down with the pastor, Jim, we talked about what Advent meant to him, what it means to me, what it means in his church. We decided on a more pictorial theme than my church probably would want, but it gives me a chance to play with some different themes. The first banner is a depiction of the Visitation as an example of pure belief and faith, done in an abstract-ish way, the meeting of Elizabeth and Mary strongly implied but not, you know, titled or anything. Fields behind them, full moon in the sky.

The other banner is based on Jim's idea that Advent is about watching and waiting. You do not know the hour, that sort of thing. So I'm working with the idea of a watchman. I have the drawing done. Another moon on the horizon, seen through a window where a person sits with his back to the viewer, watching out across the vista. I'm excited.

2. The Catholic Plan. I usually just need a nudge in the right direction. We have so many places in our church where banners can go: in the sanctuary they can flank the crucifix (an unpopular choice lately because that was the same-as-it-ever-was option for many years of bad burlap and felt and lining fabric banners). They have often stood behind the ambo as a focal point, sort of to one side. They could stand on either side by the Mary and Joseph altars. They could technically hang from pillars, although it wouldn't be the same effect as in a more gothic style of church. Or they can go in the back of church, either in what has become the seasonal corner (in Ordinary Time, there is information about various opportunities or themes; in Advent the Giving Tree goes there, during Christmas, the creche, and so forth). Or they can hang from the choir loft. Jack installed curtain rods up there on the underside of the loft railing so that banners could be easily attached (I used to balance them with heavy objects here and there). That's where Easter's banners were hung.

And I sent a message to Fr. Miguel and Sr. Hildegard asking for opinions. Hildegard is on retreat or some sort of visit to her motherhouse, but Miguel wrote me back and probably thought he gave me no direction (he basically said that anything was fine, but nothing obvious like Mary and John the Baptist and--well, what I'm doing for the Presbyterians, although he didn't say that (I did). They can go where I want and say what I want.

Well, there are 4 Sundays of Advent, so there will be 4 banners, hung from the choir loft one at a time. I won't give too much away just yet but I drew as much as I could from the Sunday readings for Year A (I can't believe it's going to be Year A again already). I find I do best when I pull from scripture: my Christmas banner is Numbers 24:17; my first Easter banner was John 20:2; my current Easter banner doesn't pull from a specific passage but from creation and incarnation and resurrection and leading to Pentecost. But I already knew what I wanted from that one--the others required more thought and, well, lectio, frankly.

So these four are thus:
1. Romans 13:12
2. Isaiah 11:5-9
3. James 5:7-8
4. Isaiah 7:11 and Psalm 24 and Matthew 1:20-24

The only other thing I'll say right now is the color scheme: navy, blue violet, gray, rose, black, and lightest blue (like shadow on snow).

Next up: full sized mock ups and then off to the fabric store once I gather up my fragments here and see what I need. My favorite part.

278/365 Lectio Divina

Tonight was the beginning of our parish mission. We've brought in a Redemptorist, a brother of one of our parishioners, which hearkens back to my own baptism down at the Redemptorist parish. I'm on the first page. Tonight's theme, though, was the Bible. God's word. As Catholics, I hear we have an uneasy relationship with the Bible. I think that's because so many of us are Baby Boomers, and they grew up during a period when Catholics didn't read the bible. Too bad. I was taught Old Testament by a fabulous Benedictine monk and I was hooked. I'm sorry if that's not your experience as a Catholic or an ex-Catholic, but I find the bible very comfortable. I'm no scholar, but I don't fear it. I don't worry that my interpretation is wrong. I know my faith and I know what it means to me. I use my bible all the time.

He brought up lectio divina during his talk tonight, which is a monastic practice of reading the bible. It isn't bible study and it isn't a marathon. It's taking a passage and reading it until something strikes you. And then dwelling in that word or phrase. Meditating upon it. And then opening up to God's response for you.

It's an easy way to re-introduce, or, for that matter, introduce, the bible into your life. It's not memorization or deep intellectual study. It's a word. Or two. And you, and God.