Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

We Repent because of Love, Not Fear - Lazar Puhalo

Faith in Christ pertains to the inner content of the life of Christ. It is not just a collection of religious ideologies and moralisms which ignore Christ and His message in order to return to bondage to the law, as if we were without Grace.

It is said by the Saviour that "not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass away until all things be fulfilled." How is it that anyone (even Orthodox clergy) turn to this saying, yet never, ever pay heed to the prayer we say at the Proskomedia, just after the prayer before the Amvon, and before the final blessing? It begins with the theological statement, "Thou who art Thyself the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets ..."

If Christ Jesus did not "fulfill all things," what did He accomplish?

Of course, if you believe in the 'Atonement' heresy--that Christ was tortured to death to satisfy the bloodlust of a cruel and unforgiving deity, and died to save us from God--then you might not realize that Christ did indeed, fulfill all things so that every jot and tittle of the law may pass away, so that the "manuscript that was against us is torn up," as Paul says, and the "middle wall" (Eph. 2:14) is broken down.

Institutional Church and Ecclesia - David Goa with Brad Jersak

 Ecclesiology with godfather

Brad Jersak with David Goa

Brad: It’s time for me to have a discussion on ecclesiology (the theology of church or ecclesia) with my Eastern Orthodox godfather, David Goa.

Though I’ve attended churches since birth and spent 20 years as a full-time clergyman (and now a tonsured Reader in the EO Church), ecclesiology is probably the weakest area of my theology. This partly stems from straddling my appreciation of the so-called ‘institutional church’ [hereafter contracted to IC] vis-a-vis my call to minister (via PTM.org) to the ‘nones and dones’ (generally post-Evangelicals). These folks general still love Christ, but for a variety of reasons (from irrelevance to spiritual abuse) have no intention of returning to congregational participation. It leaves me asking, what is church?

David: While your focus has primarily been outreach to the Evangelical world (and those who’ve left it), I more often rub shoulders with clergy on the modern liberal side.

In both cases, two levels of ecclesiology are intertwined. First, regarding those in ministry, what is our calling? What constitutes ministry? And second, what constitutes the church?

Brad: Alright, let’s take those in order. Tell me about the call to ministry.

What constitutes the ministry?

David:  What I have found that those who spend any length of time in the register of justice tend to become spiritual anorexics, burnt out and cynical.

If you’re raised in the dominant justice register, your task is social criticism, usually leveled congregation. And so, the congregation gets pissed off or they become convinced, and in either case, they leave and the church withers.

The best and brightest of them can’t sleep in sheets of 220 threads, if you know what I mean. In the place of privilege, they’re exhausted. I say to them, “Your father’s fundamentalism was never the point. Your reaction to his fundamentalism is not the point. There’s something deeper happening here.”

This becomes very vivid when working with that clergy. It’s amazing how few can rest with peace in how they minister. Are they supposed to be politicians, prophets, therapists or liturgists?

Brad: And how do you answer that?

David: What if our calling allows us to simply be present to people? What if we get to be present to our community (outside the church)? To be resources who follow the Spirit’s winds, free to speak the word of healing whenever, to whomever? And what if our calling—our ministry—is to live lives that allow us to hear that word, too?

Once we discuss what constitutes ministry, confusion often occurs around what constitutes the church.

Brad: Indeed. Pray tell, godfather … What is the church?

C.S. Lewis and Bede Griffiths: Spiritual Friendship - Ron Dart

It was through him (Lewis) that I really discovered the meaning of friendship…. When we last met, a month before his death, he reminded me that we had been friends for nearly forty years. There are not many things more precious to me than that friendship.

Bede Griffiths - “The Adventure of Faith”

A man should keep his friendship in constant repair.

Samuel Johnson        

C.S. Lewis was one of the most prominent Medieval and Renaissance scholars at Oxford, initially, then Cambridge, from the 1930s until his death in 1963. Bede Griffiths was, as a young man, a student of Lewis, and, both men came to Christianity together from about 1929-1932. The relationship, as time unfolded, changed from teacher-student to, through many a trying moment, pure gold friends. It is somewhat significant that Bede Griffiths gave Lewis a copy of Aelrid of Rievaulx’s Spiritual Friendship (acknowledged by Lewis in a letter to Griffiths: May 26 1943). Aelrid was the much loved Abbot of Rievaulx and his missive on “spiritual friendship” is a classic in western spirituality. It is quite appropriate that Lewis and Griffiths (both immersed in the mother lode of the classical and western tradition with a generous openness to the East and Orient) would have held high the notion of friendship and Aelrid’s beauty of a text on the subject.

I have, for many a decade and for different reasons, been attracted to both Lewis and Griffiths, and my small book, C.S. Lewis and Bede Griffiths: Chief Companions (2016) highlights the layered friendship between Lewis and Griffiths over many a decade. Griffiths, after the death of Lewis in 1963, often came to the defence of Lewis in The Canadian C.S. Lewis Journal. The fact that few Griffiths keeners know much about the many letters by Griffiths to The Canadian C.S. Lewis Journal means a significant aspect of both Griffiths’ and Lewis’ friendship is not known about. The more the letters by Griffiths about Lewis to the Journal are read and pondered, the richer becomes our understanding of Lewis and Griffiths (and their friendship). And, as Griffiths noted, “There are not many things more precious to me than that friendship”.

It is somewhat interesting that many a fan of Lewis knows little about the Lewis-Griffiths friendship and, equally so, many who have the highest admiration for Griffiths know little about Griffiths’ close friendship with Lewis. Why is this the case? There are tendencies, of course, to freeze thinkers and activists within certain time frames, then reduce their complexity and nimbleness to simplistic categories. Creative, thoughtful and innovative thinkers can rarely be cabin’d, cribb’d and confin’d in such a way, but often followers and interpreters do this for the purpose of comparing and contrasting, highlighting who best reflects their agendas. Lewis and Griffiths, decidedly so, elude such caging and embalming. Lewis certainly cannot be reduced to an apologist for reformed and evangelical Christianity no more than he can be defined as a conservative/republican in politics—sadly so, this has often been done. Lewis is much more catholic and spacious than his followers and adherents make him out to be. The same can be said about Griffiths. How is Griffiths to be interpreted? Was he, at day’s end, a sophisticated syncretist or a Roman Catholic with an achingly high view of common grace? Was Griffiths merely a post-Vatican II progressive or more of a patristic contemplative theologian that applied Classical Christian meditative thought to comparative religions?

How are we to read and interpret the nuanced and subtle insights and wisdom of Lewis and Griffiths? The danger, as mentioned above, is to simplify their thinking for the purpose of too easy categorization.

Q & R: The Ethics of the Trinity - Brad Jersak

​ Question:

 

I've been reading your A More Christlike God.  On page 102 you discuss "Trinitarian love". I've always taken the Trinity as a "given," and never really looked into its implications. But as I've read Jason Pratt's Sword to the Heart, I've come to see that the Trinity has significant ethical implications; God Self-Begetting (the Father) and God Self-Begotten (the Son) always treat One another lovingly. If a Person of God were to rebel against another Person of God, all existence would cease. This gets around the "Euthyphro dilemma" in a way that I do not think unitarian faiths can.  What are your thoughts?  

 

Response:

 

You are exactly right. Perhaps more than you even realize.

 

The doctrine of the Trinity explains how God can be One and God can be Love in God's very nature. If not for the Trinitarian relationship of persons within the One God, then God could not be eternal love. God-as-love would only begin with the creation of an object of that love. But a three-personal God means that God is love, even prior to any created object of that love beyond Godself. 

And we must insist that Trinitarian Christianity remains monotheism. We don't worship three Gods. Orthodoxy proclaims the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one in essence and undivided. Note: forever undivided. This is a significant problem for any atonement theory that imagines Father turning from Son. Love ceases? Never. Union of the Godhead is interrupted? Not for a nano-second! 

 

You mention the "Euthyphro dilemma" ... named after Socrates' dialogue with Euthyphro in Plato's work, Euthyphro. I'm glad you caught that. Spot on. In Socrates' words, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” In modern lingo, the essence of the dilemma is "Does God will only to do good because he is the Good? Or is the good called good because God wills it?"

 

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Falling Upward - Richard Rohr

Richard Rohr - Falling Upward from Plain Truth Ministries on Vimeo.
Interviewer: Steve Stewart (Impact Nations)

Was Jesus White? by Juan Cole

Given the alarming rise of white nationalism in the United States and the ways in which it is often entangled with Christian nationalism, it is worthwhile remembering whose birth, exactly, was commemorated on Sunday. 

The association of Christianity with whiteness is relatively new in history, as is the whole idea of a “white” race identified with Europe. I’ve pointed out that Benjamin Franklin saw whiteness in his own day as being an attribute solely of the British, so that Germans, e.g., were not white– in part because he thought them “swarthy” and in part because they lived under despotism. And, no, Santa Claus was not ‘white,’ either.

Likely the rise and consolidation of the Dutch and British Empires in the seventeenth through twentieth centuries contributed to the meme of “whiteness” and “Christianity,” both seen by some in the 19th century as markers of civilizational superiority.  (The actual reasons for which the British were able to loot India, Malaya and Kenya, and the Dutch to loot what is now Indonesia, had nothing to do with either ‘whiteness’ or Christianity.  There are, as it turns out, no meaningful biological races, since homo sapiens sapiens is such a young species, roughly 150,000 years old).

So here are some reasons for which Jesus was not white:

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Cold and Broken, but Hallelujah Nonetheless - Grant Corriveau

This morning for some reason, I got thinking about how “in him we live and move and have our being.” … And how God’s love surrounds and upholds all of us all the time.

 

There are so many moments where God’s presence erupts boldly and unexpectedly and creates a spontaneous moment of awe and quiet - a hush - often followed by a roar of excitement and thanksgiving and praise. Often the praise and our need to express it isn’t even understood clearly. Maybe we think we’re praising the singer or the song or the songwriter - but ultimately behind all of this who is the real artist? Is it not the one who brought it all into existence? And isn’t it just possible that when we praise any of this we are (knowingly or unknowingly) praising This One? (think of how we might praise a painting - are we not indirectly praising the artist him/herself?).

 

In 2010 KD Lang knocked the socks off millions of tv viewers around the world during the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremony. Surrounded by over 50,000 fans and athletes in the stadium she silenced the house with Leonard Cohen’s anguished love song/anthem/hymn, Hallelujah. The song begins with the iconicallly-imperfect biblical hero, King David, and goes on to speak of our struggles to know love - love of others and love of God. 

 

Now, much of that audience had no idea what the song is about and frankly many, living in the peak of their youth and health and vitality weren’t in the place to fully appreciate the message.  But KD was.  As a lesbian woman from the bible belt country of southern Alberta, it’s a pretty sure bet that she has known her share of pain and rejection over the years. She was out of the closet long before it was as normalized as it is today.

 

As awesome as that Olympics moment was, I prefer a different performance of this song that KD gave at the 2005 Juno Awards (Canada’s music industry awards ceremony). Here we can better see her body language and facial expressions as she conveys clearly that she hasn’t merely memorized lyrics to a song but rather has lived them and deeply “gets” what Cohen was saying to the depths of her being. These words are poetic. This is not a Hallmark Card moment. They speak of life lived in all its pain, ecstasy, confusion, disappointment and hope. We all struggle to know love and experience it, but our human forays into love are so imperfect and so far from what we sense it is really all about. 

In brokenness and despair we can discover that love and God become real - more so than all the other times when we might claim to “know” God. Of all the times we connect with god, the deepest most authentic are often in times when from the depths of our souls we cry out a spontaneous “hallelujah” — beyond our control. Beyond our understanding.

In this presentation of the song I like how right up through the end as KD receives the accolades of her colleagues and fans, she does so in a humble and shy demeanour.  Entirely in keeping with who she is and what she has just sung.

 

 

Presence of The Presence - Henry Smidstra

Presence of The Presence

A ministry of presence is how I defined my pastoral model as prison chaplain. I borrowed the term from David Augsburger (1986); his phrase, the presence of the Presence. With this focus I enhanced my job description’s first item which read, “To represent the spiritual dimension of life throughout the Prison.” This mandate was inclusive of the darkest most god-forsaken depths of the prison. There were of course social-political forces that challenged my desire to be a restorative loving presence in this fashion. I made my visits adding other services to satisfy the institution’s Standard Operating Procedures. I still believe being the presence of PRESENCE is primary; God’s loving presence is necessary, especially in loveless institutional prison regimes.

Herod Was Religious - Lazar Puhalo

Editor’s note: While many believers celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas day, millions of others extend the celebration of the Incarnation through what they call ‘The Feast of the Nativity’ well into January. In so doing, they think of the Incarnation as encompassing, not only the birth of Christ, but his whole life as God-made-human.

These are the days of the Nativity of our Lord God and Savior, the Incarnation of the living God, the Incarnation of co-suffering Love. The Sunday after the feast, the Gospel story of Herod and the Magi always holds a great revelation for us.

I was asked recently asked online, “Does evidence disprove religion?” Perhaps it doesn't disprove it so much as it exposes it. Remember, we always try to caution that religion and faith are not the same things.

Herod, you know, was a genuine believer. He was very strict about keeping the kosher laws and the other laws of his religion. Even Caesar makes note of the fact that when Herod would come to Rome—as he had to periodically to promise his fealty to the Emperor—he always refused to eat any kind of pork. And he was very careful about the kosher laws. So we could say he was a religious person.

Of course, he also had several wives and he even killed a few of them. He had numerous children both in and out of wedlock. Yet he was very religious! But this doesn't mean he had any faith.

So when the Magi came and told Herod, “Look, the prophecies of your religion are being fulfilled and we have come to venerate the one who has been born according to the word of the holy prophets,” Herod believed. He knew the word of the holy prophets. Yes, he was very religious. He knew and he could consult exactly where the Messiah was to be born. But he understood that the Messiah was to be a military ruler, a military king who would take over the land of Israel and rule it and make it great again.

Jesus, the Refugee Crises and the Sanitization of Christmas - Ron Dart

Richard Harries' "The Beauty and The Horror" - review by Alex Rayment

The Beauty and The Horror by Richard Harries
ISBN:9780281076932 published by SPCK 

God is good.  All the time.  All the time.  God is good. For that is His nature. But what about right now, in Aleppo?  What about in oncology wards?  Where is that goodness in the Congo as millions have been slaughtered over wars fuelled by a western desire for minerals to create a more powerful smartphone?  

In The Beauty and The Horror, Richard Harries unpacks these often unnerving questions in a way that is both pastoral and yet unsatisfied with hiding from serious contemporary evils.  Harries’ ability to communicate to an audience both in the Church and outside comes across as he beautifully weaves together strands of literature accessible to all.  An obvious fan of Rowan Williams, R.S Thomas, Reinhold Neibuhr, C.S Lewis and William Golding, Harries takes the reader on an epistemological journey, presenting the precise nature of the Christian response to suffering in the world.  

Richard Harries, whose influence spreads far and wide, is predominantly writing this as a response to a trajectory of atheistic rationalism however what is witnessed a few chapters in is a writer who cares about the reader’s opinion.  This is not a book to just consume and move on but it asks questions of the reader; principally ‘Is Harries right?’ 

As to the answer to suffering,The Beauty and The Horror presents us with Jesus of Nazareth.  Not only does Harries explore who we are talking about when discussing Jesus but goes on to say that through a filial relationship with this same One we may begin to experience the reality of how “the Christ who holds us now holds us close to himself through and beyond death.” (p.146)  It is this Christian ‘hope in the face of death’ that rises above simple wishful thinking and presents an answer; suffering happens, it is not good, we shall overcome because He overcame.

In the chapter Beyond Tragedy, Harries uses a series of novels to describe how, a Christian experience of suffering is never a full-stop.  Both the resurrection and redemption of and through Christ offer the best example of this.  Novelists, filmmakers and other artists often attempt this as their story arc, maybe because it does in fact give us hope.  Not hope of a sentimental sort but hope that changes the way we live and how we live.  “Furthermore tragedy can actually make more luminous the values that apparently lose out in the world of events.”(p.199)  Harries, by no means wishes to make light of suffering he wants to in fact suggest that a hope-filled engagement with very real suffering, and not wishful-thinking nor escapism, is what allows us to be ‘truly human’.

This book is great in prose and universal in accessibility.  It is not, however, the final word on the subject but allows the reader to begin to unpack how a Christian may profess a good God who is always good and still watch the news daily.  Harries does not go into detail of the parakletos that Jesus promises.  The comforting Spirit that is a well of refreshment in a dry and barren land; however he does present such an evangelistic message throughout that the keen eyed reader will in fact see the embrace of the Holy Spirit woven throughout. 

Calvin Prof on ‘Radical’ Watchlist: ‘The Call of the Prophet Is to Speak Truth’ - Joseph Kuilema

My own discipline, social work, emerged in part out of the social gospel movement of the early 1900s. One of the great minds of that movement, the Baptist preacher Walter Rauschenbusch, once gave the conference sermon at a gathering of social workers. “Social work, the kind that deals with the causes of misery, is today almost the only form of Christian work that involves the risk of persecution,” he said.

He offered this not to counsel social workers away from such work, but to urge them toward it. That has always been the call of the prophet: To speak the truth. To call it what it is.

Too many white Americans would rather not listen to the call to repentance from our brothers and sisters at Standing Rock. We would rather not confront America’s original sins of genocide and chattel slavery. We would rather not think about the black bodies broken at the hands of the state in the name of justice, the failure of that same system to return verdicts, and the mass incarceration of people of color and the poor.

As in Isaiah 30:9-10:

We are a rebellious people,

faithless children,

children who will not hear

the instruction of the Lord;

who say to the seers, “Do not see”;

and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;

speak to us smooth things,

prophesy illusions.”

So, tell us that we will Make America Great Again. Do not remind us that for many, a return to some imagined point in the past is a return to oppression and violence. Pay no attention to the thick cloud at the top of the mountain, the thunder and lightning (Exodus 19:16). Look at this golden calf, this gold-plated skyscraper. Ask with scorn, as Pilate did, “What is truth?” Do not concern yourself with an answer. Give the people what they want.

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Suffering and the Soul - Amber Hamilton

I have a story to tell.  I struggle with telling it, not wanting to become yet another loud voice screaming into an echo chamber of ideas.  But it needs to be told and if you will listen I hope it will be a story of restoration and freedom to you. 

I am a stay at home mom of 4 boys.  My husband and I have been married for 12 years.  We have fought long and hard for a marriage that means something.  He is my greatest gift. 

A little over three years ago my body began to fall apart. I had to have 3 surgeries—one of them a disk replacement in my neck. I developed chronic migraines and the suffering that came was relentless. It didn’t gently stretch but rather ripped apart the fabric of my soul. It didn’t make it a little bigger to carry a bit more virtue. No, it decimated it, leaving in its place a black hole that swallowed all that my soul knew to be true.  One year ago this September I looked at my husband and said, "I don't believe in God anymore. I don't know how I can. He has abandoned me in my darkest hours. I cannot believe a loving God would ‘cause this for His glory,’ because if he did, he has a self-esteem problem and I don't want to be a part of it." 

This was the message I had inherited growing up: God caused suffering so we could show others how steadfast in our faith we were and then people would respond, "Wow! That's amazing! God is so good!" WHAT??!? I abandoned my post as a Christian and as devastating as the break up was, I didn't know how to stay in that place of belief anymore.

This suffering left only questions—questions of self, the Divine, and purpose. Questions if left unanswered leave my soul empty, without hope, permitting my soul to transmit its pain to others (cf. Richard Rohr) and causing a trail of wreckage in its wake. 

Only suffering can break that which the soul never intended to give up.

Revisiting Spiritual Warfare as a Progressive Christian - J. Barrett Lee

Lectio divina on this morning’s second reading from the Daily Lectionary.

Click here to read it.

"you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness." (1 Thess 5:5)

Of course, Indigo Girls fan that I am, I immediately started singing this song in my head: 

"My place is of the sun and this place is of the dark
and I do not feel the romance, I do not catch the spark.
By grace, my sight is growing stronger
and I will not be a pawn
for the Prince of Darkness any longer."

I’ve been thinking a lot about spiritual warfare lately. You know, angels n’ demons n’ stuff.

When I was part of the charismatic movement in college, I obsessed over this topic in a literalistic sense. Once I left behind the conservative theology I formerly held, this is one of the things I stopped thinking about.

In recent years, I have been returning to the language of my tradition with a new set of eyes. This has come as I have re-engaged with traditional liturgy, mostly through the Book of Common Prayer and the Rule of St. Benedict.

The funny thing, especially for one who identifies as a theological “liberal”, is that the transformation process is a two-way street. Yes, I am a bit revisionist in the way that I engage with the language of my tradition. I read a lot of Marcus Borg and use catchphrases like, “I take the Bible seriously, but not literally.”

My worldview shapes the way I interact with the liturgy. But the opposite is also true: The liturgy also shapes ME and the way I interact with my worldview.

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Review of Brad Jersak's "Jesus Showed Us!" by Chuck McKnight

A little over a year ago, I reviewed Brad Jersak’s A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel. In so many ways, it was exactly what I had been needing. While folks like Greg Boyd and Brian Zahnd had introduced me to the idea of a God who looks like Jesus, it was Brad Jersak who helped me put all the pieces together into a full and rich theology, one soundly rooted in both scripture and church tradition (particularly the Eastern Orthodox tradition).

I have since then recommended his book to more people than I can count. I consider it to be among the most important and desperately needed works of our day. If you haven’t read it yet, I cannot urge you strongly enough to do so now.

Yet an important gap remained to be filled. A More Christlike God provides the perfect remedy for those of us raised with a toxic version of Christianity, now rethinking our beliefs. But what of our children? How do we communicate the truths of the beautiful gospel to our kids, without inadvertently carrying over the toxic baggage of our upbringing? We want to start them off with the picture of God we wish we’d had all along.

To this end, I could not be happier to tell you about Brad’s new children’s book, Jesus Showed Us! As the title implies, it’s all about how Jesus shows us what God is like. Paired with 16 iconic illustrations by Shari-Anne Vis, the book walks through the life of Jesus to teach children (and adults) about our perfectly Christlike God. 

The Queen of Heaven and Advent - Ron Dart

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey ...

-- T.S. Eliot

"At your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir"

-- Psalm 45:9

The Journey of the Magi

We are often informed, in the liturgical year, that Advent (from the Latin) means coming. We then ask ourselves, rightly so, whose coming? The stock answer is that Christ has come (this is what Christmas is about), and Christ will come again. These answers seem to end the conversation and catechism for the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany season. But, is there more that might be asked and answered? What does all this mean for us between the Christ who came, and the Christ who will come again?

Advent in the west, at least, takes place at a time of year when the light and sun is lessening. Darkness is ever present, and the night season encroaches on soil and soul. It is not as easy to bask in the long days of summer and the warmth of day star. It is much easier to take to the hills and delight in the human journey when fair weather and the light of the day stretches on much longer.

But, what happens when darkness and hard things come our way? What happens when the days in our lives lack the warmth and brightness of summer and the blue canopy seems cold and icy? How do we live the Divine life when darkness seems to dominate the day and light ever recedes? 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was asked a hard question by the angel Gabriel. Would she be willing to allow the Divine life to grow within her, and would she be willing to give birth to and nourish the young child Jesus? Needless to say, a Yes meant many a hardship and much pain. Mary was not naïve. She knew in the marrow of her bones and the depth of her heart what such a Yes might mean. She knew the pain and tragedy that could follow when a Yes was said. There is no doubt that it would have been much easier to say No.

Mary, to here credit, had the courage to say Yes to such an invitation. She allowed Jesus the Christ to grow within the womb of her body and soul. She felt the kicking, the interior growth, the actual life of Christ in her. She was often slighted and misunderstood, treated indifferently and marginalized for her Yes. She and Joseph were on the run from the Roman empire for many years. Mary was neither sentimental nor weak willed. She knew the hard price for saying Yes.    

Mary is to be revered by the church as an icon for welcoming the Divine invitation. There was much letting go and many deaths Mary had to die for Christ to be born, grow in wisdom and mature. Advent, therefore, raises a simple question for us. What does it mean for Christ to be born, nourished and nurtured in the womb of our souls and bodies?  What does such a birthing and coming look like in the steps we take each day on our human journey?  The answers to such questions are not easy in an age in which many trot out a domesticated, sanitized and tamed faith.

Advent takes place at a time of year when dusk, night and dawn dominate much of the day. How do we say Yes to the birth and coming of Christ in such a season? It is much easier, of course, to have a form of Christianity that ignores hardship, suffering and pain. Such religious triumphalism is foreign to the deeper message of the faith journey and the meaning of Advent.

Mary is the Queen of Heaven for the simple reason that she had the courage to say Yes to God in a dark and hard season when night pressed in on her and her people. The saints and mystics of the church know, in the sinews and ligaments of their souls, that the deepest coming of Christ only takes place through dark nights and clouds of uncertainty and unknowing. Mary knew this, she opened herself to such hard places, and she clarified for us what the coming of Christ truly means for us in this Advent season.