Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, Priest

Lectionary: 176

I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. 



The architect Christopher Alexander writes in The Phenomenon of LIfe, the first volume of his essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe, The Nature of Order, 

Very gradually, as we move through these four books from Book 1 to Book 4, I shall work my way towards the theme that the personal is something inherent in the nature of order and in the universe -- not a late comer to blind matter as scientists have thought, but rather, since the origins of time, a vital substrate underlying matter. 

This philosopher/architect offers a profoundly reassuring vision of life and the personal. They are not accidents brought about by a happenstance of chemistry and physics; rather life and person precede, fill and order space since "the beginning." This artist wants to create buildings that bring space to life, as God has always done. 

This vision, it seems to me, is not one that the "wise and the learned" of our secular age have dreamed of. It is one that children understand. Everything has purpose and meaning; and blue skies do indeed smile on happy people. 

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.  For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

Collect of December 3

 The Zen teacher, Shunryu Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, writes: 

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few. 

Advent reopens our closed minds. We need and want hope. We cannot live without promise. But we often feel beat up by the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." (The Beat Poets chose that word because they felt beaten by the cruel indifference of their time.)  

Advent will lead us through repentance to life. Realizing, claiming and confessing our sins we find God's forgiveness and new possibilities of life. The doorway to the garden might be, like Alice's, at your feet and too small to creep through -- until your ego shrinks down to size. 

How absurd is Isaiah's promise? Is it beyond possibility? 

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,
?together their young shall rest;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD as water covers the sea.