All Comments (10)

hi bill! i just wanted to say personally how much i enjoy reading your columns. buzz always sends them to my email box, and while we read this one today together, i usually read them on my own in reflection. some of the things you say help me better understand my own feelings on faith and God by knowing that there are people out there that often think about and see things the way i do.
you're always in my prayers. peace.

hi bill! i just wanted to say personally how much i enjoy reading your columns. buzz always sends them to my email box, and while we read this one today together, i usually read them on my own in reflection. some of the things you say help me better understand my own feelings on faith and God by knowing that there are people out there that often think about and see things the way i do.
your always in my prayers. peace.

Jenifer and I reading this ... as prayer, reflection and a way to keep in touch - with a friend but also with what is important in our lives. As always a soulful, thoughtful and reflective contemplation of not just slowing down and finding God in all ... but simply recognizing the simplicity of God's existence and inuntterable influence and LOVE ... in every aspect of our lives from the day to day to the more unusual events as well. A wonderful piece/peace, THANKS.

Jenifer and I reading this ... as prayer, reflection and a way to keep in touch - with a friend but also with what is important in our lives. As always a soulful, thoughtful and reflective contemplation of not just slowing down and finding God in all ... but simply recognizing the simplicity of God's existence and inuntterable influence and LOVE ... in every aspect of our lives from the day to day to the more unusual events as well. A wonderful piece/peace, THANKS.

Jenifer and I reading this ... as prayer, reflection and a way to keep in touch - with a friend but also with what is important in our lives. As always a soulful, thoughtful and reflective contemplation of not just slowing down and finding God in all ... but simply recognizing the simplicity of God's existence and inuntterable influence and LOVE ... in every aspect of our lives from the day to day to the more unusual events as well. A wonderful piece/peace, THANKS.

Christmas

“Christmas night, stars shine bright, and all the angels are singing,’ The Son of God is Born' Little Child, Holy Child, how I want to be near You, this blessed Christmas night –Garry Gamble”

Luke 2: 2cf.
“And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them and the brightness of God shone round about them: and the shepherds were filled with a great fear. Then the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people: For, this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.

And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.”

On that first Christmas day, Mary brought God’s Son into the world and gave Him to all mankind. Eternal light was brought into a world of darkness to light the hearts of all. The Lover came to the beloved; the beloved became the lover. The aura of Christmas is a story of the Perfect Lover infinitely giving Himself to all man, and man responds in mutual reciprocity.

“Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, love divine. Love was born at Christmas; Stars and angels gave the sign—Georgina Rossetti”

Christmas is a celebration of a soul’s ineffable dream for the perfect love coming true, for the desire of God is written in every human heart.

“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind, to cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas—Calvin Coolidge."

Today our nation has unconsciously chosen to rebuke Christmas with a “culture of death.” Sadly, in America, our culture is impaling life’s sacredness. When we impugn human life, we vicariously impugn God through His beloved. The Crèche, that portrays the Holy Family, is banned from the public square; Christ is being taken out of Christmas (XMAS), and Christmas is being incrementally taken out of America.

America’s soul is slowly turning its gaze from the Infinite Good to the profane. Our nation’s heart is overshadowed by a morbid insensitivity towards life. America’s once noble passion to revere life is being traduced by a false sense of compassion defined by a stolid and deadly pragmatism that demeans life. Many schools of medicine have abandoned the teaching of the time-honored Hippocratic Oath, an oath that holds life sacred.

The integrity of life is experiencing a bizarre transmogrification that disembodies man from human dignity. This transmogrify is a contradiction to the Christmas Spirit and is a discord to social order. Its human destructiveness is self-evident in the intentional termination of over 48 million unborn in America and over a billion worldwide.

Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Clause. He is the Christmas Spirit sent down from Heaven by the Mad Lover at Christmas. It is a Spirit of awesome intimate love and joy, undeniable, real, ubiquitous, unwavering, and eternal. Everyone feels its presence of wonder and jubilation. But many refuse to bathe in its Joy. We must embrace it by asking for his Love.

To embrace it is to embrace Eternal Happiness, unbounded in Love. To reject His love is to journey into a futile rapture of unfulfilled emptiness and hopelessness that engenders a self-destructive cynicism and despondency.

So in this beautiful season of Christmas, do not be foolish. Reach for the hand of God! Open the door of your heart to the Infinite Lover. Let His love delirious intoxicate you; His infinite tenderness inebriate you! Feel the thrill of eternal joy and happiness! Let the Mad Lover take you to the celebration of the world’s greatest birthday party.

Do not seek that your Christmas and New Year be only happy and merry. Ask that they also be Holy, then happiness and joy will ensue. Then the Mad Lover will come to consume you, His beloved. Because of His merciful compassion, his intimate infinite love, He has uniquely created you from His unfathomable altruism.

So, come and rejoice at this Christmas feast and be filled with the joys and gifts of the Spirit! Then, you shall receive the Author of Life from His beloved Mother, and you shall eternally be enriched with the blessings of Christmas.

Then the Christmas Spirit will come to wrap you in His arms with His aura of eternal love, touch the deep recesses of your heart with immeasurable joy and happiness, and abide with you forever.

“Then the greater your distress, the more He will comfort you! The more you are scorned, the more He will love you! The more you are insulted, the more He will exalt you! The more you are forgotten, the more He will remember you! If abandoned, He will draw you closer to Himself”—Cardinal John Henry Newman.

"In the end, it was always said of Scrooge that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us all—Charles Dickens." So on this Christmas celebration smile, give your face a holiday, and celebrate Christmas in all its glory.

Dear Fr Blazek

Thank you for sharing the five pillars of Dom Christian. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2008!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

Another way to "Find Peace at Christmas" is emulate the good Dom and be killed by Muslim extremists. Or Christian, or Jewish, extremists.

I haven't laughed so hard since the pigs ate my little sister!

In the darkest days of the year we celebrate and appreciate our creators light. Be the change you seek. Merry Christmas!

Father Blazek,

Apart from the explicitly Christian language of your essay, what you have written is a very Buddhist reflection on the everyday world and on your "self."

Michael Leo Pomeranz's current Faithbook essay (Lox et Veritas) is quite similar to yours in his account of the travails of exam week at Yale.

I'm taking the liberty of posting here what I just posted as a comment to his essay, because your essay and his are so similar in their essence.

I call myself "an agnostic Buddhist sympathiser" (but not "a Buddhist"). I think a Buddhist perspective is interesting in relation to what you and Michael have written, so here's my comment on his essay:

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Michael wrote:

"Of course, I also [wonder] whether we can talk about 'we'."

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In the everyday world, in the realm of relative truth, you, me, friends, universities, studies, classes, exams, grades, ambitions, life and death and religion, and so on, have a seeming concrete reality of great importance to "us".

In the world of absolute truth, which can be perceived by a person who has attained enlightenment, it is seen that these phenomena are not at all what they appear to be in the everyday world.

None of these phenomena has any inherent identity or any concrete real existence. They are as immaterial as the TV images flickering across the screen, which also seem to have a real existence of importance, but are really nothing at all except phantoms, illusions, and immaterial constructions of the mind.

So said the Buddha (more or less), 2600 years ago.

Good luck on your exams!

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May you have a happy and blessed Chrismas, Father Blazek.