Overflowing Gifts

At the moment, we are embraced by a grouping of liturgical feasts. As a liturgy friend of mine often reminded us, symbols and feasts come in “gaggles”. Gaggles were his description of geese flying in formation together. Our present liturgical grouping began with Advent, continued through Christmas, moved through to the Feast of the Holy Family. A high point of the cycle was celebrated this week with the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, on January 1st.

We pick up the pace again this weekend with the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. Next weekend we have a concluding liturgical bonus with Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Only after this expansive journey through the Christmas-Epiphany mystery will we come to so-called “Ordinary Time”.

In our culture, we have a difficult time with all this overflow of festivity. We live in a cultural world where the “Hallmark” cycle waits for no one. The next set of cards and decorations is on the shelf and soon we move to Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter with all the flowers and bunnies! The economy obviously pushes the market and doesn’t give much time to savor the various moments of religious, or secular, moments of our lives.

We also live in a rushed world, where Christmas trees and lights appear very early, long before even Advent itself. Trees need to come down and get to the recycling center. Our neighborhoods begin to grow dark once again immediately after Christmas Day. It is the unique Roman Catholic who can last with outdoor decorations through the Epiphany. Our brothers and sisters of the Eastern Churches are unique with their later celebration of Epiphany. They usually stand alone on the darkened streets.

Celebration and Excess
Anthropology has a lesson to give us. Human feasts and festivals are usually marked with excess. Whatever the festival, it is outside of time and the ordinary way of doing things. Festival is a waste of time and engaged in for its own sake. People simply enjoy being together and eating, drinking, dancing in overflowing measure. That may be part of our problem: diets are set aside at this time and the whole set of events is

“inefficient.” Holidays are marked by the economy, but work time is set aside and our time “off” is regarded often as unproductive.

Liturgical Time
Time is set aside in the liturgy. Celebration time is not marked by the seconds of the clock. We can note they are called “seasons” or “time”, like Christmas Season or Epiphany Time, or Christmas Week. Hours, seconds, weeks just seem to blend together. They overflow into one another.

Our faith life and our prayer life are better served when our religious feasts flow into one another. Christmas becomes Holy Family becomes Mary, Mother of God. One can overlay New Year’s as a time of blessing. These mysteries become Epiphany and are completed by the Baptism of the Lord. We understand the mystery of Christ celebrated when we are embraced in the flow of grace and blessing which these days bring.

Christmas is about the fidelity and goodness of the Father which breaks into our human history. It is described as light, glory, angels, shepherds, kings. It’s about mothering and seeing Mary and Joseph. Epiphany, a feast equal in age and importance historically to Christmas, speaks of God showing himself forth. We read about a bright star and the journey of the Kings to find the Christ.

Christ is the center of the story and the mystery. The encounter for the believer becomes clear in the Baptism of the Lord. The Christmas “birthing” and the Epiphany “showing forth” come together as Jesus goes down into the water and rises. His passage to his ministry of preaching is signed in baptismal water. Believers will be asked to follow and to be “reborn” in water and Spirit. They will be asked to move from death to life. In this the Father reveals himself by the action of the Spirit. As Jesus comes out of the river Jordan, the Father speaks, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” The Spirit is seen empowering Jesus as Lord.

To pass through these mysteries takes time. It’s not the time of seconds, hours, and weeks, not even months. It is the time which prayer and celebration offer to discover the mystery which is Christ and to be embraced graciously in him.

CDH