Advent through Christmas -- 2007
Tuesday, December 4, First Week in Advent
Jesus said, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him” Luke 10:21-24
This small section of Luke’s Gospel has what would be called a “very high theology” which emphasizes the divinity of Jesus.
In the story of Jesus’ birth, the angel Gabriel said to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you…Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”
Make no mistake about it. The child born in Bethlehem is not simply a great prophet…not simply a miracle-worker…not simply someone specially chosen by God. The child born in Bethlehem is the Son of God.
In our relationship with Jesus, we always have to balance intimacy and reverence. Jesus did not come for us simply to look at him from a distance. He came so that we could join intimately with him and share in his own relationship with the Father.
On the other hand, we need to be reverent. We need to be aware of who it is we are relating to so closely…whom we are joining with in the Eucharistic prayer…whom we are receiving when we take the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at Communion.
Intimacy and reverence. I could work on both right now as I spend some time with the Lord.
Spend some quiet time with the Lord.
Advent through Christmas -- 2007
The Mysterious Requiem
Wednesday, December 5, First Week in Advent
On this day in 1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died, leaving unfinished one of his most famous and most “mysterious” works, the haunting “Requiem Mass in D Minor.”
The composition fueled speculation and mystery for two centuries after it was anonymously commissioned as a funeral Mass.
Mozart died before he could complete more than half of the composition, but his widow, Constanze, directed Mozart’s pupil, Franz Xavier Sussmayer, to finish the work.
Scholars have since ascribed mythological qualities to the “Requiem” and Mozart himself is said to have viewed the piece’s peculiar genesis as a foreshadowing of his own death.
Mozart died at age 35 of rheumatic fever. Some academics theorize that Mozart was destined to never finish the work.
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Baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfganus Theophilus Mozart, Mozart often signed his name Amadeus, which is the Latin equivalent of Theophilus.
The eight day Jewish feast o Hanukkah begins today.
