(Link here) which means Dean’s sister, Jessica, for these lovely pics of our beloved Herberts grandchildren.
31 December 2021
26 December 2021
Today
A dear friend wrote that he’d been blessed to celebrate the commendation of the dying with his father, and to commune both his father and mother. God is so good, in the midst of all the sorrows of the valley of shadow of death, to grant such sweet solace…to the parents and to the son. Glory to God for all things!
Our Final Hymn
Both yesterday and today was “Let Our Gladness Have No End.” Here it is in Slovak (or Czech?), and they are having entirely too much fun with it! Click here.
Patristic Quote of the Day
Yesterday our King, clothed in a robe of flesh, came forth from a virginal womb and deigned to visit the earth; today a soldier, leaving the tabernacle of the body, departs as a conqueror for heaven.—St. Fulgenius
25 December 2021
We do not want to abolish…
…the elevation, but retain it because…[it] signifies that Christ has commanded us to remember Him. For just as the sacrament is bodily elevated and yet Christ’s body and blood are not seen in it, so He is also remembered and elevated by the word of the sermon and is confessed and adored in the reception of the sacrament. In each case He is apprehended only by faith; for we cannot see how Christ gives His body and blood for us and even now daily shows and offers it before God to obtain grace for us.—Martin Luther, The German Mass (AE 53:82).
A most frustrating Christmas…
…when God gives you the gift of your voice tanking, so you can squeak, but cannot sing, the liturgy and Christmas hymns and the choir music you’ve been delighting in. Sigh. It happens. So very, very hard to sit back and listen and participate by ear and not by mouth (well, impossible, I squeaked through some anyway). And choir really did do some of the most beautiful pieces this year: Gaudete; Verbum caro factum est; To Us Is Born Emmanuel (Praetorius). Le sigh.
NEVERTHELESS…was blessed by the incredible diversity of music last evening. Thank you, Kantor Muth!!! Thank you to Pr. Daenzer for his wonderful work on recorder and for holding up the bass section singlehandedly. The children and Kantor gave us strings, we had Zach on his trumpet, we had the beautiful Quempas carol with procession around the four corners (and a dad’s chorus for the Nunc Angelorum). There was sax (way to go Michaela!), the children’s own singing of Verbum Caro, and David’s O Holy Night. Such overflowing joy in the astounding fact that God deigned to become man to make us children of men into children of God. Glory to God in the highest!
Patristic Quote of the Day
All men have an equal part in the great reason why we are joyful, for our Lord, who is the destroyer of sin and death, finding that all are bound under condemnation, is come to make all free!—Pope St. Leo the Great
Luther, for Christmas Day
See, then, that thou make this birth thine own and dost change with Him, that thou mayest be rid of thy birth, and mayest take over His, which comes to pass if thou believest. Thus dost thou surely sit in the Virgin Mary’s lap, and art her darling child. But thou must learn to have such faith and to exercise it throughout thine earthly life, for it can never be strong enough.—Sermon upon Christmas Day, 1522
24 December 2021
THE Question
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?
And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
—the end of the poem Christmas by John Betjeman
Patristic Quote of the Day
Dearly beloved brethren: Unto us is born this day a Savior. Let us rejoice. It would be unlawful to be sad today, for today is Life’s birthday; the birthday of that Life, which for us mortal creatures takes away the sing of death and brings the bright promise of an eternal hereafter.—Pope St. Leo the Great
Luther
Who, then, but men should receive this child? The angels do not need Him. The devils do not want Him. But we need Him, and for our sake was He made Man. Thus it behooves us to receive Him joyfully as here the angels say: “Unto you is born a Saviour.”—Sermon upon Christmas Day, 1544
Catechesis: The Sixth Commandment
In general and in all conditions it is solemnly commanded by God that men and women, who were created for marriage, shall be found in this estate. Yet there are some exceptions (although few) that God has especially set apart. They are not fit for the married estate. Or there are individuals whom He has released by some high, supernatural gift so that they can maintain chastity without this estate.—LC I:211
23 December 2021
Meet Chancellor James Herberts…
…born a child of man on Dec. 22nd; reborn a child of God on Dec. 23rd. Our eleventh grandchild!
Patristic Quote of the Day
Be conscious, O Christian, of your dignity! You have been made partaker of the divine nature; do not fall again by a corrupt manner of life into the beggarly elements above which you are lifted.—Pope St. Leo the Great
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