Lambs and the Lamb of God
I
‘m a city girl. My only experience with lambs was at a retreat house in West Virginia. There baby lambs and goats were running wild and jumping straight up into the air. I didn’t know they did that. (See the video at the end of this post by clicking on the link.) Most Nativity sets include at least one lamb and a shepherd. We think it is sweet that a lamb is present. Lambs are gentle, docile, charming creatures. To call someone a lamb is a compliment, an endearing term. However, the presence of a lamb at Jesus’ birth has hidden meanings. It has ominous overtones, for it foreshadows the newborn’s destiny.
When the Israelites in Egypt marked their doorways with a lamb’s blood, they were overlooked by the Angel of Death. They were saved by a lamb. Then they ate the lamb. Later, in the Jewish Temple, an unblemished lamb was sacrificed each year on the eve of Passover. For good reason, John the Baptist introduced Jesus to the world as the Lamb of God. Jesus, the sinless, unblemished one would save the world by atoning for our sins by shedding his blood and dying. The lamb at the manger reminds us that this baby was born to die. At every Mass we address Jesus, “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” not once but three times. And then we consume the Lamb.
Shepherds visiting the manger is also significant. In the first century shepherds were low class people and even outcasts, yet angels bring the good news of salvation to them, not kings. (God has a preferential option for the poor.) The Bethlehem shepherds bow in awe before the infant who would become the Great Shepherd. Jesus guides us to the green pastures of heaven. He called himself the Good Shepherd. We can trust in his love and care for us. In a parable, Jesus promised to go after us when we stray from him. He even laid down his life for us. We can live a safe and at times exciting life by following him wherever he goes.
No wonder Psalm 23, the Divine Shepherd psalm, is the favorite psalm of many people. It was composed by David, Jesus’ ancestor, who too was a shepherd. I imagine Jesus and Mary prayed it often.
Where has following the good shepherd taken you?
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside quiet waters,
He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Fear Not!
Fr. Cedric Pisegna, a Passionist priest, posted the following prayer on Facebook recently. In the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season and perhaps as you live through the illness or death of loved ones, you might find the words helpful.
“Dear Lord, sometimes I feel like I am imprisoned by my fears. I fear the future, I fear the unknown, I fear failure, I fear embarrassment, I fear suffering, I fear loss, I fear death. Such fears have kept me from moving forward in many areas of my life. I pray that you can forgive me for this lack of faith. I know in my heart that no fear is greater than your love for me. I long for the inner peace and serenity of being free from my unnecessary anxiety about so many things. Teach me that even when I am fearful, I can still move forward. Let me have the courage to face my fears. Help me to live the life that you want for me, a life of peace.”
During Advent we focus on Mary, remembering how she waited nine months for her baby, the Son of God to appear. At the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel had to say to her, “Do not be afraid!” She had cause to be afraid that day—and many times in her life. Afraid when Joseph learned she was pregnant and considered divorcing her, afraid when she had to bear a child in a strange town, afraid when Herod sent soldiers to kill her Son, afraid when preteen Jesus was missing in Jerusalem, afraid when Joseph died, afraid when a mob of neighbors tried to throw her Son off a cliff, and afraid when Jesus was arrested by the Romans. Our Blessed Mother is as human as we are.
Yes, Mary knew fear. For that reason, and because she is our loving Mother who cares about us, she makes a good companion as we make our way through rough spots in life. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.”
BOOK REVIEW: The Gift Counselor, by Sheila M. Cronin
Self-published, $13.95, 324 pp.
The Gift Counselor is a good, gentle book to curl up with as we await Christmas, when we celebrate God’s perfect gift. The heroine, Jonquil, is a young widow with a precocious son who dreams of owning a dog, something she is adamant against. As a graduate student, she is completing a research project on children in a Children’s Home where she works. After she is suddenly let go, she secures a new job at a department store selling perfume. There she begins “counseling” people to find the right gift—even if it isn’t perfume. She conceives the idea of setting up a counseling department in the store for gift-givers. This service is a success, especially at Christmas, and provides a new topic for research.
Reading about Jonquil’s interactions with customers, the reader considers the reasons people give gifts, for example, to impress someone, because a favor is needed, or to repay someone who gave a gift. Of course, what makes the best gift also appears in the book.
Romance runs through The Gift Counselor as Jonquil learns more about a French painter who befriends her son. Mystery is also an element because the reader wonders how Jonquil’s husband died and why she is so averse to dogs. An ambitious and jealous woman who intends to be president of the store serves as the villain.
Everything comes to a sweet conclusion.
Be at Peace: God’s in Control
The photo of the sunrise here was one I took from the balcony of my new apartment. The following reflection that came with the Daily Gospel email for Thanksgiving reminded me of it. (I subscribed to dailygospel.org.) May the Saint’s words touch your heart somehow.
Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron (1911-1938)
Spanish Trappist monk
Spiritual writings, 23/02/1938
“If this day you only knew what makes for peace”
I leaned out of the window… The sun was beginning to rise. A great peace reigned over nature. Everything began to wake up: earth, sky, birds. Everything began, little by little, to wake up under God’s order. Everything obeyed his divine laws without complaint or sudden spurts, gently, smoothly, the light as much as the darkness, the blue sky as much as the hard earth covered with morning dew. How good God is, I thought! There is peace everywhere except in the human heart.
And delicately, gently, by means of this sweet and peaceful dawn, God taught me, too, to obey : a very great peace filled my soul. I thought how God alone is good, how all is ordained by him, how nothing is of importance in what people do or say, and how, where I am concerned, there must be nothing else in the world but God. God who will arrange everything for my good. God who causes the sun to rise each morning, who makes the ice melt, who cause the birds to sing and changes the clouds of heaven in a thousand soft colors. God who offers me a little corner on this earth for prayer, who gives me a little corner in which to wait for what I hope.
God is so good to me that, in the silence, he speaks to my heart and teaches me, little by little, sometimes in tears, always with the cross, to detach myself from creatures, not to look for perfection except in him, and showing me Mary and saying to me : “Here is the only perfect creature ; you will find in her the love and charity you fail to find in men. What are you complaining about, Brother Raphael? Love me; suffer with me; it is I, Jesus!”
When has nature brought you closer to God?
Here is an excellent reminder of what Advent is all about:
Advent Is Coming!
Our Blessed Mother is an ideal companion as we live through the days of Advent, which this year begins Sunday, December 2. For four weeks we wait for her Son, but Mary waited for nine months! Imagine what that time must have been like for her. She had never been a mother before, and hers was an unplanned pregnancy. More startling was the fact that her child would be the Son of God. The day of her birth announcement, Mary must have been stunned and maybe wondered if she hadn’t imagined or dreamed the conversation with the angel. She waited. But then her body told her without a doubt that she was pregnant. Perhaps she worried about the impact this news would have on her parents, the food for gossip it would provide for neighbors, and, most heartbreaking, how her beloved Joseph would react. In addition, she also knew full well that the punishment for pregnancy outside of marriage was death by stoning. She waited for Joseph’s decision: would he divorce her or not? When an angel explained the situation to Joseph and he married her, Mary must have been greatly relieved. Then she only had to wait for the miracle birth.
Mary chose to spend part of her waiting time ministering to her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who was also waiting for her son to be born. Like any pregnant mother, Mary endured morning sickness and the discomfort of changing size and feeling awkward. But surely she was thrilled to feel the baby inside her give his first kick. Her voice was the first one he heard, and she probably sang to him as she waited to see him face to face. Then while Mary’s time of waiting was almost ended and she looked forward to giving birth in the comfort of her Nazareth home with her mother nearby, she unexpectedly was called to another town. She could have had her baby on the side of the road; instead she gave birth in a stable surrounded by animals, their smells and sounds.
During this Advent like Mary we may be asked to do surprising things. We might become involved in situations that cause us stress, have to wait for problems to be resolved, come down with the flu or other disease, face an uncertain future, and be taken out of our comfort zone. Whatever these weeks hold, we can look to Mary to understand. You might use my book Heart to Heart with Mary during these weeks of waiting and hear her speak to you personally every day. Others have found much comfort and inspiration in it. This book, a yearly devotional, also makes a good Christmas gift since the New Year soon follows. Until December 25, I (not Amazon) will be selling them for $12.00 instead of $14.00. Just email me at [email protected].
Mary was a teenage Jewess in a small village when she was called to be Mother of God. Now we picture her as Queen of Heaven, crowned, and in royal blue robes. What is your favorite image of Mary? When has she been a mother to you?
Speaking of mothers…
BOOK REVIEW. Stairway from Heaven: A Daughter’s Undeniable Proof of Life after Life. Shushana Castle. $10.95, 146 pp.
Mary Maizy Kherkher, originally from the Chaldean Catholic Church in Baghdad became a Roman Catholic after moving to the United States. A beautiful woman, she also had an interior beauty. She was a woman of deep faith, prayer, and practical love for whom miracles were routine. Her daughter, Shushana Castle, enjoyed an extraordinary relationship with her mother. After Mary died, Shushana experienced more than fifty miracles confirming for her that her mother still lived.
Inspired to share these miracles in order to bolster faith in the afterlife, Shushana wrote Stairway to Heaven. On page after page she tells of the eerie signs that served to connect her to her mother. They commenced two days after Mary’s death when receiving a call from Shushana, her husband Jack asked, “Why did you change your ring tone to church bells?” “I didn’t,” Shushana replied. Then she recalled that her mother loved the sound of church bells and would make the Sign of the Cross on hearing it. Shushana figured that her mother was reminding her to appreciate Jack. Mary had loved Jack and called him an angel, the perfect partner for her daughter. At the funeral, Shushana spoke about her mother’s love for the old song “Stairway to Heaven.” Afterwards when she and Jack got into his car, the radio turned on, and the song playing was “Stairway to Heaven.”
Shoshana tells the miracle stories simply and with wonder. She marvels at the “coincidences” and hopes that readers will realize that they are more than that. The bishop of Victoria in Texas, Most Reverend Brendan J. Cahill, wrote of the book, “Your testimony reminded me powerfully of the many ways God communicates love and beauty each day. Your mother’s gifts in these miracles are extrarordinary and a true blessing. The Catholic faith of her and your father shines through in the hope we have in the communion of saints. . . . In the midst of a violent and mean spirited world, it is uplifting to see the harmony of God in our lies.”
Strange Happenings: Angels at Work?
At dinner the other night an elderly friend I’ll call Lucy told us a touching story. A few years ago on her 65th wedding anniversary, she was sorely missing her deceased husband. She lived alone, and there was no one to share her sadness and console her. She figured that her children would not remember this date that was so special to her.
Lucy thought, If only I could get a hug. She sent a mental note to her angel: “Please send someone to give me a hug.” Then she remembered that when she went shopping, she usually met someone she knew. Surely that day she would find a friend and be able to share the news that it was her anniversary.
Hopefully, Lucy drove to the supermarket. She walked down one aisle after another with no luck. Disappointed, she made her way to the exit. As she left the store, a young man who had a blue worker’s kerchief hanging out of his back pocket approached the door. The kerchief fell to the ground, and the woman scooped it up. “Wait, she called after the man. “You dropped this.”
The man turned and smiled at Lucy. “Thank you,” he said as he retrieved his kerchief from her hand. “This was my favorite one. You need a hug for this.” And he gently embraced her.
Was this a coincidence or the work of an angel? Lucy believes it was an answer to her prayers.
Angels come to the rescue of several people in the Bible. Two angels warn Lot to leave Sodom because it will be destroyed. After three men with the strange names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace, a fourth “person” is seen with them, and they emerge unscathed. Tobias, on a quest to reclaim money for his father, is guided by the Archangel Raphael, who also helps him find a wife and heal his father’s blindness. Let’s not forget St. Joseph who was instructed by an angel repeatedly: when he was in the throes of considering divorcing Mary, when Herod sought to kill Baby Jesus, and when it was safe to return to Israel. St. Peter was released from prison and led out by an angel. Saints like Padre Pio have spoken to angels.
Several books are collections of angel stories. My book The Catholic Companion to Angels explains all we know about angels. Previously I wrote several other posts about angels. You might read the one at https://bit.ly/2OEZWmO:
Do you have your own angel story to share?
BOOK REVIEW
Black Bottle Man by Craig Russell
This book, part fantasy and part adventure, has to be the most unusual one I’ve ever read. For one thing, the devil and black magic play a prominent role. In addition, hoboes and their signs, fishing and outhouses, and a factory tragedy make appearances. Both family love and romantic love are woven through this tale that takes place mostly during the Depression.
The main characters are a man named Rembrandt, whom we follow from town to town on a quest from age ten to ninety, and a woman named Gail, whose reckless deed leaves her deranged. Their stories unfold not in chronological order but piecemeal. Reading the book is comparable to putting together a jigsaw puzzle. From the first paragraph, my curiosity was piqued, compelling me to keep reading. The chief question to be settled is will Rembrandt find a champion to defeat the devil and break the family curse. The theme connecting all of the scenes is the conflict between good and evil.
Black Bottle Man is classified as teen fiction, but adults too would be intrigued by it. The story has been presented on stage in Manitoba.
$14.95. 176 pp.
