November 28, 2020
Good Morning, God and All! Steady your hearts, for the Lord is close at hand; and do not grumble, one against the other. (See James 5:7a, 10a)
By The Numbers:
It’s the 333rd day of the year, with 33 days remaining.
Days ‘til BOBMAS/NICKMAS: 6/8
Days ‘til Hanyulfestimazaox: 12/23/25/27/28/28
Age at which Patrick Quinn, co-creator of the ALS "Ice Bucket Challenge" that has raised $220 million for research into the treatment of Lou Gehrig's Disease, died last Sunday: 37
Average cost of a Thanksgiving meal for 10 people, the lowest since 2010 according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, with a 16-pound turkey going for $19.39: $46.90 (in case you postponed your big dinner to the weekend and opted for pizza on Thursday because of the televisual feasting)
Start Your Day With A Song:
Patience, People (1977) John Foley, SJ
Saint Catherine Labouré, Pray For Us!
Catherine Labouré, D.C.. (May 2, 1806 – December 31, 1876) was a French nun who was a member of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and is a Marian visionary. She is believed to have relayed the request from the Blessed Virgin Mary to create the famous Miraculous Medal of Our Lady of Graces worn by millions of people around the world. Labouré spent forty years caring for the aged and infirm. For this, she is called the patroness of seniors. Her cause for sainthood was declared upon discovering her body was incorrupt. She was beatified on May 28, 1933, by Pope Pius XI and canonized on July 27, 1947, by Pope Pius XII. (Wikipedia)
Patience, People (the Message):
What a year this has been! Aren’t you glad it’s over?
Okay, slow down…the liturgical (Church) year is over. With the beginning of Advent this weekend, the Church starts a new liturgical year. Happy New Year!
And with regard to the calendar year, it’s almost over. I’m sure there are more than a few of you who cannot wait for 2020 to end. It was eleven months ago that the virus known as COVID-19 broke loose in the Wuhan province of China. Many people said it would stay there. Others thought we’d have a handle on it before it got to the United States or any part of Western Civilization. But it didn’t go away. And it hasn’t left yet. It shows no sign of leaving, and it’s been leaving disaster in its path everywhere. I’m going to leave politics out of this - while dealing with this pandemic has certainly been politicized in America, all that has really done little but to highlight just how impatient people can be, justified or not.
American colonists in the 1770s had little patience over their British overlords’ penchant for taxing anything that didn’t move (and a few things that did). Americans in 2020 had little patience when it came to rights versus privilege. There has seemed no middle ground. It’s been a time to act, often without forethought or even (gasp!) prayer.
We do have models of patience. Abraham is one such model. God promised to make him the “father of nations” (Genesis 15). Job loses nearly everything, while his contemporaries attempt to sort out what great sin he might have committed. (The theology of the time indicated that illness or poverty was the result of some sin a person committed; it’s still prevalent in what some spiritual observers call the “health & wealth gospel.”)
The Old Testament prophets had their collective patience severely tried. By the grace of God, they managed to console the exile-dispersed Israelites with a message that a king, from the ancestral line of Israel’s great King David, would one day appear to liberate the people from the oppressive rule of empirical outsiders. And then their voices went more or less silent - for nearly five centuries. In that time, the Persian and Greek empires would come and go; the Roman empire would establish itself; and the Maccabeans would defend themselves. (Their story, however, is not considered biblical outside of Catholicism.) That brings us roughly to the year 165 BCE. From that point to the birth of Christ, there is no word, no indication of any kind, that God’s promise of a savior/redeemer/messiah is going to appear. When he finally does, Jesus is not what most in the know are expecting from their interpretation of the ancient writings. Neither is the manner of his birth and early life.
As we return to the present, we can say without hesitation that calendar year 2020’s expectations were constantly in a state of flux. But a ray of hope has been held out to us as late stage testing on three (as of this writing) vaccines have shown nearly miraculous results and will be given the green light to ramp up production so that the beastly virus can be tamed. This is not singly because those in research and development have worked tirelessly sifting through data over the tens of millions of cases and the millions of deaths worldwide. It’s also because of the prayers of all these people, and many, many more. It is because God has given us the virtue of patience. An anxious one, perhaps; but patience nonetheless.
We are not out of darkness - yet. Christmas celebrations are going to be muted much like everything we do and how we interact has been impacted in 2020. Will we stand in our doorways on Christmas Day, ringing bells and singing carols, proclaiming Joy to the world, the Lord has come? That’s what the next four weeks are really all about. It’s that, while we are subjected to all kinds of things we can or cannot do because we are asked to remain socially distant from each other, we are not now - nor have ever been - alone. We wait in joyful hope for God to reveal Himself once more. And that takes patience, people.
Memorable Moments:
1520 – An expedition under the command of Ferdinand Magellan passes through the Strait of Magellan.
1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence.
1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed, by which the United States acknowledges Cherokee lands in what is now East Tennessee.
1811 – Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.
1895 – The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours (probably due to a combination of poor weather and heavy traffic and construction on Lake Shore Drive -ed.).
1908 – A mine explosion in Marianna, Pennsylvania, kills 154 men, leaving only one survivor.
1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, as the WSM Barn Dance.
1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 492 people.
1964 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars.
1990 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns as leader of the Conservative Party and, therefore, as Prime Minister. She is succeeded in both positions by John Major.
Happy Birthday!!!
1475 – Anne Shelton, elder sister of Thomas Boleyn (d. 1555)
1489 – Margaret Tudor, Queen of James IV of Scotland, daughter of Henry VII of England (d. 1541)
1628 – John Bunyan, English preacher, theologian, and author (d. 1688)
1866 – Henry Bacon, American architect, designed the Lincoln Memorial (d. 1924)
1929 – Berry Gordy, Jr., American songwriter and producer, founded Motown Records
1943 – R. B. Greaves, Guyanese-American singer-songwriter (d. 2012)
1949 – Paul Shaffer, Canadian-American singer, keyboard player, and bandleader
1962 – Jon Stewart, American comedian, actor, and television host
1984 – Trey Songz, American R&B singer-songwriter and actor
We Remember:
1476 – James of the Marches, Franciscan friar
1794 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Prussian-American general (b. 1730)
1859 – Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian (b. 1783)
1901 – Moses Dickson, African-American abolitionist, soldier, minister, and founder of The Knights of Liberty (b. 1824)
1939 – James Naismith, Canadian-American physician and educator, created basketball (b. 1861)
1954 – Enrico Fermi, Italian-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
1993 – Garry Moore, American comedian, television personality, and game show host (b. 1915)
1994 – Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer (b. 1960)
2012 – Zig Ziglar, American soldier and author (b. 1926)
2015 – Marjorie Lord, American actress (b. 1918)
…ALL victims of the COVID-19 pandemic to date
…ALL victims of violence in any form
Parting Words:
On this holiday weekend, and this eve to the Advent season:
May the Lord bless you and keep you! May his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and bring you peace! (Numbers 6:22-26)
Until we meet again, may God be with you, keep you safe, and have mercy on us all…
+the Phoenix
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