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It is amazing how God reveals himself to us. We never imagined that working to increase the green spaces in our new home, the West End, would be so life-giving. My husband and I started out looking for a way to give back during COVID when we could not volunteer indoors at church as we had done for the past 30 years.

In the Western church, the feast of Epiphany, originally a single celebration, eventually developed into distinct feasts – Christmas, Epiphany, and the Baptism of the Lord; each feast highlighted one aspect of the Lord’s manifestation to the world. Let’s look at them together to see what meaning they might have together as a group for us today.

This feast focuses on the holy family as a group, not as its individual members Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.

On this Fourth and last Sunday of Advent, we can ask: What have we learned during the Advent season? And we can also ask: What are we looking for at Christmas that is about to begin?

Nearly everyone can remember times when we did something seriously wrong and expected an angry reaction, but received instead a kind and gracious response.

So what does Advent as a religious season mean to Christians? Its meaning is best shown by the biblical readings the Church chooses for the four Sundays in Advent.

We’ve all heard fishermen wax eloquent on “the fish that got away.” The four-week season of Advent is the liturgical season that for many of us “gets away.”

Today, only a few people today envision a king governing their country; kingship is a foreign term.

The language of the biblical books of Daniel and Mark can puzzle modern hears, for they seem to convey doom and gloom rather than joy and hope.

For at Haley House or Pine Street Inn, whether a guest was thoughtful like Clarkie or difficult like Gene the Marine, I witnessed faith, compassion and dignity.

The Scriptures tell us about two widows. One was a widow and single mom in a town outside the land of Israel in the ninth century BCE when the prophet Elijah was active. The other widow lived in Jesus’s Jerusalem.

Among the historical revolutions that have changed our lives, there is one that has affected Jews and Christians more than any other. It took place in Israel – God’s revelation as the one and only deity.

“So if I have said anything that resonates with you, this idea then is that to be a Christian, to be a Jew, to be a Muslim, to be of any faith tradition is more than doctrinal belief. It’s moving beyond doctrinal belief and ritual participation, to practice the values that we claim to believe in society and especially on behalf of people in need.”  

Toward the end of the Church’s liturgical year, the gospels speak of the sun being darkened and the stars falling, and people feeling fear and awe. Something new is being born, and it is accompanied with birth pangs.