Epiphany 2008

To Sr. Christina, (in Australia)

Happy Birthday on Epiphany Day.
And may 2008 bring you many more Blessings and Joys.
Thank you for your Christmas letter and all your great communications/inspirationals in recent months.
The great thing is having Nivard around to catch all the news items I might miss.
Since Abbot Raymond went to Our Lady of the Angels, Nigeria, taking the second organist, Br Celestine, with him, Fr. Nivard has been filling the breach. And so the Work of God - the Choir Office – has continued uninterrupted.
A good neighbour sent us a greeting Card for Epiphany. You may like it. See the Note and attached picture.

Epiphany. Willam Blake ‘Adoration of the Kings’

In this painting by William Blake we see the three Magi dressed in red, orange and purple offer gifts to Joseph and Mary in the stable. An ox and ass can be seen in the corner of the stable. A star shines in through the doorway of the stable. (Presented to Brighton through the National Art Collections Fund in 1949. Art Fund Website preserving the UK’s best art).

Friday we had heavy snow in the East of Scotland. There was a Scottish Border’s Catholic Youth Group planning to come to Nunraw to be de-briefed from their Rome Pilgrimage last Autumn. They would be collected from the various parishes, Galashiels, Melrose, Kelso, Hawick. But it was not to be. It was cancelled. The Sutra main road was closed – incidentally the near-by Poor Clare Sisters of Humbie were also snowed in.

After all the bustle of Christmas celebrations it has been a welcome time to relax.

And it so happened I came across an amazing paper-back to enjoy some light reading. It has been worth it weight in gold.

The sub-title, “Out of Egypt” caught my eye because we had been hearing about the “Flight into Egypt” and I was already searching. Reading, Anne Rice, “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. A novel”, I have not been able to put it down – a rare experience these days.

Anne Rice was a good New Orleans Catholic until she lost her faith at the age of 18 in the campus culture of US University life. She became a best selling author of books on legends of Vampires, covens of witches, etc.

She recovered her Catholic Faith and has now dedicated her work to writing about Jesus.

Anne Rice describes the genesis of her conversion. It began in 1998 with a return to the Catholic faith she had abandoned. Thereafter she embarked on an intense search into the question of Jesus, eventually "reading the Bible constantly" and then devouring all the scholarly works of the prominent Jesus researchers. The book, published 2005, included an Author’s Note giving a most enlightening account of her recovery in the Faith. There are 276 Customer Reviews on the Amazon book Website. Belief Net choose “Christ the Lord Out of Egypt” as the 2005 Spiritual Book of the Year. Her Anne Rice Website contains a wealth of further reading and Links.

Why should the devil have all the best tunes?

During the Christmas UK cinemas are screening the fantasy, “Golden Compass” for the target audience of children.

Reuters reports: Vatican calls Golden Compass movie hopeless

The Vatican newspaper, l’Osservatore Romano, called the movie "the most anti-Christmas film possible", "its objective was to bash Christianity and promote atheism" to children. In author Philip Pullman’s world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events,”

In contrast, it is reassuring that there are writers, like Anne Rice, to show that ‘the devil does not always have the best tunes’, (. . . wherever that quote originated, see William Booth).

In “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt”, Anne Rice combines her passionate research with a mastery of the art of story telling. Maybe it could be called a talent for Christian "Contemporary Midrash". It is a gripping narrative of the events of the Epiphany of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the return to Galilee, the years hidden at Nazareth, apart from the visit of the twelve year old Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem.

“Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

On a personal note I was taking up this theme of Jesus in Egypt from reflecting on my own memories at five years old. If the memories of a five year old through wartime evacuation to another country (1939-45) seem to get ever fresher and clearer, the experience of the much brighter Jesus in Egypt could only give lasting shape to his understanding of what we now call the Middle East. Anne Rice brings so much of that Jewish background to the fore in her story of Christ the Lord. Told in the first person of Jesus, at times, the story moved me to tears.

I look forward to the sequel, “Christ the Lord: Road to Cana”, due for publication March 2008

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