NEW YEAR JOY AND BLESSINGS

Winnie at 6 1/2 months

The great explorer

Christmas morning

WHERE IS THE HOLY FAMILY?

People who know me, know that as a child psychologist, I am deeply concerned about the spiritual welfare of our children today.  This latest survey is distressing, and I think shows why our youth today are in such bad straits!

For decades, the share of U.S. children living with a single parent has been rising, accompanied by a decline in marriage rates and a rise in births outside of marriage. A new Pew Research Center study of 130 countries and territories shows that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.

Almost a quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adults (23%), more than three times the share of children around the world who do so (7%).

The study, which analyzed how people’s living arrangements differ by religion, also found that U.S. children from Christian and religiously unaffiliated families are about equally likely to live in this type of arrangement.

In comparison, 3% of children in China, 4% of children in Nigeria and 5% of children in India live in single-parent households. In neighboring Canada, the share is 15%.

While U.S. children are more likely than children elsewhere to live in single-parent households, they’re much less likely to live in extended families. In the U.S., 8% of children live with relatives such as aunts and grandparents, compared with 38% of children globally.

When we consider that the family (not preschool) is the place where children develop into what they will become, especially in the spiritual sense. It is where we are equipped to become what God created us to be. Children come to know who God is through their parents. In the so-called developed world, the family is increasingly an artifact of convenience at best.

In this Christmas season, we need to look to the Holy Family for inspiration and pray for guidance- which is not gotten from books or TV or the internet.

RACHEL WEEPING TODAY

In the midst of the joys of Christmas, today we celebrate the slaughter of the HOLY INNOCENTS, those male infants killed by Herod.  His morbid obsession that another king could take his place, threw him into a raging panic. Thus thousands of  babies  under the age of two, who lived in and around Bethlehem, were slaughtered.

And while this event happened over two thousand years ago, it continues in our own day and age. Children who are killed and abused through the fear and selfishness of powerful adults. It happens in every culture and every nation.

Rachel weeps for them all.  Rachel, who today represents our Church, weeps for the innocent so easily counted as nothing by those in authority.   It is ours  to mourn in the hope that the Lord will soften the hearts of the powerful, even of us, in our own, at times, play for power!

AN ARTIST WITH SOUL

Ernst Barlach
 

ERNST BARLACH  was a German Expressionist sculptor, printmaker, and writer. Early in his career, he trained under French artists and produced Art Nouveau-styled sculpture and works on paper, but was initially unable to find success. This led to a formative trip to Russia where the artist began creating figurative sculptures inspired by early Gothic art, carving spiritual and emotional themes from hard woods and bronze casts. 

Achieving widespread critical acclaim in his native Germany before the First World War, Ernst , once a supporter of German militarization, enlisted as an infantry solder. He served until 1916, when the harsh realities of war quickly transformed his perspective.

Thereafter, Barlach was compelled to produce art in staunch opposition to war and the subsequent rise of Nazi power. His allegorical and pacifist art earned him the label of degenerate, and his work fell out of favor. Born on January 2, 1870, he died in Rostock, Mecklenburg in Germany on October 24, 1938.

I emulated his work when I studied sculpture in Koln, Germany, especially his pieces in wood.

CHRISTMAS 2019

Nikola Sarić, Serbian artist now living in Hannover, Germany.

One of my favorite modern religious artists.

CHRISTMAS  BLESSINGS

 AND

MANY GRACES

EVERLASTING JOY- 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

One would almost think that this last Sunday in Advent should have the emphasis on joy- instead it is peace- but that is not our theme this year so we carry to the end this idea of joy- everlasting joy. If we find true joy in Jesus, who comes to redeem us, then that joy is  with us always.

Note, Isaiah  speaks of  rejoicing with songs, which leads me to a pet-peeve.  We celebrate Advent in our country  with Christmas songs from after Thanksgiving to Dec 25 and then it is all over. Those few of us who celebrate many days  after His birth, if we’re lucky we’ll get some religious songs like "Away in a Manger", "O Little Town of Bethlehem" or "Silent Night" which sing  of His birth.

There are so many songs- so much beautiful music- that prepares us for the birth of our Savior, yet we often only hear Jingle Bells or Rudolph the red nose or dashing through snow..........

“Every Valley Shall Be Exalted” from Handel’s Messiah is a great example as is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”, and my favorite “O Holy Night”. Lesser known but still beautiful “On Jordan’s Bank” and  “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns”, a song of joy. It has a contemporary setting but is a very old text. 

These songs are about the first coming or the second coming of Christ and they certainly do more to spiritually prepare us than the secular ones about reindeer and sleigh rides!. 

This last Sunday before Christmas we move closer to the day on which we celebrate Christ’s birth, amidst the hustle of preparation and shopping and baking, the rhythm that Advent brings helps us remember the gifts of this season: hope, peace, joy and love. The journey of Advent to Christmas reminds us of God’s gift to us in sending His Son.

At Christmas we celebrate the life of Christ; a life that was itself an expression of love. Our response to God’s gift is to live a life that is an expression of His love. We celebrate that, through Jesus, God made His love visible. One of our main ways we all celebrate this season is through song.  May they reflect the holiness of the time.

A BENEDICTINE NUN IN ADVENT

DAME WERBURG WELCH  was born Grace Eileen Welch on 17 May 1894 in Cheltenham.   Her father was raised Protestant, but converted to Catholicism after reading Cardinal  (St.) John Newman's works.  Eileen studied at Southampton School of Art and then at the Bristol Art School, when the family settled in Bristol.

In 1913, Eileen entered the Convent of the Religious of the Cross as a postulant, before becoming a novice at Stanbrook Abbey (Benedictine) in Worcestershire in 1915.

On 30 November 1919 she took her solemn vows and became Dame Werburg. She intended to give up art, but was persuaded to continue extending her scope to vestment designs and wood-engravings for the Stanbrook Abbey Press. She studied under Desmond Chute and Eric Gill from whom she derived her angular style.

Annunciation

After her paintings, vestment designs and wood-carvings received favorable reviews at exhibitions of the Guild of Catholic Artists and Craftsmen in the 1930s and 1940s, commissions came in from churches and private individuals all over the country. Her illustrations appeared in contemporary Catholic magazines.

Like a true Benedictine nun, her art had to be fitted in with attendance at the Divine Office, as well as the manual work of the community. Over the years she served as chantress, portress, and assistant sacristan, as well as being subprioress from 1956 to 1968. 

During the war she volunteered to take charge of the orchards and was still climbing ladders in her 80s. She suffered a severe stroke in November 1989 and died the following February at the age of 95.

The National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum has an information file on the work of Dame Werburg Welch, containing a brief biographical outline and a collection of wood-engravings and linocuts, with some contemporary photographs of carvings and paintings. Photocopies of working drawings are included. Another collection of her wood engravings and other prints forms part of the Stanbrook Abbey Press.