The symbol of the seventh day of Christmas is the seven swans a-swimming, which represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.
The seven swans are also said to represent the two great sacraments and five sacramental acts of faith, which are rites that signify the grace of God: Baptism, and Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.
Swans are considered a symbol of spiritual gifts because they are graceful and beautiful.
Today is also the sixth day of Kwanzaa, when the sixth or Kuumba candle is lit. Kuumba is a Swahili word that means "creativity". It's a day to celebrate creativity and how it can be used to improve the community.
Meditating on the gifts of light and spirit and sacraments led me to consider church as a gift of Christmastide and the last day of the year 2024.
By noon on the 20th day of the year 2025, some of us will need to find a place to strengthen our spiritual core. Others will need to find one.
Some of the things we are about to witness, done in the name of some people's idea of Christianity, will make Jesus weep when it won't cause him to take out some whips and turn over a few tables.
Violence and cruelty so casual and commonplace, inflicted with impunity on the weak and the lowly, and anyone who dares to object to it, will become so commonplace that it will be greeted with a shrug of the shoulders because it will seem to have become "just the way things are" now.
Most of our present churches are not prepared to spiritually nourish much less sustain the souls of their flock for what is about to come.
We need a new vision of church for a new year. Indeed, we have needed a new vision of church for many years, but never have we needed one more than the church we'll need for the next four years.
Quinn G. Caldwell wrote this vision in 2014. We didn't listen then. I hope we listen now.
If we don't, well, we can light all the candles we want for whatever reason we want and sing lovely songs that cheer us with their familiar nostalgia, but who and what we will become will have nothing to do with the dream of God for us as human beings who are made in the image of God.
And that's the vision we have lost sight of - that we are all, each and every last one of us - made in the image of God. If we believed that, our vision of the world would surely change, and with it, our vision of church.
Here's that vision of church. If it makes you either uncomfortable or excited, then maybe lighting all those candles and remembering all those ancient stories and celebrating all those principles and symbols may have had the desired effect.
Let's dream of a new church for a new year.
"If you came to this place expecting a tame story,
you came to the wrong place.
If you came for a story that does not
threaten you,
you came for a different story than the one
we tell.
If you came to hear of the coming of a God
who only showed up so that you could have a
nice day
with your loved ones,
then you came for a God whom we do not
worship here.
For even a regular baby is not a tame thing.
And goodness that cannot threaten complacency
and evil
is not much good at all.
And a God who would choose to give up power
and invincibility
to become an infant for you,
certainly didn't do it just so you could have dinner.
But.
If you came because you think unwed teenage mothers
are some of the strongest people in the world.
If you came because you think that the kind of people who work third
shift doing stuff you'd rather not do might attract an angel's
attention before you, snoring comfortably in your bed, would.
If you came because you think there are wise men and women to be
found among undocumented travelers from far lands and
that they might be able to show you God.
If you came to hear a story of tyrants trembling
while heaven comes to peasants.
If you came because you believe that God loves the animals
as much as the people
and so made them the first witnesses to the saving of the world.
If you came for a story of reversals
that might end up reversing you.
If you came for a tale of adventure and bravery,
where strong and gentle people win,
and the powerful and violent go down to dust,
where the rich lose their money but find their lives
and the poor are raised up like kings.
If you came to be reminded that God loves you too much
to leave you unchanged.
If you came to follow the light
even if it blinds you.
If you came for salvation and not safety,
then, ah, my friends,
you are precisely in the right place.
So what are you here for?"
I hope something good happens to you today.
Bom dia.
- Quinn G. Caldwell, All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Abingdon Press (2014) You may order it here:
https://www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781426790171.
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