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Dear St. Christopher’s Family,
We’ve just come through the longest day of the year, or the Summer Solstice. It’s kind of an annual Wednesday, or “Hump Day.” All of us have been working so hard since the beginning of the year. Resolutions have come and gone. Goals have been reprioritized. And we’re preparing ourselves to start the slow wind down to the end of another year.
Ever since we learned to watch the sky and be moved by the cycles of light and darkness, the solstice has marked a special time. Apart from the practical considerations such as setting cycles of planting and harvesting, knowing the rhythms of the world around us is how we come to see something beyond ourselves, and shows us that darkness, even at its deepest, is put to flight in a flash. The great pagan solstice festivals that flooded the sky with the lights of bonfires on the longest night of the year, chasing the darkness away.
The cycle of nature is the beginning of how God begins to reveal himself and make sense out of chaos and hopelessness, as Paul writes "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made." (Romans 1:19-20)
You might be surprised to know that the church only celebrates two birthdays of anybody not named Jesus: John the Baptist, on June 24; and the Virgin Mary on September 8. Most often, we celebrate a saint on the anniversary of their death, or rather their birth into life eternal. John and Mary both knew Jesus before he was born (remember John leapt in Elizabeth's womb). From now until late December, from John's birth to Jesus', the days will grow shorter and shorter. After Christmas, of course, daylight just becomes stronger. It is, as John said: "He must increase and I must decrease." (John 3:30)
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