VERSE
Pennant, Edmund
confounds the learning of those trained in the ways of God. These harmonies convince the Fathers of the church that what men see is not really so; that what is seen by men through the eyes of...
...Freud, and discover that by his help we can overcome the things that went wrong or were lacking in our infant years...
...So there are tales of wonder attendam as the Holy Family makes its way to and from Egypt: trees t~at give shelter...
...you will be able to roach out beyond the stars...
...Come to the stable, Dr...
...These are not to be despised, for, as Father Raymond Brown has it, they seek only to throw a reverse mirror on Christ: what we saw of him in the public life, he already was in his childhood...
...For at least we can move toward a Child, in our loves and our deeds...
...Again, the Sibylline Oracle, "The king will recline his limbs in the lap of the queen of the world...
...Wise men must be instructed in dreams, and are led by nature's star...
...Truly the Christ child is mediator in another sense...
...Know that all your Waldens are but pale shadows of a Bethlehem, where the discovery of the child and love of him alone can change the directions and hearts of men...
...For it, Christ is a sign of comradiction, not of harmony...
...Plots and counterplots of kings are foiled by the simplicity of a young girl, attuned to the ways of God...
...It is too much with us...
...We are not trapped in our past...
...We chuckle sentimentally to discover that one of them is depicted as black...
...Skinner...
...And on it goes...
...It is heartening to know in the storms of our lives and the tempest of our times, we can find equilibrium in him...
...They will not presume to be weight-beating walls holding up a roof of lead against unlikely heavens...
...Joseph Haydn will set to music, "A maid, a servant...
...The dark of night is pierced by angelic light...
...But do that, and oh, you will grow, stand more erect...
...chance meetings with other children who will turn out to be an Apostle, or even Judas Iscariot...
...Ah, the world...
...God, the provider of all, is provided for by a simple maiden...
...They will have to be west walls refining the raisin gold of morning every morning...
...If men did not want the peace he brought, he still offered us his peace, reminding us, however, it is not that peace which the world gives...
...A feast of reconciliation, Christmas announced that in a world of stress and a life of tension, there is for each one of us the possibility of peace...
...that what is seen by men through the eyes of God is the true reality...
...They will have to be walls that listen sweetly and can keep a secret...
...The king of creation is watched over by creature animals, who are wiser than Herod...
...Men, women, young and old, of all colors and races, learn what the early church knew...
...It is this facet of Christmas: God turning the tables on men, as it were, that has inspired the countless stories associated with Christmas...
...He, the middle ground as it were, becomes the center, to raise up our lowliness...
...It never ceases and of late we have Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Britten's "'A Ceremony of Carols," which sets to music these words: "This stable is a Prince's Court, This crib His chair of State...
...In its legends, it saw in the Magi symbols of the differences that exist between men, which were reconciled into one as they sought out God's Son...
...Such stories are still cherished for they flow from this unbelievable fact of God's reconciliation with us, making our reconciliation with self possible...
...but we so conveniently forget that when the times come to live out the implication...
...There are other infancy narratives, in the apocryphal gospels...
...But men can still learn from him...
...We know well our vagrant moods, our ups and downs...
...This has inspired, above all, our Christmas music...
...If we cannot attain the highest heights of God, we can strive for the height of God when He stoops down and reaches out to us...
...He remains yet the child destined for the rise and fall of many...
...Gospel readers continue to reckon these contradictions...
...Christmas music, all harmonious, celebrates Christ, our Harmony...
...Marc-Antoine Charpentier will compose a canticle that sings, "The Eternal One is born, the Endless One is caught and concealed in our appearance...
...When I join you we will be willows whose roots move walls...
...Where are you, Dr...
...You must bow your head, stoop a little, before you can enter that low-ceilinged stable-cave...
...flowers and roses that bloom in the snow...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 EDMUND PENNANT TALKING TO WALLS Talking to walls when you are gone I will be selective...
...23 December 1977:814...
...The Sibylline Oracle will exclaim, "The Holy Virgin, distinguished by her beauty and honor, will feed the king of heaven, in his younger years, with her milk...
...Philosophers, kings, diplomats, remember what Chesterton spoke to you...
...Mary confesses herself to be, but God calls her a mother, and a queen...
Vol. 104 • December 1977 • No. 26
