The ancient Celts called the first full moon of January the “Wolf Moon.” It was traditional to give a good howl at it, thanking it for its beauty as it kept the night watch.
January 3rd was that night for 2026. And with all going on, it feels like it was keeping vigil with us all…
Today the church remembers a contemporary Norwegian saint who deserves to be remembered more than he is: St. Eivind Josef Berggrav, Bishop of Oslo and Gadfly of the Nazis.
St. Berggrav was born at the end of the 19th Century, the son of the Bishop of Hamar. He planned to be an engineer, but fell in love with Theology and decided that would be his life’s pursuit.
He didn’t enter the ministry immediately upon graduation, spending some time studying the psychology of religion as the editor of a prominent publication dedicated to the topic. It was clear he was wrestling with his own vocation. At the same time, he took up teaching.
Finally in 1919, he was ordained by the Church of Norway and appointed to the rural parish of Hurdal. In 1925 his ministry took a jaunt directly northward, as he was elected the Bishop of Tromso on the arctic plains of Norway, close to the land of the Lapps. These fur trappers, fishermen, and sea people taught him how to be a Bishop of the church
In 1937 he was appointed Bishop of Oslo, and soon after the President of the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the churches. The world was on the brink of war at the time.
In 1940, after the Nazi invasion of Norway, St. Berggrav was named one of the negotiators assigned to assess the intentions of the Nazi occupation.
He lasted two days in the post before resigning in protest, saying that he would never compromise with them. From this stance, he led a formal opposition to Nazi interference, focusing on the independence of the clergy and the sacred rights of the Jewish people.
This, obviously, upset the powers that be. They stripped him of his bishopric and his clerical credentials, and they put him on house arrest. In protest, 797 of the 861 priests of the Church of Norway resigned on Easter Sunday, showing what resurrection-in-action truly looks like.
Feeling Berggrav was the primary instigator of this rebellion, he was imprisoned in a solitary log cabin on the outskirts of Oslo under the edict of Hitler himself.
An underground church quickly formed in Norway, continuing the life of the faithful in exile. In something out of a spy novel, Berggrav donned a disguise and escaped from his log cabin, hiding out in Oslo until the liberation of Norway in 1945.
After the war, Berggrav lobbied for greater participation by the laity of the church in ecclesial affairs. He became a leader in the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, and served until he fell ill in 1950. He died on this day in 1959.
A prolific writer, Berggrav published half a dozen books in his distinguished career, the last entitled When the Fight Came about his disobedience to the Nazi regime.
St. Berggrav is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that there are some things you can’t compromise on.
-historical pieces inspired by Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
A 4th Century Saint is honored by the church on January 13th: St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers and Hymnwriter.
Hilary (think “happy” or “hilarious,” because his name is derived from the Latin for fun/cheerful) was born in Gaul to powerful pagan parents. He was not baptized until relatively later in life, at age 30, and in the year 350 he was made bishop of Poitiers by popular demand, though he was already married and had never been ordained!
Throughout history, good order has often been circumvented by the desires of the masses, for good and for ill.
St. Hilary bucked Emperor Constantinus in not going along with the Emperor’s demand that Western Bishops adhere to a compromised Nicene faith, and for this he was banished to Phrygia in Asia Minor.
There he continued his work as a theologian, writing On the Trinity while in exile, a foundational document for the early church.
In 360 he was allowed to return to his post at Poitiers to great acclaim, and he became the most respected Latin theologian of the time, and is lauded as one who brought Eastern wisdom into the Western church largely due to his time in exile and learning from those in Asia Minor.
He is also remembered as having written the first Latin hymns. Having been influenced by Greek hymns during his exile, he brought many back and created Latin versions of them while also writing new hymns altogether for the Western church. He was disappointed with the ability of the people in Gaul to carry a tune, however, and complained that they were “unteachable in sacred song.” I guess you can’t always have a win.
Hilary is remembered as being one intensely focused on Orthodoxy, but also as one who, due to his life experience, broadened and expanded the practices of the church.
Oh, and fun fact: I passed by the parish of St. Hilary weekly when I lived on the north side of Chicago.
St. Hilary is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes spending some time in exile, on the outs, at the margins, can be a blessed time of learning where the gems of the wilderness can be mined and brought back into the center of life.
-historical pieces gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today the church observes Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx and Good Friend.
Born in the 12th Century, Aelred was the son and grandson of Saxon priests. He was sent to work in the home of King David of Scotland at a young age, and when he entered adulthood experienced some deep inner struggle of an unknown nature.
All we know is that he was conflicted.
To help discern his angst, he entered a Cistercian Order at Rievaulx and soon gained a reputation as kind, wise, and a good friend to all.
His greatest mark left on the world was his capacity for profound sympathy, and he went on to write Spiritual Friendship, a reflection on the goodness of having and being a true friend in life.
The good Abbot was known to create deep, meaningful friendships, and hold these up as the pinnacle of godly relationship.
“A friend praying to Christ on behalf of his friend, and for his friend’s sake desiring to be heard by Christ, directs his attention with love and longing to Christ; then it sometimes happens that quickly and imperceptibly, the one love passes over into the other, and coming as it were, into close contact with the sweetness of Christ himself, the friend begins to taste his sweetness and to experience his charm.”-Spiritual Friendship
St. Aelred is a reminder to me, and should be for everyone, that sometimes the best thing you can be in this world is a good friend.
After all, if the only thing anyone remembered us for is our deep capacity for sympathy and friendship, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world…
Be a good friend today.
Today the church remembers a simple, humble saint who dedicated his existence to prayer and presence: Brother Lawrence, Mystic and Monk.
Brother Lawrence was born in the early 17th Century in Lorraine, France. We do not know much about his childhood, other than to say that he received very little schooling. He served a stint in the army, but one day had a mystical vision that gave him a new direction.
While gazing at a stark tree in the middle of a French winter, Brother Lawrence received an overwhelming feeling of grace and a deep sense that God was present. He saw in that moment that he, like that tree, was waiting for God’s blooming in his life…which could happen at any moment.
Brother Lawrence took this experience and went off to Paris, joining the Carmelite monastery there as a lay brother.
He was given the base tasks of caring for the monastery, but in his repetitive work he found an avenue to integrate spirituality into every mop swing, every dish scrub, and every menial task given him. He began what he called the “practice of the presence of God.”
He devoted each small task to the Divine, turning every moment into an opportunity for prayer.
Brother Lawrence is a reminder for me, and can be for the whole church, that the small, simple things when done faithfully are a gift to the Divine and to the world.
In fact, I’d go further to say that small, simple communities of faith, parishes, churches, embody Brother Lawrence best when they do their small bit with great attention and devotion.
-historical bits gleaned from Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove’s A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
Yesterday the church celebrated one of our moveable feast days: The Baptism of Our Lord.
This is one of the few events in the life of Jesus that every Gospel mentions, and in each of the Gospels it is noted as kind of the beginning of his dedicated work in the world.
Most every major religion has some sort of bathing/purity rite, and for Christians baptism is meant to mark a rebirth of sorts. In your first birth you came into a world that wants you to seek out fame and fortune. The birth from the font, however, dedicates you to a different life of justice, love, and service.
Surely, it doesn’t always take for all people, but the amniotic fluid of the baptismal font, the water, is intended to renew the life of the person and give them a new lens through which to see their work in the world.
In addition to all of the above, baptism is meant to mark the Divine’s deep love for the individual…and that “takes” for everyone, regardless of how well they live into the vows.
Baptism is an interesting rite, too, because it is both a one-time event (for many Christians) and also a life-long process. Every bath is a renewal of life when seen in this way, a chance to be birthed differently and start fresh. There is a penitential element to it, of course, as every bath is intended to make someone clean. But there is also a primal element to it, one that connects all humanity, Christian or not. After all, we don’t baptize using Pepsi, gin, or coffee.
We use water, the stuff of life (though, coffee is also the “stuff of life” in my book, but I digress…).
Genesis, the first book of the scriptures begins with the Divine brooding over the swirling chaotic waters, and the Book of Revelation, the last book, ends at those same waters, but now they’re known as The River of Life. Scripture is bookended by water.
Similarly, in many traditions, a child is brought to the font for rebirth and, at every funeral I’ve ever done in a church, we start saying good bye to the deceased at the font, recalling where it all began. In this way life, too, is book ended by water.
The Baptism of Our Lord is a feast day that reminds me, and should remind the whole church, of a few things:
First: water is life. And because it is life, clean water should be a right for every human, from Flint, Michigan to Finland to far flung Namibia. We must work hard to make it so.
Secondly: rebirth is always possible in so many ways. Every drop of water should remind us that a new way of being is possible, by God.
Finally: that change in the church will require Christians to take a hard look at the baptismal vows and rethink how we apply and live into them. Baptism should never happen “to make grandma happy.” Baptism is a public statement about a person’s intent to live and be and move in the world differently than the world calls them to live, be, and move.
Let those with ears to hear, hear.
-icon written by Ivanka Demchuk (Ukrainian, 1990–)
Today is a feast day that, while not honored throughout the church, is especially reverent in African communities throughout Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay: Saint Balthazar, King of Macedonia and one of the Magi who sought out the infant Christ.
Saint Matthew’s Gospel does not name the Magi, nor does the writer even number them. The names, and their numbering, are all part of lore. So, where did we get the names of the Magi?
I’m glad you asked!
The names of the Magi are derived from a 6th Century Greek manuscript that was translated into Latin and widely distributed. There we read that the Magi who visited the Christ after following astrological signs were named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Of the three, Balthazar developed a particularly powerful following, mostly because it was purported that he was the Magi who carried the myrrh, the most mysterious and tragic of the “gifts” given to the infant Jesus.
The Venerable St. Bede describes him as being a black man with a long beard which, while surely conjecture, struck a tone with many parts of the church that were under represented in depictions of the scriptures, especially as the whitewashing of the Bible had largely been completed by then.
In short: Saint Balthazar provided an opportunity for much of Christendom to see themselves in the story when they had largely been erased and replaced.
Today in many parts of South America, in non-Covid days, you’d find festivals and street parades honoring St. Balthazar and his elegantly morbid gift of myrrh. He is the patron saint of those who work with saws, thunder, those with epilepsy, and those who manufacture playing cards (I have no idea why), and of the three kings of lore, is the most popular.
Tradition has him being entombed at Cologne Cathedral in Germany, having been moved there from the original resting place of Constantinople (or is it Istanbul?). There the legend says his remains are kept with his other two companions at the Shrine of the Three Kings.
Now, all of this is legend and lore, from the top to the bottom. So why bother noting this feast day at all?
We must remember that while religion is Divinely inspired is is held in cracked clay jars of the human imagination. This feast day speaks to a wide swath of humanity and, in the Biblical narrative, plays an important part in Matthew’s Gospel. The gift of myrrh to the infant Jesus is a foreshadowing of his death, a little “flash forward” the Gospel writer provides for the ending of the story.
Indeed: the Jesus story is no story at all without the myrrh-y part.
So Saint Balthazar is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, of at least two things:
First: the whitewashing of the Bible (making all the characters European) is a disgrace and should absolutely be repudiated as a practice.
And secondly: the legends and lore of the faith still speak, and are still worth remembering and honoring as long as that remains true.
Icon written by Hieronymous Bosch
My thought on the 12th Day of Christmas…
I saw an advertisement that said, with a Nativity scene in the background, “You know it’s just a myth, right?”
And the answer for Christians should be, “Yes. The nativity scene, and the nativity as described in Matthew and Luke, is largely mythical. But they’re full of meaning.”
Just because it’s a myth doesn’t mean it is meaningless. In fact, I’d say it’s so full of meaning that simple parameters can’t hold it. Luke and Matthew want us to see the cosmic dimension of Divine revelation: heavenly bearings, both angelic and planetary, play a part in it. Disparate parts of humanity, from lowly shepherds to learned star gazers, play a part in it.
It’s so huge, that it can’t be contained in fact. It’s a cosmic drama that must be told in dramatic form.
Yes, those live nativity scenes are largely fake. But they’re also ultra-true.
You don’t need to believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and visited by magi or shepherds to understand that God’s presence in the world shook things from floor to rafters.
In fact, I don’t believe those things, and still find deep truth and power in the story.
When the Herods of the world compel you to do things for the state that degrade others, and that your conscience won’t allow, you disobey.
For the good of all humanity.
If you need advice, Magi arrive in just a few days who have some experience with this.
-art by Cathy Squire
The Celtic calendar was built on a wheel, an ancient wisdom of spirals and turning on which they trusted all life to be built upon. It was a dance that humanity participated in along with everything else cosmic to microscopic.
There were two halves, the “Sam” (summer) and the “Gam” (winter), and those were divided again with Samhain in October (the start of winter) and Beltaine in May (the start of summer), and further divided by Imbolc in February and Lughnasadh in August. In between all of those were the celestial markers of equinoxes and solstices, further providing some guidance as to what rhythm the Celts would be adopting at a particular time of year.
This is the eightfold pattern of their year, spinning round and round.
And each day itself was said to mirror this pattern with dusk (wintering) and dawn (summering) and noon and midnight. In other words: each day held a year.
A similar wisdom is seen in the ancient creation stories (Genesis follows this pattern), and also the eschatalogical understanding that each day holds the liturgical year (waiting, celebration, mourning, growing, etc.).
All of this is ancient, cycling wisdom at play, if we’re willing to pay attention.
In a modern Celtic understanding, January affords us the opportunity to focus in on thresholds (liminal spaces from the Latin “limen” which literally means “threshold”). Though it was not the ancient New Year for the Celts (which was probably Samhain), the mentality of the people was one of adaptation and so we find it has shifted to enfold the Gregorian calendar into its thoughtful rhythm.
January is our modern threshold month. It is the doorway, the threshold, to a new year. For the ancient Celts thresholds were holy places in the home, the barrier between the world and the family, a portal through which humans, as well, as other spirits traversed. It was neither here nor there. The dirt of thresholds was seen as holy ground, good for repairing relationships and cleansing the soul (haven’t you ever said, “it is good to be home!”?).
When entering an ancient Celtic home you’d say a quick blessing just inside the doorway called “The Welcome of the Door.” This is mirrored in many religions, but specifically for Western Christians we see this practice adopted on January 6th as doorways are blessed in honor of the Epiphany and the Magi crossing the threshold of the home of Mary and Joseph to see the Christ child.
January, as our modern threshold, provides us a similar opportunity for blessing and newness, is what I’m saying. The wheel is spinning, but there are important markers throughout, and now we are at the threshold of 2024 and a “Welcome of the Door” is in order.
What will be the blessing you say here?
Reluctant Xtian 