One Hit Wonder?

“The Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.” Isaiah 60:2

In my hometown, the Fireman’s Carnival is undoubtedly the biggest event of the year.  It’s been held on the first week in August as long as anyone can remember.  Thousands flock to the muddy grounds outside town for the ferris wheel and the country ham sandwiches, some low stakes games of chance  and the goldfish booth that finances the junior-senior prom.

 Everyone knows that the biggest attractions are conversations with old friends and the hand-cut french fries.  But there’s always entertainment as well--a show on the stage at 7 and 10.  It’s usually country music, and in the old days, when you had to become a star the hard way, many of the greats trod our hometown boards: Patsy Cline, Conway Twitty, Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, even once, Grandpap said, the great Hank Williams himself.  

Praying the Passion with St. Bridget: Devastating and Glorious

God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.  II Cor. 5:19

If you’ve ever read through one of the Gospels from beginning to end in a single setting, maybe what surprised you most was how long the passion story, the account of Jesus’ suffering and death is.  In what is probably the earliest Gospel, St. Mark, 45% of the text is of the last week of Jesus’ life.  Regular worshippers know to prepare themselves for Palm Sunday, because when we read the passion, it will take quite a long time.

The Gospels are unlike any other kind of literature that predates them in the way they focus in on this final (or properly almost final) part of the life of their subject.  We have some deathbed scenes for other important figures in the Bible, and the classical biographies usually include an account of the death. There is generally in ancient literature a sense that the death reveals the character, but the passions of the Gospel stories are really unprecedented.