Theologian's Almanac for Week of December 12, 2021
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking — specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, December 12:
December 12 is the feast day of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe), the patron saint of Mexico, as well as of Central and South America. She appeared just north of Mexico City in 1531 to a native Mexican peasant named Juan Diego. Mary informed him — in his native language, Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs — that she wished to have a church built on the spot, which also happened to be the site of a shrine to the Aztec mother-goddess Tonantzin.
The local archbishop didn’t believe Diego, the story goes, until Mary appeared again and miraculously produced some roses (Castilian roses, not native to Mexico), which Diego carried in his cloak to the archbishop. As he presented the flowers, they fell to the floor around the archbishop’s feet — and a portrait of Mary was revealed in a kind of impression left behind on the cloak. A grand basilica was eventually built on the site, and today it is a famous place of pilgrimage, the third-most-visited sacred site in the world.
In the midst of this larger story, when Juan Diego was hurrying home to care for a sick relative, Mary appeared to him and asked the question that is now carved over the basilica’s entrance, gently chiding him for not coming directly to her for help in the first place: “¿No estoy yo aquí que soy tu madre?” (“Am I not here, I who am your mother?”).
December 13 is the feast day of St. Lucy, martyred in Syracuse is 304. She is said to have defiantly proclaimed her Christianity and given away all her possessions; her captors tore out her eyes, but they were miraculously restored, the story goes. She’s often depicted in paintings bearing her eyes on a plate; she is the patron saint of the blind. Because her name is related to the Latin word for “light” (lux), and because the solstice comes soon after her feast day, in Sweden she is the patron saint of light, as well as of harvest.
December 14 is the feast day of St. John of the Cross, founder with Teresa of Ávila, of the Discalced Carmelites, and a renowned mystical writer, born in Spain in 1542. He grew up in an impoverished family, and in his youth worked at a hospital for the destitute in order to contribute to his household’s income. Eventually, mentored by St. Teresa of Ávila, he sought to reform the Carmelite order — and was arrested and publicly punished for his efforts. He wrote poetry in prison, however, and today is widely considered one of Spain’s greatest poets; among his most famous works are “Spiritual Canticle” and “Dark Night of the Soul.”
The patron saint of mystics, contemplatives, and Spanish poets, St. John wrote, “They can be like the sun, words. / They can do for the heart what light can for a field.”
December 15 is the day in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was ratified by the new United States of America. It’s no accident that the first freedom named in the Bill of Rights is the freedom of religion; nor are the freedoms mentioned in the first amendment — religion, speech, press, assembly, petition — a random hodgepodge.
Rather, these five freedoms form a kind of choreography of liberty: at the foundation is freedom of religion (that is, freedom of “thought” or “conviction” about the deepest questions human beings can ask); then comes the freedom to speak freely about one’s thoughts and convictions; then comes the right to spread that speech far and wide, through a free press; then comes the right to assemble and organize with others who share convictions; and finally comes the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances on the basis of those convictions. And it’s all grounded in the freedom of religion, broadly defined — what Jefferson called freedom of “mind” in his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a document which strongly influenced James Madison as he wrote the First Amendment.
December 18 is the birthday of Methodist hymn writer Charles Wesley, born in Epworth, England, in 1707. While his brother, John, became an accomplished preacher, Charles was a hymn-writer and song leader. The two attended Oxford, where their classmates teased them for being so serious and methodical about their religious life; they dubbed the pair, “Methodists,” a name the brothers adopted. They traveled around England on horseback, preaching and leading singing out in the open air to tens of thousands. Hymnals were expensive, and many couldn’t read anyway, so Charles wrote accessible, memorable lyrics that could be sung by a leader and then echoed by the congregation.
Charles wrote nearly 9,000 hymns over his lifetime, which averages to about 10 lines of poetry every day for more than 50 years, including “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” — and “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.”