Please pardon the dust!

Hello,

Welcome to my new blog, Monkly Musings -- whether you've come over from my old blog The Path of Life or just stumbled upon this one by chance. If the former is the case, you may have noticed that I had not been posting much of anything the last few years. So, a "refresh" was certainly in order!

The Path of Life blog began, really, in 2011 as an outgrowth of my work at Abbey Press' Path of Life Publications. I have not worked at Abbey Press since 2014 -- in fact, sadly, the entire operation ceased in 2017. These last 11 years have largely been dedicated to my work as secretary to the Archabbot, so I did not have as much time to devote to the blog. Having recently been relieved of those responsibilities, I hope (God willing) to devote more time to writing (including this blog) and my ministry of spiritual direction.

In the meantime, my old blogs, both Path of Life and before that The Yoke of Christ (2008-11) will each remain accessible, but nothing new will be posted on those sites. Also, Monkly Musings remains a work in progress. There are still design and content elements I would like to add to the site, so I appreciate your patience until things are fully up and running!

PAX -- Br. Francis 

The Master's crib

While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. -- Luke 2:6-7

When I was a child visiting my grandparents in northwest Indiana, my brother, cousins and I looked forward to accompanying Grandpa when it was time to feed the cows out in the fields. He would drive the tractor, and we would ride atop the flatbed trailer filled with bales of hay. Once we arrived alongside the feeding trough, Grandpa would start cutting the bales of hay and tossing them in.

The cows never had to be called for dinner. They came galloping to meet us. They knew what the sight of the tractor meant, and what the trough was for. They knew who fed them.

Compare this image to these words from the prophet Isaiah, lamenting on God’s behalf: “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib [or feeding trough]; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand” (Isaiah 1:3). That’s quite an indictment! In other words, stupid and stubborn beasts know who feeds them, but God’s own people, created in his image, do not.

Luke’s Gospel proclaims that, with the birth of Jesus, this woeful situation has been reversed for all who heed such good news. The symbolism of the manger is important for Luke. After giving birth, he writes, Mary laid the infant Jesus in a manger (2:7). Luke goes on to mention this detail two more times—when nearby shepherds hear from an angel the good news of the Messiah’s birth, and then go to Bethlehem to see for themselves the child in the manger (Luke 2:12, 16).

Beginning with those shepherds, God’s people now know their “master’s crib.” And it is God himself—in the Word Made Flesh who came among us, and who is with us always in his Holy Spirit—who closed the gap of understanding. In so doing, he began fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy of a new covenant: “I will be their God and they shall be my people … They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34). This movement by God was finalized some 30 years later with Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and continues today in the church’s faithful.

The manger, the ox and the ass in the Nativity scene serve as a reminder: It is God who feeds us, both spiritually and physically.