Las Posadas

Lectio Divina

May it be done to me according to your word.

Luke 1:38

Library

Catholic periodicals on my nightstand, Ellsberg on my desk, Peguy in my chapel stall, Mumford sadly gathering dust on the shelf.

Log

This morning, Mass and morning prayer combined together, as is the custom on Thursdays when we have extended personal time. Went to the post office in Santa Ynez and sent a package to my family, which is expected to arrive on Saturday. Hoping the contents of my fragile package arrive intact and undisturbed!

Around eleven o'clock, met up with Bro. Brendan Buckley, our fellow Province of St. Mary friar who pastors at Old Mission Santa Ines. He took the fellow New York novices to Cold Stream Tavern, a rustic old restaurant off the highway near the Cachuma Lake recreational area and on the way to Santa Barbara. Think of stagecoaches, highwaymen, and coyotes, and gentlemanly but gruff manners, and you'll get the picture of our surroundings.

We are having our evening prayer and evening meal a bit early tonight so we can begin our celebration of Las Posadas at seven. If you have never participated in this traditional (and highly interactive) re-enactment of the pilgrim journey of Mary and Joseph in their search for shelter as they expect the birth of Jesus, know that it is a festive experience. It is typically a nine-day celebration, with the procession taking place at a different home every night. Tonight it is San Lorenzo Seminary that will take part. I took part in a variation of Las Posadas in Boston in 2008 and 2009, in which a coalition of churches and community organizations orchestrated an afternoon procession through downtown. The coalition used the traditional infancy narrative of the Gospel of Luke to dramatize the plight of undocumented immigrants in the United States, who, like Mary and Joseph, are denied a welcome in a foreign land. A fiesta followed at the union hall of SEIU Local 615, the janitors' union. It was good to speak and walk the Gospel in that political key, then. It will be good, this evening, to sing and step out in the Gospel in its original key, now. 

Weather

Cold, quite cold in the morning. Doing our best to keep the warmth alive as we come to the winter solstice and the day of least daylight.