Why Did Jesus Need a "Host" That First Christmas?

The "heavenly host" as presented on Bible Universe. If you are fond of this image of the First Christmas, you may not want to read on.

Why Did Jesus Need a "Host" That First Christmas?

We know from Luke's gospel, as well as from many a Christmas carol, that Jesus was greeted by a "heavenly host." It was a member of that armed force who told the shepherds that He had been born.

"Host" is a most peculiar word. It and its cognates in our language and its brother and sister languages can have quite opposite meanings. Think of "hostile," hospitality," "She was a good and gracious host," "a hostile host confronted the king." In that last sentence, "host" means "army." It is precisely that meaning that is meant in English translations of Luke 2:13.

While the word "peace" most frequently comes to mind on the commemoration of the Prince of Peace's nativity, it was a most warlike bunch that announced his birth. Indeed I tempted to think that Luke 2:14 is a challenge and response: "Glory to God in the Highest!" "And peace to men of good will!" In other words, the first set of angel guards demanded a password from the next.

If these celestial warriors were singing, it was to keep in step as any army until modern times did. (Luke does not say they sang by the way.)

Why did Jesus need an armed guard? There were more than baaing sheep and curious shepherds abroad. The Prince of this World and his allies in it play for keeps. Ask the Holy Innocents.

Do not be misled by pictures of the pretty angels in flowing gauze on Christmas cards. These angels were armed to the hilt!

Did You Know Robison Caruso was Bowdlerized?

Did you know Robison Caruso was bowdlerized? No? Read Zaleski's "The Strange Shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe" published some years back in First Things by clicking on the link in the tittle of this post. We must protect our childr!n from obscene things like God, religion, and moral improvement.

Barth, the Protestant Rejection of Natural Law and English Gardens

J. Daryl Charles writes on Protestantism and Natural Law in the December First Things. I gained an interesting insight. With the Enlightenment came a wholly different view of nature. Nature is no longer an unruly, dangerous thing that is beautiful because it reflects the creative power of its Creator. Rather it is like an English garden: tidy and orderly, the work of man.

Whereas Issac Newton believed he could find orderly laws in the chaos of nature because he believe they reflected the work of nature's God, modern man believes nature is submissive because it obeys his own laws. Nature is made in Man's own image!

Modern man has a hard time believing that Aslan is not a tame animal. Indeed modern man does not believe anything disorderly or non-man made can happen in his English garden. Consequently, he, like Jesus' neighbors in Nazareth (Mt 13,53-8; Mk 6,1-6), does not believe in miracles. As a result, miracles happen mostly in places like Africa and Kansas.

Benedict: A Nightmarish Vision

A month or two ago, I had a dream or a vision.

Benedict was visiting somewhere, most likely the Holy Land or somewhere in the Mid-East. There were the usual crowds and media enterouage that accompany such a papal trip. Then before the world's cameras, a suicide bomber approached. While most of the crowd froze, Benedict ran to him and embraced him. tackling him to the ground, he said "I love you."

The scene dissolved into a horrendous melange of red and white.

Please pray for him on his trip to Turkey.

Vote: What kind of priests do you want?

Commonwealth has written an editorial about "Tomorrow’s Priests." It is based on a set of sociological studies about recently ordained priests.

One study contrasts two types of seminarians. The first (Commonwealth's good guys?) are described as: "A 'servant-leader' model ... emphasizes the collaborative elements of clerical leadership within the community. But the popularity of that model, ascendant in the 1960s, has waned.'"

The second type of seminarian (Commonwealth's bad guys?): "Recently ordained priests adhere to a 'cultic' model of the priesthood that stresses the essential difference between clergy and laity; the priest ... is seen as 'a man set apart whose job is providing the sacraments, teaching the Catholic Church’s doctrine, and being a model of faith and devotion.'”

I plan a thorough critique of the sociological studies underlying Commonwealth's editorial. Father John Trigilio, who appears on ETWN and is president of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, has given his own reply.

What type of priest do you think the church needs?

Booms, Technological Babbles and Busts

Milton Friedman died yesterday.

When I was in graduate school in the late 1960s, many of my peers were disciples of Mao and romanticized that thug Che Guevara. They carried around with them The Thoughts of Chairman Mao ("The Little Red Book") as if it were a badge of honor. I vividly remember the ugliness at the American Economic Association meetings when Friedman gave his Nobel Laureate lecture amid angry prrotests and demonstrations.

The "Little Green Book" (his Capitalism and Freedom) was the first book that made me think critically and creatively in economics. From today's vantage point, it appears to have won the long war with "The Little Red Book." His ideas have seized the commanding heights. It is a great irony that the best words to put on his tomestone would be those of John Maynard Keynes, the dominant intellectual force in economics from 1936 to the 1970s and the king whom Friedman deposed:

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood . . . Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."

- J.M. Keynes, General Theory, ch. 24.

Today's Wall Street Journal is a must read. Not only is there a lead editorial on Uncle Milton (no surprise) and a front page article, but they published a new article by Friedman himself ("Why Money Matters") on the editorial page that is a gem. It could as easily have been titled "Booms, Technological Babbles and Busts." Personally, I can't imaging still writing so lucidly and perceptively at 94. In fact, still breathing would be an accomplishment.

Fellow economist Michael Boskin leaves us with the image of Milton and Rose dancing at her birthday. The perfect signature on a full and fruitful life!

Pray for his soul and the wife who has lost a soulmate. May he be smiling down at us from the true commanding heights.

Death Comes For the Archbishop IV

"He was soon to be done with calendared time, and it had already ceased to count for him. He sat in the middle of his own consciousness; none of his former states of mind were lost or outgrown. They were all within reach of his hand, and all comprehensive." -363." Willa Cather, Death Comes For the Archbishop (Thorndike, Me: Thorndike Press, 1984) p. 62.