Light Where Hope Falters
Radical Season of Light 2023
Fritz Eichenberg, The Christ of the Breadlines, 1951, wood-cut
Justice-Informed Reflections for the Season of Light
At the Matthew 25 Initiative, our desire is to see the unseen and the marginalized treasured.
During The Season of Light (Advent + Christmas + Epiphany) we will be reflecting on how the Incarnation brings hope where light falters. Together we will consider what it looks like to see Jesus by seeing the unseen through a series of weekly Anglican-shaped reflections.
A Note about the M25i The Season of Light Artist
Fritz Eichenberg was one of the world’s master wood engravers, especially renowned for his illustrations of the Russian literary classics including works by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. In 1949 he met Dorothy Day, the charismatic co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, who asked him to donate his talents to The Catholic Worker newspaper. Thus began a collaboration of forty years duration, beautifully represented in these pieces highlighted for M25i Advent.
Eichenberg was born a Jew in Germany in 1901. After his training and successful vocation as an artist, he fled Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933, traveling first to Guatemala and Mexico and then through Texas to New York. In 1940, after the death of his wife, he became a Quaker. His spiritual life was nourished by both his Quaker-shaped faith and his friendship with Catholics who loved and lived as Jesus did. His proximity to the poor in New York and friendship with Dorothy Day fueled his art and vision of what it looked like to love God in authentic gospel impact. He fought for peace through his art and depicted a God close to suffering bringing hope.
“With certain convictions, your path, no matter how thorny, is laid out for you and you have to follow, even if your tender feet object.” Fritz Eichenberg
Gritty Hope
The First Week of a Radical Advent
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For our neighbors who live on the streets, night-time poses a particular danger. At night, even one’s usual “safe place” can become the site of theft, harm and abuse. Without four walls to keep watch in the darkness, night time reveals our deepest vulnerabilities.
Contended Peace
The Second Week of a Radical Advent
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War is eminent on many of our minds this Christmas. What do we long for in the dark days of faith when our hope falters? Ask a stranger at the grocery store or the park what they hope for and you’re likely to get something along the lines of “peace.”
One wonders if this answer isn’t all that different from the answer one of Mary or Joseph’s friends might have given in first century Palestine.
Why is this our cry? What is at the heart of our desire for peace?
Costly Joy
The Third Week of a Radical Advent
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This Sunday Anglicans across North America and beyond will light the Gaudette Candle, the only candle that breaks in color from the dark purples of Advent to a light shade of rose pink. Sunday marks the halfway point in the journey toward Christmas, offering a break in the dark clouds of night to the coming joy that will be revealed in Christ’s Incarnation.
Tangible God
The Fourth Week of a Radical Advent
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Through Advent we have considered the Light that breaks in where hope falters. If anything, this journey has made us ever more aware that human hope is weak. How easy is it to find yourself questioning if the violence, the scarcity, the poverty, the suffering is all that remains? We look at images of war, of children covered in blood and dust, cars and their passengers burned from the inside, and we think that surely this must be the way the world ends.
But Light, THE Light, breaks in. Even here. Even now. Into our weakened hope, the Light of the world pushes back the cosmic darkness. He enters in. His arms encircle the dust-covered child, his love baptizes our burned-out realities with life afresh.
O Holy Nightmare
Holy Innocents
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Today’s Visio Divina, once again created by Fritz Eichenberg, shows what first appears to be a picture-perfect scene. Baby Jesus sleeps peacefully in the hay. Two cows are gently “lowing.” A star shines in through the rafters of the stable illuminating this tiny hope-bringer…
But the picture is not perfect. Do you see the military helmet in the straw by the baby? See the blazing fire burning the nearby village?
Just as in our realities today, there is no peace here, no “silent” night.
Visible Mission
A Radical Epiphany
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This Advent and Christmastide we have considered the need for hope, the cry for peace, the power of joy, the presence of love, and the waging war between Light and Dark (we encourage you to go back and read any reflections you might have missed).
As Epiphany begins, let us anchor our hope for the coming year in the glorious truth that Jesus is the Son of the most High God and he invites us all to his table.