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| Madonna of Port Lligat, Marquette University |
During an excellent Christmas Eve homily from a Redemptorist priest, we were challenged to reconsider the miracle of the Incarnation, both from our own vantage points and reflecting on the mystery through great art.
As for a contemporary take on the Nativity, I must commend a Portuguese advertising agency for coming up with an anachronistic retelling of the Greatest Story:
Another approach to better appreciate the miracle of the Word becoming flesh is through depictions in great art. Hence the Madonna of Port Lligat (1949) by Salvador Dali from the Marquette University Haggerty Museum of Art. Fr. Jim Wallace, C.Ss.R., also commended a short poem by the American poetess Denice Leterov: “On the Mystery of the Incarnation”
It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.
That’s a lot to chew on while savoring some tryptophan inspired shut eye.
A “Happy Christmas” to all and to all a good night.
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