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Saturday, December 31, 2011
 



No the world will not crumble in the YEAR 2012 BECAUSE you are there and you are precious. The world will get better because you are there, all of you. I think so!


Most cordial Love and Wishes for the precious 2012

..wird die welt wohl nicht untergehen. und sie ist besser, weil es euch gibt. finde ich.

allerherzlichste grüsse und wünsche zum jahr 2012!

Dorothee



From my friend Dorothée unto you, everyone! claire-marie


Sunday, December 18, 2011
 

Luke 2:7

She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”

When we were children at the home or at the school, we had pleasure to stage the narrative of the Christmas story, often enriched by songs, that made it sound like a small children’ opera. In every representation, the most moving part was when the " holy couple " walked from house to house, from door to door, knocking shyly, begging in a trembling voice: " The young woman has to give birth, it is urgent, would there be a small place in your home?" And the scathing retort: " No place for you! Go, look somewhere else!”

It was not a question of the child Jesus or the Son of God, if the proprietor had suspected that, he would have thought twice and re-examined the question! No, it was a question of rejecting “foreigners, potentially criminal who, it is known, are only parasites coming to undermine our laboriously constructed system.

So it was so in that time and so it is today.

The prophets knowing well the Law of the Old Testament were aware of this terrible reality. Almost no other group of people, i.e. the foreigners, the widows, the orphans - was so expressly entrusted in the care of the citizens, as this particular group. And the prophets constantly repeated this urgent duty: to give shelter to foreigners, widows and orphans.

Furthermore, the same group of homeless people was particularly close to the heart of the man of Nazareth, to the great displeasure of “well respected people”. These people were shocked to see Jesus share a meal with them. But Jesus went still farther, even to explicitly identify himself with them. " I was foreign and you did not welcome me " and "Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn't do it to one of the least of these, you didn't do it to me!”

Yet neither the prophets, nor the teachings of the Old Testament, nor Jesus himself, nor our representations of his nativity when we were children at the home, at school, seems to have had a lasting impact! It seems to be a cry in the wilderness of our modern society! Just note the Swiss popular Initiatives for the expulsion of foreigners, the opposition of our municipalities to grant homeless people a place to stay. We know the song! A sad Christmas song indeed!

Hermann-Josef Venetz

Translation: Claire-Marie Jeannotat

with kind permission of the author




 
Luke 2:7

She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”

When we were children at the home or at the school, we had pleasure to stage the narrative of the Christmas story, often enriched by songs, that made it sound like a small children’ opera. In every representation, the most moving part was when the " holy couple " walked from house to house, from door to door, knocking shyly, begging in a trembling voice: " The young woman has to give birth, it is urgent, would there be a small place in your home?" And the scathing retort: " No place for you! Go, look somewhere else!”

It was not a question of the child Jesus or the Son of God, if the proprietor had suspected that, he would have thought twice and re-examined the question! No, it was a question of rejecting “foreigners, potentially criminal who, it is known, are only parasites coming to undermine our laboriously constructed system.

So it was so in that time and so it is today.

The prophets knowing well the Law of the Old Testament were aware of this terrible reality. Almost no other group of people, i.e. the foreigners, the widows, the orphans - was so expressly entrusted in the care of the citizens, as this particular group. And the prophets constantly repeated this urgent duty: to give shelter to foreigners, widows and orphans.

Furthermore, the same group of homeless people was particularly close to the heart of the man of Nazareth, to the great displeasure of “well respected people”. These people were shocked to see Jesus share a meal with them. But Jesus went still farther, even to explicitly identify himself with them. " I was foreign and you did not welcome me " and "Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn't do it to one of the least of these, you didn't do it to me!”

Yet neither the prophets, nor the teachings of the Old Testament, nor Jesus himself, nor our representations of his nativity when we were children at the home, at school, seems to have had a lasting impact! It seems to be a cry in the wilderness of our modern society! Just note the Swiss popular Initiatives for the expulsion of foreigners, the opposition of our municipalities to grant homeless people a place to stay. We know the song! A sad Christmas song indeed!


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Saturday, December 03, 2011
 

My well-beloved had a vineyard

The so-called Old Testament - so it is said - would speak about an avenging God who would punish people. While, on the other hand, the New Testament would proclaim, a loving God. In the Old Testament, so - it is said - people would have lived under the talion law: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In the New Testament, it would have been said: you have to love your neighbour as you love yourself.

For the record: God's commandment: you must love your neighbour as you love yourself is the exact copy found in the Old Testament. At the time when Jesus lived, the pharisees and doctors of the law summarized all the commandments and the interdictions in a single command: Love of God and love and love of neighbours.

The fact that God himself is Love is no invention of the New Testament. The Canticle of Isaiah to his Well-Beloved compares the Love of God for His people with that of the vine-grower full of tenderness for his vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And Isiah describes the pain of the vine grower when he saw his Love betrayed: just bad grapes grew there!

So the Old Testament was Jesus of Nazareth's Bible. Not only did he read the Bible, not only did he pray, but he lived with the Bible, and more still, he could proclaim with passion and conviction His God as a most beloved Father and most tender Mother.

Hermann-Josef Venetz

(my translation with kind permission from the author)