Every December, just before Christmas, in all of the Catholic churches throughout the world, the deacons or priests proclaim a little piece of the “Good News,” the opening to Matthew’s Gospel. It is a most celebrated reading, but also quite dreaded. Dreaded is the Genealogy of Jesus, as it contains many names that are just so hard to pronounce. LOL! But more than compensating for that is the joyous fact that the Family Tree of Jesus is like that popular embroidery you see in many homes, “Shake my family tree, and you’ll get a bag of nuts.”
WHAT A CHRISTMAS TREE! What HOPE for me that Jesus was born into a great family of misfits, jerks, sinners, yes, even some thieves and murderers, definitely more than a few scallywags, without a doubt Knuckleheads galore! 
Such a good portrait of yours truly!
Yet all so precious to the Creator/Father, so precious indeed that He still would will to become one with them, one of us! A TRUE MEMBER OF THE HUMAN FAMILY! Of course, among all of the scallywags stand the minions of everyday good-as-gold, hard-working, God-fearing and neighbor-loving saints.
My friend, Jim, in the Windy City comments that some of my portraits of my everyday saints are “BIBLICAL” in proportion, i.e. bigger than life and epic in significance. And rightly so, as that is what flows right out of Jesus’ strange but wonderful – and oh so ordinary heritage. The EPIC of Life lies in the EVERYDAY; the Great Canvas is mostly made of Commonplace mosaics, the stories of the great losers and the great lovers; EQUALLY, He loves each one (with maybe an accent on the loser!) Human History is HIS STORY, but the Wings of His Spirit wrap around and embrace every story of ours.
Therein lies the real reason why we just can’t toss a single one aside, like some chewed up pencil stub. Each one is special, simply in its Creation. But, then, to us who profess a belief in “the Incarnation-for-Salvation, i.e. that God was born into the human family and grew up much like me,but with a Destiny to Love even to the extent of being nailed to a Tree….
O WHAT A CHRISTMAS/EASTER TREE, the Human Family, every blooming member far more than special, every one SACRED! Remember the blog where i was caught contemplating – and chatting with – a Tree. It was the Sign of this Most Holy Communion that every creature now has with the Creator, because He proved Himself as infinitely MORE than a Creator, as vast and eternal as that may be. He prefers to be known by every single saint or scoundrel as LOVE – with no amount of sin being able to separate any creature from THE ONE.
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