Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Yesterday we found the King of Heaven, away in a manger with no room for a bed. We were asked to understand that God came into our lives in the humblest way possible. Born barely within wedlock, of a woman traveling away from the comforts and supports of home, of a family soon needing to flee as refugees with limited funds and hope. An encounter with God, now incarnate, that is meant to defy all our expectations.

Today we find a man, not of Jewish descent, having a vision like the holiest Prophets of the Jews. He is elevated to the highest of heavens and sees the very Throne of God surrounded by the Angelic Hosts. A privilege reserved for the holiest of mystics with Judaism.

Here we have a man, the Deacon Stephen, claiming not only to have seen the very throne of God but attesting that the same God Beyond All Knowing who sits upon that Throne is one and the same as the Jesus who was born in a manger in Bethlehem. For that witness… Stephen was put to death.

This is one of the great tensions within Christianity. That the God Beyond All Knowing is also the Christ Child in the Manger. The Vision of the Throne whose inhabitant we cannot comprehend and the Vision of the Manger with a small infant struggling for breath and life in this world we know too well.

As we celebrate this Feast of Season may we commemorate his martyrdom by meditating on his witness…that the Throne of God and the Lowly Manger are One and the Same.

Pax,

—Ben