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#Divine Relationship collector
akumaii · 2 years
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Divine Relationship hoarder
(Divine Relationship collector)
a form of relationship hoarder where one has a intense desire to have more relationships, due to being a divine being. This can refer to any form of relationships (sexual, romantic, platonic, queerplatonic/alterous, amical, etc.)
Etymology: Divine + Relationship + hoarder/collector
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requested by: anon
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(If any terms I’ve posted are already a thing please tell me.)
My DNI list↩︎ — (last updated: 05/21/2022)
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folkloric-love · 2 months
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"A handsome young man wearing white vestments gently takes the woman by the hand. His face is incomparably beautiful, his hair gleaming in the firelight like burnished gold. A holy symbol that depicts the sun hangs from the chain around his neck. He moves with the grace of a saint." Shout out to @luclovestruck yet again for another beautiful CoS commission! I love seeing all the wonderful designs fandom has come up with for one of my favorite characters, so here's another one for your consideration. Playing as Vasilka means that I get to dig into some wonderfully juicy themes concerning the relationship between father and daughter, creator and creation, the autonomy of the self, and filial piety. Of course, the character of Vasilka was obviously inspired by Frankenstein, but my love of fairy tales means that I'm leaning harder into the themes presented in Pinocchio, though I hold both novels very near and dear to my heart. I've joked at the table many times that the Abbot would be an avid collector of ball-jointed dolls, but despite her organic nature, Vasilka really is more of a "living doll" than a person, at least as of now. She does not speak unless directly addressed, emotes very little, and her movements are somewhat stiff and almost mechanical. She does not question the Abbot's commands and believes his wisdom is beyond reproach. In her mind, "God" and "Father" are synonymous concepts. She believes that the Abbot is guiding her down the proper path and that she was created to fulfill a special purpose -- a divine duty, as it were. Where does Vasilka figure into the Abbot's plans? For what purpose was she created? What exactly is this "divine duty" that is being alluded to? These are the sort of questions I hope to see answered as the narrative unfolds.
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ganymedesclock · 2 years
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Honestly PK’s relationship with the void is actually kind of interesting when you consider Radiance’s implicit center-of-worship/base of operations was on top of a mountain as far away from it as possible, she calls the void her Ancient Enemy and greets it with the implicit assumption none of the vessels are individuals or even pawns of the wyrm nearly as much as they are pawns of said enemy which has been trying to destroy her all along.
PK, conversely, seems profoundly and personally obsessed with the stuff, possibly even to personal detriment. I’m reminded somewhat of the fate of Marie Curie whose fascination with radium led to great insights, but also left her massively overexposed to it.
He built his palace as close to the abyss as you’d get; his honor guard as well as some flying novelties (?) or service drones that propagate throughout his castle are effectively just great volumes of void wandering around. That the Abyss itself contains a great lighthouse that was personally attended by a royal retainer as well as a small personal office overlooking the great abyssal shore adds almost a quieter note of personal tragedy to the far greater horror that went on down there- that even to PK’s flawed worldview, the Abyss was not a place of great dishonor before he enacted the vessel project there. He liked it; he wanted other people to come down there and see it. In one of his writings he calls it “power opposed” but specifically in the context that he was sure he could get some pants on this thing somehow and put it in society.
PK is... thoughtlessly callous in many ways and one of the big ways is this belief of a civilizing force, that for him, the nicest possible thing he thinks he can do for anyone seems to be fitting them into a perfect, tailored box where they do exactly the work that is good for them and good for everyone forever. There’s a reason that Hollow is subtextually the Favored Heir, the inheritor of the kingdom to whom PK literally left all of Hallownest when you look at the message attached to the Worldsense bench- and they were literally a martyr being sent to spend the rest of their life chained inside of a seal as a sacrifice. A King without a throne or a crown or any political sway. And that up to a point, PK convinced himself this was not only the right and proper thing, but that he himself was... breathtakingly unprepared to grieve Hollow. Like it did not occur to him this might actually be a bad thing even when previous steps of it had horrified him even.
So I think it means a lot that PK has this notion of civilizing the Void. That it could belong in his big divine order that everything fits in. It’s foolish, and, from the POV the game takes- that of his own voidborn children- it’s immensely cruel, that Hollow who was offered A Place and A Meaning was no happier than others, and we see the Collector who also seems to have been born and shaped to PK’s design only to be reshaped by someone else’s- the noble who Kept them in the Tower of Love- resulting in a being that has deeply warped ideas about safety and protection and what it means to love someone else.
Like as the inspiring post said, PK absolutely has no illusions about the void’s ability and willingness to destroy him. But his fascination with it- before his other issues get involved- is almost one of the most ‘innocent’ things in his personality.
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My name is Abraham, it's a pleasure to meet your acquaintance. I am the host of the Motely Collection system. Not all of us will announce ourselves, for privacy's sake.
Original posts are tagged with #Abraham original: Hot off the press. I try to keep up with tagging trigger warnings, but I would recommend steering clear of my blog if you're sensitive to violence.
Tagging my queer platonic partner and best friend @heavenlyeden because her writing is amazing and I highly recommend it.
Also tagging my doppelganger and new arch-nemesis @disembowelmentonathursdaynight because it's the funniest meta bit ever.
I run a paraphile Discord server. You can find more information and an invitation here.
Divider Sources: Ghosts • Bats
Below you will find a list of my creative writing pieces. I classify it under the internet centric genre of whump, but the usual genres are horror and fantasy.
I will enthusiastically write requests, though they will take anywhere from a day to a few months. Ongoing request list here.
Have fun and please heed the warnings at the start of chapters. They're there for a reason. Most of my work is disturbing, gorey, and/or sexual in nature.
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Ongoing
Blood Sacrifices
A brutal and charismatic vampire poses as Ve'Qren, the god of new life in a society practicing human sacrifice. He quickly cements himself as a god taken flesh and begins to manipulate and abuse the priests under his command. He takes a particularly twisted interest in the high priest, a man who would go any lengths necessary to serve his "god".
Sanctuary
A young man fleeing a cult takes up the offer to hide in the home of a strange vampire in exchange for his blood. He maintains a correspondence with his sister, and they disagree on what the best course of action is.
You can't Follow Your Heart if there's a Stake Through It
A vampire hunter with a long history of necrophilia falls in love with a vampire he's meant to kill, and kidnaps him in an attempt to see his feelings returned. The vampire, however, is anything but infatuated. Their relationships problems are made worse by a sizable language barrier and the hunter's horrified coworkers.
Monarch
As a species, Lyklae are largely feared. Reasonably so, as they eat human organs and use the hollowed out abdominal cavities as incubators for their eggs. Despite this, a human university student named wants nothing more than a chance to study them up close. Thankfully, the first Lyklae he meets is an eccentric just as interested in studying humans.
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On Hiatus
Divinity
A long abandoned god who once ruled over the beasts of the earth appears to his last devotee in the modern day, but with less than benevolent intentions.
Seasons in the Sun
The transgender son of a vampire tsar is married off to the human king of a neighboring nation where vampires are less than tolerated, in order to promote peace between their kinds.
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Finished
Our Man Flint
A rookie vampyr hunter named Flint travels to an abandoned castle in an attempt to win back the faded glory from his first slaying of a vampyr. But he gets in far over his head after being captured by his would-be victims, two vampyr men who care nothing for Flint's puritan beliefs.
Eden
A young man living a typical suburban life is kidnapped by an obsessive stalker, intent on keeping him as a pet. His plans of escape soon evaporate under the "pleasant" conditions, leaving him wondering why he ever wanted to leave in the first place.
Humanity's Collector
A human is kidnapped and brought to a pocket dimension by an eccentric entity, who collects human artifacts and has finally decided to keep a real human around as a plaything.
One-shots
A handful of short stories regarding various one-off characters.
Requests
Any writing requests that don't regard an existing series.
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comicaurora · 2 years
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Out of curiosity for your opinions on your own work, what do you see the foil relationships between Kendal and the others mentioned in another ask as?
I can think of a few like his his compassion and optimism compared to Falst and Dainix but I'd love to hear what you think
Just so everyone knows what's up, a character foil has qualities that serve to accentuate another character's qualities - typically they're opposed in some way so the contrast heightens each trait.
In his dynamic with Alinua, Kendal's even keel and calm demeanor contrast her newfound ability to express her emotions safely. Additionally, his utter selflessness contrasts her deep-rooted sense of self-preservation, which does extend to her loved ones but rarely allows her to sacrifice herself in the process - Alinua truly loves being alive, while Kendal understands that for everyone but himself. Alinua is also, on some level, still very afraid of going too far, and will be extremely cautious about anything she doesn't entirely understand, typically prioritizing evasion or escape until she concludes she has no other option, whereas Kendal will purposefully head straight into unknown peril if he thinks it'll help someone.
Erin's primary contrasting point with Kendal is pride. Kendal doesn't really have pride, because he'd need to think of himself as a person to do that, while Erin thinks (justifiably in some ways) very highly of himself, and is strongly keyed into social pressures that Kendal only understands from the top-down divine perspective. Erin will also freely admit to being a selfish person who utilizes other people to accomplish his goals, but what Kendal brings out in him is Erin's impractical compassion that will drive him to make unwise decisions for the good of his friends. Kendal, not seeing himself as a person, is either unable or unwilling to advocate for himself, and this drives Erin to advocate for him instead.
Falst and Kendal have many similarities, but their contrasting points are pretty clearly spelled out in Falst's intro. Falst and Kendal are both inhuman beings, but where Kendal registers as an unusually perfect-looking person, Falst's background is one of constant rejection, danger and dehumanization. Falst and Kendal are both impossibly alone, but while Falst can find comfort in genuinely good friends who accept him for who he is, Kendal doesn't find the same comfort, because even among friends, Kendal can never belong in the way Falst can. Falst also sees himself as cruel and monstrous, while Kendal simply… doesn't really perceive himself, contrasting self-loathing with self-indifference. Falst is also much more guarded than Kendal, because Kendal is still working on the threat-evaluation Vash used, which means he doesn't really perceive anything smaller than a god (or The Collector) as a legitimate threat to him, and only reassesses if something threatens the people around him. Falst, in contrast, is used to being hurt in a thousand different ways, and is constantly running a risk/reward calculation.
Tess and Kendal have a lot of similarities, including some that Tess would pick up on long before Kendal. To Tess, Kendal is very familiar. From her perspective, he's unsparked. He hasn't made the connection that he can care about himself or self-determine his life path. The main point of contrast between them is Tess made the decision to live her life only for herself, minus the occasional foray into saving innocents/helping Erin on the way, and thus focuses largely on finding the exact right ways to live her life in the way that works best for her. She's utterly untethered and disregards most things that she considers unimportant or don't directly affect her, living life from one joy to the next. Kendal, living entirely for another's benefit, highlights this difference (or will, anyway, if they ever get a chance to talk)
Dainix is, in many ways, who Kendal would be if he was human. They have similar Noble Warrior vibes and try their best to do the right thing, but Dainix is thoroughly human and socializes easily on a human level. He is compassionate to a fault, but he's not totally selfless; he gets lonely and angry and experiences dangerous conflicting emotions that he works very hard to protect other people from. He is emotional and impulsive by nature, and newly aware of the fact that his self control can only be stretched so far before it snaps - a struggle that Kendal, whose every action is entirely purposeful, does not share. Dainix is also, frankly, much better at people than Kendal is. Dainix goes out of his way to put people at ease, to try and understand them so he can treat them in a way that doesn't upset or accidentally hurt them. Kendal doesn't want to upset or hurt people, but that consideration is on a whole different dimension than he typically operates on, and Kendal doesn't even know where he would start when trying to sympathize with someone and put them at ease. When he tried with Falst it just pissed him off more.
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jessicalprice · 1 year
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it was about right then and it’s still about right now
(reposted from Twitter)
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(Image: a Tweet by @ ErinGreenbean that says: “Most of Jesus’ parables confront the listener with moving away from self-sufficiency/individualism and toward the whole/community.”)
This is literally what like every Jew who reads the parables has been trying to tell you,  but y'all keep insisting these stories are about how Judaism is bad.
These are stories from a teacher addressing an audience suffering under a brutal and exploitative occupation and they're literally about "you know how the Torah tells us to take care of each other? if we're gonna survive, we have to do that."
We have a text that uses the language of divine kingship frequently to convey a moral imperative if God is truly your leader, you will follow these laws. Jesus talks about the "kingdom of God" and Christians are like HE IS TALKING ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE. 
No, he's fucking talking about a community that existed in his here and now and was suffering and desperate and being militarily and economically and socially pressured to abandon their principles and exploit each other as they were being exploited by the Romans.
And he's reminding them that while the Romans may be occupying them, they don't have to rule them. Resisting hegemony and not letting it reshape you always involves, in a way, creating and choosing to occupy a different reality. 
In a society that--to use the language of the time, which I will be upfront that I do NOT like--acknowledges God as king, no one starves unless literally everyone is starving, because there are laws insisting that we share. Like, that's the whole point of every Jewish law touching on economics: what we have, even if it doesn't feel like much, can be enough when we understand that we are enough for each other. That’s there in the lost sheep, coin, and son(s) parables: you don't leave anyone behind.
There's the two men on the road to Jericho: The Samaritans are actually our family. We remembered that once, when they put Jewish prisoners on donkeys and sent them home with wine and oil. We have to take care of each other.
Then the men named above proceeded to take the captives in hand, and with the booty they clothed all the naked among them—they clothed them and shod them and gave them to eat and drink and anointed them and provided donkeys for all who were failing and brought them to Jericho, the city of palms, back to their kinsmen. Then they returned to Samaria. (II Chronicles 28:15)
All of these stories are about remembering that we're supposed to be family and taking care of each other and upholding a society that's an alternative to the hegemonic Roman war machine. And then Christian exegesis is all: how do we make these stories about how being Jewish is bad? We're in a whole different millennium and y'all are still insisting that Judaism was the problem Jesus came to solve.
Jesus tells a trilogy of stories about noticing when you've lost track of someone or something and Christians are like, "This must be a story about how Judaism hates the idea of accepting someone's repentance." 
Excuse me while I go build a menorah constructed of middle fingers.
Jesus tells a story about the relationship between two men in the Temple in which the real question is What does each of them do next and what is their responsibility to each other? and Christians are like this is about how the tax collector is good and the Pharisee is bad.
Y'all want so badly to make these stories about an us vs. them when the focus of most of them is just about "how can we do better as an 'us'?"
Like look at the parable of the four fates for seeds--what was actually happening to most of the harvest was that people were taking it, but Jesus puts it in terms of natural phenomena to take focus off that and put it on the hardship itself.
Most of the time, when there is an implied "them" to the "us" he's focused on, he tries to portray it as if it's inevitable/natural/etc. 
The focus isn't on "what are they doing to us?" 
It's on "what are we doing FOR each other?"
And you know what we know now, what we have terms and framing and concepts for? We know that in the wake of disaster, human beings get really good at caring for each other. We suck at being a society when things are good, but if a monsoon hits? We fucking get to work. 
But you know what got documented in heartbreaking detail after the Exxon Valdez spill? When the disaster is human-caused, communities tend to fall apart.
So what's the difference? 
Well, we can frame it in terms of human-created versus natural disasters but we can also frame it in terms of the victims' response.
It seems like, if we feel like it wasn't anyone's fault, it was just chance or nature or whatever, we get energized to take care of each other. If, on the other hand, we feel like it was someone's fault, we fracture.
Now, I don't think people around the Mediterranean in the first century CE were thinking in terms of disaster trauma or spontaneous prosocial behavior, but that doesn't mean they weren't thinking about what to focus on when they were suffering. 
To be honest, I don't see a consistent through-line in 100% of Jesus's parables. I don't even believe that all of the parables attributed to him were actually his, if he even existed as portrayed. But I do see a through-line in most of them. And that through-line is a direction of attention toward the needs of others and away from blame. And I genuinely believe that was because he was trying to keep his community whole and hopeful.
And it's ironic to me that even supposedly progressive Christian interpreters are still sitting there being like "he as calling out problems with Judaism.”
No, he was doing exactly the opposite.
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vivificanousprime · 2 months
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Thoughts on American Conservatives
Put shortly, I pity them. Most of them. There are a few who know exactly what they are doing in manipulating/fearmongering/spreading propaganda to their audience. But the conservatives I, as someone who lives and grew up in the deep south, encounter on a daily basis are not aware of their harm. In fact, they fully believe the beliefs they hold and the things they say come from a place of love.
That sounds backwards, maybe even disgusting, to many people negatively impacted by American conservatism. I agree. I know, though, that calling their views what they are fuels a narrative they are being fed: the world hates you because you are right. It's not productive anymore to tell a conservative "you are wrong and here's why". You have to appeal to the emotions rooting their beliefs to irrationality. It's not fun, I don't recommend it, but I do want to discuss their point of view in the hopes doing so gives non-conservatives the language and empathy required to deprogram them.
Let's start with defining seemingly basic words: love, hate, and harm.
Many conservatives are deeply Christian, so you would think "love" would be defined by the kindness, empathy, and compassion Jesus showed the least of his society. Dinning with prostitutes and tax collectors, rejecting the wealthy and bigoted--all that jazz. You are incorrect. They define love as fearing/believing in Jesus. To act towards others in the name of the Lord is to show love. To be in love is to be in agreeance with beliefs of the divine, not feeling divinely in love. So, there's one miscommunication I, myself, have had to re-contextualize when talking to conservatives. You can't tell them that being anti-trans is not loving their neighbor because they genuinely think to love is to convert or to worship.
Naturally, the next thought I had was to reason with the concepts of hate and harm. I would explain, for example, that to push a faith onto another person is hateful (antithesis of loving) because it does that person harm. This never worked. Why? Two things: 1) To hate is to turn away from God according to them, and so to turn from them is to turn from God. By their view, you denying them is hateful. 2) Harm is meaningless. Conservative Christians believe being moral is being "saved", which entails devoting one's self to Jesus (not necessarily God, specifically their concept of Jesus). You may still sin, but that sin won't count anymore because you told your peers Jesus is King. All other people will sin and those sins count. And all sins are equal in God's eyes. There is no room in their constricted worldview for harm. It's all very black and white. It's an easy morality. And it is secure.
This is the root of their belief system: security. Not actual comfort because the belief system lends itself to anguish and anger. But it feels good to know what's going on. It's like an abusive relationship. The victim doesn't want to leave what they know because the alternative--the unknown--is terrifying.
It's hard to have empathy for people who cast hate onto vulnerable people. It's hard to hear a friend and family members blame POCs and Jews and non-white immigrants and queer people for everything wrong with the world. It's hard to feel bad for the people who yell the loudest and listen the least. But it all stems from a place of primal fear. There's safety in the cult because everyone is on the same page, inconsistent though the story is. There's security in "knowing" all the wrong they do won't matter because they joined the right religion. It is very tempting to slip into an us/them mentality, like watching an old cartoon where the good guys and bad guys are clearly defined. I get why they fall and why they are afraid to stray. If they denounce any aspect of their beliefs, their souls are at risk. Their graces with God are at risk. And when God has been placed at the core of your whole world your entire life...yeah, I see why they cry for people to convert.
I've mainly focused on conservatives through the lens of (a very warped version of) Christianity and that's because most people who are genuinely brainwashed fall under that category. For those who aren't Christian, their fear is similarly based in the encroaching unknown.
I liken the non-Christian conservatives to those on the chained end of Plato's Cave. All they know are the shadows they've been shown. Suddenly, there are people they don't recognize telling them about the outside world, how bright and lively it all is and how they want to free the chained. Then there are others who dress in shadows assuring them these strangers are out to hurt them. Who do you trust? The shadows you've always known or the strangers promising you something terrifyingly new? We'd all like to think we'd go for the latter, but again, there's security in the known. And this distrust they've fostered for the strangers includes disbelief that they, themselves, are hurting anyone. My racist uncle fretting over immigrants and yelling at BLM protestors probably believes his security is at risk by something he doesn't understand, and the shadows on the walls promise they know everything, and they know the strangers are liars.
What drives a person to hurt, to kill, to dehumanize but fear of the self? Fear of change? Fear of an otherness not yet encountered?
I don't defend the conservative. No, my goal in seeking to understand them is to figure out a way to dismantle them. Because I have wasted my time explaining the science behind climate change. I've quoted the Bible to insist Jesus would have sat beside a drag queen while denouncing the evangelical pastor. I sat listening to irrational arguments for why the undocumented Mexicans who run the farms in my family's home town should be murdered, only to be dismissed when I said I disagreed. It doesn't work. Explaining reality does not work. Appealing to empathy does not work, not even when you use Jesus's words. You have to appease their fears first in a way that isn't condescending.
Hate the sin, love the sinner. Or so I've been told. Well, here I am seeking to love the conservative and hating all they stand for.
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inbarfink · 8 months
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Porcelain Witch
Sometimes they are quiet and humble ceramicists hiding a talent for crafting wondrous magical items and a long, dark past, sometimes they are eccentric elderly collectors fascinated specifically with broken plates and statuettes, sometimes they are doll-like beauties with deep cracks hidden behind elaborate garments and a heart set on vengeance. Whoever they are, Porcelain Witches are grim, melancholy spellcasters with a troubled history. Despite their elegant appearance, they all carry a heavy burden.
Porcelain Witches' Emotional Focus is the emotion of Regret. Porcelain Witches know better than anyone that some broken things cannot be fully fixed. No matter how well the pieces are put back together, you can still see the cracks. Porcelain Witches are all elaborate containers of Regret. They have all made some terrible mistake in their past - or at least what they feel is a terrible mistake - and this sorrow is what fuels them. Porcelain Witches also tend to be quite emotionally fragile, and despite all dealing with their own mistakes - they also tend to be quite slow-to-forgive and have a dangerous vengeful streak.
Some Porcelain Witches are on a quest to fix their old mistakes, to put back the pieces of what they have broken. Others become advisors and helpers to others on similar personal quests - helping others do what they have failed to do. But even they must accept that this won’t mean they will be able to erase all of the cracks. Still, there is a value in gathering back all the pieces even if they cannot ever bring it back to what it used to be. A cracked plate or a fixed pot still holds more values than shattered pieces of ceramic scattered on the floor.
However, the most common way Porcelain Witches cope with their Regret in the long term is by making it their life mission to make sure history doesn't repeat itself. There is beauty in the cracks that remain in our lives - they are our memories, and our story, and thus we must learn from them. Depending on the event the Witch’s Regret comes from, this ‘quest’ might manifest in all sorts of ways, from slaying the grand dragon that burned down their town so it will never harm anyone else again, or giving friendship advice to others so they will not ruin their most treasured relationships like the Witch has.
While the majority of Porcelain Witches wish to teach others what they have learned from their mistakes - they are rarely direct about the lessons they are teaching. While they want to prevent their grand tragedies from repeating, they also believe Regret was their best teacher. As such, their favourite technique for imparting a lesson is to use trickery and magic to construct a lower-stake or false scenario which is a mirror of the mistake you are about to make. By allowing you to break things in their false scenario, they assure you now know not to repeat your actions when something really valuable is on the line.
Porcelain Witches are generally skilled in Healing and other restoration-based magic, although due to their magic being based on Regret - everything they heal or fix retains some sort of marking or a scar. They are also usually very good with Divination Magic, but especially pertaining to scrying past events. Hindsight is 20-20, after all. However, a major weak point of Porcelain Witchcraft is the weakness of their Defensive Spells - Porcelain Witches cannot truly hide from their own fragility.
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Do you think repentance means we simply stop sinning?
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Repentance does not mean to simply stop sinning. Instead, it involves the grace-enabled act of turning to the sole Person with the capacity to empower an individual to overcome sin—namely, Christ. Being a Christian is not a self-salvation project, but rather an appeal to the divine grace of God in Jesus Christ as the sole hope for redemption. Bereft of this divine intervention, human beings would remain perpetually incapable of change, irrespective of therapeutic interventions or the exertion of willpower. Prior to Christ's opening of the heart to the gospel, every individual remains ensnared in inescapable bondage. The necessity of Christ's intervention underscores the futility of attempting self-salvation. Part of the problem is that people are still stuck on trying, at least partly, to save themselves.  As articulated in Luke 18:27, what is impossible for humanity—faith and repentance—is possible with God.
Here is an analogy that helps us further understand the nature of repentance:
Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Just as you don't need a doctor unless you are sick, similarly, you don't need a Savior unless you are a sinner. Christ's mission is to save those who recognize themselves as sinners in need of redemption. By nature, humans are inclined toward pride, resisting the admission of their status as rebellious sinners who require rescue. In the context of the aforementioned quotation, the Pharisees interrogate Jesus about his association with tax collectors and sinners, believing themselves to be more righteous. However, this self-righteousness ultimately exposes them as individuals who fail to recognize their own sinfulness and need for grace. Instead, they remain trapped in a cycle of pride, erroneously believing that they merit God's favor.
Thus, the call to repentance commences with the acknowledgment of one's entrapment in sin, the recognition of one's incapacity to escape its grasp, and the appeal to Christ as the sole means of deliverance from both the guilt and power of sin. In this way, repentance transcends the mere cessation of sinful actions (an impossible supposition) and encompasses a profound, grace-facilitated transformation in the individual's relationship with God, enabled by Jesus Christ.
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Behold, the primary religion of the United Islands! Lore under the cut!
Lore:
Behold, the great Ten Faced God! Or the Pantheon of Ten, if you subscribe to that belief.
Because, as is with history, the nature of the divine is a contentious subject in the United Islands. There are three main camps of thought:
The Ten Faced God asserts that there is one god, and that god changes forms throughout the year. They are one entity, although each form is not the same as each other. This is the newest interpretation, the currently dominant school of thought, and is practiced in most urban areas of the mainland and on the larger islands.
The Pantheon of Ten asserts that there are 10 different gods, with their own domains, who rise and fall in power throughout the year. They have relationships and a family tree (comment if you want to know more). This is the older of the two more common forms, and is practiced on the smaller islands to the south, and in some rural sections of the mainland.
The 10 Realms asserts that the gods are not entities at all, but a collection of spirits that serve under one of 10 divine domains people thing of as gods. This is the oldest form of the religion, only practiced anymore way out in the desert and in remote mountain villages, in small cults dedicated to specific spirits.
What all of these schools of thoughts agree on are the names and orders of the gods and their domains. In order there is:
The Shepherd: Also known as the Maiden, Queen, or Mother, the Shepherd is the goddess of fertility, animals, spring, and the soul. She is also known as the divine symbol of womanhood, motherhood, and children. She represents the love shared between a parent and child, and will strike down those who would bring harm to children. In the polytheistic model, she is the queen of the pantheon. Her divine symbol is the Shepherd's Crook.
The Dancer: Also known as the Paramour, Drunkard, or Trickster, the Dancer is the god of the arts, sex, emotion, games, and celebration. He is also the divine symbol of mischief, romance, creativity, and tricksters. He represents the fiery, passionate love in young relationships, and protects and tends to love wherever it may grow. His divine symbol is a basket of party favors, including wine, grapes, and fruit.
The Guardian: Also known as the Soldier, Sculpture, and Watchman, the Guardian is the goddess of war, the body, fire, and summer. She is also known as the divine symbol of strength, protection, and the land itself. She represents the love between a person and their country, and literally shaped the land to protect the people, according to mythology. Her divine symbol is her spear.
The Sailor: Also known as the Fisherman, Captain, or Storm, the Sailor is the god of the oceans, the weather, instincts, and fish. He is also known as the divine symbol of determination, the tides and currents, and the unpredictability of the world. He represents the love between a person and their craft, and will bless those in need of the drive to finish the job. His divine symbol is a compass.
The Merchant: Also known as the Gambler, Craftsman, or Surf (very controversial), the Merchant is the goddess of wealth, trade, luck, and commerce. She is also known as the divine symbol of fortune (both good and bad), workers, the artisans. She represents a love in the sense of aesthetic appreciation or infatuation and tends to follow flights of fancy whenever it strikes her. Her divine symbol is a coin purse.
The Farmer: Also known as the Father, King, or Reaper, the Farmer is the god of fertility, agriculture, work ethic, and autumn. He is also known as the divine symbol of manhood, fatherhood, and marriage. He represents the older, mature love between long time committed partners, and will strike down those who would threaten their own family, particularly their partner. In the polytheistic model, he is the king of the pantheon. His symbol is a pitchfork.
The Judge: Also known as the Debt Collector, Politician, or Balancer, the Judge is the goddess of justice, conscience, shelter, and leadership. She is the divine symbol of politicians, the courts, leaders, and even criminals. She represents the love between a person and society, and watches those who may abuse such society, both the criminals and ones who prosecute them. Her divine symbol is a balancing scale.
The Traveler: Also known as the Wanderer, Stranger, or Vagabond, the Traveler is the god of roads, the mind, winter, and knowledge. He is the divine symbol of curiosity, scholars, travelers, and storytellers. He represents the love between a person and the world around them, and is known to compel people to wander away from home. His divine symbol is his walking cane.
The Guide: Also known as the Weeper, Ferryman, or Mourner, the Guide is the god of time, rivers, the moons, and medicine. They are the divine symbol of the aging, frost, and endings. They represent the brotherhood love between two friends, ones who would die for each other. They are the divine protector of the sick, dying, and those who mourn for them. They are described as neither man nor woman, but something in-between. Their divine symbol is their lantern.
The Whisper: Also known as the Mist, Silent, or Shrouded, the Whisper is the god of death, sleep, and cycles. They are the divine symbol of mist, dreams, and the dead, as well as the end of the year. They represent the compassionate love one must have for themselves, and only is said to act upon the world during the last two days (or three if it's a leap year) of the year, collecting those who have died and take them back to the garden from which they were made. They are described as completely genderless. Their divine symbol is the death bouquet.
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changeling-fae · 3 months
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Alone, Betrayal, Bound! For the Oc Ask!
Thanks! Once again for my babygirl, Nym. And once again putting it below the cut for all the triggering content, namely past child abuse, past CSA, torture, suicidal ideations, and bloody vengeance.
I already did alone here! 💖
betrayal: Has your OC ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust? Has your OC ever betrayed someone who trusted them?
Everyone who has betrayed Nym she kind of already expected to betray her (like Orin). Her own mother would probably be the closest though. Her mother is an abyssal cambion and the daughter of the demon lord Graz’zt and she’s as cruel and capricious as you’d expect her to be.
She only had Nym out of curiosity (what happens if she mixes in the Bhaalspawn essence she obtained with her own abyssal genes and the genes of a divine soul sorcerer of Eilistraee; answer is a fucked up kid constantly tortured from the inside is what), and she had plenty of opportunities to save Nym from her torment but chose not to, which is why Nym loathes her.
Nym has betrayed many people herself, though I wouldn’t say they trusted her either (like white dragonborn Durge whom she and Orin teamed up to shank).
The closest sense of betrayal she felt she has committed is towards someone is towards Raphael actually. They had a complicated relationship before the events of the game (not yet sexual) and while she didn’t see him as a friend exactly, he was the closest source of safety and confidante she’s had in years. She was hyper aware he just wanted her soul (he wasn’t obsessed yet, she was just a juicy soul possibility), but they had a year long, drawn out, almost camaraderie? Not really a word for it.
The reason why she feels she betrayed him is because she used his home with Gortash to go steal the crown. She had come to him right before the heist, planning on telling him, but her butler appeared before she could confess and instead she told him goodbye (but in that double meaning/something is up way). He and she had had a bit of a tiff the week before so he had thought it had been tied to that as the reason for her odd behavior.
He was obviously pissed but she disappeared shortly after and he didn’t see her again until the events of the game. He was both delighted and annoyed that had amnesia because he could use it to his advantage (which he does) by knowing her pretty intimately but she now knows nothing of him, and annoyed because he had enjoyed their games and discussions from before and her knowing him could have still been an advantage for the crown.
He is still angry that she had invaded his home (she had left a note of regret) so he does get sadistic pleasure driving her mad with that frustrating magnetic pull she feels towards him from her subconscious and that he’s able to read her so well. But now he’s obsessed as well, lol.
Poor Nym got ambushed by Orin in the colony but the only reason she succeeded was because Nym had been distracted by her regret over losing her weird ass relationship with Raphael. Again, they weren’t friends, she knew he just wanted her soul, but he was the closest thing she had to a place she could drop her mask and just be. He assuaged her deep loneliness and was a possible way “out”.
bound: Has your OC ever been imprisoned or captured? What happened? How did they get out? Did the experience leave any scars?
Yes, three times now. First time was when her father and her were traveling and got ambushed by goblins not far out of BG. They held her down and cut off her wings. Her father broke free and got them away back to the city but he had been wounded and shortly died after. Second time was immediately after his death when his debt collector sold her to a sadistic noble. The noble kept her for 4 years hidden below his estate in an underground room/cell.
There was one guard assigned to bring her food and by this point she was 14 and unfortunately now aware how seduction worked. She has a hidden stinger in her tail that produces a paralytic venom that became potent enough after puberty, and she lured him in before stabbing him in the neck with it.
She watched him choke to death as the venom paralyzed his lungs. It was here where all the years of trauma and rage coalesced as her Bhaalspawn nature fully amplified her demonic heritage (her wings grew back for the first time here) and she murders the entire estate, who was ignorant of her existence until that evening. She saved the noble for last and had a real Blue Fangs from Castlevania moment as he hid in his study as she came for him. His death was not pretty.
She absolutely has scars both physical and mental. This is when her mother first came to her and when she realized her mother could have stepped in at any time (and why she makes a habit of cutting off her wings as symbolic of her mother).
The cult of Bhaal found her through this carnage and manipulated her rage and bloodlust to serve the cult and it isn’t until over a decade later that she starts to burn out and remembers her father’s faith (Eilistraee) and how she’s got a bit of that good divine spark in her (which does cause her constant pain on some level, since it doesn’t play nice with her abyssal and Bhaal essence).
The experience is also why she has such a complicated relationship to sex but also how seduction then murder became a tactic for her, which the cult encouraged.
The second time is canonically the events of the game with the Orin ambush and Kressa Bonedaughter stuff.
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divine-elixir · 7 months
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More of my early morning ramblings, hot off the press. I started off with talking about my relationship with gods before swerving into talking about other things. As usual.
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Hmm. I used to to try and follow certain religions, gods, divinities, and so on. But it just never felt right to me, it felt wrong....not in the "religion bad" kind of way, but in the sense that you innately feel that you aren't meant to be doing something? Of course, in my experience I received guidance and whatnot. But it was like I was being told that what I was looking for wouldn't be found following this world's deities....I wouldn't say they rejected me, but more that they only wished to point me in the right direction like a local would to a traveler.
I used to compare my worshipping anything on par with worshipping, say a relative or a peer. But that doesn't seem right anymore.
Based on my memories, my kind never worshiped anything or felt beholden to any kind of beings. Of course, there were times when some of us would go wandering other worlds and wind up being worshiped simply based on what we are and our abilities. We don't wish for any of that....it feels weird, and maybe the word gross could describe our views on being held at such a level. The same would be said about viewing ourselves as more superior or lesser than another. I suppose we never cared about power or status.
One can be an all powerful eldritch abomination and I don't think we'd care. All are just equal in our eyes, and we'll treat all as such.
Unbothered and in our lane, so to speak. But I sometimes wonder if there is some hidden arrogance to our views. We've a connection to dreams and the imagination...made of it really. Such things are limitless. Eternal. So do we have nothing to worry about because of that? I am unsure.
Stories, information, ideas, memories. Anything that can be produced by experience, thought, or imagined are of great value to us. I am unsure of why we value it. Maybe we are record keepers? Collectors? Perhaps it is all for fun or sentimentality? To my knowledge, if anyone is familiar with Hon/kai impact lore, my home is connected to the Imaginary tree or maybe it is part of the sea of Quan/ta. Worlds can fall from the tree like leaves and fall into the sea below. (I barely know anything about the games lore, never played it, but I just know my home is connected to that tree or the sea in some way.)
Perhaps my kind has some sort of purpose to preserve these world's stories? Or maybe we created our own purpose for simply existing. The latter feels more right to me. With how we view things, why would we accept a purpose assigned to us by some other being(s)/thing? And with the way I remember wandering around Tey/vat without cause and minding my own business most of the time, I think it would check out......though, I don't rule out the idea that what my kind does could also be instinctive.
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vinehasnohopeleft · 1 year
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I was thinking more on the AU of the Collector joining the Grimm Troupe for some reason and while thinking on things they would do, I thought about adding Confessor Jiji in it because I am a sucker for her-
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The thought I had about her was that she summoned the flames after certain things are collected, stuff that the Grimmkin has snatched, and the Knight need to fetch.
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I draw Grimm Troupe Jiji with Divine first since I would imagine that they would have a decent relationship, more of Jiji being able to tolerate Divine’s nonsense.
G.T Jiji’s relationship with Grimm and Brumm are rather decent, they don’t bother her, so she has no real need to bother them. She does have a better relationship with Brumm than Grimm, though.
she does manage to tolerate G.T Collector. G.T Jiji is nice enough to round up all of the Collector’s pets that end up in her tent and in return, the Collector would bring her things (things ranging Hallownest seals, to kings idols, to stray jewelry they have found. she now just has a box of stuff the Collector gave her and Jiji doesn’t have the art to toss them out.)
Jiji can NOT STAND the Grimmkin since the keep stealing her stuff.
thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 
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8th January >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on:
Matthew 3:13-17 for The Baptism of the Lord
    Or
Matthew 2:1-12 for the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord.
The Baptism of the Lord
Gospel (Except USA)
Matthew 3:13-17
'This is my Son, the Beloved'.
Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. John tried to dissuade him. ‘It is I who need baptism from you’ he said ‘and yet you come to me!’ But Jesus replied, ‘Leave it like this for the time being; it is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands.’ At this, John gave in to him.
   As soon as Jesus was baptised he came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice spoke from heaven, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him.’
Reflections (6)
(i) Feast of The Baptism of the Lord
Like a lot of people of my age from Dublin, I was baptized in Saint Andrew’s Church, Westland Row. If you were born in Holles Street hospital, as I was, you were most likely brought to Saint Andrew’s church to be baptized. That church is beside the Dart Station, and, sometimes, when I go to catch the Dart there I pop into the church to say a prayer. Because it is the place where I was baptized, it is significant for me. In a sense, it is where I began my life as a Christian. Today’s feast of the Baptism of Jesus is a good moment to reflect upon our own baptism.
In today’s gospel reading John the Baptist was very reluctant to baptize Jesus, saying to him, ‘It is I who need baptism from you, and yet you come to me!’ John was calling on people to turn away from sin and turn towards God, and to submit to his baptism as a sign of their willingness to make this turn. However, John was aware that Jesus was already fully turned towards God; there was no sin in his life. Yet, Jesus insisted that John baptize him, and John gave in to Jesus’ demand. Jesus wanted to show that he was in solidarity with all those who were coming to John for baptism. He wasn’t above them in any way; he was with them. Jesus came to enter fully into our human condition, in all its weakness and frailty. He would be baptized with sinners, even though he was without sin, just as later in his ministry he would share table with those considered sinners, earning him the accusation, ‘a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’. Jesus was not a glutton nor a drunkard, but he was a friend of sinners. He came to reveal God’s enduring love for all, including those who were looked down upon by people who thought of themselves as religious.
There is a prayer in the Mass which the priest prays quietly. It speaks of Jesus who humbled himself to share in our humanity, so that we might come to share in his divinity. Jesus entered into communion with us, so that, through our relationship with him, we might enter into communion with God. Jesus’ insistence that John baptize him was a sign of his deep desire to enter into communion with us. Jesus, now risen Lord, continues to be in communion with us. He journeys with us, wherever our journey takes us. Even if our journey takes us into dark places, he is there at the heart of the darkness. The final words of the risen Lord to his disciples at the end of Matthew’s gospel are, ‘I am with you always until the end of the age’. The risen Lord enters into communion with us in a very powerful way at the moment of our baptism. This has been the belief of the church since its earliest days. In his letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul says, ‘As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ’. It is a very striking image. Paul is saying that at our baptism, Christ has wrapped himself around us, and, having do so, he won’t let us go lightly. Paul then goes on to say in that letter, ‘God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Just as, according to the gospel reading, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, came down upon Jesus at his baptism, so the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God and of God’s Son, came down upon us at our baptism. From the day of our baptism, we became what Paul calls in another letter ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’. How often do we think of ourselves as ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’? That Holy Spirit inspires us to address God in the same intimate way that Jesus did, as ‘Abba, Father’. Through our baptism the risen Lord takes us up into his own intimate relationship with God. The Lord draws us into communion with himself to such an extent that we share in his relationship with God as Father. We become sons and daughters of God, and, following on from that, we become brothers and sisters in Christ.
The risen Lord has blessed us in the most wonderful way at our baptism and that blessing remains with us throughout our lives. We never cease to be baptized, regardless of what we have done or failed to do, or how far we may have drifted from the Lord. God continues to say of us, what he said of Jesus at his baptism, ‘This is my son, my daughter, the beloved’. We may change, but God’s way of seeing us and relating to us doesn’t change. Our faith may sometimes seem like the ‘wavering flame’ mentioned in the first reading, but the risen Lord is always at work in our lives to fan the sometimes feeble spark of our faith into a living flame. He keeps calling us back to the person we became at baptism and keeps helping us to become that person. We spend our lives growing ever more fully into our wonderful baptismal identity, with the help of the Lord’s Spirit.
And/Or
(ii) Feast The Baptism of the Lord
 It is impossible for us not to have favourites. We invariably favour some people over others. It is normal and natural for us to do so. It is because we favour some and not others that we include some people among our friends and not others. Even among our friends we favour some over others; we have some friends who are especially close to us. Marriage between two people occurs because one man favours one woman out of other women and that woman favours that man out of other men. There are contexts in which showing favour to one over others is not appropriate. Politicians have got themselves into trouble because they used their influence inappropriately to favour someone. The human tendency to show favour sometimes needs to be kept in check.
 In today’s second reading, Peter, addressing Cornelius and his household, says: ‘The truth I have come to realize is that God does not have favourites’. It sounds as if Peter has only recently hit upon this truth. As a Jew, he would have understood that God did have favourites. The Jewish people were God’s favourites; they were the chosen people who had been blessed and graced by God in a unique way. However, since his meeting with Jesus, and his becoming a disciple of the risen Lord, Peter had come to realize that God does not have favourites. If God had chosen the people of Israel in the past, it was for the sake of all the other nations. God chose Israel not because God loved Israel more than all the other nations, but because God wanted Israel to be the messenger of God’s love to all the nations. According to today’s first reading, God chose Israel to be the light of the nations.
 Jesus reveals a God who favours all equally. He came as the servant of all people, to give his life as a ransom for all. At the very end of his gospel, Matthew portrays the risen Jesus telling his disciples to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All nations are to be favoured with the gospel. That is why we find Peter in today’s second reading preaching to the pagan centurion, Cornelius, and his household, and then going on to baptize them all. Our own baptism is the direct result of that command of the risen Jesus to baptize all nations. Baptism is God’s gift to us; it is a sign of God’s favour. On the day of our baptism God said to us what was said to Jesus on the day of his baptism: ‘My favour rests on you’. God not only spoke a word of favour to Jesus on the day of his baptism; God actively showed his favour by sending the Holy Spirit upon him. At our baptism God acted to show his favour to us by pouring the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Parents instinctively understand baptism as a sign of God’s favour. That is why they bring their children to be baptized. Today on the feast of Jesus’ baptism, we give thanks for our own baptism, for this very special sign of God’s favour.
 The baptism of Jesus was not only the day when he had a special experience of God’s favour; it was also the day when he publicly took on the role of God’s servant to all nations. Jesus’ baptism was both a grace and a commission. As Peter announced to Cornelius in today’s second reading, after his baptism Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil. Today’s first reading, although written long before Jesus was born, describes this mission of Jesus very well. He brings true justice to the nations. By his words and deeds, Jesus makes known God’s justice, the just or right way that God wants us all to take and that Jesus took to the full. In making known God’s just ways, that first reading also declares that Jesus ‘does not break the crushed reed, or quench the wavering flame’. Jesus’ mission was characterized by a heightened awareness of the weak and the vulnerable.
 Our own baptism, like that of Jesus, was both a gift and a commission. In bestowing favour upon us, God at the same time calls us to become his servants. On the day of our baptism, we are commissioned as servants of God, after the example of Jesus. As God endowed Jesus with the Spirit so that he could bring true justice to the nations, at our baptism we were endowed with the same Spirit for the same purpose. In the power of the Spirit we are called to live in that same just way that Jesus lived. In the words of the first reading, baptism calls us to ‘serve the cause of right’. That will involve for us, as it did for Jesus, taking care ‘not to break the crushed reed, or quench the smouldering flame’. Those who are crushed for whatever reason, whose flame is barely flickering, are deserving of our greatest care and attention. We show that we really appreciate the gift of our baptism when we support the vulnerable and strengthen the weak, in our families, our communities, in our society and our world.
And/Or
(iii) Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
 I came across my baptismal certificate a little while ago. Like many a Dublin baby I was baptized in the St. Andrew’s, Westland Row, just around the corner from Holles Street hospital where I was born. I noticed that I was baptized five days after I was born, which was the norm in those days. I had never really paid any attention to the date of my baptism before but I made a mental note of my baptism date when I looked at the baptismal certificate. Hopefully our birth day is a day that gets remembered every year by someone. There is a value in each of us remembering our own baptism day when it comes around each year.
 It seems that the day of Jesus’ baptism was of greater significance for the very early Christians than even the day of his birth. They recognized that the day of Jesus’ baptism was a kind of a watershed for him. It was the moment when he began his public ministry. This was the day when Jesus began to make an impact. Such was the impact he made that it reverberated down the centuries and has resulted in our presence here this morning in this church. If the first Christians remembered the day of Jesus’ baptism, they were very aware of the day of their own baptism. They looked back on that day as a watershed in their own lives. They thought of their lives in terms of before and after baptism, the person they used to be and the person they had become through baptism. It is difficult for us to have that same sense of a time before and a time after baptism, because we were all baptized as babies. Yet, the significance of our baptism is no less than the significance of the baptism of the early Christians.
 Indeed, it would be said that the day of our baptism was as important a day for us as the day of Jesus’ baptism was for him. Our baptism day was the day when God said to us what was said to Jesus on his baptism day, ‘You are my son/my daughter, the beloved, my favour rests on you’. The special place that Jesus holds in God’s heart was extended to each of us on the day of our baptism. The Holy Spirit who came down on Jesus on the day of his baptism came down on us. The second reading today speaks of the kindness and love of God who has so generously poured the Holy Spirit over us through Jesus Christ our saviour. If the baptism of Jesus was a more public event than his birth, likewise our baptism was a more public happening than our birth. A baptism is not simply a private family event. It is very much a public church event. A child is born into a family, but is baptized into a church, a community of believers. When parents bring along a child for baptism, they are making a public statement, one which is of significance for the whole church, and, in particular, for the local church. It is a source of encouragement to all of us in the family of believers to know that our family is growing, that we are receiving into our community, a new member whose future living of the faith has the potential to benefit us all.
 Reflecting on the day of the Lord’s baptism can bring home to us the significance of the day of our own baptism. The baptism of Jesus set him on a journey that had consequences which no one at the time could have imagined. In a similar way, the day of our baptism launched us on a shared journey in the footsteps of Jesus, a journey towards the Father in the power of the Spirit. Because of our baptism we are the church, the body of Christ in the world. Our baptism calls us to represent Jesus for the rest of our lives, to be his presence to others, to serve others in the way he did. That call of our baptism never leaves us, even when we neglect to pay attention to it. It is there every day of our lives. That calling represents the deepest truth of our lives because it flows from our baptismal identity which endures into eternity. Baptism is intended to shape us for life. The other sacraments are given to us as moments when we can renew our baptism and respond more fully to our baptismal calling. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation we acknowledge the ways that we have failed to live our baptism and open ourselves afresh to the Lord’s gift of his Spirit. In the Eucharist we gather together to publicly proclaim our baptismal identity and be nourished and sustained on our baptismal journey by the word of the Lord and the Lord’s body and blood. Today is a good day to celebrate our baptism and also to give thanks for our parents, whose faith carried us to the baptismal font.
And/Or
(iv) Feast of The Baptism of our Lord
 In the church’s liturgical year, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord concludes the Christmas season. We move quite quickly from the birth of Jesus to the baptism of Jesus, from the child Jesus to the adult Jesus. It may strike us as strange that Jesus went to John the Baptist to be baptized by him. Wasn’t John’s baptism a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and, surely, Jesus was not a sinner? The hesitation of John the Baptist to baptize Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading is understandable, ‘It is I who need baptism from you and yet you come to me’. Yet, in entering the waters of the Jordan, Jesus was identifying with his fellow Jews in their longing to draw closer to God. He not only went into the Jordan waters with sinners; he would later share table and eat with them. Jesus identifies with all of us in our struggles to grow in our relationship with God and to become more fully all that God wants us to be. If he is our Lord and leader, he does not lead us from a distance, without ever getting involved in the heat of battle. He leads us as one who journeys with us. The baptism of Jesus speaks of his solidarity with us, including his solidarity with us when we fail. He is present to us at such moments, helping us to make a new beginning.
 Even though Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan alongside sinners, he was also very aware that he stood apart from all those who came to John for baptism. At that moment the Holy Spirit came down upon him and God affirmed him as his own beloved Son, on whom God’s favour rested. No one else who came to John for baptism had such an experience. Yet, even though this special relationship with God set Jesus apart, he came to draw others into the same relationship with God that he had, so that the Holy Spirit would rest on them as he had on him, and they too would experience themselves as God’s beloved sons or daughters on whom God’s favour rests. That is why Matthew’s gospel ends with Jesus sending out his disciples on mission and saying to them, ‘Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. Jesus wanted people of all nations to experience the baptism he had experienced at the beginning of his ministry. That command of the risen Lord has led directly to the baptism of each one of us.
 The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan is the pattern for all our baptisms. The Holy Spirit who came down on Jesus at his baptism came upon all of us at the moment of our baptism. The words that were addressed to Jesus at his baptism were addressed to all of us, ‘This is my son, daughter, the beloved; my favour rests on him, her’. Jesus has drawn us all into his own relationship with God. As Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, ‘God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, “Abba! Father!”’. We can now address God in the same intimate way that Jesus did. His God has become our God; his Father has become our Father. As sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Christ, we are destined to inherit that fullness of life that the risen Jesus now enjoys. All of this springs from our baptism, which is why it is such an important moment in our lives. Today is a good day to remember our baptism and to give thanks for it and for all that has flowed from it. It is a day to remember our parents who brought us for baptism and to give thanks to God for them.
 In today’s second reading, Peter, addressing Cornelius and his household, states that after Jesus had been anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism, he ‘went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil’. The baptism of Jesus was the beginning of his life-giving mission. In the words of today’s first reading, it was the day when he took on the role of God’s servant, bringing ‘true justice to the nations’, ‘serving the cause of right’, opening ‘the eyes of the blind’ and freeing ‘captives from prison’. His baptism was the day when he began to do God’s work in earnest. The day of our own baptism had a similar significance for all of us. Our baptism is not only a moment when we are greatly graced; it is also a moment when we are called to share in God’s work. Having been anointed with the Spirit as Jesus was, we are sent out as he was, to bring true justice, God’s justice, to others. This will involve caring for and empowering the most vulnerable among us - in the words of today’s first reading, making sure not to ‘break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame’. We were given this calling at an age when we were too young to take it seriously; we spend our lives trying to understand its implications. On this the feast of the Lord’s baptism, we commit ourselves anew to living to the full our own baptismal calling.
And/Or
(v) Feast of The Baptism of the Lord
 The people of the parish have a great fondness for our parish church. Visitors who come to the church are equally impressed by it. When you come into the church you get a sense that people have been praying here for a great many years. Indeed, people have been praying here and Mass has been celebrated here since 1836 when the building first opened for worship. At that time the church was a simple rectangle. The sanctuary was added about sixty years later in the 1890’s. You can see the difference in the stained glass between the main body of the church and the sanctuary; the simple style of the glass in main body gives way to the more ornate style of the sanctuary. The baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist which we celebrate today is depicted in a number of places in the church. We find it depicted here in the sanctuary and also in the much more recent mosaic in the reconciliation chapel. When we think of John the Baptist we instinctively think of John baptizing Jesus, so it is fitting that this particular gospel scene should be depicted in our church that is dedicated to John the Baptist.
 In this morning’s gospel reading we have Matthew’s account of the baptism of Jesus by John. More than the other three evangelists, Matthew draws attention to the reluctance of John to baptize Jesus. After all the baptism of John was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John was well aware that Jesus did not need this baptism because he had no need of repentance; he had no sins in need of forgiveness. Before Jesus came to John for baptism, John had referred to Jesus as the more powerful one, whose sandals he did not consider himself worthy to untie. Of course, John was right. Jesus had no need of John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Yet, Jesus insisted that John baptize him. In the words of the gospel reading, he said to John, ‘Leave it like this for the time being; it is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands’. ‘Righteousness’ or ‘the doing of God’s will’ required that Jesus submit to John’s baptism. In submitting to John’s baptism Jesus was showing that he stood in solidarity with all those who were coming to John for baptism. He wanted to identify himself completely with sinful human beings who, nonetheless, experienced within themselves a desire to move towards God. Jesus wanted to show that he was with people who in their brokenness were searching for God. Matthew had earlier given Jesus the name Emmanuel, God-with-us. In having himself baptized by John Jesus was showing people that God was with them as they struggled to turn more completely towards God. Jesus entered the river Jordan with sinful humanity, just as he would later share table with tax collectors and sinners and just as he would be crucified between two sinners, two criminals. Jesus began his public ministry as he would continue it and as he would end it.
 The Lord who entered the Jordan with those who responded to John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins enters the river of all our lives. The Lord is with us in our own struggle to move towards God, to do God’s will or, in the words of this morning’s second reading, to do what is right. We are all sinners; we all fail in our response to God’s call. Yet, what matters is that we do not give up on the struggle to keep turning towards God and towards what God wants for us and is asking of us. One of the best known passages in Matthew’s gospel is the beatitudes. In the fourth beatitude Jesus says ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’, ‘who hunger and thirst to do what God wants’. Jesus did not say ‘Blessed are those who are righteous’, ‘who do what God wants’. It is those who hunger and thirst to do what God wants that Jesus declares blessed. The hungering and the thirsting is all; the desire is everything. In entering the Jordan with all those people who were coming to John for baptism, Jesus was identifying with their desire; here were people who hungered and thirsted for what was right. In heading for the Jordan they were heading in the right direction and Jesus walked in solidarity with them. He walks in solidarity with all of us as we strive to keep heading in the right direction. We will inevitably go off course from time to time; sometimes we will stay off course for long periods of time, but what matters is that we keep turning around and keep pressing onwards in response to the Lord’s call. The first reading speaks of the servant of God who does not break the crushed reed nor quench the wavering flame. Jesus is that servant. There will be times in our lives when we might feel like a crushed reed, when the flame of faith that was lit within our hearts at baptism is wavering and even on the brink of going out. It is above all then that the Lord stands in solidarity with us as Emmanuel, God-with-us. It is especially then that, in the words of Paul, the Lord’s power can be made perfect in our weakness.
And/Or
(vi) Feast of The Baptism of the Lord
The feast of the Baptism of the Lord concludes the church’s Christmas Season. Only last Monday we celebrated the journey of the wise men from the East to the new born son of Mary and Joseph. However, with this morning’s feast, the focus is very much on the adult Jesus. After spending what was probably about thirty years in the village of Nazareth, Jesus now journeys south to the wilderness of Judea to be baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. Just a little over two weeks ago, on Christmas day, we celebrated the birth of Jesus, the beginning of his earthly life. Today we celebrate a beginning in Jesus’ adult life, the beginning of his public ministry. The words of Peter to the pagan household of the Roman centurion Cornelius express this aspect of Jesus’ baptism. Peter says that after God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power at his baptism, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil.
 Just as the birth of Jesus was hugely significant for us, because this child was born for us and was given to us, so the baptism of Jesus is very significant for us because this was the moment when Jesus began his ministry that would eventually result in the formation of the community of his followers, the church, and in our own baptism into that community. Indeed, the final words of the risen Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, addressed to his disciples, are, ‘Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. All of us who are gathered in this church this morning have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ own baptism set in motion a great movement which resulted in our own baptism. Today’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord is an opportunity for us to reflect on our own baptism. Most of us will have received gifts over the Christmas period. Yet, the most precious gift we have received is our baptism. When our parents brought us to the church for baptism, they were putting us in the way of this great gift.
 Our baptism is as important a moment in our own lives as the baptism of Jesus was in his life. There are many similarities between Jesus’ baptism and our own baptism. At his baptism, the Spirit of God came down upon Jesus. At our own baptism, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit came down upon us. In the words of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, ‘God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying “Abba! Father!”’. Because of our baptism we became and continue to be ‘temples of the Spirit’. At Jesus’ baptism, God said of him, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him’. God spoke the same words to each one of us at the moment of our baptism. At our baptism, God favoured us; God looked upon each of us as favoured sons and daughters. God looks upon us as he looks upon his own Son; we are caught up into a share in Jesus’ own relationship with God. In becoming the beloved sons and daughters of God, at the same time we become the beloved brothers and sisters of Jesus, and the brothers and sisters of all those who have been baptized. Unlike Jesus who was baptized as an adult, we received this precious gift of baptism at an age when we could not appreciate this gift. It takes a lifetime for us to really appreciate how greatly we have been graced through baptism.
 It also takes a lifetime to appreciate the call that is contained within that grace. Jesus experienced a powerful grace from God on the day of his baptism. However, he also understood that his baptism was a call from God to begin the work that God had sent him to do. What was that work? It is very well described in this morning’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Jesus’ work was to live as the servant of God by bringing true justice, God’s justice, to the nations. His mission was to bring about that just relationship, that right relationship, between all men and women that God desired for humanity. He would show by his own way of relating to people how God wanted all of us to relate to one another. Jesus’ way of relating to people was characterized above all by great attentiveness and sensitivity to the weak and the vulnerable. This way of Jesus is beautifully expressed in our first reading which speaks of the servant of God as someone who does not break the crushed reed nor quench the wavering flame. There may have been times in our own lives when we felt like a crushed reed that could easily break or a wavering flame that could easily go out. The mission that Jesus began at his baptism he continues as risen Lord today, and it is above all in those vulnerable moments of our lives that we can be assured of his healing and sustaining presence.
 Our own baptismal calling is a reflection of Jesus’ baptismal calling. In the power of the same Spirit that he received, we too are called to bring God’s justice to others, to relate to others as God would relate to them, as Jesus would relate to them. For us too this will mean taking care not to break the crushed reed or quench the wavering flame.  
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Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
Gospel (Except USA)
Matthew 2:1-12
The visit of the Magi.
After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the reign of King Herod, some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east. ‘Where is the infant king of the Jews?’ they asked. ‘We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.’ When King Herod heard this he was perturbed, and so was the whole of Jerusalem. He called together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, and enquired of them where the Christ was to be born. ‘At Bethlehem in Judaea,’ they told him ‘for this is what the prophet wrote:
And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, you are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you will come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.’
Then Herod summoned the wise men to see him privately. He asked them the exact date on which the star had appeared, and sent them on to Bethlehem. ‘Go and find out all about the child,’ he said ‘and when you have found him, let me know, so that I too may go and do him homage.’ Having listened to what the king had to say, they set out. And there in front of them was the star they had seen rising; it went forward, and halted over the place where the child was. The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But they were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, and returned to their own country by a different way.
Gospel (USA)
Matthew 2:1–12
We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler,    who is to shepherd my people Israel. ”
Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage.” After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.
Reflections (6)
(i) Feast of the Epiphany
Today, the feast of the Epiphany, the three kings arrive in the crib. The gospel reading doesn’t refer to kings at all; it doesn’t even say there were three of them. It refers to ‘some wise men… from the east’. The fact that they brought three gifts, and the precious nature of these gifts, may have led people to understand that there were three of them and that they were kings. In the context in which this story was first spoken and written, wise men from the east or magi would have suggested astrologers or astronomers from Persia, modern day Iran, what we would call today, men of science. They were trying to understand the meaning of the sky and of the world. It was believed that if you understood the movement of the stars it would throw light on what was happening on earth. The emergence of a new star was often associated with the coming of a new ruler on earth. When the wise men saw a new star rising, they concluded that an infant king had been born among the Jews. They set out on a long journey to Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jews, to pay homage to their infant king and to offer him gifts.
These wise men were seekers. There was a longing in them that caused them to leave what they familiar with and to set out for a land that was unknown to them. They didn’t travel in total darkness. They were guided on their journey by a small source of light, a star. They speak to the seeker, the searcher, in each one of us. By nature, we tend to be restless. We are always searching for meaning, for answers to questions. We are always looking for a greater light, for truth, for love. At the root of this restlessness, this searching, is a longing that only God can satisfy. Saint Augustine once wrote that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. As we try to be faithful to this deep longing within us, God sends us a light to guide us. He doesn’t simply send us the light of a small star, which was the light that guided the wise men. God has sent us a greater light, the light of his Son, Jesus, who once said of himself, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness’. The wise men were led by the light of a star towards this light of the world, the infant king not just of the Jews but of all humanity. We are fortunate to be able to journey towards God in this light. The light of Jesus, now risen Lord, shines upon us. Each day we can open ourselves up to this light.
The light of the star led the wise men eventually to Bethlehem. In Hebrew the name Bethlehem literally means ‘House of Bread’. The light of the risen Lord leads us to the heavenly Bethlehem, the heavenly house of bread. In the gospels, Jesus spoke of heaven as his Father’s house, and he also spoke of heaven as a great banquet at which people from north, south, east and west would gather. We travel this journey, this pilgrimage, together. The wise men travelled from the east as a little community of faith and hope. That is how we travel towards our eternal destiny, as a community of faith and hope, and as a community of love. We look out for one another on this journey; we allow the light of the Lord’s love to shine not only upon us but through us so that the journey of others becomes easier because of our presence. As the Lord guides us towards the heavenly Bethlehem where all our deepest hungers and thirsts will be satisfied, he also feeds us on our journey with his presence. He feeds us with the bread of his word and with the bread of the Eucharist. He feeds our spirits, our hearts and our minds. In doing so, he empowers us to feed the more urgent hungers of many in our world for the basic food needed for healthy living.
As the wise men travelled towards Bethlehem, guided by the light of a star, they met with a real force of darkness in the person of King Herod and his advisors. In spite of his words to the wise men, Herod did not want to pay homage to the new born king of the Jews. He wanted to kill him; he wanted to extinguish the light. Jesus would meet the same hostility at the end of his earthly life. Yet, God protected the child and his parents, and the wise men, from the murderous intentions of Herod. On our own journey of faith, we too will sometimes encounter forces of darkness that want to extinguish the light of our faith. Our faith will be put to the test. That is why Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’. Yet, we always journey in the conviction that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not ultimately overcome it. If we keep turning towards the light of the Lord’s presence, he will keep us faithful to the end.
And/Or
(ii) Feast of the Epiphany
People tend to make more journeys over the Christmas period than they usually do. We set out on journeys to meet up with family members and friends and they set out on journeys to meet up with us. There can be an element of difficulty about any journey we make. The journeys of many people were particularly difficult in the days before Christmas because of the awful wintry weather we had. Listening to people who had been stranded at airports for hours and sometimes days made you realize that the journey to which they had been so looking forward had become something of a nightmare. Most of the journeys we make are, thankfully, much less troublesome than that, but any journey, other than the routine ones we might make around where we live, can have its challenges.
At the centre of today’s feast is the story of a journey. Matthew at the beginning of his gospel tells the story of a journey made by magi or astrologers from the East towards Judea in search of the new born king of the Jews. Matthew may have imagined these travellers as coming from a long way east because magi were originally associated with Persia. In Matthew’s account these magi were guided on their very long journey by a star which was different from all the other stars in the sky. There was something about this star which called them to set out on this long journey westwards. The most dangerous moment in their long journey came just as they were within striking distance of their destination. In Jerusalem, a short distance from Bethlehem, they were summoned by King Herod the Great, a man known to us from historical sources to have been very hostile towards anyone who might be a threat to his power, even, according to Matthew, a new born child whom some were recognizing as king of the Jews, the Jewish Messiah. Yet, in spite of that dangerous moment, the magi were led by the star to their destination, Bethlehem, where they worshipped the child and gave him their gifts. On their homeward journey, they were guided again, this time by means of a dream. In their dream God directed them to go home by a different route, and not via Jerusalem where they were likely to meet up with Herod again.
In some way, the story of these exotic visitors from the East is the story of each one of us. Our lives as Christians can be understood as a journey, a sacred journey, a pilgrimage. In fact, according to the Acts of the Apostles, from very early days Christians were known as followers of the Way. We are people who are following a way, and the way we are trying to follow is the way of Jesus, the way of the one who said of himself, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’. The magi were guided on their journey by a star which stood out from all the other stars in the sky. We too are guided on our journey by a light which stands out from all the other sources of light we come across. We are guided by the one who said of himself, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness’. On this earthly pilgrimage which we travel together, we don’t chart our own course. Rather, like the magi, we allow ourselves to be led. We submit to a light beyond us which is greater than any light within us. We look towards the one who has travelled the journey before us and who guides and leads us on our own journey. In the words of the letter to the Hebrews, using the image of the race rather than the journey, we ‘run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith’. Like the magi, we too meet with obstacles on our shared journey. Some version or other of a Herod can stand before us to deflect us from our journey. Jesus was very aware that even though he would be ever present to his followers as their light and their guide they would be tempted by evil under various guises. That is why he taught us to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. Yet in spite of Herod, the magi reached their destination and returned home safely. On our own journey too, as Saint Paul reminds, it is always the case that ‘where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more’. At the end of their journey, the magi worshipped the child; the giving of their gifts was but an outward expression of their worship, their homage. Our own journey too will end in worship, the worship of God and of his Son in heaven forever. Every act of worship on the way, in particular our Eucharistic worship, is an anticipation of that eternal worship before the throne of God and the Lamb. Our Eucharist worship overflows into our daily lives where it takes the form of the offering of ourselves to the Lord, the giving of the gift of our mind, our heart, our soul and strength in love to the Lord. This morning we look, in gratitude, towards the magi, these outsiders from far away, because they show us the fundamental shape of our lives as Christians.
And/Or
(iii) Feast of the Epiphany
The poet T.S. Eliot wrote a poem on the journey of the Magi. The concluding lines of the poem caught my attention.
This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.
Eliot imagines that the journey of the magi to witness the birth of Jesus was like a death for them. They were so touched by the mystery of this child that they experienced a need to die to what they had once valued. As Eliot says, they returned to their kingdoms but were no longer at ease there, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods. The evangelist may be hinting at something similar when he states that after worshipping the child and giving him their gifts, the magi returned to their country by a different way. Their return journey was different to their original journey in search of the infant King of the Jews. Having encountered him, they were somehow different; they had been changed. The final line of the poem, ‘I should be glad of another death’ may be Eliot’s way of  saying that, although he has been touched by the mystery of Emmanuel, God with us in the person of Jesus, he has not yet been fully grasped by this mystery, and he still has a death to undergo.
We might be able to think of encounters we have had in the course of our lives that touched us deeply, people that we met who impacted on us in some profound way, perhaps emotionally or intellectually. The mystery of the other can affect us at a very deep level and leave us changed. If other people reveal something of God’s presence, of God’s goodness and love, then our encounter with them will change us for the better, even though that change may be painful and involve a kind of a death, a dying to what is not of God. If that is true of an encounter with another human being, how much more true must it be of an encounter with the Lord who reveals God’s presence, God’s goodness and God’s love to a unique degree? The term ‘epiphany’ means a ‘revelation’, a disclosure’, a ‘shining forth’. Today’s feast celebrates the good news that in the child of Mary and Joseph, God’s goodness and love shone forth, was revealed to all of humanity, including those who came from afar, who would have been considered outsiders and strangers.
There is a great breadth and openness about this feast. The Lord is given to all, to all who seek the truth in sincerity of heart, to all who are prepared to keep setting out on a journey of discovery because they sense that there is a death they still need to undergo to become more fully alive. The great breadth and openness of this feast is shown in the way the tradition about the magi from the east developed and was embellished. They were understood to be three, corresponding to the three gifts; they were given names; Melchior represented the black skinned people, Balthasar, the Asians, and Gasper, the Europeans. Their great diversity signified the universal outreach of God through this child whose name was Emmanuel, God with us. This child may be known as King of the Jews, but he belongs to all.
The magi from the East went on a long and difficult journey in search of this child. Having found him, they submitted to the mystery of his otherness; they worshipped him and gave him their gifts. This child is now risen Lord. Today’s feast invites all of us to submit to the Lord, to give him, not any material gifts, but the gift of our hearts, minds and wills. This will inevitably involve a death of some kind, a dying to our various false gods, but it is a death that is ultimately life-giving, because in surrendering to the Lord we will receive from his fullness, grace upon grace. An Epiphany, a revelation of God, calls for a humble response, a journeying out of ourselves towards a great light and a fuller truth.
The figure of Herod in today’s gospel reading shows us a very different kind of response to the presence of an epiphany. When a new and fuller light appeared, Herod sought to extinguish it. Rather than hear the call of Emmanuel to die to his false gods, he was determined to inflict death on this Epiphany. To some degree, we are all capable of extinguishing the light of God’s goodness, present in the lives of others. Today’s feast invites us to align ourselves with the magi in their desire to journey towards Emmauel, God with us, and in their openness to being changed by that encounter. It is in the Eucharist that we encounter Emmanuel is a special way. The Eucharist is our weekly, our daily, Epiphany. The Eucharist is the moment when we surrender to the Lord, with whatever dying that might require of us, so that we can receive from his fullness.
And/Or
(iv) Feast of the Epiphany
The poet T.S. Eliot wrote a poem on the journey of the Magi. The concluding lines of the poem are thought-provoking:
          This: were we led all that way for            Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly            We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,            But had thought they were different; this Birth was            Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.            We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,            But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,            With an alien people clutching their gods.            I should be glad of another death.
Eliot imagines that the journey of the magi to witness the birth of Jesus was like a death for them. They were so touched by the mystery of this child that they experienced a need to die to what they had once valued. As Eliot says, they returned to their kingdoms but were no longer at ease there, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods. The evangelist may be hinting at something similar when he states that after worshipping the child and giving him their gifts, the magi returned to their country by a different way. Their return journey was different to their original journey in search of the infant King of the Jews. Having encountered him, they were somehow different; they had been changed. The final line of the poem, ‘I should be glad of another death’ may be Eliot’s way of  saying that, although he has been touched by the mystery of Emmanuel, God with us in the person of Jesus, he has not yet been fully grasped by this mystery, and he still has a death to undergo.
Today’s feast celebrates the good news that in the child of Mary and Joseph, God’s goodness and love shone forth, was revealed to all of humanity, including those who came from afar, who would have been considered outsiders and strangers. There is a great breadth and openness about this feast. The Lord is given to all, to all who seek the truth in sincerity of heart, to all who are prepared to keep setting out on a journey of discovery because they sense that there is a death they still need to undergo to become more fully alive. Today’s feast invites all of us to submit to the Lord, to give him, not any material gifts, but the gift of our hearts, minds and wills. This will inevitably involve a death of some kind, a dying to our various false gods, but it is a death that is ultimately life-giving, because in surrendering to the Lord we will receive from his fullness, grace upon grace. An Epiphany, a revelation of God, calls for a humble response, a journeying out of ourselves towards a greater light and a fuller truth.
And/Or
(v) Feast of the Epiphany
On this feast of the Epiphany our crib scene is complete, with the arrival of the three visitors from the East. Tradition has made kings of these visitors, but the gospel passage which is the basis of this tradition speaks of magi. In that culture, magi were people with a certain set of skills, people possessed of some kind of specialized knowledge. The gospel passage suggests that the specialized knowledge of these magi related to the interpretation of the stars. They were not kings themselves but served the king with their skills. The gospel passage does not say how many of them there were. The number three was simply deduced from the number of gifts that were brought. The evangelist Matthew says they came from the east, without specifying from where. Magi were often associated with Persia, in particular, which corresponds to modern day Iran. They were clearly intended by the evangelist as representatives of the non-Jewish world. Their observation of the rising of a new star led them to believe that a new king of the Jews has been born. There was a widespread belief in that world that the birth of new leaders was marked by unusual events in the heavens. The natural gifts and acquired knowledge of these magi set them on a journey towards the child of Mary and Joseph whose name was Emmanuel, God with us. Their science was not in any way in conflict with their religious search. Rather, their study of the stars was the inspiration for their long journey towards a place of worship, ‘We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage’. Science is never in conflict with faith. Both are different and complementary paths to God. The story of the magi suggests that the study of creation, whether it is the heavenly world or some other dimension of creation, can serve the journey of faith, and help to bring us to the worship of the God who stands behind all created reality and who has become God with us in the child of Bethlehem.
In the story we have just heard, the journey of the magi from the East did not bring them to Bethlehem initially. It brought them to the principal city of Judea, Jerusalem, some miles north of Bethlehem. When they reached Jerusalem, they asked, ‘Where is the infant king of the Jews?’ Their expertise in reading the heavens did not make them think that they knew it all. The evangelist portrays these specialists as humble people. They did not have all the answers. They remained people who questioned. They knew they needed the help of others who had a different expertise to theirown if their question ‘Where?’ was to be answered. In the gospel reading it is the chief priests and the scribes, those who had studied the Jewish Scriptures, who provided the information that allowed them to complete the last short leg of their journey. According to the prophet Micah, the shepherd king whom God will provide for his people will come from Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David. The magi’s observation and interpretation of the skies brought them a long way on their journey towards God with us. However, they needed the Jewish Scriptures to complete the journey. Creation is a revelation of God the Creator, but the Scriptures are a fuller revelation of God. These pagan specialists from the east were open to both expressions of God’s revelation. They were receptive to the various ways that God can speak to us. We can learn from them to be attentive to God’s word, whatever form that word may take. There are times in our lives when God seems to speak most powerfully to us through the wonders and beauty of creation. There are other times when we feel the need to listen attentively to the Lord’s word as it comes to us in both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The magi speak to the seeker within each one of us, that deep core whose longing cannot be fully satisfied by anything in this earthly life. Genuine seekers are always open to the many and varied ways that God communicates with us and seeks us out.
The long journey of the magi was finally crowned with an act of worship and an act of generosity, ‘they did him homage… they offered him gifts’. They surrendered themselves and their possessions to the Lord. We believe that our own life journey will be crowned in the same way. At the end of our lives, we surrender ourselves, all we are and have, into the hands of the living and loving Lord. Our own times of worship in the course of our life journey, our own acts of self-giving to the Lord, anticipate and prepare us for that final moment of self-surrender. One element of this inspiring story is the ominous presence of Herod. He too asked the question where the Christ was to be born. However, his motive in asking this question was very different to that of the magi. He wanted to eliminate a perceived threat to his throne. On our faith journey there will often be forces that are hostile to God’s purpose for our lives. Yet, this assures that, in the words of the fourth gospel, ‘the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’.
And/Or
(vi) Feast of the Epiphany
Matthew’s story of the visit of the magi to the child Jesus has inspired artists, poets, musicians and story tellers down through the ages. It has also inspired children. If you go to a Christmas concert in any of our primary schools, three of the children are sure to be dressed up as the wise men and another is likely to be carrying a very big star. This story is one of those passages in the Scriptures which can speak to both children and adults. It can speak to our experience, in different ways at different times of our lives.
In the time of Jesus, magi were associated with Persia to the east of Israel. They were experts in what we would call today astrology. They searched the skies and tried to read the movement of the stars to interpret what was happening on earth. They were the ancient equivalent of men of science, using their intellect to understand the universe. It was this search for understanding, for wisdom, that set the magi on their journey westwards towards Israel. They interpreted the rising of a new star as a sign that a new king of the Jews had just been born. Their natural gifts of curiosity and reason directed them towards the birth place of this king. They remind us that reason and faith need not be in conflict. However, their natural wisdom could only bring them so far. They needed a light other than the light of their reason and the light of a new star to bring them to Bethlehem. They needed the light of the Jewish Scriptures. When they got to Jerusalem, they had to inquire, ‘Where is the infant King of the Jews?’ It was those with knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures who told them, through King Herod, that the long-awaited king of the Jews would be born in Bethlehem. They needed the light of the Scriptures to finally bring them to Emmanuel, God with us.
The Lord draws each of us to himself in similar ways. He speaks through our ordinary human experience, as we engage with the world around us, using our gifts of reason and curiosity. He speaks to us in a fuller way through his word in the Scriptures. We can receive a certain light by being true to our own natural gifts, our own human search, just as the magi were given the light of a star in response to their searching. We can then receive a fuller light when we open ourselves to the presence of the Lord in his word. The Lord is always showing us signs of his presence, both in our day to day human experience and especially in his word, the Scriptures. God gives us enough light to guide us towards Bethlehem, towards Emmanuel, God-with-us. The magi are portrayed as being very open to the light that God was giving them in their own human experiences and in the Scriptures, and, then, acting in response to that light. In that regard, they can be an inspiration to us all.
God gives all of us light, just as he gave light to the magi. The word ‘epiphany’ means ‘showing forth’, ‘manifestation’. Today’s feast announces that God is always showing himself forth to us, manifesting and revealing himself to us. God is always providing us with a star, a light, and, for us, that light is Jesus himself who said of himself, ‘I am the light of the world’. The light of Jesus, which is the light of God, shines upon us in a great variety of ways. Because all things came into being through Jesus, the Word, the whole created universe can reveal the light of his presence to us. His light shines upon us in a special way in and through the church, the church’s Scriptures the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and the community of faith. We live in a time when it can be easier to see the darkness of the night than the lights that shine in the darkness. Yet, today’s feast invites us to recognize the various ways that the light of the Lord’s presence shines upon us, and then to act in response to that light, like the magi in today’s gospel reading.  
The magi made their way to the Lord in Bethlehem, in response to the lights they were given, the light of the star and the light of God’s word. They were unlikely candidates to find the Lord because they had so far to come. They were exotic outsiders who didn’t really belong in Bethlehem. They came to the Lord by a strange route. In contrast, the chief priests and Herod, who were only down the road in Jerusalem and who also had the light of the Scriptures never came to Bethlehem. It has been said that the magi are symbols of hope for all who struggle to the Lord by strange routes. One of the characters in a novel by Evelyn Waugh addresses the magi as ‘patrons of all late comers, of all who have had a tedious journey to make to the truth’. They can continue to speak to us when we find ourselves struggling to the Lord by some strange or tedious route.
Fr. Martin Hogan.
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shokami · 1 year
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ਏਓ 。 JIN. twenty four centuries old. she/her. 3.6.23 <33 INTP; 5w4 ; sp/sx ; taurus ☼ leo ☽ scorpio ↑ . . . lover of winter and fall, with a lavender obsession. the raging antagonist who commits mass arson for a good cause. aspiring author. butterfly/moth connoisseu, and loving spouse of Lucifer and Lord Morax. . . ♡
jin’s anthem : eyes on fire by blue foundation
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LEARN THE DIVINE PRINCIPALS ਏਓ
# 001. — creative writing college graduate. currently, suffering somewhere in some random city … european.
# 002. — baking at four a.m, dancing to let’s grove by earth wind & fire with lucifer. caught sitting on the counter eating peanut butter like a local gremlin. coffee obsessed, prefers caramel macchiatos or caramel iced coffees.
# 003. — owns two cats, and a shiba inu who does drugs in her free time. also gets caught sitting on the counter eating peanut butter that i left open at four a.m.
# 004. — manga and book collector that never get read at a timely fashion. tattoos, piercings, lover and local mother of plants and growing ecosystems.
# 005. — thinks i’m edgy, but is a soft anti-social butterfly. just wants a kiss tbh.
# 005. — an unfortunate kenma kozume, and layla kinnie.
# 006. — in an active relationship with the love of my life, and future husband… but also with my fictional husbands <3
# 007. — local norse pagan and demonolatrist, practitioner of seven years. demonology and astrology studier.
# 008. — casual cozy twitch streamer! follow and support me at Motheon_ i wanna see your faces over there <3
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FAVORITE(S) AND DISLIKES ਏਓ
animes and mangas consists of — jujutsu kaisen, haikyuu!!, hazbin hotel, helluva boss, dragon ball, chainsaw man, highraise invasion, kamisama kiss, noragami, inuyasha, spy x family, every studio ghibli movie ever, demon slayer, rascal does not dream of bunny girl senpai, tokyo ghoul, yuri!! on ice, sailor moon + more
characters consist of — gojo satoru, geto suguru, lucifer morningstar, alastor, stolas, shoko ieiri, hange zoe, vegeta, gohan, lord beerus, shinazugawa sanemi, kyoujurou rengoku, kenma kozume, kuroo tetsurou, yato, tomoe, dazai osamu, gogol nikolai, sesshomaru, raiden shogun, zhongli, il dottore, layla, denji. + more
. . . dislikes the heat. any form of gojo satoru slanderers. people who slander others comfort characters, animes, food etc. mahito. when my apartment is above 50°. slow drivers. nuts… why they taste like that? being sensitive to the sun.
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Plsplspls explain lara croft girl
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Meet Clara Craft, lover of adventure, knowledge, and money. She regular voyages across the world on her personal sailboat in search of great finds. She's a bit more on the plunder side of archeology, though she does make sure culturally relevant artifacts find their way home in the end, even if she charges a pretty penny to those who can afford it. She is more likely to personally hold on to powerful relics, and pieces that are neither she either displays at her home or sells to wealthy collectors.
She is a child of the Atlantean god Badarus, Father of Oceans and The Divine Shipwright. She doesn't really engage with Atlantis itself too much even if she's aware it exists, since it's not something that actually interests her that much. She inherited the purview of Journeys from him, leaving her a master of travel big and small and granting her great fortune in her expeditions. Her ship may look mundane but it's far more capable than it would appear, being crafted under Badarus's watchful eye. She also owns a magical swimsuit that gives her the power to traverse to oceans depths without any harm, and also looks very good on her but that second part isn't actually magic, she just has a rocking bod.
She considers herself a rival to fellow explorer and archeologist Kaali Skaftos (over on @sinfulvoids) but it's up in the air if they share this opinion of their relationship. She regularly challenges him to races, and if things are particularly heated she will actively attempt to obstruct him, but she's not trying to get anyone hurt and cleans up her act when there are innocent lives at play. All in all she's in it all for the fun but tries her best not to take it too far.
Mind, shooting at someone doesn't register as 'too far' for her if they're already involved in the 'game'...
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