Doing your best

Doing The Best You Can

26 December – The pastoral text of Fr Reuter is this: How does your heart become a manger, waiting for the living God? Just do your job each day, as best you can. Apt image from Qwurky who captions it ‘The Color Of Work’ (flickr.com/). The photograph is a riot of colors as if to suggest that the three men are not going to work together well but instead, work not so harmoniously. They are a team, but if they have not imbibed the values of teamwork, if they are individually working for themselves without the benefit of a plan they have worked out together, they will work against each other and they won’t know it. Do your job, but remember to do it because you’re part of the team.

Manger for Jesus

Manger For Jesus?

15 December – The pastoral text of Fr Reuter is this: God engineered the census of the whole world so that Joseph and Mary would go down to Bethlehem, find no room in the inn, and his Son would be born in a stable, wrapped in his mother’s veil, and laid in a manger on the straw. This year you are the manger. Apt image by OldJediMaster who captions it simply ‘Manger’ (flickr.com/), and says: ‘I know you imagine A-frame sticks, but a manger probably looked like this. This is an ancient cattle trough, used to feed the animals.’ I didn’t imagine a manger like that, made of stone, hewn rough, fit for animals but not for a baby, anybody’s baby. Now Fr Reuter challenges me as the manger for Jesus. What is a manger anyway? A manger is ‘a trough or an open box in which feed for livestock is placed’ (American Heritage Dictionary). If I am the manger, then Jesus is the livestock. He said, ‘Feed my sheep.’ I get it: The question is not, ‘Is the manger made of stone or made of wood in the first place?’ The question is, stone or wood or whatever, ‘Is the manger worthy of the livestock?’ If other sheep can feed on you, then you are a worthy manger. If you provide a good example of a Christian, other people can be nourished on your good example. Never mind if you are as rough-hewn a manger as OldJediMaster shows here!