gather: St. Matthias' Day
Georgian fare & waking up the farm
“Please, please St. Matthias, grant us abundant fruit, wherever my voice may be heard in the garden.”
Matthias carol from Czech Republic
For the past few years, I’ve hosted a Liturgical Life group. We’re a diverse gathering - of all ages, from a variety of denominations, learning alongside each other and working to graft the traditions of the liturgical calendar into our own varied circumstances.
The blurry photos in today’s post really capture how deliciously wild our St. Matthias feast was.
So often, it’s easy for me to domesticate God. And sure, seeing Christ in the context of our home and in ‘mundane’ routine is a glorious thing - but if I’m not mindful, I start to personify God. I start placing him into a box built of my own expectations or needs, rather than paying careful attention to his true character and authentic ways.
Being reminded of God’s ‘wildness’ is a helpful antidote for me. And it’s not a wildness of violence or chaos: wildness is a way of thinking about God’s vastness & sovereignty, his divine steadiness beyond of our human attempts of control.
“‘The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God’, says St. Irenaeus, getting to the heart of what happens when man meets God on the mountain in the wilderness. Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself as living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God.”
Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy
And, as we find ourselves in Lent - such a vast wilderness - this reminder is especially poignant. It’s only here, in the wilderness, where I become viscerally aware of how many idols I’ve made…and how much personification I’ve done, applying my human ways to God (rather than perceiving his nature as communicated in Scripture, Tradition, and - most completely - in Christ). What a refreshment it is to knock down all those walls I’d built around God, all the domesticating I’d tried to do!
Chasing after a herd of kids who were singing & dancing their way through the farm - waving streamers, ringing bells, climbing trees - was just the shake-up I needed this Lent, and St. Matthias was the perfect companion for that.
Here’s a peek into our St. Matthias’ Day celebration…