in the bleak midwinter
By Diogenes (articles ) | December 24, 2009 11:35 AM
At this time of year I enjoy re-reading John Henry Newman's sermon on the Nativity, delivered in Oxford at the university church of Saint Mary the Virgin:
As Al Gore put it in 1997, “two thousand years ago a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child.” For pete’s sake, they weren’t homeless -- they couldn’t get a hotel room. The whole neighborhood was, as the UN might put it, fully occupied territory. They had to sleep in the stable only because Dad had to schlep halfway across the country to pay his taxes in the town of his birth, which sounds like the kind of cockamamie bureaucratic nightmare only a blue state could cook up. Except that in Massachusetts it’s no doubt illegal to rent out your stable without applying for a Livestock Shelter Change Of Use Permit plus a Temporary Maternity Ward For Non-Insured Transients License, so Mary would have been giving birth under a bridge on I-95.
My mistake. The reflections are Mark Steyn's. OTR regrets the error.
|
An appeal from our founder, Dr. Jeffrey Mirus: Dear reader: If you found the information on this page helpful in your pursuit of a better Catholic life, please support our work with a donation. Your donation will help us reach five million Truth-seeking readers worldwide this year. Thank you! |
Easter Campaign: Progress toward our Spring 2013 goal ($27,795 to go):
$80,000.00
$52,204.70
35%
65%
|
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
