Victorious Brigid did not love the world:/she perched in it like a bird on a cliff.

  - Broccan the Crooked, Hymn to Saint Brigid (Irish, 7th century)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

  - Philippians 1.21

One of my favorite contemporary artists is Philip R. Jackson. His still life paintings are a study in the profound and whimsical spirituality of ordinary things. One of my favorites is his painting, "Party's Over," which pictures an origami bird about to launch from the stern of a paper boat:

Every time I see this beautiful painting, I think of Brigid. She used the world, because she was in it, but she didn't dwell there. Brigid lived in the world to come. For her to live was Christ, and to die and leave this world was a gain she was daily ready to enjoy.

She perched on this world because she understood, like Jackson's little bird, that she was made for the heavens. Another biographer of Brigid,Cogitosus, describes her at one point as "practicing the life of heaven on earth through meditation and prayer." She understood that the key to knowing the Kingdom is mastering the ability to live the "then and there," "here and now."

Perched on the world: I just love that image. We're still in it, but we must not be anchored or even oriented to it. Our eyes are on the heavens, and, like a fledgling in the nest, we're always trying our ability to gain our heavenly life, even as we have our feet set in this present world. As Susie was explaining to me recently from her meditations in Hebrews 11, we have no abiding horizon here in this life; our destination and hope is the City to Come.

Will you be perched on the edge of this world in the year to come, or bogged down in it? I've been reflecting lately on the ministry of The Fellowship of Ailbe, and I'm excited about where we've been and where we're headed in the year to come. Pray that we will perch on the world just enough to make a positive contribution while we can, but that we'll always remain focused on, aspiring to, and striving to attain that glorious City to Come.

We hope you'll perch with us during the year ahead.

T. M. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Patrick's faith became a template for generations of Irish monks, missionaries, and ordinary believers.

I have a recommendation for improving your spiritual disciplines during the year to come.

The Uist people knew what they had lost, and they wept.

The Law of God and Public Policy: Marriage and Sex (7)

The Law of God and Public Policy: Marriage and Sex (6)

All of these are prohibited by the Law of God.

“But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.” Deuteronomy 22.25

Temptations to illicit sexual practice come from all directions; thus, it does not surprise us that the Law of God is careful to enumerate many examples of adultery to guide the practice of His people. Prostitution was not to be practiced, “lest…the land become full of depravity” (Lev. 19.29). Rape was to be punished according to the harshest measure, capital punishment (so also with certain forms of fornication – but see previous comments on the practice of capital punishment). Bigamy was forbidden (cf. Lev. 20.14 and Lev. 18.18), as was any sexual activity with animals (Ex. 22.19; Lev. 18.23; Lev. 20.15, 16).

The very nature of these transgressions suggests how strong is the attraction to sexual enjoyment and how vulnerable is the human heart to lust and adultery. Illicit sexual practices are described as perversions, because they depart from the divinely-prescribed norm, and abominations, because they are an offense to God and a danger to society. American law and practice today understand this, at least as far as these four practices are concerned. I cannot help but wonder, though, given the rampant hunger for and availability of all things sexual in our day, whether public policy will be able to hold the line against these much longer.

Our society is caught in the midst of a tectonic shift of values in sexual practice. Having cut ourselves free from the teaching of God’s Law – where policy toward sexual practice began in this country – in favor of a more libertine and individualistic approach to sexuality, it seems inevitable, if the present drift continues, that any laws against sexual deviancy existing today – with the possible exception of rape – will collapse under the tsunami of sexual perversity which is flooding the land.

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The Law of God and Public Policy: Marriage and Sex (5)

The Law of God and Public Policy: Marriage and Sex (4)

The Law of God and Public Policy: Marriage and Sex (3)