From Season to Season

The birth of Jesus is actually the climax of a story that began in the Garden of Eden and which continues into our own time. Jesus was born into an all-too-human family whose own story is filled with saints and sinners, the faithful and those who fell, and all types in between. And their experiences form an indispensable part of our understanding of who Jesus is and who we are as his followers: these ancestors of Jesus are also our spiritual ancestors and we owe them a debt of thanks.   Pope Francis reminded us of this in his General Audience on June 25, 2014: If we believe, if we know how to pray, if we acknowledge the Lord and can listen to his Word, if we feel him close to us and recognize him in our brothers and sisters, it is because others, before us, lived the faith and then transmitted it to us. We have received faith from our fathers and mothers, from our ancestors, and they have instructed us in it. " The Jesse Tree " from The Capuchins Bible (ca. 1180)...

Through his prophets he promised of old that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us. He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant… In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide their feet into the way of peace. - Luke 1:70-72, 78-79   The story of our salvation is a story of trees.   Beginning in the Garden of Eden, God placed a tree from which Adam and Eve were forbidden to take the fruit (cf. Genesis 2:16-17 ). This tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, became the great sign of humankind's fall from original grace. But, this original sin wasn't that our first parents ate the fruit of this tree; the sin was their disobedience: "In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God... Constituted in a state of holin...