Here are some highlights and major events of the Thoman family’s 2018.
January: In the final hours of the last day of 2017, December 31, Katia and I checked out of the pediatric hospital of Ancona, Salesi, (about eight hours after they had said they were going to let us go) with our new bundle of joy and third child, Michael. Though our older two are now pre-teens, the 3-hour cycle of changing a diaper followed by milking, burping, and laying down came back fairly quickly. Though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend having a child in your mid-forties, I will say that he has brought much joy into our family and none of us (especially the older ones) could imagine life without little Michael.
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St. Francis of Assisi: the Incarnation and Greccio Christmas was simply dear to Francis. The Nativity of our Lord -- the theological doctrine of the Incarnation, the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary, when Christ, consubstantial Son of the Father, begotten not made before all creation, was born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of the Old Testament's Messianic prophecy. However, Francis did not reason in such theological or abstract dimensions. He was never a heady academic striving to intellectually or theologically grasp the divine mysteries. Instead, he sought to live them with his heart, spirit, and emotions.
For Francis, Christmas had to be real. Thus he celebrated the Nativity of the Child Jesus, in the words of Thomas of Celano, with “immense eagerness above all other solemnities, affirming it was the Feasts of Feasts, when God was made a little child and hung on human breasts. He would kiss the images of the baby’s limbs thinking of hunger, and the melting compassion of his heart toward the child also made him stammer sweet words as babies do” (Celano, Second Life: 151, 199). |
Bret ThomanCatholic. Franciscan. Married. Father. Pilgrim guide. Writer. Translator. Pilot. Aspiring sailor. Archives
April 2024
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