Imposition is an odd word for a religious rite. With outstretched palms we receive holy communion. With bowed head we receive the laying on of the hands of forgiveness. With pinched nose or upraised visage we receive our baptism. But ashes are imposed with no action from us; we need not even kneel before the minister with dust-flocked thumb as he traces the sign of the cross on our foreheads.

Scholars get their academic gowns in a twist over whether Jesus' brothers described in the Gospels were of Mary or Joseph or both or neither. I'm not sure why this matters but it may give them something to argue about instead of trying to spread the good news of salvation. Joseph's status as somebody necessary to the narrative is in some ways reminiscent of the original Joseph: persecuted in a foreign land, but scarcely earth-shattering.

Advent 2022 presents a trifecta of despair: rampant inflation, political stagnation, world conflagration. How is the Lord using us, if He is using us at all? Are we just flies--lower creatures in some order which we cannot see--to be killed for sport?

Seventy-two is also the number of disciples that Jesus sent out to be His "advance men" for His visits to towns throughout Judea. Luke 10: 1-20. Curiously, Mark (6: 7-13) and Matthew (10:1-20) have Jesus sending out only the 12, and it is not clear from the text whether these are separate or the same event. In each, the Disciples are to travel 2 by 2, and in each they were to stay at invited lodgings, and not at any inn. In each they were to call people to repentance and heal the sick.