Three French Hens

Happy third day of Christmas. I took today off from work, and my parents and I went to a matinee of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It is, of course, different from the book, but it's pretty good. It preserves Eustace's transformation, his re-transformation--inside and out--by Aslan, Reepicheep's quest to go to Aslan's country, Aslan's instruction to Lucy that he has a different name in her world and she must get to know him there, and the possibility of Eustace's return to Narnia. In fact, a line in the last scene of the movie sets up, for those who know the books, the possibility of the events of The Silver Chair, but I don't know if Walden Media plans to make and release another Narnia movie.

The third day of Christmas is also the Feast of St. John the Evangelist. He is, by tradition, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who stood at the foot of the cross and, afterwards, took Jesus' mother Mary under his care. He wrote the Gospel According to John, the three Epistles of John, and his vision of Revelation, which he experienced in a vision while in exile for his faith on the island of Patmos. I heard a beautiful story that when he was a very old man his final sermon consisted only of his repeated urging, "Little children, love one another."

My grandparents have "Children, love the Lord" on their gravestone.