A friend and brother priest once told me, ‘It’s all about transformation.” That statement has helped my individual Christian pilgrimage and ministry as a priest on more that one occasion! If we understand that we are all sinners, and continually ‘miss the mark’ of Christian living to one degree or another, then an easy connection is made to our need for repentance, which is a continual process of transformation as we strive to ‘hit the mark’ in relation to Christian living. The blessing is that our Lord will continue to accept us when we authentically seek and experience this transformation. However, the blessing of this repentant transformation can never take place without first having ‘missed the mark!’
The experience of disappointment often leads us to frustration, anger, and even despair! We experience this in our relation to ourselves as individuals, and we experience it in our relation with others. Have you ever been disappointed with a relative, a friend, a co-workers, a fellow student, a fellow parishioner, or a stranger? In response to this disappointment, did you begin to feel frustrated or angry? Although it is tempting, our challenge as people of faith is to not dwell on the problem, or our disappointment that is derived from it—our opportunity is to look beyond what we perceive as the problem, and see what fruit it may produce. ...and yes, it will only produce fruit when it is responded to with repentance. Our greatest challenges are our greatest opportunities—as individuals and as communities!
Do not ever feel despair in response to disappointment! With hope in Jesus Christ, transformation is always an option, no matter what the circumstance! Maintain this hope and our ability to progress through the challenges of life becomes stronger! God loves you, and if you allow Him, He is with you…“If God is with us, who is against us?” Romans 8:31
All are welcomed to join our early morning Bible Study, beginning Tuesday, Dec 2, 7 am, at The Reserve at Spanos Park Golf Course. This off-site Bible Study will continue each Tuesday morning, as we move through one of the most dynamic books of the New Testament, Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians! The Bible Study will be held in a conference room off the main restaurant in the club house. God Bless you, and I pray that you join our early morning fellowship. +Fr Luke
The celebration of our Lord’s Nativity appropriately calls us to recognize and appreciate the great number of blessings in our lives; our health, families, friends, church communities, etc. Although the blessings are worthy of recognition and appreciation through out the year, the Nativity season affords us a particular opportunity by serving as a catalyst evoking a great consciousness toward God’s love for us, and the blessings He has given us. Yet during the Christmas season, after a moment of reflection and perhaps nostalgia, our minds often turn to another track, full of stress and anxiety—leading away from a greater sense of gratefulness, toward varied forms of despair or even resentment!
In this Nativity season of 2008, how much more pronounced is this track of melancholy and misery, in light of the current economic recession impacting our great nation and the globalized economy. Retailers have already expressed their woes at the prospect and experience of a weak consumer showing, and the superficial phenomena known as “consumer Christmas” will seemingly have a much more humble expression in the year 2008. Yet perhaps this material experience of humility holds the particular blessing of this year’s Nativity season?
Saint Athanasios the Great wrote extensively concerning the reality that God became man! It is unfathomable to comprehend the love God possesses for us as His children, which would provoke Him to such an extreme act of humility; whereby the Creator becomes His very creation! This is precisely what took place when the eternal Word of God (reference John 1:1) became man (reference Luke 2:1-7), and was born in a Bethlehem manger. Humility beyond measure!
This Nativity season a more financially humble expression of Christmas celebration may be the greatest blessing we receive. By celebrating with material humility we may begin celebrating and living with a greater sense of internal humility—a virtue which ultimately honors the humility of our Lord to have become man. Saint Athanasios the Great expands that, God became man, so that man could become like god. God’s act of loving humility, to have become man, suffer crucifixion and be resurrected for our salvation, demands our honor and respect—manifest powerfully when we strive to live our lives with humility of divine standards. Through humility we place ourselves in a position to receive God’s mercy, and ultimately our salvation, which affords us the experience of being god-like, as Saint Athanasios the Great explains, when we share in the life and energies of our Father who is in Heaven! ...when we enter into the Kingdom of God!
This Nativity season, let us embrace a humble expression of celebration at it’s most appropriate time—as we honor the humility of God manifest in the incarnation of His Word! May the blessings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who condescended to be born in a cave, be upon us all as we strive toward the divine virtue of humility this Christmas season!
Christ is Born! Glorify him!