Dear Parishioners and Friends,
As
2008 begins, we are all aware that the world around
us is filled with "wars and the rumor
of wars," as well as widespread economic and
social troubles. In this atmosphere, unless we have
constant recourse to the divine services in church,
to prayer and to spiritual reading, and if we do
not encourage one another with the deeds and words
of love, we will fall prey to the despair of so many
people around us, who either succumb to paralyzing
depression or who live in a mental state of continuous
denial of reality through escape into ruinous addictions,
mindless entertainment, and reckless spending plunging
them headlong into insurmountable and enslaving debt.
At this time of year, the Great Feasts of Our Lord's
Incarnation - His Nativity and His Baptism - offer
the light of hope to fallen man, so perplexed and
so in need of a Savior. It is our need (for ourselves)
and our duty (to others) to partake of and share
this great Light that has indeed shown upon us once
again. For every year, as the Great Feasts of the
Church come round again, they continuously renew
in our hearts the Grace of Jesus Christ,
After the Divine Liturgy on Holy Days, we must
remember that we have received such great grace,
and be mindful that, going forth, we have the duty
to be joyful, cheerful bearers of God's Good News
to our family, our fellow Orthodox, and to the people
around us. The character of Christian Love is that
by sharing, it is not diminished, but, rather, multiplied.
And what great Joy, indeed, we have to share! By
His Conception and Birth from the Virgin, Our Lord
has united our humanity to His divinity! What could
be better Good News than this?
By His Baptism in the Jordan, He has sanctified
all the waters of the world, making what was before
cursed and corrupt because of man's Fall, now capable
of being the means of man's regeneration through
Holy Baptism. And at His Baptism was revealed the
Mystery of the Holy Trinity: The Father's voice spoke
from heaven, the Son was seen in the waters, and
the Spirit descended in the form of a dove. Thus
God is revealed as Love, for God is a Community of
Three Divine Persons in One Godhead.
This Incarnate Love and this Trinitarian Oneness
are God's great gift to us this Holy Season. Let
us both preserve it in ourselves and give it to others,
by deeds and words of Christian Love!
A blessed 2008 to all!!!
The Central Event of All History
In the history of mankind, there is no event
greater and more joyful than the incarnation
and coming of the Son of God into the world.
It is an act of the
endless love of God the Father, Who so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.
The incarnation of the Son of God from the
Virgin Mary changed the world for the
better in a radical way: It gave men
a new way of thinking, ennobled
their
morals and directed world events along a new course. It brought men power
to struggle against sin, reconciled men
to God, brought about the adoption of
men by the Father, and regenerated their whole nature. It poured a stream
of divine
life into the corrupted human organism and thereby brought eternal life to
men. For these reasons, the incarnation of the Son of God proved to be
at
the very
center of world events, and chronology is reckoned relative to it - before
and after the Nativity of Christ. The celebration of the Nativity of Christ
became
a most joyous festival of believing humanity.
God became man in order to unite us with Himself,
to join our feeble, diseased human nature
to His divinity. The Nativity of Christ testifies
to the fact
that we attain the ultimate aim of our life not only by faith and by striving
for
good, but chiefly by the regenerating power of the incarnate Son of God,
with Whom we are united.
- from an article
on the Nativity by the late Bishop Alexander
(Mileant)