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Get into the ring! How this works...

This is easy! Each week on Thursday I post my homily idea...my main focus for preaching this coming Sunday. What I am hoping for is a reaction from people in the pews. Does my "focus" connect with your daily life, faith, and experience? Or not? Either affirm the direction I am going in (by giving me an example from your life) or challenge me, ask for clarification! Questions are the best! Reaction rather than reflection is what I'm looking for here. Don't be afraid, get in the ring. Ole!



Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Epiphany - Feast Four of Christmas!

(preaching at 4pm and 11am Masses)
The Epiphany (the word means manifestation) is the fourth feast in this beautiful season of the Incarnation of our God. Humanity itself is now the vehicle by which God is revealed explicitly. Humanity was created in the "image and likeness" of God but it was not until this final age, the fullness of time that God is manifest (revealed) by man as man. Humanity is now entrusted with a higher calling. This human life of ours is the manifestation (or ought to be) of the eternal life which is God. As Paul says to the Ephesians, each human life is now a "stewardship of God’s grace." Wow!
Too few understand that their humanity is revelation of God's life. And all of us fail at times to perceive and thus receive the human life of others as it is - revelation of God. Look how God is entrusted today to the pagan Magi. Look even how the "old devil" Herod is given some role to play in the Magi arriving at the birth place. All human flesh radiates the presence and power of God. Epiphany.
Are there aspects of your human life that challenge this teaching? Are there human beings who hide the fact that they are stewards of God's grace? I guess that's all part of what makes life in Christ so engaging.
Why not tap on "comment" below and leave me an anonymous reaction. Or email me at (frete@saint-albert.org). Love to receive some manifestation of God's grace through you - afterall, you are its steward.

Check back here (Estok Homily Library - on right) for audio versions of these actual homilies.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I especially like your line, “Humanity is now entrusted with a higher calling.” I think we/I too often think of human and divine as such separate states of being. As the divine being so removed, so out of reach that the two never meet. So I like your reflection very much in its reminder to us that our “humanity is the revelation of God’s life.” Rather than seeing the divine as a distant God whom we hope to one day meet, you remind us here that it is this God who loves so much that his love poured out of himself, thereby creating us. While it is only Jesus who perfectly manifests this love, we all have been entrusted with this incredible goodness and are called to live it out, expressing it to one another, and lending a hand in restoring God’s creation all around us. It can be hard to believe, or easy to forget, that we are in fact called to be holy…that holiness is already a part of us and through baptism we are obliged to care and nurture it. I find this to be one of the beautiful things about Church…that it is here we are reminded of this calling and given so many opportunities to live it out in real and tangible ways.

Fr ed said...

Anon 1 says it well. As the preacher last evening the Word took an interesting turn. The emphasis was much more about this higher calling of human flesh. The Word is at work in the preacher even as he preaches. EE

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