"LIFE LIVED IN FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD"

 30th December 2021

THURSDAY, CHRISTMAS OCTAVE 

(1 Jn 2: 12-17); (Lk 2: 36-40)

"LIFE LIVED IN FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD"

Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, today as we have had listened to  the Scared Sacred Scriptures, we are summoned to keep on remembering that this is still presently a part of the Christmas season, and all that we have heard today advised us that God in His consistently suffering and preeminent love for us all have given us the ideal present in Jesus, His most beloved Son, Whom He shipped off the world to be part for our lives, to be the Bridge that carried us nearer to Him and aided in rejoining and accommodating us to Himself. Time after time we have been up to speed in our bustling life plans and overlooked every one of these, disregarding God and His consistently liberal love.

Many of us have a very less ideas of prayer, such as the recitation of devotional formulas, novenas. There is much more than this to. Hence, our whole life must be a sincere prayer to our heavenly Father. This is what we learn from the significant prophetess St. Anna. Her spiritual life becomes a shining example for all of us, a best example of a living a life sacrifice to God. What does it indicates for us actually. Everyone has its own role to play in the mission of salvation. Therefore we are called to cultivate a healthy relationship with God through the instrumentality of Prayer. We also find that Jesus Himself set an example by praying to God the Father, that how we can establish our intimate relation with God. Thus we are instructed to be steadfast and regular in our day to day prayer life.

In our first reading today, selected from the Letter of St. John, the Apostle reminded all the devoted to recall their Christian vocation, that is to follow the Lord and His way, to love Him more than this world, by their words and deeds, and not to surrender to the temptations of experience in addition to other things. St. John reminded us all since it is exceptionally simple for us to love the world more than we love God, for the world frequently offers us simple delights and speedy fulfillment that can induce us to want a greater amount of them.

St. John assisted us all to remember that the Word of God, the Word of Life has happened upon us and stays in our midst. He is the Divine Word Incarnated, the Word of God made flesh, the Son of God brought into the world through His Mother Mary as the Son of Man, going into our reality and gracing us with His affection, the ideal sign of God’s Love, made completely unmistakable and agreeable, that we all might know the reality of God, His love and ever liberal sympathy towards us. It is this multitude of that we have been commending this Christmas season.

It is a similar Jesus Christ Whom as a young boy, was brought to the Temple of Jerusalem, the House of God to be proposed to God, as in agreement to the Law of Moses, as we heard in our Gospel section both today and yesterday. The old prophetess Anna affirmed again what the elderly person of God Simeon had effectively spoken in regards to the Child Jesus, before His people, Mary and St. Joseph, who heard how this Child to be sure would turn into the Savior of all and astonish all by His power and deeds. This equivalent Child would later on develop to turn into the One to bear the Cross of affliction.

For Christmas is without a doubt indistinguishable from the Passion of the Lord and His Resurrection at Easter. Through Christmas and all that we commend, we remember God Who has made Himself significant to us, and partaking in our human life, taking steps to take upon Himself our sufferings in general, our human sufferings because of our offences, which would not have been imaginable without the Incarnation, and bore it upon Himself as the commendable contribution in reparation for our transgressions. Through that demonstration of incomparable and most benevolent love, God had recovered us and saved us, guaranteeing us who keep our confidence in Him, the affirmation of timeless life and genuine bliss.

However, as referenced simply prior, it is exceptionally simple for us to disregard every one of these, and fail to remember why we call ourselves as Christians in any case. In a world loaded up with a ton of narrow-mindedness and different allurements, of joys of the material, of abundance and greatness, of distinction and impact, power and others, we regularly sidelined the Lord and disregarded His always liberal love, picking rather to pay attention to Satan and every one of the seductress' enticements, trusting in their lies rather than God's reality and consistently suffering love for us.

Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, today as we keep on praising the delight of Christmas, let us generally help ourselves and each other to remember the explanation of our festivals and cheering. Let us not be conveniently influenced and lured by the abundances of common delights and on second thought look for the genuine ecstasy and joy that can be found in God alone. Leave us in isolation great good examples to each other and rouse everybody whom we experience in our regular routines with the light and any desire for Our Lord Jesus Christ. In these dull and troublesome times, let us carry trust and support to other people, particularly to the people who are enduring and miserable without anybody to reassure or help them.

May the Lord keep on directing us and favor us in all our merchandise works and attempts, and may He proceed to rouse and urge us to be the carriers of His light and trust in our present reality. May our love for the Lord proceed to develop further in spite of the difficulties and preliminaries we might experience throughout everyday life. Amen.