euphemos

To self or others…

I can’t see you; all I can see is the Son.

Communion only reaches its true depths when it is supported and surrounded by adoration. The Eucharist Presence in the tabernacle does not set another view of the Eucharist alongside or against the Eucharistic celebration, but simply signifies its complete fulfillment. For this Presence has the effect, of course, of keeping the Eucharist forever in church. The church never becomes a lifeless space but is always filled with the presence of the Lord, which comes out of the celebration, leads us into it, and always makes us participants in the cosmic Eucharist. What man of faith has not experienced this? A church without the Eucharistic Presence is somehow dead, even then it invites people to pray. But a church in which the eternal light is burning before the tabernacle is always alive, is always something more than a building made of stones. In this place the Lord is always waiting for me, calling me, wanting to make me ‘eucharistic.’ In this way, he prepared me for the Eucharist, sets me in motion toward His return.  (The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 90).

Don’t miss

Infant Baptism in Early Church History
by Dennis Kastens

available at http://www.mtio.com/articles/aissar40.htm. This Lutheran pastor presents an excellent summary of the history of infant baptism in the early church.

So many of us are scared of the physical, spiritual or emotional dark, or at least the things that might be lurking in that darkness.

Did you notice in today’s mass readings that the Lord, our light and our salvation, speaks out of the darkness? I often look for the Lord when things are all light and good, and he speaks there too, but so often he speaks most profoundly in the darkness. The Father’s most profound message of love, that of Christ on the cross, was delivered in darkness. The Son’s most profound message of love, “not my will, but thine”, was likewise delivered in the dark of night. Perhaps the Spirit’s most profound message of love, “today is born to you a savior”, was also delivered in the dark of night.

Whether the darkness is in our external circumstances or internally, as we recognize the darkness of our sin and disobedience, we can take comfort from today’s message that the Lord, our light and our salvation, speaks even out of darkness.

I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD with courage;
be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.

(Psalm 27:13-14)

This morning’s Office of Readings is particularly awesome, so I’d like to share a section of this commentary on the Gospel of John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria.

…I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven, and it rested on him…

Christ “received the Spirit” in so far as he was man, and in so far as man could receive the Spirit. He did so in such a way that, though he is the Son of God the Father, begotten of his substance, even before the incarnation, indeed before all ages, yet he was not offended at hearing the Father say to him after he had become man: You are my Son; today I have begotten you.

The Father says of Christ, who was God, begotten of him before the ages, that he has been “begotten today” for the Father is to accept us in Christ as his adopted children. The whole of our nature is present in Christ, in so far as he is man. So the Father can be said to give the Spirit again to the Son, though the Son possesses the Spirit as his own, in order that we may receive the Spirit in Christ. The son therefore took to himself the seed of Abraham, as Scripture says, and became like his brothers in all things.

The only-begotten Son receives the Spirit, but not for his own advantage, for the Spirit is his, and is givin in him and through him, as we have already said. He receives it to renew our nature in its entirety and to make it whole again, for in becoming man he took our entire nature to him self. If we reason correctly, and also use the testimony of Scripture, we can see that Christ did not receive the Spirit for himself, but rather for us in him; for it is also through Christ that all gifts come down to us.