"I bind unto myself this day..." (Mid-week Message)

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

January 9, 2013

“I bind this day to me forever,

By power of faith, Christ’s Incarnation.” 

         (From “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”)

“I will celebrate the incarnation, God taking flesh, claiming the material and fleshly world as a fit dwelling-place, destroying the boundary between the holy and the earthly.  In Jesus’ time, meticulous religious people depended on this boundary for their identity.  They needed to know who was out so that they could feel that they were in.  Jesus defied this motive and subverted the religious boundaries, paying for this with his life.”  (John Davies, A Song Every Morning: Dedication and defiance with St. Patrick’s Breastplate, p. 12)

Having completed the Advent-Christmas cycle of preparation and incarnation, we now are the Epiphany season of celebrating Jesus as God’s manifestation in the world, the real world we live in, the boisterous, lusty, busy, and at times depressing world we deal with on a day-to-day basis.  Celebrating Christ’s incarnation means recognizing God in ourselves, in others, and in all of life.  It means breaking down the boundaries that divide us, including the distinction between “religious” and “secular.”  It means letting God be manifested through us.   

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+