{"id":306,"date":"2014-01-06T15:27:48","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T20:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=306"},"modified":"2014-02-03T10:33:44","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T15:33:44","slug":"being-a-vibrant-parish-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=306","title":{"rendered":"Being a Vibrant Parish – 20131229"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"vibrantparish\"<\/a>Vibrant Christians do not see Christmas as some past event of history but, rather, as something that is actually happening today. Our Church declares the reality of the Lord\u2019s birth in the\u00a0\u00a0 present tense as we do all of the major holy days of the Church. We declare this day: Christ IS Born! Glorify Him! What can we understand by this religious custom?
\nSince it is our understanding that there is no time in the spiritual dimension – for God all things are present – we declare that in some mysterious manner God is being born into our world right now. How do we understand this?
\nThink about it.\u00a0 At this very moment God is keeping all things, us included, in existence. Life is something that always exists. There is no real beginning or end to life since life is God and we share in this life. This\u00a0 being the case, all things are present to God in the universe and His birth, while it took place in the past in our world, is really happening at this present moment in the spiritual realm.\u00a0 To God all is present. There is neither past nor future. There is only the present moment. This is one reason why the spiritual fathers, and some modern-day authors like Eckert Tolle, exhort us to live in the present moment since the present moment is the only thing that is truly real. In fact Tolle wrote a powerful book called The Power of Now. In this book he teaches people how to live in the present moment.
\nliving in the present moment. All of our anxieties, sorrows, disappointments and\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 painful feelings come into existence when we live either in the past or the future. The fact of the matter is that the things of the past and the future are not real and cannot be controlled or changed. All we have is the present moment – the NOW.
\nHow would your life be different if you really believed that Christ was being born RIGHT NOW? Would you be like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds or the Wise Men? Or would you be like Herod?
\nOnce we are able to translate such major feasts as Christmas into the present moment, life changes. Right at this very moment God is coming into our world to help us discover the meaning and purpose of life.\u00a0 Right now He is calling us to come and adore Him! Right now the angels are exhorting us to Glorify Him!
\nWhile it may not necessarily be easy for some to live in the present moment, it is truly something we all do well to attempt to accomplish!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vibrant Christians do not see Christmas as some past event of history but, rather, as something that is actually happening today. Our Church declares the reality of the Lord\u2019s birth in the\u00a0\u00a0 present tense as we do all of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-a-vibrant-parish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":354,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}