{"id":361,"date":"2014-01-13T13:16:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T18:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=361"},"modified":"2014-02-03T10:33:06","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T15:33:06","slug":"sunday-january-12-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=361","title":{"rendered":"Sunday January 12, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Your baptism in the Jordan, O Lord, worship of the Trinity was revealed, for the Father\u2019s voice bore witness to You, call You His \u201cbeloved son\u201d and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truth of these words. O Christ God, Who appeared and enlightened the world, glory be to You.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This weekend continues our celebration of the feast of Theophany. It is perhaps the greatest of the various manifestations God has made of Himself to humankind. It is the event that began Jesus\u2019 ministry and, since we see Him as our Teacher and Master, we embrace with faith what it\u00a0 reveals to us.
\nWhat does it reveal? It reveals to us that God, when he created humanity, did have an understanding of how humans should think and behave in order to understand the meaning and purpose of life on earth. It did reveal that this earthly existence is, in effect, a place where we can learn how to be spiritual, human beings.
\nHow do we know this? Our reading\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 today from St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel states this: From that time on Jesus began to proclaim this theme: \u201cReform your lives! The kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d\u00a0 So our earthly existence is all about learning how to be the spiritual-human beings that God intended when He created us.
\nThis idea is reinforced by the message we receive from Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. He states: Each of us has\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 received God\u2019s favor in the measure in which Christ bestows it\u2026.till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God\u2019s Son.\u201d When we become one in faith and knowledge of God\u2019s Son, we begin to understand how to live and learn how to be God\u2019s children. God the Father called Jesus, the God-man, His beloved Son. In saying this God revealed to us that we\u00a0 humans are His beloved children – sons and daughters – and He has brought us into existence at this time in order to: (1) complete His creation, and (2) allow us the greatest opportunity to spiritually grow.
\nIt is my sincerest belief that each of us is born at a particular point in time and have certain people enter into our life for the purpose of helping us spiritually\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 develop our ability to be God\u2019s children.
\nIn the Divine Liturgy we articulate our understanding that God the Father so loved His world that He gave His Son so that the whole divine plan concerning us could be completed. The whole divine plan concerning us is this: We are given various opportunities in life and various people in order to help us come to a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 true understanding of the meaning and\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 purpose of life. We believe that God wills all of us to come to the fullness of life and we believe that He has done everything possible, even coming into the world in the Person of His Son Jesus, to help us come to this understanding. His only\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 desire is that we might come to know Him as our loving and caring Father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Your baptism in the Jordan, O Lord, worship of the Trinity was revealed, for the Father\u2019s voice bore witness to You, call You His \u201cbeloved son\u201d and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truth of … 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":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-liturgy-of-the-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","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=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}