What has Christ revealed to each of us this past year: Is our faith strengthened or was it weakened? Can we consider ourselves to be the young Saul of Tarsus, persecuting the Christian faith or the “new man,” St. Paul the Apostle, willing to suffer for the Gospel of Christ? Are we willing to die for our faith like St. Stephen?

This week, there will be so many distractions. Last minute shopping…cooking for our families…figuring out plans on how to come together in this unique time…all of these things are great in and of themselves, but from a Divine Perspective, they do not matter.

“We teach and pass on holiness not by the words that come out of our mouth, but by the way that we live our life. We might ask, why is this important? Because in a few moments, all of us, our children included, will be approaching the Holy Altar in what is our own personal “entrance into the temple” feast day. All of us will be approaching God Himself in the chalice…in a very real sense, approach the Holy of Holies.”

Prepare O Bethlehem, for Eden has been opened to all! Adorn yourself O Ephratha, for the tree of life blossoms forth from the Virgin in the cave! Her womb is a spiritual paradise planted with the Divine Fruit: For if we eat of it, we shall live forever and not die like Adam. Christ comes to restore the image which He made in the beginning.

“Today, I as a human being can live in accordance with the Divine Life God has offered me. I can go pray, do things for my neighbor, feed the hungry, worship God with all of my heart, but then I have the freedom to wake up tomorrow on the wrong side of bed, get angry at someone, spit in their face, disregard everything before turning around the next day and restoring the Image of God that is within me. This is sometimes the cycle of our relationship with God…but what angelic freedom reminds us of is that there will come a time when we will lose that ability to change.”