Prayer for you -- "an intensifying thirst for divine intimacy"

​This Sunday we consider Jesus in the beginning of his ministry according to Luke (4:14-21).  Jesus ministers “filled with the power of the Spirit”.  But, as St. Cyril of Alexandria states, “Jesus performed miracles not from any external power, and from having, as it were, the acquired grace of the Holy Spirit, as other saints; but rather, as being by nature the Son of God, and partaking of all things which are the Father’s, He exercises as by His own power and operation that grace which is of the Holy Spirit.” “But”, continues St. Cyril, “it was right that from that time He should become known, and that the mystery of His humanity should shine forth among those who were of the seed of Israel.”    

Our lives are really about celebrating and engaging and falling ever more deeply in love with this mysterious God-(hu)man, Jesus, Who, in humbling himself, communicates to us the fullness of God.  In reading this Sunday’s gospel, St. Ambrose comments: “The Lord in every thing so humbled Himself to obedience, that He did not despise even the office of a reader. As it follows, Jesus rose to read, and there was delivered to him the book. He received the book indeed, that He might show Himself to be the same who spoke in the Prophets, and that He might illumine those who say that there is one God of the Old Testament, another of the New; or who say that Christ had His beginning from a virgin. For how did He begin from a virgin, who spoke before that virgin was?”  How privileged we are to be called to relationship with Jesus, and given the Holy Spirit so to be able to respond “with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind”.  (Luke 10:27)
 
My prayer for you, as we approach the blessed season of Lent, is an intensifying thirst for divine intimacy, for this privileged relationship with Christ, a relationship which spills over into the relationships between us, making us His Body.  Let us bear in mind, in all situations, our calling, knowing that Jesus Himself takes the initiative and that Jesus makes it possible.  Let us bear in mind that we are His Body, Sisters and Brothers, not because of affinity, but because of His loving doing.  

Yours in Him,  

Fr. Dominique
Priest-in-Charge