Month: January 2019

HAPPY LIGHT

I was told last week that for $39.95 I could purchase a “Happy Light.” I immediately went wireless to Amazon and ordered two! That seems like a reasonable amount of money to find true happiness! This year has been darker than most with more precipitation in our area than usual, breaking many monthly precipitation records. With the lack of ample sunlight, my serotonin level is low and my attitude seems to be wilting a bit. I plugged this source of happiness into the wall outlet and the light flooded my brain with 10,000 Lux UV blocked bright full spectrum white light therapy, which is recommended by professionals, whomever they are? But is it true happiness?

 

Light is such an important necessity in our lives. Can you imagine living a life without it? Light provides for our food source through its energy and helps keep me from injury as I would be constantly bumping into things, stumbling and falling. Perhaps this bright happy light is helping my health and my mood but does it bring about true happiness?

 

From the Gospel this morning we heard: “the people who sit in darkness saw a great light; and to those who sit in the region and shadow of death, light rose up to them.” [Mt. 4:16] Our engagement with sin leads us into darkness and out of the Uncreated Light. “Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.” (St. John Chrysostom) So we need to become more like Him, more like the pure Light, which is true happiness!

 

There is hope for us in that Christ has come to wash away our darkness and decay in the pure waters of Theophany, “for the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which hath been lost.” [Lk. 19:10] Saint John says: “He who is the true Light has come into the world.” (Jn 3:19) And In our baptism, Christ clothes us in a garment of light to cover our nakedness, which had reduced us to the slavery of sin of our mortal flesh in a world overwhelmed in death and decay. St. Nikolai Velimirorich writes: “Repentance is the abandoning of all false paths that have been trodden by men’s feet, and men’s thoughts and desires, and a return to the new path: Christ’s path.”

 

Of course there is a cost for this pure joy found on Christ’s path and it is a lot more than $39.95; it will cost you your life, 100% of it! Dying daily to the Holy Waters of baptism, over and over again, or as Saint Paisius put it: “I wish you many years — but not for them to be too happy, because happiness in the world isn’t really so healthy. When a man is too happy in this world, he forgets God and forgets death.” Turn from choices that take you away from the One who created you through humility and repentance and daily increase your time basking with the SON who baptized you in the waters of Jordan!

 

Fr. Gabriel Weller 1/20/2019

OUR INNOCENTS

The Gospel writer today takes us back to a time of great sorrow, a time when greed and pride demanded the elimination of all male children under the age of two. It was a time when a king wanting to defend his throne from the plans made by the Almighty at any cost. The Gospel writer records it as this: “A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” [Mt. 2:18]

 

It was a sad time then but King Herod is still alive today in our communities, in our Congress and even in the hearts of some of our judges. We see this great travesty in the destruction of our Holy Innocents in the name of convenience and science. These folks claiming to be God inform us when life begins. Our True God reminds the great profit Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee”. Don’t let your free-will shackle you with the scoundrel King Herod. We do not make babies, He does! “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27)

 

The Psalmist wrote: “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. “(Psalm 139:13-16)

Perhaps the person with the ability to find the cure for cancer has been delimbed by our legal butchers in the abortion clinics. Perhaps the one to find a way to feed the worlds hungry has been sucked out of the womb and discarded in a dumpster. Perhaps the one sent to bring about world peace has been ripped to pieces and sold for science experiments. “Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. (Psalm 105[106]35-40)

 

Trusting in God means to let Him work for good in all things. Maybe we have made bad choices and a pregnancy is impossible now in our eyes, but truly a child is a gift from God. In Him all things are possible and in our submission, He can help us find our salvation. We cannot continue to allow this Christian nation to turn to the evil one. In our humility, we can repent and change this direction. But if not, His wrath will be felt upon this nation for generations to come!

 

Fr. Gabriel Weller 01-13-2019