And Finally, an Encyclical from our Metropolitan
CHRISTMAS
ENCYCLICAL
2007
“And
behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord
shone around them…”
Luke
2:9
Dearly
Beloved,
Beautifully
adorned Christmas trees and lighted windows, glowing with resplendent lights
symbolically reflecting the glory of the Lord, and with silent joy emanating
from the message proclaimed by the angel of the Lord, are telling us once again
about God’s wondrous miracle of His coming to abide with
us.
And
what a great need there is for our modern world to experience such a miracle
– that is, for God to come and abide with us! We already have quite a
collection of everything else in our midst; powerful nations that fear one
another; plutocrats, atheists and nihilists, terrorists and pacifists. The world
has had more than enough of their predictions, their threats, their promises,
their protests, their demonstrations and their false heroism and ideologies,
which have created millions of refugees and victims of
violence.
And
what has been the result of all of this? The skies have been deluged with loud,
clamoring voices reverberating like thunder and lightning “about impending
evils and calamities to take place in our universe”
Luke
21:26. Streams, lakes and oceans
have been polluted by poisonous substances and filled with tears from a
suffering humanity. The skies have been covered with a haze of charged particles
erupting from daily clashes of political ideas and ideologies. And we human
beings are facing the danger of losing our very sense of direction by estranging
ourselves from the will of God, even to the degree of verifying what was written
in Holy Scriptures a long time ago: “There is no one to show kindness, no,
not one.” Romans
3:12.
Powerful
nations are continuing to arm themselves with weapons of destruction; so are the
small nations. Nothing surpasses the economic value placed on exports by
powerful nations than exporting fear and greed. And nothing surpasses the value
placed on imported products by small nations than the weapons and armaments
which they purchase from the super-powers. Everyone speaks about the just
distribution of wealth, but no one is doing anything about it. Everyone is
concerned about the hungry children of the world, the dispossessed people of the
world, and yet civil strife and warfare is the answer of the powerful
ones.
Human
history has not witnessed such fear and insecurity as today; so little respect
for the truth; such a low expression of loyalty, love and compassion; for wisdom
and prudence; so much impertinence; so many contradictions and inconsistencies,
so many instances of insane actions, violence, injustice and total disregard for
human
life.
How
can one be hopeful and optimistic about the future? The great philosopher of
ancient times, Socrates, was perhaps right on target and very contemporary
when he confronted the lawlessness of his era by telling his fellow citizens
that they would remain in a sleepy trance of corruption and depravity unless God
sends someone to take care of them and save them from grief and sorrow. Today,
more than ever before, we need Christ, the Messiah, the One Who was sent by
God.
This
encyclical was prefaced by a quotation from the Gospel of Luke: “And
behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone
around them.”, because in the reevaluation of our lives and the cleansing
and renewing of ourselves, there will appear an angel, a messenger from the God
of love, and the glory of the Lord will blaze like lightning in the darkness of
our lives. What is needed from us, however, is a complete turnabout from the
direction we are heading. We need to be resolute when we say, “Let us lift
our hearts.” We need to fulfill what our Lord advised His disciples when
He said: “When you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of
your feet.” Matthew
10:14. We need to extract
ourselves from situations or conditions into which we ourselves have fallen
because of our sinfulness and our shortcomings, and we need to sever all ties
with what is evil and detrimental in this world. Let us also shake the dust from
our feet, and let us relegate sinfulness, which hampers our spiritual growth
with its strangular grip on our soul, to its proper place – in the past,
discarded, abandoned and
forgotten.
This
turning around is true repentance, if we agree on its importance and need, and
is an action to be taken by each and every one of us. Having experienced that
beautiful new life, let us then pass it along first to our families, friends,
fellow parishioners and all in our community and society at large. We have had
more than enough of the pessimistic inward views of life and the super-abundance
of negative, critical outlooks on life that are so typical in our day and age.
They lead us nowhere, and certainly not to more promising horizons or brighter
tomorrows.
In
our Orthodox Faith, there is in contrast to all these, a truly positive outlook
on life. In our Faith there is a resounding call and invitation to a spiritual
renewal, a meaningful, moral reevaluation and regeneration of our entire being,
and a total rejection of the false and prejudiced notion that others are always
at fault or responsible for our own faults and
offences.
If
we firmly believe this and proceed with determination in a fully Christian
lifestyle and setting, then it will not be long before we encounter both: the
angel of the Lord standing next to us and the glory of the Lord shining around
about us and throughout the whole world. I hope and pray that we may all be
blessed this year with such a joyous and holy celebration of
Christmas.
With
Love in the Incarnate
Logos,
+GERASIMOS
Metropolitan
of San Francisco
Posted: Wednesday - December 19, 2007 at 07:45 PM
