Articles

Day 4 2018 (1st Thursday of the Holy Great Fast )

How? Seek to grow in the likeness of God

“As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.” (Ps 17:15)

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“Christ did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfil them. He called His followers, and He calls us, to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. That doesn’t mean that we will follow more laws than they did, but that the meaning and purpose of the Law will be fulfilled in us: that we will grow in the likeness of God, that we will be united fully with Him through love; that His love will overflow into every relationship that we have and will become present in the world through us.  In other words, we will become holy through the love of God and neighbour; indeed, that’s what true holiness means, to be purified in love and union with God and with one another.

Though we may not yet have the eyes to see it, our entire life in the Church—and every bit of our life in the world as Christians—presents an opportunity to grow in holiness through the love of God and neighbour. Indeed, that’s the point of it all:  of our services, our prayers at home, our fasting, our feasting, our generosity to the poor, our forgiveness of others, our marriages and family life, our recreation, and all our work on the job or at school.  They are all part of fulfilling our most fundamental calling: to grow in the likeness of God, to become partakers of the Divine Nature, to grow in loving union with the Holy Trinity and with one another.

When we make the time to pray daily and to come to Liturgy on Sundays and Feast days; when we confess our sins and prepare conscientiously to receive Communion; when we wrestle with our passions through fasting or other forms of self-denial; when we humble ourselves to serve others and to ask for their forgiveness when we offend them; when we live faithfully—though imperfectly—as Christ’s followers, we grow in the love of God and neighbour, and we shine a bit more brightly with the holy light of Christ.  Then we grow in union with the Lord and His righteousness and, despite our unworthiness, we share in Christ’s fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets. That is what our life as human beings is about, and it is possible because the Son of God really has become one of us so that we may become more like Him, being truly perfected in love.”

Fr. Philip LeMasters

Source: suscopts.org