These past few weeks, we celebrated two of the most important feasts in the history of salvation. It was at the Nativity of Christ, where the Church as a whole proclaimed “God is With Us!” and revealed the truth, that our Lord humbled Himself to becoming His creation…and in doing so, raised up our fallen flesh so that we could once again live up to our potential as adopted Sons and Daughters of Christ.
Shortly there after, the Church once again gathered together to celebrate Theophany, this incredible feast day where, as we sing in the Matins service, “God is the Lord and has REVEALED Himself to us!” He came to the river Jordan, and the world for the first time heard God’s voice thundering from above, saying: “This is my beloved Son, of whom I am well pleased!” And the very first words out of God revealed on earth: Repent… Metanoia…CHANGE yourselves.
In the Epistle, St. Paul lays out the path for us quite beautifully. He speaks on the gifts of Grace that was given to us. God has given us the Church and all of her mysteries and all of her gifts, so that we might serve Him, and in the process, become mature human beings, according to the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is our target…the goal of our lives that has been revealed to us on this Holy Theophany.
We are beginning this week our first semester of our regular catechism class, which shares the name of what our Lord has commanded us to do in the Gospels: “Metanoia”. I chose this title for our course together, because it ultimately describes what our lives in Christ are meant to be about: Change!
I thought it fitting this morning to offer those that are taking it, perhaps the most important mindset that we have to have when deepening our faith. I heard this story a few years ago when I was attending a Roman Catholic Baptism of Matushka Laura’s second cousin, about a local Church who was trying to raise some funds for a building project. They decided to have a dinner party for a fund raiser, and two of the attendees that evening was a famous vocalist and his much younger sister. The two siblings were complete opposites of each other. The vocalist had spent his life as a Christian, always attending the Sunday services, but his life’s focus was more on his career as a singer. He was immensely talented and was always being asked to sing in operas or be a part of professional choirs.
The vocalist’s younger sister was completely different than her older and more talented brother. She was more reserved and quiet, not having any special musical skill. She dedicated her life and her free time to volunteering around the community, helping out at soup kitchens and visiting those in the hospital. She attended as many services as she could, because she said that it was the only place in the world where she could find a sense of peace.
At this dinner party, as the tables were being cleared, the host of the party insisted that the vocalist sing something for them. He got up on stage and tried to think of something he had heard from his time in Church, and in a loud voice began to sing a beautiful rendition of Psalm 23 (The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...) After he finished, those in attendance gave him a huge round of applause and congratulated him on a job well done!
One of the other guests began to egg on the vocalist’s younger sister, insisting that she go up on stage and do the same. After some convincing, she went up on stage and began to quietly and slowly sing the same psalm as her older brother.
As she finished, the entire congregation was left in stunned silence. The priest stood up to break the silence, went over to the young girl, and placing his hands on her shoulders, he said: “The vocalist may have known the psalm and the music…but this girl knows the Shepherd…”.
I use this story to illustrate for us this morning, that just hearing a homily from a priest or reading about Holy Theophany in a book will ultimately get us no-where. When we begin our Metanoia course, I will remind everyone that you cannot truly understand our faith, or draw closer to God by reading a book or listening to a podcast. The only way to draw closer to God, to become TRUE HUMAN BEINGS, is to KNOW Christ the True Shepherd through experience. Learning to reject this weak material existence that plagues 21st century mankind, and to draw closer to God through the Church…the partaking of the sacraments…by coming into communion with each other…and by deep and contemplative prayer. This is how we come to know God, and be guided through this temporal life.
If we can hearken back to our days as a child, we remember that it was easier to hold and be guided by the hand of someone we know, someone we are comfortable with, rather than reaching out to the hand of a stranger. So it is our job as Christians, especially as we begin our work and our studies in Metanoia, to develop and strengthen that relationship with God…allowing us to echo the words of that Psalm 23 that the little girl sang, and confidently say:
“Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because you are always with me.”