RISE AND SHINE!!!
Fr. Anthony Monteleone, HOLY TRINITY, Baton Rouge, LA

“Arise, shine out, for your light has come;
and the glory of the Lord has risen on you!
Look! Though night still covers the earth
and darkness the peoples,
on you the Lord is rising
and over you His glory can be seen.
The nations will come to your light
and kings to your dawning brightness.
Lift up your eyes and look around:
all are assembling and coming towards you.
At this sight you will grow radiant.

“A voice cries out:
In the desert places prepare the way of the Lord!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in;
every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The rugged land shall be made smooth;
the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all humanity shall see it together;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
      (Isaiah 60:1,ff. & 40:3,ff.)

In the course of our preparation time for Christmas, through the words of the Prophet Isaiah, the Lord speaks to us personally --individually and as a community-- to look beyond the deserts and limited horizons and confines of our own small, little, and constricted lives and worlds to the New Dawn, broad and bright horizon and reality that God Himself is preparing for us and inviting us to enter into in this Christmas of 2009 --the two-thousand and ninth anniversary of God’s Eternal, Illuminating, and Life-giving Word becoming flesh in Christ Jesus, in our world!

This year, as in every year, He comes to us to illuminate and expand our horizons ever greater, more fully and deeply --personally, individually, and as a community-- to move us beyond our old small selves in order to embrace and to be embraced by the depth, breadth, and fullness of the New Dawn which Christ is and is preparing us for and preparing for us at Christmas. An ever new birth in Christ on the day of Christ’s birth --if our minds and hearts are open to it, --a new Birth, a new Dawn --for ourselves personally, individually and as a community!

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light;
Upon those who dwelt in the shadow of death,
A Light has shown and blazed forth!
You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing!”
                               (Isaiah 9:1, ff)

Through the ever-renewing coming of Christ at Christmas, may we –responding to His Coming-- personally and together as a community of Orthodox Christians-- reflect and transmit the Light of this New and Wondrous Birth and Dawn that rises with the renewal of Christ’s birth in us!

I ask that at this time --in prayer-- that you, me, we deepen your, mine, our consciousness and awareness of what it is to be an Orthodox Christian --which is more than, deeper than, and unimaginably transcends and is beyond belonging to any one specific or particular group, culture, people or nationality; but which values all, unites all, deepens, joins, illuminates, and transfigures all in the one reality of our new life, our new birth into the new being and reality --all of us together and as one-- in Christ; transformed, made luminous, made one in Him, in His Birth, and through His birth in us. –Each person, each people, each culture, each tradition reflecting and refracting, transmitting and making present His --Christ’s-- Light, Glory, and Joy, each in their own way, in the God-inspired kaleidoscope that is the Orthodox Church and Christianity!

My prayer at this time, as we approach and prepare for Christmas --or, more truly, as Our Lord prepares and approaches us for His renewed birth in and among us at Christmas --that He continue to make shine evermore fully and strongly in and through all of us -- personally, individually, and together as a community-- in our hearts, our minds, and our souls-- that Uncreated Light, which is God Himself ever present, active, shining, and transforming us-- that through His Uncreated Light within and transforming, illuminating and guiding us-- we may be ever more fully a joyous, transforming, and healing light for all whom we encounter and who encounter us --personally in our own individual lives, and together as a community and church.

Being bearers of --and letting ourselves be borne by-- His ever transforming, illuminating, and life-giving Uncreated Light shining within and about us, and transmitting through our encounters --personally and as a community-- that Light to others and to all, penetrating, illuminating, and transforming their darkness, pain, sense of abandonment and feeling worthless and forgotten! --This is the living heart, soul, and essence of what it is to be an Orthodox Christian! This is the dynamic and ever expanding and expansive meaning, life, and reality of the New Light that dawns with Christ’s coming and birth at Christmas!

So, as we say at communion time during the Divine Liturgy; so let us say now as that Great Communion of God with man in Christ’s birth, which is Christmas, approaches us: “Standing in awe before God, with faith and love, draw near”!