Happy Sunday morning, friends!
I pray you are well and filled with peace this Sunday morning.
Today is Father’s Day! Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there!
I’d like to share a section of Becoming a Healing Presence again. A beautiful, encouraging section, my favorite section of the whole book!
The title of this section is Subtraction Leads to Joy within the chapter I have been focusing on lately, Chapter 4: Vocation as a Way of Life.
Our unique vocation is to live, moment by moment, the way Christ wants us to live. He is the Way. He came to show us the way. And He told us how to find the way. He said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Clearly Jesus wants us to have joy and to spread joy. When we spread joy, we give others strength and hope, thereby becoming a healing presence.
Dr. Albert Rossi shares with us quite a bit the words of Father Alexander Schmemann. Fr. Alexander tells us that the gospel of Luke opens with great joy and ends with great joy and that joy is the Christian foundation.
‘For behold’, the angel said to the shepherds, ‘I bring you good tidings of great joy!’
Luke 2:10
And they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy!
Luke 24:52
In a post back in August 2019 I shared and excerpt from a talk Fr. Alexander gave that spoke of this in better detail.
Dr. Rossi writes many Fr. Schememann quotes. I shared one of them last year in a picture quote. Here it is again.
Dr. Albert Rossi goes on to say
Our vocation is to be real witnesses to the joy and peace of the Holy Spirit, to that new life of which we are made partakers in the Church.
An Orthodox icon shows light as coming from within the person depicted. Similarly, we can have joy come from within us. We can be suffused with joy by God’s grace. To suffuse means to spread over or through something, to fill, to saturate, to permeate, to imbue. We saturate the space we occupy with the light of joy.
Father Schmemann said, “A Christian is one who, wherever he looks, finds Christ and rejoices in Him. This joy transforms all human plans and projects, decisions and actions, making all his mission[vocation] the sacrament of the world’s return to Him who is the life of the world.”
This is what I desire with all my being! To see Christ everywhere and to rejoice and to be transformed by that. That is what this journey is all about.
Resurrection Reminder for the Week!
Print your Resurrection Reminder PDF! Just click the image above.
In the Shop
Currently working on some new projects! One is a set of cards for “Many Years”. General well wishes and blessings.
We will also have some note cards back in stock soon! One of my favorites!
Check back here often or go follow my Etsy shop so you don’t miss any new products!
Have a beautiful week! Seek light and joy, be light and joy!
Kindler of Joy! 