CONCEPTION OF NEW AND TRUE SELF

THURSDAY AFTER EPIPHANY SUNDAY

1 Jn 4:19-5:4; Ps 72:1-2,14-15,17; Lk 4:14-22

Fulfilling the Word of God in our Lives

The Church prays that each of her children may be bathed in the radiance of the light of the Redeemer, who is the Eternal Word of God. The radiance for which she prays is gradually attained by all who believe in the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word and allow their faith to enlighten their everyday reality and dealings. As we have noted, this is the only way to give birth to a new self we conceived in our union with the Word. Because what we conceive in faith is conceived in union with the Word, it is light from light and we will deliver the new self to be like the Son of Man, for we conceived it in the power of the Holy Spirit. The better and known self is the incarnate of the Son of Man. Since the new self is conceived in the better knowledge of the Father’s love for us demonstrated in the Son’s incarnation and dwelling among, it will live in love and not in the former darkness of hatred caused by ignorance of God’s love. The reason why this holy season of Christmas is a season of great rejoicing and love is that these mysteries are put anew before us for our consideration and re-conception of our true selves. The darkness of sin remains in our lives because we have not taken time to be with the Word that became flesh so that we may conceive a new self.  

Just as a bride cannot conceive a child of her own without the knowledge of her groom, in the same way, we cannot conceive and bring forth our true self without encompassing the Word, who became flesh to betroth us to himself. Till now we have conceived and brought forth false selves because we have been playing the whore with realities that are not Christ, our heavenly groom. Saint John writes that we display hateful selves because we have never known our heavenly groom. “We are to love because God loved us first. Anyone who says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen.” If we have seen God in the Son of Mary, we will surely recognise him in our brothers and sisters. Thus, failure to see God in our brothers and sisters is clear proof that we failed to see him in the Son of Mary, as the Magi did when they prostrated before him. About the conception of the new self, John writes: “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been begotten by God.”

To conceive a false self and bring it to birth daily in sin and ignorance of God and his will is to be a prisoner of evil and forces of darkness; It is to be blind and stumble along the path of life in the noon light of the heavenly Sun. One who chooses to walk in the darkness of unbelief cannot be covered in the radiance of the heavenly light of the Eternal Word. The Gospel of Luke tells us that the Word became man to shine the heavenly light upon us. “Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it is written: ‘The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.’ He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down.” What the prophets foretold is being fulfilled in our days. The Eternal Word lives among us, and we can now conceive him and bring him forth in our lives individually. Mary's motherhood has given us the ability to conceive and bear Jesus Christ. It is the freedom promised to all who received him and became children of God by a re-conception of self in his image and likeness. All who fall prostrate before him in faith are made into the new Jerusalem and the bride of the Lamb. The freedom to receive or reject him is our own.

Let us pray: O God, who through your Son raised up eternal light for all nations, grant that your people may come to acknowledge the full splendour of their Redeemer, that, bathed ever more in his radiance, they may reach everlasting glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.