Embracing Transition: A Journey of Gratitude and Renewal

And I think one of the great themes of the liturgy and as we come to pray the mass is always being looking for where the life is at for us and bringing new life to all of us. And, you know, most fundamentally life is gift from God. We're creating his image and likeness and our lives in general are gifts from God. And so looking for the ways in which we celebrate our own lives on a daily basis is so important. [00:02:20]

But life is something that always has to be renewed in all of our lives. And so all those sacraments are about renewal and bringing healing and forgiveness and peace to our souls and helping us rightly order the ship in times of our lives when things go astray. And so both of these images are really present to us in the readings this weekend. [00:02:50]

And the passage is about to be a day when the Lord will come into the temple, and he's going to come into the temple with fire, as he basically said. He's going to come and purify. He's going to purify the silver, purify the gold, and that happens through burning, through fire, being burned in the elements that purifies or gets rid of the things that are unpure within it, within the silver, the gold. [00:03:52]

how is it connected with the holy spirit and we pray every time we pray in the name of the father son the holy spirit the trinity and it's the spirit's role as the third person of the trinity to purify to bring grace to dwell within us that the body becomes a temple that god's spirit dwells within us just as god dwelled in the temple in jerusalem and that spirit that's given is to instruct and to guide and to bring out the best in us to set us on a path to help us to know what it is we're called to do and see and how we see god working [00:04:26]

This is what Anna and Simeon both represent here. It's a fascinating passage. Simeon had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he wouldn't die until he saw this moment take place, that the child would come into the temple, that God would come and reign there. He would present himself. [00:05:00]

heart of gratitude for the gift of our own lives and what God has truly bestowed upon all of us, what he invites us into, and how we're called to live in communion with him, and especially his parents and her children. No matter how old your kids are, there's always ways of praying for renewal and blessing and thanksgiving, and that all of our loved ones live in a heart of gratitude, you know, for what we've received and the potential of all of our lives. [00:05:35]

up the Christ child, and obviously we know everything about his life, and we can name all sorts of things that Christ accomplished and showed and revealed to us, and, you know, our own lives are the 100 % potential all the time. You know, there's always a way in which every single day, you know, new life is brought to us, where the Spirit is given to us to move us forward, to be challenged, to purify from the things that are impure in us, and to leave [00:06:02]

behind what once was in order for God to have the law placed in our hearts, that we respond in a better way to what's given to us. And it's something that is called really to never end. It's why we come here week after week after week and we repeat these sacraments, especially confession and Eucharist, as purifying actions in our lives that brings out a better day in each of our lives. [00:06:30]

offering Jesus back to the Father, I don't think there's anything better we can do than having a heart of gratitude for our parents presenting us here, baptizing us, bringing us into the church, our own lives, and the God giving us the gift of life, but challenging ourselves and everyone we know to have that heart of gratitude, to have that heart of realizing the potential for all of us, and to be striving for spiritual excellence, for striving that the Holy Spirit works in us and moves our hearts to grow, to change. [00:06:50]

to be purified, to bring out the best in us, and to realize that, you know, the end goal of heaven is something that, it's a marathon, it's a long run, and it's something that we're all striving to get there, but it's these individual moments, these quiet times of prayer, these times before him where we allow that action of the Spirit, like Simeon, to say, God's gonna appear and you're gonna see it. Spirit speaks to all of us of what we need to know on a given day, in a given way, in order to keep us growing and moving [00:07:59]

and having a heart of gratitude, appreciating the gift of life and realizing that gift in the lives of those around us. And so I think as we pray the Mass this day, and whether it's Anna praying in the temple day and night and worshiping God and being in God's presence, or Simeon really reflecting on the gift of the Holy Spirit given to him, or this prophecy from Malachi about God coming to purify, that we're willing to be purified. And in that purification, we're willing to really see the gift of our lives, the gifts of our potential, and that challenge of gift is living it out today, moving into a deeper communion with him, having that heart of thanksgiving. [00:08:39]

and moving us to a deeper communion with him, especially here in the Mass and the Eucharist. And so we ask for that grace and guidance as we pray for and with each other this day. [00:09:36]