Family Affairs

Copies of recent Family Affairs newsletters are attached at the bottom of this page.  Click links to download in pdf.

From the Rector, January Family Affairs:

“…and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

—John 1.14b

On the credenza in my office, the place where I keep my laptop computer, sits an icon of a scene normally associated with Easter. The icon is of the risen Christ moving aside a section of his tunic so that the Apostle Thomas can see the wounds of the crucifixion. “Do you believe because you have seen me?” our Lord asks Doubting Thomas. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

He is, of course, referring to those among countless generations to come who will doubt the veracity of the Resurrection because they have no proof. As the late Christopher Hitchens, an outspoken atheist and journalist, was wont to say: “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” I have come to understand that “Proof” in the technocratic age is becoming a lot like beauty, something true only in the eye of the beholder. It seems that you can prove and disprove just about anything these days. I smile when I hear people proclaim that God “doesn’t have to prove his existence—he’s God!” Actually, I reply, God doesn’t have to prove his existence, but he often chooses to. We call them epiphanies. The Greek επιφάνεια is often translated “manifestation.”

As the year of grace 2012 begins, so too begins the season of the Church’s year when we call to mind the many, many Scriptural moments when the fullness of God’s very being and power is made known to those who were witnesses. We will hear of these epiphanies, where ordinary humans come face to face with the manifested glory of God in and through his Son Jesus. The visit of the Magi, the changing of the water into wine at Cana, the story of the Transfiguration—these and other epiphanies will be proclaimed to us in the Sunday morning gospel lessons from now until the beginning of Lent. They would never prove the existence of God to a man like Hitchens, but somehow I don’t think God is all that worried.

To be sure, the season of Epiphany isn’t meant to prove anything. It’s meant to teach us to keep our eyes open. By recalling the “great” epiphanies of faith, the season itself encourages us to look for and see the many smaller manifestations of God’s glory in our own time and place: in the beauty of God’s created order, in the answer to prayer, in the healing of a broken relationship. God doesn’t make any attempt to hide his existence, shield us from his glory, or trick us into a place of doubt—God wants to be known! And he makes himself known all the time; we’re just too thickheaded to notice.

As Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus wrote in fourth century Constantinople, “God wants you to become a living force for all humanity, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven.” Ah, so there it is. God manifests himself in many ways, but chiefly in us as we draw nearer and nearer to the life of Christ. Sounds to me like the best possible resolution for the New Year.

I wish you a continued happy Christmas and all the blessings of the year to come.

—Clarke French, Rector