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A Meditation on Matthew 1

The Angry Gnome is turning over a new leaf. Or so I hope. Instead of political rants and self absorbed pouts I'm planning on sharing my morning meditations here instead. What do you think of that idea? I'm using Fr. John Bartunek's book "The Better Part." (http://www.amazon.com/Better-Part-Christ-Centered-Resource-Personal/dp/1933271108) as my starting point, using the method of mediation he presents, Concentrate, Consider, Converse and Commit. Concentrate on the Lord in prayer, then consider carefully and prayerfully a gospel passage, converse with the Lord about it and finally make a commitment to really do something with what I've read. Below is the result of todays effort.

This morning I read Matthew 1:1-17, that is the genealogy of Jesus.

I considered this, as it relates how Jesus comes into the world, the real world of sin and death. The real world of history, the world of lust and hate and sweat and tears and hunger and pain. Not a floating spirit in the sky but a tiny baby, a young boy, a man, a human being born of a real mother at a particular point in history, in a real town in Palestine.

I thanked Him for coming for me and confessed my myriad sins to Him right then and there. It was a moving moment for me. I am grateful that on this day my Lord granted me an experience of His love in this way, that I was given the joy of feeling His love in an emotional manner, that this day was not hollow and dry, as some days are, but that He granted me this boon to strengthen my faith and my will to continue on in my journey of faith and of prayer. I conversed back and forth some with Jesus, recalling how He entered into history not through a special line of Holy Saints but through a long line of both sinners and saints, kings and prostitutes, murderers and adulterers, gentiles and Hebrews. Normal, average, everyday people were His ancestors and He used them to bring about salvation for the world. He will use each and every one of us to change the world as well, He will use me.

At the end of my prayer time I made a commitment to recall throughout the day the reality of Christ, the physicality of Jesus, that He is not only a figure in history and God in heaven, but that He is here on earth in His very flesh and blood each and every day in the Holy Eucharist, He is present on altars all over the world at this very moment. He is in His people as real food and real drink. (John 6:52-59) He is not "up there somewhere" but here with us. My commitment today is to recall that wonderful truth all through the day and to act as though it is true, to behave as if I were truly in the presence of my Lord each moment of my day.

Lord help me to do this. Amen.

--
Larry Devich
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
Philippians 4:11b

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