Reflection for Saturday, January 2

I have read the scripture passages for today over and over, and each time I read them I seem to hear a message crying out to me, in my own desert, to remember just who I am! When some hear that, they may be thinking I am hearing a message of humility. A message that says, “remember who you are” as in “you are not God.” However, what I actually hear is the opposite, a message that is often much more difficult to receive. I hear that I (We) are the God who dwells within us! Throughout my own personal journey of faith, I remember learning and being reminded that God is God, and we are “just” humans.  That we somehow struggle and fall short because of the limitations that come with being human. However, I have always had a voice crying out within me saying “that doesn’t feel quite right.”

Just last week we celebrated the Incarnation of God. I have often said that I wish the feast we call Christmas would be renamed to the feast of the Incarnation so we would be invited to focus on exactly what we celebrate, which is that God became human. God took on human flesh and became one of us. The word that comes to me as I meditate on this is “embodiment”, which can be defined as the physical form of an idea, quality, or feeling. Jesus embodied God, and now we embody God.

One of my favorite songs is “St. Theresa’s Prayer”. The words say “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks, to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.” We are the body of Christ. That’s not just a pretty poetic idea, it's a fact.

My favorite author, Richard Rohr, often states that if we remember who we are, then what to do will just naturally follow. Again, I think people can hear that as a judgment or a reminder that we have to be careful to not fall short of what is expected of us. That is not what he means. He is saying that if we truly remember that we are all ONE, we are anointed in Christ, we are the body of Christ (which is pretty powerful), then we would be less apt to think so little of ourselves. He reminds us that we are not “less than.” We are the embodiment of God. So, when we are asked the question “Who are you?” let us confidently respond “I am the God who dwells within me.” We are worthy of that, not because of anything we have done or not done, but by the mere fact that God created us to be that. Own it. Celebrate it. Believe it.

Charleen Miele