Month: January 2014

Eucharistic Reflections on 2013

1476109_10202253730839014_1193701229_nI spent the end of 2013 doing what my Johnson pals and I call living in the past with my Johnson yearbooks. All 5 years (freshman and sophomore on top; junior, senior, super senior on bottom)! Bringing in the new year by recalling past years called to mind some things in 2013 that are good things. 1512500_10202222937469199_885622157_n

2013 did contain some really big life events for which I’m grateful and for which I want to offer my thanksgiving to God:

  1. Courtney and I were chrismated into the Orthodox Catholic Church on Feb. 3rd on The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple at St. Anne Orthodox Church.chrismation
  2. Graduated with a B.S. in Bible and Preaching/Church Leadership from Johnson University on May 3rd.936162_10200711365720850_751389834_n
  3. Courtney and I got our first pet and puppy together, Charlie, our Chihuahua. We also got our first cat, Heisenberg.
  4. We moved to Oak Ridge to be closer to our parish, St. Anne Orthodox Church, to get to know our wonderful priest and parish family better.
  5. We got full time jobs with USAA at a call center that allow us to keep the bills paid and have insurance/benefits. It gives us a warm bed, food, and a car.
  6. We bought our first new car, a ’13 Honda Civic LX coupe, together, well, we got it on lease.
  7. We both learned more and grew more together in our second year of marriage.
  8. My little sister joined me as a fellow college graduate! 1510528_10202181025861435_1494886242_n

This is just a short list. Our failure as human beings is to offer unto God thanksgiving for our many blessings bestowed to us by Him. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. I do everyday. I ask for forgiveness from God on this and from you. Let us always keep a grateful heart for whatever we encounter. Glory to God for all things big or small. May His mercy be with us in this new year!

“When man stands before the throne of God, when he has fulfilled all that God has given him to fulfill, when all sins are forgiven, all joy restored, then there is nothing else for him to do but to give thanks.  Eucharist (thanksgiving) is the life of paradise.  Eucharist is the only full and real response of man to God’s creation, redemption and gift of heaven.  But this perfect man who stands before God isChrist.  In Him alone all that God has given man was fulfilled and brought back to heaven.  He alone is the perfect Eucharistic Being.  He is the Eucharist of the world. In and through this Eucharist the whole creation becomes what it always was to be and yet failed to be.” -Father Alexander Schmemann “For the Life of the World” (p. 38)

by Jon Anderson