Is it Christmas time already?! So much has happened over the last year and I can’t believe that it is drawing to a close. As we come to Christmas and anticipate the New Year I want to thank everyone who has followed the developments of this ministry and contributed in some way or another. It has been a bold year.
A bold year, yes that describes it well. We began 2008 wondering where we would be going with Pascha House and the mission church I pastor. I remember praying last winter about the vision and for Pascha House and asking God to make the pieces I saw in my heart fit together. Then I stumbled upon the property in Shelton and there it was! The whole vision on one piece of property. Now it waits and we wait. But it is an expectant waiting, like the waiting we do for the season of Advent. In the same way the angels tip the hand of God to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds leaving them with a holy anticipation for the fulfillment of the vision so do we wait. In the same way Gabriel tells Mary all that will be for the Son of God about to be conceived in her, exciting her imagination, the reality is that the vision will take years to work out. Mary will conceive and give birth to a child, and she will have to go through months of carrying the developing child. She and Joseph will be sojourning, finally returning to Bethlehem to deliver the child in a manger. And then they must be faithful daily to nurture the child, Jesus, until he becomes the man he will be. Perhaps we are still sojourning, but the birth will come. Pascha House may be born in a manger, perhaps a small house, but like the boy Jesus, it will grow, eventually fulfilling the vision.
I pray that you will continue to follow our “promise” narrative, our story. It may be that God will place it upon your heart to leave your gifts for this expression of the promise of Jesus. The gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh provided for the nurture of the baby Jesus. This vision will continue to need nurturing. We are by no means done but are still beginning.
And I pray for your promise narrative, your Christmas story, that the message that God has put in your heart will grow and mature. I pray that you will nurture God’s promise in you and that in so doing you will have a blessed Christmas and that in this soon to come New Year, in spite of any obstacles, your life will be enriched with the promise of God.
Yours,
Fr. Matt Mirabile
