Archive for the ‘The Aiken Standard’ Category
Advent Not to be Overlooked
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
“Aiken Standard”
By THE REV. JEFF KIRBY
Guest columnist
Our society seems to be at a crossroads. Political questions and economic uncertainty fill the day. We seem to be living much of our lives in the future. Our times appear to be calling each of us to worry, assess, and prepare for what might be coming.
Such thinking, however, can oftentimes make us miss what is happening in the here and now. We can live so much in the future that we’re not even living in the present. What are we to do?
Today, various Christian communities have begun the observation of the four-Sunday-long Advent waiting. With the peace and joy of Christmas in the air, the Advent season can be overlooked to easily forgotten. But the season has an important place in our seasonal festivity. What is the reason and importance of Advent? What is its important message for the non-believer and Christian believer in our day and time?
The Advent season reminds people and societies that time is not eternal, and that each of us must determine for what, or who, we will live. Each person is called to discern and affirm what they believe and allow these convictions to shape and mold their lives. Advent heralds this important reminder.
Advent, more properly, summons all Christian believers to reread and relive the great events of salvation history in their own lives. It challenges them to open themselves to the spiritual workings of God in history and in their daily lives.
Advent is more than just a time of preparation for Christmas. And it doesn’t simply call the believer to prepare for the future return of Jesus Christ in glory. Above these purposes, Advent brings to life the ancient expectancy of the Messiah and allows the believer to experience it in himself today.
It also shows the believer the glimpses and foretastes of the future coming of Christ in the world of today. The season offers the believer the anticipation of the past and the hope of the future. It emphasizes the importance of each person living these truths here and now.
The joy of Christmas can be empty without the winged hope of Advent, and the new year can be hollow without the rooted story of the past. Advents seeks to be one voice in the Christmas and New Year festivities.
Advent is a call to live today the awesome story of Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It’s a summons to give everything, and to live an abundant life.
The Rev. Jeff Kirby is the parochial vicar of St. Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church.
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Stewardship and Challenge
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
“Aiken Standard”
By Rev. Jeff Kirby
Guest columnist
Yesterday, various Christian communities celebrated the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Known for his intense love for nature, popular images of the saint preaching to the birds or caressing the wolf of Gubbio can be seen in art and statuary throughout the world. The saint’s love can be felt in his poetry and songs, especially the noted “Canticle of Brother Sun”.
Our society today is keenly aware and attentive to the environment and several issues surrounding it. Sometimes, however, it seems as if our environmental concern lacks a certain depth and richness. The feast day of such a saintly lover of nature can be a good time for us to consider and evaluate our views on nature and the environment. The feast day provides us with an opportunity to review the contribution of the Christian message to the ecological issues of our day.
For St. Francis, love for nature and the environment stemmed from his love for God. He saw creation as a gift from God, a gift which must be cared for and respected. In his worldview, he wouldn’t have been able to fathom a love for the environment without God.
Grounded on the belief of creation as God’s gift, only then would Francis adamantly argue and demand that people have a religious reverence for the world, animals, plants and the greater environment. For Francis, being human meant caring for the world.
Some perspectives, however, dismiss the Christian teaching on environmental stewardship as condescending and belittling. It is suspected that by teaching that the human person is the crown of creation, the Christian message sees the rest of the world as having no role or essential importance.
The authentic Christian understanding, however, knows that the hierarchy within creation is a hierarchy of service and complementarity. Nothing is self-sufficient, There is an active interdependence between all creatures, with each one complementing the other and living in service to it. This reality gives a breathing solidarity to creation, revealing its inner order and value.
The human person stands as the summit of creation in order to serve and sustain creation and its harmony. Creation can be seen as a type of republic, with each component having its own dignity and autonomy, and yet a part of a greater whole with responsibilities and a greater identity within the larger entity. Within such a republic, the human person lives as a chosen leader for humble service and benevolent governance of the environment. This is the proper order given and blessed by God.
As a consequence of an authentic Christian understanding of the environment, we realize that the human person’s governance of the world is not absolute. It is limited by concern for others and society. It is humbled by gratitude to God, and tempered by a religious respect for the integrity of creation itself.
The environment is not humanity’s to do with whatever it pleases. It is a gift in which humanity lives, and we have the privilege and responsibility to care for, serve, and sanctify it. It is a stewardship and challenge.
Perhaps these thoughts on our world and our environment can be St. Francis’ lesson to us as we celebrate his life and actions. Hopefully, we can each imitate some of his gratitude and passion in our lives.
Rev Jeff Kirby is the parochial vicar at St. Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church.
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What is the Purpose of Work?
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
“The Aiken Standard”
By Rev. Jeff Kirby
Each year our country celebrates Labor Day. Its observance is a good time to pause and consider what the meaning and importance of work is for us and for our society.
Work is a large part of our day. It shapes our lives and the lives of our loved ones. But do we only work to survive and meet our material needs? Is there any other meaning to our work?
Perhaps many see work as only a burden and requirement of life. To many, it seems bizarre to think that there might be a greater meaning to our work. Within the Christian heritage, however, work is seen not only as a remedy to the consequences of original sin and as a way to provide for basic human needs, but work is seen as a real collaboration of the human person with God in perfecting the visible world.
Human work flows from those created in God’s image, and each person is called to extend the goodness of creation through his work. Work is meant to provide a dignified livelihood for the person and his family on the material, social and cultural level. But our labor is meant to go beyond that primary purpose.
In our work, each of us has a capacity to participate in the good of others and of our society, as well as consecrate the world and our workplace to God.
By doing good and respectable work, each of us can edify and build up our society and the world around us. Our work can give honor to our Creator and the talents we have received from him. Our homage to God should not be restricted to a house of worship or enclosed within an empty set of creedal statements. It should be reflected in a good day’s work.
Work is for the human person, not the human person for work. We are not meant to live for work, but we are called to work in order to fully live. Our labor is meant to give order and remedy to our lives, and to encourage solidarity with God and our neighbor. Work assists each of us in understanding our lives, human relationships, and the dynamics of society. If we allow it, work can foster a greater love and creativity within us.
As our country rests from its various forms of labor, it might be worth a few minutes to stop and consider what work means to us and how we wish to live as working people.
The Rev. Jeff Kirby, is the parochial vicar at St. Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church.
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Unusually Early Easter
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
“The Aiken Standard”
Suzanne R. Stone
Staff Writer
If you haven’t gotten your Easter bonnet with the frills upon it yet, now’s the time. Easter Sunday falls uncommonly early this year.
This year’s Easter Sunday will be March 23, the first time it has fallen on that date since 1913 and the last time it will be on the 23rd until 2228. The earliest that Easter Sunday can fall is March 22 of any given year, and the latest it can occur is April 25. Coincidentally, this year’s Easter Week also coincides with the weekend of the Aiken Spring Steeplechase, with the March 21 Mad Hatters Ball falling on Good Friday and the Steeplechase taking place on March 22, the eve of Easter Sunday.
“Next year Holy Week is the same week as Masters week, and that happens much more commonly,” said Dr. Fred Andrea III of First Baptist Church of Aiken. “When Masters week and Easter coincide, it puts more demands on people’s attention and time. I wouldn’t anticipate a problem this Easter Sunday, since the Steeplechase will be over by then.”
The date of Easter Sunday is determined by a formula: the first Sunday after the first full moon to follow the Spring Equinox, also known as the Paschal Full Moon. Because the date of the Spring Equinox varies from year to year, so does the date of Easter Sunday. The formula was developed by the early Church as an answer to the “Easter Controversy,” according to Father Jeff Kirby of St. Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church.
“The ‘Easter Controversy’ was the debate over how to blend the Jewish observance of Passover and the Christian observance of the Resurrection. In Christian theology we call the Resurrection ‘The New Passover,’ so the early Church wanted to connect the two but also show that this was something new. It was resolved with this formula because the date of the Spring Equinox also determines the date of Passover, and it was a real source of peace when it was finally resolved,” he said.
Kirby noted that while the Eastern Orthodox Church also uses the Paschal Full Moon formula, it obtains its date from the Julian calendar rather than the more familiar Gregorian calendar. The Eastern Orthodox Church’s Lenten season begins on March 10, and Easter Sunday falls on April 27, a week after Passover. The Jewish feast of Passover begins at sunset on Saturday, March 19, and continues all day Sunday, March 20.
“The way the liturgical calendar works, the Christmas season doesn’t come to a complete stop until Feb. 2, the feast of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. We ended the Christmas season on Feb. 2 and had Ash Wednesday to begin Lent on Feb. 6,” Kirby said.
“This year is unique in that Christmas and Easter are as close together as anyone alive will be able to remember. In the Church’s teachings, Christ’s life is one mystery, so this is a unique opportunity to teach how closely related those two events in Christ’s life were – that he was born to that he might die for us,” he said. “You don’t get that opportunity very often.”
Andrea observed that Christian sects have many ways of observing the events of Easter week. Some observe Good Friday with a tenebrae service, a candlelit service in which readings on the life of Christ are punctuated by the extinguishing of candles, concluding in total darkness to symbolize the loss of Christ’s light from the world.
Other services are designed to emphasize the 14 stations of the cross; First Baptist will display a series of paintings by Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya depicting the stations of the cross, given to the church last year, during Holy Week. Some churches also do a Saturday night Easter Vigil, awaiting the arrival of Easter Sunday, and/or a sunrise service.
“Every Christian church observes Easter Sunday, but not all of them do all or most or, in some cases, any observes of Holy Week,” Andrea said.
“Because we follow the liturgical calendar, our members are on top of it, but I can imagine churches that don’t have a Lent season’s members might be caught off guard by the early Easter,” said Kirby.
Contact Suzanne Stone at sstone@aikenstandard.com.
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As 2008 Arrives: Point to the Future with Hope
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
“The Aiken Standard”
By the Rev. Jeffrey Kirby
Guest Columnist
The beginning of a new year is always an exciting time. As we start the New Year, we carry within us our memories, stories, and experiences of good times and bad, of successes and failures. We also carry the essential virtue of hope. In light of this hope, each of us reviews our life and composes a certain resolution or resolutions for change and improvement. Why?
We hope and aspire to become a better person in the coming year. We see an opportunity for a fresh start and new beginnings. Simple things like dieting and exercising, or harder things such as acts of kindness, intellectual pursuits, and spiritual commitments are some of the many possible desires of the heart at this time of annual renewal. We become people of great hope. What are the lessons that we can learn from these aspirations, and from this innate hope within us? Where do these human hopes lead us? What is their foundation?
Pope Benedict XVI can contribute a few thoughts on these questions. The pope recently released his second encyclical, which is a teaching letter on issues concerning the Christian faith. The pope dedicated this new letter to the very subject of hope.
The pope explains that “all serious and upright human conduct is hope in action.” He notes that by performing good deeds the person is striving to realize hope in himself and a more humane world around him. Pope Benedict, however, is concerned that human hope be grounded on the solid foundation of “the radiance of a great hope that cannot be destroyed,” and that hope itself does not end in the emptiness of despair or extremism.
In the letter, the pope teaches, “Only the great certitude of hope that my own life and history in general, despite all failures, are held firm by the indestructible power of Love, and that this gives them their meaning and importance, only this kind of hope can then give the courage to act and persevere.”
Pope Benedict argues that this great hope is God himself, and that each person is called to accept and find their strength in his message of love and peace. By hoping in God, all our human hopes can find their substance and impetus in him. In listening to the Gospel message, the pope writes that we “can open ourselves and the world, and allow God to enter: we can open ourselves to truth, to love, to what is good.”
The pope uses the image of “the star of hope” rising in the hearts of all people, and of its power to inspire and sustain people in their good and bad moments. He gives the example of the saints who “were able to make the journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them because they were brimming with great hope.”
Human hope, grounded on a great hope in God, can accomplish great things in this life. It can provoke a sense of justice and peace, and a desire to work and suffer for these spiritual goods. Even in the face of apparent failure or defeat, hope can carry and bring forth the best in a person and in a society.
As we make our New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of 2008, we all dwell in hope to become better people. The reflections offered by Pope Benedict XVI can help us. They can point the way to where the great source and stability of human hope can be found, and where it can be anchored.
The Rev. Jeffrey Kirby is currently the parochial vicar at St. Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church.
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