Alpha and Omega

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Revelation 22:13)

As this year comes to a close and a new year is upon us, it is a good time to reflect on God’s presence in our lives. In today’s Gospel we are reminded that Christ “came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.” (John 1: 11) How many times did we not accept Christ into our daily lives this past year? How many times did we fail to recognize Christ in our lives? “All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.” (John 1:3) We are nothing without God yet we often forget this. We think that our accomplishments and our success are the result of our own doing. We don’t acknowledge that it is God who presented the opportunities for which we were successful. It is God who allows us to move and see, to speak and breathe.

God made himself a gift to us through his Son. It is up to us to accept this gift and become the person he created us to be. We were each placed on this earth to fulfill a mission that only we can complete. We need to be docile and to move as he wants us to move. As we become more open to God and his will for us, we begin to understand his wisdom, power, and love for us. “In loving God I love myself most wisely, most fully, and most purely. Because he is the center of my being, the fountain of my life, and the source of my well-being, contentment, satisfaction, and happiness.” (Fr. Jacob Kalayil)

As we look forward to the promise of the New Year let us praise God for all that he is, all that he has been and all that is to come. May we use every moment to give him glory. In our sorrow let us praise him, in our struggles let us praise him, in our sickness let us praise him and in our joy let us praise him.