My beloved children in the lands of immigration, priests
and congregations.
I congratulate you for the Glorious Feast of Nativity and the beginning of a
New Year, wishing you all from the Lord a joyous and holy life in His love.
It gives me joy, in the birth of the Lord Christ, to Whom is Glory, that I
remind you that in His Incarnation, He sanctified all things by good use.
Thus it was said “To the pure all things are pure.” (Titus 1:15)
The body, which some thought was corrupt and the cause of every sin, the
Lord sanctified it with His incarnation. And He showed us how the flesh can
be pure, holy and pleasing to God. He sanctified the body when the Holy
Spirit dwelt in the womb of the Virgin and sanctified her body to be a pure
vessel for the dwelling of God the Logos. He generally sanctified the body
by granting humanity the resurrection of their bodies, and transforming them
in the resurrection to spiritual bodies (I Corinthians 15:44).
Thus He sanctified our bodies, our spirits and our human nature in a general
way. He took what was ours and granted us what was His.
In His incarnation, He sanctified all stages of life of the person. He gave
us an example for a holy childhood when He became a Child. He also showed us
how the stage of the youthful period can be holy, and how adulthood can be
holy. That is, He gave us the correct image for each stage of the stages of
life when He passed through it…
And the Lord Christ sanctified marriage, as He also sanctified the life of
celibacy and retreat and prayer. He sanctified marriage when He allowed the
Virgin Mary to be married to Joseph the Carpenter, even though she did not
live with him as a wife, but lived in virginity under his care. He also
sanctified marriage when He attended and blessed the wedding at Cana of
Galilee (John 2). Likewise, He sanctified marriage, when he chose Peter who
was married, to be one of His Apostles and Disciples.
And the Lord Christ sanctified retreat and prayer when He prayed, retreating
alone, on the Mount of Olives and in the Garden of Gethsemane.
He sanctified virginity by His celibate life, His birth from a Virgin, and
that He granted His Mother to His celibate disciple John to live in his home
till she departed.
He sanctified human life by His life. He sanctified fasting when He fasted
forty days (Matthew 4:2). He sanctified food and drink when He ate like us
and drank, till it was said about Him: “The Son of Man came eating and
drinking.” (Matthew 11:19)
He sanctified sleeping and watchfulness, when He slept in the boat and when
He was awake for the whole night in prayer. He sanctified work when He
worked as a carpenter in Joseph’s house, and it was said about Him: “Is this
not the carpenter, the Son of Mary.” (Mark 6:3) And thus He blessed work
when He worked with His hands, and sanctified every work that His hands
extended to.
He sanctified the whole life, and was the representative of humanity in this
sanctification.
He sanctified earth that was cursed with the sin of Adam (Genesis 3:17), and
the blessing returned and entered it by His birth. He blessed Palestine by
being born there. And He blessed Egypt by living there for three and a half
years; and the Divine Inspiration said: “Blessed is Egypt My people.”
(Isaiah 19:25) He even blessed the manger in which He was born, and it
became a holy shrine. He blessed every place He came to and every site in
which He performed a miracle. He blessed the sea when He walked upon the
water. He blessed the mountain from which He delivered His sermon, just as
He blessed the Mountain of Transfiguration when He was transfigured upon it.
He sanctified bread when He blessed the bread in the miracle of five loaves.
The Lord Christ sanctified everything – He sanctified poverty, richness and
money. (this article from st-takla.org)
He sanctified poverty when He was born poor in a pitiable manger, and lived
in poverty not having any place to rest His head. Similarly He sanctified
poverty when He chose His disciples from amongst the poor and fishermen… At
the same time, He sanctified richness when He allowed a rich man, Joseph of
Arimathea (Matthew 27:57) to shroud Him, and He was buried in his private
tomb.
And He sanctified money, having a box for His group into which donators can
place money in it (John 12:6). He sanctified money when He praised the widow
that paid two mites into the treasury (Luke 21:2). Thus money was not evil
in itself, but the evil was in the worship of money and relying on money and
not upon God.
These are mere samples of what the Lord Christ, to Him is Glory, sanctified.
When we remember all this, may we work at sanctifying everything that
pertains to us, so that our whole life is holy for the Lord, in all that we
do…
In conclusion, be blessed from the Lord, absolved from His Holy Spirit.
Pope Shenouda III
Pope of Alexandria and
Patriarch of the See of St. Mark
Feast of Nativity 2007
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