In his Christmas pastoral letter, Bishop Ioan Casian of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Canada has called on the faithful to live the season of the Nativity with joy, hope and renewed commitment.
“Let us live this time of the Nativity of the Lord with joy and hope, with trust in God and with renewed dynamism in bearing witness, as persons fully responsible for our mission as Christians in our generation,” the Bishop of Canada wrote.
He stressed that the Nativity of the Lord is a moment of joy and blessing, awaited through spiritual preparation.
“The believer senses that the Nativity of the Lord is a moment that draws him closer to God, because God Himself takes the first step toward him. If for centuries humanity felt solitude, sadness and distance from God because of sin, the Nativity of the Lord brings hope, joy and confidence,” he said.
The necessity of Christ’s Incarnation
Bishop Ioan Casian explained why the Incarnation of the Saviour Jesus Christ was necessary through the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit.
“For God to be able fully to restore life as it was in the beginning, it was necessary that He act again as at the beginning, directly through His work by the Son and the Holy Spirit, taking into account these consequences. Therefore, the conception takes place directly through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, so that the human person may be fully restored by receiving perfect divinity within,” the bishop explained.
He added that the humanity assumed by Christ is concrete and taken from the Virgin Mary, because this is the very purpose of the Incarnation.
“At the same time, the humanity assumed by Christ is a real humanity taken from the Virgin Mary, because this is the purpose of His Incarnation: to restore communion between humanity and God and the health of human nature as it was in the beginning, in His own Person, so that it may become a source of holiness and perfection for us all,” he said.
The boundless love of God for humanity, the bishop noted, is manifested directly through the Incarnation of the Son of God and His birth from the Virgin Mary.
“In His great love for humanity, God, seeing human suffering caused by sin, not only heals the sickness of sin and death that had become an integral part of human life, but raises humanity in an ineffable way, keeps it with Himself, and introduces it into divine life through the human nature He takes from the Virgin Mary,” Bishop Ioan Casian noted.
Photo: Diocese of Canada
