Grace to you!
It’s been a delight reading the various reflections of our contributors this past month. It’s a joy to see the variety of our faith stories from different cultures, peoples, and nations. By the Lord, as we know, this is done. It is marvelous.
Today’s reflection draws from the joy of divine restoration in Christ.
Recently, I had a heartwarming conversation with a woman who was ecstatic at the order the Lord was bringing back to her home. God was restoring her child and her family.
Earlier, her child was the heart of the family. He had it all together. Everyone loved him. He seemed to have a unique presence that made everyone around and, in the family, feel a sense of peace and order.
Something happened which changed all that. No one knew what it was, but the child was no longer the same. He started to do things no one imagined he would. The once tranquil home gradually devolved into an emotional wreck. The psychological impact was grave. It affected the equilibrium in the home.
The effect was not only emotional and psychological, it was also beginning to show in the physical space of the home. When the center cannot hold together on the inside, the outside starts to cave in to disorder. The once organized home, clean car, and tidied rooms are in disarray. One loses interest in everything, including taking good care of the body.
You may have been there where something in your core goes wrong, and everything else around you begins to give way to disorder. As a priest, I have seen families simply wrecked because the person that held everything together became sick or passed. It could also result from broken relationships that were once refreshing. “When the center cannot hold,” the Nigerian novelist (Chinua Achebe) writes, echoing a famous Irish poet of the 20th century (William Butler Yeats), “things fall apart.” Restoration is a need at those moments.
Restoration was a crucial concept in the biblical Old Testament. Another way to phrase it is redemption or salvation. We hear Prophet Isaiah speak of a promise of a king, from the roots of David, which in part means he has to be from the human family (see Is 11:1-10). It speaks of the future king, anointed from above, yet born as human, who has all the qualities that bring all things together—restoration.
Many call the listed qualities the traditional gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is not merely about wisdom and understanding. It is also about the insight, will, and power to act (counsel and fortitude) and the holy love and awe for divine things.
In other words, this king will lead with excellent human qualities and divine anointing. His mission is restoration, bringing order to all the disorder caused by sin. Such restoration is divine, the work of grace which he is. This precisely Jesus fulfilled, not only in the cosmic way but also in the heart and soul of anyone who welcomes him. In that heart, all things begin to hold together. Joy is restored when Christ, “in whom all things hold together” (Col 1:17), is within us.
The joy of such restoration, which is another way of saying, living in the state of grace is heavenly. The Lord rejoices in the Spirit (Lk 10:21), and heavens are glad. The restored person witnesses unequaled joy too. In that heart and society, there is peace also. It is a shared joy and peace.
Be restored in Christ. Amen.
God love you. God bless you.
Fr. Maurice Emelu.
