Saturday after the Nativity of Christ. The Leave-taking of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Christmas; Our Venerable Mother Melania the Roman (439)
1 Timothy 6:11-16; Matthew 12:15-21
Read 1 Timothy 6:11-16
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Growth is an essential property of all living cells. This means that if cells stop growing, they die. Just as cells in the body must continue to grow and develop to live, so an active and living faith requires continual growth. There is no “static holding pattern” in the Christian life- we are always moving either forwards or backwards, never “standing still.” St. Paul reminds us of this regarding the growth of the gospel in the world in our reading today.
St. Augustine comments:
It is much less surprising that he [Paul] used his verbs in the present tense in that passage which, as you remarked, he repeated again and again: “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, which you have heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come to you as also it is in the whole world, and brings forth fruit and grows.” Although the gospel did not yet embrace the whole world, he said that it brings forth fruit and grows in the whole world, in order to show how far it would extend in bearing fruit and growing. If, then, it is hidden from us when the whole world will be filled by the church bringing forth fruit and growing, undoubtedly it is hidden from us when the end will be, but it certainly will not be before that (Letters 199.12-51).