Chotard Doll

Friends:

Jesus in the temple at Nazareth proclaims:

       “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me…”

It’s easy to see this as a proclamation from Isaiah that Jesus claims for himself—which of course he does. But I think we can also see it as a statement about ourselves.

In our baptism, we too are “anointed” by the Holy Spirit to be instruments of his grace.

In Morning Prayer Rite I, one of the canticles quotes a phrase from the Latin Te Deum, proclaiming “Day by day we magnify thee.” Whenever I say that, I imagine each one of us receiving the light of the Holy Spirit, and refracting that light out into the world, just as rain meeting the sun radiates a rainbow.

Each of us radiates the light of the Holy into our daily life, reflecting our own offering according to our talents and abilities. What we offer may seem small or insignificant—given the needs of the world. But the Spirit magnifies those offerings in ways we may never see. 

The light of Christ shines through us to lighten the darkness, and as John says in the opening of his gospel, the darkness has never overcome that light. We are the ambassadors of that light.

As simple as it seems, we are called to magnify the Lord in all that we do and all that we are.

So ask yourself, how can you magnify the Lord today? Food for thought and action.

Faithfully,

—Chotard