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Tet
Celebration My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: I am very happy to be able to come together with you, the Vietnamese Catholic people of the (Cathedral of Our Lady/Saint Andrew Dung-Lac Church). We gather together today to celebrate a New Year according to your tradition and culture. To each of you, I say: Chuc Mung Nam Moi – a very happy and blessed Tet. The celebration of a new year reminds us of our mortality. Time passes and we grow older. Unlike us, Jesus is eternal. He is the same yesterday, today and forever because He is the Son of God. Therefore, Jesus can, and He does, bring us the promise of everlasting life. Believe in Me, He says, and you shall have life everlasting so that even if you die, you can live forever! In creating human life, it was God’s plan that we would share in His life. Because we sinned, however, we rejected God’s plan and thus deprived ourselves of eternal salvation. Only by the love and mercy of God could we be restored. Thus God sent His Son to save us. Jesus healed the breach caused by sin. Now, no longer would we be slaves to sin. Now, with the grace of God, we can rise up from sin and live a new life of holiness. Our call to holiness is rooted in the gift of new life we receive through Jesus. Thus we share in God’s own life, becoming children of God by adoption, by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that allows us to call God our Father. Our parents, collaborating with God, gave us our human life. All our rights and obligations flow from the fact that we have received this gift. All the things we can accomplish in life – all our joys, achievements and hopes – are intimately tied to the fact that we are living human beings made in the image and likeness of God. Take away this gift and there is nothing. We are nothing. Our human life is elevated to a “new life” we receive in baptism. We do not now have two lives but our human life is transformed and raised to a dignity that lets us live and move and have our being as children, not only of human parents, but also of divine adoption. Everything else in our spiritual life, all of our hope for eternal life is rooted in this precious gift of new life that comes to us in Christ. Remember, Jesus Himself said: “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” As Catholic people celebrating Tet, we should thank God for this new and more abundantly life. We should recognize that the new life we received in baptism is now nurtured into a more abundant life by the Eucharist. Jesus Himself heals us, nurtures us and strengthens us with His own Body and Blood. This is the new life, the more abundant life that Jesus gives us. This is the life that reaches fulfillment and life everlasting in heaven. We begin this New Year with gratitude to Almighty God for the gift of new life. Let us therefore pledge that in this New Year, we will also nurture that life through prayer and obedience to the commandments and teachings of the Lord. Life on this earth is swift and short. Life with God reaches perfect fulfillment and is eternal. This is what I hope and pray for you and your loved ones when I say: Chuc Mung Nam Moi! Most
Reverend Eusebius J. Beltran |