UNISINOS – RESIDÊNCIA CONCEIÇÃO
Residência Conceição 23 November, 2015 XLV:3
UNISINOS
Cx. P. 101
93.001-970 São Leopoldo, RS e-mail: [email protected]
BRAZIL http://www.egfbenya.com
Dear Benefactors, Collaborators, Family, Friends and Colleagues:
As the light of days grows shorter, the nights grow longer for those who live in the northern hemisphere. The reverse runs here for us in the southern hemisphere. That dynamic and alternation has been in place long before any humans made their appearance on this earth and it may well outrun our presence here.
An obvious lighting and heating mechanism for the earth, it also serves as a natural timing mechanism for life in its diverse forms especially plants and animals whose numerous internal systems frequently are governed by light intensity, length and accompanying effects. Research and scientists devote vast amounts of time, money and effort in a continuing quest to identify, understand and even control the multiplicity of life cycles associated with light and temperatures. The human species is blessed with a fascination for and with life cycles up to and including immortality. That fascination is legitimate. As the most mobile of species on earth in terms of physical, social, psychological and spiritual range, we are the stewards, the ministers of the complex entity that embodies those life cycles, an entity called “creation”.
That stewardship is unique to us. Other creatures may biologically out-run, out-swim, out-build or even out-survive us on an individual basis. However we are the species that out-thinks the others, no small task when one considers the multitude of questions in, of and pertaining to creation. All imaginative thought has its origins in God THROUGH the soul, BY the mind of an individual inspired by God. Thus arise legitimate questions.
Inspiration however can be perverted by sin. This adds degenerative complication to the singular beauty of creation. Dishonest and invalid questions can arise. Stewardship can be perverted from a broad, probing, guiding, ministry to a narrow, degenerate manipulation that destroys rather than nurtures the dynamic of creation.
Perversion entered the world through a demonic move that confused and confounded our first parents. They fell, and the wreckage of that fall was hereditary, passed from one generation to another in a cycle of degeneracy.
That cycle was broken with the arrival of the Savior. The cycle of degeneracy was opened and we escaped. Yet that escape is dynamic. We are free to return to the demonic cycle. Some, in fact, choose to return as individuals, groups, cultures, even nations. Evil has its attractions.
However the call of Salvation never ceases. The Savior, Jesus Christ arrived and completed His mission. We celebrate that arrival at this Christmas-Yuletide season. Simple and profound, I wish all of you a most:
JOYFUL CHRISTMAS SEASON and a BLESSED NEW YEAR of 2016!
Gratefully in Jesus Christ
Padre Ed Benya, S.J.