WEBVTT

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But you see that we have this custom of blessing

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the fruit after the liturgy. It's not just something

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nice, we give thanks to God for the fruit. It's

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something much, much more and much deeper than

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that. The blessing of fruit reminds us that everything

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in nature bears a stamp of the presence of God.

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And we give thanks to God for that. Everything

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that exists. exists from the beginning for communion

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with God. So we say to the Lord, bless this fruit.

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And it's a means of a simple communion. No, it's

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not the Eucharist. That's something ultimately

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and essentially different. But it's the sanctification

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of nature, starting with us, the fruit, the water.

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The grapes, the property, the rivers, the seas,

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the mountains, the animals. Everything is blessed

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because we have responsibility to care for it

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and to return it to God because it's his. There's

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transfiguration, but there's disfiguration too.

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And the problem with the modern age is... It's

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bent on disfiguring nature, us, our bodies, and

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the meaning of what it means to be male and female,

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husband and wife, but also the nature that God

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has given us. That's being disfigured at an alarming

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rate, just the same. And you know, there's a

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principle. You will go against nature, and sooner

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or later, it's going to go against you, because

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it's from God. And so we have to be very diligent

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in blessing everything in our life and giving

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thanks to God because it's all his and it all

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bears the stamp of his holiness. We are going

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to be like that someday. But so is the rest of

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the universe going to be covered in God's light.

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So we're rejoicing on this day to celebrate that

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fact. You know, we actualize. What that means,

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the transfiguration, the Mount of Tabor, the

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disciples being there, we actualize that in ourselves

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when we receive the Eucharist at the liturgy,

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and we leave here having had something of that

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experience. A little light, we sang last night,

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of thy divinity, O Lord.