Auto-Focus or Out-of-Focus

In the hi-tech world we live in, electronic toys and gadgets have become essentials. Every Christmas Season, there seems to be an electronic item in the market that gets our attention. I remember when digital cameras entered the market. They came in different brands, styles, and sizes. Then they even became features of high-end cell phones.

No matter how a digital camera is housed, it has a feature called “auto-focus”. In my experience as a new owner of a digital camera, the auto-focus does not always work. When I point the camera toward my primary object, I notice that it becomes “out-of-focus” when there are image distracters in the foreground or the background. I find that I have to shift my view or my position to have a crisper image of the object. The auto-focus does not work also without appropriate lighting. Auto-focus, out-of-focus, distracters, shifting views, darkness, and light– I would like to use these to illustrate my message to you this holiday season.

Our lives as followers of Christ seem to take on the auto-focus, out-of-focus pattern. When we are focused on the two great commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength; and Love your neighbor as yourself”, the distractions and the darkness that do not allow the auto-focus feature in our lives to function become non-existent. When we live by these two great commandments, we can expect to be always in the auto-focus mode. When we digress from these commandments, as sometimes we may do because of our weaknesses as humans, shifting our views and our positions to re-focus allows the auto-focus feature in our lives to reactivate.

This New Year, and all the days of your lives, I urge you and your family to prevent distracters and darkness to disable your ability to auto-focus. Be like the three Magi. They were focused on that one eastern star and they found what they were looking for— the Savior of the world, a word made flesh! – Father C