Tag Archives: honey

Eat this scroll.

April 14, 2025art, church, Holy WeekEzekiel, honey, obedience, re-postGretchenJoanna

One of the readings for Holy Monday is from Ezekiel, a description of what the prophet saw in his vision of creatures and wheels:

…a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the soles of calves’ feet. They sparkled like the color of burnished bronze. The hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides; and each of the four had faces and wings. Their wings touched one another.

The creatures did not turn when they went, but each one went straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces. Their wings stretched upward; two wings of each one touched one another, and two covered their bodies.

And each one went straight forward; they went wherever the spirit wanted to go, and they did not turn when they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches going back and forth among the living creatures. The fire was bright, and out of the fire went lightning. And the living creatures ran back and forth, in appearance like a flash of lightning.

Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions; they did not turn aside when they went.

As for their rims, they were so high they were awesome; and their rims were full of eyes, all around the four of them. When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

I was interested to see how artists might have rendered these images. Many of the pictures were quite psychedelic, and just as mind-boggling as the descriptions Ezekiel gave. My favorite was this quiet sculpture, detail of an Amiens Cathedral facade which shows only two wheels, and a prophet who might be seen as receiving his vision, or perhaps meditating on the whole of it — which would be impossible to render in stone. The complexity and drama are only hinted at by the way the wheels are interwoven or interweaving.

The church fathers have written that the four living creatures are the cherubim, the guardians of the throne of God. The burning coals are holy men, the lamps signify the light of the gospel, and the wheels signify Holy Scripture; St. Gregory the Great tells us that “the New Testament lay hidden by allegory in the letter of the Old Testament.”

Ezekiel closes his description (beyond this day’s reading) with the words, “This was the vision of the likeness of the Lord’s glory. I saw it, and I fell down on my face….” and God spoke to him, gave him an assignment, and gave him a scroll, saying:

“Son of man, eat this scroll, and go and speak to the children of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he fed me the scroll. Then he said to me, “Son of man, your mouth shall eat and your stomach will be filled with this scroll that is given you.” So I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.

My Bible footnotes remind me that the faithful can also know that sweetness that Ezekiel tasted, as the Psalmist sings:

How sweet to my taste are Your teachings.
More than honey and the honeycomb in my mouth.

This probably works best when we love and obey those teachings… Lord, have mercy!

Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed;
save me, and I shall be saved:
for thou art my praise.

Jeremiah 17:14

Milk white as light – and honey.

April 7, 2025quoteshoney, milk, Philokalia, The Holy Trinity, The IncarnationGretchenJoanna

“For in the deepest sense God the Father is Himself the promised land which -– as the Holy Spirit has promised us -– the gentle and the upright in heart will inherit (cf. Matt. 5:5), as they strive in hope to attain it. The honey and milk that flow in that land, which is the Father, are the dawn luminaries, the twin rays, the Son and the Spirit, that are the life and delight and purification of the whole world.

“For the Son, who was begotten from the Father and who is inseparable from Him, may be called ‘honey,’ since He has become incarnate in human nature as in a honeycomb; and through this enhumanization He has sweetened and gladdened everything human in a miraculous way with -– how should one express it? -– extraordinary teachings and graces and countless other blessings and bounties.

“The ‘milk’ is the Holy Spirit, who is simple and uncompounded. He is not the offspring but the ‘going forth’ or procession from the Father. He is white as light, and He feeds with divine nourishment the intelligent beings who are still immature, thus initiating them, as the Lord said, into the kingdom of heaven (cf. I Cor. 3:1–2).

“Thus the ‘land flowing with honey and milk’ is rightly considered to be the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and it is to this land that the intellect which ‘crosses over’ is conducted through the guidance, power and energy of the Godhead in three Persons.”

— The Philokalia Vol 5, by G.E.H. Palmer

Baklava is various – here is one recipe.

October 20, 2024food and cooking, Robert Farrar Caponbaklava, butter, desserts, honey, recipeGretchenJoanna

Ten years ago, when I was reading The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon, and writing multiple blog posts about that delicious book, I promised to share here the recipe for baklava that our parish uses. The idea came to me when reading Capon’s words on butter and pastry, and I warned my readers not to use his recipe for baklava. Since then I’ve learned more about the many and various ways that people prepare that confection in different cultures, and am no longer closed-minded about it at all. If you have a different recipe you like, I hope you will share it in the comments.

Though I love honey, I prefer baklava without it, because in the examples I have eaten, the honey overpowers the flavors of nuts and butter, and makes a heavy piece of dessert — honey is in fact a heavy and dense food. This version that we learned to make from a long-time member of the parish is somehow “lighter” in flavor, while losing none of the richness that is essential.

BAKLAVA

About 30 pieces

SYRUP:

3/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

FILLING:

1 pound walnuts
1/2 cup sugar

PASTRY:

1 pound filo dough, thawed
1 pound unsalted butter, clarified (instructions below).

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Prepare the syrup: Combine water and sugar; bring to a boil and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until thickened. Stir in lemon juice, cook 3 more minutes and set aside to cool.

2. Grind nuts in a food processor. Transfer to a bowl, add sugar and mix thoroughly.

3. Spread half the filo dough flat on a buttered 9” X 13” jellyroll pan. Cut and piece as necessary. Spread nut-and-sugar mix evenly over dough; then lay the remaining dough over the top.

4. Cut pastry, either into 2” squares, or for traditional diamond-shaped pieces, make lengthwise cuts 1 1/2” apart, and cuts at a 45 degree angle 1 1/2” apart. This will yield diamonds about 4 1/2” long, with sides about 2 1/2” long.

5. Pour 1 cup of the melted butter evenly over the top. Place the pan in the oven and reduce heat to 300°. Bake for 40 minutes, turning the pan after 20 minutes for even browning. Repeat, using remaining butter and baking again for 20 minutes, turning after 10 minutes.

7. Remove pan from oven and immediately pour cooled syrup over the hot pastry. Let stand and cool approximately 24 hours.

Clarified Butter

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat. After it has melted, some of the milk solids will drop to the bottom of the pan while others will rise as foam. Skim off the foam and pour the clarified butter out of the pan, leaving the milk solids at the bottom, or strain it through a double layer of cheesecloth.

If you are interested in what the book The Supper of the Lamb is about, you can find all the posts in which I wrote anything about it here: Robert Farrar Capon.

The truth of honey and grapes.

August 5, 2024church, nature, quotesbeehives, bees, Feast of Transfiguration, Fr. Ted Bobosh, honey, honey blessing, honeycomb, monasteries, smells, vineyardsGretchenJoanna

It’s eleven years !! since I wrote this post at the Feast of Transfiguration, and focused on honey and bees. Since then I’ve posted several times about various aspects of the feast, and now I’m going to return to this one focusing on honey, that marvelous substance in great abundance all over the earth. Who can believe it? Only God could have thought of such a food. I’ve updated the following with some bee photos of my own, and kept my favorite honey pictures:

My parish is lucky enough to have our own vineyard right behind the church. This is very handy on the Feast of Transfiguration; at the end of the liturgy we can process out the doors and around the vineyard, to bless the grapes. It’s traditional to bless grapes or apples or any fruit, really, on this day.

Earlier on the feast day morning people brought into the church baskets of fruit and herbs and flowers. I carried a wooden bowl of blueberries and peaches. While we sang and communed and focused on the main event being commemorated, the fruit waited. The incense was particularly sweet that day, and I didn’t notice the smell of the beeswax candles as much as I usually do. Though I could see basil in a couple of the baskets, I didn’t catch its aroma either.

At the end of the service, with the prescribed prayers for the event, our priest (and all of us) thanked God for all His bounty, and then he sprinkled holy water over the representative sampling.

He explained to us that this is not a superstitious rite we perform, using holy water to do magic on the fruit. When we bless anything in this way we do not make it into something other than what it is, but ask God to reveal it to be what it has always been.

Whatever created things we are talking about, they have always been meant by God to bring us into communion with Him. The service of blessing of fruit brings our thoughts back to Paradise, and the right and good use of the fruits of the earth that God has given us. We are reminded of how in the beginning God made Adam and Eve to be stewards over the Garden of Eden; human beings were called to exercise a loving and thankful dominion over the earth.

But we by our sin have instead caused destruction on the earth. Mankind more often than not has overused, abused and consumed in perverse ways the gifts of the Creator. Personally, I often gobble my food and eat without attentiveness to Him.

We have prayers for the blessing of bees and beehives and honey, too, usually in a separate service. Around here it’s August 1st, but I found pictures of honey blessings in Bulgaria where they do it dramatically on February 10 (see the bright cross picture down the page).

People like to take pictures of little girls and honey, I was happy to discover, and I am posting some of them here. The Russian ones are from Optina Monastery, and the Oregon photos from the Facebook page of New Martyrs of Russia Orthodox Church.

Father Ted Bobosh has posted a large photo collection of bees and other pollinators, along with quotes about bees and Orthodox prayers for them. Just looking at the pictures will likely make you burst into prayer, too. Here is one of the prayers he posted:

O God, who knows how to work benefits through human labor and irrational living things, You instructed us in your loving-kindness to employ the fruits and works of the bees for our needs. Now humbly we beseech Your majesty: Be pleased to bless the bees and increase them for the profit of the human race, preserving them and making them abundant. Let everyone hoping in Your majesty and Your boundless compassions, and laboring in the care of these living things, be counted worthy to receive abundant fruits of their labors and to be filled with heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is due glory, honor and worship unto ages of ages. Amen.

The photo above is from my church on Transfiguration, baskets of all kinds of fruits of the earth waiting for the prayers of blessing. Some of them were inspiring in the variety and arrangement of items, but one of my favorite baskets is the big one in front, full of apples picked just that morning.I don’t eat much honey these days, but I get a whiff of it in the candles every Sunday in church, and I can imagine the heady scent emanating from these tables laden with jars and bowls and plates of honey.

Doesn’t it just tell you something about our God, how sweet He is, and how extravagantly generous, that He would give us something as intense and rich as honey? The bees, of course, are also in the business of pollinating the fruit. The whole Creation and its interconnectedness is reflected in the Church and in our salvation history, all of a piece and orchestrated in love by our dear Father God.