Tag Archives: The Incarnation

Milk white as light – and honey.

quotes, , , ,

“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

We are all kindled.

feasts, poetry, , ,

ANNUNCIATION

Deep within the clay, and O my people
very deep within the wholly earthen
compound of our kind arrives of one clear,
star-illumined evening a spark igniting
once again the tinder of our lately
banked noetic fire. She burns but she
is not consumed. The dew lights gently,
suffusing the pure fleece. The wall comes down.
And—do you feel the pulse?—we all become
the kindled kindred of a King whose birth
thereafter bears to all a bright nativity.

-Scott Cairns

Becoming Christmas

Christmas, Nativity, quotes,

It is a great blessing that some of my family are still here with me during Christmastide. This morning after breakfast, while I was listening from around the corner in the kitchen, my son “Soldier” taught his children a little Bible lesson, and I think he mentioned the passage that includes the words, “all things pertaining to life and godliness,” because when I read an article online just now, that line jumped out at  me, as being a theme of his message.

The article is “Keeping Christmas All the Year,” by Mark Dooley; here is the first paragraph:

“We have just celebrated the sacred feast of Christmas and are embarking upon yet another new year. But why talk about Christmas when, as many may remark, it is over and done with? This question reveals a profound misunderstanding about the nature and meaning of the birth of Christ. The fact is that we do not so much celebrate Christmas as become it. The wonder of this divine intervention in human history, is that the separation between man and God was bridged through the Incarnation of Christ. Not only were we reconciled with our Creator, but, through his “divine power,” we have been granted “all things that pertain to life and godliness.” Indeed, as the Apostle Peter writes, we have “become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

And Dooley continues to gather up many such uplifting passages from scripture, such as:

“Put simply, Christmas is neither day, a feast, nor a celebration—even if that is how the world perceives it. Rather, it is a transformation of life from “being alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,” to being “reconciled in his body of flesh by his death.”

Truly, this event of Christ’s birth, the Incarnation, empowers us to live an exalted life:

“Becoming Christmas means realising that we have died and been reborn in Christ. It is coming to terms with the revelation that ‘God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.’ It is living in the knowledge, as St. John writes, that ‘as he is, so also are we in this world.'”

Understanding the Nativity Icon

Read the whole article here: “Keeping Christmas All the Year”

A woman without man has begotten man.

Christmas, Nativity, quotes, , , ,

I don’t think many of us will be reading blogs on Christmas morning, so I offer this meditation a little early, from a Christmas homily of very long ago:

It was fitting that the Giver of all holiness should enter this world by a pure and holy birth. For He it is that of old formed Adam from the virgin earth, and from Adam without help of woman formed woman. For as without woman Adam produced woman, so did the Virgin without man this day bring forth a man. For it is a man, saith the Lord, and who shall know him [Jer. 17:9]. For since the race of women owed to men a debt, as from Adam without woman woman came, therefore without man the Virgin this day brought forth, and on behalf of Eve repaid the debt to man.Nativity.0

That Adam might not take pride, that he without woman had engendered woman, a Woman without man has begotten man; so that by the similarity of the mystery is proved the similarity in nature. For as before the Almighty took a rib from Adam, and by that Adam was not made less; so in the Virgin He formed a living temple, and the holy virginity remained unchanged. Sound and unharmed Adam remained even after the deprivation of a rib; unstained the Virgin though a Child was born of her.

+ St. John Chrysostom (d. 407), “Homily on Christmas Morning”

Do you wonder where Joseph is? Orthodox icons don’t show him in the typical western setting of the birth of Christ. You can find out about any unfamiliar elements of this picture from Iconreader in his post about the Nativity icon.