Daily Meditations Archives - Page 343 of 355

Members of One Another (Part X): The Spiritual Value of the Human Body

08/16/2012

In St Silouan’s teaching concerning the bonds that unite us humans to the rest of creation, there are three points that I find particularly interesting: The Starets underlines the spiritual value of the human body. While he adopts a negative attitude towards the passions, he is fundamentally positive in his estimate of our human physicality. We are to hate, not our bodies as such, but the sinfulness that corrupts them. In its present fallen state

The Dormition (Koimesis) of the Theotokos

08/15/2012

On August 15, Orthodox Christians celebrate the greatest of all the religious festivals which the Church established in honor of the All-Holy Virgin Mary (Panagia), the feast of the Dormition (Koimêsis) of the Theotokos. The feasts of the Virgin Mary (theomêtorikai eortai) are second in importance after those of our Lord Jesus Christ in the annual cycle of festivals observed by the Orthodox Church because, after our Lord Himself, the All-Holy Virgin is the most

THE LAMENTATIONS OF THE DORMITION OF THE THEOTOKOS (Third Stasis)

08/14/2012

1. Every generation offers hymns, O Virgin, to honor your entombment 2. Come with all creation to sing the hymns of parting as you are raised, O Virgin. 3. Disciples of my Lord Christ, arrive to tend the body of my God’s purest Mother. 4. Invisibly attending, the archangels and angels in ranks sing hymns to praise you. 5. The women high in honor along with the apostles are crying out and weeping. 6. O

THE LAMENTATIONS OF THE DORMITION OF THE THEOTOKOS (Second Stasis)

08/13/2012

1. Truly it is right that we magnify you who bestow life, just as your pure Mother you magnify for her life-creating falling into sleep. 2. Truly it is right that we magnify you, Theotokos, you took your divine and all-blameless soul and entrusted it into the Hands of God. 3. Wonder strange and new! For the Door now passes through the Doorway, Heaven enters Heaven! We stand in awe as the Throne of God

THE LAMENTATIONS OF THE DORMITION OF THE THEOTOKOS (First Stasis)

08/10/2012

1. In a grave they laid you yet, O Christ, you are life and they now have laid the Mother of Life as well: both to angels and to men a sight most strange! 2. We exalt you greatly, Theotokos most pure, and we glorify your holy Dormition now, as we bow before your honored precious tomb. 3. In your womb you held him who cannot be contained; you are life to all the faithful:

Dormition or Assumption?

08/09/2012

In our Orthodox tradition we are usually very careful to distinguish between the “Dormition” of the Mother of God and her “Assumption” into heaven. The former, we feel, is properly Orthodox, while the latter strikes us as a purely Western designation, derived from a Roman Catholic “misunderstanding” of the meaning of this feast, celebrated universally on August 15. It is true that some very genuine yet misguided interpretations of Mary’s death and exaltation can be

Praying With the Entire Church

08/08/2012

“O you apostles, assembled here from the ends of the earth, bury my body: And You, Omy Son and my God, receive my spirit” (Exapostilarion of Dormition of the Theotokos) To be a genuine Orthodox Christian is to share in the joy of fellowship gathered around the holy Mother of God, Mary the ever-virgin one. Yet in America a hesitancy arises even with the Church among the faithful. What is so normal and self-evident an

Most Holy Theotokos, Save Us!

08/07/2012

Orthodox Christians begin and end the liturgical year with celebrations dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whom we venerate as the Theotokos or “bearer of God.” On September 8, the end of the first week of the new year, we commemorate her Nativity or birth; on August 15, we close the year with the feast of her Dormition, her “falling asleep” and translation to heaven. As the hymns of these and other Marian feasts make clear,

Transfigured Life (Part II)

08/06/2012

In his “Second Century on Theology,” St Maximus the Confessor makes a startling claim, which was nevertheless understood as both a promise and an exhortation to be received by anyone who lives “in Christ.” “In those found worthy,” he declares, “the Logos of God is transfigured to the degree to which each has advanced in holiness, and he comes to them with his angels in the glory of the Father. For the more spiritual principles

Transfigured Life (Part I)

08/03/2012

The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Transfiguration differ in some small but significant details. With typically colorful language, St Mark emphasizes Jesus’ garments, describing them as “glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them.” St Luke adds that “the appearance of his countenance was altered”; and St Matthew declares, “his face shone like the sun.” Each of these narratives makes the point that Jesus manifests what came to be called the shekinah, a