As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the Prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” -Luke 3: 4-6 (Gospel from
On the second day of the feast, the Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos is celebrated. Combining the hymns of the Nativity with those celebrating the Mother of God, the Church points to Mary as the one through whom the Incarnation was made possible. His humanity—concretely and historically—is the humanity He received from Mary. His body is, first of all, her body. His life is her life. This feast, the assembly in honor of the
And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid, for I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people.” -Luke 2:10 What is the good news? In the Nativity story, the Angels gave the message, “For to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2: 11).” What does that mean to us? Let’s go back to Genesis
And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first born Son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. -Luke 2:6-7 If you look closely at many icons of the Nativity, you will notice that the manger is not a straw-filled wooden trough as we see in most Nativity displays
By Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon In the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian churches of the West, the several weeks prior to Christmas are known as Advent, a name from a Latin word meaning “coming.” It happens that the beginning of Advent always falls on the Sunday closest to November 30, the ancient feast day (in both East and West) of the Apostle Andrew. Among Christians in the West, this preparatory season, which tends to
UNION BETWEEN CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS Carl G. Jung in his book: Answer to Job discusses the importance of Mary as the archetypal symbol of the feminine in all human beings. “But if the individuation process is made conscious, consciousness must confront the unconscious and a balance between the opposites must be found. As this is not possible through logic, one is dependent on symbols which make the irrational union of opposites possible. They are
MARY – THE PERFECT CHRISTIAN I would like to avoid such an approach and begin by basing our deeper devotion to Mary on the fact that God has given her to us as a realized type of the perfect Christian. Mary, in her continued process of growing into a greater fullness of grace, even in her glorified relationship to Jesus Christ, to the members of His Body, the Church, and to the whole created universe,
Holy Ground All this might sound like a new sort of romanticism, but our own very concrete experiences and observations will help us to recognize this as realism. Often we must confess that the experience of our loneliness is stronger than that of our solitude and that our words about solitude are spoken out of the painful silence of loneliness. But there are happy moments of direct knowing, affirming our hopes and encouraging us in
By Father Matthew Baker Popular presentations of the Orthodox Christian faith often highlight the doctrine of theosis, or deification, as a distinctive accent of Orthodox theology and spiritual teaching. In the 20th century, owing to the enthusiastic rediscovery of St Gregory Palamas and especially the wide influence of the theology of Vladimir Lossky, this message of deification was most often cast in terms of a “participation in the divine energies.” The phrase from 2 Peter 1:4, “partakers
By Father Georges Florovsky That we begin our reckoning of time with Christ’s birth is a fact which has long been but a mere convention for many. Seldom does one recall and recognize the great event from which we count time. So do we betray our ignorance and insensitivity. In ancient days, time was computed from the Incarnation of God the Word. It signifies that we live in a world which has been renewed and
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