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ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN WITNESS (USPS 412-260)
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DECEMBER, 2005, Vol. XXXIX, No. 12, (1555)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. A Nativity Sermon by St. Gregory of Nazianzus (AD 380)
2. Nativity Sermon by St. Isaac the Syrian (AD 700)
3. A Nativity Sermon of St. John Chrysostom
4. What is cultural Marxism?
5. Book Review: Aristotle East and West by David Bradshaw
6. The Word Became Flesh, St. John of Kronstadt
7. New Items from the Book Center
Wherefore, children, let us not faint nor deem that the time is
long, or that we are doing something great, 'for the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall
be revealed to us-ward.' Nor let us think, as we look at the world,
that we have renounced anything of much consequence, for the whole
earth is very small compared with all of Heaven.
St. Anthony the Great
1. A Christmas Sermon by St. Gregory of Nazianzus(AD 380)
Christ is born, glorify Him. Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him.
Christ on earth, be exalted. Sing to the Lord all the whole earth; and
that I may join both in one word, let the heavens rejoice, and let the
earth be glad, for Him who is of heaven and then of earth. Christ in
the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy; with trembling because
of your sins, with joy because of your hope.
Again, the darkness is past; again Light is made; again Egypt is
punished with darkness; again Israel is enlightened by a pillar. The
people who sat in the darkness of ignorance, let them see the great
Light full of knowledge. Old things have passed away, behold all things
have become new. The letter gives way, the Spirit comes to the front.
The shadows flee away, the truth comes in on them. Melchizedek is
concluded. He who was without Mother becomes without Father (without
mother of His former state, without father of His second). The laws of
nature are upset; the world above must be filled. Christ commands it,
let us not set ourselves against Him. O clap your hands together all
you people, because unto us a Child is born, and a Son given unto us,
whose government is upon His shoulder (for with the cross it is raised
up), and His name is called The Angel of the Great Counsel of the
Father. Let John cry, prepare the way of the Lord; I too will cry the
power of this Day. He who is not carnal is Incarnate; the Son of God
becomes the Son of Man, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and
forever. Let the Jews be offended, let the Greeks deride; let heretics
talk until their tongues ache. Then shall they believe, when they see
Him ascending into heaven; and if not then, yet when they see Him
coming out of heaven and sitting as Judge.
This is our present Festival; it is this which we are celebrating
today, the Coming of God to Man, that we might go forth, or rather (for
this is the more proper expression) that we might go back to God - that
putting off of the old man, we might put on the new; and that as we
died in Adam, so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ and
crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising with Him. For I must
undergo the beautiful conversion, and as the painful succeeded the more
blissful, so must the more blissful come out of the painful. For where
sin abounded grace did much more abound; and if a taste condemned us,
how much more does the passion of Christ justify us? Therefore let us
keep the Feast, not after the manner of a heathen festival, but after a
godly sort; not after the way of the world, but in a fashion above the
world; not as our own, but as belonging to Him who is ours, or rather
as our master's; not as of weakness, but as of healing; not as of
creation, but of re-creation.
This sermon was delivered during the Nativity Feast, i.e. on Christmas.
Christian is the Feast of the Incarnation and birth of Christ.
_______________________________________________________________________
2. Nativity Sermon by St. Isaac the Syrian (d. AD 700)
This Christmas night bestowed peace on the whole world;
So let no one threaten;
This is the night of the Most Gentle One -
Let no one be cruel;
This is the night of the Humble One -
Let no one be proud.
Now is the day of joy -
Let us not revenge;
Now is the day of Good Will -
Let us not be mean.
In this Day of Peace -
Let us not be conquered by anger.
Today the Bountiful impoverished Himself for our sake;
So, rich one, invite the poor to your table.
Today we receive a Gift for which we did not ask;
So let us give alms to those who implore and beg us.
This present Day cast open the heavenly doors to our prayers;
Let us open our door to those who ask our forgiveness.
Today the DIVINE BEING took upon Himself the seal of our humanity,
In order for humanity to be decorated by the Seal of DIVINITY.
________________________________________________________________________
3. THE NATIVITY SERMON OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
"I behold a new and wondrous mystery!
My ears resound to the shepherd's song, piping no soft melody, but
loudly chanting a heavenly hymn!
The angels sing!
The archangels blend their voices in harmony!
The cherubim resound their joyful praise!
The Seraphim exalt His glory!
All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead herein... on
earth and man in heaven. He who is above now, for our salvation, dwells
here below; and we, who were lowly, are exalted by divine mercy!
Today Bethlehem resembles heaven, hearing from the stars the singing of
angelic voices and, in place of the sun, witnessing the rising of the
Sun of Justice!
Ask not how this is accomplished, for where God wills, the order of
nature is overturned. For He willed He had the powers He descended. He
saved. All things move in obedience to God.
Today He Who Is, is born ! And He Who Is becomes what He was not! For
when He was God, He became man-while not relinquishing the Godhead that
is His...
And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that
has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him angels, nor archangels,
nor thrones, nor dominions, nor powers, nor principalities, but,
treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless
womb.
Yet He has not forsaken His angels, nor left them deprived of His care,
nor because of His incarnation has He ceased being God. And behold
kings have come, that they might serve the Leader of the Hosts of
Heaven; Women, that they might adore Him Who was born of a woman so
that He might change the pains of childbirth into joy; Virgins, to the
Son of the Virgin...
Infants, that they may adore Him who became a little child, so that out
of the mouths of infants He might perfect praise; Children, to the
Child who raised up martyrs through the rage of Herod; Men, to Him who
became man that He might heal the miseries of His servants;
Shepherds, to the Good Shepherd who was laid down His life for His
sheep;
Priests, to Him who has become a High Priest according to the order of
Melchizedek;
Servants, to Him who took upon Himself the form of a servant, that He
might bless our stewardship with the reward of freedom (Philippians
2:7);
Fishermen, to the Fisher of humanity;
Publicans, to Him who from among them named a chosen evangelist;
Sinful women, to Him who exposed His feet to the tears of the repentant
woman;
And that I may embrace them all together, all sinners have come, that
they may look upon the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world! Since, therefore, all rejoice, I too desire to rejoice! I too
wish to share the choral dance, to celebrate the festival! But I take
my part, not plucking the harp nor with the music of the pipes nor
holding a torch, but holding in my arms the cradle of Christ!
For this is all my hope!
This is my life!
This is my salvation!
This is my pipe, my harp!
And bearing it I come, and having from its power received the gift of
speech, I too, with the angels and shepherds, sing:
"Glory to God in the Highest! and on earth peace to men of good will! "
________________________________________________________________________
4. WHAT IS CULTURAL MARXISM?
By William S. Lind
October 25, 2005
In his columns on the next conservatism, Paul Weyrich has several times
referred to "cultural Marxism." He asked me, as Free Congress
Foundation's resident historian, to write this column explaining what
cultural Marxism is and where it came from. In order to understand what
something is, you have to know its history.
Cultural Marxism is a branch of western Marxism, different from the
Marxism-Leninism of the old Soviet Union. It is commonly known as
"multiculturalism" or, less formally, Political Correctness. From its
beginning, the promoters of cultural Marxism have known they could be
more effective if they concealed the Marxist nature of their work,
hence the use of terms such as "multiculturalism."
Cultural Marxism began not in the 1960s but in 1919, immediately after
World War I. Marxist theory had predicted that in the event of a big
European war, the working class all over Europe would rise up to
overthrow capitalism and create communism. But when war came in 1914,
that did not happen. When it finally did happen in Russia in 1917,
workers in other European countries did not support it. What had gone
wrong?
Independently, two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and
Georg Lukacs in Hungary, came to the same answer: Western culture and
the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true,
Marxist class interest that Communism was impossible in the West until
both could be destroyed. In 1919, Lukacs asked, "Who will save us from
Western civilization?" That same year, when he became Deputy Commissar
for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun government in
Hungary, one of Lukacs's first acts was to introduce sex education into
Hungary's public schools. He knew that if he could destroy the West's
traditional sexual morals, he would have taken a giant step toward
destroying Western culture itself.
In 1923, inspired in part by Lukacs, a group of German Marxists
established a think tank at Frankfurt University in Germany called the
Institute for Social Research. This institute, soon known simply as the
Frankfurt School, would become the creator of cultural Marxism.
To translate Marxism from economic into cultural terms, the members of
the Frankfurt School - - Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Reich,
Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, to name the most important - - had to
contradict Marx on several points. They argued that culture was not
just part of what Marx had called society's "superstructure," but an
independent and very important variable. They also said that the
working class would not lead a Marxist revolution, because it was
becoming part of the middle class, the hated bourgeoisie.
Who [then] would? In the 1950s, Marcuse answered the question: a
coalition of blacks, students, feminist women and homosexuals.
Fatefully for America, when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933,
the Frankfurt School fled - - and reestablished itself in New York
City. There, it shifted its focus from destroying traditional Western
culture in Germany to destroying it in the United States. To do so, it
invented "Critical Theory." What is the theory? To criticize every
traditional institution, starting with the family, brutally and
unremittingly, in order to bring them
down. It wrote a series of "studies in prejudice," which said that
anyone who believes in traditional Western culture is prejudiced, a
"racist" or "sexist" of "fascist" - - and is also mentally ill.
Most importantly, the Frankfurt School crossed Marx with Freud, taking
from psychology the technique of psychological conditioning. Today,
when the cultural Marxists want to do something like "normalize"
homosexuality, they do not argue the point philosophically. They just
beam television show after television show into every American home
where the only normal-seeming white male is a homosexual (the Frankfurt
School's key people spent the war years in Hollywood).
After World War II ended, most members of the Frankfurt School went
back to Germany. But Herbert Marcuse stayed in America. He took the
highly abstract works of other Frankfurt School members and repackaged
them in ways college students could read and understand. In his book
"Eros and Civilization," he argued that by freeing sex from any
restraints, we could elevate the pleasure principle over the reality
principle and create a society with no work, only play (Marcuse coined
the phrase, "Make love, not war"). Marcuse also argued for what he
called "liberating tolerance," which he defined as tolerance for all
ideas coming from the Left and intolerance for any ideas coming from
the Right. In the 1960s, Marcuse became the chief "guru" of the New
Left, and he injected the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School into
the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now America's state
ideology.
The next conservatism should unmask multiculturalism and Political
Correctness and tell the American people what they really are: cultural
Marxism. Its goal remains what Lukacs and Gramsci set in 1919:
destroying Western culture and the Christian religion.
It has already made vast strides toward that goal. But if the average
American found out that Political Correctness is a form of Marxism,
different from the Marxism of the Soviet Union but Marxism nonetheless,
it would be in trouble. The next conservatism needs to reveal the man
behind the curtain - - old Karl Marx himself.
William S. Lind is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism of
the Free Congress Foundation. (The Free Congress Foundation's website,
www.freecongress.org, includes a short book on the history and nature
of cultural Marxism, edited by William S. Lind. It is formatted so you
can print it out as a book and share it with your family and friends.)
______________________________________________________________________________
5. BOOK REVIEW
David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division
of Christendom. Cambridge (Eng.), 2004, 297 pages.
Professor David Bradshaw teaches philosophy at the University of
Kentucky. He is an Orthodox Christian, which may explain his
even-handed treatment of his sources and materials. He rightly views
the reasons for the "division of Christendom" as the result of
something more than cultural or political. Fundamental to the division,
he finds in philosophy; or, to be more specific, in that branch of
philosophy called metaphysics by Aristotle. It is the study of "first
principles": the ultimate reality of things.
Thanks largely to Aristotle, philosophy in general and metaphysics in
particular, produced in the medieval universities (Scholasticism) a
debate over the relationship between "faith" (religion) and
"reason" (philosophy), a western phenomenon, which, as Professor
Bradshaw observes, is crucial to the examination of those ideas
that played a central role in "division of Christendom."
Eastern Christendom, he observes, "had from the beginning a
fundamentally different way of understanding the whole range of issues
pertaining to the relationship of faith and reason" (x). He might
have added that the same was true for the patristic West.
The West Roman or Latin Fathers were in fact not part of the Scholastic
tradition, no matter how often Boethius, Scotus Erigena, Anselm, Thomas
Aquinas, Duns Scotus appealed to their authority. They offered a
"metaphysics" --- if that is the right word --- not found in Sts
Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, Paulinus of Nola, Peter Chrysologus, Popes
Leo and Gregory the Great etc., in the "undivided Church," save
Augustine of Hippo, the forerunner to the Scholastics.
According to Bradshaw, there was no more divisive metaphysics than the
doctrine of God, in particular, the question raised by Aristotle and
other Greek philosophers about His energeia sometimes translated
"energies," "powers," "activity," or "operations." It was treated
differently by different writers. Some agreed with Aristotle that the
essence and energies of God are identical ; others that they were
distinct. In the East, it was a term central to its theology beginning
with "the Cappadocians in the fourth century and continuing through the
work of St Gregory Palamas" (xi). Bradshaw seems to be uncertain which
position the Latin Fathers took, an opinion he would have revised had
the unity of patristic thought been his premise. In that case, he
would have equated the word "operations" or "powers," scattered
everywhere throughout their writings, with "energies," so
important to the theology of the Greek Fathers
In the first five chapters, Bradshaw offers a dry but necessary history
of the divine energies in the philosophies o f Aristotle, Philo of
Alexandria, Plotinus and other pagan philosophers. In chapter six, he
traces the Christian use of energeia to the epistles of St Paul (e.g.,
I Cor. 3:9; Eph. 1:19; 3:7; 4:16, Col. 1:29; I Thess. 2:13) and the
Orthodox authors of the next two centuries. He can demonstrate no
difference between them and the teachings of the later Fathers.
They also taught the cooperation (synergy) of the Divine and human
wills or energies, an idea necessary to the understanding of Christian
spirituality.
Of greater interest are his chapters on the theological implications of
the essence-energy ideology. Professor Bradshaw argues that they
fundamentally affect the entire network of Christian doctrine.
Restricting himself largely to the theology and closely related
subjects, he shows that the Greek Fathers conceive the essence and
energies in God as distinct, that is, God reaches us through His
energies while His essence is unknowable and incommunicable. The
essence is an eternal mystery. On the other hand, Augustine and Aquinas
equate the essence and energies or powers of God. He is being, having
neither parts nor distinctions. In other words, whatever we say or
think about God and His actions, we are saying it about His essence.
The Persons of the Trinity, its attributes and all its operations are
the actions of the divine essence. God is everywhere present in His
essence, whether in the heavens or on earth. When the Greek
Fathers declare that Christ or the Holy Spirit abides in him, they
refer to the energies of God; but when Augustine and the Scholastics
speak of Christ or the Holy Spirit abides in the Christian, they mean
the "essence" of God rests in the soul.
What Professor Bradshaw does in fact write on this subject in Aristotle
East and West is highly significant, although one could wish he
had said more. Unfortunately, he leaves several false impressions about
the nature of patristic theology. When he entitles chapter seven,
"the formation of the eastern tradition," and chapter eight, "the
flowering of the eastern tradition," he suggests the existence of two
theological (patristic) traditions. He implies that there is "an
eastern tradition" (inherited by the Orthodox) and a "western
tradition" (to which Roman Catholicism is heir). Also, because of his
silence about energies or operations in the theology of the Latin
Fathers, the reader is left with the sense that they, like Augustine,
identified essence and energy. With the word "development," he
validates the not uncommon theory that the Christian Faith has changed
over the centuries; in a word, the Faith was not "once delivered to the
saints."
Professor Bradshaw astutely observes that the "principle" of God's
energies has enormous consequences for Christian theology. He gives us
some crucial examples. First, he refers us to the Christian doctrine of
salvation, i.e., deification; and, second, the celebrated dispute over
the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father "and the Son"
(filioque); and, last, the divine Names (pp. 154 - 178).
Clearly, if there is no distinction between essence and energy in God,
then, the grace by which we are saved or deified is not a distinct and
uncreated energy. Grace is either God Himself (which no one believes)
or it is created. But deification (theosis) is participation in
the divine Nature. Created grace cannot make us divine. Some Roman
Catholic theologians concede this point, notes Bradshaw, and thus, like
Karl Rahner (1904 - 1984), recognize the existence of both a created
and uncreated grace, the second preparing for the first (pp. 275 -
279).
Furthermore, if there had been an agreement on the nature of God's
essence and energies, "the Trinitarian controversy" (pp. 154 - 161)
might never have arisen. But Augustine and his tradition chose to
believe that the essence and energies or powers of God are the
same. In other words, if God is nothing but simple essence, even
the Persons of the Trinity, are no more than forms of the essence. To
use the language of the Augustine and Aquinas: Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are mere "relations" (see p. 159. fn. 16). In order to
know the difference between the three Persons, the Father is said to
beget the Son, and to distinguish the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Holy
Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the Son (acting as a
single principle).
Finally, after a few comments on the use of names before the fourth
century AD, Bradshaw argues that the names of God (goodness, mercy,
etc.), according to the "eastern tradition," are expressions of the
uncreated energies. They tell us nothing about the hidden divine
essence. For Aquinas (and Augustine), since essence and energy
are synonymous, and "everything that is not of the divine essence is a
creature" (S.Th. I, xxvii, 2), the names of God are nothing than
symbols that describe the divine essence.
The ninth chapter has the provocative title, "Palamas and
Aquinas." There is a discussion about the theologies of both, but
Bradshaw provides us with no comparison between them. We are told that
Aquinas develops "the implications of divine simplicity," speculation
drawn from Aristotle and Augustine (p.246).
In this same chapter, there is a valuable segment on "the innovations
of Augustine" (pp. 224 - 229). Inasmuch as God is being itself
(ipsum esse), says Augustine, He is unchangeable, as the Platonists
taught him. If so, Bradshaw queries, how can the immutable God
enter into a "causal relationship" with changeable beings?
Moreover, there exists in the mind of God the eternal reason or ideas
or forms for all created things (a theory he also took from Plato). For
example, He possesses the eternal idea or image of a cat or a house.
Finally, the author mentions Augustine's teaching on God's special
revelations in history --- the burning bush, pillar of fire, etc. ---
and he asks what are we to think of them. In the East they are
understood as theophanies of the Son and Holy Spirit --- or more
precisely of their energies --- while Augustine saw them as created
manifestations. "His operative assumption is that either they
(miracles) were creatures or they were direct appearances of the divine
substance (which of course is inadmissible); there is no third
alterative," Bradshaw concludes (p.
229).
Unlike Augustine, Aquinas and St Gregory had an affinity for Aristotle.
Unfortunately, nothing is said by the author about the way each used
"the Philosopher." Professor Bradshaw indicates the errors in the
theology of Aquinas, but fails to give us the Saint's response, whether
philosophical or theological. The author does inform us that
Thomas, as the result essence-energy position, defines eternal life as
the vision of God's essence and, thus, for Aquinas He is "the highest
intelligible object" (p. 255). "In the East," God "is beyond being and,
consequently, unknowable in His essence.
Bradshaw presents two major criticisms to the theology of Thomas
Aquinas: the idea of divine simplicity is inconsistent with his
teachings on divine free choice; and also that "he relies too heavily
on the category of efficient causality (i.e., the agent by which
something is formed), thereby leaving the relation ship between God and
creatures merely extrinsic" (p. 257). I wish the good Professor
would have explained these complicated "objections" in simpler terms;
and that he would have shown us the truth as St Gregory Palamas
expressed it. The chapter heading seems to have promised a comparison
between the Archbishop of Thessalonica and Aquinas which is not
provided.
Chapter ten is the Epilogue of this book and an excellent summary of
it. Bradshaw offers some profound insights into the difference between
Orthodoxy and the post-patristic West. "Synergy" or cooperation as a
communion between the believer and the uncreated energies of God
"remains as clear in Gregory Palamas as it is in St Paul" (p. 265).
Augustine's theology of divine simplicity and --- what is almost same
thing, the identity of essence and energy --- implies that God is
intrinsically intelligible." (l.c.).
The author insists that it is no accident that during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, as the west was "disengaging itself from its eastern
counterpart (an unfortunate phrase), western culture as a whole
developed sharply more naturalistic stance in areas such as art,
science, law, and government, as well as in various forms of religious
devotion" (p. 266). We are not told which came first ---
philosophy or naturalism --- but, in any case, it produced
mentality which recognized "a sphere of natural reason" and, therefore,
a "natural theology," whose truths are discovered without the aide of
divine revelation.
The philosophical theology (at whose center lay "the most real being")
with the new humanism and naturalism begat a dualism of matter and
spirit that, among other things, accounts peculiar teachings of
the West on prayer and asceticism. All these things were
anticipated by Augustine in his Neo-Platonic world-view. This
post-patristic west is in fact his offspring.
If eastern and western Christendom has diverged, we can look to their
theologies; in particular, the idea of God encompassing the distinction
between essence and energies; or the God who is simple being, and
nothing but essence. "The East has no concept of God. It views
God not as an essence to be grasped intellectually, but as a personal
reality known through His acts, and above all by oneself sharing in
those acts" (p. 275). This involves the doctrine of deification of the
total man which, on the basis of its theology, it is difficult to
justify.
If one has no liking for philosophy or no training in it, this book may
be difficult to assimilate, especially the first few chapters.
Enlightening as this book is, it is not always true to its promise.
Bradshaw builds a good case for the importance of Aristotle to both the
theologies of east and west, but he sometimes fails to develop his
thesis consistently and adequately. According to the author,
energeia is the theme or "thread" that holds the book together, but it
does not everywhere keep a straight and visible course. Many people who
read Aristotle East and West will discover a fundamental idea of
Christian theology, an idea commonly ignored or misunderstood. If for
no other reason, this is a most important study.
Fr Michael Azkoul
NOTE: ARISTOTLE EAST AND WEST is not available from St. Nectarios
Press.
6. THE WORD BECAME FLESH
Saint John of Kronstadt
The Word became flesh; that is, the Son of God, co-eternal with
God the Father and with the Holy Spirit, became human - having
become incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. 0,
wondrous, awesome and salvific mystery! The One Who had no
beginning took on a beginning according to humanity; the One
without flesh assumed flesh. God became man - without ceasing to
be God. The Unapproachable One became approachable to all, in the
aspect of a servant. Why, and for what reason, was mere such a
condescension [shown] on the part of the Creator toward His
transgressing creatures - toward humanity which, through an ad of
its own will had fallen away from God, its Creator?
It was by reason of a supreme, inexpressible mercy toward His
creation on the part of the Master, Who could not bear to see the
entire race of mankind - which, He, in creating, had endowed with
wondrous gifts - enslaved by the devil and thus destined for
eternal suffering and torment. And me Word became flesh!...in
order to make us earthly beings into heavenly ones, in order to
make sinners into saints; in order to raise us up from corruption
into incorruption, from earth to heaven; from enslavement to sin
and the devil - into the glorious freedom of children of God;
from death into immortality, in order to make us sons of
God and to seat us together with Him upon the Throne as His royal
children.
O, boundless compassion of God! O, inexpressible wisdom of God!
O, great wonder, astounding not only to me human mind, but the
angelic [mind] as well! Let us glorify God! With the coming of
the Son of God in the flesh upon the earth, with His offering
Himself up as a sacrifice for the sinful human race, there is
given to those who believe the blessing of the heavenly Father,
replacing that curse which had been uttered by God in the
beginning; they are adopted and receive the promise of an eternal
inheritance of life. To a humanity orphaned by reason of sin, the
heavenly Father returns anew through the mystery of re-birth,
that is, through baptism and repentance. People are freed of the
tormenting, death-bearing authority of the devil, of the
afflictions of sin and of various passions. Human nature is
deified for the sake of the boundless compassion of me Son of
God; and its sins are purified; the defiled are sanctified. The
ailing are healed. Upon those in dishonor are boundless honor and
glory bestowed. Those in darkness are enlightened by the Divine
light of grace and reason. The human mind is given the rational
power of God - we have the mind of Christ (Cor. 2,16), says the
holy apostle Paul. To the human heart, the heart of Christ is
given. The perishable is made immortal. Those naked and wounded
by sin and by passions are adorned in Divine glory. Those who
hunger and thirst are sated and assuaged by the nourishing and
soul strengthening Word of God and by the most pure Body and
Divine Blood of Christ. The inconsolable are consoled. Those ravaged by
the devil have been - and continue to be - delivered
What, then, O, brethren, is required of us in order that we might
avail ourselves of all the grace brought unto us from on high by
the coming to earth of the Son of God? What is necessary, first
of all, is faith in the Son of God, in the Gospel as the
salvation-bestowing heavenly teaching; a true repentance of sins
and the correction of life and of heart; communion in prayer and
in the mysteries (sacraments); the knowledge and fulfillment of
Christ's commandments. Also necessary are the virtues: Christian
humility, alms-giving, continence, purity and chastity,
simplicity and goodness of heart.
Let us then, O, brother and sister, bring these virtues as a gift
to the One Who was born for the sake of our salvation let us
bring them in place of the gold, frankincense and myrrh which the
Magi brought Him, as to One Who is King, God, and Man, come to
die for us. This, from us, shall be the most-pleasing form of
sacrifice to God and to the Infant Jesus Christ. Amen.
______________________________________________________________________________
7. NEW ITEMS FROM THE BOOK CENTER
(HIP) A HISTORY OF
ICON PAINTING. Edited by Archimandrite Zacchaeus Wood. Nine icon
experts offer articles on the subjects of 1) The Theological
Principles. 2. The Technique of Icon Painting. 3. Byzantine Icons of
the 6th to 15th C. 4.; Greek Icons after the Fall of Byzantium. 5.
Mediaeval Russian Icons. 6. Georgian Icons of the Tenth to Fifteenth C.
7. The Icons of Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia. 8 Ukrainian Icon
Painting, Belarusian Icons, Icon Painting in Romania. 9. Russian Icons
of the 18th to Early 20th C. 10. Icons of the 20th C. Includes an
excellent Chronological Table, a Bibliography and several hundred full
color illustrations. This book is a must-have. 287pp d$35.00.
(PAN) MANUEL
PANSELINOS: From the Holy Church of the Protaton. Panselinos
(14th c.) was the foremost exponent of the "Macedonian School" of
iconography and the magnificent of frescoes of the church of the
Protaton are a unique example. "The photographs of the frescoes and
details of them are a treasure not to be missed. Over 200 pages
of color plates. 312pp. Cloth f$95.00 Quantities
limited.
ANCIENT CHRISTIAN
COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE. Twe new volumes now available: Cloth $40.00
Our Price e$35.00 ea.
(ACO4) Old Testament, Vol. 4: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Samuel
1-2. 458pp
(ACC10) New Testament, Vol. 10: Hebrews. 292pp.
(ES) ELLA'S STORY: The Duchess Who Became A
Saint. By Maria Tobias, illustrated by Bonnie Gillis.
An inspiring story based on the life of St. Elizabeth, a New Martyr of
the Soviet Communist Yoke of Tyranny, presented for children aged 8 and
up. 78pp. d$9.00
(TM73) IN THE
BEGINNING by Katina. The latest release of Orthodox folk music by
Katina features the first chapter of Genesis, the lives of St.
Demetrios, St. Euphrosynos, St. John the Evangelist, St. Eudocia and
more. CD only. d$18.00