Tikhon of Zadonsk: Love of God Cannot Exist Within the Heart Without Joy Tuesday, Jun 18 2013

But let us see what the signs of love for God are, so that we may not have a false dream of love instead of love itself. In nothing does a man deceive himself so much as in love.

[...] God Himself indicates this, saying, “He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me” (Jn. 14:21).

For the true lover of God will preserve himself from everything that is repugnant to God, and hastens to fulfil everything that is pleasing to God. Wherefore he keeps His holy commandments.

From this it follows that those Christians that neglect the commandments have no love for God…. They love themselves and their own appetites, but not God or His holy Law.

A manifest sign of love for God is a heartfelt gladness in God, for we rejoice in what we love.

Likewise love of God cannot exist without joy, and whenever a man feels the sweetness of the love of God within his heart, he rejoices in God.

For so sweet a virtue as love cannot be felt without joy. As honey sweetens our throat when we taste of it, so the love of God makes our heart glad when we taste and see that the Lord is good (LXX Ps. 33:9).

Such joy in God is found in many places in Holy Scriptures, and is portrayed most of all in the holy Psalms. This joy is spiritual and heavenly, and is a foretaste of the sweetness of eternal life.

The true lover of God disdains the world and all that is in the world, and strives toward God, his most beloved. He counts honor, glory, riches, and all the comforts of this world which the sons of this age seek, as nothing.

For him only God, the uncreated and most beloved good, suffices. In Him alone he finds perfect honor, glory, riches and comfort. For him God alone is the pearl without price, for the sake of which he holds everything else as little. Such a one desires nothing in heaven or on earth besides God.

Such love is portrayed in the very words of the Psalter, “For what have I in heaven? And besides Thee what have I desired upon earth? My heart and my flesh have failed, O God of my heart, and God is my portion forever” (LXX Ps. 72:25).

He uses food, drink, clothing, and everything else only as needful, and not for sensual pleasure. From this it follows that whoever loves the world does not love God. According to the witness of the Apostle, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:15).

Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724-1783; Russian Orthodox): extract @ Kandylaki   from Journey to Heaven: Counsels On the Particular Duties of Every Christian by Our Father Among the Saints, Tikhon of Zadonsk, Bishop of Voronezh and Elets (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 2004) .

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John Paul II: Reconciliation, Redemption and New Creation Sunday, Jun 16 2013

On Colossians 1:3, 12-20.

The great Christological hymn that opens the Letter to the Colossians…exalts the glorious figure of Christ, the heart of the liturgy and centre of all ecclesial life.

The horizon of the hymn, however, soon widens to embrace creation and redemption, involving every created being and the whole of history.

[...] After an introduction in which thanks are given to the Father for our redemption (cf. vv. 12-14), our hymn is divided into two strophes that the Liturgy of Vespers proposes anew each week.

The first celebrates Christ as the “firstborn of all creation”, that is, begotten before all other beings. Hence, this strophe affirms his eternity which transcends space and time (cf. vv. 15-18a).

He is the “image”, the visible “icon” of God who remains invisible in his mystery.

It was through this experience of Moses, in his ardent desire to look upon God’s personal reality, that he heard in response: “You cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33: 30; cf. Jn 14: 8-9).

Instead, the face of the Father, Creator of the universe, becomes accessible in Christ, the architect of created reality: “All things were created through him… and in him all things hold together” (Col 1: 16-17).

Thus, while on the one hand Christ is superior to created realities, on the other hand he is involved in their creation. For this he can be seen by us as an “image of the invisible God”, brought close to us through the act of creation.

In the second strophe (cf. vv. 18b-20), the praise in Christ’s honour reaches to a further horizon: of salvation, redemption, the rebirth of humanity created by him but which, through sin, had been plunged into death.

Now, the “fullness” of grace and of the Holy Spirit that the Father instilled in the Son enabled him, through dying and being raised, to communicate new life to us (cf. vv. 19-20). He is therefore celebrated as “the firstborn from the dead” (1: 18b).

With his divine “fullness” but also by shedding his blood on the Cross, Christ “reconciles” and “makes peace” with all things, in heaven and on earth.

Thus, he brings them back to their original condition, recreating the initial harmony that God desired in accordance with his plan of love and life. Creation and redemption are thus connected, like the stages of one and the same saving event.

[...] St John Damascene…writes…: “The death of Christ saved and renewed man; and it brought the angels back to their original joy because of the people saved, and combined earthly realities with those above…. Indeed, he made peace and took away enmity. Therefore, the angels said: Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth”.

John Paul II (1920-2005): Commentary on the Psalms and Canticles of Vespers (General Audience, 24 November 2004).

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Augustine of Hippo: We Must Prepare Our Hearts for the Future Life Saturday, Jun 1 2013

If our hope in Christ is for this life only, of all mankind we are the most wretched.

There is, then, another life. Gaze with the eyes of faith on the future life.

For the sake of the future life you believed and were signed with the sign of Christ.

He lived an earthly life in order to show you how lightly you should esteem the life you used to love, and how earnestly you should hope for the life in which you used to disbelieve.

Rouse your faith and turn the eyes of faith to the last things and the world to come, where we shall rejoice after the Lord’s Second Coming, after the Judgment, after the kingdom has been delivered to the saints.

Think of that life and that life’s leisure, beloved. Our life then will not be storm-tossed. It will be a life of leisure, a leisure full of nothing but pleasantness.

There will be no vexations to disturb us, no fatigue to tire us, no storm clouds to trouble us.

What will be our occupation in that life? To praise God, to love and to praise: to praise by loving, and to love by praising.

Blessed are they who dwell in your house: they shall praise you forever and ever.

Why, if not because they shall love you forever and ever? Why, if not because they shall gaze upon you forever and ever?

If we remember that we are members of the Saviour, if we yearn and persevere, we shall see and rejoice.

The citizens of that city will all be purified, and none there will be subversive or disturbers of the peace.

The enemy who now hinders us from reaching that home­land can lay no snares for anyone there, for entrance is denied him.

If he is now barred from the breasts of believers, how much more will he not be barred from the city of the living?

My brethren, I ask you, what will it be like in that city, when it is such a joy even to speak of it now?

We must prepare our hearts for that future life.

Those who do so are detached from everything in this present life, and this detachment enables them to look forward with confidence to that day which the Lord bade us await with fear and trembling.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430): Commentary on Psalm 147, 3 (CCL 40:2140-2141; from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Monday of the 8th Week in Ordinary Time, Year 1.

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Gregory Palamas: Clothed in Immortality, Glory and Incorruption by the Power of the Holy Spirit Thursday, May 16 2013

Christ…, in His all-surpassing love for mankind, showed at Pentecost that His disciples were partakers, fathers and ministers of everlasting light and life, who bring us to new birth for eternal life and make those who are worthy children of the Light and fathers of enlightenment.

Thus, He Himself is with us unto the end of the world, as was promised through the Spirit (Matt. 28:20). For He is One with the Father and the Spirit, not according to hypostasis, but in His divinity, and God is One in Three, in one tri-hypostatic and almighty divinity.

The Holy Spirit always existed and was with the Son in the Father. How could the Father and divine Mind be without beginning if the Son and Word were not also without beginning? How could there be a pre-eternal Word without there also being a pre-eternal Spirit?

Thus the Holy Spirit ever was and is and will be, co-Creator with the Father and the Son, together with them renewing that which has suffered corruption, and sustaining the things that endure.

He is everywhere present and fills, directs and oversees everything. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit”, says the Psalmist to God, “Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Ps. 139:7). He is ‘not just everywhere, but also above all, not just in every age and time, but before them all.

And, according to the promise, the Holy Spirit will not just be with us until the end of the age, but rather will stay with those who are worthy in the age to come, making them immortal and filling their bodies as well with eternal glory, as the Lord indicated by telling His disciples, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16).

“It is sown”, says the Apostle (meaning buried and committed to the earth), “a dead natural body”, that is to, say, an ordinary created body with a created soul, stable and capable of movement.

“It is raised” (that is, comes back to life), “a spiritual body” (cf. 1Cor. 15:44), which means a supernatural body, framed and ordered by the Holy Spirit, and clothed in immortality, glory and incorruption by the Spirit’s power (cf. 1Cor. 15:53).

“The first man, Adam”, he says, “was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (cf. 1Cor. 15:45,47-48).

Gregory Palamas (1296-1359): On Pentecost, 12-13 @Mystagogy.

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Nikolai Velimirovich: Being “in Adam” and “in Christ” Tuesday, Apr 30 2013

“For just as in Adam all die, so too, in Christ, shall all be brought to life” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Following Adam’s example, life is sown in shame, and following Christ’s example, life is raised in glory.

Sin is from Adam and justice is from Christ. Weakness and death come from Adam and strength and life come from Christ.

Accordingly, in Adam we all die. Accordingly, in Christ, we shall all be brought to life.

That one is the earthly man [Adam], this one is the heavenly man [Christ]. That is the bodily man [Adam] and this is the spiritual man [Christ].

Christ did not resurrect for His sake but for our sake – just as He did not die for His sake but for our sake.

If His resurrection does not signify our resurrection, then His resurrection is bitterness and not sweetness.

Where, then, would the love of God be? Where, then, would the meaning of our miserable earthy experience be? What, then, would be the purpose of Christ’s coming to earth?

There, where Adam ends, Christ begins. Adam ends up in the grave and Christ begins with the resurrection from the grave.

Adam’s generation, i.e., the seed underground that rots and decays, does not see the sun, does not believe that it can emerge from beneath the earth to blossom into a green plant with leaves, flowers and fruit.

Christ’s generation is a green field upon which wheat grows, turns green, becomes covered with leaves, blossoms and bears much fruit.

“In Adam” does not only mean that we will die one day, rather it means that we are already dead; dead to the last one.

“In Christ” does not only mean that we will revive one day, but rather that we are already alive, i.e., that the seed in the ground has already begun to germinate and to break through to the light of the sun.

The complete expression of death is in the grave, but the complete expression of eternal life is in the kingdom of God.

The mind of the sons of Adam are in accordance with death, reconciled with being decayed and sink even deeper into the ground.

The mind of the sons of Christ rebel against death and decay and exert all the more, to burgeon a man toward the light, which the Grace of God helps.

O resurrected Lord, sober the minds of all the sons of man that they would flee from darkness and destruction and reach out toward the light and life eternal which is in You.

Nikolai Velimirovich (1880-1956; Orthodox Church): Prologue from Ohrid, April 11th.

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Benedict XVI: The Mystery of the Transfiguration and the Agony in Gethsemane Monday, Feb 25 2013

On the Second Sunday of Lent, the Evangelist Luke emphasizes that Jesus went up on the mountain “to pray” (9:28), together with the Apostles Peter, James and John, and it was “while he prayed” (9:29) that the luminous mystery of his Transfiguration occurred.

Thus, for the three Apostles, going up the mountain meant being involved in the prayer of Jesus, who frequently withdrew in prayer especially at dawn and after sunset, and sometimes all night.

However, this was the only time, on the mountain, that he chose to reveal to his friends the inner light that filled him when he prayed: his face, we read in the Gospel, shone and his clothes were radiant with the splendour of the divine Person of the Incarnate Word (cf. Lk 9:29).

There is another detail proper to St Luke’s narrative which deserves emphasis: the mention of the topic of Jesus’ conversation with Moses and Elijah, who appeared beside him when he was transfigured.

As the Evangelist tells us, they “talked with him… and spoke of his departure” (in Greek, éxodos), “which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” (9:31).

Therefore, Jesus listens to the Law and the Prophets who spoke to him about his death and Resurrection.

In his intimate dialogue with the Father, he did not depart from history, he did not flee the mission for which he came into the world, although he knew that to attain glory he would have to pass through the Cross.

On the contrary, Christ enters more deeply into this mission, adhering with all his being to the Father’s will; he shows us that true prayer consists precisely in uniting our will with that of God.

For a Christian, therefore, to pray is not to evade reality and the responsibilities it brings but rather, to fully assume them, trusting in the faithful and inexhaustible love of the Lord.

For this reason, the verification of the Transfiguration is, paradoxically, the Agony in Gethsemane (cf. Lk 22:39-46).

With his impending Passion, Jesus was to feel mortal anguish and entrust himself to the divine will; his prayer at that moment would become a pledge of salvation for us all.

Indeed, Christ was to implore the Heavenly Father “to free him from death” and, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote: “he was heard for his godly fear” (5:7). The Resurrection is proof that he was heard.

Dear brothers and sisters, prayer is not an accessory or “optional”, but a question of life or death. In fact, only those who pray, in other words, who entrust themselves to God with filial love, can enter eternal life, which is God himself.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): Angelus Address, Second Sunday of Lent, 4 March 2007 @ Vatican Website.

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Germanus of Constantinople: The Church is an Earthly Heaven… Tuesday, Jan 15 2013

The church is the temple of God, a holy place, a house of prayer, the assembly of the people, the body of Christ.

It is called the bride of Christ. It is cleansed by the water of His baptism, sprinkled by His blood, clothed in bridal garments, and sealed with the ointment of the Holy Spirit, according to the prophetic saying:

“Your name is oil poured out” (Cant 1:3), and “We run after the fragrance of your myrrh” (Cant 1:4), which is “Like the precious oil, running down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron” (Ps 132:2 LXX).

The church is an earthly heaven in which the super-celestial God dwells and walks about.

It represents the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ: it is glorified more than the tabernacle of the witness of Moses, in which are the mercy-seat and the Holy of Holies.

[...] The apse corresponds to the cave in Bethlehem where Christ was born, as well as the cave in which he was buried, as the evangelist Mark says: “There was a cave hewn out of rock; there they placed Jesus” (cf Mk 15:46).’

The holy table corresponds to the spot in the tomb where Christ was placed. On it lies the true and heavenly bread, the mystical and unbloody sacrifice.

[...] This table was pre-figured by the table of the Old Law upon which the manna, which was Christ, descended from heaven.

[...] The altar corresponds to the holy tomb of Christ.

On it Christ brought Himself as a sacrifice to [His] God and Father through the offering of His body as a sacrificial lamb, and as high priest and Son of Man, offering and being offered as a mystical bloodless sacrifice, and appointing for the faithful reasonable worship, through which we have become sharers in eternal and immortal life.

This lamb Moses prefigured in Egypt “towards evening” when its blood turned back the destroyer so that he would not kill the people (cf Ex 12:7-13).

The expression “towards evening” signifies that towards evening the true lamb is sacrificed, the One who takes away the sin of the world on his cross, “For Christ, our Pascha, has been sacrificed for us” (cf I Cor 5:7).

The altar is and is called the heavenly and spiritual altar, where the earthly and material priests who always assist and serve the Lord represent the spiritual, serving, and hierarchical powers of the immaterial and celestial Powers, for they also must be as a burning fire.

For the Son of God and Judge of all ordained the laws and established the services of both the heavenly and the earthly powers.

Germanus of Constantinople (c.634–c.733): On the Divine Liturgy, 1-6 (Tr based in part on: J. Meyendorff, St. Germanus of Constantinople on the Divine Liturgy Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984: 56-106. ) @ Fr Luke Dysinger, OSB.

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Gregory Palamas: John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit Tuesday, Jan 8 2013

Proclaiming beforehand the mystery of eternal life, the great Paul says, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44).

That is to say, the body will be indwelt and motivated by the supernatural power of the divine Spirit in the age to come.

In the same way, John was sown and shaped in his mother’s womb as a natural body, but by the mysterious anointing of the Holy Spirit while he was within her, he was shown to be a spiritual body, who leapt and rejoiced in the Spirit and made his mother a prophetess.

Through her tongue he blessed God with a loud voice and declared the Virgin who was with child to be the Mother of the Lord, and he addressed her unborn Babe as the fruit of her womb, proving that she was at the same time both pregnant and a virgin (Lk. 1:41-45).

John did not merely, in the words of the Scripture, choose the good before knowing evil (Is. 7:16), but while still unborn, before knowing the world, he surpassed it.

Then once he was born he delighted and amazed everyone by reason of the miraculous events surrounding him, because, it says, “The hand of the Lord was with him” (Lk. 1:66), working wonders again as it had in earlier time.

His father’s mouth, which had been closed because he had not believed in the child’s strange conception, was opened and filled with the Holy Spirit, and he prophesied, among other things, about this his son, saying,

“And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto His people” (Lk. 1:76-77).

Once this divine child, this living instrument of grace from his mother’s womb, had been conceived, he was moved by grace to rejoice in the Holy Spirit.

In the same way, after being born, he grew and waxed strong in the Spirit.

As the world was unworthy of him, he dwelt continuously in desert places from his earliest years, leading a frugal life without cares or worldly concerns, a stranger to sadness, free from coarse passions and above base, material pleasure, which merely beguiles the body and its senses.

He lived for God alone, beholding only God and making God his delight. It was as if he lived somewhere exalted above the earth.

“And he was in the deserts”, it says, “till the day of his shewing unto Israel” (Lk. 1:80).

Gregory Palamas (1296-1359): Homily on St John the Baptist @ Mystagogy.

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Guerric of Igny: Christ – the Way by which We Journey and the Eternity which is Our Journey’s End Monday, Dec 10 2012

Be ready to go and meet the Lord, O Israel, for he is coming. You too must be ready, for at a time when you do not expect it the Son of Man will come.

Nothing is more certain than that he is coming, nothing more uncertain than when he is coming.

So far is it from being our province to know the times and seasons which the Father has appointed by his own authority, that not even to the angels who stand in his presence is it granted to know that day and hour.

As for our own last day, it is most sure that this will come upon us, but most unsure when, or where, or from what quarter it will come.

[...] There is only one security, and that is never to feel secure. Thus our fear, prompting us to watch ourselves carefully, keeps us always prepared until fear gives way to security, not security to fear.

How beautiful a thing it is, how blessed, not merely to face death without anxiety, but through the testimony of a good conscience to triumph gloriously in it!

[...] It belongs to our human condition, I know, to quail before the wrench of death, since even the perfect are unwilling to have the old body stripped off and would rather wish to have the new body put on over it.

[...] Yet whether my distress arises from my human feelings or from my falling short in holiness or from my fear of judgment, I can say with the righteous psalmist:

You, O Lord, will be mindful of your mercy; you will display your tender love and faithfulness and snatch my soul from the midst of the young lions.

Then after my dismay sleep will come at once and I shall find rest.

Do you, then, Lord, rise up to meet me as I run to meet you. Since I have not the strength to scale your summits unless you stretch out your right hand to me whom your hands have made, rise to meet me, and see whether there is any sinful way in me.

If you find any sinful way at all, then take it from me; grant me the grace to live by your law and lead me in the way of eternity, that is, in Christ who is the way by which we journey and the eternity which is our journey’s end: an undefiled way and a blessed dwelling place.

Guerric of Igny (c.1070/80-1157): Sermon 3 on Advent 3.5 (PL 185, 18-20), from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Saturday of the First Week in Advent, Year 1.

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Hippolytus of Rome: A Person Without the Holy Spirit is Frightened of the Struggle Friday, Nov 16 2012

On chapter 3 of the book of Daniel…

Behold three youths who have set an example for all.

They were unafraid of the numerous satraps and of the words of the king.

They did not tremble when they heard about the fiery flames of the furnace, but they spurned all and the whole world for they thought only of the fear of God.

You see how the Spirit of the Father teaches eloquence to the martyrs, consoling them and exhorting them to despise death in this world, to hasten their attainment of heavenly goods.

But a person who is without the Holy Spirit is frightened of the struggle.

He hides himself, takes precautions against a death that is only temporal, is afraid of the sword, falls into a panic at the thought of the torture.

He no longer sees any other thing than the world here below, worries only about the present life, prefers his wife to everything else, is bothered only about love for his children, and seeks nothing but wealth.

Such a man, because he is not endowed with heavenly strength, is quickly lost.

That is why anyone who desires to come near the Word listens to the behest of the King and Lord of heaven:

Whoever does not bear his cross and follow me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be my disciple.

Scripture tells us that after this those three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the white-hot furnace and walked about in the flames, singing to God and blessing the Lord.

[...] God saved those he wanted, in order that the wonders of his works might be revealed to the whole world.

But those whom he desired to undergo martyrdom, he crowned and let them come to him.

If he drew the three youths out of their predicament, it was to show the emptiness and folly of Nebuchadnezzar’s boastfulness and prove at the same time that what is impossible to man is possible to God.

Nebuchadnezzar had proudly declared: Who is the God that can deliver you out of my hands? God proved to him that he can free his servants when he wishes to do so.

That is why it is improper for man to oppose the decisions of God. For if we live, we live for the Lord. And if we die, we die for the Lord. Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord.

Hippolytus of Rome (c.170-c.236): Commentary on Daniel, II, 18-37 (SC 14:150-184); from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Saturday of Week 33 in ordinary Time, Year 2.

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