The Creator's compassion cannot be conquered by the wickedness of creatures.
(St Isaac of Nineveh)

To be an Orthodox Christian in a modern setting easily breeds a negative view of the surrounding culture. Modernity is antithetical to tradition. But the very persistence of Orthodox Christianity in the modern world is itself a product of grace. Why are we still here? All of this is expressed in St. Luke’s gospel: “For He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (6:35). The proof is all around us.

 

- Fr Stephen Freeman ( https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2023/07/04/grace-and-the-handbasket)

 

The Church is not an abstract system, but life in its fullest. Christ is not imaginary, but the God-man who has a resurrected body, that shines with the Light of Divinity and we have the ability to touch Him. The Church is the Body of Christ, that consists of its Mysteries, is expressed by its dogmas and sacred canons, and is established by a particular ecclesiastical government. The theology of the Church is empirical, it is “the mystery of the touch.”

We commune of the Body of Christ ...  We kiss the Cross, the sacred relics of the Saints, the sacred icons. And when a Christian prays with spiritual strength, he touches eternity and participates in the glory of God...

The Risen Christ is not a man who once lived, but He is the God-man who is always with us. The Resurrection of Christ is not an event of the past, but it is experienced within the life of the Church. We are not people who believe in God only in theory, but we are members of His Risen Body. Christ calls us to touch Him and we must respond to this invitation. This is “the mystery of the touch.” The mystery of divine communication.

- Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos)

 

 When He appears you shall say to yourself, 'My beloved speaks and says, "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away"' (Song of Songs 2:10). I have opened the way for you, I have broken your bonds, so come to me my beloved. 'Arise, my beloved, my fair one, mydove.' Why does He say 'Arise'? why 'Hasten'? For you I have endured the raging storms, I have borne the waves that would have assailed you; on your account my soul became sorrowful even to death. I rose from the dead after drawing the sting of death and loosing the bonds of hell. Therefore I say to you, 'Arise, my fair one, and come away, my dove; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth'. I have risen from the dead, I have rebuked the storm, I have offered peace. And because, according to the flesh, I was born of the Virgin and of the will of my Father, and because I have increased in wisdom and stature, 'the flowers appear on the earth'.

 

Origen - SS 2:12

 

... you can’t create lasting institutions without conventions, without traditions, and without uncodifiable instincts into how to make sense of the rules you’ve been given.

Zohar Atkins

 

The greatest offering we can present to the Lord is our self. We cannot do this without giving up our own will. We learn to do this through obedience, and obedience we learn through practice... Besides fasting we have other teachers to whom we can show obedience. They meet us at every step in our daily life, if we only recognize their voices. Your wife wants you to take your raincoat with you: do as she wishes, to practice obedience. Your fellow-worker asks you to walk with her a little way: go with her to practice obedience. Wordlessly the infant asks for care and companionship: do as it wishes as far as you can, and thus practice obedience. A novice in a cloister could not find more opportunity for obedience than you in your own home. And likewise at your job and in your dealings with your neighbour. (Tito Colliander, Way of the Ascetics)

 

The Transfiguration

[The Transfiguration] is perhaps the most accurate memory the church has of Christ, having passed through his death and Resurrection, having been baptized with him, and having accepted him to be born inside us. This is the memory and the image of Christ in his fullness, above life and death, as the doorway to the kingdom of heaven, the brilliance of the Father, revealed by the Holy Spirit, resting in his saints, and inviting us into his brightness. We embark on this journey of divine discovery by placing ourselves on Mount Thabor with the fallen disciples of Jesus. They saw their Master in his divinity so that they could understand something more about who he was, and thus they would be better prepared to face his forthcoming Passion and Resurrection. By showing to them his power and his glory, Christ told them essentially this: “This is who I really am. You'll see me beaten, tortured, and crucified. You'll see me die on a cross. But nature and death cannot restrict me. I'll rise from the dead. I'll be as glorious and as luminous as you see me now. When I come back at the end of time, I will also be as you see me now, bathed in the light of my divinity. Until I return, remember my life, but me as you see me now. Every time you need to remember that time, space, and death has no power over me, every time you need to remember that what I give you is the union of the complete nature of humanity with the complete nature of God, you can remember me as I appear now in front of you, surrounded by the prophets of old who were brought here to see me and talk with me, brighter than the sun, singled out and recognized by my Father for who I am, for your sake. This is the mystery of my Transfiguration. And if you want to follow me, you'll die many times and you'll be raised with me many times, but what you see right now will be your guidance, the compass in your death, and the promise of eternal life.”

- Fr Andreas Andreopoulos

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