.... All clergy do to him incline, 
    And bow unto that babe benign, 
And do your observance divine 
    To him that is of kings King: 
    Incense his altar, read and sing 
In holy church, with mind digest, 
    Him honoring above all thing 
    Qui nobis Puer natus est.

- from William Dunbar's On The Nativity

In the coming Christ,

AA in M

Hidden fruit

Zealous Elijah was sent to bear witness to the truth and to preach the Living God.  But what fruit did this most holy prophet see from his mission?  The way in which God snatched him from life, before he had managed to complete his task, was certainly miraculous, but it was also a blow, this replacement by another prophet.  Yet it was precisely for the seed of his witness that God had sent him. Saint John the Baptist bore witness to the truth and condemned iniquity. Yet, on the one hand, iniquity continued, and seems to this day to prevail, while he himself had his honourable head severed from his body.  He did not succeed, but he remains the Fore-runner of Christ, the Most Honourable of the Prophets.  Where is the host of Apostolic churches founded by the Apostles in the East?  Where are the feats and wonders performed by so many saints? What has become of the sermons of thousands of preachers of the Word of God?  The world continues to wallow in the filth of sin. And our own children, our own flocks and our own people, on whose behalf we labour and struggle, let us be quite clear about this, will live in the sin of their hearts in the same passions as those in which the whole of society lives.  But they will live unto eternity,however, when God snatches them at the particular moment appointed for them, which He alone knows. It is God Who gives the victory, even if we are continually under the harrow, and it is He Who wins the people about whom we care, not with our efforts, but in the way He revealed to Isaiah, when he prophesied thus to him foretelling his failure. “A holy seed shall be its stump”(Isa.6:13), that is of Zion.  As if He were saying:  “You will fail.  When people are eating my word and the bread which I shall give, they will blaspheme and renounce me and say ’Get out of here, God’.  But within Zion I have placed a seed giving life through the power of the Spirit, which shall be a stump, a base, a root, the mighty trunk.  A seed which will last through to the end of the ages, through the maelstrom of sin and the cataclysm of all evil it will maintain the ‘remnant’ of Israel and shall transform it into a Church, the body of the Son of God, the Father of the Saved. ...Let us then have more confidence in what we profess than in ourselves, whoever we are, however grand and important we are, or think we are...  Let us have confidence in God, remembrance and dolorous love toward Him...

Elder Aimilianos

We believe that believers, who are purified by Christ's commandments, do not simply have some spiritual illumination and enlightenment, but that the Holy Spirit Himself abides in them; as it is written, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and, The Kingdom of God is within you.

 - An Instruction on the Sunday of Pentecost, The Gospel Commentary (2002)

...let me close this letter with some worldly maxims:
be glad your being is unnecessary.

- W H Auden, from 'Epistle to a Godson'

a distance, an absence, an exile

O Paradise, garden of delight and beauty, dwelling place made perfect by God, unending gladness and eternal joy, the hope of the prophets and the home of the saints, by the music of your rustling leaves beseech the Creator of all to open to me the gates which my sins have closed, that I may partake of the Tree of Life and Grace which was given to me in the beginning (Vespers of Forgiveness Sunday)

 

There have been moments in our lives when we have felt or had a vision or sense of heaven: the presence of God, of grace, a certain wholeness and integrity, joy, peace, wonder, gratitude. The sweetness of being forgiven, and of forgiving, is a kind of paradise, a brief taste of heaven. We understand how desirable it is to be in a right relationship with God and one another, to shed all that is calculating and defensive and guilty and to savor a moment of relief, of honesty and openness , to have a clear conscience, to regain - even if briefly - an almost child-like innocence and purity.

 

In addition to today's theme of forgiveness, we also directed to reflect on the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. The fall from grace of our first parents is said to be the origin of our own sense of exile and alienation, of the division and separation we experience in our relationships with God and one another. We have only at times a passing glimpse of the paradise for which we were created and which is our true spiritual home. Mutual forgiveness is one of these critical moments. Our lenten journey will be marked, God-willing, by several such moments when the veil is lifted and the distance that seperates us from paradise is diminished, moments of recognition and sweetness that point towards the true homeland our heart's desire. 

 

 Over against these experiences we daily endure our fallen condition, a condition of exile.  Charles Taylor writes in A Secular Age about our experience of 'a distance, an absence, an exile, a seemingly irremediable incapacity ever to reach this place; an absence of power, a confusion.... What is terrible in this latter condition is that we lose a sense of where the place of fullness is, even of what fullness could consist in, we feel we've forgotten what it would look like, or cannot believe in it anymore. But the misery of absence, of loss, is still there, indeed, it is in some ways even more acute.'

 

We highlight forgiveness as we are about to begin the lenten struggle to overcome this sense of absence and loss because without the desire for - and expression of - mutual forgiveness there can be be no return to paradise. In fact, without striving to forgive and asking for forgiveness from God and one another there can be no salvation. The Lord says that divine mercy will be shown only to the merciful and forgiveness only to the forgiving.

Instructions of St Ambrose of Milan for the beginning of the Great Fast

Behold, Dearly Beloved, the sacred days are drawing near, the acceptable time, of which it is written: Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (II Cor. 6: 2). And so you must be more earnest in prayer and in almsgiving, in fasting and in watching. He that till now has given alms, in these days let him give more; for as water quencheth a flaming fire, so does almsgiving wipe out sin (Eccles. 3: 33). He that till now fasted and prayed, let him fast and pray more: for there are certain sins which are not cast out, except by prayer and fasting. (Mt. 17: 20).


Should anyone cherish anger towards another, let him forgive him from his heart. Should anyone take unjustly what belongs to another, let him restore it; and if not fourfold, at least what he has taken; if he desires God to be merciful to himself (Luke 19: 8). And though a Christian should abstain at all times from cursings and revilings, from oaths, from excessive laughter, and from idle words, he must do this especially in these holy days, which are set apart so that, during these forty days, he may by repentance wipe out the sins of the whole year.

Let you believe, and believe firmly, that if in these days you have made a thorough confession of your sins, and repented as we have told you, you shall receive from our Most Merciful Lord the pardon of all your offences; as did the Ninivites, who earned deliverance in sackcloth and ashes (John 3). So you also, following their example, if you cry out to the Lord, you will invoke His mercy on you, so that serene and joyful you will celebrate the day of the Lord's Resurrection, and, thus blessed, you will after this life cross over to your heavenly home, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

If the poison of pride is swelling up in you, turn to the Eucharist; and that Bread, Which is your God humbling and disguising Himself, will teach you humility. If the fever of selfish greed rages in you, feed on this Bread; and you will learn generosity. If the cold wind of coveting withers you, hasten to the Bread of Angels; and charity will come to blossom in your heart. If you feel the itch of intemperance, nourish yourself with the Flesh and Blood of Christ, Who practiced heroic self-control during His earthly life; and you will become temperate. If you are lazy and sluggish about spiritual things, strengthen yourself with this heavenly Food; and you will grow fervent. Lastly, if you feel scorched by the fever of impurity, go to the banquet of the Angels; and the spotless Flesh of Christ will make you pure and chaste,"

- St. Cyril of Alexandria

As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed

Well, so that is that.
Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes -
Some have got broken – and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week -
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted – quite unsuccessfully -
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry
And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
- W. H. Auden, Christmas Oratorio, III
“Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake.”
They will come, all right, don’t worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God’s Will will be done,
That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

- W. H. Auden, Christmas Oratorio, III