Eve's Lament

Eve's Lament, from “Paradise Lost,” Book XI.

O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods; where I had hope to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day        
That must be mortal to us both? O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last
At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!        
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down        
Into a lower world, to this obscure
And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

Filled with love, the holy Apostles went into the world, preaching salvation to mankind and fearing nothing, for the Spirit of God was their strength. When St. Andrew was threatened with death upon the cross if he did not stop his preaching he answered: ‘If I feared the cross I should not be preaching the Cross.” In this manner all the other Apostles, and after them the martyrs and holy men who wrestled against evil, went forward with joy to meet pain and suffering. For the Holy Spirit, sweet and gracious, draws the soul to love the Lord, and in the sweetness of the Holy Spirit the soul loses her fear of suffering.

(St Silouan of Athos in Wisdom from Mount Athos: The Writings of Staretz Silouan, 1866-1938)

Liturgy consists of the various means whereby the Church makes it possible for the faithful to experience through their senses the mysteries of religion, that is, the sweetness of the Kingdom. 

- Photis Kontoglou in Byzantine Sacred Art (Belmont, Mass: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1985) Ed. Constantine Cavranos.