You cannot be too gentle, too kind.
And coming alive, they invite you into their company, where no one is even thinking of being religious or of becoming saints. Why not? Because where they are is Paradise. There is no need of religion there, because men see God and speak with Him face to face. Why is where they are Paradise? Because they are in Christ, and they know it, and He is Paradise, and that is all that they know. When you follow them as they follow Him, very soon that is all that you know too. Nothing that you ever did before as a religious Christian goes away or is abandoned. You just grow up. Grow up into the stature of Christ. Francesco’s stigmata don’t cease being wonderful; they are just no longer a source of wonder: only Christ is.
Every year I am deeply moved by the hymns of Christ’s Nativity composed by my name day saint, Romanós the Melodist. Somehow in their simplicity of lyric and melody they capture a side of Christmas that escapes the notice of our culture. In the Western world, the famous short hymn Silent Night has a similar effect of reducing everyone who hears it to the level of the simple awe of the shepherds of Bethlehem. Yet, Today the Virgin, maybe because of its poetry and the details so carefully woven together with tender irony, surpasses all other hymns in conveying both what it was like in time, and what it is like in eternity—the Word became man and dwelt among us… full of grace and truth.
Today, the Virgin bears the One beyond being, 
We know that the Bible is the greatest ikon of all, in that it is the verbal ikon of the Word of God, and that it should be treated with all reverence—venerated, honored, read and obeyed as the Source of everything we can possibly know about God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and about His ikonomía, His “plan of salvation,” as the only divine scripture on earth. Just as we don’t casually throw it around, or use it as a place mat or door stop, but rather always give it the place of honor, kissing it and holding it respectfully and lovingly, for His sake Whose Gospel it contains, so we also treat our fellow man. We don’t treat him casually, or as a means to an end, but respect him as one to whom Christ comes, for whom Christ died, and through whom Christ comes to us.
Since Christ is now among us, in us as His living ikons, how can we offer, not only what shall we offer, to Him?
The planet earth offered a cave (and as at the beginning, so at the end, in a rich man’s unused tomb). The wilderness offered a manger (so that the animals, too, could get a good look at their Creator). And finally, the human race, in the shape of her own willingness to risk everything she had ever known and every happiness she ever hoped for, a young virgin as His Mother.
The more of ourselves, the better. It’s a smile and a hug in loneliness, a kind word in sorrow. It’s a helping hand to one who needs it, to one who needs what you have but don’t need. “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry” (Luke 3:11 NIV). This is another facet of the theology of ikons. This is why ikons have come into existence—because the invisible, incomprehensible, eternal God has freely willed to become… one of us.
There are no hidden meanings in our letters besides what you can read for yourselves and understand.
There is no question that the Bible, called the ‘verbal ikon’ of the Word of God, is without equal as the source of our knowledge about the nature of God the Holy Triad and the salvation that is open to all. There would be no Church fathers, no worship or doctrine, no ikons, in short, no knowledge of Christ, or of our deliverance from sin and death through Him, without the Bible.
All of the mystics of the early Church believed that the supreme spiritual experience would be to see the Divine and Uncreated Light, which was identical to what the Jews call the Shekhináh—it is the light witnessed by the three disciples which surrounded Jesus on Mount Tabor at His Metamórphosis. Because “God is light” (1 John 1:5), the experience of His energies was said to take the form of light. This is not mere created light, but the Light of the Godhead Itself. Even though this Light is not a sensible or material light, it can be seen by a man whose senses as well as his soul have undergone a metamorphosis of their own.
As the bride asks in the Song of Solomon, ‘Tell me then, You whom my heart loves: Where will You lead Your flock to graze, where will You rest it at noon? That I may no more wander like a vagabond beside the flocks of Your companions,’ so comes the answer, ‘If you do not know this, O loveliest of women, follow the tracks of the flock, and take your kids to graze close by the shepherds’ tents.’ (Song of Solomon 1:7-8 JB)
Brethren, as you know, I am just an ordinary Christian, a simple follower of Jesus, with no formal education in ‘theology’ or in ‘biblical criticism.’ I’ve said it often enough, and so I believe, that theology isn’t learned in schools, nor is it possible to criticize the Bible. Sometimes I write things, just like the foregoing, that make me sound very dogmatic, very doctrinaire—some of you even think that I am denominationally biased, favoring one church over another, as if there were such a thing as ‘churches.’
Jesus, our Saviour, the God-Man…
If He was not flesh, whom did Simeon hold in his arms?
If He was not flesh, who took the loaves in the desert?
If He was not flesh, whom did the apostles see carried up into heaven?
The expression ‘common knowledge’ refers to things that are known by nearly everyone. A large part of what we know on a daily basis falls into this category. At the other end of the spectrum, there are things that are known by relatively few people, specialized knowledge perhaps. At the opposite extreme from common knowledge there is a zero point for shared knowledge in every individual human being. These are things that only three know. Who are these three? They are yourself, your confessor, and Christ. |
| I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Luke 5:32 |
Ο Μόνος Φιλάνθρωπος, o Mónos Philánthropos, the only lover of mankind, the only loving God. However you translate His name, it comes out the same, giving the lie to all who rely on His fierce anger to incinerate the unbeliever and the unrepentant. Aside from the ample hints throughout the scriptures that there will be a reward for the righteous and punishment for the wicked, we have no details, except what our imaginations supply, clouds and songs of praise and light for the one, fiery lake and demons and darkness for the other. Our imaginations supply us with these images of eternal blessedness and eternal damnation whether we are Christians or not, whether we believe in the Bible or not: these images are the common domain of all humanity. That's what makes them suspect. We cannot, or we should not, second guess God, especially those of us who believe a God who becomes Man and tells us, 'If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.'.jpg)
