HAUNTED BY THE HOLY GHOST

On The Nativity Of Christ In The Flesh by St. Ephraim the Syrian

photo by fantartsy JJ

This is the day that gladdened them, the Prophets, Kings, and Priests, for in it were their words fulfilled, and thus were the whole of them indeed performed! For the Virgin this day brought forth Immanuel in Bethlehem. The voice that of old Isaiah spoke, (Isaiah 10:19) today became reality. He was born there who in writing should tell the Gentiles’ number! The Psalm that David once sang, by its fulfillment came today! The word that Micah once spoke, (Micah 5:2) today had come indeed to pass! For there came from Ephratha a Shepherd, and His staff swayed over souls. Lo! From Jacob shone the Star, (Numbers 24:17) and from Israel rose the Head. (Hosea 1:11) The prophecy that Balaam spoke had its interpreting today! Down also came the hidden Light, and from the Body rose His beauty! The light that spoke in Zachary, today shined in Bethlehem!
Risen is the Light of the kingdom, in Ephratha the city of the King. The blessing wherewith Jacob blessed, to its fulfillment came today! That tree likewise, [the tree] of life, brings hope to mortal men! Solomon’s hidden proverb (Proverbs 3:18) had today its explanation! Today was born the Child, and His name was called Wonder! (Isaiah 9:6) For a wonder it is that God as a Babe should show Himself. By the word Worm did the Spirit foreshow Him in parable, because His generation was without marriage. The type that the Holy Ghost figured today its meaning was [explained.] He came up as a root before Him, as a root of parched ground. (Isaiah 53:2) Anything that covertly was said, openly today was done! The King that in Judah was hidden, Tamar stole Him from his thigh; today arose His conquering beauty, which in hidden estate she loved. Ruth at Boaz’ side lay down, because the Medicine of Life hidden in him she perceived. Today was fulfilled her vow, since from her seed arose the Quickener of all.Travail Adam on the woman brought, that from him had come forth. She today her travail ransomed, who to her a Savior bare! To Eve our mother a man gave birth, who himself had had no birth. How much more should Eve’s daughter be believed to have borne a Child without a man! The virgin earth, she bare that Adam that was head over the earth! The Virgin bare today the Adam that was Head over the Heavens. The staff of Aaron, it budded, and the dry wood yielded fruit! Its mystery is cleared up today, for the virgin womb a Child has borne!

 

h/t to Preachers Institute

A Nativity Sermon of St. Issac the Syrian

This Christmas night bestowed peace on the whole world;
So let no one threaten;

This is the night of the Most Gentle One -
Let no one be cruel;

This is the night of the Humble One -
Let no one be proud.

Now is the day of joy -
Let us not revenge;

Now is the day of Good Will -
Let us not be mean.

In this Day of Peace -
Let us not be conquered by anger.

Today the Bountiful impoverished Himself for our sake;
So, rich one, invite the poor to your table.

Today we receive a Gift for which we did not ask;
So let us give alms to those who implore and beg us.

This present Day cast open the heavenly doors to our prayers;
Let us open our door to those who ask our forgiveness.

Today the DIVINE BEING took upon Himself the seal of our humanity,

In order for humanity to be decorated by the Seal of DIVINITY.

photo: The Breath of New Hope

by Paulo John

h/t to Preachers Institute

Beauty in this fallen world is like the sun hidden behind a cloud......St. Ephrem

 
 "Beauty in the Garden"
 of The Fragrance of God

 

From my current reading:

The Fragrance of God

by Vigen Guroian:

    And to Adam he [God] said: "Because you … have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground
because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
    Genesis 3:17, RSV

I once said that gardening began when God expelled Adam and Eve from Paradise.
I was wrong. What I should have said is that after the first couple greedily consumed beauty,
gardening got inextricably mixed up with labor and survival, and farming came into existence.
Adam's son Abel was "a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground" (Gen. 4:2, RSV).

Farming is a noble activity, but it also is a necessity,
whereas there is no need to garden.
Thus we may distinguish gardening from farming.
Yet in a fallen world, farming and gardening are ofttimes commensurate.
I cannot conceive that the activity of farming will ever completely be divorced from the vision of beauty, even in the most mechanized and industrialized farming, for flower and fruit are beautiful
in and of themselves.

In spring, I cultivate the perennial bed with the magenta petals
and sweet citrus fragrance of the rugosa rose in mind.
In excitement, I wait also for the green bouquet of the broccoli plant and
the calm, clean scent of the cucumber.

This was not always so.
In the beginning, in my first garden in Richmond, Virginia, I farmed for food
on the table.
But in Charlottesville, Virginia, in Eldersburg and Reisterstown, Maryland, and last, here in Culpeper, the garden has finally reformed my disposition toward it.
It has entirely transfigured my vision of life.

St. Ephrem speaks for me:

    Paradise raised me up as I perceived it,
    it enriched me as I meditated upon it;
    I forgot my poor estate,
    for it made me drunk with its fragrance.

    I became as no longer my old self,
    for it renewed me with all its
    varied nature. …

    In its fair beauty I beheld
    those who are far more beautiful than it,

    and I reflected:
    if Paradise be so glorious,
    how much more glorious should Adam be,
    who is in the image of its Planter,

    and how much fairer the Cross,
    upon which the Son of its Lord rode.

   

Hymns on Paradise, 6:4, 5

Here in Culpeper, I have divided my vegetable garden into raised beds of triangular, rectangular, and square shapes.
Shape, size, texture, and color matter to me as much in the vegetable garden
as in the perennial beds.
For the sake of beauty, I gladly leave the ruffled red cabbage to grow long
beyond its time for harvest.

I let the mustard reach high with bright yellow bouquets.
I cultivate carefully the asparagus row not just for the taste of its buttery spears but also for the verdant fern foliage that shoots up after the spring cutting.
I let volunteer sunflower, cosmos, and cleome seedlings grow where they choose.
And I sneak orange nasturtiums into the hills of sweet-potato vines.

If we modern people thought of our world as a garden, if we gardened more,
then I think all the other creatures
and things that grow in the ground would be so much better off.
Beauty can save the world!
But that depends on how much we love beauty and seek it in our lives.

Gardening is not only making the world around us beautiful once more but letting beauty transform us.
Gardening grows from our deep longing for salvation, so that beauty fills our lives.

"Beauty," writes Berdyaev, "is God's idea
of the creature, of man and of the world. …
The transfiguration of the world is the attainment
of beauty"
(The Destiny of Man, p. 247).

In my garden, I take hope from Jesus' promise
to the repentant thief on the cross that he will be with his Lord in Paradise.

I know that the sweat of my brow and tears of penance bring
Paradise near in my backyard.
For a garden is a profound sign and deep symbol of salvation, like none
other, precisely because a garden was our first habitation, and God has
deemed it to be our final home.

Beauty is the aim of life. God imagined it so.
God spoke the Word, and his invisible Image of Beauty became a visible garden.

"The fertility of the earth is its perfect finishing," writes St. Basil of Caesarea,
"growth of all kinds of plants, the up springing of tall trees,
both productive and sterile, flowers' sweet scents and fair colours,
and all that which … came forth from the earth to beautify her,
their universal Mother"
(Hexaemeron, homily 2).

Beauty will transfigure the chaos and deformity of our wounded world
 into the peace and harmony of a cosmos that God, from the beginning,
proclaims to be good and beautiful.

I know that the beauty I aim at in the garden lies hidden within the innate potentiality of the earth and the seeds that the sun and the rain bring to life.
I must divide the ground to fit the needs and the habits of the plants that grow.
I must prepare the soil and supply it with minerals and nutrients.
I must sow the seeds in an orderly way and thin the seedlings so that they have room to spread and capture the light of the sun.
And I must cultivate the earth to let in the air and the water.

Alas, the garden has taught me that beauty is both gift and accomplishment.
As gift, I accept it humbly and without pride, gratefully and not greedily.
As gift, beauty comes from above and beyond my poor power to bring it into existence or to experience it.

 

St. Ephrem writes:

Paradise has … clothed itself
in terms that are akin to you;

but it is not because it is impoverished
that it has put on your imagery;

rather, your nature is far too weak
to be able to attain its greatness,
and its beauties are much diminished

by being depicted in the pale colors
with which you are familiar.

Hymns on Paradise, 11:7

Yet Paradise, Ephrem insists, is not so far distant from us
that we cannot approach it.
Indeed, we draw nearer to it with each and every effort to make our own
selves and the world around us beautiful.

Beauty in this fallen world

is like the sun hidden behind a cloud. 

Our ruined "eyes" see just the shadow of its brightness.
When, however, we are transformed by our love for it,
beauty illumines our whole being, much as on Mount Tabor
the bright glory of God enveloped Peter, James, and John.

In the Kingdom of heaven, light, life, and beauty are one.
Light engenders life in the garden and beauty everywhere.
From the Father of Light issues the
Spirit, who gives Life and the Only-Begotten, who is Beauty itself.
The Three are One God.

 

photos #1 and #2 by malupina!
phote #3 by serni

O Treasure...that preserves the house where it is stored...

St. John Chrysostom on Baptism.......

He took dust from the earth and made the man;
He formed him.
The devil came, and perverted him.
Then the Lord came, took him again, and remolded, and recast him in baptism,
and He suffered not his body to be of clay, but made it of a harder ware.

He subjected the soft day to the fire of the Holy Spirit.
“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:"
He was baptized with water that he might be remodeled,
with fire that he might be hardened.
Therefore the Prophet speaking beforehand under divine guidance declared
"Thou shalt dash them in pieces like vessels of the potter."

He did not say like vessels of earthenware which every one possesses:
for by a potter's vessels are meant those which the potter is fashioning on the wheel: now the potter's vessels are of clay, but ours are of harder ware.

Speaking beforehand therefore of the remoulding
which is wrought by means of baptism he saith,
"thou shalt dash them in pieces like vessels of a potter"--
He means that He remodels and recasts them.

I descend into the water of baptism, and the fashion of my nature is remoulded,
and the fire of the Spirit recasts it, and it is turned into a harder ware...

"But we have this treasure..."
A supply of the Spirit, righteousness, sanctification, redemption...
Hast thou seen a treasure more brilliant than royal treasures?
For what can the pearl of a king do like that which the words of an Apostle affected?
Set crowns innumerable upon dead men, and they will not be raised: but one word went forth from an Apostle, and it brought back revoked nature, and restored it to its ancient condition. "
But we have this treasure..."

O Treasure,
which not only is preserved,
but also thost thou understand what I have said?
The kings of the earth, and rulers when they have treasures, prepare large houses, having strong walls, bars, doors, guards, and bolts in order that the treasure may be preserved:
But Christ did the contrary:
He placed the treasure not in a stone vessel but in an earthen one....
for the vessel does not preserve the treasure,
but the treasure preserves the vessel.

I deposit the treasure: who is able henceforth to steal it?
The devil has come, the world has come, multitudes have come,
and yet they have not stolen the treasure: the vessel has been scourged,
yet the treasure was not betrayed; it has been drowned in the sea,
yet the treasure was not shipwrecked: it has died yet the treasure survives.