My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
THE ANGEL'S HYMN: "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST AND ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN" (St. Luke 2:14)
By His Eminence Metropolitan of Nafpaktos, HIEROTHEOS
The Angel's hymn is also characteristic: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will towards men." The peace which the Angels praised was not a social peace, the absence of war, but the Incarnation and Presence of Christ. Thus the Angels were hymning the peace which came with the Birth of Christ and not a peace that would come in the future. For by His Incarnation Christ gave men peace with God, his neighbor and himself, as well, precisely because the Divine Nature was united with the human nature in His Person. After the fall man lost peace with God, because he worshipped idols without souls and senses and not the True God. Now by the Incarnation man is given the possibility to worship the True God. He also attained peace with the Angels and his fellow men. And indeed the powers of his soul attained peace, because Christ did what Adam failed to do. Adam had to attain full communion with God by the grace of God and his own personal struggle, the powers of his soul had to function naturally and supranaturally. This was achieved in Christ.
The phrase "good will towards men" suggests that the Incarnation was previously willed by God. According to the Holy Fathers of the Church, God's will is discerned in what precedes and what follows. What precedes is by His good will, while what follows is by concession. When it is said that the Incarnation is the previous will of God, it is understood that it was not a consequence of the fall. In other words, man's union with God would not have been able to succeed if there had not been a particular person in whom the Divine would unite hypostatically with his human nature. Therefore the Incarnation is the prior will of God, which means that it had been planned regardless of Adam's fall. What followed from the fall were the Passion and Cross of Christ. The Incarnation of Christ was the end of the creation. The whole creation and man came into being for the Godman. This is said from the point of view that man could not have been deified (theosis) and creation sanctified if there had not been the Godman...
"...Also present at the Birth of Christ was the creation, which received grace from the Son and Logos/Word of God made man. The term "creation" comprises the animals, the crypt, the manger, the mountains, the sky, etc. The holy icon of the Birth of Christ shows that the whole creation receives grace from Christ. At the center of the holy icons is Christ, Who is the source of uncreated Grace and from Him pours forth God's sanctifying and deifying energy.
At the Birth of Christ the whole creation is extolling God, its Creator. It is bearing witness that Christ as God is the maker of creation, and the creation is His handiwork.
We said before that the whole creation received grace from God at the moment of the Nativity. We must make a clear distinction. While God's energy is one, it has different characteristic according to its effects. Thus we speak of sanctifying and deifying energy, or we speak of God's being, bestowing, life-giving, wisdom-imparting and deifying energy. Within this framework we should say that with regard to ontology, creation partakes of God's being-bestowing and life-giving energy, and with regard to salvation it partakes of His sanctifying energy. Only the deified (theosis) and the Angels partake of God's deifying energy as well.
Therefore the people present at the Nativity of Christ, and the Angels as well, partook of the deifying energy of God, while irrational creation partook of God's sanctifying energy. This is said to avoid any confusion about partaking of God's grace.
"...After all that we have said, we can look at the following four points which show a personal approach to this Great Feast, the "capital" of all the feasts of the Lord:
First. The cave in which Christ was born is a type of the Church. Saint Athanasius the Great speaks graphically. The small room where the Panagia (Mother of God) awaited the Birth had been accepted as the type of the Church. The manger as the altar, Joseph is the server, the magi are the clergy, the Shepherds are the deacons, the Angels are the chalice, the Incarnation is the vestment, the Cherubim are the fans, the Holy Spirit is the paten, the Father Who overshadows all things with His power is the veil covering the paten.
The Church is the Body of Christ the Godman, that which was born in the womb of the Theotokos, was born, was transfigured, suffered, was crucified, rose again and was taken up into heaven. In the Divine Liturgy this Great Mystery (Sacrament) is celebrated and we are given the ability to partake of the grace of Christ. The Church is not a human organization, nor is the Divine Liturgy a rite of commemoration and satisfaction of our feelings.. [Source: The Feasts of the Lord. An Introduction to the Twelve Feasts and Orthodox Christology]
(To be continued)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George