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 Forefeast of the Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ. The Holy Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer (December 20th)
VESPERS
[Stichera. First Tone]
Let us celebrate, O ye, people, the Forefeast of the Nativity of Christ; and raising our mind on high, let us be taken up in spirit unto Bethlehem, and with the thoughts of our soul. let us look upon the Virgin, as she maketh haste unto the cave to give birth to the Lord of all and our God. Beholding the greatness of His wonders, Joseph supposed that he saw a mere man wrapped as a babe in swaddling clothes; but from the things that were accomplished, he perceived that it was the True God, Who granteth great mercy unto our souls.
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Hearken, O Heaven, and give ear, O earth; for behold, the Son and Logos/Word of God the Father cometh forth, to be born of a Maiden that hath not known man, by the good pleasure of Him that begat Him without passion, and with the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. Prepare thyself, O Bethlehem; O Eden, open thy gate. For He Who Is, becometh that which He was not; the Fashioner of all creation taketh form, even He that granteth the world great Mercy.
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Of the Saint Ignatius the Hieromartyr. Fourth Tone
Thous who with holy and perfect love wast wounded, when the burning love inflamed thy great and ardent soul and pressed thee forward, to go thy way unto the Master, o sacred Father, Ignatius graced of God, the didst thou cry out those celebrated words of thine: 'I am the wheat of my Fashioner, and must be fully ground up and milled by the teeth of savage beasts, that I may thus appear as most pure bread in the presence of Jesus, the Logos, our God. Do thou therefore entreat Him to enlighten and save our souls.'
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O God-bearing Ignatius, having Christ, thy love, within thy breast, as the reward of thy sacred ministry in the Gospel of Christ, thou wast counted worthy to be slain, and to be made perfect through blood. Wherefore, having become the wheat of the Immortal Husbandman, thou wast ground up by the teeth of wild beats, and wast shown forth as bread that was sweet unto Him. Do thou intercede for us, O blessed athlete.
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Synaxarion:
(On December 20th we commemorate Saint Ignatius the God-bearer, Bishop of Antioch.)
This holy man was named the "God-bearer" because he always carried the name of the Living God in his heart and on his lips. Also, by tradition, he was thus named because he was held in the arms of God Incarnate, Jesus Christ. On a day when the Lord was teaching His Disciples humility, He took a child and set it among them, saying: "Whosoever shall humble himself as the little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven" (Saint Matthew 18:4). This child was Saint Ignatius. He was later a Disciple of Saint John the Theologian, together with Saint Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna. As bishop of Antioch, he governed the Church of God as a good shepherd, and was the first to introduce antiphonal singing into the Church, in which two choirs alternate. This way of singing was revealed to Saint Ignatius from among the Angels in heaven. When the pagan Roman emperor Trajan passed through Antioch on his way to battle with the Persians, he heard about Saint Ignatius, summoned him and urged him to offer sacrifice to idols, so that he could be made a senator. The Emperor's urgings and threats being in vain, holy Ignatius was put in irons and sent to Rome, escorted by ten bestial soldiers, to be thrown to the wild beasts. Saint Ignatius rejoiced to be suffering for his Lord, and prayed to God that the wild animals should be the tomb for his body, and that none should hinder his death. After a long and difficult journey from Asia through Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus, Saint Ignatius reached Rome, where he was thrown to the lions in the circus. They tore him to pieces and devoured him, leaving only a few of the larger bones and his heart. This glorious lover of the Lord Christ suffered in the year 106 AD in Rome, in the time of the emperor Trajan. He appeared many times from the other world and worked Wonders (Miracles), helping to this day all who call on him for help. (The Prologue from Ochrid)
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THE ANGEL'S HYMN (Part II)
[Four Points which show a personal approach to this great feast (Nativity), the "Capital" of all the feast of the Lord.]
Second. The Divine and Human Natures are always united with the Human Nature in the hypostasis of the Logos/Word without change, confusion, division or separation. This means that they have never been separated and they never are separated. Since the human nature remains inseparable from the Divine Nature, since the Godman always exists for all time, we can even now partake of the deified flesh of the Lord. In partaking of the deified Body and Blood of Christ (Holy Eucharist or Holy Communion) we become one body and one blood with Christ.
Third. Since we bow before this great mystery of the Incarnation, and especially since we commune of the Body and Blood of Christ, we must deceive Herod as the Magi did. The Evangelist Saint Matthew says of the Magi: "being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way" (St. Matthew 2:12).
The word "Herod" in the Hebrew tongue means 'of leather'. Therefore Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite says that we must delude the thought and pleasures of the flesh. Moreover, we must mock the devil of the mind, who prevent us from walking the path of salvation. We must return by another way, by the virtues, to our native land, which is Paradise.
This means that we required to live a sacramental and ascetic life. All who live ascetically are granted to be united with Christ, in the Mysteries (Sacraments).
Fourth. When a person lives sacramentally and ascetically, in harmony with the spirit of the Orthodox Christian Tradition, then he is experiencing spiritually the events of the Divine Incarnation in his heart, and more generally in his whole being. Then he does not perceive events outwardly, but inwardly. Saint Symeon the New Theologian says that when a man purifies his heart and is illuminated, then he receives Christ within himself and understands His infant-like leaps. Christ is conceived as an infant in him and his born through the virtues, and now the man is living all these events in his being. To be sure, it is only in Christ that the divine was united with the human nature hypostatically. But the deified (theosis) person also receives God's energy in his nature and becomes a members of the Body of Christ. Thus he comprehends how the grace of God works in his nature, what kenosis is, what deification (theosis) of human nature is.
The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity was aimed at the deification of human nature. However, the hypostasis of each one of us must also be deified (theosis). If we do not anticipate deification (theosis), then for us it is as if Christ had not become man. (Source: The Feasts of the Lord. An Introduction to the Twelve Feasts and Orthodox Christology by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos HIEROTHEOS)
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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