With the world flourishing and progressing, people living longer and longer, wealth multiplying, who was going to believe in another reality? Who would ever prefer an unseen world to the tangible things in front of them? But as soon as the sick recovered their health, the dead were raised, lepers cleansed, the demoniacs cured of their demonic possession, then who would not believe in the reality of the unseen world? Such amazing miracles were performed in order to draw the human heart to believe in what it cannot see, and to explore that far greater world within us.
Saturday after Epiphany 4
A Reading from The Longer Rules for Monks by Basil the Great
What words can adequately describe the gifts of God? They are so many as to be innumerable, and so wonderful that any one of them demands our total gratitude of praise. I have no time to speak of the richness and diversity of God’s gifts. We will have to pass over in silence the rising of the sun, the circuits of the moon, the variation in air temperature, the patterns of the seasons, the descent of the rain, the gushing of springs, the sea itself, the whole earth and its flora, the life of the oceans, the creatures of the air, the animals in their various species – in fact everything that exists for the service of our life. But there is one gift which no thoughtful person can pass over in silence; and yet to speak of it worthily is impossible.
God made us in his image and likeness; he deemed us worthy of knowledge of himself, equipped us with reason beyond the capacity of other creatures, allowed us to revel in the unimaginable beauty of paradise, and gave us dominion over creation. When we were deceived by the serpent and fell into sin, and through sin into death and all that followed in its wake, God did not abandon us. In the first place, God gave us a law to help us; he ordained angels to guard and care for us. He sent prophets to rebuke vice and to teach us virtue. He frustrated the impact of vice by dire warnings. He stirred up in us a zeal for goodness by his promises, and confronted us with examples of the end result of both virtue and vice in the lives of various individuals. To crown these and his other mercies, God was not estranged from the human race by our continuing disobedience. Indeed, in the goodness of our Master, we have never been neglected: our callous indifference towards our Benefactor for his gifts has never diminished his love for us. On the contrary, our Lord Jesus Christ recalled us from death and restored us to life.
In Christ the generosity of God is resplendent; for as Scripture says: ‘being in the form of God, he did not cling to equality with God, but emptied himself, assuming the form of a servant.’ What is more, he assumed our frailty and bore our infirmities; he was wounded on our behalf that ‘by his wounds we might be healed’. He set us free from the curse, having become a curse on our behalf himself, and underwent the most ignominious death that he might lead us to the life of glory. Not content with restoring us to life when we were dead, he has graced us with the dignity of divinity and prepared for us eternal mansions, the delight of which exceeds all that we can conceive.
‘What then shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits to us?’ God is so good that he asks of us nothing, he is content merely with being loved in return for his gifts. When I consider this I am overcome with awe and fear lest through carelessness or preoccupation with trivia, I should fall away from the love of God and become a reproach to Christ.
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple
A Reading from a sermon of Sophronius of Jerusalem
Let us all hasten to meet Christ, we who honour and venerate the divine mystery we celebrate today. Everyone should be eager to join the procession to share in this meeting. Let no one refuse to carry a light. Our bright shining candles are a sign of the divine splendour of the one who comes to expel the dark shadows of evil and to make the whole universe radiant with the brilliance of his eternal light. Our candles also show how bright our souls should be when we go to meet Christ.
The God-bearer, the most pure Virgin, carried the true Light in her arms and brought him to help those who lay in darkness. In the same way, we too should carry a light for all to see and reflect the radiance of the true light as we hasten to meet him.
Indeed, this is the mystery we celebrate today, that the Light has come and has shone upon a world enveloped in shadow; the Dayspring from on high has visited us and given light to those who were sitting in darkness. This is our feast, and we join in procession with lighted candles to show both that the Light has shone upon us and to signify the glory that is yet to come to us through him. So let us hasten all together to meet our God.
The true Light has come, ‘the light that enlightens every person who is born into this world’. Let all of us, beloved, be enlightened and be radiant with its light. Let none of us remain a stranger to this brightness; let no one who is filled remain in the darkness. Let us be shining ourselves as we go together to meet and to receive with the aged Simeon the light whose brilliance is eternal. Rejoicing with Simeon, let us sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Origin and Father of the Light, who sent the true Light to dispel the darkness and to give us all a share in his splendour.
Through Simeon’s eyes we too have seen the salvation of God which he has prepared for all the nations, and has revealed the glory of us who are the new Israel. As Simeon was released from the bonds of this life when he had seen Christ, so we too were at once freed from our old state of sinfulness. By faith we too embraced Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as he came to us from Bethlehem. Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God. Our eyes have seen God made flesh, and because we have seen him present among us and have cradled him in our minds, we are called the new Israel. Never let us forget this presence; every year let us keep this feast in his honour.
alternative reading
A Reading from a hymn of Ephrem of Syria
Praise to you, Son of the Most High, who has put on our body!
Into the holy temple Simeon carried the Christ-child
and sang a lullaby to him:
‘You have come, Compassionate One,
having pity on my old age, making my bones enter
into Sheol in peace. By you I will be raised
out of the grave into paradise.’
Anna embraced the child; she placed her mouth
upon his lips, and then the Spirit rested
upon her lips, like Isaiah
whose mouth was silent until a coal drew near
to his lips and opened his mouth.
Anna was aglow with the spirit of his mouth.
She sang him a lullaby:
‘Royal Son,
despised son, being silent, you hear;
hidden, you see; concealed, you know;
God-man, glory to your name.’
Even the barren heard and came running with their provisions.
The Magi are coming with their treasures.
The barren are coming with their provisions.
Provisions and treasures were heaped up suddenly among the poor.
The barren woman Elizabeth cried out as she was accustomed,
‘Who has granted to me, blessed woman,
to see your Babe by whom heaven and earth are filled?
Blessed is your fruit
that brought forth the cluster on a barren vine.’
Praise to you, Son of the Most High, who has put on our body!
alternative reading