Orthodixie

Did you ever try to find something even remotely Orthodox in your local superstore, gift shop, or bible book store? Chances are, you’ll find all manner of things purporting to be spiritual, religious, newfangled and Christian — though nary even a wall calendar reflecting the Ancient Faith. Besides, what should you do when you do find one? Here’s a snippet of this week’s [Best Of] podcast …

Hello! Welcome to Betsy’s Cards and Things! May I help you?

— Oh yes, thank you. I’m looking for a Church wall calendar …

Sure, sweetheart! Over here we have the Woman’s Oneness with the One calendar which offers helpful sayings from leading Christian women to help meet the challenges of our crazy world!

— No, actually, I was looking for something a little more traditional.

Well, we have our Be-Happy-Attitudes calendar – it’s very popular – I like to call it our Christian Fortune Cookie Calendar!

— No, uh …

See it offers happy sayings for each and every day of the week, and a funny Bible passage on every Friday – you know, TGIF!

— Actually, Friday’s a Fast day.

Oh, I know what you mean. I usually try to leave early every Friday if I can!

— No, I mean Church wall calendars usually have Fridays colored in pink.

PINK?!

Why didn’t you say so? Why, we have this wonderful Pink Pinky Calendar … complete with little strings attached to each month that you can tie around your pinky to …

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

PS – Thanks [again] to my daughter Mary Catherine for Voice #1; my wife has not given me permission to thank Voice #2.

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On the day after celebrating the Birth of Mary, we remember her parents.

Be glad, O barren one;
Be glad, O aged Anna.
You will conceive and give birth
To a wondrous child, a chosen one –

As once did the aged Sarah,
And the mother of Samson,
And the mother of Samuel,
And the mother of John –

Yet you will be more glorious than all,
For you will give birth from the womb
To the wonderful Virgin, the only
Wonderful Mother of the Most-high King.

Be glad, O Joachim,
Father of the unprecedented mother,
Of whom the Creator desires
To be clothed with glory.

The Law loses its power
When God wills, and where He wills.
Who can gainsay God?
Can there be any dispute with God?

Not by disputation, but by love
Does God change His laws.
Before love, all laws
Are as if nonexistent.

When men hunger, the Lord
Makes the dry field fertile;
And because of the spiritual hunger of the world,
He makes the barren one fertile.

For the salvation of men, the Lord
Arranges all for the best.
That is why all the Church of the saints
Cries out to Him: Glory! Glory!

— St Nikolai Velimirovic

Taken from the Prologue of Ohrid (“HYMN OF PRAISE: Saints Joachim and Anna” – September 9th).

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The “4 years ago” part is found within the text (which is taken from a post from 2006).
Glory to God for all things!

This 16th century icon, the Korsun Mother, is taken from the Index of Early Christian and Byzantine Image Pages — a wonderful site!

For most American Orthodox, today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. (Check here for a complete look at the Church year.)

These Orthodox, though they’ll wait 13 days to celebrate this Feast, are celebrating an upcoming union … long in coming. Today, all Orthodox rejoice!

By Fr Alexander Schmemann

The Church’s veneration of Mary has always been rooted in her obedience to God, her willing choice to accept a humanly impossible calling. The Orthodox Church has always emphasized Mary’s connection to humanity and delighted in her as the best, purest, most sublime fruition of human history and of man’s quest for God, for ultimate meaning, for the ultimate content of human life. If in Western Christianity veneration of Mary was centered upon her perpetual virginity, the heart of the Orthodox Christian East’s devotion, contemplation, and joyful delight in Mary has always been her Motherhood, her flesh and blood connection to Jesus Christ. The East rejoices that the human role in the divine plan is pivotal.

The Son of God comes to earth, God appears in order to redeem the world, He becomes human to incorporate man into His Divine vocation, but humanity takes part in this. If it is understood that Christ’s “co-nature” with us is Christianity’s greatest joy and depth, that He is a genuine human being and not some phantom or bodiless apparition, that He is one of us and forever united to us through his humanity, then devotion to Mary also becomes understandable, for she is the one who gave Him His human nature, His flesh and blood. She is the one through whom Christ can always call Himself “The Son of Man.”

Son of God, Son of Man… God descending and becoming man so that man could become divine, could become a partaker of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4), or as the teachers of the Church expressed it, “deified.” Precisely here, in this extraordinary revelation of man’s authentic nature and calling, is the source of that gratitude and tenderness which cherishes Mary as our link to Christ and, in Him, to God. And nowhere is this reflected more clearly than in the Nativity of the Mother of God. Nothing about this event is mentioned anywhere in the Holy Scriptures. But why should there be? Is there anything remarkable, anything especially unique about the normal birth of a child, a birth like any other? And if the Church began to commemorate the event with a special feast it was not because the birth was somehow unique or miraculous or out of the ordinary; but because on the contrary, the very fact that it is routine discloses something fresh and radiant about everything we call “routine” and ordinary, it gives new depth to the “unremarkable” details of human life. What do we see in the icon of the feast when we look at it with our spiritual eyes? There on a bed lies a woman, Anna according to Church tradition, who has just given birth to a daughter.

Next to her is the child’s father, Joachim according to the same tradition. A few women stand by the bed washing the newborn baby for the first time. The most routine, unremarkable event. Or is it? Could it be that the Church is telling us through this icon that every birth, every entrance of a new human being into the world and life is a miracle of miracles, a miracle that explodes all routine, for it marks the start of something unending, the start of a unique, unrepeatable human life, the beginning of a new person. And with each birth the world is itself in some sense created anew and given as a gift to this new human being to be his life, his path, his creation.

This feast therefore is first a general celebration of Man’s birth, and we no longer remember the anguish, as the Gospel says, “for joy that a human being is born into the world” (Jn 16:21). Secondly, we now know whose particular birth, whose coming we celebrate: Mary’s. We know the uniqueness, the beauty, the grace of precisely this child, her destiny, her meaning for us and for the whole world. And thirdly, we celebrate all who prepared the way for Mary, who contributed to her inheritance of grace and beauty. Today, many people speak of heredity, but only in a negative, enslaving and deterministic sense. The Church believes also in a positive spiritual heredity. How much faith, how much goodness, how many generations of people striving to live by what is high and holy were needed before the tree of human history could bring forth such an exquisite and fragrant flower-the most pure Virgin and All Holy Mother! And therefore the feast of her Nativity is also a celebration of human history, a celebration of faith in man, a celebration of man. Sadly, the inheritance of evil is far more visible and better known.

There is so much evil around us that this faith in man, in his freedom, in the possibility of handing down a radiant inheritance of goodness has almost evaporated and been replaced by cynicism and suspicion… This hostile cynicism and discouraging suspicion are precisely what seduce us to distance ourselves from the Church when it celebrates with such joy and faith this birth of a little girl in whom are concentrated all the goodness, spiritual beauty, harmony and perfection that are the elements of genuine human nature. In and through this newborn girl, Christ-our gift from God, our meeting and encounter with Him-comes to embrace the world. Thus, in celebrating Mary’s birth we find ourselves already on the road to Bethlehem, moving toward to the joyful mystery of Mary as the Mother to God.

Taken from “Celebration of Faith” Sermons, Vol. 3, “The Virgin Mary,” by the late Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, 1995.

Thanks to FWD from Jean-Michel — especially, again, for THIS WONDERFUL SITE.

Today, with so much reading, people end up like tape recorders, filling up their cassettes with superfluous matters. According to Abba Isaac, however, wisdom not based on righteous activity is a deposit of disgrace. You see, many who are interested in sports read sports magazines and newspapers while they are sitting. They may be like the fatted calf, but they still marvel at athletes … they gain nothing … the same thing is done by people who read spiritual books. They may spend the whole night reading spiritual books with great intensity and be content. They take a spiritual book, sit comfortably, and begin reading. “Oh, I profited from that,” they say. It would be better to say, “I enjoyed myself, I spent my time pleasantly.” But this is not profit. We profit when we understand what we read, when we censure ourselves and discipline ourselves by applying it: “What does this mean? Where do I stand in relation to this spiritual truth? What must I do now?”

— Elder Paisios the Athonite

Stolen from Fr Josiah’s blog.

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St Elizabeth was from the lineage of Aaron and was the sister of St Anna, the mother of the Most Holy Theotokos. She and her husband Zachariah, walking in all the commandments of the Lord (Luke 1:6), suffered barrenness, which in those times was considered a punishment from God.

When Elizabeth gave birth to a son, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit she announced that his name would be John, although no one in their family had this name. They asked Zachariah, who had been rendered mute because of his disbelief when an angel (traditionally the Archangel Gabriel) informed him that his wife would soon bear a child, what the child’s name was, and he wrote the name John down on a tablet. Immediately the gift of speech returned to him, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, he began to prophesy about his son as the Forerunner of the Lord.

When King Herod heard from the Magi about the birth of the Messiah, he decided to kill all the infants up to two years old at Bethlehem and the surrounding area, hoping that the newborn Messiah would be among them. The king knew about John’s unusual birth and wanted to kill him, fearing that John was the foretold King of the Jews. But Elizabeth hid herself and the infant in the hills. The murderers searched everywhere for John. Elizabeth, when she saw her pursuers, began to implore God for their safety, and immediately the hill opened up and concealed her and the infant from their pursuers.

In these tragic days St Zachariah was taking his turn at the services in the Temple. Soldiers sent by Herod tried in vain to learn from Zachariah the whereabouts of his son. Then, by command of Herod, they murdered this holy prophet Zachariah, having stabbed him between the temple and the altar (Matthew 23: 35). Elizabeth died forty days after her husband, and St John, preserved by the Lord, dwelt in the wilderness until the day of his appearance to the nation of Israel.

Stolen from Orthodox Wiki.

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