Categories: feast-days, spiritual-writings
Date: 04 August 2009 10:01:02
I know Pascha [Easter] may be a distant memory [though I like to believe its light and joy illuminates the rest of the year] but I was struck by several paragraphs in St Gregory of Nazianzus' Oration 45: On Holy Pascha which I read last night in the fine book, Festal Orations. St Gregory is titled the Theologian in Orthodoxy, a title he shares with the Evangelist and Apostle John and St Symeon the New Theologian [949–1022]. As I understand it, the title Theologian is given to these 3 as they particularly, and above others, expressed the true and inner meaning of the Gospel and its call to us to live a life imitating Christ with words of great beauty as well as truth. And, judging by the selection of St Gregory's works I read in this book, he is truly and rightly titled "the Theologian".
Here are the paragraphs that struck me from his Oration 45: On Holy Pascha: I was particularly moved by the way St Gregory invites us to identify with those who were with Christ at His Passion, Death, Burial and Resurrection, and calls us to take heart, and example, from their lives:
23 ... Yet I will tell you something greater: let us sacrifice ourselves to God, or rather offer sacrifice every day and in every movement. Let us accept all things for the Word. By suffering let us imitate his suffering, by blood let us exalt his blood, let us willingly climb up on the cross. Sweet are the nails, even if very painful. For to suffer with Christ and for Christ is preferable to feasting with others.24 If you are Simon of Cyrene, take up the cross and follow. If you are crucified with him as a thief, come to know God as kind-hearted; if he was counted among the lawless because of you and your sin, become law abiding because of him ... Come into paradise with Jesus so as to learn from what you have fallen ... And if you are Joseph of Arimathea, ask for the body from the crucifier; let that which cleanses the world become yours. And if you are Nicodemus, the nocturnal worshipper of God, bury him with scented ointments. And if you are a certain Mary or another Mary or Salome or Joanna, weep at daybreak. Be first to see the stone removed, and perhaps the angels and Jesus himself. Say something, hear his voice. If you hear, "Do not touch me," stand far off, have reverence for the Word, but do not be sorrowful. For he knows those by whom he was first seen. Keep the feast of the resurrection; help Eve, the first who fell, and her who first greeted Christ and made him known to the disciples. Become Peter or John; hasten to the tomb, running against each other, running together, competing in good competition. And if you are beaten in speed, win in zeal, not just peeping in the tomb but going inside. And if like Thomas you are left behind when the disciples have assembled to whom Christ manifests himself, when you see do not disbelieve; and if you disbelieve, believe those who tell you. If you cannot believe them either, believe the prints of the nails ...
25 And if he ascends to heaven, go up with him. Join with the angels escorting him or those receiving him. Give orders that the gates be lifted up(*) or become higher, that they may receive him, lifted high from his passion ...
(*) from Psalm 24 [23 - LXX], verses 7-9 of which are recited in a dramatic encounter [see the Syrian practice which we follow] between the priest and a doorkeeper during the Matins of Pascha.