6 Αυγούστου 2018

Temptations happen to people: to test them, and so that their virtue will shine through, as was the case with Abraham, Job and many others of the righteous; to cleanse them of all the stains of sin, or as the Prophet Isaiah puts it, all the rust God sees in the depths of the souls of His children (cf. Is. 1, 25) so that, on the day of judgment, they can appear before Him as pure gold; or so that we can be chastised for our own good, because of our sins, as we read in the Psalms: Many are the afflictions with which the Lord scourges the sinner (Ps. 31, 10).

On the occasion of the feast of the Transfiguration, the Greek Byzantine Choir, under the direction of the late Lykourgos Angelopoulos, Archon Protopsaltis of the Most Holy Archdiocese of Constantinople, sings, in plagal tone three, the verse from the Psalms ‘Lord they will walk in the light of your countenance and rejoice all the day long in your name’, from the Selection of Psalms for the Lity. The musical setting is by Ioannis Koukouzelis (c. 1280 – c. 1360). From the live recording of a concert at the historic town of Mystra, 6 July 2003. Your browser does not support the audio element.

In the Gospel , concerning the young man who was possessed, we’re given the opportunity to examine the shortcomings in the way we bring up our children. Bringing children up outside Christianity If we’re to see the shortcomings in the way we bring up our children we need to look at both the children and who’s doing the teaching. Since, apart from society, the children’s teachers are the family and the school, we shall examine the nature of the children, the parents and the teachers. First, the children. From the Gospel reading, we understand that the young man ‘is sorely afflicted. He often falls into the fire or into water’. Life teaches us that, despite the simplicity and sincerity that children have at ...

Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that sickness is removed with the coming of Christ into the world, despite the fact that, when announcing the cure of the sick, Christ also indicates the presence of God in His own Person. Apart from telling them to sin no more, Christ also prophetically warns: ‘lest worse things befall you’. This warning is not only of a personal nature to the invalid concerned but is also a prophetic lament over the afflictions which will accompany the future of humankind. The mystery of the divine dispensation is now an accomplished historical fact, through the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. Our clay has been therapeutically and unifyingly assumed by the divine nature and now sits ...