By Jonathan Pageau There is no ass or ox in the Biblical narratives of the birth of Christ. Yet, besides the Christ Child himself, the ass and the ox are the most ancient and stable elements in the iconography of the nativity. In fact the earliest example of a nativity known to us contains only the swaddled Christ in the manger flanked by the ox at his head and the ass at his feet. David Clayton, on the New Liturgical Movement blog, has written a detailed piece on the subject, and I will go through the basics while adding a few more aspects he does not mention. When reading comments on the nativity (for example in Ouspensky’s “The Meaning of Icons”) one finds that the inclusion of this … [Read more...]
Weekly Bulletin for Sunday, December 26, 2021
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Weekly Bulletin for Sunday, December 12, 2021
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Weekly Bulletin for Sunday, November 5, 2021
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Nativity Fast: A Time of Preparation
The Fast of the Nativity is the Church's wise solace and aid to human infirmity. We are a forgetful people, but our forgetfulness is not unknown to God; and our hearts with all their misconceptions and weakened understandings are not unfamiliar to the Holy Spirit who guides and sustains this Church. We who fall far from God through the magnitude of our sin, are called nonetheless to be close to Him. We who run afar off are called to return. Through the fast that precedes the great Feast of the Incarnation -- which itself is the the heart and substance of our calling -- the Church helps draw us into the full mystery of what that call entails. Like Great Lent, the fast of the Nativity is a … [Read more...]
Weekly Bulletin for Sunday, November 28, 2021
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Bulletin for Sunday, November 21, 2021
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Heaven and Hell: The River of Fire
The River of Fire is "an all-consuming fire and an illuminating light" Upon Christ's Second Coming, everyone who has ever lived will see Him in His uncreated light, forever. For "those who worked good deeds in their lifetime will go towards the resurrection of life, while those who worked evil in their lifetime will go towards the resurrection of judgment (John.5:29)". All will be separated at the moment of the final judgement, with the good experiencing paradise as exceedingly good, and radiant, while those who have rejected His love, and whose lives ended without repentance, will look upon Christ as hell, the "all-consuming fire" spoken of in Hebrews 12:29. It is from Christ's … [Read more...]
Weekly Bulletin for Sunday, November 7, 2021
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Even Those Who Are In Hell
Not sure what to do about those whose fate we are unsure of? Now you know what to do. “The Liturgy is our family, our gathering, our house. And what a spacious house it is! Together with us are those who are absent, along with sinners, and the wicked, and the dead, indeed, EVEN THOSE WHO ARE IN HELL, but who may yet remember something about God. And who knows how many of these will find relief, be drawn out of Hades, and even dragged up from the depths of hell, thanks to the prayers of the Church, her memorial services, and Divine Liturgies.” ~ Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Θεία Λατρεία [Divine Worship], pp. 214, 222-224. … [Read more...]
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