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 journey.
'Come, O ye faithful, and let us behold where
Christ is born. Let us join the Magi, kings from the east,
and follow the guiding star' (Sessional
Hymn of the Nativity Matins). Let us 'join the
Magi', let us 'follow' and 'behold'.
On the fifteenth of November, the Church joins together in
a journey toward that salvation first promised to Adam in
God's curse laid upon the serpent (Gen 3.14-15). The
One who will crush the head of the serpent, of sin and the
devil and all that is counter to the life God offers, is
Him to whom the star leads us. The fast of the Nativity is
our journey into the new and marvellous life of the Holy
Trinity, which is offered by God but which we must
approach of our own volition. In this act, we are joined
to the story of our fathers. The gift of a new land and
great blessings was freely given by God to Abraham, but in
order to obtain it, 'Abram went, as the Lord had
told him' (Gen 12.4).
A journey is, by its nature, naturally ascetic. Unless my
life is already very humble, I cannot take the whole of my
possessions on a journey. I cannot transport social and
political ties along a journey's path. I can never be
too reliant on the plans I have made for my journey: a
control lying beyond the self must be admitted and
accepted. This is the spirit to which the fast calls us.
A journey is, by its nature, an act of movement, of
transportation, of growth. What is old is left behind,
newness is perceived and embraced, growth of understanding
takes place. And even if the journey comes to a close in
the same physical location from which it began, that place
is transformed for us by the journey through
which we have re-approached it. The aid shelter on a
street corner in London is no different after a journey to
the Middle East; but after witnessing there first-hand the
struggles and torments of poverty, of suffering, of
sorrow, the meaning and importance of that small shelter
is indeed different for me.
Here the importance of the fast. As the Nativity
approaches, that great feast of cosmic significance and
eternal, abounding joy for which heaven and earth together
rejoice, the fast calls me to consider: do I
rejoice? Why do I rejoice? The hymnography of the
Church makes it clear that this is a feast for all the
world, for all creation; and the fast calls me to take my
place in that creation, to realise that, despite all my
infinite unworthiness, Christmas is a miracle for my soul
too.
Make ready, O Bethlehem: let the manger be prepared, let the cave show its welcome. The truth has come, the shadow has passed away; born of a Virgin, God has appeared to men, formed as we are and making godlike the garment He has put on. Therefore Adam is renewed with Eve, and they call out: 'Thy good pleasure has appeared on earth to save our kind'.
Adam and Eve, all of humankind, are renewed and made alive
in the Incarnation of God in Christ, who 'appeared on
earth to save our kind'. Fallen flesh, so long bound
to death, so long yearning in for growth and maturation
into the fullness of life, is sewn into the garment of
Christ and at last made fully alive. There is a pleasing
old saying, with perhaps more than a touch of truth to it,
that humankind drew its first full breath at the infant
Christ's first cry.
We are called, then, to approach this great mystery as
God's condescension into our own lives, personally and
collectively. The Canon of Matins for the Nativity lays it
out clearly: 'He establishes a path for us,
whereby we may mount up to heaven' (Irmos
of Canticle Two, from the Iambic (second) Canon of the
Nativity Matins). The Nativity is not only about
God's coming down to us, but about our rising up to
Him, just as sinful humanity was lifted up into the person
of Christ in the Incarnation itself.
We are called to arise, then, during the fast that is the
journey into this Feast. 'O blessed Lord who seest
all, raise us up far above sin, and establish Thy singers
firm and unshaken upon the foundation of the
faith' .5 The faithful
take up this call through the abandonment of those
things which bind, rather than free, in order that a
focus on God as 'all in all' might become ever
more real and central to daily life.
Meals are lessened and regimented, that a constant,
lingering hunger may remind us of the great need we each
have for spiritual food that goes beyond our daily bread.
The number of Church services is gradually increased, that
we might know whence comes that true food. Sweets and
drink are set aside, that we might never feel content with
the trivial and temporal joys of this world. Parties and
social engagements are reduced, that we might realise that
all is not so well with us as we often take it to be.
Anything which holds the slightest power over us, whether
cigarettes or television, travel or recreation, is
minimized or -- better -- cast wholly aside, that we might
bring ourselves to be possessed and governed only by God.
The fast is an ascetic time, designed by the Church to
strip away common stumbling blocks into sin, to provide us
with the means of self-perception that we lack in our
typical indulgence, and to begin to grow the seeds of
virtue. All these are necessary if we are ever to know
even partially, or appreciate even menially, the
'depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of
God'.6 We must take
up the task of our own purification, gifted by God and
achieved only through His grace, that we might approach
Him on Christmas Day as did the Magi and the shepherds
in Bethlehem:
Come, O ye faithful, inspired by God let us arise and behold the divine condescension from on high that is made manifest to us in Bethlehem. Cleansing our minds, let us offer through our lives virtues instead of myrrh, preparing with faith our entry into the feast of the Nativity, storing up treasure in our souls and crying: Glory in the highest to God in Trinity, whose good pleasure is now revealed to men, that in His love for mankind He may set Adam free from the ancestral curse. (Sticheron of the Sixth Hour, Christmas Eve)
From:Monachos.net
0 comments:
Post a Comment