Gems From the Treasury: December 31, 2012 - January 4, 2013

Christ is baptized! This week's quotes on Gems From the Treasury come from different Byzantine liturgical hymns during this Nativity season.

12/31/12: "Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has shed the light of knowledge upon the world....O Lord, glory to You!"--Troparion of the Nativity (December 25)
1/1/13: "You fulfilled the Law by accepting to be circumcised in the flesh...Glory to Your goodness, O Word!...Glory to Your ineffable condescension!"--Troparion of the Circumcision (January 1)
1/2/13: "The Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent in Essence...For to us is born a New Child, who is God from all eternity."--Kontakion of the Nativity (December 25)
1/3/13: "[David, Joseph, and James] offer their hymns of praise, for the crown of glory of their relationship with Christ fills them with joy."--Kontakion of the Sunday after the Nativity (December 26-31)
1/4/13: "Make ready, Zebulon, and prepare Nephtali!  And you, Jordan River, stop your flow and receive...the Master coming to be baptized."--Troparion of the Forefeast of the Theophany (January 2-4)

Next week's quotes come from St. Anselm of Canterbury's Proslogium (Proslogion).  Though this work is more well-known from putting forth the eleventh-century saint and philosopher's famous ontological argument for the existence of God, it also contains beautiful words relating to the Christian's relationship with God, since St. Anselm's starting point for his work is faith (fides quarens intellectum, "faith seeking reason/intelligence," as he famously described his method).

St. John the Forerunner, who baptized Christ in the Jordan, pray for us!


Nota Bene: All the quotes from Byzantine liturgical hymns used this past week come from The Horologion published by the Melkite Eparchy of Newton's Sophia Press, pp. 884-889.

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