Symeon the New Theologian - calling the Holy Spirit a treasure.

Ann Persson is the author of The Circle of Love:  Praying with Rublev's Icon of the Trinity -see below. 

Night Office, Patristic Lectionary,  Augustine Press 1999

Seventh Week in Ordinary Time Year II Thursday

First Reading

2 Corinthians 4:5-18  

 Responsory     2 Cor 4:6; Dt 5:24

God has said: Let light shine out of darkness. + He has shone in our hearts that we might make known the glory of God shining on the face of Christ Jesus.

V. The Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice. + He has shone...

Second Reading

From a treatise by Saint Symeon the New Theologian (Traites Theologiques et Ethiques J, 10: se 122, 252-254)

We receive the Word of God in our hearts - calling the Holy Spirit a treasure

Everyone of us believes in him who is the Son of God and son of Mary, ever-virgin and mother of God. And as believers we faithfully welcome his gospel into our hearts, confessing in words our belief, and repenting with all our soul of our past sins. Then immediately, just as God the Word of the Father entered the Virgin's womb, so also in ourselves the word which we receive in learning right belief appears like a seed. You should be amazed when you hear of such an awe-inspiring mystery, and because the word is reliable you should receive it with full conviction and faith.

In fact we receive him not bodily, as the Virgin and Mother of God received him, but both spiritually and substantially. And the very one whom the chaste Virgin also received, we hold in our own hearts, as Saint Paul says: It is God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to reveal the knowledge of his Son. In other words: he has become wholly substantial in us. And that he actually meant this, he made clear in the next verse: But we contain this treasure in earthenware pots, calling the Holy Spirit a treasure. But elsewhere he also calls the Lord Spirit: The Lord is the Spirit, he says. And he tells us this so that if you hear the words the Son of God, you should think of and hear the words the Spirit at the same time. Again, if you hear the Spirit mentioned you should join the Father to the Spirit in thought, because con­cerning the Father too it is said: God is Spirit. You are constantly taught that the Holy Trinity is inseparable and of the same substance, and that where the Son is the Father is also, and where the Father is the Spirit is also, and where the Holy Spirit is the whole of the deity in three persons is, the one God and Father with Son and Spirit of the same substance, "who is praised for ever. Amen."

So if we wholeheartedly believe and ardently repent, we receive the Word of God in our hearts, as has been said, like the Virgin, if of course we bring with us our own souls chaste and pure. And just as the fire of the deity did not consume the Virgin since she was supremely pure, so neither does it consume us if we bring with us chaste and pure hearts; on the contrary it becomes in us the dew from heaven, a spring of water, and a stream of immortal life.

  

Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022), born in Galata in Paphlagonia, Symeon was educated in Constantinople, where in 977 he entered the famous monastery of Studios. Soon afterward he transferred to the nearby monastery of Saint Mamas, was ordained priest in 980, and about three years later became abbot. During his twenty-five years of office he instilled a new fervor into his community, but opposition to his teaching forced him to resign in 1005 and in 1009 he was exiled to Palonkiton on the other side of the Bosphorus. He turned the ruined oratory of Saint Marina into another monastery, and although he was soon pardoned, chose to remain there until his death rather than compromise his teaching. The greatest of Byzantine mystical writers, Symeon combined the contemplative tradition of Mount Sinai with the cenobitic tradition of Saint Basil and Saint Theodore of Studios. Symeon was much influenced by the homilies attributed to Macarius of Egypt, and taught that mystical experience of God is a normal part of a truly Christian life. For him this meant having a personal relationship with Christ dwelling in us through the Spirit. Symeon is called the "new" theologian to distinguish him from Saint Gregory Nazianzen, who has the title of "the theologian."

Ann Persson is the author of The Circle of Love: 

Praying with Rublev's Icon of the Trinity 

We can trust the Holy Spirit to lead us into worship, not of the icon but of the Godhead that it portrays.

Although the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are of one essence, nevertheless there are individual distinctions, and Rublev makes that wonderfully plain to see.

God the Holy Spirit

We will start following the movement around the circle with the figure on the right, the Holy Spirit. He is the one who leads us in and interprets the life of God to us. He is dressed in a blue tunic with a gorgeous light-green mantle, probably painted in terre verte pigment, otherwise known as 'green earth'. Green is the liturgical colour of Pentecost in the Orthodox Church and the symbolic colour of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, who breathes life, wears colours that speak of creation. Blue reminds us of sky and water; green speaks of vegetation. All living things owe their freshness to his touch. 

...

His is the only stave that is seen in its full length, as if it is pointing towards earth. His hand gives the impression of not only blessing the cup of sacrifice but also of indicating downwards, for he is the one who breathes the life of God into us. His action is to transform us and it is through him that we are invited to experience new life in Christ.

Above the Spirit is a mountain. Maybe the mountain represents faith, a gift of the Holy Spirit or the meeting places where God revealed his glory, such as Mount Sinai, where he appeared to Moses, or the mount of transfiguration, where Jesus was seen in glory by three of his disciples.

As the icon is based on the story of Abraham, however, perhaps the mountain represents Mount Moriah, on which Isaac, the promised son in the story, would be offered for sacrifice–Abraham's response to a test that God devised to prove his faith. The story is recorded in Genesis 22 and it is a foreshadowing of the greater story of the triune God's self-sacrificing love in the giving of the Son to be our Saviour.

The curvature of the body and the bowed head of the figure on the right draw us into the circle and lead us towards the central figure, whom I have taken to be Christ the Son. The Spirit does not let us stay with himself. His work is to reveal God the Father through God the Son.

St. John "Chrysostomos" or "the golden-mouthed': -glory, gleam, beam, light, incandescence, brightness shines ...

Night Office, Patristic Lectionary,  Augustine Press 1999

Seventh Week in Ordinary Time Year II Wednesday

First Reading

2 Corinthians 3:7-2--3:4  

                                                             

 Responsory 2 Cor 3:18; Phil 3:3

With our faces unveiled, + all of us, reflecting as in a mirror the glory

of God, are being transformed from splendour to splendour.

V. We worship in the Spirit of God and we glory in Christ Jesus. + All of us ...

Second Reading

From a homily by Saint John Chrysostom (Second Epitre aux Corinthiennes 7, 5: Bareille XVII, 421-422)

Reflecting the Lord's glory

What does it mean, to say (as Saint Paul does) that: Reflecting the Lord's glory, we are refashioned - transformed - to his likeness? This was clearer in evidence when the grace of miracles was actively at work; but it is not hard to see even now, for anyone with the eyes of faith. For on receiving baptism the soul shines brighter than the sun, being purified by the Holy Spirit; and not only do we behold God's glory, but from it we receive a certain gleam ourselves. Just as bright silver , when struck by beams of light, can send out beams in its turn, not simply of its own nature but from the sun's brilliance, so also the soul, once purified and become brighter than silver, receives a beam from the glory of the Holy Spirit and sends that on. That is why he says, Reflecting, we are refashioned he same pattern from - or of, or by - his glory, that of the Holy Spirit, into a glory, our own, which is contingent, modelled on the Spirit of the Lord. See how he calls the Spirit "Lord," or "Master." He it is who transforms us, who does not permit us to conform to this world, the maker and first cause of creation as he is. As he says: You have been established in Christ Jesus.

This can be explained in more concrete terms from the apostles. We think of St. Paul, whose very clothes were activated; of St. Peter, whose very shadow had power. That could never have been, if they had not borne the king's likeness; if they had not had something of his unapproachable brightness - so much, it appears, that their clothes and their shadows worked wonders. See how that brightness shines through their bodies! Gazing on the face of Stephen, he says, they seemed to see the face of an angel. But that was nothing to the glory shining like lightning within. What Moses bore on his face, they carried in their souls, but to a much higher degree. The mark on Moses was more tangible; but this was incorporeal. Dimly glowing bodies catch fire from brighter ones close by and pass on to others their own incandescence. All that resembles what happens to the faithful. In this way they detach themselves from the world and have their converse only in the things of heaven.

Responsory Ps 113:1.3.5

When Israel came forth from Egypt, the house of Jacob from an alien people, + the sea fled at the sight, the Jordan turned back on its course.

V. Why was it, sea, that you fled, that you turned back, Jordan, on your course? + The sea fled ...

John Chrysostom (c.347-407) was born at Antioch and studied under Diodore of Tarsus, the leader of the Antiochene school of theology. After a period of great austerity as a hermit, he resumed to Antioch where he was ordained deacon in 381 and priest in 386. From 386 to 397 it was his duty to preach in the principal church of the city, and his best homilies, which earned him the title "Chrysostomos" or "the golden-mouthed': were preached at this time. In 397 Chrysostom became patriarch of Constantinople, where his efforts to reform the court clergy, and people led to his exile in 404 and finally to his death from the hardships imposed on him. Chrysostom stressed the divinity of Christ against the Arians and his full humanity against the Apollinarians, but he had no speculative bent He was above all a pastor of soul and was one of the most attractive personalities of the early Church.

Ralph the Fervent (d.1101 ) was a conscientious, erudite cure in the former diocese of Poitiers

2 Cor 3:4.Through Christ we have
full confidence in God, ... in the Spirit

Night Office, Patristic Lectionary,  Augustine Press 1999

Seventh Week in Ordinary Time Year II Tuesday

First Reading

2 Corinthians 2:12-2:6  

  

Responsory 2 Cor 3:4.6.5

Through Christ we have full confidence in God, + who has made

us suitable ministers of his new covenant, not of a written code but in the Spirit.   

V. We know that we cannot of ourselves take credit for anything, for all of our sufficiency comes from God, + who has made ...

Second Reading

From a homily by Ralph the Fervent

(Horn. In Epist. et Evang. Domini XXVI: PL 155, 2033-2035)

Confidence in God

Such is the confidence we have in God through Christ; not that we are capable of thinking anything by ourselves as if it came from ourselves, but our capacity comes from God. The apostle tells us three things about confidence: whom we are to have confidence in, through whom, and what kind of confidence. He shows us whom we are to have confidence in, saying: in God. He himself, he says, has confidence in God, and he teaches us to have the same by his own example. For God alone is able to save us, and truly loves us and is truthful, whereas worldly kings, princes, relations and friends can save neither themselves nor us. Hence the psalmist's words: Put no trust in princes or in any human being, in whom there is no security. Their breath will leave them, and they will return to their own earth. But neither do they truly love, since none of our worldly friends love us for our own good but rather for theirs. It is only God who loves us not for his own advantage but ours. Again they are not even truthful, since it is written: Every man and woman is a liar. But God is truthful. Therefore, my friends, we must put the whole of our trust in God alone, not in anything transient; for relations, friends and all transient things deceive us. God alone never abandons those who hope in him. Hence it is written: Has anyone ever hoped in the Lord, and been put to shame? And David says: For me it is good to cling to God, to put my hope in the Lord my God.

He shows us through whom we are to have confidence, saying: through Christ. For it is only through Christ that we have access to the Father. It is he who reconciles and mediates between God and humanity, and is always interceding for us, insofar as he is man, and like the Father saves us, insofar as he is God. Therefore, my friends, we must love him with all our heart, for, as the apostle says, there is no other name in heaven or on earth by which we are destined to be saved.

As to what kind of confidence we should have in God, this he shows us in saying: not that we are capable of thinking anything by ourselves. He means: we have no confidence in ourselves, neither complete nor partial, as some people usually have, but total confi­dence, and about everything, in God. For such is our trust in God that we have no confidence that comes from ourselves even in thinking, speaking or doing anything at all, but it comes from God. And so he confounds those who rely on their own free will, or their own talents, strength or wealth, since it is written: A king is not saved by his own great power; nor can a giant be saved by his own immense strength. And elsewhere: Those who trust in their own wealth are certain to be ruined. But our capacity comes from God, as regards everything good, of course. For we cannot enjoy anything good, either material, spiritual or heavenly, except through him. And unless he works through us, our own lab or for material things, our devotion to spiritual things and our effort to obtain the rewards of heaven are useless. Hence Christ's words to his disciples: Without me you can do nothing.

          Responsory Ps 68:3; 1 Cor 2:9

The righteous shall rejoice before God, + they shall exult and dance for joy.

V. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. + They shall exult ...

Ralph the Fervent (d.1101 ) was a conscientious, erudite cure in the former diocese of Poitiers, who earned the sobriquet "ardens" by the ardor of his parochial sermons of which more than two hundred survive. They show a methodical treatment of the epistles and gospels of Sundays and greater feasts, emphasizing points of dogma and morals with frequent illustration from scripture and drawing widely on the Fathers and a variety of other authors. Although he was no respecter of persons and did not hesitate to reprove the great, the dissolute troubadour Count William IX of Poitiers, Duke of Aquitaine, included him in his court because of his great reputa­tion. Ralph died in the Holy Land while on a crusade with the Count. Two books of letters and a history of crusading have not survived, but three manuscript copies of a theological summa have been preserved.