2nd Nocturn: The Life in Christ by Nicholas Cabasilas

At the Night Office, a Reading occurred for Nicholas Cabasilas. He is popular in the Easter cycle, he appears on six occasions.

Our Library seems to lack. A Bibliography could be useful.

One Ref. Surface with Pope Benedict XVI. 

The Beauty and the Truth of Christ by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI),
Section 5 discusses Cabasilas' The Life in Christ. ---Eternal Word Network

Book:  Life in Christ by Nicholos Cabasilas, paperback, Amazon

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FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER 

Thursday

Year 11

First Reading  From the Acts of the Apostles (19:1-20) Acts 15:8-9; 11:18

Second Reading

From The Life in Christ by Nicholas Cabasilas
(Lib. 3: PG 150, 574-575)

The sacrament referred to in this reading by the Eastern name of "chrismation" is known in the West as confirmation. Cabasilas stresses the importance of this sacrament. through which Christians share in the power of the Holy Spirit and receive the virtues needed for spiritual maturity.

The purpose of chrismation is to enable us to share in the power of the Holy Spirit This anointing brings the Lord Jesus himself to dwell in us, our only salvation and hope. Through him we are made sharers in the Holy Spirit and are led to the Father. Unfailingly it procures for Christians those gifts that are needed in every age, gifts such as faith. reverence for God. prayer, love, and purity. It does so even though many are unaware of having received such gifts. Many do not know the power of this sacrament or even that there is a Holy Spirit, as it says in the Book of Acts, because they were anointed before reaching the age of reason and afterward they blinded their souls by sin Nevertheless, the Spirit does in truth give the newly initiated his gifts, distributing them to each one as he wills; and our Lord. who promised to be with us always, never ceases to shower blessings on us.

Chrismation cannot be superfluous. We obtain the remission of our sins in baptism and we receive the body of Christ at the altar. These sacraments will remain until the unveiled appear­ance of their author. It cannot be doubted. then. that Christians also enjoy the benefits that belong to this holy anointing and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit How could some sacraments be fruitful and this one without effect? How can we believe that Saint Paul's words: He who promised is faithful apply to some sacraments but not to this one? If we discount the value of any sacrament we must discount the value of all, since it is the same power that acts in each of them, it is the immolation of the same Lamb, it is the same death and the same blood that gives each of them its efficacy.

The Holy Spirit is given to some, as Saint Paul says, to enable them to do good to others and to edify the Church by prophesying, teaching revealed truth, or healing the sick by a mere word The Spirit is given to others for their own sanctification. imparting to them a shining faith and reverence for God. or making them outstanding in purity, charity, or humility.

From Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)

Nicholas Cabasilas: the wound of the beauty of the Spouse

In the 14th century, in the book, "The Life in Christ" by the Byzantine theologian, Nicholas Cabasilas, we rediscover Plato's experience in which the ultimate object of nostalgia, transformed by the new Christian experience, continues to be nameless. Cabasilas says: "When men have a longing so great that it surpasses human nature and eagerly desire and are able to accomplish things beyond human thought, it is the Bridegroom who has smitten them with this longing. It is he who has sent a ray of his beauty into their eyes. The greatness of the wound already shows the arrow which has struck home, the longing indicates who has inflicted the wound" (cf. The Life in Christ, the Second Book, § 15).
The beautiful wounds, but this is exactly how it summons man to his final destiny. What Plato said, and, more than 1,500 years later, Cabasilas, has nothing to do with superficial aestheticism and irrationalism or with the flight from clarity and the importance of reason. The beautiful is knowledge certainly, but, in a superior form, since it arouses man to the real greatness of the truth. Here Cabasilas has remained entirely Greek, since he puts knowledge first when he says, "In fact it is knowing that causes love and gives birth to it.... Since this knowledge is sometimes very ample and complete and at other times imperfect, it follows that the love potion has the same effect" (cf. ibid.). He is not content to leave this assertion in general terms. In his characteristically rigorous thought, he distinguishes between two kinds of knowledge: knowledge through instruction which remains, so to speak, "second hand" and does not imply any direct contact with reality itself. The second type of knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge through personal experience, through a direct relationship with the reality. "Therefore we do not love it to the extent that it is a worthy object of love, and since we have not perceived the very form itself we do not experience its proper effect". True knowledge is being struck by the arrow of Beauty that wounds man, moved by reality, "how it is Christ himself who is present and in an ineffable way disposes and forms the souls of men" (cf. ibid.).
Being struck and overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. Of course we must not underrate the importance of theological reflection, of exact and precise theological thought; it remains absolutely necessary. But to move from here to disdain or to reject the impact produced by the response of the heart in the encounter with beauty as a true form of knowledge would impoverish us and dry up our faith and our theology. We must rediscover this form of knowledge; it is a pressing need of our time.

     Link note above