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| mary_and_the_burning_bush - Russian |
TWO
YEAR LECTIONARY
PATRISTIC
VIGILS READINGS
LENT YEAR II
Saturday after Ash Wednesday Year II
A READING
FROM the life of moses by St Gregory of Nyssa
Let us, like Moses, live a solitary life, no longer
entangled with adversaries or mediating between them. Let us live among those
of like mind who are fed by us, while all the movements of our soul are led by
reason like sheep by their shepherd. Then, as we are living at peace, the truth
will shine upon us and its radiance will illuminate the eyes of our soul.
Now this truth is God. Once in an ineffable and mysterious
vision it manifested itself to Moses, and it is not without significance for us
that the flame from which the soul of the Prophet was illuminated was kindled
from a thorn-bush.
If truth is God and if it is also light – two of the sublime
and sacred epithets by which the Gospel describes the God who manifested
himself to us in the flesh – it follows that a virtuous life will lead us to a
knowledge of that light which descended to the level of our human nature. It is
not from some luminary set among the stars that it sheds its radiance, which
might then be thought to have a material origin, but from a bush on the earth,
although it outshines the stars of heaven.
This also symbolizes
the mystery of the Virgin, from whom came the divine light that shone upon the
world without damaging the bush from which it emanated or allowing the virgin
shoot to wither.
This light teaches us what we must do to stand in the rays
of the true light, and that it is impossible with our feet in shackles to run
toward the mountain where the light of truth appears. We have first to free the
feet of our soul from the covering of dead skins in which our nature was clad
in the beginning when it disobeyed God’s will and was left naked.
To know that which is, we must purify our minds of assumptions
regarding things which are not. In my opinion the definition of truth is an
unerring comprehension of that which is. He who is immutable, who does not increase
or diminish, who is subject to no change for better or worse, but is perfectly
self-sufficient; he who alone is desirable, in whom all else participates
without causing in him any diminution, he indeed is that which truly is, and to
comprehend him is to know the truth.
It is he whom Moses approached and whom today all approach
who like Moses free themselves from their earthly coverings and look toward the
light coming from the bramble bush, at the ray shining on us from the thorns,
which stand for the flesh, for as the Gospel says, that ray is the real light
and the truth. Then such people will also be able to help others find
salvation. They will be capable of destroying the forces of evil and of
restoring those enslaved by them to liberty.
St Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of
Moses, 2.17-26 (SC 1:36 -39);
from Word in Season II, 1st ed.
Mary and the Burning Bush
The icon is also known as the "unburned bush" or Neopalimaya Kupina. The Mother of God can be seen holding the Christ Child in her left arm and a ladder in her right arm set in a four point blue star. The symbols of the Four Evangelists: the winged man of Matthew, the eagle of Mark, the ox of Luke, and the lion of John are depicted in the red points of the star. Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jacob are also on the icon from the old Testament as seen by the Mother of God and her role in the Incarnation. The icon is also used as form of fire protection and to help stop a fire once it has begun.
http://www.paleks.com/icons.htm
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