The darkness is past, Light is made

Ave Maria! Yesterday I was led to Elpenor, "Home of the Greek Word" on the Web. If you scroll down the home page, you'll come to "The Greek Word, Three Millennia of Greek Literature." Simply click on that to see what treasures are available. Elpenor describes its offerings as such: "Compared with the thousands of more or less important texts, what is here seems to fall short. The purpose of this anthology is to offer a grounding, so that, even if someone were to study nothing else, the loss would not be decisive. It is a Philokalia, a gathering of some of the most important works of Greek thinking." I like that because I'm such a newbie in reading Greek works. Over the past couple of years I've been reading more and more of the Fathers of the Church, so I'm happy to find some of their important works here.

I've barely begun exploring Elpenor and look forward to doing so soon. Meanwhile, at first glance, Gregory Nazianzen has caught my eye and captivated my heart with his reflection "On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ," some of which I've excerpted below. He notes that we should keep the feast of Christmas not as the world does but "in a fashion above the world...as belonging to Him Who is ours." In today's reading at Mass from John 5:14-21, the Evangelist reminds us that "We know that we belong to God, and the whole world is under the power of the Evil One. We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to know the one who is true. And we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." For us who armed with this knowledge and abiding in the true God, every day is a celebration of Christmas, of the coming of the God to us, of the passing of darkness and the making of Light. Every day is the Lord's birthday -- and ours, too, as Christ calls us to "undergo the beautiful conversion" and thus experience the healing and re-creation of Him who makes all things new. O come, let us adore Him!

Again the darkness is past; again Light is made.... Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. The letter gives way, the Spirit comes to the front. The shadows flee away, the Truth comes in upon them.... For God was manifested to man by birth. On the one hand Being, and eternally Being, of the Eternal Being, above cause and word, for there was no word before The Word; and on the other hand for our sakes also Becoming, that He Who gives us our being might also give us our Well-being, or rather might restore us by His Incarnation, when we had by wickedness fallen from well being. The name Theophany is given to it in reference to the Manifestation, and that of Birthday in respect of His Birth.

This is our present Festival; it is this which we are celebrating to-day, the Coming of God to Man, that we might go forth, or rather (for this is the more proper expression) that we might go back to God—that putting off the old man, we might put on the New; and that as we died in Adam, so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ and crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising with Him. For I must undergo the beautiful conversion, and as the painful succeeded the more blissful, so must the more blissful come out of the painful. For where sin abounded Grace did much more abound; and if a taste condemned us, how much more doth the Passion of Christ justify us? Therefore let us keep the Feast, not after the manner of a heathen festival, but after a godly sort; not after the way of the world, but in a fashion above the world; not as our own but as belonging to Him Who is ours, or rather as our Master's; not as of weakness, but as of healing; not as of creation, but of re-creation.

Gregory Nazianzen the Theologian On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ (Oration XXXVIII)