Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything. - St Gregory of Nyssa

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The Wrath of Love

From the Prologue from Ochrid, August 2.

About God's grievance against the unfaithful people
 
"Hear, O heavens and listen, O earth, for the Lord speaks: sons have I raised and reared but they have disowned me!" (Isaiah 1:2). 

The wrath, wrath of God! God turns from the chosen people in wrath and grieves to His other creations; He grieves to the heavens and the earth. Harken my holy and rational angels and harken all you irrational earthly creatures! I wanted to make this people holy and rational and they have lowered themselves beneath irrational creatures with their impurity and ungratefulness. I have called them my sons and exalted them and they turned their backs on me and went after foul idols. Wrath, wrath of God, the wrath of Love, that even a thousand times does good to a leper and that even a thousand times was spat upon by the leper. When and if all the elements could speak, they could, with all the living things, witness all the great miracles which the One Living God performed for the people of Israel in Egypt and in the wilderness, only that they turn away from idolatry and believe in the One Living and Almighty God. This could be attested by water and blood, by stone and wood, by darkness and fire, by frogs and flies, by birds and serpents, by sickness and death and clouds and smoke, by winds and manna, and copper and iron together with pharaoh and the countless numbers of peoples miraculously defeated by the hand of God and removed from the path of the people of Israel. But still, they turned from God and went after idols.

This is the dreadful vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, the prophet of God. O, my brethren, just imagine what kind of vision the Prophet Isaiah would have concerning us if he would appear today among our people!

O Lord, the only living, the only Omnipotent, affix our mind and our heart to You the true God and safeguard us; safeguard us from apostatizing from You.
To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

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