Midweek Morning Meditation

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 Dear Parish Faithful,

"The Holy Spirit is God himself enabling our faith: not merely the object of our worship but the one by whose power and inspiration we worship." 

St. Gregory the Theologian (+395) earned that title of "theologian" primarily through his great series known as the Five Theological Orations (27-31) that he wrote in the fourth century, as the Church was still engaged in articulating the dogma of the Trinity as fully and convincingly as possible. These Orations, then, are classics of Orthodox trinitarian theology. The final Oration 31 is further entitled "On the Holy Spirit." The purpose of this Oration was to demonstrate the following: "All that the Godhead actively performs, the Spirit performs." This is due to the identical divine nature that the Father and the Spirit share from all eternity. 

In that same Oration, St. Gregory further states this about the Holy Spirit:

He is the subject, not the object, of hallowing, apportioning, participating, filling, sustaining. We share in him; he shares in nothing. He is our inheritance, he is glorified, counted together with the Father and the Son. ... That means that the Holy Spirit is of the same essential nature as the Father. 

This is all beautifully and profoundly expressed in one of the hymns for the Sunday Vespers of Pentecost that we heard during that service:

The Holy Spirit always was and always shall be, for He is with the Father and the Son, One of the Trinity. He is both Life and Life-giving; He is Light, and by nature, the Giver of Light; He is All-Holy and the Source of Holiness. Through Him, we know the Father and glorify the Son, understanding that the Holy Trinity is a single Power, Three of equal rank and equally to be worshipped.

Perhaps the unknown person who composed this hymn was inspired by carefully reading St. Gregory's Oration on the Holy Spirit. When we sing "Christ is born! Glorify Him" during the Feast of the Nativity, we know that that well-known hymn was taken directly from the opening of St. Gregory's Nativity Oration. There is a very close relationship between theology, hymnography and worship within the Church. We pray our theology - and absorb a great deal in the process.