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| Source: antiochian.org |
Last Sunday, January 25, we commemorated St. Gregory the Theologian (+391). Truly one of the most illustrious and beloved of the Church Fathers. I have been reading his biography recently, and some of his theological writings. Because his name is so linked with the role of the theologian; and because of his reputation for contributing to the Church's theological tradition with great depth and insight; someone may react and say: "He is too difficult for me to understand!" Not necessarily true. When reading a passage from St. Gregory as that below, we should simply delight in his open love for God and desire to know God. And the saint is inviting us to that same desire for communion with the living God. Theology is the pursuit of "words adequate to God," and St. Gregory, though acknowledging the impossibility of circumscribing God with our human language, expresses that with both eloquence and depth. A passage worthy to ponder!
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God always was and is and will be - or better, God always is. For "was" and "will be" are divisions of the time we experience, of a nature that flows away; but he is always, and gives himself this name when he identifies himself to Moses on the mountain. For he contains the whole of being in himself, without beginning or end, like an endless, boundless ocean of reality; he extends beyond all of notions of time and nature, and is skeptically grasped by the mind alone, but only very dimly and in a limited way; he is known not directly but indirectly, as one image is derived from another to form a single representation of the truth: fleeing before it is grasped, escaping before it is fully known, shining on our guiding reason - provided we have been purified - as a swift, fleeting flash of lightening shines in our eyes. And he does this, it seems to me, so that, insofar as it can be comprehended, the Divine might draw us to itself ...
From Oration 38, "On the Theophany"
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St. Gregory the Theologian will be commemorated this morning at the Liturgy as one of the The Three Hierarches, the other two being St. Basil the Great (+379) and St. John Chrysostom (+407). A veritable "feast of theology!"
