You Have Established Nature by the Word

You Have Established Nature by the Word: A Meditation Addressed to the Person of the Son

Inspired by the Beauty of the Liturgy and the Prayers of the Divine Liturgy

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Whenever we stand in Your holy temple, we are reckoned as standing in heaven, for the Lord of heaven is present with us upon this altar.

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Grant me, O my Master, the gift of perceiving this glory through Your divine presence...

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When this bread becomes Your Body and this wine Your life-giving Blood, this temple is blessed and becomes heaven on earth. This altar is glorified with a glory like that of Your divine throne... or rather, it is adorned with the awe of Your divine love, as it represents the wood of the Cross to which You were nailed and which was stained with Your life-giving Blood poured upon it.

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You pierced through time on the night of Your crucifixion, when You entrusted to this bread and wine the power of Your atoning work of redemption on the Cross—declaring them to be Your true Body and Blood by the power of Your Holy Spirit—and handed down to us this great mystery of godliness...

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How wondrous is this transfiguration of matter, which at that time was regarded as evil, and even impure, by some cultures and religions. Yet the Father’s overwhelming love—which engulfed us through You in the fellowship of Your Holy Spirit—has rested upon us, glorified matter through Your incarnation, and blessed the bread and wine to become forgiveness of sins, healing of diseases, a means of salvation, and eternal life through our union with the Prince of Life and King of the Ages.

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It is a pledge of the transfiguration of matter—a pledge of something greater—when You come upon the clouds on the day appointed by Your good Father, so that we may inherit the kingdom He prepared for us before the foundation of the world...

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Then the promise of a new heaven and a new earth will be fulfilled—a glory bestowed upon matter and creation by Your grace and goodness...

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We behold the pledge of this transfiguration through the work of Your Holy Spirit in the divine mysteries...

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We see water relinquish its death-bearing nature to become water that gives birth to a new nature in Baptism; oil becomes a power that drives away the armies of the devil and his death-dealing works; and the bread and wine are transfigured and changed into the true Body and Blood, given for the forgiveness of sins.

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Just as the altar is reckoned as a Cross bearing Your Body and Blood, so too the icons of the Church represent the presence of the saints of the invisible Church, who have gathered to join the members of the visible Church in glorifying the work of the Trinity in preserving the peace and edification of the Church throughout the ages. It is as though each saint bears the wood of his own cross within the confines of his icon, displaying his virtues and pure life as an epic of love and a living testimony to God’s work in his life.

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Just as the wood of the Cross was a testimony to the Father’s love for us and a declaration of the vanity of this material world before the glory that is to be revealed in us, so too the wooden icons are the testimony of these heavenly ones to God’s work in His Church, so that we may see their good works and our Father may be all the more glorified in His saints. 💗

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