“The same, true Son of God, Who was timelessly born before the Morning-star, now undergoes a second birth in time.  What is the Morning-star?

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It is the light that heralds the dawn.

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Before the appearance of the stars, before the creation of the world, before the beginning of time itself, the Son was begotten timelessly, eternally, everlastingly from the womb of God the Father.”

+ Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra

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Just days before the Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and all things are in hushed preparation for the mystery of the Incarnation.  Are we?

If we wish to stay on the path that leads us to God’s presence, let us, like good pilgrims, prepare wisely.

The psalmist gave his whole soul, his whole heart, his whole being to God; he endured countless dangers, suffered many deprivations, for the sake of the only truly worthy cause: to enter into immediate relation with God; to commune with God Himself and to be filled with Him.

How I would like to see this kind of love, this kind of faith, in our own pilgrimage to God.

+Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra

the Psalms and the Life of Faith

What God seeks from me is something entirely spiritual.  The sacrifice that He wants is a sacrifice of the heart.  The Lord loves mercy and truth, and mercy us not do much an expression of love as it is an act of sacrifice, since it calls of me to sacrifice, not something I think I need to give up for God, but to surrender my very self; to make of my self an offering.

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Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra

Psalms and the Life of Faith

God asks the pilgrim for his love and his trust, but especially for his own self, and then He will give him His grace and glory.

But God does not give back less than He asks for, and so the grace and glory that He gives are God’s own self.

However we shouldn’t expect to receive anything from Him until we’ve journeyed to Him like the pilgrim, in a movement of the soul toward union with the Beloved.

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Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra

Psalms and the Life of Faith