Arabic original here.
The Fathers
Today we celebrate the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787), which defined the veneration of icons. The icons highlight for us people who have become new in Christ. We observe that an icon displays a saint as someone not of flesh and blood. He transcends worldly, bodily existence in order to be seated at in the ranks of light in the heavens, from which he looks down upon us as a new person. Our fathers' every concern is that we become new creatures who have no relation to flesh and blood or to an environment or past time, as though we were created today.
The Apostle Paul said, "You do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Corinthians 4:15). Each of us comes from a man and a woman. This is the beginning, but we do not stop at that point. After our mothers give birth to us as slaves, we go on to the freedom of Christ. Every person strives to be a Christian. A Christian is a project. He is baptized so that he may strive over the course of his life to become a Christian. But he does not reach perfection, even in eternal life, because in heaven we become perfect together. Together we become a glorious Church for Christ. Christ casts upon us a garment of light and we become creatures of light through this garment that is cast upon us.
But what happens to us on earth after we have become the project of a person in baptism? There come people in the Church who renew us in Christ Jesus. They have been renewed. They have become free. Every link between them and this body, between them and the selfishness of this world, its domination and its slavery has been broken. They are no longer indebted to any of their lusts or people's lusts. The Holy Spirit now moves them and they are no longer moved by the prejudice of village, town, sect or party. The Holy Spirit blows in them and heaven moves them. The heavenly person is treated as ignoble, a stranger, rejected and despised because he is a reminder to the people of the earth that they are called to become heavenly as they move upon the earth.
The people of heaven, the great believers, are hated by the people of the earth. The people of the earth, who are still tied to dust, to the aims of this world, to the deceit of lust, hate heaven and have no communion with the children of light.
Because of the darkness that prevails over this world, God raised up in the Church fathers capable of generating children of God the Father. There are those who break off people's tie to flesh and blood in order to established a new tie between them and the Lord. God establishes for Himself a family in the Church, which is not the human family made up of a man, a woman and children. I do not mean by this all who are affiliated with Christ by baptism. Rather, I mean those who have become conscious anew that they are a member of Christ's body, a part of Christ.
The time has come for us to know that we were born and are born in Christ's Church and in her we become new people because we follow Jesus and we have been made brothers of the Lord and children of God.
The Fathers
Today we celebrate the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787), which defined the veneration of icons. The icons highlight for us people who have become new in Christ. We observe that an icon displays a saint as someone not of flesh and blood. He transcends worldly, bodily existence in order to be seated at in the ranks of light in the heavens, from which he looks down upon us as a new person. Our fathers' every concern is that we become new creatures who have no relation to flesh and blood or to an environment or past time, as though we were created today.
The Apostle Paul said, "You do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Corinthians 4:15). Each of us comes from a man and a woman. This is the beginning, but we do not stop at that point. After our mothers give birth to us as slaves, we go on to the freedom of Christ. Every person strives to be a Christian. A Christian is a project. He is baptized so that he may strive over the course of his life to become a Christian. But he does not reach perfection, even in eternal life, because in heaven we become perfect together. Together we become a glorious Church for Christ. Christ casts upon us a garment of light and we become creatures of light through this garment that is cast upon us.
But what happens to us on earth after we have become the project of a person in baptism? There come people in the Church who renew us in Christ Jesus. They have been renewed. They have become free. Every link between them and this body, between them and the selfishness of this world, its domination and its slavery has been broken. They are no longer indebted to any of their lusts or people's lusts. The Holy Spirit now moves them and they are no longer moved by the prejudice of village, town, sect or party. The Holy Spirit blows in them and heaven moves them. The heavenly person is treated as ignoble, a stranger, rejected and despised because he is a reminder to the people of the earth that they are called to become heavenly as they move upon the earth.
The people of heaven, the great believers, are hated by the people of the earth. The people of the earth, who are still tied to dust, to the aims of this world, to the deceit of lust, hate heaven and have no communion with the children of light.
Because of the darkness that prevails over this world, God raised up in the Church fathers capable of generating children of God the Father. There are those who break off people's tie to flesh and blood in order to established a new tie between them and the Lord. God establishes for Himself a family in the Church, which is not the human family made up of a man, a woman and children. I do not mean by this all who are affiliated with Christ by baptism. Rather, I mean those who have become conscious anew that they are a member of Christ's body, a part of Christ.
The time has come for us to know that we were born and are born in Christ's Church and in her we become new people because we follow Jesus and we have been made brothers of the Lord and children of God.
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