|
An Old Testament take on Mary’s Virginity???
Well – could it be more boring than the varied approaches to virginity we’re being served up today?
If you’re game – here goes! (If not, please get lost!)
Today is September 4, 2011 – commemorating Moses’ vision of the burning bush that remained unburnt as described by the Book of Exodus (3:1-21), on Mount Horeb. The bush -- from which God said to Moses, when Moses asked who it was, speaking to him from the bush: “I am Who am” -- was on fire, but was not consumed by the flames. It is thus a major Old Testament foreshadowing of the Virgin Mother of God.
I thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem which is redolent of the Burning Bush themes:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not wreck His rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
G.M.Hopkins
Hopkins always manages to connect with our world, even 100+ years later, and he was a Jesuit to boot!!! Yet I find it has been difficult of late to keep the conclusion of Hopkins’ poem in mind. The Spoiler in Chief has been too busy at what he does best!
Here we are Sunday Sept. 4; Bartholomew (Patriarch of Constantinople, although it was in March 1930, just slightly over one year before I was born, that the Turkish authorities formally requested everyone, including foreigners, to call the city named for Emperor Constantine Istanbul) – so good old anachronistic-in-every-way possible Bartholomew was reported to have convened a Synaxis of Heads of the Ancient Patriarchates and the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus at the Phanar (his Istanbul hang-out) from September 1-2 , 2011. I mean, what went on at that “synaxis”??? What’s a “synaxis” anyhow? I was thinking, hey, maybe I could have one with some of my friends, judging from his guest list, it must be small and intimate, since they couldn’t include the Moscow Patriarchate, which is bigger (and by several times over, I’m told) than all the Ancient Orthodox Patriarchates and the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus put together! But here it is a couple of days after the cut-off date, and we haven’t heard boo! When I realized this, I, for well over an hour, maybe 2, did a concerted search all over the internet, trying every relevant phraseology I could think of (and I have a reputation for being pretty good with words) but --- not even a boo, as I say. Did they all even get home safely afterward? We know what happened to Patriarch Peter VII of Alexandria and All Africa when he naively went on a visit to that homicidal human powerbot, Bartholomew, along with a very high-level entourage from Patriarch Peter’s huge and influential Patriarchate: all of Africa. His All Holiness Peter was my very dearest friend, I still have the official, numbered, letter he sent me, graciously commending my efforts on behalf of the Church.
“Petros VII died along with 16 others (including three other bishops of the Church of Alexandria: Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Carthage, Metropolitan Irenaios of Pelusium, and Bishop Nectarios of Madagascar – [Petros’ brother was among the deceased]) when the helicopter carrying them crashed into the Aegean Sea while en route to the monastic enclave of Mount Athos in Greece. The cause of the crash is still uncertain.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Peter_VII_of_Alexandria
Well, nobody’s telling what happened to Bart’s invited guests this time, that’s for sure.
What with all the searching and scratching my head to figure out what’s up – the day was done, and I was exhausted.
So today, Monday, Labor Day, after my usual search before setting down to analysis and such, I visited a new blog I had hit on yesterday – and ended up with this:
Russian Orthodox Church Asked By Oldest Church Patriarchates to Observe its Canonical Territory
SOURCE: RISU [http://risu.org.ua/en/index/all_news/orthodox/orthodox_world/44182/]
The Patriarchs of the four oldest Churches of the world and the Primate of the Cyprian Autocephalous Church called the Russian Orthodox Church to observe its canonical territory.
“Due to the events which have recently taken place in the Orthodox Church [I mean, yeah, plenty of events have taken place since I was born, these days I spend my time chronicling them],” the Council stressed the necessity that the Orthodox Churches should respect and strictly observe the geographical borders of their jurisdictions “as defined by the holy canons and Tomoses on the foundation of these Churches.”
With these words the pentarchy [get this “pentarchy” bit! The usage the Istanbul Patriarchate is trying to pawn off on us – well, I was only born 80 years ago, and this isn’t quite the first time, but almost such, that I have encountered its usage, they have really been pushing it very hard of late] hinted at non-recognition [such non-recognition is more than “hinted at”; it’s the sole raison d’etre for the novel claim re Ukraine’s newly-made-up-out-of-whole-cloth “canonical status”] of a canonical status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow patriarchate as an “integral part” of the Moscow Patriarchate since the Constantinople Patriarchate stated in the Tomos on the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland issued in 1924 that it never legally renounced its jurisdiction over the Kyivan Metropolitanate. As for the whole Moscow Patriarchate and its canonical borders, the Constantinople Council [I mean, is it a synaxis or a council – or, who knows? – maybe a tea party? Bart’s got me going in circles] observes the Thomos of 1589 according to which the territory of the present-day Ukraine is not part of the Moscow Patriarchate.
One should mention in the context of the above the commentary of the Kyivan Patriarchate saying that the Pentarchy is the way of the Constantinople Patriarchate to show the Russian Orthodox Church “who is the boss.” [like we’re too dull-witted to see it for ourselves! They wish.] So reported kyrios.org.ua.
[Saint Elias Church joins the crowd trying to make like this reading of Pentarchy-with-a-capital-“t” is something ancient:] (from Greek pente, five, and arche, rule) [it] is a system of the superiority [????corroboration, please?????] in the Christian Church of the five patriarchates (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem) with the primacy of Rome, which came into effect after the 4th Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) when the Jerusalem Patriarchate was established.
http://sainteliaschurch.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html *** *** *** ***
I’m not going to so abase my mind as to address such delusional nonsense any further! However, the post did strengthen my conviction that a way out of the whole mess with Bart, Jonah, et al which has been going around in my head might have merit, the more so after I re-read what almost seems prophetic on the page on my website devoted to The Burning Bush. The site is currently under destruction – uh-oh, little Freudian slip there, I meant “under CONstruction”, but the constructive part has not yet begun – so I suggest you click:
1) http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com/yogandme.html - which will get you to the Burning Bush page
2) http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com/predestination.html - which will get you to the article which now seems prescient
The idea I had specifically is this: After revisiting some of our recent OCA history in connection with the holy demise of Archbishop Dmitri of the Archdiocese of the South – whom I know as a truly saintly spiritual father because of the personal concern he showed for each of the situations I brought to his attention as I lived in his Archdiocese for several years, during which he was already weakening and unwell, so that such extensive travel was difficult for him – yet, concerned not for his own weaknesses, but for his children who needed him, he undertook the arduous visitations this entailed. When the time comes that it is prudent to be more specific, everyone will see the glorious results.
My idea regarding the present imbroglios we are faced with, which have nothing to do with the saintly Archbishop or the exceptional devotion to be found today in his Archdiocese, come from somewhere else geographically, culturally, intellectually, spiritually – as alien as possible from the devout southern foundation I myself share with the Saint, and which is ripe for cultivation by someone – uh, on the same wave length, seems a good way to put it.
My very dear friend Met. Herman - to whose Diocese, and St. Tikhon’s parish, I have belonged since I became Orthodox, fed spiritually and intellectually by the monastery and seminary – was never really properly and canonically deposed in any way, he was just forced to retire, given an ultimatum which had no force behind it beyond the – uh, I better not get into specifics of the sheer nastiness driving this action, but it cannot have derived from the Holy Spirit breathing within the Church.
So it can only be that Met. Herman remains authentically the primate of the Orthodox Church in America, and I am sure His Eminence would be most agreeable to having my Spiritual Father, Abp. Paul, assist him with the governance and spiritual direction of the Orthodox Church in America at this time.
Archives:
|
