St. Athanasius - The Incarnation of Christ

The magnificence of the universe in all it’s terrible beauty and complexity provides us a small shadow of the greatness of God.  For such a wonder as the entire cosmos to be brought from nothing into being, it must be by the will of a even more wonderful Creator.  St. Athanasius says creation “too, has been brought out of non-being into being by the Word”.  To bring all things from non-being into being, the Creator must have power over both what is and what is not.  His will reaches into and commands the very depths of that nothingness which we humans cannot begin to fathom (Job 11:7,8).

How then is it possible for a finite creature to even begin to know the infinite Creator?  Man can obtain a glimpse of the Divine through His creation (Psalm 19:1).  But a glimpse is not enough: what groom would be satisfied with providing his beloved bride with only a glimpse of him?  No, it was the will of God in His love for mankind to walk among us as one of us so that we might know Him better.  As St. Athanasius writes, “The Lord takes for Himself a part of the whole, namely a human body, and enters into that.  Thus it is ensured that men could recognize in part that which they could not recognize in whole.”  His appearance was in such a way that mankind could easily see and be drawn to God.  It was and still is His desire to walk among men so that He might be known by them (John 14:7).  

It was also His will that mankind should be made right again. In all creation, it was mankind alone who strayed from his intended purpose and function.  It was mankind who needed correcting.  St. Athanasius writes, “Similarly, though He used the body as His instrument, He shared nothing of it’s defect, but rather sanctified it by His indwelling.” Just as a captain enters into a ship so that he might take hold of it’s course and correct it, God entered into mankind, assuming human flesh and nature, so that by Him human nature might be made right (Romans 5:19).

It is through the incarnation of Christ in human flesh that humanity can know the unknowable (John 1:18).  It is through Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension that all of mankind might follow Him to the very heights of heaven.  We follow Christ, the Son of God, who is fully human and yet fully Divine, who made a clear path for us to the unknowable.  

Make up your minds

“Whoever hammers a lump of iron, first decides what he is going to make of it, a scythe, a sword, or an axe. Even so we ought to make up our minds what kind of virtue we want to forge or we labour in vain.”

-St. Anthony the Great from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p. 8,number 35.



I’m not generally in the habit of making new year’s resolutions. That we single out January 1 as the time to make new beginnings never quite made sense to me. What makes it more special than the preceding 364 days? That we single it out as the time to make new beginnings never quite made sense to me. At least that has been my internal argument against making new years resolutions in the past. But I recognize in myself that there is indeed a tendency to pick some arbitrary day in the future as a point of departure from some habit or sin or to start some new desired habit. I have often said to myself, “on Sunday I will renew my commitment to stop this or that sin habit. I’ll go to church and renew my commitment to follow the commands of Christ.. but until then…” Or even the changing of the day. “Okay, tomorrow morning when I get up I’m going to start over”. Or maybe on my Birthday, or this coming Lent. I find my flesh is very keen to convince me that tomorrow or the next is a good time to repent and start again. In the meantime it tries to convince me to indulge just a little more, to slumber just a bit longer. This is the deception of the enemy.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews quotes to us from Psalm 95 (LXX 94) and exhorts us to consider today as the right time for repentance

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:“Today, if you will hear His voice,8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,In the day of trial in the wilderness,9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,And saw My works forty years.10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,And they have not known My ways.’11 So I swore in My wrath,‘They shall not enter My rest.’”

12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,Do not harden you hearts as in the rebellion.”

Hebrews 3:7-15

And again, St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church writes to them,

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.2 For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 

I Corinthians 6:1-2

In a little book that has become a favorite of mine, The Way of the Ascetic, Tito Colliander, echoing the voice of the fathers and the Scriptures, begins the first chapter saying,

“If you wish to save your soul and win eternal life,arise from your lethargy, make the sign of the cross and say: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Arise from your lethargy. He means by this that we should not delay for a moment. He goes on to say,

“Arise, then: but do so at once, without delay. Do not defer your purpose till ‘tonight’ or ‘tomorrow’ or ‘later, when I have finished what I have to do just now.’ The interval may be fatal.”

I think, though, that one reason we have this impulse to delay is because perhaps we have already failed so many times in the past to make good on our resolution. Perhaps for a while we do okay, but eventually we are worn down and give in. Consequently, though we know we need to make a change, we lack the courage. There is something about tomorrow that promises to impart to us the courage needed, so we set a date and hope that when it arrives we are really ready to make a go of it.

St. Anthony also suggests that one reason we don’t succeed is that we are perhaps a little haphazard in our approach. Change cannot happen except through particulars. The enemy loves for us to think in the abstract about the spiritual life.

Modern psychologist, self help gurus and preachers alike will tell you that it’s almost impossible to just stop doing some bad habit. Neuroscience teaches us that those patterns of behavior are not just moral but are,in fact, actually hardwired into our brains and that like well worn pathways through a forest it is easiest for us to follow those paths than to forge new ones. So to stop a bad habit you must replace the behavior and not just stop it. The fathers have known this all along.

So, St. Anthony tells us we must be deliberate about what virtues to cultivate and how. The desert fathers tell us that each vice has it’s counter virtue. If you are struggling with anger then work to cultivate mercy. If despair then cultivate thankfulness. The point is you must be deliberate.

As you remember St. Anthony today and celebrate his feast, consider your own life and listen to what he tells us. Talk to your spiritual father, priest, or confessor about your struggles and find out what virtue may be most beneficial to work on. Consider the triggers for that sinful habit you wish to defeat, and by God’s grace begin to attach those triggers instead to their counter-virtue. Be deliberate, and when you fall, don’t wait: get up, make the sign of the cross, and begin again.

O Christ, grant us victory over the enemy and grant that today we may enter your rest.

Today God is Made Manifest

Today is the feast of Theophany. Christ comes as a man to be baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan “to fulfill all righteousness”. St. John Chrysostom raises the very obvious question we all have when we contemplate this feast. Why did Jesus need to be baptized?

Now it is necessary to say, for whom was Christ baptised and by which baptism? Neither the former, the Jewish (i.e. for cleansing from bodily impurity), nor the last—ours. Whence hath He need for remission of sins, how is this possible for Him, Who hath not any sins? “Of sin,” it says in the Scriptures, “worked He not, nor was there deceit found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). And further, “who of you convicteth Me of sin?” (John 8:46). And His flesh was privy to the Holy Spirit. How might this be possible, when it in the beginning was fashioned by the Holy Spirit? And so, if His flesh was privy to the Holy Spirit, and He was not subject to sins, then for whom was He baptised?
- Discourse On the Baptism of Christ

He goes on to answer the question,

Through the other two reasons, of which the one the disciple speaks, and about the other He Himself spoke to John. Which reason of this baptism did John declare? Namely, that Christ should become known to the people, as Paul also mentions: “John therefore baptised with the baptism of repentance, so that through him they should believe on Him that cometh” (Acts 19:4).

and

And there is a second reason, about which He Himself spoke. What exactly is it? When John said, “I have need to be baptised of Thee, and Thou art come to me?” He answered thus: “Stay now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill every righteousness” (Matthew 3:14-15).

But what exactly does it mean to fulfill every righteousness? Quite simply it means he subjected himself to be obedient to His Father and to the law. Chrysostom states:

Thus, if obedience to God constitutes righteousness, and God sent John to baptise the nation, then Christ has also fulfilled this along with all the other commandments.

He begins his earthly ministry by demonstrating humility and simple obedience. He always goes before us. We also are called to Christ’s humility, that same humility that leads to the revelation of God in our own lives.
Today is also the feast day of St. Theophan the Recluse who reposed on this day in 1894. I was first introduced to St. Theophan through his revision of an ancient classic of spirituality “Unseen Warfare”. It seems appropriate to draw from this classic today. The epistle reading for today (Titus 2:11-14;3:4-7) is a good backdrop for much of what Unseen Warfare has to say to us.

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Christ has appeared, submitted himself to humility and obedience, and was confirmed in his Divinity by the witness of the Father and the Spirit. The Father testifying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And so we are exhorted to follow his example. We are to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; Live soberly and righteously looking forward with the hope of eternal life. We strive to live righteously but put no hope in our our righteousness. We struggle to live godly lives but have no illusions of justifying ourselves before God. As the Psalmist says, 8 My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

And so, in Unseen Warfare, the first chapter ends with this exhortation as the beginning of the spiritual battle. This is, as it were, the foundational perspective we must carry into the battle. Keep these things in balance and never forget from where our help comes.

Finally, after learning what constitutes Christian perfection and realising that to achieve it you must wage a constant cruel war with yourself, if you really desire to be victorious in this unseen warfare and be rewarded with a crown, you must plant in your heart the following four dispositions and spiritual activities, as it were arming yourself with invisible weapons, the most trust-worthy and unconquerable of all, namely: (a) never rely on your-self in anything; (b) bear always in your heart a perfect and all daring trust in God alone; (c) strive without ceasing; and (d) remain constantly in prayer.

May God grant us grace to imitate Christ’s humility, to submit our lives to Him who was obedient and so to have His life revealed in us as it was revealed in Christ.

Joyous Feast!