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| Christ Mandylion Novgorod 1500 |
COMMENT:
Christ Mandylion Novgorod 1500. Icon rescued from rubbish tip. The icon may have from an outside Market. The image was scarred and evident the the candle wax was used in front of prayer. The effort is to restore the lovely Mandylion.
TWO
YEAR PATRISTIC VIGILS LECTIONARY
Ordinary Time
Year 2 Weeks 1 – 17
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Friday 11
Zec. 1:1-2:4
St Gregory the
Great, Hom. 2 in Ez. 1.5
W. S. 7
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Friday of the Eleventh Week in
Ordinary Time Year 2
A READING FROM THE HOMILIES
ON EZEKIEL
BY ST GREGORY THE GREAT
It
is precisely because the vision of inward peace is made up of a community of
saints as its citizens that the heavenly Jerusalem is built as a city. Even
while, in this earthly life, its citizens are lashed by whips and subjected to
oppression, its stones are being quarried every day.
It is also the city, namely, the holy Church, which is to
reign in heaven but is still toiling on earth. It is to its citizens that Peter
says: And you are being
built up like living stones. Paul also says: You are God’s land, God’s building. Clearly the city already has its
great building here on earth in the lives of the saints. In a building, of
course, one stone supports another, since they are placed one on top of
another, and one supporting another is itself supported by another. So in the
same way, in the holy Church, every member both supports and is supported by
the other. For neighbours give each other mutual support, so that the building
of love may rise through them. Hence too Paul’s instruction to us: Bear each other’s burdens, and in that
way you will fulfil the law of Christ; and he claims the virtue of this law, saying: It is love
which fulfils the law.
For
if I neglect to support you in the way you live, and you pay little attention
to supporting me in mine, how will the building of love rise among us? He alone
who supports the whole fabric of the holy Church supports us in our good ways
and our faults as well. But in a building, as we have said, the supporting stone
is itself supported. For just as I already support the ways of those whose
behaviour in the matter of good works is still unformed, so I too am supported
by those who have surpassed me in the fear of the Lord, and yet have supported
me, so that I myself should learn to support through being supported. But they
have also been supported by their predecessors.
However
the stones placed at the top of the building to finish it off, though supported
of course by others, have no one to support in turn. For those, too, who are
born at the Church’s end, that is, at the end of the world, will certainly be
supported by their predecessors, to dispose them to behave in a way that leads
to good works; but when they have none to follow them who could profit by them,
they have no more stones to support for the building of the faithful above
them. So for the time being they are supported by us, and we are supported by
others. However it is the foundation that carries the entire weight of the
building, because our Redeemer alone supports the lives of all of us together.
As Paul says of him: For no one can lay
any foundation other than the one that has been laid, which is Christ Jesus. The
foundation supports the stones and is not supported by the stones, because our
Redeemer supports us in all our troubles, but in himself there was no evil
demanding support.
St Gregory the Great, Hom.
in Ez., 2.1.5 (CCL 142:210-212); Word in
Season VII.
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| The Holy Mandylion (Napkin) of Christ (Not-made-by-hands) |
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