[amen] Hosanna: (2)My personal Christmas Card. "The Flaming Sword turned away..."
- From: Seraphim Sigrist <ssigrist@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Amen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 16:10:49 -0800 (PST)
Dear Friends,
This is to the list of the friends of Fr Alexander Men and his legacy
who are also friends of our community Hosanna in Moscow but it also
largely includes my personal mailing list and I will by this send
my personal Christmas greeting. It is not a pretty card to look at
and just a few words but it comes with my thought of you and my prayers
looking down the list of names ...and wishing it could be more or better
just this:
.....................................
CHRISTMAS 2006
Friends,
The hymn sung at Vespers in the Eastern Churches says
"Come let us rejoice in the Lord
as we speak of the Mystery before us
the wall of division has been destroyed
the flaming sword turns back
the cherubim withdraw from the tree of life
and I partake of paradise from which I was expelled..."
The wall of division falls through so many things in our
life doesnt it? between the intention and the act
between the dream and the reality it appears like
a shadow over all we are and attempt...
Charles Williams in a poem written for his parish
bulletin speaks of coming, in mind and heart and
soul, to Bethlehem and seeing within the seeing
of the newborn Christ one's own original self
from which one had become so separated--and
who of us has not?
"my soul hurrying
Could not speak for tears,
When she saw her own Child,
Lost so many years..."
This is an extension and expression of what the
hymn is saying isnt it? that at this day (a day which
is accessible on every day) all the worlds come
close together and we may find our way back to
what we had lost and forward towards what we had
ceased really to hope for...
My this joy of restoration be yours in a special way
on this Christmas ...
As we say in the East "Christ is Born!" "Glorify Him!"
as Tiny Tim said in London "God Bless us every one!"
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
yours
+Seraphim Joseph Sigrist
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- » [amen] Hosanna: (2)My personal Christmas Card. "The Flaming Sword turned away..."
