Science teaches us at once both the immense vastness of the universe at a macroscopic level — galaxies whose expanse in space generates awe in even the most cynical — as well as the inverse: the billions of cells that make up each individual organism. Together they reveal the vast web of interconnectedness, the foundation of God’s design for a world whose destiny is a living communion held together in love. Each human being, uniquely and through his or her own gifts, becomes part of the story of how this mystery is revealing itself over the steady flow of history. (NS)
St Theodosius of the common life (cenobite)
Today we liturgically recall our venerable father, Theodosius, called a leader of the common life.
At the end of the 5th century, Theodosius founded a cenobium near Bethlehem. In his day many had come from as far away as Georgia and Armenia to enter monastic life in Palestine. He accommodated his multi-ethnic community by having the Liturgy of the Word served in separate chapels in Syriac, Armenian and Georgian, after which all the monks came together for the Eucharistic Liturgy in Greek in the main church. His monastery was large enough to staff a hospice for the elderly, and for the poor and sick as well as one for the mentally ill.
His organizational skills were recognized in Jerusalem, where the Patriarch made him cenobiarch, the leader of all the monasteries of the common life under his protection. Theodosius along with Sabbas upheld the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon in the midst of the strife this council engendered, even in the monastic settlements.
He died in 529 at the age of 105. His monastery was sacked twice in the 9th century, and was completely destroyed in the 15th. (NS)
The Holy Theophany of Our Lord
This feast began as a thematic, rather than an historical, commemoration, as is implied by its name which means “the manifestation of God”. It celebrated the birth of Christ, his manifestation to the Gentiles, the Magi, and to Hebrew society at his baptism. It remains thus for the non-Calcedonian Churches. When Byzantine Churches eventually accepted the Roman date for the incarnation feast, this feast concentrated on Christ’s baptism and the revelation of the Trinity that accompanied it.
The themes of Light and Water, well-grounded in biblical expression, figure prominently in the texts of this feast.
Just as in the story of Noah, the flood was the sign of death and rebirth, so Christ’s descent into the river as both servant and creator points to renewal of all creation, prompting, perhaps, the evangelist to describe the descent of the Spirit as a dove, token of the world’s rebirth in the ancient myth when it returned with an olive branch.
The Great Blessing of Water at the Sunday following this feast is a perpetuation of Christ’s sanctification of the Jordan. Like all the Mysteries of the Church, it is not we, but Christ himself who blesses the water. As we drink it and use it to bless our surroundings, we recall our own immersion in Christ at Baptism and of the potential for everything around us to be a vehicle of God’s grace. (NS)
On Bees by Pope Pius XII
The other day I was poking around on the calendar as we were very quickly moving to the end of one civil year and the beginning of another finding that the first day of Spring is 20 March 2021. I have Spring on the brain and with Spring also the gardens and my venerable honey bees. Also in my search I found that the Roman Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, in 1948 issued an address “On Bees.” The papal text was translated by Augustine Klaas, S.J., and he also wrote an introduction.
What has been on my mind for some time is the sacramentality of creation. Some will question this idea but they are the ones with little education which coincides with a lack of integration between the spiritual and natural in Christianity that comes about in the Incarnation. From time immemorial there Mother Church, both East and West, have considered creation as a sacrament. Some Catholic and Orthodox thinkers in recent years have contributed to a body of knowledge that is appreciative of the fact that there is a sacrament connection (integration) of the spiritual and natural.
I have longed said that if you want to be a virtuous person, a person of faith, hope and charity, work with agriculture. You would have to encounter your own virtue or lack of virtue in time (or perhaps pretty quickly). In particular, keep honey bees will be illuminating to faith and reason and human behavior. I came to this conclusion prior to reading the Pope Pius XII but having read the texts for blessing honey bees, hives and new honey from both the Eastern and Western Churches. The Blessing of Bees and honey are posted here on Communio as I am committed to the annual blessing of bees and honey and the rest of our agriculture pursuits.
Here are the two texts.
Introduction
BEES are fascinating little creatures of God. They have always intrigued mankind by their subtle, winning ways, though on occasion some of their ways are less than winning and one is not subtle at all. The observation and study of their structure, habits, spirit of work, organization, and marvelous co-operation, ever interested man even more than their valuable products of honey and wax. Then, too, lessons of wisdom abound in bees.
Who has not delighted in the exact descriptions of the old classic authors? Homer sings of bees which “issuing ever fresh from a hollow rock, fly in clusters on the vernal flowers” (, II, 87). Virgil vividly notes their activity in the early summer fields and meadows, and in the hive, where “the work goes busily forward, and the fragrant honey is redolent of thyme” (, IV, 169). Shakespeare, too, tells of “singing masons building roofs of gold” and of dire punishment meted out by “sad-eyed justice” to the “lazy, yawning drone”.
Holy Scripture, especially the Old Testament, speaks quite often of bees. Dense armies of soldiers are compared to bees (Is. 7:18) chasing man (Deut. 1:44) and surrounding him (Ps. 117:12). “The bee,” says Ecclesiasticus (11:3), “is small among flying things, but her fruit hath the chiefest sweetness.” And an addition to the Septuagint version of Proverbs (6th chapter) commends the bee after the ant: “Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom …. Or go to the bee, and learn how industrious she is, and bow her industry deserves our respect, for kings and the sick make use of the product of her labor for their health. Indeed, she is glorious and desired by all, and though she be frail, she is honored, because she treasures wisdom.”
Honey is often mentioned in Holy Scripture; for instance, Canaan was a land that “floweth with milk and honey” (Ex. 3:8). Honey was a rather essential ingredient of Saint John the Baptist’s diet (Matt. 3:4). I do not know that Holy Scripture anywhere mentions beeswax.
Deborah, the Hebrew word for bee, is an Old Testament feminine name. Rebecca’s nurse bore that name (Gen. 35:8).
The Fathers of the Church draw many lessons from bees. Following in their footsteps, spiritual writers like Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Teresa of Avila see holy wisdom in these tiny humming insects. For example, Saint Teresa says that in the prayer of quiet the will should not chase after the understanding. which now is “merely making itself a nuisance,” but rather enjoy its tranquil union with God and “be as recollected as the wise little bee. For if no bees entered the hive and they all went about trying to bring each other in, there would not be much chance of their making any honey” (, Chapter 15). Elsewhere she asserts that we should sometimes leave off soul-searching, remembering “that the bee is constantly flying about from flower to flower, and in the same way, believe me, the soul must sometimes emerge from self- knowledge and soar aloft in meditation upon the greatness and the majesty of its God” (, I, 2). Again, referring to the humility which must be in souls favored with visions, she avers that “if what should engender humility in the soul, which knows it does not deserve such a favor, makes it proud, it becomes like a spider, which turns all its food into poison, instead of resembling the bee, which turns it into honey” (, Chapter 8).
Of course, the patron of bees is Saint Ambrose, and the reason for it will be found in the breviary in the second nocturne of his feast. Saint Dominic is also spoken of as another patron of the bees, but no one seems to know just why.
The bee comes into the liturgy also: for example, the famous appears in a versicle of Matins for Saint Cecilia’s day: “Busy like a bee, thou didst serve the Lord.” And everyone recalls the “mother bee” of Holy Saturday morning [reference to the line in Exultet].
Granted this age-old tradition, sacred and secular, of seeking wisdom in bees, it is not surprising to find Pius XII discoursing on bees charmingly and instructively. The apiarists of Italy held a national convention in Rome last November, and on the 27th they went in a body to pay their respects to the Pope. In public audience they presented him with gifts, honey and beeswax, the latter probably in the form of candles. The Holy Father graciously replied.
ADDRESS OF PIUS XII
November 27, 1948
Your presence in such large numbers, your desire to assemble before Us, beloved sons, is a real comfort: and so We express our heartfelt gratitude for your homage and your gifts, both particularly pleasing to Us. Beyond its material and technical importance, the work which you represent, by its nature and significance has a psychological, moral, social, and even religious interest of no small value. Have not bees been sung almost universally in the poetry, sacred no less than profane, of all times?
Impelled and guided by instinct, a visible trace and testimony of the unseen wisdom of the Creator, what lessons do not bees give to men, who are, or should be, guided by reason, the living reflection of the divine intellect!
Bees are models of social life and activity, in which each class has its duty to perform and performs it exactly—one is almost tempted to say conscientiously—without envy, without rivalry, in the order and position assigned to each, with care and love. Even the most inexperienced observer of bee culture admires the delicacy and perfection of this work. Unlike the butterfly which flits from flower to flower out of pure caprice; unlike the wasp and the hornet, brutal aggressors, who seem intent on doing only harm with no benefit for anyone, the bee pierces to the very depths of the flower’s calix diligently, adroitly, and so delicately, that once its precious treasure has been gathered, it gently leaves the flowers without having injured in the least the light texture of their garments or caused a single one of their petals the loss of its immaculate freshness.
Then, loaded down with sweet-scented nectar, pollen, and propolis, without capricious gyrations, without lazy delays, swift as an arrow, with precise, unerring, certain flight, it returns to the hive, where valorous work goes on intensely to process the riches so carefully garnered, to produce the wax and the honey. (Virgil, 4, 169.)
Ah, if men could and would listen to the lesson of the bees: if each one knew how to do his daily duty with order and love at the post assigned to him by Providence; if everyone knew how to enjoy, love, and use in the intimate harmony of the domestic hearth the little treasures accumulated away from home during his working day: if men, with delicacy, and to speak humanly, with elegance, and also, to speak as a Christian, with charity in their dealings with their fellow men, would only profit from the truth and the beauty conceived in their minds, from the nobility and goodness carried about in the intimate depths of their hearts, without offending by indiscretion and stupidity, without soiling the purity of their thought and their love, if they only knew how to assimilate without jealousy and pride the riches acquired by contact with their brothers and to develop them in their turn by reflection and the work of their own minds and hearts; if, in a word, they learned to do by intelligence and wisdom what bees do by instinct—how much better the world would be!
Working like bees with order and peace, men would learn to enjoy and have others enjoy the fruit of their labors, the honey and the was, the sweetness and the light in this life here below.
Instead, how often, alas, they spoil the better and more beautiful things by their harshness, violence, and malice: how often they seek and find in every thing only imperfection and evil, and misinterpreting even the most honest intentions, turn goodness into bitterness!
Let them learn therefore to enter with respect, trust, and charity into the minds and hearts of their fellow men discreetly but deeply; then they like the bees will know how to discover in the humblest souls the perfume of nobility and of eminent virtue, sometimes unknown even to those who possess it. They will learn to discern in the depths of the most obtuse intelligence, of the most uneducated persons, in the depths even of the minds of their enemies, at least some trace of healthy judgment, some glimmer of truth and goodness.
As for you, beloved sons, who while bending over your beehives perform with all care the most varied and delicate work for your bees, let your spirits rise in mystic flight to experience the kindness of God, to taste the sweetness of His word and His law (Ps. 18:11; 118: 103), to contemplate the divine light symbolized by the burning flame of the candle, product of the mother bee, as the Church sings in her admirable liturgy of Holy Saturday: (For it is nourished by the melting wax, which the mother bee produced for the substance of this precious light.)
The Holy Name of Jesus
Today, we have the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. This feast is a beautiful occasion to venerate and to make reparation for the flippant use of the name that means, God saves.
St. Paul in his Letter to the Philippians wrote, “So that at Jesus’ name every knee must bend in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father: Jesus Christ is Lord” (2:10-11).
May all who reverently call on the holy name of Jesus know the saving power and healing love of God. Four gifts when reverently invoking the Holy Name:
1. help in bodily needs;
2. help in spiritual trials;
3. help against Satan and his temptations;
4. every grace and blessing through the Holy Name of Jesus.
With the Novus Ordo observance of Epiphany the two liturgical observances can cohere. Some may be familiar with the Holy Name Society, first organized in 1274 and granted the status of a confraternity in 1564. Connecticut used to have the HNS in great numbers and now reduced to a handful today. I can think of only one and even there it is only a social group with no apologetic thrust.
One point that brings this feast into focus for those of us who follow the Benedictine charism is that the feast necessarily involves reverence for the Holy Name of Jesus, especially if we take seriously the role intercession before the Throne of Grace and adoration of the Lord. Keep this in mind.
The Circumcision of Our Lord and St Basil’s feast
Two feasts to note today: the Circumcision of Our Lord and St. Basil the Great, our father among the saints, archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia.
The Byzantine Church followed the civil reckoning of the new year which in Constantine’s day began on September 1st. We liturgically observe the beginning of the year today.
Mosaic law prescribed circumcision on the eighth day after birth, to mark the child as a son of the covenant; at this ritual the name was given: in this case Jesus, or in Hebrew Yeshua, meaning “he who saves”. [As side note, the Latin Church has this feast, too, but it is now obscured in the Novus Ordo, yet it is more prominent in the TLM. The feast with the TLM has several names.]
Basil lived in Cappadocia, the central part of present-day Turkey, during the 4th century. His family had rank and wealth. His mother, Nona, sister, Macrina, and brothers are all honored as saints. Macrina exerted a strong influence on Basil’s early interest in monasticism. Later he traveled through Egypt and Syria to learn more. His impressions were not all positive. He went to Athens to complete his education, and there he met Gregory of Nazianzus who became his best friend. Around the year 356 they applied their classical scholarship to articulate the theory of monastic life. Basil’s various writings, often called “rules” in Western editions, formed a landmark in monastic history.
In 370 Basil was elected bishop of Caesarea. He laid the groundwork for the 2nd Ecumenical Council which completed and confirmed the Nicene Creed. His long and heated battles with the Arians exhausted him and nearly cost him the friendship of the two Gregories: his brother, whom he made bishop of Nyssa, and his school friend, whom he duped into accepting ordination. Though unwilling allies, Basil’s choice assured the establishment of Orthodoxy after his death on this day in 379.
A rich canon of writings have come down to us from Basil, including prayers found in the Office and a Eucharistic Liturgy. (NS)
Happy New Year’s, blessings for 2021!
St Thomas Becket
“A martyrdom is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom. So thus as on earth the Church mourns and rejoices at once, in a fashion that the world cannot understand; so in Heaven the Saints are most high, having made themselves most low, seeing themselves not as we see them, but in the light of the Godhead from which they draw their being.” (Archbishop’s Sermon, “Murder in the Cathedral” by T.S. Eliot)
Sadness serves only to destroy
“Do not surrender to the sadness that only serves to destroy our best energies … expand your heart and let the sun that gives life to joy enter into it. Joy, but with so many trials? Look what I tell you: who have you seen yet without a cross? The cross follows us wherever we go and we must carry it; and, if we do not want to lift it generously and carry it in our arms for embraces, that is to say; with all the ardor of our heart, which will make it more light, we will have to take it behind us, dragging it.”
~ Bernardo Vasconcelos, OSB
We need the truth
Earlier today a group of people of faith and culture that I frequently attend to had a cultural exchange where several shared poetry
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Emily Dickinson is one of those poets that sometimes crosses over into the realm of theological reflection from time-to-time. Her poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” for me is a lesson about one’s approach, one’s receptivity one has with the gift of divine revelation. It may turn dogmatic theologians on-end because they teach that revelation is full and complete and immediate. While I believe this formulation to be true on a high level, I do also think that the human experience takes more time to integrate.
The person who proposed Dickinson’s poem also recognized that the Church admits to a personal integration of God’s glory into our life when she says in the troparion for the feast of the Transfiguration: “… you [Christ] showed your friends as much of your glory as they could bear.” Slow and deliberate seems to be reasonable. I can only take so much glory at once. This seems to be recognized by the Lord Himself. The Liturgy is a superb teacher; the Liturgy knows her pupils.
Indeed, revelation is still unfolding.
The Candle
A Blessed Christmas feast to you and your family. I ended up going to the midnight Mass at the local monastery of Dominican nuns to help with a potential problem of crowds given a C19 crisis at the Catholic parish whose pastor was exposed. Luckily, the crowd was small. Protecting the nuns is of the utmost concern. Since I am in bed nightly at 9:30 I have a renewed appreciation for those who make the sacrifice to spend it in watching –in vigil– with the Lord. So much of the important biblical narratives happens at night thus making the night solemn, holy, peaceful, set-apart. Keeping vigil with the Holy Family refocusses me on the desire to be with the Lord as he gives witness through His Life-giving Incarnation for the life of the world.
On Christmas Day I assisted at my Melkite parish of St Ann (Waterford). The emphasis of the Christmas troparia (the hymns) was not only on the Nativity in the Flesh of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ,
“Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One! Angels, with shepherds, glorify Him! The wise men journey with a star! Since for our sake the Eternal God is born as a little child” (Kontakion).
BUT also to reframe the pagan (unbelieving) crowd who hold to secular and folks tales as true offering them the possibility of salvation with, in and through Jesus Christ –the True Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4). The false beliefs of the pagans of 2000 years ago are the same today: the rejection of the revelation of the One, Triune God in Jesus’ becoming flesh for our redemption. There is a polemic established in the Church’s troparion because it puts aside pagan worship and gives truth and adored. The Church sings,
“Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has shone to the world the light of wisdom! For by it, those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to adore You, the Sun of Righteousness and to know You, the Orient from on high (LK 1:78 also translated as Dawn or Dayspring). O Lord, glory to You!”
The pulsating heart and mind comes to accept and confess that at Christmas we know and love and adore Son of God became man so that man might become divine, sons and daughters of God the Father by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Father Alexander Men (1935-90) was martyred for the Christian Faith by the Soviets. Men is a compelling preaching in part because of heritage a convert from Judaism to the Orthodox Church. My friend Bishop Seraphim Joseph Sigrist posted this poem about Men by Alexander Zorin, “The Candle”. Zorin helps us better understand the mystery we are observing today using the Father Alexander’s a mirror to Jesus the New Light.
The Candle
(A Poem about Fr. Alexander Men)
“He came out to guide us to the gate,
but then became our escort through the forest.
Black on black
the night stood like a wall, close in.
On a rolled-out, starry scroll
super-worldly letters twinkled.
His candle cast its light
and from the darkness–sheds, a brick-pile,
footbridges, ditches, a muddy road
spiraling beyond our comprehension,
leading on through time and ages.
He joked: from here on out this star here
will guide you. Follow it gracefully.
And since it seems no one else here below
will light the way, he raised his candle high.”
Translated by Richard Dauenhauer
(third working draft, Advent 2007)