THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT …For the Forefeast of the THEOPHANY of Our Lord, Jesus Christ

Archbishop of Sinai Damianos wishes for all the Friends of the Sinai Monastery and donors to have a good, happy, fruitful year with inner peace for everyone personally but also peace in the whole world for which our Christ became flesh through the Holy Spirit and the Ever-Virgin Mary to bring peace on earth…

THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT …

For the Forefeast of the THEOPHANY of Our Lord, Jesus Christ

*One might ask why Jesus was baptized, given that the fallen human nature He assumed was already deified at His Incarnation, by its “hypostatic” union with His divine nature in the Person of Christ. 

“For our benefit,” answer the patristic saints, in that the divinity of Christ is passed on to Creation by the descent of the Holy Spirit on His human nature in the Jordan. One simply needs to add his will to Christ’s in order to be included in the gift. Not even infants are excluded, who receive the grace through the faith of their parents … For it is granted to as many as are buried to sin with Christ in the waters of Orthodox baptism – from which they arise, as He did, to be anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

First bestowed upon the newly-baptized by the laying on of hands of the Apostles who were the first bishops of the Church, the same gift has been received ever since through the holy chrism blessed by their successor bishops.

“Unless anyone be born of water and of the Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God,” instructed Christ in John 3.5.

But the ‘gift’ of the Holy Spirit leads to the ‘gifts’ of the Spirit – humility and all the virtues – only through our efforts to live the Truth of Christ – as He Himself did. Thus, Jesus points out that the person who is born of water and the Spirit is “able” to enter the kingdom of God – not that he “will” ….

As the Fathers remind, it is not enough to be born of water and the Spirit, i.e., to be baptized and chrismated. One has to cultivate the grace received; otherwise the fire of divinity bestowed in the Spirit dwindles to a flickering spark. Even in the case of negligence and indifference, they say the spark remains, even if nearly dwindling to ash. Unless carefully tended, however, it will not flame into theosis, the deification of eternal glory in the kingdom of heaven. …