God's gift of nature – Page 8

Our Precious Cornerstone

Alabaster, Onyx, and Marble Mandylion (Towel) Iconostasis Mosaic – St. Sophia Orthodox Church, Canada

Jesus Christ is our precious and chief cornerstone… in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. ~ Ephesians 2:19-22

God is Beautiful, and His House reflects this Beauty as a sacramental image of the Heavenly Jerusalem here on Earth… Our Door to Paradise.

Beautifying the House of God is pleasing to Him. Traditional stylized toweling has a very long history in church iconography. Frescoed borders of stylized fabric of “towels, or mandylion” represent the original linens from Old Testament times used within the original Portable Tabernacle.

Decorative wall mandylion run along the walls of many Orthodox churches, and are covered with adorning emblems. These also recall the Scriptural theme of linen napkins and towels as cited in the New Testament. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left… ~ Acts 19:11-12.

Furthermore, Holy Tradition relates the miraculous Holy Image Not Made by Hands by the transference of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ‘s Face, onto a linen towel.

A Living Stone and a Holy People. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” ~ 1 Peter 2:1-6

Having made us in His own image, God has given us an indelible love for beauty. We worship Him with body and soul, using all the beauty of His creation to move us to prayer and worship – through icons, beautiful ancient singing, sweet-smelling incense, and majestic holy services.

Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation… ~ Isaiah 28:16

Jesus Christ is our Precious Cornerstone.

May our hearts build on God’s Beauty and Wisdom to become proper temples and dwelling places for the Holy Spirit.

Glory to God for all things!

The Voice of Flowers

Fragrant Wild Sweet Pea and Lavender

Take delight in all things that surround us. All things teach us and lead us to God. All things around us are droplets of the love of God – both things animate and inanimate, the plants and the animals, the birds and the mountains, the sea and the sunset and the starry sky. They are little loves through which we attain to the great Love that is Christ. Flowers, for example, have their own grace; they teach us with their fragrance and with their magnificence. They speak to us of the love of God. They scatter their fragrance and their beauty on sinners and on the righteous. ~ St. Porphyrios

Echoes of Eden

Arbutus tree and wild golden yarrow flowers overlooking Finlayson Arm, BC. (Old English name for Yarrow was “Our Saviour’s Back.”)

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. ~ Psalm 121: 1-2

Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the rivers clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity. ~ Psalm 98: 7-9

I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring to you the clear remembrance of the Creator. A single plant, a blade of grass, or one speck of dust is sufficient to occupy all your intelligence in beholding the art with which it has been made. ~ St. Basil the Great

The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God. ~ St. John of Damascus

Some people, to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, Whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? ~ St. Augustine

God speaks to us through nature. We may hear His still, small voice, in the seas, the rivers, the mountains and hills; in refreshing breezes and warm sunshine. Long ago, God placed us in the Garden, to tend it, to dress it, and to keep it. Continuing the privilege of being His stewards of the land, we recognize the immense importance of protecting God’s wondrous Gift of Nature. Sometimes we may receive an unexpected blessing, and folded like petals close beneath our hearts, we are sweetly swathed in the unfading Echoes of Eden.

From creation, learn to admire the Lord! Indeed the magnitude and beauty of creation display a God who is the artificer of the universe. He has made the mode of creation to be our best teacher. ~ St. John Chrysostom