Praise for the Creator

  • With my recent posts about the won­ders of fall col­ors, it’s just as well that some things from yesterday’s morn­ing read­ings reminded me of a lit­tle perspective.

    From “Daily Lives:”

    Love which stems from cre­ated things is like a small lamp whose light is sus­tained by being fed with olive oil. Again, it is like a river fed by rain­fall; once the sup­ply that feeds it fails, the surge of its flow abates. But love whose cause is God is like a spring welling up from the depths. Its flow never abates, for God alone is that spring of love whose sup­ply never fails.

    St. Isaac the Syrian

    Nature can be such an inno­cent source of spir­i­tual refresh­ment that it seems ter­ri­ble to say any­thing bad about it. But St. Isaac’s point is a good one; the love of cre­ation is a puny thing com­pared to the love of the Creator.

    Still con­sid­er­ing that, I made my way to the Ortho­dox Study Bible and read in The Wis­dom of Sirach:

    Behold the rain­bow and bless Him who made it,
    Exceed­ingly beau­ti­ful in its bright­ness.
    It cir­cles heaven with its glo­ri­ous arc,
    And the hands of the Most High laid out its course.. (43:11–12)

    He goes on to speak of the won­ders of snow and hail, thun­der, hur­ri­canes, frost and the sea (boy, in those days, peo­ple knew how to paint with a broad brush!). But he ends out the chap­ter by return­ing to the source:

    We will say many things and not reach the end,
    But the sum of our words is seen in this: ‘He is the all.’ …

    Glo­rify the Lord and exalt Him as much as you are able,
    For He will sur­pass even that.
    And when you exalt Him, put forth all your strength;
    Do not grow weary, for you can­not exalt Him enough.
    Who has seen Him and will describe Him?
    And who can mag­nify Him as He truly is?
    There are yet many hid­den things greater than thesse,
    For we have seen but few of His works.
    For the Lord made all things
    And gives wis­dom to the godly.

    (43:27, 30–33)

    .
    And I thought that I could prob­a­bly count on St. John of Kro­n­stadt to have some­thing to add on the sub­ject, and I was right.

    All present things are but a shadow of the future. The present light is a shadow of the future inef­fa­ble light. Earthly bliss is a faint shadow of future unspeak­able eter­nal bliss; fire a faint shadow of the fire of Gehenna which will burn sin­ners unto ages of ages; pure earthly joy a shadow of unspeak­able future joys; the mag­nif­i­cent royal palaces a faint shadow of the resplen­dent man­sions of Par­adise pre­pared for those who love God and ful­fill His com­mand­ments. the glo­ri­ous attire of the sons and daugh­ters of men can­not be com­pared with that glo­ri­ous gar­ment with which the elect shall be clothed, for they will put on Christ. “Then shall the right­eous shine forth as the sun in the King­dom of the Father (Matt. 13:43)” accord­ing to the Savior’s sure promise.

    – St. John of Kro­n­stadt, “My Life in Christ“


    Related posts:

    1. “If you can­not be merciful …”
    2. Our hand­ful of sand
    3. For the love of God
    4. Late win­ter, early spring
    5. Spring?

    September 24th, 2009 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Gretchen­joanna 09.24.2009

    What a good reminder. I am always struck by the akathist to St Seraphim of Sarov, at the men­tion of him “adorn­ing the for­est.” Humans have the poten­tial to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the Cre­ator, so it fol­lows that like Christ, some­one like St Seraphim could shine more glo­ri­ously than rain­bows or the sun or any earthly beauty.

  • Gretchen­joanna

    Oh, and my (pater­nal) grandmother’s name was Grace, too!

  • Dn Charles

    Thank you!

    Did any­one see the pic­tures of Sat­urn in the NY times a cou­ple of days ago.? Beautiful!

  • George Pat­sourakos

    Man loves nature with its beau­ti­ful flow­ers, trees, streams, and other features.

    With a love that is even more inspir­ing, man’s love for God is like a spring well, whose flow never ends, as God is a spring of love last­ing forever.

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