Son Quotes - page 72
The chief end of our life is to live in communion with God. To this end the Son of God became incarnate, in order to return us to this divine communion, which was lost by the fall into sin. Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we enter into communion with the Father and thus attain our purpose.
Theophan the Recluse
How is it... that the Son and Holy Spirit are not co-unoriginate with the Father, if they are co-eternal with Him? Because they are from Him, though not after Him. 'Being unoriginate' necessarily implies 'being eternal,' but 'being eternal' does not entail 'being unoriginate,' so long as the Father is referred to as origin. So because They have a cause They are not unoriginate... a cause is not necessarily prior to its effects... Because time is not involved, They are to that extent unoriginate... for the sources of time are not subject to time.
Gregory of Nazianzus
If the divine Logos of God the Father became son of man and man so that He might make men gods and the sons of God, let us believe that we shall reach the realm where Christ Himself now is; for He is the head of the whole body (cf. Col. 1:18), and endued with our humanity has gone to the Father as forerunner on our behalf. God will stand 'in the midst of the congregation of gods' (Ps. 82:1 LXX) - that is, of those who are saved - distributing the rewards of that realm's blessedness to those found worthy to receive them, not separated from them by any space.
Maximus the Confessor
In spite of our sinfulness, in spite of the darkness surrounding our souls, the Grace of the Holy Spirit, conferred by baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, still shines in our hearts with the inextinguishable light of Christ ... and when the sinner turns to the way of repentance the light smooths away every trace of the sins committed, clothing the former sinner in the garments of incorruption, spun of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. It is this acquisition of the Holy Spirit about which I have been speaking.
Seraphim of Sarov
Now the Church consists of both her earthly and heavenly parts, for the Son of God came to earth and became man that He might lead man into heaven and make him once again a citizen of Paradise, returning to him his original state of sinlessness and wholeness and uniting him unto Himself.
This is accomplished by the action of Divine grace grated through the Church, but man's effort is also required. God saves His fallen creature by His own love for him, but man's love for his Creator is also necessary; without it he cannot by saved. Striving towards God and cleaving unto the Lord by its humble love, the human soul obtains power to cleanse itself from sin and to strengthen itself for the struggle to complete victory over sin.
John of Shanghai and San Francisco
...the Lord said as He drew near His passion, 'Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself; and He will glorify Him at once' (Jn. 13:31-32). From This it is clear that divine gifts follow sufferings endured for the sake of virtue.
Maximus the Confessor
Christ sits in the body at the right hand of God the Father, but we do not hold that the right hand of the Father is actual place. For how could He that is uncircumscribed have a right hand limited by place? But we understand the right hand of the Father to be the glory and honor of the Godhead in which the Son of God, Who existed as God before the ages, and is of like essence to the Father, and in the end became flesh, has a seat in the body, His flesh sharing in the glory. For He along with His flesh is adored with one adoration by all creation.
John of Damascus
If time came before me, time is not before the Word, whose Begetter is atemporal. When the beginningless Father was there, leaving nothing superior to His divinity, then also was there the Father's Son, having in the Father a timeless beginning, like the sun's great circle of overwhelming clear light.
Gregory of Nazianzus
Тhe Divine Liturgy is truly a Heavenly Service upon Earth, during which God Himself, in a particular, immediate, and most close manner, is present and dwells with men, being Himself the Invisible Celebrant of the Service, offering and being offered.
There is nothing upon Earth Holier, higher, grander, more solemn, more Life-Giving than the Liturgy. The Temple, at this particular time, becomes an Earthly Heaven; those who Officiate represent Christ Himself, the Angels, the Cherubim, Seraphim and Apostles.
The Liturgy is the continually repeated solemnization of God's Love to mankind, and of His All-Powerful mediation for the Salvation of the whole world, and of every member separately: the marriage of the Lamb – the marriage of the King's Son, in which the bride of the Son of God is – every faithful Soul; and the Giver of the bride – the Holy Spirit.
John of Kronstadt
Now there have been delivered to us in the Gospel three Persons and names through whom the generation or birth of believers takes place, and he who is begotten by this Trinity is equally begotten of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost -for thus does the Gospel speak of the Spirit, that "that which is born of Spirit is spirit,” and it is "in Christ "that Paul begets, and the Father is the "Father of all”.
Gregory of Nyssa
What are you to us, you who are cut off from God, a fugitive for Heaven, and a slave of evil? You dare not do anything to us: Christ, the Son of God, has dominion over us and over all. Leave us, you thing of bane. We are made steadfast by the uprightness of His Cross. Serpent, we trample on your head.
Seraphim of Sarov
[During his prayer meeting on 1 May 1947, he prepared the Hindus and Sikhs for the anticipated massacres of their kind in the upcoming state of Pakistan with these words:] ‘I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancour. (...) You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain.'
Mahatma Gandhi
But for all our differences, for all the times we sparred, I never tried to hide, and I think John came to understand, the longstanding admiration that I had for him. By his own account, John was a rebellious young man. In his case, that's understandable – what faster way to distinguish yourself when you're the son and grandson of admirals than to mutiny? Eventually, though, he concluded that the only way to really make his mark on the world is to commit to something bigger than yourself. And for John, that meant answering the highest of callings – serving his country in a time of war. Others this week and this morning have spoken to the depths of his torment, and the depths of his courage, there in the cells of Hanoi, when day after day, year after year, that youthful iron was tempered into steel.
John McCain
Son," he said, "one day he caught himself on one of his own traps and no one would assist him to get free. Hist own people scorned him, and turned their backs on him. He grew weaker and weaker, and finally toppled over to die upon the land which he had marred with such blood. The birds came and extracted their revenge by picking his eyes out, and the larks sang like they never sang before.
Bobby Sands
It is far from my intention to claim that I have reached a very high stage on the path to attainment of the highest wisdom, or that I have attained complete "inner peace." However, I can claim that I practice bhavana every day. I try to cultivate the ethical aspects of Buddhism, and I believe that I have attained a greater degree of emotional equilibrium than most people. This explains why the tragic news of the sudden death (in a traffic accident) of my only son, Tin Maung Thant, on May 21, 1962, with minimal emotional reaction. For are not birth and death the two phases of the same life process? According to the Buddha, birth is followed by death, but death, in turn, is followed by rebirth.
U Thant
Listening to Callas is like reading Shakespeare: you're always going to be knocked senseless by some incredible insight into humanity. She is a huge bonfire! The thread, the "inner serpent" that she would get in certain music was so complete - for example, in the Lucia recording, the phrase "Alfin, son tua." Lucia, at her absolute happiest moment, would have said to Edgardo, "I am finally yours." For me, the woman Lucia came to life in that moment, and I understood why she was out of her mind, you know? You've got it all in that one phrase.
Maria Callas
Oleg Cassini is the rarest of rare species: a man who genuinely loves women. And for all his talk it is he that has served them for most of his years. He has devoted his life to making women look and feel beautiful with his classically designed clothes most famously creating 'The Look' for Jacqueline Kennedy when she was First Lady. As the first designer to license in 1951, he has been creating everything from evening dresses to sunglasses in more than 60 countries ever since. His name has always suggested glamour, champagne, polo ponies, a box at the opera, he was married to a movie star, and engaged to Grace Kelly before she became a princess. The son of Russian aristocrats banished to Europe after the revolution...he designs clothes that betray a lifelong ache for lost grandeur, there is about him in every gesture from knocking ash from his cigar to straightening his tie an echo of old world distinction.
Oleg Cassini
