O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be?
For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after.
Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me?
The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.

#Nativity_of_Christ
#Mariology

Luke 1:30-33
Then the angel told her:
Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Now listen:
You will conceive and give birth to a son,
and you will call His name Jesus.
He will be great
and will be called the Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give Him
the throne of His father David.
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever,
and His kingdom will have no end.

@ThatAncientFaith

Moreover, God had previously foretold that it would happen, that as the ages passed on, and the end of the world was near at hand, God would gather to Himself from every nation, and people, and place, worshippers much better in obedience and stronger in faith, who would draw from the divine gift that mercy which the Jews had received and lost by despising their religious ordinances. Therefore of this mercy and grace the Word and Son of God is sent as the dispenser and master, who by all the prophets of old was announced as the enlightener and teacher of the human race. He is the power of God, He is the reason, He is His wisdom and glory; He enters into a virgin; being the holy Spirit, He is endued with flesh; God is mingled with man. This is our God, this is Christ, who, as the mediator of the two, puts on man that He may lead them to the Father. What man is, Christ was willing to be, that man also may be what Christ is.- St Cyprian, Treatsie VI

#St_Cyprian
#Soteriology

The spoils of Samaria were the people who worshiped her. Samaria was used as a symbol of idolatry, since it was there that the people of Israel, having turned away from the Lord, turned to the worship of idols.

Therefore, Christ, intending to attack with the sword of the spirit the kingdom of the Devil throughout the whole world, even as a Child drew away these first spoils from idolatrous influence to attract to His worship these Magi, converted from the deadly curse of superstition; so that, although He as yet spoke no word on this earth, He might speak from heaven by a star; and, finally, to make known, not by the voice of His body, but by the power of the Word made flesh, who He was, and why, and for whom He had come hither.-St Augustine, Sermon 202

#St_Augustine
#Biblical_commentary
#Nativity_of_Christ

@Daily Quotes

“All God’s gifts are linked to immortality, to eternity, because they abide unto the ages. But God did not intend for man to live forever in this world. Man will not abide on earth forever. Our earthly life is an academy, a school for people. No-one thinks he can spend his whole life in first grade. In the same way, existence on earth cannot be considered our chief goal. Hence, all our works on earth must have eternity as their aim. All God’s works are precisely calculated and absolutely perfect, and a person can neither add anything to them nor take anything away from them. Many say that Orthodox Christians are diehard conservatives, living fossils. But the Orthodox faith is God’s work: nothing can be added to it or taken away from it. And man’s task is to stand with reverence before the face of God, to give thanks to Him, and to feel the difference between Creator and creation.”

- Fr. Daniel Sysoev

Luke 2:7: And she brought forth her firstborn Son.

In what sense then her firstborn? By firstborn she here means, not the first among several brethren, but one who was both her first and only son: for some such sense as (his exists among the significations of "firstborn." For sometimes also the Scripture calls that the first which is the only one; as "I am God, the First, and with Me there is no other." To shew then that the Virgin did not bring forth a mere man, there is added the word firstborn; for as she continued to be a virgin, she had no other son but Him Who is of the Father: concerning Whom God the Father also proclaims by the voice of David, "And I will set Him Firstborn high among the kings of the earth."

Of Him also the all-wise Paul makes mention, saying, "But when He brought the First-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him." - St Cyril of Alexandria, Fragments on Luke 1

#St_Cyril_Alexandria
#Biblical_Commentary
#Luke
#Mariology

Luke 2:7. And she laid him in the manger.

He found man reduced to the level of the beasts: therefore is He placed like fodder in a manger, that we, having left off our bestial life, might mount up to that degree of intelligence which befits man's nature; and whereas we were brutish in soul, by now approaching the manger, even His own table, we find no longer fodder, but the bread from heaven, which is the body of life- St Cyril of Alexandria, ibid.

#St_Cyril_Alexandria
#Biblical_commentary
#Luke
#Eucharist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUjQPwH46Bk #theology

For those who want a deeper examination of this in the Pauline texts, Jeanette Hagen Pifer's thesis which has been published as a monograph by Mohr Siebeck would be of interest. What one would find is essentially the same as this description of Faith as Faithfulness

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11694/

Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

#Bible_verse
#Acts

"Christ took not the person, but 'He took the seed'...this - this 'taking on the seed,' the nature of man - can never be put off. It is an 'assumption' without a deposition. One we are, He and we, and so we must be; one, as this day, so for ever."

-Lancelot Andrewes

#Anglican

Let Mary’s soul be in each of you to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Let her spirit be in each to rejoice in the Lord. Christ has only one mother in the flesh, but we all bring forth Christ in faith.

--St. Ambrose

#St_Ambrose
#Mariology

What if someone should say that this sacrifice [of the Eucharist], which has been termed a propitiating one, is offered to God by the whole church, or even by the priest (as they say) himself in the name of the whole church in the public assembly.

[If it is said] in this sense, of course, that each person, content with the sacrifice of Christ alone, once offered to the Father for our sins, yields the whole [sacrifice] to it, and so implores the Father, that He might acknowledge Himself contented with [Christ’s] single sacrifice, by the public commemoration of which is celebrated in the Lord’s Supper, both with words and rites, in place of all the oblations, satisfactions, works, and lastly of all of the things that can be thought by humanity to be for the expiation of our sins and necessary for eternal salvation. [If someone should say] this, we will in no way dispute with them. For is anyone that attends to the matter itself able to disapprove of this?- Zanchi(Italian Reformed)

#Reformed
#Eucharist