Sunday after the Nativity of Christ. Octoechos Tone 7. Commemoration of the Holy and Righteous Joseph the Betrothed, David the King, and James, Brother of the Lord. Holy Children who were murdered by Herod in Bethlehem. Our Venerable Father Marcellus, Hegumen of the Monastery of the Sleepless Ones (c. 470).
Galatians 1:11-19. Matthew 2:13-23.
Read Galatians 1:11-19
When those we love are in danger, we jump into action. When we are responsible for others, we prepare ahead of time for those occasions. Parents know this well.
The Apostle Paul was not only a spiritual parent to those in the churches he founded, he is also a spiritual parent to all the churches that have come to life since. The Church Fathers who followed the Apostles knew “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), in part not only through the letters he authored, but through the accurate understanding of the gospel that he established within the churches he founded. When the Ecumenical Councils in their deliberations turned to Lex orandi, lex credendi (Latin: “The rule of prayer [is] the rule of belief”) to guide them in the weighty questions before them, they found tradition in prayer which played a determinative role in articulating Christian doctrine. Scripture and tradition clarified each other. We have much to be thankful for.
When Paul was in the fight of his life for the faith of the churches of Galatia, he cut right to the heart of the matter – neither they nor we are to assess his gospel as the words of one man over against the words of others bringing various other gospels; “the gospel which was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” He then reminds them of the credentials of his conversion, his unadulterated understanding, and his unity with St. Peter and James, Bishop of Jerusalem.
As we pray the Divine Liturgy today, may we give ourselves to truer understanding of our faith that we too may hand it on to others.