Comments on: On Fear and Joy http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/on-fear-and-joy/ An occasional record of one man's struggle for the salvation of his soul; or, the intersection of the Faith once for all delivered to the saints with the life of a man, a husband, and a father. Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:05:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU hourly 1 By: On Sorrow and Joy « This Is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/on-fear-and-joy/#comment-13596 On Sorrow and Joy « This Is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:54:17 +0000 http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/on-fear-and-joy/#comment-13596 [...] 18 December 2007 by Benedict Seraphim In a comment to a previous post, one NN commented, in part: I think the message his [St. Gregory of Nyssa’s] poetry conveys [...] [...] 18 December 2007 by Benedict Seraphim In a comment to a previous post, one NN commented, in part: I think the message his [St. Gregory of Nyssa’s] poetry conveys [...]

]]> By: Benedict Seraphim http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/on-fear-and-joy/#comment-13483 Benedict Seraphim Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:54:16 +0000 http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/on-fear-and-joy/#comment-13483 Jonathon: Yes, sorrow is most definitely a part of the Christian life in this mortal existence. But I was not contrasting sorrow and joy, so much as contrasting fear and joy. It does not seem to me that sorrow and joy are mutually exclusive. It does, however, seem to me that fear and joy are. Jonathon:

Yes, sorrow is most definitely a part of the Christian life in this mortal existence. But I was not contrasting sorrow and joy, so much as contrasting fear and joy.

It does not seem to me that sorrow and joy are mutually exclusive. It does, however, seem to me that fear and joy are.

]]> By: Jonathan http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/on-fear-and-joy/#comment-13482 Jonathan Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:58:57 +0000 http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/on-fear-and-joy/#comment-13482 St. Vladmir's Press publishes a volume in their Popular Patristics series titled On God and Man, a collection of poetry by St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Some of it is downright depressing, existential stuff you'd think had been penned in the twentieth century by a Sarte or somebody. An example, from "Concerning Human Life": "But now there peers out, as if from some depth, / the dirt, made spiritual by the divine image, / and cries aloud in earthly tragedies, / and weeps this life, which seems to be a joke." However, St. Gregory always manages to return to faith in Christ, even if he's stinging mightily at the seeming absurdity of being human. I think the message his poetry conveys is that while the joy and hope of Christ should and can be very much a part of our life "here below," it is not the only experience we should expect (being, as St. Gregory reminds us, a sort of divinized dirt with all the dificult contradictions and tensions that introduces). Orthodox saints, even ones as exalted in their theology (in the truest sense of the word) as St. Gregory, can get moody and existential and traverse dark nights- a comfort to the rest of us, I think. St. Vladmir’s Press publishes a volume in their Popular Patristics series titled On God and Man, a collection of poetry by St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Some of it is downright depressing, existential stuff you’d think had been penned in the twentieth century by a Sarte or somebody. An example, from “Concerning Human Life”: “But now there peers out, as if from some depth, / the dirt, made spiritual by the divine image, / and cries aloud in earthly tragedies, / and weeps this life, which seems to be a joke.”

However, St. Gregory always manages to return to faith in Christ, even if he’s stinging mightily at the seeming absurdity of being human. I think the message his poetry conveys is that while the joy and hope of Christ should and can be very much a part of our life “here below,” it is not the only experience we should expect (being, as St. Gregory reminds us, a sort of divinized dirt with all the dificult contradictions and tensions that introduces). Orthodox saints, even ones as exalted in their theology (in the truest sense of the word) as St. Gregory, can get moody and existential and traverse dark nights- a comfort to the rest of us, I think.

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