My brother sent me this article. If my brother sends me something, I know it will be deep and profound; and this is no exception. Curious, from the title, what this article is about? Without any introduction, I will just say: read it, you’ll be better for it.
ARTICLE: A Bridegroom’s Reflections on his Wedding Day
By Sub-deacon Adam Deville
There comes a moment in life at which one’s perspective begins to shift from the unending gaze of youthfulness to the finite view of adulthood. There comes a point when the significant milestones of early life have all been crossed and one enters a new phase, acquiring a new outlook. There comes a time when one begins to think of death.
Such thoughts do not typically occur on one’s wedding day! For marriage, to be sure, begins in joy but – as Fr. Paul Evdokimov reminds us – “…the hour has not yet come.” That “hour”—as the word is invariably used in John’s gospel –pertains to the hour of Christ’s death. When one is baptized into Christ, one dies with Him; when one is married in Christ, one dies to self. In all things, one seeks that transposition of self which can only come about through death, so that, with Saint Paul, one may say “It is no longer I who live but Christ Who lives in me.”
The life and death of Christ is powerfully illustrated in the icon of Christ the Bridegroom. About an hour before I was married at St. Elias, I took my bestman – himself engaged to be married in the spring of 2004 – into the church to show him this icon. He and I had been having ad hoc discussions about what Christian marriage, properly so called, requires and entails, but I knew that all my disquisitions would be powerfully supplemented – if not supplanted – by that one sacred image which conveys everything I could hope to say in an hour or more. It is an exceedingly simple, and therefore exceedingly powerful, image.
For those of you unfamiliar with this icon, its most salient feature is a downcast Christ crowned with thorns and pierced through with many arrows. It makes that point that Saint Paul articulated so powerfully in his letter to the Ephesians: Continue reading →
I am going through some of my past journals and I came across this revelation that the Lord spoke to me back in 2010, now almost 2 years ago (My how time flies! I remember this season as if it were yesterday!) I felt it was crucial to share this revelation today. By the power of the Spirit, may your heart be open wide right now, to the truth of this word:
