Homily on the Immaculate and Divine Nativity of Our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ (St. Neophytos the Recluse)

Homily on the Immaculate and Divine Nativity of Our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ 

(For the Sunday After Christmas)

By St. Neophytos the Recluse

We all know, of course, we know that this visible sun sends forth its light to the whole inhabited world, “and there is no one who can hide from its warmth,” nor from its most radiant brilliance. Yet many times its shining rays are covered by clouds and mist, or by the foliage of trees; and yet again, the breath of a wind disperses that cloudy covering and the mist, allowing the luminous rays to spread clearly throughout all creation.

But the Sun before the sun, the intelligible “Sun of Righteousness,” who was born today from the “swift cloud,” from the light-bearing, sunlike, and all-pure womb in a wondrous manner, is covered by the “form of a servant,” by infant swaddling clothes, and by the poor cave — and, according to the divine economy, by certain other things as well, which symbolize poverty and humility.

Encomium to the Twelve Apostles (St. Neophytos the Recluse)

Catechesis 17

To the Holy and Most-Glorious Apostles and About Their Holy and Divinely-Inspired Teaching and About the Non-Incidental Hearing of These Salvific Teachings

By St. Neophytos the Recluse

Brethren and fathers, behold the most burdened branches of the holy and immortal and the beginning of their life vine, which is Christ Himself. "I am," He says, "the vine, you are the branches." Behold (who, according to the words of the Lord, can become and be) the friends of God the Word and our Savior. "You are my friends," He says, "if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, for the servant does not know what his Master does. But I have called you friends, for what I have heard from My Father I have made known to you."

Encomium to the Holy Great Martyr Mamas (St. Neophytos the Recluse)

Encomium to the Holy Great Martyr Mamas

 

By St. Neophytos the Recluse

Mamas the great and renowned, the beauty of Christ's martyrs, the fervent protector of the wounded, the physician of terrible pains and divine healer, the one who dries wounds and easily removes their stench, cleans the rot of demonic wounds, truly having a storehouse of divine medicines and healing free of charge those who come with faith to this sacred temple.

He who did not take into account the terrible threats of impious tyrants, who considered tortures with help from above as the arrows of infants. He received from the forefather Adam the gift which he had from God before the transgression, to have authority over wild animals as if they were tame. He milked them like obedient sheep and made cheese for his own and some poor people's sustenance. He did not, like Abel, sacrifice the best sheep, but offered himself to God through martyrdom and various tortures. He is the one who gathered us all together to glorify God, because on this day after leaving the temporal life, he was transferred to the eternal and to a bright place. That is why it is to our benefit that we celebrate his annual and blessed memory today.