🇬🇧 Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞
The reading combines two important
themes, love and spiritual gifts such as prophecy and speaking in
tongues. The first is a major part of the so-called love hymn
, the
famous words of the Apostle Paul describing true love. In short, love in
this sense is the bond of perfections
(that which binds them
together, the link
), as Paul elsewhere describes it. It can be
understood that all the virtues are individual parts of a tree, while
love is the root and trunk by which everything is held together and of
which everything is the manifestation
.
This reasoning is valuable on both sides of the movement – from love to virtue and from virtue to love. One can see in this that true love gives rise to all virtues. It can also be seen that true virtues express true love, for they make sense only in it (when it is present).
Someone might say that love is therefore very high and almost
unattainable. But no. Its seed, its germ, is present in every small
manifestation of true virtue, as can be seen in the parables of the
Saviour. And the same idea is evident in yesterday’s reading:
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To explain each verse in detail would require a lot of writing, in fact, the whole theology of all the virtues is summarised here.
I will say a little more about two points from the verses, because they are often overlooked.
1 Corinthians XIII, 6 – see John III, 21 – does the truth
– we need
to remember that the truth is the highest virtue and value on a par with
love, the knowledge of the truth (and being in it) is higher than
salvation and is a manifestation of the perfection of creation. See, in
particular, the following links:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
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And there is also a famous passage about a mirror – in those days
mirrors were not as good as they are now, it was difficult to really see
clearly in them, but you could see the general outline in a close-up.
That is why Paul speaks of a vague appearance, in general terms
in a
mirror. Sometimes translations, in order to convey the meaning rather
than the letter, write as if through a dim glass
, which roughly
conveys the nature of the image.
As for the part about spiritual gifts, Paul means that the value of gifts is not determined primarily by their supernatural nature, but by their importance for the salvation of people. Prophecy is therefore better because it leads people to repentance and thus salvation more easily and effectively.
The parable of the workers in the vineyard is a well-known one. It is beautifully used by Saint John Chrysostom in the Word on Easter, which is read at the Easter service every year.
To understand the underlying logic, we need to understand what a
denarius is and why it is one. Historically, the meaning is that 1
denarius was the daily wage of a worker. And to understand what this
denarius is, we need to remember what can be and is only in the
singular. For example, salvation. Either a person has it or they don’t.
It is the soul. It can also be saved or perished. It can be any virtue -
and in the end, we can say that a person has this virtue or does not
have it (at least God can say this in each case). That is why God (the
owner in the parable) does not split
or divide
the denarius into
parts, because this is not possible with regard to all the spiritual
realities that have just been mentioned. And then the logic becomes
clear. And if someone sees something as too generous
, it is a
manifestation of God’s great love and mercy, generosity, kindness,
etc.
To the prophet Elijah:
See the link
for both readings:
27062023.html
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!