Ornament: Two People - Adam and Eve
Materials: Inexpensive wooden figures from Hobby Lobby, flesh colored paint, brown ink pen, pink marker, gold tassel, leaves from artificial greenery.
Reading - Genesis 2: 4-25
(St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures: Lecture 12 no. 5)
The sun was formed by a mere command, but man by God's hands: 'Let us make man after our image,
and after our likeness' (Gen. 1:26). A wooden image of an earthly king is held in honor; how much
more a rational image of God?
Nativity of the Theotokos, Kontakion, (Tone 4)
By Your Nativity, O Most Pure Virgin,
Joachim and Anna are freed from barrenness;
Adam and Eve, from the corruption of death.
And we, your people, freed from the guilt of sin, celebrate and sing to you:
The barren woman gives birth to the Theotokos, the nourisher of our life!
The tree of life which was planted by God in Paradise pre-figured this precious Cross.
St. John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith
Adam, before the fall...participated in..divine illumination and resplendence, and because he was truly
clothed in a garment of glory he was not naked, nor was he unseemly by reason of his nakednness. He
was far more richly adorned than those who now deck themselves out with diadems of gold and
brightly sparkling jewels. St. Paul calls this divine illumination and grace our celestial dwelling when
he says, 'For this we sigh, yearning to be clothed in our heavenly habitation, since clothed we will not
be found naked' (2 Cor. 5:2).
St. Gregory Palamas
So great was the honor and providential care which God bestowed upon man that He brought the entire
sensible world into being before him and for his sake. The kingdom of heaven was prepared for him
from the foundation of the world (cf. Matt. 25:34); God first took counsel concerning him, and then he
was fashioned by God's hand and according to the image of God (cf. Gen. 1:26-27). God did not form
the whole man from matter and from the elements of this sensible world, as He did the other animals.
He formed only man's body from these materials; but man's soul He took from things super celestial or,
rather, it came from God Himself when mysteriously He breathed life into man (cf. Gen. 2:7).
Of all visible and invisible creation man alone is created dual. He has a body composed of four
elements, the senses and breath; and he has a soul, invisible, unsubstantial, incorporeal joined to the
body in an ineffable and unknown manner; they interpenetrate and yet are not compounded, combine
and yet do not coalesce. This is what man is: an animal both mortal and immortal, both visible and
invisible, both sensory and intellectual, capable of seeing the visible and knowing the invisible creation.
St. Simeon the New Theologian
Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not
only in this world, but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under His feet (Ephesians
1:21-22).
Behold, the heights to which God exalts the being of man! Here, Christ's Divine Nature is not the
subject, but rather His human nature. This is not about the eternal Word of God, but rather about the
man Jesus, whom God raised from the dead and exalted-not only above this whole visible and mortal
world, but also above the invisible and immortal, far above all the orders of angels and the heavenly
powers; far above all the known and unknown wondrous hierarchies of heaven; far above every created
being, known and unknown; and far above every name in the material and the spiritual worlds. My
brethren, do you see how our All-glorious Creator fulfilled the promise He gave to Adam when he
banished him from Paradise, and repeated more clearly to Abraham, and repeated still more clearly
through the prophets and David? Do you see how the Lord of Sabaoth began to glorify the human race
by glorifying the man Jesus, the Son of God, in Whom was incarnate the divinity of God? As the first
in glory, God first glorified Him, and then, in order, all those who are numbered with Him, and who by
the grace of the Holy Spirit are named and written in the Book of Life for eternal glory. It is not without
cause that the Church sings to the Mother of God: ``More honorable than the Cherubim and beyond
compare more glorious than the Seraphim.'' Where the Risen Lord is exalted, His Most-holy Mother is
also exalted, as are also His holy apostles, in accordance with His words to His heavenly Father:
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am (John 17:24).
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