A fascinating charnel house is at St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, one
monk's bones there being dressed in the 'angel' robes in which he had
listened pilgrims' confessions as they climbed the stairs and passed under
the gates, climbing the holy mountain. The figures, including angels,
hearing pilgrims' confessions in the Pisa Campo Santo and Florence, Santa
Maria Novella, Spanish Chapel frescoes, and Dante's Purgatorio, appear to be
a memory of this.
But this is Christmas and we should be speaking of birth, not death!
I give you the following which has come to me from the unworthy monk
Nathanael of St Gregory Palamas monastery:
Bethelehem, make ready, for Eden has been opened for all;
Ephratha, attend, for the Tree of Life,
Has blossomed from the Virgin in the cave.
Her womb has become a spiritual paradise,
In which the divine Fruit was planted;
And if we eat of it we shall live and not die like Adam.
Christ is coming to bring back to life
The image which had been lost in the beginning.
Blessings,
____
Julia Bolton Holloway, [log in to unmask]
Hermit of the Holy Family
via del Partigiano 16, Montebeni, 50014 FIESOLE, ITALY
http://members.aol.com/juliansite/Juliansite.htm
O Sapientia, O Adonai, O Radix Jesse, O Oriens, O Rex Gentium, O Emmanuel, O
Virgo Virginum
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