The Day of Theophany

Today all came to know Jesus Christ as one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Today the Holy Trinity is revealed to us without question. "Let us call God to mind."

Saint Gregory the Theologian says,

Since the chief point of the festival is the remembrance of God, let us call God to mind.

But who is God that is revealed this day? It is our Triune God that is revealed. Saint Gregory further explains the nature of our Triune God.

He says,

And when I speak of God you must be illumined at once by one flash of light and by three. Three in Individualities or Hypostases, if any prefer so to call them, or persons, for we will not quarrel about names so long as the syllables amount to the same meaning; but One in respect of the Substance--that is, the Godhead. For they are divided without division, if I may so say; and they are united in division. For the Godhead is one in three, and the three are one, in whim the Godhead is, or to speak more accurately, Who are the Godhead. Excesses and defects we will omit, neither making the Unity a confusion, nor the division a separation.

This festal season is a journey from the Incarnation to the Baptism which is the start of Christ's public ministry when He becomes widely known. The celebration of the Nativity of Jesus is intimately linked with the celebration of Theophany when the God-man was was made known to all as our Savior.

Saint Gregory says,

At His birth we duly kept festival.… With the Star we ran, and with the Magi we worshiped, and with the  Shepherds we were illuminated, and with the Angels we glorified him, and with Simeon we took Him up in our arms, and with Anna the aged and chaste we made our responsive of confession. And thanks be to Him who came to his own in the guise of a stranger, because He glorified the stranger.

Now, we come to another action of Christ, and another mystery. I cannot restrain my pleasure; I am rapt unto God. 

Almost like John I proclaim good tidings... Christ is illumined, let us shine forth with Him. Christ is baptized, let us descend with Him that we may also ascend with Him. Jesus is baptized; but we must attentively consider not only this but somehow other points. Who is He, and by whom is he baptized, and at what time?

He is the all pure; and He is baptized by John; and the time is the beginning of his miracles. What are we to learn and to be taught by this? To purify ourselves first; to be lowly minded; and to preach only in maturity both of spiritual and bodily stature.

This feast shows us an important lesson. Our main task is this task of purification.  Christ purposely began His public ministry with this act of purification before He began His preaching and healing. This is why Christ created the Church and all its sacraments to enable our purification with our Baptism as the starting point.  As we become purified then we too will be able to preach just like Christ and His disciples.  If we try too soon without proper purification we may only mislead. Let's join in the purification through the renewal of our Baptism as we celebrate this Feast of Theophany.  Receive the Holy Waters of purification with repentance and Joy.

Reference: On the Holy Lights - Part 2 by Saint Gregory the Theologian

Holy Day of Light -Theophany

Saint Gregory the Theologian refers to this great time of celebration in the Church as the "Day of Light."

He says,

For the Holy Day of Lights, to which we have come, and which we are celebrating today, has for it's origin the Baptism of my Christ, the True Light That lightens every man that comes into the world, and effects my purification, and assists that light which we received from the beginning from Him above, but which we darkened by sin.

The image of Christ as one who brings light to the world can be a powerful one if we realize that without Him we are in darkness. It is His light that lights the path to His Kingdom, to union with God. Without it the path is impossible to find and we are left wandering in darkness seeking what we cannot find.


Saint Gregory says,

Therefore listen to the voice of God, which sounds so exceeding clearly to me, who am both disciple and master of these mysteries, as would to God it may sound to you; I am the Light Of The World. Therefore approach ye to Him and be enlightened, and let not your faces be ashamed, being signed with the true Light. It is a season of new birth, let us be born again. It is a time of reformation, let us receive again the first Adam. Let us not remain what we are, but let us become what we once were... See the grace of the day; see the power of this mystery...

This event is the establishment of the Sacrament of Baptism where we begin our healing from the sinful natured we have inherited from the fall of Adam and Eve. It is an event celebrating our renewal through our baptism, the time we became Christians with the Holy Spirit within guiding us toward a life like Him, made evermore effect as we participate in the teachings, practices and sacraments of the Church.


Saint Gregory puts it this way,

We were turned into a den of all sorts of passions, which cruelly devour and consume the inner man; but there was this further evil, that man actually made gods the advocates of his passions, so that sin might be reckoned not only irresponsible, but even divine, taking refuge in the objects of his worship as apology.

It is on this day that Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan and submitted to the baptism of John to renew and fulfill it as an act to join us to God, being absolved of all our sins through the grace of the Holy Spirit.


Saint Gregory says,

Jesus goes up out of the water ...for with Himself He carries up the world ... And sees the heaven opened which Adam had shut against himself and all his prosperity, as the gates of Paradise by the flaming sword. And the Spirit bears witness to His Godhead, for he descends upon One that is like Him, as does the Voice from Heaven..., and like a Dove, for He honors the Body... By being seen in a body form...

On this day the divine nature of Christ is revealed as part of the Holy Trinity. He became fully flesh in the Incarnation to renew all of mankind. Today we celebrate the beginning of His actions to help us rejoin in union with Him.


Reference: On The Holy Lights by Saint Gregory the Theologian 

How to Celebrate the Nativity - St Gregory the Theologian

It is easy to forget the magnitude of the event of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. This was an act of God akin to Creation itself. 

Here is how Saint Gregory the Theologian views it:

Again the darkness is past; again Light is made; again Egypt is punished with darkness; again Israel is enlightened by a pillar. The people that sat in the darkness of ignorance, let it see the Great Light of full knowledge. Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. The letter gives way, the Spirit comes to the front. The shadows flee away, the Truth comes in upon them. The laws of nature are upset; the world above must be filled.

It was an event to give rebirth to all of mankind. It was God's gift so we could  return to the union with Him we enjoyed at the time of our creation.


Saint Gregory says,

This is our present Festival; it is this which we are celebrating, the Coming of God to Man, that we might go forth, or rather (for this is the more proper expression) that we might go back to God -that putting off the old man, we might put on the New; and that as we died in Adam, so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ and crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising with Him.  

As we prepare for this mystical event we need to be sober, to prepare with prayer and fasting, so we can be appreciative of this gift God has given us and give thanks out of our unrestrained love for God.  We need this so we are not distracted from all the noise that surrounds this season.


Saint Gregory says,

Let us not adorn our porches; nor arrange dances, nor decorate the streets; let us not feast the eye, not enchant the ear with music, nor enervate the nostrils with perfume, not prostitute the taste, nor indulge the touch, those roads that are so prone to evil and entrances for sin; let us not be effeminate in clothing soft and flowing, whose beauty consists in its uselessness, nor with the glittering of gems or the sheen of gold or the tricks of colour, belying the beauty of nature, and invented to do despite unto the image of God. Not in rioting and drunkenness, with which are mingled, I know well, chambering and wantonness, since the lessons which evil teachers give are evil. Let us not appraise the bouquet of wines, the kickshaws of cooks, the great expense of unguents; and let us not strive to outdo each other in temperance, and this while others are hungry and in want, who are made of the same clay and in the same manner. 

Finally he asks us to leap with joy as did John the Baptist in his mother's womb.

Now then I pray you accept His Conception, and leap before Him; if not like John from the womb, yet like David, because of the resting of the Ark. Revere the enrolment of account of which you were written in heaven, and adore the Birth by which you were loosed from the chains of your birth, and honour little Bethlehem, which has led you back to Paradise; and worship the manger through which you, being without sense, was fed by the Word . . . If you are one of those who are as yet unclean and uneatable and unfit for sacrifice, and of the gentile portion, run with the Star, and bear your Gifts with the Magi, gold and frankincense and myrrh, as to a King, and to God, and to One Who is dead for you. With Shepherds glorify Him; with Angels join in chorus; with Archangels sing hymns. Let this Festival be common to the powers in heaven and to the powers upon earth. For I am persuaded that the Heavenly Hosts join in our exultation and keep high Festival with us today . . . because they love men, and they love God ... just like those whom David introduces after the Passion ascending with Christ and coming to meet Him, and bidding one another to lift up the gates. 

This is the time to focus all our actions on the glorification of God and avoid the degrading commercialization of this most important event for the salvation of mankind. All we do during this time preceding the feast of the Nativity should be to heighten our appreciation of the great gift and glorify Him. 


Complete sermon of Saint Gregory the Theologian 


More on the Nativity

Adoration of the Holy Cross

"Many indeed are the wondrous happenings of that time: God hanging from a Cross, the sun made dark, and again flaming out; for it was fitting that creation should mourn with its Creator. The Temple veil rent, blood and water flowing from His side: the one as from a man, the other as from What was above man; the earth was shaken, the rocks shattered because of the Rock; the dead risen to bear witness of the final and universal resurrection of the dead. The happenings at the Sepulchre, and after the Sepulchre, who can fittingly recount them? Yet not one of them can be compared to the miracle of my salvation. A few drops of Blood renew the whole world, and do for all men what the rennet does for milk: joining us and binding us together."
St. Gregory the Theologian




"O Lord, save Your people and bless Your inheritance. Grant victory to the faithful over their adversaries and protect Your commonwealth by Your Cross."