Scroll back to November 29 for an introduction to this thirteen part prayer.
Kontakion 12
How often have I seen the reflection of your glory in the faces of the dead. How resplendent they were with beauty and heavenly joy. How ethereal, how translucent their faces. How triumphant over suffering and death, their felicity and peace. Even in the silence they were calling upon you. In the hour of my death, enlighten my *soul, too, that it may cry out to you: Alleluia!
Ikos 12
What sort of praise can I give you? I have never heard the song of the Cherubim, a joy reserved for the spirits above. But I know the praises that nature sings to you. In winter, I have beheld how silently in the moonlight the whole earth offers you prayer, clad in its white mantle of snow, sparkling like diamonds. I have seen how the rising sun rejoices in you, how the song of the birds is a chorus of praise to you I have heard the mysterious mutterings of the forests about you, and the winds singing your praise as they stir the waters. I have understood how the choirs of stars proclaim your glory as they move forever in the depths of infinite space. What is my poor worship! All nature obeys you, I do not. Yet while I live, I see your love, *I long to thank you, and call upon your name.
Glory to you, *giving us light.
Glory to you, loving us with love so deep, divine and infinite.
Glory to you, blessing us with light, and with the host of angels and saints.
Glory to you, Father all-holy, promising us to share in your Kingdom.
Glory to you, Holy Spirit, life-giving Sun of the world to come.
Glory to you, for all things, Holy and most merciful *Trinity.
Glory to you, O God, from age to age.
* We are not physical bodies with a spiritual side; we are spiritual beings with physical bodies.
* "I long to thank you" — The spiritual life begins and ends with gratitude — increasingly aware.
* "giving us light" — can you name this experience for yourself?
* Trinity — "One God in three persons" we say. In God's inner life there is community, relationship, a society, family. And we are baptized into this — drenched with it, immersed in it. Christianity is no private affair; it is not a way of isolation and individualism. A Christian doesn't live in a bubble-world, an echo-chamber.
