Have you ever gazed upon something lovely like these altar flowers or spent a day in the countryside and felt your spirit lift? St Paul talks about the joys of thinking on worthy things in Phillipians 4.8. St Theodorus takes up this theme.
To be concerned with the nature of created things has a very purifying effect. It frees us from passionate attachment to them and delusion about them; and it is the surest means for raising our soul to the Source of all. For all beauty, miracle, magnificence reflects what is supremely beautiful, miraculous and magnificent-reflects, rather, the Source that is above beauty, miracle and magnificence. Theoretikon. The Philokalia.
