The Firstborn of the New Creation
From a sermon by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, bishop (c. 330-c. 395)
The Firstborn of the New Creation
Narrated by Frank Dugan, Huntington Beach, California
The reign of life has begun, the tyranny of death is ended. A new birth has taken place, a new life has come, a new order of existence has appeared, our very nature has been transformed! This birth is not brought about by human generation, by the will of man, or by the desire of the flesh, but by God.
If you wonder how, I will explain in clear language. Faith is the womb that conceives this new life, baptism the rebirth by which it is brought forth into the light of day. The Church is its nurse; her teachings are its milk, the bread from heaven is its food. It is brought to maturity by the practice of virtue; it is wedded to wisdom; it gives birth to hope Its home is the kingdom; its rich inheritance the joys of paradise; its end, not death, but the blessed and everlasting life prepared for those who are worthy.
This is the day the Lord has made – a day far different from those made when the world was first created and which are measured by the passage of time. This is the beginning of a new creation. On this day, as the prophet says, God makes a new heaven and a new earth. What is this new heaven? you may ask. It is the firmament of our faith in Christ. What is this new earth? A good heart, a heart like the earth, which drinks up the rain that falls on it and yields a rich harvest.
In this new creation, purity of life is the sun, the virtues are the stars, transparent goodness is the air, and the depths of the riches of wisdom and knowledge, the sea. Sound doctrine, the divine teachings are the grass and plants that feed God’s flock, the people whom he shepherds; the keeping of the commandments is the fruit borne by the trees.
On this day is created the true man, the man made in the image and likeness of God. For this day the Lord has made is the beginning of this new world. Of this day the prophet says that it is not like other days, nor is this night like other nights. But still we have not spoken of the greatest fight it has brought us. This day destroyed the pangs of death and brought to birth the firstborn of the dead.
I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God. O what wonderful good news! He who for our sake became like us in order to make us his brothers, now presents to his true Father his own humanity in order to draw all his kindred up after him.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, (c. 330-c. 395) the son of Saint Emmilia, was born at Caesarea, Capadocia, (Turkey) and raised by his brother Saint Basil and his sister Macrina. Well educated, he became a rhetorician and a professor of rhetoric. He then turned to the religious life under the guidance of St. Gregory Nazianzen. He was ordained a priest and lived in seclusion at Iris in Pontus. Later he was named bishop of Nyssa in lower Armenia, in 372 at the age of 42. With his see infested with the heresy of Arianism he was falsely accused of stealing Church property by the governor of Pontus, deposed and imprisoned. Having escaped, he remained in exile until 378, when Emperor Gratian restored him to his see.
In 379 he attended the Council of Antioch, which denounced the Meletian heresy and was sent by that council to Palestine and Arabia to combat heresy there. He was active in the General Council of Constantinople in 381 and eloquently attacked Arianism and reaffirmed the decrees of the Council of Nicaea. By this time he was widely venerated as the great pillar of orthodoxy and the great opponent of Arianism. Greatly influenced by the writings of Origen and Plato, he wrote numerous theological treatises which were considered the true exposition of the Catholic faith. Among them were his Catechetical Discourse, treatises against Eunomius and Appolinaris, a book on virginity, and commentaries on Scripture. The second General Council of Nicaea in 680-81, called him “Father of the Fathers.”