13 November 2020
Becoming Sheep (Psalms 23)
In this way, [David, the author of the Psalm] teaches the church that you must first become a sheep of the good shepherd, led through the good catechesis to the divine pastures and the springs of the teachings, so that you may be with him through Baptism in his death and that you may not fear such a death; for this is not death, but the shadow and the replica of death. If I walk, he says, in the midst of the shadow of death, I will not fear when evil comes, for you are with me.Next he comforts with the staff of the Spirit (for the comforter is the Spirit) and spreads the mystical table that he has prepared in the presence of the table of the demons; for they were the ones who through idolatry oppressed the lives of men; in its presence is the table of the Spirit. Then he anoints the head with the oil of the Spirit; he adds to this wine that gladdens the heart and that produces sober inebriation in the soul, which raises the thoughts from what is temporal to what is eternal; for he who has tasted such inebriation completes that which is left unfinished through an untimely death, continuing the sojourn in the house of God for length of days.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa
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