Beholding the Beauty

Many have trouble calling Mary the Mother of God. One such wrote, today, "God has no mother." To which I replied: For my sake, God lay in a manger. For my sake, God was circumcised on the eighth day. For my sake, God was questioned in the Temple, confounding the masters of the Law. For my sake, God deigned to be baptized by John in the Jordan. For my sake, God slept in the bottom of the boat. For my sake, God dared to be betrayed. For my sake, God accepted to be slapped in the face. For my sake, God received stripes upon His back. For my sake, God was crucified under Pontius Pilate. For my sake, God died. For my sake, God lay in a new tomb. For my sake, God went down into Hades! For my sake, God rose from the dead! For my sake, God showed His wounds to the disciples, condescending to by touched in them by Thomas. For my sake, God ate fish. For my sake, God ascended with clouds. For my sak

I was talking to a Protestant a couple of days ago (very nice fellow, and pretty sharp, too), and he asked me what I was looking for that I left the Baptist world and became Orthodox. I said I was looking for the living continuation of the Church of the Apostles, although I'm not quite sure I could have articulated it quite so cleanly then. Somehow he misunderstood me to be saying I was looking for a church that did all the things the exact way the Apostles did, based on having figured that out from Scripture — which of course is not what I meant at all, and I said so. What I meant, I explained, was that I was looking for the living community of faith that had maintained the fullness of the Apostolic life in the Holy Spirit from generation to generation from then until now, having received it from them in the first place. I mentioned that, "Yes, I'm sure there are practices in our Church that the Apostles didn't do." (This is a common objection, and I was simply