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December 15: Sunday of the Ancestors
... we celebrate the Ancestors... just as among those Gentiles who were called, only the obedient were chosen for kinship with God, so the race of Israel, and Adam’s descendants down to Israel’s time, were a great multitude, but only those among them who lived according to God’s will were true Israelites. To them the prophecies belonged, through them future events were prefigured, and to them the promises were given (cf. Rom. 3:1–4:13). Only these ones were the true ancestors and forebears, firstly of her who in virginity bore Christ, who is God over all (Rom. 9:5), according to the flesh, and then, through Him, of ourselves.... they are publicly commemorated by us today as partakers of the fullness of the saints. For in Christ Jesus there is neither old nor new, “nor Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11, cf. Gal. 3:28)... All, old and new, who have been well pleasing to God, and all who have led lives acceptable to God, either before the law, under the law or after the law in the gospel of grace, have this... Who are those who sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the heavenly kingdom? Those who, with sincere faith, order their lives according to the law and the teaching of the Spirit, and demonstrate their faith through their works. If we wish to be classed with the latter, delivered from outer darkness, deemed worthy of the unfading light of God’s kingdom and to live forever at rest with the saints in heaven, let us put off the old man, who is corrupt with deceitful lusts (cf. Eph. 4:22), these being drunkenness, fornication, adultery, impurity, covetousness, love of money, hatred, anger, slander and every evil passion. And through our deeds let us put on the new man renewed in the image of his Creator (cf. Col. 3:10), in which is charity, brotherly love, purity, self-control and every type of virtue. Through these Christ dwells within us, reconciling us with Himself and one another, to His glory and the glory of His Father without beginning, and of the co-eternal, life-giving Spirit, now and for ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
~ (St. Gregory Palamas, Sermon On the Ancestors of God According to the Flesh)
