The Fruits of the Spirit and Living in the Image and Likeness of God

Irenaeus of Lyons: 

To save us from forfeiting life by losing the Spirit who possesses us, and to exhort us to share in the Spirit, the Apostle declares that it is impossible for flesh and blood to gain possession of the kingdom of God.

In other words: Do not deceive yourselves, for if the Word of God and the Spirit of the Father do not dwell in you, and you lead a life of vanity and carelessness, as though you were merely flesh and blood, you cannot obtain the kingdom of God.

He says this to prevent us from indulging our physical nature and spurning the grafting of the spirit, for when you were a wild olive, he says, you were grafted into the cultivated olive and came to share that olive’s rich sap.

How Could the World be Saved? By Exacting Punishment? No, Rather, by Showing It Kindnes

Cyril of Alexandria 

(on Luke 15:1-10)

God sent not his son into the world, to judge the world, as the Son tells us, but that the world may be saved by him (John 3:17).

But how could the world be saved, caught as it was in the net of sin?  By exacting punishment of it?

No, rather, by showing it kindness, so that, God being merciful and forbearing, man’s past sins were forgotten, and those who had not been living worthily began a purer way of life?

Why then, tell me, O Pharisee, do you murmur because Christ does not disdain to consort with publicans and sinners, prudently preparing the way for their conversion? It was for this He emptied himself, and became like to us.

Monday of the Holy Spirit

On the day after every Great Feast, the Orthodox Church honors the one through whom the Feast is made possible. On the day following the Nativity of the Lord, for example, we celebrate the Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos (December 26). On the day after Theophany, we commemorate St John the Baptist (January 7), and so on.

Today we honor the all-Holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, Who descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost in the form of fiery tongues in fulfillment of the Lord's pro

mise to send the Comforter to His disciples (JN 14:16). That same Holy Spirit remains within the Church throughout the ages, guiding it "into all truth" (JN 16:13).

Synaxarion For the Monday of the Holy Spirit

By Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos

Monday of the Holy Spirit

On this day, the Monday of Pentecost, we celebrate the All-Holy and Life-Creating and Omnipotent Spirit, Who is God, and One of the Trinity, and of one Honor and one Essence and one Glory with the Father and the Son.

Verses

O every breath, glorify the Spirit of the Lord,

Through Whom the impudence of evil spirits is put to flight.