The OCF theme of the 2017-2018 school year is “Glory to God for All Things.” This phrase comes from the Akathist of Thanksgiving. Filled with many petitions covering the innumerable things for which we give thanks to God, we asked each SLB member to select their favorite we share the favorite line from the Akathist. Below are their answers.
“Glory to Thee, showing me the beauty of the universe.” – Val
“Blessed are they that will share in the King’s Banquet: but already on earth Thou givest me a foretaste of this blessedness. How many times with Thine own hand hast Thou held out to me Thy Body and Thy Blood, and I, though a miserable sinner, have received this Mystery, and have tasted Thy love, so ineffable, so heavenly.” – Tasya
“Glory to Thee, welcoming the impulse of our heart’s love.” – Caroline
“Glory to Thee for every happening. Every condition Thy providence has put me in.” – Quinn
“Outside is the darkness of the whirlwind, the terror and howling of the storm, but in the heart, in the presence of Christ, there is light and peace, silence: Alleluia!” – Spyri
“Glory to Thee, for what Thou hast hidden from us in Thy Wisdom.” – Anna
“Glory to Thee, making us dissatisfied with earthly things.” – Michael
“Glory to Thee for the joy of living, moving and being able to return Thy love.” – David
“Glory to Thee for calling me into being.” – Amelia
“Glory to Thee, sending us failure and misfortune that we may understand the sorrows of others.” – Nora
“Glory to Thee for the unforgettable moments of life.” – Fev
“Glory to Thee at the hushed hour of nightfall” – Peter
“Glory to Thee for every step of my life’s journey.” – Rachel
“Glory to Thee for the love of parents, for the faithfulness of friends.” – Markayla
“Glory to Thee for Thy mercies, seen and unseen.” – Mark Saber
“Glory to Thee, making Thyself known where man shows mercy on his neighbour.” – Ben
“Glory to Thee, making wonderfully Sweet the keeping of Thy commandments.” – Mark Sultani
“Glory to thee for the depths of thy wisdom, the whole world a living sign of it.” – Nicole
11 times in the Morning Prayers; 12 in the Evening Prayers. 5 times in the Trisagion alone.
We throw the word ‘glory’–and it’s kin, glorious and glorified and glorify–around a lot in the Church. That’s not bad–but all too often, we become desensitized to it. I mean, think about how many times during one church service you say, “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.” It’s a big number, folks.
But what does it mean to give glory? So often we see it paired with worship, like in the Evening Prayers: “O Christ our God, who at all times and in every hour, in heaven and on earth, art worship and glorified…” We see it so often at the conclusion of prayers: “…for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…”
I think this leads us too easily to lumping ‘glory’ into that with which it’s paired. Worship is a more concrete concept than glory–I know what it looks like to worship something, I can picture it my head, so glorifying something probably looks just like that. God has the kingdom–yep, with God is the kingdom, is Heaven–He has the power–yup, God’s powerful–and He has the glory–well, that’s probably just another big impressive thing that God has.
Iconography Painting Transfiguration Of Christ
But glory has more layers than that. I mean, if someone were to ask you “What’s glory? I don’t know this word,” you wouldn’t be able to respond with “Well, it’s a big impressive thing that’s kinda like power and being worshiped.” Not unlike beauty or love, glory tends to be one of those aspects of God that is best understood when you see it, experience it. When you try to define it, you find that you actually know it intrinsically. Glory is essentially “Um, that.” points at glorious thing
Then how can we pray these words, at the beginning of the Trisagion: “Glory to thee, our God, glory to thee?” How can we answer the call of OCF this year, and glorify God in all things (#glorytogod), if we cannot easily construct for ourselves an image of glory, of glorifying?
We must recognize, I think, that our closest attempt to glorifying God is often our helpless outpouring of thanks to Him. The Akathist of Thanksgiving service, rife with glories, typifies this effort for us. Each Ikos has within it a serious of petitions meant to glorify God. From the first Ikos:
Glory to You, Who called me to life,
Glory to You, Who have shown me the beauty of the universe,
Glory to You, Who have opened before me the sky and the earth as an eternal book of wisdom,
Glory to the eternity of You, in the midst of the world of time,
Glory to You, for Your hidden and evident goodness,
Glory to You, for every sigh of my sadness,
Glory to You, for every step of my life, for every moment of joy,
Glory to You, O God, unto ages of ages.
It is a thanking of God, but a transcendent thanking; the capstone of all thanks that can be given. Consider the things for which God is glorified: giving the speaker life itself, moments of joy, sighs of sadness, the beauty of the universe, all goodness. Can proper thanks be given for these things? Likely not. So, glory is given.
God is glorious, magnificent, beautiful–there’s nothing in that realm of glory that we can give Him. We give God glory because we need to thank Him, to honor Him, as the pinnacle of deference and gratitude. And again, God doesn’t need that from us–He doesn’t need anything from us. It is for our sakes that we give glory to God.
If we did not, there would be no purpose to our lives, no meaning to our breaths. Our world, a product of happenstance and coincidence and cosmic mush, would act upon us, and through our misguided and feeble human attempts to interpret it, we would fall into damnation and hopelessness.
Glory to God, for communion with Him is the purpose of our very existence. Glory to God.
