St Gregory of Nyssa in present day Turkey,c 394

  Kyrie Pantekrator           

                    

Your 

merciful 

promise 

is beyond 

all measure; 

it surpasses

all our minds 

can fathom

     "Concepts only 

     create idols, 

     only wonder 

     understands 

     anything” 

This verse, from Canticle 14, beloved of George Higgins. is the first canticle at Morning Prayer in Lent, not created out of thin air and plonked into the BCP, but taken from Scripture as they all are save 2. Its choice was inspired by this above quote that I found for Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Capp-adocian Fathers. But what would symbolize the promise of God? My head went all mystical,  but what I found was this

image, Christ Pantekreator ("a title of Christ represented as the ruler of the universe, esp-ecially in Byzantine church decor-ation.") Christ himself is the promise of God. And his reign, his kingdom.… it’s hard to find a word that does not connote domination, subjugation or control, of winners and losers, but  only love. Because the surpassing love of this God who became Man to raise us to divinity,  to restore our God given image, turns all our human ideas on their heads, because 

Concepts create idols, only wonder understands anything. 

Which is why, for me, the ray of light shining on Him is coming paradoxically nor from above,  bur form below. 

          Kyrie, have mercy, Pantekrator