Sunday before Theophany 2016

Since you have been baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ, you have been conformed to the Son of God…. Everything has been worked in you by imitation, because you are images of Christ.
He washed in the river Jordan, and having given of the fragrance of His godhead to the waters, He came up from them. Then the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of His being, landed on Him — like resting upon like. In a similar way, after you had come up from the pool of the sacred streams, you were given an ointment, the sign of the anointing Christ received; and this is the Holy Spirit, of whom the blessed Isaiah prophesied in the voice of the Lord: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted” (Is 61:1). For Christ was not anointed by human hands with oil or ointment; but the Father, who appointed Him to be the Savior of the whole world, anointed Him with the Holy Spirit. As Peter says: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 10:38). The prophet David also cried out: “Your divine throne endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows” (Ps 45:6-7).
Christ was really crucified, buried, and raised. In baptism, you are counted worthy of being crucified, buried, and raised together with Him, in a likeness. So it is, again, with the chrism. Christ was anointed with a mystical oil of gladness; that is, the Holy Spirit, called the “oil of gladness” because He is the author of spiritual joy. You were anointed with chrism, because you have become sharers and friends of Christ.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

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