Ieromonk Ghelasie Gheorghe: "IMAGE and LIKENESS. The Song of the SON of GOD" (translation from Romanian by Alice Butnar)

Holy Virgin Mary with Infant Jesus, icon painted by monk Ilie




















O, Father, the Absolute IMAGE
Who art before everything else,
The UNBORN One
And the One Who BEARS everything,
Wholeness Itself,
To Thee
The first Honouring
In Devotion.

Thou art Reborn in me, Thy SON,
And Thou art PARENT and FATHER.
In me, Thy SON, Thou art Whole
And Thy Infinity Opens into
An Infinity
That Takes in all Infinity.

My PARENT, Thou art in Me
The Absolute LOVE
That BEARS me as Son,
Unending LOVE.

Absolute PARENT and FATHER,
In me, Thy SON, Thou art – once more –
And no one can Hold Thy Depth
But Thy SON Who can Open it.

All Thy Life is in Me
And My Life is in Thee,
O, LOVE,
Thou art the ONLY ICON IMAGE
In Thyself and Without.

*

FATHER, I, Thy SON,
Am the absolute WHOLE,
The One BORN of Thee,
And nothing else is needed
But the HOLY SPIRIT
Who is also Begotten of Thee,
The TRINITY of the absolute BEING,
THE ONE in THREE Undivided FACES,
And still I, THY Son,
Also Create an Image of Creation
In my Likeness,
Into which I Myself Embody,
And thus I Appear
Twice as Thy SON:
The ONLY BEGOTTEN
And the created One
In the SAME PERSON.

Receive, my PARENT,
Also my Image of created Son,
That I ever Lay Before Thee
As a GIFT of LOVE.

And more than this,
Through this Image of created Son
I also Create a World
That shall Sing Thy Name,
Which deserves
All Love and Worship.

*

I, the SON, the CREATOR LOGOS,
Have the absolute Origin
In Thee, absolute FATHER,
Of Whom I am BORN.

Yet as Son of creation
I also need a created Origin,
That is, the Image of Mother.

To Thee, my PARENT,
I bring my Song of Son in Himself DIVINE,
And at the same time I bring my song of Son of creation
To the Mother who gives Me Body,
Two IMAGES between Whom I am,
Two LOVES that MEET
And in my Image of Son UNITE.

Published in the volume "Hesychasm", Platytera Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007, pp. 89-91. Translation from Romanian: Alice Butnar.

Copyright: Platytera Publishing House.

The Romanian (Original) Version can be found here.
The German Version can be found here.