If it seems like I am reading many different books at once, its because I am! 
I hop around from book to book and have the very bad habit of starting
one before I've finished the first.. I have several by my bedside
and several near the couch, I'll pick one up depending on my mood.
Here's a quote from one of my "on hand" books. Its an Orthodox
catechesis and not really a read-through-in-one-sitting type. I
pick it up for Feasts or questions I have about beliefs or practices in
the Orthodox Church. It has the added bonus of including the
troparions for each Feast with the music.
Under the chapter "The Church":
"If you had been in Jerusalem on that Good Friday when Pilate presented
Christ to the crowd, covered with blood and spit, you would have
thought that He looked repulsive. 'As many were astonished at Him - His
appearance was so marred, beyond human semblence... He was despised and
rejected by men...and as one from whom men hid their faces.' (Is.
52:14;52:3). This is how Isaiah described the suffering
Messiah. His face was marked by all the ugliness of this
world. The spitting of men disfigured Him and yet He remained the
same Christ, the only Holy One. It is the same with the
Church. It is disfigured by our spitting, our pettiness, our
crimes, by the sins of those who belong to it, including yours and
mine. And yet Christ remains hidden in it and the Spirit hovers
over it. The Church is 'Emmanuel' that is, 'God with us', a God
who consents to be present among sinners, publicans, and
prostitutes. It is not those who are well but those who are sick
who need healing, the Lord Jesus would say when He was criticized for
sitting at the sinners' table."
The Living God: A Catechism Vol 2
Trans. by Olga Dunlop
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Ancient Faith Radio
Aug. 25, 2006 - Untitled Comment
- Mimi