Pray, my brethren, to the Mother of God when the storm of enmity and malice bursts forth in your house. She, Who is all-merciful and all-powerful, can easily pacify the hearts of men. Peace and love proceed from the one God, as from their Source, and Our Lady - in God, as the Mother of Christ the Peace, is zealous, and prays for the peace of the whole world, and above all - of all Christians.
-St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ: Part 1, Holy Trinity Monastery pg. 179, 19th century


The Savior Himself is He Whom we are asked to put on. It is one and the same thing to say, 'Put on the whole armor of God,' and 'Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.' Our belt is truth and our breastplate is righteousness. The Savior is also called both 'truth' and 'righteousness.' On this principle He is also to be understood as the 'Gospel of peace.' He is Himself the 'shield of faith' and the helmet of salvation. He is the 'sword of the Spirit,' because He is the Word of God, living and efficacious, the utterance of which is stronger than any helmet and sharp on both sides.
-St. Jerome, Unknown, 5th century


His love for me brought low His greatness.
He made Himself like me so that I might receive Him.
He made Himself like me so that I might be clothed in Him.
I had no fear when I saw Him,
for He is mercy for me.
He took my nature so that I might understand Him,
my face, so that I should not turn away from Him.
-42 hymns discovered in 1905 in a Syriac Manuscript. Written in Greek for the Christian communities of Syria., Odes of Solomon 7 (The Odes and Psalms of Solomon R. Harris adn A. Mingana II, pp. 240-1), Early 2nd Century


How could the human race go to God if God had not come to us? How should we free ourselves from our birth into death if we had not been born again according to faith by a new birth generously given by God, thanks to that which came about from the Virgin's womb?
-Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, IV, 33,4, Sources Chretiennes, Cerf, Paris found in The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Olivier Clement, p. 37., 130-208


That God should have clothed Himself with our nature is a fact that should not seem strange or extravagant to minds that do not form too paltry an idea of reality. Who, looking at the universe, would be so feeble-minded as not to believe that God is all in all; that He clothes Himself with the universe, and at the same time contains it and dwells in it? What exists depends on Him Who exists, and nothing can exist except in the bosom of Him Who is.

If then all is in Him and He is in all, . . .Indeed, if the presence of God in us does not take the same form now as it did then, we can at least agree in recognizing that He is in us today no less tha He was then. Today, He is involved with us in as much as He maintains creation in existence. Then He mingled Himself with our being to deify it by contact with Him, after He had snatched it from death. . . For His resurrection becomes for mortals the promise of their return to immortal life.
-St. Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Orations, 25 (Patrologia Graeca, Migne.), Found in The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Olivier Clement, New City Press, NY, pp. 37-38, 330-395


I too will proclaim the greatness of this day: the Immaterial become incarnate, the Word is made flesh, the invisible makes itself seen, the intangible can be touched, the timeless has a beginning, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, always the same, yesterday, today and forever. . . This is the solemnity we are celebrating today: the arrival of God among us, so that we might go to God, or more precisely, return to Him. . . Revere the nativity which releases you from the chains of evil. Honor this tiny Bethlehem which restores Paradise to you. Venerate this crib; because of it you who were deprived of meaning (logos) are fed by the divine Meaning, the divine Logos Himself.
-St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 38, For Christmas (Patrologia Graeca, 36, 664-5) found in The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Olivier Clement, New City Press, NY, p. 41, 330-390