Today is the feast of Pope St. Gregory I the Great, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. From his Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Book II, Tenth Homily):
For Holy Church has two lives, the one which she leads temporally, the other which she receives for eternity, the one in which she labors on earth, the other in which she is rewarded in Heaven, the one in which she earns rewards, teh other truly in which she rejoices in the receipt thereof, and in each life she offers sacrifices. Here of course the sacrifice of compunction, there the sacrifice of praise....Yet flesh is offered in each sacrifice because here the oblation of flesh is the maceration of the body, there the oblation of flesh is the glory of resurrection in praise of God. For truly the flesh is offered there as for an whole-burnt offering; when wholly changed in eternal incorruption it contains nothing of contradiction or mortality because, at once wholly kindled with the fires of His love, it will continue in praise for ever....
[Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Tomkinson, tr., Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies (Etna, CA: 2008) p. 442.]
