Why is the Church called, “the sanctified daughter”?

Even though she was called the bride of Christ so that the joy of the Spirit may fill her life even in the midst of her sufferings and struggles with Satan, she was called in Psalm 45, “the daughter and the queen” who comes to the King, followed by the virgins, her companions. The Psalmist says, “Listen O daughter: Consider and incline your ear. Forget your own people also, and your father’s house. So, the King will greatly desire your beauty. Because He is your Lord, worship Him … The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace. Her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors. The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You. With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; they shall enter the King’s palace” (Ps. 45:10, 13–15). As a daughter, she is committed to the following:

• a. Keeping the divine commandments.

• b. Inclining her ear and seeking the gift of understanding, in the spirit of humility.

• c. Forsaking her old father, the devil.

St. Basil the Great says, “‘Listen O daughter, and incline your ear’ (Ps. 45:11). He summons the Church to hear and observe the precepts and addressing her as daughter, associates her with himself through this title, as if he had adopted her through love. ‘Listen O daughter, and see.’ He teaches that she has a mind trained to contemplation through the word, ‘see.’ Observe well, he says, the creation, an, aided by the order in it, thus ascend to the contemplation of the Creator. Then bending her lofty and proud neck, he says: Incline your ear. Do not run away to stories from the outside, but accept the humble voice in the evangelical account. Incline your ear to this teaching in order that you may forget those depraved customs and the lessons of your fathers. Therefore, forget thy people and thy father’s house. For, everyone who commits sin is of the devil. Cast out, I pray you, he says, the teachings of the evil spirits, forget sacrifices, nocturnal dances, tales which inflame to fornication and to every form of licentiousness. For this reason have I called you my own daughter, that you may hate the parent who previously begot you for destruction. If through such forgetfulness you erase the blemishes of your depraved learning, assuming your own proper beauty, you will appear desirable to your Spouse and King. ‘Because he is your Lord, and him they shall adore.’”¹⁰¹¹

According to St. Jerome , “In this forty-fourth psalm [LXX, i.e., Ps. 45] God speaks to the human soul that, following the example of Abraham, it should go out from its own land and from its kindred, and should leave the Chaldeans, that is the demons, and should dwell in the country of the living, for which elsewhere the prophet sighs: I think to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. But it is not enough for you to go out from your

1011 St. Basil of Caesarea, Exegetical Homily 17 Unto the End! for Those Who Shall be Changed, for the Sons of Core for Understanding (on Ps 44) (FOTC 46:291).

own land unless you forget your people and your father’s house; unless you scorn the flesh and cling to the bridegroom in a close embrace.”¹⁰¹²

St. Caesarius of Arles says, “We are invited by God the Father through a happy, blessed exchange to abandon our father the devil. We truly leave our father the devil, provided that, with God’s help, we always endeavor to avoid and to flee from his cunning wickedness.”¹⁰¹³

Abba Paphnutius says, “For the person who says Hearken, O daughter, is certainly a Father; and yet he bears witness that the one, whose house and people he urges should be forgotten, is nonetheless father of his daughter. And this happens when being dead with Christ to the rudiments of this world, we no longer as the Apostle says, regard the things which are seen, but those which are not seen, for the things which are not seen are eternal, and going forth in heart from this temporal and visible home, turn our eyes and heart towards that in which we are to remain forever. And this we shall succeed in doing when, while we walk in the flesh, we are no longer at war with the Lord according to the flesh, proclaiming in deed and actions the truth of that saying of the blessed Apostle Our citizenship is in heaven.”¹⁰¹⁴