David Bentley Hart on Predestination

From his talk, "The Doors of the Sea," regarding Calvinist teachings on predestination:

“The curious absurdity of such all such doctrines is that, out of a pious anxiety to defend God’s transcendence against any scintilla of genuine creaturely freedom, they threaten effectively to collapse that transcendence into absolute identity — with the world, with us, with the devil. For, unless the world is truly set apart from God and possesses a dependent but real liberty of its own analogous to the freedom of God, everything is merely a fragment of divine volition, and God is simply the totality of all that is and all that happens; there is no creation, but only an oddly pantheistic expression of God’s unadulterated power.

...

“For, after all, if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity; sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God.”

A Life-Altering Decision

For the past two years, Audra and I have been thinking and praying about our "next step" in life. We've felt (for longer than two years, to be sure), that something was going to happen -- at times it would seem I'd be going for a Masters of some kind, or we'd be moving to Kentucky to be nearer to her family, or...something.

I've always been a churchmouse, a theology buff -- now a "Geek Orthodox," as we're sometimes called -- someone who's always tried to serve the Church in some capacity since childhood. As a Baptist, I had been on youth mission trips, participated in ministry teams, and had led Bible studies and music at school and at church. I had gone to college -- as had Audra -- in order eventually to become a missionary. Orthodoxy disrupted those plans, to put it lightly; my new bride and I were still brand-new converts (I was just over a year in the faith, she not even six months in) and had to learn to live with this new faith. Plans to go abroad were put on hold as we taught school and she picked up an MLS. Add two daughters to the mix and the plate was full. Add to all this the fact that I had read the Treatise on the Priesthood by St. John Chrysostom (which scared the hell out of me), and I was ready to hang up plans for full-time service to the Church indefinitely.

About a year and a half ago, however, something...shifted in me, I suppose you could say. Before, when people would ask if I ever had plans to go to seminary, I would become physically uncomfortable and quickly change the subject. Yet now I was slowly beginning to feel what I can only describe as a light turning from red to yellow (a strange metaphor, but it's the only one I've ever been able to use that seems to do the trick) with regard to religious studies and possible ordination. I brought this up to my dear wife; the prospect of taking our two small daughters up to seminary and pursuing the life of a clergyman was not an easy one. But this is why I stand in awe of this woman; she -- the daughter of two charismatic ministers who've lived much of their life "without a net," sending her father on mission trip after mission trip with money from God-knows-where and doing what it took to get by otherwise -- simply shrugged and said, "All I need to know is that you're sure this is what God wants us to do. If so, I'll follow you wherever you think we should go." That said, I brought up the subject with my parish priest -- who had been hinting at this road for me himself, mostly just to give me a hard time because he knew I hated talking about it -- and he suggested I apply to St. Vladimir's as a second step.

Several letters of recommendation and a few essays later, I received a letter in the mail announcing my acceptance into the MDiv program for the Fall of 2009. We began in earnest to try and sell the house, as I dreaded the thought of renting out. God, apparently, wanted to start the "trust factor" a bit earlier than I'd anticipated, for we have wound up renting within the family (a much easier situation for me to swallow, given the inability to sell the house thus far) while the house will continue to show to potential buyers.

So...this blogger and his family will, by God's grace, be packing up as much of our things as we can fit into a small, New York apartment and, in the very near future, be moving to Crestwood, New York to begin studies at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary -- classes will begin on August 31, 2009. This is a tremendous leap of faith for us, as money will be tight, relationships tested, and faith stretched for the next three years and, most likely, far beyond. Prayers are extremely coveted right now, more than anything else. If you would like to support the seminary in general or me in particular, please let me know.

So it begins. May it be blessed. Lord, have mercy.

Consciences, Pledges, Wombs

My friend Alan of the blog Rhoblogy briefly took issue with my description of Evangelical salvation in comparison to the Orthodox model. He then, however, moves into another, related topic that is worth comment:

He writes:

My community group just finished studying Galatians in detail, and I join in the Apostle Paul's amazement at the Galatians' "bewitching", as he wonders aloud in many different ways how it was that the Galatians would exchange this Gospel of grace for a system of God's grace + human effort, no matter how innocuous and otherwise-endorsed-by-God it might be. No matter whether this human effort is adding the very God-ordained sign of the God-ordained covenant in the OT - circumcision. But it's permissible if we add the God-ordained sign of the God-ordained NT covenant - baptism - to it?

I've often sat back and marveled at the similarities of form that exist between the Pharisees of Christ's day and those of the Orthodox Church. Hierarchy and a sad history of replacing the Ignatian model of the bishop as locus of unity with that of him as the source thereof; ancient, venerated, often-complex roles of tradition and the subsequent tendency at times to strain at gnats and swallow camels; the deference of a desire to encounter the living God to a willingness to surrender oneself over to the rubrics books...sons of hell we all can so easily be and become.

I could speak of the scriptural parallel between circumcision and baptism (Col. 2:11-12). I could speak of how it itself is the pledge of a clean conscience, a pledge which is salvific through an appropriation of Christ's resurrection (1 Pet. 1:21). I could speak of how we are, in our view, mandated to do this and are saved because of this.

But I would rather speak of how absurd it is, really, to think that our meager prayers, our weak actions, our vulnerable, mortal bodies, dripping and cold (and, later, oily), could ever fathom standing on their own merits as somehow deserving of salvation per se. We have been given a gift in baptism, a gift of nothing other than grace undeserved. We ask that the Holy Spirit descend into waters we're meant to drown in and, hopefully in humble obedience, we follow, submitting both ourselves and our children to our God in a manner He has given us. We do this in faith that God will bring the increase, and that increase is solely by grace. His is the seed of life sown within us, for He is the Sower.

As was the case with circumcision, so the case with baptism: any ritual without Christ is a mockery and a sick, diseased, tragedy. My wife and I offered up our girls to the Creator of all things when we gave them to the font; for us to then ignore the Holy Scriptures, neglect lives of fasting, discipline and self-denial, pile up other priorities for ourselves instead of Sunday liturgy and evening Vespers (or, if not feasible, evening prayers at home in the family icon corner -- which, of course, being "magic Christians" who believed in baptism per se, we would do infrequently, if at all), fail to speak of our saintly Patriarchs, prophets, saints and martyrs as our holy guides and fellow-confessors -- such a life would be a mockery, a denial of our pledge to Him, completely unworthy of the calling to which we were called when we were buried with our Adam in a death like His.

We have, as Orthodox Christians, renounced the devil; not only have we done this, but we have breathed and spit upon him, turning immediately afterwards to the East to unite ourselves to the Christ of the living God. Christ, in His mercy, has given us a very accessible and obtainable means of union -- one that only He could effect. His Sun of Righteousness shines down on us once we pass, simply and obediently, through this womb of baptism which our Virgin Mother, the Church, has been given to bear Her children who've been orphaned by this world; for us to glory in getting wet is the height of arrogance and blindness.

This, I know, sets the stage for when the body is dry and one is no longer "oily 'round the ears"; how is it that one can justify a life lived in strict obedience to and self-denial for God -- a taking up of crosses, as it is termed in Scripture -- as a prerequisite for eternal life in Christ and yet adamantly deny that one is saved by his works? I would begin HERE. As for my own response...perhaps for another night; it is late, and I must go early tomorrow to welcome kids to Summer School. May it be blessed, and may I bear it honorably and for Christ. Prayers are appreciated.

Peace.

A New Feature

I will attempt to put up every Saturday evening the major saint (or saints, or feast) commemorated in the Church for that liturgical day. Clicking on the title will send you to the troparion and kontakion; clicking on the image will send you to an explanation of that particular icon.

All hymns and lives of saints are taken from the website of the Orthodox Church in America.

Trip to Kendalia

I've recently returned from a spontaneous, informal weekend retreat at Holy Archangels Greek Orthodox Monastery in Kendalia, TX. It's been about four years since I've been able to spend the night there with the fathers, and I went this time with three other men from my parish. Two of them had never been to an Orthodox monastery before; the other two of us were already familiar with how things went.

We went down around lunchtime on Friday and spent the night. On Saturday we woke up at six in the morning for the divine liturgy. Following this, we ate breakfast, then broke up for what, interestingly enough, the fathers called "quiet time" -- when they did some of their private, morning devotionals, cleaned up the kitchen. During this time I went to the grave of little Jamie, (not pictured to the right, as I neglected to bring my camera), where I prayed some prayers for the departed, and sang "With the saints" and "Memory Eternal." Sat afterwards and read the end of Fr. John Behr's The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death.

Following this time we (the four of us from St. Barbara's) accompanied some of the fathers and brothers (monks are called "fathers" regardless of whether they've been ordained priests or not, while novices who've yet to be fully tonsured are called "brothers") into the main church (pictured right) to help them dust, sweep, mop, and scrape beeswax from the floor. This is part of their daily devotional. Brother Jason then gave us a tour around the four-story complex that's being built alongside the church that will house more monastics (may God grant such) in the future. Lunch was served and, following this, a baptism of the newly born (and now newly-illumined) child of God, Eli. This service was the first I'd witnessed at Holy Archangels that was not entirely in Greek; well over 75% of it was in English, probably due to its not being a daily service and due to non-Greek speakers' attending on a special occasion. Following the baptism, we had a bit of time for reflection and prayer, and then had Vespers and Litya (which, like the baptism, was in the main church, as well). Supper was served after this. Suppers at Holy Archangels are eaten with women in one room, and male pilgrims and monastics in the other. A priestmonk will offer a blessing, and all will sit. A bell will ring, signalling the beginning of the meal. A monk will begin to read either a passage of Scripture or something from the Church Fathers (in this case, in Greek, of course), while all the "listeners" (such as we were) ate in silence). A minute or two later, a second bell rings, and drinks are poured. This discipline teaches us to wait, though we be hungry, before diving into food or drink in an uncontrolled fashion. Idle talk is not to be found at the table.

Following supper, the bell at the nearby, smaller chapel pictured to the right (which is also where we had had divine liturgy that morning) rang for Compline. We walked in the dark back to our rooms, a day full of prayer, work, and temperance in food and drink finished. The next day we would go back up to the main church for divine liturgy. Again, separate gender was the rule, with males on the right, and women on the left, heads covered. Following this, we all ate together in the refectory, and afterwards, with the blessing of the Γεροντα, or "elder," came back home.

Things I came away with:

The long monastic services in Greek, regardless of whether one knows enough of the language to follow along (I can get by in the more familiar services), are an excellent opportunity to practice the Jesus Prayer. Indeed, I find the literal hours spent focusing on the words -- and, then, the One behind the words -- of the prayer help me "rediscover" the beauty of the simplicity of that prayer. True, the monotony that can set in also allows for thoughts to wander, but controlling one's thoughts, taking every one of them captive and making it obedient to Christ and, thus, slowly and painfully correcting our minds' and hearts' misuse of our bodies, is what the Prayer is all about.

I really, really appreciate head coverings, modest dress (including long sleeves on men), and separated genders in Orthodox worship. Regarding the latter issue, I was surprised, honestly, at how much easier it is for me to focus on worship when only with members of my own gender. There is, of course, "the issue" that plagues young men, but this goes deeper than mere wandering eyes. Here is a faith (I saw it in action multiple times during the trip) where men teach boys, where women teach girls how to live and worship. The community at this monastery -- which is comprised of Orthodox from several large cities around central Texas -- made sure that boys coming only with mothers received ample instruction from older men as to when to bow, how to stand, where to read along in the service books...the village was alive here.

All in all, a wonderfully refreshing weekend spent with dear friends. Glory to God.

A Hard Gospel to Preach

In a recent "retread" over threads in the forum I mentioned a few posts below this one, I ran across a thread regarding Evangelicals doing missionary work in Greece. Some Orthodox were lamenting Evangelicals' proselytizing people who, culturally and historically (and, very often -- though much, much less often these days -- by conviction) were already Christian. Others were scratching their heads wondering what the appeal would be regarding some of these groups. Y'all know where I come from theologically (or, if you're new here, you can click on my conversion story in the sidebar), and those of you who've read the blog long enough or thoroughly enough will know that I know when to take my lumps; though I truly believe that the Orthodox FAITH and the corporate Church that confesses it is the fullness of Him that fills all in all, all is not always rosy in practical, concrete matters. Cf. St. Paul's letters to Corinth. The following then, is my response to the question of why people (not throngs, but noticeable numbers of people) were joining Evangelical groups (edited in brackets for context):

"I think the intellectual input and stimulation [of regular, faithful Bible Study], as well as the realization that they're actually DOING something with their faith outside of church services provides a thrill that they weren't getting with just 'spectator sport' Orthodoxy/Catholicism, where the priest/choir/chanters sang the Divine Liturgy/said Mass and they went through the motions without any purposeful explanation and education of what was going on.

"When you take the stated doctrine of having all your sins completely and permanently wiped out, forever, of never having to deal with any kind of ascetic effort in order to arrive at purification and sanctification, and are 'free' to rejoice in a perceived spiritual perfection that God has granted you apart from any obedience you may or may not have actually walked in -- well, as virtual and artificial as it may sound when I put it that way, it does make for a VERY grateful reaction on the part of the believer. 'He who has been forgiven much, loves much,' and all that. The Evangelical perceives that his sins have been declared null and void through the legal transaction of the blood of Christ before the Father, and so they are free simply to rejoice in an already finished righteousness, an already guaranteed place in heaven. Couple this grateful state with AGRESSIVE memorization of proof-texts that seem to bolster this teaching, and you have the added rush of thinking that God's biblical stamp of approval supports the idea, adding confidence to enthusiastic gratitude.

"It is difficult, then, to put Orthodoxy next to that and say, 'Christ has died and risen again; through baptism we are brought into His Kingdom so that we would have the POTENTIAL of working out our salvation with fear and trembling, making every effort to enter into the rest He prepared for us through His Passion and Resurrection. The enemy, however, still prowls around as the wolf of souls, seeking to make us his prey, so we must be ever mindful of sinful habits that remain in our lives, as they could be occasion for the enemy to gain a foothold. Our life in Christ consists of constant vigilance, constant repentance, constant participation in the sacramental life of the Church, and constant sorrow and (should God grant) true tears of repentance over our state as 'chief of sinners' so that we might gain times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord which is the comfort for those who have mourned.'

"Evangelicals will say that this gospel has been tried and found wanting, pointing to the Orthodox hierarchs' and clergy's moral failure, as well as the laity's laxity and lack of fervor in studying about and participating in their faith outside of services. I would say that the faith is not so much tried and found wanting as it has been found difficult and left untried. This is not so much an excuse as it is an explanation. What is needed? A culture shift, I think. Increased emphasis on personal sin and the need for repentance, forgiveness and grace. Priorities on parish education regarding biblical, patristic support for Orthodox positions. Clear opportunities to LIVE the gospel (service projects like [soup kitchens, clothing pantries, prison visitation], for example). Fellowship and increased accountability among the faithful, pushing each other on to greater piety and holiness of life, seeking out ways to rid ourselves of sin and live to Christ. I say that, if these things are considered solely Evangelical territory, we as Orthodox have sold our birthright, so to speak, and Evangelicals' coming in and gaining the souls the Church has neglected should come as no surprise."

The Wonderworking Icon of Our Lady of Sitka

About a week ago St. Tikhon's Seminary octet visited our parish on a musical tour. They chanted Great Vespers on Tuesday evening and followed the next day with Divine Liturgy. Audra and I were blessed to be able to extend hospitality to the director of the octet and put him up for the night in our home. Along with them came the miracle-working icon of the Theotokos of Sitka, Alaska (pictured right). A story was told of a woman who had been suffering from very severe lung cancer and, following a lengthy prayer session before the icon, received total healing. The director was quick to point out, of course, that the real miracle is that of a changed life and obedience to Christ, regardless of physical healing. Still, it was good to pray in front of the peaceful image of our Lord's mother.

Pictured here are our altar servers and priest (in green) with the octet (which was really just a "septet" for this tour) and the icon of our lady of Sitka. Father later took some oil from the vigil lamp that perpetually hangs before the icon -- oil with which we were all anointed after Vespers -- and gave it to some of the elderly ladies, one of whom was suffering with vision failure. To watch these sisters express such gratitude to anoint themselves so reverently is something I won't profane here by trying to describe.


A family portrait with our Lady and her divine Son. You can read details of the icon's history HERE.

Troparion and Kontakion HERE.

Akathist hymn HERE.

Pardon Our Dust...

...so I create a label for "Best of Blog," only to find out that, under the older, html-driven "Classic Templates" in blogger, only 20 posts under a label will display at one time. So I had to update my template and lost several personalizations, which I hope to add back in soon. Meanwhile, you can read all I labeled to your right.

Enjoy, and pardon the different looks that no doubt will be cycling through the next couple of days.

Best of BLOG

Following the lead of Steve of the Pithless Thoughts blog (and the podcasts Our Life in Christ and Steve the Builder), I've created a grouping of posts over the past four and a half years that I feel give a good, overall "Oh Taste and See" reader.

Best of Blog -- it'll also be in the sidebar. Enjoy!

Blessed Feast!

Troparion - Tone 8

Blessed art Thou, O Christ Our God
Thou hast revealed the fishermen as most wise
By sending down upon them the Holy Spirit
Through them Thou didst draw the world into Thy net
O Lover of Man, Glory to Thee!

Kontakion - Tone 8

When the most High came down and confused the tongues,
He divided the nations;
But when he distributed the tongues of fire
He called all to unity.
Therefore, with one voice, we glorify the All-holy Spirit!

(Russian Orthodox Christians also -- in fact, they preeminently -- call this Sunday "Troitsa," or "Trinity." Read this excellent post by Fr. Stephen Freemen to find out why.)

Hierarchy of Conversion

The following was posted on a forum I mention often here, and is just something I wanted to place here, as well. Nothing groundbreaking or anything; just thought it was worth a mention:

*******************

I think there's a hierarchy to building faith, and faith rightly believed. If you've got an iPod (or about an hour to spend in front of PC speakers), you can see this hierarchy played out HERE and HERE in the life of a former Muslim who left Islam after reading the Passion passages in the Gospel, belonged to several different Protestant groups, and finally landed in Orthodoxy (iirc, he's been Orthodox for a while now).

This "hierarchy" I speak of can be accomplished within Orthodoxy itself -- and often is -- though sometimes it is not, and other times folks begin the "hierarchy" outside the Church (as you and I did), only to find its goal within Her.

The hierarchy I speak of isn't a "silver bullet" for spiritual growth, nor is it a hard and fast rule, but it goes roughly like this:

• A person comes to a conscious, deliberate, chosen belief in Jesus Christ as his/her Savior, realizing the severity of his/her fallenness and the need to be redeemed from death. This can be a "watershed moment" and very dramatic, or it can be something that someone realizes they've always believed, but has now matured enough to where they could confess and live it. Regardless, I think that if someone does not have some sort of sense that s/he is grateful for the "great mercy" we sing so often about in church on Sundays, it will not matter what confession one belongs to, as one will not be "in church" for the right reason: giving thanks to the One Who saves.

• A person needs to grow in knowledge of this Savior through familiarity with and regular reading of the Bible. I'm not saying they need to earn a theology degree, just...basic Bible vocab / characters / lingo / events. A "Who's Who and What's What," in other words. I did this as a Protestant kid in AWANA (a Scripture memory program); Orthodox kids can read children's Bibles with their parents, or (even better), the parents/priests/church school leaders can go over the short, lectionary readings with them when they're older. Parents are vital here, though, and need to lead by example.

• A person needs to determine -- out of a desire to know Christ in the fullest way possible -- which of the many different confessions is the one Church Christ established and in which one can encounter and dwell in His divine Life. For Orthodox, they're already there. For those of us outside, we have to weigh the issues and enter later.

I've seen people come to Orthodoxy for wrong reasons (they love Russian music/art, they want to be right about everything, they're looking to be [insert former confession], just more "conservative"), so perhaps this contributes to some Orthodox people's not taking some converts very seriously. I've seen people who've grown up Orthodox who have (right in front of me) told me that what they're there for is fellowship among [a certain language]-speaking people, since that's what they are, and people who come because Mama makes them, and are therefore completely bored and hostile towards a faith they know nothing about, much less care about anything spiritual. Again, these are my experiences, and those vary, but it seems to me that if a certain "path of conversion" is followed -- roughly, that is -- it makes for a more natural, stable church life.

Prayers

UPDATE: There is an offer -- the price is reasonable, but they want help w/closing costs, which would make our end of it be too much. Counteroffer is the same price, w/them paying closing costs. Continued prayers appreciated.

Lydia Grace -- Memory Eternal.

She fell asleep in the Lord last night, aged two weeks.

Prayers for her family.

Prayer Requests

If you'd be so kind as to add prayers for my friend Jonathan and his wife, Whitney; they've just delivered their first child, Lydia Grace, via C-Section yesterday, and she (Lydia) is in ICU due to respiratory failure. Pray to the Lord, to St. John the Evangelist and Theologian (whose memory we on the New Calendar commemorate today), and St. Lydia for the deliverance of this family.

In other news, our good friends Daniel and Mary, who've recently lost their child James, are now grieving the loss of Daniel's mother, Susan, who reposed unexpectedly on Tuesday. Please pray for their family and for the repose of the soul of the handmaiden of God, Susan.

Lord, have mercy on us. Let our funeral lamentation be "Alleluia." Glory to God for all things.

Do You Have Swine Flu?

http://doihaveswineflu.org/

Thanks Be To God for Things Such as These...

From my daughter's mouth (and heart) this evening, following evening prayers:

The Lord is my Shepherd,
He always loves me,
He takes care of me
In the storm, again...

And then when you die
He will wake you up again
If He comes again
And He walks on the water
When His disciples couldn't.

The Lord is my Shepherd,
And He loves me so best,
Yes, He loves me soooo...
Aaaamen.

Crazy Days...

Fort Worth ISD has closed until (most likely) May 11th due to a confirmed case of Swine Flu in one of the students. Prayers are appreciated.

The Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom

If anyone is devout and a lover of God, let him enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival.

If anyone is a wise servant, let him, rejoicing, enter into the joy of his Lord.

If anyone has wearied himself in fasting, let him now receive his recompense.

If anyone has labored from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If anyone has come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let him keep the feast. If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; for he shall suffer no loss. If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near without hesitation. If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let him not fear on account of his delay. For the Master is gracious and receives the last, even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious. He both honors the work and praises the intention.

Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord, and, whether first or last, receive your reward. O rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy! O you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day! You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast, rejoice today! The table is rich-laden; feast royally, all of you! The calf is fatted; let no one go forth hungry!

Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.

Let no one lament his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn his transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Saviour's death has set us free.

He that was taken by death has annihilated it! He descended into hades and took hades captive! He embittered it when it tasted his flesh! And anticipating this Isaiah exclaimed, "Hades was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions." It was embittered, for it was abolished! It was embittered, for it was mocked! It was embittered, for it was purged! It was embittered, for it was despoiled! It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!

It took a body and, face to face, met God! It took earth and encountered heaven! It took what it saw but crumbled before what it had not seen!

"O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory?"

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns!

Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

For Christ, being raised from the dead, has become the First-fruits of them that slept.

To him be glory and might unto ages of ages. Amen.

Those Melodies

Michael from Texas, who keeps up the staggeringly frequently-updated blog To and Through St. Vlad's (staggering due to his being in seminary and still being able to blog about it regularly) recently posted HERE about Bridegroom Matins hymns in the byzantine tradition, as well as how they always made him think of Holy Week. I thought I'd return in kind. When I think of Holy Week, the following are the melodies this russophile hears:

Two Quotes

An old elder (Porphyrios, I believe) was near his death. His disciples asked him what he should say to the Lord when asked if he should go the heaven or hell, and the old man replied, "I shall say, wherever Thy love places me O Lord, wherever Thy love places me, only do not separate me from your love."

From St. Justin Popovich of Serbia:

"All the universes, all the existing worlds and beings, hold on just a moment! Down all the hearts, all the minds, all the lives, all the immortalities, all the eternities because of all these, without Christ are hell for me, one hell after another; all are innumerable and endless hells and to the height and to the length and to the width. Life without Christ, death without Christ, truth without Christ, the sun without Christ, and universes without Him are all horrible foolishness, unbearable martyrdom, Sisyphian torment, hell! I want neither life nor death without Thee, O Most Sweet Lord! I want neither truth, justice, paradise, nor eternity. NO, no! I want only Thee, Thou only art everything, in and above all! The truth, if there is no Christ, is not needed by me, it is only a hell. Justice, love, good, and happiness, they are all the same hell without Christ; even God Himself is a hell if there is not Christ. I want neither the truth without Christ, nor justice without Christ, nor love without Christ, nor God without Christ. I do not want any of them, in any possible way! I will accept any kind of death, let you kill me in any way you want, because without Christ I want nothing. Neither myself, nor even God Himself, wants anything else between these two; I do not want it, I do not want it, I do not want it!"

Mortified, Dead, Anointed, Filled

From the Blessed Theophylact on today's gospel (John 12:1-18):

But while Martha was serving everyone, Mary focused her attention on honoring Christ. By pouring myrrh on His feet and wiping them with her hair, she served Him not as a mere man, as did the others, but as her Lord, Master, and God. The Jewish name Mariam means "ruler" [κυρια]. Therefore the person of Mary may be understood in a spiritual sense [τροποις αναγωγης] to represent the divinity of the Father, the Lord [κυριος] of all, Who has anointed Jesus' feet -- signifying the flesh of the Lord in the latter times -- with the myrrh of the Spirit. As David foretold: Wherefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness [Ps. 44:6]. And the great Peter declares, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, Whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ [i.e. the Anointed One; Acts 2:36]. The flesh, assumed by the Word and anointed by the divine Spirit Which entered the Virgin's womb, became what the Word is -- God. It filled the world with fragrance just as Mary's myrrh filled the whole house with fragrance. As for the hairs used to wipe Christ's feet, they represent the saints who adorn the head of God -- His supreme authority. Existing as they do for the glory of God, the saints have become participants in the anointing of Christ's flesh. hence David says, More than Thy fellows [Ps. 44:6]. And Paul tells the Corinthians, Now He Who establisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God [II Cor. 1:21]. Those who live according to Christ are called "Christs," that is, anointed ones; therefore the hairs that wiped Jesus; feet represent Christians, who participate in the divine anointing. Hair is "dead" by comparison to flesh and those who belong to Christ are also dead. They have crucified the flesh, mortified their members that are on the earth, and died to the world [see Gal. 5:24; Col. 3:5]. Hair is also the adornment and glory of the head. The saints are the glory of God: their light shines before men and through them the Father is glorified [see Mt. 5:16]. Even their eating and drinking is to the glory of God. Whom the saints glorify in their members [see I Cor. 10:21]. As for you, O reader, Jesus has also raised your fallen mind like another Lazarus. Having been raised from the dead, you have received Him into the house of your soul and feast together with Him. Therefore, anoint the feet of the Lord six days before the Pascha -- before the dawning of the Pascha of the age to come. Anoint Him while you still live in this world fashioned in six days. The feet of Christ represent the Apostle Book and the Gospel -- in sum, the commandments by which Christ walks in us. To these commandments you should apply myrrh -- a spiritual disposition blended of many virtues, the finest of which is faith, warm and pungent as precious spikenard. If you do not cling fervently and zealously to Christ's commandments and anoint them with your mortified members as with hair, the house of your soul will not be filled with divine fragrance. The Lord's feet are also our impoverished brethren, who go begging door to door. It is Christ who comes to us in their person. Anoint these "feet" with the myrrh of almsgiving. Many give alms, but make a show of doing so. Thus they gain nothing, for they have their reward in this world [Mt. 6:2]. With the hair of your head wipe the feet of the poor brethren and benefit your soul; gather the reward of almsgiving into that principal and governing part of man. If anything in you is dead and lifeless like hair, anoint it with this good chrism. For it is written, "Blot out your sins with almsgiving [see Dan. 4:24*]."

*The reference is found in Daniel 4:27 in Protestant Bibles.

The Metropolitan's Speech

The "Purple Demons" are out in force.

Firstly, the much-embedded video:

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4812572/12841013

I was there. My little one is the one you hear at the very beginning saying things like, "Wan blow out candulsh" and, looking at a priest, "¡Es Padre!" Needless to say, this talk has made quite a splash in online Orthodox circles. Andrea Elizabeth calls the speech "Revolutionary," and Father Gregory states he is "unimaginably proud" of Metropolitan JONAH.

Truth be told, I am rather disappointed in His Beatitude.

What could have been a helpful, passionless appeal came across as something akin to an American political stump speech, something I've already heard described as similar to what you might have heard in Boston circa 1770 or Charleston or Richmond circa 1860. This, I think, is the last thing we need, as the "debate" (if we want to call it that) is already wrought with misstatements; His Beatitude did not need to make any more.

Not helping matters is Rod Dreher's "Cruchy Con" piece in the Dallas Morning News, wherein he pretty much takes the stance of the kid in the playground who, upon seeing two angry boys starting to face off, throws his hands up and yells, "Fight! FIGHT!"

Well, thanks for that, Rod.

What is evident here is that the situation with regard to how to unify the Church jurisdictionally -- something I'm convinced must be done, as arguments for keeping jurisdictions separate still seem to run only on fear and suspicion of sheep-stealing via a more attractive archdiocese or what have you for this or that niche Orthodox group...a "healthy competition" that is anything but (I'm not making any friends with this post, am I?) -- is one without canonical precedent, with multiple patriarchates "setting up shop" separately without consulting one another. Consequently, we have multiple bishops in a single city, something that is truly ridiculous and a horrid witness.

Our first option would be to "go Balkan," wherein we declare our own autocephaly and union independently of the Mother Patriarchate(s), and said autocephaly is then reluctantly approved hundreds of years down the road as a tacit, de jure nod to a living, de facto Orthodox body.

Another option would be to "take two steps back, one step forward," at least for the time being, and form a synod of bishops with a representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch as the "president" of said Metropolitan synod. The former idea was put forth by Metropolitan JONAH in his speech on Sunday, the other by the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis. What is ironic is that, in this document which Metropolitan JONAH wrote while still an abbot, he himself puts the latter idea forward as "the only way an ecumenical primacy could [actually] work." Food for thought.

Metropolitan JONAH, in my opinion, is absolutely correct in saying that there is, in fact, a living, Orthodox presence on this continent, and that it was planted here over 200 years ago through the prayers, the blood, and the perseverance of saints like Ss. Herman, Juvenaly, Tikhon, Peter the Aleut, John of San Francisco, Alexis Toth, and many others. If the EP tries to make a move to incorporate the bishops of North America, these saints and their work had best be recognized if he wants the "Amen" of the laity.

Metropolitan JONAH is also absolutely correct in saying that the local bishop, in his local diocese, with his local presbyters and local faithful, constitutes the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and that allegiance or submission to this or that Patriarch is not the sine qua non of Orthdoxy. He is absolutely correct in saying that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is not the "sole criterion" of Orthodoxy, and that we do not need to be directly under his omophorion in order to be legitimately Orthodox.

But, as usual, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Check that: in this case, what my Metropolitan (and current diocesan locum tenens) said is, in some cases, incorrect, in my opinion.

One of the most inflammatory lines in His Beatitude's speech was in response to the EP's model of unity here: "I would submit that if we wanted a pope we would be under the real one." This, to me, is so unfair that I am at a loss as to where to begin. The EP is not proclaiming himself to be infallible. He is not proclaiming that all other, universally-recognized-as-autocephalous Patriarchs are merely deriving their legitimacy from him. Were the Ecumenical Patriarch to slip into preaching clear, christological heresy, he would no longer be worthy of commemoration, and all other Orthodox would have as their duty the task of rejecting him as Patriarch.

Yet, just as St. Peter was the rock due to his person and to his confession, so the EP is the "first among equals" in a college of Patriarchs so long as he is not confessing heresy. He, along with the other Patriarchs, are the ones who together will decide what happens to the Church, and it is not unreasonable to think that having the EP at the helm of all the metropolitans within this country as a quick way to unify us jurisdictionally with the end result being "turning us loose" down the road (no doubt much too slowly for most Americans), as is his custom.

Metropolitan JONAH speaks much about self-determination and how we must be allowed to do this. I would question how Orthodox the idea of a Metropolitan (or Metropolitans) telling their Patriarchs what we must do is realistic. Metropolitan JONAH puts our being Orthodox and our being American on equal footing, and thus speaks in very similar terms to American talk of separation from the British throne and Confederate separation from Washington D.C. To talk of self-determiation via an enlightenment-era document written by deists is one thing, and a natural one, at that. To talk of self-determination as if it were a "right" within the Orthodox Church is quite another, and a dangerous one, at that. Talk of the "right" to govern ourselves turns Fr. Alexander Schmemman's talk against "having rights" around against us; I am not sure how someone who, for all his God-given, wonderful insight as a monastic and pastor, would only attend a pan-Orthodox great Synod as the leader of a metropolia of the Russian Orthodox Church (as many still see Metr. JONAH) could actually hope to effect said self-determination short of schism...something I'm not sure I'd follow him into and which I'm VERY sure he would not, in fact, go through with if push came to shove. Nevertheless, are we justified in extending the language of the myth of American exceptionalism even to the Church?

If our bishops would still be here locally, if they would still be the local bishops of thus and such a city, if they would still be (by and large) "homegrown," and if the situation of the EP's involvement is primarily that of administrative unity (as opposed to some dream of automatically bestowing legitimacy via his very presence in said synod), then local churches would still be preserved. When Archbishop DMITRI was my local diocesan bishop, having a Metropolitan over the synod of OCA bishops in no way diminished Vladyka's role as my local bishop. I fail to see how a synodal president from the Phanar must needs be a "foreign despot" as Metr. JONAH claims unnecessarily.

Indeed, people in this country from ACROD, from the GOA, from the Ukrainians under the EP, with whom I have spoken have all told me that their being under the omophorion of the EP has not resulted in their losing their ethnic customs in the slightest. They have not been thoroughly hellenized, they have not been made to speak Greek (the secretary of the EP stated in his talk that he himself did not consider this necessary, though the option should be open, he thought). Local languages -- Arabic, Ukrainian, Russain, etc -- have been preserved under the EP, not obliterated. Do we really believe Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW so obtuse as to automatically assume that he will do this with English, especially given his track record elsewhere? Does the fact that Holy Cross Seminary -- the very place the EP's archdiocese trains its clergy -- conducts services in at least 50% English (according to my contacts there) serve to show us that he is not obsessed with "All Greek, all the time"?

Given what I've written so far, it does seem as though I'm thoroughly on the side of the EP here. I'm not, though I wanted to lead off with the above due to all of the unadulterated praise heaped on our Metropolitan by my fellow members of the OCA (and others). As it stands, given the secretary's speech, it is obvious to many that the EP's take on Orthodoxy in America is unacceptable to many Americans. While an EP head to a US Metropolitan synod is indeed a feasible, non-lethal model for Orthodox jurisdictional unity and not to be dismissed out of hand, it needs to be said that this must not be the only model allowed for, as such comes dangerously close to the papal model wherein the EP is, in effect, the only one allowed to engage in planting foreign mission churches, or else, at a minimum, must give his blessings for other, apostolic sees to do so.

The Ochlophobist makes some good points (about half way down, in a bulleted list) regarding captiulation to western dress and liturgical style, moral ideals and church praxis as seen in many jurisdictions in the USA. It is interesting that the Secretary of the EP makes so much of the Greek Archdiocese when so many of the western innovations (pews, choir robes, horrible iconongraphy, shaved and collared priests, truncated liturgy and distrust of Ephramite monasteries in particular and monasticism in general) has not been avoided by being under the EP and would probably not be solved by a synod's being under the EP. Some would question at this point, "Well, what's wrong with SCOBA"? As an idea, nothing that I can see. But who to chair it, and why...I defer to the Ochlophobist's thoughts on this, linked to above.

As Andrea Elizabeth has said, "I also think it boils down to how autocephalous are the Churches that Moscow, and Antioch for that matter, granted that title to?...I do not know why Moscow would hand us over, if that is the case. To me it undermines their own authority." This is the main reason why I do not believe that such a reactionary speech was called for or even justifiable. To further Andrea's thoughts re:Patriarch KYRILL, do we really think for one moment that, come this June, Patriarch IGNATIUS IV of Antioch is just going to hand over an archdiocese that is every bit as profitable for him (God, it hurts to talk about the Church like this!) as the GOA is for the EP? That the Serbian patriarch will just acquiesce to giving up direct oversight of his flock? The Romanian his Romanians? The Bulgarian his Bulgarians? There is more than enough suspicion on the part of several of these Patriarchs who will be meeting -- some of whom, like the Georgian Patriarch, do commemorate Metr. JONAH -- that the EP comes close to a papal role at times. I personally think there's enough of a safeguard there to keep unwarranted and unjustified fears at bay, at least for now.

Regardless, whether we are jurisdictionally united under the EP or persist in our present jurisdictional madness, neither outcome makes us any less Christ's Church, and I, for one, intend to look forward to the soon-coming bells of Pascha, wherein the "purple demons" are sent back where they came from.

Just in time for them to come back for the Apostle's Fast in June. Lord, have mercy.

From My Grandmother, For Fergus and Jamie

My grandmother, Geraldine Ruth Woodbridge (eternal be her memory), whose youngest child died as a young girl on Easter Sunday in the mid-1950s, wrote the following for someone (we don't know for whom) who must have suffered the loss of a child, as well. She then published it in a lenten collection of writings from members of Aldersgate Methodist Church in Tulsa, OK. I do hope it speaks how I can't to baby Fergus' family and to baby Jamie's. Forgive me, as the note is in her handwriting, and one part I was unable to read completely clearly.

"Words will never express or help at this time, but there are some of us who have been along this pathway and do understand.

"The long days of hope and despair. The day-to-day clinging and releasing of our loved one.

"We go through the gamut of prayers, first for miracles, then strength to get through each day, each month, each year; next comes prayers for ___ pain of pain, and finally, 'Thy will be done.'

"Still the grief is there so much more than you thought possible after praying 'Thy will be done' for so long. Do not let anyone tell you "Time heals all wounds." It doesn't. All it does is give you time to live with it and with God's strength and love you go on living for the living and believing God had a plan for taking them. You see, I do understand, as I have also lost a child."

Memory Eternal

During the Theophany season, my wife and I hosted an open house which many families from our parish attended. Our dear friends, the godparents of our oldest daughter, also attended. Their younger child, James, pictured above with our younger daughter at the open house, recently lost his life in a tragic accident. We traveled to attend the funeral this weekend, at which I was honored to be able to chant part of the psalter over what is far and away the smallest casket I have ever seen. The Orthodox maintain that, though the spirit has departed the body, the body yet remains a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), Whom Jamie received upon being baptized and chrismated, and communed with the precious and immaculate mysteries of the Body and Blood of our Lord and Victor over death, Jesus Christ. We thus pray the psalter in its entirety over the body as a means of commending it to God through the words that speak what it seems no other corpus of words can speak.

Last night, we prayed an extended panikhida (memorial service for the departed), parts of which were repeated in this morning's funeral service. The local mission's choir led us all in the well-known hymns and melodies, and the sound filled the spaces with sweet mourning. There is a sense in which liturgy carries one when one cannot carry oneself, and both the parents as well as their non-Orthodox family members and friends seemed to be carried along as well by the current of our common work, the refrain of "Give rest to the soul of the infant, O Lord" serving as the lapping of the waves that carressed the ragged, shocked souls there. Jamie's father had said in the week preceding the funeral that, if any good would come from this, that people would be touched by the Holy Spirit through the Church's offering of the babe to Her Lord; may his words be made true.

The service for the burial of an infant is uniquely comforting, for it is, in essence, the acknowledgement of a true saint in our midst, for God "hast accepted this undefiled infant...before he had been tempted by earthly sweetness, counting him worthy of eternal good things, as the lover of mankind." Indeed, the weeping is infinitely greater for Jamie's parents, as these verses exclaim:

No one is more pitiful than a mother,/
and no one is more wretched than a father,
for their inward beings are troubled/
when they send forth their infants before them./
Great is the pain of their hearts because of their children,/
and still more when these are pleasing of speech,/
as they call to remembrance/
their words with the song://
Alleluia.

For often before the grave they beat their breasts and say:/
"O my son, and sweetest child!/
Hearest thou not what thy mother says?/
Behold, also, the womb that bore thee./
Why speakest thou not with us,/
as once thou didst speak?/
But thout art silent/
and speaketh not with us://
Alleluia!"

"O God, God, Who hast summoned me;/
Be Thou the consolation of my household now,/
for a great lamentation has befallen them./
For all have fixed their gaze on me,/
having me as their only-begotten one./
But do Thou, Who wast born of a Virgin Mother,
refresh the inward parts of my mother,/
and bedew the heart of my father with this://
Alleluia!"

Yet in the weeping, the funeral lamentation is: alleluia. The priest of the mission then stood following the reading of the gospel and read what Audra and I consider to be the best sermon either of us have ever heard. He began by saying that, a week ago, little Jamie had been scooting around the floor of the mission in his cute little way, giving big sloppy smacks to the icons and the cross, as he had not yet learned how to purse his lips in a "proper" kiss. He reminded us of how we were to approach the kingdom of God as Jamie did, as a child, trusting in what God has given us through our baptism into and clothing with Christ, through His giving us the Holy Spirit in chrismation, through His abiding in us through the mysteries of His body and blood.

Jamie, he said, related to Christ more deeply than any of us there, as with age and intellect need not always come wisdom or spiritual maturity. He had just taken his first steps a few days before and had just begun to put partial words together, "yet what is walking," Father asked, "when you can run in the Kingdom of God? What is running, when you can fly in the celestial realms? What is speech, when the language of the Kingdom of Heaven is silence?" Jamie, he stressed, now gazed into the face of the Ancient of Days, who is perfect Love and Peace. His infancy, far from making him less in the Kingdom of Heaven, made him infinitely more, and he would carry the touches, the voices, the scents, and the sights of all those whom he had encountered in this life into the next, where he would meet his God and ours, and from whence he would await the day when, rising in the body, he would shine like Christ on Mount Tabor, revealing the glory of his Creator as one of His holy ones.

The little one's death cannot be explained away, cannot be dealt with with reasons. God does not dismiss our pain, nor does He give us theological syllogisms from which to derive some sort of artificial comfort. We must mourn. Yet, in that mourning, our God enters into our pain, enters into our life, and Himself suffers. The most eloquent word of the Cross is the silence of the dead Christ, for, in providing no words or explanations, He nonetheless travels the painful road with us, as us, helping us to see that this painful road will end in Tabor's glory. His mother, likewise, who watched her only Son die, shows us the way in which we can hold both suffering and peace in our hearts by clinging to the Cross.

Father then instructed us on what the Orthodox call "The Last Kiss." All Orthodox funerals are open-casket, yet Jamie had a shrowd over his face so that only his forehead showed. Following the hymns all who wish to do so may come and kiss the body, thus venerating it one last time as holy temple. After I kissed his forehead, my words to him were, "Dear child, may God give you rest 'till the day you breathe again."

May the infant James' memory be eternal, and may he pray for us all.

"Draw Near Unto My Soul and Deliver It"

A blessed fast to all observing.

Why do we fast? So that we may be saved. Such an answer no doubt scandalizes Christians belonging to certain confessions, but it is indeed a truth that is overlooked in our contemporary culture so often that it is no wonder that indulgence and a subsequent addiction to constant satiety are hallmarks of said culture. In saying that we fast so that we may be saved, however, it is important to understand what is being said, as well as what is not being said.

I do not mean to say here that we fast so that fasting itself may save us, or that we, by fasting, may come to merit salvation. God saves. The Father, through a gracious act of His Son and by the power of His (the Father's) Holy Spirit, draws us to Himself and causes us men made of scorched earth to bloom once again with the blossoms of His eternal light.

Several different events as of late have caused me to think about these things. A very dear friend of mine who is an Evangelical Protestant asked me recently if the Orthodox ever "do evangelism." After outlining his "M.O.," so to speak (he was clear that this was a simple theme that could and should be varied through careful evaluation of the individual one was --hopefully--listening to), he then asked what we would say if someone, like the Philippian jailer, asked us what he must do to be saved. A couple of recent podcasts on AFR -- namely this one and this one -- confirmed what I'd mostly been thinking: if one were to ask me what they had to do to be saved, I would start off by telling them (first of all) that Life Itself (Himself, really) awaits, and that It (He) seeks to turn us back from eventual oblivion. What we must do is love His Light rather than our darkness, His Life rather than our death.

This is no easy task, for as one author puts it, we encounter this love and engage it "in fits and starts." Yet engage His unmoving Life and Love we must, for from that one living, loving presence we will eventually experience either everlasting punishment or times of refreshment that go from glory to glory, ever more radiant.

Great Lent is a time to remember that God is not the factor to be determined in our salvation; in one sense we're all already saved. The factor is our response to God. We encounter God's sovereign rule over Creation enacted not by any actual action He must take over it, but by His very, unmoving being over it. The psalmist reminds us that Creation is dismayed when He hides His face, dead and dust when He takes away our breath. When He "send[s] His Spirit, we are created, and He renews the face of the earth."

The introductory hymn of Great Lent is a petition: "Turn not Thy Face away from Thy child, for I am afflicted; hear me speedily; draw near unto my soul and deliver it." Here we hear the human soul's ultimate cry: we thirst for Him in a land barren, and untrodden, and unwatered; though we speak of Him as "turning His face away" and "drawing near," these obvious anthropomorphisms fall short of He who is everywhere present and filling all things. It is we who must needs open ourselves to His gracious presence and, in so doing, find salvation.

This salvation, more than simply a dealing with a checklist of transgressions our Creator has against us, is moreover a renewal of life and a reversal of the ancestral curse -- a curse which leads to an endgame of a perverse hesychasm whose silence and stillness is that of isolated torment and not of communal illumination.

Father Stephen Freeman stated the following (source):

The “Great Crisis,” if I can coin a term, is the threat of non-existence, or relative non-existence. Classical Orthodoxy, following St. Athanasius does not threaten humanity with pure non-existence, but with a dynamic movement towards a “relative” non-existence.

The Great Crisis is therefore not at all the same thing as an impending punishment from an angry God. This is not our fate. Rather it is the continued living in increasing modes of non-existence as we refuse to live in communion with the Only True God Who is the Lord and Giver of Life.

Because this is true, every work of our salvation begins in communion with God, continues in communion with God, and is fulfilled in communion with God. Thus our lives can never be defined extrinsically (from the outside), but only mystically and existentially.

The Great Crisis is answered in Pascha (the fullness of Christ’s resurrection) and has never been answered in any other manner.

So, then, the question remains...how? Well, a checklist could be made: catechism, baptism, chrismation, communion, prayer, confession, fasting, almsgiving...the last four of which we Orthodox Christians need to commit ourselves again to come this season, but there is still a sense in which that story -- that something is fundamentally wrong, not only with me, but with the cosmos, and that it was not always this way, and that it really should be some other, better way, and that somehow we all dream that Someone should and will come along and make all crooked paths straight -- needs to be accepted before anything could progress in this hypothetical dialogue. If one is convinced that this is the best of all worlds -- or that, if it is not, then I am surely not a direct part of its not being so -- then all else is wasted breath.

Such a convincing cannot be mustered up by an appeal to God's Law or a subsequent appeal to "square with the house." Salvation is not a mathematical, debit-and-credit equation. We are speaking here of One Who has already saved us, already told us He has shed Life on the graves and that we will rise...in some manner. To be saved, then, we must die before we die, and that dying is a daily thing. One of the ways we die with Him is through letting go of a little food, a little drink, a little time...a little of "me," in other words, and let Him warm whatever seeds have been planted in whatever way He knows how. Our job is to till, to water, to break open the soil of our hearts through prayer, fasting, repentance, almsgiving -- all the while waiting on the Lord to grant us healthful seasons and abundance of the fruits of the heart which will spring up to adorn His Vinyard.

This quote from Father Stephen, to close (source):

It is as though at death our bodies have a wisdom we have lacked for most of our lives. It knows that what it needs is not food - but something deeper. The soul seeks and hungers for the living God. The body and its pain become a distraction. And thus in God’s mercy the distraction is reduced.

Christianity as a religion - as a theoretical system of explanations regarding heaven and hell, reward and punishment, is simply Christianity that has been distorted from its true form. Either we know the living God or we have nothing. Either we eat His flesh and drink His blood or we have no life in us. The rejection of Hesychasm is the source of all heresy.

Why do we fast? We fast so that we may live like a dying man - and in dying we can be born to eternal life.

"Through greed we underwent the first stripping, overcome by the bitter tasting of the fruit, and we became exiles from God. But let us turn back to repentance and, fasting from the food that gives us pleasure, let us cleanse our senses on which the enemy makes war. Let us strengthen our hearts with the hope of grace, and not with foods which brought no benefit to those who trusted in them. Our food shall be the Lamb of God, on the holy and radiant night of His Awakening: the Victim offered for us, given in communion to the disciples on the evening of the Mystery, who disperses the darkness of ignorance by the Light of His Resurrection."

~ From the Lenten Triodion, the Aposticha for Vespers on the Evening of the Sunday of the Last Judgement.

Fourth's Pre-Lenten Reminder

Benjamin from The Fourth Finding Society, a fellow here-and-there blogger, has a wonderful post which I've quoted below in its entirety. Benjamin can pack a lot of conviction into very few words; this admonition to avoid the temptation of using worldly successes to gauge spiritual success is no exception.

************

The Prodigal Son has returned to the house of the Father. Zachaeus has come down from his tree. The Publican has left the temple in better shape than the Pharisee (though we're not told if he himself realized it - perhaps God keeps him in the dark for his own good).

Lent teaches us that God's love needs room to work. God's love needs our loss. Our loss leaves space for his work. Lent is an image: we lose a little food and a little drink, and (hopefully) a little money. In return the grace of prayer may be given to us. In return, the grace of the Gospel may be shine a little brighter for us. At times, however, it seems nothing is given to us. This too should be considered a blessing. The Lord Jesus kept the commandments, denied himself, served all others, and was crucified for doing so. But, he was crucified willingly. Jesus knew something about the blessed loss that brings salvation. Lent is given to us to be an icon of his way of living.

God forbid I lose what is dear to me, we think. God forbid I lose control of my life. But God does not forbid it at all: He wills it. It is terrifying, but it is saving. The fear of God and the fear of having nothing and no power have something to do with each other. For God is present in the absence of our strength. And if we only can get this teaching into our hard hearts but one or two times a year, it is better than nothing. God is not bound. He will work wonders with two mites as he'll work wonders with a king's fortune. We should remember that the greatest wonder has been worked in a broken body and shed bled. The greatest wonder has been worked in a tomb.

It is a difficult thought, but it seems we need courage to fear the Lord.

Lenten Gospel Reading

It has been a busy two weeks. Thought as a bit of a breaking of the dry spell I'd post a reading plan that someone posted on an online discussion forum; by sticking to this, one will read the entirety of the four gospels during Great Lent (not counting Sundays).

Also, those of us with the OSB (and more time available for reading than I currently have) may benefit from a "Through the Bible in a Year" plan HERE. (H/T to Michael from Texas).

A Table Indicating A Way To Read The Gospels Over The Course Of The Great
Fast

FIRST WEEK IN LENT:

MONDAY: Begin the Gospel according to St. Matthew Chapters 1-4
TUESDAY: Matthew 5-8
WEDNESDAY: Matthew 9-10)
THURSDAY: Matthew 11-12
FRIDAY: Matthew 13-14
SATURDAY: Matthew 15-17

2nd WEEK IN LENT:

MONDAY: Matthew 18-20
TUESDAY: Matthew 21-22
WEDNESDAY: Matthew 23-24
THURSDAY: Matthew 25-26
FRIDAY: Matthew 27-28
SATURDAY: Mark 1-2

3rd WEEK IN LENT:

MONDAY: Mark 3-4
TUESDAY: Mark 5-6
WEDNESDAY: Mark 7-8
THURSDAY: Mark 9-10
FRIDAY: Mark 11-13
SATURDAY: Mark 14-16

4th WEEK IN LENT:

MONDAY: Luke 1-2
TUESDAY: Luke 3-4
WEDNESDAY: Luke 5-6
THURSDAY: Luke 7-8
FRIDAY: Luke 9-10
SATURDAY: Luke 11-12

5th WEEK IN LENT:

MONDAY: Luke 13-14
TUESDAY: Luke 15-16
WEDNESDAY: Luke 17-18
THURSDAY: Luke 19-20
FRIDAY: Luke 21-22
SATURDAY: Luke 23-24

6th WEEK IN LENT:

MONDAY: John 1
TUESDAY: John 2-3
WEDNESDAY: John 4
THURSDAY: John 5
FRIDAY: John 6
SATURDAY: John 7-8

HOLY WEEK:

MONDAY: John 9-10
TUESDAY: John 11-12
WEDNESDAY: John 13

From here, the readings continue on Thursday night at the 12 Gospels of
Great and Holy Friday Matins.

Meeting

Today marks the feastday of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple (Revised Julian Calendar). It's always the case with me (at least, as far as I can tell) that the verses that are sung the night before feastdays at Vespers bring out to me so much more the meaning of a particular feast. So it is today. I took off today from school to attend the festal liturgy and got to sing them an additional time as we contemplated the icon of the feast and consumed the very flesh His parents placed in the arms of aged Simeon. I wish you all a blessed feast -- Spradznikom! -- and offer the verses for your perusal.

********************************

"Simeon, tell us, Whom you bear in your arms, that you rejoice so greatly in the Temple? To Whom do you shout and cry aloud: “Now I am set free, for I have seen my Savior?” This is He Who was born of a Virgin; this is God the Word, Who came forth from God, Who, for our sakes, has taken flesh and has saved man.// Let us worship Him!"

"Simeon, receive Him Whom Moses once beheld in darkness, granting the Law on Sinai, now that He has become a Babe subject to the Law! This is He Who spoke through the Law. This is He, of Whom the Prophets spoke, Who, for our sakes, has taken flesh and has saved man.// Let us worship Him!"

"Come, let us also go to meet Christ with divine songs! Let us receive Him Whose salvation Simeon saw! This is He Whom David announced; this is He Who spoke in the Prophets, Who, for our sakes, has taken flesh and Who speaks through the Law.// Let us worship Him!"

"Let the gate of heaven be opened today, for the unoriginate Word of the Father has made a beginning in time without forsaking His divinity. As a Babe forty days old, of His own will He is brought by the Virgin, His Mother, as an offering in the Temple of the Law. The Elder receives Him in his arms, crying as a servant to his Master: “Let me depart for my eyes have seen Your salvation!”// Glory to You, O Lord, for You have come into the world to save the human race!"

"The Ancient of Days, Who gave Moses the Law on Sinai in former times, today appears as a Child. As Maker of the Law, He fulfills the Law. He is brought into the Temple according to the Law, and given over to the Elder. Simeon the righteous receives Him. Beholding the fulfillment of the divine order now brought to pass, rejoicing aloud, he cries: 'My eyes have seen the mystery hidden from the ages made manifest in these latter days, the Light that disperses the foolishness of the faithless Gentiles, and the glory of the newly-chosen Israel! Therefore let Your servant depart from the bonds of this flesh to the life filled with wonder that knows no age or end,// for You grant the world great mercy!'”

"Today He Who once gave the Law to Moses on Sinai submits Himself to the commandments of the Law, becoming, for our sakes, like us in His compassion. Now the God of purity, as a holy Child, has opened a pure womb, and, as God, He is brought as an offering to Himself, setting us free from the curse of the Law,// and granting light to our souls."

"Simeon now receives below in his earthly arms the One Whom the ministers on high entreat with trembling. He proclaims the union of God with mankind. He sees the heavenly God as mortal Man. He prepares to withdraw from earthly things, and raises his cry in joy: 'Glory to You, Lord, for You have revealed to those in darkness// the Light that knows no evening!'"

"Today Simeon takes in his arms the Lord of Glory, Whom Moses saw of old in the darkness when he received the Tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai. This is He Who speaks through the Prophets and Who is the Creator of the Law. This is He Whom David announced;// He is fearful to all, yet great and abundant in mercy."

"The holy Virgin brought the Holy One to the priest in the sacred Temple. Simeon, extending his arms, received Him with joy, and cried out: 'Now, Master, let your servant depart in peace,// according to Your word, O Lord!'"

"Today holy Simeon the Elder lifted up in his arms the Creator of heaven and earth, as he said in the Holy Spirit: 'Now I am set free, for I have seen my Savior.'"

"Today Simeon the Elder enters the Temple, rejoicing in the Spirit, to take into his arms Him Who gave the Law to Moses and Who Himself fulfilled the Law. Moses was deemed worthy to see God through darkness and as an indistinct voice. With veiled face he reproved the faithless hearts of the Hebrews; while Simeon lifted up the pre-eternal Word of the Father in bodily form, and revealed the Light of the Gentiles: the Cross and the Resurrection. And Anna the Prophetess pointed out the Savior, proclaiming Him the Deliverer of Israel. Let us cry out to Him:// 'O Christ our God, through the Theotokos, have mercy on us!'"

"Today the holy Mother who is even more exalted than the Temple, has come into the Temple, clearly showing to the world the Creator of the world and the Giver of the Law. Simeon the Elder receives Him in his arms and honors Him, crying out: 'Now let your servant depart in peace,// for I have seen You, the Savior of our souls!'"

"Search the Scriptures, just as Christ our God said in the Gospels! For in them we find Him being brought forth and wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger, and nourished with milk, receiving circumcision and held by Simeon, neither in fancy nor in fantasy but in truth appearing to the world. Let us cry aloud to Him:// 'O pre-eternal God, glory to You!'"

"The Ancient of Days, as a Child in the flesh, is brought by His Mother, the Virgin, into the Holy Temple, fulfilling the promise announced by His own Law. Receiving Him, Simeon said: 'Now let your servant depart in peace, according to Your word,// for my eyes have seen your salvation, O Lord!'"

"Adorn your bridal chamber, O Zion, and welcome Christ the King! Salute Mary, the heavenly gate, fashioned as the throne of the Cherubim! She carries the King of Glory! The Virgin is a cloud of light: she has borne in the flesh the Son begotten before the Morning Star. Simeon, taking Him in his arms, proclaimed to the peoples:// 'He is the Master of life and death; the Savior of the world!'"

"The unwedded Mother has brought into the Temple the One Who shone forth before the ages from the Father. In these latter times He was born from a Virgin womb. He gave the Law on Mount Sinai, yet He makes Himself obedient to the commandment of the Law. She has brought Him to the Priest and righteous Elder whose appointed lot it was to see Christ the Lord. Simeon, receiving Him in his arms, rejoiced greatly and cried aloud: 'This is God Who is co-eternal with the Father!// He is the Redeemer of our souls!'"

"The Theotokos Mary carried in her arms the One Who is borne aloft upon the chariot of the cherubim, and praised in song by the seraphim. The Giver of the Law, Who fulfills the commandment of the Law, was made flesh of the Unwedded One. She gave Him into the arms of the Priest and Elder. Holding the Life, he asked to be released from life, saying: 'Now, Master, let me depart to declare to Adam that I have seen the pre-eternal God and Savior of the world,// Who was made a Babe without undergoing change!'"

"He Who is borne on high by the Cherubim and praised in hymns by the Seraphim is brought today according to the Law into the holy Temple and rests in the arms of the Elder as on a throne. From Joseph He receives gifts fitting for God: a pair of doves, a symbol of the spotless Church and of the newly chosen people of the Gentiles, and two young pigeons, for He is the originator of the two Covenants, both Old and New. Simeon, now granted the fulfillment of the prophesies concerning himself, blesses the Virgin and Theotokos Mary. He foretells in figures the Passion of her Son. From Him he begs release, crying aloud: 'Now, Master, let me depart as You have promised me,// for I have seen the pre-eternal Light// and the Lord and Savior of the people who bear the name of Christ!'"

"Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, Full of Grace! From you shone the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God, enlightening those who sat in darkness. Rejoice and be glad, O righteous Elder, you accepted in your arms the Redeemer of our souls, Who grants us the Resurrection!"

(Re)Baptism?

Fellow blogger and "real-life" friend John asked in a comment in the "Credo" post regarding why some synods (re)baptize some protestants (the example of Baptists was used) and not other Protestants. My response was so long that I decided just to put it in a post on the blog proper.

The issue of whether to baptize converts from other Christian confession or to receive them through some other means has its roots early on. It began while Christianity was yet illegal in exchanges between Pope St. Stephen of Rome and St. Cyprian of Carthage (both canonized saints) and never has received consensus within the entire Orthodox world. Most Orthodox who delve into the issue (which, of course, I cannot resolve here) cite the first Ecumenical Council, wherein the issue at hand had to do with triple-immersion baptism versus those done with a single immersion.

There were, at the time of the Council, certain heretics who baptized with one immersion that, upon being reconciled to the Church, were received via baptism, as their baptism was not according to the triple-immersion standard of the Church (and, incidentally, reflected a heretical theology). Those who baptized with triple-immersion were received via chrismation, regardless of their heretical theology (i.e., Arians were received via chrismation).

The issue in those days was one of making sure that form and belief were both present in the lives of those received; the former had to be given if such form did not exist prior to membership in the Church, while the latter could be corrected via chrismation and repudiation of heretical belief and confession of Orthodox doctrine (or, if chrismation had already been done in the previous confession, mere confession was done). The end result was supposed to be that all would eventually be baptized in the proper form and (ideally) hold the right belief.

Today this is more an issue of exactly into what or (in our case) into Whom we seek to baptize those coming into the Orthodox Church.

There are some -- the Baptists, for example -- who baptize with single immersion because, as they say, the Lord was buried once, not thrice, and we are baptized into his death, as St. Paul says (though, strangely to me, they deny that baptism is itself the moment wherein this baptism into His death is accomplished, in spite of their insistence that the rite reflect this very truth). So the objective, for them, is to reflect the burial and resurrection of our Lord as the already-finished τελος, or goal, towards which the baptism retroactively points.

The Orthodox would say that, though we are, indeed, baptized into His death, we are thus baptized so as to participate in the life of the undivided Trinity, hence our insistence on triple immersion. Three dunks, one baptism = Three persons, one Godhead. It is into this that we are ultimately baptized, and such a form reflects the much-developed trinitarian theology of the Church.

It used to be that the OCA had the following guidelines (citation HERE, emph. mine):

• Those converting from Judaism, paganism, and Islam, as well as those who distort or do not accept the dogma of the Holy Trinity, or where the baptism is performed by a single immersion, by means of baptism.

• Those whose baptism was valid but who either do not have sacrament of chrismation or who lack a hierarchy with apostolic succession (or if it is questionable), by means of chrismation. This group includes Lutherans, Calvinists and Episcopalians (Anglicans).

• Those whose hierarchy has apostolic succession and whose baptism and chrismation (or confirmation) was performed in their church, by means of repentance and repudiation of heresy, following instruction in Orthodoxy. This group includes persons of the Roman Catholic and Armenian confessions. If it happens that they were not chrismated or confirmed in their churches or if there is any question about this, they are anointed with the Holy Chrism.

So there was a separation in OCA practice between trinitarian theology and baptismal rite, a separation which our bishops have nowadays deemed acceptable to widen, while still maintaining the uniqueness of Orthodox mysteries. Now, in the OCA, water baptism "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" is enough of a vessel (albeit, an empty one) so as to be "fillable" with the grace of the Holy Spirit via chrismation, though the number of immersions used to be taken into greater considerations, as it still is in other synods.

One wishes, at this point, that we could all simply stop at "I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins" in our mutually-beloved Creed, no?

A Cause for Rejoicing

On a forum I frequent, a poster who works with mentally disturbed patients asked for our prayers regarding a severely suicidal man who'd been abused as a child. This evening, the poster had this to report (emph. mine):

"Wonderful is God in His Saints!

"This morning, Peter woke from a deep sleep and seemed visibly relaxed, and cheerful. At first I was concerned because this is often a sign that someone who is suicidal has formulated a plan and resolved to die. I spent two hours with Peter after breakfast at his request to talk, and we seem to have got to the root cause of his suicidality, the cause which, up until today he had never told anyone. He had been carrying a burden which, up until today he felt he could never tell anyone. After we spoke for some time and he wept with relief for a while, I asked him what had caused him to pluck up the courage to tell me, and he said that he had an 'amazing dream' where he was in a garden and he met a 'tall, thin man with a long beard dressed in black and wearing a nun's veil' who smiled at him, then the man held up and touched Peter's lips 'with his thumb an (sic) two fingers' and simply said 'Open!' then vanished. Peter woke up and understood that he had to tell someone what had been troubling him for so many years.

"I have a strong suspicion the 'man' in Peter's dream was St. Ephrem of Nea Makri, the patron of the despairing and suicidal. Whoever he was, thank you all for your prayers!"

Credo

A catechumen was received into the Church this past Sunday; a former Episcopalian priest for some forty years, he had held out due to his post as a professor and as a pastor to those still continuing on in his flock. Deciding he could no more abide the position, he has now joined the Orthodox Church with more fervor than anyone I think I've seen in my relatively short Orthodox life. Prayers for Jared, as his family life is quite a hostile environment now.

When he was received, he recited the Nicene Creed by himself, in the presence of the faithful. Never have I heard that creed read with so much conviction; indeed, after one or two articles of faith, he choked up. It is this Creed which is quickly becoming my favorite part of any service in which it is found. That a confession with such a relatively general theological nature has become so much more meaningful as of late is something that both surprises and comforts me.

Steve Robinson has stated quite rightly in a comment on this blog that converts to the Orthodox faith (or any other, for that matter) make the worst apologists, at least at first, as they end up focusing almost exclusively on the often-esoteric distinctives of their new faith rather than its catholic core. Such a tendency is understandable, even if it is horribly wrong. Indeed, focusing on the universally-accepted tenants of the Creed would almost be anticlimactic, as one might be tempted to wonder why one would convert from what many consider one of several nicene faiths to another in the first place, much less a more exotic, less palatable one. Indeed, much more titillating is the idea of focusing on all of the exclusively Orthodox practices and theological distinctives, as one can use those to browbeat fellow nicean-constantinopolitan Christians into a hierarchical, sacramental, theosis-based soteriological corner wherein they must become Orthodox because they have been manhandled into that particular confession through a type of forced process of elimination. As one was taught, so one will teach, as it were.

So it is therefore a comfort to me that, when someone asks a question to the tune of, "So, what is it you Orthodox believe," I immediately begin with the person of Jesus Christ, His work on the Cross, His Resurrection from the Tomb, His Ascension into Heaven, His Second Coming, and the Resurrection offered to all who will have faith in Him. I do not talk about fasting for half the year, uncreated grace, essence v. energies, apostolic succession, the Real Presence, the filioque, icons, incense, liturgy, or bishops. While all the latter components of the faith were new to me (a former Southern Baptist), the strongly-preached kerygma of the Creed I had grown up with was something I'd taken for granted, whereas the former Father James (now John) was blessed beyond words to affirm in the assembly of like-minded faithful who would have him what those from whence he came were desperate to denounce as irrelevant. We may confess (correctly) that the Holy Spirit precedes from the Father, full stop, thus distancing ourselves from the West, and we may ascribe "belief" to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church -- belief which is equally ascribed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as well -- thus distinguishing ourselves from Protestants who have markedly lower ecclesiologies, but by and large, the rest of this Creed is affirmed by all of Christendom, and that is because it is the gospel, the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.

My three year-old has taken to lighting and holding candles (which we've "rescued" from being thrown out at church) during the Creed in our household morning and evening prayers. It is a wonderful focal point for her to slow down, say the Creed deliberately (praise God, she can say the whole thing herself with very, very little prompting) and focus on the light as she speaks luminous words. If this Faith is to be more than a form of godliness without the power thereof (and it can be and has been countless times over for innumerable souls), it must be because of the radiant συμβολο which stands at the center of our Faith and, in true symbolic fashion, unites us to that which it proclaims. May its radiance illumine the words we say and those we pray, as well as the work which our hands find to do.

Two Swords

Steve Robinson has a sobering post HERE.

Lent is coming. Can we put our swords away?

Namesday

In honor of the King and Prophet David (my patron saint who is commemorated tomorrow), I've posted a link to the akathist to him HERE.

From the Akathist:

With hymns and psalms let us honor the holy King David, who of all the sons of Israel was chosen by God to reign over His elect, and, through his seed, gave rise in the flesh to the Messiah, our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ; and let us say unto him: As thou wast delivered from hades by our Redeemer at His glorious resurrection, and standest now with boldness before the throne of His divine majesty, teach us to sing to Him a new song, that we may cry unto thee:

Rejoice, O holy king and prophet David, thou ancestor of God and singer of His praises!

Early Greetings

I will, because of the nature of the holidays, not have the time to blog during the coming festive days, so I thought I would simply greet you all early with the traditional greeting of "Christ is born!  Glorify Him!"

It's literally freezing outside, and a hard rain is falling here.  Audra and I prayed the Akathist to the Nativity of Christ tonight (found HERE if you'd like to pray it during the feast); the rain made for a fitting background.  The One Who is as harsh as the cold rain also uses the rain to bring forth life.  The One Who can move the stars from their frozen places can also make them shine with terrible brilliance on a manger and on terrified shepherds.

We sang tonight, and my mind wandered frequently, as it is wont to do.  One of the great mercies of Eastern Orthodox services is their sheer repetitiveness.  This seems to many western minds to be an odd statement, for this aspect of our services can often seem a tedious, unnecessary annoyance at best, and an unbiblical abomination at worst.  Yet I've heard it said that we repeat things 33 times or 100 times because we really only start to pay attention around time number 87 or so.  In true form, tonight the lines

 of the akathist continued to bring me back:

Glory to Thee Who hast united Thyself with us!

Glory to Thee Who Thyself hast saved us!

Glory to Thee Who upon us hast shown forth the abyss of Thy love for mankind!

Glory to Thee Who hast ineffably loved us!

Glory to Thee Who hast sought out the lost sheep!

Glory to Thee Who hast taught us to worship Thee, the Sun of Righteousness!

Glory to Thee Who by Thy nativity hast abolished the delusion of polytheism!

Glory to Thee Who hast delivered us from everlasting death!

Glory to Thee Who has given us a model of humility!

Glory to Thee Who didst impoverish Thyself for our sake!

About two thirds of the way through, we prayed, "Glory to Thee, O delight of our hearts," and I had to stop and wonder..."delight."  The temptation at times is simply to "get through" the service, to fulfill the requirements so that we can say that we've given God what He wanted. 

Keep in mind, however, the fact that these services are sung not solely because a Babe was laid in a cave, but because that Babe would grow up to be laid in yet another cave, one in whom no 

one else would ever have been laid.  We know that the One from the infinite heavens Who was brought from the Virgin's travail to rest in the finite cave in Bethlehem as the Sun of Righteousness is significant because He would take that same flesh--our flesh--and, having travailed on the Cross, would rest (wrapped yet again in swaddling bands) in a cave to bring forth light forevermore.

There are winds that blow around our lives--winds of economics, of marketability, of nations with borderless, faceless ragings--and our lives can seem small, weak, and poor.  We're reminded that a cold rain, or abstinence from significant amounts of protein, or an unforseen delay can remind us of how vulnerable and fickle we are.  At times, we project this on our faith, particularly when what is seen is a cooing, pudgy infant in a dirty horse trough who's being hunted by the most powerful man in the region.  Yet as we pray the following, something changes:

Jesus all-sweet and most compassionate, our Savior, Creator and Master!  Accept this, our meager supplication, thanksgiving and glorification, as Thou didst accept the gifts and worship of the Magi; and preserve us, Thy servants, from all perils.  Grant us the forgiveness of sins, and from everlasting torment deliver those who with faith glorify Thy nativity from the pure Virgin, and who cry out to Thee: Alleluia!

The One Who shines forth light from the Bethlehem cave will shine forth from another in Jerusalem; for this He was born, and for this we were created.  Our God, who was born of the Virgin for our salvation, effected this salvation through His three-day passage through the Arimathean's cave.  If this is true, if He is our Light and our salvation as our youngling Passover, then how can we fear anything else?  Death is vanquished by the Babe who is the Conqueror of all things.  Would that His light be our life.  Would that His life be our delight.

Christ is born.

On the Nativity of Christ

By Saint Gregory Nazianzen (taken from St. Nicholas Church in Billings, Montana)

(This is often chanted during the pre-Nativity season feastdays; I decided to put it here for some meditation, just in case the bustle of the season was getting to you like it is to me...)

Christ is Born; glorify Him! Christ from heaven, go to meet Him! Christ on earth, be lifted up! Sing to the Lord, all the earth. And that I may join the two in one word: Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, because of Him who is of heaven and is now on earth. Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy because of your hope. Christ of a virgin. Live as virgins, you mothers, that you may be mothers of Christ. Who does not worship Him who is from the beginning? Who does not glorify Him who is also the end?

Again the darkness is past. Again Light is made....The people that sat in darkness, let them see the Great Light of full knowledge. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things are becoming new. The letter gives way, and the Spirit comes to the fore. The shadows flee away, for the Truth has come upon them. Melchisedec is now fulfilled. He that was without a mother (being begotten from the Father before all ages) now becomes without a father (being born of the Virgin). The laws of nature are upset. The world above must be filled. Christ commands it. Let us not set ourselves against Him.

Clap your hands together, all people. For unto us a Son is born, unto us a Child is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders (for with the Cross it is raised up), and His name is called The Angel of the Great Counsel of the Father. Let John the Baptist cry aloud: Prepare ye the way of the Lord! And I too will cry aloud with the power of this Day. He who is without flesh has become incarnate. The Son of God becomes the Son of man. Jesus Christ: the same yesterday and today and forever! Let the children of Israel who seeks signs be scandalized. Let the pagans who seek wisdom speak of their folly. Let all the heretics talk till their tongues ache. They shall believe when they see Him ascending up into the heavens. And if not then, when they see Him coming out of the heavens to sit in judgment.

This then is our present festival. It is this that we are celebrating today: the Coming of God to man, that we might go forth, or rather (for this is a more proper expression), that we might go back to God - that putting off the old man, we might put on the New; and that as we died in Adam so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ and crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising with Him!

From Oration #38 delivered in 381 AD on Christmas Day

Fr. Herman

Today the Church (or, rather, the section thereof on the Revised Julian Calendar) celebrates the repose of our blessed Father Herman of Alaska (LIFE, HYMNS, AKATHIST).

Father Herman was one of the first specifically Orthodox saints I read about in becoming Orthodox, and, coming from a missions background as I was, I loved his example of how one should be, not only as a missionary in a foreign land, but also as a mere Christian in any land. The quote both in the icon to the right and in the banner currently at the top of the blog states why he is both so peaceful and yet so solemn, for it is no small thing to love as he suggests, and few more troublesome things than to see loved ones far from showing that love.

....

I was going to title this post "Reading and Being Read," and still plan to write such a post -- or, rather, finish this one -- with reference to something Father Stephen Freeman has suggested recently, but time constrains me from doing much at the moment. So, for today, happy feastday.

Feastday Greetings and Resources

Greetings on this glorious feastday of one of my favorite saints, Nicholas of Myra in Lycia (life of the saint). He's the patron saint of teachers -- and, yes, as it so happens, about every third profession out there.

Tomorrow looks to be busy. The modest scene to the right is what the good bishop left our two girls, complete with gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins in shoes and half-eaten carrots for the burro. He has, God be praised, successfully filled the "Santa" position in our three year-old's mind, as she has told us no less than half a dozen times in the last 72 hours that we must "hurry up and go to sleep so Saint Nicholas will come." Following the morning festivities, we will, Lord willing, be in liturgy tomorrow morning for the feastday, followed by church school for the parish kids (where I hear the good bishop himself will be making a personal appearance). I will be helping the 10-12 year-olds put together a banner of sorts of St. Nicholas' life, but wanted to draw any interested parties' attention to this interactive painting from the St. Nicholas Center website. By clicking on the various scenes surrounding the saint you can read with your children about some of the many miracles this beloves saint performed in the name of and for the glory of our Lord.

Sprazdnikom!

Troparion - Tone 4

In truth you were revealed to your flock as a rule of faith,
an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence;
your humility exalted you;
your poverty enriched you.
Hierarch Father Nicholas,
entreat Christ our God
that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion - Tone 3

You revealed yourself, O saint, in Myra as a priest,
For you fulfilled the Gospel of Christ
By giving up your soul for your people,
And saving the innocent from death.
Therefore you are blessed as one become wise in the grace of God.

A Deeper Level of Thanksgiving

This post follows the holiday due to my being out of town during the holiday but is nonetheless very timely. Fr. Thomas Hopko's most recent podcast with the same title of this post is a beautiful summation of life in Christ. We are to live life as "eucharistic, doxological beings," in the words of Fr. Alexander Schmemann--beings who give thanks and glory to God--and departure from this is what deforms men into demonic entities who quarrel over their "rights."

From St. Paul, also quoted in the podcast and one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture:

"But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." (Epistle to the Colossians, iii, 14-17)

Only in Orthodox Cyberspace...

...would this avatar be made. Interesting timing, too, given the post below this one. I saw this as some guy's avatar on a forum I frequent, with the caption, "Change we can believe in" written underneath.

Just...wow.

Too Much Orthodoxy, Too Little Christ

From Fr. Gregory Jensen:

"We run into problems when we forget that our calling, our vocation given to us in baptism, is to proclaim Christ and Him crucified--we are all of us apostles and evangelists of the Good News and not of Orthodoxy as such."

...

"Kerygma and Dogma are not opposed, as St Basil the Great reminds us--but neither are they the same thing."

From his excellent post praising our new Metropolitan and exhorting us to remember ourselves at the same time, HERE.

Two Down, One to Go....

Those of you who have kept up with this blog for several years remember Hope's pronunciation of "Holy Spirit" when Kate was just born; prayer was in the name of the "Fahduur, Shun, an' Hody Britches."

Her little sister has taken it upon herself to take creative license with the second Member of the Trinity. She picked up the Trisagion prayer nicely during morning/evening prayers; she would sing "Ho-nee My-nee" when "Holy Mighty" starts up. Being a young toddler, however, that pronunciation is subject to variation; now whenever she sees His icon she reaches for it and calls Him, "Holy Moly."

Yeah.

Fahduur, Holy Moly, and the Hody Britches. The Hody Fahduurs must be rollin' in their graves...

Entry

Today marks not only the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple, but also the ninth anniversary of the first Divine Liturgy I ever attended. This being the Friday before Thanksgiving Break, I'm unable to take off today to go to Church, but I wish all of you a happy Feastday. Ὑπεραγία Θεοτόκε Σῶσον Ἡμᾶς!

Troparion - Tone 4

Today is the Prelude of the Goodwill of God;

Of the preaching of the salvation of mankind.

The Virgin appears in the Temple of God

In anticipation proclaiming Christ to all.

Let us rejoice and sing to her:

Rejoice, O fulfillment of the Creator's dispensation!

Kontakion - Tone 4

The most pure Temple of the Savior;
the precious Chamber and Virgin;
the sacred Treasure of the glory of God,
is presented today to the house of the Lord.
She brings with her the grace of the Spirit,
therefore, the angels of God praise her:
"Truly this woman is the abode of heaven."

Many Years to...Metropolitan JONAH of All America and Canada!

All I can say is...wow. Looks like Vladyka will have to find another auxiliary, 'cause the recently-consecrated one is now the presiding bishop of his synod...

Many years to our newly-elected Metropolitan! Axios!

http://www.oca.org/news/1693

Trav'lin' Mercies

I'd appreciate any and all prayers for me, as I will be out of town beginning Thursday morning. Lord willing, I will be back Saturday, early evening. Will miss wife and babygirls much; prayer for (and to) steadfast guardian angels for them and for me, as well.

Thank you.

Many Years to Bishop JONAH of Fort Worth!

My wife, two daughters, and I were blessed to attend the consecration of Archiman-drite Jonah to the episcopacy of the Orthodox Church in America yesterday morning. We are doubly blessed in this, for his see will be our parish in Fort Worth. Here to the right we see the laying on of hands by four other bishops. Along with his consecration, we witnessed the ordinations of a priest and a deacon, the blessing of a subdeacon, and the tonsuring of a reader. When the reader was tonsured yesterday, I cringed as I was reminded of how short of my calling I fall daily. Lord, have mercy. Many years to all God's newly-appointed servants. Αχιοι, αχιοι, αχιοι!

The word αχιοι is Greek for "[they are] wor-thy" ("αχιος" being shouted for only one person), as the candidate, who has arisen from among the assembly, is deemed worthy of his office by the λαος, or the people at large, as well as the πρεσυτεροι, or the ordained leaders of the λαος. We always bear in mind, however, that they are seen as worthy only because the Holy Spirit has been seen in the life of the man to be "that which completes that which is lacking." Following the three-hour long service there was a lot of great, Texas-style BBQ (brisket, chicken legs, sweet tea, mac and cheese and tater salad...yessir...), and the atmosphere was one of a family reunion. Folks who hadn't seen each other since seminary days, priests and former parishioners (who had moved for various reasons) were seen embracing and catching up, and, perhaps most touching, a priest whose daughter is now a matushka was able to thank in person the bishop his son-in-law serves under for his much-appreciated pastoral care. The day seemed to highlight much of what is good about the Faith.

Vladyka DMITRI is still the Archbishop of Dallas and the South. Bishop JONAH is actually the Abp's auxiliary bishop, but since every bishop, auxiliary or not, has to have a see somewhere, he was given the next largest city adjacent to Dallas -- namely, Fort Worth. Following this, it was good to hear at Vespers last night and at Divine Liturgy this morning, "For his Eminence DMITRI...and for his Grace our Bishop JONAH..." We're the only church where that's said, because he's only really bishop of our parish.

May God grant both of our widely-beloved and respected overseers and vladykas (our "masters," seen in the old sense as literally, "teachers") many blessed years!

(Pictures from OCA website. For a short article on Orthodox clergy ranks, see HERE, and for an explanation of vestments, see HERE.)

End of a Drought?

Hopefully.

Last year, more or less around this time of year, I took an intentional hiatus from the blog. Such was not the case this year. Mostly it just...got away from me. That and, truth be told, I needed to develop more of a habit of doing other things first, which is good. So the time away hasn't been all bad. Still, I've missed it, unlike during my time away last year. Doubt that anyone lost any sleep over my absence, but I apologize for so abruptly bowing out without warning nonetheless...

I'll put the Psalm underneath this so the "Reading Order" stays convenient for the two of you out there who so kindly have kept me clinging to (no doubt) the bottom of your RSS feeds...

Let's see...Kate is walking. More of a cross between stomping and Johnny Depp, Capt. Jack Sparrow sauntering. Saying Mommy, Papi, Hopey and various other sundry family names, plus familiar household words. Baby signs, once again, have proven invaluable. Potty training has begun, and there was great rejoicing.

Hope, I swear, has a redneck streak in 'er. Cleaning up one afternoon in our open-concept kitchen, I hear a phrase (which I had not taught my daughter) that will send chills up and down the spine of any southern father "in the know," a phrase you hope never to hear from your progeny:

"Hey, y'all, watch this!"

(Good things seldom follow this phrase, and, with the passage of the years and attaining of drinking age (14-16 years in some southern locales), it becomes "Y'all hold mah beer an' watchiss." Famous. Last. Redneck. Words. But I digress.)

I look up to see Hope standing on her rocking chair, which she has moved next to our recliner. Through the opening in our open-concept kitchen, I peer helplessly from the kitchen into the living room only to see my child -- at this point in sloooooow moooootiooooonnn -- jump and flip (flip!!) onto the recliner. Stunt was, of course, followed by a thrilled grin and cackle, both from her and from onlooking little sister.

Audra is working evenings at one of the places that makes ochlophobes everywhere recoil in disgust...yes, I'm speaking of the Seattle-based leviathan known affectionately by some as "Fourbucks." Reason? Benefits. Good ones, for much less a month than my school district. Offered to employees working a mere 20 hours a week. Which means I can stop shelling out hundreds of bucks a month for little coverage.

Good to be back.

The Psalms of David -- Psalm 36

Do not be envious of those who do evil...for like grass they shal be dried up quickly...Hope in the Lord, and work goodness; Dwell in the land, and you
shall be nurtured by its riches.

Do not be envious of him who prospers in his way...Cease from wrath and forsake anger; Do not be envious so as to do evil; Because evildoers will be destroyed, But those who wait on the Lord, theses shall in herit the earth.

Better the little with the just man than the great riches of sinners...The Lord knows the ways of the blameless, and their inheritance shall be forever.

But the sinners shall perish, And the enemies of the Lord altogether...like smoke they shall vanish away. The sinner borrows but will not repay; However the righteous man is compassionate, and gives.

He will not abandon His holy ones; They shall be kept forever. But the lawless shall be banished, and the seed of the ungodly shall be utterly destroyed.

Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the earth; you shall see the sinners when they are utterly destroed. I saw the ungodly greatly exalted and lifting hiself up like the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not ...

Keep innocence, and behold uprightness, for this is the remnant for the peaceful man.
And He shall deliver [the righteous] from sinners, and save them, because they hope in Him.

It is a rare man -- a saint, really -- who is able to reach out with the hand of the heart and grasp (and keep hold of) the intangible truth, the reality, of the Prophet's wisdom letter song here. A saint's ear has been tuned to zero in on the faint, true voice that will not lower her standards (nor, maddeningly, raise her voice so that you can understand her more clearly over the world's din). This is a voice that says, quietly, calmly, and consistently, "You need only to trust in the Lord." All may fall apart by your view, and virtue, fasting, liturgy and prayer in general during those times may be insultingly boring and apparently futile, as the mobs tend to be so loud you can't think and so busily successful that you can't be content, but we're asked to believe that the key to shining, eternal peace is quiet, lowly, humble obedience, leading, finally, to a Cross.

Help Perry

Perry Robinson of Energetic Procession is in a very bad way financially, having lost his teaching position and being unable to find work to provide for himself, his wife, and their three daughters. If you are able to help him, either through a charitable donation or any information regarding work in the St. Louis area, please contact him at acolyte4236 AT sbcglobal dot net.

Happy Feastday

Troparion - Tone 4

Your Nativity, O Virgin,

Has proclaimed joy to the whole universe!

The Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God,

Has shone from You, O Theotokos!

By annulling the curse,

He bestowed a blessing.

By destroying death,

He has granted us eternal Life.

Kontakion - Tone 4

By Your Nativity, O Most Pure Virgin,

Joachim and Anna are freed from barrenness;

Adam and Eve, from the corruption of death.

And we, your people, freed from the guilt of sin,

Celebrate and sing to you:

The barren woman gives birth to the Theotokos,

The nourisher of our life!

My apologies for the silence as of late; I pray all Christians had a blessed Lord's Day and that all Orthodox have a blessed feastday tomorrow.