Great and Holy Wednesday - The Passion and the Meaning of Death, Part 3
Dear Parish Faithful,
Here is the third and final section from Donald Senior's book The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, concerning "The Passion and Meaning of Death."
Death as opportunity for witness
_____
This evening, we will serve a rather edited version of the Matins for Holy and Great Thursday, beginning at 7:00 p.m. We will hear the Gospel and St. Luke's presentation of the Mystical Supper at which Christ left the Church that unique act of "remembrance" in the Eucharist. Thursday morning's Vesperal Liturgy is thus the eucharistic day of the liturgical year, because we then commemorate and actualize the giving of the Eucharist to the Church as our means of communion with Christ. Unfortunately, being a morning service during the week, it has become the "lost service" of Holy Week and thus we miss the importance of this day's commemoration. I can only strongly encourage those of you who are able to be present, to indeed be so and prepared to receive the Eucharist from the Lord.
Immediately following Matins, we will begin the Sacrament of Anointing. This sacramental anointing with the blessed oil mixed with wine, is meant for the forgiveness of sins and the healing of soul and body. In our collective recognition to be healed by Christ, the church is usually quite filled for this service. Although not actually prescribed for this place in Holy Week, this service has become a tradition in many Orthodox churches for some time now. In the context of our journey through Holy Week, it can be seen as a final preparation of the faithful who can now come to the Cross and empty tomb having been anointed with the oil of healing of both soul and body. More specifcally, it can be seen as a sacramental anointing for the forgiveness of sins in preparation for the Eucharist at the Liturgy for Holy Thursday. This anointing makes Christ present to us in our own pain and suffering, thus making all things potentially redemptive.
Fr. Steven
Great and Holy Tuesday - The Passion and the Meaning of Death, Part 2
Dear Parish Faithful,
Here is the next section from the book The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, by Donald Senior. This is from his reflection on "The Passion and the Meaning of Death:"
Death is the culmination point of a life-long journey to God
_____
The suggestion may be coming a bit late - and perhaps some of you have already thought about it - but I wanted to mention the following possibility: that of taking off a full day or half day of work on this coming Great and Holy Friday in order to be present in church for the special services of this day. And the same for your children. You may think of keeping them out of school on their Holy Friday, as their peers may get a day off on one of their "holy days" - Christian or Jewish. Through the years I have noticed that our Vespers service on Holy Friday (3:00 p.m.) is "decently" attended, but that too many miss this very important service in the Holy Week cycle. If the possibility lends itself, you may want to consider "sacrificing" a vacation/sick day for the purpose of concentrating on the significance of Great and Holy Friday.
Fr. Steven
Great and Holy Monday - The Passion and the Meaning of Death, Part 1
Dear Parish Faithful & friends in Christ,
One of the books I chose to read this Great Lent was entitled The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, by the New Testament scholar, Donald Senior. I had previously read his book The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. And there are two more books to complete the series about St. Matthew and St. John respectively, by the same author. I will look forward to those two volumes, perhaps during next year's Great Lent, God willing. I would highly recommend the two that I have read so far. Both books offer a very close and insightful reading of the events, and especially the meaning, of our Lord's Passion.
Although an in-depth and somewhat detailed work of exegesis (explanation/interpretation of the text), Senior avoids those types of "technical" discussions that too often divert New Testament scholars from the essential purpose of the Gospel: to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. He therefore concentrates on elucidating the meaning of the Passion of Christ from the Last Supper to the Cross. But he also includes a fine chapter that covers the Resurrection and Ascension. If the "story" concluded with the suffering and death of Christ, it would hardly be Good News!
What is fascinating is how the particular perspective or emphases of each evangelist serve to complement those of the other three; and how a profound and well-rounded portrait/image of Christ emerges. As if in acknowledgment of the fact that the inexhaustible mystery of Christ's redemptive death could not possibly be conveyed in the work of one evangelist!
In a series of reflections that brings his book to a close, Senior summaries the major themes of St. Luke's account of the Lord's Passion in a section entitled "Luke's Message." I was particularly struck by his section, "The Passion and the Meaning of Death." By way of introduction to this section, he writes the following:
This leads to the first of three subsections that I would like to share with you this week as we immerse ourselves yet again into mystery of Holy Week, leading to Our Lord's Passion and Death on the Cross, and culminating in His Resurrection. I find this to be a fine example of just how intimately the Gospel relates to our own fears and hopes, revealing to us the "representative" nature of Jesus Christ as the "Last Adam" to us:
Death is a struggle and test leading to a profound experience of liberation and life.
Fr. Steven
April 13, 2006 - Day 39: Still Time to Redeem the Time
Dear Parish Faithful,
Yesterday evening, we served our final Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts for this year's Great Lent. A lenten fellowship meal followed as has become our tradition. As the forty days ends tomorrow, we begin to look forward to Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, and then beyond this weekend to Holy Week and Pascha. As the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is a service unique to Great Lent, it is regrettable if circumstances or other reasons kept you away from this service for the course of the Fast. Be that as it may, we can all turn to one of the stichera chanted at the service yesterday evening, as a kind of mirror held up for self-reflection, in which we can take a "good look" at where we stand as the Fast draws to a close. The first half of this hymn is quite challenging, perhaps, to the security of our own self-perception:
We would like to believe that these words do not describe us in any way whatsoever - especially after Great Lent! My self-perception and the image I desire to project to my neighbors is that of a "good Christian." These probing words that dig down beneath the surface, undermine all of that! Apparently, I am being toId that I am really a sinner terribly in need of the mercy and love of God. I am not so sure that I want to hear that. However, these words also provide us with the opportunity of making an honest assessment of what happened or did not happen this lenten season. For, the surface image is not that essential, but what is either lurking in or illuminating the heart. Has the devil deceived us yet again, by convincing us not to take Great Lent too seriously? Anyway, who has the time and energy? The sacred forty days are now irretrievable. They belong to the past. However, we can still look ahead to the awesome miracle of the raising of Lazarus, as another of the stichera from yesterday brings to our attention:
And beyond that, Holy Week is still before us in its incomparable depth and glory. There is still time to "redeem the time," as the Apostle Paul exhorts us. God desires our salvation, not our condemnation. For this purpose the Son of God came into the world, to give His life as a "ransom for the many." Yet, that same presence convicted the world of its sin. The Church, in turn, through its sacred hymnography strives not to condemn, but to convict us, so that we may turn toward God in repentance and draw nearer to the gift of salvation in Christ. That can only happen when we "face up" to certain truths about ourselves that we may want to avoid, but which, when revealed and confessed, allow us the opportunity of hearing the voice of the Son of God awakening us from the sleep of spiritual death. Then, as Jesus said of Lazarus, we can hear further: "Unbind him, and let him go."
Fr. Steven
April 7, 2006 - Day 33: Becoming Ourselves in the Embrace of God
Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
A theme that surfaces often in my teaching and preaching - in addition to my reflection and reading - is the contemporary preoccupation and obsession with the "self." From therapists to talk-show hosts and even "spiritual teachers," we are enjoined to "discover," "get in touch with," or "enhance" our "self." We now hear of popular personalities actually "re-inventing" themselves as they "move on" to a new phase of life and experience. In all of this, there seems to be an implicit understanding of just what this mysterious "self" actually is, because we refer to it so often and so readily.
But is there common ground as to what we mean by this term? If we were to depend on more-or-less contemporary psychology, or the behavioral sciences, we might ask the following questions: Does the self mean our "personal identity" - what constitutes each one of us as an unique human being? We distinguish each other by referring to "myself," "yourself," "himself/herself," and so on, thus concentrating on our individuality. Perhaps it refers to our consciousness and ability to reflect upon our existence. As in: I know that I am alive and that one day I will die, therefore I have the capacity for "self-awareness." Is the self simply synonomous with the "I" or "ego?" Buddhism, on the other hand, rejects the very idea of the "self," calling it an illusion that is created by our constant desiring. Perhaps, then, Buddhists are less self-absorbed than we are! Since we do not agree with Buddhism on this crucial issue and accept the "self" as integral to being human, then as Christians we would ultimately claim that there is something meaningful indicated by the term, the self. That is what we should be trying to discover.
However, as noted above, our contemporary preoccupation with the self borders on the obsessive and idolatrous. Life is presented as a long and exciting journey of "self-discovery." But is this in reality the ultimate "ego trip," leading to "self-delusion?" Frankly, a great deal of today's talk about the self sounds terribly superficial. It is a far cry from the Socractic, and hence genuinely philosophical (and serious): "Know thyself!"
These are simply a few comments by way of preface to an insightful paragraph I came across while reading the book of a solid New Testament scholar, Ben Witherington III. This author has uncovered a trend within certain writers today who transform theology (reality as God-centered) into anthropology (reality as human-centered). In other words, in writing about God or Christ, they end up turning the whole quest into one more attempt at "self-discovery." This is why such scholars are critical of the New Testament and attempt to bring some of the non-canonical Gospels into prominence. These heretical and gnostic "Gospels" are essentially about discovering the "god within." "Spirituality" is then really about "self-realization" if not "self-deification!" In criticizing some of these modern spiritual quests that seem only remotely related to the Gospel centered in Christ, Witherington concluded with the following paragraph - simple, direct and to the point:
We are not ourselves because we are fallen and sinful. This is biblical. A recognition of that fact may just serve as a good beginning to discover our "true self." And this is why Evagrios of Pontus, a desert ascetic, could write: "The beginning of salvation is self-condemnation." (You will not find a book in the "Self-Help" section on your local bookstore with this title!) This has nothing to do with an unhealthy "self-hatred." It means to recognize our sins and need for repentance freed from the useless refuge of "self-justification." Whatever the self may be in relation to some of the suggestions I offered above as plausible possibilities, the real question becomes: what is the foundation or ground of the self? What guarantees its stability and continuity? What prevents the self from being one more fleeting and ephemeral reality, so much "dust in the wind" that goes the way of our bodies? If anything, it has to be God. Either the self is grounded and stabilized in God, or it is grounded in "nothing." We are either "God-sourced" or "nothing-sourced." If the latter, then the self is unstable and ever on the brink of disappearing into the void. Perhaps all of the clamorous cries of "self-affirmation" that we hear today are an instinctive reaction or even rebellion against this inherent nihilism. A godless quest of self-discovery leads to a dead-end encounter with our own nothingness! Do atheistic therapists and secular counselors remind their clients of that cold fact?
That last statement needs to be qualified, so as to avoid any misunderstanding as to my intended meaning. Undoubtedly, there exist many wonderful "self-help" groups and therapies that have been very effective in helping people overcome a wide range of abberant behavioral problems, especially those plagued by addictions. The most well-known has to be Alcoholics Anonymous, a therapy grounded in the Gospel that has rescued a countless number of men and women from alcoholism. To this day, many people have recourse to such helpful societies in combatting their destructive behavior, and thus saving themselves from seemingly hopeless situations. At the same time, a healthy "self-reliance" is cultivated and restored in persons who need such a change. Many of these self-help groups acknowledge the existence of God and thus apply their respective therapies within a theistic context. This adds a dimension of humility to the whole process. However, it is not quite this phenomenon that I am dealing with here; but rather the empty promises, and even pseudo-theologies, that lead to any unhealthy preoccupation with the "self."
Something has to give between the contemporary obsession with the self that has generated an endless market for books, tapes, CDs, DVDs, seminars, programs, therapies, "self-help" gurus and the like; and the ever-demanding teaching of Our Lord: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself ... " (MK. 8:34) This is not a Buddhist-like call to "self-annhiliation." It is Christ's way of teaching us that to defensively, fearfully, or even idolatrously hold onto the "self" as some sort of autonomous entity will only culminate in the loss of our "life." To deny such a self-centered way of existence for the sake of the Gospel is to actually "save" our life. "Life" and "self" are very closely equated in this crucial passage. Further, the word "life" is actually the word for "soul." So biblically, we discover that the word "self" is basically synonomous with the word "soul/life." Each and every one us is a "living soul," formed by the creative power of God and having received the "breath of life" that sustains us and lifts us up beyond the merely biological level of existence.
Employing our theological language further, we should also equate "self" with the person. (The theological term is hypostasis). Every living soul is a person - unique, unrepeatable and beloved of God. As the three divine Persons of the Holy Trinity are never self-isolated, self-absorbed or self-centered, so we realize that that would be a false way of existing. A genuine person is always turned toward another person in a movement of love and communion, as are the three Persons of the Trinity. This gives us great insight into the teaching, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (MK. 12:31) "To be" is to be in communion, as one of our contemporary Orthodox theologians has explained. If we could pour our energy into discovering the "wholly Other" - God, and the multiple others - the neighbor; then we would uncover our "true self" in the process. Our Tradition tell us to find our "self" in the other - God and neighbor. Being a living soul and/or a person, then, describes a mode of being, a way of life, that is as far removed from the thinly-veiled narcissism that passes today as "self-realization," as the "East is from the West!"
Orthodox Christianity affirms the self, but as dependent for its very existence upon the creative power of God and the redemptive grace of Christ. Each and every one of us is created, sustained, and guided by God toward a destiny so glorious that it is essentially indescribable. It is this humble acknowledgment of dependence on God that becomes the foundation of that long process that will lead us from being "self-centered" to being "God-centered." Perhaps we can go so far as to say: we seek to be saved from our "self" in order to truly be ourselves in the embrace of God. Today's world seems oblivious of this promise.
Fr. Steven
April 3, 2006 - Day 29: Testing Our Faith
Dear Parish Faithful,
- Having passed beyond the middle point in this holy season of the Fast, with joy let us go
- forward to the part that still remains, anointing our souls with the oil of almsgiving. So may we be
- counted worthy to venerate the divine Passion of Christ our God, and to attain His dread and holy
- Resurrection. (Vespers, Sunday evening of the Fourth Week)
There are less than two weeks remaining in Great Lent this year. The Church, in and through its sacred hymnography, as in the sticheron from Vespers above, continues to exhort us in the effort of preparing for the paschal mystery. This, at a time when we may just feel that we have "had enough!" Then again, for those who never really "got going" with Great Lent, there still remain two solid weeks - and then Holy Week, of course - in which to enter into this holy season of tasting something other than the "same old thing" that the world has to offer. If you have yet to be to a lenten service, some still remain, especially two more Presanctified Liturgies with a fellowship meal to follow and the Akathist Hymn to the Theotokos. And, of course, you may yet want to consider confessing your sins.
I am doing something a bit different this morning, and admittedly it is not exactly a meditation. In my class at Xavier University, I gave my students the simplest of assignments last week. Since we are now discussing the Orthodox Church's understanding of Jesus Christ, each student was to provide me with one question about Christ: anything that may interest, intrigue or confuse them about Christ. I then do my best to incorporate those questions into my classroom discussions, giving them the Orthodox perspective as well as possible. The "standard" and most frequently asked questions are usually about whether or not Jesus had natural brothers and sisters; and what was He doing between the ages of twelve and the beginning of His ministry. Hard to tell if they are actually interested, or simply unable or indifferent to any other more probing questions. Answering these questions, however, always leads to further discussions. One of their questions on an upcoming exam will cover the Orthodox Church's understanding of the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, so it is here that I primarily focus my teaching. So, this morning, imagine yourself being asked by a neighbor, co-worker, relative or friend one of the following questions for which you must provide an "Orthodox" answer. Some of these questions are not articulated very clearly, but I am leaving them in their original form:
These are not easy questions at all. Do not feel totally uninformed or lacking in knowledge of your Faith if you admit to being uncertain as to how to approach these questions. Just wanted to give you a taste of some of the questions that I am asked, and some of the theological issues involved. However, in today's "day and age" we need to know our Orthodox Christian Faith well, so as to be able to offer a defense of the hope that is in us, to paraphrase St. Peter.
Now, if you were taking the exam in my class on Wednesday, here are the questions that you would be expected to answer with some coherence and clarity:
Please use a bluebook and write in as legible a manner as possible!
Fr. Steven
March 30, 2006 - Day 25: Render The Body Spiritual...
Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
- The fast, the source of blessings,
- now has brought us midway through its course.
- Having pleased God with the days that have passed
- we look forward to making good use of the days to come,
- for growth in blessings brings forth even greater achievements.
- While pleasing Christ, the giver of all blessings, we cry:
- O Lord, who fasted and endured the cross for our sake,
- make us worthy to share blamelessly in Your paschal victory,
- by living in peace and rightly giving glory to You
- with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
- (Sticheron, Wednesday evening, Fourth Week of Lent)
Another excerpt from Archbishop Ware:
But in rendering the body spiritual, we do not thereby dematerialize it, depriving it of its character as a physical entity. The 'spiritual' is not to be equated with non-material, neither is the 'fleshly' or carnal to be equated with the bodily. In St. Paul's usage, 'flesh' denotes the totality of man, soul and body together, in so far as he is fallen and separated from God; and in the same way 'spirit' denotes the totality of man, soul and body together, in so far as he is redeemed and divinized by grace. Thus the soul as well as the body can become carnal and fleshly, and the body as well as the soul can become spiritual. When St. Paul enumerates the 'works of the flesh' (GAL. 5:19-21), he includes such things as sedition, heresy and envy, which involve the soul much more than the body. In making our body spiritual, then, the Lenten fast does not suppress the physical aspect of our human nature, but makes our materiality once more as God intended it to be.
Such is the way in which we interpret our abstinence from food. Bread and wine and the other fruits of the earth are gifts from God, of which we partake with reverence and thanksgiving. If Orthodox Christians abstain from eating meat at certain times, or in some cases continually, this does not mean that the Orthodox Church is on principle vegetarian and considers meat-eating to be a sin; and if we abstain sometimes from wine, this does not mean that we uphold tetotalism. When we fast, this is not because we regard the act of eating as shameful, but in order to make all our eating spiritual, sacramental and eucharistic - no longer a concession to greed but a means of communion with God the giver. So far from making us look on food as a defilement, fasting has exactly the opposite effect. Only those who have learnt to control their appetites through abstinence can appreciate the full glory and beauty of what God has given to us. To one who has eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, an olive can seem full of nourishment. A slice of plain cheese or a hard-boiled egg never taste so good as on Easter morning, after seven weeks of fasting.
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," THE LENTEN TRIODION, pp. 24-25
To be continued ...
Fr. Steven
March 29, 2006 - Day 24: Misconceptions About Great Lent, Conclusion
Dear Parish Faithful,
It has been a few days since I sent out an excerpt from Archbishop Ware's article, "The Meaning of the Great Fast." The recent excerpts were from his discussion of five misconceptions about the lenten fast. In addressing and correcting these misconceptions thus far, he made these four points: 1) the fast is not just for monastics, but for all members of the Church; 2) we depend on the grace of God to support our efforts, not solely on the exertion of our wills; 3) fasting should not be self-willed, but obedient to the Church's discipline; 4) Lent is not a time of gloominess but of spiritual joy. Below, he deals with a fifth misconception about our approach toward creation:
Fifthly and finally, our Lenten abstinence does not imply a rejection of God's creation. As St. Paul insists, 'Nothing is unclean in itself' (ROM. 14:14). All that God has made is 'very good' (GEN. 1:31): to fast is not to deny this intrinsic goodness but to reaffirm it. 'To the pure all things are pure' (TIT. 1:15), and so at the Messianic banquet in the Kingdom of heaven there will be no need for fasting and ascetic self-denial. But, living as we do in a fallen world, and suffering as we do from the consequences of sin, both original and personal, we are not pure; and so we have need of fasting. Evil resides not in created things as such but in our attitude towards them, that is, in our will. The purpose of fasting, then, is not to repudiate the divine creation but to cleanse our will. During the fast we deny our bodily impulses - for example, our spontaneous appetite for food and drink - not because these impulses are in themselves evil, but because they have been disordered by sin and require to be purified through self-discipline. In this way, asceticism is a fight not against but for the body; the aim of fasting is to purge the body from alien defilement and to render it spiritual. By rejecting what is sinful in our will, we do not destroy the God-created body but restore it to its true balance and freedom. In Father Sergei Bulgakov's phrase, we kill the flesh in order to acquire a body.
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," THE TRIODION, pp. 23-24
To be continued tomorrow ....
Fr. Steven
March 27, 2006 - Day 22: Through the Cross, Joy
Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
At the midpoint of the Gospel According to St. Mark, Jesus begins to openly reveal to His disciples that He will be put to death upon entering the sacred city of Jerusalem - as well as "rise again:"
Following the Gospel, the Church designates the Third Sunday of Great Lent - its midpoint - as the Sunday of "The Veneration of the Cross." From countless examples, the hymnography of the Lenten Triodion poetically elaborates on the bond between the Cross and the Resurrection:
And, of course, this is nowhere more perfectly stated then in the well-known and wonderful hymn that accompanies our act of venerating the Cross:
Before Thy Cross, we bow down in worship, O Master, and Thy holy Resurrection, we glorify.
It is precisely this unbreakable and paradoxical bond between the Death and Resurrection of our Lord - the Paschal mystery itself - that is behind our practice of decorating the Cross with flowers. This practice is in no way an attempt to soften the horrors of the Cross; to sentimentalize the sufferings of Christ upon the Cross; or to shield us from the brutal reality of dying fastened to the Cross. (This, of course, happens when we ourselves turn the Cross into a piece of jewelry that "goes well" with a particular outfit!). It is not only the Western churches that present the starkness of the Cross to our gaze. Looking ahead to Holy and Great Friday, we will hear the following hymn sung in church:
Yet, since it is "through the Cross that joy has come into the world," the adornment of the Cross is meant to convey the truth of the dual meaning of the Cross. The Cross of the Lord, and our own personal crosses that we are enjoined by Christ to "take up", are thus means of passage into the Kingdom of God. Golgotha and the Holy Sepulcher are forever bound together. Golgotha without the Holy Sepulcher would have left Jesus of Nazareth in the dustbins of history, another anonymous victim of naked power, wielded with cold indifference to the sufferings of the innocent. The Cross is truly "precious" because we hope and pray that all of the innocent suffering from ages past and until the end of time, will be "taken up" and absorbed into the redemptive suffering of the innocent Lamb of God.
I believe that the challenge we face as modern day Christians who, on one level or another, are "comfortable" in our lifestyles, is not to lose sight of the absolute seriousness of the Gospel. To proclaim the Cross, and everything implied by the Cross - essentially suffering and death! - is to immediately proclaim the Gospel as a "serious matter," not to be taken lightly or assented to in a light-minded manner. That to say we "were bought with a price," (I COR. 6:20), together with the Apostle Paul, is to offer a shorthand term referring to the painful and horrible death that Christ suffered "for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." I COR. 15:3) It is also to take the words of the Crucified One with utter seriousness, and to realize that our reaction - or lack of reaction - has profound consequences for our eternal destiny:
If we can assume anything, it is that Christ was serious when He spoke those words to His disciples. Whatever our sins, shortcomings or personal failures may be, it would be a good thing not to add a lack of seriousness to them when contemplating the Gospel. If the joy we experience in the Risen Christ reveals to us the inner meaning of the Cross as a "resurrecting death" (Fr. George Florovsky), then our seriousness is not to be confused with a gloomy mind and a darkened countenance - "anoint your head and wash your face" the Lord has directed us. To take the Gospel seriously is to distinguish the essential from the non-essential. If that is one of the lenten goals set before us, then no better time to renew that commitment than during the Week of the Cross.
Fr. Steven
March 24, 2006 - Day 19: On Temptation and the Fast
Dear Parish Faithful,
Last Sunday, I concentrated on the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas concerning the passions and virtues in the homily. As with all the great Church Fathers, St. Gregory develops his insights based upon the Holy Scriptures. I intended, but failed, to mention a key text that has always served as a basis for analyzing the whole process of temptation, sin and spiritual death found in the writings of someone like St. Gregory Palamas and others among the great saints. We read the following in the Epistle of St. James:
Without really exaggerating, we could say that our long and glorious spiritual tradition of understanding just what happens on the interior level when temptation and sin threaten our spiritual well-being - culminating in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas in the 14th c. - is found in these few short verses. After teaching us the important truth that God does not tempt us toward sin, St. James describes the stages of this soul-destroying process leading to death:
... each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. (St. James refuses to blame everything on the Devil! Our wandering mind and heart will create its own false desires that are an illusion);
Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin (Sin is "conceived" within us as a kind of blasphemous travesty of genuine birth-giving which is life-affirming and God-sourced. This occurs when we are unable to withstand the heat of the desire, fanned into a kind of perpetually-burning flame within us by repeatedly acting upon it).
... and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death. (St. Gregory would call this "full grown" sin a passion. This full-grown "child" conceived by our desire will turn on us eventually and put us to death - first spiritually and then even biologically - for "the wages of sin is death." (ROM. 6:23)
We discover here, that what begins as a mere "thought" encouraged by our desire, will eventually and inevitably become a full-grown passion that controls us. St. Gregory calls these passions "deceitful desires." Temptation is not yet sin, and St. Gregory teaches that to withstand temptation is a necessary test for authentic spiritual growth in God:
Precisely why we have a designated season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving! Archbishop Kallistos Ware will now eloquently explain to us why this is ultimately a joyous endeavor:
The Fourth Misconception about Great Lent:
In the fourth place, paradoxical though it may seem, the period of Lent is a time not of gloom but of joyfulness. It is true that fasting brings us to repentance and to grief for sin, but this penitent grief, in the vivid phrase of St. John Climacus, is a 'joy-creating sorrow.' The Triodion deliberately mentions both tears and gladness in a single sentence:
It is remarkable how frequently the themes of joy and light recur in the texts for the first day of Lent:
The season of Lent, it should be noted, falls not in midwinter when the countryside is frozen and dead, but in spring when all things are returning to life. The English word 'Lent' originally had the meaning of 'springtime;' and in a text of fundamental importance the Triodion likewise describes the Great Fast as 'springtime:"
Lent signifies not winter but spring, not darkness but light, not death but renewed vitality. Certainly it has its somber aspect, with the repeated prostrations at the weekly services, with the dark vestments of the priest, with the hymns sung to a subdued chant, full of compunction. In the Christian Empire of Byzantium theatres were closed and public spectacles forbidden during Lent (Might not this rule be applied by contemporary Orthodox to television?); and even today weddings are forbidden in the seven weeks of the fast. Yet these elements of austerity should not blind us to the fact that the fast is not a burden, not a punishment, but a gift of God's grace:
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE TRIODION, pp. 22-23
To be continued next week ...
Fr. Steven
March 23, 2006 - Day 18: Misconceptions About Great Lent, Part 2
Dear Parish Faithful,
Further from Archbishop Ware's article on Great Lent:
In the third place, our fasting should not be self-willed but obedient. When we fast, we should not try to invent special rules for ourselves, but we should follow as faithfully as possible the accepted pattern set before us by Holy Tradition. This accepted pattern, expressing as it does the collective conscience of the People of God, possesses a hidden wisdom and balance not to be found in ingenious austerities devised by our own fantasy. Where it seems that the traditional regulations are not applicable to our personal situation, we should seek the counsel of our spiritual father - not in order legalistically to secure a 'dispensation' from him, but in order humbly with his help to discover what is the will of God for us. Above all, if we desire for ourselves not some relaxation but some piece of additional strictness, we should not embark upon it without our spiritual father's blessing. Such has been the practice since the early centuries of the Church's life:
Abba Antony said: 'I know of monks who fell after much labour and lapsed into madness, because they trusted in their own work and neglected the commandment that says: "Ask your father, and he will tell you".' (DEUT. 32:7)
Again he said: 'So far as possible, for every step that a monk takes, for every drop of water that he drinks in his cell, he should consult the gerontes (elder), in case he makes some mistake in this.'
These words apply not only to monks but also to lay people living in the 'world,' even though the latter may be bound by a less strict obedience to their spiritual father. If proud and willful, our fasting assumes a diabolical character, bringing us closer not to God but to Satan. Because fasting renders us sensitive to the realities of the spiritual world, it can be dangerously ambivalent: for there are evil spirits as well as good.
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE TRIODION, pp. 21-22.
To be continued tomorrow ...
Fr. Steven
March 22, 2006 - Day 17: Misconceptions About Great Lent, Part 1
Dear Parish Faithful,
Here is another excerpt from Archbishop Ware's fine article "The Meaning of Great Lent:"
If we are to understand correctly the text of the Triodion and the spirituality that underlies it, there are five misconceptions about the Lenten fast against which we should guard. In the first place, the Lenten fast is not intended only for monks and nuns, but is enjoined on the whole Christian people. Nowhere do the Canons of the Ecumenical or Local Councils suggest that fasting is only for monks and not for the laity. By virtue of their Baptism, all Christians - whether married or under monastic vows - are Cross-bearers, following the same spiritual path. The exterior conditions in which they live out their Christianity display a wide variety, but in its inward essence the life is one. Just as the monk by his voluntary self-denial is seeking to affirm the intrinsic goodness and beauty of God's creation, so also is each married Christian required to be in some measure an ascetic. The way of negation and the way of affirmation are interdependent, and every Christian is called to follow both ways at once.
In the second place, the Triodion should not be misconstrued in a Pelagian sense. (Fr. Steven: Reference to the heretic Pelagius, who taught that our human nature and capacity to will can alone lead us to salvation). If the Lenten texts are continually urging us to greater personal efforts, this should not be taken as implying that our progress depends solely upon the exertion of our own will. On the contrary, whatever we achieve in the Lenten fast is to be regarded as a free gift of grace from God. The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete leaves no doubt at all on this point:
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE TRIODION,, p.21)
To be continued tomorrow ...
Fr. Steven
March 17, 2005 - Day 12: Giving Alms - Giving of Our Selves
Dear Parish Faithful,
We continue with another excerpt from Archbishop Kallistos Ware's article on the true nature of fasting:
Prayer and fasting should in their turn be accompanied by almsgiving - by love for others expressed in practical form, by works of compassion and forgiveness. Eight days before the opening of the Lenten fast, on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the appointed Gospel is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (MT. 25:31-46), reminding us that the criterion in the coming judgment will not be the strictness of our fasting but the amount of help that we have given to those in need. In the words of the Triodion:
- Knowing the commandments of the Lord, let this
- be our way of life:
- Let us feed the hungry, let us give the thirsty drink,
- Let us clothe the naked, let us welcome strangers,
- Let us visit those in prison and the sick.
- Then the Judge of all the earth will say even to us:
- 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom
- prepared for you.'
(Matins for Tuesday of the First Week)
This stanza, it may be noted in passing, is a typical instance of the 'evangelical' character of the Orthodox service-books. In common with so many other texts in the Triodion, it is simply a paraphrase of the words of Holy Scripture.
It is no coincidence that on the very threshold of the Great Fast, at Vespers on the Sunday of Forgiveness, there is a special ceremony of mutual reconciliation: for without love towards others there can be no genuine fast. And this love for others should not be limited to formal gestures or to sentimental feelings, but should issue in specific acts of almsgiving. Such was the firm conviction of the early Church. The second-century Shepherd of Hermas insists that the money saved through fasting is to be given to the widow, the orphan and the poor. But almsgiving means more than this. It is to give not only our money but our time, not only what we have but what we are; it is to give a part of ourselves. When we hear the Triodion speak of almsgiving, the word should almost always be taken in this deeper sense. For the mere giving of money can often be a substitute and an evasion, a way of protecting ourselves from closer personal involvement with those in distress. On the other hand, to do nothing more than offer reassuring words of advice to someone crushed by urgent material anxieties is equally an evasion of our responsibilities (see JAS. 2:16). Bearing in mind the unity already emphasized between man's body and his soul, we seek to offer help on both the material and the spiritual levels at once.
- While fasting with the body, brothers and sisters, let us also fast in spirit.
- Let us loose every bond of iniquity;
- Let us undo the knots of every contract made by violence;
- Let us tear up all unjust agreements;
- Let us give bread to the hungry
- And welcome to our house the poor who have no roof to cover them,
- That we may receive great mercy from Christ our God.
(Vespers for Wednesday of the First Week)
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE TRIODION, pp. 19-20
To be continued next week ...
Fr. Steven
March 16, 2006 - Day 11: But by Prayer and Fasting
Dear Parish Faithful,
For the second week in a row, we had a large number of people at yesterday evening's Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, after which we shared a lenten meal together in the church hall. Always a good sign that Great Lent is a communal effort, and not exclusively an individual effort.
Here are a couple of more key paragraphs from Archbishop Ware's article on Great Lent:
The inner significance of fasting is best summed up in the triad: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. Divorced from prayer and from the reception of the holy sacraments, unaccompanied by acts of compassion, our fasting becomes pharisaical or even demonic. It leads, not to contrition and joyfulness, but to pride, inward tension and irritability. The link between prayer and fasting is rightly indicated by Fr. Alexander Elchaninov. A critic of fasting says to him: 'Our work suffers and we become irritable. ... I have never seen servants [in pre-revolutionary Russia] so bad tempered as during the last days of Holy Week. Clearly, fasting has a very bad effect on the nerves.' To this Father Alexander replies: 'You are quite right. ... If it is not accompanied by prayer and an increased spiritual life, it merely leads to a heightened state of irritability. It is natural that servants who took their fasting seriously and who were forced to work hard during Lent, while not being allowed to go to church, were angry and irritable.'
Fasting, then, is valueless or even harmful when not combined with prayer. In the Gospels the devil is cast out, not by fasting alone, but by 'prayer and fasting' (MT. 17:21; MK. 9:29); and of the early Christians it is said, not simply that they fasted, but that they 'fasted and prayed' (ACTS 13:3; compare 14:23). In both the Old and New Testament fasting is seen, not as an end in itself, but as an aid to more intense and living prayer, as a preparation for decisive action or for direct encounter with God. Thus our Lord's forty-day fast in the wilderness was the immediate preparation for His public ministry (MT. 4:1-11). When Moses fasted on Mount Sinai (EX. 34:28) and Elijah on Mount Horeb (I KGS. 19:8-12) the fast was in both cases linked with a theophany. The same connection between fasting and the vision of God is evident in the case of St. Peter (ACTS 10:9-17). He 'went up on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour, and he became very hungry and wanted to eat;' and it was in this state that he fell into a trance and heard the divine voice. Such is always the purpose of ascetic fasting - to enable us, as the Triodion puts it, to 'draw near to the mountain of prayer.' (Matins for Tuesday in the First Week)
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE TRIODION, pp. 18-19
To be continued tomorrow ...
Fr. Steven
March 15, 2006 - Day 10: The True Fast
Dear Parish Faithful,
I would like to continue a series of excerpts from Archbishop Kallistos Ware's article "The Meaning of the Great Fast." He began his article by stressing a holistic vision of the human person - body and soul - and how that translates into the need to fast bodily. Not hiding the difficulty of such fasting, he nevertheless ended by emphasizing how it is ultimately liberating, leading to "a sense of lightness, wakefulness, freedom and joy." Arch. Kallistos will now turn his attention to "spiritual fasting" and stress its even greater importance:
If it is important not to overlook the physical requirements of fasting, it is even more important not to overlook its inward significance. Fasting is not not a mere matter of diet. It is moral as well as physical. True fasting is to be converted in heart and will; it is to return to God, to come home like the Prodigal to our Father's house. In the words of St. John Chrysostom, it means 'abstinence not only from food but from sins.' 'The fast, he insists, 'should be kept not by the mouth alone but also by the eye, the ear, the feet, the hands and all the members of the body:' the eye must abstain from impure sights, the ear from malicious gossip, the hands from acts of injustice. It is useless to fast from food, protests St. Basil, and yet to indulge in cruel criticism and slander: 'You do not eat meat, but you devour your brother.' The same point is made in the Triodion, especially during the first week of Lent:
- As we fast from food, let us abstain also from every passion ....
- Let us observe a fast acceptable and pleasing to the Lord.
- True fasting is to put away all evil,
- To control the tongue, to forbear from anger,
- To abstain from lust, slander, falsehood and perjury.
- If we renounce these things, then is our fasting true and acceptable to God.
- Let us keep the Fast not only by refraining from food,
- But by becoming strangers to all the bodily passions.
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE TRIODION, p. 17-18
To be continued tomorrow ...
Fr. Steven
March 13, 2006 - Day 8: The Essential Over The Non-Essential
Dear Parish Faithful,
By the end of the Liturgy yesterday, there were many people in church, witnessed by the long line at the Cross following the Dismissal and the icon procession by the children. However, attendance was noticeably thinner during the Gospel and Homily. In addition, some people were absent from the Liturgy for reasons "worthy of a blessing." For that reason, I would like to basically repeat, and perhaps reformulate, some of the themes expressed in yesterday's Homily by way of this morning's Meditation. My modest hope is that there is a little something here worthwhile reflecting upon for both thought and action.
From the perspective of within/inside, Great Lent is an intense parish activity that absorbs the time and energy of the parish in ways that are wholesome and spiritually fruitful. We are "keeping Lent" together, as a body of believers. We understand the signs and symbols of Great Lent and what is expected of us in terms of our personal effort. We then make an honest attempt to make our homes an extension of the Church (the home is a "little church" according to St. John Chrysostom), by creating some further signs of a "lenten atmosphere" in our homes within our families. (For the moment, the point is not whether we are successful or not - we are speaking of intentions and effort).
However, from the perspective of without/outside, meaning our secularized society or the world at large, Great Lent has no impact whatsoever. It is not being observed (even if the occasional restaurant sign may advertise a lenten meal on Fridays!), and the world will not lose a beat in its hectic rhythm of unending activity because certain Christians are observing a lenten season. Nothing outside of the Church will stop for our sakes, and life continues with its daily round of demands and responsibilities. Outside of public discourse or social/cultural recognition, Great Lent becomes a highly personalized religious endeavor. We can test this with a simple question: Do your next door neighbors know that you are now observing Great Lent? This is even more the case for us as Orthodox Christians because we are such a minority. Schools may close for the western Good Friday, but not for our Great and Holy Friday observed on a different date.
Since life continues essentially unchanged, and we remain as "busy" as ever, we may be tempted to say to ourselves, consciously or unconsciously: "I am too busy for Lent." Or: "How can I possibly integrate almsgiving, prayer and fasting into my life when I hardly have a second in which to catch my breath?" Or with a further touch of frustration: "The Church should get more realistic and change its expectations of the faithful in this day and age." I fully acknowledge the reality that prompts such a series of thoughts. And that reality affects us all - the priest's family (since he and his family do not live in some sort of mysteriously protected vacuum) as well as the families of all parishioners. My pastoral concern with the thought "I am too busy for Lent," is the following: it is dangerously close to the thought "I am too busy for God." No one would admit to such a thought, of course, but that could be the practical result of excusing ourselves through our busy-ness.
Making the near-equation between "I am too busy for Lent" and "I am too busy for God," is based upon the fact that Lent is all about God. Whatever image we employ, a School of Repentance, a Journey to Pascha, A Season of Abstinence, etc., the meaning of Great Lent is to bring us closer to God. We drift away from God or take God for granted in our lives. Through repentance, strengthened by the tools of almsgiving, prayer and fasting, we return to God in a spirit of humility and contrition: "Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me." Eliminating Lent from our lives outside of some nominal practices will have the effect of marginalizing God even further by either the endless and essential activities thrust upon us; or the empty distractions willing embraced by us.
If we are indeed "too busy for Lent," then we will too busy to practice the following based upon constraint of time, exhaustion of mind and body, or preoccupation with other attractions:
In today's world, many of the faithful only know that it's Lent by the priest's lenten-colored vestments worn on Sunday morning! This is not meant reproachfully, but as a pastoral reminder of the many challenges set before us by conditions as they exist today. There would be no worthy reason to remind anyone of this if nothing could be changed. Otherwise, we would only invite discouragement or "guilt." But I am convinced that some things can be done, and need to be done if we are going to take Lent seriously. I am convinced that we can examine our priorities with care and responsibility and make the kind of "adjustments" needed to maximize our lenten effort by stressing the essential over the non-essential. Perhaps we could offer as a working definition of Great Lent in our current social and cultural climate the following: "The rediscovery of the essential over the non-essential in our lives." Based on the Gospel that would be the love of God and neighbor (and if we are really "too busy," the "neighbor" could be our family members!) over "mammon" and "treasures on earth." (cf. MATT. 5:19-20, 24) In the words of Fr. Alexander Schmemann:
Fr. Steven
March 10, 2006 - Day 5: 'Great is the Might of Thy Cross'
Dear Parish Faithful,
- O merciful Lord, who art the source and fountain of purity, preserve us in the Fast.
- Look upon us as we fall before Thee: be attentive to the lifting up on our hands, O Thou who
- hast stretched out Thine hands upon the Tree and wast crucified for the sake of all those born
- on earth, the only Lord of angelic powers. (Matins, sessional hymn, Friday of the First Week)
As the above sessional hymn makes clear, the Cross is always mentioned on Fridays, during all liturgical seasons of the year. Here, it is combined with the practice of our fasting. Actually, every Friday of the year, with a few exceptions, are fasting days, as we already know. And this is precisely due to the fact that this is the day of the Cross, based upon the original Great and Holy Friday when our Lord was crucified on Golgotha. Our redemption was worked out on our behalf on the Cross, so the Cross is the Christian symbol, and therefore we make the sign of the Cross upon ourselves both in and out of church (as the phrase goes, we "cross ourselves"). I noticed the following troparion from the Canon prescribed for Matins this morning, that reminds us of one of the reasons we do indeed "cross ourselves:"
- Great is the might of Thy Cross, O Lord, for signing ourselves with it, we drive away at once
- the power of the demons. (Matins, Second Canon, Friday of the First Week)
Of course, for this to be effective, it must be accompanied by our faith in the Crucified Lord, and that He has power over the evil one and the demons.
Here, now, is a further excerpt from Archbishop Kallistos Ware's article "The Meaning of the Great Fast:"
It will be noted that in common Orthodox usage the words 'fasting' and 'abstinence' are employed interchangeably. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church made a clear distinction between the two terms: abstinence concerned the types of food eaten, irrespective of quantity, whereas fasting signified a limitation on the number of meals or on the amount of food that could be taken. Thus on certain days both abstinence and fasting were required; alternatively, the one might be prescribed but not the other. In the Orthodox Church a clear distinction is not made between the two words. During Lent there is frequently a limitation on the number of meals eaten each day, but when a meal is permitted there is no restriction on the amount of food allowed. The Fathers simply state, as a guiding principle, that we should never eat to satiety but always rise from the table feeling that we could have taken more and that we are now ready for prayer.
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE LENTEN TRIODION, pp. 16-17
To be continued next week with excerpts on "spiritual fasting."
Fr. Steven
March 9, 2006 - Day 4: Alert and Responsive...
Dear Parish Faithful,
- O Lord, Thou hast appointed repentance for me a sinner, wishing in Thy boundless
- mercy to save me though unworthy. I fall down before Thee and I pray: Humble my soul
- through fasting, for I flee to Thee for refuge, who alone art rich in mercy.
- (Matins, aposticha, Thursday in the First Week)
Here is another excerpt from "The Meaning of the Great Fast," by Archbishop Kallistos Ware:
The primary aim of fasting is to make us conscious of our dependence upon God. If practiced seriously, the Lenten abstinence from food - particularly in the opening days - involves a considerable measure of real hunger, and also a feeling of tiredness and physical exhaustion. The purpose of this is to lead us in turn to a sense of inward brokenness and contrition; to bring us, that is, to the point where we appreciate the full force of Christ's statement, 'Without Me, you can do nothing' (JN. 15:5). If we always take our fill of food and drink, we easily grow over-confident in our own abilities, acquiring a false sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency. The observance of a physical fast undermines this sinful complacency. Stripping from us the specious assurance of the Pharisee - who fasted, it is true, but not in the right spirit - Lenten abstinence gives us the saving self-dissatisfaction of the Publican (LK. 18:10-13). Such is the function of the hunger and tiredness: to make us 'poor in spirit,' aware of our helplessness and of our dependence on God's aid.
Yet it would be misleading to speak only of this element of weariness and hunger. Abstinence leads, not merely to this, but also to a sense of lightness, wakefulness, freedom and joy. Even if the fast proves debilitating at first, afterwards we find that it enables us to sleep less, to think more clearly, and to work more decisively. As many doctors acknowledge, periodical fasts contribute to bodily hygiene. While involving genuine self-denial, fasting does not seek to do violence to our body but rather to restore it to health and equilibrium. Most of us in the Western world habitually eat more than we need. Fasting liberates our body from the burden of excessive weight and makes it a willing partner in the task of prayer, alert and responsive to the voice of the Spirit.
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE LENTEN TRIODION, p. 16
To be continued tomorrow ...
Fr. Steven
March 8, 2006 - Day 3: A Firm Resolve...
Dear Parish Faithful,
- By fasting let us bring into bondage the passions of the mind, and let us gain for
- ourselves spiritual wings. Passing lightly through the storm raised against us by the
- enemy, may we be counted worthy to venerate the Cross of the Son of God, slain of His
- own will for the sake of the world; may we spiritually keep the feast of the Savior's
- Resurrection from the dead; going up into the mountain, with the disciples may we glorify
- the Son who loves mankind, for He has received all power and dominion from the Father.
- (Matins, Aposticha, Wednesday of the First Week)
Yesterday evening, we chanted the Second Part of the Great Canon of Repentance of St. Andrew of Crete. If you haven't been to church yet for this wonderful service, you still have two opportunities left - this evening and tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. The Presanctified Liturgy on Friday will begin at 6:00 p.m. (It was pointed out to me that the March calendar mistakenly has 7:00 p.m.)
Following is another portion of Archbishop Kallistos Ware's article "The Meaning of the Great Fast," continued from yesterday:
One reason for this decline in fasting is surely a heretical attitude towards human nature, a false 'spiritualism' which rejects or ignores the body, viewing man solely in terms of his reasoning brain. As a result, many contemporary Christians have lost a true vision of man as an integral unity of the visible and the invisible; they neglect the positive role played by the body in the spiritual life, forgetting St. Paul's affirmation: 'Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit .... glorify God with your body' (I COR. 6:19-20).
Another reason for the decline in fasting among Orthodox is the argument, commonly advanced in our times, that the traditional rules are no longer possible today. These rules presuppose, so it is urged, a closely organized, non-pluralistic Christian society, following an agricultural way of life that is now increasingly a thing of the past. There is a measure of truth in this. But it needs also to be said that fasting, as traditionally practiced in the Church, has always been difficult and has always involved hardship. Many of our contemporaries are willing to fast for reasons of health or beauty, in order to lose weight; cannot we Christians do as much for the sake of the heavenly Kingdom? Why should the self-denial gladly accepted by previous generations of Orthodox prove such an intolerable burden to their successors today? Once St. Seraphim of Sarov was asked why the miracles of grace, so abundantly manifest in the past, were no longer apparent in his own day, and to this he replied: 'Only one thing is lacking - a firm resolve.'
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE LENTEN TRIODION, pp. 15-16
To be continued tomorrow ...
Fr. Steven
March 7, 2006 - Day 2: The Saving Abstinence...
Dear Parish Faithful,
- As we begin the second day of saving abstinence, we cry to Thee, O Lord:
- Pierce the hearts of us Thy servants with compunction and accept the prayers we
- offer Thee in fear: Grant us without stumbling to complete the course of the Fast,
- and bestow upon us cleansing and great mercy.
I hope and pray that Great Lent has begun well for everyone in the parish as we enter into the second day of saving abstinence. Yesterday evening, we offered up our prayers of repentance to God through the words of the extraordinary and deeply compunctionate Great Canon of Repentance of St. Andrew of Crete. There are yet three more evenings for the Canon, so I hope to see many of you in church during this First Week of Great Lent.
I have been re-reading a remarkable article on "The Meaning of the Great Fast" by Archbishop Kallistos Ware. He integrates both "bodily fasting" and "spiritual fasting" with great depth and insight based upon the Scriptures, the lenten hymnography, and the lives of the Saints. Over the course of the first few week of Great Lent, I would like to share a few very insightful paragraphs from this article with you. After a general statement about the balance between fasting both "outward" and "inward," Archbishop Kallistos reminds us of the meaning and goal of physical abstinence from food and drink:
On the outward level fasting involves physical abstinence from food and drink, and with such exterior abstinence a full fast cannot be kept; yet the rules about eating and drinking must never be treated as an end in themselves, for ascetic fasting has always an inward and unseen purpose. Man is a unity of body and soul, 'a living creature fashioned from natures visible and invisible,' in the words of the Triodion; and our ascetic fasting should therefore involve both natures at once. The tendency to over-emphasize external rules about food in a legalistic way, and the opposite tendency to scorn these rules as outdated and unnecessary, are both alike to be deplored as a betrayal of true Orthodoxy. In both cases the proper balance between the outward and the inward has been impaired.
The second tendency is doubtless the more prevalent in our own day, especially in the West ... In East and West alike, the lenten fast involved a severe physical effort. But in Western Christendom over the past five hundred years, the physical requirements of fasting have been steadily reduced, until by now they are little more than symbolic. How many, one wonders, of those who eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday are aware of the original reason for this custom - to use up any remaining eggs and butter before the Lenten fast begins? Exposed as it is to Western secularism, the Orthodox world in our own time is also beginning to follow the same path of laxity.
"The Meaning of the Great Fast," from THE LENTEN TRIODION, pp. 14-15
To be continued tomorrow ...
Fr. Steven
March 6, 2005 - Beyond the Rules, to the Heart of Great Lent, and the Goal of Goals
Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
The hymn above, chanted on this the first day of the Great Fast, takes us way beyond the lenten season as a time for fulfilling legal prescriptions concerning our food and drink. It presupposes our ascetical fasting - the all-hallowed season of abstinence - but understands that as a means to far greater and more glorious ends:
How the attainment of just one of these would bear much fruit - "thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold" - and make Lent a worthy effort! I believe that Great Lent is based upon a series of ever-deepening and expanding "presuppositions" or foundational principles that further reflect our having the "mind of the Church." Some of these presuppositions would be:
- While fasting bodily, let us also fast spiritually. Let us loosen every bond of injustice.
- Let us destroy the strong fetters of violence. Let us tear up every unjust writing. Let us give
- bread to the hungry and let us welcome the homeless poor into our houses, that from Christ
- our God we may receive the great mercy.
The "body" would include not only what we eat and drink, but also what our eyes see, what our ears hear, what our words say, what our hands do, and where are feet lead us. But this reveals the condition of our "soul" and the direction of our heart: "for the body serves the reason-endowed soul" as we declare in the Rite of Tonsure from the Service of Holy Baptism. Neglect either body or soul, and everything becomes one-sided and lacking in balance.
The few basic presuppositions out of many outlined above are particular instances of a basic presupposition without which Great Lent becomes incoherent as a meaningful endeavor: that of a Christian worldview, or Christian philosophy of life. This is Fr. Schmemann's triune intuition of life as a divine/human drama of Creation, Fall, and Redemption, with the Kingdom to Come as its ultimate fulfillment. Great Lent presupposes this understanding of life and reality and our place within it. A different worldview would perhaps call for different practices or "observances" - or none at all besides eating, drinking, and making merry.
Great Lent is a real challenge to our stewardship of time and energy. And to our capacity to simplify and focus. If we marginalize it to the periphery of our lives or squeeze it into the "religious compartment" of our already compartmentalized lives, then it is no longer "Great," but rather "Small," "Mediocre," or "Insignificant." But then the "rewards" would be uninspiring and perhaps not even worth pursuing. For those of us committed to everything that Great Lent entails, there is the "reward" that shines upon the world with the glory of eternal life.
Fr. Steven
March 1, 2006 - "When You Fast" - Guidelines for Great Lent
Dear Parish Faithful,
I get my fair share of questions each year about the precise nature of the prescribed fasting for Great Lent. I also assume that there is a certain amount of confusion over this, because we pick things up from other church traditions that do not quite fit into our own Orthodox Tradition. With Great Lent beginning next Monday, I wanted to pass on the fasting guidelines of the Church. I found a very clear article about this entitled, "Our Fasting During Great Lent," by Fr. John Hopko. It is attached to a book published by SVS Press - When You Fast - Recipes for Lenten Seasons. Fr. John's article is to the point, and it also has some sound pastoral considerations added, so I will simply pass on the relevant paragraph or two for your reading and reference:
WE SHOULD BEGIN by reminding ourselves of the basics of the Church's traditional discipline of fasting. During Great Lent, the strictest levels of fastings are prescribed, with certain exceptions allowed for weekends and feast days. The traditional norm, as developed and followed over many centuries in the Orthodox Church, is that we would abstain from the following items (listed here in order, beginning with those items that are eliminated first and then on down to those items that may be permissible at some times):
- meat and meat products (must be restricted)
- milk and egg products (often referred to as "dairy." These items are perhaps permissible for some, for example, young children)
- fish (permissible on certain feasts during Great Lent)
- olive oil (permissible on weekends and certain feasts during Great Lent)
- wine (this means all alcoholic beverages; ;they are permissible on weekends, and certain feast days during Great Lent)
So then, generally speaking, during Great Lent we are to make do with the following types of food:
- shellfish (shrimp, clams, etc.)
- vegetables
- vegetable products
- fruit, grains (breads, pasta, rice, etc.), nuts, etc.
- nonalcoholic, dairy-free beverages
Having laid out the traditional guidelines for fasting, certain points must be made in reference to them. First of all, each of us must make an honest, prayerful assessment of how well we can maintain the fasting discipline. If we are unable - due to age, illness, or some other weakness - to follow the traditional order of fasting completely, we must then make a decision about what we are going to do. Being overly scrupulous in this regard will not save us but neither will any rationalizing away of the need to fast. Each and every person, usually together with the other members of his or her family and, if necessary in consultation with his or her parish priest, needs to make an honest and prayerful decision about how he or she is going to keep the fast. (When You Fast - Recipes for Lenten Seasons, pp. 247-248; SVS Press, Crestwood NY)
A clear and pastorally-balanced approach in my estimation. The book from which this article is taken, by the way, is filled with hundreds of lenten recipes, from "main dishes" to "cookies and desserts." Again, it is available from SVS Press.
As to the fasting, there is no doubt that it is both a disciplined and a healthier way of eating and drinking. I just heard over the radio that former president Clinton is now on a "campaign" for healthier eating in our country, especially in our school systems. He is reportedly concerned over the rise of obesity among our children. The story went on to say that his change of (eating) life-style was prompted by his heart by-pass surgery. We know that the first foods to be eliminated for health reasons are always red meat and sugar-laden sweets.
If former President Clinton is searching for a living context that promotes healthy eating (as well as the spiritual fruits of discipline, obedience and ascetism), he needs to join the Orthodox Church - but only after proper catechism and confession!
As Fr. John noted, it is sound advice to speak with your parish priest about these issues and how they may be integrated into family life. Please contact me if you so desire.
Fr. Steven
February 27, 2006 - Worth Being Judged
Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
Since yesterday was Meatfare Sunday, we woke up this morning to the Monday of Cheesefare Week. Fasting from meat has already begun in anticipation of the full discipline of the Great Fast that begins a week from today, Monday, March 6. Unless our eyes have been shut and our ears closed, it will be impossible to say next week that Great Lent has caught us off guard. The pre-lenten season that is drawing to a close has as its purpose the goal of preparing us for the struggle against the flesh and our "passions" that will demand our vigilance and attention once the lenten journey begins. Focusing our human energy and opening up our minds and hearts to the grace of God will be essential. In other words, prepare to get counter-cultural! My own personal reflection would be that that is exactly what any sane person would desire to do with all of his/her mind, body, heart and soul. The Church is a haven of spiritual sanity amidst the insanity of a world that has forgotten God. Great Lent intensifies that truth; offers us a choice about the direction of our lives; and thus reveals the true treasure of our hearts. In effect, we are always choosing - consciously or unconsciously - between God and mammon. The Great Fast makes our choices more apparent.
All of this is set against the background of the Last Judgment, thus giving us the "big picture" within which we live our lives and determine our personal destinies. The Gospel reading from yesterday's eucharistic Liturgy was that of the Parable of the Last Judgment. (MATT. 25:31-46) Thus, the second Sunday before Great Lent is also called The Sunday of the Last Judgment. In parabolic form and with awesome imagery, the Lord speaks of His own Parousia as the glorified Son of man at the end of time and reveals to us that this will be a time of judgment. This judgment will lead to separation. The "sheep" (the saved) will be placed on the right hand, and the "goats" (the lost) on the left hand of the eternal Throne of God. This, in turn, will reveal the "quality" of our lives, though not in the way in which we today use the term "quality of life." We will be confronted with the question as to how well we served the Lord by how well we served the "least" of His brethren: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." (MATT. 25: 40) These least are the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. How many of us have to admit that these are precisely the people that we neglect? The fact that society removes such people from our sight does not offer a very reassuring "excuse" for our neglect. It simply makes it more convenient and less troubling, perhaps, to our consciences. Sadly, this may point to one of the most glaring of "disconnects" between the Gospel and our Christian lives, expressed in the following hymn:
I, for one, am not ready to concede that this hymn is excessively rhetorical, overly pessimistic, or "unfair" in its outlook. It is rather a sober and honest plea calling us to repentance and the re-direction of our lives. It reminds us that it is never too late. And that the Good Shepherd will place us upon His shoulders to the accompaniment of rejoicing angels in heaven over our repentance.
"God is love." (I JN. 4:8) And yet God is demanding. If He "so loved the world that He gave His only Son" to die on the Cross for our redemption, then He expects us to approach and treat others with the same love. This is a love expressed in action and in giving, and is not to be confused with emotions or feelings. We are all outcasts and alienated from God based upon the primordial sin of Adam, and yet God did not forget us or abandon us. He "bought us with a price." (I COR. 6:20) If we are indeed to "imitate the divine nature" as St. Gregory of Nyssa taught, then we could convincingly say that God expects us to "perform" according to the full capacity of our human nature, made "in the image and likeness of God." All the more plausible and possible because our fallen human nature has been renewed in and through the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Our rescue from a condition of "ontological poverty" is meant to arouse in us a desire to rescue "the least of these" from the impoverishing conditions of a fallen world.
Simultaneously with the external history of our lives there is occurring the internal history of our hearts. The outer life is more readily open to being accurately recorded, from the date of our birth to the date of our death and the significant events in between that make up our personal histories. What is happening within our hearts is far more difficult to record, because the human heart is deep and mysterious. Yet the Parable of the Last Judgment, testing the direction of our hearts, raises some real questions: Is our heart expanding or contracting? Is it growing larger or smaller? Is it becoming more generous or more grasping? Is it letting the neighbor in, our keeping the neighbor out? Is it, as the years move inexorably forward, embracing God and neighbor; or is it shrinking in self-protection? These are questions to explore as we move into the lenten season.
If our lives are worth living, then they are worth being judged. Our deeds, words and thoughts are significant because we must "answer" for them to a God who is love. Since God loves us and saves us He will also judge us, though our "judgment" is actually self-inflicted and not imposed on us as a punishment. In a wonderful article entitled " On Preaching Judgment," Fr. John Breck put it this way:
In a bleak and cold universe absent of the presence of God and governed by immutable "laws of nature," there is no judgment. But what does that say about the significance of our lives?
Fr. Steven
February 24, 2006 - Looking Towards Repentance
Dear Parish Faithful,
Before we come to the Sunday of the Last Judgment, I wanted to pass along what I believe to be a remarkable passage about repentance, once of the most balanced and profound descriptions of the over-all meaning of repentance that I have encountered. It is from Archbishop Kallistos Ware's book The Orthodox Way:
Correctly understood, repentance is not negative but positive. It means not self-pity or remorse but conversion, the re-centering of our whole life upon the Trinity. It is to look not backward with regret but forward with hope - not downwards at our own shortcomings but upwards at God's love. It is to see, not what we have failed to be, but what by divine grace we can now become; and it is to act upon what we see. To repent is to open our eyes to the light. In this sense, repentance is not just a single act, an initial step, but a continuing state, an attitude of heart and will that needs to be ceaselessly renewed up to the end of life. In the words of St. Isaias of Sketis, "God requires us to go on repenting until our last breath." "This life has been given you for repentance, " says St. Isaac the Syrian. "Do not waste it on other things."
Repentance frees us from judgment, because it reconciles us and restores us to communion with God through Christ and by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Fr. Steven
February 20, 2006 - Of Athletes and Training
Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
The current Olympic Games held in Torino, Italy, were initially of no particular interest to me. I don't remember hearing much about them until about a week before they began. But once under way, I confess to have actually watched a good deal of the first week's competition. The high levels of excellence achieved and displayed by the athletes; the spirited competitiveness of the events; the international flavor imparted by the participants; and the unfolding of unexpected dramas that further elevate or deflate the Games' competitors, combine in a unique and attractive manner for a viewer like myself. Each sport seems to have its own peculiar attraction when up on the screen. (Yet somehow the "sport" of curling stands out in marked isolation. It either lifts you up into the rarefied atmosphere of incomprehensibly esoteric rules and refined sportsmanship; or it makes you wonder: is not this the missing wonder drug for insomniacs?) However, I have to admit that the passivity of the viewing experience is in marked contrast to the energy of the athletes!
This inevitably raises the old theme - already found in the New Testament - of making an analogy between the training of the committed athlete (or soldier), and the "training" of the Christian committed to the life in Christ. Certainly, there exists an almost universal admiration for the dedicated athlete who will live in semi-monastic isolation from the world in order to perfect his/her skills to the highest level conceivable. Life is put on hold and "the world" is temporarily forsaken for the goal of the singlemindedness essential to ensure absolute proficiency. Discipline and moderation in food and drink must be maintained, as the body must be fine-tuned. No sacrifice is seen to be too great. In fact, the greater the sacrifice made, the greater the mystique surrounding the athlete. In the pursuit of excellence (and gold) the athlete will pour out "blood, sweat, and tears" if necessary. All of this willingly embraced for the goal of mounting the podium and having a gold, silver or bronze medal draped over one's neck in recognition of victory. This is the stuff of modern day heroes and heroines. (Somewhat deflated today because even the eyes of the most dedicated athlete may be looking forward to the lucrative endorsement contracts virtually guaranteed by success). Be that as it may, I find a great deal in the dedicated athlete for genuine admiration. (But I am no fan of Bode's).
Since there is "nothing new under the sun," this image of the ideal athlete was found in the ancient world in which the Olympic Games began and flourished. St. Paul employed the above model in his reflections found in I COR. 9. In direct reference to the Isthmian Games held in Corinth every three years, St. Paul writes the following:
Images of running and boxing, two of the most popular athletic contests of the time, are combined in this passage. The apostle will "pommel" his body if necessary so that he will not be "disqualified" as he "races" for the imperishable crown of the high calling in Christ Jesus. A laurel wreath or a gold medal can only serve as the dimmest of images compared to the imperishable life with Christ in His Kingdom.
We will soon enter the arena of the lenten struggle. Great Lent begins two weeks from today on March 6. We will become ascetics, that is persons in "training," who will practice discipline and moderation in what we eat and drink, and in the activities that we pursue. We will guard our minds and bodies from soul-destroying deeds, words or thoughts. We will strive for victory over our passions, so that liberated from their bondage, we can experience the freedom that is found in Christ. We will strive for singlemindedness and simplicity as we concentrate our time and energy on Christ. To some extent, we will withdraw from "the world" so that we can concentrate on the Scriptures, prayer, our personal relationships, and the liturgical services particular to Great Lent. We will have to push ourselves so as to overcome our laziness and desire for unending comfort. We will have to "deny ourselves" and take up our personal crosses. We will have to place God and neighbor at the center of our lives, and not our "selves." And none of this will be easy.
This may raise the following legitimate questions: can we match the intensity, desire, and dedication of the athletes that we so much admire and perhaps are watching right now? Can the "imperishable wreath" of the Kingdom be even more important for us as Christians, as the "perishable wreath" of victory for the athlete? And are we willing to put our minds, hearts, and strength into the struggle? If we fail to take Great Lent as seriously as the athlete does his pursuit of gold, then we will need to re-evaluate our commitment to the Christian life. But if we do, then the words of the Scriptures will strengthen us accordingly:
Fr. Steven
February 13, 2006 - On The Publican And The Pharisee
Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
The contrast between religious pride and humility was presented to us yet again with the reading of the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee at yesterday's Liturgy. Actually, yesterday was the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, and this commemoration inaugurated the pre-lenten season centered around the superb cycle of Gospel readings that will hopefully prepare us for the beginning of Great Lent on March 6. If we could only ponder these texts in our heart, then perhaps our heart will be ready for the liberating labors of Lent.
Religious pride can also be termed self-righteousness, and it was abundantly exemplified in the prayer of the Pharisee. Christ criticized this type of prayer because it placed greater emphasis on the self than on God. The Pharisee seemed more intent on enumerating his virtues, rather than on praising and blessing God as the true Source of his "achievements." He was not criticized for his practices that including tithing and fasting, but for boasting that they somehow elevated him over "other men" found in the community. These others include "extortioners, the unjust, adulterers, or even ... this tax collector." (LK. 18:11) No doubt such men were sinners that Christ would also call to repentance. But in reading into the heart of the Pharisee's prayer, Christ uncovered the insidious presence of pride. Pride glorifies and ultimately alienates the self from both God and neighbor. Puffed up and bloated with an ever-expanding vision of self-importance and self-worth, the Pharisee had no "room" left for God. Ironically and sadly, the Pharisee is spiritually bankrupt because he has been doing "spiritual" things in the wrong spirit.
The publican (tax collector) had apparently done nothing right in his life for some time before entering the temple to pray one day. He understood this and thus "would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner'!" (LK. 18:13) And in yet another twist in this short parable, he is the one who "went down to his house justified rather than the other!" (LK. 18:14) His contrition revealed his humility. In not choosing the false path of self-justification, he would find himself justified by God. This surely implies a change of life on the part of the Publican. Emptied of the self through self-condemnation, there is "room" for God to work in his heart. Humility cultivates and fertilizes the heart so that the seeds of the Word can be planted and grow in abundance. Humility serves to clarify our vision so that we behold the greatness of God and the equality of our neighbor.
The final pronouncement of Christ is decisive: "For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." (LK. 18:14) This is a wonderful description of the self-emptying and glorification of Christ in His death and resurrection. It was freely chosen, not simply imposed on Him. He trusted that His Father would deliver Him, so the Lord could freely commend His spirit into His hands.
This parable does not encourage us to abandon the practices of our church life so that we can avoid the pitfall of pride! It rather encourages and warns us against the subtle ways that pride that choke the seed planted in our hearts, by tempting us to elevate the self over God. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the pathways to God, not prideful self-glorification, however piously couched. If we like to think that, like the Publican, we have our moments of humility; then we need to confess that we also resemble the Pharisee in our pride. The saints tell us that if we do not humble ourselves, than God will humble us.
Fr. Steven
