"Like Pascha in the Summer"

Meditations on the Dormition of the Theotokos - Summer 2005

 

August 22 - "Our Faith IN Our Prayers"

Dear Parish Faithful,

    I just re-read this paragraph from the Introduction of Arch. Kallistos Ware's translation of the Great Feasts that we use in the parish. I found it to be an interesting "supplement" to any reflection on the Feast of the Dormition - like this morning's meditation - or, for that matter, on any of our Great Feasts:

"No real insight into Orthodox theology is possible without a proper knowledge of Orthodox worship.  It is no coincidence that the very word 'Orthodoxy' should mean not only 'right belief' but 'right praise' or 'glory.'   The core of Orthodox tradition is to be found in the service books:  lex orandi lex est credendi - we express our faith in our prayers. In 1950, when Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Bodily Assumption of Our Lady, members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in France approached Metropolitan Vladimir, Russian Exarch in Western Europe for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, inquiring what the belief of the Orthodox might be on this matter.  In answer the Metropolitan urged them to read the Orthodox office of the Dormition, used on August 15; and he said that he had nothing to add to what what was written there."

     Archbishop Kallistos also made this point concerning the liturgical texts of the Great Feasts:

"These texts are not to be approached simply as pieces of 'devotional' poetry, designed to move and edify the woshipper. They are, on the contrary, intensely theological - a primary and essential source for any understanding of the faith."

     Perhaps we could say that we are taught the Faith as we are being "edified."  Both the mind and heart are abundantly nourished in our services by the liturgical texts themselves.  Books of theology are essential reading, but our primary sources are the Scriptures and liturgical texts of the various services.  This puts a burden of responsibility on the priest, the choir and the readers:  they must always sing, chant and read with care and clarity on behalf of the gathered assembly so that the words are intelligible to all.  The assembled faithful, then, are responsible to listen attentively; to try and "gather in" their wandering attention and focus it on the words and liturgical actions of the service. 

Fr. Steven

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August 22 - The Dormition: Our Divine Destiny Fulfilled

Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

     In the services of Vespers, Matins and the Divine Liturgy, one of the repeated petitions that we offer up to God concerns a "good death:"

    A Christian ending to our life:  painless, blameless, and peaceful; and a good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ our God, let us pray to the Lord.

     Implicit in this petition seems to be an image of serenely "handing over" our soul/life to Christ with the sure hope of everlasting life in the Kingdom of God.  Or, of "falling asleep" in the Lord to patiently await the general resurrection.  For this reason, the assigned Epistle reading for an Orthodox Christian burial is the following from the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians:

    But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep,
    that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus
    died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen
    asleep.  For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are
    left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the
    Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call,
    and with the sound of the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who
    are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord
    in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.   (I THESS. 4:13-17)

     The profoundly apocalyptic imagery of this passage perhaps yields before its greatest underlying truth:  "and so we shall always be with the Lord!"  This is the ultimate Christian hope.

     We continue to commemorate and celebrate with joy, wonder and reverence, the fulfillment of this hope in the person of the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary in the Feast of her Dormition as we draw near to the leavetaking of the Feast on August 23.  The Greek title of the Feast - Koimisis - has the meaning of "falling asleep," rendered into English as "dormition."  The Theotokos "falls asleep" in the Lord to be awakened to the fulness of life in the Kingdom of God.  In full solidarity and continuity with our common ancestors, Adam and Eve; and having to bear the consequence of their "original sin," which is death; the Theotokos must die as do all human beings.  This places her in need of salvation. Her hope, then, is in her own Son, who is also her Savior.  In a "reciprocity of love," the eternal Son of God, who was "humanized" through receiving flesh from his Mother, has now "deified" His own Mother by tranlasting her to the realm of eternal life.  Using the theological language of the Church,  Vladimir Lossky wrote:

    The destiny of the Church and world has already been fulfilled, not only in the uncreated
    person of the Son of God, but also in the created person of his Mother.  That is why St.
    Gregory Palamas calls the Mother of God 'the boundary between the created and the
    uncreated.'  Beside the incarnate divine hypostasis (Person) there is a deifed human
    hypostasis (person).
 
    This last glory of the Mother of God, the eschaton realized in a created person before the
    end of the world, henceforth places the Mother of God beyond death, beyone the resurrection,
    and beyond the Last Judgment.  She participates in the glory of her Son, reigns with him,
    presides at his side over the destinies of the Church in time, and intercedes on behalf of
    all before him who will come again to judge the living and the dead.

 

     The Virgin Mary perfectly fulfills the petition for "a Christian ending to our life."  According to the accounts that we have of her death, it was truly "painless, blameless and peaceful."  And certainly she had a "good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ!"   She thus represents us in our own hope for such a Christian death.  The Feast is not only about her unique glorification, but of  our own by way of anticipation.  The mystery of human destiny "in Christ" has been revealed in the Mother of God.  In commenting on the richly rhetorical homilies by the Fathers on the Feast of the Dormition, the scholar Brian E. Daly, S.J. drew the following conclusion:

 
    ... perhaps they saw that the ... traditional story of Mary's Dormition was really a
    statement of the Church's impassioned hope for humanity itself, as called in Christ
    to share, beyond death, the glorious fullness of the life of God.

     As disagreeable or undesirable as it may be in today's death-denying climate - which Christians seem to readily embrace -  life is, on an essential level, a preparation for death, if only because of its inevitability.  Not a morbid preoccupation with death; and certainly not an obsession with death; but a life-long preparation that is simultaneously a humble, realistic and simply honest awareness of our common destiny that fills every moment with an urgency and desire to draw closer to God.  To help us remain humble, realistic and honest in the face of death, the Scriptures will remind us of our transitory existence in this world:  "What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."  (JAS. 4:14) 

      How often do we dismiss such a thought or somehow apply it to "others" only?  Although we know better - and this is the cause of much hidden anxiety and fear - we act and plan as if we were immortal.  However embellished it may be, the account of the Virgin Mary's dormition tells us of her careful preparation for death.  And we encounter the same preparation in the lives of the saints.  I fully realize that this is getting more difficult to reconcile with the modern attitudes toward death and the actual process of dying in today's world  -  hidden, institutional and clinical as it is becoming.  Yet, the "remembrance of death," and a full awareness that we must offer "a good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ" must be integrated into our daily lives - not simply our so-called "spiritual lives" alone - if we are going to seriously direct our lives toward Christ in the hope of our salvation in and with Him.  Otherwise, we face the confusing and unsatisfying tension and conflict of voraciously trying to "get it while you can," with a vague expectation of "going to heaven" in the end.

     Again, according to the accounts, even the Mother of God awaited and prepared for the awesome mystery of death with fear and trembling.  And there was much weeping and lamentation by all those who were close to her.  Yet, the whole atmosphere was filled with hope and a sense of deliverance and salvation.  This hope, of course, was not denied but fulfilled.  The paschal victory of Christ became the paschal victory of His Mother.  Thus the Feast of Dormition becomes a veritable "Pascha in the summer" filled with that great joy that transforms great sorrow into a festive occasion of light and life.  This is only possible in the Church where the mystery of life-out-of-death is an ever-present reality for the eyes of faith, hope and love.

    May He who rose from dead, Christ our true God, through the prayers of His
    most pure Mother ... and of all the saints:  have mercy on us and save us, for He is
    good and loves mankind.  (Dismissal of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom)

Fr. Steven

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August 17 - The Theotokos as Ever-Virgin

Dear Parish Faithful,

     Another passage from the article "Mary the Theotokos and the Call to Holiness," by Kyriaki Karidoyanes Fitzgerald:

     The reference to the virginity of Mary should remind us that perhaps more is implied here than whether Mary had children after the birth of Jesus.  The Greek word parthenia, virginity, much like the term Theotokos, points to more in the Greek than the English translation sometimes indicates.  Numerous writings of the early desert ascetics reveal to us that the meaning of virginity (parthenia), while it certainly includes the keeping of physical chastity, implies something more.  This refers to a dynamic process focusing upon purity of heart.  Purity of heart may be quickly identified as a kind of unconditional integrity in the presence of the living God.  It was the goal of the early ascetics to conquer their selfish desires and develop a pure heart before God.  This is expressed in the words of the Psalm:  "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Ps. 51).  The title aeiparthenos ("Ever-Virgin") invites us to reflect deeply upon Mary's inner state of integrity before God.

Fr. Steven

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August 15 - The Mystery of the Dormition

Dear Parish Faithful,

    We were blessed both yesterday evening and this morning with a wonderful celebration of the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, thus bringing the fast to an end in a truly festal manner.  Relatively speaking, there were many of the faithful at both services, and the services were both prayerful and compunctionate.  Our celebration of the Feast was liturgically enhanced and enriched by the placement of our "tomb" in the center of the church adorned with flowers, and the placement of a beautifully made "burial shroud" with an icon of the Theotokos in blessed repose lying upon it.  In this way, there was a greater sense of venerating the Theotokos in her "falling asleep" into what one of the hymns called a "deathless death."  The kontakion of the Feast further reveals to us, that as the "Mother of Life she was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb," for "neither the tomb, nor death, could hold the Theotokos."   All together it was something like Pascha in the summer.  In her person, the Theotokos reveals human death as a passage into life eternal.  The Tradition of the Church further reveals that she has anticipated what we receive in the form of a "pledge:" that life in the Kingdom of God embraces the full person, both soul and body.  Sadness turns to joy as we contemplate our common destiny in her, who is "more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim!"

    The Orthodox writer, Kyriaki Karidoyanes Fitzgerald, offers this brief summary about the role of the Theotokos in the Church:

        As first among all the saints, she not only is the human bridge between the Old
        and New Testaments; Mary as well as all the saints, is alive in Christ now.  The
        Orthodox affirm that through the life of the Church she is close to us and avail-
        able to us as our helper and intercessor, through the love of the Triune God.
        Reminding us of the intimate connection between Mary and the whole of salvation
        history, St. John of Damascus declares:  "The name of the Theotokos expresses
        the whole mystery of God's saving dispensation."
 

    I hope to send some more passages out this week from some of our current theologians who have written some very thoughtful and insightful works concerning the role of the Virgin Mary and Theotokos in the life of the Church.

Fr. Steven

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August 12 - The Transfiguration: Feast of Light and Glory

Dear Fathers,  Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

    Tomorrow is the Leavetaking of the Transfiguration, so on this Friday we remain within the liturgical boundaries of celebrating this Feast of light and glory inauguated on August 6.   The transfigured Lord reveals the splendor of a human being fully alive, for Christ reveals to us the perfect image of humanity transfigured by the glory of God.  That is why "his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light."  (MATT. 17:2)  Christ reveals both our origin and our destiny on Mt. Tabor.  As the "radiance of the Father" (cf. HEB. 1:3)  He is the perfect and natural Ikon/Image of the invisible God (COL. 1:15).  As human beings created according to the image and likeness of God, we are actually "images of the Image." What Christ is by nature, is what we are meant to be by grace - "partakers of the divine nature"  (II PET. 1:4)  This is promised and pledged to us in the Age to Come when "the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father," (MATT. 13:43) but revealed now in Christ Who is the incarnate Son of God.  

     In other words, whatever Christ does or says, is what a perfect human being united to God would do or say.  He not only reveals God to us, but also humanity.  Look at Christ and you are looking at what it means to be human.  He is what Adam was meant to be, but failed to be because of sin.  As Christ is without sin, He is the "last (and perfect) Adam."  He is also the "man of heaven"  because He reveals to us what heaven is like, where we will bear his image (I COR. 15: 47-49).   All of this was revealed to the disciples on Mt. Tabor when, with even more than the dazzling and startling power of an unexpected flash of lightning, Christ was "transfigured before them."  In that glorious splendor, the disciples Peter, James and John received a glimple of the End of Time before it  has actually come.  That is a good deal to take in at once, so it is no wonder that the disciples "fell on their faces and were filled with awe" (MATT. 17:2,6)!   It is simultaneously no wonder that Peter made a suggestion to the Lord - "I will make three booths" - in the hope of prolonging this experience.  Through them, and our celebration of the Feast, we receive that same glimpse.  The King reveals to us His Kingdom, so that we may be attracted to it and then live for it.  In that sense we are future-oriented as Christians.

    But if Christ is the perfect human being, then He is such because of His obedience to His Father.  He is always "obedient unto death, even death on a cross."  (PHIL. 2:8)  In fact, He was "made perfect" because "he learned obedience through what he suffered."  (HEB. 5:8-9)  Christ was never not obedient to His Father!   He always said to His heavenly Father:  "not my will, but thine, be done."  (LK. 22:42)  His authority and glory are firmly grounded in that obedience.  The result and consequence of this obedience is expressed by the Apostle Paul by his use of the word "therefore" in the following passage:

 

        Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which
        is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven
        and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
        Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  (PHIL. 2:9-11)

 

     St. Paul, however, is not finished with drawing out further consequences for us with another "therefore:"

 

        Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in
        my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with
        fear and trembling, for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good
        pleasure.   (PHIL. 2:12-13)
 

    It seems rather clear, "therefore," that we must be obedient to God like Christ if we are to share in His glory at the End of Time. 

Fr. Steven

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July 29 - Preparing for the Dormition Fast

Dear Parish Faithful,

     I would like to put together a few images that I have used in homilies and meditations over the course of the last few weeks; and which I hope were helpful in making some sense of our lives in the Church during the upcoming Dormition Fast (August 1-15).

     The Church as a whole, and each parish, is a spiritual oasis that offers us the refreshment and renewal of the living waters of the Gospel during our earthly pilgrimage towards the Kingdom of God.  In a barren landscape that leaves our souls undernourished, the Church offers us the Bread from Heaven - Christ Himself - as food for both our souls and bodies.  In the Church we commemorate, celebrate and communicate with the extraordinary events of the divine dispensation - "the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the Sitting at the right hand" - as we anticipate "the second and glorious Coming."  Though we are profoundly "comforted" by God in the Church, it is not a comfort zone of our own making that offers us a smorgasbord of subjective selections as if we were religious consumers doing some "spiritual shopping."

      All of this hopefully comes together during two-week Dormition Fast beginning on Monday, August 1.  This fast will lead us to the extraordinary event of the death of the Theotokos and her mysterious translation to Heaven, where she now has the extraordinary role of being the Mother of the faithful and an intercessor for the entire world.  Our preparation for this Feast is in honor of Her and a sign of our love and veneration.  To practice a bit of modest self-denial in obedience to the Church is to actually liberate ourselves from the world's grip and to find  refuge in the spiritual oasis of the Church.  To take up the Fast is to consciously and freely abandon the comfortless comfort zone of our consumer-driven world.  It is to be challenged and tested so that we can emerge spiritually strengthened and re-committed to Christ. 

     To ignore the Fast is to continue doing the "same old thing" - predictable and profit-less for our souls.  It is to prefer the desert over an oasis; the ordinary over the extraordinary; and the falsely- comforting over the genuinely- comforting presence and grace of Christ, our true God. 

Fr. Steven

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