The Church and the Journey

“When preparing for a journey, we try to learn as much as we can about our destination; the climate, the history, the special attractions, etc. We buy special clothes, travel books, we explore the internet.  In other words we spend a great deal of time in preparation for the trip with great enthusiasm and anticipation.

Exactly the same can be said about our life’s journey to the Kingdom.  The same joy and anticipation can and should take place as we prepare for our final banquet with the Lord, with the Theotokos and with all the saints…

Having laid aside all earthly cares, having detached ourselves from concrete petty thoughts and emptied our minds in order to give enough room for the Spirit to fill, I would like to stand with you in silence, stillness and solitude – solitude with Christ.  Then we can concentrate on our journey, the one that is taking place as time moves inexorably forward, upward, and, we hope, towards the gates…

But we know Christ, we partake of His Body and His Blood, we stand at the foot of His Cross, we know His Love…Love Him back! Always and forever, this is the answer: love Him back!

The Church provides all the tools that this journey requires…”

+ Matushka Juliana Schmemann, The Joy to Serve, pp. 85-88, Published by: Alexander Press, http://www.alexanderpress.com/downloads/APB_Dialogue-6_Schmemann_Joy.pdf

The Royal Martyr on Marriage and Family Life

A humble and encouraging reminder by Royal Martyr Empress Alexandra Fedorovna...

On Marriage and Family Life
Excerpts from notes made by the Royal Martyr Empress Alexandra Fedorovna
http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/fam_marriageAlex1.html

Orthodox Mission: The Liturgy after the Liturgy

THE LITURGY AFTER THE LITURGY
BY Fr Ion Bria
http://www.iocc.org/orthodoxdiakonia/index.php?id=7



In recent years, there has been a strong emphasis in Orthodox ecclesiology on the eucharistic understanding of the Church.

What the Liturgy Teaches us

"[L]et us consider equally the rites of the priestly supplications which, transmitted by the apostles, are celebrated in the same manner in the entire world and in the whole catholic Church, in such a way that the order of supplication determines the rule of faith [ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi]."

+ Prosper of Aquitaine, Capitula coelestini, fourth century (PL 51:209-210)

St Maria of Paris and the Work of Charity

Mother Maria’s driving concern throughout the expansion of work was that it should never lose either its personal or communal character:

"We should make every effort to ensure that each of our initiatives is the common work of all those who stand in need of it, and not [simply part of] some charitable organization, where some perform charitable actions and are accountable for it to their superiors while others receive the charity, make way for those who are next in line, and disappear from view. We must cultivate a communal organization rather than set up a mechanical organization, Our concept of sobornost [conciliarity] commits us to this. At the same time we are committed to the personal principle in the sense that absolutely no one can become for us a routine cipher, whose role is to swell statistical tables. I would say that we should not give away a single piece of bread unless the recipient means something as a person for us. "

She was certain that there was no other path to heaven than participating in God’s mercy:

"The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says “I” : “I was hungry, and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.” To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need- I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe."

From: Jim Forest, Introduction, Mother Maria Skobtsova, page 30.

On Wealth and Poverty

Welfare and Poverty
by Archbishop John Shahovskoy

Our Encounter in Prayer

"The God we encounter must be as true as we who seek Him. But is not God always true? Is He not always Himself, unchanging? Of course.
But it is not only God as He is in Himself who is involved in our prayers. It is also the image we have of Him, for our attitude depends not only on what He is in Himself but also on what we believe Him to be.
If we have a false image of God, our attitude towards Him and our prayer will alter accordingly. It is important that throughout our life, from day to day, we learn to know God as He is."

+ Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

 “Our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion” 

+ St Irenaeus 

 

"Lex orandi est Lex credendi. The rule of prayer is the rule of belief. And only insofar as we return to this rule, can we recover the true foundations of Orthodox Christian Education." 

+ Fr. Alexander Schmemann 

 

"What concerns the eucharist concerns the Church, and what concerns the Church concerns the eucharist, so that any ailment in the liturgy reflects on our faith and on the whole life of the Church." 

+ Fr Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist

Life Liturgical

"If salvation in Christ is the unique aim of our life, everything we do becomes liturgical, an act of prayer."

+ Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) of Essex, Words of Life, Translated by Sister Magdalen of Essex (Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2010) 56

Pointing Towards a Cure

Very humbling reminder...

"Father Alexander’s unique gift as theologian and critic was his refusal to unmask the demons without pointing to a cure. Unlike many theologians today who are engaged in a relentless critique of church life and culture with their all-too-familiar attacks on secularism, Father Alexander always lifted his audience in the direction of a solution."

+  Fr Alexis Vinogradov, Revisiting Father Alexander Schmemann’s Work on the Problems of the Church in America: The Liturgical Problem

Does the Blessing of Icons Agree with or Contradict the Tradition of the Orthodox Church?

An interesting article by Fr. Steven Bigham posted at Orthodox Arts Journal:

Does the Blessing of Icons Agree with or Contradict the Tradition of the Orthodox Church?
by Fr. Steven Bigham
http://www.orthodoxartsjournal.org/does-the-blessing-of-icons-agree-with-or-contradict-the-tradition-of-the-orthodox-church/

Orthodox Catechesis

ORTHODOX CATECHESIS
http://www.goarch.org/archdiocese/departments/religioused/resources/orthodoxcatechesis

1. THE PURPOSE OR PHILOSOPHY OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

The purpose of Orthodox Christian Education (catechesis) is to help build up the Church, the Body of Christ, by nurturing every person in the life of personal communion with the Holy Trinity (theosis), and thus, through this ministry, to bear joyful witness to God’s loving and redeeming work in the world.

Being only one part of the total life of the Church, Christian education is effective in the context of living faith in the home and the local parish. Living faith is concretely expressed through all believers – bishops, priests, parents, teachers, parish leaders, youth leaders, and all Orthodox Christians seeking to know and to live the new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Christianity as Revelation

"One cannot say that Christianity is a religion. Christianity is a revelation of eternity and life. The angels rejoice greatly because God has revealed Himself mystically to His creature, man. Our human nature has become part of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and that is a great gift which we do not even appreciate; instead, we have cleaved to the things of this world. We have been given the opportunity to prepare ourselves for eternity, to vanquish evil, and to always be with our Heavenly Father."

+ Elder Thaddeus, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives, 148.

PS keep in mind it's not about hatred of the material in the docetist sense, but rather the embrace of the world and of paradise as it should be. Orthodoxy reveals the eschatological truth of all things. Which is why Elder Thaddeus speaks about thought. I think there's something about his mention of peace that speaks about seeing and living with clarity of a Saint, one in union with God.

Mother Gabriella (Gerontisa Gavriellia) on Faith and Love

Some encouraging words from the Apophthegmata of the Mother Gabriella (Gerontisa Gavriellia):

And Mother said ...

Only one thing do I know that I have always, and it is not pride, nor fantasy, but that which I have day and night, wherever I find myself-three things: first, Faith; second, Faith; third, Faith. That's all! Nothing else can I say to you. It has directed all my life.
When we believe and someone says, "Do you want to come to Lebanon with me?" I say, "Yes."
"How do you say Yes to everything?"
I say yes because I believe that if it is not for my good God will make it so that the No will come from the very one who invited me. Some paper will not be ready, or something will happen.
Today I am ninety years old-may you live so long! I read again and again and again in the Gospels, and I see something strange. Jesus Christ comes and says to the Apostles, "Leave now what you have and follow Me."
Now, if they said, "And who are you? Why should we lose what we have? Why should we lose our profit? Where will you take us? What will you do with us?"-if they had said that, what would have happened? They would have remained in darkness.
They said Yes to some Unknown who came and said, "Throw all that away!" Why? Because they believed in God, and they waited for the One who would say to them, "Come!" And that was the beginning.
Because if we say No, what will happen? ... One or the other: If you believe, you will walk on the water like St. Peter. If you are scared-Bloop! Nothing else.
Through all my life it has been like that. They called me to the strangest and most distant place in India. One night they sent me a message: "Come and see someone who is sick." We started out in an ox cart driven by some shepherd boy. And as we were going up the mountain in the forest, what do I see above us? Two eyes shining, a tiger. What do you say then? "Lord have mercy on me, and may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
So I closed my eyes and saw that written within me. Because He said to us, "Why do you worry? Why do you worry? Even the hairs of your head are numbered!" Why worry? Faith is lacking. May we have faith.

Again, Mother said ...

Once when I was there where I was, some foreign missionary came and said to me, "You may be a good woman, but you're not a good Christian."
I said, "Why?"
"Because you have been here so long and you only go about speaking English. What local languages have you learned?"
I said to him, "I haven't managed to learn any of the local languages, because I travel a great deal from place to place. As soon as I learn one dialect, they start speaking another. I've only learned 'Good morning' and 'Good evening.' Nothing else."
"Bah, you're no Christian. How can you evangelize? All the Catholics and Protestants learn all the local dialects in order to ..."
Then I said, "Lord, give me an answer for him." I asked it with all my heart, and then I said, "Ah. I forgot to tell you. I know five languages."
"Really? What are these five?"
"The first is the smile; the second is tears. The third is to touch. The fourth is prayer, and the fifth is love. With these five languages I go all around the world."
Then he stopped and said, "Just a minute. Say that again so I can write it down."
With these five languages you can travel the whole earth, and all the world is yours. Love everyone as your own-without concern for religion or race, without concern for anything.
Everywhere are people of God. You never know if the one you see today might tomorrow be a saint.

On The Work of Asceticism

The term askein, from which askesis comes, meant “to work.” Asceticism thus came to mean discipline and training, especially the sort that an athlete undergoes, as John McGuckin explains:

The word "asceticism” derives from the Greek term for physical exercise, such as athletic practice. The idea of training the soul to virtue by disciplining the body is fundamental to monastic theory. Here, Christian monasticism provided a distinct and original anthropology. In many Greco-Roman theories the purpose of “philosophic” asceticism was to purify the soul of the body's influence. ... In its purest form the Christian concept of ascesis seeks not the liberation of the soul from the body but the integration of the person, spiritually and materially. Ascesis was thus a manner of disciplining the body and training the mind by prayers, vigils and fasting, until the whole person was attuned to his or her best ability to hear and obey the voice of God.

Asceticism therefore involves the idea of self-sacrifice and self-discipline. Since there are a large number of reasons for which one might submit to a discipline, I have no objection to a large number of uses for the word asceticism. When an athlete is placed under discipline in order to train for a prize, it is athletic asceticism; when a person disciplines excessive consumption of goods for the sake of distributive justice it might be called moral asceticism; when a person refrains from those same goods during wartime, it may be called patriotic asceticism; when a child learns to discipline wants and outbursts of frustration, that self-discipline may also be said to have an ascetical quality about it. In this way, different types of asceticism could be identified by different formal causes. Paul Evdokimov admits this range of meaning, too:

The word “ascesis” comes from the Greek askesis and means exercise, effort, exploit. One can speak of the athletic ascesis when it seeks to render the body supple, obedient, resistant to every obstacle. The ascesis of scientists and doctors shows their magnificent abnegation that sometimes costs them their lives. Monastic tradition has given to this term a very precise meaning; it designates the interior combat necessary in order that the spiritual acquire a mastery over the material.

It is easy to imagine religious causes of asceticism, too. Religious asceticism would be a disciplined endeavor to find God. The existence of pre-Christian and extra-Christian asceticism is a phenomenological fact (just like the existence of pre-Christian and extra-Christian religion is a phenomenological fact). But I shall maintain that liturgical asceticism is different from both moral asceticism and religious asceticism, and distinguish them not so much by the practices employed, but by the cause and end to which they are employed. That is exactly why two words (liturgical and asceticism) are required to name the single, simple reality liturgical asceticism. It is a theological category, not a moral, civic, religious, or athletic one. Evdokimov states it succinctly: “An athlete exercises his body; an ascetic, his flesh.”

Christianity shares many religious practices with the whole of humanity. This is a corollary of believing that grace perfects nature, and there is no alarm in this admission: It is, in fact, a sign of the solidarity and compatibility of Christianity with human nature. Perhaps no one understood this better than G. K. Chesterton, whose writings often contained an apology for the rather pagan quality of certain Catholic acts. For example, when critics of Catholicism complained that “ritual feasts, processions or dances are really of pagan origin,” Chesterton replied, “they might as well say that our legs are of pagan origin. Nobody ever disputed that humanity was human before it was Christian; and no Church manufactured the legs with which men walked or danced, either in a pilgrimage or a ballet.” Neither do I deny that fasting, vigils, and solitude were practiced by religious persons before they were practiced by Christians. The Church did not create asceticism, and I do not deny that there were ascetics before there were Christians. In fact, liturgical asceticism does possess this religious dimension, meaning by “religion” what Archimandrite Boniface Luykx meant when he called it “making a path for God to come to you by.” There is a religious aspect to liturgical asceticism. After all, Christian ascetics who make a profession are called “religious” (priest, lay, religious).

However, Chesterton also pointed out modernity s tendency to overlook content when noticing similar forms, a tendency which he said led ethical societies and parliaments of religion to conclude that “the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but they are the same in what they teach.” Chesterton contradicts this. “It is false; it is the opposite of the fact. The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach. . . . They agree in machinery; almost every great religion on earth works with the same external methods, with priests, scriptures, altars, sworn brotherhoods, special feasts. They agree in the mode of teaching; what they differ about is the thing to be taught.” Similarly, I will suppose that liturgical asceticism and religious asceticism agree in their machinery: They will use the same external methods of fasting and celibacy. But liturgical asceticism will differ from religious asceticism in its arche and telos (origin and end, principle and purpose). Not all asceticism is liturgical, any more than all worship is Christian; but liturgical asceticism does exist, as does liturgical worship. Jeremy Driscoll affirms this in Evagrius who recorded the understanding of the Desert Fathers: “Evagrius himself is witness ... to how at base this monastic heritage has a distinctive Christian face which distinguishes it from all other traditions of spiritual exercises, from other cultural manifestations of monasticism. This distinctive face, again, is the face of the incarnate Lord who is with the monk in every stage of his exercises. . . .” Every mystery of the Church—its sacraments, its laws, its hierarchy, its exercises, its ministry—exists for the sole purpose of being a means to participate in the mystery of Christ. Therein lies the difference between Christian asceticism and other religious asceticism. What makes it liturgical asceticism is the fact that it is a means of participating in Christ. There is a natural virtue of moral discipline that might lead a person to make ascetical experiments in goodness or justice or humility before Almighty God, but I am speaking of a discipline that is required to become a liturgist in Christ s body. Asceticism is requisite to being a liturgist and to becoming a liturgical theologian.

+ David W. Fagerberg, "Theologia Prima: What Is Liturgical Theology?" 2nd Ed. (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2004) 19-22

"One day while meditating St. Macarius thought that perhaps there were no more righteous people in the world. A voice came from Heaven and said "In the City of Alexandria you will find two very righteous women." He took his staff and went to the city. He was guided to the home of the two women where he inquired of their life. 

One of them related to him,

"There is no kinship between us and when we married these two brothers we asked them to leave us to be nuns but they refused. So we committed ourselves to spend our life fasting until evening and we pray diligently. When each of us had a son, whenever one of them would cry, any one of us would carry and nurse him even if he was not her own son. We are in one living arrangement, the unity of opinion is our model, and our husbands work as shepherds, we are poor and only have our daily bread and what is left over we give to the poor and needy." 

Rejoicing he bade them farewell. Reflecting upon the comfort of the Holy Spirit to all those who loved the Lord his soul was filled with compassion once again and he returned to his beloved desert."

+ From "St. Macarius the Great: Clothed with the Holy Spirit", http://www.suscopts.org/resources/literature/181/st-macarius-the-great-clothed-with-the-holy-spirit/

Every Action Proper

“To the extent that man does not use his freedom, he is not himself. In order to emerge from that indeterminate state, he must utilize his freedom in order to know and be known as himself.”

+ Fr. Dimitru Staniloae

"Every action of a person that is proper to them is ultimately an act of freedom. Love is the most essential act of freedom. Nothing can force me to love - for love cannot be forced. The transformation of the human being from natural existence to personal existence is our transformation from slavery to freedom. Personal existence is not a given - it is a gift of grace, the struggle to live as the Father lives, to do what we see the Father doing."

+ Fr Stephen Freeman, http://glory2godforallthings.com/2013/03/05/what-would-you-do/

Liturgy Outside the Church

"Who...can differentiate the worldly from the heavenly in the human soul, who can tell where the image of God ends and the heaviness of human flesh begins! In communing with the world in the person of each individual human being, we know that we are communing with the image of God, and, contemplating that image, we touch the Archetype-we commune with God...The liturgy outside the church is our sacrificial ministry in the church of the world, adorned with living icons of God, our common ministry, an all-human sacrificial offering of love, the great act of our God-manly union, the united prayerful breath of our God-manly spirit... and it seems to me that this mysticism of human communion is the only authentic basis for any external Christian activity."

+ St Maria of Paris

From: Mother Maria Skobtsova: Essential Writings, 79-82.

When Activity is our only "Theology"

“When theology is false, then Christianity is reduced to activities.”

+ Fr. John S. Romanides

"Nowadays, especially in the U.S., the Church is perceived as an enterprise, an activity. The priest constantly harasses people to do something for the Church. And their activism is measured in quantitative criteria: how many meetings, how much money, how much “doing.” I’m not sure it is all necessary. 

What is dangerous is not the activity itself, but the reduction of the Church, the identification of this activity with life in the Church. The idea of the Church, the sacramental principle of its life, lies in taking us away from activity (“let us put aside all earthly cares”), in making us commune with a new life, eternity, the Kingdom. 

And the idea of the Church, the principle of its life, also demands that we would bring into the world this experience of a new life so that we would purify this world, illumine it with the non-worldliness of the experience of the Church. Quite often the opposite happens: we bring activism into the Church, the fuss of this world, and submit the Church, poison its life with this incessant fuss. What happens is not that life becomes Church, but the Church becomes worldly."

+ Fr Alexander Schmemann, Journals, Thursday, February 18, 1982

Ecclesiological Notes by Fr Alexander Schmemann

Ecclesiological Notes
by Fr Alexander Schmemann

1. One of the greatest "ecumenical" difficulties the Orthodox Church has is that her thought forms and "terms of reference" are different from those of the West. And, since the ecumenical movement was shaped primarily by Western theological presuppositions and antecedents, its Orthodox participants were, from the very beginning, forced to express their positions and points of view within a theological framework alien to, or at least different from, the Orthodox tradition. This is especially true of ecclesiology. The Orthodox East has not been challenged either by the politico-ecclesiological controversies typical of the Western Middle Ages or by the Reformation. It remained free, therefore, from the "polemical" and "definitional" ecclesiology which underlies the Western De Ecclesia, whether in its Roman Catholic or Protestant form, and which conditions to a great degree the ecumenical debate on the Church. 

All Sufficiency

"Therefore, as we also commemorate his holy passion, his resurrection form the dead, His ascension into heavens, his sitting at your hand, O Father, and his second coming which shall be from the heavens, awesome and full of glory; we offer unto you your oblations from what is your, for every condition, concerning every condition and in every condition."

+ From The Institutional Narrative, The Divine Liturgy of St Basil, Coptic Orthodox Rite

“Thine own of Thine own, we offer to Thee, in behalf of all, and for all”

+ Elevation of the Holy Gifts, The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom

"Deal with us according to your goodness, O you who give food to all flesh. Fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that we too, having sufficiency in every thing always, may abound in every good deed...Lord have mercy...Remember O Lord, those who have brought unto you these gifts, those on whose behalf they have been brought, and those by whom they have been brought. Give them all the heavenly reward....Pray for these holy and precious gifts, our sacrifices and those who have brought them....Lord have mercy."

+ From The Seven Short Prayers, The Divine Liturgy of St Basil, Coptic Orthodox Rite

Giving and Imparting as Mission

"I never stopped trying to exercise my missionary efforts while teaching or talking to or counselling my students. I wasn’t bent on having them join my church, but I was trying to be contagious and to instil in them a sense of faith, of trust, of beauty, and finally of joy.

My idea always was, and still is, to try to discover what is missing in a person’s vision of life, what venue to use in order to reach people on their own ground. Whenever I feel a void, I try to fill it with hope and higher expectations from real life; not career, nor knowledge, but the poetic sacred aspect of life, so often missing from people’s lives.

I insist that it is our sacred duty as those blessed with such abundant blessings from our life: our faith, our church and its services, Pascha, the beauty of nature, faithful friends, etc., to share these blessings with any and all who come into our lives, who cross our path and who dwell, if even momentarily, in our line of vision...

...Every one of us, every day has a chance to proclaim one’s faith and love in deeds and works, in compassion and love, in bringing peace and being truly grateful.

This is mission. Give unto others what we have in abundance."

+ Matushka Juliana Schmemann, "The Joy to Serve" (Montreal: Alexander Press, 2009) 78-80.