The Response of Love

"The early Church knew that, in all creation, there is no one who is worthy through his own spiritual effort, through his own “worthiness,” to partake of the body and blood of Christ, and that therefore preparation consists not in a calculation and analysis of one’s “preparedness” or “unpreparedness,” but in the answer of love to love:

About Hymnology (Preliminary Translation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS0uGBmvPtE

Preliminary Translation (Thanks Hoda)

About the Christian Hymns and their characteristics

A Perspective on Monastic Revival and Urban Monasticism

Although I don't agree with abolishing the monastic institution (except when the institution becomes a reduction and packages or loses sight of the eschatological promise and witness) or the use of habit (I think the habit of monks, priests and nuns allows for a certain degree of witness) I can understand Fr Alexander's concern about possible romanticism or rigorist tendencies of Orthodox monasticism as institution.

Perhaps there is a possibility that monasticism today might be equally challenging in the 'urban wilderness,' with monks and nuns hidden in our midst, praying for the life of the world. An interesting and challenging set of suggestions....


More and more often it seems to me that reviving the monasticism that everybody so ecstatically talks about - or at least trying to revive it - can be done only by liquidating first of all the monastic institution itself, i.e., the whole vaudeville of klobuks, cowls, stylization, etc. If I were a starets - an elder -I would tell a candidate for monasticism roughly the following:

• get a job, if possible the simplest one, without creativity (for example as a cashier in a bank);
• while working, pray and seek inner peace; do not get angry; do not 
• think of yourself (rights, fairness, etc.). Accept everyone (coworkers, clients) as someone sent to you; pray for them;
• after paying for a modest apartment and groceries, give your money to the poor; to individuals rather than foundations;
• always go to the same church and there try to be a real helper, not by lecturing about spiritual life or icons, not by teaching but with a “dust rag” (cf. St Seraphim of Sarov). Keep at that kind of service and be - in church matters - totally obedient to the parish priest;
• do not thrust yourself and your service on anyone; do not be sad that your talents are not being used; be helpful; serve where needed and not where you think you are needed;
• read and learn as much as you can; do not read only monastic literature, but broadly (this point needs more precise definition);
• if friends and acquaintances invite you because they are close to you go; but not too often, and within reason. Never stay more than one and a half or two hours. After that the friendliest atmosphere becomes harmful;
• dress like everybody else, but modestly, and without visible signs of a special spiritual life;
• be always simple, light, joyous. Do not teach. Avoid like the plague any “spiritual” conversations and any religious or churchly idle talk. If you act that way, everything will be to your benefit;
• do not seek a spiritual elder or guide. If he is needed, God will send him, and will send him when needed;
• having worked and served this way for ten years - no less - ask God whether you should continue to live this way, or whether change is needed. And wait for an answer: it will come; the signs will be “joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.”

SOURCE: Fr Alexander Schmemann, "Tuesday, January 20,1981" in "The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann." Translated by Juliana Schmemann (New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002) 284-285.

On Spiritual Fathers

"To be a starets is a special calling. If we take seriously all that we know about the startsy, we see that they indulge neither in intimate guidance nor in solving problems, but in revealing the Lord’s reality."

May God send spiritual elders in the appointed time...

I sometimes think that every person is called to say or do something, albeit small, but genuine and something that is his calling. But life is such that  one is plunged headlong into everything. Then one loses oneself and one’s own and does not fulfill this calling. 

I am quite convinced that I have no calling to be a personal guide. I dislike “intimate” effusions. When I hear confession, I often have the feeling that it is not me, but someone else, and that all the things that I say are impersonal cliches, not it, not it at all... I see a lot of harm being done, from encouragement of self-centeredness and spiritual pride (on both sides), to the reduction of faith to ones self and ones problems. Christianity is always a preaching, a revelation of that other, higher level, of reality itself, and not an “explanation.” But then what about the starets (an elderly monk, adviser and  spiritual guide)? To be a starets is a special calling. If we take seriously all that we know about the startsy, we see that they indulge neither in intimate guidance nor in solving problems, but in revealing the Lord’s reality. Thats why a pseudo-starets is so dangerous—there are so many of them nowadays and they  are usually full of lust for power. 

I am quite convinced that genuine preaching is always an answer to doubts and to temptations as well as their healing. It is always preaching about Christ, and only about Christ—knowing Him, meeting Him, obeying Him, loving Him—which can remove doubts and problems. What makes a genuine preacher strong is that he directs his sermon also to himself, to his own despondency, lack of faith, his own lukewarm heart. What can “talks” add to it?

SOURCE: Fr Alexander Schmemann, "Thursday, September 27,1973" in "The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann." Translated by Juliana Schmemann (New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002) 14-15.

And this longer article by Metropolitan Kallistos:

The Spiritual Father in Orthodox Christianity 
by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (in Cross Currents (Summer/Fall 1974), pp. 296-313.)

One who climbs a mountain for the first time needs to follow a known route; and he needs to have with him, as companion and guide, someone who has been up before and is familiar with the way. To serve as such a companion and guide is precisely the role of the “Abba” or spiritual father—whom the Greeks call “Geron” and the Russians “Starets”, a title which in both languages means “old man” or “elder”. [1]

A Prayer for Our New Pope

Anba Rofail's prayer on behalf of the new Pope:

"Sweet Lord Jesus Christ, you have chosen a beautiful gem for our church, and have beheld my tears. I ask of you to support our Pope, that he may be a light for our church, that people may witness your person in it, and that they may taste the beauty of Orthodoxy!"

I also thought the meeting of Anba Tawadrous (HH Pope Tawadrous II) and Anba Rofail was mimenetically like the icon of the meeting of St Peter and St Paul:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNLyfBCuKKA

Axios Axios Axios, Avva Tawadrous!

Introduction to the Orthodox Faith Part 3 & 4

Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_685bgnN-0

Part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9aWyeUqXA

Watch Part 1 & Part 2

A Question of Catechism

"In the East, liturgy is theophany, the privileged ground of our encounter with God, in which the mysteries are truly seen, albeit with the transfigured eyes of faith. What this means to the Eastern Christian can be seen in the following reply of a Russian Orthodox batjushka to his Catholic confrere, who tried to tell him that what was important was the conversion of sinners, confession, the teachings of the catechism, prayer, beside which “rite” plays only a secondary role. 

The Russian priest replied:

Among you it is indeed only an accessory. Among us Orthodox (and at these words he blessed himself) it is not so. The liturgy is our common prayer, it initiates our faithful into the mystery of Christ better than all your catechism. It passes before our eyes the life of our Christ, the Russian Christ, and that can be understood only in common, at our holy rites, in the mystery of our icons. When one sins, one sins alone. But to understand the mystery of the Risen Christ, neither your books nor your sermons are of any help. For that, one must have lived with the Orthodox Church the Joyous Night (Easter). And he blessed himself again."

+ Fr Robert F. Taft, "Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding." 2nd Rev. Ed. (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute Press, 2001) 159-160.

A Little Parable About Love

The following is an excerpt from the Book "The Little Prince." The scene is between the Little Prince and a Fox he meets that plays out beautifully with reflections on love, personhood and intimacy. 

At one point the Fox even describes the importance of rites and patterns in the frame of love, a theme which also points towards a sense of why in Orthodoxy we pray the Divine Liturgy (ie. a response of love to Love). Then there's the theme of taming and we can also consider how this can be a metaphor for love between human beings and also the love for God, and His love for us. 

Of course to quote another children's story, "Aslan is an untamed Lion," so though we cannot "tame" God, in a mysterious sense, our Lord's Kenotic movement is a willful taming, so that we may be tamed. He Who cannot be tamed becomes tamable to tame our wildness and our passions.

Finally there's the very Orthodox sounding statement by the Fox which mentions purity of the heart. One can almost expect to see the quote in the Lives of the Desert Fathers:

On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. 

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Enjoy...

Chapter 20 & 21

On the Love of Enemies: The Teaching of St. Silouan

On the Love of Enemies

The Teaching of St. Silouan

Jean-Claude Larchet (from SOURCE: http://www.incommunion.org/2004/10/24/on-the-love-of-enemies/ )

Although it is natural and usual to love those who love us and to do good to those who do good to us (Mt 5:46-47; Lk 6:32-33), to love our enemies is distasteful to our nature. One can say that it isn’t in our power but is an attitude that can only be the fruit of grace, given by the Holy Spirit. This is why St. Silouan the Athonite writes, “The soul that has not known the Holy Spirit does not understand how one can love one’s enemies, and does not accept it.”

The 'Value' of a Person

With our 'modern' eyes we are often tempted to identify success and worth with a certain specificity to utility and usefulness. Personhood is measured according to a reduced 'normative' expectation of ones contribution to the society, the country, the economy, the family, the mission, the Church, to humanity, to the cultic desires of fallen nature.

Even Orthodox parishes can fall into this temptation, identifying success with numbers, functionality and 'rational' practicality of our Liturgical ethos, or a missiology focused on bringing 'the poor' to a level of social reintegration and usefulness.

The focus of liturgy risks becoming a reward for good behavior, the faith becomes a moral ideology, the mission becomes 'crusade' for souls, and Eucharist a sign of membership or personal blessing. In each of these reductions is an presupposition about the value and the function of the Church and of Personhood. A reduction that appeals to a divide of the sacred and profane, an appeal to pagan dualism instead of the recapitulation and restoration that Christianity witnesses and encounters as Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy as the Person of Christ, as the Church and as the hope of restoration to our authentic humanity which is realized, actualized, worked out and lived in union with the Holy Trinity.

For...

"...when God made you, He at once endowed your nature with this perfection: upon the structure of your nature He imprinted an imitation of the perfection of His own nature, just as one would impress upon wax the outline of an emblem...You must then wash away, by a life of virtue, the dirt that clings to your heart like plaster, and then your divine beauty will once again shine forth."

+ St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Beatitudes, Sermon 6.

"Our value as a human person, therefore, is not determined by our accomplishments or lack thereof. Our value is not determined by our age, race, gender, nationality or economic status. Our value is not determined by our mental or physical abilities or disabilities. Indeed, it is not determined by our faith or our religious activities. In spite of all, even our sins, we forever remain daughters and sons of the Heavenly Father, who calls us to live in communion with Him. The person of Christ is for all the model and example of life lived in communion with the Father."

+ Presbytera Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, "Persons in Communion: A Theology of Authentic Relationships" (Berkeley: InterOrthodox Press, 2006) 27.

Glory to the Holy Trinity.