Union with Christ

"When the head is detached from the body then the body ceases to be alive. Likewise when we are not united to Christ in an intimate manner, as close as that of our own head with our own body, then we will find that we begin to lose that life and salvation which He provides to His body. How necessary it is for us to be united with our Head. He must become the source of our thoughts and desires, as He will also become the source of life and salvation."

+ Fr Peter Farrington

Merciful Works, Martyrdom and Theosis

"Nothing is so fitted for deification…and nearness to God as mercy offered with pleasure and joy to those who stand in need. For if the Word has shown that the person who is in need of having good done to him is God - "inasmuch as you have done it,"(Mt24:40) - then He will much more show that the person, who can do good and does it, is truly God by grace and participation, because he has taken on a proper imitation of the energy (energia)…of His own kindness."

+ St Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy 24 (PG 91 713A-B)

"There is yet another way (of demonstrating the Incarnation), which is not theoretical in nature: namely, the certainty that results from (spiritual) exercise and inner purification. The fathers, who along this path have arrived at the utmost end, have testified that the Christian faith alone is true. The proof of this is their attainment of contact with God to the extent that (divine) traces of him became manifest in them, as well as their constancy in that faith and their devotion to it until they offered themselves up (in martyrdom) without separation from it and in obedience to it."

+ Al-Safı ibn al-Assal, Brief Chapters on the Trinity and the Union, ch. 9 ed. Khalil Samir, SJ, in Patrologia Orientalis 42.3, no. 192 (Brepols: Turnhout/Belgique, 1985). Trans. S. Davis.

An Important Matter

Today wanted to share a large block quote by St John Damascus on the importance of matter in Christianity. Matter plays a very important role in authentic Christian understanding, and a challange for many Orthodox is to avoid the extremes. We are neither called to misuse or abuse matter, nor are we called to consider a "spiritual" platontic ideal in opposition to a base or banal "world". Such dualism would mean buying into the early heresies which the Church sought to correct: Gnosticsm and Docetism.

From his book "Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy," Fr Andrew Damick defines these two erronous movements as:

Docetism: The teaching that Jesus was indeed divine, but that He only “appeared” to be man. This heresy is mentioned (though not by name) in the New Testament and also in the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch. One of the ramifications of this heresy is a denial of the involvement of physical matter in our salvation (called dualism, the opposition of the spiritual to the physical). The Docetists would therefore abstain from the Eucharist.

Gnosticism: A broad term for a large group of different teachings. Almost all were dualistic (like Docetism) and included fanciful and complicated cosmological schema regarding the arrangement of the universe and everything in it. Most gnostic groups taught that a saving knowledge (gnosis) was what was necessary for salvation. They often also taught that only a select few were able to reach the highest spiritual plane and that most people could only function on a lower level. Those who ascended to this higher level had esoteric, “secret” teaching passed on from Jesus.

+ Fr Stephen Andrew Damick, "Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Exploring Belief Systems Through the Lens o f the Ancient Christian Faith." (Chesterton: Conciliar Media Ministries, 2011) 20.

St John responds to those who deny the importance of iconography and iconology by claiming that such 'iconoclastic' sentiments are contrary to the revealled mystery that the Church confesses. To summarize his argument says "Do not abuse matter; for it is not dishonorable"

Here's the excerpt (I highly recommend the book too):

Blessed are the Dispassionate

"What do you do with obnoxious people?  You know who I mean—difficult people, insolent people, nasty, mean, irritating, drive you out of your mind and push your crazy buttons people.  Maybe we’re talking about friends, acquaintances, or total strangers.  Then again, maybe we’re talking about family members.  For us monastics, we might be talking about those who belong to our brotherhood or sisterhood.  In any case, we’re talking about times and circumstances and people that pose a challenge.  I’ll spell this out.  Here’s what I have in mind—when someone puts you on the spot and forces the issue.  I just hate it when that happens.  It ruins my day.  Is this a problem for you?  It is for me.  How do we handle it?

Two strategies come to mind.  The first consists in applying the old maxim that the best defense is a good offense.  In other words, jump into the drama and beat them at their own game.  Blast them for what they say and do, what they are about to say and do, and—just in case—whatever you suspect they might be thinking of saying or doing.  Get them first.

This plan has a consequence, though.  Even if I win the argument, I lose in another way.  It boomerangs on me.  When I lose my cool with somebody, my cool usually stays lost a lot longer than I want.  With interpersonal relations, victory doesn’t bring peace.

The other strategy amounts to sizing up the situation and then running away.  No, I don’t necessarily mean running in a literal sense.  We can do that, too, but running can take other forms, more figurative forms.

Hypocrisy and self-abasement, for example.  Pretending you don’t understand.  Giving a vague reply that deliberately misses the point and hoping the other guy doesn’t insist on pursuing the matter.

Buttering the other person up with flattery.  Insincere agreement.  All these responses have something in common—a retreat into the inner sanctum of our thoughts and feelings, where we probably stew over the matter in a spirit of ever-increasing outrage, resentment, self-pity, self-justification, and a helpless sense of victimization.  I may walk away from the real-life situation and then play it out in my own head, staging rehearsals and performances, taking on all the roles myself in my fantasy—and then writing a review of the production.

In other words, even when I bite my tongue and put on my great stone face act, I land in the same turmoil as when I rush into the fray.  So much for peace of mind. Whichever of these two strategies we pick, then, we end up entangled in drama.  Either we engage in an external drama, or we move the theater inside our own psyche for an internal drama.  In either case, we might as well just announce that “the show must go on.” Neither strategy works very well, then, does it?  We could pose one question of both of them—is this any way to live?  And we would have to answer no.

Just speaking for myself now, I know that I have to find a better way.  That is, I fall into each of these strategies from time to time—with a clear preference for massive retaliation—and I don’t consider the results successful.  Besides, it occurs to me every so often that the four monastic vows I took include a commitment to stability.  Among other things, that means emotional stability.  And I can’t maintain emotional stability if I leap into someone else’s drama or if I run away in fear and then withdraw into my hideout to lick my wounds. There has to be a better way.

I think there is.  It requires us to resist the temptation toward external drama on the one hand and internal drama on the other.  But how do we accomplish that?  Well, I believe we can draw on what some of the Monastic Fathers write about the four stages of becoming captivated by a thought.  The Fathers developed their analysis specifically about thoughts that interrupt our prayers, but their account works equally well when we apply it to our dealings with other people. Anyway, the four stages go like this, with an application of to the subject at hand.  First is the provocation, which would be the words or actions of the other person.  Second is what the Fathers call coupling, where we start thinking about what the other person is saying or doing and we begin to interpret it, evaluate it, and judge it.  The third stage consists in forming a strategy to react to the other person’s words or acts, whether externally or internally.  The fourth stage, captivity, is the point at which we throw ourselves into action without looking back.

What will save us from this mess is mindfulness—that is, becoming aware of the process taking place inside us.  With that awareness we can make a decision to respond rather than react.  In other words, we can walk a middle path between external and internal drama and respond—with discernment—to the real-life situation instead of letting our thoughts go wild in that semi-automatic process so characteristic of our fallen situation, and then reacting to our own captivity instead of the real events of real life.

Okay.   So if this works as I expect it to work, it brings me some inner peace.  All well and good.  But I still have this difficult person standing in front of me, insisting on some response from me.  So the situation remains unresolved.  What has my dispassion gained me?

Well, when my thoughts and feelings don’t dominate me, I can respond to the person and the situation rather than react to my own semi-automatic mental and emotional processes.  I can be present to the reality before me instead of getting lost in my own psychic whirl.  When I step back from the mechanism of judging the other person and justifying myself, I can discern what I need to say and do.  After all, no matter how smart I think I am, how clever I think I am, how adept I think I am at accomplishing half a dozen things at the same time with perfect attention to each one, I have to admit—when I am being honest—that I can’t really keep my attention on the situation in front of me if I am preoccupied with my own interpretation, evaluation, and reaction to that situation.

Finally, if I can break free from all this mental and emotional turmoil, from all this it’s all about me stuff, perhaps I can open myself up to allow God’s light to shine into the dark corners of my mind and heart.  If I can do that, God may be able to illumine me so that I can speak and act according to His will rather than my own.

Easier said than done, of course, but it’s worth a try."

+ Monk Cosmas, http://www.theocpm.org

The Good Samaritan

On the Merciful Samaritan
By Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Today's Gospel in short, contains everything which is the way of the Christian. The first commandment is that we should love our God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength, with all our being, and our neighbour as ourselves. To love means to prefer all that is dear to the beloved person, to what is dear to us. To love God means that we should live, and indeed be such that He could rejoice in what we are, that there should be nothing alien to Him in our lives.

Theology, Poetry and the Liturgical Life of the Church

"Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet."

+ St. Pophyrios Kavsokalyvia

"Poetry is Theology par-excellence"

+ Prof. R. S., An Orthodox Professor in Toronto

++++++++++++

At the Gate of the Year

At the Gate of the Year
by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Before we pray, I should like to introduce our prayers so that when we pray, we do it more effectively, with one mind and with one heart. Year after year I have spoken of the New Year that was coming, in terms of a plain covered with snow, unspoiled, pure, and called our attention to the fact that we must tread responsibly on this expanse of whiteness still unspoiled, because according to the way in which we tread it, there will be a road cutting through the plain following the will of God, or wandering steps that will only soil the whiteness of the snow. But a thing that we cannot, must not forget, this year perhaps more than on many previous occasions, is that, surrounding, covering this whiteness and this unknown as with a dome, there is darkness, a darkness with few or many stars, but a darkness, dense, opaque, dangerous and frightening. We come out of a year when darkness has been perceived by all of us, when violence and cruelty are still rife.

For the Journey

"When preparing for a journey, we try to learn as much as we can about our destination...

...Exactly the same can be said about our life’s journey to the Kingdom...

...We are already on our journey, and should be continually preparing for it. How? Is this the right question? There are as many ways to prepare for this journey as there are people living on this earth.

The Church is here for those of us who are blessed with belonging to Christ. The Lord knows the ways of many who haven’t found nor encountered Him. It is not for us to decide. 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 (Montreal: Alexander Press, 2009) 86-88.

"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..."

+ Fr Alexander Schmemann, "The Sacrament of Communion" in "The Eucharist." Trans. by Paul Kachur (New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1987) 241.

A Mission of Presence

"We introduce men and women not to a story, even a religious story, but rather to a presence: the presence of the saints, men and women who have suffered, many in the same way as our people."

+ Fr Roberto Ubertino

With Regard to the Fathers

"We are not called not simply to preserve Patristic tradition. We are called to pursue it and to participate in it ourselves. From out of the well-spring of Holy Tradition and through our participation in the liturgical life of the Church; by attempting to acquire some share in the Fathers' spirit of humility and life of prayer; by pursuing their path toward purification, illumination and theosis, students of Orthodox Theology are called, and must be committed to, acquiring this same 'mind of the Fathers' which is nothing less than the mind of Christ Himself.

This not only keeps outside influences from infiltrating our inheritance; it also inspires and emboldens us as we confront, address, and reach out to the non-Orthodox around us. Only then can we speak with the same voice as our Fathers -- from out of the depths of their same experience, utilizing their same categories of thought, and rightly applying their same method and manner of approach."

+ Dr. Harry Boosalis, St Tikhon Orthodox Theological Seminary

Thanks to Nicholas S. for this quote!