What is meant by a Living Liturgical Tradition?

"In the East the alternative to an imposed legalism and rubricism is not anarchic individualism but spontaneous fidelity to the common tradition. Take for example the Byzantine rite. Except for some synodal decrees and a few novellae of Justinian, there is no corpus of liturgical law obligatory in the Byzantine Churches. Incredible as it may seem, this most splendid, complex, highly ceremonialized worship in the whole of Christendom has evolved and maintained itself for the most part in a natural way, without the need of formal law. This is precisely what we mean by a living liturgical tradition."

+ Fr Robert F. Taft, "Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding." 2nd Rev. Ed. (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute Press, 2001) 149

Created in Love

"What profundity of richness, what mind and exalted wisdom is God’s. What compassionate kindness and abundant goodness belongs to the Creator! With what purpose and with what love did He create this world and bring it into existence! What a mystery does the coming into being of this creation look towards! To what a state is our common nature invited! What love served to initiate the creation of the world! This same love which initiated the act of creation prepared beforehand by another dispensation the things appropriate to adorn the world’s majesty which sprung forth as a result of the might of His love.

In love did He bring the world into existence; in love does He guide it during this its temporal existence; in love is He going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of Him who has performed all things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised. And since in the New World the Creator’s love rules over all rational nature, the wonder at His mysteries that will be revealed then will captive to itself the intellect of all rational beings whom He has created so that they might have delight in Him, whether they be evil or whether they be just. With this design did He bring them into existence, even though they among themselves have made, after their coming into being, this distinction between the just and the wicked. Even though this is so, nevertheless in the Creator’s design there is none, from among all who were created and who have come into being—that is, every rational nature—who is to the front or to the back of God’s love. Rather, He has a single equal love which covers the whole extent of rational creation, all things whether visible or invisible: there is no first place or last place with Him in this love for any single one of them, as I have said.

And just as there is not a single nature who is in the first place or last place in creation in the Creator’s knowledge—I refer here to this knowledge which was set in His purpose eternally, that He would bring them into being: it was not the case of His knowing one before or after another, but all of them equally without any before or after, in a twinkling of an eye—similarly there is no before or after in His love towards them: no greater or lesser amount of love is to be found with Him at all. 

Rather, just like the continual equality of His knowledge, so too is the continual equality of His love; for He knew them all before they ever became just or sinners. The Creator and His love did not change because they underwent change after He had brought them into being, nor does His purpose which exists eternally change. And if it were otherwise, He would be subject to change just as created beings are—a shocking idea.

My brethren, if there is anyone to whom these things are difficult to believe, he should be careful lest, by running away from one element in the argument he fall into blasphemy at another: imagining that he is spurning the words of a fellow human being, he may find himself arming himself against what concerns the divine Nature, being forced by the logic of his case to reduce the glorious Nature of his Creator to weakness and change.

But we know that everyone is agreed on this, that there is no change, or any earlier and later intentions, with the Creator: there is no hatred or resentment in His nature, no greater or lesser place in His love, no before or after in His knowledge. For if it is believed by everyone that the creation came into existence as a result of the Creator’s goodness and love, then we know that this original cause does not ever diminish or change in the Creator’s nature as a result of the disordered course of creation."

+ St Isaac the Syrian, The Second Part, Chapter 38.

Theosis as Beautification: A Passion and Paschal meditation

On this Great and Holy Friday may you continually encounter the beauty of the Cross and the Resurrection.

If you've a few moments, please see the following meditation by Fr Johnathan Tobias:


Theosis as Beautification -- a Passion and Paschal meditation
by Fr Jonathan Tobias
http://janotec.typepad.com/terrace/2015/04/theosis-as-beautification-a-passion-and-paschal-meditation.html

What is Orthodox Theology?

What is Theology? What is Orthodox Theology?
Fr. Andrew Louth

"What is theology?" We first need to avoid a trap set by the word itself. There are lots of areas of knowledge designated by the suffix -logy: biology, anthropology, psychology, psephology, geology... I've lost count of the number of times people have asked me what I am a professor of, and in response to my saying "theology" have responded by saying how fascinating it must be to study rocks, and the formation of continents, and so forth!

The Small Things

"In whatever work we engage patience gives birth to courage, courage to commitment, commitment to perseverance, and perseverance to an increase in the work done. Such additional labor quells the body's dissolute impulses and checks the desire for sensual indulgence. Thus checked, desire gives rise to spiritual longing, longing to love, love to aspiration, aspiration to ardor, ardor to self-galvanizing, self-galvanizing to assiduousness, assiduousness to prayer, and prayer to stillness. Stillness gives birth to contemplation, contemplation to spiritual knowledge, and knowledge to the apprehension of the mysteries. The consummation of the mysteries is theology, the fruit of theology is perfect love, of love humility, of humility dispassion, and of dispassion foresight, prophecy and foreknowledge. No one possesses the virtues perfectly in this life, nor does he cut off evil all at once. On the contrary, by small increases of virtue evil gradually ceases to exist."

+ St. Gregory of Sinai.

The Structure and Meaning of Holy Week

The Structure and Meaning of Holy Week

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65QgZlNQ1yQ

http://www.christthesaviour.ca/ 

https://soundcloud.com/christthesaviouroc/the-structure-and-meaning-of

The Eucharist

“…if we really yearn for eternal life, if we long to have the provider of immortality within ourselves, let us not abstain from the Eucharist like some of the more negligent, nor let us provide the devil in the depths of his cunning with a trap and a snare for us in the form of a pernicious kind of reverence. ‘Yes, indeed,’ someone might say. ‘But it is written: “Anyone who eats of the bread and drinks of the cup unworthily, eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (cf. I Cor. 11:29). I have examined myself and I see that I am not worthy.’ But then when will you be worthy? My response would be: ‘When will you present yourself to Christ? If you are always going to be afraid of falling, you will never cease falling – “For who can discern his faults,” as the holy Psalmist says (Ps. 18:12 LXX) – and you will end up totally bereft of a share in saving sanctification.’ Make up your mind, then, to lead a more devout life in conformity with the law, and so partake of the Eucharist in the conviction that it dispels not only death but even the diseases that are in us (cf. I Cor. 11:30). For when Christ has come to be within us he lulls to sleep the law that rages in the members of flesh. He rekindles our reverence towards God, while simultaneously causing the passions to atrophy. He does not reckon our faults against us. Instead, He binds up that which has been wounded, he raises that which has fallen, as a good shepherd who has laid down His life for the sheep (Ez. 34:16; Jn. 10:11).”

+ St. Cyril of Alexandria (Cyril of Alexandria: The Early Church Fathers by Norman Russell, Commentary on John 6:56)

Being Christian and the Liturgy in Life

"The Eucharist Liturgy as our properly defined relationship with God may also help us understand what it is we have to say to the world about the Triune God who so loved the world as to enter into it in order to bring us all to union with God." 

+ Fr Ted Bobosh, http://frted.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/witnessing-to-christ/

“QUESTION: The people around me are non-believers. I often try to explain to them Who it is that I believe in, and what the content of my faith is. But from their side I encounter mockery. Am I doing the right thing in trying to explain things to them, or is this what our Lord Jesus Christ said: ‘pearls before swine’?

ANSWER: If your explanations provoke mockery, don’t offer explanations.  It would be better to pray for those people. The truths of Christianity can’t be forced on others; they have to be accepted freely. But if these people ask you questions, you have to answer, but consider why they asked the question. It is important to capture the right moment, when they will listen to you attentively and with a desire to understand. You also have to take into account the fact that your explanations might really be unconvincing. It wasn’t by accident that Christ said: ‘Don’t be teachers.’ If you yourself would really be a carrier of the truths of Christianity, your explanations would be convincing. To ‘cast your pearls’ means to speak words without confirming them by your life. Whether our words are pearls or the truth depends not on those who hear us, but on us ourselves.”

+ Father Dmitrii Dudko, Our Hope, pg. 22

On Death

On Death
by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

Divinization is Humanization

“...the very nature of humanity is to be like God, for that is what it means to be created in the image of God. The more humanity becomes like God, the more it becomes itself. Divinization is humanization. Theosis is anthropoiesis.” 

+ H.G. Paulos Mar Gregorios, Cosmic Man, pg. 230

“Life in man is the glory of God; the life of man is the vision of God.”

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book 4, 20:7

“The glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God”

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (Another Translation)

"The glory of God is a man fully alive."

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (Another Translation)