On Love and Forgiveness

The following was written for monks but there are principles that apply to all aspects and callings in the Christian life:

On Love and Forgiveness
by Elder Ephraim

My children, fight the good fight; let brotherly love continue; may love be the center of all actions within the synodia—may egotism be far from your thoughts and words.

  “Whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all,” says the Lord. And if we do not become like little children in terms of innocence and simplicity, we shall by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

  When love governs a synodia, Christ invisibly blesses everything; joy, peace, and self-sacrifice for the brethren are afire in the hearts of every brother—but also prayer intensifies then. The more love abounds, the more love in Christ and self-sacrifice enriches their souls, and then Christ is glorified and worshipped, and we become humble instruments for the glorification of the holy name of God.

  Genuine love does not envy the good gifts of one’s brother; it does not rejoice when it hears humiliating words or criticism of a brother; it does not restrain itself from constantly commending a brother’s progress. Love does not envy; love does not parade itself, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, but its brother’s interests; it is not provoked; it thinks no evil; it bears all things, endures all things Whoever has genuine love never falls by sinning against his brother.

  So my children, pray that Love itself—our God will grant you the gift of love in Christ. When this love comes to reign in our hearts, words, and deeds, then we should hope for prospects of forming a synodia in Christ with a Christian spirit, with spiritual radiance and an unshakeable foundation—a synodia closely united with one mind and one soul in many bodies.

Foundation of the Truth of Orthodoxy

"All the truths of Orthodoxy emerge from one truth and converge on one truth, infinite and eternal. That truth is the God-man Christ. If you experience any truth of Orthodoxy to its limit, you will inevitably discover that its kernel is the God-man Christ. In fact, all the truths of Orthodoxy are nothing other than different aspects of the one Truth--the God-man Christ...

...Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy through the God-man. And we Orthodox, by confessing the God-man, indirectly confess the Christ-image of man, the divine origin of man, the divine exaltation of man, and thus also the divine value and sacredness of the human personality..."

+ Archimandrite Justin Popovich , THE GOD-MAN THE FOUNDATION OF THE TRUTH OF ORTHODOXY, http://www.sv-luka.org/library/thegodman_jp.htm

An Indicator of Love

"Truly to love a person means to love them for themselves even when they no longer give us anything...For if we remain firm in our love towards others despite their incomprehensible hardness towards us, we make a true proof of love, of the love which we have for them."

+ Fr. Dumitru Staniloae 

(Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.)

Inequalities Overcome

"When he reaches the point of having life, movement, and being in Christ, he has put far from him the monstrous origin of inequalities and he no longer carries within himself the contrary dispositions of these passions, as I was saying, after the manner of the male female opposition. In this way reason is not enslaved by them, having remained aloof from their unstable fluctuations. In it the holiness of the  divine image has been naturally included to persuade the soul to transform itself by its free will to the likeness of God and to belong to the great kingdom which subsists substantially with God, the Father of all. It becomes a radiant abode of the Holy Spirit and receives, if one can say it, the full power of knowing the divine nature insofar as this is possible. By this power there is discarded the origin of what is inferior, to be replaced by that of what is superior, while the soul like God keeps inviolable in itself by the grace of its calling the realization of the gifts which it has received. By this power, Christ is always born mysteriously and willingly, becoming incarnate through those who are saved. He causes the soul which begets him to be a virgin-mother who, to speak briefly, does not bear the marks of nature subject to corruption and generation in the relationship of male and female."

+ St Maximos the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father, in "Maximos the Confessor Selected Writings" (New York: Paulist Press, 1985) 109.

Lectures on Addiction

St. Herman's Seminary Lectures on Addiction (4 Part Series)
by Fr George Aquaro

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Naf47PKI4

What Christianity Offers

"Orthodox Christianity has much, much more to offer the contemporary world. In Orthodoxy, one can find not only the correct faith in the true God but also the correct perception of humankind as the image of God, of the world, and of creation."

+ His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, Enthronement Address, Nov 2, 1991

Born of Love

Uninterrupted prayer is born of love, but fault-finding, idle talk and self-indulgence are the death of prayer.

+ St Silouan

Je Nai Nan.

Forgive me and pray for me.

The Way: A Preview of the Orthodox 'Alpha Course'

Found the First Seven Lectures of The WAY which I like to call the Orthodox "Alpha Course." I think it's a great way to introduce people to the Orthodox Church and the package includes twelve sessions that are to be presented along with meal and discussion groups (good for Parish discussion groups and for missions & evangelism).

Of course I have my reservations with any 'packaged' theology or 'Orthodoxy in a box' method, but I think if Parishes or Dioceses are to implement a program like the Way, it's a good framework to Catechize and offer Orthodoxy using a Taste and See methodology. Important thing is to link this program with a LIVED Theology experience. In other words, parishes that do this should live out the Liturgy and have Liturgical Life permeate every aspect of their missiology, preaching and service so that visitors can taste and see, Christ is in our midst.

What is THE WAY?

It is the outreach programme of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. It is a course of 12 sessions, usually over 12 weeks, and consists of:

• a meal together
• a talk on a central aspect of Christian belief
• free discussion in small groups
• a "question and answer" session, where members of each group put questions to a panel

The titles of the twelve talks are:

1. The Search for Faith
2. God the Holy Trinity: "The Lover of Mankind"
3. Being Human: Fully Alive
4. Why Did Jesus Come to Us?
5. Salvation in Christ
6. The Holy Spirit
7. What on Earth is the Church? Isn't God Enough?
8. Living the Faith: (1) The Divine Liturgy - "A Pearl of Great Price"
9. Living the Faith: (2) The Holy Mysteries
10. Living the Faith: (3) The Bible, Prayer, and Fasting
11. Living the Faith: (4) Christian Behaviour
12. "Heaven on Earth": Members of the Church and Citizens of Heaven

You can order The WAY from
http://www.iocs.cam.ac.uk/courses/courses_way.html
http://www.conciliarpress.com/the-way.html
http://www.gazellebookservices.co.uk/ISBN/187289710X.htm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Run-Way-Introducing-Christianity/dp/187289710X/


+ + +

How to Run the WAY Courses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsm23T1MtlE

And the first 7 of the series:

Present In All Places

Happy Feast of St. Phillip, one of the seven Deacons. I've recently been thinking again about the Third Hour in the Coptic Rite, where a beautiful prayer is prayed in the Canonical Book of the Hours to one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity (Holy Spirit in this Prayer) :

O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who is present in all places and fills all, the treasury of good things and the Life-Giver, graciously come, and dwell in us and purify us from all defilement, O Good One, and save our souls.

He Who is present and fills all things...

It's daily Orthodox prayers like these which are sometimes terrifying to pray because of the magnitude that they imply. With this prayer there's again the reminder that is aparent during every Liturgy...Christ is in our midst. God is everywhere present. This understanding and awareness of God in the nowness and His active work in the material world. We're called to see Christ in all people, but I think that perhaps the Third hour prayer also implies seeing God in all things too, that the very creation bears His imprint of His work much like one can tell an artist's 'signature' by the craftwork. In a life that is filled with this understanding of His presence the ordinary, the everyday as well as the spectacular moments are all opportunities and means of growing in union with God. Or as the Akathist of Thanksgiving mentions: "Glory to Thee; on my knees, I kiss the traces of Thine unseen hand." (Ikos 3) and "Incline my heart to call upon You, present in everything." (Ikos 10)

I think perhaps that these prayers point to a lived reality that resonates with the Church's reaction to the Arians who claimed our Lord Christ was created and "there was a time when He was not."

A heretical claim which the Church responded through the lives of her saints saying and affirming that her Bridgegroom is

"only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not created, of one essence with the Father through Whom all things were made"

or in other words "there was NEVER a time when He was not!" 

We can also see in the Church's prayers the correlative affirmation: "there is NEVER a place where He is not."

Of course this also suggests that the Liturgy is to be lived out every moment and likewise so is the Church, His Body, present in all places. May it be so and may we always participate in this divine and holy work.

Glory to the Holy Trinity.

For more on this I've referenced a recent article by Fr. John Behr further exploring the question of materiality and God's presence:

Is God Wholly Separate from the Material Universe?

by Father John Behr from http://bigquestionsonline.com/content/god-wholly-separate-material-universe

Adam Our Ancestor?

An interesting read that touches a possible Orthodox response to modern historical understanding of the early chapters of Genesis...

 + + +

Adam Our Ancestor?

by Stephen Thomas

I have been frequently referring to a “before” and an “after” situation, using the language in a kind of narrative. There was for Man a “before,” when humankind was in a primordial state of bliss. Then there was an “after,” a point in our past after which things seem to have gone wrong, so that we lost our original happiness with God. This “after” shows humankind as sick and in need of healing; deification is that healing.

I have argued that the Bible has coherence as a whole, that it is an orderly account which explains things in terms of what previously happened and in terms of what are the real moving forces behind life. Thus the Bible is, in some sense, a “history.” It is a unique kind of history with God as the main character or agent, the subject of which is our salvation.