Let us Give Thanks

The gospel of John tells us that eternal life begins in knowing our creator (Cf. Jn 17.3). Christianity lies in the words of Christ. Union with God is the aim of a life worth living. In knowing God we seek eternal life. However, this knowledge is not meant to puff up, convinced that it can know everything, including God (leading to the fall of Adam), and all the while remaining ignorant of the fact that our fall lies precisely in the decay of genuine knowledge. Adam's alienation from God, in his literal sense of choosing a life not in God, but in itself and by itself, Adam chose to "know God" which means to believe through that faith about which it is said that "even the demons believe and tremble". Adam ceased to know God, and his life ceased to be that meeting with God, that communion with him-communion with all of God's creation-all of which gives life as depicted in the book of Genesis. Humanity at it weakest point thirst a great thirst. The Psalmist proclaims, "my soul thirsts for the living God". The same God in which we thirst for, the God in which we seek union with, Adam chose to know God through his ego and selfishness.

Thanksgiving is the joy, fullness, presence, of knowledge of God. Knowledge as communion and knowledge as unity leads to thanksgiving. Knowing God transforms our life into thanksgiving, and thanksgiving transforms eternity into everlasting life. Fr. Alexander Schmemann sums it well when says that the Church above all is one big chorus of praise constantly called to give thanks:

If the entire life of the Church is above all one continuous burst of praise, blessing and thanksgiving, if this thanksgiving is raised up both out of joy and out of sorrow, out of the depths of both happiness and misfortune, out of both life and death, if the most bitter graveside lamentation is transformed by it into a song of praise, “Alleluia,” then it is because the Church is the meeting with God, which has been accomplished in Christ. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist, 176.

It is Christ's knowledge of God that has been bestowed to humanity as a gift of thanksgiving. Christ has shattered the gates of hades and opened to us the gates of paradise. After Christ trampled down death by death, and when forgiveness of sins was sealed through Christ's act of death and resurrection, then there remained only praise, only thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, which unites us with God, thanksgiving which united all human beings. St. Paul reminds us that he became a Jew in order to win the Jew, he became a Greek in order to win a Greek. Thanksgiving does not need a barrier or ethnic background. Thanksgiving only requires on condition; love. Thanksgiving is granted to us as precisely a pure thanksgiving, like those prophets (Moses) who where in the presences of the face of God. When we realize we stand in the presence of God it is then that we will be able to genuinely start giving thanks for God's creation and offer it to all for the life of the world. 

Lenten Reflection: Healing

The church is place where one seeks healing. The purpose of the Church is to heal us, to overcome the divide between God and humanity which is caused by sin leading to our very death. Healing is achieved when we are united to one another and to God in the Body of Christ, which is the Church.

How is this healing achieved? When we come to know Christ, when we become one with Him and with one another then the healing process takes shape within all of us. Everything the Church does, through it's liturgical and sacramental life, is directed at restoring our relationships between God and creation. Our restoration is made possible through our interaction with creation which unites all of creation including all of humanity. The real meaning of Christian healing involves the whole person. The healing is made possible through the salvific events of the church, the Eucharist, Baptism which initiated us into the body of Christ.

As members of the body of Christ we enter this "membership" through Baptism which takes of the old "man" and puts on the new "man". The Eucharist is the means by which this membership is realized and continues to be lived out. In fact, everything the Church sets out for us, prayers, sacraments, feasts, have the Eucharist as their goal. We are the Church when we gather together, to celebrate the mystery of the incarnation, death and resurrection on behalf of all. Not only do we remember these events of the past, but we become partakers of Christ in the present, sharing in His divine nature for the restoration (healing) of soul and body. It is in the Eucharist that the famous line spoke by St. Athanasius is realized: "God became man, so that man might become god". This is what it means to be united to God and become divinized in His body; the Church.

Humanity and all of creation is created to be in union with God and the Eucharist is the realization of this union. True healing is precisely the restoration of union with God, the restoration of the proper relationship between God and creation. Every time we partake of the Eucharist we receive this grace of healing. This healing not only affects humanity but enters all of creation through our restoration with the one in whom salvation was realized through his body; the body which we all called to unite with.    

The Canonical Problem: The Priesthood

The last entry on the canonical problem we examined the role of the bishop in relation to the church and the Eucharist. This time we want to focus on the priesthood in relation to the church and the people (laos). Many believe that the "priesthood" is delegated to a few people who wear black. Unfortunately misunderstandings are rampant about the priesthood that we will look at in the following piece. One such example is that many do not realize that the diaconate (the order of deacons) is part of the priesthood. Some of the church fathers even spoke about sub-deacons being part of the priesthood. This particular topic and many more will be discussed below. If anyone has any questions or comments please feel free to write in the comment box.
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To speak of the "priesthood" in the liturgical tradition, the canons of the church, in patristic teaching, is perhaps inevitable but doing so is misleading. It is misleading because, as a result, our understanding of ministry is reduced to cultic terms. When one turns to the New Testament as church began to grow, it has known an official ministry (list): certain ones whom "God appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers" (1 Cor 12.28); deacons and overseers (Phil 1.1); elders appointed in every church (Acts 14.23); persons who labor among the brethren (1 Thess 5.12-13). In all these descriptions of the earliest text of the New Testament not once is the term "priesthood" used. The term priesthood is used a few times in the New Testament making reference to Christ himself (Hebrews) and in reference to the Christian people (chosen people) of God (1 Pet). The early church father's begin using the term priest but only do so in relation to the bishop (overseer) or in connection to the Eucharist. Ignatius speaks of the "one altar" of the Eucharist at which the bishop presides (Magn 7.2).

As the centuries continued we saw a development of the priesthood as the culture and society began to change and grow. More people began to join the Christian faith so the community naturally developed. At this point (2nd and 3rd centuries) we see an expansion and and order developing for the priesthood. Bishops, priests, deacons and even sub-deacons were include in the rank of priesthood. St. Epiphanius extends the priestly hierarchy to include sub-deacons. Part of the dilemma in understanding the priesthood, as mentioned previously, is the cultic terms used to associate with the priesthood. We have boxed in the term priesthood to mean "a man who wears black and can grow a beard". Priesthood, in short, appears to be on its way to becoming a generic term for clergy. The term comes to suggest an autonomous power to perform certain sacred acts-above all make beard and wine the body and blood of Christ-which is transmitted from ordainer to ordained without necessary reference to ecclesial context. We have forgotten the "priesthood of all" not only encompasses the individual who wears black but it includes the entire community. This explains the rule or "tux" that a priest can never celebrate a liturgy unless the congregation is present in the church. This misunderstanding of the priesthood has led to a lack of understanding what a priest is, what a proper deacon is and what their roles are to be. Sadly, a 8 year old child running around wearing a white tunic is considered a "deacon". We have detached the beauty of being a deacon to mere mockery by vesting our kids and saying they are "deacons". A deacon is the one who distributes the gifts (Eucharist) to the entire congregation and takes care of the well-being of the entire community. The role of the deacon was to take care of the congregation and to minister to the widows of the community. Sadly, "deacons" today are nothing more than a show trying to impress their loved ones as the "concert" goes on. How then can we define the priesthood?

Authentic Christian priesthood can be defined only by reference to its role within the Church, and this in turn can be understood only by reference to the entire economy of salvation: the mystery of God's hidden plan for humankind revealed in Christ revealed through the work of the Spirit. The priesthood then includes all people, both those who are ordained (bishops, priests, deacons and sub-deacons) and those who are "not ordained"; the laity (laos). The Didascalia, a third century manuscript devotes five chapters on the priesthood. It says that the "clergy and laity together comprise the Catholic Church, the holy and perfect, a royal priesthood, a holy multitude, a people for inheritance, within which are bishops, priests, and prophets, and princes and leaders and kings, and mediators between God and the faithful, and receivers of the word, and preachers and proclaimers therof, and knowers of the Scriptures and of the utterances of God, and witnesses of his will, who bear the sins of all, and are to give answer for all". Note the length of this definition and who it includes being part of the priesthood. What then is the work of the priesthood?

The Didascalia answers this question, "The whole aim of our art is to give wings to the soul, to wean it for the world and to present it to God; to preserve the image of God in man if it exists, to strengthen it if it has become enfeebled, and to restore it if it has become obliterated; to make Christ dwell in men's hearts through the Spirit. In a word, the aim is to deify and bestow the blessedness of heaven upon him who in fact belongs to heaven". The priest is understood as the instrument of a work which is, divine: the deificiation of man. When one reads the fathers nowhere does a definition of the priesthood focus on administration. Today priests have become bankers and financial advisers of mega churches. St. Gregory the Theologian writes, "...before a man has, as far as possible, sufficiently purified his mind and far surpassed his fellows in nearness to God, I do not think it safe for him to be entrusted with the rule over souls or the office of mediator between God and man". The goal of the minister of the word is not just to spit out knowledge but to raise the soul to a transforming knowledge of God through entry into the mystery of the divine dispensation, through participation in God's saving plan for humankind.    

The most obvious aspect of the priest's (and deacon) ministry, particularly for us today, is liturgical. He is not only the minister of sacraments but the minister of the Eucharist. He brings together the community in the body of Christ. This great mystery is what culminates all that the church is called to do. Every activity, fundraiser, and church meeting can all be summed up in the Eucharist. Our entire life is Eucharistic and we must constantly seek out God in all actions activities with all human beings. With that being said, we must never think of clergy and laity as two separate entities. Just because one does not wear the black does not mean there is a separation. In order to understand the role of the clergy we must understand what the word "liturgy" means.

When we think of worship the first thing that comes to mind is the role of the priest (neglecting the order of the deacon). The priest celebrates, the laity attend. One does a few ritualistic acts, the other watches. This is another error and a serious one to consider in what it means to be part of the priesthood. The Christian term for worship is leitourgia (which we get the term liturgy from) means a corporate all-embracing action in which all who are present are active participants. All prayers in the Church are written in the plural. "We offer (the anaphora)", "We acknowledge" (the creed). The laity (laos) is in a very direct way the co-celebrant with the priest. The role of the priest is to offer to God the prayers of the Church, representing all people, speaking on the entire churches behalf. One example of this co-celebration can be demonstrated in the word Amen. We never pay attention to it yet it is a crucial word. No sacrifice, no blessing, no ordination, no prayer is ever offered without the use of the word Amen. Saying Amen means the entire church gives this prayer and sacrifice consent. Amen is indeed the word of the laity in the church expressing the function of the people of God. There is no service, no liturgy without the seal of Amen of those who have been ordained to serve God as community. Whatever liturgical service we want to consider, we must see that it always follows a pattern of dialogue (anaphora between the priest and the people) and cooperation (the kiss of peace offered to all) between the priest and the congregation. It is indeed a common action (leitourgia) in which the responsible participation of everyone is essential, for through it the church, fulfills the purpose of the liturgy; as a communal offering given up for the glory of His name. This explains the dynamic of the priest and the laity. Where is the role of the deacon in all of this?

Ignatius summed it up for the communities he was writing to (Trallians chapter 3 and Magnesians chapter 6). He laid down a threefold understanding of the priesthood (including deacons) representing the Trinity. He spoke of the Bishop being equal to God (first among equals), the priest represents the Apostle (the work of the Holy Spirit) [going out and making disciples of all nations] and lastly the deacon was compared to Christ (taking caring of the community and keeping the community on track). The role of the Bishop is to remain silent and to unite the church in the body of Christ, the priest missionises the church by bringing together all nations and the deacon takes care of the teaching and the well-being of the entire community. Sadly this threefold ministry is not found in many of the churches today.

Without a proper understanding of the threefold ministry in the Coptic Church (especially in the GTA [Toronto] where a bishop is nonexistent and deaconship is nothing more than a 2-hour gig on Sundays) the priest is coerced to be not only the Christ-like shepherd of his flock, but (along with the growing trend of constructing mega churches) must become the banker, project manager, and administrator of building projects and maintenance-as if being the shepherd weren't enough. This, in turn, dilutes the sacramental and liturgical role of the priest-priests become CEO's, and the congregation become employees of an enterprise. The Body of Christ, the church, is a taste of the kingdom on earth and the kingdom to come, and this kingdom does not merely exist on Sundays, but permeates every level of existence outside of the four walls of the church building. Let us continue the model that was handed down to us through the Orthodox tradition, and not caricature the industrialism exterior to us.

Forgive me for the scathing nature of this article. The blame falls on no one. This is but the effect of centuries of persecution, western influence, and below-par education...yet this is no excuse. The paradigm will not change overnight. But it is up to the church (i.e. us) to take small steps to not only proper Orthodoxy but proper Christianity. Let us restore the orders of the deaconate, let us all priests to return to the liturgical life they were called to, let the church boards govern building projects, let the congregation realize their role inside the liturgy and outside the church. Let us take small steps to the truth.      

The Canonical Problem: One Church, One Eucharist, One Bishop

St. Ignatius of Antioch 

The one term that is used-and misused-among the Orthodox people more often than the Arabic word tux (right order or right practice). The term implies that a practice being conducted in the church today has lost its meaning or canonicity because a “newer” practice has taken its place. This type of language is common amongst the people. “This is the tux…this is not tux”, is the language used whenever one observes the movements and actions of the priests and bishops. This is an indication that a canonical problem exists within the church and a solution needs to be proposed by the synod of the church. Unfortunately the existence of such a problem is seldom admitted. The opinions of the laity have been forgotten and the clericalization of the church has taken over the mind of the individual. We have let the clergy and bishops make decisions divorcing the work of the church into two groups-laity and clergy. Everyone simply claims the fullness of canonicity of his own position and, in the name of it, condemns and denounces as uncanonical the ecclesiastical status of others. The concern for both parties is not for truth, but for victories in the form of church building projects, new creation of bishoprics, ordination of a priest “against the will” of the people. The opinions of the people matter in so much when voicing the opinion of the majority. We live in a society that breeds and teaches the majority wins-taking shape in our governments and in the system that governs our economy; capitalism. How can this poisoned atmosphere change the minds of the laity towards the clergy? How can we respect the hierarchy and its decisions? In Toronto we are living at a time when Orthodoxy is coming of age. A 50 year history has been established and growing quickly. Yet the constant cry for a bishop has taken over the minds of the individuals mostly amongst the youth. We teach our children to be “proud” of the Orthodox faith, we constantly congratulate each other on our achievements about different historic events, yet, if we were true to the spirit we ought to repent in sackcloth and we ought to cry day and night for the sad state of the church finds itself in today. The idea of having a bishop or not having a bishop in Toronto we cannot deny or nothing can justify the fact: our church is divided. To be sure, there have always been divisions and conflicts amongst Christians, but for the first time-in a long time-division belongs to the very structure of the entire church, both in Canada and Egypt. We must wake up and be horrified by the situation the people of the church finds itself in. We must own up to our mistakes and find the courage to re-think it in the light of the Orthodox doctrine and tradition, no matter what it will cost to repair the damage that has been created by the canonical problem. The problem of wanting a bishop in Toronto has grown in the past few years and it has come to the fore-front of the dialogues in recent months (July and August 2014) prior to the visit of the Pope of Alexandria (Pope Tawadros the 2^nd). Unless, we admit the existence of the canonical problem, and secondly, put all our thoughts and energies into finding a solution, the façade we have created with million dollar churches and magnificent facilities hinges on the brink of extinction if we cannot find a solution. St. Peter taught us that judgement must first begin with us in order to progress in the knowledge of God: “For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begins at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (1 Pet 4.17).

In order to demonstrate the need and importance of the bishop we shall look to the writings of Ignatius of Antioch-a second century bishop who was martyred in the city of Rome. On his way to Rome he wrote a series of letters to different churches in different cities. The letters of Ignatius are one of the most important early witnesses, outside the New Testament, to the development of both the church structure and theological reflection. The emphasizes of his letters focuses on the centrality of the bishop, surrounded by his presbyters (priests) and deacons, for the composition of the church; without these three orders the community cannot be called a church as he wrote to the Trallians (3.1). He urges the Smyrneans, for example, to follow the bishop as Christ follows the Father, and do nothing pertaining to the church without the consent and knowledge of the bishop; without him, they are neither to baptize nor hold an agape meal, and only that Eucharist which he, or the priests, celebrates is to be considered certain; in sum, “whenever the bishop appears, let the congregation be present, just as wherever Christ is, there is the catholic Church” (Smyrneans 8). That there is only one Christ means that there can only be one Eucharist, one altar, one bishop (Philadelphians 4). The importance of the bishop and the need of a bishop to this city were understood early on as representing the unity of the church through the priests, deacons and laity. The body of Christ made this union happen as long as “all the pieces” were present in the work of the church. However, this emphasis Ignatius places on the bishop should not be misunderstood as a mono-episcopacy. The obedience that the Smyrneans owe to their bishop, for instance is also due to the presbyters (priests) [Smyrneans 8.1]. This is only made possible first and fore-most with the presence of the bishop. Ignatius likewise, writing to the Magnesians and the Ephesians urges them to do nothing without the bishop and priests as they are to obey and subject to one another (Magnesians 7.1; 13.2; Ephesians 2.2; 20.2). This is again only possible with the presences of the bishop in the city. As such, the unity of Christians with their one bishop, in the one Eucharist celebrated on the one altar, is dependent upon a prior unity in the apostolic faith established by Christ. If the bishop ceases to be present then the church is divided and broken. Based on this understanding of the bishop according to Ignatius it is important for every city in the world to have a bishop present working with his priests and deacons to unite the church in the body of Christ.

This then takes us back to the city of Toronto. Pope Tawadros has announced that he plans on making the city of Toronto the archdiocese. Much confusion has been brought out in the form of many questions by the laity. Is this archdiocese the main hub to all of North America? Is this archdiocese connected with Cairo? If so will Toronto then, being an archdiocese, be getting a metropolitan? Will it be getting a general bishop? These questions and more have been going around about the news of Toronto becoming an archdiocese. The role of the archdiocese is set around as the main city for the metropolitan who has other cities under his jurisdiction. For example the metropolitan of Jerusalem has the UAE as part of his diocese but still remains the metropolitan of Jerusalem. Clarification is needed in order for the people to understand the status of Toronto. However, what is clear is that many believe the Pope to be the bishop of Toronto and this is incorrect. According to the canons of the church the Pope only has jurisdiction in Alexandria (and now Cairo). Canon 2 of Constantinople says, “The bishops are not to go beyond their dioceses to churches lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the churches; but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the bishops of the East manage the East alone…” The canonical problem present in Toronto needs to admitted to and corrected by the synod of the church. The church, as Ignatius has pointed out previously, needs a pastor to take care of its people. As long as there is a Coptic presence in any city in the world a bishop must be present. If the bishop is not present how then are the priests given authority to celebrate the Eucharist? Is there a way out of this?

There is no denial that the unity of the church, as expressed in the canons, is expressed, through the unity of the Episcopate (bishopric). St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote in the third century, episcopatus unus est. This means that each local church is united to all other churches, revealing her ontological identity with them, in its bishop. Just as every bishop receives the fullness of his episcopate from the oneness of the episcopate (the entire synod of bishops) which is expressed in the plurality of those who have consecrated him, this fullness includes the unity of the entire church. This unity is given its lived reality in the body of Christ (the Eucharist). The unity of the church is formed in the parish which gives the authority to the bishop. It is the bishop who unites all in the body of Christ. If the bishop is not present then the church ceases to exist. Lastly, the requirements of our Orthodox canonical tradition, the solution of our canonical problem coincides, strange as it may seem, with the most practical solution, with common sense. By looking back to the history and tradition of the church we are to see life and truth as the source that governs our lives today. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free-free to follow the glorious truth to fulfill in this great country the mission of Orthodoxy.  

The Nature of Man

The following is a chapter taken from the book "O Death where is thy Sting?" written by Father Alexander Schmemann. Chapter 8 entitled "The nature of Man" contemplates the mystery of the fall and how we can move forward following the fall. Fr. Alexander uses as his starting point the imagery of food. He relates food to the fall and how it is we become in communion with each other instead of being in communion with God. Our ultimate goal is communion with God and he tries to display this in the chapter!
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One of the popular critiques of Christianity relates to its teaching about the fall of man. In this teaching the opponents of Christianity see a pessimistic attitude and the demeaning of human dignity. Perhaps in light of what I was discussing previously this accusation begins to lose its demagogic sting.

I began my conversations by citing Feuerbach, one of the founders of contemporary materialism. Feuerbach is remembered for his classic statement: “man is what he eats”. Ironically, this seeming reduction of humanity to food, to matter, without realizing it, Feuerbach himself said exactly what the bible says about mankind. The Bible teaches us that man is first of all a being who is thirsty and hungry, who transforms the world into his own life. But in contrast to Feuerbach, who subjects humanity to food and matter, the Bible sees in this transformation the goal of humanity to make the world into life, and thereby make it a means of communion with the world, with its beginnings, with its purpose, with God. Only in light of this basic biblical teaching can we understand why the symbol of man’s fall in the bible is also connected with food. 

On the basis of the mythical (that is, symbolic) story in the Bible, the whole world was given by God as food to man, with the exception of one forbidden fruit. And it is precisely this fruit that man eats, refusing to believe and to obey God.

What is the meaning of this story, which greets us like a child’s fable? It means that the fruit of this one tree, in contrast to all others, was not given as a gift to man. It did not bear God’s blessing. This means that if man ate this fruit, he did not eat it in order to have life with God, as a means of transforming it into life, but rather as a goal in itself, and thus, having consumed it, man subjected himself to food. He desired to have life not from God or for God but rather for himself.

The very fall of man consists in the fact that he desired life for himself and in himself, and not for God and in God. God made this very world a means of communion with himself, but man desired the world purely for himself alone.

Instead of returning God’s love with love for him, man fell in love with the world, as a goal in itself. But herein lies the whole problem, that the world cannot be an end in and of itself, just as food has no purpose unless it is transformed into life. So too, the world, having ceased to be transparent to God, has become an endless commotion, a senseless cycle of tie in which everything is constantly in flux, constantly vanishing, and, in the final analysis, dying.

In the divine conception of humanity, dependence on the world was overcome by the transformation of the world itself into life. Life means possessing God. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”=so we read in the Gospel of John (1.4). But if the world is no longer transformed into anything, if life ceases to be a transformation into communion with Absolute Meaning, with Absolute Beauty, with Absolute Goodness, then this world becomes not only meaningless, it becomes death. Nothing has life in and by itself, everything vanishes, everything dissolves. Cut off from its roots, a flower can live for a short time in water and even decorate a room, but we realize that it is dying, that it is already subject to corruption.

Man ate the forbidden fruit, thinking that it would give him life. But life itself outside of and without God is simply communion with death. It is no accident that what we eat already needs to be dead in order to become our life. We eat in order to live, but since we eat something that is already deprived of life, food itself inevitably leads us to death. And in death there neither is nor can be any life.   

“Man is what he eats”. There it is, he eats…death-dead animals, dead vegetation, rot and dissolution. He himself dies and, perhaps, the enormity of his fall consists precisely in the fact that this very death-filled and corrupt life, this life defined from the very beginning by corruption, this life that flows and irrevocably vanishes-this life he considers absolutely normal. And he is confirmed in this attitude by those who dare to blame Christianity as being pessimistic and as destructive toward man. But when Christ approached the grace of his friend Lazarus, and they said to him, “Do not come near, for he already stinks” (Jn 11.39), Christ did not consider this normal-he wept.

“I am the image of your ineffable glory”-and yet they remove him and hide him so that he would not smell and disrupt their routines-this Man, this image and likeness of God, this king and crown of creation! Indeed, this horrible meaninglessness of the world, this constant commotion of mankind within a cosmic cemetery, these pathetic attempts to build something for those who are dying, for those already dead, and finally, the affirmation of all of this as normal and natural-this is what Christianity declares as the Fall, as the falsification by man of himself and of his divine and eternal calling. It refuses to come to terms with such a worldview, and firmly and clearly proclaims: “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15.26).

We began these conversations with food, with Feuerbach’s “man is what he eats”. At the same time we saw that Christianity also places the fundamental hunger of mankind at the center of its understanding. However, Christianity alone offers an entirely unique approach to the question of what man is ultimately seeking, of what is the only thing that can satisfy his hunger. What is it that he desires? Feuerbach and the rest of the materialists will answer: he wants freedom, he wants prosperity, and he wants to be well fed. But what is the use of freedom, prosperity, and food to one who is condemned to death? Why should one build vacation homes in cemetery? Whatever we pursue, everything ends up in this dead-end, which Vladimir Soloviev described so well, “death and time are reigning on earth”.

To this question Christianity answers: man desires life, not simply for a moment, but for eternity, life which in the church’s hymnography so beautifully is called “life unfading”. This life is not to be found in food, although it is through food that man receives it, and not in the air, although breathing gives him the possibility to search for and desire it, and not even in good health. This life is the One who is himself life, that is, in God-in the knowledge of him, in communion with him, in love and in praise and in the possession of him. This is why it is the one who is fallen into death and into servitude to food, having become only that which he eats-this man-who needs to be saved. Subsequently, this becomes the basic theme of Christianity, the teaching about salvation, about the restoration and resurrection of man from death to life. 

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, O Death where is thy Sting, The nature of man, Pages 71-78. 

What is Theology?

Theology is something more than just an academic study rather it is life itself. Life that is offered to the world through the person of Christ. Life offered to all as we live in communion with each other. What it means to see God and to live through his energies is to interact with other human begins and all of the created world. Theology, the study of God, tries to un-package this mystery through both the academic study and through everything we do in life. To understand the mystery of God means to live a life in communion with humanity and creation. The following passage is taken from a book written by a Catholic theologian who was influenced by the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann. In this passage he tries to define theology and how theology is lived through the liturgy. In order to understand theology we have to understanding the liturgy that happens "after the liturgy". We need to break out of the "Sunday church bubble" we find ourselves enslaved to. David Fagerberg unravels this more in the following passage.    

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Any theological effort involves a quest for meaning (logos).

But in this case, the quest does not occur inside the scholar’s mind; it is a meaning sought by the liturgical community. This is why Kavanagh calls their adjustment a genuinely theological effort. He discerns three logical moments in the liturgical event. First, the assembly encounters the Holy One; second, by consequence of this encounter the assembly is changed; third, the assembly must adjust to this change, and this act he calls theological.

“Theology” is not the very first result of an assembly’s being brought by the liturgical experience to the edge of chaos. Rather, it seems that what results in the first instance from such an experience is deep change in the very lives of those who participate in the liturgical act. And deep change will affect their next liturgical act, however slightly. ... It is the adjustment which is theological in all this. I hold that it is theology being born, theology in the first instance. It is what tradition has called theologia prima.

The scholar seeks to understand what the liturgical community understood. Liturgy itself is a stab at intelligibility, a search for understanding and meaning.

Theology does not take place over there in the world of reason and intellect, beyond liturgical ceremony which is only an indulgence in pious feeling. Liturgy is itself theological for reason of being a meaningful understanding of such questions as why God created, the destiny of anthropos, how spirit and matter interpenetrate, the cosmological presuppositions of the kingdom of God in our midst and its eschatological consequences.

Granted, because of its subject matter (theos) this stab at meaning is unlike any other that the human being makes. The subject matter of theology is God, humanity, and creation, and the vortex in which these three existentially entangle is liturgy. I take this to be why Schmemann calls liturgy “the ontological condition of theology, of the proper understanding of kerygma, of the Word of God, because it is in the Church, of which the leitourgia is the expression and the life, that the sources of theology are functioning precisely as sources.”

If the subject matter of liturgical theology were human ceremony instead of God, it would be self-delusional to call it theology; it would be anthropology, not theology. Worse, it would be ritual narcissism.

But liturgy is, in fact, theological precisely because here is where God’s revelation occurs steadfastly.

When a dichotomy is imposed between theology and liturgy, then liturgy doesn’t even appear on the theological map. It is off the taxonomical page. It is as if theology exists for academicians, while liturgy exists for pure-hearted (but simple-minded) believers.

This prejudice supposes a two-step procedure from the believer’s faith-expression (liturgy) to the academic’s rational reflection (theology). The working definition of liturgical theology I am uncovering challenges the supposition that theology only exists in the second phase."

Dr David Fagerberg, Theologia Prima

The Implications of the Eucharist

The liturgy is not only the work of the people but the greatest gift we can offer each other. As the following quotes demonstrate the greatest gift we can offer each other is ourselves. As Christ became the paradigm offering himself to show us the true human being (cf. John 19.5) then the Eucharist becomes the greatest gift we can offer to each other. It is not about what we can do or what we have to offer but rather who we are that unites us in the body of Christ. We are simply human beings and we tend to forget this point. Instead what we do is box people in. For example we visit a doctor and see a doctor, we go buy prescription drugs and see a pharmacist or we attend a lecture and see a teacher. We box these people in forgetting the all to human fact that they are simply human beings. By seeing the human being we see Christ and once we see Christ we can start the process of offering ourselves to each other. It is only through the Eucharist that we truly are made human beings. It is in our death that we are made alive as Ignatius of Antioch reminds the Romans. He tells them that in order to become a true human being he must not be stopped of his death..."do not hinder me from living, do not wish to keep me in a state of death; and while I desire to belong to God, do not give me over to the world. Allow to to obtain pure light: when I have gone there, I shall indeed be a man (human being) of God". By offering ourselves we become true human beings. Through the Eucharist we become true human beings.
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At the turning of the bread and wine into Your body and blood, our souls shall be turned unto fellowship with Your glory, and our souls shall be united to Your divinity...And as You are one in Your Father and Your Holy Spirit, may we be one in You and You in Us, that your saying may be fulfilled, "That they may all be one in Us".

+ From the Fraction by St. Cyril (Frace of "O Lamb of God")

First of all, our life itself is the greatest gift to give-something we constantly forget. When we think about our being given to each other, what comes immediately to mind are our unique talents: those abilities to do special things especially well. You and I have spoken about this quite often. "What is our unique talent?" we asked. However, when focusing on talents, we tend to forget that our real gift is not so much what we can do, but who we are. The real question is not "what can we offer each other?" but "who can we be for each other?" No doubt, it is wonderful when we can repair something for a neighbor, give helpful advice to a friend, offer wise counsel to a colleague, bring healing to a patient, or announce good news to a parishioner, but there is a greater gift than all of this. It is the gift of our own life that shines through all we do. As I grow older, I discover more and more that the greatest gift I have to offer is my own joy of living, my own inner peace, my own silence and solitude, my own sense of well-being. When I ask myself, "Who helps me most?" I must answer, "The one who is will to share his or her life with me".

+ Fr. Henri Nouwen, The Life of the Beloved, Given, P.113.

But then, what should we do? You hear every Sunday in the Liturgy words that say, 'Let us lay aside all the cares of this life'. Does it mean that we must turn away from the earth on which we live, from the tasks which are ours, from the joys and true sorrows that come our way? No!...It means that if we are dead with the death of Christ to everything which is destructive of love, destructive of compassion, which is self-centredness, which is self-love, which leave no space for anyone but ourselves-if we are dead to all this, and if we have accepted life on Christ's terms, ready to live for others, live for God, live for the joy and life of those who surround us-then we are risen with Christ, and our life is indeed hid with Christ in God, it is at the very depth of divine love!

+ Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, on the Bridal Feast, 24 December 1989

"Christ did not come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live".

+ Fr. Stephen Freeman

The Eucharistic Gift

Fr. Alexander Schmemann always had a way with words. In the following passage Fr. Schmemann is trying to show the reader that in our modern western (America) society we have forgotten our Eucharistic vocation and in losing this vocation we have turned the Eucharist to a Sunday practice. By divorcing the Eucharist from our day to day lives we have forgotten what it means to live a life in Christ. Christ is present in all places and fills all things showing us what it means to be a human being. Fr. Schmemann warns us that if we continue to separate the Eucharist and the life in the world then we have lost the meaning of living a Eucharistic life. I recommend this book as Fr. Schmemann shows us the meaning of Lent through understanding what it means to live a Eucharistic life.

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It is useful to note here that the Orthodox liturgical tradition, different in this from the Latin practice, has no adoration of the Eucharistic Gifts outside Communion. But the preservation of Gifts as reserved sacrament, used for Communion for the sick and other emergency situations, is a self-evident tradition which has never been questioned in the Orthodox Church. We mentioned already that in the early Church there even existed a practice of private "self- communion” at home. We have thus the permanent presence of the Gifts and the absence of their adoration. By maintaining simultaneously these two attitudes, the Orthodox Church has avoided the dangerous sacramental rationalism of the West. Moved by the desire to affirm—against the Protestants—the objectivity of Christ’s "real presence” in the Eucharistic Gifts, the Latins have, in fact, separated adoration from Communion. By doing this, they have opened the door to a dangerous spiritual deviation from the real purpose of the Eucharist and indeed of the Church herself. For the purpose of the Church and of her sacraments is not to "sacralize” portions and elements of matter and by making them sacred or holy to oppose them to the profane ones. Instead her purpose is to make man’s life communion with God, knowledge of God, ascension toward God’s Kingdom; the Eucharistic Gifts are the means of that communion, the food of that new life, but they are not an end in themselves. For the Kingdom of God is "not food and drink but joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.” Just as in this world food fulfills its function only when it is consumed and thus transformed into life, the new life of the world to come is given to us through the partaking of the "food of immortality.” The Orthodox Church consistently avoids all adoration of the sacrament outside Communion because the only true adoration is that having partaken of Christ’s Body and Blood, we "act in this world as He did.” As to the Protestants, in their fear of any "magical” connotation, they tend to "spiritualize” the sacrament to such an extent that they deny the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ outside the act of Communion. Here again the Orthodox Church, by the practice of reserving the Holy Gifts, restores the true balance. The gifts are given for Communion but the reality of Communion depends on the reality of the Gifts. The Church does not speculate on the mode of Christ’s presence in the Gifts. She forbids the use of them for any act other than Communion. She does not reveal, so to speak, their presence outside Communion, but she firmly believes that just as the Kingdom which is yet to come is "already in the midst of us,” just as Christ ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father yet is also with us until the end of the world, the means of Communion with Christ and with His Kingdom, the food of immortality, is always present in the Church.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent. Pages 59-60! 

Elder Paisios the Athnoite-The Letter of the Law

A humbling reminder

I once asked someone: "what type of warrior do you consider yourself to be? Christ's warrior or temptation's warrior? Are you aware that the evil of temptation also has its own warriors?"

A Christian must not be fanatic; he must have love for and be sensitive towards all people. Those who inconsiderately toss out comments, even if they are true, can cause harm.

I once met a theologian who was extremely pious, but who had the habit of speaking to the people around him in a very blunt manner; his method penetrated so deeply that it shook them very severely. He told me once: "during a gathering, I said such and such a thing to a lady." But the way he said it, crushed her. "Look", I said to him, "you may be tossing golden crowns studded with diamonds to other people, but the way that you throw them can smash heads, not only the sensitive ones, but the sound ones also."

Let's not stone our fellow-man in a so-called "Christian manner." the person who-in the presence of others-checks someone for having sinned (or speaks in an impassioned manner about a certain person), is not moved bu the Spirit of God; he is moved by another spirit.

The way of the Church is LOVE: it differs from the way of the legalists. The Church sees everything with tolerance and seeks to help each person, whatever he may have done, however sinful he may be. I have observed a peculiar kind of logic in certain pious people. Their piety is a good thing, and their predisposition for good is also a good thing; however, a certain spiritual discernment and amplitude is required so that their piety is not accompanied by narrow-mindedness or strong-headedness. Someone who is truly in a spiritual state must possess and exemplify spiritual discernment; otherwise he will forever remain attached to the "letter of the law", and the letter of the law can be quite deadly.

A truly humble person never behaves like a teacher, he will listen, and, whenever his opinion is requested, he responds humbly. In other words, he replies like a student. He who believes that he is capable of correcting others is filled with egotism.

A person that begins to do something with a good intention and eventually reaches an extreme point, lacks true discernment. His actions exemplify a latent type of egotism that is hidden beneath this behavior; he is unaware of it, because he does not know himself that well, which is why he goes to extremes.

Quite often, people begin with god intentions, but look where they may find themselves! This was the case with the "icon-worshippers" and the "iconoclasts" of the past: both cases were extremes! The former had reached the point of scraping off icons of Christ and placing the scrapings into the Holy Chalice in order to "improve" Holy Communion; the latter, on the other hand, burnt and totally discarded all icons. That is why the church was obliged to place the icons in higher places, out of reach, and, when the dispute was over, lowered them so that we can venerate them and thus confer the appropriate honor to the persons portrayed therein..."

+Elder Paisios The Athnoite: The Letter of the Law    

Pascha: A Feast of Theology

The following is a reflection written by Fr. John Behr, Dean of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. The original post can be found here. Fr. John teaches patristics at the seminary and his doctoral work focused on the issues of anthropology and asceticism in St. Irenaeus of Lyons and St. Clement of Alexandria. He has many other publications and his entire CV can be found here. His latest publication with SVS press is a book entitled Becoming Human in which Fr. John explores the various dimensions and implications of the astounding fact that Christ shows us what it is to be God by the way he dies as a human being and, in so doing, simultaneously shows us what it is to be a human being. A highly recommended read to all!

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As we approach Pascha, the Feast of Feasts, it is fitting that we consider once again the nature of the banquet to which we are invited.  As we will sing at Matins on Holy Thursday, we are called to ascend, with our minds on high, to enjoy the Master’s hospitality, the banquet of immortality in the upper chamber, receiving the words of the Word.  The nourishment that we are offered is a feast of theology; the food that we will feast on is the body and blood of the Word, the one who opens the Scriptures to show how they all speak of him and provide the means for entering into communion with him.

Our chapel here at St Vladimir’s Seminary is dedicated to Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom.  Although they each have a particular day of celebration, our patronal feast celebrates them together, as the Three Great Hierarchs.  The hymnography for the feast celebrates first of all their words, their words of theology, how they spoke about God.  The feast was conceived in the eleventh century as a feast of oratory: it was a celebration of those who found the words adequate to express the Word of God.  Such theology is a sacred art – the Byzantines even called it a mysterion, a sacrament – and it is charged with divinity.  It embraces and elevates the words of men to convey Jesus Christ, the Word of God.

The Church celebrates the Three Hierarchs as great examples of those who took on this work.  Having studied at Athens and other intellectual centers of the ancient world, they used all their God-given intellectual powers for the celebration of this divine task.  If we too wish be disciples, or, more accurately, “students” of Christ, we must take on this task of theology, learning Christ and being renewed in our minds.  And there are two very important aspects of this that we always need to bear in mind.

First, that theology is not an abstract discipline or specialized profession.  It is not speculation about God himself, separated from his own revelation or what his revelation says about us.  It is not taking all the things that humans might think of as divine – omnipotence, omniscience, immortality – and then projecting them into the heavens.  This approach creates nothing better than a “super-human”, with divine attributes, perhaps, but nothing more than the best we can humanly conceive.  Rather, theology begins and ends with the contemplation of the revelation of God, as he has shown himself to be.  Anything else is not theology at all, but fantasy.  We do theology when we contemplate God’s own revelation: God, whose strength and wisdom is shown in the weakness and the folly of the cross.  Christ himself, the Word of God, demonstrates his strength and power in this all-too-human way, by dying a shameful death on the cross, in humility and servitude – trampling down death by death – showing that true lordship is service.  This one is the image of the invisible God: in Christ the fullness of divinity dwells bodily – the whole fullness, such that divinity is found nowhere else and known by no other means.

All of us, therefore, all of the people of God, must focus on the transforming power of God revealed in Christ by the power of the Spirit.  As the Great Hierarchs affirmed, we cannot know what God is in himself, but we know how he acts.  We are invited to come to a proper appreciation of the work of God in Christ by the Spirit.  We are called to understand that Jesus Christ is indeed the Word of God, whom, by the same Spirit, we must convey in our words.  To recognize him as the Word of God is not a matter of human perception, but to find the words to convey him certainly demands the application of our minds.  It requires that we raise our minds to a properly theological level, that we may be transformed by the renewal of our minds.  As Great Lent prepares us for the Feast of Feasts, so also honing our mental skills should prepare us for the feast of theology.

The second point to remember is that the theology that we celebrate is a pastoral theology.  The hymns for the Great Hierarchs proclaim that the pastoral power of their theology has overthrown the illusory words of the orators, of those who play with words, speaking on a merely human level.  Their theology is pastoral, in that it shepherds us into true life.  It invites us to understand ourselves, and the whole of creation, in the light of God revealed in Christ by the Holy Spirit.  This is not simply a matter of asking “What Would Jesus Do?”  Nor is it simply a matter of being “pastoral,” as we often hear that word used today, in the sense of ministering to others on their own terms, enabling them to feel comfortable with themselves.  Rather, it is the challenge to transfigure our own lives by allowing God’s own transforming power to be at work within us.

This means that we must confront our own brokenness and weakness, for this is how God has shown his own strength: it is only in our weakness that God’s strength is made perfect.  And we will only have the strength to do this, we can do this only if we begin with God’s own revelation, if we begin with the theology taught to us by the Great Hierarchs.  We have to abandon what we humanly think divinity is, and to let God show us who and what he is.  We must begin, therefore, with the God who confronts us on the cross, who shows his love for us in this:  the love that he embodies.  Reflect on this: that when we are confronted with divine love in action, it is in the crucified Christ.  This reality reveals two things: how alienated we are from the call that brought us into existence, yet, at the same time, how much we are loved and forgiven.  In the light of Christ, we can begin both to understand our brokenness, our emptiness without him, and also to be filled with his love.  Theology shows us that the truth about God and the truth about ourselves always go together.

So, as we approach the Feast of Feasts, let us prepare ourselves to receive this revelation of God on his own terms.  Let us prepare ourselves for the challenge that his revelation presents, so that the Resurrection will transform us and renew our minds and we will find the words appropriate to offer the Word to others.

Matushka Juliana Schmemann on Mission

Fr. Alexander and his wife Matushka Juliana

A good friend shared this quote by Matushka Juliana Schmemann and it had me thinking about the paradigm of mission the church has been preaching to the people. Unfortunately mission has been based on a backlash, a misunderstanding of Christ and the Eucharist. Mission today has been reduced to a few fallacies based on the idea that we need to break away from "old archaic" ways of doing "certain actions" within the church. To give a few examples priests think that the liturgy must be done in English and the Arabic needs to be thrown out of the church (speaking about context of countries where the main language is English) and that we must incorporate worship songs into the service. Now I am not saying an all English liturgy is bad or worship songs need to be axed. On the other hand mission needs these tools in order to baptize all nations because if we are not using the language of the land as a tool for mission then all we have done is impose our own cultural heritage in country that does not share those heritages. Mission first and foremost as Matushka Juliana stresses is based on what we have to offer to people.

We must offer Christ to all. Christ is our starting point and our goal. Christ took on our humanity in order that we might share in his body. This is the paradigm the church needs to operate on. When translating this paradigm to mission it is no different. Mission begins and ends with the person of Christ. If Christ ceases to be our starting point then the church will become nothing more than mere activities done in light of social gatherings to cater to the needs of people. When theology is false Christianity is reduced to nothing more than mere activities. Mission is rooted in theology, a theology that is lived and expressed for the life of the world. Mission rooted in theology is a dynamic expression of what it means to be a Christian. Christianity being a way of life is a life lived for others. Mission is rooted in how we treat others through our offerings to them. (The first part of the liturgy is ironically known as the offertory). We offer ourselves because Christ showed us what it means to be a human through his incarnation. Our lives being rooted in the person of Christ has become a life offered to others. The first Orthodox missionaries who came through Alaska realized the importance of preaching the faith through the culture of the natives in Alaska and individuals such as St. Innocent and St. Herman understood this and were able to adapt the faith to the natives. Sadly today many Orthodox Churches have failed in this regard to missioning to all nations.

When you walk into a church today you will find the liturgy prayed in the language of the motherland (Arabic, Russian etc.) and the vernacular is not used. Worship songs are being incorporated into the service because we think this is what it means to be Christian. This however, is all rooted in the understanding that if we copy and paste protestant songs and continue using the old languages we will appease both the younger generations and the older generations. This however is not true. In fact the opposite is true in that many youths are leaving the church and the church fails in its missionary activity. The church, in order to be a place of mission must be rooted in the people who make the body of Christ. We must figure out how to talk to the people and the culture we are brought into (in my particular example-Canada). When we figure this out we must begin to incorporate this into our liturgy and language of mission. Simply coping and pasting does not solve the issue to the problem. We must be engaged in the culture in order to find beauty which is rooted in the person of Christ. Many have asked how does this look like? Are we to incorporate rap music in our hymns? Of course not (because this again is copying and pasting) however we must study carefully the culture and once we have come up with what it means "to be a Canadian" and how to express this in the liturgy it is only then that we can truly serve those around us through the context of mission. It is only then that the following words by Matushka Juliana will resonate throughout the life of the church.  
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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 instill 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 Julianna Schmemann, "The Joy to Serve" (Montreal: Alexander Press, 2009) 78-80. 

Going on Mission

To forgive another person from the heart is an act of liberation!

Continuing on the last post of Evangelization a good friend of mine sent me this excerpt by Fr. Henri Nouwen writing on mission and what mission meant to him. His paradigm or starting point for mission was the Eucharist! This is a profound passage taken from his book titled "With Burning Hearts: A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life".

"Often mission is thought of exclusively in terms of giving, but true mission is also receiving." + Fr. Henri Nouwen. 

"The love of God the Father; the grace of the only-begotten Son, Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ; and the communion and gift of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Go in pace. The peace of the Lord be with you all. Amen"

+Dismissal, The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, Coptic Orthodox Basil

"Let us go forth in peace." 

+ Dismissal, The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Byzantine Liturgy

The Eucharist concludes with a mission. "Go now and tell!" The Latin words "Ite Missa est," with which the priest used to conclude the Mass, literally mean: "Go, this is your mission." 

Communion is not the end. Mission is. Communion, that sacred intimacy with God, is not the final moment of the Eucharistic life. We recognized him, but that recognition is not just for us to savor or to keep as a secret. As Mary of Magdala, so too the two friends had heard deep in themselves the words "Go and tell." That's the conclusion of the Eucharistic celebration; that too is the final call of the Eucharistic life. "Go and tell. What you have heard and seen is not just for yourself. It is for the brothers and sisters and for all who are ready to receive it. Go, don't linger, don't wait, don't hesitate, but move now and return to the places from which you came, and let those whom you left behind in their hiding places know that there is nothing to be afraid of, that he is risen, risen indeed."

It is important to realize that the mission is, first of all, a mission to those who are no strangers to us. They know us and, like us, have heard about Jesus but have become discouraged. The mission is always first of all to our own, our family, our friends, those who are an intimate part of our lives. That is not a very comfortable realization. I always find it harder to speak about Jesus to those who know me intimately than to those who have never had to deal with my "peculiar ways of being." Still there lies a great challenge here. Somehow the authenticity of our experience is tested by our parents, our spouses, our children, our brothers and sisters, all those who us all too well.

Many times we will hear: "well, that's him again. Well, that's her again. We know what this is all about. We have seen all this excitement before. It will pass...as before." Often there is a lot of truth to this. Why should they trust us when we come running home all excited? Why should they take us seriously? We are not that trustworthy; we are not that different fro the rest of our family and friends. Moreover, the world is full of stories, full of rumors, full of preachers and evangelists. There is good reason for some skepticism. Those who didn't go with us to the Eucharist are no better or worse than we are. They have heard the story of Jesus. Some were baptized; some even went to church for a while or for a long time. But then, gradually, the story of Jesus became just a story. Church became obligation, the Eucharist a ritual. Somewhere it all became a sweet or bitter memory. Somewhere something died in them. And why should anyone who knows us well suddenly believe us when we return from the Eucharist?  

That is the reason why it not just the Eucharist, but the Eucharistic life that makes the difference. Each day, yes, each moment of the day, there is the pain of our losses and the opportunity to listen to a word that asks us to choose to live these losses as a way to glory. Each day, too, there is the possibility to invite the stranger into our home and to let him break the bread for us. The Eucharistic celebration has summarized for us what our life of faith is all about, and we have to go home to live it as long and as fully as we can. And this is very difficult, because everyone at home knows us so well: our impatience, our jealousies, our resentments, and our many little games. And then there are our broken relationships, our unfulfilled promises, and our unkept commitments. Can we really say that we have met him on the road, have received his body and blood and become living Christs? Everyone at home is ready to test us. 

But there is something else. There is a great surprise awaiting the two excited companions who came running to the room where their friends were gathered...eager to tell the news. These friends knew it already! The good news they had to bring was not new after all. Before they even had a chance to tell their story the eleven and their companions said, "The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon." It is quite humorous. Here they come running in, out of breath, all excited, only to discover that those who stayed in the city already had heard the news, even though they had not met him on the road or sat at the table with him. Jesus had appeared to Simon, and Simon was a lot more credible than those two disciples who hadn't stayed with them but had gone home thinking that it was all over. Sure, they were glad and eager to hear their story, but they brought just another affirmation that, indeed, he was alive.

There are many ways in which Jesus appears and many ways in which he lets us know that he is alive. what we celebrate in the Eucharist happens in many ways other than we might think. Jesus, who gave us bread already, touched the hearts of others long before he met us on the road. He called someone by her name, and she knew that it was him; he showed his wounds to some, and they knew that it was him. We have out stories to tell, and it is important that we tell them, but they are not the only stories. We have a mission to fulfill and it is good that we are excited about it, but first we have to listen to what others have to say. Then our stories can be told and bring joy.

All of this points to community. The two friends, who were able to speak to each other about their burning hearts, were beginning to enter into a new relationship with one another, a relationship built on the communion they had both experienced. Their communion with Jesus was, indeed, the beginning of community. But only the beginning. They needed to listen to their stories, each one different from the others, and to discover the many ways in which Jesus and his Spirit work among his people.

It is so easy to narrow Jesus down to our Jesus, to our experience of his love, to our way of knowing him. But Jesus left us so as to send his Spirit, and his Spirit blows where it wants. The community of faith is the place where many stories about the way of Jesus are being told. These stories can be very different from each other. They might even seem to conflict. But as we keep listening attentively to the Spirit manifesting itself through many people, in words as well as in silence, through confrontation as well as invitation, in gentleness as well as firmness, with tears as well as smiles-then we can gradually discern that we belong together, as one body knitted together by the Spirit of Jesus. 

In the Eucharist we are asked to leave the table and go to our friends to discover with them that Jesus is truly alive an calls us together to become a new people-a people of the resurrection.

Here the story of Cleopas and his friend ends. It ends with the two friends telling their story to the eleven and their companions. But the mission does not end here; it has scarcely begun. The telling of the story of what happened on the road and around the table is the beginning of a life of mission, lived all the days of our lives until we see him again face to face.

Forming a community with family and friends, building a body of love, shaping a new people of the resurrection: all of this is not just so that we can live a life protected from the dark forces that dominate our world; it is, rather, to enable us to proclaim together to all people, young and old, white and black, poor and rich, that death does not have the last word, that hope is real and God is alive.

The Eucharist is always mission. The Eucharist that has freed us from our paralyzing sense of loss and revealed to us that the Spirit of Jesus lives within us empowers us to go out into the world and to bring good new to the poor, sight to the blind, liberty to the captives, and to proclaim that God has shown again his favor to all people. But we are not sent out alone; we are sent with our brothers and sisters who also know that Jesus lives within them.

The movement flowing from the Eucharist is the movement from communion to community to ministry. Our experience of communion first sends us to our brothers and sisters to share with them our stories and build with them a body of love. Then, as community, we can move in all directions and reach out to all people.

I am deeply aware of my own tendency to want to go from communion to ministry without forming community. My individualism and desire for personal success ever and again tempt me to do it alone and to claim the task of ministry for myself. But Jesus himself didn't preach and heal alone. Luke, the Evangelist, tells us how he spent the night in communion with God, the morning to form community with the twelve apostles, and the afternoon to community to ministry. He does not want us to go out alone. He sends us out together, two by two, never by ourselves. And so we can witness as people who belong to a body of faith. We are sent out to teach, to heal, to inspire, and to offer to the world-not as the exercise of our unique skill, but as the expression of our faith that all we have to give comes from him who brought us together.

Life lived Eucharistically is always a life of mission. We live in a world groaning under its losses: the merciless wars destroying people and their countries, the hunger and starvation decimating whole populations, crime and violence holding millions of men, women, and children in fear. Cancer and AIDS, cholera, malaria, and many other diseases devastating the bodies of countless people; earthquakes, floods, and traffic disasters...it's story of everyday life filling the newspapers and television screens. It is a world of endless losses, and many, if not most, our fellow human beings walk with faces downcast on the surface of this planet. They say in some way or another: "Our hope had been...but we lost hope."

This is the world we are sent to live in Eucharistically, that is, to live with burning hearts and with open ears and open eyes. It seems an impossible task. What can this small group of people who met him on the road, in the garden, or at the lakeside do in such a dark and violent world? The mystery of God's love is that our burning hearts and our receptive ears and eyes will be able to discover that the One we met in the intimacy of our homes continues to reveal himself to us among the poor, the sick, the hungry, the prisoners, the refugees, and all people who live in fear.

Here we come to realize that mission is not only to go and tell others about the risen Lord, but also to receive that witness from those to whom we are sent. Often mission is thought of exclusively in terms of giving, but true mission is also receiving. If it is true that the Spirit of Jesus blows where it wants, there is no person who cannot give that Spirit. In the long run, mission is possible only when it is as much receiving as giving, as much being cared for as caring. We are sent to the sick, the dying, the handicapped, the prisoners, and the refugees to bring them the good news of the Lord's resurrection. But we will soon be burned out if we cannot receive the Spirit of the Lord from those to whom we are sent.

The Spirit, the Spirit of love, is hidden in their poverty, brokenness, and grief. That is why Jesus said: "Blessed are the poor, the persecuted, and those who mourn." Each time we reach out to them they in turn-whether they are aware of it or not-will bless us with the Spirit of Jesus and so become our ministers. Without this mutuality of giving and receiving, mission and ministry easily become manipulative or violent. When only one gives and the other receives, the giver will soon become an oppressor and the receivers, victims. But when the giver receives and the receiver gives, the circle of love, begun in the community of the disciples, can grow as wide as the world.

It belongs to the essence of the Eucharistic life to make this circle of love grow. Having entered into communion with Jesus and created community with those who know that he is alive, we now can go and join the many lonely travelers and help them discover that they too have the gift of love to share. We are no longer afraid of their sadness and pain, but can ask them simply: "What are you talking about as you walk along the road?" And we will hear stories of immense loneliness, fear, rejection, abandonment, and sadness. We must listen, often for a long time, but there are also opportunities to say with words or simple gestures: "Didn't you know that what you are complaining about can also be lived as a way to something new? May it is impossible to change what has happened to you, but you are still free to choose how to live it."

Not everyone will listen to us and only a few will invite us into their lives to join them at their table. Only seldom will it be possible to offer life-giving bread and truly heal a heart that has been broke. Jesus himself didn't heal everyone, nor change everyone's life. Most people simply don't believe that radical changes are possible and can't give their trust when they meet the strangers. But every time there is a real encounter leading from despair to hope and from bitterness to gratitude, we will see some of the darkness being dispelled and life, once again, breaking through the boundaries of death.

This has been, and continues to be, the experience of those who live a Eucharistic life. They see it as their mission to persistently challenge their fellow travelers to choose gratitude instead of resentment and hope instead of despair. And  the few times that this challenge is accepted are enough to make their lives worth living. To see a smile breaking through tears is to witness a miracle-the miracle of joy.

Statistically, none of this is very interesting. Those who ask: "How many people did you reach? How many changes did you bring about? How many illnesses did you cure? How much joy did you create?" will always receive disappointing answers. Jesus and his followers did not have great success. The world is still a dark world, full of violence, corruption, oppression, and exploitation. It will likely always be! The question is not: "How soon and how many?" but "Where and when?" Where is the Eucharist being celebrated, where are the people who come together around the table and break bread together, and when does it happen? The world lies in the power of the evil one. The world does not recognize the light that shines in the darkness. It never did; it never will. But there are people who, in the midst of this world, live with the knowledge that he is alive and dwells within us, that he has overcome the power of death and opens the way to glory. Are there people who come together, who come around the table and do what he did, in memory of him? Are there people who keep telling each other the stories of hope and , together, go out to care for their fellow human beings, not pretending to solve all problems, but  to bring a smile to a dying man and a little hope to a lonely child?

It is so little, so unspectacular, yes, so hidden, this Eucharistic life, but it is like yeast, like a mustard seed, like a smile on a baby's face. It is what keeps faith, hope and love alive in a world that is constantly on the brink of self-destruction.

The Eucharist, sometimes, is celebrated with great ceremony, in splendid cathedrals and basilicas. But more often it is a "small" event that few people know about. It happens in a living room, a prison cell, an attic- out of sight of the big movements of the world.

It happens in secret, without vestments, candles, or incense. It happens with gestures so simple  that outsiders don't even know that it takes place. But big or small, festive or hidden, it is the same event, revealing that life is stronger than death and love stronger than fear.

Source: Fr. Henri Nouwen, "With Burning Hearts: A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life" (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1994) 79-92.             

Great Lent: The Meaning of Repentance

Great lent is a time of repentance and forgiveness. Repentance at the root is a change of the mind and body. We have grown accustomed to thinking that repentance is feeling bad for our actions and that we need to be punished in order to revert back on the right path. This is a good thought if we were still 12 years old. We must see repentance as a renewal and change back into the communion of God. Sin is a breaking away from God. It is a separation in which we must find our way back to the love of God. Yes there will be days when we skip the fast, missed our prayers or become angry with others however, the only way to correct our actions and thoughts is by uniting to the body of Christ through the renewal and change of mind, body and spirit. True life and true repentance will only come once we realize that we have lost communion with God and through Him we can be made whole through the Eucharist.

The following is an excellent quote from Fr. Schmemanns book Great Lent. I recommend this read during this time period. If you are interesting in reading any of the ancient fathers I would recommend St. Athanasius On the Incarnation.

Repentance is often simply identified as a cool and "objective" enumeration of sins and transgressions, as the act of "pleading guilty" to a legal indictment. Confession and absolution are seen as being of a juridical nature. But something very essential is overlooked--without which neither confession nor absolution have any real meaning of power. This "something" is precisely the feeling of alienation from God, from the joy of communion with Him, from the real life as created and given by God. It is easy indeed to confess that I have not fasted on prescribed days, or missed my prayers, or become angry. It is quite a different thing, however, to realize suddenly that I have defiled and lost my spiritual beauty, that I am far away from my real home, my real life, and that something precious and pure and beautiful has been hopelessly broken in the very texture of my existence. Yet this, and only this, is repentance, and therefore it is also a deep desire to return, to go back, to recover that lost home. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent

The following is a prayer of St. Ephrem which is recited during the Great Lent. This prayer serves as a reminder that we are constantly being formed and united into the body of Christ as we grow in love and service for others.

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages Amen.

The following is a link to an earlier entry on fasting. May God bless you all on our journey through the Lenten season.

Why Fasting?