How Atheists Can Help Us

A famous quot by Nietzche that Fr. Roberto makes reference to in his text: God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
-Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, Trans. Walter Kaufmann. 

By Fr. Roberto Ubertino

How Atheists Can Help Us

We seem to face the reality of Atheism where we feel most vulnerable: in our children. Our children so often seem to be seduced by the Atheist position. They of course are simply the easy victims of an illness that affects a considerable, growing, large number of people. A recent author, Michael Buckley, suggests that Atheism is essentially a parasite that feeds off bad religion. Atheism, he suggest, feeds off bad religion and picks apart bad religion. If that is true, then atheists do us a big favour. Atheism shows us the log in our own eyes.

Feuerbach and Nietzsche, two famous atheists of the 19th century, criticized religion as the "opiate of the people." They criticized that by focusing on the next life, people cold then be subjugated in this one. But they had a much deeper criticism, namely that we use the idea of God and religion to rationalize our own desires. For these two atheists, God did not make us in his image and likeness, but rather, we've made God in our image and likeness.

It is a great temptation that we have not always overcome by using "God" as our reason to do whatever we want and then calling this "God's will". Bernard (St) of Clairvaux called the 2nd Crusade as "God's will". We justified slavery, oppression, injustice, imprisonment, pogroms, all in the name of God. We Orthodox are not exempt. There is much for atheists to feed on. Our endless discussions on jurisdiction, our zealous acceptance to break communion with each other over minute details, the brushing under the carpet of sexual and financial abuses, our lack of interest in the poor. There is much for atheists to feed upon. Today atheism sharpens its knives through popular writers such as Hitchens and Dawkins. When it is most painful is to see that bad religion is picked upon and thorn apart by our children. Going "on the defensive" is not helpful. Promising them hell if they don't start going to church is a waste of time. Rather than being defensive, we need to find a response to what often are valid criticisms. We need to find a way to speak to these challenges with a witness that has a chance to be heard. Preaching to the choir is no longer a sufficient response of the church to the challenge that atheism levels at us.

We first need to be humble and even grateful, because the challenge atheism levels at the church is really an opportunity that is offered to us, to purify our witness of the Lord and His gospel.

Second consideration. We need to humbly and without making excuses acknowledge to our children what is true in our failure to be the authentic witness of the true faith. We have failed miserable in many ways to live the Orthodox faith.

Finally, what is most important is to understand that the response that must be given to "bad religion" is not secularism or atheism but rather what St. Paul calls a "beautiful witness of the hope that is within us". How can we recognize authenticity when it concerns the Orthodox Church? What will convince our children to recognize where is the truth? In the same way we recognize beauty and goodness! They are self-evident! The same with the true faith! It declares itself! It attracts by itself. The reverse is also true: atheism is a parasite that feeds of the believers' betrayal of the truth.

When atheism becomes aggressive like it is today, when it even becomes nasty, this is perhaps a time to examine more closely what this phenomena mirrors inside many of our religious institutions.

Christmas Fast 2013 

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.             

Prayer is Breathing

Metropolitan Georges Khodr: Prayer is breathing 

Original text here: 

The way we are with our Lord is that we are always tormented and the Lord always heals us. It is not for us to wonder why we are like this-why we are in suffering, why we exist in suffering. Divine inspiration does not give an answer to this question. It does not say why we are subjected to pain, to pain of the body, to pain of the soul, to pain of the conscience. The Divine Scripture is content to observe this and to start off on this basis in order to reveal to us how we can leave this suffering, how we can bear it and change it into the power to create and approach God, turning it into a ladder by which we go up to heaven.  

In the Divine Scripture we have promises of healing, and of sure salvation from sin. When he promised the joy and revealed the life that will come when we accept the mystery of God and obey him in all the afflictions of the world that we taste, whether in spirit or in body. When we are in such a state, in torment like what those who sought healing from the Lord were in, we cry out like them: “Lord, have mercy!”

“Son of David, have mercy on me.” “Lord have mercy on my son, for he suffers greatly…” We observe that all these words are seeking mercy, which in more comprehensive than healing. When we ask for healing, most of us ask for healing of the body, which is something good, but we have not reached the point of suffering from sin leaking in to us, so we ask for it to be removed from us and we remain Christ’s. What is our stance toward the stricken after we fall into evil, after darkness engulfs our souls? What prayer do we pray? Do we trust that God Himself will come down to us if we pray? Do we know that God wants us to speak to Him? For us to enter into dialogue with Him?   

Naturally, God is capable of responding at all times, and he responds effectively if we ask or if we do not ask because He knows all our needs. However, the Lord prefers for us to speak to Him so that we might be trained in His friendship. He asks this boldness of us, the boldness of children with their Father. This is what we ask him in the Divine Liturgy, before we recite the Lord’s Prayer, when we say, “And make us worthy, O Lord, that with boldness we may call You Father…”

God wants to be among us, to be friendly with us, so that we might know that we have risen to the rank of divinity and so we might realize that God has come down to the rank of humanity. If God has come own to our souls as they are, as we know them to be, in their weakness, in their disgrace, in their filthiness, if God visit these soul then He is their Healer.

The problem of modern, contemporary man is that he is content with himself because he has made puppets, toys that he plays with and he thinks that this is enough, especially if he has acquired some wealth and spared himself hard living and so closes himself off and does not ask about anything. This is mankind’s evil in this generation that we are in and for this reason the Lord says, “You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” (Matthew 17.17). If a person completely closes all the windows to himself, he suffocates because he cannot breathe. When we are content with toys that we have made, we close the window to heaven on ourselves and we suffocate. People do not only suffocate through their lungs, their mind also freezes, their heart withers, their conscience goes idle and they spiritually die.

What is prayer before this situation? Prayer is us opening the windows when we feel shut in. it is us opening the windows of the heart to heaven so that God can visit our souls. Only then are we able to love.

Prayer is breathing. If we are certain of this we can conquer all the world’s trails because our spirits will be filled with the air of grace.   

Worship and Life

This icon shows St. Bishoy washing the feet of Christ. St. Bishoy is known for his humility and never saying no to any individual. One time him and the monks were on there way up to the mountain to meet Christ (it was foretold to them that Christ would appear on the top of the mountain). There was a beggar on the side asking for help to be carried up. All the monks ignored him except for St. Bishoy. He carried him on his back and the closer he got to the top the lighter the person got to the point where the person disappeared and it turned out this person was Christ whom all the monks walked passed. This is an excellent example of how we must all see Christ in every human being. 

Continuing from our last post on Father Alexander Schmemann let us reflect on the meaning of liturgical worship. Father Alexander always spoke about the the relationship of worship in relation for the life of the world. But what does this mean? How can one understand worship in relation to our own lives?

Liturgical worship should not be understood as another addition to the Christian faith but rather, it forms the foundation of Christian identity-expressing our highest purpose. Worship reveals to all what we believe and based on this belief, how we see ourselves in relationship to God, with one another, and the world into which we are called to carry the redemptive mission of Christ (cf. Mt 28-The Great Commission). The way in which the church worships is a witness to the truth of what she professes. Worship becomes a dynamic means of bringing in the entire human community into life everlasting with Christ. This is given through the expression of beauty! Liturgical worship transforms not just the individual but the entire community which participates in it. This is the dynamic relationship between worship and life. What is practiced is lived out, expressed, and becomes a witness for the life of the world.

The centrality of worship describing the life, identity and mission of the church, Fr. Alexander would use a Latin term to describe-"Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi". The phrase means the law of worship (prayer) is the law of faith (belief). Sometimes the term was expanded to include at the end "Lex vivendi" (Law of life), deepening the implications of this truth. How we worship reflects what we believe and this belief and worship shapes how we live. How we worship guides how we live the Christian faith and fulfill the Christian mission in the world by manifesting the joy in declaring the risen Christ.

Sadly though as society progresses forward and the rise of materialism and secularism, taking on passionate forms, becomes the paradigm to many. Liturgical worship then ceases to be at the center of life. Liturgical worship ceases to be lived out but instead becomes a form of rituals being performed by a few people. What then develops is a separation of the "sacred" (liturgy) and "profane" (the rest of the world). This point Fr. Alexander wrote greatly on stressing the fact that there is no separation of the "sacred" and "profane" because through God's creation all has been sanctified and blessed and this blessing is realized at the heart of the worship. By allowing worship to be our starting point in life then we will appreciate all of creation as it was meant to be from the beginning-God created it and it was good.

What has developed is an effort to simplify, by trying to make the worship more "attractive" to people from the outside has actually resulted into liturgical minimalism. This minimalism can take on many forms but one example of this can be when you enter into the "church" on a Sunday morning and is filled with people conversing with each other about how there week was or cell phones ringing throughout the service. This point goes back to the separation of the "sacred" and "profane". People have forgotten that Christ incarnate, the crucified and risen Lord is not only present in the "church space" but is present in the world as well. Our actions within the church determine our actions in the world. We must prepare our hearts and mind when we receive Christ and this is no different when we present ourselves in the world. This is why Fr. Alexander is stressing the point that there is no difference between the "sacred" and "profane". Every action, thought and step is done by choosing to put on Christ. Hence there is no such thing as "sacred" or "profane".          

Another liturgical minimalism that has developed is in the thought and ethos that people have began to develop that symbols of our worship, faith and our life is a problem. These long "liturgies" and "prayers" need to be reduced in order to accommodate the needs of the people. By stripping down the prayers and making the liturgical experience lose its richness, they think they have somehow made the faith more "relevant" and "contemporary". These individuals fail to grasp and understand human nature being symbolic. Anthropos (human beings) is created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1.26-27) making the human being a divine icon of God. With the initial creation being symbolic in nature, symbols touch us at a deeper level more than words or effective (emotional) participation can. When we seek the one who created us good in his image and likeness, this is where we hunger most for God and we turn to Christ through worship to understand this great mystery.

Back in 2010, Pope Benedict addressed bishops in Rome speaking to them about the meaning of the Eucharist. He said, "the center and permanent source of the Petrine ministry, the heart of the Christian life, source and summit of the church's mission of evangelization. You can thus understand the concern of the successor of Peter for all that can obfuscate this more essential point of the Catholic faith: that today, Jesus Christ continues alive and truly present in the consecrated host and the chalice". Pope Benedict continues on by warning the bishops that, "Paying less attention at times to the rite of the Most Holy Sacrament constitutes a sign and a cause of the darkening of the Christian sense of mystery, such as when Jesus is not the center of the Mass, but rather a community preoccupied with other things instead of being taken up and drawn to the only one necessary: their Lord. If the figure of Christ does not emerge from the liturgy, it is not a Christian liturgy. As venerable John Paul II wrote, "the mystery of the Eucharist is 'to great a gift' to admit of ambiguities or reductions, above all when, 'stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet;". By the end of his talk Pope Benedict summarized everything when he said, "Worship cannot come from our imagination: that would be a cry in the darkness or mere self-affirmation. True liturgy supposes that God responds and shows us how we can adore him. The church lives in his presence-and its reason for being and existing is to expand his presence in the world".

The relationship between worship and life is important in order to experience the beauty and to show it to others. As the old saying goes the truth will set you free. In this instance the truth becomes our unity in the body of Christ which becomes a life to all. When we come to encounter the joy of the risen Lord in the liturgy we live out his life in the world. The same life in which he was crucified we learn to be crucified to the passions and become free in order to sanctify our bodies and be made worthy. This joy then is experienced and share with everyone. By transforming our lives into the live giving bread we become a source of life to all. How? Our actions and interactions become this source of life. If you are at work, in school, studying, going out, helping with social services, helping at a church, going to a food drive, talking with the homeless, spending time with people at hospitals and the list goes on and on. All of this becomes sanctified and once people see the good in you then Christ becomes the paradigm to all. As Father Alexander Schmemann said, "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi", as we worship, we believe and so we will live!          

St. Francis of Assisi was always known to help the poor as he dedicated his life to the work of helping others unconditionally. Let us learn from St. Francis that we should never ignore or pass by any human being in time of need. 

Remembering Fr. Alexander Schmemann

30 years ago Fr. Alexander Schmemann reposed in the Lord (Dec 13 1983). Fr. Alexander Schmemann has been influential in my "return" to the faith. Even though I have never had the chance to ever meet him, his spirit lives on through his writings. His writings have helped me transcend my understanding of the Liturgy, Eucharist, Baptism and the life of the world. Fr. Alexander was a prominent liturgical theology professor at St. Vlaidimir's Seminary in New York. He served as dean of the school from 1962 till his death in 1983. Fr. Alexander can be remembered for many things but one thing that he took take pride in was being faithful to the Christian faith. What do I mean by this? He thought, and many times he makes it clear in his writing, that the Christian faith was being robbed of its beauty. One particular point was the cultural walls we have entrapped ourselves in. We have to break out of these walls in order to bring Christ to all Americans. However, this cultural barrier we trapped ourselves in was an issue Fr. Alexander spoke against greatly throughout his writings. Another important topic he wrote on and dedicated his whole life to was the Liturgy! The Liturgy can be summed up as our starting point, our paradigm, our first principle. All his writings on the Liturgy can be summed up in saying if the Liturgy is not present in our lives then we are like the walking dead. This following passage on the Liturgy speaks about how the Liturgy is our starting point.

A month earlier, he notes that it is only in the Liturgy that things come together: "I become filled with disgust for the role I have been playing for decades. I have fear and apprehension at having to immerse myself in the affairs of the seminary and the church. I feel that everybody around me knows what to do and how and what for, but I only pretend to know. In fact, I don't know anything; I am not sure of anything; I am deceiving myself and others. Only when I serve the Liturgy am I not deceitful. And I will say it again: all of life flows out of-and is connected with-the Liturgy! I feel a collapse of any energy-especially spiritual. I would like to leave!"

Another big issue Fr. Alexander took to heart was his running polemic against "religion", as distinct from authentic Christianity centered in the revelation of God in Christ. This error he insisted, was to think that Christianity is a subcategory of "religion", when in fact Christ explodes from within history all human constructions of reality, religious or otherwise, thus illumining with the divine world of which we are part of. The two works that stand out on this issue are the journals of Fr. Alexander and For the Life of the World. Fr. Alexander wanted to distance Christ and Christianity from what he viewed as the stifling habits and thought forms of "religion". Religion as an organization and institution was the cry of Fr. Alexander wanted to outcast as the great travesty of the 20th century. Even "piety" is regularly dismissed as a distortion, and he rails against those who came to confession with all sorts of "problems". His answer to all was simply to "live"! Which is to say, his answer was, Christ! Christ was the center and focus to all of Fr. Alexander's writings.    

By way of conclusion I will leave you the reader with this final saying which sums up Fr. Alexander in the best way possible. May his memory be eternal.

"I realized that 'theologically' I have one idea-the eschatological content of Christianity, and of the Church as the presence in this world of the Kingdom, of the age to come-this presence as the salvation of the world and not escape from it. The 'world beyond the grave' cannot be loved, cannot be looked for, cannot be lived by. Whereas the Kingdom of God, if one tastes it, be it a little, cannot be not loved! Once you love it, you cannot avoid loving all creation, created to reveal and announce the Kingdom. This love is already transfigured. Without the Kingdom of God being both the beginning and the end, this world is a frightening and evil absurdity. But without the world, the Kingdom of God is incomprehensible, abstract, and in some way absurd".    

The Sacrament- For the Life of the World

Many approach the sacraments as some sort of magical trick performed by a priest. Actually it is quite the opposite. The sacrament, the mystery, is our participation in the body of Christ. The same Christ, who as the priest recites during the liturgy, "For being determined to give Himself up to death for the life of the world". Christ is the one who gave his life for the life of the world. This is the mystery in which we are called to participate in the sacraments. Our own "death", in participating in the sacraments is the same participation Christ gave us through his own life culminating in his death and resurrection. There is no separation in the life we are called to live within the body of Christ and the life we live for the world. There seems to be this preconceived notion that the sacrament is set out against, or existing outside the rest of life. There is a distinction between the sacred (sacraments) and profane (the world). This notion stands at odds with what Christ established as giving up our lives for the life of the world. The world has been sanctified by his death and resurrection. The idea of profane and sacred has been broken. All that we do and participate in has become sacramental. This explains why we must bring the conclusion of the liturgy (the Eucharist) to the rest of the world. This Christ who died and rose, in which we participate in through our own life, must be brought within the life of the world. The Eucharist represents our own death in the body of Christ, and if we accept this notion of death (which we do by participating in the Eucharist), then as we constantly are called to die we must live out this death in the world we are in constant motion with. Our lives then has, in a sense, become sacramental. We then become an offering made by our own death in the body of Christ that is constantly lived out.

The following quote that was e-mailed to me sums up these thoughts a lot more coherently. I would recommend Fr. Alexander Schmemann's book "For the Life of the World" as a good read on this very topic of the sacramental life.        
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It must once again be emphasized that the sacrament is not something set over against, or existing outside, the rest of life, so that it is sacred while the rest of life and all other things are non-sacred or profane or non-sacramental; it is not something extrinsic and fixed in its extrinsically, as if by some sort of magical operation of Deus ex machina the sacramental object is suddenly turned into something other than itself and different from all other created objects. On the contrary, what is indicated or revealed in the sacrament is something universal, the intrinsic sanctity and spirituality of all things, what one might call their real nature. A recognition of the sacramental principle requires the recognition that nothing in life, in the created order, is, or can be, entirely profane or non-sacred; it requires the recognition of an essential “likeness”, a congeneracy or “identity in difference”, between the sanctifying power and what is sanctified, between the uncreated and created; it requires, finally, the recognition that the sacramental has a cosmic significance and is intimately related to every single aspect of created existence, and that therefore, while the way of looking at, or using, things may well be profane and non-sacred, the things themselves can never be.