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    

God is Motion

Metropolitan Georges Khodr: God is Motion

Original Arabic here.

I am always struck by he words of the Nazarene, "Love your neighbor as yourself". He never once said, "strive for your neighbor to love you". Love is an act of going to the other, not of attracting an emotion. Christ never once said, "seek to be loved". You come into being by abandoning yourself. This is the mystery of humanity, that one of us subsists in himself or for himself. You exist in and with others. Human existence is communion: Your Lord knows you if you love. you exist if you forget yourself in your act of going to the other.

Individualism is true if you mean by it the independence of each one of us from the tyranny of the group, but individualism is not withdrawal or isolation. Personhood is contemporary philosophy does not mean isolation or inward withdrawal. It is the conformation of the self in love because the self exists in communion.

There is no contradiction between sound individualism and existing in society, because a good society does not eliminate the rational and loving self. Indeed, it can only exist in it. The group is not a herd because the herd has no love in it.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" because he is your equal, because the two of you are one before the Lord. The one whom you love is not necessarily your friend. You love because you come into existence through love insofar as it is going out from the "I" into the "we". Truth is in the "we". Egoism is exclusionary, but love is confirmed and confirms the other at the same time. It is not possible for you to love the other unless you subsist within yourself (and I did not say "subsist in yourself"). For you to subsist within yourself also means that you subsist in the other. You cannot be in yourself if you are not one with the Lord. If the Lord is not within you, you are deadly for yourself, you eat yourself.

Love is not in rejecting the self. It is rejecting the closed-off ego. If you go out to the other by casting egoism out of yourself, you return to yourself free. The one who loves does not hate himself. He hates to monopolize himself. Loving yourself, insofar as your self is from God, is loving God. It is gaining God for yourself, since if you do not make God your own, how can He be? If you do not understand that He is motion, He will not reach you. He is fixed in his motion.

God is a movement of love. We have only known Him in His supporting His people and no one knows Him unless the Lord Himself moves towards him. God is constantly in a state of coming down. This is the true meaning of inspiration. God is revelation. Yes, the Lord is fixed. This fixedness is His love.

Love is movement. It is you believing that the other is fundamental for you, even for your breathing. If you move toward the face of the other, you find the face of God. In your isolated tower, you have no god. It is your suicide. You do not face God by Himself. You find in Hi others, because God is in the group, in love. There is nothing that will be revealed to you if you do not go out of yourself to it and to others. You have no existence with your Lord if you are not with others. He is on their faces--it is there that you read Him.  

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.    

Last words of Fr. Alexander Schmemann-Let us give thanks!

Today, the feast of Thanksgiving is celebrated across the United States (mid-October for our Canadian readers). On this feast day Father Alexander Schmemann gave his final words in the church before his passing away a few weeks later (Dec 13 1983). It is quite fascinating how the Eucharist translates into thanksgiving. These final words were written down by Father Alexander, even though all his sermons were never written down. The beauty about this feast is that the church is always thankful because it is through our thanksgiving that we come together in love in the body of Christ.

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Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation and eternal joy.
Thank You, O Lord, for having accepted this Eucharist, which we offered to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and which filled our hearts with the joy, peace and righteousness of the Holy Spirit.
Thank You, O Lord, for having revealed Yourself unto us and given us the foretaste of Your Kingdom.
Thank You, O Lord, for having united us to one another in serving You and Your Holy Church.
Thank You, O Lord, for having helped us to overcome all difficulties, tensions, passions, temptations and restored peace, mutual love and joy in sharing the communion of the Holy Spirit.
Thank You, O Lord, for the sufferings You bestowed upon us, for they are purifying us from selfishness and reminding us of the "one thing needed;" Your eternal Kingdom.
Thank You, O Lord, for having given us this country where we are free to Worship You.
Thank You, O Lord, for this school, where the name of God is proclaimed.
Thank You, O Lord, for our families: husbands, wives and, especially, children who teach us how to celebrate Your holy Name in joy, movement and holy noise.
Thank You, O Lord, for everyone and everything.
Great are You, O Lord, and marvelous are Your deeds, and no word is sufficient to celebrate Your miracles.
Lord, it is good to be here! Amen.

Elder Sophrony on Liturgy

Liturgy is the essence of the Christian life. Liturgy is the starting point in which we Christians begin to live our life for the world. When we tell others to "come and see" that usually entails bringing that individual to a liturgical service. Whether it is vespers or the liturgy the point being made is that the liturgy is our starting point. What it means to be united in the body of Christ begins with the chalice which was offered to us on the cross and glorified through the resurrection. Our joy and hope rests in the resurrection of our Lord. This is why the last offering given by Christ was received through the last supper meal Christ shared with his disciples. The last supper has become a form of unity build on love between human beings. Christ offered himself for the sake of humanity and in doing so bestowed his unconditional love for us through the last supper meal as his last act before the cross. This is how we today share in the body of Christ. The highest point of the liturgy is the Eucharist, the meal of love which binds us in the body of Christ. Elder Sophrony has spoken beautiful words on the liturgy and in doing so let us see how the liturgy penetrates the life of a Christian.
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We Christians live Christ within the Divine Liturgy, or rather Christ lives within us during the Divine Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy is a work of God. We say: "Time is a creation of the Lord". Among other things it means now is the time for God to act. Christ liturgizes, we live with Christ. The Divine Liturgy is the way we know God and the way God becomes known to us. Christ celebrated the Divine Liturgy once and this passed into eternity.

His divinized human nature came to the Divine Liturgy. We know Christ specifically in the Divine Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy we celebrate is the same Divine Liturgy which was done by Christ on Great Thursday in the Mystical Supper. The 14th through 16th chapters of the Gospel according to John is one Divine Liturgy. So in the Divine Liturgy we understand Holy Scripture. The early Church lived without a New Testament, but not without the Divine Liturgy. The first records, the written hymns, exist in the Divine Liturgy. In the Divine Liturgy we live Christ and understand His word.

As Christ cleansed His disciples with his world and said to them: "You are already clean because of the world which I have spoken to you" (John 15.3) and He washed the feet of His disciples with water, during the Sacred Washing, so also in the first section of the Divine Liturgy He cleanses us that we might attend later His table of love. The purpose of the Divine Liturgy is to convey Christ to us. The Divine Liturgy teaches us an ethos, the ethos of humility. As Christ sacrificed Himself, so also should we sacrifice ourselves. The type of the Divine Liturgy is the type of impoverishment for us.

In the Divine Liturgy we try to be humbled, because we have the sense that there is the humble God. Every Divine Liturgy is a Theophany. The Body of Christ appears. Every member of the Church i an icon of the Kingdom of God. After the Divine Liturgy we must continue to iconify the Kingdom of God, keeping His commandments. The glory of Christ is to bear fruit in every member His fruit. This explains His word: "Herein is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit" (John 15.8)."

Elder Sophrony of Essex 

The Great Commission

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing the in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to end end of the age."  Matthew 28.18-20.

The great commission spoken by Christ to conclude the gospel of Matthew speaks of the role the church is meant to live out. The church is first and foremost a mission to all nations. Many countless examples can be given about missions to all of the nations. The greatest example is the Apostle Paul travelling throughout the Roman Empire and preaching the good news to all nations. Another example that is closer to home is St. Innocent and St. Herman of Alaska who came from Russia carrying the good news to the natives of Alaska. The Great Commission is the expression of love in the body of Christ beginning in the chalice and being preached to all nations. However, the paradigm has been shifted with the immigration of different ethnic groups moving to America and Canada. We must critically evaluate the great commission that has been brought with the immigration of these different ethnic groups to the west. Is the church still living the words of Christ spoken to conclude the gospel of Matthew? If you were to walk into a Greek, Russian, Serbian, Egyptian, Syrian, Italian, or any church does the church represent the nation it is present in? Can we critically and truly say that all nations are represented within the church today? Or are we caught in our "ethnic ghettos" that when we see an individual that is not "of the same ethnic background" we begin to gossip and whisper in each other ears judging the individual forgetting first and foremost we are all sinners? Sadly, many times we think that the church is the source of salvation for only "me" and no one else deserves this salvation OR if they want to practice they must practice "under our own terms". Professor Schneider said a profound statement that is relateable to these questions we are considering...

"Orthodoxy has to tell the world what the world needs and what that need truly is...this is missiology, this is mission outreach, missiology doesn't say come to the Orthodox Church because we're the true Church or because we have the true Tradition and only with us will you find salvation...missiology says I can help you understand yourself in ways you never imagine...and what is what we mean when we sing 'God is the Lord and has revealed himself to us'".
Professor Richard Schneider

The great commission is build on love for the human being! What it means to become a human within the church and to mission to the world is not about throwing a Bible to someone expecting him or her to come to the faith but rather it is how we relate to each other. Christ did not come and speak to tax collectors and prostitutes but he eat with them and sat down with them to serve them! If we are called to emulate Christ in our actions because Christ has become our example of what it means to be God then we to are called not only to speak to the homeless and hungry but to sit with them and bring them into the church and give them the bread that gives life to all. The mission of the church is not to baptize the "rich" but also the poor. The church is the mission to all nations not seeing color or race but seeing Christ in all. The church is the place were we, being given life in death, become poor in order to speak to the poor, become hungry to speak to the hungry, become rich to speak to the rich, become Christ in order for others to see Christ in us. Bishop Anastasios wrote on this exact idea when he said:

The saints of the church did not simple speak for the poor, but, above all, shared their life. They voluntarily became poor out of love for Christ, in order to identify with Him, who made Himself poor."
Bishop Anastasios of Albania, Mission in the way of Christ, 11.

St. Paul echoes the same message when he said that he became a Jew in order to speak to the Jews, he became a gentile to speak to the gentiles. How does this translate today? The great commission in focused around the society and world that we live in. Many speak of the society and world as being a "evil and bad place". However, how can this be if God created everything and it was good? We must be engaged in the world and society in order to see Christ in all. In order to live out the great commission for the life of the world we must become Americans and Canadians to all in order for all to see Christ in us. We must emancipate ourselves from the cultural ghettos we can created for ourselves in order to live out the great commission. St. Paul deals with this same issue when he found out that Jews and Gentiles were sitting at different tables at the table fellowship. He was outraged, and rightly so, because the body of Christ had been fragmented by this action. This is no different today with our actions! We have fragmented the body by creating specific "mission" churches and designating other churches for specific ethnic groups. We have fragmented the body of Christ by celebrating multiple liturgies and designating them as "a youth liturgy" the "adult liturgy" the "English liturgy" and by dividing up the community in this fashion we have divided the body of Christ. The great commission, the calling to live out the body of Christ can only produce fruit in the unity of the church. The church has never known division and it will never see division. Division of the church is a man made concept that has distorted the great commission. The Ecumenical councils was meant to unite the church but it has divided the church. The great commission lies in the person of Christ as the community comes together from all nations sharing in the one body.  

In the epistle of Barnabas, a second century writing, in the sixth chapter he writes "a human being is earth that suffers". This profound statement speaks volumes to the calling to mission to all nations. What it means to mission to all nations rests in how we see each other as human beings. If we continue to box people in as "doctors" and "priests" and the list can go on we lose the true value of the human being. The human being is the creature made in the image and likeness of God. When we mission to the nations we do not see race ethnicity or culture but rather we see Christ who is in all. We need to learn to drop our "ethnic walls" we have created for ourselves because of the fear that grips our hearts! Let us become the church of Christ that missions to the nation and not the church that we keep to ourselves!   

Woe to the Church

"Oh, how great is this trial which Christ entered into with Satan and conquered for us! The Church should never desire rule or ownership on earth. Woe to the church that possesses much! Woe to the church that has numerous investments stored away in the national and central banks, only to be eaten away by the moth. Woe to the church whose assets are large while her poor are hungry! Woe to the church which owns many ares and buildings but has no poor eating at her table! But blessed is the church which is satisfied with Christ the Word, and gives daily from her riches, that the people might claim ownership with her in heaven-possessions which cannot be buried, pass away, or perish. They are preserved for the last day. Blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ, who gained for us this third victory, and granted us to be poor on the outside; but we are rich with possessions greater than all the stuff of this world".

Father Matthew the Poor, Words for our Time, page 120 (chapter entitled: The Temptation of our Lord).

The church is a place that stands outside of time gathering together the elect in the body of Christ. In the wisdom of Father Alexander Schmemann he spoke "Religion is needed where there is a wall of separation between God and man. But Christ who is both God and man has broken down the wall between man and God. He has inaugurated a new life, not a new religion". Religion as we know it had ceased to exist with the incarnation of Christ. Christ has become for us the example of what it means to become gods. Christ is our example and mediator of what it means to live a life in Christ (cf. 1 Tim 2.5-6). If Christ, having become our mediator, has given up his life for the world than we to must give up our lives for the world. Entering the church, receiving the Eucharist and the life we live within the church is a sacrifice, a death on its own in the body of Christ. However, this death has become for us life. We enter the baptismal font dying in our corrupt nature and being born new in the body of Christ. This great paradox was first witnessed by Christ whom having died on the cross received new life when he had risen from the dead. We then live in the joy of the resurrection because it is in the resurrected Lord that we have hope in the life to come.

I began this blog entry by offering a quote on the church from Father's Matthew's new book. Its bold, scary yet edifying. Father Matthew was a man who spoke greatly about the preservation of the church. Sadly, what we seeing happening today, and I witness this a whole lot, the church has become a place of comfort or a social club to be more direct. The body of Christ is broken and shattered with the notion of multiple liturgies which splits up the community at large. We forget the true purpose of what it means to part of a church community. It brings me great grief during the liturgy when we offer the kiss of peace, the congregation giving the kiss of peace to each other does not even know who they are offering it to. How can we offer the kiss of peace (done out of love for the person standing next to us) if we do not know the person standing next to us. At this point the church ceases to be a church and has become nothing more than an institution or as Fr. Alexander puts it a "religion". The church then begins to cater to the people of the community and completely neglects the poor. "Woe to the church which owns many ares and buildings but has no poor eating at her table!" The church from its very establishment was meant to be a mission. The church was the mission for the life of the world. Spreading the words of the gospel to all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Can we say this is reflective of our community? Can we walk into a church today and see those great nations in our churches or do we just see one specific ethnic group whom the church caters to and forgets that aspect of mission. Do not take my words for it. I challenge all to walk into any church and see what the make up of the church is. These walls that we have created for ourselves need to be broken down in order to bring all in Christ. If Christ is not present then the church is not united in the body of Christ. How can the church continue being a mission if Christ is not present? However, Father Matthew and Father Alexander do not stop at criticizing the church for this reason but instead continue on by offering the solution to his dilemma. The solution is and always has been Christ!

What did Father Alexander mean when he said Christ has brought us new life and not a religion? Father Alexander shows us that in order to be a Christian is not shown in how you speak or write but rather in how you live. A true Christian is the one who lives in the world and is engaged by it. This is why prayer, liturgy and everything that the church teaches us is meant to become a sacrifice for the life of the world. Prayer is not an isolated concept only done in church or at the comfort at your home but rather prayer becomes a lived aspect within your entire life. If prayer is lived out in the world then the true Christian will be able to engage the world and people will see Christ in him or her. By seeing Christ in others we are then able to appreciate the beauty and goodness in others. Instead of always focusing on the negative we are able to see the good in everyone because all creation is good given to us by God for God is good. This is what it means to bring the life of the church into the world. By constantly living out the words of Christ Christianity ceases to become a religion and another institution but it becomes the life for the world. If the church is able to bring Christ to the world then it will truly have the poor eating at its tables. It will truly have servants dedicated and wanting to serve. If Christ is the starting point, if the body and blood of Christ is the starting point this life can be achieved in the world. However, if we continue to show the world that Christianity is a religion of do's and dont's then we will continue to lose our youth to Atheism and other religions which can present themselves better than Christianity. However, if we show the world the bread of life then this is when the world will truly see Christ as the offering for the life of the world.

I will conclude with a story. A friend of mine at the seminary was talking to me about Christianity in America. Knowing my background as a Copt he boldly told me that all of American would be Christian Orthodox if only the church broke down all its cultural barriers that keep Americans away from the church. To my surprise I looked at him dead in the eyes saying I agree. We need to continue to strive to bring Christ to the world in order that people can see that the true bread of life lies within the church and not within the materialistic world. The church needs to stop being a social club and start opening its doors to all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is only then when all of the world will become Christian. However, the more we cater to those who are comfortable , have the faith and continue building big churches the more these big churches will just lose its members to the world that offers only instant gratification and not Christ.    

"...blessed is the church which is satisfied with Christ the Word, and gives daily from her riches, that the people might claim ownership with her in heaven-possessions which cannot be buried, pass away, or perish. They are preserved for the last day. Blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ, who gained for us this third victory, and granted us to be poor on the outside; but we are rich with possessions greater than all the stuff of this world".

As a final remark I recommend this new book by Father Matthew the Poor. Essentially it is his teachings he gave in Arabic translates by James Helmy. An excellent read and aimed at a wide audience. Father Matthew had a gift that was able to touch the hearts of many and will always be remembered as the greatest church father of the 20th century. 

Liturgical Experience

Last week I was speaking to my father about the progression of the church from the 1st century to the modern times. We concluded that the beauty of the church is not about how "it has stayed the same", which it has, but rather the progression of the faith throughout the century has made the church what is it today. Many complain that the church is out of date and that 3 hour liturgies need to be dropped. I would challenge such an idea and ask the question since when did 3 hour liturgies ever remain the same? In the early church celebrating the Eucharist probably took less than an hour however, the fellowship spent at the church house probably lasted the whole day. Liturgy should then not be viewed as an "3 hour service" but liturgy should be taken in as the service of love. Liturgy lived for the life of the world is the liturgy that people can see Christ in us. By seeing Christ and seeing the love we live by then Christ becomes the ever present reality for the life of the world. Liturgy by definition is the ever lasting work of the people. It is not about a priest doing a few funny things in front of the holy of holies but it is the work of the people coming together in the body of Christ to fulfilled the commandment of Christ. To go out to the rest of the world and to preach the word of Christ baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom the priest always recites "Your own of your own we offer unto you, on behalf of all and for all". The work of the people is the liturgy that is lived for the life of the world. The following is a nice passage I came across from a book I was reading that relates the message of the progression of the liturgy. Enjoy. 

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Liturgical Experience

'During divine service be trustful, as a child trusts his parents. [...] Cast all your care upon the Lord [...]; "Take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in the same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father, which speaketh in you." Long ago has the Lord freed us from this care, having by His Spirit taught the Church what to say, how to pray, at divine service." Such an attitude to the worship of our Church does not stem from conservatism.

Nor were the Church's hymnographers inspired by the principle of newness. New elements do not come into Orthodox worship from any feeling that past forms are stale, but for positive reasons:

• 1) Teaching - for example when heresy threatened, or a Feast was instituted to focus more specifically on an event such as Christ's birth.
• 2) New events, such as a saint's canonisation or a miraculous deliverance.
• 3) An aspect of life is made the subject of common prayers - for instance, the environment, or a child's beginning school.
• 4) Local celebrations and adaptations are more widely adopted.
• 5) God inspired the composition and its insertion without any previous pastoral decision giving rise to it.

Orthodox teenagers were speaking disparagingly about forms of worship they had experienced at an ecumenical service.

Girl: 'They even had guitars in church.'

Another girl: 'We had to sing - and mime! - a "harvest" thanksgiving chorus about MacDonald's hamburgers!' [I was treated to a rendition.] 

S.M.: 'I'd feel an idiot singing that in a church! But be careful to get your reasons for being so scathing right! At least they were thanking God, singing about Christ. That's quite something nowadays. You can glorify God by a guitar. Or just enjoy it anyway, there's no sin in that. The really important point is not that it was laughably corny, but that it is a mistake to keep adapting the Liturgy, to replace inspired services. It is not wrong in itself to add another means of worshipping for other moments.'

Girl: 'The girls at school don't want it; the teachers make it up to try and be up to date.' 

S.M.: 'Yes, to "keep the young people in Church". C.S. Lewis says, "If something is not eternal, it is eternally out of date." Look at the rock charts. By the time you compose a service based on this week's style and get it approved by a liturgical committee  you'll be ages behind the fashion and have to start again. And there's no guarantee you're inspiring truth about God. It is not a service tested by centuries of praying saints. I'd rather struggle to pray like St. John Chrysostom myself. It's more sure. And it will take me a lifetime to get all I can out of it. The things that don't matter so much can change week by week.'

The saints who expressed reservations about elaborated hymnography in comparison with monologistic prayer (monologistic means concentrated in a short phrase; the Jesus prayer is the most widely practised of this type) were not rebels. Some ascetics live at such a depth of prayer that they have less need of liturgical richness. For the rest of humanity, the forms of our public services take people in a positive direction, freeing their minds from heterogeneous preoccupations. Common worship is also valuable as means of uniting with others in prayer. Athonite monks are taught that even thought prayer in the cell can go deeper than prayer in the church, monks who conclude that it is therefore better to skip the services will not gain grace in their cells.

+ Sister Magdalen of Essex, "Conversations with Children: Communicating our Faith," (Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2004) 194-6. ISBN 1 874679 21 5

I Believe in God but I don't go to Church

I cam across this blog entry: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/07/i-believe-in-god-but-i-dont-go-to-church.html and I thought this would be excellent to re-blog here because it deals exactly with a lot of issues that many priests and clerics deal with on a daily basis. Archimandrite Paul Papadopoulos get's to the heart of the issue which is focused on egoism. Egoism fuels the drive to be above scripture, to be above the church and everything that it stands for. Of course being united to Christ is not the work of the individual but the work of the community.

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I believe in God but I don't go to church."

We often hear the above phrase from acquaintances, friends and relatives, so our discussion will focus a little more on spiritual matters.

The basic argument of people who say that they believe in God yet do not go to church to participate in the Mysteries of our Orthodox Church, is that they are bothered by certain things, such as the luxuriousness of churches, obnoxious priests and chanters, the language is ancient (they don't understand it), the microphones, the lights, the candle offering (where they give money for a candle), the time the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, etc.

The excuses are certainly a lot when someone DOES NOT WANT to live according to how the Church says. Unfortunately these people consider themselves outside the Church since they do not accept the basic components of the life in Christ, which is the participation of a Christian in the Mysteries of the Church. These people are not Christians, at least not Orthodox, because while they (supposedly) believe, they do not follow any word of Christ.

The issue of course is that most baptized Christians do not know who Christ is or what the Church is, and what Christ and the Church offer to people. Thus they do not attend church, because essentially they do not know what they are missing, and they do not know what the sacramental life can offer.

The Church, with all Her Mysteries, transforms us, sanctifies us, and brings us into communion with God. Our participation in the Mysteries of the Church is the key to this personal resurrection of ours.

The Church does not exist merely to take the position of medicine and exhaust all its capabilities, as some wrongly treat it. The Church exists to lead people, the faithful, to the Love, the Light and the Life in Christ through the Mysteries.

To say you believe in God is easy, but to believe in God in an Orthodox manner and to do corresponding works is difficult, though not impossible.

If a person really wants to know Christ, they can do this through the sacramental life offered by the Church. If you want to fool yourself you can claim to achieve this on your own. However, I do not know anyone that has been sanctified outside the Church. (The crazy thing is that some people consider as saints people like Elder Paisios, Elder Porphyrios, etc., yet they do not accept their lives.)

All this happens for just one reason: Egoism. When each person believes themselves to be a better interpreter of the Scriptures, and they believe the God-bearing Fathers of the Church are beneath them, and they believe they are smarter, more worthy and holier than the old "religionists" as they call them, and when they believe they have no need to repent of any of their sins (!), and they could be saved by themselves (whatever that means to them), then this text will probably not trouble them at all, rather it has been a long time since they fell into the abyss of self-love and delusion.

The biggest obstacle that prevents contemporary man from reaching communion with God is precisely this: they are trying to know Him the wrong way, using the wrong means, outside the Church. They dismiss the mystery of love and remain willfully grounded in a sterile faith which in a best case scenario simply means "acknowledging the existence of God" and not trusting and surrendering to Divine Providence.

The Liturgy of the Faithful

The Liturgy is the everlasting interaction of the gathered community being united in the body of Christ. The liturgy can be understood as an ontological interaction with Christ as the community is constantly being molded in the image and likeness of Christ (cf. Gen 1.26-27). That is why a presbyter can never celebrate a liturgy without the gathering of the community because the community represents the living body of Christ in the world. The presbyter recites during the institution narrative "for He gave his life up for the world". The He, being Christ, is what is being offered on behalf of all and for all. If Christ is being offered for all and we represent His image and likeness then we to are also asked to give up our lives for the life of this world. When we gathered together to celebrate the liturgy it is a joyful occasion because after the death of Christ we live in the joy of the resurrection. It was through death that we received life. The following are passages taken from  Archimandrite Robert Taft, who is the world's leading figure on liturgy. The passages sum up what the liturgy should represent and not what we make liturgy ought to be.

"No prayer is "private" in the sense of being done alone..our prayer is always done in company with "the communion of saints" to which we belong by baptism." + Archimandrite Fr. Robert Taft

 

"When asked directly how to pray, Jesus teaches his disciples the Our Father as the ideal model (Mk 6:9-15; Lk 11:2-4). He also instructs them to pray without making a show of it, but quietly, humbly, and in the spirit; not with "long prayers in public" like the Pharisees (Mk 12:40; Lk 20:47), but in solitude, using few words (Mt 6:1, 5-8), humbly asking forgiveness like the publican (Lk 18:9-14)." + Archimandrite Fr. Robert Taft

 

"Liturgy is at the very center of the redemptive work Christ exercises through the ministry of the Church. Anyone who does not celebrate and live the liturgy of the Church according to the mind of the Church, cannot pretend to be either a Christian or an apostle, true to the Church of Christ." + Archimandrite Fr. Robert Taft

 

"Our basic identity is Christian, and to be Christian is to be another Christ. That is what the liturgy makes us in baptism, nourishes in the eucharist and the proclamation and preaching of the Word, restores in confession and anointing of the sick. Liturgy, then, is a locus of our spiritual lives because in the liturgy it is Christ himself who forms us into other Christs by conforming us to himself."  + Archimandrite Fr. Robert Taft

 

"...if the Bible is the Word of God in the words of men, the liturgy is the saving deeds of God in the actions of those men and women who would live in him. Its purpose... is to turn you and me into the same reality. The purpose of baptism is to make us cleansing waters and healing and strengthening oil; the purpose of Eucharist is not to change bread and wine, but to change you and me. Through baptism and Eucharist it is we who are to become Christ for one another, and a sign to the world that is yet to hear his name.

Our true Christian liturgy, therefore, is just the life of Christ in us that we both live and celebrate. That life is none other than what we call the Holy Spirit. This is salvation, our final goal. The only difference between this and what we hope to enjoy at the final fulfillment is that the mirror spoken of in 1 Cor 13:12 will no longer be needed: as Adrien Nocent put it, the veil shall be removed." + Archimandrite Fr. Robert Taft

"Liturgy teaches us balanced, objective, traditional, ecclesial prayer. As the prayer of the Church, the liturgy is the prayer of Christ himself, the full Christ, head and members. This alone gives a transforming value to our prayer that it cannot have when done alone. Liturgy is traditional ecclesial prayer in that it has stood the test of time, and has been with the Church from its origins. Liturgy is balanced, objective prayer because it is not something that depends on our tastes and sentiments, but is the Church's efficacious encounter with God in the worship of the Father through Jesus in his ever-forming Spirit. So liturgy is the Church's ancient school and model of prayer, in which she teaches her age-old ways of how to glorify God in Christ as Church, together as one Body, in union with and after the example of Jesus her head. Through this constant diet of Sacred Scripture, not only does God speak his Word to us, not only do we contemplate over and over again the central mysteries of salvation, but our own lives are gradually attuned to this saving rhythm, and we meditate again and again on the mystery of Israel, recapitulated in Jesus, which is also the saga of our own spiritual odyssey. The march of Israel across the horizon of Sacred History is a metaphor for the spiritual pilgrimage of us all.

This gives liturgical prayer a concentration on the essential rather than the peripheral; it gives our prayer equilibrium insofar as its rhythms are set by the Church and not by our own private subjectivity and sentiment. How much penance, how much contrition, how much praise, how much petition, how much thanksgiving should our prayer-life contain? It is all right there in the pedagogy of the Church's liturgy. How much devotion to the Holy Trinity, how much attention to the Mysteries of Christ's life, how much to his Passion, how much to the Mother of God, how much to the saints? How much fasting, how much feasting? Our liturgical calendar with its seasonal and festive rhythms has it all. This gives a balanced and objective comprehensiveness to the Church's prayer that is a sure remedy for the one-sided excesses and exaggerations of a subjective devotionalism that emphasizes only those aspects of prayer that have personal appeal to some particular culture or individual at any given moment, often for less than ideal reasons." + Archimandrite Fr. Robert Taft

 

Holy Week Contemplation: By Father Matthew the Poor

The following contemplation by Father Matthew the Poor (Matta El-Misken) is from the chapter entitled Gethsemane and the Problem of Suffering in his book, Communion of Love.

How did Jesus accept the shame of man?

Christ’s acceptance of the shame of man must be counted a mystery. In order for us to discern it we must drain ourselves of all feelings and emotion; there are few who can attain to this. Just as the Lord took our nature and was united to it without its diminishing or changing His divinity, so too He consented that His body should, in Gethsemane, take on our stain without being soiled. He did not take sin upon Him merely in thought, or symbolically or in imagination, for as the Bible says, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree” ( l Pt. 2:24).

At this point, who can discern the mystery of Christ and the heart of redemption?

All we can say is that just as He approached the incarnation and brought it about through His will, so by His will He bore our sin in His body. And when God wills anything, it is so. If His hunger, thirst, and weariness are evidence to us that He was incarnate in a truly human nature, so His distress and grief and the sorrow of His soul are evidence that of His free will He mysteriously accepted what mankind was to lay upon Him on the cross.

Just as the lamb of the sacrifice in ancient times used to bear a person’s sin and die with it for the sinner without the lamb itself being considered sinful, so the Son of God, the "Lamb of God” (Jn. 1:29) who takes away the sin of the whole world, became sin for us, but remained utterly sinless. "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteous of God” (2 Co. 5:21). He remained just as He was, "holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens” (Heb. 7:26).

Just as He, in us, became sin although He remained utterly sinless, so we, in Him, have become utterly without sin, although we are sinful human beings. "He took what was our portion and gave us what was His, so let us praise and glorify and exalt Him.” (Coptic Psalmody: Theotokia of Friday).

We met together in Gethsemane and with that the problem of suffering, which has bowed our back and crushed our soul, comes to an end forever.

St. Ephraim the Syrian - On the Power of the Cross

The Cross abolished idolatrous adulation, enlightened the whole universe, gathered all the nations into one Church and united them with love. The Cross is the resurrection of the dead. The Cross is the hope of Christians. The Cross is the staff for the lame. The Cross is comfort for the poor. The Cross is the deposing of the proud. The Cross is the hope of those who despair. The Cross is food for the sailors. The Cross is haven for the bestormed. The Cross is the father for orphans. The Cross is comfort for those who mourn. The Cross is the protector of children. The Cross is the glory of men. The Cross is the crown of elders. The Cross is light for those sitting in darkness. The Cross is freedom for slaves, wisdom for the ignorant. The Cross is the preaching of prophets, the fellow-traveler of apostles. The Cross is the chastity of maidens, the joy of priests. The Cross is the foundation of the Church, the establishment of the universe. The Cross is the destruction of idolatrous temples, temptation for Jews. The Cross is the cleansing of the lepers, the rehabilitation of the enfeebled. The Cross is bread for the hungry, a fountain for the thirsty. The Cross is the good hope of monks, clothing for the naked.

By this holy armor of the Cross Christ the Lord has terminated the omniconsuming bowels of Hades and blocked the many snares in the mouth of the devil. Having seen the Cross, death trembled and released everyone whom she possessed with the first creature. Armed with the Cross, the God-bearing apostles subdued all the power of the enemy and caught all peoples in their dragnets, and gathered them for the worship of the One Crucified. Clothed in the Cross as in armor, the martyrs of Christ trampled all the plans of torturers and preached with plainness the Divine Cross-bearer. Having taken up the Cross for the sake of Christ, those who renounced everything in the world settled in deserts and on mountains, in caves and became the fasters of the earth.

But what language is worthy to praise the Cross, this invincible wall of the Orthodox, this victorious armor of the Heavenly King?! By the cross the Almighty One bestowed unspeakable blessings on humanity!

Therefore on the forehead, and on the eyes, and on the mouth, and on the breasts let us place the life-giving Cross. Let us arm them with the invincible armor of Christians, with this hope of the faithful, with this gentle light. Let us open paradise with this armor, with this support of the Orthodox faith, with this saving praise of the Church. Neither in one hour, nor in one instant, let us not forget the Cross, nor let us begin to do anything without it. But let us sleep, let us arise, let us work, let us eat, let us drink, let us go on our way, let us sail on the seas, let us go across the river, let us adorn all our members with the life-giving Cross. And let us not be frightened 'by the terror of the night, nor by the arrow that flies by day, nor by anything roaming in darkness, nor by any calamity, nor any noonday demon' (Ps. 90:5, 6). If, O Christian, you will always take up the Cross of Christ on yourself as a help, then 'evil shall not come towards you, nor any scourge come near your habitation': for the opposition power seeing it trembles and leaves.

- St. Ephraim the Syrian