Christ and the World

The world cannot be served from a place o f power, but it can be served from the cross. On the cross the world stabs its own heart, but the cross is a school and to run away from it is to run away from the future. Fr. Bishoy Kamel

Fr. Alexander Schmemann famously said that Christianity is not a religion but a way of life. We have failed to understand this statement because of the way Christianity has engaged the world. Christianity has engaged itself in "bigger" churches "more" activities resulting in the reduction of the church. The church is meant to give life to all who seek it. The church is the place where one learns how to become a human being. Church activities are good and Sunday School is great however, if these acts are done in isolation of Christ and what it means to live in the body of Christ then the focus has turned away from the body of Christ to "things" that need to be done to satisfy the needs of the individual. Father Matthew the Poor during one of his sermons said that the church today is dead because Christ is not present in the church. We must learn to be engaged with the world as Christ was engaged with his community. The church must move away from being "another" institution and become the place where true life is given to all. The church never seeks to serve those who serve it best but rather the church seeks that which is lost and to bring it back to the body of Christ. When Christ is not present in the church the church becomes nothing more than activities done in order to find meaning in this life. The true meaning of life lies in the person of Christ and if we move away from making the church the enterprise and making Christ the goal then and only then can we truly live a life in Christ.    

“When theology is false, then Christianity is reduced to activities.”

+ Fr. John S. Romanides

"Nowadays, especially in the U.S., the Church is perceived as an enterprise, an activity. The priest constantly harasses people to do something for the Church. And their activism is measured in quantitative criteria: how many meetings, how much money, how much “doing.” I’m not sure it is all necessary. 

What is dangerous is not the activity itself, but the reduction of the Church, the identification of this activity with life in the Church. The idea of the Church, the sacramental principle of its life, lies in taking us away from activity (“let us put aside all earthly cares”), in making us commune with a new life, eternity, the Kingdom. 

And the idea of the Church, the principle of its life, also demands that we would bring into the world this experience of a new life so that we would purify this world, illumine it with the non-worldliness of the experience of the Church. Quite often the opposite happens: we bring activism into the Church, the fuss of this world, and submit the Church, poison its life with this incessant fuss. What happens is not that life becomes Church, but the Church becomes worldly."

+ Fr Alexander Schmemann, Journals, Thursday, February 18, 1982

"A group of Orthodox seminarians came to visit the mission...One of them very upset commented that there is no point in what the mission was doing, unless we made people became Orthodox. Later reflecting on this father commented that this future priest difficulty comes from "his anthropology. It is not patristic." God's love for us humans has no agenda. What a privilege it is that we love and exist in the same way God does."

+ Memories from an Orthodox Urban Mission

"The first thing that must be said about acquiring this spirit of service is that it will not happen by simply reading about Christ’s acts of service in the Gospel and trying, with no preparation, to imitate Him.  The fact of the matter is that the Lord did not simply perform acts of service; rather, His deeds of love flowed naturally from His gracious character.  His deeds reveal His identity.  If we try to analyze the activity of Christ in the Gospel with a view to implementing a programme of Christ-like service to others, we will fail.  Acts of service that do not have their origin in a gracious character are not credible and are often undertaken for the wrong reasons.  Unfortunately, the wounded human heart is capable of sin even in performing good deeds if it is not being purified, enlightened and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  We come face to face with a fundamental problem: we cannot act as Christ acts through observation and implementation alone.  We cannot acquire the spirit of service as we would a skill or a discipline.  We must instead receive Christ’s life and then struggle to allow His character to emerge in us.  This is why the Orthodox Church carefully distinguishes between the imitation of Christ and the life in Christ.  The former allows us to learn about Christianity; the latter allows us to become Christians."

+ Very Rev. Maxym Lysack, Serving Through Outreach

"We are taught that we must seek success individually, for we are in a society where we must compete, or die. This means that we are obsessed by efficacity, by work and by recognition. We want to be recognized, not necessarily for the value of what we are doing, but rather to be promoted. This is success. Success is evaluated in money and power. This is what we are continually being taught right from childhood. Thus, in every field, we are all pushed by the sense of promotion. We must get on, must have success, power and riches....

We...have the cult of liberty and of liberalism, with some innate and phobic fear of anything that might smell of socialism and of community in the larger sense. We are told that we must have the signs of success in the quality of our houses, cars and various other ornaments or furniture inside our houses. The whole aspect of prestige and recognition by the neighbours is very, very fundamental in our society which has pushed us to a very individualized culture.

It follows that very quickly the family is fragmented. What I mean by a fragmented family is that old people must be put in old people's homes; mentally handicapped people must have their own residences and physically handicapped people must too. Delinquents must have their place also. All those who are the marginal ones are categorically placed together in residences where necessary specialists can be hired to provide programs to govern their existence, and this permits the nuclear family, husband, wife and two children just to be together about their business.

The children of the family are taken up with children's activities, clubs and youth movements. The wife can join a bridge club, take a part time job or do volunteer work at the local hospital or for meals on wheels. The husband frequently becomes obsessed by this idea of promotion which is very deeply ingrained. He must go up the ladder or he just might go down, and this can be very serious, particularly when they have bought a lot on credit without any money. What if he should lose his job? So, he has to become a slave to the system because everything has been bought before he had the money. Sometimes the husband and wife will be so divided in their activities that there is an even greater fragmentation....We are taken up in a world of activities; we have to do and we have forgotten how to be. And because we are always doing, we get into a vicious circle, with the result that relationships begin to break down....

When there is despair, I begin to throw myself into activity in order to forget my pain. I do and I do and I do and one day, I retire. Then, having nothing to do, I fall sick. This is the story of many people who are caught up in the world of doing, because in reality, to do, can be to flee. Doing should flow from my being, but frequently I do, because I am frightened that I do not really exist sufficiently. Maybe in this world of intense noise, I am running away. Maybe I'm terribly frightened of silence, frightened because in silence I meet myself, and I confront myself. Maybe also in the silence I meet my God.'"

+ Jean Vanier, Excerpts from Monograph No. 4: Learn to Live. 

Edited by Sue Mosteller. (Richmond Hill: Daybreak Publications/PrintOne, 1978)

Fr. John McGuckin-The Church of Today

At the end of January the Fr. Alexander Schmemann lecture was given this year (2014) by Fr. John McGuckin. Fr. John spoke about the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church and the following excerpt was his conclusion to the talk. He concluded on what the church is today and tomorrow.

I believe, the future of Orthodox theology is neither Sophianism or Neo-Patristic synthesis; neither Neo-Palamism nor ressourciement, not Nouvelle theologieor even ancienne theologie for that matter; not progressivism or conservatism. The future of Orthodox theology is fidelity to the Gospel lived out in the interim as we approach the eschaton. We have always known this; and accordingly have always known that we were supposed to resist the isms and secessions, scholasticisms, denominations, and all other sorts of factions that mark off a sectarian mentality from the ecclesial spirit. Now there have been endless temptations of the Christian church in recent generations to dissect itself in ever-diminishing circles. The ecumenical movement that once shone so radiantly in the early post-war years when these Orthodox thinkers of Lossky’s time were in their prime, excited and energized, is now a squeaking ghost of itself because of that spirit of divisionism that is rife. Conservative Christians can hardly speak to progressives. But when we Orthodox are being specifically conscious about our mode of discourse today, I think we should remember that the church has always used philosophical method very eclectically to exegete the Gospel; applying a purely utilitarian principle. It can never wed itself to any method or school or system except that which Gregory the Theologian calls ‘a fisherman’s dialectic.’   

Orthodox have sometimes begun to imagine themselves as a denomination alongside other multiple churches in a pluralist world, and to speak of themselves in that way. But Orthodoxy’s role is not to be a subaltern in a post-colonial ambit: to appear quaint when we speak to some putative West, as some putative East. On the contrary, we have to hold an important line: the church is not a sect. It contains within its living body, conservatives and progressives, liberal reformists and die-hard traditionalists, not to mention saints and sinners. Within Orthodoxy those who want to ‘synthesize’ for the future, and those who want to keep everything intact as it was in the past, both have to learn the hard reality that it is only God’s eschaton that makes the correct judgement on what is right and what is wrong with the Church. The spotless Bride who contains all that is necessary for salvation in her trousseau, is ever the same (just seen in a different light) as that annoying baggage that is the Church on earth, which is comprised of an awful lot of flawed and compromised individuals trying to do their best to make their pilgrimage to the Kingdom. The Orthodox always attempt to be ever faithful to the evangelical tradition they have received and which they seek tp preserve in the canons and the writings of the dogmatic and spiritual fathers, but above all they are called to live it out, live out that is the resurrectional presence of Christ, through his Spirit, in the largely unseen holiness of the ecclesial community.

Fr. John McGuckin      

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.

______________________________
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.

Reflections on Fasting- Part 1

The following are reflections on fasting written by Father Matthew the Poor. In the book, Communion of Love, it has a chapter entitled "The Deep Meaning of Fasting" which these reflections are taken from. A recommended read for all during the Lenten period. The book is a complication of Father Matthew's smaller booklets put into one book:

-It represents the first battle in which Christ did away with His adversary, the prince of this world.

-It is then extremely important to accept and to feel the power of each of these three acts (Baptism, Holy Spirit and Fasting) in our depths and draw from Christ their action in us as they worked in Him, so that His same life may identify with ours. The ultimate aim of baptism, of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and of fasting is that Christ Himself may dwell in us: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Ga. 2:20).

-In baptism the connection with our old Adam is cut off for us to receive our sonship to God in Christ. In being filled with the Holy Spirit, our connection with the devil and with the life of sin is cut off for us to receive the Spirit of life in Christ. And in fasting, the connection between instinct and Satan is cut off to give the flesh victory in its life according to the Spirit, in Christ.

-The point to understand is that fasting is a divine act of life, which we receive from Christ complementary to baptism and fullness. Since its beginning the Church has been occupied with infusing into its own body the acts of Christ’s life so they would become life-giving acts to all its members. If the Church imitates Christ in its life discipline, it is because it has been given grace and authority by God to possess Christ Himself as a life of its own. The Church, which is one with Christ, is a lively and efficacious image of the life of Christ. The Gospel describes it as the "bride of Christ” united with her Bridegroom. Though the Gospel declares that the Church has become one with Christ, it still reiterates that Christ will remain a Bridegroom on His own, no matter how much He offers Himself. Neither does Christ become a Church, nor the Church become a Christ.

-This confirms to us that we, as members of the body of Christ, always need to strive to acquire Christ to become more like Him and to be a bride "without spot,” a betrothed "pure bride” in a perpetual state of betrothal like the Virgin who conceived and bore the Logos.

-Fasting in this sense is one of the fundamental phases that Christ underwent. We have never been able to claim that we live in the full maturity of Christ, or that Christ abides in us in His full measure, particularly if we overlook fasting. If baptism is one phase and crucifixion another, fasting is an extremely important stage between baptism and crucifixion. Fullness with the Holy Spirit, which Christ consummated by baptism, elevated the flesh to the level of extraordinary fasting, i.e. total deprivation of food and drink, utter seclusion and prayer. He thus raised the flesh to the stage of the cross.

-Their power (Christ’s work), however, is not imparted to us unless we experience and practice it. Those who are baptized put on Christ, those who are filled with the Holy Spirit live by means of Christ’s life, and those who fast win Christ’s victory over the prince of this world.

-Here He reveals that He has placed Himself as a model of life and works, as our “Forerunner,” as the "first-fruits,” that in everything we would be "like Him.” He became like us so we would become like Him.

 

Bishop Suriel Visit's St. Vladimir's Seminary

From Left to Right: Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield, His Grace Bishop Suriel, David Fam, Mary Farag, Very Rev. Dr. John Behr, Very Rev. Dr. Athanasius Farag

On March 21st 2013 St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary hosted His Grace Bishop Suriel Of Melbourne Australia. Accompanying his Grace was the Very Rev. Fr. Athanasius Farag, his blessed daughter Mary Farag (PhD candidate) and a dear son David Fam. A very fruitful discussion took place with the dean Very Rev. Fr. John Behr and chancellor Very Rev. Fr. Chad Hatfield. Gifts were exchanged as His Grace presented Fr. John Behr an icon while Bishop Suriel received excellent SVS books and other materials. God bless all who were involved in the discussions and those who showed his grace around the seminary!

Link to SVS page to Bishop Suriel's visit:    

http://www.svots.edu/headlines/bishop-suriel-and-svots-dean-and-chancellor-discuss-ties-australian-theological-college 

The Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian

During the lenten period the church incorporates the prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian to conclude many services like Matins and Vespers. It is a beautiful prayer and it can definitely be added to anyone's prayer rule throughout the day:

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for thou art blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The prayer within the liturgical use is prayed twice with a set of prostrations in between each line. The prostrations would be added as follows:

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for thou art blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

(Then you make 12 small prostrations as you recite "O God cleanse me a sinner")

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for thou art blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian

The "Relatable" Liturgy

There is always a concern when modernity tries to find its way into the liturgy. Many youths ask how can I make liturgy relatable or more fun? I would challenge youths by simply stating "what is your starting point by asking such questions?". From a non-biased perspective the message being portrayed is that liturgy is not fun and not relatable. In preserving such thoughts, questions of "how to make the liturgy more fun" do arise because we have lost touch with what it means to be god through our liturgical worship. What happens after is scarier than the questions that were previously asked. We start looking for aspects within the liturgy to praise as being the reason why "liturgy today was good/fun". We start hearing terms like "that priest has a really nice voice", "did you hear the communion worship songs today? They were awesome", and the list can be expanded on. With such themes giving rise within the community, the community starts to lose its sense perception of what it means to live the liturgy for the life of the world.

Liturgy is the gathering of the community in the body of Christ. The liturgy, if it can be summed up in one sentence, is the sharing of love and joy in the resurrection of Christ. The community is transformed into the joy and love of the resurrection in the unity of the body of Christ. Not only are we called to live this joy for the life of the world but it translates also within the liturgy of time-the liturgy as it takes place in the chapel. Liturgy is a dynamic that is realized within the church but lived for the life of the world, as the institution narrative reminds the gathered community. The liturgy lived out for the life of the world makes the entire community part of a symphony in the participation of the liturgy. The entire community is called to participate within the liturgy. It is not only a priest who "leads" the liturgy but the community as a whole is the offering given up to Christ. The priest recites "thy own of thy own we offer unto thee, on behalf of all and for all". The priest recites this, not for himself, but for the entire community. The joy of the resurrection of Christ is realized when the community is united to God through the partaking of the Eucharist. Therefore we must live out the liturgy of time for the life of the world. The greatest paradox of our time is not how to make liturgy more "fun" but rather how to live the liturgy of time in the world that does not understand liturgy. Once the life of liturgy and the participation of the community within liturgy is understood then our starting point will change from "how do I make liturgy more fun" to simply being "Christ is out starting point-let us become the Christ like image in the world".

If liturgy is lived for the life of the world, then beauty and holiness will be revealed to the entire community. If beauty and holiness is realized then the world can never offer the same beauty and holiness that liturgy allows us to live out. Nothing of the world will ever occupy our minds as the mind of the youths will slowly begin to realize the beauty and holiness that is inherit within the liturgy. However, this is not the case and the church has slowly begun to change what is beautiful by making the church more "modern". We see things like "deacons" wearing their sticharion (white stoles) in public for missionary purposes, catch phrases to lure youths such as PDW (Public display of worship), or "it was one of the most powerful and spirit filled weekends of my life", as if the power of the spirit is only limited to one weekend of the year or, "this is not a weekend retreat. This is a weekend ATTACK", because the word retreat is overdone that a new catch phrase has to replace it to make everyone present at the so called "retreat" feel good about themselves. We have sadly, turned the liturgy into an idol. Liturgy needs to be rushed through under two hours in order to get to the best part of the liturgy..."singing worship songs". The life of liturgy is dead within the Orthodox Church because it is not lived out. In order to "live it out", we have created this facade of falseness to tell ourselves that what we do is correct. Since when has it ever been about what we do? Just because one wears a black cassock and has grown a bread does not automatically make you infallible in your teachings. The liturgy has never been about "making me feel good because I need some cheering up in my life". Liturgy is the expression of the joy and the resurrection of Christ. If there is no joy then liturgy is dead. The liturgy has always offered the community the joy of the resurrection that is meant to be realized and lived out every moment of our lives. As Christ said "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven".

The crisis of the liturgy is a scary reality that it became apparent for Fr. Alexander Schmemann to dedicate his life and writings in restoring the liturgy to its beauty and holiness. He writes in the preface of his book "The Eucharist" the following words:

"For more than thirty years I have served the Church as a priest and a theologian, as a pastor and a teacher. Never in those thirty years have I ceased to feel called to think about the eucharist and its place in the life of the Church. Thoughts and questions on this subject, which go back to early adolescence, have filled my whole life with joy—but, alas, not only with joy. For the more real became my experience of the eucharistic liturgy, the sacrament of Christ’s victory and of his glory, the stronger became my feeling that there is a eucharistic crisis in the Church. In the tradition of the Church, nothing has changed. What has changed is the perception of the eucharist, the perception of its very essence. Essentially, this crisis consists in a lack of connection and cohesion between what is accomplished in the eucharist and how it is perceived, understood and lived. To a certain degree this crisis has always existed in the Church. The life of the Church, or rather of the people in the Church, has never been perfect, ideal. Wit  time, however, this crisis has become chronic. That schizophhrenia that poisons the life of the Church and undermines its very foundations has come to be seen as a normal state".

To conclude I will leave my dear readers with another blog entry that I came across that spoke the words I tried to get out in this blog entry. Let us realize the beauty of the liturgy that the words spoken in liturgy, the icons, vestments, and everything else that encompasses the liturgy is meant to bring forth beauty and holiness to those who listen and live out the words for the life of the world.                     
____________________________

"Making the Liturgy more "relatable" is the opposite direction one should take in presenting the Church to your child. Holiness speaks to a separation from the things of this world that distract us from God. Using cultural distractions to encourage participation in the services of the Church muddles this reality. If what we should be seeking after is packaged in a secular pop-culture medium a false equality and connection is made in the minds of our children that life in the Church is just another way to pass the time. Making the Way into a video game, a music video, or any other trivial entertainment serves to undermine and not reinforce your child's faith. The hard lesson that evangelical efforts to grow the Church through making it more "relevant" have been learned over and over at the expense of tradition and with little to show for it beyond empty coffers, infrequent attendance, and a "spiritual but not religious" ethos. 

The Liturgy is best presented as a constant walking towards the transcendant where His people gather in reverence and anticipation of His imminent return. A child that sees himself as someone in service to a thing not only much greater than he, but also something that can transform him into the man God would have him be through service to His Church, is a child that will grow in faith and love of the Lord. "
+ Josephus Flavius,

http://byztex.blogspot.com/2013/03/this-video-makes-me-uncomfortable.html