Category: Homily

HOMILY: The presentation of the Theotokos

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

Today, she who would become the Holy of Holies, her womb destined to bear the fullness of the living God, enters the Holy of Holies.  She who is more honorable then the cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim, makes more holy the holy of Holies by her very presence.

Homily: The presentation of the Theotokos

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, One God!  Amen.

Our Father in heaven is the God of promise.  Our Patriarch Abraham grew old, and his wife was barren.  When he was one hundred years old, and his wife Sarah was 90, God promised him a child, and it was made so.  They conceived, and their son Isaac was born. Later, the son Isaac, because he also was childless, prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant and gave birth to twins, Jacob and Esau. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the great patriarchs of our faith.  God first made his promise with Abraham: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing,” and later he would say “’Look up at the sky and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.”  Isaac was the son of the covenant made with Abraham, and therefore a stepping stone or bridge to the fulfillment of that promise.  He represented a continuation of that promise by God.  Then, Jacob would follow after to become the beginning of the fulfillment of that promise, his twelve sons becoming the twelve tribes of Israel. From one of these twelve tribes the messiah would arise as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

Abraham prefigures the Father’s love for his son, and offers a foreshadowing by nearly sacrificing his son Isaac, and on the same mountain Christ would be crucified.  Isaac, who was nearly sacrificed by his father, is a prefiguration of Christ.  Jacob, who wrestled with an angel for a night, portrays the greatest struggle of anyone’s faith: “recognizing God and figuring out what to do with that knowledge, wrestling and embracing God’s will.” Yet, what of the once barren wives of these great patriarchs? The Fathers of the Church are in agreement that the opening of the barren womb of these high esteemed and virtuous women are all a prefiguration of the Virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  So we circle back to Jacob and his miraculous vision, where he dreamed “and beheld a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”  Jacob’s ladder, as it has become known, has been identified in Eastern Orthodox theology and iconography with the incarnation of Christ through Mary.

So, we come to the parents of the Virgin Mary, who, like so many before them, were old and without child.  While the entirety of the old testament points forward to Christ, they are not mentioned here.  Neither are they mentioned in the annals of the new testament.  Their lives, conception, and the presentation of the Theotokos to the temple, which we commemorate, all flows from the living Tradition and memory of the Church.

According to the Tradition of the Church, Joachim and Anna had been married for fifty years, and during that time remained barren and without a child.  Despite this and their longing for a child, they lived quiet and devout lives.  They only lived on one third of their income, giving the other two thirds to the poor and to the temple.  For their faith, they had been well provided for. Yet, despite their faith, and because of their barrenness, they were chided and ridiculed by the other Jews.  Even the high priest had scolded him by saying, “You are not worthy to offer sacrifice with those childless hands.” They were treated and deemed as unworthy.  So, the holy and righteous Joachim and Anna gave themselves to prayer that God would work in them the same wonder he worked in Abraham and Sarah, and bless them with a child that they may be assuaged in their old age.  God sent the archangel Gabriel to each of them and announced to them “a daughter most blessed, by whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and through whom will come the salvation of the world.”  At this new promise of God, the holy and righteous Joachim and Anna in turn promised to raise their child in the Temple as a holy vessel of God.

At the age of three, Joachim and Anna took their daughter, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the temple to be dedicated to the service of God. They processed from Nazareth to Jerusalem, a three day journey.  The procession was led by virgins holding lighted tapers, with the Blessed Virgin Mary flanked and accompanied by her parents. Following them were kinsman, family, and friends all bearing lighted tapers.  Fifteen steps ascended to the temple in Jerusalem, and when the procession arrived at their destination, the holy and righteous Joachim and Anna lifted the Blessed Virgin Mary onto the first step, then she quickly ascended the remaining steps on her own. At the top of the steps she was greeted by the High Priest Zacharias, who was destined to be the father of Saint John the Forerunner.  He took her by the hand and led her into the temple, and then into the Holy of Holies, a place into which only the High Priest ventured, and that but once a year.

Today, she who would become the Holy of Holies, her womb destined to bear the fullness of the living God, enters the Holy of Holies.  She who is more honorable then the cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim, makes more holy the holy of Holies by her very presence.

Today, she who is to become the ark of the new covenant, one day giving birth to the living law of the spirit of life, is presented to  the ark of the old covenant.  The law which brings death will soon give way to the law which brings life life.

Today, the Blessed Virgin Mary enters the Temple as a golden censer, destined to contain within her Christ the coal of fire, whom Holy Isaiah foresaw. Her prayers will one day rise like incense before all the saints, and for all the saints.

Today is the preview of the good will of God, of the preaching of the salvation of mankind. The Virgin appears in the temple of God, in anticipation proclaiming Christ to all. Let us rejoice and sing to her: Rejoice, O Divine Fulfillment of the Creator’s dispensation. (Troparion)

[Today] The most pure Temple of the Savior; The precious Chamber and Virgin; The sacred Treasure of the glory of God, Is presented today to the house of the Lord. She brings with her the grace of the Spirit, Therefore, the angels of God praise her: “Truly this woman is the abode of heaven.” (Kontakion)

Today we celebrate the end of the physical temple in Jerusalem as the all holy dwelling place of God. The presentation of the Theotokos – she who would bear the fullness of God within her – offers a prelude and preview to the good will of God.  We celebrate Christ’s mother that we too are worthy to be an abode for, and living tabernacles of the Lord.

Today we venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary as a prefiguration of Christian life.  Just as Abraham was the first to have faith in God, The Blessed Virgin Mary was the first to have faith in Christ, He who took flesh from her flesh, and from her womb the Son of God became the Son of Man.  She epitomizes obedience, when at the annunciation of Christ she proclaimed “Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be done to me according to the word.” This is in spite of her desire to remain a virgin until her death, but her virginity would remain intact, and her faith remembered, rewarded, and exalted. She was a person of prayer.  Raised in the Temple, she was rooted in a life of unceasing prayer.  Without this kind prayer upon her heart she would not have been equipped to deal with the level of communion and contact with God that only she was especially prepared to experience and comprehend. She is a person who embodies forgiveness, who as a mother chose to forgive rather than hate when she witnessed the unjust persecution and execution of her son upon the cross.  She is the great example, the prelude to Christian life.

May the following weeks of this great fast of the Nativity season be a prelude and preparation for us to receive Christ as we step into the joyous occasion of His Nativity.  As we remember the Blessed Virgin Mary’s entrance into the Temple, may we prepare ourselves that Christ may enter into us as living temples of the living God; living tabernacles of the Holy Spirit.  My prayer for us all is that we will use this time wisely, seeking out that which is most needful in our lives, while avoiding the anger and anxiety of our society, and not becoming poisoned and polluted by the spirit of our age.  There is surely nothing more important that we could do for the salvation of the world, for the benefit and healing of our souls, and in preparation for the joy of Christmas.

By the prayers of thy most puer mother, the Holy and God bearing Father, all the saints, the martyrs, and the angels, have mercy on us and save us.

Amen.

HOMILY: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

HOMILY: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Amen.

What shall I do to inherit eternal life?  That is the question levied by a lawyer towards Christ in today’s Gospel reading, preceding the story of the Good Samaritan.  It is a question that is answered within the law, something for which one would expect a lawyer to be well versed.  Yet, the mind and heart are not always on the same page.  Furthermore, the heart and hand are not always in one accord. Yet, Christ shows how little the lawyer knows by the answer he provides.  Despite this, the lawyer tries to justify his question, and quite possibly his known personal failures to abide by the answer he was given, by asking further, who is my neighbor? Perhaps, being a lawyer, he had a very legalistic understanding or definition of this word, and so in his own mind he was abiding by the law.  Yet, this is a trap of legal scholasticism, of reason, or an understanding of a Truth only as written, and no understanding of the Truth in praxis.

In part, we are warned against this in our reading of the lesson for today, when Paul exhorts: “We have such trust through Christ toward God.  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”  The letter here is of course the law of Moses, the law that condemns sinners, but it can today easily be a reference to the totality of scripture, all of which points to Christ, who has assumed the mantle of the Torah as the law of the Spirit of life. He is life.  He gives life. His path leads to life everlasting.  

All we have to do is follow, listen, and obey.  Though, Is it not curious that we sometimes justify our omissions and occasional evils with the very same words and teachings we use to justify the good?  How many of us, before finding the Church, followed our own understanding, devised our own truths about Christ, about the Church, and what it was to be Christian.  Many of us were quick to interpret the word of God in our own image, in our own likeness, carrying our own opinion, often finding some way to use scripture to justify ourselves in our own ideas, our own lives, much like the lawyer tried to justify himself with his inquiry.

The Law, and the Spirit. One tells us what to do, and the other tells us how to do it.  What spirit are we following? One presents the guidelines of life, much like the canons do the Church, but the spirit shows us how to walk within them.  Look around us at the milieu of those amidst the colors and trappings of popular Christianity.  They go to their respective places of worship on Sunday, sing their songs, hear a sermon preached, and they go out into the world devoid of any sacramental life, most lacking in any spiritual discipline, and missing the unity of teaching found in the fullness of Truth.  Is it any wonder this same “church crowd” is so despised by nearly every server at every restaurant I have ever dined at? Why should we ever see or hear an angry Christian driver on a Sunday morning or afternoon after services have ended?  Why should we ever witness the angry frustrations of a post church service Christian over something as simple as an item being out of stock? Why should we ever see a Christian lose their temper over trivial things on the day they should have received the kiss of peace? They know the Truth, or at least they heard it, but they have no idea how to put that Truth into practice.  They have no Church, which is the Pillar and foundation of Truth (1 Tim 3:15), established upon the foundation of the teachings of the Prophets and the Apostles, of which Christ is the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). We are all living stones apart of the Church (1 Pet. 2:5), which is the body of Christ.  It is as a living part of that Church, living a sacramental life within, that we not only come to know the Truth rationally, but understand spiritually how to live it as well.

The Lawyer knew the Truth.  He knew what the law said, but not how to live it. He sought a different answer from Christ, from what he knew to be true. Likewise, the priest and Levite both knew what the law said, and what the law required of them in this circumstance, but they instead  used that same law to justify their passing in order to maintain their ritual purity.  They knew the Truth, but now how to exercise it.  It was only the Good Samaritan who truly understood the spirit of the law, and how to incarnate what was written.

So, in response to the lawyer’s question Christ told him the parable of the Good Samaritan.  This parable, according to some Fathers, encompasses the entirety of the Gospel, and the spirit of Truth it conveys to us all. The realities of the Gospel are found within this simple story: Christ, the Church, and the means by which we are saved.

Nearly all the Fathers interpret this parable in some allegorical fashion. They tell us that in the Samaritan we see Christ, who does not define His neighbor, nor ours, in respect to action or honor, but of nature.  We were all created in the image and likeness of God, and all equally a worthy recipient of love, both of God’s and our own.  The oil wine the Samaritan poured on his wounds symbolizes the sacraments of the Church, and the two coins he paid are the two testaments we have received.  The inne is the Church, of which has been established upon Christ’s honorable blood.  It is in the Church that we find healing from the wounds of Sin.  This is one of many reasons the Church is often referred to as a hospital for our souls.  

The battered man is each one of us, beaten by the world and wounded by our own sin. The priest passed him by for his priestly sacrifice could not save the man.  The Levite passed him by because neither could the law save him. While these two were very near to the man by birth as Israelite, they were most distant at heart, bearing little compassion for the man who lay before them.  It was the Good Samaritan, who had compassion on him, and in a selfless act helped his fellow man.

Let us remember what Christ has said in the Gospel of Matthew:

‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Compassion and Humility are bedfellows, for compassion helps to develop humility as we place the needs of the other before our own. If we have compassion, then we also have humility, for one exists inside the other, and Humility is the beginning of all virtue

The Good Samaritan incarnated virtue by himself becoming Love in action. In the good Samaritan we find an archetype of Christ, who is Love incarnate.  We should love every man and woman, and have great compassion for them, and whatever their needs my be, regardless of who they are; whether they have wounded us or not; whether there is hatred between us or not; whether there is offense or injury, forgiveness being of great importance; and whether we love them or not.  Compassion for the suffering of another is the easy part.  Learning to Love as God Loves is much harder.  But fear not, we are surrounded by God, by God’s love, and by God’s grace as much as a glass submerged in water is both filled with it and surrounded by it. We can never be without it.

We should love so vigorously that there is no room in our hearts for hatred, for Saint Maximos the Confessor tells us that the Gospel absolutely precludes us from hating any human being, even those who would hate us without reason.

Let us heed the words of Saint Isaac the Syrian:

St. Isaac of Syria tells us how.

“Let yourself be persecuted but do not persecute others.

Let yourself be crucified but do not crucify others.

Let yourself be insulted but do not insult others.

Let yourself be slandered but do not slander others.

Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.  Such is the sign of purity.

Suffer with the sick.  Be afflicted with sinners.

Exult with those who repent.  Be the friend of all.

But in your spirit remain alone.

Spread your cloak over anyone who falls into sin and shield him.

And if you cannot take his fault on yourself and accept punishment in his place, do not destroy his character.”

Simply saying you love is not enough.  If your actions alone do not speak loudly to the contents of your own heart, then we are simply lying to ourselves in order to justify our weaknesses, our failings, and our sin.  We must become love, for that is what God is, and that is what we strive to be.

By the prayers of thy most pure Mother, the Holy and God bearing fathers, have mercy on us and save us.

Amen.

HOMILY: Where is your heart? (The Unjust Servant)

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God!  Amen!

What are we doing with our lives?  What are we doing with what we have, with what we have been given, and are we being good stewards with the many gifts that some of us have been blessed with? Nothing in this world is our own, for we take none of it with us to the grave.  We are but sojourners.  We are but stewards, in a sense, of that which God has given us; of those bits of this world’s detritus of which we possess.  For that is what the things of this world are to the Kingdom of Heaven, detritus, or refuse; the corruptible.  Yet, even trash has its uses.  What is the saying, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?  Yet, which man are you?

    In today’s Gospel reading we hear the story of the unjust steward.  In this story we learn both what kind of man the unjust steward is, but also the sometimes zealous preoccupation that is required to receive the treasure we seek. The unjust steward preoccupied himself with his own personal and worldly comforts. Different commentaries state that he either lived off the wealth of his master, or the more believable view is that he overcharged the debtors of his master, living comfortably off his dishonesty. Perhaps this is why stewards were not viewed favorably, and were often grouped together with publicans, tax collectors, and other men often known for their dishonest handling of money.  Regardless of the reasons, he was being put out by his master by his unfavorable handling of his master’s goods.

    What does the steward do?  He knew he could not work, either because he was too lazy, or failed to learn any skills of use, living lavishly on the successes of others, mainly his master.  He was a prideful man, so it was beneath him to beg.  He knew only how to use those skills – his dishonesty and shrewdness – and set out to use them again to his favor.  He wiped out a large portion of each of his master’s debtor’s debt, likely to the detriment of his master, who was about to cast him out. I suppose the confusing part to many who read this particular parable, is why is it being praised?  Why are the deceitful actions of one being praised by another who was cheated by those same actions?  The world praises the world, and his master, who is himself a man of business and wealth, recognized the shrewd cleverness of his steward to ensure his worldly comforts.  Yet, it is no surprise that the world sees deceitfulness and cleverness just and honest, simply look at the world around you: lies are lauded as truth, deceit us praised as honesty; unchastity and debauchery are considered moral, normal, or even praiseworthy.  Love is misaligned and misattributed.  Sin is given a place on the altar of society.

    But what can we learn from this? We are told that “the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.”  The world has a better judgment towards the things of this world as concerns their own material comforts. The children of this world are far more diligent in their planning and scheming in how to advance in this world and their acquisition of wealth, than the children of God are diligent, clever and conscientious about our calling and completion of God’s plan.  We do not work as hard for God, as the world does in working for money.  The unjust steward, although his actions may be seen by some as charity, he did not give so out of love.  He was not generous out of his own charity.  He gave only out of concern for himself and his own needs.  Where is our heart?  If time is money, as the world often says, then where we spend the greatest  measure of our time is perhaps the greatest indicator of that which we love the most. If our actions speak louder than words, as the world also says, what are our actions speaking to the world?  What are our actions speaking loudly about our heart? We love Christ. We say we love Christ, but if our actions have no alignment with what we say, and what we pray, then our words are vestigial and empty, and there is no faith in us.

    We live in this world, but not of it.  This is one reason we are told to “ make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” In this we are to understand that all that we have, our wealth, our goods, our talents, our gifts and abilities, and even our love are all to be used to succor those who suffer; those who have need and for the carrying out of good works, that not only you may be received by them, but that they may receive also Christ who sent you.  Be mindful, for you may be the only Christ that some may ever encounter.

    On this, Saint Gaudentius in his own homily of the Unjust steward adds to this in saying:

    “When you have given your substance for the needs of the poor and spent it all, ‘they may receive you into everlasting habitations, ‘that is, our friends will obtain our salvation, since they are the same poor in whom Christ the Eternal Rewarder will confess that He has Himself received the kindness of our love for our fellowman. The poor themselves do not therefore receive us, but they receive us through Him who is given to eat in them.”

    The bible is full of scriptures that tell us to avoid a love of money, and the things in this world. First Timothy 6:10 tells us “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Proverbs tells us “such are the paths of all who go after ill gotten gain; it takes away the life of those who get it.” Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews tells us “keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

    It is not that money itself is bad, but Christ did warn us it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Money is a tool, as are all things within the spirit of an age.  Some tools are double edged swords.  Others bear a greater responsibility and temptation for misuse and personal gain at the expense of others.  It is our lot, our goal,  to not become beholden to the things of this world, lest we become debtors to it.  In this sentiment our Epistle reading is rather apropos:

 “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”

We are more than stewards, but heirs to the Kingdom of God.  Stewards are essentially hired servants, while we are heirs as Sons and Daughters of The Living God.  A steward simply watches over what he has been given, whereas we have been given everything, possessing all things in all Truth, yet own none of it. A steward lives for the sake of that which he possesses and has been given, while the sons of God live for the sake of He who gave it all.  We live with the world, and by the things of this world shrewdly and conscientiously bring Christ to the world, hoping that in doing so the seeds will be planted, the fruit will grow, a harvest will be taken, and the people of this world will follow us into the fullness of Truth.

The world is not bad.  No, that is Gnostic thinking.  The way this world is used is bad.  A preoccupation with the things of this world at the expense or exclusion of the things of God is bad.  Let us be mindful of a parallel to our spiritual lives.  We learn the things of God that they may bring us to God, that they may bring us to the mountain upon which God rests; yet, it is only in the cloud of knowing, like Moses, that we may ascend it. Likewise is it with the things of this world.  The weight of this world, the things in it, its temptations, its struggles and tribulations all make us stronger. The things of this world only weigh us down to the detriment of our spiritual growth. We cannot ascend to heavenly heights of heart and mind until we are no longer shackled by the fetters of this world.  So, in time, as we grow in our spiritual walk, we shed the world from our shoulders, from our hearts and minds, some faster than others. Just remember, even our worldly wealth is nothing but detritus, and some day our house must be swept clean, whether by our own hand, or those of another.

In the three verses following our Gospel reading today, we find the ultimate moral of this story, the story of The Unjust Servant. “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and  mammon.”

We are faithful with what we have been given, that we may be given spiritual treasures.  If what we have has been taken away, our heart is revealed for the true object of its love.  We cannot possess two loves, for our God is a jealous God, and our hearts can possess only the love of One.  What is in our heart?  The answer to that is revealed by whatever we direct our greatest time and attention to, and by what we do.  Let us remember the words of Christ, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

By the prayers of the Most Holy Lady Theotokos, the Holy and God bearing Fathers, all the saints, and the martyrs, and the Angels, have mercy on us and save us.

Amen.

1st Sunday After Ascension / The World will hate us.

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, One God!  Amen.

Christ has ascended! From Earth, to Heaven.

Let us remember, and believe, as we say every Sunday, and every service

Christ,  “who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; from thence he shall come with glory, to judge the living and the dead ;whose kingdom shall have no end.”

Christ came as a servant, but never ceased being Lord of Lords and ascended as a King. Christ condescended to become man, but never ceased being God, and ascended to his rightful place at the right hand of God the Father.  Christ descended into hell, but hell could not contain him, and heaven received him once again. He came into the kingdoms of men, and left us with the Kingdom of God.

Christ has ascended, and we shall follow in His steps, but the way shall not be easy.  Anyone that reads the scriptures and believes in a Gospel of prosperity, believes in an easy path without pain or suffering, is reading a different Gospel, and holding to something other than the Truth.  Two millennia can and does clearly show us that The Way, as it is and was so dutifully called, is not a path of peace and prosperity. Yes, we preach peace, we love those who may not love us, or those that may not even love themselves, but we will likely receive neither of these things from the world; for the world is at enmity with God.

Christ has ascended, and before doing so He gave us both a warning, and a command. He commanded us to “ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them 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.” We have gone, and continue to go into the world, incarnating the Truth, bringing Christ to the world, and “ministering to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” Christ also warned us of the world. The world will hate us. The world loves truth when it is revealed, but it does not love Truth when it is revealed about titselfs, and so the world hates us and has hated us because it has first hated Truth, that is Christ.

Look at the world around us.  It seems at every turn, and around every corner there is something that stands against God. The scriptures tell us to “Be still and know that He is God,”yet the world is a cacophony of visual white noise, commercials, advertisements, pseudo pornographic imagery, and various things that not only pull us away from Him, but make it nearly impossible be still. The world pulls us forward into the worries of the future, and causes us to look at the past and regret what we have or have not done. The world has lost its presence in the present moment. Perhaps it is with great clairvoyance that Saint Isaac the Syrian penned the words, “ Silence Is the Mystery of the Age to Come.” 

Father Seraphim Rose has shown how The world makes a mockery of the sacraments. Abortion makes a mockery of the Eucharist, incorporating the words “this is my body” into their act of selfish sacrific. Pornography, which pervades every corner of the internet, is the the devil’s iconography. We ignore our humanity in death by cremation.  We destroy the sanctity of marriage by treating it as unimportant. Even this very month, a so called pride month celebrates, lauds, and elevates sexual immorality into a place of virtue, forgetting that it was pride that brought humanity into death; forgetting the pride is sin and folly.  It is only humility that can change it, and change us all.

The world is against us, and though Christ has ascended, we are not alone. Christ tells us “when the ]Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.“ And so we look forward with expectation to the day of Pentecost, one week from today, when the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles like tongues of fire, establishing the Church upon the foundation of Christ’s honorable blood, that Christ may be revealed to us, and through Christ, the Father.  The Holy Spirit, the perfecter of all things, works in us all to help us be perfect just as He is perfect; to become Christ and become one with Christ, so that no matter how dark this world may seem or become, that the light of Truth will light the way like a lamplight at our feet, providing a light for our paths as the psalms have sung.

The world hates us who are of Christ, and are in Christ, but we do not hate those who are in the world, and of it.  Hatred is at enmity with God; at enmity with Truth.. We must love those who do not love us;  Give to those who have taken from us; Speak love and truth even to those who have lied to us, and spoken spitefully and harmfully in every word and deed.  We must show compassion to the indifferent, and empathy to the apathetic; be present to everyone, even those who are distant or distracted, for the present moment is the only moment in which we can encounter God. Put simply, we must walk the path that Christ has laid before us, that those who are blinded may then see it, and follow you in your own footsteps into the fullness of Truth.  For, you see, you may be the only Christ that some may ever know.

The world will reject us. Let us remember the words of Saint Anthony the Great, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.” Indeed, we are not like the world, nor should we wish to be, but through the same persistence of water, dripping on a rock for an age, we can change the world around us one act of love and kindness at a time.  See the early Church, and three centuries of martyrdom and peaceful persistence of faith, hope, and love, it won over the greatest empire in history from within.  With that, let us remember the word’s of Saint Seraphim of Sarov,  “Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.” This, and all of this, is how we make disciples of the world, by first becoming disciples ourselves..

Christ has ascended! From Earth to Heaven!  May we all be with him in the age to come, and unto ages of ages.

By the prayers of thy most pure Mother, the holy and God bearing fathers, all the Saints, and the martyrs, and the angels, have mercy on us and save us.

Amen.

HOMILY: The Church of Remembering

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

HOMILY: The Church of Remembering.- June 21, 2020

Readings: Epistle 1 John 3:13-18, Gospel Luke 14:16-24

Christ is in our midst! (He is, and ever shall be!)

Glory to Jesus Christ! (Glory forever!)

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

We are the Church of remembering.  We look back at the great spiritual journey which we have all endured.  We passed through a time of preparation and remembered the prodigal, the publican, and the last judgement; we turned our minds towards repentance.  We passed through the great fast, a spiritual exercise in which we remember our sins and conquer ourselves that we may be found worthy of the promises of Christ.  We remember that God the Son became incarnate in the flesh, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, and was buried, and we are mindful of our own deaths; for, death comes for us all, and so we live always mindful of it: memento mori.  We remember that Christ rose from the dead, defeating death by death, that we may no longer be held captive by the Evil One.  We remember Christ ascended into heaven, where he sits on the right hand of God the Father, and he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.  We recently remembered and celebrated the sending of the Holy Spirit, upon which our Church – the Body of Christ, the Pillar and Foundation of Truth – was established upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles.  We feasted in celebration of this great gift we have been given, those gifts of the Holy Spirit of which we have all been given, that we may embolden and strengthen the Church for the work for which she was established.

Now, we enter a point of transition in our liturgical and sacramental lives, where we transition to a time where Christ walks among us and transforms us as each of us walks together towards the perfection of all things.  We have entered the Apostles fast.  This fast is unique, in that it starts relative to Pascha, but ends every year on June 29th following the old calendar.  

Anything you have left unfinished from the Great Fast, do it now. If there be anyone you have not forgiven as you should have before this moment, go and make amends.  If there persist any transgressions you have failed to confess before God, take yourself to the priest and do it without delay.  If you have not started to pray as you should, it is not too late to do so, for all things begin with prayer.  This is a time of preparation, to get ready to go forth like the saints before us; to go forth into the world to love and serve the Lord; to go into the world and make disciples of all nations.  We go forth into the world to spread the light of His gospel unto all nations, embarking on the great mission and commission for which we have been established.  

We do not go alone, for we rise together, yet we fall alone.  We rise as the body of Christ, as living stones of the Church founded by Christ’s honourable blood, but we fall away as apostates and heretics conforming to this world, following our own ideas apart from the teachings of the Church.  We march forward together with the Saints, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, loving one another not just in word or in tongue, as our Epistle exhorts us this day, but in deed and in truth.  So, we go forth with one mind, together in one accord, united in one loaf, one cup and one teaching as Saint Paul teaches in his first letter to the Corinthians, remembering that we do not go alone.  The Saints are with us, just as Christ is with us.

So it is with great cheer that today we remember All the Russian Saints of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.  Today is in essence the name day of all Russia, where we remember the Saints who through both sorrows and great love, labored to build the Church of Russia we hold fast to today.  Kievan Rus’ was baptized in 988 after Prince Vladimir sent ambassadors from Kiev in search of true faith, recognizing the failings of their pagan gods.  They found the Muslims of the Bulgarian lands to be without joy, and rejected the abolition of alcohol and pork, for what joy can be found in a life without Vodka and bacon – though especially Vodka?  Also, Vladimir found the Jewish faith to be weak, for they had lost Jerusalem, and as a result saw them as having been abandoned by God.  They found the services of the Romans to be relentlessly bleak and without beauty.  Yet, when they came to the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, they indeed found what they had been searching for, and reported back to their lord:

“And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, on heaven or on earth; and do not know how to tell about this. All we know is that God lives there with people and their service is better than in any other country. We cannot forget that beauty since each person, if he eats something sweet, will not take something bitter afterwards; so we cannot remain any more in paganism.”

So, the Russian people joined Prince Vladimir through baptism into the Orthodox faith. The old pagan gods were rejected, and many churches were built in those places they once held.  The Orthodox faith united disparate tribes across the land, giving them new meaning and new life.  The Orthodox faith regenerated Russian princes and rulers, so  that in time Russia would rise from the shadows of this world to become a beacon of Orthodoxy to all men. From the Russian Church many luminaries of Truth and virtue arose to lead her into the ages to come.

We remember the likes of Saint Sergius, who founded the largest Orthodox Monastery in all of Russia, today known as the Trinity Lavra of Saint Sergius. It is from him that the cultural ideals of Holy Rus emerged.  We remember Vasily the blessed, a fool for Christ, and known all across Moscow in the 15th century, now buried in the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Red Square.  We remember the holy hierarch Saint Germogen, who gave strength to the Russian peoples amidst the time of troubles; who in both faith and confession, “spiritually and morally regenerated the Russian nation, [wherein] it again started on the path of seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the righteousness of subordinating the earthly life of the state to spiritual principles.” We remember Saint Seraphim of Sarov, that great light of Orthodox Spirituality, who exhorts us to acquire a spirit of peace, that thousands around us might be saved. We remember the likes of Saint John of Kronstadt; a model for all Orthodox priests; the great pastor of Russia who breathed into the Russian people on the eve of its great peril a lasting reserve of spirituality, a reserve that would allow it to survive and endure the coming years of atheist Soviet Russia.

So, we stand with such as these, each of us together, united in one Orthodox faith, one teaching, one mind, and one Love, for God is Love.  Love is the common denominator.  Love is the unending and enduring fire of God’s grace on earth, burning through the hearts of men, and bringing light to where there is none.  It is within the light and warmth of love that the faithful persevere in the cold, and the darkness of this world. It is this love the Church carries into the world, and it is by this love that the Church has prevailed, prevails today, and will continue to prevail in the ages to come.  For, the world is a cold and dark tempest against which we are all tested. It is only by the fire of God’s love that we can survive and prevail.  The Saints have shown this to be True.  The Russian Orthodox Church has shown this to be true, having endured perhaps the greatest darkness the Church has ever known.  So, as we look forward towards the days to come, let us not be disturbed by tumults and turmoil; let us not be troubled by social unrest, revolts, and upheavals; let us not stumble by the fraying of the moral fabric of the very Republic in which we live.  Instead, as Father Seraphim Rose exhorts us to do, “let all true Orthodox Christians strengthen themselves for the battle ahead, never forgetting that in Christ the victory is already ours.”

Closing with the words of our most reverend and beloved Metropolitan Hilarion: 

“Let us pray to all the saints, especially to the saints who shone forth in the Russian land and in the Diaspora, that they might confirm in us the faith, teach us to live virtuously, and help us to bear our cross with humility and patience and to love, treasure, and hold fast what we have, unto the salvation of our souls.  Amen.

Oh Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the sake of the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, our holy and God-fathers and all the saints, have mercy on us.

Amen.

All Saints of Russia - Holy Trinity Icon Studio
Icon: All Saints of Russia (Holy Trinity Studio)

HOMILY: Pentecost – Trinity Sunday

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

HOMILY: Pentecost – Trinity Sunday – June 7th, 2020

Readings:  Epistle – 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, Gospel – John 14:23-31.

Christ is in our midst! (He is, and ever shall be!)

Glory to Jesus Christ! (Glory forever!)

In the name of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God!  Amen.

Today is an important day in the life of the Church, and it is a joyous day, for it is the day that the Pillar and foundation of Truth was erected upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles, with Christ as the cornerstone; it is  the day that the faithful were found and formed into living stones of this divine-human institution of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  Today is the day the Holy Orthodox Church was founded and formed.  It is Trinity Sunday, the day of Pentecost.  The Church, for her birthday, received from on high the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which she (the Church) was illumined; by which the Church became the abode of the Holy Spirit, and the vehicle of Holy Revelation.  It is in the Church that we are illumined and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit; it is in the Church that Christ is revealed to us, where we encounter Him in body and Spirit; and it is through Christ that the Father is revealed to us also.  The Church is the body of Christ, and it is within and a part of that body that we worship the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.

We recently celebrated the Holy feast day of Christ’s Ascension, whereupon today we remember his words promising us that he “will ask the Father, and he will give [us] another Helper, to be with [us] forever.”  This is, of course, the Holy Spirit of whom he speaks.  Christ ascended that the Holy Spirit might descend and endow us with those gifts necessary to the building up of the Church in the fullness of Christ.  We all possess those gifts of God’s grace common to all, as Saint John Chrysostom highlights in his own homilies on the letter to the Ephesians: “baptism, salvation by faith, having God as Father and partaking of the same Spirit.”  We also possess diverse spiritual gifts in varying degrees; though, one must not allow one’s self to descend into arrogance at what they themselves possess, nor must one look at another’s gifts and fall into despondency that they have not been so gifted.  It is against this which Saint Paul fought in his letters written to both the Ephesians and the Corinthians, and why he used the analogy of the Church as one body consisting of many members elsewhere in scripture. This is also why Saint John Chrysostom also says “If someone has more in grace, feel no resentment, for his task is greater too.” For, if those who have been given do nothing with what they have received, they are just like the man who received the one talent, and buried it in the earth.  No, we must use the gifts we have received as tools for the building of the Church; for a gift unused is one taken for granted, and has no value to us, to the Church, and the world in which we live.  So, what can be said about these gifts?  Saint Paul tells us that “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;  and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;  and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” It is within this common good that we incarnate Truth to the world; bring light into the darkness; bring faith to the faithless; bring hope to the lost; bring medicine to the sick; and bring peace amidst the chaos of this world.

The Church is one in her essence; her essence of faith; her essence of spirit and the teaching received therein; but, she is diverse in both gifts and function.  Despite what the world may try to force us to believe, unity does not mean uniformity; and, equality does not mean sameness.  The Church is diversity in operation; not a diversity of faith nor truth, but of people. We are all living stones, just as Saint Peter exhorts, altogether comprising the Church.  Look at the walls of any Church, the grains of the wood, the variations in the stone, the adornments they bear, the scars they hold, and no two are alike. Likewise, we are each unique in person, yet we all strive towards the same fullness of our humanity.  It is towards this fullness of our humanity in Christ that we are “guided by gifted people for the sake of maturity and stability of the body,” those Bishops in whom the unity and continuity of the Church is ensured; for, as Saint Ignatius has said, where the Bishop is, there also is the Church.  It is the fullness of Christ towards which we all strive together, as a flock guided by her shepherd, through our cooperation with the Holy Spirit of which the Church has received, and our humility through obedience to the commands of Christ; for, as Christ himself exhorted in our Gospel reading for today, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” 

To Saint Paul, it is the Holy Spirit which both unites and strengthens the Church. The goal of our salvation is that of theosis, or deification, our continual striving towards the likeness of God where the image of God will be perfected in all mankind.   So, it is by the Holy Spirit in which we are granted the myriad gifts of the Spirit, working towards that end.  These gifts are given to the benefit of the Church, the Body of Christ.  In addition to this, it is within the Church that we come into communion with Christ, cultivating the gifts thus given to us, elevating us even further on our journey into holiness.  

 Paul saw the actions and activities of the Holy Spirit as different from both the Father and the Son, but were complementary to the Love of the Father, and the Grace of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Saint Paul affirmed that it was by Christ all things were made: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him;” and it is thus by the Holy Spirit all things are perfected.  It is by the Holy Spirit that Christ is revealed to us and to all men, and it is through Christ that the Father is revealed, for “He is the image of the invisible God.”

Both Saint Paul and  Saint John the Evangelist well establish the divinity of the Father and the Son, and tie the two of them together with the work of the Holy Spirit.  While the Father is the source of all things, and it is by the Son through which all things are created, the Holy Spirit  “is the very Content of the Kingdom of God”  While the Spirit functions as a luminary of Holy mysteries, the Spirit remains mysteriously hidden from all things, functioning in us to reveal the Son to us.  It is by Love that the three persons of the Trinity are connected and commune with one another, and it is within this Love that is found the salvation for all mankind; for, God is Love.  As the Trinity exists as  persons in Communion, so then must we, the Body of Christ, exist as persons in communion, so bringing us closer to the uniting and enduring love of the Father.

We have been given these gifts by the Holy Spirit, given the Holy Spirit Himself, that the Church may be duly armed with the proper tools for the struggles ahead.  We have been given the tools necessary for the labors of the fields from which God’s harvest will come.  We must not and cannot neglect these tools for while iron may sharpen iron, tools soon rust when left in disuse.  For, we cannot neglect or ignore the labors at hand, because as Christ himself has said, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Though these gifts were received by us freely, at no cost to us, they were bought with an immeasurable price: Christ on the cross. So, let us live our lives worthily of such a sacrifice, that we be counted as sons and daughters of the Living God.  Let us work together with faith, and in the fullness of Truth, that all truth may abide in us and save us. 

By the prayers of our holy Fathers and Mothers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.

Amen.

ICON: Pentecost.

Homily: Sunday of the Blind Man

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

HOMILY: Sunday of the Blind Man – May 24, 2020

Readings: Acts 20:17-38, Epistle James 1:22-27, Gospel Reading John 9:1-38

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God.  Amen.

Christ is Risen!

So, today is the Sunday of the Blind man, and I am sure that the irony of my giving the homily on this day is not lost on any of you.  Yet, as we remember this story, I cannot help but look back towards Pascha, where Christ rose from the dead, and also forward toward ascension where Christ will rise to sit at the right hand of God the Father, from whence “He shall come again to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.”  Yet, in between these days we follow a thread of Sundays and stories tracing a path of faith, and restoration.  Pascha was a season of penitence, a season of turning ourselves to God.  The weeks that follow are a season of receiving, of acceptance, and of healing, for indeed the Church is the very hospital for our souls.

The first Sunday after Pascha is the Sunday of St. Thomas, wherein Thomas believed when he saw Christ’s hands, feet, and pierced side.  Then came the Sunday of the Myrrh bearing women, who saw Christ’s Tomb, and preached Christ is Risen to the Apostles. After this, we have the healing of the Paralytic, who by some transgression of his own was left paralyzed for a lengthy season of his life. Christ gave a command, and he obeyed, and so he was healed. Then today, we have the Sunday of the blind man, who disadvantaged by no fault of his own, was rendered without sight, that the Glory of God may be made manifest at this very moment, not only for the blind man’s  sake, but for the sake of those who followed.

Great and Holy Pascha saw the brilliant light of Christ’s resurrection dispel the terrible darkness of the tomb, mankind having been trapped within, because the wages of sin is death.  Christ’s resurrection illuminated the path that man had wandered for so long in spiritual darkness, becoming a lamplight at our feet.  Yet, a blind man cannot see the light of the sun, but only feel the warmth of its radiance upon his face. He knows it is there, but that is enough.   A blind man cannot walk the path, lest one who can see it leads him on the way. One cannot see what lies ahead, unless his eyes are opened, for even in being led down the path, one may still encounter the unexpected, and stumble over the unknown.  Even though we who are present here today can see the light of life, and the very joy of our salvation, Jesus Christ, we should not forget that we too were once blind.  We should all see ourselves in the blind man.  We should see in the blind man a faith expected of us from the gift we have received, and our expectations of the world to whom the cross is foolishness.

Let us remember in the chapter before this, Christ was in the temple with the Jews.  He had spoken to the Jews, saying “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” But, who will follow what they cannot see?  The Jews did not believe because they were spiritually blind, and their eyes were closed. So, the Jews rejecting the revelations of Christ, left the temple. Christ and the Apostles encountered the blind man, whereon the Apostles asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  Now, it is a reasonable question given that at the healing of the paralytic some time before, of which we celebrated last Sunday, the words of Christ attributed his ailment to his sins, where upon his healing he was told “behold, you are made whole, sin no more.”  

Christ came to him unbidden; Christ did not ask if he wished to be healed for the blind man knew nothing else, having been born with his infirmity.  Yet, if we look back to the healing of the paralytic, Christ asked him if he wished to be healed, for he was fully aware of his state, and how he ended up where he was.  The blind man was given without request, without prayer, and without any sign of faith. This is grace.  This is the free gift of healing, or σῴζω, often translated as salvation in the scriptures.  Christ, who created the heavens and the earth, who authored all of creation, He who spoke all things into existence, He who created man from the dust of the earth, knelt down and fashioned clay with his own spittle and dirt, then placed it over the blind man’s eyes.  Some say he fashioned new eyes with the very clay.  Then, Christ’s work complete, commanded him to wash in the pool at siloam. The blind man was bidden by the unseen, and by faith he obeyed, and in his obedience his eyes were opened. Such is our own life in Christ.

The story of the blind man is the story of us all. We were all blind, but now we can see.  We were all blind, but healed by the grace of God, and by our own obedience and contrition of heart, our eyes were opened in the waters of baptism, for which the blind man’s bathing in the pools of siloam is a typology.  We were blind, but now we can see the light of life, and fully see, receive, and experience the joy of our salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.  It is within this joy that we proclaim Christ to the world, much like the myrrh bearing women preached the Risen Christ to the apostles; and the blind man, once healed, proclaimed Christ to the Pharisees, even though he did not yet know who Christ was as the Son of the living God.  For, it was not by great knowledge of God that he was healed and brought to Truth, but by faith.  All knowledge of Truth can be brought by faith.  Indeed, the Pharisees had all knowledge of Truth, but not Truth itself; they possessed great intellectual wealth, but were poor in spirit.  They lacked faith.

Our Epistle reading for today tells us about this faith; a faith in action and what it looks like (in part), giving us an idea of what the Pharisees lacked.  They were hearers of the word, but not doers.  The Pharisees thought themselves religious, but their praxis of faith was empty, and without justification.  For the θρησκεία, or religion, of the Pharisees was one of intellect alone. They knew the prayers, but did not live them.  They knew of love, for God is Love, but possessed none themselves.  They possessed the Law, but did not follow it.  They worshiped God, but their offering was empty, because they lacked a “broken and contrite heart,” of which God will not despise.

We, as the body of Christ, are to manifest Christ into the world; we as the body of Christ are to live out and manifest the light Truth and the joy of salvation into this world. This is why we hear James, the same who penned that “faith without works is dead,” also wrote in our epistle reading for today that “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

So as we regard the courageousness declarations of the blind man before the Pharisees, we look forward to the ascension of Christ, only a few days ahead of us, whereupon we receive our great commission to go forth into the world and “ make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  For, the joys of Holy Pascha are not confined to a season; the joy of our salvation is not confined to us alone who have received it; the light of Christ is not confined to the Church, for one does not light a lamp to hide it under a basket; the light of Christ is for the whole world, for whom Christ came to save.  

The way is open.  It was made by He who gave life, and the living keep it until the end of days.  So, lead the blind to the hospital for our souls, the Holy Orthodox Church, wherein Christ the great physician will heal them of their blindness and infirmities. May we all walk the way together and keep it, that the blind shall not stumble on their way to be healed. May we not stumble in our own journeys, keeping Christ’s commandments and true religion through contrition of heart, prayer, humility, obedience, and our participation in the Holy Mysteries of the Church. 

Our participation in our faith is required.  For, If the paralytic did not pick up his mat and walk, would he have been healed?  If the blind man had not washed, would he have received his sight?  We can receive the free gift of God’s grace, but if we do nothing with it, then it is of no benefit to us. So, just as Paul lived out his faith among the Ephesians; as James has exhorted  us to  incarnate our faith in deeds beyond words; as the blind main proclaimed Christ in the face of great opposition; as Paul instructs us to run the race, and work out our faith with fear and trembling; as Christ himself begins his ministry with the words “follow me,” go and do likewise.

By the prayers of our holy Fathers and Mothers, and all the saints, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy upon us and save us.

Amen.

Sermon on the Sunday of the Blind Man / OrthoChristian.Com
Icon: Sunday of the blind man.


HOMILY: Sharing in Christ’s Lonliness

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

HOMILY: Sharing in Christ’s loneliness – April 12, 2020

Readings: Readings: Philippians 9:4-9, John 12:1-18

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Amen

This Lenten season has taken on a unique character of its own, especially in light of the situation in which we live; and the societal problems and disruptions caused by the threat of a pandemic pestilence.  Many people have been forced to go without certain foods and other necessities as the foolish people of the world descended on the stores in panic, buying everything that they saw. To those in the world, it was a massive blow, and a great struggle, but to those in the Church it was just more of the same.  Society has been shut down, preventing many from partaking of those activities that consumed and often composed their daily lives, enforcing a solitude that many found unsettling, and even uncomfortable; but, those within the Church carried on, for we live in the world, but not of it. As the threat of contagion bore down upon states and cities, churches shuttered their doors, leaving many without a Church to attend; yet, those Orthodox Churches still permitted to do so, carry on within their liturgical life, fearing not death nor disease, but remembering the promises of Christ, ever looking forward towards the life to come.  The world has accused us and ridiculed us for our faith, but we carried on because the Church will prevail. The world called us crazy, but we know the cross is foolishness to ones such as they. At times like these we remember it was once said, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack them, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’” These words of Saint Athony the Great were prescient. So. we go forward into the week ahead with a sense of isolation, a sense of loneliness, but we are not alone in our loneliness.

Today begins the final week of our Lenten struggle. Today is the day of the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus Christ into the City of Jerusalem.  Christ, who so wondrously forshew the light of life and the Kingdom of Heaven through the merits of his earthly ministry, has entered the dark days of His Passion week, wherein he is shrouded in a terrible loneliness.  He has come as a conquering King, but not as the Jews had hoped. He came not to free them from the slavery of godless pagans that ruled over them, but to free them from the bonds of death that ruled beneath them. They did not understand Him, and what he came to do, so Christ stood alone in his conviction in what He came to do.  Christ found the money changers and in righteous anger overturned their tables and drove them out, and Christ was further despaired for they had turned away from Him, using and abusing what they had been given. He came to give them life abundantly, but they came to make a profit, using holy places and holy things for their own gain. They turned their back on God in pursuit of worldly things.  Later, after speaking to all the disciples for the final time, he chose His closest disciples – Peter, John and James – to go with Him to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, but they fell asleep, not able to remain with him even in prayer. His disciples would later abandon him in his greatest time of need, and Peter would deny Him three times. The people, who once greeted him with praise and adoration, would turn around to cry “crucify Him.” Then, on the cross, crucified with abandoned men, forsaken by the people of the nation he had come to save, Christ would cry out “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”  Christ died alone, without anyone or anything,  save His love for His Father, His love for all mankind, and His Mother’s love for Him. \

Even in the greatest depths of despair and loneliness, love remains.

Christ lived in this world so that we may not see death in the next.  Christ died so that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. Christ endured unbearable loneliness, so that we may never be alone in this life. For as Paul exhorted the Romans, “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his,” and so “we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” So let our time of peril amidst our Lenten struggle be for the strengthening of our spirit, and the fostering of our faith.  Though, as we sit in this shadow of circumstance, let our hearts not remain there; let our spirits not dwell on the darkness of the world, but heed the words of our epistle reading for today:

“...whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Philippians 9:8-9

As we move forward towards the end of our Lenten season, and step forward with Christ into this week of his ignominious passion, we must ask where we ourselves stand within the crowd.  Do we approach Christ with hopeful expectation, or step back in hopeless despair? Do we stand with indifference amongst the world, not realizing that by doing so we too are equal members of that terrifying crowd that condemned Him, for did not Christ Himself say, “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”  Do we see the cross and fear the death that it may bring, or do we carry our cross likewise, and join him on the hill?  When Christ is in the tomb, will we remember him when we go home; when we eat; when we rest, and endure the fatigues of the coming day?  May we never forget the light of Christ as we endure the darkness of the days ahead. May Christ remain in us always, even when the world has abandoned us, or when we have been cut away from the world.  May the Truth remain in us, even as the world shouts against us. May the light of life and the joy of His salvation be with us always, even as the days rain on both the just, and the unjust. Run the race, enduring till the end so that you may receive the prize.  Endure this time of trial, remaining steadfast in the faith, so that when you have stood the test, you will receive the crown of everlasting life, promise to all those who love him,

When the days are darkest, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  Those words of Paul stand for us as true today as they did for those he wrote them to; for, the light of Christ is eternal, and no darkness shall remain wherever it shines.    

Christ came as a conquering King, but He is our King, opening the Kingdom of heaven to all who believe.  He came as high priest, by who’s honorable blood the Church was established. He came as prophet, where through the healing of Lazarus proclaimed and forshew the resurrection that was to come. As He soon faces down the crowds who cry out “crucify Him,” we will soon look upon Christ crucified with great compunction and remorse, but also  with hopeful expectation for the hour in which we can praise and proclaim that “He is Risen!”

By the prayers of our holy fathers and mothers, and all the saints, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.

Amen.


HOMILY: Adoration of the Cross

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

HOMILY: Adoration of the Cross -March 22nd, 2020

Readings: Hebrews 4:14-5:6; Mark 8:34-9:1

The cross is ubiquitous within our day to day lives as Orthodox Christian.  I would venture to guess that most of you have one around your neck; most of you probably made the sign of the cross as you entered the nave of the Church; it is found within and throughout our iconography; it is emblazoned on our books; it adorns the church, the altar, and even our priests.  It is found within many of the rites and sacraments that take place within the Church: the blessing of the waters at baptism, the bestowing of grace and the sealing of the gifts of the Holy Spirit at Chrismation, the change of the hosts of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, the blessing of the faithful, the absolution and healing of our souls and bodies, and so on. In fact, even outside of the Church, I would dare say it is perhaps one of the most recognized symbols of any faith, even among other religious, atheists, and agnostics. To them, it is the symbol of our Christian faith.

Today is the day we celebrate the adoration of the cross, and to us Orthodox Christians the cross is more than just a symbol.  Yes, it is a symbol of Christ’s victory over death, and the triumph of good over evil; it is a symbol of the new testament; it is a symbol of the joining of heavenly and earthly things, as saint John Damascene affirms: “As the four ends of the Cross are held together and united by its center, so are the height and the depths, the length and the breadth, that is, all creation visible and invisible, held together by the power of God.”  So, we adore the cross for what it is; we adore it for what it did, what it does, and what it continues to do for us in the age to come.

Beyond this symbolism, as the Church sings, the cross is an “invincible weapon, adversary of demons, glory of martyrs, true ornament of holy monks, haven of salvation bestowing on the world great mercy.”  It is the tree of life. The first Eve took the fruit from a tree in disobedience of God’s will, bringing death into the world. The second Eve, the holy Theotokos, put the fruit of her womb onto a tree, the cross, in perfect obedience of God’s will, and through obedience was brought into the world eternal life. The cross is the door to paradise, for through it, through Christ’s crucifixion, the will of the Father was fulfilled and the flaming swords removed from the gates of paradise.  The way is open, and the cross was the key.

The cross is a weapon of the faithful against the evils of this world, and against demons and diverse enemies that attempt to bring us harm. It is a great and “invincible weapon that conquers all.”  With the sign and power of the cross we defend ourselves and fight against the many passions and temptations of the flesh, as Saint John of Kronstadt exhorts to use in his writings: 

“Glory, O Lord, to the power of Thy Cross, which never fails! When the enemy oppresses me with a sinful thought or feeling, and I, lacking freedom in my heart, make the sign of the Cross several times with faith, suddenly my sin falls away from me, the compulsion vanishes, and I find myself free… For the faithful the Cross is a mighty power which delivers from all evils, from the malice of the invisible foe.”

Saint John of Kronstadt

As the Stichera of Great Vespers in the byzantine tradition tells us, the Holy and life giving Cross is worthy of honor; it is the fair paradise of the Church; it stands as a tree of incorruption that brings to all of us the joy of eternal life, where there is the ceaseless sound of those that keep festival.  The Holy and life giving Cross is that unconquerable trophy of the truth and the true faith, and the helper of the faithful. It was from this Cross that Christ’s honorable blood was spilled, and from it the Church was established. It is around the Church that the same cross exists as a rampart, as Saint Clement of Alexandria tells us, “We have as a limit the cross of the Lord, by which we are fenced and hedged about from our former sins. Therefore, being regenerated, let us fix ourselves to it in truth, and return to sobriety, and sanctify ourselves.”   The cross is raised.  The cross is eminent. The cross is exalted.  The cross is our implement of sanctification.

So, what then is this cross that Christ exhorts us to carry in our Gospel reading for today?  What precisely does it mean to carry our cross? What is our cross that we are to carry, and why are we to carry it? On one hand it is the forbearance and participation in the suffering that we endure in this world; for, as Saint Isaac the Syrian has said:

“The knowledge of the cross is concealed in the sufferings of the cross. And the more our participation in its sufferings, the greater the perception we gain through the cross. For, as the Apostle says, “As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.” 


The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac of Syrian

So, the taking up of our cross means the willing acceptance of God’s providence, of every means of purification and healing – bitter as the means and medicine may be – that is offered to that end.  For, as Saint John Chrysostom has said, “we should not dread any human ill, save sin alone; neither poverty, nor disease, nor insult, nor malicious treatment, nor humiliation, nor death.”  We fear nothing of this world, only the dread judgement in the age to come.

In carrying our cross, we must give up ourselves to His service just as Christ did, and just as we say every Sunday before partaking of the Holy mysteries.  We must become a living sacrifice, pleasing and acceptable unto Him. We must crucify our passions and evil habits, our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, and carry that cross daily.  We carry it as part of our daily struggle, not partaking or participating in that which was nailed to the cross, but in the lifelong struggle to reach the end where Christ awaits. We follow him in this life through a kind of death, sacrificing this world for the one to come; we follow him by crucifying our sinful selves to the cross of our ascesis, so that we might share with Christ eternal life.

Gregory Palamas details in one of his homilies that “The Lord’s Cross discloses the entire dispensation of His coming in the flesh, and contains within it the whole mystery of this dispensation.”  Through the cross the triumph of the Church is expressed, and within the cross our theology is found, for “we preach Christ crucified.”  Though, towards this end the cross is not the end to our means, but a means to our end, and it is within this understanding that the theologies of east and west soon depart.

Much of western theology points to and stops at the cross.  It never seems to move past it, and builds much of their understanding of atonement and justice upon what happens on the cross.  It is here that we find the idea of Christ offered as the atonement for our sins, a juridical transaction meant to appease God’s wrath in the fulfilment of God’s justice. It seems to present God as both angry and vengeful. Yet, the Orthodox Church looks at what takes place after the crucifixion, and towards the resurrection, not only that of Christ, but of ourselves also.  For, the Church is not a courtroom; our salvation is not our innocence and freedom from punishment, but healing from sin and the freedom to live life eternal. God’s justice is not found in a juridical exchange, but in restoration, where creation is returned to that which it was always intended to be. God’s justice is the restoration of man, his image and likeness in God, and all of the created order to what was intended at the moment of creation.

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son; Christ so loved the father that he lived in a cooperation of perfect love with the will of His Father, sacrificing Himself for the salvation of all who rightly believe in Him.  So, we should expect no less than to do what we pray every Sunday – by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee, in holiness and righteousness, all our days through Jesus Christ our Lord – so that we offer not an empty prayer, words spoken in vain, but rightly given in the expectation that a life of faith and sacrifice will follow.  Christ carried His cross, His instrument of death and crucifixion, enduring mocking, scourging, and falling no less than three times on His way to His own ignominious death. So, surely we can find the strength to pick up our own cross and endure the torments and temptations of this world, as well as our ascetical struggles, as we march towards Christ and eternal life.

By the prayers of the holy fathers and mothers, and all the saints, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy upon us and save us.

Amen.

The Adoration of the Holy Cross – Damascene Gallery
The Adoration of the Holy Cross


HOMILY: Forgiveness Sunday

fatherbasil_0h3841Leave a comment

HOMILY: Forgiveness Sunday – March 1, 2020

Readings: Matthew 6:14-21, Romans 13:11 – 14:4

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  One god. Amen.

We have reached the end of our time of preparation, in which we prepare to embark on that great and spiritual endeavor of our sacramental lives: Great Lent.  The focus of the days behind us have a shared theme and focus of humility and repentance, which is ultimately the spirit of the great fast; and, if we are being honest with ourselves, it is the underlying movement of the entire Christian life. We are to live our lives continually in repentance, which is the turning away from the world, the turning away from worldly things so that we may receive the Truth – the light of life – and the Joy of His salvation.  But, in particular, the Great Fast is a time to commit ourselves more consciously, more fully, and more completely to the spirit of true repentance; for, “a broken and contrite heart God will not despise.” So, let our hearts be broken, and turn to the Lord our God.

Some of our hearts are broken, but not because of our sin. Some of our hearts are broken by others; some are broken by cruel memories that assail us; some are broken by wrongs committed against us; some are broken because of insult or injury; but, some are broken because they choose to stay broken, choosing anger over love, for “the memory of insults [or injury] is the residue of anger.”1  We must not allow the fire of anger to smolder in our hearts, and only the fire of God’s love can supplant it. As Saint Maximos the Confessor has said, “Do not befoul your intellect by clinging to thoughts filled with anger and sensual desire. Otherwise you will lose your capacity for pure prayer and fall victim to the demon of listlessness.” So we let go of anger, and forgive those who have wounded us, because it is only we who continue to be wounded by our memory of offense.  We forgive because God forgives. We forgive, that we may be forgiven.

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” 

Matthew 6:14-15

Alexander Schmemann has said that “forgiveness is both the beginning of, and the proper condition for, the Lenten season.”   So, it is then appropriate that we begin the great fast with forgiveness Sunday, “the day on which we acquire the power to make our fasting – true fasting; our effort – true effort; our reconciliation with God – true reconciliation.”2 It is the day where we as family, as brothers and sisters in Christ, as fellow heirs to the Kingdom of heaven, forgive each other  of whatever offenses we may have caused one another, whether knowingly or unknowingly. It is the renewal of relationships, but it is also a renewal of ourselves.  We cleanse our hearts and minds, our very souls, of any and all injuries that exist between we living stones of the living church; enforcing and strengthening her as we march forward  together through the Lenten season towards Christ. So, in the words of Saint Macarius of Optina, “do not allow the spark of discord and enmity to smolder. The longer you wait, the more the enemy tries to cause confusion among you. Be watchful, so that he does not mock you. Humility destroys all of his schemes.” 

Humility is the beginning of all virtue, and all virtue is necessary in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, the primary aim of our Christian lives.  Without humility there is no grace in us. Without humility there is no love, which is the fulfillment of the whole law. Without humility there is no prayer, and without prayer there is no spiritual life in us. Humility forms the foundation upon which all virtue is raised within us.  Let us consider, “an angel fell from heaven without any other passion except pride, and so we may ask whether it is possible to ascend to Heaven by humility alone, without any other of the virtues.“3

With humility we approach the beginning of this Lenten season, with both humility and contrition of heart.  We approach with the same humility of the public and the prodigal son, for we recognized our own sin, our own unworthiness to stand before the throne of God.  We have contrition of heart, ever mindful of the dread judgement, where no hidden and secret thing will remain hidden in the light of God’s love. We begin our Lenten journey with prayers,  for “if you are not successful in your prayer, you will not be successful in anything, for prayer is the root of everything”4

We pray because it is necessary for our spiritual lives. By prayer we unite the mind and heart, but also our minds and hearts with God.  We pray that God’s will would be done in our lives, whatever that may be; but, we must be mindful of our prayer, and in our prayer also.  Prayer consisting of words alone is of no assistance to us if the heart does not participate in it.  Our prayer should become a state of being, for it is not enough to simply say the prayer, but we must also become our prayers.  Our prayer and our lives should become two identical expressions of the same situation. “All of life, each and every act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer.  One should offer not what one has, but what one is.”  Then, through our prayer we offer ourselves up to God, for  God must be the object of our prayer, our wanting, for the intensity and elation of our prayer is often about the object of our prayer rather than the one to whom our prayer is addressed.  So, may we remember to pray without ceasing, for God never ceases to love us.

We fast, in addition to, and in conjunction with prayer, in order to train the body, to train ourselves in resisting the passions of the flesh.  For, If we cannot resist even the smallest morsel of food, then we have no hope in battling whatever greater temptations that exist in our lives.  Start with a small act of fasting, and your foundation of iniquity will erode and collapse as though a house built on sand. So, we fast from food to strengthen us in fasting from all things harmful and unneeded to our spiritual lives.  Fasting is a means in which to practice self control on our path towards conquering the passions of the flesh.  Fasting is an exercise of both penitence and sacrifice – for there is no love without sacrifice – which assists in conquering of self, and being more attentive to those in need.  Yet, it is not about fasting from food alone, as Saint Basil the Great has said, for “true fasting lies in rejecting evil, holding one’s tongue, suppressing hatred and banishing one’s lust, evil words, lying, and betrayal of vows.”  We fast from the poisoned fruits of this world, so that true spiritual fruits may grow in us.

We give Alms as a physical expression of God’s love in this world.  Saint John the Golden mouthed has said that “to do alms is a work greater than miracles.”  We give out of our excess created through our fasting.  We give excessively out of pure love. When we saw the hungry, did we feed them?  When we saw the poor, did we help them, or clothe them? When we met the stranger, did we invite them here?  When we saw anyone in need, and we had the means to help them, did we do so? “Whoever knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, for him it is sin.” Saint Basil the Great also tells us:

 “The bread you do not use is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the person who is naked. The shoes you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot. The money you keep locked away is the money of the poor. The acts of charity you do not perform are the injustices you commit.”

Saint basil the Great

It costs us nothing to give and do well unto others, for our wealth is not measured in this world; but, what we gain in doing so is priceless and without measure.  What we lose in doing nothing is unthinkable.

So, we approach the lenten season with humility and repentance, wherein we pray, fast, and give alms.  With humility we forgive and repent because death brings judgement, and we weep for our iniquities, for they are many.  We pray, because by prayer alone our soul is given sufficient strength necessary to endure. We fast from food and the things of this world, that we may be freed from the fetters of our passionate lives.  We give alms because we have been given all things, and nothing in this world belongs to us. We do all these things because we were embittered by Adam and Eve eating that forbidden fruit. We were embittered that paradise was closed to us, guarded by a flaming sword. We were embittered that life was abolished through death and the grave. We were embittered that we were enslaved by sin. We partook of pride and put on death, having forsaken life. We were given paradise, and chose the world; we were given heaven, and descended into hades; we were adopted as Sons and daughters of the living God, and instead lived as sons of man.  We encountered the Evil One and and forsook heaven. We took that which was seen and forsook the unseen. We gave up life and our likeness to God, and commuted our bodies to dust.

Let us return to life by returning our life to Him who gave us life.  Our life – eternal life – is a Gift given to us freely, through the healing of soul and body.  Though, it is in love that we give our lives – our temporal lives – back to God, for it is the only gift that we can give that is equal to the one received.   “Indeed, Christianity has no other content but love. And it is primarily the renewal of that love, a growth in it, that we seek in Great Lent, in fasting and prayer, in the entire spirit and the entire effort of that season.”

By the prayers of our holy fathers, and all the saints, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy on us and save us.

Amen.

CITATIONS:
1 –  Saint John Climacus – The brackets are my addition.
2 –  Forgiveness Sunday – Alexander Schmemann.
3 –  “The Ladder of Divine Ascent,” (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1978),STEP 23: On Mad Pride, and, in the Same Step, on Unclean Blasphemous Thoughts
4 –   Theophan the Recluse,, The Art of Prayer



Image result for forgiveness Sunday