Category: Podvig

HOMILY: All Saints of Russia

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The gift of holiness, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is open to all of us to receive.  Yet, if Christ is the great physician, and the Church is the hospital for our souls, it is up to us to follow  those prescriptions – by Christ and the Church – to take the gifts of healing freely given to us for the benefit of both soul and body.  Faith and holiness is a choice.

Holiness is a Choice

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

Wherever the Church is, there dwells also the Holy Spirit, and without the Holy Spirit, there is no Church, no hospital for our souls nor a pillar and foundation of Truth.  Without the Holy Spirit there are no sacraments, there are no Holy Mysteries,and there is no salvation.  All the sacrificial acts of Jesus Christ – the incarnation, his death on the cross, both his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven – were all accomplished to prepare the way for us all to receive the Holy Spirit.

All of His salvific acts were done to prepare the path for our own struggle. He fulfilled the law and all righteousness that we may follow Him on our own journey through this life so that we may become like Him, imitate Him, and follow Him and His commandments that we may one day be deemed worthy to receive the promises of Christ and be received into his Kingdom.

The Orthodox Christian faith is one of struggle.  In Russian it is often called Podvig, a word largely untranslatable into English, but understood as an achievement through selfless action, or a result achieved through difficult circumstances. In the case of our Christian context, to become more Christ-like. It is in that self same struggle that we acquire the Holy Spirit.  We must struggle within ourselves, against ourselves and against the world to fan the spark of the Holy Spirit within us into a great conflagration of God’s love.  It takes great effort and struggle to pray, fast, give alms, repent, love one another, to forgive those who offend us, to maintain purity in our hearts, and to make our lives and our bodies worthy dwelling places for the Holy Spirit.

The more the Holy Spirit grows within us the more sanctified we become.  In this we become little Christs. We become true Saints. We become holy.  Recently we celebrated the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, wherein the Church was established upon Christ’s honorable blood, so today it is only fitting that we celebrate the natural and logical outcome of that event, which is that through struggle, with God’s help, Christians become sanctified and become holy, or Saints. 

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 this day.  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?  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 the ambassadors 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. From the Russian Church many Saints, endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, shine brightly into the world wherein their memories echo amongst us.

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 who was 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.  We remember great Saints such as these, and many more like them, who struggled against themselves, against the world and acquired the Holy Spirit, as evidenced by the lasting memory of holiness they left behind.

We stand with saints like these, each of us together, united in one Orthodox faith, one teaching, one mind, and one Love for both God and one another.  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 light of God’s love that the faithful persevere against the evils 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 spiritual desert within which we are all tested. It is only by the unquenchable fire of God’s love aflame within us that we can survive and prevail, that we are guided and find our way, and are given the light life when all the world has to offer is the shadow of death. 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, and one of the greatest evils the world has ever known.  So, as we look forward toward 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 be perplexed by political unrest and rhetoric; 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.”

The gift of holiness, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is open to all of us to receive.  Yet, if Christ is the great physician, and the Church is the hospital for our souls, it is up to us to follow  those prescriptions – by Christ and the Church – to take the gifts of healing freely given to us for the benefit of both soul and body.  Faith and holiness is a choice. Let us heed the words of Saint Herman of Alaska: “For our good, for our happiness, at least let us give a vow to ourselves, that from this day, from this hour, from this minute, we shall strive above all else to love God and to do His Holy Will!”

Oh Lord Jesus Christ our God, 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!

Sunday of the Prodigal Son

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?From physical hunger to destitution, and in our case, from a departure of virtue into depravity.  At first the Prodigal Son was not aware of the depths of despair into which he had fallen, and neither are we aware of how depraved we have allowed ourselves to become in our fallen sinfulness.  Yet, eventually the Prodigal Son finally came to himself, as we ourselves often do.  He remembered whose son he was, and despite all his failings never ceased being the son of his father.?

HOMILY: Sunday of the Prodigal Son

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

So we enter into the second Sunday of the triodion, the second week in our period of preparation for the Lenten fast soon upon us.  Last week we heard the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, laying down the cornerstone of our Lenten journey: Humility and Repentance. Then we have today, the Sunday of The Prodigal Son, perhaps the most well known of parables, the image and trope of the prodigal being used widely across literature, movies, novels, and even video games. In this parable we see the image and archetype of God’s forgiveness in the prodigal son, who had abandoned his father for the world and its pleasures, and returned home to his father’s house where he was received with open arms as a son, and not as a servant as the prodigal son had intended.

The Gospel reading for today embodies the entirety of God’s message to the world. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son we are shown the longing of God for the repentance of his children.  It is said by the Fathers of the Church that the entirety of the Gospel can be found in The Parable of the Prodigal Son, and if for some reason the scriptures were lost to us, keeping this parable, it would be possible to for us to recreate a concise summation of Christian teachings, and also to emphasize the love of God for all mankind.

Reading through fathers, past and present, there are many themes that can be extracted from this single, simple parable.  Today we are going to focus on one of them, that which is most relevant to us in preparing for this Lenten season as we move Godward in the course of our Orthodox Christian lives.

When reading Holy Scriptures, we must always learn to see ourselves in the least of these characters, the lowliest of people, and in this case we see ourselves in the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son is a symbol of all of us, the entirety of fallen man, of every individual sinner.  Saint John of Kronstadt shares this notion as regards the Prodigal Son, saying: “We all see ourselves in it as in a mirror. In a few words the Lord, the knower of hearts, has shown in the person of one man how the deceptive sweetness of sin separates us from the truly sweet life according to God.”

The Prodigal son asks his father for his portion of goods that falls to him.  Perhaps he did not understand the gravity of the request, and the weight of the insult that unwittingly fell behind it, essentially telling his father in not so many words: I do not want to wait for you to die, so please give me my inheritance now.  Now, the father had every right to refuse him, and even correct him amidst his request, but rather he allowed his silence and subsequent actions to express his love for his son, leaving him free to do as he wished.  He understood the mystery of fatherhood and of sonship, which is to give to the other the possibility of returning home freely. And so the Father lets his son go.

The portion we receive from our Father in heaven is our gifts, our talents with which we must work and multiply.  Also, according to Bishop Ignatius Branchininov, our gifts consist of “…the mind and heart, and especially the grace of the Holy Spirit, given to each Christian. The demand made of the father for the portion of goods falling to the son in order to use it arbitrarily is the striving of man to throw off from himself submissiveness to God and to follow his own thoughts and desires. In the father’s consent to hand over the property there is depicted the absolute authority with which God has honored man in the use of God’s gifts.” So, we spit in the face of God, turning away from Him in choosing the pleasures of this world.  Like the Prodigal Son we are impatient, telling God by our actions that we choose earthly riches and goods over those treasures in heaven to which we have been promised.  We choose earthly pleasures over that of eternal peace. We choose this world over the kingdom to which we have been made heirs as sons and daughters of the living God.

So the Prodigal Son departs from his father and goes to a far away land, much as we do in the pursuit of worldly living, to borrow the words from the Prophet Isaiah, “dwelling in a region of the shadow of death.” But the world cannot sustain us.  The world is fickle and shifts with time like the vagaries of the sand.  The Prodigal Son was in want of food, a famine of the body, but ours is a famine of the soul. As Saint Ambrose explains: “It was not a famine of fasts but of good works and virtues. What hunger is more wretched? Certainly whoever departs from the Word of God hungers, because “man lives not by bread alone but by every word of God.” Whoever leaves treasure lacks. Whoever departs from wisdom is stupefied. Whoever departs from virtue is destroyed.” 

From physical hunger to destitution, and in our case, from a departure of virtue into depravity.  At first the Prodigal Son was not aware of the depths of despair into which he had fallen, and neither are we aware of how depraved we have allowed ourselves to become in our fallen sinfulness.  Yet, eventually the Prodigal Son finally came to himself, as we ourselves often do.  He remembered whose son he was, and despite all his failings never ceased being the son of his father. Yes, he was still a sinner. Yes, he had sinned to such an extent that he had squandered the entire inheritance he had been given. He knew who his Father was, and by our same calling we know we have not lost our sonship, nor the grace of the Holy Spirit, for it is by the authority of the Holy Spirit alone that we are permitted to call God our Father.

Remembering his father, he arose and turned away from the world he once embraced with his riotous living.  The beginning of his repentance, metanoia (μετάνοια) in Greek, meaning to change one’s mind, or in another sense understood as “a turning away from the world.”  What courage it took for the prodigal son to set aside his shame in the knowledge of his familial disgrace, understanding the gravity of his offense against his father, and the weight of his transgressions and misdeeds in the face of a loving father.  

Oh, what spiritual calamity it is for us to not see ourselves as we really are, blinded by the veil of pride much like the Pharisee was in the Parable Of the Publican and the Pharisee that we heard last week; to not see ourselves as the sinners we really are.  Yet, as John Climacus exhorts us in the 28th step of the Ladder of Divine Ascent, “Let your prayer be completely simple. For both the publican and the prodigal son were reconciled to God by a single phrase.”  Likewise, we begin to come to the knowledge of  ourselves in the utterance of this simplest of prayers: “My Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner!”  In this knowledge, we can find the strength, much like the prodigal son did, to turn away from the world and begin our repentance as we return to the father seeking his forgiveness and our reconciliation with God.

The Father never ceases looking for his son, and neither does God cease seeking his lost sheep, but it must be our choice that we return to Him.  It must be by that same free will we chose to abandon our father, that we must choose to be reconciled with him.  Seeing his son from afar off the Father “had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”   The son, seeking reconciliation with his father, confesses before him: “I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and I am no more worthy to be called your son.” His father did not reproach him.  He did not demand repayment for what was lost.  He did not scold him, but with the same silence that he watched him leave, he received him once again with love.  As Saint Ambrose tells us, “The power of love overlooked the transgressions. The father redeemed the sins of his son by his kiss, and covered them by his embrace.”

The Prodigal Son returned to his father in great humility, that he might only be allowed back into his father’s household once more, if only as a servant.  But the father gave him a robe, just as our heavenly father restores our baptismal garment unto us by confession; a ring is placed upon his finger, just as our father in heaven does as much to as by the restoration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that particular seal of sonship; and the Prodigal Son’s feet are girded with sandals, as much as our Father has given us sure footing upon the foundation of Truth, the Church to which we have been restored, and no longer slaves to sin.  The Father of the Prodigal Son slaughtered the fatted calf, of which nearly all the fathers have agreed is a symbol of the Eucharist, in which we receive the body and blood of Christ, the spotless lamb sacrificed for the sake of the whole world. The music and dancing is the joyous celebration of the saints, martyrs, and the angels in heaven over the one that repented.

We as sinners, endure and repeat this cycle of falling into the depths of sin, the rise of shame from self knowledge of our sin, humility born in our recognition of our unworthiness before God, confession and reconciliation with our Father in heaven, and the restoration of our sonship and status as a part of the body of Christ.  As the Monks on Athos have confessed about their daily lives, we all fall, and we rise.  We fall, and we rise. So it is likewise with all of us in the Church. The Gospel reading for today teaches us of one who has returned from the greatest depths of sin and depravity, which should give us all great hope, that no matter the weight of our failures, the grace of God is greater, the love of God is brighter, and the forgiveness of God runs deeper the greatest depths of sin to which we could ever fall.  Let us always remember that we have a loving father waiting for us to return to him into his open arms.

Oh Lord Jesus Christ our God, 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.

I am not alone.

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I am not Alone
Welcome to memory lane  Let us take a little walk.

I have this weird habit of walking around my apartment and monologuing, practicing one side of conversations that will likely never take place.  On one hand, it is a good way for me to work through things that have been on the back of my mind for a time.  In other ways it is a way to practice my dialogue, for I still have issues speaking, forming sentences on the fly (off script if you will, which is one reason I much prefer writing to speaking).  My monologue turned into a diatribe of sorts, and I found this to be unexpected. I came to some self realizations, realized some offenses that maybe I had not forgiven, and found solace in these self revelations, albeit minor in the grand scope of things.

The last 20 years have been no easy road for me.  Every real or meaningful thing I had wanted to do in this life was derailed by one thing or another, and at each failure along that journey, most of them were endured alone.  I couldn’t join the military because I suddenly became diabetic.  I lost my first good job to 9/11. I worked hard for over a year saving for a car, having walked everywhere for a year before that, only to have the money stolen by the man I was buying the car from. I lost my home after helping a friend get back on his feet, he neglecting to tell me he was a registered sex offender.  I was homeless for 48 hours.  I was denied a government job that would have opened all other doors to me, all because of a bankruptcy caused by hurricanes that took my job and everything else from me. The first time I followed my heart, I ended up in Baltimore and was punished for it.

I remember after losing my job to the hurricanes, and being evicted after helping my friend, I took a test at the workforce center in south Florida.  I was referred there by a friend of the man that had taken me in.  After taking the aptitude test, we were walking down the hall and talking.  I hadn’t noticed she stopped until I was a few paces ahead.  I looked back and she was staring at the page with my test results.  She simply looked up at me:

“Why are you here?”

“I need a job?”

“Yes, but why are YOU here?  We don’t get test scores like this here?”

I had a job within a week.  It was not long after this I followed my girlfriend at the time to Baltimore, and found myself floundering in another hopeless situation with no job, and no way out.  In the end I went home.

There is a lot more to that story, but that is for another time. I did not know where I was going.  I did not know what I was doing.  All I knew is I was searching FOR  something that had meaning, and that was bigger than myself.  I wanted something that gave my life meaning, because few others in my life have ever seen any meaning in it.

Then I found the Church.

Looking back over the last 7 years, while that journey has only gotten tougher, I have never been more determined. While others may not see value in what I do, I could care less.

Before I even began my educational journey, I had a stroke.  I lost the ability to talk clearly, write anything legible at all, and typing was a near impossibility.  I sounded like I had downs syndrome for months, and it took many months after that to regain some degree of muscle memory.  After much hard work I regained about 80% functionality, without which online schooling would have been an impossibility.

The following year, at the end of my very first semester of what would be 5 years of school, I went into full respiratory failure from my 7th bout with pneumonia.  It was right in the middle of finals, and it was a miracle there alone that I passed.  I was Chrismated onto what was supposed to be my death bed.  Looking back years after the fact, I see the lineup of dates involved and realize that I was not alone. January 7th is Christmas on the Old Calendar for the Orthodox Church; January 9th was my Birthday; January 11th was the day I almost died; January 14th is Saint Basil’s feast day, for whom I was Chrismated and later named at my ordination.

In my room, I was given a a framed paper icon of Saint Luke of Crimea.  I could have sworn I saw a single tear run down the glass, but I dismissed it at the time.  A couple days later I was able to get out of bed and I inspected the framed icon, and on the glass there is a single streak that was not there before, from his right eye half way down the glass.  I still have that icon. That streak is still there.  At that moment, I knew I was not alone.

For the next three years I was expected to read stacks of books for my theological education, and then my vision started to fail.  Multiple eye surgeries, and countless migraines from reading so many books on one functioning eye took its toll over time, but I finished.

In the months leading up to finals, and eventually Ordination, the home life fell apart.  Amanda’s car broke.  Amanda broke her foot shortly after having major surgery.  For two and a half months I worked overtime, sold things of sentimental value to me in order to keep the house afloat on my paycheck alone.  Yet, I finished up my last semester while doing all this and working more than full time hours.

The day I was ordained, my retina detached.  I had yet another eye surgery the following week.  Not long after this, though I was not looking, a door opened and I could not pass by and started my Bachelors in History.  Sometime after all this, Amanda started having her own issues.  I won’t go into details, but a year later it ended in my being served divorce papers, and right in the middle of finals.  Yet, on the day I was served, I was called and approved for an apartment, something I was told never happens that quickly, like ever.  Also that day, I received in the mail a vial of myrrh from the Holy Myrrh streaming Iveron icon in Hawaii.  At that moment, I knew I was not alone.

Now that I have finished school, I am awaiting my next step.  What is the road I will take next? In the meantime, my life may or may not have meaning, but it is doing something meaningful.  I serve the Church every week as much as I am able.  I perform those duties that are given to me that are of import to others.  I have continued my writing, of which others have found useful, and many more are encouraging me to publish.  I get messaged daily by people daily on Twitter, Discord, sometimes Facebook, and even email, all asking me for advice. I don’t have a beacon lit, and I am a sinner just like the rest of them, so I have no idea why they come, but I make myself available to all those who seek it.  I myself am unimportant, and someday I will pass on, but my work will live on after me and hopefully be of benefit to others for years to follow.

I could die in my apartment right now, and it would likely be a week or more before anyone realized I was missing (except maybe my boss, or Peter, because no one wants my job), but even in realizing this, I will always remember that I am not alone.  Yes, I am eccentric, sometimes temperamental, maybe even a little OCD, and for this reason there are many people that don’t want to be around me; yet, even in my isolation, I am not alone.  I ride a motorcycle, for why drive a 4 door car when you have no one to ride with you; yet, despite the number of wheels beneath me, I am not alone.  I wanted a wife and family more than words can express, and for a time I had a wife I loved, and a daughter that I always wanted.  Even though others have sought to take this away from me, and even though I can never have this again, it is at least comforting to know that I am not alone.  Friends have turned their back on me; awards, events, graduations and all things of import to me have been walked alone, but regardless if my side is empty, I will always know that I am not alone.

Loneliness is born of blindness.  Open your eyes and see that you are not alone.

May be art of water

HOMILY: The Church of Remembering

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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: Sunday of the Blind Man

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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

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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

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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

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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



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HOMILY: Love endures.

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HOMILY: Love endures – February 9th, 2020.

Readings: Romans 13:8-10, Matthew 8:23-34

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

There was much to choose from today in topics to talk about.  There is much the Church remembers on this day: The translation of the relics of Saint John Chrysostom; the venerable Peter of Egypt; new Martyr Demetrius of Constantinople; and, this is the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee.  For, we are the Church of remembering; remembering those who have gone before us; remembering those who walk beside us; and remembering the promises of the world to come. All of us, the Church united, bound by faith, and sealed in the bonds of love.

We have heard in our readings for today both of love, and of faith.  Love is the very essence of our Orthodox faith; this you already know.  For, God is Love; the source of all love; the fire of love that burns in each of us; and, the incarnation of Love through Jesus Christ our Lord.  As Christ is, so should we seek to be. Love is not a feeling, or an emotion, but exists and is expressed by what we do. Though, this is a point I have iterated numerous times before, so I will not repeat it here.  Even God’s act of creation was an act of love, for he needed nothing outside of himself. The created order was made by, and exists because of, the love of God. The intended order of all things is founded on love. This is why, as Paul exhorts to us in our Epistle reading for today, that love is the fulfillment of the whole law, for it is only in love that the proper order of creation exists.  Without love, we have nothing; without love, we have gained nothing; without love, we are nothing. Our faith, which we must all have and hold, in word and in deed, orients us towards Christ; but, it is in love, by love, and through love that we will reach Him. It is by faith, bound with the bonds of love to our Lord Jesus Christ, motivated by love towards our fellow man, that we each strive towards salvation. We each fight for the endurance of Truth, and that by love we change the world around us.

So what does this love look like?  I believe Saint Paul details love eloquently enough in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Love is an action.  Love is something we manifest into the world.  Love is what will change the world. Love lives within the peace of God which the world cannot give. The world knows no love, for there is no love found in it.  Yet, what the world calls love is nothing more than sin polished to look alike, but crumbles the moment it is tested. Love, the Love of God, the Love that binds our faith together, this love perseveres.  This love changes the world.

This, that is love, I believe has been the mission of the Orthodox Church – the pillar and foundation of truth, and the abode of the Holy Spirit – since its foundations were laid by the prophets and the Apostles, and established by the honorable blood of Christ.  The first ten centuries the Church withstood heresies and persecutions of every kind, but the Church prevailed. The Mongols conquered Kievan Rus’ in the 13th century, but the Church prevailed. In 1453, the Ottoman Turks conquered the great pearl of the Byzantin empire, Constantinople; but, the Church prevailed.  As the world became “enlightened” and “reason” abounded, the theology of our Fathers remade into Cataphatic visions of what once was, the Church prevailed. The Great saints and Fathers of the Russian Church set out into the world: Saint Nicholas established the Church in Japan, Father Maxim Leontiev led the first Orthodox Church in Beijing, and Saints Innocent and Herman evangelized the Alaskan territory.  Saint Tikhon, the Patriarch of Moscow, Saint John Maximovith of Shanghai and San Francisco, Saint Sebastian of San Francisco and Jackson, all evangelized America under the direction of the Russian Orthodox Church. The faithful carried the light of life into the world, and the Church prevailed.

That light is love.

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.

Indeed, the Church is the boat by which we endure the tempest of this world.  Though, Christ is not sleeping, for He is with us; He is the Church, and the Church is He; and, He is present by His body and blood within the Holy Mysteries we will soon receive.  The tempest becomes the myriad trials and temptations of the world by which we are tested, the persecutions we must survive, the winds of change we must endure, and the cold Godless life we are called to live by the world in which we live.  But, despite all of these, we also learn that no storm lasts forever; we learn that no matter how far the darkness reaches, the sun will always rise. That is why we must keep love alive, for it is the fervor of our faith. “If the Fervor of Faith in our heart is not kept alight, then our apathy may entirely extinguish our faith.”

This is a lesson imbued within the Russian Orthodox Church, and embedded within her very bones.  For, today is the day we also remember the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Today is the day we commemorate the untold millions of Orthodox faithful who were killed by the Godless Soviet atheists in the wake of Bolshevik revolution.  Though no hard numbers can be provided, estimates state that up to twenty million Orthodox Christians were killed. In the first years of Soviet power, over twelve hundred Orthodox Priests were executed, including 28 Bishops.  Orthodox clergy and Orthodox faithful alike were tortured, executed, and sent to prison camps, labor camps, and even mental institutions. Churches were destroyed, sometimes with the faithful within them. Priests were crucified to the doors of their churches, or dragged into the street and shot.  Millions of Orthodox faithful were exiled, many coming to America, where the work of Saints John, Tikhon, Sebastian and others were instrumental in their care. The great missionary work that had been started by Moscow in America had been interrupted. Though, In time, the sun rose, the Soviet era ended, and the Church prevailed.  By the blood of her martyrs, the confession of the faith, and the fervor of the faith kept alive in love within the hearts of millions, the Church prevailed. Untold staretz and saints, known and unknown, rose to pierce the darkness of the storm with the uncreated light of their enduring love, and with the aid of their guiding light the Church prevailed.  It is that light we should all strive to carry. It is that light we have all received. It is that light that we are all exhorted to uphold within the darkness of this world.  

We stand upon a foundation of prophets and apostles, strengthened by the blood of uncountable martyrs, and joining the voices of confessors who never stopped speaking truth in the face of oppression and persecutions, torture, and even death.  Be courageous in speaking truth to power, be unfailing in your dedication to Christ, but most of all, become love and incarnate Christ unto the world. It is by love alone, that the Church will prevail.

Amen.

Eternal Russia

Truth and Love

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Truth and Love – August 24th, 2019

Truth does not change.  Truth is one just as God is one, for truth is a person: Jesus Christ.  We are living stones that constitute the church, which is the body of Jesus Christ, He who is the truth.  When we start building the Church with something other than the truth, as something other than ourselves founded  in truth and holiness, then the church clearly becomes something other than the Truth.  The Church is the Pillar and Foundation of that Truth, so it must embody that Truth in both word and deed; in both practice and praxis of faith; in both her prayers and her sacraments; in both beauty and holiness; in both purity and chastity of mind and body.

Truth is rigid and unchanging, without deformity of word or character. Yet, the means by which truth is conveyed, taught, expressed and known, is through the unending and unquenchable fire of God’s love.  It is in this crucible of love, of which we are all partakers and participants of, that the coldness of this world melts away; the chaff of the wheat is burned to naught; the wax is softened and we are molded to the truth like potters clay.  It is in love that truth is revealed, that truth takes shape in us, and that truth is known; for, God is love.

We are conformed to the Truth, molded in love.  Once truth has taken shape within us, and once we have become molded to it become and an incarnation of Truth, it is by the crucibles of this world that we are tried, tested, formed, and refined.  The potter’s clay is hardened into its new shape. Like in a refiner’s fire we are purified.  We shall all become vessels of Truth, those who allow themselves to be subject to the fires of God’s love.

Everyone loves Truth when it is revealed about the world around them, but no one loves Truth when it is revealed about themselves.  Likewise, everyone wants love to be given to them, but because love requires sacrifice on both sides, no one wants to give it in return.  So, in this understanding, conformity to the truth requires sacrifice, which is perhaps why so many work so hard to make concessions with the truth, so that they may conform the truth to themselves instead.  In the end, this is not love, but a hatred of the Truth, a hatred of Christ, for He is the Truth.

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Image source:
http://www.eospirituality.com/2015/02/on-truth-and-love-in-writings-of-st.html