Incarnating our prayer life – January 8th, 2019
Our prayer life should be lived, and our prayers should be interwoven with our life, otherwise they become vestigial words and phrases that we simply offer in our short periods we turn towards God. Our prayers and our actions should become two expressions of the same situation.
Incarnate Holiness – January 8th, 2018
Holiness is the Love of God at work in a concrete, active, and deliberate act. Yet, Holiness is never an individual act. It is a situation, and an act that not only implies the totality of the Church, but that we are also members of the created world around us. ~ God and Man, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
The Holiness of the Church should express both the presence of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in each of its members and in the totality of its body. For the Church is the body of Christ, the locus of our encounter and participation with Christ, and thus the holiness of God. We are called to be partakers of His divine nature, and it is within and as the Church by which we accomplish this participatory act.
Christ is born! – January 7th, 2018
This morning we had a Divine Liturgy celebrating the Nativity at 630 A.M. It was a joyous gathering.
There was eggs and bacon for break-fast afterwards, but I had to go to work.
Worship the Lord with beauty – January 5th, 2018.
The clergy, and also the laity with them, ell have the unspoken responsibility of performing the liturgy as well and as beautiful as possible. For God is the source of all beauty, and as such is deserving of all beauty. The liturgy is the work of the people, and all people in participation of the Divine Liturgy should seek no less than to pour the contents of thier very being into their act of worship so that anyone witnessing this moment in time will be unable to discern if they are on heaven or on earth, just as the Russian legates reported back after their visit to Constantinople, Before Russia’s conversion and entry into the Orthodox Church. We not only worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness, but in the beauty of our worship of Him in His Holiness, for He is the beautiful breather of stars and deserves nothing less.
The Light of Joy – January 3,rd, 2019
Remain in those prayers and spiritual labors that bring you great joy, for the joy of the Lord surpasses all others. Become the prayer you seek, for ours is an active faith. Those who remain in the light of such Joy, seldom fall into darkness of mind.
Our understanding of Church affects our overall understanding of Christ, and all our theology that stems from this understanding, for indeed the Church is the body of Christ.
Understanding the Church – January 2nd, 2019
Ecclesiology is the Theology of our faith concerning the Church. As we believe that the Church is the body of Christ (and the vehicle of Holy Revelation), the understanding of Christ goes hand in hand with our understanding of the Church. Likewise, an improper view, treatment, and understanding of the Church can affect our beliefs and understanding of Christ. This is a malady of the Christian faith I believe we witness today across the Protestant milieu.
The Church is a divine-human organism, meaning that it is both equally and fully human and divine. Within the Church is contained the fullness of God, and the fullness of man, “but also in the frailty and brokenness and insufficiencies of man, and in that sense the Church is already at home and still becoming.” (1) It is within the Church that man encounters God, both spiritually and physically through her sacraments. It is through man’s participation with the divine nature of Christ, and the sacramental life and rhythm of the Church. that man is healed of his infirmities and becomes that which he was created to be. (1) It is within the Church that man encounters God, both spiritually and physically through her sacraments. It is through man’s participation with the divine nature of Christ, and the sacramental life and rhythm of the Church. that man is healed of his infirmities and becomes that which he was created to be.
We are summoned into this Church by Christ through the grace of God into an eschatological path of asceticism and denial of self. It is within the Church that the disciples of Christ are “ingodded” through the sacramental life of the Church, wherein we attain a better understanding into the fullness of Christ, his teachings, the Law of the Spirit of Life, and the Love of God. It is within the sacraments of the Church, more importantly the Divine mystery of our faith, that the Catholicity of the Church is fully expressed. For, the Church is the bride of Christ, a mystical union of the divine and the human, of Christ and his followers, united to Him in faith and participation in His divine will (for those who love him obey His commandments), as well as a partaking and participation with His body and blood, the spiritual food and medicine for our souls, for indeed whoever eats of His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, and will be raised up in the last day.(2) By this partaking and participation, the Church is a theanthropic (divine-human) communion of Jesus Christ with his people.
By this partaking and participation, the Church is a theanthropic (divine-human) communion of Jesus Christ with his people.
Why is there a tendency to force an ecclesiological Nestorianism upon the Church, with an overemphasis on the “invisible Church,” or the “spiritual nature” of the Church, by which all are supposedly in unity; yet, there is a rejection of the physical and manifest aspects – the human parts and expressions of the Church, and the teaching and understanding of her faith – in which there is great disunity? The overarching view is that we are united in spirit, a part of the invisible Church, but ignore the disunity and disagreements in theology, teaching, and overall praxis of faith as though it did not matter. This flies in the face of what Paul spoke to in first Corinthians, when he urged them all to be of one mind, and one accord.
An improper understanding and treatment of the Church will lead to an improper understanding and treatment of Christ, for the Church is the body of Christ, and it is through the Church by which we come to Him, and our understanding of Him.
*
1 Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. God and Man. (Crestwood, New York: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997),
2 Ibid.
Pray Always – January 1, 2019
If evil is the absence of God, and darkness is the absence of light, then surely those dark and sinister thoughts that plague the minds of many are the absence of prayer and holy reading, for holy reading is the source of much prayer. Pray continually, and read when you cannot bring yourself to pray.
A New Year, a new endeavor!
As we move into the new year, there are so many things on the horizon. I graduated the Saint Stephens Program only a few months ago, and was ordained almost immediately after. Since then I have completed the second draft of a A Simple Catechism of the Orthodox Church, and it has already gained quite a following of people waiting for it to see completion. I have erected my website, my twitter, and established my digital presence, primed and ready for the coming year. With new projects and clergy conferences on the horizon, I look forward to whatever this year has to bring. I especially look forward to working on those tasks which I have placed upon my own shoulders, as I find ways to guide the Orthodox Church into the spirit of our age, and be better prepared and equipped for the evangelism of the modern world.
I look forward to whatever 2019 has to bring. May God grant us all many years!