February 1, 2015

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When I foolishly separated myself from your Fatherly glory, I squandered in wickedness the riches You had given me. So now I cry out to You with the voice of the Prodigal son, saying:
“I have sinned before You, O merciful Father; receive me, repentant, and make me as one of Your hired servants.”

prodigalsonWe hear, today, perhaps the most beloved of all of our Lord’s Parables, that of the Prodigal Son. I know of few people who don’t react to this parable, when hearing it, with some emotion. It is quite moving to hear the love of this father for his sons. I am sure that all of us, when hearing this, think of our own fathers and the relationship we had with him.

Found only in the Gospel of Luke, it is really a parable about two brothers. This parable not only vindicates Jesus’ kingly regard toward sinners but the refrain, dead but come to life, makes us think of Jesus’ passion and resurrection. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus, by his union with human nature, becomes the wayward son. Put in this light, the parable takes on a different meaning.

The Church uses this parable, however, to share with us another characteristic of metanoia – that process of changing our hearts and minds. That characteristic is a feeling of separation from God — a feeling that we are not close enough to God. This feeling is essential since it is needed to give us the desire to truly change our thinking and behaving and make them more like Christ.

It is only when we recognize and feel that we are not close enough to God that we will begin to take action to change this situation. We may have a desire to be closer to God but, if we do not truly recognize that we are not as close as we can be, we will never invest the energy to change. Having a desire to be closer to God is not sufficient. It must be coupled with an awareness that we are not as close to Him as we want to be.

So far we have seen three characteristics of metanoia: desire, humility and feeling or being unaware of our separation from God. This third characteristic is important. We must come to some conclusion on how and in which ways we are separated from God and, if we truly desire to know God more completely and deeply, what is keeping us from achieving that desire.

As we prepare for this Great Fast, I would call on you, my readers, to join with me in looking deeply into our lives and assess the presence of these three characteristics. Once known, we can plan how we will spend Lent!

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20150201

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Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

It is important to note that the Churches (i.e., mainly Catholic and Orthodox) that believe in the Real Presence do not see what is really in the Eucharist as a lifeless corpse and mere blood but as the whole Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity; nor do we see the persisting outward appearances of bread and wine as a mere illusion. This actual change or conversion of reality, deals with what the gifts are and not the process or manner by which the change comes about. We all agree that this change occurs in a way that truly surpasses understanding. The presence of Christ in the Eucharist is of an order different from the presence of Christ in the other sacraments: in the other sacraments he is present by his power rather than by the reality of his body and blood, the basis of the expression Real Presence.

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate developments that took place in the history of Christianity was when men began to debate the reality of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. While some said that the eucharistic gifts of bread and wine were the real Body and Blood of Christ, others said that the gifts were not real, but merely the symbolic or mystical presence of the Body and Blood. The tragedy in both of these approaches is that what is real came to be opposed to what is symbolic or mystical.

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches deny the doctrine that the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist are merely symbols of Christ’s Body and Blood. If this doctrine were true, then when the liturgy is celebrated and holy communion is given, the people would be called merely to think about Jesus and then to commune with him in their hearts. In this way, the Eucharist would be reduced to a simple memorial meal of the Lord’s last supper and the union with God through its reception would come only on the level of thought or psychological recollection.

Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is one of the most profound truths of our faith. It is also one of the most perplexing truths since it is so beyond human comprehension. How can something be intrinsically changed and yet look the same and be experienced as the same before and after its transformation. Do you believe in the Real Presence? Think about this. More to come.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament– 20150201

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In the last issue of this article, the idea of there being many different purposes for sacrifice were introduced. Sacrifice and sin are no intrinsically connected. In Judaism, the high priest, appointed from the tribe of Levi, was the chief official of the temple. There was only one at a time and, according to Jewish law, he served for life (although during the Roman period Rome appointed and deposed Jewish high priests at will). The high priest represented God to the people and the people to God. Only he could enter the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber of the temple, and only one day of the year, the Day of Atonement.

This is the context in which Hebrews proclaims that Jesus is the great high priest. He – not the temple high priest – is the mediator between God and God’s people. He has entered the inner shrine behind the curtain. The author knew that Jesus was not descended from the tribe of Levi and thus did not have a genetic qualification to be high priest, so in chapter 7 of Hebrews he presents Jesus as a priest from the order of Melchizedek, a figure from Genesis who blessed Abraham. Melchizedek, Hebrews tells us, was a king of justice and king of peace. Jesus is descended from him. (I know many have wondered who Melchizedek was since his name appears in some of our prayers).

For Hebrews, Jesus is not only the great high priest, but also the sacrifice. What he sacrificed was his life. Moreover, his sacrifice rendered temple sacrifice unnecessary. His death was the once for all sacrifice for sin. Therefore Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant and we have a great high priest over the house of God.

The image of Jesus as the once for all sacrifice for sin has often been misunderstood in Christian history. It has been placed within a theological framework that emphasizes that we are all sinners that our sins must be paid for in order for God to forgive us, and that Jesus is the sacrifice who paid the price. This theological framework is a later development, not present in the first thousand years of Christianity. It was first theologically articulated by St. Anselm in 1098. The early Church, it seems, did not think of Jesus’ death in this context since in Judaism there were different types of sacrifice. Think about this: Perhaps Jesus’ sacrifice is an act of worship of Almighty God!

The Call To Holiness — 20150201

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Responding to God’s call to holiness takes discipline and thoughtful focus. On the journey of the spiritual life, there are many roads a person can follow. Some of these are dead ends. Others go in circles, so that after much effort a persons ends up where he or she started. But there is a road – perhaps several roads – on which progress is possible.

Universal Call to Holiness

Universal Call to Holiness

Discovering which road to travel is one of the basic tasks of the spiritual life. The spiritual journey is not merely a matter of understanding God better or of feeling deeply about God. It involves making choices among various options open to us. Some of these options will hinder us on the journey. Others will hasten us on the journey because they lead to greater freedom. When we choose to remove or overcome the obstacles that block the ability to love, when we choose the welfare and happiness of another over our own, we are freeing ourselves to love. In many ways, discernment – choosing the right road or roads – is like choosing a pair of hiking boots. One pair is too tight. Another does not look right. A third pair may fit well but be totally inadequate for a long walk. Finally, we find a pair that is comfortable and will hold up for a long hike.

Discernment is not an exotic process; it is relatively simple. From the Christian tradition, there are five helps we can use in the process of discerning what to choose.

The first of these is reflection about similar situations to see what choices one has made in the past. This reflection is necessary in order to identify the patterns one’s decisions usually follow.

Each person’s life follows certain patterns. Life is not just a series of unconnected events. It is held together by a string of common threads. Some of these are helpful and healthy; others are destructive. Some of these patterns have worked well, some have not. Discernment is the process of sifting through one’s experiences to find the common threads that run through past and present. Discernment leads to an   understanding of our motives, which usually are rather obscure. When used regularly, it can help us discover our fundamental motivation.

The process of discernment is not necessarily easy. It means facing many things about ourselves and about our childhood. It is a process that can lead to true freedom, making life’s journey more successful.

Learning Our Faith From the Fathers of the Church — 20150201

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The definition developed by the Council of Chalcedon proclaimed that Christ is consubstantial (i.e., having the same substance or essential nature), not only with His Father, but also “with us.” Though fully man, Christ does not possess a human hypostasis (i.e., the personality of Christ as distinguished from His two natures, human and divine), for the hypostasis of His two   natures is the divine hypostasis of the Logos, the Word.

Each individual, fully consubstantial with his fellow men, is, radically distinct from them in a unique, unrepeatable and unassimilable personality: no man can fully be in another man. But Jesus’ hypostasis has a fundamental affinity with all human personalities: that of   being their model. For indeed all men are created according to the image of God (i.e., according to the image of the Logos). When the Logos became incarnate, the divine stamp matched all its imprints: God assumed humanity in a way which did not exclude any human hypostasis, but which opened to all of them the possibility of restoring their unity in Himself. He became, indeed, the new Adam, in whom every man finds his own nature realized perfectly and fully, without the limitations which would have been inevitable if Jesus were only a human personality.

I can’t tell you how important the ideas are in the previous paragraph. They truly address the issue of Jesus being our human model and archetype. He is God’s revelation to humankind on how to live human life in the way and manner that God intended when He created humanity.

Jesus is the concrete, physical image of God, who is invisible. He IS God’s revelation to us about our humanity. God became man so that we might know about the ultimate goal of our lives, namely to become like God.

It is this concept of Christ which Maximus the Confessor had in mind when he re-emphasized the old Pauline image of recapitulation in reference to the incarnate Logos and saw in Him the victory over the disintegrating separations in humanity. As man, Christ accomplishes in all truth the true human destiny that He Himself had predetermine as God, and from which man had turned: He unites man to God.”

Thus Chalcedonian Christology, and that which followed, would truly be meaningless speculation were it not oriented toward the very notion of redemption (i.e., giving to mankind the vision of union with God). The whole history of Christological dogma was determined by this basic idea.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20150201

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I truly believe that Eastern Spirituality is based on a belief that God is love and that God, as community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, wishes to give Himself to us. True love is always about giving oneself to the other. True love is expressed through the gift of self to the beloved. Jesus is God’s gift of Himself to us through the Holy Spirit. We recognize this gift through faith. St. Paul wrote to the Romans: The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. In the 2nd century Irenaeus said in this way: Through God’s two hands, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit we are touched by God.

So the spirituality of the East calls us to become attuned to this reality of God touching us. It means that we develop a sense of awareness of how God is present in our lives.

If Jesus promised that He and the Father would come and dwell within us, as St. John wrote, why should we not experience that living presence? If, as St. John records in his Gospel, that     Jesus taught that eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, why should it be so extraordinary to experience such knowledge: God   loving us through the   perfect gift of Himself as a triune community?

This all presupposes, however, that we have opened ourselves to the presence of God. It also means having a true openness to life itself and all that life is able to teach us. It means that we realize that life is a gift, given to us out of love, as a means of helping us come to a deep and lasting understanding of God’s presence within us.

This also means, however, that we must not allow ourselves to get so caught up in worldly things that we   cannot recognize God’s presence.

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Faith — 20150201

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St. Sophia’s Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Kiev, Ukraine

St. Sophia’s Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Kiev, Ukraine

Perhaps one of the most important things to remember about our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is that we are a Church of Christ and that as Christians we are meant to engage in those things that are of Christ. This means that we must be about witnessing to the Gospel of Jesus and integrating into the life of our community those actions which bear witness to our belief in Jesus. We are not just an ethnic social club. We are a Church. This is one of the main reasons why our Patriarch Sviatoslav and our Synod of Bishops have called our parishes to engage in those acts which are characteristic of Christian churches. One of the key activities is Christian Outreach. We hear that in the early Church one of the activities that they engaged in was helping and feeding the less fortunate. It is very easy to become self-centered and think only about your own community and yourselves. That is why the early Christians felt and believed that Jesus, who constantly demonstrated an awareness of others in need, modeled for them how to live. That is why our Church, now a world-wide church and out of the underground, is doing all in her power to integrate more outreach activities into her life. Our Church, precisely because it is a part of the Church of Christ, is called to bear witness to Him as God’s revelation of Himself to humankind. This means that we must think always not just about ourselves but, rather, about the People of God.

I don’t know how many are truly aware of the struggle our Church went through for more than 70 years in   the underground. It   survived because it believed that it was following the will of God made known by Jesus, the Christ. Many were martyrs for their belief in God and Jesus. These martyrs only made our Church stronger in the faith and a true Church of Christ.

The witness of the martyrs of our Church should be an encouragement for us. Much like the martyrs of the early Church were encouragement to people during their time, so are the martyrs of our Church an encouragement to us to be steadfast in our faith and do all in our power to truly be a Church of Christ. The martyrs of our Church are modern-day people who gave their lives for their faith. We should do all in our power to imitate them by living a Christian life.

January 25, 2015

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O God, Be Merciful to Me, a Sinner!

pandpWhat a simple and beautiful prayer we hear in today’s Gospel story. It is a simple prayer that is steeped in the second characteristic of personal transformation, that is humility. There can be no personal transformation and change without this important virtue.

But the important question is, What is humility? There are many misguided ideas rampant in our culture about this virtue. The answer to this question may seem a paradoxical one since we proclaim this reality: Our God is Himself humble. God is humble because He is perfect. This is not how we usually think about humility.

Our society defines   humility as humbleness of mind and meekness. In religion humility is     defined as: the virtue by which one restrains the appetite for high things and recognizes his own weaknesses and strengths and, through it, realizes his dependence on God, without whom he is nothing.

Humility truly means that I recognize who God created when He created me! It means having neither an aggrandized nor a diminished notion of myself but simply recognizing who I am. It always includes a recognition of my need for God. Without Him I am nothing! With Him, and because of Him, I am a unique human being in His creation who has been given personal gifts that are to be used to make His Kingdom real, here and now. When I recognize that His Kingdom is within me and think and act with this awareness, then I’m being who He intends me to be. I must recognize that I have been created with certain talents and gifts for the sake of helping others, who join me on the journey of life, to achieve this awareness.

Humility is not being a floor-mat on which others can walk. Humility is being the person God intends me to be and who, like Jesus, attributes all of my personal gifts to God.

I was once asked: How does one become truly humble? This is the answer I gave: Think about Christ! If you study His life you will find all the clues you need to become humble. In fact He was reported as   saying: Learn from Me for I am meek and humble in heart. True humility means measuring all my actions and attitudes by Christ. What is true is that without a deep knowledge of Christ we can never achieve true humility. For without Christ humility is impossible. As we see in the Pharisee, even religion becomes pride in human achievements – pharisaic self-glorification. The Pharisee failed to recognize that even the good things he did were only possible because of God’s help.

The first characteristic of metanoia is desire. The second is humility.

Ask: How present are these in my life?

The Call To Holiness — 20150125

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The call to holiness requires discipline and focus. The first discipline I mentioned was poverty which also includes poverty of spirit. The next discipline that should be mentioned is obedience.

Obedience is another discipline or avenue of learning that applies to all people in one way or another. It is the effort we make to hear and obey the many promptings from God each day. It is an effort to trust in God and allow God to lead us. Obedience takes many forms. It may mean putting aside our own wishes to respond to the needs of another. It may mean continuing to listen and dialogue with another to see how God is calling. It may even mean simply remaining open and listening to what life is calling us to do or be. But Jesus made it perfectly clear that the spiritual journey consists of hearing his word and of following him by putting that word into practice. “Anyone who desires to come to me will hear my words and put them into practice”.

Being obedient means showing that servant love of Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve. It means reaching out to those in need, even when it is inconvenient or when they seem untrustworthy. It means helping others without asking whether they are worthy of our help. It means forgiving when we have been deeply hurt. It means trying to share the message of God’s love whenever possible.

I’m sure that most people don’t think of obedience in this fashion. The obedience I am talking about is the obedience of faith. Faith is hearing the Word of God and resolving to obey what God is asking of us. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it. Obedience of faith means to live as I believe This means, of course, that a person must be obedient to the teachings of Jesus, wonderfully summarized in the four basic rules of living that He taught (I’m sure all of my readers remember those …. hint: Doing to others, loving others, forgiving others and not judging others). It also means being willing to respond to all the challenges that life presents in the way that Jesus did. He didn’t fight against life. He embraced it knowing that the challenges were given to Him in order to help Him, as a man, to become an Anointed of His Father.

In order that my readers will not get the wrong idea about obedience, obedience does not mean blind obedience, just doing whatever some authority or life tells you what to do. It means making sure that your obedience conforms to the basic rules and way of Jesus. God did not create us with intellects and then expect us to just blindly give obedience to church or others in authority. Our obedience must be informed, that is based on how we know Jesus would respond. Our obedience must always be thoughtful.

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Faith — 20150125

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I realize that some of this information may be a repeat of things I have already shared about our Church. I do so in order to reinforce this information.

Ukraine has a long Christian tradition, dating from the 10th century. Today there are more than 22,000 different religious communities in Ukraine from about 80 different Christian denominations and/or religions. The atheist policy of the Soviets truly left its mark. Because of the spiritual void Communism left in Eastern Europe, many Ukrainians now   are unchurched.

As you probably already know, in 988 Volodymyr the Great chose Christianity, in its Byzantine form, as the national religion of Kyivan-Rus. This happened before the Great Church Schism of 1054 which divided the Christian East from the Christian West. The Kyivan Church inherited the traditions of the Byzantine East and was part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople while, at the same time remaining in communion with the Latin West and its patriarch, the Patriarch of Rome. Though Constantinople and Rome had their disputes, the Kyivan hierarchy tried to work for Christian unity. Representatives from Rus participated in the Western Councils of Lyon (1245) and Constance (1418). Metropolitan Isidore of Kyiv, was himself one of the creators of the Union of Florence (1439).

While the Kyivan Metropolitanate was working towards reunion, a new metropolitanate arose north of Kyiv, in Moscow. The Church of Moscow refused to accept the Union of Florence and separated from the metropolitanate of Kyiv, announcing its autocephaly (self-governing status) in 1448.

In 1589, with Greek Orthodoxy and Constantinople became subject to Turkish domination and the Church of Moscow became a patriarchate.

The Kyivan Church then took action to become more firmly allied with the Church of Rome. Rome guaranteed the Kyivan Church that union would not force it to change any of its traditional Eastern Christian practices or theology and that the Church could preserve its ethnic, cultural and ecclesial character. This was confirmed at the Council of Brest in 1596, which is the beginning of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church as an institution.

I have been asked several times: Why do you insist on using the name Greek-Catholic while other Ukrainian churches in the area don’t use this full name? It should be noted that our Church in Ukraine uses this name and only in the United States was there a tendency to drop the title Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

More Next Time!