Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20150125

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In this article I have been looking at the Letter to the Hebrews which is attributed to St. Paul. It begins this way: In times past, God spoke in fragmentary and varied ways to our fathers through the prophets; in this, the final age, he has spoken to us through His Son, Whom He has made heir of all things and through whom He first created the universe. The letter seems to assert that Jesus is no less than God’s very being, albeit this is how we read these words after the Councils that declared Him truly God and truly Man. Affirmations such as this are also found in Colossians and the Gospel of John, both of which speak of the cosmic Christ present with God at the actual creation of all things.

Hebrews emphasizes the importance of Jesus’ humanity. As the pioneer of our salvation, He had to experience what we do in every respect, only so He could be a faithful and compassionate high priest able to sympathize with our weaknesses. Hebrews even says that Jesus had to learn obedience and did so through suffering. Incarnation matters for Hebrews, as it does for John’s Gospel.

All of this tells us that Jesus is God’s archetype of what human beings are called to be. Jesus is Who He is because of His attitudes and behaviors. He literally demonstrated for us how to live as a child of God – a spiritual being – made in the image and likeness of God Himself.

Jesus as the Great High Priest is the central metaphor that dominates most of Hebrews. Announced in 2:17 and 3:1, it becomes central from 4:14 through chapter 10 (why not pick up Hebrews and read these verses). The linguistic home of the metaphor, that is the framework within which it has its meaning, is the temple in Jerusalem, the high priest and, of course, temple sacrifice.

Though the meaning of this language would have been well known to the community to whom Hebrews was written, it is not so among us. Within Judaism, the temple in Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God on earth. Because many people today automatically think of sacrifice and sin as intrinsically connected, it is important to know that in Judaism not all sacrifices had to do with sin. Some were about hosting God – about feeding the God who dwelled in the temple. Some were sacrifices of thanksgiving, petition and purification, none of which intrinsically involved forgiveness of sin as the motivation. Sacrifices that did involve sin were sacrifices of reconciliation in which the community, represented by temple priests, offered a sacrifice as a way of making peace with God.

This is important to note, given that the Eucharist is a sacrifice of Thanksgiving. We do well to think about this!

Just why do we celebrate the Divine Liturgy?

Learning Our Faith From the Fathers of the Church — 20150125

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As I have attempted to illustrate in this article, the Church struggled greatly to come to any real and clear understanding of Who Jesus is. Of course it is really beyond human understanding of how God could be both God and Man in the Person of Jesus, the Christ. And yet the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, knew, felt and believed that Jesus was more than just a special man with special powers. But it took a long time and people teaching things that were later condemned as true heresy, before the Church was able to formulate her real thoughts on Who Jesus is. We must always remember that the Church had to first decide that God was Triune (i.e., Three-Persons-in One) before she could truly find the appropriate words and expressions to say Who Jesus is.

For Theodore the Studite, the icon of Christ is the best possible illustration of what is meant by the hypostatic union, that expression which the Church decided expresses that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. What appears on the image is the very hypostasis of God the Word in   the flesh. In the Byzantine tradition the inscription around the halo surrounding the head of Jesus says The One Who Is, the equivalent of the sacred name YHWE, the name of God, whose person is revealed, but whose essence is inaccessible. It is neither God’s indescribable divinity nor His human nature alone which is represented on an icon, but the person of God the Son who took flesh: “Every portrait,” writes Theodore, “is the portrait of an hypostasis, and not of a nature.”

To paint an image of the divine essence or of God before His human Incarnation is obviously impossible; just as it is impossible to represent human nature as such, other than symbolically. Thus, symbolic images of Old Testament theophanies are not yet icons in a true sense. But the icon of Christ is different. With bodily eyes, the hypostasis of the Logos (Word of God, the Son) could be seen in the flesh, although its divine essence remained hidden; it is this mystery of the Incarnation which makes possible the sacred icons and requires their veneration.

The defense of images forced Byzantine thought to reaffirm the full concrete humanity of Christ – one of the primary reasons why we use icons. If an additional doctrinal stand against Monophysitism was necessary, it was taken by the Byzantine Church in the eighth and ninth centuries. But it is important to recognize that this stand was made neither at the expense of the doctrine of the hypostatic union nor at that of the Cyrillian understanding of the hypostatic identity of the incarnate Logos, but in the light of the former Christological formulations. The victory over iconoclasm was a reaffirmation of Chalcedonian and post-Chalcedonianm Christology.

So if people ever ask you why we use icons in our church, you can tell them that it reaffirms our belief that Jesus was fully both God and Man. They also reaffirm that His divinity did not force His humanity to act in any certain way. Truly a Mystery!

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20150125

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In this article I have been spending some time on the concept of the Real Presence of Christ in Holy Communion/Eucharist. I believe that it is critical that we come to a true understanding of this idea. It seems that a good portion of Christianity, other than Catholic and Orthodox people, have reduced Holy Communion to some sort of symbolic presence. It is interesting to note that early Christians actually took the Real Presence for granted. When we read the writings of the Fathers the question is never really raised and they give the impression that there is no real reason to debate this issue. Justin Martyr wrote: This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true and …who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.”

Irenaeus wrote: Christ has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own Blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own Body, from which he gives increase to our bodies.”

It was not truly until the Protestant Reformation in the West that the Catholic Church, and later the Orthodox Churches, put together statements about the Real Presence. These statements     declare that through a spiritual process that is referred to as transubstantiation in the West and in the East as (μετουσίωσις) metousiosis, that the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ Himself. The 1672 Synod held in Jerusalem states: We believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be present, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace … but truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord … and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which, as He hung upon the Cross, was poured out for the life of the world.

In the history of Christian thought, various ways were developed to try to explain how the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ in the eucharistic liturgy. Quite unfortunately, these explanations have become too rationalistic and closely connected with certain human philosophies.

Ask: What do I believe about the Eucharist?

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20150125

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Someone recently asked me: Why do you use the icon of the Transfiguration in this article? The simple answer is: The Lord’s Transfiguration expresses the true focus of Eastern Christian spirituality. The journey of life is all about discovering the life of God within us – to come to a deep and true understanding that God IS the life-force that animates us. Spirituality deals with the transfiguration of my attitudes and behaviors. These are only changed when I begin to recognize that God is within me.

Many people have a strong desire for wholeness and a longing to be fully human. The key is Christ’s incarnation, the mystery of one person in whom divinity and humanity are fully united. If we are looking for the perfect, most spiritual human being, we cannot look elsewhere but at Jesus. It is in Him that the divine and human meet. If we really want to find what is fully human, we have to look at Jesus. If we really want to know who God is, we must look to Jesus. In Him we see that the key to being fully human and, at the same time, fully divine is to be fully loving – that is unconditional love for all others, regardless of who they are and what they do. The incarnation is the full expression of love and love is the nature of God. Whatever helps us to love brings us nearer to God. What the world is looking for is the full expression of love which is fully expressed only by Jesus, the Son of man and the Son of God.

The biggest problem that we encounter in life is our society’s understanding of love. It has truly become skewed because of all the phony ideas that pervade the media. Perhaps the primary characteristic of true love is that it is self-sacrificing and, of course, unconditional. The love that our modern world seems to promote is truly conditional. How many times have we heard: I’ll love you if? It is only when we are willing to give one hundred percent of our love to another, without even an expectation of being loved in return, is our love truly love.

God’s love for us is unconditional. He truly places NO CONDITIONS on His love for us.             Think about this!

January 18, 2015

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20150118This weekend the Church begins a five week sequence of Gospel stories which are meant to help us understand the idea of metanoia (repentance), the activity that we are especially called to engage in   during the 40 days of the Great Fast (Lent). The Church’s deep psychological insight into human nature; her knowledge of man’s difficulty to concentrate for any length of time; the frightening “worldliness” of human life; and man’s inability to embrace personal change, she invites us to think about and reflect upon why she encourages us to embrace the Great Fast. The Church knows that before we can practice Lent, we must truly understand the meaning and purpose of Lent.

While metanoia must be integrated into the life of any Christian, the Church calls us to make a special effort during Lent to engage in this spiritually transformative process.

So the quest we begin this week is one of discovering the true characteristics of metanoia. It is a process that can help us become more keenly aware of the actual presence, here and now, of the Kingdom of Heaven (God).

The Great Lent is given to us each year as an opportunity to become aware again of God’s promise to us of eternal life. The practices connected with achieving true metanoia can prepare us to celebrate God’s revelation to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Think about the story of Zacchaeus. What does this story about him tell us about metanoia? Indeed the story highlights his desire to see Jesus. He was willing to risk being ridiculed by his peers for foolishly climbing a sycamore tree in order to get a glimpse of Jesus. He had heard about Jesus and felt that somehow Jesus was special and could help him as he struggled through life.

The first characteristic of metanoia is the desire to become all we can be as human beings – to see God’s revelation about human life in the Person of Jesus – the desire to believe that Jesus can help us with life’s struggles.

We know this to be true: humans follow their desires. There is a fundamental psychological truth about human nature captured in the Gospel: Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be. A strong desire overcomes our human limitations. When a person truly and passionately desires something, he will do everything in his power to achieve his desires.

So, the process of metanoia begins when we truly desire to follow Jesus, believing that His teachings can help us to live life. This means that we must desire to reform our thinking and behavior and commit ourselves to become more like Jesus. He truly showed Himself to be Christ, the Anointed One, by desiring to do all in His power to think and act like the Father’s Son. Metanoia means having a true desire to think and act like a child of the heavenly Father as modeled for us by Jesus.

Ask yourself: Do I truly desire to be a child of God, to be like Jesus?

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Faith — 20150118

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patcathThe Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) (Ukrainian: Українська Греко-Католицька Церква – УГКЦ), is the largest Eastern Catholic Church sui juris, particular church in full communion with the West Patriarchal See of Rome. The Head of the Church holds the office of Archbishop-Major of Kyiv-Halych and All Rus, though the hierarchs and faithful of the church have acclaimed their primate Patriarch. Our Church is one of the successor Churches to the acceptance of Christianity by Grand Prince Vladimir the Great of Kyiv in 988. The Church has followed the spread of the Ukrainian diaspora and now has some 40 hierarchs in over a dozen countries on four continents.

Within Ukraine itself, the UGCC is a minority faith of the religious population, being a distant second to the majority Eastern Orthodox faith, albeit they are split into three separate Orthodox Churches: the Church in union with Constantinople; the Church in union with Moscow; and an Autocephalous Church (self-governing). The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is the second largest religious organization in Ukraine in terms of number of communities. In terms of number of faithful, it ranks third in allegiance among the population of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church predominates in three western oblasts of Ukraine, including about half the population of Lviv but constitutes a small minority elsewhere in the country.

What is truly unique about our Church is that, while in union with the Patriarch of Rome, its theology and spirituality, which flows from its liturgical practices, is strictly Eastern and like the Orthodox Churches.

For some years after its union with Rome, it became Latinized, that is it incorporated many Roman Catholic practices and its spirituality wavered from traditional Eastern Christian spirituality. After Vatican II, a Roman Catholic Council, our Church was encouraged to once again embrace Eastern Christian practices and the spirituality that is intrinsic to those practices. Many parishes have begun to embrace a much more authentic Eastern spirituality dependent upon where their pastor was trained. Our Synod of Bishops, which was formed after Ukraine gained its freedom and the Church was able to come out of the underground, have stressed the necessity of parishes embracing Eastern Christian practices, spirituality and, of course, theology.

Eastern Christianity is different than Western Christianity. Each represents a different side to a common coin. As Saint John Paul II exclaimed, the Western and Eastern Churches are like the two lungs of the one Mystical Body of Christ. They each present an authentic approach to Christianity, albeit different. Spirituality must flow from the liturgical practices of each particular Church.

We are different!

Learning Our Faith From the Fathers of the Church — 20150118

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The full dimension of the problem of how to express Who Jesus is, was never directly discussed by Byzantine theologians but there are indications which can help us to understand their position. First their interpretation of such passages as Luke 2:52 (He progressed in age and wisdom). The idea of progress in wisdom implies a degree of ignorance in Jesus, which is confirmed by other well-known passages of the Gospels (e.g., Mark 13:32: As to the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor even the Son, but only the Father). Byzantine thought on this subject may often have been confused by the Evagrian idea that essential knowledge is the very characteristic of humanity before the Fall. Evagrius also thought that Jesus was precisely a created intellect which had preserved this original knowledge. The search for knowledge was indeed conceived, in the Evagrian spiritual tradition—which remained alive in the Christian East – as the very content of spiritual life. This may have contributed to the fact that a majority of Byzantine authors deny any ignorance in Jesus Himself. St. John Damascene wrote: One must know that the Word assumed the ignorant and subjected nature, but thanks to the identity of the hypostasis and the indissoluble union, the Lord’s soul was enriched with the knowledge of things to come and other divine things.

This text certainly represents a clear case of a representative Byzantine author’s affirming that the hypostatic union modified the character of human nature. But this modification was clearly seen in the framework of a dynamic Christology. The humanity of Christ is paschal, in the sense that in it man passes from death to life, from ignorance to knowledge and from sin to righteousness. However, in many less-justifiable cases, the ignorance of   Jesus, as described in the Gospel texts, is simply interpreted as a pedagogical device or appearance on the part of Christ in order to show His condescension. This obviously unsatisfactory solution is rejected by other authors who affirm Christ’s real, human ignorance. Most of the Fathers of the Church admitted that Christ was ignorant of certain things; since He is in all things consubstantial with us, and since we ourselves are ignorant of certain things, it is clear that Christ also suffered ignorance. Scripture says about Christ: He progressed in age and wisdom; this means that He was learning who He did not previously know. Obviously, Byzantine theologians are authentically concerned about recognizing in Christ our fallen humanity, but their minds are less clear about the moment when, in Jesus, this humanity became the transfigured, perfect, and natural humanity of the New Man.

From this you can see that the assertion that Jesus was fully God and Man caused much debate and thought. If Jesus was truly man, then He had to progress in His knowledge of things. Think about this! We believe Jesus IS the God-Man.

 

The Call To Holiness — 20150118

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I have been presenting some ideas about the discipline that is required if we are to effectively respond to the call to holiness. In the last issue I introduced the idea of poverty as one of the disciplines. There is another aspect to poverty which must be considered, that is poverty of spirit. Poverty of spirit, or detachment, goes beyond a simple lifestyle. It means a complete revision of all values because we have found the pearl of great price, union with God, and all other treasures we may possess fade in comparison. We allow the Spirit to direct and transform our thoughts, desires and actions so that all our judgments are those of Christ Himself. This means, of course, that we must first desire to     become like Christ – to respond to God’s call to holiness because we have come to truly believe that this is the meaning and purpose of life.

The call to holiness defines the meaning and purpose of earthly existence. We have been placed here so that we might, by the way that we respond to the challenges presented by life, grow in our image and likeness of God Himself and revealed to us through the Person of Jesus, the Christ. This is what St. Paul means when he says we are to “have the mind of Christ” and, as our Initiation Rites exclaim: “to put on Christ.” To be this deeply touched with the dying and rising of Jesus takes hard work and practice. It demands that we develop a sense of detachment in all areas of life. Detachment is not indifference. People with poverty of spirit care deeply because their perspective is through the eyes of Christ. They do not need to own or control to be happy. They are truly free because they are not ruled by the tyranny   of possessions and selfishness. God has become the source of their inner harmony and peace. We all must ask ourselves these key questions:

 

  • If I take seriously the discipline of poverty, what changes must I make in my life?
  • What are two things I can do to simplify my lifestyle?
  • How can I be successful and assertive in my everyday life and still practice poverty of spirit?

 

Like all things pertaining to our spiritual lives, we must first desire to become a spiritual being, truly believing that this is why we have been given earthly life and that it is to our greatest benefit to pursue this way of living. Of course this means that we must have faith and place our hope and trust in God.

Poverty of Spirit simply means that we have a certain   balance in our lives. We live with the realization that this earthly existence is not all there is and, therefore, we don’t attempt to store up our treasures here on earth but, rather, make our treasure those thinks that surpass time.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20150118

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I have been presenting some ideas about our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It is our belief that in the Holy Eucharist the bread and wine   offered and consecrated are changed into the holy body and precious blood of Christ. This is one of the essential beliefs of our faith. We share this belief with Orthodox Christians.
In the wider context of change, God, by His incarnation in the Person of the Son, effected the change of all humankind into His image and likeness. This is the why Eastern Christians talk about Theosis, that is deification. What is offered to us by the Incarnate Christ, through the Eucharist and through our being faithful to our discipleship, is a change that will reach to the roots of our being – not some change simply in how we are regarded, nor even a change in our behavior (though that will certainly take place), but a fundamental change so that the roots from which our actions flow are transformed, deified, and what others experience at our hands is the cherishing love of God Himself. We were created and placed on earth to discover this meaning of life.

Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

The language of symbolism does not conflict with the language of change in the Eucharist. The symbols (transformed bread and wine) point to the change involved in the whole cosmos, through the human and with the human, as it is drawn more deeply into union with God. If we emphasize the symbolic world within which the mysteries operate, then we shall see the world of the sacraments opening up and indeed corresponding more closely to the way the notion of mystery is used by the Fathers. In other words, as we see the changed bread and wine as symbols of changed humanity and creation, we begin to understand what God accomplished through His entrance into His creation.

The Eucharist is a true symbol of what happens to us when we embrace the Way of Jesus – when we are truly changed and become, like Jesus, the Anointed of God.

As you know, Roman Catholicism offers philosophical ideas about the change that is produced within the bread and wine of the Eucharist in order to secure the idea of the Real Presence of Christ. It is a dogma that the very substance of the bread and wine are changed, although the accidents (the external characteristics) of these two foods, remain the same, giving the appearance of bread and wine but truly becoming the Body and Blood of Christ.
This is a mystery. Eastern Christianity doesn’t attempt to explain how it happens but, rather, focuses on the fact that it also represents what happens to us if we truly embrace the Jesus way of living. When we live as Jesus lived we are transformed into God’s image and likeness.

 

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20150118

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We have been considering that which is considered Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews. The author’s (perhaps not Paul) repeated use of the Jewish Bible tells us something about the community. Not only does it suggest that the Old Testament (OT) was of great importance to its members, but also that he could count on their recognizing the verses he quoted and the allusions he made. This suggests it was made up of Christian Jews or God-lovers and most likely both. Most God-lovers knew the Jewish Bible well from their attachment to synagogues. This is further reinforced by the exhortations against apostasy (renunciation of one’s religious faith or moral principles) from the Christian faith and the demonstration that the old covenant has been superseded. Although many scholars propose a Gentile-Christian group, and the view has even been put forth that the word was intended for a group of Jews who had broken with orthodox Judaism but were not convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, the arguments for these positions, particularly the latter, are not convincing. In favor of the former position, such texts as 3:12; 6:1; and 9:14 are adduced and it is claimed that to speak of falling away from the living God shows that the apostasy the author feared was a relapse into paganism, not Judaism, and that the references to laying the foundation of faith in God and to worshiping the living God indicate that the readers had been converted from paganism. But the author’s concept of the living God is of a God who has manifested Himself by His acts and by His speaking to man. The expression the living God means, for the author, the God Who has revealed Himself through Jesus. Consequently, a return to Judaism would be apostasy from the living God. The author’s concern to show that the sacrificial cult of the OT had been replaced by Christ’s sacrifice does not prove beyond a doubt that he was writing to converts from  Judaism. In Galatians, written to Gentile Christians, Paul insists upon their freedom from the Mosaic Law. Hebrew’s author focuses on the replacement of the old covenant and its cult. This is best explained by the hypothesis that Hebrews was intended for Jewish Christians, and, unlike the case of Galatians, there is no indication that the addressees were Gentiles who had become attracted to OT institutions through outside influence.

There is no consensus about the date of Hebrews. Estimates range from 60 to the early 90s C.E. Though the document emphasizes the temple, the high priesthood, and sacrifice, it does not mention the destruction of the temple and the end of sacrifice in the year 70. Thus some scholars argue that it must have been written before 70. Other scholars, at least a slight majority, are not persuaded by the lack of reference to the events of 70. On the whole, the date later than 70 seems likely. The situation is similar to that of Matthew’s Gospel, the 80s or 90s.