The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20150118

Posted on by

Salvation is not arithmetic. It is worked out in the secret chamber of the heart, in silent tears, in invisible changes which no metric system can measure. It is really not   something that we can achieve by our various acts of penance or works of mercy. Salvation is not achieved by doing a sufficient amount of fasting, praying or works of mercy. This truth often throws modern people for a loop since we have come to believe that what we do should merit or not merit salvation. The things we do can only dispose us to open our hearts and minds to be more like Jesus, thus allowing us to truly accept the gift of salvation from our Heavenly Father. Salvation is a gift from God that is given when we open ourselves to the movement of the Holy Spirit within us.

Like life itself, salvation is God’s gift to those who dispose themselves to receive His gift. What is needed is humility and poverty of spirit which can compel us to seek, to ask and to pray. These are signs of trust and dependence upon God and not on our own merits.

One who is on the path to renewal is not irritated by the severity of the divine commandments. They are guides to help us govern our behaviors. Keeping them does not automatically merit salvation.

The Christian differs from others in several ways: his understanding of God to whom he is responsible, his participation in the mystical Body of Christ, his reckoning with human sin, and his vision of human perfection in Christ. He sees in Jesus a model for how to live this earthly life and how to bring about spiritual growth. Christians live in this world with hope in Christ’s final victory over the powers of this age. Christians live in this world with the belief that in the fullness of time all life will be transformed beyond imagining. This is expressed in the Bible as “a new heaven and a new earth.” This transformation is not, however, a completion of our human plans and goals, but of God’s plan for   humanity and all creation. As one author said: God’s plan is for all creation to gradually evolve into complete unity with Him.

Salvation is intimately bound up with our ability to hope and trust in God. Prayer, fasting and works of

January 11, 2015

Posted on by

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested He withdrew to Galilee.
From that time on Jesus began to proclaim this theme:
“Reform your lives! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

sunposttheoThe arrest of John marks the end of the period of preparation for the Messiah which it was his mission to preach. On receiving the news of it, Jesus begins His mission as Messiah.  Matthew, who is so careful to show that even Jesus’ geographical movements are intended to fulfill the prophecies, explains that the move to Capharnaum too fulfills a prophecy. This is why he quotes the passage from Isaiah. While Nazareth is in the territory of Zebulun, Capharnaum is in that of Naphtali, on the ’way of the sea’, which was understood by Matthew as the main road which runs from Damascus, round the North end of the sea of Galilee, down to Egypt.

Capharnaum became the home town of Jesus, though he visits Nazareth once more, only to be rejected there. The Gospel of Luke advances this visit and rejection in order to motivate Jesus’ change of residence.

Jesus proclaims the message put by Matthew also in the Baptist’s mouth: ‘repentance’ or metanoia. The reason given is that the Kingdom of Heaven has come. The concept of the messianic kingdom, already used in Mark’s Gospel 15 times, is given enormous prominence by Matthew who uses it 52 times.

Unlike Mark who uses the phrase Kingdom of God, Matthew uses Kingdom of Heaven, a typical Jewish circumlocution of respect that avoids using the name of God and substitutes   His dwelling place. In the Old Testament, God Himself is king over the world in virtue of creation, and more especially of Israel. Gradually it came to be seen that this kingship of God was to be established in a special way by a messianic king.

So what message does this have for us today? It captures, I believe, the core or God’s revelation through Jesus. It states that God’s Kingdom is here right now and it is given to help us grow as spiritual human beings – children of God. This can, however, only be accomplished by metanoia, that is changing the way we think and behave. Human behavior is controlled by our thinking.

The problem is, as I see it, that in order for us to change how we think we must first become aware of how we think. The thinking of most people is based on their learning as children – behavior is controlled by unconscious thoughts and ways of thinking. So, the first order of business must become self-reflection and self-assessment. More often than not, however, we are afraid to make an accurate assessment of our thinking.

The Call To Holiness — 20150111

Posted on by

In the last issue of this article, I suggested that personal disciple is required if we are to truly respond to God’s call to holiness. The Gospels indicate several forms of discipline fundamental for all Christians. As the Church grew in her understanding of how to help Christians   respond to this call to holiness, she discovered that three disciples came to mind as helpful: poverty,     chastity and obedience. Because men and women who embrace the religious life take these vows, those who are not in religious life tend to think that these vows are not an essential part of the spiritual journey.

Our American lifestyle is, many spiritual writers will agree, is one of the greatest challenges Christians in this country face on the journey. Advertising constantly tells people to surround themselves with the newest and best of everything – salvation and happiness are only one more purchase away. Because of this great emphasis on consumerism, material things can very easily and very subtly become the center of attention and the goal of life.

The discipline of poverty helps people come to terms with the ideal lifestyle present by our culture. Christian poverty is the discipline by which believers express their values in the way they use their time and money. Poverty, like discipline, is a word with many negative connotations. Most people tend to think it means destitution, the lack of all material possessions and of all provisions for the future. Rather, poverty simply means that our resources of time and money are allotted in a planned pattern to enhance our relationship with God and neighbor. It is the only way not to absolutized one’s wealth. Only poverty can keep us from making money and possessions a false God that dominates our vision of life, our feelings and all our decisions.

The important thing to remember is the goodness and generosity of God. When we begin to think that the things we have are all the result of our hard work, we begin to lose a real understanding of God’s generosity and goodness. This is the true meaning of the words that we pray during the Ambon Prayer – the prayer of Thanksgiving   during regular Divine Liturgies: For every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from You, the Father of lights. It is easy, unfortunately, for people who are hard workers to think that all that they have is the result of their hard work. The spirituality of our Eastern Church constantly reminds us that everything we have is the result of God’s goodness and generosity.

This is a part of the challenge that comes from the call to holiness. The challenge is to think about all we have as gifts from our loving God. This is true poverty. Think about this ask yourself: Do I believe all I have is from God!

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20150111

Posted on by

hebrewsThe next book chronologically of the New Testament (NT) that needs to be considered is the Letter to Hebrews which is attributed to Paul. The letter is exceptionally rich. Its central and best-known metaphor presents Jesus as the “great high priest” who offers Himself as the “once for all” sacrifice. Its chapter on faith is one of the most famous in the NT. Its creative use of texts from the Jewish Bible, especially from Psalms and the prophets, is powerful.

Scholars have decided that we do not know who wrote it. In the 200s, an early Christian theologian named Origen said that its author “was known only to God.” In the centuries since, there have been guesses. Around the year 400, Augustine and Jerome suggested it was written by Paul and thus it has sometimes been called the fourteenth letter of Paul. But there is no reason to think Paul wrote it and many reasons to think he did not. Other guesses have included Barnabas, Apollos and Priscilla. None is persuasive and modern scholarship agrees with Origen: God only knows who wrote it.

We also do not know to whom it was written. Unlike most NT letters, it does not name its audience. The title “to the Hebrews” was added in the second century and is potentially misleading. “Hebrews” is most commonly a synonym for “Jews,” but the document is clearly written to Christians. Moreover, though the document does not have the typical     characteristics of a letter, its contents make it clear that it was meant for a particular community, not for a category of people like “the Hebrews” or “the Jews” or Christians in general.

From the document itself we learn a few things about the author. His use of Greek and his literary style were very sophisticated, perhaps the best in the NT. He knew the Old Testament (OT) very well, quoting it thirty times, sometimes at considerable length and alluding to it     another seventy times. He was brilliant, creatively weaving together evocative readings of texts from the Jewish Bible with a presentation of Jesus as the Son of God, who is also the great high priest and sacrifice.

We also learn some things about the community. It was made up of second-generation or later Christians. They had experienced suffering and persecution (though apparently not fatal). Some were considering abandoning Christianity and, perhaps, some had. The community may have been in Italy. “Those from Italy send you greetings” probably refers to the destination of the letter, not the location of the author. If in Italy, then perhaps it was sent to Rome.

As early as the end of the second century the Eastern churches had accepted Hebrews as an inspired work composed by Paul, but until the second half of the fourth century, the churches of the West questioned Paul as author. The letter of Clement of Rome (96 CE) cites the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20150111

Posted on by

As my readers may have guessed, this article has been dealing with the mystery of Jesus, the Christ. It has highlighted the great struggle the Fathers of the Church went through in trying to find the right words to express how Jesus could be both totally God and Man without one nature controlling the other (The Second Person of God, the Word, not   controlling the Man Jesus. The Fathers saw this as extremely important so that we can look to Jesus as a model of how we should live as children of God).

An often-recurring criticism of Byzantine Christology, as it was defined by the Fifth Council, is that it, in fact, had betrayed Chalcedon by assuring the posthumous triumph of the one-sided views of Alexandrian Christology. Assumed by the divine hypostasis of the Logos, the humanity of Christ, according to these critics, would have been deprived of an authentically human character. One author wrote: “In Alexandrian Christology, there will never be any place for a true psychology of Christ, for a real cult of the Savior’s humanity, even if the assumption by the Word of a human soul is expressively recognized.” Another author maintains: “The tendency of the East to see Christ more and more as God (a tendency which is so marked in its liturgy) betrays a certain exclusivism which will increase after the schism.” This “neo-Chalcedonism” of the Byzantines is thus opposed to true Chalcedonian Christology and branded as a crypto-Monophysitism; it consists essentially in an understanding   of the hypostatic union which would so modify the human properties of Jesus that He would no longer be fully man.

From this we can see that this was not an easy debate. How do we make Jesus, the Man, real and yet believe that Jesus is the Word of God – equally God and Man.

It is undoubtedly true that Byzantine theology and spirituality are very conscious of the real uniqueness of the personality of Jesus and are reluctant to investigate His human “psychology”. A balanced judgment on this subject, however, can be attained only if one keeps in mind not only the doctrine of the hypostatic union but also the prevailing Eastern view of what “natural” man is. For, in Jesus, the new Adam, “natural” humanity has been restored. As we have seen, “natural” man was considered as participating in the glory of God. Such a man, undoubtedly, would no longer be fully subject to the laws of “fallen” psychology. These laws, however, were not simply   denied in Jesus, but seen in the light of soteriology (i.e., the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ). This is how the   concept of Theosis came into existence.

Hopefully my readers will, at this point, stop and think about this. It is a critical that we believe that Jesus was both fully God and Man. While His divine Person joined the two natures it did not dictate how His humanity lived and acted. This is critical because we are called to live the Way Jesus Lived. He has to be truly human.

Understanding our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Faith — 20150111

Posted on by

winter theophaniesOur Church, as does all the Eastern Christian churches, presents three theophanies as part of a winter cycle of feasts. This cycle includes: Christmas, Theophany and, finally the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. The Presentation, which is celebrated on February 2, is the fortieth day after the Lord’s birth. This final feast is closely connected to the Nativity of Christ and, in some ways, returns us back to the time when Jesus as a child.

While the sequence of this presentation of these various theophanies of God may seem inappropriate to some, it is important to remember the chronological sequence in which these feasts were established. The unique sequence of feasts as we celebrate them is due to how they were established.

The first Theophany that was recognized by the early Church was the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. This signaled the beginning of His ministry. It also set the stage for Jesus being     recognized by the Church as both God and Man. We saw in the prayers that we offered, that the Trinity was seen in the Lord’s Baptism. The revelation of God as Three-In-One made it     possible for the Church to see Jesus as the God-Man. This, inspiration then, led to the Church to gradually establish other feasts which could replace pagan and Jewish feasts.

For example, the feast of the Presentation originated in Jerusalem in the second half of the fourth century. It was established after the feast of the Lord’s Nativity since it wasn’t until the     fortieth day that any woman who gave birth to a male child was readmitted to the Temple. The forty days were called “days of purification”. When this period was ended, the mother of the child went to the temple and offered, if she was poor, a pair of turtle doves. In addition to this, another rite was performed over the firstborn male on the fortieth day – the rite of offering him up to God.

The Church began to recognize all of these events in the life of Jesus as theophanies, that is events wherein God made Himself know to mankind. They are thought of as theophanies because, after the Church declared that Jesus was the God-Man, they also manifested God present in Creation. The Resurrection of Jesus was feast from the beginning of the Church. That feast alone did not signal Jesus as the God-Man

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20150111

Posted on by

As the Eastern Church understands God, the Lord of love does not impose Himself on us. Neither may we storm heaven’s gates. Like any loving and mutual relationship, this one can only be freely entered. The Lord has made His choice – He loves us and desires us with a passion, the ultimate Passion. He is ours if we want Him. He awaits our passionate         response, our free decision to receive His embrace, to surrender ourselves to Him who already surrendered   Himself to us.

This is always what happens in mutual relationships and is, perhaps the most difficult thing for most people to do. To surrender to another means to make oneself vulnerable and also, in some regard, dependent. That is why it is so hard. It requires commitment, which, in our modern world, seems to be something that people find very, very difficult. (Just think about the percentage of marriages that end in divorce. It is well over 50 percent. Most people admit that divorce is the result of a real lack of a firm commitment to the other).

Morality and spirituality go together, the former being the foundation and outer form of the latter. Spiritual, perfection is not simply the automatic outcome of “good” works. Spirituality should not be understood and cannot be measured in terms of some number of pious deeds or ascetic feats and practices. Ethical and ascetic practices are measured not by their quantity but by their inner motivation – that is, the humility in them and the love for God and creation from which they spring. How, otherwise, could one evaluate the forgiveness of the crucified thief on the cross by Jesus, no virtue having been presented save only the sorrowful acknowledgement of his sinfulness and his desire for forgiveness. According to our human criteria, he did not merit such clemency. Neither did the adulterous woman who was forgiven not because she did something worthy but because she loved much. This amazing and unusual basis for evaluation which permeates the whole of Eastern spirituality is clearly reflected in the hymnography, which constantly presents models of sincere repentance.

I believe that it is important, at this point, to stop and think about this!

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20150111

Posted on by

I ended the last issue of this article with comments on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Indeed this is one of the most profound mysteries in which we believe and one which, after the Reformation in the West, many Christian groups have come to deny. It should be noted that the Eastern churches have never denied belief in the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is present in a wholly unique manner in the Eucharist. This presence is called real – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be real too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes Himself wholly and entirely present.

In the Eucharist the bread and wine are changed into Christ Himself, for Christ is really present in the Eucharist – really and permanently present, as the Liturgy of the Presanctified gifts make clear. There is a real change of the bread and wine in the Eucharist.

But the change needs to be put in a broader context, if we are to grasp its significance. If the notion of the change is isolated, there is the danger of trying to find some change analogous to the kind of change that takes place, for example, in a chemical reaction – precisely what the Latin doctrine of transubstantiation was seeking to avoid, and not at any perceptible level, whether appearance or anything else that could be detected by human methods of assessment. As the Reformation debates made clear, that danger was not always avoided either by those who insisted on the eucharistic change or by those who denied it.

The wider context is made clear if we look at the prayer of invocation, or epiclesis in the Anaphora of St. John Chrysostom’s Liturgy. The priest prays: Moreover, we offer to You this     spiritual and unbloody sacrifice, and we implore, pray and entreat You: send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts lying before us and make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ….And that which is in this chalice, the precious Blood of Your Christ….Changing Them by Your Holy Spirit.

The invocation to the Holy Spirit is for Him to descend on us and the gifts. We pray that the Holy Spirit may change the gifts of bread and wine into the precious body and blood of Christ and that the Holy Spirit, coming on us, may work a change in us who receive them.

This is where we will begin in the next issue. The change happens. It is truly a mystery that we believe and don’t even really hope to explain.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20150104

Posted on by

Eastern spirituality really stresses the fact that God wants sons and daughters, not slaves. St. Paul speaks about “sonship by grace.” God respects the free will of His children, as clearly seen in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. We see this in the father’s response both to the son’s departure and the son’s return. Man can change with God’s help.

But God never imposes grace on the human will. He seeks our consent. When a person consents, he cooperates with his whole will, spirit and heart. This is truly the beginning of spiritual life, a most beautiful mystery.

Man’s greatness is not in his creatureliness but in his resemblance to the Creator. He is “self-governed,” ruled by his own will, in the image of the one who rules over all. Yet such “lordship” is accomplished only with the help of God. Man depends on God’s assistance. He is a “referential” being, who must continuously refer to God for help and guidance.

Men and women are beings of infinite desire. They long for the endless, the infinite. This is because, by our nature, we are relative, fragile, ephemeral. There will always be an emptiness to be filled, a spiritual void, until we are perfected in Christ. The whole process of Theosis is meant to bring this reality about in our lives.

Real life in Christ is a steady process of true spiritual unfolding. It cannot be rushed or forced along, any more than a flower can be forced to bloom. Divine grace cannot be stolen from heaven. It is given as a gift from the hand of Christ, as part and parcel of our relationship with our Triune God. God is the Lord, the giver of every good and perfect gift. We pray this in our Divine Liturgy. The Father knows our need better than we do. He gave His Son to us. He gives us His Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth who is everywhere present and filling all things. This comes directly from our Prayer to the Holy Spirit that we say on Pentecost.

The pace of our spiritual development is

January 4, 2015

Posted on by

You have revealed Yourself to the world today, and Your light, O Lord,
has shined upon us. We recognize You and exclaim to You:
You have come and revealed Yourself, O Inaccessible Light!
Kondak of Theophany

theophany

Theophany is the original feast that celebrates God’s manifestation of Himself to humankind in the person of Jesus. It celebrates one of the events that took place at the beginning of His ministry. It was, therefore, remembered by the early Christians. It wasn’t until much after His death that Christians began to look into other events in His life and begin establishing feasts to remember the events.

This manifestation is of great significance since it revealed, once Christians thought about it and decided that Jesus was also God, that through Jesus God revealed Himself to be Three Persons in One Godhead. If God were only one person, He could not have joined Himself to His creation and remain also God. As a Trinity of Persons, it is quite conceivable that He joined Himself to His creation through the Second Person, the Son – that He became incarnate as a human.

Only Christianity’s belief in the Trinity allows it, out of the three Abrahamic, monotheistic religions, to believe that God understands what it means to be human. God, through the Person of Jesus, actually experienced human life on this earth, thus giving God great insight into what it means to be a human.

When you think about this unique belief you can easily understand why it took the Church more than three centuries to find the right words and ideas to express it. The evidence was so great, as the Church reviewed the life and activities of Jesus, that it was guided by God’s Spirit to come to this conclusion. Neither Judaism or Islam, guarding so rigidly the idea of One God, can come to this conclusion about God.

By using Greek philosophical words and ideas, Christianity has been able to maintain that God is One and yet a Trinity of Persons. This idea of God becoming a man in order to reveal to humankind how to make use of this earthly   existence, just makes so much more sense to me and, I believe, expresses God’s great love for humankind.

The God of Christianity truly knows the struggles that are a part of human life. He also knows that the way He   created human life is good since it allows for free will and, at the same time, opportunities to spiritually grow. I don’t know about you, but I would rather worship a God Who loves me.

Theophany speaks of God’s love.