The Call To Holiness — 20141207

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CaptureTo become a Vibrant Christians, that is persons who realize that we are called to holiness through the particular journey of life given to us, we must become aware of the obstacles that can impede our journey. One of the first obstacles is anxiety about the future! Anxiety about the future can prevent us from being open and taking necessary risks in the present. All progress in life requires that we take risks. Excessive anxiety about the future can produce fear, despair and pessimism and create massive roadblock on the spiritual journey. The struggle and the strategy is to face these anxieties about the future and, by truly recognizing their presence and power in our lives, work to remove them one by one. If we see that we are actually powerless over some of them, we may hear the invitation to turn our lives completely over to God. In fact the best strategy is to do that right from the very beginning and then build your trust that our loving God will be with you through the struggle.

One way to get started on this is to actually sit down and list the biggest fears, worries and anxieties you have about the future. Quite often when we see them written out we realize they are not so formidable.

List all of the worries, fears and anxieties in two columns under the headings:

Things I Can Do Something About, and

Things I Can Do Nothing About

For each item listed under the first column, write the specific thing you can do to change it. For those you can’t do anything about, consciously turn them over to God. These intentional acts can help you to meet the obstacles you face on your journey. Another common obstacle on the journey is negative, irrational ideas. At the heart of many of these negative ideas is a feeling that people have little control over their own lives and the world they live in. Also, it seems that many of these ideas come from our childhood. These may be the more difficult ones to extricate from our lives. If we don’t make every effort to root them out, they unconsciously dictate how we react to the things of life. A true assessment and survey of our negative, irrational ideas is essential if we wish to make any program in our spiritual lives. Socrates said: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” In so very many ways I have found, as I have studied the teachings of Jesus, that He was constantly exhorted people to examine their lives and replace negative thought and ideas with positive ones. Perhaps the most important ones that Jesus revealed is that we human beings are truly children of God, made in His image and likeness!

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20141207

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There is yet another form of prayer that is recognized in the Eastern Church, it is called the Many-to-One Prayer. We must always remember that on our Spiritual Journey – the Journey of Life – we are not isolated individuals, each groping our own lonely way on our own separate paths. Even though each person’s journey is unique, we still are on a common journey with   others. With them we reach out to God. With them we encounter Father, Son and Holy Spirit in various ways. We can call this common reaching out to God the Many-To-One form of prayer, or even the Prayer of Encounter because Jesus promised, “Where two or three of you are gathered in my name, there I am in your midst.” In meeting one another,   believers meet the Lord. When believers gather, Jesus is present and praying with them. He is part of the many who are reaching out to the Father. In meeting one another we become Church, which Paul describes as the Body of Christ, with Christ being the head and the rest of us being the members of this one body.

This prayer of encounter takes many different forms. When people gather to celebrate the Eucharist, they meet the Lord not only as individuals but as a group. The individual’s voice is joined to that of the group; the individual’s needs are joined to the needs of all the others in the group. Together, all those present and the entire Church reach out to the Lord in response to the Lord’s reaching into their lives. Because the believers are gathered   by the power of the Holy Spirit, what happens when they come together is more than the sum of our individual efforts.

Sometimes people find it difficult to meet God through a formal religious ritual because the words and actions are foreign to their experience. The words of the ritual are not their own and are not understood by them. This is one reason why I have shared with you my Liturgical Scavenger Hunt, to help all of us make the words and ideas of the Divine Liturgy our own words and ideas!

Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20141207

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As my readers may have already deduced from previous issues of this article, I have been presenting information on how the Fathers of the Church, after great debate, finally came to the formation of a dogmatic statement about Who the Church believes Jesus is. The theology of the Fathers and of the Ecumenical Councils came to this: the possibility of two different natures being united in one single existence is possible in regard to God and man since both divinity and the humanity have a common mode of existence, the person. They argued that the Person precedes the Essence and informs the Essence, making it a concrete existence. They also asserted that the image of this divine mode of     existence has been imprinted on human nature. Man was formed not only in the image of God but also in His likeness. His personal existence constitutes the possibility of man’s attaining, at some time, the freedom of life which characterizes God Himself. Eternal life which is not bound by natural limitations.

While I will admit that this is fairly dense and philosophical, it does tell us that all the efforts of the Fathers in coming to some understanding of how God could take on human nature and still be fully God and fully man, is also the basis of the Fathers’ understanding of who we are as human beings. We are both human and divine because we share in God’s own life. We, ourselves, are a mystery. The Fathers also argued that the first man, Adam, refused to realize this potential. God, then, intervened, not in order to compel man to be like Him, but in order to be Himself like man, by guiding the personal potential of human nature to the accomplishment unattainable before He became incarnate and then showed man this potential.

It is important to note, I believe, that the dogmas of the Church are not meant to be abstract statements that are philosophical/theological but rather statements that can help us understand who we are in God’s creation and Who God is.

When you think about the history of Christianity, three things become immediately evident as break-troughs in human thought: (1) God is a Triune Being, that is Three Persons in One; (2) God became Incarnate in human history as a human being; and (3) human beings were created with the potential to become like God Himself. There are no other religions that have proposed this type of thinking about God and man. I sense the truth about these three concepts because they are beyond human conceptualization and appear to be divinely inspired and proven by the life of the Person of Jesus.

I don’t know if my readers appreciate the profoundness of the Christian faith, at least as it is expressed by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Let us be thankful for our faith and religion.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20141207

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In the past, the gifts were prepared not behind the Iconastasis but in a side chapel. People would bring the bread and wine. As is the tradition in the Orthodox Church, people who were desirous of the priest praying for someone, would bring a small loaf of bread and a slip of paper   containing the names of those from whom they were asking him to pray. He would then cut a small host out of the loaf for each of the people he was asked to pray and place it on the paten. In Orthodox Churches small loafs are still sold to people in the vestibule.

This custom tells us that the bread that we consecrate represents not only Christ but also all the people for whom we pray. You are a host, a small piece of bread, on the paten and you (your life) is not only consecrated but offered to God together with Jesus.

In the Eastern Church there is great symbolism connected to the bread and wine that we consecrate. The bread is made out of many grains of wheat. The wine is made out of many grapes. This is to symbolize that we are all together, with Christ, in offering our lives to Him in deep thanksgiving for the gift of life.

The Great Entrance symbolically tells us that the purpose of our life’s journey is to return to heaven (the altar area). It is a good practice, and we rightfully do it, to follow the priest carrying the bread that represents us through the temple and to the very Throne of God. I believe this   symbolism to be very powerful, if we think about it. I would encourage all to think about this as the Great Entrance is made. Visualize the gifts representing your body and blood as they do the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

In the early Church it was after the Great Entrance that the potential converts were dismissed from the temple. They were not allowed to recite the Creed. In fact the old text of the Liturgy had these words: The doors, the doors, in wisdom let us be attentive to introduce the Creed. The Catechumens (i.e., those preparing to be initiated into the Church) were dismissed at this time and the doors locked so that non-believers could not see or hear what transpired next, namely the recitation of the things that the Christians believe and then the consecration of the gifts.

As I shared with you in the last issue, before the Creed is recited the celebrant exhorts those present to love one another so that all present can profess belief in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit through the recitation of the Creed.

One of the reasons why we do not sing the Creed is to make sure all present can recite it. I would exhort all to recite the Creed with great thoughtfulness. Please don’t rush it but pray it thoughtfully. It contains a statement of what we believe.

Our Spiritual Journey Through the St. Philip’s Fast, December 7th

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Heavenly Father, the days of preparation for the winter feasts are quickly passing. In just a few weeks the great feast of Your incarnation as man will be celebrated. You came, I truly believe, in the Person of Your Son Jesus, Who is the Christ – the Anointed One. As this feasts grows ever closer, the society in which I live grows ever more frenetic. Help me to remain calm and keep my focus on spiritually   preparing myself to celebrate Christmas not as a holiday but truly as a Holy Day. Help me to truly celebrate the fact that You became a human person in order to help me understand how to live this earthly life in order to spiritually grow and become evermore like the child You intended when You created me. Help me to truly grateful for the love You have shown toward me and others. Help me to understand what You intended to reveal to me and others through Your incarnation as a human. Help me to know that You are With Us. I ask Your help and offer praise to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen.

Our Spiritual Journey Through the St. Philip’s Fast, December 6th

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stnicholasofmyraHeavenly Father, help me today to remember our Father among the Saints, Nicholas of Myra. Indeed he is a real example and model for me and others. He dedicated his life to serving You by loving and helping others. He frequently saved others by sharing his resources. His works of charity are legend. I beg You, Almighty God, to give me the courage to imitate his saintly life. I know that I have been called to holiness, to imitate Your Son Jesus as St. Nicholas did. I need Your help to accomplish this task and thank You in   advance. As I ask Your help I offer praise to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen.

Our Spiritual Journey Through the St. Philip’s Fast, December 5th

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O Most Merciful Father in heaven, help me to continue my personal preparation to celebrate the great winter feasts. Help me to understand that in the events I am preparing to celebrate with others in my Christian Community – the events wherein You make Yourself manifest as a human being for the sake of my salvation – that these events speak of Your great love not only for me and other humans but for Your entire creation. You have filled all things with Your Life out of love for Your creation. Help me to truly understand this and do all in my power to cherish the Life You are sharing with me. Help me also, in response to Your great love, extend love unconditionally to all others. I know that the only adequate response to Your love is my love for others. I ask Your help and offer praise to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen.

Our Spiritual Journey Through the St. Philip’s Fast, December 4th

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O Eternal God, Who has revealed to the world that You are Three-In-One and have actually, in time, taken on human flesh to assure me that you know the struggles that I must face as a human being, help me to understand the great love You have for me and all humankind. Help me to see that You came into the world in order to truly show me how to live in order to experience the fullness of life. Help me to also understand, as I think about Your birth as a child in a manger in Bethlehem, that the cultivation of true humility is one of the greatest things I can do in order to gain the true benefit that this earthly life is designed to offer me. Help me to prepare myself to celebrate the fact that You are truly with me, helping me to deal with the challenges of life. I ask Your help and offer praise to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen.

Our Spiritual Journey Through the St. Philip’s Fast, December 3rd

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O Father in heaven, let me pour out my tears in place of myrrh and offer them to You, as Jesus Christ our true God, born in the flesh for my sake and that of all humankind. Help me to purify my flesh of its iniquities so that I might approach Christ, Your beloved Son, with purity of mind and heart and say, “All you works of the Lord, bless the Lord! Exalt Him through all ages.” Help me, O Lord, to really understand why You became man and spent Your human life teaching others how to live. I ask Your help and offer praise to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen

Our Spiritual Journey Through the St. Philip’s Fast, December 2nd

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Merciful Father and our incarnate God, You opened up for us the way to salvation, the way to understanding the true purpose for our existence here on earth. Because of Your great love for me, You actually came into my world in the Person of Jesus, Your beloved Son, to share with me how to live this earthly life so that I might truly develop myself as Your child and, therefore, come to know You as my loving Father. Help me to place no more obstacles in my way to becoming Your true child. I ask Your help and offer praise to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen.