Called To Holiness — 20140907

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I have been suggesting in this article that the call to holiness necessarily involves a call to change the way that we think about God, life, ourselves and others. I suggested that it is imperative that we, if we want to respond correctly to God’s call, honestly assess what we really think about these four different things, especially how we think about life itself.

I find that one of the areas that people typically have a lot of mixed and confused thoughts about is LIFE and the challenges of life. First, many people seem to feel that the difficult challenges of life are, in some way, a punishment from an angry God. Second, many people feel that the events of life are either good or bad, fair or unfair.

One of the questions I typically ask people who tell me that the challenges they face are unfair is: Why are they unfair? It is all a matter of how we interpret the events of life.

It seems that most people have a fantasy of what they believe life should be like and anytime that the events of life differ from their fantasy they classify them as bad or unfair. This attitude is fueled, I believe, by a dangerous misperception, namely that humans are the creators of life and, as creators, should be able to dictate what life should be like. People with this attitude fail to realize that earthly life is something shared with us and designed to help us grow and change over the course of its term. This earthly existence has a purpose, namely to help us spiritually grow and come to a deeper understanding of God and how He intends His universe to function. God did not intend, when He created us, that we would have control over our own lives. He knew that we would never spiritual grow if we had control over life. He intends us to learn from earthly life – learn how to live as a spiritual being, that is one of His children.

When we think about this we must ask, What are spiritual beings like? They are beings that have learned how to love and forgive unconditionally and to treat others as they would have themselves treated and, definitely, not judge others. These are the key powers that make us truly beings that are made in the image and likeness of God. For those are His primary characteristics. He is a being who does all of these things. How do I know this? I look to His incarnated Person, Jesus Christ. This is how Jesus lived. He made manifest God’s way of living. God did this as a human being in order to reveal to us that we are capable of living in this manner – living in the manner He intended when He created us!

August 31, 2014

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God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in Him may not die but may have eternal life

Universal Call to Holiness

Universal Call to Holiness

As we begin this new Church Year, the Church focuses our attention on the Cross of Christ. Our calendar sets forth three weekends on which we are called to consider the wonder and mystery of God’s revelation to us through Jesus and His Cross, the instrument of His physical death. There is a weekend before and after the actual feast of the Exaltation (September 14th) on which we are called to consider the meaning of the Cross.

God has, in history, transformed the cross, once an instrument of death and ignominy, into a symbol of love, bravery, nobility and salvation. It has become the ultimate symbol of commitment to a way of living – to living like Jesus Christ lived. It has become the symbol that allowed Paul to say: May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world!

Think about Paul’s words. For Paul the cross represented a rejection of all the values of the world and a commitment to the values of God’s Kingdom. Christ could have seized power and devastated those who made a mockery of God’s revelation. Instead of fighting those who used power to force their will on others, Jesus quietly surrendered. He stood silent even before His accusers. In acting in this manner, He destroyed their power and revealed to humankind the appropriate way of living.

Some may raise the argument that, although God revealed to humankind how to live, few have embraced the Jesus Way and there is still injustice and war in our world. How do we deal with the tyrants and fanatics that are plaguing our world today? The “terrorists” have literally paralyzed our world and, in many ways, the Jesus Way of living. The big question for us is: How do we deal with extremists and fanatics in a Christian way? Do we just roll over and die? Do we use force?

I noted that our Ecumenical Patriarch Francis, Bishop of Rome, is attempting to wrestle with these questions. There is no easy solution. We have the example of Jesus Christ and we also understand the injustice that is being perpetrated on other human beings. There is no reasoning with fanatics, especially those who feel that it is their calling from their God to dominate the world and force all to their religion.

I don’t pretend to have an answer to these questions. I only pray that I might, in my own little way, attempt to live like Jesus lived, making His attitudes and behaviors my attitudes and behaviors. All I can do is attempt to be authentic in my living the Gospel message – the Good News!

May I never boast of anything but the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20140831

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In order to understand the many major theological problems which arose between East and West, both before and after the schism, the extraordinary impact upon Western thought of Augustine’s polemics against Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum must be fully taken into account. In the Byzantine world, where Augustinian thought truthly exercised practically no influence, the significance of the sin of Adam and of its consequences for mankind was understood along quite different lines.

In the Eastern Church man’s relationship with God is truly understood as a communion of the human person with that which is above nature. “Nature,” therefore, designates that which is, in virtue of creation, distinct from God. But nature can and must be transcended; this is the privilege and the function of the free mind, made “according to God’s image.”

In Greek patristic thought, only this free, personal mind can commit sin and incur the concomitant “guilt” – a point made particularly clear by Maximus in his distinction between “natural will” and “gnomic will.”

The term ‘gnomic’ derives from the Greek gnome, meaning ‘inclination’ or ‘intention’. Within Eastern theology, gnomic willing is contrasted with natural willing. Natural willing designates the free movement of a creature in accordance with the principle of its nature towards the fulfillment of its being. Gnomic willing, on the other hand, designates that form of willing in which a person engages in a process of deliberation culminating in a free choice.

The theology of Maximus was endorsed by the 6th Council when it condemned monothelitism. It stated that Jesus did not possess gnomic will.

Human nature, as God’s creature, always exercises its dynamic properties (which together constitute the “natural will” – a created dynamism) in accordance with the divine will which created it. But when the human person misuses its freedom by rebelling against both God and nature, it can distort the “natural will” and thus corrupt nature itself. It is able to do so because it possesses freedom, or “gnomic will,” which is capable of orienting man toward the good and of “imitating God”. It is also capable of sin, because “our salvation depends on our will”. But sin is always a personal act, never an act of nature.

From these basic ideas about the personal character of sin, it is evident that the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God could be conceived only as their personal sin; there would be no place, then, in such an anthropology for the concept of inherited guilt, or for a “sin of nature,” although it admits that human nature incurs the consequences of Adam’s sin.
This truly takes some reflection!

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20140831

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Gospel-of-Mark-GraphicThe second theme of Mark’s Gospel is announced in 1:14-15: the coming of the kingdom of God. John has been arrested by Herod and the arrest of Jesus’ mentor, John, is the trigger for Jesus to begin His public activity in Galilee. Jesus’ first words, which are Mark’s advance summary of   Jesus’ message, proclaim the good news as the coming of the kingdom of God. It should be noted that this is a repeat of the message that John the Baptizer declared during his ministry.

(It is suggested that you have a copy of Mark’s Gospel in hand when you read this so that you can actually get a sense of what is being shared)

Part One: Galilee

The rest of chapter one through most of chapter eight, which is roughly half of the gospel, narrates     Jesus’ activity in Galilee. He calls disciples who leave everything – livelihood and family – to follow Him. He teaches with authority, and He often uses parables. He exorcises   demons and heals people. He stills a storm on the sea (twice) and feeds a multitude with a few loaves and fish (twice). There is no scholarly conclusion about Mark’s gospel presenting two different instances of the stilling of the sea and the multiplication of food. The stories are so very close in nature that it would seem that the same story was repeated for a specific purpose.

Almost from the beginning, the Galilee section foreshadows the conflict that will lead to Jesus’ death in Jerusalem, which is presented in part three.

Chapters 2-3 contain a series of conflict stories in which Jesus is challenged by representatives of the authorities. Already the shadow of the cross darkens the story.

Part Two: Journey to Jerusalem

Toward the end of chapter 8, Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem begins to dominate Mark’s narrative. For the first time, a follower of Jesus (i.e., Peter) calls Jesus the Messiah. Jesus immediately tells his disciples that he will be rejected and killed by the authorities in Jerusalem. Following Him means to take up their cross – to join Him on the way that leads to Jerusalem, confrontation, death and resurrection. Twice more in this section Jesus announces his impending execution. As the journey section draws to its end, Mark’s theme of the way is again emphasized; after Jesus restores the sight of a blind man at the end of chapter 10, who then followed Jesus on the way – the way or path or road to Jerusalem, the next stop.

The one theme that is present in all of the Gospels is the theme of commitment to living as God wants humans to live. It is a commitment, however, that will lead a person to rejection by others and some degree of suffering. No real growth, however, can be achieved without some struggle and suffering!

Have you embraced the WAY of Jesus?

Did You Know — 20140831

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image332Jesus never moved far away from home. Capernaum is just 23 miles from Nazareth and became the center of His ministry in Galilee. He began His teaching in the synagogue there. It was there that He healed the Centurion’s servant and cured the man with palsy. Most of the incidents and discourses of the first part of the three Synoptic Gospels occurred in or near there. It was one of the Galilean towns which Jesus cursed because of the unbelief He found there.

The site has yet to be thoroughly excavated. It is not known how far back the occupation of this city goes. It obviously was a thriving city at the time of Jesus but, later, fell into ruin. There are Roman ruins there

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20140831

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Gestures ritualized by the liturgy take their value less from what they are than from what they evoke in us. For example, do you, during the Little Entrance, think about God’s Gospel coming into the world in   order to lead you to a deeper union with God (The Gospel book is carried from God’s Throne [the Holy Table] into our world [nave of the church building] and leads us back to His Throne). Further, during the Great Entrance, the symbols of life are brought from heaven to earth and then taken back to heaven. These are but two examples of the gestures of the liturgy which signify what is happening in the spiritual dimension.

We do well to not only listen to the liturgy but to also look at the gestures that are being ritualized. Most of us are sufficiently aware of the correct responses to the prayers of the liturgy that we can afford to also visually experience the liturgy. The liturgy, when it is correctly celebrated, is designed to engage us through all of our senses (i.e., sights, sounds, smell, actions) in the worship of God. This reminds us that we must be engaged in the worship of God with our whole self.

Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

The Divine Liturgy makes good use of the wealth of human expression common to all sacred celebrations, but in a new order and to a transcendent end. Its mission is to express and reiterate nothing else than the mystery of the love of the Triune God for the scattered multitude of humans. It draws its explanation of this mystery from God’s own revelation, the holy Word, the Bible, developing the play of its symbols around the great, meaningful themes of the community of the redeemed, who also appear as the People of God, the Bride of God, the Temple of God and, in a word, the Body of Christ, the incarnate Word of God. Such in very truth is the new community that God has purchased for himself with the blood of Christ, a community which unceasingly brings together the multitudes called to salvation by commemorating the act of Redemption in a liturgy wholly centered on the mystery of that body and blood, the Eucharist.

It is from this point of view that we must learn to see our Christian meetings, however far they may seem to us from that mystical ideal outlined in Scripture. To strive towards a better understanding and sounder performance of the liturgy is no substitute for the act of faith by which we recognize in our congregations the People of God.

This is why we come to worship with faith, reverence and the fear of God and join our voices and hearts not only with Christ Himself and His Holy Mother, but with all the saints and angels in offering unending praise, thanksgiving and worship to God, Who we name as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us strive to make the Liturgy our personal worship of God!

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20140831

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One of the foundational elements of authentic Eastern spirituality is, of course, the Eastern Church’s understanding and image of God. For the Eastern Church God incessantly creates anew, whereas man holds fast to what is old, both to his comforts and his distress. You will recall that recently I reminded you that we humans find it extremely hard to change the way we think. We hang onto ways of thinking from our childhood and long after those ways of thinking are effective or meaningful.

God is not afraid of the new. He intervenes. He is ever reaching out and saving. In former times people distrusted the new because they feared their norms might be thrown off balance.

Although our modern society is now engaged in a continual process of innovation – you need only to think about the advances made each day in modern technologies – it is not necessarily a healthy innovation. We are constantly discovering the problems that our modern innovations are causing.

God’s constant renewal is different from man’s innovations. God wills that the creation be ever renewed. Christ embodies the highest moment of God’s renewal of the earth. Christ does not promise world utopias. He comes in the midst of time to renew man and the earth, whom he so deeply loves.

Love is the supreme commandment, the greatest virtue and the ultimate standard by which all humans should judge their union with God’s way of living. Love, in the Christian sense, is not merely tender emotion and warm feeling. Love also means practical action for the good of the other, freely rendered without thought of recompense. We cannot devote our heart to the unseen God without also living the person we see before our eyes. Mystically, every compassionate act done for our neighbor – every drink, of water given to one in need – is offered also to Christ. Loving someone means regarding him and his needs as important, as mattering. It means taking her feelings and her sufferings to heart and doing something about it.

It means loving neighbor as self!

Getting to Know Something About Our Greek Catholic Faith — 20140831

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hagiasophialastThis weekend we anticipate the feast of the Nativity of Mary, the Mother of God. We anticipate this Marian feast this weekend because next weekend we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The feast of Mary’s birth is celebrated on Monday, the 8th of September. It is one of the twelve major feasts of our Church Year. It occurs at the beginning of the Church Year since, by this event, God’s incarnation in the Person of Jesus was made possible. So, in many ways, it is the beginning of the salvation history revealed through Jesus.

The new Church Year begins with these two major feasts since they set the stage for the entire Church Year. Both feasts   present us with human models: Joachim, Anna, Mary and Jesus, who were totally committed to living out the plan of God even though it was truly challenging and difficult.

The Gospel records nothing about the nativity of Mary, her parentage, her childhood or youth, or her holy assumption into heaven. All this information comes from the tradition of the Church and the apocryphal writings. The Apocrypha are those writings which relate certain events from the life of Jesus or Mary that are not included in the Holy Gospel. Although the Church does not acknowledge these writings as authentic, trustworthy historical sources, she also recognizes that what they relate belongs to the authentic belief and tradition of the early Church. This is one reason why to two oldest Christian Churches, Orthodox and Catholic, maintain that the rule of faith must be a combination of both Scripture and Tradition. Holy Tradition includes not only the writings of the Fathers of the Church but also the liturgical practices of the Church. The chief source of information about the life of Mary is taken from the Proto-evangelium of James which was written around the years 170-180 CE. This apocryphal piece was held in high esteem among the Fathers, which included Andrew of Crete, John Damascene, Sophronius and Germanus to name but a few.

The feast of the Nativity of Mary is among the most ancient of the Marian feasts. It is mentioned already in the fourth century. Its official introduction of the feast is ascribed to Emperor Mauricius (582-602). The 8th day of September was selected because on that day nine months were completed from December 9th, the day on which the Church celebrates the conception of Mary by Anna and Joachim. This day was also selected because it marked the day on which a church in Jerusalem was consecrated in Mary’s honor.

Remember to keep holy Monday, the 8th of September, with prays to Mary.

Called To Holiness — 20140831

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As I shared with you in the last issue of this article, I have come to understand that the call to holiness is a call to faith and personal transformation or change. Personal change or transformation really embraces a change in the way we think and behave, embracing the way that Jesus thought about God, life, creation and other human beings.

This being the case, then the very first thing we have to do in order to respond to God’s call to holiness is to honestly and sincerely assess what we think about these things (i.e., God, life, creation and others).

CaptureLast week I shared four ways of thinking that can block personal change and suggested that it is extremely important to examine what I think about my own life. I have found that most people don’t even question what they think about their life, being firmly convinced that what they think is correct and doesn’t need to be changed. The problem I have found is that what people think about life is so firmly repressed or truly suppressed that they are not aware of their thoughts until they encounter a serious challenge. It seems that it is only when humans have to face illness, the death of a loved one, failure, or serious disappointment that they even think about what it is that they actually think about their life. Very few people ask the question: What is the meaning and purpose of my life. Most of us just get so involved in living that we don’t even think about what we think about life.

Personal transformation, however, can’t take place until we sincerely begin to examine our thinking and actually reflect upon what we think about life. So the first challenge we all face is to take time and just think about our life. I say this because I have come to believe that the most important thing in my life has been to discover the meaning of my life. The questions that need to be asked are: Why am I here right now? What is my purpose in life? Why has God placed me here, especially at this time?

Hopefully my readers are beginning to see that the call to holiness is a call to personal reflection and introspection. One of the reasons I have come to this conclusion is the lives of the saints that I have read. Each of them spent much time in personal reflection, introspection and also   contemplation. Jesus did it repeatedly. True contemplation requires that I think about God and my relationship with Him. This requires, of course, that I formulate for myself an answer to these basic questions. Remember, the answers are not necessarily objectively right! The answers only need to be meaningful to me!
I am not here without a purpose!

August 24, 2014

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My heavenly Father will treat you in exactly the same way
(as the master in the parable did his merciless official)
unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart

pantocratorThis week the Gospel message so-overshadows the message of the Epistle that, I believe, we must consider it in more detail. The message is contained in the parable of the unmerciful servant.

This parable, peculiar to Matthew’s Gospel, is one of   the sternest passages of the Gospels. It reinforces the duty of forgiveness by appealing to another motive: the forgiveness granted by man to man as a condition for forgiveness granted to man by God.

Think about this! The parable clearly and pointedly says that God’s forgiveness is based on our own ability and willingness to forgive others. That is a very powerful statement. It truly highlights the importance of developing the ability to forgive others.

The conduct of the master in the parable is not a model by which we should learn the providence of God. The detail that is most significant is the difference in the debt owed by the merciless servant and the debt that he claims. The model is the forgiveness of God. It knows no limits and, therefore, man’s forgiveness should not know any limit. If a person does not forgive, he cannot expect forgiveness. If he does not renounce his own claims, which are small, he cannot ask God to dismiss the claims against him.

The final words of the parable are so very poignant: My heavenly Father will treat you in exactly the same way unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart! The meaning of the parable seems absolutely clear.

Forgiveness is the voluntary and intentional process by which a person undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding a perceived offense. It helps the person let go of such negative emotions such as vengefulness and provides the person with an increased ability to wish the offender well. Generally, forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. While the act or words that hurt or offend you might always remain a part of your life, forgiveness lessens its grip on you and helps you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Forgiveness can lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who hurt you.

Refusing to forgive another person only hurts you. It does not change the other person. When you forgive, you create an opportunity to truly establish a positive relationship with another person and you both have an opportunity to grow.