Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20140810

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The thoughts of Maximus, which I have been sharing with you during the past several weeks, leads me to sharing with you Eastern Christianity’s thoughts about man. The view of man prevailing in the Christian East is based upon the notion of participation in God. This emphasis is not necessarily found in the Christian West to the same degree. Man has been created not as an autonomous, or self-sufficient being; his very nature is truly itself only inasmuch as it exists in God or in grace. Grace, therefore, gives man his natural development. This basic presupposition explains why the terms nature and grace, when used by Byzantine authors, have a meaning quite different from the Western usage; rather than being in direct opposition, the terms nature and grace express a dynamic, living, and necessary relationship between God and man, different by their natures, but in communion with each other through God’s energy, or grace. Yet man is the center of creation – a microcosm – and his free self-determination defines the ultimate destiny of the universe.

According to Maximus, God, in creating man, communicated to him four of His own properties: being, eternity, goodness, and wisdom. Of these four divine properties, the first two belong to the very essence of man; the third and the fourth are merely offered to man’s willful aptitude.

The idea that his participation in God is man’s particular privilege is expressed in various ways, but consistently, in the Greek patristic tradition, Irenaeus, for example, writes that man is composed of three elements: body, soul and Holy Spirit; and the Cappadocian Fathers speak of an efflux of the Holy Spirit in man. Gregory of Nyssa, in discussing man before the Fall, attributes to him the beatitude of immortality, justice, purity. God is love, writes Gregory, and source of love.The creator of our nature has also imparted to us the character of love. If love is absent, all the elements of the image are deformed.

Thus the most important aspects of Greek patristic anthropology, which will be taken for granted by the Byzantine theologians throughout the Middle Ages, is the concept that man is not an autonomous being, that his true humanity is realized only when he lives in God and possess divine qualities. There is a consensus among many Byzantine authors on the essential openness of man, a concept which does not fit into the Western categories of nature and grace.

As Maximus stated, the natural participation of man in God is not a static givenness; it is a challenge, and man is called to grow in divine life. Divine life is a gift, but also a task which is to be accomplished by a free human effort. This polarity between the gift and the task is often expressed in terms of the distinction between image and likeness.

Getting to Know Something About Our Greek Catholic Faith — 20140810

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Dormition of the Mother of God

Dormition of the Mother of God

Dormition of the Mother of God

On this coming Friday our Church celebrates the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God (Our communal celebration of the feast will be on the weekend when we will bless flowers). This feast is one of the twelve major of our Church. It is also called the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God.

The celebration of this feast came into practice by way of custom and not Church legislation. As with the nativity of the Virgin and the feast of her entrance to the temple, there are no biblical or historical sources for this feast. The Tradition of the Church is that Mary died as all people die, not “voluntarily” as her Son, but by the necessity of her mortal human nature which is indivisibly bound up with the corruption of this world. The first four centuries are silent regarding the end of Mary’s life, though it is asserted, without surviving documentation, that this feast was observed in Jerusalem shortly after the Council of Ephesus (431). Earliest Dormition traditions surfaced in the later 5th century when three distinct narrative traditions dealing with the end of Mary’s life appeared. These narratives are characterized as the Palm of the Tree of Life narrative, the Bethlehem narrative, and the Coptic narrative. There are also a handful of other, atypical narratives.

The Dormition tradition is associated with various places: notably Jerusalem, which contains Mary’s Tomb and the Basilica of the Dormition, Ephesus, which contains the House of the Virgin Mary and Constantinople where the Cincture of the Mother of God was enshrined from the 5th – 14th centuries.

Although the Orthodox Church celebrates this feast as a part of tradition, it does not assert that this is dogmatically true. Pope Pius XII declared this a dogma in 1950. Since the entire Church was not involved in this declaration, the Orthodox Church does not accept it as dogma but, in essence, celebrates it as a part of Christian tradition.

The foundation for this feast is to be found in a sacred tradition of the Church dating from apostolic times, apocryphal writings, the constant faith of the People of God, and the unanimous opinion of the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church of the first thousand years of Christianity. The earliest written tradition in the East, which speaks of the death of the Mother of God, has the title Sermon of St. John the Theologian on the Dormition of the Mother of God. The author of this work is unknown. Some historians believe this work dates from the end of the second/third century, while others place it at the end of the sixth century. To this day historians cannot prove anything certain about the place of her burial.

August 3, 2014

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5000This miracle story appears in all four Gospels. Matthew connects it with the killing of John the Baptizer and the withdrawal of Jesus from Galilee. Mark associates it with the return of the Twelve from their mission and a withdrawal into solitude for rest. Luke, while he relates it to the return of the Twelve, has Jesus and the Twelve retire to Bethsaida. John states that this happened after Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee to the shore of Tiberias and went up a mountain and sat down with his disciples. John further reports that the Jewish feast of Passover was near.
So the scene is not clear in any of the Gospels. Wherever it took place, it was near enough to villages to make possible the purchase of food. Consequently the locale is not the desert.
One has to contrast Matthew’s account with that of Mark (probably the original account). Matthew talks about Jesus healing their sick while Mark speaks about Jesus teaching. It is unlikely that very many of the crowd would leave home for a day’s journey without carrying some food. A Palestinian peasant would not have been so imprudent or improvident. So there must be a different reason for the evangelists to include this story.
Since the Gospels were written a number of years after the death of Christ, it is more likely that the evangelists realized, after thinking about the ceremonial with which Jesus blessed and distributed the food, that this event was a foreshadowing of the Last Supper. Indeed the giving of blessed food to sustain life is a very important theme in the Gospels and something that Jesus truly did.
Further, the usual note of wonder that follows miracles is not mentioned in the context of this event. The incident is related in the Gospels less for the element of the miraculous than as a symbol and anticipation of the Eucharist and of the Messianic banquet. This is more explicit in John’s Gospel since the event is followed by John’s Eucharistic discourse, called the Discourse on the Bread of Life (John 6:25-59).
So the account should call us to think about the fact that our God has done everything in His power to remind us that He is desirous of sustaining our lives and that He has made it possible to be with us in a sacramental way throughout life. It is by the Eucharist that He has made Himself substantively present in our lives. It is only for us to believe and accept His presence.
The sharing of this miracle story also highlights something very important. We should not get caught up in thinking about how Jesus accomplished this miracle but rather thinking about its meaning for us. God, in the Person of Jesus, offers Himself as spiritual food to sustain us through this life as we face life’s challenges. If we truly believe and partake of this spiritual food, we will not be hungry to find the meaning and purpose of life we now live!

Getting to Know Something About Our Greek Catholic Faith — 20140803

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Transfiguration

Transfiguration

One of the twelve major feasts of our Church is the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord which is recounted in three of the four Gospels (Matthew 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-8; and Luke 9:28-36). Although the feast goes back to the fourth century, its solemn observance in the Eastern Church began in the sixth century when the liturgical calendar of the Eastern Church became more highly developed.

Originally the feast was observed in February, putting its celebration during the Great Fast. With the exception of the feast of the Annunciation, joyful feasts are not celebrated during a fast period. The Annunciation is only celebrated during March because it is exactly nine months before the feast of Christmas, the feast remembering Christ’s birth.

The Transfiguration was transferred to the 6th of August. This date was chosen because the historian Eusebius and St. John Damascene were of the opinion that the event took place forty days before Christ’s death. August 6th is forty days before the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a feast that commemorates the passion and death of Christ (Hopefully by sharing this information my readers will begin to see how the Eastern Church thinks and acts).

It is a custom to bless fruit on this feast. This was namely due to the fact that this is a harvest time feast and it also offered the Church an opportunity to develop a spiritual meaning for the blessing of fruit. The Canons of the Holy Apostles at the end of the third century stipulate such a tradition and the Apostolic Constitutions of the fourth century actually have a blessing prayer articulated. The Synod of Carthage (318) gave prescriptions concerning the blessing of first fruits and the Sixth Ecumenical Council (691) spoke about the blessing of grapes and wheat.

In Rus the Church of Kiev developed the tradition of blessing any fruit that was ripe at the time. The most typical fruit blessed was apples since grapes were not abundant in that part of the world, stressing that it is not important what type of fruit is blessed.

The symbolism: There is always some sort of seed at the core of any piece of fruit. That seed gives the fruit life – the ability to grow and ripen. At the core of every human there is the seed of life, which is, in some mysterious way, a sharing in God’s own life-force. The fruit that we bless reminds us that the seed of life within us is God Himself, sharing His own life with us (Remember that the life-force in all living things is the same. It is only the external characteristics of any life form that individualizes it). Indeed, one of the Eastern Church’s greatest abilities has been to find true symbols to represent what we celebrate

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20140803

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Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

Many have been the influences on the structure of the Liturgy. The Fathers of the Church, in writing about the Liturgy, also helped shape it into the experience of worship of God that we have today.
From the earliest times, the Eucharist has been a public and not a private affair, the assembly of the people of God and not the private devotion of a series of individuals. In Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews he warns Christians not to forsake coming together. Further, the Eucharist in Corinth clearly envisages a corporate act of the local church. Ignatius of Antioch similarly exhorts Christians to take carte to assemble more frequently to give thanks and praise to God.
For Ignatius, the Eucharist is a sign of the unity of the people of God. – there is one Eucharist as there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, one Church, one bishop and one altar. In the Didache, Christians pray that the bread now broken may be reassembled and reunited into one.
For Augustine, Christians are to see in the many grains, ground by prayers, moistened by the waters of baptism and united in the one Eucharistic loaf, the image of themselves as the Body of Christ, the Church.
For the Fathers, salvation lay within the Church. In fact, no sure salvation could be found outside. It is understandable, therefore, that at the heart of patristic ecclesial life should be found the solemn thanksgiving for God’s redeeming action in Christ, an action through which, moreover, the Christian community both experienced and apprehended the continuing benefits of God’s redeeming love, once and for all shown and effected in the life and passion, death and resurrection of Christ. The terms Thanksgiving (Eucharistia) and Commemoration (Anamnesis) must be examined and truly understood in the peculiar context of their times; each is closely associated with the notion of sacrifice.
Truly the Divine Liturgy involves both of these elements, that is Thanksgiving and Commemoration.
In the patristic period, Eucharistia is used to denote either the action of the presiding clergyman in reciting the prayers with themes of thanksgiving for God’s work in creation and redemption, OR for the service as a whole, OR to describe the actual consecrated gifts. We use the term Eucharist in several different ways. It is always important to distinguish the various ways in which the term is used. Justin Martyr, for example, relates that the presiding clergyman of the Eucharist gives thanks at considerable length. For Ignatius the only term he knows to describe the liturgical assembly is the eucharistia. For the Nicene Church in particular, this term, eucharistia is the usual word for the reserved Mysteries, often referred to as the eucharistized bread.

Called To Holiness — 20140803

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If you have been following this article in my Bulletin, you are probably aware that it is my belief that truly vibrant spiritual communities have members who understand to some degree that they care called to holiness. The followers of Jesus demonstrated that they understood this by the way they lived and died.
In stating this, the important questions that come to mind is: What does it mean to be called to holiness? Is it within my ability to become holy? How will I have to change if I give myself to the task of becoming holy?
I believe it is critical that we ask ourselves these very important questions and develop answers that make sense to us. It is also my belief that, because our lives are so very unique, each of us must find our own way to become holy and that, in-spite-of the uniqueness of our journeys, each of us is challenged with the task of becoming holy.
So, what does it mean to be called to holiness? In answering this I will only give you the answer that I have formulated for myself. My answer, I will confess, is based on my study of the Eastern Fathers of the Church and on my own experience with life.
Being called to holiness, like Theosis, being called to a relationship with our Creator-Father God. In order to have a true relationship with God, however, I have to come to some understanding of the true meaning and purpose of life. To achieve this understanding, of course, I must find answers to other questions: Why did God call me into existence and why at this specific time in history? Why was I born into the family that I was born into? Why am I a part of the community that I am involved with?
The answer these questions has required me to embrace one basic belief: All things in life happen at exactly the right time and place for all persons involved in my life! The master plan that God has for my life is simply this: life brings together all of the people and events at the very right time to help me grow into the spiritual-physical person that He envisioned when He, from all eternity, called my name (Since there is no time in God, I have always been an image/thought in His mind. Even though I came into this earthly existence in time and history, this doesn’t mean that I haven’t always been a thought/person in God’s mind).
This is an aside. I do not intend to anthropomorphize God, that is make Him human by using the words mind, thought or image. However philosophy tells us that no one can make something that is beyond our own ability. Since humans have thoughts, images and minds, somehow, and in some way, God must also have the ability to have these.
As God’s creation, we have always been in His mind!

About Saints — St. Maximos the Confessor

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Maximos the Confessor

Maximos the Confessor

St. Maximos the Confessor was born in Constantinople in 580 CE, the son of a noble Byzantine family. He majored in philosophy and theology in school and, in 610, became confidential secretary to Emperor Herakleios until the Emperor’s death in 630. He then entered the monastery at Chrysopolis and, eventually, became the abbot.
He traveled through Africa and finally ended up in Rome. He convinced Pope Martin I to call the First Lateran Council in 649 where Monotheletism (Belief that Christ had two natures but one will) was condemned. Because the Council decision ran counter to the imperial policy, he was first jailed and then exiled. His tongue was then cut out.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20140803

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In considering the liturgical element to Eastern spirituality and piety, we cannot avoid facing the very difficult question of a possible influence of the mystery cults on Hellenistic Christianity. That Christianity sometimes borrowed from the vocabulary and rites of the mystery cults does not seem impossible. The Greek Church, which is a part of our heritage, was truly influenced by the culture in which it developed. Just as Judaism had a strong influence on the Gospels – the Good News of Christianity – so we must admit that some mysteric aspects of Hellenism had their impact on the spirituality and piety of our Church.
Eastern Christian spirituality has been greatly influenced by the mysticism of men who embraced the monastic life. There is truly a contemplative element to Eastern Christian spirituality.
One of the greatest influences on our Eastern Christian spirituality has been the tradition of the hesychasts (hesychia, meaning quiet). It goes back to a great mystic St. Symeon the New Theologian and his disciple Nicetas Stethatos. Mount Athos afterwards became the center of Hesychasm (Mt Athos is a mountain of monasteries in northern Greece where only men can go and live). During the 14th century, Hesychasm was identified with St. Gregory Palamas.
Four main points seem to be characteristic of the hesychast method: (1) the striving towards a state of total rest or quiet, which excludes reading, psalmody and other forms of prayer; (2) the repetition of the Jesus Prayer which is the most important private prayers of the Eastern Church; (3) practices designed to help concentration; and (4) the feeling of an inner warmth and physical perception of the divine light.
When you think about these four elements of hesychaism you immediately think about Zen Buddhism or Yoga or one of the other eastern, non-Christian forms of spirituality. They are a part, however, of our Christian heritage. All true forms of spirituality tend to suggest ways to quiet one’s thinking.

Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20140803

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I have been sharing in this article the thoughts of Maximus the Confessor on divinization and spiritual progress. He taught that the experience of God is a type of knowledge that is based on active engagement or relationship with God that surpasses all reason. For Maximus this is expressed by resting in God or a type of participation in God which manifests itself beyond all conceptualization.
In union with God, the faithful finally possess not just a part of the fullness but rather acquire through participation the entire fullness of grace. Maximus celebrates the end, whereby the redeemed are now divinized by love and made like God by participation in an indivisible identity to the extent that this is possible. In the union that is beyond nature, the human being’s energies are no longer driven by nature but by God’s grace.
I realize that this may be difficult to truly comprehend. One of the problems is that the use of such terms as grace makes it all the more confusing. It would seem that Maximus is saying that the journey of life that we are on – and this may be a journey that lasts an eternity since human life is immortal – is one that brings us ever closer to union with God. This Union with God, I believe, means that we come to a true understanding of Who God Is and begin to experience the Union that exists between God and us.
Maximus, like the other Eastern Fathers who taught about Theosis, all suggest that this union with God does not come about from just keeping a set of laws. Rather Theosis requires our active involvement in coming to a deeper and more real relationship with God. This means not only living as Jesus lived but also reflecting upon our relationship with God and doing everything in our power to make the relationship real. So union with God does not come as some reward for not being bad or sinful, in the common understanding of these words. Union with God is the result of our efforts to be in a relationship with Him. Of course part of being in a relationship with Him requires us to live as Jesus lived and to live as God intended us to live when He created us.
Maximus writes: For what is more desirable to God’s precious one than to be divinized, that is for God to be united with those who have become god and by his goodness to make everything his own. God created us to be in union with Him. That is why the Church developed the concept of humans being the children of God. We have been made in His image and likeness. It will take an eternity to fully realize our union with Him and to become aware of our true relationship with Him. A real part of divinization is coming to know, within the limitations of our human capacity to know things, that we are one with God and that He, in His love for us, shares His very life with us.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20140803

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In Chapters 9-11 of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he returns to the explicit theme of Jew and Gentile. He agonizes about the non-response of many Jews to Jesus, emphasizes his own Jewish roots, and ponders what God promises to the Jews means. The issue is no longer simply the relationship between Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles, but God’s relationship to Jews as a whole. His conclusion is that God’s promises to Israel are still valid: all of Israel will be saved. In the twenty-first century, both Christians and Jews need to be careful not to misunderstand. Paul was not saying that all Jews would become believers in Jesus; their relationship with God was prior to Jesus. And Paul was not saying that the promises to Israel included the land as a geographical possession. We must remember that Christianity is yet another way that God work’s to help humankind to come to know, love and serve Him. If we embrace Christianity we must be absolutely certain that it is the best possible way for us to come to deeper union with God! It is not the only way since God works in many different ways to make Himself know to us. True faith is when I believe that Christ IS my Redeemer and that, for me, His way of living makes the most sense for me to come to a deeper relationship with God.
In Chapters 12-14 of his letter to the Romans, Paul summarizes his message. He emphasizes that Christ-followers should present their bodies as a living sacrifice. We would say selves. That is their spiritual worship, which is about dying and rising with Christ. Note also the emphasis on personal transformation. They are not to be conformed to this world, but to bed transformed by the renewing of their minds – minds as a comprehensive image for a way of seeing reality. Paul explicitly states that following Jesus is truly about personal transformation.
The remaining chapters in Paul’s letter emphasize love, non-violence, non-judgment of one another and other aspects of the Good News, such as forgiveness.
Though the letter has a significance beyond its historical context, it clearly was shaped by the fact that Paul wrote it to Christians in Rome.
Romans concludes the seven letters certainly written by Paul. Christian tradition later than the New Testament reports that Paul was released from his imprisonment in Rome and traveled to Spain. Then he was again arrested and executed in Rome in the late 60s. Scholars who take this seriously are inclined to date some of his letters in the 60s, including even some of the disputed letters. But most scholars are skeptical that he was released or went to Spain. Rather, soon after Paul wrote this letter, he was arrested in Jerusalem and spent the rest of his life as a prisoner. His desire to visit Rome was fulfilled – but as a prisoner because of belief in Jesus Christ