July 27, 2014

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Jesus said to them, “Are you confident I can do this?”

Jesus Heals Two Blind Men

Jesus Heals Two Blind Men

Perhaps the one question that each person must ask is: Do I truly have confidence in God’s promise that, if I attempt to live like Jesus, I will be saved? Learning how to truly trust in God’s saving love is not easy, especially if we haven’t developed the ability to trust! Life’s experiences often cause us to be blind to the love that God has for them!

I truly believe that one of the most profound examples of trust in God is found in the person of Jesus as He faced His crucifixion and death. We can surmise from the way the story is presented that Jesus had to wrestle with His trust in God. Why? Because, as the story tells us, He also had to deal with His disappointment from His friends reactions (e.g., Judas betrayed Him, His friends slept while He suffered in the Garden).

Jesus, as a man, had an understanding of how the Romans dealt with people who were accused of insurrection. They were always crucified. That, essentially, is the charge His accusers presented to Pilate. They knew that was the only way to get rid of Jesus and, at that time, the Maccabees were agitating the population to overthrow Roman rule.

So Jesus knew of the cruelty of the Romans and sensed the malice of His jealous accusers (They felt Jesus was leading them away from the religion that supported them). He knew that all would end in suffering and death.

It is not by accident, I think, that life presented Jesus, as a man, with the task of dealing with trust in God. This is precisely how Jesus became a living model for us.

All of us at some time will have to wrestle with trust in God as we confront the various challenges of life. All of us have, I suspect, been disappointed in the behaviors of     others. This challenges our ability to trust.

So what did Jesus do to bolster His trust in God after experiencing the lack of support from most of His followers? He prayed and then drew upon his FAITH in God. True faith gives us the power to trust.

The real problem is our understanding of FAITH. Faith is not belief in an organization or its formulated dogmas and decrees. Faith must be belief in a person. This, of course, is a problem! As I said, life’s experiences so often suggest that we cannot always trust others, whether they be family of friends. So one of the first tasks of life is to learn how to trust others without regard to their response. Trust, like love, must be really unconditional. It doesn’t matter how people respond. It matters how we respond! Our goal in life must be to be a trusting person, regardless of how others respond.

If we do this, we will be able to trust in God.

Getting to Know Something About Our Greek Catholic Faith — 20140727

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The official language of Byzantium at the time of its founding was Latin, the anguage of Rome; however its locals spoke Greek. The Code of Justinian was written in Latin. However, over time, Greek replaced Latin as the language of the government. Scholars no longer learned to read Latin, but rather drew inspiration from both the New Testament (originally written in Greek) and the philosophy and literature of classical Greece.

The large bureaucracy of Byzantium necessitated an efficient educational system that trained all government workers. It was in the educational system that the influence and legacy of Classical Greece, rather than Classical Rome, was most evident. Literacy was quite high in Byzantine society.

Byzantine scholarship reflected its Greek roots. Scholars concentrated on the humanities: literature, history and philosophy, rather than natural sciences or medicine. They produced commentaries on Homer, Plato, and Aristotle; which were used as textbooks in schools along with classical works themselves. Those within the Empire who were educated considered themselves the heirs of classical Greece, and went to great lengths to preserve their legacy.

Byzantine Christianity was closely tied to the government, so much so that its emperors are often referred to as caesaropapist, supreme over both church and state. Constantine himself often intervened in Church matters; it was he who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 which brought together many bishops and church leaders to consider the position of Arian Christians.

The Arians were followers of a priest from Alexandria named Arius who taught that Jesus had been a mortal man created by God rather than divine and co-equal with God. Many theologians argued to the contrary, teaching that Jesus was both God and man.

Constantine supported the latter position, and attended sessions of the Council of Nicaea to lend his support, although at the time, he had not fully admitted to being Christian. Because of his presence, the council adopted the second view. Arianism was condemned as heresy.

The Byzantine church was treated by the Emperors as a department of the state. They appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople. Patriarchs, bishops and priests were instructed to deliver sermons which supported imperial policy and encouraged obedience to the government. This was a source of conflict that often led to protests, especially when the views of the populace were not those of the government.

The most divisive policy adopted by the Emperors was that of Iconoclasm. This had a great influence on the development of Eastern Christianity.

Called To Holiness — 20140727

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It is my hope that this article about being called to holiness is beginning to resonate with my readers. Spiritual growth comes when we understand that we are called to holiness – called to be saints.

It is my belief that early Christianity had a much clearer understanding of this fact. It seems that the process the Church has developed to recognize saints has deterred most Christians from thinking that they are called to be saints. This is really too bad. The process is meant to formally recognize those who the Church believes achieved a sense of the meaning of life and tried, to the best of their ability, to live like Jesus lived. Sainthood did not mean in the early Church that the person recognized as a saint had reached a state of perfection. In fact all the early saints were martyrs and therefore recognized as models for others to imitate because they decided to die rather than deny their belief in Jesus Christ. So sainthood in the early Church didn’t mean perfection but, rather, loyalty to a belief in Jesus Christ.

It was only later in the history of the Church that non-martyrs were recognized as saints. Persecution of Christianity ceased after 313 CE and so there were no longer martyrs (Although after this time there were occasionally people put to death because of their faith in Jesus, it was not until the 20th Century, when Communism came into existence, that a whole new group of martyrs were created).

Universal Call to Holiness

Universal Call to Holiness

It was after Christian martyrdom was suppressed that the Church began looking for other persons who could serve as models for how to lead a Christian life. A number of new categories of saints came into existence. The Church began to recognize other ways that people demonstrated their commitment to the Gospel or to belief in God. Although there are other categories of saints, the Liturgy lists these: forefather, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles preachers, evangelists, confessors, ascetics and just spirits made perfect in the faith. This last category identifies people who are perfect in the faith but not necessarily people who have reached perfection (that is a person who always loves others unconditionally and never hesitates in forgiving others). Of course the Gospel tells us that none are capable of reaching perfection except Jesus Christ.

It is interesting how so many religious ideas have come about which are not based on the faith as embraced by the early followers of Jesus Christ. That is why, I believe, it is critical that we have a better understanding of how Christianity developed. The early Christians were all called saints, that is people who desired to live like Jesus Christ!

Think about this!

 

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20140727

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As we consider and study Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we discover that just as salvation meant something different for Paul than it does for many Christians today, faith and what it means to believe in Jesus have often been misunderstood. The misunderstanding is that faith means believing in a set of teachings or doctrines about Jesus (something that I have alluded to in the first article of this Bulletin). This misunderstanding has grown in Western culture over the last three centuries or so. This misunderstanding truly began in the West before and during the Reformation. Beliefs about Jesus – that He was born of a virgin, that He walked on water and changed water into wine, that he died for our sins and rose again on the third day, that he is the Son of God and the only way, and so forth – have changed from what everyone took for granted to claims that are questionable in the minds of so many. So faith, believing, has come to mean believing in a particular set of claims about Jesus to be true in spite of perhaps somewhat persuasive reasons to question them.

But this is not what Paul (and early Christians generally and their spiritual ancestors in the Jewish Bible) meant by faith. The word had two primary meanings: loyalty and trust. Loyalty was about commitment and allegiance – not to a set of statements, but to a person. Its opposite was not doubt, but betrayal. Trust was about who or what you trusted. Its opposite was not intellectual doubt, but anxiety. Faith for Paul was about loyalty to and trust in Christ, not about believing a set of statements about Christ to be true.

To crystallize Paul’s affirmation in Romans: Christian Jews and Gentiles alike are justified together by God’s grace and by faith – loyalty and trust – in what God has revealed in Jesus.

Perhaps some of the most magnificent passages in Romans are found in chapter 5-8 (be sure to pick up a New Testament and read them). They expand Paul’s theme to the new life in Christ. They occasionally echo the contrast to the failure of both Gentile and Jew in the construction of this world, but their dominant tone is vibrant and hope-filled.

In this section Paul contrasts Adam and Christ. Adam becomes a symbol of the universality of sin – the disordering of creation caused and sustained by Jew and Gentile alike. In Christ there is a new possibility. Just as we are all involved universally in sin, so now in Jesus there is the possibility of a new kind of life.

Jesus, as a man, demonstrates that it is within the power of humans to live a more noble life, living with unconditional love and trust in others, regardless of how others respond AND that living in this manner brings about the fullness of life and helps us to find the true meaning and purpose of life.

Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20140727

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I have been in this article the ideas of Maximus the Confessor about spiritual progress and divinization. Maximus is considered one of the preeminent Fathers of the Eastern Church. He expressed his belief that by practicing asceticism (life of habits of self-denial) and contemplation, believers exalt God, who is knowable in ideas about him and unknowable in himself. In his turn, God provides, when a person engages in such   practices as contemplation, a growing nourishment of the intellectual through the sensible and a transformation of the sensible into the world of the mind.

It should be pointed out that one of the main ideas in eastern theology is that we cannot know God as He is but, rather, can really only know what He is not. It is   inappropriate, therefore, to attempt in any way to define God, that is dare to feel that humans can find the words to actually   express Who God Is.

Maximus says further that, in an act of divine condescension, God voluntarily leads the human being toward Himself, guiding the creature along the path of spiritual maturity, for one’s earthly action of contemplation (thinking deeply about something). So, when we try to deeply think about God, God responds to our efforts by drawing us ever closer to Him and providing us with insights about Him and creation. Therefore, the most hidden knowledge of God is granted to the human being at the third, or final, stage of Christian life. The third stage is when we are given a simple experience of God and no longer need to try to discover Him but have an experience of Him. Maximus calls this theology. Of course this takes years. But to the person who tries consistently to think deeply about God, He gives them the gift of experiencing Him in their life. Maximus envisages theology as a relationship with God Who transcends all knowledge. For Him, the whole Christian pilgrimage culminates in the intimate   divine-human union. The mind is deemed worthy of the grace of theology when, on the wings of love, it has passed beyond the material world – the world of things.

It is at the stage of theology that the final mediation between God and the created order is fulfilled.

Again, this is much more in accord with the words of John who tells us that eternal life is not a place but an experience of knowing God and Jesus Christ. Since Jesus Christ is a God-man, this means that we will truly know our relationship with God, our Creator and Father.

Think about this. This truly seems to be a different approach to spirituality than that which we find in western Christianity. It is not a matter of one being right and the other wrong. It does mean that there is a difference. I believe that each of us must seek the spirituality that best fits our own personality and sense of being.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20140727

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In thinking more about eastern spirituality, I have decided that at this point I would like to present some information about the historical development of this spirituality. Some of this information, I believe, will put into context some of the things I have been writing about it.

In its present form, eastern spirituality is the result of 19 centuries of evolution: an evolution to which various ethnic and cultural factors have contributed (e.g., Slavic, Palestinian, Syrian) but whose homogeneity has been secured by a common Christian faith. The elements that have been revealed in the course of this evolution must not be conceived as superimposed layers, each of which finishes where another begins. They are, rather, dynamic streams, rising one after another; they diverge, cross one another, meet and continue down to the present time.

There are six main elements to eastern spirituality: the Scriptural element; the primitive Christian element; the intellectual element; the early monastic element; the liturgical element and the contemplative element. All six elements have contributed to the spirituality of our Church.

I would like to start by looking first at the liturgical element since I believe that this is perhaps the most critical element. For Eastern Christian spirituality is liturgical in many ways. First, our Church dispenses not only the Word (Scripture) but the seven Mysteries. Second, the liturgical worship of our Church is extremely elaborate, full of spiritual meaning and beauty. Third, collective forms of worship, that is our forms of communal prayer, predominate over private devotions. Last, the Church calendar frames the whole year in the stages of the Savior’s earthly life.

But, besides the general setting and   inspiration which the Church’s ritual gives to the religious life, there exists, within our tradition, a properly “liturgical” line of thought and piety. A whole school of saints and doctors have conceived the entire Christian life according to a liturgical type of rhythm; it is in the Church ritual that we seek and find the successive stages of the development of the soul.

Learning About the Practices of Our Religion, Especially The Divine Liturgy — 20140727

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In the last issue of the article, I suggested that there was a great interplay between Byzantine church architecture and the Liturgy. For example, two parts of the Liturgy directly impacted the structure of the church building, namely the Little and Great Entrances. The gifts of bread and wine had to be brought to the Holy Table (The gifts were brought by the faithful to be used in the service) and the Gospel Book had to be brought out so that it could be read (It was a hand-written book and very valuable and so kept in a locked location and only brought out when needed).

The spiritual idea then arose that the Word of God and life (which is symbolically represented by bread and wine [food]) come from God (heaven) to earth in order to lead us back to God, the building then had to have aisles and a way of making a procession through the congregation. Since aisles were also needed for egress, it stimulated the liturgists to find a spiritual meaning for the processions.

earlyiconscreen

Another interesting example is the development of the Iconastasis. It was not always as we have it today with doors (see following figure). I shall in weeks to come provide a more detailed history of its development since it is now a significant part of our heritage as a Greek-Catholic Church.

We must remember that the Iconastasis further developed after Iconoclasm was stamped out and icons were integrated into the ritual of our Church.

Another great influence on the structure of the Liturgy was the traditions of the Imperial Court. As Christ came to be seen as the Pantocrator (Ruler of the Universe) and the church building as the court of the Supreme Ruler, the ritual surrounding the service gradually was embellished. Later, when bishops assumed a more symbolic role of rulers of an eparchy, the ritual was even further embellished.

So the worship of God through the sharing of food at a ritual meal, was gradually transformed into a much different experience. Our Church, more so than the Western Church, retained and integrated the ritual of the synagogue. You can find elements of each influence in our Liturgy.

The culture of each location where the Church became incorporated into society, also had a great influence on the structure and ritual of the Liturgy. We see the evidence of this also in the Western Church which has been greatly influenced by western culture and religious practice.

About Saints — St Panteleimon

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panteleimonSt Panteleimon was born in Izmit, Turkey. Originally known as Pantoleon, the date of his birth is unknown. He became a physician and then a Christian. He became well known for not taking money from his patients. Gradually this generous act caused his fellow citizens to change his name to Panteleimon, that is Charitable To All. On one occasion, in the presence of his pagan father, he cured a man blind from birth. Both the blind man and his father then became Christians. After this he was accused of magic. He admitted his Christian beliefs and that his power came from Christ in front of the Emperor who then had him tortured and killed. He is mentioned in the Proskomedia.

July 20, 2014

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O Prophet, who foresaw the mighty deeds of our God, O Great Elijah, who through your prayers stopped rain, intercede for us with the only One Who loves mankind

The Prophet, Elijah. from the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai

The Prophet, Elijah. from the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai

Elijah is probably the most famous of all God’s prophets to Israel. He is a saint in the Eastern Church because he provided us with an example of how to truly trust in God. The story of his life is fascinating.

In the days when Ahab was King over the northern kingdom of Israel, the king’s wife, Jezebel, convinced the King and the people to worship false gods. God told Elijah to tell King Ahab that he had done evil and that God was going to stop it  raining for three years. The King got so mad that Elijah had to run for his life.

God then told Elijah to go to the brook Cherith and hide himself. Again Elijah placed his trust in God. It was a twenty-five mile trip over mountains and across the river Jordan. As He promised, God sent ravens to feed Elijah. The birds brought Elijah bread and meat every morning and night and he drank out of the stream until it dried up. His placed absolute faith and trust in God’s word and many other miraculous things happened which allowed him to survive. His faith and trust paid off!

We, of course, are called to do the same. Indeed God has revealed to us through the Person of Jesus that He shares His very life with us and that immortality is ours, if only we learn to trust Him and develop the spiritual powers that He has given us. We must remember how St John defines ternal life: Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.

This, I believe, is what the Eastern Fathers have attempted to teach us through the spiritual doctrine of Theosis. While God shares with us the power to know Him and Jesus Christ, we must want to know Him and actively work to do this. The primary way to come to know Jesus Christ, and therefore God, is by embracing His way of living, a way which includes learning how to unconditionally love others. If we do this, we come to know God.

Paul gives us these directions in his letter to the Romans (today’s Epistle reading):

Your love must be sincere…. Love one another with the affection of brothers. Anticipate each other in showing respect…. Rejoice in hope, be patient under trial, persevere in prayer. Look on the needs of the saints…. Bless your persecutors; bless and do not curse them.

This is the Jesus way of living. Something happens to us when we live in this manner. All of a sudden God becomes real to us since we are living in the manner that He intended us to live when He created us. To live this way, however, takes personal change and transformation. When we change, the reality of God and His promises become real. It is only when we do this, however, that God and the spiritual dimension of life become real – it is only then that we can hope to experience eternal life!

Think about this!

Learning About the Practices of Our Religion, Especially The Divine Liturgy — 20140720

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Under Justinian a policy designed to reconcile the monophysites (those who believed Christ had only one nature) to Chalcedonian orthodoxy was pursued – the Council of Chalcedon definitely defined that Christ has two natures – He is God and Man, one not overcoming the other). Leontius of Byzantium elaborated the view that while the humanity of Christ had no hypostasis, or center of personal being, of its own, it found its center in the hypostasis of the divine Word: it was enhypostatic. The Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, held in Constantinople, gave its authority to   Leontius’ teaching. At the same time it condemned aspects of the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas of Edessa, whose followers had     protested against Leontius’ doctrine, and so finally divided the East Syrian Christians of Persian Mesopotamia from the Byzantine Church. Their Church of the East was called Nestorian by the orthodox.

At the same time monophysites began to form separate churches, both within the Empire and outside its frontiers: the independent existence of the Coptic and Syrian Churches dates from the period. The imperial authorities attempted to find a basis for reconciliation by suggesting that, though there may be two natures, there is only one energy in Jesus Christ, both human and divine. But monoenergism was unacceptable to the strict Chalcedonians, as too was the monothelete doctrine (only one will) that developed out of the controversy surrounding it. Maximus the Confessor was, with Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem, one of their leaders in       resisting imperial attempts to force the doctrine of one will in Christ on the Church of the Empire. It was for refusing to obey the imperial edict of 648 forbidding all discussion of the matter while leaving the doctrinal issue unresolved that Maximnus suffered first exile and then the amputation of his tongue and right hand. Meanwhile he spent some time in Rome, where he helped to formulate the doctrine of two operations and two wills in Christ, which eventually received the approval of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680) of Constantinople.

In the course of the fifth century a number of churches were built in Constantinople. Sufficient has been discovered by archeologists about three of them to provide some idea of their interior layout. Their general plan was similar to that of the original fourth-century Hagia Sofia.

The structure of the church building, during the early years of the development of the Liturgy, influenced the structure of the Liturgy. The structure of the Liturgy also influenced the architecture of the church buildings. It is this interplay between the two that has resulted in the traditional architecture of Byzantine church buildings and the Liturgy itself.