A Look at the New Testament – St. Paul – 20140330

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The next Pauline letter that must be considered when we read the New Testament (NT) in chronological order, is his first letter to the Corinthians. It is the second longest of Paul’s letters Paul’s longest letter was to the Romans.

If you are attempting to read the NT in the order in which the books were written, you must read the books in this order

1 Thessalonians
Galatians
1 Corinthians

According to ACTS, Paul created a community in southern Greece in the city of Corinth around the year 50. It was a major city since it was a seaport and also the capital of Achaia, a Roman Province. This province also included Athens, now the capital of Greece. During the time of Paul Corinth was the most important city in Greece and had a Jewish enclave.

Though there was a Jewish synagogue there, the city was almost completely Gentile, cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic. According to ACTS, Paul spend 18 months in Corinth on his first visit (50 to 51 CE). When he wrote this letter a few years later he was already in Ephesus in Asia Minor. This was not really his first letter to the community. He refers to a previous letter and to a letter he had received from them. Those letters are not extant and this letter labeled as the “first” was written probably two years after Paul left the community. He learned that divisions and conflicts had developed in the community and therefore wrote to the community to urge unity. Much of the letter addresses the conflicts that he was told existed in the community. The mood of these conflicts, however, is not nearly as intense as in Galatians or in Paul’s future second letter to the Corinthians.

The first letter informs us that the community of Corinth was divided into factions that resulted from the mentors who had come to Corinth after Paul. Paul clearly reminds them that there is only one teacher, Christ and they must belong to Him and not to any one mentor.

Paul also discovered that the community was divided over spiritual gifts. The question that was raised was whether those with these gifts were superior to those without these gifts. Paul eloquently states that the most central gifts of the Spirit are faith, hope and love and that the greatest gift is love. (This is one of the most frequently used texts for the Epistle reading during the Sacrament of Matrimony). Paul tells the community that there is no hierarchy, no superiority, to be built on the more ecstatic spiritual gifts and that the main thing is that love should prevail within the community. Paul sees these three virtues (faith, hope and love) as signs of a mature, Christian community.

Learning Our Faith from the Church Fathers – 20140330

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In this article I have been attempting to share the difference between Eastern and Western Spiritual Theology, always asserting that one is not right and the other wrong but that are different. I feel that each theological approach has certain people to which it appeals. Catholicism embraces both since it has, within its union of Churches, both theologies.

It must be asserted that human Theosis, even though real, is a relative rather than an absolute transformation. “There is a real and genuine union of the believer with God, but it is not a literal fusion or confusion in which the integrity of human nature is compromised.” Eastern Spiritual Theology consistently and apodictically asserts that humans do not participate in the actual essence or nature of God. So even when deified, human nature is not destroyed or  diminished. This is much in concert with our belief about the incarnation of God in the Person of Jesus. His divinity and humanity did not become confused and remained separate. Jesus is truly God and truly man (a mystery). Likewise, the ultimate union between God and man, made possible by Theosis, does not result in destruction of our humanity.

Maximos the Confessor states that: All that God is, except for an identity in essence, one becomes when one is deified by grace. This, of course, is difficult to understand without study and faith. We don’t become God but realize a union with God that builds on the fact that we share His divine life. We believe that human life is, in a mysterious way, a sharing in divine life. We believe this even though we may not fully understand it. We accept this truth because of our faith. (This is, of course, one of the reasons that some people cannot accept Christianity because they cannot accept these truth by faith).

Eastern Spiritual Theology highlights, by its rich vocabulary, various facets of the meaning of deification. It uses such terms as transformation, participation, union, adoption and partaking to name just a few. All of these words are difficult to totally define.

It is important to note that deification will only be realized in its fullness in the age to come, in the life that exists after our earthly existence is completed. This deifying union, however, has to be fulfilled ever more and more during this present lifetime. This lifetime lays the foundation for total deification in the age to come. It is for this reason that Eastern theologians do not shy away from speaking of divine-human synergy, the cooperation of the person with God.  Men and women are saved by God’s grace or help, but not without their total devotion and voluntary willingness and desire to be transformed.

2014 Great and Holy Week Schedule

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Palm or Flowery Weekend

Sunday April 13th  – Divine Liturgy 10:00 AM

Great and Holy Week

Great and Holy Tuesday – April 15th
7:00 PM — Presanctified Liturgy & Communal Penance

Great and Holy Thursday – April 17th
7:00 PM — Vesperal Liturgy & Holy Anointing

Great and Good Friday – April 18th Day of Strict Fast & Abstinence
5:00 PM — Vespers & Burial Service
Vigil at the Grave Begins

Great and Holy Saturday – April 19th Day of Abstinence from Meat Products
Confessions  1 – 3 PM
Vigil at Grave ends at 6 PM

EASTER

    The Great Day – Easter – April 20th

8:00 AM — Resurrection Matins & Divine Liturgy

Blessing of Food Immediately after Service

In Memoriam

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I would ask you to join with me in asking Almighty God
to grant eternal repose to our sister who passed during this past week:

Helen Grudzinsky

We pray for her repose and may her memory be eternal!

Eternal Memory!
Вічная пам’ять!

 

Sunday March 23, 2014

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We bow to Your Cross, O Master and we praise your third-day resurrection

Crucifixion-1

As we complete the third week of the Great Fast, the Church calls us to   venerate an image of the Cross. It signals that we are at the mid-point of the Great Fast. Our attention is now directed toward the most profound lesson that God has taught us through His Son, Jesus: How we embrace the challenges of life is absolutely critical if we are to truly become spiritual people and learn what life is meant to teach us.

The Church presents the Cross for our veneration so that we might make, as we venerate it, a personal commitment to embrace the cross that life has given us in a manner similar to how Jesus embraced His Cross. As we venerate the Cross this weekend, let us ask Almighty God to give us the strength and courage to imitate Jesus.

Consider what we know about how Jesus carried His Cross. The way He endured the Cross truly summarizes all of His teaching. It reveals to us, in a profound manner, His teaching in actual practice. We understand that He (1) embraced it without complaint; (2) thought about others even in His agony; (3) treated those mourning for Him with love; and (4) forgave those who tortured Him and expressed hatred for Him. To the very last moment of His human life He truly lived what He preached. He lived those four basic rules which, I am sure, all of my readers recall: (1) He did unto others as He would have them do unto Him; (2) He unconditionally loved   others as Himself; (3) He unconditionally forgive others; and (4) He judged no one for His crucifixion. Again, He lived His beliefs fully, placing absolutely no conditions on His loving response to others. Jesus presents us with a real example of how to live this human life.

As we venerate the Cross today, we are called, to honestly challenge ourselves to assess our level of belief. Do we truly believe in the teachings of Jesus? Do we understand that He is God’s revelation about how to be a proper human being, made in His own image and unto His likeness? Have we set a goal for ourselves to do all within our power to live like Jesus lived? Are we prepared to embrace the challenges of life in the same manner as Jesus did? Are we resolved to carry, as Jesus did, the cross that life presents us.

To live this way we need faith and a desire to be God’s child. It is a way that offers hope and the fullness of life!

Getting to Know Something About Our Eastern Catholic Faith – 20140323

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Christianity took a firm root in the area now known as Ukraine in 989 when Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, embraced the faith and was baptized. Soon afterwards many missionaries, in particular Cyril and Methodius, arrived from the Byzantine Empire, having been sent by the Patriarch of Constantinople to preach the Gospel. They not only preached the Gospel but also created, using the Greek alphabet, the Old Slavonic language. The new alphabet became known as the Cyrillic alphabet and it transformed the various spoken dialects into a written language. Old Slavonic became the language of the Church (when I was ordained, some 48 years ago, that was the language of all of our services)

patcathWhen the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople severed ties with one another in the 11th century, the Church in the Mediaeval Slavic State of Rus gradually followed suit and finally gave up the bonds of unity with Rome. The Church in Rus, because it used the Byzantine ritual, became, in effect, an Orthodox Church. When the Ukrainian Orthodox bishops met at a council in Brest-Litovsk in 1595, seven bishops decided to re-establish communion with Rome. Guaranteed that their Byzantine tradition and Liturgy would be respected and recognized by Rome, they and many priests and lay faithful were re-united with the See of Rome.  Others, however, remained in union with Constantinople which was, at that point in time, the head Church of Orthodoxy. The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church did not exist, as such, until the Union of Brest-Litovsk.

In the 19th century many Ukrainian Catholics began to emigrate to North America, bringing their pastors, traditions and liturgical traditions to Canada and the United States. Under Communist rule, Greek-Catholics were persecuted. Many were imprisoned and murdered. In 1945 all the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic bishops were arrested or killed.

While our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is in union with Rome, we are not considered Roman Catholics since we use the Byzantine ritual and embrace Eastern Christian theology. We have a different calendar of saints, with the exception of the major Christian holy days; we use the Byzantine lectionary, that is the sequence of readings, during the year; and have our own Eastern Canon Law as well as those particular laws called Statutes (these deal with the orderly direction of the apostolic work of our eparchies and parishes). All the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Churches in the United States have promulgated the same Statutes.

Learning Our Faith from the Church Fathers – 20140323

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As you may have surmised if you have been following this article over that pass months, there is a pronounced difference in orientation in the understanding of Christ and salvation between the East and West. According to Eastern theology, Latin tradition have been dominated by legal, juridical and forensic categories. Eastern theology, on the contrary, understands the need of salvation in terms of deliverance from mortality and corruption for life everlasting. Union with our God is the goal of the Christian life – Theosis or deification. This is quite different from the goal of the Christian life that is espoused in Western theology. I would hasten to assert that one orientation is not right and the other wrong. They are just two different ways at looking at the meaning and purpose of life.

Eastern spiritual theology sees like as being given to us to help us develop our spiritual nature so that we can embrace the immortality that God has won for us through His incarnation in the Person of Jesus. Eastern spiritual theology looks at the Incarnation as the means that God ordained to reveal to us how to achieve union with Him. The idea of divine-human cooperation in salvation is not only accepted but is enthusiastically championed, although it is not understood as nullifying the role of God’s help or grace.

One Eastern theologian has stated it in this manner: “the descent of the divine person of Christ makes human persons capable of an ascent in the Holy Spirit.” It is our vocation, as human beings, to use the challenges of life to accomplish union with God – Theosis.

It is important to note that Eastern theologians do not speak of deification only as a metaphor. They stress the reality of the union with God, promised to the faithful through the revelation made to us through the Person of Jesus.

It is St. Peter who first expressed the fact that our human vocation is to become partakers of the divine nature. He leaves no doubt as to the “reality of the union with God which is promised us”.  

Eastern theology, however, struggles with the compatibility of the two seemingly opposite ideas: namely, “the absolute incommunicability of the divine being and a real partaking of humanity in God”. By holding Theosis as the true goal of this earthly existence, Eastern spiritual theology does not, in any manner, nullify the distinction between God and the     human person. Eastern theology does not espouse pantheism. God still remains God and humans remain human though participating in the divine. Admittedly this is not an easy idea to comprehend. Hopefully as I share more it will become clearer.

Called To Holiness — 20140323

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holycrossDo you realize you are called to be holy and to be a saint? Many Christians don’t realize that their Initiation into the Church is meant to make this their life’s goal.  In fact most Christians feel that it is beyond their   ability to become holy since it requires them to be perfect. In truth, holiness and saintliness are not the same as human perfection. No matter what we do we can never be perfect during this lifetime. Further, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect and there is only one who is holy and He is God.

So what does it mean to be holy? What does it mean to be a saint?

During the next several issues I would like to share my ideas about holiness which leads to saintliness.  Some of the ideas I will present are taken from the Fathers of the Church and some will be from my own reflections and thoughts on the topic. Hopefully they will be of some value to my readers.  I would hasten to add that just because I share ideas about holiness and saintliness it doesn’t mean that I have any delusion that I have already achieved this goal. It only means that it is my goal.

There are a number of different dimensions to holiness. The first is to recognize your own uniqueness and to attribute this uniqueness to God. While biologists may argue that our uniqueness is due purely to chance, when we decide that our uniqueness is due to God’s plan, then we are on the path to holiness. Although we may not always like everything about ourselves, we have to know that our uniqueness is given to us by life for our spiritual growth. To believe that life’s uniqueness is given to us by God means that there is a Divine Plan for us. Life is planned to give us the opportunities and abilities to spiritually grow into God’s children. In saying this I know that faith is required. I must believe that God has given me this uniqueness so that I might have the opportunity to work towards greater union with Him. I am not an accident nor is my life. I am a thoughtful image in the mind of my Creator.
This image is of all that I can come to be!

Learning About the Practices of Our Religion – 20140323

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In the last issue of this article, I began to share with you the Liturgy as it was described in the Apostolic Constitutions. As I shared, after the entrance into the worship space, readings took place. The readings were followed by a teaching or reflection by the bishop or priest. Then the Great Litany was proclaimed. This litany was followed by prayers for those preparing to be baptized. After these particular prayers, non-baptized persons were dismissed and the Creed was said.

After the Creed was said, deacons brought the gifts to the bishop who had processed to the altar. There is no mention in the Apostolic Constitutions were the gifts came from or how they were provided. But it is probable that people brought bread and wine to the worship space with them and left them in areas outside the worship space. It has been observed that the deacon’s admonitions would come more logically after the bringing in of the bread and wine. But liturgy is not always logical: though it is quite possible that the compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions has here put his sources together clumsily.

supper_01The rubric preceding the Anaphora sets the scene for the eucharistic prayer:

And let the priests stand on the bishop’s right and on his left, as disciples standing by a teacher. But let two deacons on either side of the altar hold a fan of thin tissue or of  peacock’s feathers, and let them gently ward off the small flying creatures, so that they may not approach the cups.

The priests still have their proper place as the real Clement of Rome described it at the end of the first century:

Then let the bishop, after praying by himself together with the priests, and putting on a splendid vestment, and standing at the altar, and making the sign of the cross with his hand upon his forehead say: ‘The grace of the Almighty God, and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.’

In the fourth century all the prayers of the Liturgy were public prayers. That is why we have returned to saying many of the previously private prayers out loud. It was never intended that any of the prayers would be private except the prayer for the priest before the Anaphora.

It was no doubt natural for the clergy to pray in preparation for the Eucharist. But their prayer was silent and informal. St Paul’s prayer at the end of his Second Epistle to the Corinthians became the characteristic introduction to Eastern anaphoras. In the Clementine Liturgy it was followed by the exhortation: Lift up your minds! The response was: We lift them up to the Lord. Then the priest said: Let us give thanks to the Lord. Reponse: It is meet and right.

The Spirituality of the Christian East – 20140323

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In the last issue of this article, I began sharing some of the thoughts of Theophan about turning our hearts to God. Theophan suggests that “whoever enters this true way of pleasing God” will most probably experience some struggle, “threatened by the danger of losing her way at the crossroads, of going astray and perishing while under the illusion that she is working out her salvation”. Theophan states that such crossroads are unavoidable because we are human and part of the purpose of this human life is to learn how to control our inclinations and live with thoughts about the teachings God has given us through the Person of Jesus. It is the primary task of life’s journey to learn how to become spiritual people and to respond to the challenges of life in a manner similar to Jesus.

Theophan relates that “the spiritual traveler who already has the desire to   follow the way of the Lord” must also become cognizant of the struggle with which she will be confronted. We humans don’t like to change. We can find a million reasons why we don’t need to change and present more than a million reasons why we cannot live like Jesus lived. If we want to follow Jesus we must be aware of the internal struggle we will face if we attempt to extend unconditional love and forgiveness to others. Our natural tendency is to put conditions on our love and forgiveness, not realizing that when we do this we only diminish ourselves spiritually and fail to learn the lessons that life is intended to teach us.

Theophan maintains that this struggle which must be encountered on the way to salvation, is “common for everyone” and requires “special guiding principles,” that is principles what can truly turn a person towards God and bring him/her into God’s presence. During the next few weeks I will share the principles that Theophan has identified.