The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20170430

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As I indicated in the last issue of this article, the goal of Eastern Christian spirituality is none other than living in a state of deification or participation in the divine life. This experience, strikingly expressed as a state of deification, includes first of all two general teachings:

  1. It represents the ultimate step of man’s perfection; so this supreme phase of the believer’s earthly life or the goal of his whole life is also called perfection.
  2. Deification is realized through the believer’s participation in the divine powers, by flooding him with boundless divine things.

I believe these teachings will become clearer as I continue to share thoughts on Eastern Christian spirituality – that which you and I are called to by our membership in an Eastern Christian Church.

Because this experience represents the highest step of perfection on earth, it means the normalization and supreme realization of human powers: knowledge, love, and spiritual force. Experienced by the believer, the state exceeds the limits of his powers; it is fed by divine power.

The culminating state of the spiritual life is when the believer is raised higher than the level of his own powers, not of his own accord, but by the work of the Holy Spirit. “Our mind goes outside itself and so unites with God; it becomes more than mind,” says St. Gregory Palamas.

Although I realize that at first glance this may all seem to be either frightening or impossible, it is possible because of God’s actions within the life of a person who truly desires to become united to God. It doesn’t happen by osmosis or accident. It happens when we turn our minds and hearts to the effort of becoming, in a real and true way, the children of God. Nothing is impossible for God. Indeed, true personal transformation is possible with God’s help. Of course we have to welcome God into our lives and become serious about spiritual development. God does not and will not force His way into our lives. He enters in wherever He is welcome.

God does continuously offer to become a part of our lives, however. He allows life to deliver a multitude of real opportunities to place our hope and trust in Him. It only requires that we become aware of these opportunities.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20170430

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The Eucharist, which is made present through the ritual of the Divine Liturgy, is truly the sacrament of the Kingdom. As one author has stated, the Mystery of the Eucharist is the Church’s ascent to the “table of the Lord, in his Kingdom.” By using ritual actions and words that try to emulate the actions and words that Jesus Himself performed on the night before He died, we are not only brought into His presence but we are joined with Him. In pedestrian terms, “we become what we eat and drink”.

What I believe is important, however, is that we see the transformation of the bread and wine within the context of the entire Divine Liturgy. Too frequently the only thing that people do is focus on the changing of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. This, in my humble opinion, depreciates the power of the Divine Liturgy as a ritual action that can bring us into the presence of God.

Think about it. We begin the Divine Liturgy by the celebrant declaring: Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit now and ever and forever. To this all respond AMEN. The word AMEN is a Hebrew word which means “truly” or “it is true.” It always expresses acceptance of what has just been said. Jesus Himself is called “the AMEN,” the one who is faithful to His word. Its use by Jesus Himself in the Gospels is frequent and has no real parallel elsewhere. It is used to introduce solemn affirmations and adds a note not only of asseveration but also of authority. So, we declare as a group of believing people that we have gathered as a people to make God’s Kingdom real and present to us when we celebrate the Divine Liturgy. It expresses our desire to truly enter into the Kingdom of God.

We are reminded of this by the fact that ICONS always stand between us and the TABLE of THRONE OF GOD. The Nave or main body of the worship area, is the Kingdom of God in time and space – in the present moment. The icons clearly remind us that in order to truly enter into the full Kingdom of God, that is the Kingdom which also exists within the spiritual dimension, we must go through a personal transformation process (This is why icons are stylized. We know that the persons they represent are human but they look different. The difference is that they have undergone personal change and transformation).

What is wonderful about the Divine Liturgy, however, is that it also clearly demonstrates that God has shown us how to undergo this personal transformation. It also clearly depicts the fact that if we are open to God’s Kingdom in the present moment, He is constantly coming from the spiritual dimension into our world to LEAD US INTO THE KINGDOM. The celebrant, who depicts God’s movements, comes from before the Throne, enters into the worship space – Nave – and processes back to the space beyond the icons which represents the spiritual dimension of the Kingdom.

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20170430

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Athanasius the Great

I have been sharing in this article Athanasius’ arguments against Arius. Arius was the proponent of the first and one of the greatest heresies. Arianism, in Christianity, is a Christological concept that asserts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who was begotten by God the Father at a point in time, is distinct from the Father and is therefore subordinate to the Father. Arian teachings were first attributed to Arius, a Christian Priest in Alexandria Egypt. The teachings of Arius and his supporters were opposed to the theological views held by Christians, regarding the nature of the Trinity and the nature of Christ. The Arian concept of Christ is that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten by God the Father. Athanasius firmly believed that the errors of Arius and his followers could be laid at the doorstep of theological and spiritual presumption. They are either asking the wrong questions or asking questions that should not be asked at all, questions such as: Why is the Word of God not like our word? How is the Word of God from God? How is he God’s radiance? How does God beget? And What is the manner of his begetting? Asking such questions is much like asking: Where is God? How does God exist? And What is the nature of the Father? It is enough merely to write down the kind of things they say, Athanasius scolds, “to show their reckless impiety. They ask such nonsensical questions as, ‘Has he free will, or not?’ Is he good from choice, of free will, and can he change, if he so will, being by nature capable of change? It is blasphemy even to utter such things.

Such questions cannot be adequately asked or answered because the human mind and its accompanying speech is inadequate for explaining the deep mystery of God. As Athanasius explains, these questions “demand to have explained in words something ineffable and proper to God’s nature, known only to him and to the Son.”

The Arians have forgotten, Athanasius believed, with whom they were dealing, a theological and spiritual shortness of memory that reflects a serious spiritual malady that Athanasius diagnosed as “a lack of reverence and ignorance of God.” When we measure God by ourselves, we will inevitably fall into error. Here the link between theology and worship become immediate and important.

Athanasius argues that Christian worship makes little sense, is indeed blasphemous, if Christ is a creature, however elevated he may be. Yet Christ must be worshiped if the Church is to remain true to the Scripture. “The whole earth,” Athanasius states, “sings the praises of the Creator and the truth, and blesses him and trembles before him.” Righty so. But who is this Creator? Does not both Old and New Testaments point to the Word, the Word now incarnate in Christ?

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church — 20170430

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The Pentecostarion (i.e., also known as the Flowery Triodion or Festal Triodion) is the service book of the Eastern Church that provides the texts for the moveable portions of the divine services from Pascha through the feast of All Saints (the weekend that follows Pentecost). You will recall that the Lenten Triodion is the service book of the Eastern Church that provides the texts for the divine services for the pre-Lenten weeks of preparation, the Great Lent and the Great and Holy Week. In Greek and Slavonic it is simply called the Triodion because the canons appointed for Matins (i.e., Morning Prayer) during this period are composed of three odes each. The Pentecostarion includes the following:

PASCHA – Resurrection Weekend
ANTI-PASCH – St. Thomas Weekend
MYRRH-BEARERS Weekend
THE PARALYTIC MAN Weekend
THE SAMARITAN WOMAN Weekend
THE BLIND MAN Weekend
THE ASCENSION
THE FATHERS OF THE 1ST ECUMENICAL COUNCIL Weekend
PENTECOST Weekend
ALL SAINTS Weekend

 

As you will recall, the weeks of the Triodion were originally designed to prepare potential converts for Initiation into the Church. Each week presented a different aspect of the Christian Way of Life – which is the way of METANOIA or change of heart and mind. The weeks of the Pentecostarion were originally designed to continue the religious education of the newly initiated, helping them to truly understand the WAY of living that Jesus revealed. I would like to challenge all my readers to think about these themed-weekends and attempt to determine what the Church is trying to teach us about the WAY. The Church deliberately chose these Gospel stories to teach us something. Over the next several weeks, I would like to share information about how our worship of these events came into existence.

In worship we encounter the living God. Through Worship God makes Himself present and active in our time, drawing the particles and moments of our life into the realm of redemption. He bestows upon us the Holy Spirit, who makes real the promise of Jesus to be in the midst of those gathered in His name (Mt 18.20). In our church, therefore, we do more than remember past events and recall future promises. We experience the risen Christ, who is clothed with his past and future acts. Thus, all that is past and all that is future are made present in the course of our liturgical celebrations.

Pascha, which commemorates the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is the oldest, most venerable and preeminent feast of the Church. It is the great Christian festival, the very center and heart of the liturgical year.

It is important, if we are to truly understand our Church, that we understand more about our worship.

More to follow!

Reflections on the Scripture Readings for this Weekend — 20170423

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As we bring BRIGHT WEEK to a close – the eight days of celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection – our readings are taken, as they are throughout the Pentecostarion (i.e., the 50 days between Pascha and Pentecost), from the Acts of the Apostles and St. John’s Gospel. As one might immediately guess, the Gospel story is the encounter that the resurrected Christ had with His doubting disciple, Thomas. It is deliberately celebrated to encourage us not to doubt the wondrous revelation God has made to us about our immortality. The Lord’s resurrection from the dead reveals that one of the gifts that God has given us humans is eternal life.

Our reading from Acts relates the Signs and Wonders that people experienced through the hands of the Apostles after the Lord’s Ascension. It also relates the challenges that the Apostles had to confront, even jail. The reading ends with Peter being rescued from jail by an angel and given this command: Go out now and take your place in the temple precincts and preach to the people all about “this new life”.

What is this new life that the Apostles were called to preach and which we, as followers of Jesus, are also called to witness? This new life is, in reality, an understanding of salvation. But we must have a true understanding of salvation. It is my deepest conviction that salvation is not a rescue from the punishment of hell and the reward of heaven but, rather, a clear and real understanding of the meaning and purpose of life. Jesus preached about and demonstrated by the way He lived that earthly life for humans is a journey of personal transformation – Metanoia – which results in our becoming more spiritual and more in the likeness of Jesus. Salvation truly means that we begin to think and act like Jesus, which means we begin to truly be children of God.

Why have we been born into this world? To spiritually grow, learning how to unconditionally love others so that we are capable of loving God. We are here to also: learn how to trust and hope in God; grow in our awareness that we, like all created things, are sustained in our existence through the loving consciousness, life-force and energy of God; and that we are one with all created things.

In order to achieve this type of awareness, however, we cannot allow ourselves to DOUBT the truth that was revealed to us about life. We must make a real LEAP OF FAITH, as Thomas did. What is most interesting is that this type of FAITH is truly more supportive of personal peace than doubt is. If you want to live this life with personal peace and contentment, then belief in God’s revelation through Jesus is, in my estimation, your best bet.

What do you believe?

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20170423

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During the Great Fast I shared, in this article, certain things about the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. It is an intense Liturgy that is filled with many lengthy prayers which present much about our faith. The real problem is that it presents so very much it is difficult to fully comprehend all the meaning that Basil infused into it.

Before the Great Fast, I shared thoughts about St. John Chrysostom’s Liturgy and about liturgy in general. You will recall that the word liturgy means common work or common action. The Divine Liturgy is the common work of the Church. It is the official action of the Church formally gathered together as the chosen People of God. (The word church, you will remember, means a gathering or assembly of people specifically chosen and called apart to perform a particular task and who share a common belief).

The divine liturgy is a single, though also multifaceted, sacred rite, a single sacrament, in which all its “parts,” their entire sequence and structure, their coordination with each other, the necessity of each for all and all for each, manifests to us the inexhaustible, eternal, universal and truly divine meaning of what has been and what is being accomplished by God.

Such is the tradition of the Church, such is her living experience in which the sacrament of the Eucharist is inseparable from the Divine Liturgy. For its setting, its entire sequence, order and structure consist in manifesting to us the meaning and the content of the sacrament, in bringing us into it, in converting us into its participants and communicants.

It is precisely this unity, this integrity of the Eucharist, the indissoluble link of the sacrament with the liturgy, that calls us to enter into a deeper relationship with God by joining with our Savior, Jesus, in offering our lives to the Father as an act of Thanksgiving for the gift of life. This act has both spiritual and psychological dimensions to it.

First, we must believe that, when we remember what our Brother Jesus did and ritually repeat His actions, something happens. Second, we must be prepared psychologically to THANK GOD for the life that we have. Last, we must be desirous of being joined with others in worship.

This last point, I think, is frequently overlooked. Just as many grains of wheat and many grapes must be crushed and kneaded together to make bread and wine, the symbols of life, so too must we recognize that we must be joined together in love to make the Eucharist a true act of worship. This is one of the reasons why our divine liturgy explicitly states before we recite the Creed: Let us truly love one another so that with one mind we might profess belief in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mutual love of those we worship with is essential. It is this mutual love that also makes us CHURCH, or a gathering of people who believe in our Triune God.

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20170423

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Athanasius the Great

Before Pascha, I had started sharing information about the argument between Arius, the heretic, and St. Athanasius. It is, actually, quite a fascinating bit of our Christian history. Athanasius argued that the fundamental error of Arius and his followers was in their limited thinking and speaking about God. They only seemed to think about God in human terms and from a human perspective. St. Athanasius, concedes that if the Scripture were describing a human man or relationship, the Arians would be correct. “Now if they are discussing a man, then they may argue about his word and his son on the human level. But if they are talking about God, man’s creator, they must not think of him on a human level.”

This, Athanasius contends, is the Arian’s fundamental mistake. Human procreation does take place in time and space. Human fathers are both older and separate from their children. Begetting does involve division and separation. Not so, however, with God. The Arians have forgotten who the subject of the discussion actually is: “The character of the parent determines the character of the offspring. Man is begotten in time and begets in time; he comes into being from non-existence. The same is true of human speech: “his word ceases and does not remain…A human word is a combination of syllables, and has no independent life or activity; it merely signifies the speaker’s meaning, and just issues and passes away and disappears, since it had no existence at all before it was uttered; therefore a man’s word has no independent life and activity; in short it is not a man.” (This quote from Athanasius has to do with the fact that we say that Christ is the WORD of God).

The Arians are guilty of a serious category error. They have applied human categories to God in an inappropriate and illogical fashion. “God,” Athanasius insists, “is not like man.” Rather, “he is ‘he who exists’ and exists forever.” Furthermore, “his Word is ‘that which exists eternally with the Father, as radiance from a light.” But God’s word is not merely ‘emitted,’ as one might say, nor is it just an articulate noise; nor is ‘the Son of God’ just a synonym for ‘the command of God,’ but he is the perfect offspring of the perfect.”

God’s divine Word is, indeed, utterly unique. A human word is spoken, communicates and disappears into the air. In itself it has no capability “to affect anything.” Not so with God and his Word. God, as Athanasius puts it, does not speak his Word so that a subordinate might hear God’s command and then carry it out. No, “this is what happens in human affairs. But the Word of God is creator and maker, and he is the Father’s will.

Sorting out who Jesus is was a long, hard-fought struggle for the Church. It is inappropriate to think of God in human terms. More to follow!

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church — 20170423

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This weekend our Church also remembers the great martyr George. The Holy Great Martyr George, the Victory-Bearer, was a native of Cappadocia (a district in Asia Minor), and he grew up in a deeply believing Christian family. His father was martyred for Christ when George was still a child. His mother, owning lands in Palestine, moved there with her son and raised him in strict piety.

Of the many miracles worked by the holy Great Martyr George, the most famous are depicted in iconography. In the saint’s native city of Beirut were many idol-worshippers. Outside the city, near Mount Lebanon, was a large lake, inhabited by an enormous dragon-like serpent. Coming out of the lake, it devoured people and there was nothing anyone could do since the breath from its nostrils poisoned the very air.

On the advice of the demons inhabiting the idols, the local ruler came to a decision. Each day the people would draw lots to feed their own children to the serpent and he promised to sacrifice his only daughter when his turn came. That time did come and the ruler dressed her in her finest attire, then sent her off to the lake. The girl wept bitterly, awaiting her death. Unexpectedly for her, Saint George rode up on his horse with spear in hand. The girl implored him not to leave her, lest she perish.

The saint signed himself with the Sign of the Cross. He rushed at the serpent saying, “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Saint George pierced the throat of the serpent with his spear and trampled it with his horse. Then he told the girl to bind the serpent with her sash, and lead it into the city like a dog on a leash.

The people fled in terror, but the saint halted them with the words: “Don’t be afraid, but trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in Him, since it is He Who sent me to save you.” Then the saint killed the serpent with a sword, and the people burned it outside the city. Twenty-five thousand men, not counting women and children, were then baptized. Later, a church was built and dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos and the Great Martyr George.

It is fitting that we hear this story of the Martyr George today since we are called to trust God and not to doubt that He loves us. Trust in God does not mean, however, that we expect Him to always do for us what we desire. Trust in God means that we truly believe that God will always allow life to deliver to us that which is in our best interest. This, how-ever, is one of the more difficult things that we must learn as humans. When we pray for something and God does not grant it the way that we want, then we must trust that it is in our best interest. Like a good father, God will always desire those things which are best for us. Pray to Martyr George today to help you truly trust God.

CALLED TO HOLINESS — 20170423

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The call to holiness is made ever-more explicit during this time when we celebrate the great feast of Pascha. As I have preached during this time, Pascha is our own Christian PASSOVER – the historical event which has truly formed us and is forming us as a People of God. It is not just a past historical event! It is the event which continues to form us as a people who truly sees the connection between us and our God. This event, because it reveals to us that the life we experience and enjoy is truly immortal and eternal, reveals to us that life is a sharing in God’s own divine life and that life’s journey is to make progress in becoming more and more like the person Jesus who shares our human nature.

As one might easily surmise, this understanding is much different than that subscribed to in Western Christian Churches. It is important, however, not to think of one way being right and the other wrong but, merely, to thank God for the way that we understand the journey of life. For me, the Eastern way is much more positive and a way that I can more easily embrace. It speaks very dramatically to the great love that our God has for us and flows from the way we worship.

Consider how we celebrated Pascha. We declared over and over again that Christ IS Risen from the dead. Hopefully these were not just idle words to us who sing them! They are meant to be words that call us to real belief in what God, by this event in history, revealed to us about human life through the life of His only -begotten son, Jesus.

The call to holiness, I truly believe, is a call to think about and reflect upon what we do and say in our worship and to fully embrace these beliefs. Our worship is meant to transform the way we think and behave. It proclaims the Good News that God has revealed. Ask yourself, What do I think the Good News is? I think it is essential that each of us attempts to answer this for ourselves!

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20170423

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Transfiguration

Eastern Christian spirituality aims at the perfection of the faithful in Christ. This perfection can’t be obtained in Christ, except by participation in His divine-human life. Therefore the goal of Eastern Christian spirituality is the perfection of the believer by his union with Christ. He is being imprinted to a ever-greater degree by the human image of Christ, full of God.

So the goal of Eastern Christian spirituality is the union of the believer with God, in Christ. But as God is unending, the goal of our union with Him, or of our perfection, has no point from which we can no longer progress. So all the Eastern Fathers say that perfection is unlimited.

Our perfection, or our union with God, is therefore, not only a goal, but also an unending progress. On this road two great steps can be distinguished: first, the moving ahead toward perfection through purification from the passions and the acquiring of the virtues and secondly a life progressively moving ahead in the union with God. At this point, man’s work is replaced by God’s. Man contributes by opening himself up receptively to an ever-greater filling with the life of God.

Given the above understanding, the following are the basic features of Eastern Christian spirituality:

  1. The culminating state of the spiritual life is a union of the soul with God, lived or experienced.
  2. This union is realized by the working of the Holy Spirit, but until it is reached man is involved in a prolonged effort of purification.
  3. It takes place when man reaches the “likeness of God.” It is at the same time knowledge and love.
  4. Among other things, the effect of this union consists of a considerable intensification of spiritual energies in man, accompanied by all kinds of charismas.

The East also uses the daring world “deification,” or participation in the divinity, to characterize the union with God. So the goal of Eastern Christian spirituality is none other than living in a state of participation in the divine life. This experience, strikingly expressed as a state of deification, includes several general teachings. During the coming weeks I shall share these and more. Eastern Christian spirituality is all about growing in our likeness of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer.