Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20161127

Posted on by

bulletinoctober23rdThe early Church Fathers were great theologians, though they did not think of themselves as such. They were working pastors, involved in the daily life and leadership of their congregations. Yet they were wresting with some of the great and formative questions of the Christian faith, such as the Trinity, the incarnation, the providence of God and the nature of the church. These beliefs were defined in the crucible of spiritual leadership, pastoral care and theological conflict, all set against the background of the great cultural movements and events of their day. For the fathers, theology was a spiritual exercise woven into the texture of life.

The first five hundred years of the church’s life were a period of intense biblical and theological ferment, reflection and development. Think of the momentous events of the first century CE itself. The early Christian community was birthed with the firm conviction that the God revealed to Abraham, Moses and David had acted finally and completely on humanity’s behalf in Jesus Christ. In the incarnation of the divine Word (Logos), sent by the Father into the midst of this present evil age, the life of the age to come had been dramatically introduced and manifested.

“In the beginning was the Word,” John writes and we hear declared on Easter (Velikden), “and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). How could this be? What strange kind of theological arithmetic was this? How could God be God and the Word be distinct from God and yet, simultaneously, also God? Exactly what Word was this? How as the Word related to God? To further complicate matters, John writes that this Word “became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) In fact, this Son had become fully manifest in Jesus Christ, who as John puts it, “is close to the Father’s Heart” and had “made Him known (John 1:18). These statement are truly not only mysterious and breathtaking, but also complicated. Of course, John’s prologue to his Gospel is only the beginning of the story. The reader discovers that God has uniquely visited humanity in the person of Christ. Here we have an incarnate God, one who comes to serve, suffer, die and rise again, conquering the awful reality of sin in the process. It is truly a wonderful story, at first glance seemingly simple but increasingly much more complicated. This is our faith!

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20161127

Posted on by

Ladder of Divine AccentThe 27th Step on John’s Ladder, STILLNESS, is probably one of the more difficult ones to achieve because of the busy lives that most of us live. Our lives are constantly filled with noise of some sort. In order to achieve this step, we will probably have to make a plan for quiet time and integrate this plan into our daily lives. Even one or two small pockets of time to retreat into solitude for ten minutes or so can help us enormously. Some are fortunate enough to work near a church, where they can go for about ten minutes during their lunch break. I have actually known people who have benefited a great deal from such an opportunity. Others may manage half an hour of solitude at home in their prayer corner or in their study every evening.
But what should we do with these precious few opportunities for solitude? It is not always necessary to speak to God. But often, thoughts and concerns distract our silence. One thing we can do is give a little time to the reading of Scripture. Some like to carry a small pocket Bible with them, which they can dip into at opportune moments (on the bus or train, on their lunch break, or some other time).
If we choose to read the New Testament, we should make an attempt to read it prayerfully, not inquisitively. I would first suggest that you read the epistles you rarely if never hear in church. There is one attributed to St. James, two to St. Peter, three to St. John and one to St. Jude. Try these first. I would also suggest that you don’t attempt to read the entire letter all at once. Read just a few verses or a chapter and then think about what you read. Look for “words” that stand out in your mind or “images” that are created by the words. Then just think about them. There is a time and place to study scripture, but for the purpose of stillness, the less the better when coupled with thought or reflection.

Reflections on the Scripture Readings for this Weekend — 20161120

Posted on by

pentacostThe 27th Week after Pentecost is ended with the parable of the Rich Man and the Great Harvest as presented in St. Luke’s Gospel. This parable, I truly believe, is a parable for our modern age. Why? Because it seems that “possessions” have become so very important to all of us in this 21st Century. Very few of us lead a “Spartan life” – a life with few possessions. Our society seems to be mesmerized by things. Just consider the extensive use of cell phones. I must confess that I have my cell phone with me always. Even when I traveled in Europe, I used my phone to take pictures. We are completely surrounded by gadgets. By wireless technologies we are connected always to others and the world around us. It seems that none of us are immune from the seduction of being connected to others. This connection to others, however, is becoming more and more artificial each and every day.

In our modern world manufacturers spend billions of dollars to “market” their products while millions of people go hungry and homeless in our world. A 30-second advertisement during Super Bowl 50 cost five million dollars. That’s an average of $166,666 per second. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this is that most of the things advertised are things that we don’t NEED but, rather, want.

I must admit that I am always amazed, when I hear News reports that people actually camp outside Apple Stores when a new I-Phone is offered OR when, on Black Friday, stores offer special discounts on bigger and better televisions. All these things just add clutter our lives.

Needless to say, I feel as trapped in this thing-filled world as probably many of my readers do. I know that I would, at this time, be lost without my cell phone. What did we ever do before it was invented.

So what can we learn from this Gospel parable? The parable urges us to “trust in God and not in possessions.” As I think about this tendency to become attached to possessions I realize that psychologically it might very well be due to our desire to “hold onto life” since we really don’t know what comes after death, even though we believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Things, unfortunately, seem to give us a sense of stability in this world, even though we know that a tornado, flood or some other natural disaster can take all of our things away. And we also know that we cannot take things with us in death. Things are no substitute for trust in God and life-eternal.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament– 20161120

Posted on by

It is important to overcome a purely “verbal” understanding of Scripture. It must be admitted that Protestant theology has rightly insisted on the indispensable role of preaching in the Church’s inner life as well as in its mission to the world. Our Church, through its Vibrant Parish Initiative, encourages us to make every effort to integrate the reading of Scripture into our daily lives and to wrestle with its meaning. All to frequently the concept of the “Word of God” in Reformed tradition has been reduced to the canonical Scriptures or even to the sermon, as though one or the other possessed in and of itself the capacity to transmit knowledge of God and to establish communion with Him. As Luke 18:34 and similar passages make clear, though, the scriptural Word is not necessarily self-revealing. Human words can become the very Word of God only through the inspiration and interpretive power of the Holy Spirit. Only the risen Christ, the eternal divine Logos operating through the Spirit, can open men’s minds to understand the Scriptures, bringing to their remembrance the fullness of His teaching and declaring the hidden truths of this age of our salvation, to His own glory and to the glory of the Father. The fact that even Christ’s own words are not automatically self-revealing explains why He invariably links proclamation of the “good news” of the Kingdom with concrete, material signs that reveal the deeper meaning and confirm the truth of His words. At the beginning of His ministry, He concludes and validates His teaching in the Temple by healing a man with an unclean spirit. Similarly, the apostolic commission consists of the double imperative to preach and to heal: Whenever you enter a town, heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God has drawn near to you’” (Luke 10:8f). The prophet’s oracle was dramatically sealed by a “sign-act” that associated some material object with the pronouncement of divine judgment. In this case, the object participated in the prophecy by enabling those to whom the oracle was addressed to visualize the consequences of their refusal to repent. The sign-acts of Jesus and the apostles, however, actually accomplish the work of salvation proleptically by actualizing the promise of the kerygma in the life of the diseased or possessed individual. This healing – accomplished through the power of the spoken word – is a true “symbol” of salvation. Jesus makes a new creation come true.

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church – 20161120

Posted on by

theotokosOne of the major fasts of our Church is the Entrance of Mary into the Temple. It is celebrated on November 21st of the New (Gregorian) Calendar. I shall deal with this feast again when I return to my presentation on the reason why these major feasts were developed in the Byzantine Church. Since this feast is celebrated next week, I shall share some information about it now.

This feast, like other Marian feasts, traces its origin to the tradition of the Church and certain well-accepted apocryphal writings, especially these two: Proto-Evangelium of James (i.e., probably written about AD 145 and expands backward in time the infancy stories contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and presents a narrative concerning the birth and upbringing of Mary) and the Pseudo-Evangelium of Matthew (i.e., probably written between 600 and 625 AD and a part of the New Testament apocrypha. It is one of a genre of Infancy Gospels that seeks to fill out the details of the life of Jesus up to the age of 12 which are briefly given in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke).

Allusions are made to this feast in the fifth century; however, it took several hundred years before it was universally observed in the East. From the sermons of several Fathers, it can be inferred that the feast of the Entrance was established in the eighth century.

The Sinai Gospel of the eighth century, which Emperor Theodosius III (715-717) donated to the Sinai monastery, mentions the feast of the Entrance among the twelve feasts. This feast is found in the Greek Menaion (Greek: Μηναῖον and Slavonic Минеѧ) is the liturgical book used by the Eastern Church containing the propers for fixed dates of the calendar year, [i.e. feasts not dependent of the date of Easter]. The Menaion is the largest volume of the propers for the Byzantine Ritual and is used at nearly all the daily services). It finally became universally recognized and observed in the ninth century.

What spiritual lesson does this feast offer us? First of all, it speaks to us of the joyful sacrifice of Joachim and Anna. They themselves bring their daughter to the Temple and offer her to the service of God. They did this in thanksgiving for the gift of Mary. They had been sterile for many years and could not have children.

Second, Mary gladly obeys the voice of God and her parents and gives herself voluntarily to service in the Tem-ple, despite the fact that she probably did not fully understand what her par-ents were doing.

Both Mary and her parents demonstrate how a “spirit of sacrifice” and acceptance of one’s life can lead to greatness. The acceptance of life’s challenges leads to greatness.

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20161120

Posted on by

In the last issue of this article, I ended saying that it was the thought of the Greek Fathers that to be created according to the image of God and according to His likeness, suggests that we humans have been created with some kind of “affinity” for God which makes possible a process of assimilation to God, which is, presumably, the point of human existence. The point of human existence, namely its purpose, is to, over an eternity of life, to be assimilated to God. Have you ever thought of the purpose of your life in this manner? There is but one goal to life – to become one with God in a true sense. This must necessarily also involve our awareness of being one with God.

This idea, the Greek Fathers maintains, chimes in very well with the few uses of the language of the image in the New Testament, for it is in the context of saying something about the goal of our being disciples of Christ, that the New Testament resorts to such language: we are being changed into His image from glory to glory. Even without using the language of image, there are passages in the New Testament that suggest much the same idea: for instance, in the first epistle of John we read: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He (Jesus) appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). The language of image is the language of sight; the suggestion of these passages is that being in the image means there is a likeness between humankind and God that enables us to see, to know, God – it is a kind of epistemological (Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, the rationality of belief, and justification) principle of much ancient philosophy that only ‘like knows like’: to know something is to discover an affinity. It sug-gests a contemplative understanding of what it is to be human, though there is nothing new in that – both Plato and Aristotle thought the same, and something similar is implied in Isaiah’s vision of the Lord in the Temple.

What then is it to be in the image of God? Often enough, we find the Fathers giving an answer in terms of human qualities, and these turn out to be qualities of the soul. The “according to the image” says John Damascene, “is manifest in human intelligence and free will.” Being in the image means being a rational, or intelligent, being with free will. Sometimes the answer is more complex. I shall, in the coming issue, share the answers given by other Fathers. We must attempt to find an answer that truly helps us understand.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20161120

Posted on by

Ladder of Divine AccentI would continue some remarks on St. John’s 27th Step, STILLNESS. One of the key principles of Christian life is that we don’t maintain Christian attitudes out of hatred for our world, but that we are striving to be more like Jesus Christ. You will recall that when Jesus was falsely accused, He stood silent before His accusers. He only spoke when He silence would mean rejecting His attitudes about life and the world.

If we seek solitude not because we love prayer and yearn for union with God, but simply because we like to be alone or because people annoy us, then solitude, instead of helping our spiritual life, will hinder it. If we find our passions are not diminished after spending time in solitude, then we are not practicing stillness, only aloneness. The following are signs of stillness practiced wrongly – poverty of spiritual treasures, anger on the increase, a growth of resentment, love diminished, a surge of vanity.

This is why St. John says the life of stillness, especially when practiced by solitaries, must be guided by conscience and common sense.

Before we acquire stillness, crowds and cities can be frustrating and noisy places for us, but whoever acquires perfect stillness can be at peace anywhere: Do not be afraid of loud nonsense. The spirit of mourning is neither afraid of it nor upset by it.

What can we, who live in the world, do to acquire stillness? There is not one single way for everyone. Some work to reduce the passions. Others sing psalms and spend time in prayer. Some turn to contemplation. But whatever the situation is, let it be investigated in accordance with the ladder and accepted in the Lord.

Some find peace and stillness in reading, others in handiwork or art, yet others in music. Each of us must work to find stillness in our own way. It is a matter of wanting to achieve stillness.

CALLED TO HOLINESS — 20161120

Posted on by

So the call to holiness is a call to personal change. I truly believe that our iconography bears witness to this basic fact. The purpose of this earthly life is to use the opportunities that life presents to accomplish this task of personal change and transformation. Think about icons. We know that they represent human beings and yet these human beings look a little different than us. They are meant to represent “transformed humans.”

One of the big questions that I have had to answer over the years is: How can I accomplish this personal change and feel comfortable with it? One of my answers has been that a person has to first accept the fact that this is the meaning and purpose of life. I find that many, if not most people, don’t fully accept this idea that we are placed on earth to “grow in our likeness of Jesus” and to do this necessarily requires each of us to undergo personal change. Once a person has accepted this vision of life, then he/she can focus their attention on trying to accomplish this task.

Ask yourself this question:

Why am I here on this earth?

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Our Faith — 20161120

Posted on by

In this article I have been sharing some of the history of how our Church came to its understanding of the “role” of Christ as savior. In the last issue I shared some of the thinking of the Great Greek Father Cyril. There is no doubt that Cyril used ambiguous terms (like his formula one nature incarned of God the Word, which he unknowingly borrowed from Apollinaris), but his rejection of Nestorianism was motivated not by any “anthropological minimalism” but, on the contrary, by the conviction that human destiny truly lies in communion with God – an ultimately maximalist view of humanity. It must be remembered that Nestorianism consisted, on the contrary, in a rationalizing sense of incompatibility between the divine and the human: the person of Christ, in which divinity and humanity met, appeared as a juxtaposition of two mutually impermeable entities. He did not believe that Jesus could be equally and totally God and equally and totally man. According to Nestorius, the human nature of Christ kept not only its identity but also its autonomy. Christ’s birth and death were human only. Mary was mother “of Jesus”, not “of God.” Jesus the “Son of man” died, not “the Son of God.” It was this duality

which implied a different anthropology, that Cyril rejected. On the other hand, he simply could not remain logical with himself if he adopted a doctrine similar to that of Apollinaris or Julian. It is precisely because Christ accepted existentially complete humanity that the Divine Logos had to assume suffering and death. In order to lead it to incorruptibility through the resurrection, he first came down where humanity truly was and then cried before dying, “My God, why have you forsaken me”.

This moment was indeed “the death of God” for it was the assumption by God Himself, in an ultimate act of love, of human nature. Mankind was subject to death and corruption without any sense of immortality. By assuming death, God revealed to humankind the truth of human life.

It is obvious that some aspects of Cyril’s Christology needed to be more clearly defined. The Council of Chalcedon (451) affirmed the doctrine of Christ’s two natures in their distinctiveness and the doctrine of a hypostatic (not a natural) union of the two natures. But in no way did it disavow Cyril. It clarified his language and attempted to answer legitimate questions about his language.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20161120

Posted on by

Holy Eucharist IconAfter we join with the Angelic Host in proclaiming the Hymn of Victory, we enter into a sequence of prayers which, it is our belief, lead to the true transformation of the gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. The first in this sequence is the prayer to the Father. It begins with the statement that we offer this sequence of prayers with the “blessed powers” who celebrate with us.

Our first declaration is that God is Holy as a Trinity of Beings. We know that the prayer is directed to the Father because we say: Holy are You and all holy You, and Your only-begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. In this prayer we then proclaim that we understand and believe that it is the Father Who revealed to us the process of salvation out of love. We pray: “Who so loved Your world that You gave Your only-begotten Son that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but should have life ever-lasting”.

After acknowledging that it is the Father Who desires us to know the meaning and purpose of life, namely to come to an awareness of our immortality because we share His life, we remember what Jesus, Who is truly God incarnate, did. First of all He came into the world to full the “whole divine plan concerning us.” What is this plan? The plan is that we might undergo personal transformation and become more like Jesus, the true archetype of what humans are called to be.

To be like Jesus means to cultivate His attitudes and habits of mind and the behaviors that flow from His way of thinking and living. We then declare something very important. We declare that Jesus “surrendered Himself for the “life” of the world. His act of surrendering Himself tells us that the way that we can become like Him is to surrender ourselves to the “ways of God” and not the “ways of the world.” The way that Jesus handled the greatest of all of His life’s challenges, namely His suffering and death, tell us how to meet the challenges of our own lives. In suffering and dying the way that He did, He gave us a clear example of how we are called to live life. He returned unconditional love and forgiveness to all how hated Him, unjustly accused Him, betrayed Him and abandoned Him. He did not let the behavior of others change the way that He believed God expected Him to respond to others. He loved His neighbors as Himself.

Think about this!