Reflections on the Scripture Readings for this Weekend – 20161023

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0101015As we complete the 23rd week after Pentecost, our readings are taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and from Luke’s Gospel. The Gospel story is about Lazarus and the Rich Man.

I found this statement by St. Paul to be truly noteworthy: “We are truly his (God’s) handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to lead the life of good deeds which God prepared for us in advance.” I wonder what it means to you, my readers, that we are truly God’s handiwork. We believe that He made us in His image and gave us the potential to cooperate with His grace and grow in His likeness.

I feel that this vision of who I am as one of God’s creation truly makes a difference in my life. It is my hope that as you heard these words, you too will be moved to a much greater appreciation of who you are. We are not just some accident in creation. Rather, we are a thoughtful creation that God voluntarily brought into existence out of true love.

Our second reading, the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, is found only in Luke. Jesus was addressing “the Pharisees who were fond of money” and who thought to find justification in their own punctilious observance of the Law. The rich man is similar in many respects to the “Dishonest Manager”. Both seem successful for a time, both are unaware of evil in mishandling “mammon.” Similar stories existed in Egypt and among the rabbis; Jesus could easily have adapted this tradition to his own purpose.

As I thought about these two readings, it became very evident to me that when I get distracted by “money” and “all the things of this world,” I forget who God created me to be. If I truly believe that I am His handiwork, then I will voluntarily do everything in my power to make sure that I live in a way that reflects His idea of how I should live.

How can I know the right way to live? I can look how Jesus lived. He is the model for us. God didn’t just create us and leave it up to us to find the right way to live. Rather, He came Himself in the Person of Jesus to show us how to live – to show us how to gain the fullness of life. Remember what St. Peter said and what Athanasius the Great later wrote: “God became man so that men might become gods.” Is this something you truly believe?

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God – 20161023

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Holy Eucharist IconOnce we reach to point in the Liturgy wherein we hear this exhortation – Let us stand aright. Let us stand in awe. Let us be attentive to offer the holy oblation in peace – we enter into the ANAPHORA. The Anaphora is the central core of the Eucharistic Liturgy. It is at this point that we actively remember and join ourselves to the actions of Christ when He established the way that He can truly be with us,

We must remember that the early Church understood the presence of Christ in the Eucharist in a literal way, preached it and wrote about it. At the beginning of the second century, St. Ignatius, the martyred bishop of Antioch, wrote to the Church of Smyrna: “The Docetists abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ that suffered for our sins and that the Father, out of his goodness, has raised from the dead.” If the Christians had believed that the Eucharist was only a symbol or appearance, the Docetists would not have been heretics. To the Christians in Philadelphia (not the one in the United States), Ignatius wrote: “Be careful, then, to have but one Eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup for (demonstrating) the unity of his blood.”

Some fifty years later, Justin Martyr explains the doctrine of the Eucharist to Emperor Antonius Pius, the Senate, and Roman people: “Not as ordinary bread and common drink do we partake of them, but just as, through the word of God, our Savior Jesus Christ became incarnate and took upon himself flesh and blood for our salvation, so, we have been taught, the food which has been made the Eucharist by the prayer of his word…is the flesh and blood of this Jesus who was made flesh.”

As we celebrate the Anaphora, we prayerfully call upon our Triune God to make present the Second Person of the Trinity in His humanity – in His flesh and blood so that He might be truly present to us. This is expressed in the second prayer offered by the priest at the beginning of the Anaphora: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion in the Holy Spirit be with all.”

When Jesus promised His disciples that He would be with them until the end of time, He made His promise real by giving us the Eucharist – by giving us Himself.

CALLED TO HOLINESS – 20161023

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This article, Called to Holiness, was one of my initial actions to promote the Vibrant Parish Program which is being promoted by our Church. It has been an article which has taken on many different ideas. I only hope that my readers have found some value in it. A phrase from the Old Testament, quoted by our Lord Himself, is the foundation for these thoughts. That phrase is, “I say, ‘You are gods’”. This phrase has deeply marked the spiritual imagination of the Eastern Church. In our Church’s understanding of Christianity, our spirituality is not merely an adherence to certain dogmas, nor merely an exterior imitation of Christ through moral effort, but direct union with our living God which is achieved through personal, voluntary transformation of self. “Deification” or “Divinization” (Theosis) is the most distinctive, spiritual heritage of our Eastern Church. The biggest question is: Do we understand the meaning of the calling that is expressed through this spiritual idea of “deification”? As human beings, we each have this one, unique call, to achieve Theosis. I wonder whether my readers believe that this is their calling? It is not an idea that is understood in Western Christianity. Do you understand it?

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church – 20161023

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In the last issue, I shared that although Cyril introduced the major feasts of our Church in the 350s and 360s, they were not universally accepted until the end of the 80s and 90s. This delay, many believe, ensued because Cyril was ahead of his time, or because of the compromising events surrounding his consecration as bishop. Instead, the reasons for this time lag will become clear when viewed in relation to contemporary heretical movements and to the ecclesiastical councils which were called to deal with them.

Scholarship has largely ignored the appearance of the feasts other than those of Holy Week during Cyril’s episcopate. Of the five major feasts which were first independently celebrated on the local level in Jerusalem in Cyril’s time, only one – Palm or Willow Sunday – actually falls in Holy Week proper. The feast of the Raising of Lazarus, for example, has probably been more neglected than any of the other major feasts. It falls on the Saturday before Willow Sunday and commemorates Christ’s raising of Lazarus from the dead. This feast was first mentioned by the Spanish nun and pilgrim Etheria as being the day the priest announced Easter to the congregation. I’m sure that most people don’t even realize that this was originally one of the major feasts. It is not typically one of the twelve feasts that are captured in iconography in our churches and is not mentioned in the official list of major feasts. The official list of feasts of our Church are:

EASTER CYCLE

* Willow/Palm Sunday
** Great and Good Friday
** Easter Sunday
* Ascension Thursday
* Pentecost Sunday

IMMOVABLE FEASTS

* Nativity of the Mother of God (9/8)
** Exaltation of the Holy Cross (9/14)
Protection of the Virgin Mary (10/1)
Feast of St. Michael the Archangel (11/8)
Feast of St Josaphat, Martyr (11/12)
Presentation of Mary (11/21)
Feast of St. Nicholas, Wonderworker (12/6)
* Conception of Anne (12/9)
** Nativity of Our Lord (12/25)
Synaxis of the Mother of God (12/26)
* Circumcision of Our Lord (1/1)
** Theophany (1/6)
Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs (1/30)
Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple (2/2)
** The Annunciation (3/25)
Birth of John the Baptist (6/24)
Feasts of SS Peter and Paul (6/29)
** Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord (8/6)
** Dormition of the Mother of God (8/15)

Some of these feasts (**), as you might guess, are more important for our complete understanding of the mystery of life. As is apparent, the Raising of Lazarus is not on this list. These feasts present 24 opportunities each year for us to seriously think about the mystery of salvation.

 

 

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Our Faith – 20161023

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transfigurationAccording to the three Synoptic Gospels, Jesus, on the way to Caesarea Philippi, a few days before the end of His messianic ministry in Jerusalem, asked His disciples a question about their belief concerning His personal identity: “Who do you say that I am?” The answer came from Peter, saying that Jesus was “the Messiah.” Various schools of theology have, over the centuries, given different interpretations to Peter’s answer. All agree that the entire meaning of the Christian experience depended upon it. Indeed, whatever Jesus said, whatever He did, was in virtue of His Messianic ministry;  whatever  he  experienced  on  the  cross, whatever was the concrete reality of his resurrection

–  depended  for  its  ultimate  significance  of  his personal   identity. This significance would be radically different whether he were Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, or an angel (Jewish thought), or a passionless Theophany (Gnostics) or a creature adopted by God (Paul of  Samosata), or one of the many  created  “intellects”  who  did  not  submit  to fallenness  (Origen),  or  whether,  by  meeting  Him, one met Yahweh  Himself, so that Orthodox Jews would fall to   the   ground   hearing    his    name pronounced.

In a sense, all the doctrinal debates of Christian history  can  be  reduced  to  a  debate  on  Christ’s identity. In the period between apostolic times and the   high   Middle   Ages,   various   Christological positions  were brilliantly expressed and defended. However, if one envisages the  fate of the historic catholic    or    orthodox    Christian    tradition,    no Christological stand was as decisive, in terms of the nature  of   spirituality,   as  that  of   two   eminent bishops of Alexandria in Egypt: Athanasius and Cyril.

The achievement of Athanasius is relatively well known. He led the struggle for the faith of Nicaea, which  firmly  proclaimed  the   divinity  of   Christ. Almost   singlehandedly,   he   secured   a   Nicaean triumph. But this victory was not only doctrinal, but also spiritual. The message of Athanasius was that only God himself could properly be seen and adored as Savior. Thus, the divine identity of Jesus, equal to (“consubstantial” with) the Father, was not a matter of   abstract  or   purely   theological   truth,   but   it indicated  “mortal  humanity  which  could  neither save itself nor be  saved by another “creature” and the true nature of God, who being love, performedhimself the salvation of the world.

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church – 20161023

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bulletinoctober23rdCentral to the Christology endorsed by the early councils was the vision of Christ as both the eternal Logos and the “New Adam,” who established the unity of humanity with himself as the divine model according to whose image human beings were created in the beginning. However this process could not be automatic or magical: it required free human response to the Spirit and the cooperation of each human person and a “gathering” of free believers within the assembly of the Church. Free response to God’s invitation is absolutely essential. The “whole Christ” was manifested where two or three were gathered in his name and where, therefore, the Pauline image of the Body could be concretely present. Indeed, that “Body” is the Church realized most fully in the Eucharist.

Participation in the Eucharist was defined in Christological terms: it was a participation in the resurrected and glorified humanity of Christ, assumed in the hypostasis (or Person) of the Son of God and penetrated with divine life. Since, in Christ, there was no confusion of essences or natures, neither were “those in Christ’ partaking of the “essence” of God, but of his human nature.

Being “in Christ”, therefore, does not involve person or “hypostatic” identification with the Logos, because the person is that which is always unique. It involves a sharing, through the power of the Spirit, in Christ’s glorified humanity – a humanity that remains fully human.

We are called to be like the New Adam, that is Jesus. He represents all that God intended when He created humanity. By now I know that all of my readers already know what type of person Jesus was and is. He is a person who extends unconditional love and acceptance to all others and is not self-centered but other-centered. He showed us that the purpose of this earthly existence is to learn how to be a ”spiritual” human being who knows that life is given to him/her to grow in the likeness of Jesus, the model of what humans should be like if they want to gain the fullness of life. The process, however, requires that we humans freely give ourselves to the task of “becoming like Jesus”. There is no other reason why we are here. We are here to cooperate with God’s help to become the true human beings He created us to be.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament – 20161023

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Holy-NapkinOur Eastern Catholic Church believes that the Bible is God’s word, revealed for the salvation of humanity. Our doctrine holds that God inspired the writing of the Bible in its original languages, but that translations, by their very nature, are not inspired. There has been a real effort in more recent years to make sure that any translations, especially English ones, are based on texts in their original language, which has typically been Greek. We believe that the true focus of the Bible is the incarnation of Christ and the salvation of humanity above all else. Our Church doesn’t take a stand on the issue of Biblical inerrancy. Since the late 19th century, rigid stands on biblical inerrancy has caused divisions in Protestantism. One of the great problems is that many more modern churches base their interpretation of Scripture on English translations. We do not take a rigid, fundamental approach to the Bible and turn to the Fathers of the Church and their expressed understanding of Sacred Scripture in an attempt to discern the meaning of our sacred writings. Without Tradition as a guide, we cannot, we believe, come to any real understanding of the Scriptures. The early Christian church had the task of sorting through various religious texts to decide which were authentic and authoritative. The 66 books selected are called the Canon. The Eastern Church accepts the 66 books of the Old and New Testament and also recognizes a series of texts which have come to be known as the deuterocanonicals. These are books from the Old Testament and include Tobit, Judith, Sequel of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Joshua, Baruch, Sequel of the Book of Daniel, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees and Psalm 151. Protestants reject the deuterocanonicals entirely and Roman Catholics recognize only seven. Because Christians felt that the books of the Old Testament were an integral part of Christianity, they decided which of the Old Testament books they saw as In the following issue I will share more about the deuterocanonicals.

The canon of Judaism looks very much like the Protestant Christian “Old Testament.” The Jewish Canon seems to have centered around the so-called Masoretic Text, which is in Hebrew. It is probable that books whose only extant editions were in Greek were considered less authentic.

The Spirituality of the Christian East – 20161023

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st_john_of_theladderI have already covered 25 of John’s 30 Steps of the Divine Ascent. The 26th step, which I introduced in last week’s Bulletin, is Discernment. This step truly deals with real self-knowledge. We must, however, also be aware of our limitations. Some strive to pray and fast beyond their ability, which often leads them to giving up and losing hope. Being too austere can be just as detrimental to our spiritual life as being too lax. It is suggested, therefore, that we engage a “spiritual father or mother”- someone we feel has advanced in the spiritual life – help us along the way. They become a sounding-board for us as we progress in the spiritual life.

The second stage of discernment is “discerning Good and Bad.” Everyone is endowed with the ability to discern between good and bad. Sometimes this discernment is distorted by our passions. But the distinction between good and bad can be further distorted by externals. Our perception is limited to what we see. The gift of discernment is to acquire the eyes of God, who looks at the inner person.

For example, because of our modern world many see as “bad” any thing that is a challenge, anything that causes pain or suffering. And yet, pain is life’s way of telling us that something is wrong and so is not necessarily bad. Some people feel that any discomfort is bad. The only true way to growth is typically through discomfort and even pain. It is all a matter of perception. No where in the Gospels is it suggested that life should be without pain, suffering or discomfort. In fact when you look at the life of Christ you find that pain and suffering were a vital part of His life and, eventually, led to Resurrection and the fullness of life.

Our inability to discern accurately is one reason why we must never judge others and must engage in thoughtful assessment of our own lives. We are called to know ourselves as God does.

Acquiring the Mind of Christ – 20161023

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christ_iconIn order to acquire the “mind” of Christ, we must embrace a certain vision of Him. He is truly the proto-archetypal man. He reveals to us not only perfect God, but also perfect man, as man is intended to be, showing us the potential of everyone born into this world. This potential is to have the “fullness of the Godhead dwelling in us” (Colossians 2:9), not by nature, but by Grace, so “that we might become partakers of the Divine Nature:” (II Peter 1:4) and become “temples of the Holy Spirit” (I Corinthians 6:19). To deny that Lord Jesus Christ is to deny our true selves, “hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). The purpose for which we were created is that we might know God and through this knowledge become eternal, sharing in God’s very life.

Our task is great: to acquire Christ, to put on Christ, and to acquire the Mind of Christ. How are we to begin? The Church’s Mind is the Mind of Christ. The way the Church thinks is the way we need to learn to think about God, ourselves, each other, and the world. If we fail to understand that our thinking has a tremendous impact on how we live and act, then we have already missed the mark. It has been said that “our thoughts determine our lives.” We must be become aware of how much our modern society determines our thoughts which, it must be said, is quite frequently contrary to the thoughts of Christ.

We must examine ourselves and realize the tremendous impact the modern non-Christian worldview has on us Christians. We must seek to put on the new man and to put off the old with his thinking, habits and perspectives. Only the radical change afforded to us by profound metanoia – personal change. Only the radical change afforded to us through metanoia has the potential to remake us in the likeness of Christ.

Frequently we do not realize that to put on the mind of Christ we must change the way that we think. Our thinking is so very often seriously influenced by the thinking of our society. It is our task to leave aside those things which are not conducive to our salvation – especially opinions, thoughts or mindsets – that will not help us attain our ultimate goal: communion with God.

I find that it is necessary to actually express to oneself what is seen as the goal of life. What is your goal? Is it communion with God? Expressing the goal of your life will focus your efforts to become one with Christ.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20161016 

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Holy Eucharist IconIt is my hope that my readers are gradually getting a real understanding of ANAMNESIS. I truly believe that if we understand this idea, our worship becomes much more meaningful. The full participation in the Eucharist is an encounter with Christ that should enable us to live it “again differently in our own lives.” Anamnesis is an active remembering of the events of our human salvation. Through this way of worship we no longer see the life, death and resurrection of Christ as a past event which has no relevance to our present lives. Rather, our worship that actively remembers these events engages us in a new and different way to live our present lives.

Yes, I realize that this might be a difficult idea to comprehend without further thought and consideration. It is, however, the key to transforming something that we repeatedly do perhaps by rote to something that we actually experience. Our Divine Liturgy challenges us to look beyond time and to experience our union with (i.e., communion) our God.

To further help us understand this idea, I would remind my readers that our entire liturgy prepares us for and helps make real this remembering, which is what we do when we gather to worship God with Christ in the Holy Spirit.

Our act of actively remembering begins when we GATHER as an ASSEMBLY of God’s People. It is followed by reading and proclaiming the word of God and reflection on its meaning for our lives. The action then continues with the bringing of the gifts to be offered, (The Great Entrance), followed by the kiss of peace and then the confession of faith. All of these various actions are essential to our active remembering what is to follow and should bring us to a level of awareness wherein we can participate again in the actions of Christ that took and take place at a meal wherein He makes possible our communion with Him and one another. The Anaphora is but a part, albeit a very important part, of our remembering. Hopefully by the time we reach this point in the Divine Liturgy, we have laid aside all earthly cares and are prepared to enter into fuller communion with Christ Himself so that we might truly be ready to offer THANKSGIVING to God for the gift of life and for the salvific actions He has taken in time and history to help us enter into this deeper, conscious union with Him.

In the next several weeks I shall further explore the mystery of anaphora.