Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20160807

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Saint Maximos the Confessor Преподобный Максим Исповедник Μαξίμου του Ομολογητού

Saint Maximos the Confessor
Преподобный Максим Исповедник
Μαξίμου του Ομολογητού

Another Greek Father of the Church that was greatly responsible for how we view Christ and the Holy Spirit, is Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’ place in the history of Christian Doctrine is primarily associated with his defense of Chalcedonian orthodoxy against Monotheletism (the belief that Christ had only one divine-human “will”). As you may recall, the Council of Chalcedon clearly stated that Christ, since He had two natures, namely Divine and Human, had to have two wills. Christ only had one personality which united His two natures but, in doing that, one nature did not have power over the other. Indeed, for Maximus, real humanity is dynamic, creative and endowed with a proper “energy”: this was, indeed, the case with the humanity of Christ, who, being a man, possessed a human will distinct from the divine. This human will of Christ was in conformity with the eternal purpose of God. Christ is the archetype of humankind. In monotheletism, the humanity of Christ, although accessible to “contemplation”, did not possess any “movement” or energy proper to itself, and the Chalcedonian definition, which affirmed that “the characteristic property of each nature of Christ was preserved” in the hypostatic union, had lost its meaning. The merit of Maximus was, therefore, in having decisively counteracted a monophysitic trend which interpreted deification as an absorption of humanity into divinity. For Maximus, deification was to be seen not as a denial but as a reaffirmation of created humanity in its proper and God-establish integrity.

However, Maximus at no point of his system was renouncing the essential message of Cyrillian Christology. God became human, he always affirmed, so that

…whole people might participate in the whole God and that in the same way in which the soul and the body are united, God would become partakable of by the soul, and through the soul’s intermediary, by the body, in order that the soul might receive an unchanging character and the body, immortality; and finally, that the whole human being would become God, deified by the grace of God become man – whole man, soul and body, by nature – and becoming whole God, soul and body, by grace.

As in the case of Cyril, the union between the “whole” God and the “whole” human being did not imply, for Maximus, any real absorption of humanity.

Remember, we’re talking about a great mystery!

Reflections on the Scriptural Readings for this Weekend — 20160731

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transfigurationAs we end this eleventh week after Pentecost, we hear Jesus’ parable of the merciless official. Matthew puts this parable in the context of Peter asking Jesus: Lord, when my brother wrongs me, how often must I forgive him? Seven times? Jesus replies to Peter: No, not seven times; I say, seventy times seven times. By saying this, Jesus was not limiting forgiveness to just 490 times but to indicate that His followers must truly extend unconditional forgiveness to others in order to truly be one of His followers.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to have forgiving hearts, learning how not to limit our forgiveness. We must dare to aspire to this type of behavior, knowing and believing that God’s Spirit lives within us. He can and does provide us with the ability to live in this manner if we have faith and have a real desire to be one of His followers.

Why is it important that we learn how to live this way? Because the purpose of this earthly existence is to learn how to be more like Jesus. There is no greater task in life than to be a true follower of Jesus. When we attempt to do this, we are fulfilling the purpose God intended when He brought us into existence. Earthly life is intended to provide us with a variety of opportunities to grow in the likeness of Jesus – to become a true child of God.

After this brief response to Peter, Jesus then presented a parable which sets forth one of Jesus’ important teachings, namely that we can only receive from God what we are capable of extending to others. This is a basic law of life. We can only receive what we are capable of giving. This means that we can only be unconditionally loved and forgiven if we are trying to develop the ability to unconditionally love and forgive others.

So, even though it may be done for a selfish reason, we should strive to develop this ability so that we might receive true love and forgiveness ourselves.

Think about this! Anytime we limit our love or forgiveness for others, we lessen our own ability to be forgiven and loved. Even though God may love and forgive us unconditionally, we limit our ability to accept His love and forgiveness because we have not developed our ability to receive it. This is truly what it means to be in a cooperative relationship with God. Salvation, Eastern spirituality (Theosis) tells us, requires us to have a cooperative relationship with God!

CALLED TO HOLINESS — 20160731

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Powers of HeavenAs I reread what I wrote in the last issue of the Bulletin, I realized that what I was saying in so many different ways is that the call to holiness is a call to allow ourselves to be amazed, in a real and true way, at the miracle of creation. To be called to holiness means to allow oneself to stand in awe before the work of our God. If we really take time to consider in depth our universe, which includes ourselves, we cannot help but to be deeply moved and truly amazed.

As we look around our world, we will find that, at each turn, we must be astonished at the design, complexity and beauty of God’s creation. If we look closely at creation, we cannot help but to also be astounded. In spite of mankind’s creative abilities, what humans create is not even one-trillionth as magnificent and awe-inspiring as the universe our God has created and keeps in existence. I find it very difficult, when I look at creation, not to be truly awe-struck. And then when you know just a little about our universe, you cannot help but to be captivated and enthralled.

So the call to holiness is the call to be truly child-like in our experience of God’s creation. To stand in awe at the world that we live in, is truly one of the ways that we can become aware of God.

So the call to holiness is a call to become ever more aware of God and His true and real presence in our world and in our lives. It is a call to have God ever gentle on our minds as an old folk song goes. People who have achieved greater holiness are people who have achieved greater awareness of God imminent presence in our world and lives. This type of awareness indeed changes our experience of life and indeed empowers us to live in the way that Jesus lived. He was acutely aware of God in His life and world.

Why would a person want to live like this? This way of living brings a certain amount of contentment. Why? Because it helps us understand the meaning and purpose of life. It brings us peace. It brings us hope! It allows us to truly enjoy life!

 

 

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church — 20160731

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patcathIt must be remembered that Scripture is nothing more than a written testimony to and a product of Tradition. What came first? Was it Scripture or Tradition? The simple answer is, of course, Tradition. Scripture, as I have attempted to present in the article about Scripture, found on page 9, was the product of the various stories about Jesus (Gospels) and the letters of Paul and others that Tradition maintained. In fact it is because of Sacred Tradition that the canon of the New Testament (NT) was officially recognized in the East in 692 at the Second Council of Trullan and in the West, the Catholic Church officially defined the Canon at the Council of Trent in 1546, thus reaffirming the Canons of Florence 1442 and supporting the decrees of the North African Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (419). It seems that all Christians seem to have agreed on the 27 books of the NT in the mid-300s.

Writings that were attributed to the Apostles circulated among the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating, perhaps in collected forms, by the end of the 1st century AD. Justin Martyr, in the mid-second century, mentions memoirs of the apostles as being read on the day called that of the sun(Sunday) alongside the writings of the prophets. A defined set of four gospels (the Tetramorph) was asserted by Irenaeus, c. 180, who refers to it directly.

In the one-hundred-year period extending roughly from 50 to 150, a number of documents began to circulate among the churches, including epistles, gospels, memoirs, apocalypses, homilies, and collections of teachings. While some of these documents were apostolic in origin, others drew upon the tradition the apostles and ministers of the word had utilized in their individual missions. Still others represented a summation of the teaching entrusted to a particular church center. Several of these writings sought to extend, interpret, and apply apostolic teaching to meet the needs of Christians in a given locality.

So, it is because of Sacred Tradition that we currently have the NT. Those who deny the value of Sacred Tradition fail to realize its particular role in the formation of the NT. Further, Sacred Tradition also preserved how the various writings were used within Christian communities. The writings that are not found in the NT were used in the worship-gatherings of the early Church. The prayers of these gatherings also help us understand the intended meaning of the NT writings.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20160731

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Holy Eucharist IconAfter we, as the Church, lift up our hearts, we are called to give thanks to the Lord. Our response is to state quite specifically our belief that it is proper and just to worship the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. By stating this, we declare our belief that it is within the very nature of humankind to worship God and that the God we worship is a Trinity of Persons. The priest prays during this declaration about the appropriateness of our worship, that it is truly proper and just to

  • sing hymns to God
  • bless God
  • praise God
  • thank God
  • worship God

 

in every place of His Kingdom. This tells us that indeed all that we do during the Divine Liturgy is truly in accord with what we, as humans, must do in our relationship to God.

The portion of the priestly prayer said silently during this time declares Who we believe God to be. The God we worship and thank is: ineffable, and also inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible. He is ever-existing, yet ever the same. These are truly magnificent declarations of what we believe our God to be like.

As the priest continues this prayer, he expresses our belief about what our God has done. The priest prays that God has brought us forth from nonexistence into being and raised us up again when we had fallen and left nothing undone until You brought us to heaven and bestowed upon us Your future kingdom. This is the true story of salvation. It is all about the positive work of God within creation. He gave us free will and He has also done everything possible to make sure we, in cooperation with His Spirit, can come to a deeper union with Him without violating our free will.

It is our belief that God does not force us to love Him or achieve union with Him. He does, however, do all within His power to help us achieve the goal that He established when He created us, namely to come into a deeper and fuller relationship with Him.

The celebrant then concludes the silent portion of this first major prayer of the Anaphora by expressing the fact that we who are joined in worship offer thanks to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for all that we know and do not know, the manifest benefits bestowed on us. You will note that this prayer is directed to God the Father. When you have a chance, read this prayer silently with the priest.

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20160731

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theotokosIn the last issue, I shared some thoughts about the acts of the Council of Ephesus (431) and shared the fact that our veneration of Mary, as the Mother of God, is directly connected to our understanding of the Incarnation of Our God. It is important to note that we DO NOT worship Mary but, rather, venerate her. Worship is only reserved for God.

It is important to note, however, that the piety and theology of the early church never tended to separate the veneration of Mary, the Mother of God, from its Christological context. There was no doctrinal definition of her position except that of her divine motherhood. Her exaltation, after Ephesus, did not mean that her belonging to limited humanity was forgotten. Well-know passages by John Chrysostom, by far the most popular and authoritative father of the Greek Church, continued to be read and copied. Commenting on such passages as Matthew 12:46-49 (Who is my mother and who are my brothers), or John 2:4 (Woman, how does this concern of yours involve me?), Chrysostom frankly recognized Mary’s human failings and imperfections. The mother of Jesus was therefore seen, within the mystery of salvation, as the representative of humanity in need of salvation. But, within humankind, she was the closest to the Savior and the worthiest receptacle of the new life.

In the medieval West and not the East, the Augustinian understanding of original sin as inherited guilt, made it inevitable that Mary be approached in terms of an immaculate conception, as the object of a special grace of God that made her in advance worthy of divine motherhood. The East did not follow that trend, because the consequences of the sin of Adam were seen as inherited mortality rather than as guilt, so that there was no need to see Mary in isolation from the common lot of limited humanity. However, there developed in the East the tradition her glorification after death. Anticipating the general resurrection, her Son made her, as His mother, inseparable from his own risen body, above the angelic powers themselves.

We must remember that the early church made every effort to make clear distinctions with regard to the matters of faith. In later years there has not been the same intense discipline when dealing to such matters. Words and expressions have a real implication when we talk about faith. The East always struggled over words and phrase to express the faith.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20160731

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edrodsui1What I have been trying to do in this article is to give my readers some thoughts about what we, as Catholics, think about inspiration and the Bible. What I have been sharing is background about this topic. As I indicated, the early Church developed in a world that had various ideas about inspiration as experienced in the texts of the Old Testament and other texts that various cultures held as sacred. In the last issue I shared the ideas of Epiphanius and other early Christians.

In a few cases, moreover, early writers go beyond this position of divine dictation and cite indications of active creativity on the part of the human authors. This was necessary, I believe, because as they experienced the various texts, they realized that they were different, and yet in some ways the same, and they could not account for the differences.

Cyril of Alexandria repeatedly stresses the care with which John expressed his message, as well as John’s constant efforts to adapt his writings to the goals he had formulated for the Gospel. So also Augustine notes that the Gospel writers drew upon their personal memories of the events they recorded. But by and large, the patristic writers paid little attention to the exact role of the human authors in the production of the sacred books, except to deny that inspiration involved the removal of human consciousness and understanding from the writers. Authors were not merely the conduit for dictations from God. In one respect – and this probably unconsciously, and therefore all the more meaningfully – early Christian writers showed unanimously that they regarded the personalities at the source of the biblical books as typically human authors. When referring to the Bible (until there was felt a need for a terminology to distinguish the divine activity from the human), early church writers spontaneously employed the customary terms for human literary authors – suggrapheus in Greek and auctor in Latin. This choice of words would seem to indicate that they looked upon the human composers of the sacred books as fully deserving the ordinary designations for the human efficient cause of the literary work.

Hopefully my readers are getting the point I am trying to make through this presentation. Are the writings in the Bible merely Godly dictations to scribes OR do the authors of these sacred writings truly authors who are moved to write what they wrote.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20160731

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Ladder of Divine AccentIn the last several issues of the Bulletin, I have been sharing thoughts about St. John Climacus’ 23 Step on his Ladder of Divine Ascent. His ladder presents the incremental steps we must go through in order to become truly transformed children of God. The 23 Step is PRIDE. Pride deals with how we see ourselves in God’s creation. C.S. Lewis wrote this:

In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all.

This is why, according to Christian Tradition, pride was the sin that brought down the devil. Most sins, particularly bodily sins, can often be put down to weakness, to our limited condition. The devil had no such weakness or condition to contend with, according to Christian tradition. His sin was pure, unadulterated pride. Thus it is the most demonic sin of all.

This is why it easily works its way into the very fabric of spiritual life by wearing the guise of piety. Pride is, ultimately, the worship of our own selves, and so God can even become a pious euphemism for the ego. The greatest danger of religious faith is to glorify ourselves in God’s name.

Religious people are frequently guilty of such a charade. We say, It’s God will, but what we really mean is, It’s my will. We hear people say things like, God told me to run for president; God wants me to be an entrepreneur; God wants me to be a priest, or some such thing, but what we really mean by God is I. Pride is the deadliest sin because it often disguises itself as faith. And just as the devil was guilty of no other sin but pride, so too pride can condemn a Christian who has committed no other sins. But if pride alone can condemn us, it is possible that humility can save us. St. John deals with humility in the 25th Step. While we should not depreciate ourselves, we also should not aggrandize ourselves.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Our Faith — 20160731

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image379According to St. Gregory Nazianzen, there is no interior process in the Godhead; no dialectic of the three persons; no becoming; no tragedy in the Absolute, which might necessitate the Trinitarian development of the divine being in order that it be surmounted or resolved. If the Church speaks of processions, of acts, or of inner determinations, these expressions – involving, as they do, the ideas of time, becoming and intention – only show to what extent our language, indeed our thought, is poor and deficient before the primordial mystery of revelation.

What St. Gregory is attempting to convey is that the human language we employ in order to describe the Trinity, is limited and can-not truly express the mystery of the Trinity. We talk about the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father. This gives the impression that at one point the Son and the Holy Spirit were not in existence. This is false. There was never a time that the Son and the Holy Spirit didn’t exist. Rather, the word proceeds, when predicated of an eternal being, does not put any sort of sequence in the existence of the Three Persons. Of course this is impossible for us to understand since it is truly a mystery. Our created intelligence cannot conceive, truly, what the Holy Trinity IS.

It is in such a spirit as this that St. Gregory speaks in his oration on baptism: No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendor of the Three. He continues by saying: No sooner do I truly distinguish them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three, I think of Him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me.

So we as Christians are called to believe in a God which is beyond our human comprehension. We are not meant to define or be able to explain what the nature of are God really is. Of course this is a challenge to many Western persons who are deeply steeped in the scientific method. We unconsciously think that the only truth is a truth we can explain. Of course if this is true, then we do not need faith. What kind of God would we have if we could completely explain Who He Is? To be our God, He must be beyond our comprehension and understanding. That is what makes Him our God. If our limited human intellects could express Who He Is, He would not be God.

Acquiring the Mind of Christ — 20160731

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christ_iconI have suggested that in order to acquire the mind of Christ we must understand how He prayed. Therefore I have been presenting my reflections on the petitions in the OUR FATHER.

The next petition that we encounter in the prayer is forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. I am sure that no one would deny that this has been especially emphasized by the Lord. He is quoted by Matthew (6:14-15) as saying: For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

This is the point of Christ’s parable about the unforgiving servant that we heard this weekend. Because God chose from all eternity to give humans free will, He committed Himself to responding to humans in accord with their ability to accept His loving forgiveness. All men are indebted to God for everything and, when they chose to limit their ability to love and forgive by the way they treat others, they place limitations on their ability to receive true unconditional love and forgiveness from God. While man’s behavior does not limit God’s abilities, man’s behavior does limit his own abilities to receive. God cannot force us to receive what we are unable to receive. What He does do, however, is to present multiple and various opportunities for humans to develop the abilities needed in order to receive His unconditional love and forgiveness.

The petition that follows is frequently truly misunderstood by many Christians. Lead us not into temptation should not be understood as if God tests His people or brings them in to the occasion of evil.

St James wrote this: Let no one say, when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God;’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death (James 1.13–15).

So the petition Lead us not into temptation” means that we ask God not to allow us to be found in situations in which we will be overcome by sin. It is a prayer that we be kept from those people and places where wickedness reigns and where we, in our weakness, will most certainly succumb.