Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church — 20160619

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1507060_848314515197967_2751624803318588973_nAs I have shared with my readers, sacred tradition is aimed at bringing us into communion with God. The question is: How can we discern what is authentic Tradition? Clearly, we must walk in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. If we cannot, as sons and daughters of God, confirm in our spirit that what presents itself as genuine Tradition is indeed of the Holy Spirit, then it cannot be Tradition. If the teaching does not remind us of the voice of the Shepherd, we should reject it as a fraud. The anointing which the Spirit has given us must lead us to say, THIS IS TRUTH.

Simply put, “Faithfulness to Sacred Tradition is a participation in Pentecost and Tradition represents a fulfillment of Pentecost.” Pentecost marks the birth of the Church. On that day the Assembly first become aware of the presence of the Spirit among it. That first Church in Jerusalem had the assurance that it would never be orphaned by the Lord. God and His Word would now dwell among them in a manner that had never before been possible in the Old Dispensation. This assurance is intended for the Church of today as well.

Pentecost makes it possible for the Church of this generation to know the same promise which Jesus gave to the First Century Church, namely, that “when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. This promise of Pentecost was not the exclusive right of the Early Church; it was intended for the Church of all time. As one theologian has said:

The Church is not bound by ’letter.’ Rather, she is constantly moved forth by the ’Spirit.” The same Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, which spoke through the prophets, which guided the Apostles, is still continuously guiding the Church into a deeper and fuller comprehension and understanding of the Divine Truth, from glory to glory.

The early Fathers never referred to a specific body of Christian teaching as Tradition. To them, Tradition was not a motionless “deposit’ of teaching, but “the actual divine revelation.” This revelation is the fruit of the ongoing work of Pentecost within the Body of Believers. It is this ministry of the Spirit which allows Christ’s Church to discern God’s Word from among the many other “words” it may hear.

Our Church, in communion with other Churches, is guided by Sacred Tradition. Since the Holy Spirit, through the work of many saints, established Christianity in the Slavic Lands, Sacred Tradition is our foundation.

GAINING A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF OUR FAITH — 20160619

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Transfiguration

Transfiguration

In order to gain a deeper understanding of our faith, we must discover the essential beliefs of our faith. Contrary to popular belief, there are not that many specific things in which we are called to believe. I truly believe that our beliefs as Christians began to take shape as the Early Church struggled to fully understand who Jesus is. Their conclusions about Jesus required the Church, then, to formulate several other very fundamental beliefs. After the Church formulated its beliefs about Jesus, the Church was required to address its most important and profound belief, namely Who God Is!

Therefore, I would like to first address the Dogma of Christ and, with an understanding of that dogma, then address the Dogma of God As Trinity. It was precisely because of the Church’s Dogma of Christ that our Christian religion formulated an entirely new and unique understanding of God. This new understanding clearly articulates the profound difference between Judaism and Christianity.

The doctrine that emerged about Christ simply states that He is one person in two perfect natures, divine and human. It is the realization of this doctrine, and the working out of its implications, that came to be the central preoccupation of the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Church: councils that are of enduring importance in the Church. These seven Councils took place from the first to the eight centuries. It is not exactly the development of a doctrine, to use the term popularized by Newman, that gives the impression of some kind of evolution of the Church’s faith. It is, rather, a growing clarity of the Church’s faith. The only growing in depth that matters is a growing in depth in our relationship with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

If there is a history of doctrine, it is the history of heresy, which is constantly changing, not a history of the faith of the Church. From the very beginning the Church believed in Jesus. She confessed from the very beginning that He was sent by God and that He was truly special. His Resurrection from the dead convinced the Church of His connectedness to God in a very intimate and profound way. It took time, however, for the Church to find the words, ideas and concepts to express fully who she believed Jesus to be. The heresies that arose, caused the Church to formulate Her beliefs.

ACQUIRING THE MIND OF CHRIST — 20160619

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christ_iconI have been desperately trying to find a clear way to express how we can acquire the mind of Christ. The more and more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it probably takes an entire lifetime to accomplish this task. In fact the journey of life is a journey wherein we face the challenges of life and try to meet them with the same quiet resolve as Jesus did. This quiet resolve is possible, however, when we have learned how to place our total trust and hope in God – when we deeply believe that God has given us this earthly life out of love and that the challenges of this life are never greater than we can manage and that they are uniquely designed to provide us with opportunities to grow in our trust and hope in God.

What do we know about “how” Jesus thought? The beginning of any understanding of how Jesus thought must be connected with how He prayed.

We know that He prayed like any good Jewish man. He knew the Psalms, which were a substantial part of His prayer life. Further, we know that He created His own prayers to God, the primary one, which He shared with His apostles, the Our Father.

So in order to acquire the mind of Christ, we must look closer at this most beautiful prayer. A prayer which is, perhaps, the most important prayer of Christianity.

First, He addresses God as Father. He did not, however, use the formal Aramaic word for Father but, rather, a very child-like word, Abba. It is a term which expresses deep affection and admiration for the Father. It is not a term that is used for a authoritarian and demanding fa-ther. It is a term for a father in whom a child can place his entire hope and trust. He is not a father of rules, regulations and demands, but a loving father who is always there for His children. The word Abba in Aramaic would most closely be translated as “Daddy.” I suspect that Abba could very easily be used for the father of the prodigal son.

So perhaps the first step in acquiring the mind of Christ is to focus our thoughts on seeing God as ABBA – our loving father. This means dispelling all of our thoughts of a Father concerned about catching us doing wrong so that He can threaten us with punishment. This approach then sets the stage for us trying to do all in our to not dishonor Him and to praise Him for His love.

CALLED TO HOLINESS — 20160619

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Universal Call to Holiness

Universal Call to Holiness

The call to holiness is a call to an authentic spirituality which attempts to clearly understand what you believe about God, Christ and yourself. What all of this comes down to is that spirituality cannot be separated from religion, although many would like to try. One of the modern phrases that is heard over and over again is: I’m not a religious person but I’m a spiritual person. The life of a Christian cannot be separated from the foundational doctrines of Christianity. Christian doctrines are meant to help us understand what we believe so that we can have a healthy and robust relationship with God. True holiness requires a relationship with God. In fact, holiness is the result of a true relationship with God. The reality of three Persons in one God, the unity of God and man in Jesus Christ, and the unity that exists between Christ and His Church are the foundation that makes it possible for us to change and grow closer to God. When we try to pull apart religion and spirituality, we fall into the tender trap of sentimentality, in which we never have to do anything inconvenient. This will neither save us nor help us grow morally, but will trap us in the netherworld of emotion and sweet feelings, where we worship our own ideas and congratulate ourselves on our maturity.

Genuine, godly spirituality will bring us to a deeper understanding of God, our rela-tionship with him and ourselves. We will see things that we should have seen be-fore, understand ideas that we thought we knew but had only skated across the surface of. There is a great risk in this, because as we learn to encounter God as He is, some of our pet assumptions about both God and the world will be challenged. We will have to lay some childish things aside. Our movement will be in directions we had not consid-ered before, but always toward that which is sound and true. We will have to change and grow.

We must always remember that the purpose of this earthly existence is to respond to God’s call to holiness – God’s call for us to grow in our likeness of Jesus Christ, God’s revelation to humankind about the meaning and purpose of human life.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20160619

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Ladder of Divine AccentIn the last issue of the Eastern Herald, I began sharing St. John’s 21st Step, which is FEAR. It is quite serendipitous that today’s Gospel reading talks about casting out demons. St. John tells us that demons can only tempt and frighten, and have no power other than what God permits. This is made abundantly clear, he maintains, in the many accounts of exorcism in the Gospels. The demons fear Christ. They also fear the saints. They should also fear us, rather than us fearing them. There is truly no dualism in Christianity; God and the devil are not two equal powers playing with humanity like pawns in a chess game. Fear God, and the devil will fear you! This is aptly expressed by St. Nicodemos:

Why do you fear the devil, O Christians? He cannot force you to do anything. The devil should, rather, fear you, not you the devil, for you are clad in the armor and panoply of God; you have as a sling the sign of the Precious Cross, with which, and from a distance, you can smite all of the demons; you wield, as a two-edged sword, the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which the demons fear and which they tremble. As for you, if you are willing to keep the commandments of the Lord, and to be the true friends and soldiers of the Heavenly King, you will have no need of magic or any other device of the devil, and you will trample on him with your feet as though he were a beast, a little sparrow, a scorpion, or an ant. “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19)

When we cease to mourn for our sins, we forget our salvation. We compensate for this loss of purpose by attaching undue significance to temporal things – things that are fragile and easily taken from us – and so we end up living with a deep-rooted insecurity. Truly, the greater our repentance the less attached to things we become; and the less attached we become, the more fearless we shall be.

This is the 21st Step of John’s Ladder!

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20160612

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Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

There are many ways in which one can approach the history of the development of the Divine Liturgy. It seems that an appropriate way is to approach in a structural and historical manner, that is, to identify and isolate individual liturgical structures or units and then trace their history as such rather than attempt to study the entire ritual as a unit in each historical period. Historians of the Divine Liturgy have noted that liturgies tend not to grow evenly. Rather, their individual structures possess a life of their own.

The first structure that needs to be considered is the introduction to the Liturgy of the Word – the particular ritual that leads up to the readings. Our present structure is:

Initial Blessing
Great Litany and Prayer I
Antiphon I
Hymn of the Incarnation
Small Litany and Prayer II
Antiphon I
Little Entrance With the Gospel
Entrance Prayer
Tropars & Kondaks
Trisagion Prayer and Chant
Procession to the Throne
Greeting: Peace to All.

  1. A) The Blessing and Great Litany

The opening blessing “Blessed is the Kingdom” did not appear until the ninth century. In the primitive liturgy, such intercessions (petitions) only occurred after the readings, thus safeguarding the priority of the divine     action in the order of the service. Only after God speaks to us His Word do we respond in psalmody and prayer. As a matter of fact, the Great Litany was once found just before the transfer of gifts. But   following a tendency observable in almost all liturgical traditions, these petitions were either suppressed or moved up to the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word.

In the ninth century we find the Great Litany before the transfer of gifts and also after the Little Entrance, just before the Trisagion (i.e., at the old beginning of the Liturgy). By the end of the ninth century, it is found also before the    Antiphons (i.e., at the new beginning). In the 12th century it disappears from its original place in the prayers of the faithful. It was the original litany of the faithful which was concluded with the Prayers of the Faithful. In the 13th century it disappears before the Trisagion, remaining only where we still find it today.
A fascinating history!

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church — 20160612

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Picture1In the early Church the primary meaning of tradition was the delivery of Apostolic teaching. However, as heretical groups began to claim their teachings as true expressions of the Apostolic Tradition, Tradition came to be understood not only as the content of the true faith but also as its origin and manner of preservation. In part, this was discerned by asking groups such questions as: From where and whom does your teaching come – an apostle, or a church which had a relationship with an apostle? Are there references to the Scriptures, early creeds and worship practices which other apostolically recognized churches can confirm in your body? Has your teaching ever been altered?

The Gnostics could not justify their “unique” interpretations of the Bible.

(Gnosticism: Ancient Greek: γνωστικός gnostikos, having knowledge; from γνσις gnōsis, knowledge; a term categorizing a collection of ancient religions whose adherents shunned the material world. They viewed the world as created by the demiurge and embraced the spiritual world. The Church declared this as heretical).

Apostolic tradition revealed their explanations as bankrupt, and them as a fraud. They could make no appeal to a church founded by an apostle in their defense. They could not historically demonstrate its purity.

As the truth of the gospel must be received, believed and trusted before one can experientially know that truth, so it is with other things inspired by Tradition. Of course, an unbeliever’s rejection of Christian teaching does not make that teaching any less true by his rejection. But it is important to understand that the non-Christian cannot really perceive Christian doctrines as truth if he does not receive them and regulate his life by them. St. Paul wrote that the “natural [unspiritual] man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God [and therefore] he cannot understand them.” Tradition is one of the things given to the church by the Spirit.  Therefore it can never be the property of the unbeliever.

The ministry of Tradition is not primarily aimed at increasing our intellectual knowledge about God. Rather it seeks to bring us into true communion with God. Tradition is nothing less than the progressive, revealing presence of the Spirit Who brings spiritual life, renewal and growth. This is why our Church has embraced SACRED TRADITION!

ACQUIRING THE MIND OF CHRIST — 20160612

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christ_iconLife’s journey is meant to provide us with all the various opportunities to put on the mind of Christ. It is my belief that God realized, when He created us, that He wanted to create beings in His image and likeness. Because of this He realized that we could only “freely” return His love if we had free will. Why? Because God, by His very essence, freely loves His creation. His love is unconditional. He can never withdraw His love for His creation because He created out of love. Therefore, He had to create various opportunities for us, who are created in His image and likeness, to freely return His love.

How did He accomplish this? By designing life in such a fashion that it would present a variety of situations to each human being that would provide opportunities for humans to learn how to freely return His love.

This we know to be true! Humans never learn anything unless they are challenged. If we are never challenged, we never learn. So, life has to provide us with positive and negative challenges so that we can learn how to make choices about responding to challenges.

So all of life’s challenges are good in so far as they provide us with opportunities to learn how to freely trust God, place our hope in God and unconditionally love Him. It is in this way that we freely return His love.

We humans tend, I think, “conditionally” love God and others. Most often we base our love on how we think others love us. We can use our experience with human love to verify this. Think about it. We tend to love others only when we are assured of their love for us. If we judge that someone doesn’t love us in the same way that we think we love them, we tend to withhold our love or withdraw our love. This, of course, is conditional love. It says, I will love others, even God, if I think they love me. Of course in the case of God, we think He only loves us when He does what we want or grants the things that we desire or think are good for us. We immediately think He doesn’t really love us if He doesn’t give us that for which we pray. Again, this is truly conditional love! What we are called to do is unconditionally love God and others.

How do we learn to do this? By first unconditionally loving other humans. This is only done by loving others regardless of how they treat us – it’s returning hatred with love and rejection with love.

Think about this!

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20160612

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the_four_evangelistsThe conviction of the divine origin of the Jewish sacred books is, in the context of Christianity, repeatedly implied or expressed in the pages of the New Testament (NT). Jesus is presented as employing the customary Jewish term for the totality of the sacred books, namely Scripture, the documents par excellence. He is shown as regarding this Sacred Scripture as irrefragable, impossible to annul. He is also depicted as introducing a statement that is authoritative and not open to question by the phrase “It is written” – a typical Jewish reference to the Old Testament (OT) books. Of course we know that He taught as the Rabbis taught and really quoted the OT extensively. In annotated versions of the NT, where the references to the OT are highlighted, we see that Jesus, and then His apostles, extensively quoted the OT.

The source of this sovereign authority of the sacred books is also identified by Jesus – the words of Scripture are decisive because they are the words of God. This is brought out in such passages  in which Jesus replies to a leading question about divorce by saying, “He who made them … said: Hence a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife….”  Jesus here ostensibly quotes words of God from Genesis 2:24 – words that in their own context, however, are given as a statement of the human writer and not as a statement of God.

An identical attitude toward the Jewish sacred books is no less apparent elsewhere in the NT. They are regularly referred to as Scripture. This word appears in the NT 51 times, and each time it refers to a part, or parts of the OT. Moreover, NT writers express the conviction that in the words of this Scripture the Holy Spirit spoke by the mouth of human beings. So close was the identification of God with the OT in the minds of the NT writers that the two terms are used interchangeably.  Thus Paul writes to the Romans: “Scripture says to Pharaoh” words that according to Exodus were words of Yahweh to be spoken to Pharaoh through Moses. Words from the OT are cited as the words of God. This is remarkably confirmed in Paul’s letters to the Hebrews and Romans where words from the OT are attributed to God regardless of whether in the original text they were put on the lips of God. The NT writers were able to refer to passages from the OT as the “oracles of God.” Thus, inspiration of the NT has been influenced by this.

Reflections on the Scriptural Readings for this Weekend — 20160612

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centurionsservantOn this fourth weekend after Pentecost, our readings are taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans and St. Matthew’s Gospel. They both seem to center on the nature of faith and the impact that faith can have on our lives.

Paul suggests that the “way of Jesus” is a way that makes us “slaves of God” and that the benefit of this is “sanctification” as you “tend toward eternal life.

Paul then concludes his thoughts by expressing his belief that when a person attempts to live as Jesus lived, God’s response is “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. To live like Jesus requires that we believe He is God’s revelation to us on how we should live if we want to experience eternal life.

We must remember that a person can only experience what he/she believes to be true. If a person doesn’t believe there is such a thing as “eternal life”, then this means nothing.

The Gospel relates the story of the cure of a centurion’s servant. Although he was a Roman soldier – someone hated by most people in the society in which Jesus lived – he had such love for his serving boy that he dared to approach Jesus for the favor of a cure. He expressed great faith in the power of Jesus by first saying that he was “not worthy” to have Jesus under his roof and that he believed that all Jesus had to do was “just give an order” and that the boy would be healed.

What absolute faith in the power of Jesus. In fact Jesus recognizes the centurion’s faith and says: “I assure you, I have never found this much faith in Israel.” Jesus then said: “it shall be done because you trusted”. This raises the question of our own trust in God.

We are called to place our trust in Jesus, Who is God incarnate. To trust in Him means that we truly believe that His response to our prayers will always be what is best for us. This may mean, however, that we may not receive exactly what we seek. True trust in God is the belief that whatever we receive, even after we ask for it, is truly in our best interest.

This, I know, can be difficult for us humans to accept. We always believe that we know what is best for us, even though that may not be true in the long run. It is a matter of believing that God allows life to present exactly what we need to grow in our firm belief in His unconditional love. Our Eternal Father truly only wants what is best for us.         Do you believe this!