Preparing for Great Lent, Pt 4 - Confession and Repentance

Dear Parish Faithful,

This is Part 4 of the series, 'Preparing for Great Lent':

• Part 1: A Lenten Reading List
• Part 2: The Great Canon, and A Summary of Lent
• Part 3: A Season to Embrace or Endure?

Part 4: Confession and Repentance

Great Lent is the season in the year when most Orthodox Christians participate in the grace of sacramental Confession. And that is what I anticipate each year as I get ready for the start of Great Lent next Monday, March 2. 

For more than a few of you reading this letter, I can probably say, "It's about time." What I mean is that it has been at least a year since some of you have come to Confession. If you are a communicant, that is, if you receive the Eucharist with any kind of regularity, then that is simply too long of a period to continue to approach the Chalice. If Great Lent is called a "School of Repentance," then that repentance is most fully-realized in an honest and heartfelt confession of sins. In a sense, we could say that sacramental Confession is the "crown" of the lenten season, in that it is in that context of standing before the Icon of Christ, that we have the opportunity to openly acknowledge our sins before God. And this is an "opportunity" that we should avail ourselves of, as God's grace in immeasurable, and always readily available when we turn to God in a spirit of humility and repentance. No one can plead, "I am too busy." You simply have to find the time and attend to what we somewhat misleadingly refer to as our "spiritual life."

On the pastoral level, hearing the steady stream of confessions throughout the forty days of Great Lent has become my greatest challenge, simply on the level of "finding the time" to work everyone in, including all of our Confession age-appropriate children. 

Children, by the way, usually begins to come to Confession by the age of seven. Some children are quite ready by that age, others may need a bit more time. It is my humble opinion as a priest for almost forty years now, that you are not sparing your children from anything "bad;" but actually keeping them from something "good" when you hold them back from sacramental Confession. 

When children confess their sins, a deep sense of right and wrong. good and bad, is reinforced in a spiritually-healthy manner. Therefore, as I have been doing for a few years now at least, I will reserve every Saturday morning as a time to hear confessions between 9:00 a.m. - Noon. (We do have a Memorial Liturgy on the Second Saturday of Great Lent, March 14, so that may prove to be an exception). So, please plan ahead and contact me to reserve a slot on one of those available Saturdays.

Before each person's confession I read the following exhortation found in our Prayer Book that very succinctly captures the meaning and purpose of Confession:

Behold, Christ stands invisibly before you to hear your confession. Be not ashamed, neither be afraid, and hide nothing from me. Rather, do not fear to tell me all that you have done, so that you may receive forgiveness from our Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, his icon is before us. And I am only the witness, that I may bear witness before him of all that you tell me. If you hide anything from me, you shall have the greater sin. Take heed, therefore, lest having come to the place of the Physician, you depart unhealed.

Two closing notes:

1) Please keep the following in mind: If about half the parish waits until the last week or so, then it becomes very difficult to "fit" everyone in.
And 2) if you choose to see another priest for sacramental Confession, please inform me of this.

Preparing for Great Lent, Part 3

Dear Parish Faithful,

Great Lent: A Season To Embrace or To Endure?

See also in this Preparing for Great Lent series:

• Part 1: A Lenten Reading List
• Part 2: The Great Canon, and A Summary of Lent
• Part 4: Confession and Repentance

With the beginning of Great Lent this coming Monday, we will face the challenge of embracing the fast with a sense of expectation and spiritual "eagerness;" or of simply enduring the long six weeks with a minimal amount of lifestyle changes. In fact, we could ask ourselves: Are we going to be (or try to be) "lenten maximalists" or "lenten minimalists?" The former at least opens the door to the possibility of spiritual renewal, but the latter will leave us enclosed in the status quo. Attitude is a key factor in all of this. As Jesus taught: "But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face... " (Matt. 6:17).

Great Lent offers the possibility of emotional, psychological, and spiritual healing as we make the effort to restore/recover our relationship with God and with our neighbors. Here is the opportunity to recover our true humanity as we draw closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.

Our "neighbors," by the way, are right in our own homes, as we begin with our immediate family; extend that to our parish family; and then beyond to the human family of our everyday world and encounters. This is why we use the term the "Lenten Spring" as we thaw out our cold hearts with the warmth of the Grace of God by allowing that grace to enter into our hearts in order to transform us. Great Lent affords us the opportunity of liberating ourselves from the spiritually ossifying effects of frozen patterns of living, and even of "bad habits," so that we can recover the Gospel-oriented life that Christ promises us. This can be an initially painful process, as all change - even for the better - takes us out of our comfort zones. But as the saying has it: "No pain - no gain."

Therefore, I encourage everyone to "redeem the time" during these sacred forty days. May our many lenten practices - beginning with prayer, alsmsgiving and fasting - be the outward signs of our inward repentance as we return from a "far country" into the embrace of our loving heavenly Father.

Forgiveness Vespers

This return journey to God begins with our willingness and capacity to forgive others, as God has forgiven us. We will hear this teaching of Christ in Sunday's Gospel. Following the Liturgy and some refreshments, we return to the church for the service of Forgiveness Vespers. This is a long-standing tradition in our parish as it is in most Orthodox parishes.

What is unique and special about this service?

It is the Rite of Forgiveness that is the climax of the service, but the beginning of our lenten efforts. What does this rite entail? Starting with me as the parish priest, and then with our deacons, we basically form a line and approach one another asking for, and then extending, mutual forgiveness to one another. We do this by making a bow at the waist before one another, accompanied by the words, "forgive me," with the response "God forgives." We then exchange the "kiss of peace" - the same "three-cheek" kiss as on Pascha - and then move on to the next person. (As we are doing this, the Paschal Canon is being chanted in anticipation of our final destination for Great Lent). Before we are done, every person has come before every other person in seeking and granting mutual forgiveness.

Every face-to-face encounter with another person is always challenging. One more lenten practice that removes us from the safety of our comfort zones. It takes a certain humility and courage to participate, as we open ourselves up to the next person, hopefully with sincerity. Over the years, many parishioners remain for this important service and rite. Hopefully, that will continue this year.

I hope and pray that everyone enjoys a blessed Great Lent as we move toward the Feast of Feasts - Pascha - and our celebration of the Death and Resurrection of Christ!

Lives Worth Judging

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

As we draw closer to the beginning of Great Lent – at least for Orthodox Christians – we are able to set our Lenten efforts against the background of the Last Judgment, thus giving us the “big picture” within which we live our lives and determine our personal destinies.

The Gospel read at the Eucharistic Liturgy just this last Sunday was that of the Parable of the Last Judgment (MATT. 25:31-46). Therefore, the second Sunday before Great Lent is also called the Sunday of the Last Judgment. In highly symbolic form and with awesome imagery, the Lord speaks of His own Parousia as the glorified Son of man at the end of time and reveals to us that this will be a time of judgment. And this judgment will lead to separation.

The “sheep” (the saved) will be placed on the right hand, and the “goats” (the lost) on the left hand of the eternal Throne of God. This, in turn, will reveal the “quality” of our lives, though not in the way in which we today use the term “quality of life.” We will be confronted with the question as to how well we served the Lord by how well we served the “least” of His brethren: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these brethren, you did it to me” (MATT. 25:40).

These least are the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. How many of us have to admit that these are precisely the people that we neglect? The fact that society removes such people from our sight does not offer a very reassuring excuse for our neglect. It simply make it more convenient and less troubling for our consciences. Sadly, this may point to one of the most glaring of “disconnects” between the Gospel and our Christian lives, expressed in the following hymn:

Why do you not think of the fearful hour of death? Why do you not tremble at the dread judgment seat of the Savior? What defense then will you make, or what will you answer? Your works will be there to accuse you; your actions will reproach you and condemn you. O my soul, the time is near at hand; make haste before it is too late, and cry aloud in faith: 'I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned against you; but I know your love for humanity and Your compassion. O good Shepherd deprive me not of a place at Your right hand in Your great glory'. (Vespers, Sunday of the Last Judgment)

I, for one, am not ready to dismiss this hymn as excessively rhetorical, overly pessimistic, or unfairly harsh in its outlook. It is rather a sober and honest plea calling us to repentance and the re-direction of our lives. It further reminds us that it is never too late. And that the Good Shepherd will place us upon His shoulders to the accompaniment of rejoicing angels in heaven over our repentance.

“God is love” (I JN. 4:8). And yet God is demanding. If God “so loved the world that He gave His only Son” to die on the Cross for our redemption, then God expects us to approach and treat others with the same love. This is a love expressed in action and in giving, and is not to be confused with emotions or feelings.

We are all outcasts and alienated from God based upon the primordial sin of Adam, and yet God did not forget us or abandon us. “You were bought with a price” (I COR. 6:20). If we are indeed to “imitate the divine nature” as St. Gregory of Nyssa taught, then we could convincingly say that God expects us to “perform” according to the full capacity of our human nature made in the “image and likeness of God.” All the more plausible and possible because our fallen human nature has been renewed in and through the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Our rescue from a condition of “ontological poverty” is meant to arouse in us a desire to rescue “the least of these” from the impoverishing conditions of a fallen world.

Simultaneously with the external history of our lives there is occurring the internal history of our hearts. The outer life is more readily open to being accurately recorded, from the date of our birth to the date of our death and the significant events in between that make up our personal histories. What is happening within our hearts is far more difficult to record, because the human heart is deep and mysterious.

Yet the prophecy of the Last Judgment, testing the direction of our hearts, raises some very real questions: On what we call the “spiritual level,” is our heart expanding or contracting? Is it growing larger or smaller? Is it becoming more generous or more grasping? Is it letting the neighbor in, or keeping the neighbor out? Is it, as the years move inexorably forward, embracing God and neighbor, or is it shrinking in self-protection? These are questions to explore as we move into the Lenten season.

If our lives are worth living, then they are worthy of being judged. Our deeds, words and thoughts are significant because we must answer for them before a God who is love. Since God loves us and saves us, God will also judge us, though our judgment is actually self-inflicted and not imposed on us as a punishment. In a wonderful article entitled “On Preaching Judgment,” Fr. John Breck put it this way:

Judgment is indeed self-inflicted. God offers us life, and we choose death. He opens us the way into the Kingdom of Heaven, and we continue down our own pathway, which leads to destruction. Yet like the father of the prodigal son, God pursues us along that pathway, desiring only that we repent and return home. It is our decision to do so or not. (God With Us, p. 230)

In a bleak and cold universe absent of the presence of God and governed by immutable “laws of nature,” there is no judgment. But what does that say about the significance of our lives?

Enter not into judgment with me, bringing before me the things I should have done, examining my words and correcting my impulses. But in your mercy overlook my sins and save me, O Lord almighty.(Matins Canon of the Sunday of the Last Judgment, Canticle One)

Preparing for Great Lent - A Lenten Reading List, Updated for 2020

Dear Parish Faithful,

What Are You Reading for Great Lent?

New to the 2020 Lenten Reading List!

There are many ways to approach the Holy Scriptures for Great Lent for consistent and attentive reading. 

Three Old Testament books are prescribed for the entire forty days: Genesis, Proverbs, and Isaiah. For the New Testament it is: The Gospel According to St. Mark and the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

For both the Old and New Testament reading, you can follow the Church calendar; or simply read at your own pace. I encourage everyone to choose from this rich offering and "stick with it" throughout Great Lent.

Yet, I have attached a Lenten Reading List to this letter for your convenience, so to offer some good choices for meaningful "supplementary" reading alongside the Scriptures. Most of these are the "classics" of contemporary Orthodox writing (going back about fifty years or so), and these books continue to nourish us on the spiritual level. These books can also be read aloud with other family members quite effectively; perhaps especially the titles with short chapters. If I can be of any assistance is narrowing down some choices, or of offering some titles not on this short list, please feel free to contact me.

Many of these various books are available for purchase right here in our parish bookstore. It would be good of you to support the bookstore. Then again, they would be available at St. Vladimir's and St. Tikhon's bookstores respectively.

Lenten Reading List, Updated for 2020

Preparing for Great Lent - The Great Canon, and a Summary of Great Lent

Dear Parish Faithful,

This particular year, I would like to strongly encourage everyone to make the effort to be present in the church and praying for at least one of the four evenings on which we will sing and chant the Canon of Repentance by St. Andrew of Crete.

These four evenings are, of course, the first four of Great Lent. This year that would be March 2 - 5. The service begins at 7:00 p.m. and lasts a little over an hour. I cannot think of a better way to begin the lenten season; or better the lenten spring. 

Besides the compunctionate text of the Canon, there is also the very "atmosphere" of the church which helps us to still our restless minds and focus on our need to absorb the service and fill our minds with the thought and need for repentance. I fully understand commitments and obligations that cannot be ignored, but the first week of Great Lent especially, is not the time for entertainment and events that can be postponed or deferred to another time. And I would encourage parents to bring your children/teens on one of those evenings. Therefore, mark your calendars and make this a priority in your lives.

I have attached an excellent summary of Great Lent prepared by Mother Paula (our former parishioner Vicki Bellas), who resides at the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Ellwood City, PA. What Mother Paula did was carefully read Met. Kallistos Ware's article on "The Meaning of Great Lent" and then summarize the main points in a very accessible and helpful form. This article is probably the best that one could read about the meaning and content of Great Lent. It serves as the Introduction to Met. Kallistos' translation of The Lenten Triodion, the indispensable liturgical book used throughout Great Lent and Holy Week. Unfortunately, this seminal article has not been published independently of the Triodion. I encourage everyone to take a careful look at Mother Paula' summary for a host of insights into Great Lent that are meant to be translated into practice on the part of the faithful. Please raise any questions that come to mind when reading through this. Good material, possibly, for post-Liturgy discussions.

 Notes on The Meaning of Great Lent

 

Have I Ever Really 'Heard' the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

 As we move forward in the pre-lenten Sundays and the upcoming week of the Last Judgment (MATT. 25:31-46), perhaps we can "meditate" throughout this week on the Parable of the Prodigal Son from yesterday's Liturgy. When thought over deeply, we begin to understand how inexhaustible it really is!

This parable is chosen at this particular time in order to draw us toward repentance (Gk. metanoia); to remind us that Great Lent is the “school of repentance;” and that without repentance, our other “lenten efforts” become rather meaningless – if not spiritually dangerous. What will it take to convince us that we, too, need that “change of mind” and return to our heavenly Father that is the truest expression of living according to the Gospel?

As I ponder that question, I ask myself further: Have I ever really heard this parable in the way that Christ refers to “hearing?” And that would mean being shaken at the very core of my being. Am I only paying “lip service” to this greatest of the parables, as I listen to it as a wonderful short story that is exciting to analyze and discuss; but not quite capable of moving me any closer to genuine repentance? Again, these are the questions that come to my mind as I have heard this parable in the Liturgy for almost forty years now as a priest.

Yet, if we have spent some time in analyzing the richness of this parable, then we realize that it is not only about the prodigal son, with the two other characters – the father and the older brother – acting in a clearly subordinate manner or for the sake of rounding out the story. They are both integral to the parable and hold equal weight as we try and grasp the parable as a whole. Without the father and the older son, the parable would suffer from a certain one-sidedness or incompleteness.

This is absolutely true when it comes to the very core meaning of the parable - which is repentance. We are deeply moved by the movement of the prodigal son toward his return to his father’s home. We first read of his journey to a “faraway country” and rapid and total decline wherein he wastes his inheritance in “loose living.” An all too-familiar tale. This is followed by a spiraling descent that has him longing for the pods that serve as food for the pigs he has been hired to tend. His re-ascent begins with his “coming to himself” after what must have been a painfully honest self-assessment of his stricken condition of estrangement from even basic human fellowship. This culminates in the thought of returning to his father and begging for mercy and the actual movement of “arising” and doing it.

None of this would have born any fruit, however, without the compassion and love of the prodigal son’s father who embodies the forgiveness that completes his repentance. If the father had been stern, or absorbed with his own sense of being offended; if he had chastised his son with the predictable and perhaps satisfying retort, “I told you so;” then the parable would collapse with an all too-human reaction that would be plausible but unworthy of the Gospel that Jesus came to proclaim. For the father of the parable is a figure of our heavenly Father’s compassion, love and forgiveness that Christ came to offer to all and every sinner. The father remains unforgettable as a “character” precisely because he confounds our expectations in his boundless love fully revealed by running out to his son, falling on his neck and kissing him. This is how the Father “Who is without beginning” acts toward his wayward creatures who have spent their inheritance – the “image and likeness” of God – in the faraway country of self-autonomy and the “swinish” fulfillment of the most base desires. Our repentance results in a cosmic joy that God shares with the angels and the preparation of the “banquet of immortality.”

The older son represents precisely that all too-human response referred to above of hurt feeling and an offended sensibility that leaves him insensitive to his repentant brother’s return and salvation. No matter how justified such a response would seem from our human perspective, it remains outside of the Gospel’s “transvaluation of values.”

This is our “invitation” to Great Lent offered to us by the Lord Jesus Christ: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (MATT. 4:17). To help us understand the beauty of that movement of repentance, the Lord delivers what just may be his “parable of parables,” the one we usually name after the prodigal son. So before we get out our lenten cookbooks, we must first really “hear” this parable and pray to God that He will direct and guide us toward true repentance. The lenten cookbook will not save us – but repentance will.

=================

Dear Parish Faithful,

I received this very thoughtful and honest comment on the most recent Monday Morning Meditation. Thought to share it with everybody so that we can embody the same honesty in our approach toward God.

Fr. Steven

---

Dear Father Steven,

Thank you for this reflective meditation. One of the teachings of the Orthodox faith that I am learning which permeates all of reality is what Father Stephen Freeman calls the "One Storey Universe." My ability to separate the physical realm from The Trinity rather than seeing them as one comes quiet easily. You accurately describe my tendency in reading Scripture- "To listen to the parable as a wonderful short story that is exciting to analyze and discuss; but not quite capable of moving me any closer to repentance." I think this statement is a perfect example of the Two Storey Universe which too often is my default worldview.

As a middle class American who has my basic needs met, I often fail to see the unfortunate circumstances or problems in my life and in the lives of others as opportunities to "come to my sense." Too often I focus on the solution rather than how to repent in the situation. I have hit "rock-bottom" before and in that situation, "I came to my senses" but  in my "hard-heartedness," the flesh seeks to reassert itself and I am learning that I must constantly put the flesh to death. This is what makes the real practice of Lent so powerful!

Thirdly, in your phrase: "The love of the prodigal's son father as opposed to the all too-human reaction to chastise his son," I am reminded that God is God because of His person, (The Father), not because He is Sovereign Creator, "who is absorbed with his own sense of being offended." 

Thank you again,

Followup to 'Byzantine Symphonia in the Nuclear Age'

Dear Parish Faithful,

Back in November 1 of last year, I wrote a reflection about the very troubling fact that in Russia there was a nationalist movement that was promoting the great saint, Seraphim of Sarov, as the patron of the country's nuclear weapons. This reflection was eventually posted on the OCA's website. 

With that in mind, you may want to read this recent tweet from a certain Greta Van Susteren writing for the blog foreignpolicy.com. According to what she writes/tweets, the Russian Orthodox Church is now "considering" a proposal that would ban all such blessings of nuclear weapons on the part of the Church. 

I, for one, hope that this "consideration" becomes a firm policy of the Church. Please click on the yellow highlight to read this reassuring update. Was the Church's newly-stated policy due to pressure from dissident voices that found such patronage morally intolerable? Hard to say, but this is encouraging news and I thought to share it as a "follow through" from what I wrote earlier.

 

	Greta Van Susteren (@greta)
2/5/20, 9:46 AM Below from ⁦‪@ForeignPolicy⁩ ...thoughts? pic.twitter.com/KvCJ3gEVCQ

The Virgin Mary - 'She presents Him to all of us...'

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

 

Here is a fine and timely reflection from Dr. Edith Humphrey, an Orthodox scholar who is a fine contemporary voice witnessing to the Orthodox Faith in today's world. It is a former Protestant's honest reflection of how the Theotokos is perhaps initially for many a potential obstacle to embracing Orthodoxy; but who, with time, openness and deep meditation, becomes a central figure in the entire divine mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Dr. Humphrey has recently published a book that offers an Orthodox reading of C.S. Lewis.

"Feeling grateful on the Feast of the Presentation, the hymn for which was key in my movement into Orthodoxy eleven years ago. For thirteen years, a key block had been the prominence of holy Mary, whom I feared was a "layer" between God and the believer. 

"No. The arms of the Theotokos, like the tongs used for the living coal with Isaiah, presented Christ to the elder Symeon, and so in her intercession she presents Him to all of us. Her role is no obstacle between us and God, nor does it upstage Christ, but is that of a loving mother, or elder sister, who has treasured all these things in her heart! God both uses mediators, and is "immediately" present to us in the New Covenant. And so I would be like Anna, speaking about Him to everyone who will listen."

Zacchaeus — The Gospel in Miniature

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

We arrived at the Sunday of Zacchaeus this last Sunday at the Liturgy with the reading of the Gospel According to St. Luke (19:1-10).  The story of the repentance and conversion of the publican (tax collector) who was "small of stature" prepares us for the upcoming cycle of pre-lenten Gospel readings which will, in turn, prepare us for the beginning of Great Lent on Monday, March 2. 

Most attentive Orthodox Christians already know this, as well as knowing the actual story of Zacchaeus very well. Yet, knowing any particular Gospel passage well does not mean that we have exhausted the meaning of that passage.  The Gospel can never grow old, or worse, stale.  The "words of eternal life" (JN. 6:68)  are contained in the Gospels. Therefore, the Gospel is a "living text," which means that every time we hear it, we are open to new insights and new depths of meaning that can even startle us.  Something like an endless "aha!" experience.  Repeated reading and/or hearing of any passage, therefore, should not blunt the revealed truth of the passage, but continue enriching our understanding of the Good News revealed to us in Christ.  

Bearing this in mind, I would submit that in the wonderful story of Zacchaeus, we are hearing the Gospel "in miniature."  For in this story there are sin, repentance, grace and salvation, precisely that interplay of various factors that predominate in the revelation of the Gospel. 

If we were to break that down in terms of this particular story we find that in the concise framework of ten verses, St. Luke narrates an encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus, a sinful man who, in his sinfulness, is representative of all humanity.  He has "missed the mark" - the meaning of the Greek amartia which we translate as sin - with his admission of defrauding others, among perhaps other failings.  The publican was synonymous with a thief, as there was no system in place that could check the abuse inherent in collecting taxes for the hated Roman occupiers of Israel.  And, as a publican/thief, he was "rich" but at the expense of the neighbors he was defrauding.

Yet the story quickly shifts its emphasis to the almost humorous detail of Zacchaeus climbing up a sycamore tree in order "to see Jesus."

Jesus scandalizes the spectators who are witnessing this drama by desiring to enter the home of the sinful publican.  There is no place that is "off limits" for the Messiah as He has come first to call "the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  Scandal is "built into" the Gospel, for the ultimate scandal will be that of a crucified Messiah. In the presence of Christ, Zacchaeus publicly repents, expressed with the words, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold" (LK. 19:8).  

 

Repentance is always sealed with divine grace, as Jesus then publicly states, "Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (v. 10).  We are all "lost" in sin, so the Son of Man has also come to save each and every one of us.  Hence, our contention that the story of Zacchaeus is the Gospel "in miniature."

That salvation, however, cannot be assumed or taken for granted.  The gifts of grace and salvation are bestowed upon us inasmuch as we too will repent and change our pattern of living.  That will depend on our capacity to "see" that we are also "small of stature" - each and every one of us.

Zacchaeus was apparently a short man, and thus he was literally "small of stature," and this forced him up into that sycamore tree.  But clearly, his lack of stature was a metaphor for his sinfulness.  Our human nature - created in the image and likeness of God - "shrinks" through our sinfulness.  Sin makes us a lesser being than what we were created to be.  No amount of status, wealth or power can protect us from the corrosive effects of sin. 

Once we see and acknowledge that painful truth then we, too, must find a way to overcome our shrunken stature even if it means "losing face" with our neighbors.  (How humiliating it must have been for Zacchaeus to climb that sycamore tree in front of his neighbors!)  This becomes difficult if we expend a great amount of energy building up a self-image that we (foolishly?) hope will make us impervious to criticism or ridicule.  The affirmation of others grants credence to our self-affirmation. 

As we strain to protect that artificial good image, we can further become blind to our flawed character.  Then we will learn the hard way, that the more we struggle to preserve the little stature that we have, we will only succeed in further shrinking in stature!  Such is the "human comedy."  But it is actually all quite tragic since we are all participants in the divine-human drama of sin and repentance and the salvation of our souls.

That brings us to the paradoxical nature of the Gospel:  the more we can acknowledge our short stature through sinfulness, and begin the process of conversion through repentance, then the uplifting process of growing "to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (EPH. 4:13) can begin. This is an endless process of spiritual maturity and growth - a process that continues in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

There is no room for comparison here, meaning that we cannot find solace in the "fact" that others are clearly so much more sinful than we may be.  To shrink from including ourselves in the company of Zacchaeus, the cheating publican, would be to undermine the power of the Gospel in our lives.  We must humbly align ourselves with Zacchaeus — even "become Zacchaeus" in terms of a shared experience of being forgiven — as we read and/or hear this text.  If we approach the story of Zacchaeus with the presupposition that we are "better" than him, than the living text of the Gospel becomes a "dead text" — perhaps informative or interesting, but unable to open our minds and hearts to God's graciousness.  Let us avoid any such temptation as we continue our movement toward Great Lent the glorious paschal mystery which is our final destination.

"For the Son on Man came to seek and to save the lost."