The Remarkable Mothers of the Three Holy Hierarchs

 

 Dear Parish Faithful,

Yesterday, January 30, we commemorated the Three Hierarchs and Universal Teachers: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St; John Chrysostom. They were the focus of the homily, and of my Monday Morning Meditation posted earlier today.

However, a good part of the homily was focused on three female saints whose lives are intimately connected to that of the three holy bishops - their mothers: St. Aemelia (St. Basil); St. Nonna (St. Gregory); St. Anthousa (St. John). 

These are three remarkable women who profoundly shaped the lives of their illustrious sons. They are all saints with their own days of commemoration. I am providing a link to a wonderful webpage presentation of the three mothers. This parish is in Australia. I would urge you to read about these women and view the many remarkable icons of them and their sons. You will notice further links embedded there that will take you to a Life of each woman.

https://www.stparaskevi.org.au/saint-anthousa-mother-of-saint-john-chrysostom/

 

The Three Great Torchbearers of the Triune Godhead

 

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

Yesterday, January 30, we commemorated the Three holy Hierarchs and Universal Teachers – Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom – in order to honor and glorify these three great pastors and theologians as they stand before the undivided and consubstantial Trinity and thus enjoy the glory of God in equal measure. 

A pious tradition relates that there had been a dispute as to who was the “greatest” of the three, with each of these saints being championed by his respective followers: Basilians, Gregorians, and Johanites. However, a certain 11th c. bishop in a city of Asia Minor – John Mauropos - was granted a vision of the three hierarchs who made it clear to him that the glory that they experienced in the presence of God was equal. A feast day in honor of all three hierarchs was meant to make this clear, as well as provide the opportunity to glorify them with equal honor. In the wonderful service composed in honor of the Three Hierarchs, we extol their collective virtue in the following manner:

Let us who love their words come together with hymns
and honor the three great torch-bearers of the triune Godhead:
Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom.
These men have enlightened the world with the rays of their divine doctrines.
They are flowing rivers of wisdom
and they have filled all creation with springs of heavenly knowledge.
They ceaselessly intercede for us before the Holy Trinity.

Perhaps a good way to begin our Monday morning and its routines, would be to read and meditate on a “gem” of wisdom from each of these great universal teachers.

St. Basil defended the divinity of the Holy Spirit in his now classical work, On the Holy Spirit. Since it is our goal as Christians to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit, and to walk in the newness of life granted by the Holy Spirit, this eloquent passage from St, Basil may further awaken our minds to the divine activity of the Spirit in our lives:

“He is simple in being; His powers are manifold: they are wholly present everywhere and in everything. He is distributed but does not change. He is shared yet remains whole. Consider the analogy of the sunbeam: each person upon whom its kindly light falls rejoices as if the sun existed for him alone, yet it illumines land and sea, and is master of the atmosphere. In the same way, the Spirit is given to each one who receives Him as if He were the possession of that person alone, yet He sends forth sufficient grace to fill all the universe. Everything that partakes of His grace is filled with joy according to its capacity – the capacity of its nature, not of His power…” 

“When a sunbeam falls on a transparent substance, the substance itself becomes brilliant, and radiates light from itself. So too Spirit-bearing souls, illumined by Him, finally become spiritual themselves, and their grace is sent forth to others.” 

On the Holy Spirit, ch. 22 & 23

In a famous passage from his great Theological Orations, (the composition and deliverance of which attained for St. Gregory his title “the Theologian”), he reminds us that we should not casually speak about God in a light-minded and frivolous manner. To speak about God is a serious matter and only helpful at appropriate times:

“Not to everyone, my friends, does it belong to philosophize about God; not to everyone – the subject is not so cheap and low – and, I will add, not before every audience, not at all times, nor on all points; but on certain occasions, and before certain persons, and within certain limits. 

Not to all persons, because it is permitted only to those who have been examined, and are past masters in meditation, and who have been previously purified in soul and body, or at the very least are being purified. For the impure to touch the pure is, we may safely say, not safe, just as it is unsafe to fix weak eyes upon the sun’s rays… And who are the permitted persons? They to whom the subject is of real concern, and not they who make it a matter of pleasant gossip, like any other thing, after the races, or the theatre, or a concert, or a dinner,o r still the lower employments.” 

Theological Oration 1,3.

St. John the “Golden-Mouthed” always exhorted his flock to the imitation of Christ; and always sought to lift up our minds to God in praise and thanksgiving. St. John’s theology was “practical” but also fiery and uplifting:

“Let us depart from the Divine Liturgy like lions who are producing fire, having become fearsome even to the devil, because the Holy Blood of the Lord that we commune waters our souls and gives us great strength. When we commune of it worthily, it chases the demons far away and brings the angels and the Lord near us…” 

“Teach whoever doesn’t attend church that you chanted with the Seraphim, that you belong to the heavenly lifestyle, that you met with Christ and spoke with Him. If we live the Divine Liturgy thus, we will not have to say anything to those who were absent. But seeing our benefit, they will feel their own harm and quickly run to church to enjoy the same goods, with the grace and philanthropy or our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, belong eternal glory. Amen.”

 

And we can add our own “Amen!” to the lives and teaching of the Three Hierarchs who to this day fill “all creation with springs of heavenly knowledge!”

 

The 'Orthodox Way' to Inner Peace: Transforming the Mind and Heart

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

We received what appears to be a "form letter" from the Monastery of the Holy Dormition in Michigan. But true to her style and commitment to sharing the Gospel with the faithful of the Church, Mother Gabriela, the abbess of the monastery, expanded the boundaries of a "form letter" by adding some wonderful and profound insights into the Christian life with her characteristic wisdom. I, in turn, would like to share the key paragraphs of that letter that offer an outline of the Christian life, based on the Gospels and the teaching and experience of the saints. In the words of Mother Gabriella:

 

Before we close... we like to share with you what the Fathers of the Church suggest in order to maintain inner peace. Inner peace is acquired through humility, a virtue modern man has lost. The Lord tells us: 'Learn from Me for I am meek and humble of heart.' Becoming humble is not a matter of definition but a matter of experience, of continuous practice. The Fathers concentrate more on how to acquire humility than describing it. They suggest three basic aspects:

Unceasing Prayer - It helps us become aware of our dependence on God, as St. Paul says: 'I can do nothing without God.' To become totally at peace and rested we need to depend on the One who is "totally free" - God. True freedom comes through dependence on God, not through our independence. Only when we pray we receive the Truth, and humility is the acceptance of the Truth and not what we want.

Ascetical Discipline - The discipline of fasting, keeping vigils, the physical effort of standing in prayer, making prostrations as we can, charitable works, all help us to be attentive to ourselves and to the word of God, and not to be concerned with things that are being observed and judged with the logical part of the brain, as all these are peripheral and not necessary for salvation.

Acceptance - We must accept that whatever we do is not by our own strength and ability but through God. We must see ourselves less than others because we depend on each other. Even the most important member of the body cannot survive by itself if it is cut off from the rest. Self love is contrary to humility; the person who lives only for self cannot find peace because in such a state it is continually in contradiction with the Creator - God - and the creation - our fellow man. Only in relationship with our neighbor do we have any value. How does God help us become humble? By sending the opportunities that humble us; a person that inflicts hurt, a situation that humiliates, or anything that shows us that we cannot do anything without God. A humble person is beautiful and natural because such a person is graced by God, Who is meek and humble.

 

I strongly believe that these are the virtues - not "values" - that Christians need to cultivate and present to the world in which we live. This is what we find in the Gospels, the Epistles and in the copious writings of saints from generation to generation. It is this Christ-like way of life that is meant, I believe, by the expression "the Orthodox Way." Mother Gabriella is able to distill this in a few short and limpid paragraphs. 

We live in "interesting times," in which a good deal of what is happening in the world provokes a sense of unease and genuine fear and anxiety. In response to that fear, It seems as if contemporary American Christians are more engaged in externally defending Christianity through political power and legislation. Mother Gabriella, and the entire Orthodox Tradition, is engaged with internally transforming the mind and heart - "do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind ..." (Rom. 12:2) I am quite convinced that we need to trust her insights and our Orthodox Christian Tradition.

 

"We are on this earth as if in a second maternal womb..."

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

Here is a wonderful text with which to begin your path through this Friday. The author is Amma Syncletica, one of the few Desert Mothers that we know about and have writings from.

 

Whatever we do or gain in this world, let us consider it insignificant in comparison to the eternal wealth that is to come. We are on this earth as if in a second maternal womb. In that inner recess we did not have a life such as we have here, for we did not have their solid nourishment such as we enjoy now, nor were we able to be active as we are here, and we existed without the light of the sun and of any glimmer of light.

Just as, then, when we were in that inner chamber, we did without many of the things of this world, so also in the present world we are impoverished in comparison with the kingdom of Heaven. We have sampled the nourishment here; let us reach for the Divine! We have enjoyed the light in this world; let us long for the sun of righteousness! Let us regard the heavenly Jerusalem as our homeland...  Let us live prudently in this world that we may obtain eternal life.

Amma Syncletica

 

 

 

Let Us Receive 'The Blessing of the Jordan'

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

"For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men ... awaiting our blessed hope, the appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ ..." 

- Titus 2:11-13

On January 6, we celebrate the Feast of Theophany. To use its full title, we celebrate THE THEOPHANY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, a title that we usually summarize as "Theophany" (sometimes "Epiphany"). This year the feast was on a Thursday. The church was rather filled for the Feast, though falling on a weekday, so we can then truly say that our communal celebration was festal. Serving the Great Blessing of Water added to the beauty of the day, as we blessed the waters as a sign of the cosmic redemption of matter in and through Christ. As the Russian philosopher, Nicholas Berdyaev wrote: "The grass grows and the flowers bloom within the Church." Truly, our festal celebration was an excellent beginning to the New Year. 

 The Theophany commemorated on January 6, is actually the original date on which the Lord's Nativity was observed, together with the Visitation of the Magi, and the Baptism of Christ. This nexus of events are distinct "theophanies," or "manifestations of God" to the world, each of which reveals the presence of Christ as a light illuminating the world, as well as being the long-awaited Messiah and Savior. In fact, Theophany is sometimes called "The Feast of Lights." It was in the 4th c. that our current Christmas day of December 25 was established slowly throughout the Christian world. The Nativity of Christ was a more hidden theophany; while the Baptism was more open in nature.

From the appointed Epistle reading of the Feast, TIT. 2:11-14, 3:4-7, we learn of the two "appearances" (the Gk. word is epiphania) of Christ: basically His Incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth, and His Parousia, or Second Coming, as the Lord of Glory. Thus, the first appearance was in the past; while the second will be in the future. The first appearance was in humility; the second will be in glory. We live in the present, between these two appearances. We commemorate the one, and await the other. And our mode of life should reflect the fact that we have been baptized "into Christ."

In his Epistle to Titus, the Apostle Paul refers to this baptism as "the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit"(3:5). The purpose of this baptism was "so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life" (3:7). The appearance/epiphany of the grace of God and the grace that we receive in Baptism is "training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world" (2:12). Baptism essentially allows us - by the grace of God - to transcend our biological mode of existence; so that we are now open-ended beings capable of transformation by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Although subject to our biological condition, we are not enslaved to it, with "no exit" in sight. That is a potential gift unique to human beings.

At the Third Royal Hour for Theophany, we heard a beautiful passage from the Prophet Isaiah, who anticipated the transforming power of Baptism and the mode of life that would accompany it: 

 

Thus says the Lord: "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless; plead for the widow. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

 

The Baptism of the Lord is directly related to our own personal baptism. This was prophetically delivered to Israel; anticipated by John's baptism in the River Jordan for the "remission of sins;" and now actualized in the Church each and every time that a person - infant, child, adolescent, adult - "puts on Christ" in the sanctified waters of the baptismal font. If, as the Apostle Paul declares, we have "put on Christ," then we need to manifest a Christ-like life to the world to the extent that we are able. The Feast of Theophany brings that to life for us as we now, as then, receive the "blessing of the Jordan."

When we "bless" the waters, we are basically acknowledging the initial "very good" with which God blessed the created world "in the beginning" (GEN. 1:31). We do not disparage the created world, but rather rejoice in it. We are definitely not dualists! However, that initial state of pristine purity was lost through the subsequent presence of sin within the world, to such an extent "that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now" (ROM. 8:22). Therefore, the entire cosmos has been awaiting the redemption that only the Son of God could bestow through His Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. In this way, "the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God" (ROM. 8:21). By blessing the material world — probably best exemplified through the blessing of that most primal and foundational of all earthly elements, water — we anticipate that eschatological liberation here and now within the grace-filled life of the Church. To summarize this ecclesial recognition of the goodness and sanctification of the world around us, we can turn to the explanation offered by Archbishop Kallistos Ware, from the Festal Mention:

 

The fall of the angelic orders, and after it the fall of man, involved the whole universe. All God's creation was thereby warped and disfigured: to use the symbolism of the liturgical texts, the waters were made a "lair of dragons.'

Christ came on earth to redeem not only man, but - through man - the entire material creation. When He entered the water, besides effecting by anticipation or rebirth in the font, he likewise effected the cleansing of the waters, their transfiguration into an organ of healing and grace.

 

Further, in discussing our traditions of taking some of the blessed water home with us, Archbishop Kallistos writes the following:

...Orthodox are encouraged to drink from the water that has been blessed at Epiphany and to sprinkle themselves with it; they take it also to their homes, and keep it there to use from time to time. In all this they are not guilty of superstition. If they act so, it is because they are convinced that in virtue of Christ's Incarnation, of His Baptism and Transfiguration, all material things can be made holy and 'spirit bearing." ( The Festal Menaion, p. 58-59.

 

The Leavetaking of Theophany is not until January 14. That means that we will continue to celebrate the Feast on Sunday at the Liturgy. During this time of the Afterfeast, a good practice is to incorporate the troparion of the Feast into our daily prayer life: both in our personal prayer and as a family. Before blessing our family meals together, we could sing or chant the troparion of the feast, so that we are doing at home, what would be done in church - extend the celebration of the Feast and thus be more attentive to the liturgical rhythms of the Church calendar. 

Resolutions or Repentance?

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

According to the civil calendar, we begin the year of our Lord (Anno Domini) 2022, on January 1. The year of 2022 is based upon the calculations of a medieval monk who, in attempting to ascertain the exact date of the birth of Christ, missed the year 0 by only a few years. According to contemporary scholars, Jesus was actually born between what we consider to be 6 – 4 B. C. These were the last years of Herod the Great, for according to the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus was born toward the very end of Herod’s long reign (37 – 4 B.C.). Christians therefore divide the linear stretch of historical time between the era before the Incarnation; and the era after the Incarnation and the advent of the Son of God into our space-time world.

In other words, the years before the Incarnation are treated as something of a “countdown” to the time-altering event of the Incarnation; and the years since are counted forward as we move toward the end of history and the coming Kingdom of God. By entering the world, Christ has transformed the meaning and goal of historical time.

Recently, there has been a scholarly shift away from this openly Christian approach to history, as the more traditional designations of B.C. and A.D. have been replaced by the more neutral and “ecumenically sensitive” designations of B.C.E. (Before the Common Era), and C.E. (Common Era). Understanding and interpreting history from a decidedly Christian perspective, I would still argue in favor of the more traditional B.C. and A.D.

Although an issue of more than passing interest, that discussion may appear somewhat academic in comparison to the pressing issues of our daily lives as they continue to unfold now in 2022. We will exchange our conventional greetings of “Happy New Year” probably more than once in the next few days. 

Under closer inspection, there remains something vague about that expression, and perhaps that is for the better. Do we wish for the other person – as well as for ourselves – that nothing will go (terribly) wrong in the unknown future of the new year? More positively, do we wish that all of our desires and wishes for our lives will be fulfilled in this new year? Or, are we wishing a successful year of the perpetual pursuit of “happiness” (whatever that means) for ourselves and for our friends? At that point we just may be reaching beyond the restrictive boundaries of reality. As Tevye the Dairyman once said: “The more man plans, the harder God laughs.” 

Perhaps the more realistic approach would be to give and receive our “Happy New Year” greetings as neighborly acknowledgement that we are “all in this together,” and that we need to mutually encourage and support one another.

We also approach the New Year as a time to commit ourselves to those annual “resolutions” that we realize will make our lives more wholesome, safe, sound, or even sane - if only we can sustain them. A resolution is to dig deep inside and find the resolve necessary to break through those (bad) habits or patterns of living that undermine either our effectiveness in daily life; jeopardize our relationships with our loved ones, our friends and our neighbors; or seriously threaten to make us less human than we can and should be. 

We know that we should eat less, swear less, lust less, get angry less, surf the computer less, play on our iPhones less, watch TV less and so on. We further know that we need more patience, more self-discipline, more graceful language, more attention to the needs of others, more “quality time” with our families and friends, more forgiving, more loving and so on. We know, therefore, that we need to change, and we intuitively realize how difficult this is. Bad habits are hard to break. Therefore, we need this annual opportunity of a new beginning and our New Year resolutions to give us a “fighting chance” to actually change.

As a 'holiday' is a more-or-less secular and watered-down version of a 'holy day', so a 'resolution' is a more-or-less secular and watered-down version of 'repentance'.

 

We may joke about how quickly we break our resolutions, but beneath the surface of that joking (which covers up our disappointments and rationalizations) we are acknowledging, once again, the struggle of moving beyond and replacing our vices with virtues. May God grant everyone the resolve to maintain these resolutions with care and consistency.

And yet I believe that we can profoundly deepen our experience of the above. For, as a “holiday” is a more-or-less secular and watered-down version of a “holy day,” so a resolution is a more-or-less secular and watered-down version of personal repentance. To repent (Gk. metanoia) is to have a “change of mind,” together with a corresponding change in the manner of our living and a re-direction of our lives toward God. The New Year’s resolution of our secularized culture may be a persistent reminder — or the remainder of — a lost Christian worldview that realized the importance of repentance. “There is something rotten in Denmark,” and an entire industry of self-help and self-reliance therapies — totally divorced from a theistic context — is an open acknowledgement of that reality regardless of how distant it may now be from its religious expression. As members of the Body of Christ living within the grace-filled atmosphere of the Church, we can, in turn, incorporate our resolutions within the ongoing process of repentance, which is nothing less than our vocation as human beings: “God requires us to go on repenting until our last breath” (St. Isaias of Sketis). Or, as St. Isaac of Syria teaches: “This life has been given you for repentance. Do not waste it on other things.”

Summarizing and synthesizing the Church’s traditional teaching about repentance, Archbishop Kallistos Ware has formulated a wonderfully open-ended expression of repentance that is both helpful and hopeful:

Correctly understood, repentance is not negative but positive. It means not self-pity or remorse but conversion, the re-centering of our whole life upon the Trinity. It is to look not backward with regret but forward with hope – not downwards at our own shortcomings but upward at God’s love. It is to see, not what we have failed to be, but what by divine grace we can now become; and it is to act upon what we see. In this sense, repentance is not just a single act, an initial step, but a continuing state, an attitude of heart and will that needs to be ceaselessly renewed up to the end of life. ( The Orthodox Way, p. 113-114)

Hard not to be inspired by such an expressive passage! In the Service of Prayer for the (Civil) New Year, we incorporate into the litanies of the service some of the following special petitions. Thus, in the language of the Church, these petitions served as an ecclesial form of the resolutions we make to break through some of our dehumanizing behavior; as well as a plea to God to strengthen our better inclinations: 

That He will drive away from us all soul-corrupting passions and corrupting habits, and that He will plant in our hearts His divine fear, unto the fulfillment of His statutes, let us pray to the Lord.

That He will renew a right spirit within us, and strengthen us in the Orthodox Faith, and cause us to make haste in the performance of good deeds and the Fulfillment of all His statutes, let us pray to the Lord.

That He will bless the beginning and continuance of this year with the grace of His love for mankind, and will grant unto us peaceful times, favorable weather and a sinless life in health and abundance, let us pray to the Lord.

 

If you resolve to seek and to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind … and your neighbor as yourself” (MATT. 22:37-38), then I believe that this new year may not be perpetually “happy,” but that it will truly blessed.