The All-Praised Leaders of the Apostles, Peter and Paul

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

"Rejoice, first among the apostles, foundation of the Holy Church!"

"Rejoice, lover of Christ, named Paul, perfected in grace."

(Akathist Hymn to Saints Peter and Paul)

Yesterday evening, we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter & Paul with a Vesperal Liturgy. There were at least fifty worshipers present, so truly a festal gathering! Today, June 29, is the Feast of the Apostles Peter & Paul; and tomorrow, June 30. is the Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles. The link below is to a meditation of mine focusing on the two great apostles. 

Below that is another link to a fine article on the two apostles from Public Orthodoxy. It is written by an Anglican theologian who has a deep interest in the Orthodox Church as a member of an Institute that studies Eastern Christianity. She focuses on the Orthodox icon that depicts the two saints in a warm embrace as two preachers of the Gospel.

https://orthodoxmeditations.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-apostles-peter-paul-greatest-and.html

https://publicorthodoxy.org/2023/06/27/hugging-peter-and-paul/

 

Science and Faith, and 'Pointers' in the vast Cosmos

 

Christ the Creator

Dear Parish Faithful,

I have been recently reading some studies focusing on Gen. 1 & 2. That brought this older meditation to mind since it touches on "cosmic issues" about the created realm. It is not about "proving" anything; or even that Genesis can be read "scientifically," because it cannot be so read. Yet, both Gen. 1 and scientific investigation of the universe can both lead to theological and speculative wonder in their independent ways.

"The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" (Psalm 19)

 

In the past, I attended a lecture entitled "Our Amazing Universe." It was delivered by Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, who studied physics at MIT and earned a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University. In addition she has continued her research as Hubble Fellow at The John Hopkins University. Very impressive credentials! To use a misused term, I am a "layman" when it comes to astronomy, though this is clearly a fascinating and essential scientific discipline. I would like to simply offer a short summary of a wonderful presentation that captivated a large audience of at least five hundred participants or more.

In the first part of the lecture, we were treated to a computer-generated slide show (on two large mounted wall screens) of some incredible images of the universe, including galaxies, clusters of stars, nebulae, super novae, and the more familiar planets of our own solar system. Dr. Wiseman informed us of the continuing research into the vast dimensions of the universe made possible by the technology of ever-more powerful and sophisticated telescopes. What I was ignorant of is the fact the Hubble telescope circles the earth every ninety minutes! Some of these telescopes are placed above the earth's atmosphere, thus allowing for incredibly clear and wide-ranging views of the cosmos. We saw some wonderful images of star clusters that were so thick that the black space in between was not that visible. And the stars were of different colors: red, blue, green and yellow. 

Our own vision of the sky is very limited because the enormous amount of light from our urban and suburban settings simply reduces our visibility to the moon and a few other stars. We are missing a lot! One of her points was to impress upon us the sheer unfathomable scope of the universe, which holds billions of galaxies comprised of billions of stars, one of which is our own sun, though it itself appeared as a tiny dot on one of the shots of our own Milky Way galaxy. We may know this already, but in the context of her lecture, combined with the amazing images we saw, the effect of those statistics is rather staggering. Or, we should say "awesome."

Dr. Wiseman is a believing Christian - my guess would be something like an Evangelical - so the second part of her lecture was made up of a series of what she called "philosophical and theological" questions and observations. Her first question was: Does the universe seem to make any sense or have any deeper meaning? She was very even-handed in sharing the views of prominent fellow astronomers/scientists. Some argue that it really does not have any deeper meaning beyond its sheer size. Others find it all very meaningful. (One scientist asked: Does the fact that we even ask the question point to the inherent and unavoidable quest for meaning?) 

This raised the further issue of the relationship between science and religion. As a scientist herself, she presented an eloquent defense of how the two - both of which are concerned with discovering "truth," though each discipline a "truth" of a different sort - need to be and can be reconciled. She presented a "two book approach" to this issue of science and religion: the book of nature/science and the book of the Bible are revealing one and the same reality, though different language and thought-forms are used in the process. This sounded very close to something that St. Maximus the Confessor (+662) once wrote. Though he put it something like this: God is revealed in creation, in the Law, and then in the Person of Christ.

Just as my own aside, I believe strongly that we, as Orthodox Christians, cannot ignore this dialogue, and that we need to articulate our own understanding of this relationship, with a clear-headed sobriety about the amazing scope of scientific discovery over the course of the last few centuries. We cannot ignore the discovery that we live on a planet within a universe that is over thirteen billion years old. This allows us the freedom of some exciting and deeply meaningful theological thought. In other words, we cannot abandon the realm of science - and the universe itself - to a one-sided secular mode of thought.

Returning to Dr. Wiseman, once she impressed upon us the vastness of the universe. And how it reveals the power, majesty and awesomeness of God. (Our own Prayer of the Great Blessing of Water formulates this in a rather poetic and archaic form, but the point is well-made). She informed us that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community now unhesitatingly accepts the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe. Atheists, however, are somewhat reluctant in their acceptance, because it points to the idea of a "Creator." Yet, she asked the unavoidable question of our own perceived insignificance within this vast realm. How short is our life in comparison to that of a star! This allowed her to remind us that "ancient man" was perplexed by those same questions, including the author of Psalm 8, whom she thought was a shepherd gazing up into the night sky (with a clearer vision than our own!):

"When I look at the heavens, the work 
of thy fingers, 
the moon and the stars which thou hast established;
what is man that thou are mindful of him?
and the son of man that thou dost 
care for him?"

Bu the psalmist then includes this incredible thought:

"Yet though hast made him little less 
than God,
and dost crown him with glory and 
honor.
Thou hast given him dominion over
the works of thy hands..."

Dr. Wiseman interpreted this "dominion" as the capability of scientific thought. For regardless of how insignificant we may seem, it is only the human person who can consciously reflect and contemplate the vastness of the cosmos.

And she finally made the connection between the universe and Christ. Quoting the unrivaled Prologue to St. John's Gospel, she reminded us that this vast universe is the creative work of a Person - the divine Word of God through whom the Father brought all things into existence. And then that this divine Person became incarnate - "The Word became flesh." Everything is thus connected to and given meaning in Christ. That, at least, is the "faith perspective" of her lecture. Dr. Wiseman does not believe that science can be used to "prove" the existence of God; but there are "pointers" within the cosmos, revealed in the Scriptures, that can indicate that direction. Archbishop Kallistos Ware makes the same point in The Orthodox Way.

This was a very well-thought out presentation by Dr. Jennifer Wiseman. With clarity and conviction; and yet with her vast array of scientific knowledge clearly present within her soft-spoken and humble demeanor, she led the audience to a deep reflection on the nature of scientific discovery and how that can lead us to Christ.
An evening well spent!

 

Why We Celebrate the Saints

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

This is from Dn. Johnothon Sauer, delivered when he led a Reader Service in Lima, OH, a few years back. It anticipates this Sunday's commemoration of the Saints of North America

_____

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

My family will be bored with this sermon, because they have heard the stories I’m about to tell over and over and over again. But they’re good stories, so they’re worth hearing one more time.

The dining room set in our home is antique cherry wood. Before it came to us, it belonged to my grandparents, my mom’s mom and dad. It still feels strange to sit in grandpa’s chair. Not that he ever made a rule about sitting in the chair; it’s just that no one else ever did, as a sign of respect. One of the pieces of the dining room set is a buffet, about six feet wide and three feet tall. On the buffet is a collection of photos, of family and friends and events from our life. We have other photos scattered around our home, on the walls and on end tables, but this is the largest single collection. I think every home has such a collection. How could we not?

Above the buffet is a large mirror that takes up about one-third of the wall, and on either side of the mirror are four 8x10 photos, so two on each side of the mirror. There is a photo of my wife and me at our wedding, one of my mom and dad, one of my wife’s mom and dad, and one of my grandparents, my mom’s mom and dad. While it is completely fair to say that there have been a lot of people who have had a positive impact on my life, there has always been something special about grandma and grandpa, and about grandpa in particular.

He owned and ran a restaurant for over thirty years. He was Sicilian, and it was an Italian restaurant, and as such he made all of the Italian food from scratch: the spaghetti sauce, the noodles, the lasagna, the ravioli, the meatballs...all of it. He woke up around 4:30 every morning, and went into the restaurant to begin preparing the food for the day. He would cook through the lunch rush, get home around 3 in the afternoon, take a short nap, make sure things were ok, and then return to the restaurant for the dinner rush. The restaurant closed at 8, and on a normal night he was home around 9:15. And he would wake up the next morning to do it all over again. Every day, Monday through Saturday, for over thirty years. I know where my work ethic comes from. The restaurant was closed on Sundays, by the way. That was family day, and we were at their house every other Sunday. The alternating weeks were spent with my dad’s family.

Grandpa had a great sense of humor. Not the kind that came from telling a joke, because he couldn’t. He would try, but he would start thinking of the punchline about halfway through telling the joke, and start laughing so hard that he couldn’t finish. So the rest of us were laughing, not at the joke he was trying to tell, but rather at him trying to tell the joke. No, the sense of humor I inherited from him was the laughter that comes from everyday life. 

As an example, grandpa taught me how to drive. Their home sat in the middle of ¾ of an acre, with just enough trees to make a decent obstacle course. So one Sunday afternoon, he took me to the garage, pulled out the 1972 Pontiac LeMans, pointed it at the lawn, moved to the passenger seat, and told me to get behind the wheel. I was under strict orders to not touch the gas pedal. The car idled at around 35 miles per hour, so just letting your foot off the brake meant the car was moving more than fast enough for someone who was just learning how to drive. I gently let my foot off of the brake, and off we went, to the right of one tree, to the left of another, to the right of the next, around the corner of the house, dodged a couple more trees and around another corner, so that we’re now on the side of the house with the kitchen window. I promise you, he didn’t look. He was focused on making sure we didn’t hit any trees. But he said, “Turn to your left and wave to your grandma. She should be yelling at us from the kitchen window by now.” I turned to look and sure enough, there she was, arms flailing. I’m not sure what she was yelling at us, but I’m fairly certain she wasn’t happy. I look to my right, and grandpa is just sitting there, laughing. There are many such stories. Stories of Christmas, and Easter egg hunts, sure, but mostly stories of Sunday afternoons.

Grandpa passed away in September of 1991, three months before the birth of our first child. He and grandma liked to go to the horse races, and on this day, they had lawn seats. Grandpa drove, as he always did since grandma didn’t have her license, parked the car, and got the lawn chairs out of the trunk. They went in, found a place on the lawn, grandpa set up the chairs, and they sat down. Grandma looked at her program, and looked over at grandpa, and he was gone. Massive heart attack. That night at grandma and grandpa’s house, I remember my mom asking, “Who am I going to call now when I need advice?” I understood the question then as well as I do now, because there was a simplicity and a wisdom just in the way the man lived that taught the rest of us more than I think he ever realized. Even now, there are times when I will go to the dining room, look at the photo to the left of the mirror, just above the buffet, lean in close, and listen as hard as I can for even a whisper of that wisdom, and for the laughter.

 

 

When people ask me why we have icons in our homes and in our churches, why we ask the saints to pray for us, why we celebrate the saints, I tell them what I just told you. I tell them about my grandpa, because I think everyone has at least that one person in their life who just seems to have the wisdom they need to live the way they should. That is who the saints are for us. Their lives contain the simplicity and wisdom we need to live the way we should. The icon corner in our home is the buffet, full of photos of the family and events of our Orthodox faith, and even though all of the photos are important, there are those few photos that are just a little more special to us, that receive a special place in our home. In our home, this is the icon of St. Alexis Toth. 

The church sets aside two Sundays, dedicated to celebrating the saints. Last Sunday was the Feast of All Saints, so it was the celebration of the entire family. Today is the Feast of the Saints of North America, so it’s the celebration of the immediate family, of the people whose stories we have heard and told over and over and over again, until we are bored with them. But they’re good stories, full of the simplicity and wisdom we need to live the way we should. So they’re worth hearing one more time.

Why do we have icons in our homes? Why do we celebrate the saints? Why do we tell their stories over and over again? Like the stories about my grandpa, and like the photos on the buffet: How could we not?

Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

 

The Saints: Examples of Holiness

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

We recently celebrated the Great Feast of Pentecost on June 4. Therefore the following Sunday is called, simply enough, The First Sunday After Pentecost. All of the subsequent Sundays of the liturgical year, until the lenten Sundays of  next year, will be so numbered, challenging us to keep our spiritual sight on the overwhelming significance of Pentecost in the divine economy. 

The New Testament era of the Church began its existence on the Day of Pentecost with the Spirit’s descent as a mighty rushing wind that took on the form of fiery tongues alighting upon the heads of the future apostles [Acts 2:1-13]. The Church has always existed, but the Church as a remnant of Israel that would flourish and grow with the addition of the Gentiles began its final phase of existence with the death, resurrection and ascension of God’s Messiah, Jesus Christ Who, seated at the right hand of the Father, would send the Holy Spirit into the world and upon “all flesh” on the day of Pentecost. 

As Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus wrote in the fourth century, “The Catholic Church, which exists from the ages, is revealed most clearly in the incarnate advent of Christ.”

The simple calendar rubric of numbering the Sundays after Pentecost is one way of reminding us of this essential truth of the Christian Faith. The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and in and through the sacramental life of the Church we experience something like a permanent pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The first two Sundays after Pentecost are dedicated to the saints -- the first, to All Saints, and the second, to local Saints, in our case, the Saints that have shown forth in North America. We commemorate all of the saints of the Church – men, women and children -- from her beginning to the present day, including "ancestors, fathers, mothers, patriarchs, matriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith.” That is, the entire “cloud of witnesses” that surround us and pray for us while serving as models for our own faith. 

God has revealed to the Church His innumerable saints, and we rejoice in their continuous presence, made possible by the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit. The divine and co-eternal Spirit, holy by nature, makes human beings holy by grace. That is why these particular Sundays fall so naturally after the Sunday of Pentecost.

The word we use for "saint" is the Greek word for “holy” – agios. In a real sense, we are celebrating the presence of holiness in the world, incarnate in actual flesh and blood human beings. The descent of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for human beings to become and remain holy. Without the Holy Spirit, human beings can be nice, pleasant and even good – but not holy. And it is the holiness of the saints that is their one common characteristic, expressed in an endless diversity of vocations. 

Every baptized and chrismated member of the Church is already a saint – a person sanctified and set apart as a member of the People of God – and every such member has the vocation to become a saint. The phrase often used to capture this paradox of the Christian life is “become what you already are.” This phrase expresses an entire lifetime of striving and struggle to attain, by God’s grace, the highest of vocations – the holiness of a genuine child of God, “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” [John 1:13]. 

Of this we are reminded in the Gospel reading for the Sunday of All Saints: 

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father Who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father Who is in heaven...

"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” [Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38].

 

We probably have a difficult time relating to such a passage, since we expend an enormous amount of energy – time, talent and treasure -- in order to guarantee for ourselves a comfortable life and the closest of possible family relationships. God and Church may be a part of that choice, but perhaps only as one compartment of life among many. At times, the greatest of our goals may be to create a certain form of “domestic bliss,” to the extent that this is humanly attainable. Nothing else can seem greater or more desirable.

Jesus, however, makes other claims on us. And the first of those radical claims is that we must love Him above all else – including father and mother, son and daughter. This is a “hard teaching.” 

Perhaps it is here that we discover the greatest “achievement” of the saints, and the reason behind the sanctity that they often so clearly manifest. They simply loved Christ before all else. And there is nothing that can deflect them from that love. 

But in no way does this diminish our love for our loved ones. I believe that if we love Christ before all else, then we would have a greater love for those around us, including our very family members. Of course, when a choice must be made between Christ and family, it must be Christ, whatever the "cost" of that choice may be. To love Christ above all else is to expand our very notion and experience of love. If we live “in Christ,” we can then love “in Christ.” Elsewhere, Jesus would claim that this would include our enemies! This is a love that will not disappoint.

With any other deeper love, there is always the lurking temptation of succumbing to one form of idolatry or another. Jesus even says that if we love anyone else more than Him, we are not “worthy” of Him! Clearly, there is nothing easy about bearing the name of Christ and calling oneself a Christian. Is all of this impossible? Jesus teaches that “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”[Matthew 19:26].

We share the most difficult of vocations – to live up to our high calling in Christ Jesus. This is not something that we achieve on our own, but a process that includes the grace of God and our own self-determination, what we call our freedom of choice or “free will.” There are obstacles that begin with the genetic and the environmental. There are distractions and temptations too numerous to keep track of. There is the unbelief of the world around us. Yet, if we approach this “day by day,” we soon realize that we are simply trying to become genuine human beings, for the glory of God is a human being fully alive, to paraphrase Saint Irenaeus of Lyons. 

As disciples of Christ, we have the “inside track” to allow us to “run with perseverance the race that is before us” [Hebrews 12:1]. So, we thank God for the multitude of the saints who not only set an example for us, but who also pray for us unceasingly in the Kingdom of God.

 

'Come, O Comforter...'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

Come Thou, O Comforter, Holy Spirit, and make Thine abode within us!

(Refrain from the Akathist to the All-Holy And Life-Creating Spirit)

 

In spirit I behold the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, like a bride, adorned, shining like the sun, triumphant. I hear the celebration of the righteous at the banquet of the Lord, and the voices of the angels and the Lord most splendid in the midst of His elect; and sickness, and grief, and sighing are fled away. O Holy Spirit, Thou King of heaven, grant Thy seven fold gifts, that we also may have a share of the everlasting joy of those who in God cry out to Thee ...

(From the Akathist to the All-Holy and Life-Creating Spirit, Ikos XII)
 

______

It is difficult to think beyond our most immediate concerns - plans, possibilities and problems - that crowd both our minds and our hearts. And this is a daily challenge. So perhaps when we hear the "voice" of the Church, through the Scriptures, a hymn (like that above), or a text from the saints, we can lift up both our minds and hearts beyond those concerns, and contemplate the glory of "what God has prepared for those who love him."

 

'The fullness of time and that which is beyond time...'

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

Pentecost in Greek means 50, and in the sacred biblical symbolism of numbers, the number 50 symbolizes both the fullness of time and that which is beyond time: the Kingdom of God itself.

It symbolizes the fullness of time by its first component—49—which is the fullness of seven (7 x 7): the number of time. And, it symbolizes that which is beyond time by its second component — 49 + 1 — this '1' being the new day, the "day without evening" of God’s eternal Kingdom.

With the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s disciples, the time of salvation, the Divine work of redemption has been completed, the fullness revealed, all gifts bestowed; it belongs to us now to “appropriate” these gifts, to be that which we have become in Christ: participants and citizens of His Kingdom.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann

_____

A kind of "sacred numerology" exists within the Church, the focus of which is not only "this world" in its creative fulness; but also in the eschaton. As we begin to draw near to the close of the great Feast of Pentecost, perhaps a good thing to keep in mind. If our troubles and sorrows increase in this world, we need to remain aware of that world "which is to come" - the never-ending day of the Kingdom of God.

 

Acquiring the Gift of the Holy Spirit

The Transfiguration of St Seraphim of Sarov

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

"The aim of the Christian life is to return to that perfect grace of the most holy and life-giving Spirit, which was originally conferred upon us through divine baptism." (St. Kallistos and St. Ignatios Xanthopoulos)

The Holy Spirit, present within the dispensation of the Old Testament and more openly within the earthly ministry of Christ, descends into the world in a unique, but decisive and final way on the Great Day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Savior's resurrection. The coming of the Holy Spirit gave birth to the New Testament Church and the Holy Spirit abides in the Church as the life-giving Power of renewal, rebirth and regeneration. The Church would grow old and die (as do empires, nations, cultures and secular institutions) because of our many human and historical sins, if not for this presence of the Holy Spirit, making the Church ever-young and cleansing us all "from every impurity" as the personal Source of sanctification. We come to the Father through the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Or, as St. Gregory of Nyssa puts it a bit more fully:  

"One does not think of the Father without the Son and one does not conceive of the Son without the Holy Spirit. For it is impossible to attain to the Father except by being raised by the Son, and it is impossible to call Jesus Lord save in the Holy Spirit."

All authentic life in the Church is life lived in the Holy Trinity, and on the Day of Pentecost the coming of the Holy Spirit is the final revelation of precisely this greatest of mysteries - that the one God is "tri-hypostastic" (meaning "tri-personal"), being the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Here is a typical example from the Church Fathers of expressing the great paradox of the One God in Three Persons: 

"The single divinity of the Trinity is undivided and the three Persons of the one divinity are unconfused. We confess Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, divided yet without division and united yet with distinctions." (St. Thalassios the Libyan)

The Sunday of Pentecost is, then, the Feast of the Holy Trinity, Pentecost Monday being the day of the Holy Spirit. Of the divine attributes of the Holy Spirit, St. Basil the Great enumerates the following:  

"From this Source comes foreknowledge of the future, the understanding of mysteries, the apprehension of things hidden, the partaking of spiritual gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a place in the choir of angels, unending joy, the power to abide in God, to become like God, and, highest of all ends to which we can aspire, to become divine."

This can strike us as abstract. But theology reveals to us the foundation and the vision on which and in which we order our spiritual lives. The dogma of the Trinity must impact our lives.

The beginning of this process of discerning the presence of God in our lives and in trying to live out that presence is to be found in the Sacraments of Baptism and Chrismation. Each and every human person, baptized and chrismated into the life of the Orthodox Church so as to receive the gift of salvation from sin and death unto life eternal, has participated in his/her own personal Pascha and Pentecost. To be baptized is to die and rise in Christ; to be chrismated is to receive "the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit." Alive in Christ, sealed and filled with the Holy Spirit! New life and the power with which and in which we are enabled to continue in that life!

Without Christ we "can do nothing" (JN. 15:5), and without the Holy Spirit - poured out upon us by the risen, ascended and glorified Christ at Pentecost - we cannot say that "Jesus is Lord." (I COR. 12:3) 

As St. Seraphim of Sarov put it: "The true goal of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Spirit of God."

Yet, I cannot but wonder if - or to what extent - we are troubled if we squander the "great grace of Baptism" that we received when we were buried with Christ in the baptismal font, both a tomb (dying to sin) and a womb (rebirth). It seems as if we can be insensitive to the withdrawal of the Spirit's presence from our minds and hearts through sheer inattention and lack of vigilance.

The saints would weep for their sins - in fact, this is called "gifts of tears" as the means of restoring that very baptismal grace forfeited by sin - while we shrug off our own sins as "normal" and practically inevitable considering the conditions and circumstances of life. If we are more-or-less "like other people" in conformity with a basic set of moral principles, and thus maintaining a good image in the eyes of others, then we are usually perfectly content with our own sinfulness. In this way, we domesticate and normalize sin by rendering it innocuous and easy to live with. 

So understood, sin is no longer that tragic "missing of the mark" that renders sin so baneful a reality, a reality from which we needed to be saved by the death of our Savior. Thus, we re-define sin so that our notion of sin hardly resembles what we find in the Scriptures!

But how we may weep and gnash our teeth if and when we lose money, property, status, or simply "things;" how we mourn the loss of even a "trinket" if we have invested it with sentimental value! It is these types of losses that are meaningful and which demand our attention and concern, while the muting of the "voice" of the Spirit deep within our conscience will only draw a lukewarm sigh. This is a most unfortunate reversal of values; for losing the "seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit" is tantamount to losing our "heavenly treasure;" while losing our earthly treasures is only to lose what "moth and rust consume" despite our heroic efforts to escape that process. 

This is a paradox: When, by the grace of God, our spiritual lives have matured in such a way that we truly mourn (and even weep!) over our sins which strip us of the presence of the "Comforter and Spirit of Truth," then through genuine repentance, the Holy Spirit will "come and abide in us" to "warm our hearts with perfect love," according to the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov.

"The Lord gave us the Holy Spirit, and the person in whom the Holy Spirit lives feels that he has paradise within." (St. Silouan of Mt. Athos)