Sister Vassa: The Cross of Church Authority

 

THE CROSS OF CHURCH-AUTHORITY 

 

“For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things. I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.” (1 Cor 4: 9-16)

Church-“fathers” often get a bad rap, not only outside the Church but also within it, - even “the good ones.” I’m thinking about this today, when in my church (the ROCOR) we celebrate St. John of Shanghai, and in NC-churches we celebrate Sts. Peter and Paul. St. John was considered difficult by most of his fellow-bishops in his time, and some people even filed a lawsuit against him, for the alleged mishandling of finances related to the construction of the cathedral in San Francisco.

The great St. Paul tells us how it felt, already in his time, to be a church-leader, as one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ: “I think that God has exhibited us apostles as the last of all,” he writes, “…we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men…” It appears that, regardless of the strengths or weaknesses of a church-leader, his apostolic ministry brings with it the kind of exposure that is more infamy than fame. Perhaps this is so because the “bar” is so high, in an occupation modeled after the example of Christ Himself. As St. Paul says elsewhere, in 1 Cor 11: 1: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (Were St. Paul to be one of our bishops or priests in our hyper-critical day, I’ll note parenthetically, we would not neglect to criticize him for calling himself “father” in the above-quoted passage, even while Christ said in Mt 23:9, “Do not call anyone on earth your father."       

This morning I’m grateful for this “cross” of our church-leaders, who are indeed “exhibited” to everyone in ways that their flocks are not. Thus, we pray for them “first,” as in the commemorations at the end of the Anaphora of Divine Liturgy: “Among the first remember, Lord…” (Ἐν πρώτοις μνήσθητι, Κύριε… / В первых помяни, Господи...) I’m also thinking about St. Paul’s appeal to all of us, humbly to share in the “scandal” of this Cross, whenever we are called to be “exposed” as followers of Jesus Christ. And that means, “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate,” and so on. 

Holy Apostles, and St. John of Shanghai, pray to God for us!   

- Coffee With Sister Vassa   

The Risen Lord sends the Spirit, the Spirit makes Christ present to us

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends,

We continue in the (fast-free) Week of Pentecost, liturgically and personally enjoying an awareness of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in our lives. 

The Holy Spirit is the other Parakletos (Advocate/Comforter) that Jesus spoke of as recorded in the Gospel According to St. John:

"And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever - the Spirit of truth ... " (JN. 14:16-17)

"But when the Comforter comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify to me." (JN. 15:26)

"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth ... " (JN. 16:13)

The Risen Lord sends the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who makes Christ present to us. As Fr. Lev Gillett wrote: "The Spirit is sent to us by the Son, the Son is revealed to us by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a substitute for Christ, but prepares us for Christ, forms him in us, makes him present in us." 

It is precisely here that we are so aware of the reciprocal work of the Son and the Holy Spirit - the "two hands of God" according to St. Irenaeus of Lyons. On the Day of Pentecost, we liturgically actualized the experience of receiving the Holy Spirit as did the apostles on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection. Then, following the Liturgy, during the Vespers of Pentecost, we "bent the knee" for the first time since Pascha, as we offered special and theologically-rich prayers to the Holy Spirit, seeking His abiding, healing, and transforming presence among us.

 

Sister Vassa - 'To protest death in its ugly face'

 

 

COMMEMORATING THE DEAD

 

“With the saints give rest (Μετὰ τῶν ἁγίων ἀνάπαυσον / Со святыми упокой), O Christ, to the souls of Your servants, / where there is neither sickness nor sorrow, and no more sighing, / but life everlasting." (Kontakion-hymn, Saturday Before Pentecost)

Today I’m thinking about death, because it happens to be the Saturday before Pentecost, when we in my church commemorate the dead. Also, someone very close to me is dying. I think of our grief, when we encounter death, as a form of protest against death, because we don’t accept it. And we shouldn’t. God didn’t accept it either, which is why He sent us His only-begotten Son to come and share it with us, to grieve about it with us (when “Jesus wept” with the family of Lazarus), and then to trample it for us, by overcoming it in the “life everlasting“ of His resurrection. 

Our cross-carrying journey is a life-long process of learning to “protest” death in a Christ-like manner; in a life-affirming manner. It’s a process of learning to reject death in its many forms, both physical and spiritual, and learning to embrace the New Life God has in store for us, which is to be both physical and spiritual, in the bodily resurrection. This learning-process is a gradual and oft-painful one, for example, when we experience the death of a loved one, and yet continue to love them and pray for them, and to love and care for ourselves and others in our vicinity, in a life-affirming way. When we commemorate our dead, we “exercise,” so to say, our rejection of death in a faith-inspired way, as we “look for,” and pray for, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come, as we profess at the end of the Creed. 

Let me reject death today, embracing faith in my death-trampling Lord, as I pray to Him to give “rest” to my deceased loved ones. And “let us love one another” (Ἀγαπήσωμεν ἀλλήλους / Возлюбим друг друга), those of us still here, because that’s the best way to protest death in its ugly face. “I shall not die, but live, and proclaim the works of the Lord!”

From "Coffee With Sister Vassa"

_____

There are certain Saturdays throughout the liturgical year on which we commemorate the departed, often called Memorial Saturdays. One of them is today, the Saturday before the Great Feast of Pentecost. Saturdays because of the biblical "sabbath rest" that anticipates the Lord's "resting" in the tomb on Holy and Great Saturday. And further anticipating our "awakening" and the resurrection of the dead, proclaimed as an article of Faith in the Nicene Creed. 

I like Sister Vassa's use of the term "protest" as applied to our approach to death. Not an empty protest born of despair. But, rather, born of faith.

 

Unschooled and Ordinary

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

UNSCHOOLED & ORDINARY

 

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1: 14)

St. John, who “thundered” these famous words ca. two millennia ago, was an “unschooled and ordinary” man, as we learn from the Book of Acts, about John and Peter before the religious elite of their time, the Sanhedrin: “…Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unschooled and ordinary men (ἀγράμματοί εἰσιν, καὶ ἰδιῶται), they marveled. Then they realized that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4: 13) Indeed, the only way to explain the “extraordinary” testimony of these “ordinary” men, was by the fact that “they had been with Jesus.” They had “beheld His glory, …full of grace and truth,” and now His grace and truth emanated, nay, thundered, into the world around them. Let’s note that the Greek word “ἰδιώτης” (not meaning idiot) that is translated here into English (in the NKJV) as “ordinary,” was used by Ancient Greek authors as the equivalent of our term “layman,” as in “one not having professional knowledge.” It’s sort of delightful to contemplate the fact that in the eyes of the religious authorities of their time, the Holy Apostles were seen as “laymen.”

And so are we, however “unschooled” or “lay,” but as members of an “apostolic” Church, invited both to receive and pass on this extraordinary energy, “full of grace and truth.” Because “the Word became flesh,” and continues to “dwell among us,” as we prepare for the upcoming feast of Pentecost and open our hearts to His Spirit. By the prayers of Your holy Apostles, Savior, save us!

From "Coffee With Sister Vassa"

 

Why Do You Stand Gazing Up Into Heaven?

 

WHY DO YOU STAND GAZING UP INTO HEAVEN?

 

“Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.’ Then they returned to Jerusalem…” (Acts 1:9-12)

What did the eleven disciples do, after they returned to Jerusalem? Did they onlypray and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit? No. They did, indeed, pray in “the upper room” with the rest of the community, ca. 120 people, as we learn from the Book of Acts 1:14: “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” But they also had other work to do, and “in those days” (before Pentecost) they cast lots and elected Matthias, to replace Judas as one of the twelve, “and he (Matthias) was numbered with the eleven apostles.” In other words, they also tended to a church-administrative matter, a matter of church order, for which they would be held accountable when “this same Jesus, who was taken up” from them returned, as the two men in white apparel reminded them.

As we celebrate the great feast of the Ascension today, I’m thinking that we also have work to do, to order the small or big set of responsibilities we are given, according to our vocations. We don’t just “stand gazing up to heaven,” although we do a bit of that as well, whenever we ascend the “mountain” of focused prayer. Thank You, Lord, for dignifying me with my small set of responsibilities, and for lifting all of us up in Your Ascension. Glory be to You for all of it.

From "Coffee With Sister Vassa"

_____

Perhaps the real challenge is to keep our gaze on heaven "for you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God;" (Col. 3:3) and simultaneously fulfill our earthly responsibilities in a manner pleasing to God. One has the distinct impression that that is precisely what the apostles accomplished, by the grace of God, which they all received with the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

The Ascension: Our Destiny in Christ

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ, You were born, as was your will, O our God. You revealed Yourself, in Your good pleasure. You suffered in the flesh, and rose from the dead, trampling down death by death! Fulfilling all things, you ascended in glory ... (Vespers of Ascension)  Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father. (Nicene Creed) The two texts above - one from the Feast of the Ascension and the other a portion of the Nicene Creed - are wonderful expressions of the great mystery of the "descent" and "ascent" of the Son of God. The eternal Son of God becomes the Son of Man, descending into our world to live among us and to teach us about, and prepare us for, the Kingdom of God. This is what we call the Incarnation. This movement of descent is only completed when Christ is crucified and enters the very realm of death on our behalf. There is "nowhere" further to descend (in)to. Thus, there are no limits to the love of God for His creatures, for the descent of Christ into death itself is "for our salvation." The Son of God will search for Adam and Eve in the very realm of Sheol/Hades. He will rescue them and liberate them as representative of all humankind, languishing in "the valley of death." Since death cannot hold the sinless - and therefore deathless - Son of God, He begins His ascent to the heavenly realm with His resurrection from the dead. And He fulfills this paschal mystery with His glorious ascension. As St. Paul writes: "He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things." (EPH. 4:10) The One who ascended, however, is now both God and man, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the incarnate, crucified, risen, and glorified Jesus Christ who is now seated at "the right hand of the Father," far above the heavens. It is the glorified flesh of the Incarnate Word of God which has entered into the very bosom of the Trinity in the Person of Christ. As St. Leo the Great, the pope of Rome (+461) taught: With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of Heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest Heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. This is simultaneously our ascension and our glorification, since we are united to Christ through holy Baptism as members of His Body. Therefore, St. Paul can further write: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." (COL. 3:3) Out of our physical sight, we now "see" the glorified Christ through the eyes of faith. St. Leo further explains how important this spiritual insight is: For such is the power of great minds, such the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eyes; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what is visible. The Feast of the Ascension is not a decline from the glory of Pascha. It is, rather, the fulfillment of Pascha, and a movement upward toward the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the joyful revelation of our destiny in Christ. To return to the opening theme of the marvelous acts of God moving from the Incarnation to the Ascension, I would like to turn to St. Leo one more time for his understanding of that entire movement: It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we have been firmly established, so that the grace of God may show itself still more marvelous when, in spite of the withdrawal from men's sight of everything that is rightly felt to command their reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not grow cold.   The Feast of the Ascension has a full octave, which means that we commemorate this great event until June 21 this year. According to St. Luke, once the disciples beheld Christ ascend into heaven, "they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God." (LK. 24:52) The "temple" is our common place of worship. Hopefully, we too, will soon be able to return to the temple blessing God. Yet, before that happens each one of us needs to bless God wherever we may find ourselves, because for each of us, our bodies are the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (I COR. 6:19). In our daily Prayer Rule we continue to refrain from using “O Heavenly King” until the Day of Pentecost. We no longer use the paschal troparion, “Christ is Risen from the dead …” but replace it from Ascension to Pentecost with the troparion of the Ascension: Thou hast ascended in glory, O Christ our God, granting joy to Thy disciplesby the promise of the Holy Spirit; Through the Blessing they were assured that Thou art the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world.

Leavetaking of Pascha: 'Did our hearts burn within us?'

The Risen Christ and the Meal at Emmaus

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen, and Happy Leavetaking of Pascha today

Today is the Leavetaking of Pascha as we draw near to the Feast of the Ascension. According to the Acts of the Apostles: "To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God." (1:3) Of course, the apostles had the distinct advantage of actually seeing and touching the Risen Lord over these forty days whenever he appeared to them. As their certainty was built up and their faith strengthened as men who "built their house upon a rock" (Matt. 7:24), this was all meant to prepare them for their arduous mission to the world to proclaim the Gospel of the crucified and risen Lord. When the rain, and flood and winds of persecution threatened the very foundation of their lives and faith (cf. Matt. 7:25), they remained steadfast, "even unto death." Their "houses" were not shaken.

We have just had forty days to strengthen our faith in the risen Lord. At every liturgical service we sang: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death." We proclaim at every Liturgy that we have "beheld the resurrection of Christ." And even though we did not have that privileged direct presence of the Lord as did the apostles, the Lord, when speaking to Thomas, according to St. John's Gospel, not only reminded us, but once-and-for-all assured us that we have lost nothing because of this: "Jesus said to him, 'Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe'." (Jn. 20:29) We are all part of the endless generations of believers who "have not seen but believe."

At this point, perhaps we can ask ourselves about the extent of our effort to "see" the risen Lord during these sacred forty days which are now ending. Was the Lord uppermost in our minds and hearts? Did our hearts "burn within us" when we thought of Christ risen from the dead? (Lk. 24:32) Did we probe the Scriptures as Christ invited the apostles to do, so that they/we would find him there: "These are my words which I have spoken to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to the Scriptures ..." (Lk. 24:44-45) The opportunities to see the risen Lord have surely been many and varied. 

Hopefully, we have not followed the surrounding social and cultural environment in which any significant event or celebration is reduced to "one and done," as the demands of life - but also the daily enticements and distractions - press upon us for our attention. Whatever the case may be, we now arrive at the Feast of Ascension and the glorification of the Risen Lord and our human nature "in him." The opportunities to draw nearer to Christ and to strengthen our faith in him, never really cease in the grace-filled life of the Church.

PASCHA - Day Thirty Eight — Understanding Death... and the Resurrection

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

"Strictly speaking, a system of ethics which does not make death its central problem has no value and is lacking in depth and earnestness." (Nikolai Berdyaev) 

"Our one and only war ... is the sacred battle with the common enemy of all people, of all mankind - against death." (Archimandrite Sophrony)

Recently I met with some folks from Norwood - both Orthodox and non-Orthodox - for what we rather laconically called a "theological talk." The basis for our discussion was an article written by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, entitled "The Christian Concept of Death." The title may not capture the full weight of the essay, since it is a look at the Christian concept of death in the light of the Resurrection of Christ.

With such a powerful theme, enriched by Fr. Alexander's usual style that combines insightful penetration into the given theme, a captivating style of literary expression, and a series of challenging assertions that question our unexamined assumptions, our discussion proved to be an intense one that led us in many directions. All in all, a good way to spend an atypical Thursday evening. 

Obviously, the theme of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ digs deep into the very foundations of Christianity. Who does not know the powerful words of the Apostle Paul:  "If Christ is not risen, then your faith is in vain." It is the Resurrection that ultimately makes the Gospel "Good News" - in fact the "best news" conceivable and outside of which all "other news" sounds rather vague and lifeless!

It is this joyous Good News that imbues the entire life of the Church according to Fr. Schmemann:

The joy of early Christianity, which still lives in the Church, in her services, in her hymns and prayers, and especially in the incomparable feast of Pascha, does not separate the Resurrection of Christ from the "universal resurrection," which originates and begins in the Resurrection of Christ.

 

Yet, a good deal of the essay is taken up with something of a "lamentation" from Fr. Schmemann over the fact that many Christians are unaware of the ultimate consequences of the Resurrection of Christ, and that is the "universal resurrection" just mentioned above and which means the resurrection of the dead at the end of time with the "spiritual body" that the Apostle Paul speaks of in I COR. 15. Jesus, bodily risen from the dead, is called the "first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,"thus anticipating and pointing toward the resurrection of the dead at the end of time.

But is this, in fact, what Christians believe? Fr. Schmemann's trenchant criticism is expressed as follows:

The Resurrection of Christ comprises, I repeat, the very heart of the Christian faith and Christian Good News.

And yet, however strange it may sound, in the everyday life of Christianity and Christians in our time there is little room for this faith. It is as though obscured, and the contemporary Christian, without being cognizant of it, does not reject it, but somehow skirts about it, and does not live the faith as did the first Christians.

If he attends church, he of course hears in the Christian service the ever resounding joyous confirmations: "trampling down death by death," "death is swallowed up by victory," "life reigns," and "not one dead remains in the grave."

But ask him what he really thinks about death, and often (too often alas) you will hear some sort of rambling affirmation of the immortality of the soul and its life in some sort of world beyond the grave, a belief that existed even before Christianity. And that would be in the best of circumstances. In the worst, one would be met simply by perplexity and ignorance, "You know, I have never really thought about it."

 

Fr. Schmemann is not speaking of non-believers in the bodily Resurrection of Christ, but of an unfortunate transformation of Christian thought about death itself and the impact of that unfortunate transformation on the understanding of the body, or of the relationship between "body and soul." 

Basically, Christians have resorted to a kind of warmed-up Platonism that claims that there is a real and natural division between the soul and body, a division which renders the body almost meaningless, or as a prison that the soul needs to escape from. 

In opposition to this dualism, the Church's Symbol of Faith (the Nicene Creed) affirms our belief in "the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." 

This is far from merely claiming a vague belief in the "immortality of the soul." Again, this is a resort to pre-Christian modes of thought and this way of thinking is foreign to the Biblical revelation. 

Here is how Fr. Schmemann puts it:

Indeed, all non-Christian, all natural religions, all philosophies are in essence occupied with our "coming to terms" with death and attempt to demonstrate for us the source of immortal life, of the immortal soul in some sort of alien world beyond the grave. Plato, for example, and countless followers after him teach that death is a liberation from the body which the soul desires; and in this circumstance faith in the resurrection of the body not only becomes unnecessary, but also incomprehensible, even false and untrue.

 

Such a pre- or non-Christian way of thinking will make us blind to the Apostle Paul's affirmation that death is the "last enemy;" and that God desires the whole person - both body and soul - to be saved and transformed in the Kingdom of God. Such a belief even renders the Resurrection of Christ as a kind of superfluous miraculous event that does not really affect our destiny.

Orthodox Christian thinking at its purest resists and rejects this way of approaching death, but rather it drives home with a powerful realism the tragedy of human death.  

Again, in Fr. Schmemann's words:

Christianity proclaims, confirms and teaches, that this separation of the soul from the body, which we call death, is evil. It is not part of God's creation. It is that which entered the world, making it subject to itself, but opposed to God and violating His design, His desire for the world, for mankind and for life. It is that which Christ came to destroy.

Man, as created by God, is an animate body and an incarnate spirit, and for that reason any separation of them, and not only the final separation, in death, but even before death, any violation of that union is evil. It is a spiritual catastrophe. From this we receive our belief in the salvation of the world through the incarnate God, i.e. again, above all, our belief in His acceptance of flesh and body, not "body-like," but a body in the fullest sense of the word: a body that needs food, that tires and that suffers.

 

In a relatively short essay, Fr. Schmemann presents us with the distortions of Christian thinking on death which have twisted our whole conception of the meaning of the Gospel, and which, more specifically, undermine the great power contained within the Resurrection of Christ.

Yet, if Fr. Schmemann was anything, he was a life-affirming person and thinker who, in his expressive manner, always spoke and wrote of the "Good News" proclaimed throughout the New Testament and liturgical life of the Church. He thus pointed out defects that have entered our way of thinking so that we could recover the Gospel in all of its power:

He alone rose from the dead, but He has destroyed our death, destroying its dominion, its despair, its finality.

Christ does not promise us Nirvana or some sort of misty life beyond the grave, but the resurrection of life, a new heaven and a new earth, the joy of universal resurrection. Christ is risen, and life abides, life lives ...

That is the meaning; that is the unending joy of this truly central and fundamental confirmation of the Symbol of Faith: "And the third day, He rose again according to the Scriptures." 

According to the Scriptures, i.e. in accordance with that knowledge of life, with that design for the world and humanity, for the soul and body, for the spirit and matter, for life and death, which has been revealed to us in the holy Scriptures.

This is the entire faith, the entire love, and the entire hope of Christianity. And this is why the Apostle Paul says, "If Christ is not risen, then your faith is in vain.

 

As a kind of appendix affirmation to the above, I would like to include, and thus conclude, with a passage from one of the most prominent Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, the Romanian-born Dumitru Staniloae. Attempting to capture the essence of the Orthodox Church's absorption of, and appreciation for, the gift of Christ's Resurrection, Fr. Staniloae chose the word "salvation" as the best to summarize the Church's interior knowledge of ultimate reality:

Salvation expresses the deepest, most comprehensive and many-sided meaning of the work which Jesus Christ accomplished. In this last dimension, that is to say, understood as the destruction of man's death in all of its forms and the assurance of full and eternal life, the word "salvation" produces in the Orthodox faithful a feeling of absolute gratitude towards Christ to whom they owe the deliverance of their existence and the prospect of eternal life and happiness.

For those who would like to read the entire essay from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, the link below is for your convenience:

http://oca.org/reflections/fr-alexander-schmemann/the-christian-concept-of-death

PASCHA - Day Thirty Five — Our Blindness-es from Birth

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN

OUR BLINDNESS-ES FROM BIRTH

 

“Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’” (Jn 9:2-5)

As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth, - while His disciples only saw a puzzling theological problem. The Lord’s response to their question, Who sinned…? and His subsequent healing of the man indicate to the disciples (and to all of us) that they saw the wrong question. Their question should have been: How can we help? Or: How are the works of God to be revealed in him, to us and through us?

Let’s consider this approach to our own “blindness-es from birth,” or to those “blindness-es” that others in our midst might have, which make us or them different from the mainstream. Let’s say, we were never athletic, or studious, or we were always tone-deaf and not musical, or were really good at some one thing, like dedicating ourselves to one political cause, but entirely not interested in other causes; or we were always loners and/or not “the marrying type,” for whatever reason.

Do we accept ourselves and one another, as we are, with our strengths in one area and weaknesses or, if you will, “blindness-es” in other areas? Do we generally accept these common differences among us, without grappling with the theological “why?” or “why me?” or “why my child?” Or do we get on with life, and see how we can help ourselves and one another, when we can help, so that “the works of God can be revealed” in us and through us? I mean, the works of God like patience, love, compassion, humility, and, finally, Church.

That final one, Church, is the sacrament of unity, revealed through the unity of many different people, as St. Maximus the Confessor writes in his Mystagogy: 

For numerous and of almost infinite number are the men, women, and children who are distinct from one another and vastly different by birth and appearance, by nationality and language, by customs and age, by opinions and skills, by manners and habits, by pursuits and studies, and still again by reputation, fortune, characteristics, and connections: All are born into the Church and through it are reborn and recreated in the Spirit. To all in equal measure it gives and bestows one divine form and designation, to be Christ’s and to carry his name.

This morning I pray, Lord, help me to accept myself and others, in our differences, that we may see how we, together, can work the works of You who sent us into this beautiful world.

_____

Another fine meditation from Sister Vassa. But pay particular attention to the passage that she includes at the end from St. Maximus the Confessor (+662). This is considered one of the great description/definitions of the Church: the Church as the Sacrament of Unity, in which a multiplicity of human persons from every conceivable walk of life, are united in the Body of Christ. In the Church, the paradox holds true in a way no other human institution can claim: Unity in diversity; diversity in unity.

PASCHA - Day Thirty Four — 'Free to be wooed'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

CHRIST IS RISEN!   INDEED HE IS RISEN!

Referring back to yesterday's Paschal Meditation, we discovered that Jesus is the heavenly "Bridegroom" that fulfills the "types" of meetings and marriages that occurred in the Old Testament around a well (Isaac and Rebecca; Jacob and Rachel). This theme of the true "husband/bridegroom" emerges again in the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, when Christ asks her about her current husband. After letting her know that this, her sixth husband, was not truly her husband (Jn. 4:17-18), Christ will speak to her of the true worship of God. But if we pause on this someone awkward part of their dialogue - the personal life history of the woman of Samaria - perhaps we can uncover the Lord's motives in exposing her irregular marital history. In again turning to Brendan Byrne from his commentary on St. John's Gospel - Life Abounding - we find a very nuanced and balanced approach, which shifts away from moral condemnation, to the deeper issues of one's longings in life:

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""Feminist exegesis has rightly taken male interpreters to task for letting their imagination run riot in detailed reconstruction of the woman's sinful way of life. On the one hand, it seems impossible to avoid all sense of scrutiny of her way of life - albeit with Jesus as conversation partner rather than master and judge. Dorothy Lee observes, "These verses function, not to expose moral guilt, but to uncover the pain of the woman's life in her relationships with men." True, but such pain in human relationships is perhaps a symptom of the deeper "thirst" that Jesus is attempting to uncover, a longing for "life" that only the experience of intimacy with the divine can give. It is hard to eliminate from the conversation all sense of a need for conversion from a way of life that is to some degree morally suspect. The woman's dismissive disclaimer, "I have no husband" (v. 17a), has expressed the truth (v. 17b-18). She has had five husbands and, unsuccessful in all relationships, is ironically now free to be "wooed" and brought to the truth of Jesus."

From Life Abounding by Brendan Byrne, p. 84.

PASCHA - Day Thirty Three — 'Jesus comes now to woo a people beyond Israel'

 

 by Theophanes the Cretan, Stavronikita, Mt Athos, 16th c.

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen!   Indeed He is Risen!

At the beginning of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, St. John "sets the scene," so to speak, in the following manner:

"So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was the sixth hour." (Jn. 4:5-6)

Besides the deep historical significance of Jesus sitting by Jacob's well, what other biblical and typological themes are profoundly present in this scene? A very fine biblical scholar, Brendan Byrne, in his commentary on St. John's Gospel, entitled Life Abounding, uncovers the following:

"A particularly rich source of allusion is a pattern in the patriarchal stories where "courtship meetings," leading eventually to marriage, take place at wells. In Genesis 24:1-27 the servant whom Abraham has sent to Aram-naharaim to find a wife for his son, Isaac, meets Rebekah at a well and asks her for a drink. Generously, she offers to draw water for his camel as well. (Also in common with John 4:7-30 is the fact that the woman is carrying a water-jar - hydria; Gen. 24:15, etc.; cf. John 4:28 - and that the success of the mission leads the servant to "worship" the Lord: Gen. 24:26-27; cf. John 4:19-24). In Genesis 29:1-14 Jacob is beside a well when his future wife Rachel approaches to water the sheep that she tends. Recognizing her as the daughter of his uncle Laban, Jacob removes the stone that covers the well, enabling her sheep to be watered; then he kisses her, his cousin and future wife. These biblical associations hover around the meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Already present as "Bridegroom" (of Israel) at the wedding in Cana and explicitly named as such by John (3:21), Jesus comes now to "woo," in the person of this woman, a people (the Samaritans) beyond the confines of Israel, anticipating in this way the first mission of the later church (cf. Acts 8:1b-25)."

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The scriptural text is so rich even before the woman of Samaria arrives to meet her "Bridegroom!" 

From Life Abounding by Brendan Byrne, p. 80

 

 

PASCHA - Day Thirty One — 'The Spring came upon the spring...'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

CHRIST IS RISEN!  INDEED HE IS RISEN!

 

Christ ... the source of the breath of life for

   all, when he was

Weary from a journey, sat down near a spring

   of Samaria.

And it was the season of burning heat. It was

   the sixth hour, as the Scripture says,

It was the middle of the day when the Messiah

   came to illumine those in darkness.

The Spring came upon the spring, not to drink

   but to cleanse.

The fountain of immortality was near the

  stream of the woman as though it were in need.

He is tired from walking, He who tirelessly 

   walked on the sea.

He who furnishes exceeding great joy and 

   redemption.

St. Romanos the Melode

Kontakion of the Woman of Samaria 9.4.

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We can always trust that in the poetic theology of St. Romanos the Melode we will find an endless stream of images, allusions and types to fill us with wonder over the fact that the eternal Word of God became flesh. Here, in the encounter with the Samaritan woman (Jn. 4:1-42), it is the paradox of the Spring (of Life) coming to a spring in the wilderness, not only to quench his thirst, but to "supply" an endless stream of water that wells up to eternal life in its recipients.