St. John Klimakos on the Body

Source: legacyicons.com

This last Sunday, we commemorated St. John Klimakos (of the Ladder). I shared some passages from his Ladder of Divine Ascent during the homily. I would like now to share his well-known reflection on the human body, found in Step 15. This passage is incredible in that it captures all the ambiguities and tensions of our bodily existence - and existence ordained by our Creator. I am not sure if this is intentional or not in such a severe ascetic, but there is even some humor in how well St. John articulates our constant struggle with our own bodies within the realm of what we call "spiritual warfare." I believe we can only shake our heads and smile in recognition of how well he articulates our struggles with our "friend" and "enemy."

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By what rule or manner can I bind this body of mine? By what precedent can I judge him? Before I can bind him he is let loose,before I condemn him I am reconciled to him, before I can punish him I bow down to him and feel sorry for him. How can I hate him when my nature disposes me to love him? How can I break away from him when I am bound to him forever? How can I escape from him when he is going to rise with me? How can I make him incorrupt when he has received a corruptible nature? How can I argue with him when all the arguments of nature are on his side?

... He is my helper and my enemy, my assistant and my opponent, a protector and a traitor. I am kind to him and he assaults me. If I wear him out he gets weak. If he has a rest he becomes unruly. If I upset him (or, "if I turn away from him in loathing") he cannot stand it. If I mortify him I endanger myself. If I strike him down I have nothing left by which to acquire virtues. I embrace him. And I turn away from him.

What is this mystery in me? What is the principle of this mixture of body and soul? How can I be my own friend and my own enemy?

Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 15

Coffee With Sister Vassa: Prayer & Fasting

 

COFFEE WITH SISTER VASSA

PRAYER & FASTING 

“Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” (Mk 9:25)

In the Gospel-passage read in our churches on yesterday’s 4th Sundayof Lent, our Lord heals a certain man’s son who was afflicted with “a mute spirit,” which not only made the boy deaf and dumb, but also self-destructive, as the boy’s father says: “And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.” The disciples could not cast out this demon, and when they asked Jesus why, He said, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

Here's how we might relate to this story. If we or someone(s) in our midst are afflicted by a self-destructive deafness and dumbness, being unable to speak or hear the words we need to speak or to hear, it sounds like we’re stuck in something like an addiction. It’s cutting off all communication with others and leading to self-destruction. The solution is “nothing but prayer and fasting,” says the Lord. That is, we need to turn to God in “prayer,” letting Him into the picture and asking Him to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves; and we need “fasting,” which is abstinence from our usual routine or behaviour-pattern. Fasting breaks the usual pattern and helps us to re-focus; to step into new life, new communion and community, where God is in the picture. Fasting is an abandonment of the pattern we relied on before, which wasn’t working, wasn’t stopping the madness.

Thank You, God, for this reading at this point in our Lenten journey. Let me ask myself: Have I slipped into a self-destructive routine, which is crippling my ability to speak and to hear the words I need to speak and to hear? Is perhaps my sleeping or eating or working routine crippled by an addiction to scrolling through news on my phone? Or some other unhealthy habits? Let me abandon this pattern and let You into the picture again, my King and my God. Help me to help myself, and to return into the creative, not destructive, flow of Your divine energies, that I may be liberated to speak and hear the words I need to speak and to hear.

Coffee With Sister Vassa: The Great Paradox

 

COFFEE WITH SISTER VASSA

THE GREAT PARADOX 

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mk 8:35)

Here are a few thoughts, my friends, on this passage from yesterday’s Gospel, on the Sunday of the Cross. I have to let myself lose certain things and even certain people, including my “self,” in order to receive “salvation.” It’s a difficult truth to grasp, but you could think of it this way: You receive, when you give it away. Or: If you love him/her, you should (at times) let them go.

What is “salvation”? It is everything. It is wholeness, or a return to wholeness, from having been fragmented by “my”’desires of this or that thing or place or person(s). These desires are not always fulfilled in the ways I would want or expect. My wholeness, in harmony with God’s vision of me and my unique place in His bigger picture, is restored through my surrendering to His will, manifested through the ups and downs of my cross-carrying journey, to which He calls me every day. I do my part, by putting one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing, but I also need to let go and let God do His part. I don’t know or understand it a lot of the time, but I trust Him. Because He sees the whole picture and my unique place in it, which is where I thrive and come into ever-new life.

Lead us not into temptation, our loving Father, but deliver us from the evil one, if we do become entangled in our misplaced or mis-timed desires. Because You are in the driver’s seat, and Yours is the kingdom, which is always breaking in to our little lives, and Yours is the power to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves, and Yours is the glory in which we bask, when we let you in. Amen!

The Announcement of the Incarnation

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to your will." (Lk. 1:38)

Today, March 25, is the Feast of the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos. This great feast always falls during Great Lent, and when it falls on a weekday, it is the only instance of having the full eucharistic Liturgy served for its commemoration. Clearly a sign of the feast’s significance. Thus, the Annunciation is something of a festal interlude that punctuates the eucharistic austerity of the lenten season. Yet, because it does occur during Great Lent, this magnificent feast appears and disappears rather abruptly. It seems as if we have just changed the lenten colors in church to the blue characteristic of feasts dedicated to the Theotokos, when they are immediately changed back again! This is so because the Leavetaking of the Annunciation is on March 26. If we are not alert, it can pass swiftly by undetected by our “spiritual radar” which needs to be operative on a daily basis.

This Feast has its roots in the biblical passage in St. Luke’s Gospel, wherein the evangelist narrates that incredibly refined dialogue between the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary (LK. 1:26-38). The angel Gabriel will “announce” the joyful news of the impending birth of the Messiah, and hence our English name of “Annunciation” for the Feast. However, the Greek title of Evangelismos is even richer in that it captures the truth that the Gospel – evangelion – is being “announced” in the encounter between God’s messenger and the young maiden destined to be the Mother of God. Her “overshadowing” by the Holy Spirit is “Good News” for her and for the entire world! Even though the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity in the flesh dominates our ecclesial and cultural consciousness, it is this Feast of the Annunciation that reveals the Incarnation, or the “becoming flesh” of the eternal Word of God. It is the Word’s conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary that is the “moment” of the Word’s enfleshment. Hence, the Church’s insistence that a new human being begins to exist at the moment of conception. The Word made flesh – our Lord Jesus Christ – will be born nine months later on December 25 according to our liturgical calendar; but again, His very conception is the beginning of His human life as God-made-man. The troparion of the Feast captures this well:

Today is the beginning of our salvation; the revelation of the eternal Mystery! 
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos: Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you.

Was the Virgin Mary randomly chosen for this awesome role? Was she compelled to fulfill the will of God regardless of her spiritual relationship with God? Was she a mere instrument overwhelmed or even “used” by God for the sake of God’s eternal purpose? That the Virgin Mary was “hailed” as one “highly favored” or “full of grace” (Gk. kecharitōmenē) when the angel Gabriel first descended to her, points us well beyond any such utilitarian role for her. On the contrary, the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary is understood and presented by the Church as the supreme example of synergy in the Holy Scriptures. The word synergy denotes the harmonious combination and balance between divine grace and human freedom that can occur between God and human beings. God does not compel, but seeks our free cooperation to be a “co-worker” with God in the process of salvation and deification. In this way, God respects our human self-determination, or what we refer to as our freedom or “free will.” 

It is the Virgin Mary’s free assent to accept the unique vocation that was chosen for her from all eternity that allows her to become the Theotokos, or God-bearer. This is, of course, found in her response to the angel Gabriel’s announcement, and following her own perplexity:  “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” This teaching on synergy finds its classical expression in a justifiably famous passage from St. Nicholas Cabasilas’ Homily on the Annunciation. The passage itself is often cited as an excellent and eloquent expression of the Orthodox understanding of synergy: 

The incarnation of the Word was not only the work of the Father, Son and Spirit – the first consenting, the second descending, and third overshadowing – but it was also the work of the will and faith of the Virgin. Without the three divine persons this design could not have been set in motion; but likewise the plan could not have been carried into effect without the consent and faith of the all-pure Virgin. Only after teaching and persuading her does God make her his Mother and receive from her the flesh which she consciously wills to offer him. Just as he was conceived by his own free choice, so in the same way she became his Mother voluntarily and with her free consent.

We praise the Virgin Mary as representing our longing for God and for fulfilling her destiny so that we may receive the gift of salvation from our Lord who “came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man” (Nicene Creed):

Hail, thou who art full of grace: the Lord is with thee.

Hail, O pure Virgin;

Hail, O Bride unwedded

Hail, Mother of life: blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

(Dogmatikon, Vespers of the Annunciation)

Monday Morning Meditation: 'Cross-bearers' - Not Simply 'Cross-wearers'

Source: pravicon.com

 At the very midpoint of Great Lent we venerate the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. If we have in any way taken up the cross of asceticism in obedience to the Church and in reaction to our over-indulgent surroundings, then by the Third Sunday of Great Lent the purpose of our ascetical efforts - and the very goal of our journey - are brought to our attention: to stand by the Cross of the Lord as we journey toward Jerusalem and Holy Week. 

The timing is perfect, for by this third Sunday of Great Lent we begin to tire, if not "wear out" with our lenten effort to this point. However, in our weakness we can find the strength and resolve to continue our journey with enthusiasm, and not simply obligation. This is made possible by the presence of the Cross, not only at the heart and center of Great Lent, but at the heart and center of the biblical revelation; of the entire historical process; of the cosmos; and at the heart and center of the Trinity, as the Lamb of God is slain before the foundation of the world. 

With that in mind, we can chant and sing the appointed hymns cited above, not only as fine examples of Byzantine rhetoric, but as profound insights into the meaning and purpose of the Cross. 

What may appear at first sight as hyperbole or exaggeration in the Church's hymnography, is discovered, upon deeper meditation, to be the search for words and images adequate to the great mystery of the Cross, in itself the inexhaustible wisdom of God as the "breadth and length, and height and depth" of that wisdom which will fill us "with the fulness of God"(EPH. 3:18-19). The only response to this Mystery once we begin to assimilate it, is to "bow down" in worship before the Master's Cross in awe and adoration. 

In our liturgical tradition we decorate the Cross with flowers in order to enhance and reveal its inner beauty, as we bring the Cross in solemn procession into the midst of the church for veneration. The decorated Cross is one way of trying to capture the paradoxical nature of the Cross.

For in no way is the Church trying to cover up the horror and brutality of crucifixionas one of the most perverse and twisted means of humanity's sinful capacity to inflict pain and humiliation on others. Here is the dark side of human nature at its most lethal. This is all clearly beneath the surface in the Gospels and their restrained and sober narrative of the Lord dying on the Cross. And it is on Golgotha "when they had crucified him" (MATT. 27:35) that we can begin to understand why the Lord "cried with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach'-tha'ni' that is 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (MATT. 27:46). It is in and through this cry of solidarity with suffering humanity while lifted up on the Cross that we never soften or "sing away" the horror of the Cross. We respect what it meant for the Lord to ascend the Cross. A clear-sighted realism demands that of us.

Yet, Christ is our Passover, the Lamb of God "who takes away the sin of the world"(JN. 1:29). On the Cross, as the sinless Son of God, Christ absorbs and takes upon Himself all of that sin in order to overcome it from within. He died on the Cross, but death had no hold over Him. He died for the life of the world and its salvation. By His obedience to the will of the Father, Christ destroys death by death.

For this reason, when we venerate the Cross we simultaneously glorify the Lord's "holy Resurrection." It is on the Cross that Christ is victorious, not in spite of the Cross. The Son glorifies the Father precisely while lifted up on the Cross. "I call Him King, because I see Him crucified," said St. John Chrysostom. 

As we sing at every Liturgy after having received the Body and Blood of Christ: "for through the Cross joy has come into the world." That is an incredible claim, but through faith we understand that claim as the very heart of the Gospel, the "good news" that life has overcome death "once and for all." 

Whenever we taste of that joy, we taste of the glory of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps here we discover the paradoxical nature of a decorated Cross: the ultimate sign of defeat and death has become the "unconquerable trophy of the true faith." Or, as the Apostle Paul has declared:  "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (I COR. 1:18).

The Lord taught us:  "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (MK. 8:34). These words challenge us to never be content with being passive observers of the Cross, but rather active participants in the life of self-denial and co-suffering love that are implied in taking up the Cross.

This further means that by our very vocation as Christians, we are "cross-bearers" and not simply "cross-wearers." It is one thing to wear a cross, and another thing to bear a cross. 

Of course it is a good thing that Christians do wear a cross. This is something of a identity badge that reveals that we are indeed Christians, but this worn cross is certainly not another piece of jewelry - Byzantine, three-barred, Celtic or Ethiopian! By wearing a cross we are saying in effect: I am a Christian, and therefore I belong to the Crucified One, who is none other than the "Lord and Master of my life." My ultimate allegiance is to Him, and to no other person or party. With the Apostle Paul, I also confess:  "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith ..." (ROM. 1:16). 

Such a confession already takes us way beyond passively being a "cross-wearer" to actively being a "cross-bearer." Dying to sin in Baptism makes the impossible possible. And with a faith in Christ that is ever-deepening in maturity, we can further exclaim with the great Apostle:  "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (GAL. 5:24).

The Third Sunday of Great Lent - The Adoration of the Life-Giving Cross - reveals, I believe, that here is something that makes Lent potentially great. Here are reasons that make taking Lent seriously a worthy and noble endeavor. We are slowly learning to be Cross-bearers, and in the process transforming the simple profession "I am a Christian," into a powerful confession of Faith.