Do You Celebrate the (Civil) New Year?

Image source: goodfreephotos.com

 Dear Parish Faithful,

Do You Celebrate the (Civil) New Year?

Most of us certainly do, so by anticipation, I hope and pray for a blessed upcoming year of 2025 for one and all in our parish. Personally, I prefer looking forward to a blessed New Year more than a happy New Year. What, by the way, would a "happy" new year look like? I assume something like: Everything works out for us as we hope it all will. Well there is always a "reality check" on such wishes, so whatever may be in store for us (a "cross?") we hope and pray that "God is with us" in all circumstances of our life. 

Be that as it may, I would suggest that if you are intent upon greeting the New Year with some form of celebration/party/social gathering; the place to begin is in the Church through acknowledging God first and foremost, as the Source of any anticipated "happiness" if not actually "blessings" for 2025. The possibility is there in that this evening, we will celebrate Great Vespers at 7:00 p.m. (The actual ecclesial commemorations on January 1 are the Circumcision of the Lord; and the feast day of St. Basil the Great). And tomorrow morning, we will celebrate the Divine Liturgy at 9:30 a.m. So, we can begin with God, and then carry on from there. 

Or, to use an expression that is probably a regular part of our vocabulary and approach to life, we can think in terms of our priorities. As in: Just where do I begin, when I establish life-affecting priorities and goals? Is the Lord Jesus Christ the "one thing needful" (highest priority) in my life? If not, then what is ...?

Regardless of what is awaiting us in 2025 - known "in advance" only to God - we can use the New Year as the beginning of both a personal and familial renewal. There are "resolutions" and then there is "repentance." The cliche has it that resolutions are made only to be broken, but that is not necessarily true. With effort and the grace of God, we can turn those resolutions into permanent changes in our way of life, the implication from a resolution being that we very much need the change - overcoming "bad habits" and creating "good habits" in their place. Repentance is not only transforming "passions" into "virtues" - the language of the Church and the saints for bad and good habits - but of re-centering our "worldview" on the Holy Trinity, to borrow a phrase from Met. Kallistos Ware. If we take our "life in Christ" seriously, also meaning our life in the grace-filled atmosphere of the Church, then this is all quite possible; for what is impossible on the human level is possible with God, as taught by our Lord.

Coffee With Sister Vassa: The Great Reward of Having Faith

 

THE GREAT REWARD OF HAVING FAITH

“Therefore do not cast away your confidence/boldness (παρρησίαν), which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: ‘For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.’ But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” (Hebr 10:35-39)

There is “great reward,” for not casting away our confidence. Our confidence is in the Great Fact that God is. And He is good. He is not an absent father, but One Who suits up and shows up, time and again, as we celebrate in this season of Theophanies, i.e., of His appearance to us in Bethlehem and His coming out to be baptized in the river Jordan. He is invariably the One “who is coming,” and He will come and will not tarry; He will come into any of our unhealed or unresolved difficulties, internal or external, as He always has. 

Sometimes, the negative voices in our heads or in our midst want to drag us down, so that we lose our trust in God and in our own eternal value and importance to Him, and slip into wasting time on loneliness, self-centered fear, complacency, indifference to our own vocation, as if it doesn’t matter, etc. 

“But we are not of those who draw back to perdition,” the author of Hebrews reminds us, “but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” It matters, my friends, that we have faith, that we nourish our faith, and that we emanate it to those around us. Through our faith and hope and communion with our good God, we change and re-vitalize our world, with God’s grace. And we do, as we live and breathe in faith, experience the “great reward” of changing our world, as we change ourselves daily, replacing fear and complacency with faith. But if we allow ourselves to embrace and emanate the opposite kinds of energies, like hopelessness, complacency, etc., we not only waste our own precious, God-given time, but we also begin to infect others with our negativity. This morning, let me let God into my heart, as I engage in some heartfelt prayer, and let me put one foot in front of the other and do what I need to do today, according to my responsibilities, with which He dignifies me.

_____

I just communicated with Sister Vassa, so a final confirmation that she will visit our parish on Wednesday evening, March 19, to deliver a talk entitled "Great Lent as a Great Catechism." She and I both agree that it would be too demanding to have both the Presanctified Liturgy and her talk on one evening. So, we will first serve a lenten Vespers on Wednesday evening, March 19, and shift the Presanctified to Friday evening of that week. Mark your calendars!

The Nativity of Christ and Martyrdom

Source: oca.org

 Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

CHRIST IS BORN!

GLORIFY HIM!

The Gospel reading for the Great Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord is Matthew 2:1-12. This passage proclaims the Good News that the Savior was born in Bethlehem according to the biblical prophecies.

The star guides the Magi and they, in turn, bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Child in acknowledgment that He is unique and a true King, testified to by cosmic signs that even the Gentile Magi can properly interpret. Joyous as this is, there is already a hint of the ultimate destiny of Christ in that myrrh is used in the burial customs of the Jews.

On the Second Day of the Nativity, we complete the reading of the second chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel—2:13-23, which immediately introduces us to the tragic reality of the massacre of the innocent boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger. The previous joy of the Savior’s Nativity is replaced by the wailing and lamentation of the mothers of these innocent children, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more” [Jeremiah 2:18].

The shadow of the Cross lay across the infancy narratives in this Gospel, for in the immediate post-Nativity period, these male children become the first of many martyrs who must die because Christ has entered the world, as many of the powerful of this world—following the dark example of King Herod—will not receive Him; they will actually despise Him and turn against His followers. Thus, the suffering of innocent children is somehow taken up by God as an offering in a sinful world that fluctuates between light and darkness. 

And we must acknowledge that the suffering of innocent children continues to the present time - a suffering directly caused by human wickedness. We now understand that the cave of the Nativity anticipated the tomb of Christ’s burial, and that the swaddling clothes anticipated the grave clothes with which Christ would eventually be bound following His death on the Cross.

On the Third Day of the Nativity - and on the Sunday After Nativity - we commemorate the Protomartyr Stephen, the first to die for his faith in Christ in the post-Resurrection community of the newborn Church. St. Stephen's lengthy speech to his fellow Jews, in which he upbraided them for their lack of faith; and in which he proclaimed Jesus as the Risen and Ascended Christ is recorded in ACTS 7. His brutal martyrdom by stoning followed as his testimony resulted in a furious and deadly rejection of his convicting words. In fact, "they gnashed their teeth against him" (ACTS 7:54).

Martyrdom has always been a distinct and powerful witness to Christ. Actually, “from the beginning” the Incarnation and Martyrdom are inextricably joined together in a world torn by the tension between darkness and light. To our great joy, we know "that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (JN. 1:5).

The kontakion for the Feast of Saint Stephen captures the movement between the joy of Christ’s birth and the sobering reality of what Christ’s coming meant for some:
Yesterday the Master assumed our flesh and became our guest; Today His servant is stoned to death and departs in the flesh: The glorious first martyr Stephen!

There is no greater witness to Christ than that of the martyrs—flesh and blood men, women and children who gave their lives for the Lord in the sure hope and assurance that eternal life awaited them in the Kingdom of God. 

If we exchange a “Merry Christmas” with others, we always need to be mindful of the commitment we are making to the newborn Christ. As we temporarily indulge in the days of the Feast, we realize that the Christian life is ultimately a commitment to discipline and restraint, even the “crucifixion” of the flesh with all of its desires, in order to “witness” to Christ as disciples who believe that His advent in the flesh, culminating in His death and resurrection, has prepared a place for us in His eternal Kingdom where there is “life everlasting.”

The Mysterion of the Incarnation

Source: orthodoxroad.com

 Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

We were blessed yesterday morning with a truly festal Liturgy and celebration of the Lord's Nativity in the flesh. I am sorry about cancelling the festal Matins on the eve of the Feast, but that added rest allowed me to recover enough to serve the Liturgy yesterday. It was a joy see the church so filled with worshippers. I hope that your respective Christmas celebrations went well.

As our fast-paced culture moves so swiftly forward (toward what may be a fair question); it may seem as if Christmas is already over - "one and done" as the saying goes. Or what remains could be the rush to return gifts that do not work, do not fit, or are unwanted. Let's slow things down for a moment, if possible, and bring back to mind some of the incredibly rich hymnography that we just sang in the Liturgy or read through on our own. We can meditate upon these hymns as the Nativity Feast continues until January 4 inclusive. The longest fast-free period in our liturgical year! 

These hymns are united in their rhetorical capacity to state the paradox of God becoming man. I was speaking with someone in the church yesterday, while preparing for the Liturgy, and we both agreed that thinking on the Incarnation can "explode" one's mind. A profound mysterion to use of the Apostle Paul's chosen words to reveal the meaning of Christ among us!

This first example is the third kathisma taken from the festal Matins:

How can a womb contain Him whom nothing can
   contain?

How can He remain in His father's bosom, yet rest in his mother's arms?

It is His good pleasure to accomplish this.

Having no flesh, He purposely assumes it for our sake.

He who is becomes what He never was.

He shares our substance without forsaking His own nature.

Desiring to make us citizens of the world on high,Christ, the Only-begotten of the       Father, is born on earth as a man.

_____

From the Liturgy, the incomparable kontakion, which is actually the prelude to the metered theological poem (known as a kontakion) of St. Romanos the Melode:

Today he virgin gives birth to the transcendent one,

And the earth offers a cave to the unapproachable  one!

Angels, with shepherd, glorify Him!

The wise journey with a star,since for our sake the Eternal God was born as a little child!
_____

And, the special Hymn to the Theotokos that replaces "It is Truly Meet" in the Liturgy (actually the Irmos of the Ninth Ode of the splendid Nativity Canon, also from the festal Matins):

Magnify, O my soul,

the most pure virgin Theotokos,

more honorable and more glorious than the heavenly hosts!

I behold a strange, most glorious mystery!Heaven - the cave!

The cherubic throne - the virgin!

The manger - the place where Christ lay,

  the uncontainable God, whom we magnify in song!

There is no need for any further commentary, as each person who reads and meditates upon these hymns will provide his/her own personal interior commentary. As the Apostle Paul exhorts us: think on these things!

Coffee With Sister Vassa: Christmas Eve

 

CHRISTMAS EVE

“God shall come from Teman (the South), and the Holy One from the shady mount Paran (ἐξ ὄρους κατασκίου δασέος) из горы приосененныя чащи).” (Habbakuk/Avvakum 3:3, LXX) 

This mystifying verse from the Song of the Prophet Habbakuk/Avvakum occurs frequently throughout our church-services for Christmas, because it is traditionally seen to be a prophecy about the Virgin Birth in Bethlehem.

The term “Teman” (Greek: Θαιμαν, Hebrew: תימן), among its various meanings, was used in Biblical Hebrew also in the sense of “the South.” This is how the term is translated in the Old Slavonic: Бог «от юга» приидет… (God shall come from “the South”). The Prophet Habbakuk is presumed to have lived in Jerusalem at the time of his prophecy, although his home is not identified in the Bible. Bethlehem lies about ten kilometers south of Jerusalem, hence we recognize here a prophecy about the birth of Christ. At other times, God has revealed Himself from “the South” in the sense of Mount Sinai, which lies to the south of Israel. 

The next part of the verse is more difficult to unpack, and its translations into English are varied. Before looking at the term “shady mountain,” which means the Holy Virgin, let’s look first at the term “Paran,” translated in the Greek Septuagint-translation as “δασύ” that means “forested country” (or an area with a thick forest, hence the Slavonic translation, «чаща» that means a thick forest). The Hebrew etymology of the word “Paran” is more interesting. In the form of a verb פאר (pa'ar) it means “to glorify; to branch out in glory and beauty; the branching out or diversifying into a spectrum of glorious nuances.”

The “shady” or “overshadowed” mountain Paran (as indicated above, one branching out in glory and beauty) is the Holy Virgin, who is an elevated place, like a mountain, and “overshadowed” in the sense that shadows in the Bible often symbolize God’s presence and character. The Theotokos is seen to be “overshadowed” by God’s presence, as the Archangel says to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you.”(Lk 1:35) She is identified as this “overshadowed” mountain with “thick forest” in Heirmos 4 of the first Christmas canon at the matins-service of this feast: “Stem and flower of the root of Jesse, You have blossomed from the Virgin, O Christ. From the overshadowed mountain of thick forest, You are come, made flesh from her that knew no man…” Let’s note also that she is identified with the “mountain” in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, from which a stone is cut“without hands.” (Dan 2:45) 

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One! Thank you, Theotokos! Thank You, Lord! A blessed Christmas Eve, my beloved friends! In today's reflection, we find some pretty careful exegesis of some of the prophetic images taken from the Scriptures

____

A generous offering by Sister Vassa, as she follows the old Julian calendar and will not actually celebrate the Birth of Christ until January 7. In today's reflection, we find some pretty careful biblical exegesis of some of the prophetic images taken from the Scriptures.