The Nativity of the Theotokos - To see life with a restored vision

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

O incomprehensible and ineffable matters! The God of all things, knowing in advance your worth, loved you; and because of this love, he predestined you, and at the end of times (I Pet. 1:20), he brought you into being and revealed you as Theotokos, Mother, and Nurse of his own Son and God."

"Be glad most blessed Anna, for you have born a female [child]. This female [child] will be the Mother of God, gateway of light and source of life, and she will do away with the accusation against the female sex."

- St. John of Damascus

 

The church was quite filled – and the “Communion line” was quite long – yesterday evening for the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. The simple truth is that a Feast Day was therefore “festal” in nature. Coming as it does right after the beginning of the Church New Year, this Feast allows us a good start that we further hope we can sustain as the liturgical year unfolds before us. As a straightforward and joyous feast of commemorating the birth of the Virgin Mary, we receive a “taste” of the joyousness of life from within the Church that is often obscured by life’s challenges, difficulties and tragedies. Fr. Alexander Schmemann puts it like this: 

In and through this newborn girl, Christ – our gift from God, our meeting and encounter with Him – comes to embrace the world. Thus, in celebrating Mary’s birth we find ourselves already on the road to Bethlehem, moving toward to the joyful mystery of Mary as the Mother of God.

 

In an age of cynicism and unbelief, to encounter the purity of Mariam of Nazareth – the Virgin Mary and Theotokos – is to see life with a restored vision that, again, is only possible from within the Church. Goodness, purity of heart and faithfulness to God are embodied realities lived by real human persons. Such a restored vision of life will strengthen our sense of the inherent goodness of life that sin may obscure, but never obliterate. Yet,  if we can no longer “see” that, then we have lost something absolutely vital to our humanity, and we need to repent and embrace that “change of mind” that will restore our own humanity. 

Some will undoubtedly see nothing but a stereotype of the “feminine” here, but perhaps Fr. Schmemann has something worthwhile to say in his approach to the “image of woman” as manifested in the Virgin Mary:

The Virgin Mary, the All-Pure Mother demands nothing and receives everything. She pursues nothing, and possesses all. In the image of the Virgin Mary we find what has almost completely been lost in our proud, aggressive, male world: compassion, tender-heartedness, care, trust, humility.

We call her our Lady and the Queen of heaven and earth, and yet she calls herself “the handmaid of the Lord.” She is not out to teach or prove anything, yet her presence alone, in its light and joy, takes away the anxiety of our imagined problems. It is as if we have been out on a long, weary, unsuccessful day of work and have finally come home, and once again all becomes clear and filled with that happiness beyond words which is the only true happiness.

Christ said, “Do not be anxious … Seek first the Kingdom of God” (see Mt. 6:33). Beholding this woman – Virgin, Mother, Intercessor – we begin to sense, to know not with our mind but with our heart, what it means to seek the Kingdom, to find it, and to live by it.

Celebration of Faith, Vol. 3

 

On the day following the Feast – today, September 9 – we commemorate the “ancestors of God,” Joachim and Anna, the father and mother of the Virgin Mary according to the Tradition of the Church. This is a consistent pattern within our festal and liturgical commemorations: On the day after a particular feast, we commemorate the persons who are an integral part of that feast day’s events. For example, the day after Theophany we commemorate St. John the Baptist; and on the day after Nativity, we commemorate the Theotokos. Therefore, because of the essential role of Joachim and Anna in the current Feast of the Virgin Mary’s Nativity, September 9 is the “synaxis of Joachim and Anna” and we thus bring them to mind in an effort to discern and meditate upon their important place in this festal commemoration.

The source of their respective roles is the Protoevangelion of James, a mid 2^nd c. document. As Archbishop Ware has written:

The Orthodox Church does not place the Protoevangelion of James on the same level as Holy Scripture: it is possible, then, to accept the spiritual truth which underlies this narrative, without necessarily attributing a literal and historical exactness to every detail. 

One of those “spiritual truths” alluded to by Archbishop Ware is the account of both Joachim and Anna continuing to pray with faith and trust in God’s providence even though they were greatly discouraged over the “barrenness” of Anna. This is no longer our perception today, for not being able to have a child is hardly a sign of "barrenness!" And it also implies that this is a "woman's" problem, thus disengaging the man's role in the process of conception.  Yet, it is true that a lack of children in ancient Israel could easily be taken for a sign of God’s displeasure, thus hinting at hidden sins that deserve rebuke. Though disheartened, they continued to place their trust in God, refusing to turn away from God though thoroughly tested as to their patience. Perseverance in prayer in the face of discouragement is a real spiritual feat that reveals genuine faith. The conception and then birth of the Virgin Mary reveals the joyous outcome of their faith and trust in God. Perhaps this is why we commemorate Joachim and Anna as the “ancestors of God” at the end of every Dismissal in our major liturgical services, including the Divine Liturgy: We seek their prayers as icons of an everyday faith that is expressed as fidelity, faith and trust in God’s Law and providential care.

Icon of the Conception of the Theotokos by Righteous Anna

 

 

Joachim and Anna could also be witnesses to a genuine conjugal love that manifests itself in the conception and birth of a new child. Their union is an image of a “chaste” sexual love that is devoid of lust and self-seeking pleasure. The strong ascetical emphases of many of our celibate saints may serve to undermine or obscure the blessings of conjugal love as envisaged in the Sacrament of Marriage. In fact, through its canonical legislation going back to early centuries, the Church has struggled against a distorted asceticism that denigrates sexual love even within the bonds of marriage as a concession to uncontrollable passions. The Church is not “anti-sex.” But the Church always challenges us to discern the qualitative distinction between love and lust. The icon of the embrace of Joachim and Anna outside the gates of their home as they both rush to embrace each other following the exciting news that they would indeed be given a child, is the image of this purified conjugal love that will result in the conception of Mary, their child conceived as all other children are conceived.

The Feast of the Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos has four days of Afterfeast, thus ending with the Leavetaking on September 12. That allows us to then prepare for the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross on September 14!

 

The Nativity of the Theotokos - to see life with a restored vision

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

O incomprehensible and ineffable matters! The God of all things, knowing in advance your worth, loved you; and because of this love, he predestined you, and at the end of times (I Pet. 1:20), he brought you into being and revealed you as Theotokos, Mother, and Nurse of his own Son and God."

"Be glad most blessed Anna, for you have born a female [child]. This female [child] will be the Mother of God, gateway of light and source of life, and she will do away with the accusation against the female sex."

- St. John of Damascus

 

The church was quite filled – and the “Communion line” was quite long – yesterday evening for the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. The simple truth is that a Feast Day was therefore “festal” in nature. Coming as it does right after the beginning of the Church New Year, this Feast allows us a good start that we further hope we can sustain as the liturgical year unfolds before us. As a straightforward and joyous feast of commemorating the birth of the Virgin Mary, we receive a “taste” of the joyousness of life from within the Church that is often obscured by life’s challenges, difficulties and tragedies. Fr. Alexander Schmemann puts it like this: 

In and through this newborn girl, Christ – our gift from God, our meeting and encounter with Him – comes to embrace the world. Thus, in celebrating Mary’s birth we find ourselves already on the road to Bethlehem, moving toward to the joyful mystery of Mary as the Mother of God.

 

In an age of cynicism and unbelief, to encounter the purity of Mariam of Nazareth – the Virgin Mary and Theotokos – is to see life with a restored vision that, again, is only possible from within the Church. Goodness, purity of heart and faithfulness to God are embodied realities lived by real human persons. Such a restored vision of life will strengthen our sense of the inherent goodness of life that sin may obscure, but never obliterate. Yet,  if we can no longer “see” that, then we have lost something absolutely vital to our humanity, and we need to repent and embrace that “change of mind” that will restore our own humanity. 

Some will undoubtedly see nothing but a stereotype of the “feminine” here, but perhaps Fr. Schmemann has something worthwhile to say in his approach to the “image of woman” as manifested in the Virgin Mary:

The Virgin Mary, the All-Pure Mother demands nothing and receives everything. She pursues nothing, and possesses all. In the image of the Virgin Mary we find what has almost completely been lost in our proud, aggressive, male world: compassion, tender-heartedness, care, trust, humility.

We call her our Lady and the Queen of heaven and earth, and yet she calls herself “the handmaid of the Lord.” She is not out to teach or prove anything, yet her presence alone, in its light and joy, takes away the anxiety of our imagined problems. It is as if we have been out on a long, weary, unsuccessful day of work and have finally come home, and once again all becomes clear and filled with that happiness beyond words which is the only true happiness.

Christ said, “Do not be anxious … Seek first the Kingdom of God” (see Mt. 6:33). Beholding this woman – Virgin, Mother, Intercessor – we begin to sense, to know not with our mind but with our heart, what it means to seek the Kingdom, to find it, and to live by it.

Celebration of Faith, Vol. 3

 

On the day following the Feast – today, September 9 – we commemorate the “ancestors of God,” Joachim and Anna, the father and mother of the Virgin Mary according to the Tradition of the Church. This is a consistent pattern within our festal and liturgical commemorations: On the day after a particular feast, we commemorate the persons who are an integral part of that feast day’s events. For example, the day after Theophany we commemorate St. John the Baptist; and on the day after Nativity, we commemorate the Theotokos. Therefore, because of the essential role of Joachim and Anna in the current Feast of the Virgin Mary’s Nativity, September 9 is the “synaxis of Joachim and Anna” and we thus bring them to mind in an effort to discern and meditate upon their important place in this festal commemoration.

The source of their respective roles is the Protoevangelion of James, a mid 2^nd c. document. As Archbishop Ware has written:

The Orthodox Church does not place the Protoevangelion of James on the same level as Holy Scripture: it is possible, then, to accept the spiritual truth which underlies this narrative, without necessarily attributing a literal and historical exactness to every detail. 

One of those “spiritual truths” alluded to by Archbishop Ware is the account of both Joachim and Anna continuing to pray with faith and trust in God’s providence even though they were greatly discouraged over the “barrenness” of Anna. This is no longer our perception today, for not being able to have a child is hardly a sign of "barrenness!" And it also implies that this is a "woman's" problem, thus disengaging the man's role in the process of conception.  Yet, it is true that a lack of children in ancient Israel could easily be taken for a sign of God’s displeasure, thus hinting at hidden sins that deserve rebuke. Though disheartened, they continued to place their trust in God, refusing to turn away from God though thoroughly tested as to their patience. Perseverance in prayer in the face of discouragement is a real spiritual feat that reveals genuine faith. The conception and then birth of the Virgin Mary reveals the joyous outcome of their faith and trust in God. Perhaps this is why we commemorate Joachim and Anna as the “ancestors of God” at the end of every Dismissal in our major liturgical services, including the Divine Liturgy: We seek their prayers as icons of an everyday faith that is expressed as fidelity, faith and trust in God’s Law and providential care.

Icon of the Conception of the Theotokos by Righteous Anna

 

 

Joachim and Anna could also be witnesses to a genuine conjugal love that manifests itself in the conception and birth of a new child. Their union is an image of a “chaste” sexual love that is devoid of lust and self-seeking pleasure. The strong ascetical emphases of many of our celibate saints may serve to undermine or obscure the blessings of conjugal love as envisaged in the Sacrament of Marriage. In fact, through its canonical legislation going back to early centuries, the Church has struggled against a distorted asceticism that denigrates sexual love even within the bonds of marriage as a concession to uncontrollable passions. The Church is not “anti-sex.” But the Church always challenges us to discern the qualitative distinction between love and lust. The icon of the embrace of Joachim and Anna outside the gates of their home as they both rush to embrace each other following the exciting news that they would indeed be given a child, is the image of this purified conjugal love that will result in the conception of Mary, their child conceived as all other children are conceived.

The Feast of the Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos has four days of Afterfeast, thus ending with the Leavetaking on September 12. That allows us to then prepare for the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross on September 14!

 

A Perfect Prayer for These Times

Dear Parish Faithful,

Synaxis of the Optina Elders

A Perfect Prayer for These Times - I believe that many of you have access to this extraordinary prayer and are hopefully offering it to God on a daily basis, but if not, please avail yourselves of the attachment. It is the "perfect" prayer for the day that is ahead of us as it focuses us on the will of God and a willingness to accept what the day brings to us with faith, hope and love. It is from the Optina Elders, spiritual guides of a very prominent monastery that flourished primarily in 19th c. Russia up to the Revolution.

Morning Prayer of the Last Elders of Optina

Spending a Lot of Time Together ? - Some practical advice for married couples on how to navigate the rough waters of "domestic turmoil" - a.k.a. arguing - from a fine book on the Orthodox perspective of marriage by Bp. John Abdalah or the Antiochian Archdiocese and Nicholas Mamey.

Six Simple Rules for Quarreling Married Couples 

Marriage and Essential Equality

Dear Parish Faithful,

I wrote this meditation eight years ago. This year I have had four weddings scheduled within about a two-and-a-half month period (one will be celebrated out-of-town in a couple of weeks), so the controversial passage of Ephesians 5 will be heard with more frequency than ever before. For those interested I am re-issuing this meditation. Perhaps those most troubled by the Apostle Paul's teaching should read this carefully. There is no real attempt to convince, but to offer a broader perspective than mere rejection.

Marriage and Essential Equality

 

We have a few marriages coming up in our parish life so I wanted to make a few comments, forward some sound interpretive texts, and try to make some sense, in a contemporary setting, of our use of scripture in the wedding service. At all Orthodox Christian marriage services, one of the prescribed readings is from the Epistle to the Ephesians (5:22-31). In today's social and cultural context, that reading is more than a little controversial. So, in a loud and clear voice we hear the Apostle Paul's admonition:

Submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (EPH. 5:21-33)

At that point in the service, eyes roll in disbelief, heads shake in disagreement, and glances are exchanged in dismay. If you look and listen very carefully, you may even detect a knowing smile or even an unintentional snort among the many gathered people. Of course, many Orthodox simply accept the reading as part of an unchanging tradition; regard such quaintness as part of Orthodox conservatism; and "move on" with the flow of the service. The bride and groom are convinced that the passage does not reflect contemporary attitudes toward marriage; or that it certainly does not apply to their upcoming life together. They convey this to each other in mutually reassuring and loving glances; or a warm squeeze of the hands. They, too, then settle in for the remainder of the service. The non-Orthodox present may feel as if they have been transported back in time by a few centuries. "Colorful," perhaps, but ultimately irrelevant. It is like an unexpected bad note at a wonderful symphony that creates a modestly perceptible wave of uneasiness, only to be absorbed into the greater beauty of the whole service which leaves everyone deeply impressed. 

Yet, is the passage in point that unendurable? Or, more pointedly, is the Apostle Paul actually a glorified misogynist?

My intention is not to defend the Apostle Paul, nor is it to compel assent to his teaching by an attempt to convince everyone of how "right" he actually is. My concern here is very modest: to at least try and understand what the Apostle Paul is saying before we dismiss him as "patriarchal" or "chauvinist." 

The passage from Ephesians is indeed jarring and it does indeed seem to be at the very least outdated. But who takes the time and makes the effort to try and come to terms with the Apostle's goal and the context out of which this passage emerges? Is he (ab)using his authority to subordinate women to the dominance of men? I, for one, do not find such charges very convincing. 

Many scholars have gone a long way in demonstrating that the Apostle Paul can hardly be labeled a misogynist. In fact, considering contemporary attitudes to women in the Apostle's Paul's social, cultural, and religious context, he had a liberating attitude toward women - as indeed Christ Himself had. It is the Apostle Paul who also wrote: "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does" (I COR. 7:4). It is impossible to conceive of a Jewish or pagan contemporary of St. Paul's to say anything like that. And, of course, it is the Apostle Paul who "elevated" the status of women to be equal to that of men with his famous: " ... there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (GAL. 3:28).

An excellent contemporary Orthodox commentary on St. Paul's Ephesian text comes, in my opinion, from Fr. John Breck, found in his remarkable book THE SACRED GIFT OF LIFE. In this book he has a wonderful and insightful chapter entitled "Sexuality, Marriage and Covenant Responsibility." This chapter is seventy-two pages long, and is itself like a small book on marriage from an Orthodox Christian perspective. I cannot recommend this chapter highly enough for any Orthodox Christian who would like to have a better grasp of these essential topics. Under a section entitled "Equality of the Sexes," Fr. John does not hide the "facts of history:"

Within ancient Israel and throughout most of the life of the Church there has been a striking and, to most people's minds, an unjust balance with regard to the requirements for sexual fidelity and responsibility. The burden has weighed far more heavily on women than on men. This is due in part to a legacy of disproportion that we can call in today's jargon "sexist patriarchalism." (p. 83-84)

In his usual balanced style, Fr. John responds to this with a paragraph where he directly deals with some of the teachings and implications of St. Paul's Ephesian text used in our Marriage Service. Agree with him or not, I believe that Fr. John has something worth thinking about as he reflects holistically and deeply on the Apostle's teaching :

In theory, if not in practice, this condition has been done away with by the "great reversal" brought about by Jesus Christ. St. Paul's declaration, "in Christ there is neither male nor female," means that the socially and culturally conditioned inequality between the sexes is abolished: it does not exist in the mind of God and has no place within the church communities. It also means that in Christ men bear equal responsibility with women for upholding a moral ethos which is conducive to preserving the integrity of family life.

Consequently, the husband is no less responsible than his wife for preserving familial structure, stability and nurture necessary for the proper raising of their children. The husband is also as responsible as the wife for fulfilling the prescriptions of Ephesians 5. If the wife "submits" herself to her husband as to the Lord, her submission mirrors that of the Church in relation to Christ. Conversely, if the husband exercises headship, he does so by reflecting the actions and attitudes of Christ toward his Body, the Church. (The verb hypotasso is correctly rendered "submit" in this context, not "subject," as in so many English translations. It denotes a voluntary act of love rather than subjection to constraints imposed by the husband or social convention.)

The husband is to love his wife "as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" in a sacrificial self-offering of disinterested love. The key to this mutual relationship is provided in Eph. 5:21, a verse that introduces the entire passage: "Submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ." The submission, in other words, is reciprocal. It involves both parties equally yet in different ways: the wife through acceptance of the husband's responsibility for "headship," and the husband through loving service offered to his spouse. (p. 84)

Fr. John, in a very revealing footnote, honestly expresses our own difficulties with such a term as "headship:"

The concept of "headship" is one that needs a great deal more explanation than it has received to date. To what degree is it inherent in the conjugal relationship, and to what degree is it culturally conditioned? And in modern society, where both spouses are often the breadwinners, or where the husband assumes domestic chores while the wife pursues a career, how is the husband's "headship" to be exercised? (p. 84)

Nevertheless, even with such an honest reservation, Fr. John goes on to say this of the life between husband and wife:

The responsibilities and obligations of the conjugal relationship are mutual and fully equal. Husband and wife exercise different "functions" within the family, just as the priest and laity do in the "family" of the parish community. Those functions, however, are complementary. They are effective only to the extent they are based on the full and unconditional equality of each party with regard to ontological status and spiritual value.

Authentic hierarchy, in the Holy Trinity or in the Church, presupposes just such equality ... (p. 84-85)

These few passages may not do real justice to the richness of Fr. John's thoughts on "sexuality, marriage, and covenant responsibility," but they may at least indicate some of the direction of his thought. As quoted above, Fr. John is courageous enough to even explore the terribly unpopular concept of "hierarchy" raised by the Pauline teaching on "headship." 

But in a truly holistic Orthodox fashion, he makes it clear that if that concept is not to be rejected as anachronistic, or abused in a conservative manner, then it must be understood in its most exalted trinitarian application before applying it to human life. His conclusion is very important and must always be kept in mind:

Hierarchy presupposes and in fact requires the essential equality of its constituent members, an equality that derives from the fact that each member is created in the image of God and each one is called in equal measure to attain to the divine likeness. (p. 85)

I repeat: the Apostle Paul does not need any defense, but I am hoping that we can make the effort to understand what he is saying in the light of his teaching that "there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (GAL. 3:28). That makes more sense to me than an unenlightened dismissal of the scriptural text when we hear these words in church, as we will in the very near future.