Coffee With Sister Vassa: OPENING UP TO 'MYSTERY' AS WE AGE

Coffee With Sister Vassa

OPENING UP TO “MYSTERY” AS WE AGE 

 

“However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature (ἐν τοῖς τελείοις), yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God, in mystery, and (which was) hidden, and which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor 2: 6-8)

The “wisdom of God,” spoken by the Apostles and their successors “in mystery,” was indeed once “hidden” from all, “before the ages.” But it is not un-knowable, nor does it remain “hidden,” having been revealed (and continuing to be revealed) in the Person of Jesus Christ, to the “mature” or the τελείοις, which can also be translated as “full grown” or “finished.” I like the last translation, because as we age and are broken in a way, by our personal and communal tragedies, we tend to become “finished” with playing the power-games of our earlier years and to open up more to the power of God.  

When we talk about “mystery” in our Tradition, we do not mean, contrary to a popular misconception, something un-knowable to us. Mystery is something that is meant to entice us to discover its meaning; to receive the revelation of Truth and Light that is “hidden” in Jesus Christ, insofar as one doesn’t have the eyes to “see” Him for Who He is. Mystery, in our Tradition, also requires “mystagogy” (“μυσταγωγία” in Greek, or “introduction/initiation into the mystery”), which means that we need others to “introduce” us to, or lead us into, the knowledge of God’s wisdom, revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why, traditionally, the explanations of the “mystery” of the Eucharist, (like the one written by St. Maximus the Confessor in the 7th c.), are called “mystagogical.” And that is why our joys and sorrows on the cross-carrying journey, as we follow our vocation, can also be called “mystagogical,” because through them we “mature” in the deifying knowledge of our Lord and the Mystery of His death-trampling Way.

Let me be enticed by that which is concealed, “in mystery,” that I allow myself to be “led into” it, by the grace-filled “mystagogy” of living Tradition. Lord, I want to know more, not of the “wisdom” of “the rulers of this age,” who keep changing each election-cycle, but of Your unchanging wisdom. Help me be teachable today, and open to learning Your mysteries.

The Breakthrough of the God-bearing Fathers at the beautiful city of Nicea

Dear Parish Faithful,

Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council

O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth...

Today is the Leave-taking of the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord. Looking back to last Sunday, in addition to our ongoing celebration of the Ascension, we also commemorated the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea. This is an annual commemoration on the Seventh Sunday of Pascha. This First Ecumenical Council convened in 325 and its great and timeless contribution to the Church is the first version of we call today the Nicene Creed.

Actually, what we use to this day in the Church is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, for the initial form of the Creed was completed at the Second Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople in 381. But since the full title of the Creed is something of a mouthful, we shorten it to the Nicene Creed, with a hopeful understanding of the history behind it.

At Great Vespers for the Holy Fathers, we chanted a long aposticha verse that characteristically and simultaneously praised the Holy Trinity while teaching the faithful, through a summary form, the meaning of this commemoration. Often, the hymns of the Church combine praise, poetry, teaching and exhortation. This particular hymn is a very fulsome example of that.

I would like to present this aposticha verse together with my own commentary added to it, so as to further expand on the hymn and discover what it is primarily teaching us about this First Ecumenical Council and the theology behind it:

O Orthodox faithful, let us celebrate today the yearly memorial of the God-bearing Fathers who came from all over the inhabited world to the beautiful city of Nicea.

The opening sentence is a somewhat rhetorical call to worship and a reminder that this is an annual celebration of these great saints of the Church. They are said to be "God-bearing Fathers," something like flesh-and-blood "vessels of the Holy Spirit," inspired to proclaim theological truths that open up to the faithful members of the Church some of the great mysteries of the Christian Faith.

The Council Fathers came from all over the "inhabited world," a somewhat inflated expression that means that they came from within the boundaries of the Roman Empire - the oikomene - or "civilized world."

Nicea was an ancient city of what was called then Asia Minor, but what is today, of course, Turkey. The city was just across the Bosphoros and the great city of Constantinople. Nicea was renamed Iznik by the Ottoman Turks long ago. As Nicea it was also the meeting place of the seventh and last of the Seven Great Ecumenical Councils. But I have no idea if it is still beautiful!

They rejected the impious teaching of Arius as a Council, excluding him from the Church throughout the world.

Here is the first mention of one of the great arch-heretics of the Church - the presbyter Arius from Alexandria.

A heretic promotes false teaching as if it was a legitimate expression of the Church's Faith, which it is not. It is therefore dismissed as "impious." The title of "heretic" is very unpopular today, as we have relativized all "truth claims;" but the early Church had to distinguish true from false teaching, in order to maintain the "unity of the Faith" and its faithfulness to the witness of the Scriptures.

The teaching of Arius was challenged immediately when it became known publicly. For this teaching was clearly a real threat to the Church's understanding of who the Son of God actually is. For Arius, the Son is a "creature" unequal with God the Father. For Arius, "there was [a time] when He was not." That would mean that the Son of God is not eternal. This severely compromised the claim of the Church that it was the eternal and timeless God who entered into our world in order to save the world. For only God can save.

Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world precisely because in His divine nature He is truly God. God, in the Person of the Son of God becomes incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, the "Word made flesh." We should also take note that "as a Council" Arius and his teaching was rejected. This reveals the conciliar nature of the Church, based upon the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem (ACTS 15). When the apostles deliberated there over the hotly-contested issue of how the Gentiles should be received into the Church, they acknowledged the role of divine grace leading them in their deliberations: "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us... " The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council would make the same claim. The decisions of the Church gathered together in Council are not merely the results of human agency.

They clearly taught all to confess the Son of God, consubstantial, co-eternal, and existing from before all ages.

The "breakthrough" achieved by the Fathers at the Council was to clearly articulate that the Son of God is equal to the Father according to His divine nature. The Son is therefore "coeternal." He has always existed "from before all ages." As the Son, He is "begotten of the Father before all ages... begotten not made." There was never a "time" when He did not exist (as Arius claimed), just as there was never a "time" when the Father did not exist. 

The Son is "Light of Light; true God of true God." And this "breakthrough" was possible because the Fathers of the Council took the very bold step of using a word not found in the Bible, to defend what was stated in the Bible about the Son of God by means of other expressions, images and terms. This word is the Greek homoousios, translated as "consubstantial," or as we say "of one essence" (with the Father). What God is by nature, so is the Son of the identical nature. Yet, the Father and the Son are distinct as divine Persons.

They composed this explicitly in the Symbol of Faith.

The Holy Fathers of the Council expressed this in a creedal form - succinctly and explicitly - with a clarity that refutes the teaching of Arius so that any further misunderstanding can be avoided. The Nicene Creed now expresses Orthodox dogma, the very content of the Faith. 

This Truth is eternal and unchanging for such is the Son of God - "the way, the truth and the life." The Orthodox Church will proclaim this truth to the world until the end of time and then we will experience it "face to face" in the Kingdom of God. 

What we call the creed (from the Latin credo - I believe) is actually called the Symbol of Faith. This Symbol of Faith has stood the "test of time" as it is still our surest expression of Orthodox teaching after almost seventeen hundred years.

Following their divine dogmas in the assurance of the Faith, we worship the Son and the Holy Spirit together with the Father: the Trinity one in Essence, one unique Divinity!

This very expressive hymn closes with a call to worship the Holy Trinity. Actually, the hymn is incorporating what was further expressed following the Second Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople in 381: that "we worship the Son and the Holy Spirit together with the Father." 

After the Second Council we have the full expression of our Faith in the Holy Trinity. (Thus was the work of such great Church Fathers as St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. Gregory of Nyssa). 

And the Trinity is "one in essence." The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share the identical divine nature from all eternity, thus being "one unique Divinity!" These are "divine dogmas." Dogmas have been described as "mystical facts" penetrating into the deepest layers of reality, because these dogmas reveal God to us to the extent that we can penetrate the mystery and majesty of God.

With the coming of Pentecost this weekend - and Pentecost Sunday is also called the Day of the Holy Trinity - we will be able to worship the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in and through the Liturgy and the coming of the Holy Spirit that we will experience in the Church. And that sounds exciting!

The Dormition of the Theotokos - Celebrating a 'deathless death'

Dear Parish Faithful,

"A Christian ending to our lives, painless, blameless and peaceful ... let us ask of the Lord."

We just completed our celebration of the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos with Great Vespers yesterday evening and the Divine Liturgy this morning.  "All things considered" - meaning that this year the cycle took place from Sunday evening to Monday morning - we had good participation for the Feast and two wonderful services.

In the center of the church was the tomb with a beautiful icon of the Mother of God in blessed repose to be venerated by the faithful.  (This icon will remain in the tomb which will be put back in its new normal spot in the back of the church, where everyone can venerate the image until the leave-taking of the Feast  on August 23).  We also blessed flowers at the end of the Liturgy, adding beauty to the Feast as we did last week with our fruit baskets at Transfiguration.

Dormition, of course, means "falling asleep," the Christian term par excellence for how we approach the mystery of death. And here we further approach the paradox, from a Christian perspective, of death itself - the "last enemy" that causes great anguish and grief; but yet which now serves as a passage to life everlasting, and thus a cause for festal celebration in the death of the Mother of God. For the Virgin Mary truly died, as is the fate of all human beings; and yet "neither the tomb nor death could hold the Theotokos" who has been "translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb!" Without for a moment losing sight of the reality of death (notice the weeping apostles around the body of the Theotokos on the Dormition icon), from within the Church we can actually celebrate death during this "summer pascha" because of the Resurrection of Christ.

Thus, the Feast of the Dormition clearly raises the issue of death and dying, and what we mean by a “Christian ending to our life.”  For the moment, though, here is a challenging paragraph from Fr. Thomas Hopko about some of our own misconceptions – basically our fears – that often find us wandering far from an Orthodox approach to death and dying:

I believe that the issue of death and dying is in need of serious attention in contemporary Orthodoxy, especially in the West, where most members of the Church seem to be “pagan” before people die and “Platonists” afterwards.  By this I mean that they beg the Church to keep people alive, healthy, and happy as long as possible, and then demand that the Church assure them after people die that their immortal souls are “in a better place, basking in heavenly bliss” no matter what they may have done in their earthly lives.  —  From Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attractions, p. 89, note 2.

To add a bit more to this, here is a passage from Bp. Ilarion Alfeyev, that reinforces the Christian understanding – and hope – that accompanies us at the moment of death:

For the non-believing person, death is a catastrophe and a tragedy, a rupture and a break.  For the Christian, though, death is neither a catastrophe nor something evil.  Death is a “falling asleep,” a temporary condition of separation from the body until the final unification with it.  As Isaac the Syrian emphasizes, the sleep of death is short in comparison with the expectant eternity of a person.  — From Orthodox Christianity, Vol. 2, p. 496.

St. Gregory of Nyssa states this Christian hope with clarity:

By the divine Providence death has been introduced as a dispensation into the nature of man, so that, sin having flowed away at the dissolution of the union of soul and body, man, through the resurrection, might be refashioned, sound, passionless, stainless, and removed from any touch of evil.  – Great Catechetical Oration, 35.

This is precisely why we can call the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, “pascha in the summer!”   The Virgin Mary and Theotokos died a “deathless death.”  Now we have the opportunity to participate in this mystery in the celebration of this event as nothing less than a Feast. 

Only Wonder Grasps Anything

Dear Parish Faithful,

Recently, I read an article that dealt with the issue of the possible convergence between theology and science.  The specific theme of the article was an analysis of the current Pope's remarks on the compatibility of belief in God and evolution.  Not addressing that specific issue here, I did want to share an interesting metaphor attributed to Albert Einstein on the wonder of the created universe with which the article closed.

"We are like a little child entering a huge library..." — Albert Einstein

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe," said Einstein.  " We are like a little child entering a huge library.  The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues.  The child knows that someone must have written these books.  It does not know who or how.  It does not understand the languages in which they were written.  But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books -- a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."

I could never discern exactly where Einstein stood on the "God question."  Perhaps he was deliberately elusive about this ultimate question.  Yet, a metaphor as the one above, certainly has a theistic ring about it, even though I have read elsewhere that he did not accept the notion of a "personal God."  However, this passage seems to point toward a conscious "Designer."  I certainly read the metaphor in that light, as the author of the article also read it, for which reason he closed his remarks with it.

Be that as it may, Einstein's passage reminds me of something Saint Gregory of Nyssa said back in the 4th century -- Saint Gregory was clearly one of the greatest minds of that era, and well beyond: 

"Concepts create idols,

only wonder grasps anything."

Some of the things said by the Church Fathers are better left to stand without further commentary -- as I believe is true of these words of Saint Gregory -- but rather meditated, reflected and thought over for their deepest meaning.  As denizens of the information age, the question for us may be the following: Is there anything that truly fills us with wonder?  And what good is a mind packed with information but unable to experience a sense of wonder when reflecting upon the seemingly infinite order of created things, both animate and inanimate? 

I am convinced that the Church is the "place" in which we can maintain our sense of wonder to a remarkable degree.  How can it be otherwise when we believe that the very creative Word of God became incarnate as a "little Child," and that after suffering the Cross He was raised from the dead?

  

Fascinating as it is, the question of the "how" of the existence of the universe -- and of our place in it -- is insignificant when compared to the "why" of the existence of the universe.  We believe and we affirm that everything that exists does so because God exists, and the God Who exists is the "Maker of heaven and earth of all things both visible and invisible."