Thursday's Theological Thoughts

Source: zizoulas.org

Presvytera Deborah brought the amazing passage below to my attention, and I would like to share it with the parish. This was written by Metropolitan John Zizioulas (+2022). Many would consider him one of the premiere Orthodox theologians of the last two generations or so, together will such illuminaries as Fr. George Florovsky and Met. Kallistos Ware. He was a prolific writer who approached his vocation as a theologian with great care and a commitment to present and build up the Orthodox Christian Faith to the utmost of his ability. 

In this dense passage, he uncovers the real depth of the Liturgy as a "foretaste of the Eschaton." Here, his theological perspective is very close to that of Fr. Alexander Schmemann who, through his writing, made the Liturgy alive and imbued with a meaning that took it far beyond an ancient and colorful rite. 

_____

“Chronos (chronological or sequential time) is imbued with meaning by kairos(the opportune time), and kairos is nothing more than a stop, a way station, from which we can survey the past and look out onto the future. Without kairos, time (chronos) flows on without meaning, sunk in death, and nothing that happens within it survives. In all of creation, only the human being can change time into kairos. The prerogative and responsibility of the freedom given to him or to her by the Creator is to enter through time, even if only briefly (as happens in the Divine Liturgy), into the presence and foretaste of the Eschaton, that which will not be lost together with all the useless things we carry around with us in this life.”

Midweek Morning Meditation -- Too Busy Not To Pray

Source: prayerrope.co

While looking through a catalogue recently from a Christian publishing company, I came across a rather intriguing title: Too Busy Not to Pray. I say intriguing because this is a theme that I think about often and one that I have raised with others before. Read that title again carefully, because it does not say Too Busy to Pray, but precisely Too Busy Not to Pray. 

Either title could serve as an invitation to a book that assumedly addresses the contemporary Christian’s struggle to maintain a regular prayer life amidst his or her busy schedule. However, the title as it stands captures the urgency of the issue much more effectively. I would express that urgency in the following manner: If we are indeed “too busy,” then the only way that we can prevent our lives from spinning out of control—or of losing a God-directed orientation or reducing prayer to moments of danger and stress—is for the “busy person” to be ever-vigilant about praying with regularity to guard such spiritual catastrophes from occurring.

We always need to pray with regularity—“pray without ceasing” [1 Thessalonians 5:17]. But it strikes me that the busier we are, the more urgent it becomes for us to pray. In other words, the busy person cannot afford not to pray. Busy people indeed need the nourishment of prayer. Otherwise, the spiritual dangers are immense. 

The “business” of our lives make us too busy to ... do what? We are certainly not “too busy” to socialize, to seek entertainment, pleasure and diversion—all necessary to one degree or another because of the pressures of work and other responsibilities. And these diversions are layered onto lives that already feel the strain of “multi-tasking” the endless activities that keep our children educated, developing, healthily-preoccupied, etc. (A social commentator recently wrote that mothers have been reduced to the roles of domestic caretakers and chauffeurs. And we still read such nonsense that actually questions  the very “need” of fathers?). Therefore, most people carefully construct their schedules so that these extra social and diversionary activities are not terribly neglected. We can cast this under the rubrics of “leisure time” or “recreational time.” (This all gets a bit sloppy when we go further and speak of “vegging out”). It is the careful, calculated and natural integration of such activities into our lives that leaves us with the overwhelming certainty that we are “too busy.” And “too busy” leaves us “too tired.”

And at that point, we just may be. 

The question then arises again, now with a certain persistence: to busy to ... do what? To pray, to read the Scriptures, to assist a needy neighbor, to visit someone who really needs a visit, or even to call someone we know who is lonely? We are “too busy” to integrate the life of the Church into our lives beyond Sunday mornings. We are “too busy” for Vespers, Bible Studies, Feast Days, etc. Perhaps, finally, we are “too busy” for God! How often do we postpone our relationship with God until we have more time? “If only my life would slow down a bit, then I could turn my attention to God, beyond the perfunctory rushed prayer of my busy, daily life—if I even get to it.”

Is this dilemma unavoidable and irresolvable? Of course not. Every Christian who does face—or face-up—to this dilemma must search his or her heart and ask, “how is it that I am ‘too busy’ to pray?” Whatever honest answers we come up with, I am convinced that we, indeed, are too busy not to pray.

Lenten Meditation -- Fifth Monday of Great Lent

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 How Shall We Escape, If We Neglect So Great a Salvation? (Hebrews 2.3)

Who will give us back this present time if we waste it? ...We are not yet perfect, but at least we desire to be so, and this is the beginning of our salvation...someone wanting to acquire the spiritual craft must not interest himself in anything else but, day and night, attend to it...unless a man drives himself and fights against his evil inclinations he readily falls away and diverges from the path of virtues.

—St Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses, X: On Traveling the Way of God, as found inThe Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox

"God is Wonderful in His Saints!"

Source: www.standrewsgreekorthodoxcathedral.co.uk

 Dear Parish Faithful,

"God is wonderful in His saints, the God of Israel!"

Ps. 68:36

I hope that everyone - or nearly everyone - has picked up the new ecclessiastical/church calendar for 2025. If not, there are about 20 copies left in the church hall. Remember to pick one up on Sunday! Such a calendar, in contrast to our "secular" calendar, is probably something new for our inquirers, catechumens and neophytes. My intention is still to spend some time describing the structure of the calendar in an upcoming post-Liturgy discussion. 

For the moment, I can say that the church calendar gives us the opportunity to structure our own domestic lives around the rhythms of the Church - scriptural readings, festal commemorations, fasting days, etc. And this is clearly a different rythym, with even a different perception of time, that allows for the sanctification of time and not simply its fleeting character, as day after day fades into oblivion. Time is Kingdom-directed, which is why we begin every celebration of the Divine Liturgy with this wonderful exclamation: "Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!" Perhaps the church calendar grants us some perception of our Kingdom-directed lives.

For the moment, as I look over the calendar, what immediately strikes me about January is the endless flow of days on which we commemorate some of the great and most well-known saints of the Church. We have already commemorated St. Basil the Great (1/1); St. Seraphim of Sarov (1/2); Ven. Genevieve of Paris (1/3; and Amma Syncletica (1/5); all as a kind of build-up to the Great Feast of Theophany (1/6). And to follow, allow me to mention a few more of the most notable holy men and women of the Church commemorated in January: St. Gregory of Nyssa (1/10); St. Nina of Georgia, Equal-to-the-Apostles (1/14); Ven. Godbearing Anthony the Great (1/17); St. Maximus the Confessor (1/21); St. Gregory the Theologian (1/25); and Ven. Ephraim and Isaac of Syria (1/28). Quite an impressive month of "holy" (the actual word behind our word "saint") men and women who chose the Kingdom of God over any other possible choice. Time itself allows us the opportunity to become aware of and connected with these great figures - our friends from the past who are now present to us an intercessors.

All of the saints, therefore, intercede before the throne of God on our behalf. They are with us and not cut off from us by death. Rather, they are now more alive than ever and being “in Christ” are present wherever Christ is present. The earthly lives of the saints become sources of inspiration and models of emulation for us, teaching by examples of faith, hope and love; of long-suffering, perseverance and patience; of lives steeped in prayer, almsgiving and fasting. They do not discourage us because they attained what may seem unattainable to us; but rather they encourage us to struggle to overcome our weaknesses as men and women who did precisely that in their own lives. They were not born saints or privileged from birth. They became saints by co-operating with the grace of God. We, in turn, simply need to become what we already are: saints of God through Baptism and Chrismation and membership in the Church!

The Entrance of the Theotokos - Sanctifying Time through the Feasts of the Church

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

"Today let Heaven above greatly rejoice ..."

I will assume that today began and will continue as a normal weekday for just about everyone who reads this email communication. In addition to our responsibilities, tasks, appointments and over-all agendas, that may also imply the tedium associated with daily life. Another day will come and go, never to be repeated again in the unceasing flow of time ... 

However, today (November 21) also happens to be one of the Twelve Great Feast Days of the Church's liturgical year:  The Entrance of the Theotokos Into the Temple. For those who came to the service this evening, that will hopefully be more apparent; but if we "keep time" with our Church calendar, as well as with our regular calendars, we may not be "caught off guard" by the coming of the Feast. The festal cycle of the Church sanctifies time. By this we mean that the tedious flow of time is imbued with sacred content as we celebrate the events of the past now made present through liturgical worship. Notice how often we hear the word "today" in the hymns of the Feast:

"Today let us, the faithful dance for joy ... " 
"Today the living Temple of the holy glory of Christ our God, she who alone among   women is pure and blessed ..." 
"Today the Theotokos, the Temple that is to hold God is led into the temple of the Lord ..."

(Vespers of the Feast)

 

Again, we do not merely commemorate the past, but we make the past present. We actualize the event being celebrated so that we are also participating in it. We, today, rejoice as we greet the Mother of God as she enters the temple "in anticipation proclaiming Christ to all." Can all - or any - of this possibly change the "tone" of how we live this day? Is it at all possible that an awareness of this joyous Feast can bring some illumination or sense of divine grace into the seemingly unchanging flow of daily life? Are we able to envision our lives as belong to a greater whole: the life of the Church that is moving toward the final revelation of God's Kingdom in all of its fullness? Do such questions even make any sense as we are scrambling to just get through the day intact and in one piece, hopefully avoiding any serious mishaps or calamities? If not, can we at least acknowledge that "something" essential is missing from our lives?

I believe that there a few things that we could do on a practical level that will bring the life of the Church, and its particular rhythms into our domestic lives. As we know, each particular Feast has a main hymn called the troparion. This troparion captures the over-all meaning and theological content of the Feast in a somewhat poetic fashion. As the years go by, and as we celebrate the Feasts annually, you may notice that you have memorized these troparia, or at least recognize them when they are sung in church. For the Entrance of the Theotokos Into the Temple, the festal troparion is the following:

Today is the prelude of the good will of God, of the preaching of the salvation of mankind, 
The Virgin appears in the temple of God, in anticipation proclaiming Christ to all, 
Let us rejoice and sing to her: Rejoice, O Fulfillment of the Creator's dispensation!

 

A great Feast Day of the Church is never a one-day affair. There is the "afterfeast" and then, finally, the "leavetaking" of the Feast. So this particular Feast extends from today, November 21, until Friday, November 25. A good practice, therefore, would be to include the troparion of the Feast in our daily prayer until the leavetaking. That can be very effective when parents pray together with their children before bedtime, as an example. Perhaps even more importantly within a family meal setting, would be to sing or simply say or chant the troparion together before sitting down to share that meal together. The troparion would replace the usual prayer that we use, presumably the Lord's Prayer All of this can be especially effective with children as it will introduce them to the rhythm of Church life and its commemoration of the great events in the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary.

Do you have any Orthodox literature in the home that would narrate and then perhaps explain the events and their meaning of the Great Feast Days? Reading this together as a family can also be very effective. A short Church School session need not be the only time that our children are introduced to the life of the Church. The home, as we recall, has been called a "little church" by none other than St. John Chrysostom. Orthodox Christianity is meant to be a way of life, as expressed here by Fr. Pavel Florensky: 

The Orthodox taste, the Orthodox temper, is felt but is not subject to arithmetical calculation. Orthodoxy is shown, not proved. That is why there is only one way to understand Orthodoxy: through direct experience ... to become Orthodox, it is necessary to immerse oneself all at once into the very element of Orthodoxy, to begin living in an Orthodox way. There is no other way. (The Pillar and Ground of the Truth)

 

As this Feast Day falls during the Nativity Fast, the Church calendar tells us that "fish, wine and oil" are allowed today.

[NOTE: Special articles and resources on the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos and all the Great Feasts are available on our parish website.]

Tending Time in Lent

Dear Parish Faithful,

Here is a "guest meditation" from our former parishioner, Dr. Nicole M. Roccas. It is a very thoughtful, insightful and well-articulated article on how Lent challenges the very way we use - or misuse - the gift of time. I hope you will take the time to read through it carefully.

Nicole recently had her new book Time and Despondency published by Ancient Faith Press. I would highly recommend it.

- Fr. Steven

Tending Time in Lent

 

By Nicole Roccas, Another City, March 13, 2018:

As I prepared for my first confession some years ago, I was given a rubric that I still follow. It asks me to reflect on how I’ve sinned against myself, others, and God. If nothing comes to mind, I’m directed to consider the ways I’ve fallen short of the ten commandments, the beatitudes, the virtues enumerated in the Prayer of St. Ephrem, etc.

As helpful as these guides are, however, they risk overlooking a quintessential dimension of life: the experience of time. Like the beatitudes or ten commandments, thinking about the ways we use and misuse time provides an additional lens to perceive our struggle against the passions.

In my experience, this lens is extremely helpful. We can immediately identify with the grief of a wasted hour, day, or lifetime, even when we are too out of touch to grieve other aspects of our sinful condition.

Personally, I have found it beneficial to consider my interaction with time parallel to the rubric I’ve mentioned above: How have I wasted or misused time in relation to myself, to others, and to God?

Redeeming the Time

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

In Ephesians 5:15-16 we read, "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil." 

To "walk" -- in the context of this passage -- is a metaphor for how we conduct our lives.  We can live wisely or unwisely.  To "walk" unwisely means that we can easily resemble a "fool." Avoiding such a false step, but on the contrary walking with wisdom, will depend on how much effort we put into "making the most of the time."  

This can also be translated as "redeem the time."  To redeem the time is, first, not to waste time, especially on what is superfluous. More positively, it could mean to spend our time in worthwhile pursuits, seeking to do the good in all of life's various circumstances.  We are children of God at all times, not only when we are in church or before the icons in our domestic prayer corner.  How we live and how we interact with others is basically how we express our Christian faith on a daily basis.

On a deeper level, to "redeem the time" could also mean to sanctify time, both remembering and honoring the fact that the full expanse of our lives — our lifetime — is a gift from God, for as humans our lives unfold within the time of this world as created by God.  Our time is limited because our lives are of finite duration.  An awareness of this can go a long way in how we appreciate -- and therefore redeem -- the time.

We are drawing closer to the celebration of the Lord's Incarnation.  We can redeem this time within the rhythm of ecclesial time, the time of the Church.  We need to pick up where we perhaps left off during this long and enjoyable Thanksgiving Day weekend.  We have just feasted along with our fellow Americans; now let us fast as Orthodox Christians. To squander a season of preparation before a feast by neglecting prayer, almsgiving and fasting is to act unwisely if we claim to be serious Orthodox Christians.  Any struggle against our lower instincts to eat, drink and be merry as the most meaningful pursuits in life is one sound way of redeeming the time.  One more obvious example of the "battle of the calendars."

The Apostle Paul writes that "the days are evil."  In a fallen world, every single day presents us with the possibility -- if not probability -- of encountering evil on a grand or limited scale.  To somehow believe the days we are living in are not all that evil is to be lost in a wishful thinking divorced from any rational perception of reality.  We live in a time wherein people have forgotten God, and through this forgetfulness lose sight of their basic humanity.  To de-sanctify the world (by claiming that the world is an autonomous reality and a result of blind forces) is to debase humanity, for only through faith in God can we have faith in the goodness of human nature.

We can be "in the world," but not "of the world," if we choose to "make the most of the time, because the days are evil."  One of the key words here is "choose."  Do we really have a hard choice to make?  Hardly!  In my humble opinion, within the grace-filled life of the Church, the choices before us are very easy to make!

Here is a simple prayer (but just try to put it into daily practice!) from the diary of Elder Anthony of Optina [†1820] that teaches us how to redeem the time.

O God, be attentive unto helping me.  O Lord, make haste to help me.

Direct, O Lord God, everything that I do, read and write, everything that I say and try to understand to the glory of Your holy Name.  From You have I received a good beginning, and my every deed end in You.

Grant, O God, that I might not anger You, my Creator, in word, deed or thought, but may all my deeds, counsels and thoughts be to the glory of Your most holy Name.  Amen.

From the Diary of the Elder Anthony of Optina, 1820

The Perfect Ending to the Perfect Day

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Although the day has passed, and is therefore now in the irretrievable past, I would like to explain why I believe that it was the "perfect time" to have come to Saturday evening's Great Vespers a couple of days ago.

It struck me as the "perfect time" because it came at the end of what can only be described as a (near) "perfect day." Saturday was a truly beautiful day or, as some would say, a gorgeous day. Well into the Fall at this point in time, it was not only warm, but the drenching sunshine, the pellucid clarity of the blue sky, and the changing colors of gold, yellow, orange and red still clinging to the trees combined to make each of us instinctively - or perhaps consciously - grateful for the simple joy of being alive. "Glory to You for the Feast Day of life!" we hear in the Akathist Hymn "Glory to God for All Things." What a day to wake up to and have your spirit lifted up in the process! As Fr. Alexander Schmemann used to say, it was the kind of day on which life made a great deal of sense. And such a day offered many opportunities for a variety of activities: working around the house (many of those leaves are now on the ground and need to be raked up); children playing in the yard; a trip to the park; a long walk, etc. The list can easily go on.

It is my humble opinion that the "perfect" culmination to such a day would have been to come to Great Vespers and truly thank God through the prayers and hymns of the service for the gift of such a day. (It is possible that someone may have said or thought that it was too nice of a day to "interrupt" by going to church. But, as the saying goes, better to not even go there ...) 

During the day, we may have paused for a moment and thanked God for its beauty, but the entire structure of Great Vespers is such that we offer our thanksgiving to God from within the Church as "ecclesial beings." It is not the impersonal forces of "Mother Nature" that we worship, but our heavenly Father, "the Maker of heaven and earth and of all things both visible and invisible." Again, that worship is most perfectly expressed from within the Church in our liturgical prayer. The very atmosphere of the church and our prayerful attention greatly magnifies our awareness of this truth. 

As mentioned above, from within the Church, our instinctive awareness of "goodness, truth and beauty," becomes a conscious awareness culminating in worship and thanksgiving. The service at the end of the day helps us to remember this. And perhaps this is something we forget without the liturgical service of Great Vespers.

Every Vespers service begins with Psalm 104, which is a form of "poetic theology," a hymn to the divinely-ordained diversity, order and purpose of all of creation: "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works, in wisdom has Thou made them all!" Therefore, on the one hand, as the day wanes, and the sun begins to set, Great Vespers comes at the day's end so that we thank God for the enjoyment and experiences of that day - good or bad. 

On the other hand, according to the Scriptures "there was evening and morning, one day" (GEN. 1:5), so the evening service of Vespers begins the next day liturgically - and on Saturday evening that means the Lord's Day. As the sun sets, we sing an ancient hymn to Christ, the "Gladsome Light" Who illuminates the darkness of the world with a light that cannot be "overcome" (cf. Jn. 1:5). In our liturgical theology we proclaim the "sanctification of time," indicating by this term the divine source of time and its (re)direction toward the Kingdom of Heaven made possible through the Death and Resurrection of Christ - the major theme of Sunday, the Lord's Day. And like the Elder Symeon, we can "depart in peace" - today and at the end of our earthly lives - for our eyes, too, have seen the salvation that God has "prepared before the face of all people."

I repeat: it struck me that being at Great Vespers was the perfect ending to the perfect day that last Saturday was. We had eight hours or more to enjoy it. Plenty of time for a great deal of activity. Then, we offer back an hour of our time to the God who makes all things possible. This is not an "interruption" in our day, but a "culmination" of the day. 

For the sake of emphasis, I used the term "perfect time" somewhat rhetorically when I began this meditation on being present at last Saturday's Great Vespers service. It is always the "perfect time" - rain or shine - when we include our presence in church as we make our plans and plot out our days as they come to us as gifts from God. Many such days have passed, and hopefully there are many more yet to come.

Sanctifying Time

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

In the Service of Prayer for the New Year, we offer the following prayerful petitions to God:

“That He will mercifully accept this present thanksgiving and supplication of us, His unworthy servants, on His most-heavenly Altar, and compassionately have mercy on us, let us pray to the Lord.

“That He will bless the beginning and continuance of this year with the grace of His love for mankind, and will grant unto us peaceful times, favorable weather and a sinless life in health and abundance, let us pray to the Lord.

“That He will drive away from us all soul-corrupting passions and corrupting habits,  and that He will plant in our hearts His divine fear, unto the fulfillment of His statutes, let us pray to the Lord.”

By the grace of God, may it be so!  

These petitions from the Great Litany of this service should at least move us to a deeper level of reflection (and prayer) than that offered in the rather vapid “Happy New Year!”  The New Year, with its unavoidable theme of time, prompted me to go back over an excellent essay by Archbishop Kallistos Ware, titled 'Time:  Prison or Path to Freedom?' (This essay can be found in Vol. 1 of Archbishop Ware’s Collected Works—The Inner Kingdom—published by SVS Press).  This is a rich essay indeed, in which Archbishop Kallistos asks questions and offers insights that are universal in their application.  

“Our experience of time… is deeply ambivalent,” he writes.  “How are we to regard time:  an enemy or friend, as our prison or our path to freedom?  Which aspect do we find predominant in its double-edged impact upon us:  anguish or healing, terror or hope, decay or growth, separation or relationship?” [p. 183].

In other words, is time simply “eating away” at the successive and finite number of moments that comprise our lives, sweeping us along toward death and oblivion, or is there purpose and a transcendent “destination” in this movement?  Anguish or hope do seem to be very honest responses to such polarized possibilities.  And as Archbishop Kallistos suggests, we should use the “time” to think hard on just which direction we are inclined toward with these two poles.

As a Christian and a bishop who combines theological brilliance with a fine pastoral sense, Archbishop Kallistos fills us with a sense of hope as He affirms our faith that Christ is the “Alpha and Omega” of time, as well as the mid-point.  In addition to this fundamental assertion, he has a wonderful section in this essay under the heading “Time as the Freedom to Love.”  I hope that this excerpt of two passages from this section, will convey something of his wonderful insights about the nature of time and our freedom to love.

“It is in the context of freedom and love that the meaning of time can best be appreciated.  Time is part of the “distancing” or ‘contraction’ on God’s side which makes it possible for us humans freely to love.  It is, as it were, the interspace which enables us to move towards God unconstrained and by our voluntary choice.  ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock,’ says Christ; ‘if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me’ [Revelation 3:20].... 

"Time is the interval between God’s appeal and our answer.  We humans need this interval of time so as freely to love God and one another; without the interval we cannot engage in the dialogue of love….  Time is thus an all-important dimension of our created personhood, the setting that makes it possible for us to choose love.  It is time that allows us to respond to God by our own free content, that enables our love to mature, that permits us to grow in love” [pp. 188-189].

In the fallen world that we occupy, time has become inextricably linked to mortality and death, but it still remains a gift, as do all aspects of God’s creative will, now redeemed by the advent of Christ.  Often, we hear—and may even use—the dreadful phrase “to kill time,” either out of boredom or in waiting for something “important” to happen.  Yet our Christian vocation is to “sanctify time” as our movement toward the Kingdom which has no end.  Every moment counts, because every moment is a gift from God.

Is there a meaningful and worthwhile New Year’s resolution to commit oneself to somewhere in all of this?

Redeeming the Time

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

In Ephesians 5:15-16 we read, "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil."  To "walk" -- in the context of this passage -- is a metaphor for how we conduct our lives.  We can live wisely or unwisely.  To "walk" unwisely means that we can easily resemble a "fool."

Avoiding such a false step, but on the contrary walking with wisdom, will depend on how much effort we put into "making the most of the time."  This can also be translated as "redeem the time."  To redeem the time is, first, not to waste time, especially on what is superfluous.

More positively, it could mean to spend our time in worthwhile pursuits, seeking to do the good in all of life's various circumstances.  We are children of God at all times, not only when we are in church or before the icons in our domestic prayer corner.  How we live and how we interact with others is basically how we express our Christian faith on a daily basis.

On a deeper level, to "redeem the time" could also mean to sanctify time, both remembering and honoring the fact that the full expanse of our lives — our lifetime — is a gift from God, for as humans our lives unfold within the time of this world as created by God.  Our time is limited because our lives are of finite duration.  An awareness of this can go a long way in how we appreciate -- and therefore redeem -- the time.

We are drawing closer to the celebration of the Lord's Incarnation.  We can redeem this time within the rhythm of ecclesial time, the time of the Church.  We need to pick up where we perhaps left off during this long and enjoyable Thanksgiving Day weekend.  We have just feasted along with our fellow Americans; now let us fast as Orthodox Christians. To squander a season of preparation before a feast by neglecting prayer, almsgiving and fasting is to act unwisely if we claim to be serious Orthodox Christians.  Any struggle against our lower instincts to eat, drink and be merry as the most meaningful pursuits in life is one sound way of redeeming the time.  One more obvious example of the "battle of the calendars."

The Apostle Paul writes that "the days are evil."  In a fallen world, every single day presents us with the possibility -- if not probability -- of encountering evil on a grand or limited scale.  To somehow believe the days we are living in are not all that evil is to be lost in a wishful thinking divorced from any rational perception of reality.  We live in a time wherein people have forgotten God, and through this forgetfulness lose sight of their basic humanity.  To de-sanctify the world (by claiming that the world is an autonomous reality and a result of blind forces) is to debase humanity, for only through faith in God can we have faith in the goodness of human nature.

We can be "in the world," but not "of the world," if we choose to "make the most of the time, because the days are evil."  One of the key words here is "choose."  Do we really have a hard choice to make?  Hardly!  In my humble opinion, within the grace-filled life of the Church, the choices before us are very easy to make!

Here is a simple prayer (but just try to put it into daily practice!) from the diary of Elder Anthony of Optina [1820] that teaches us how to redeem the time.

O God, be attentive unto helping me.  O Lord, make haste to help me.

Direct, O Lord God, everything that I do, read and write, everything that I say and try to understand to the glory of Your holy Name.  From You have I received a good beginning, and my every deed ends in You.

Grant, O God, that I might not anger You, my Creator, in word, deed or thought, but may all my deeds, counsels and thoughts be to the glory of Your most holy Name.  Amen.

From the diary of Elder Anthony of Optina, 1820

An Introduction to 'Time and Despondency'

Dear Parish Faithful,

In yesterday's post-Liturgy discussion, we were treated to a short, but excellent presentation by our former parishioner, Dr. Nicole Roccas. Nicole spoke of her forthcoming book that will be titled Time and Despondency.  In fact, she actually read the first couple of pages of her Introduction for us yesterday.

It was all quite intriguing, and based on these few pages I am now eagerly anticipating the release of her book sometime next year.  A fruitful discussion ensued as Nicole was able to take on a few good questions in our short time frame.  In her book, she will be dealing with the phenomenon of despondency, and how that universal affliction relates to time.  Thus, though she will be dependent for her analysis of despondency as found in the penetrating insights of the desert dweller and writer, Evagrius of Pontus, she will make a new contribution to that analysis by relating it to the concept of time - the subject of her doctoral dissertation - and, of course, placing her analysis within a contemporary setting that will speak to us today.

This brought to mind a former meditation on that theme that I wrote a few years back (2012), based on a book review of the theme of despondency, which is one of many translations of the Gk. word akedia (Latin, accedie; rendered in English as acedia), almost a technical term that describes one of the many "passions" that can afflict us today as it did the early Christian ascetics. (This was a Lenten meditation, but this theme is not restricted to a particular liturgical season).

Reading through this meditation, I believe that Nicole and I are interpreting akedia it in a very similar way, so if you missed her discussion yesterday, perhaps some of the ideas she presented  can also be found here.  I believe that her use of the term despondency works better over-all than the word depression. It is my humble opinion that if anyone believes that he or she is not suffering from akedia/despondency on some level, then that person is further suffering from self-delusion.

Acedia and Us and Our Lenten Effort

Vespers and the Fulfillment of Time

Dear Parish Faithful,

I understand that our Church School studied the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple in their respective classes yesterday.  To remind everyone, the Church School curriculum this year is "The Life of Christ."  They have already covered the Lord's Nativity, so the Meeting of the Lord (LK. 2) follows chronologically.  They are well ahead of the liturgical cycle! 

Some of the younger children colored an icon of the Meeting of the Lord. The Righteous Symeon, one of the key figures found and described by St. Luke the Evangelist in his Gospel is, of course, in that icon. One of the most beautiful hymns in the Scriptures was uttered by St. Symeon when he behold and then held the Christ Child in his arms. 

Often, this hymn is referred by the Latin of its opening words - Nunc Dimittis. We all know that hymn by heart as it is invariably sung or chanted at every single Vespers service - Daily, Great or Festal. But we can include it hear to help us focus on the power of its words:

Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,
   according to Thy word;
for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation
   which Thou hast prepared before the face of Thy people.
a light to enlighten the Gentiles
   and the glory of Thy people Israel.  (Lk. 2:29-32)

I bring this to our attention because I spoke of this hymn in the homily yesterday in the context of pointing out the theological structure of the Vespers service. 

This first of the services of our daily liturgical cycle has a profound theological structure to it that embraces and expresses the four essential components of an Orthodox Christian world view. And these are: 1) Creation; 2) Fall; 3) Redemption; and 4)  Kingdom. 

I would like to write about this in more detail in the future; but for the moment, I will simply point out that St. Symeon's Hymn points us toward the Kingdom which is to come, and which he speaks confidently about entering having - by the grace of the Holy Spirit - recognized the Messiah in the little Child cradled in his arms.  St. Symeon thus believes that he can now "depart" - that is, die - "in peace," with that inner certainty that he will now be held within the embrace of God. 

Thus, this hymn is eschatological in its orientation, pointing us toward the End, which is the beginning of life in God's eternal Kingdom. With his usual eloquence, Fr. Alexander Schmemann describes the experience of St. Symeon as follows:

Symeon ... stood for the whole world in its expectation and longing, and the words he used to express his thanksgiving have become our own.... He had beheld the One he had longed for. He had completed his purpose in life, and he was ready to die. 

But death to him was no catastrophe. It was only a natural expression of the fulfillment of his waiting.  He was not closing his eyes to the light he had at last seen; his death was only the beginning of more inward vision of that light. 

In the same way Vespers is the recognition that the evening of this world has come, which announces that Day that has no evening. In this world, every day faces night; the world itself is facing night. It cannot last forever.

Yet the Church is affirming that an evening is not only an end, but also a beginning, just as the evening is also the beginning of another day.  In Christ and through Christ it may become the beginning of a new life, of the day that has no evening...

We come into the presence of Christ to offer Him our time, we extend our arms to receive Him.  And He fills this time with Himself.  He heals it  and makes it - again and again - the time of salvation.  (For the Life of the World, p. 44-45)

A wonderful vision by which we end one day and begin another in the grace-filled life of the Church.

Cycles of the Orthodox Calendar (and why they matter)

Dear Parish Faithful,

I just received this notice from our former parishioner Nicole Roccas:

I wanted to pass this along to you, you may want to share it with people. It's an infographic I made about the cycles of the Orthodox year. It basically explains some of the early history of our calendar, and why this is beneficial for our faith. It's something I worked on over the summer.

Some of you may remember Nicole better by her maiden name of Lyon.  Nicole was part of our parish before marrying her husband Basil and moving to Toronto, Canada. (Nicole and Basil were first "betrothed" here in our parish, before their "crowning" in Toronto).  Nicole's first encounter with the Orthodox Church was in our parish, when she attended a Lenten retreat with Fr. Thomas Hopko as our guest speaker. Following that Retreat, she became an enthusiastic inquirer, and was eventually catechized and chrismated in our parish. There is more information about Nicole and her current work at her blog reached by the link below.

Her infographic is both fascinating and highly informative.  Please give it your attention, as it will prove to illuminate our liturgical year for you.  You are all familiar with my phrase "the battle of the calendars."  Here, then, is an excellent introduction to the Church calendar, a good balance if you are more familiar with the secular calendar.  The calendar is about time - we can almost say about the "mystery of time" - and how time is both "redeemed" and "sanctified" in the Church.  Thus, the Church calendar is not simply a succession of dates and commemorations, but a profound revelation of the meaning of time as it is now directed toward the Kingdom of God.

Cycles of the Orthodox calendar (and why they matter)

Redeeming the Time

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil."  (EPH. 5:15-16)

We heard the verse above during the Epistle reading at the Divine Liturgy yesterday.  To "walk"- in the context of this epistle - is a metaphor for how we conduct our lives.  We can live wisely or unwisely.  To "walk" unwisely means that we can easily resemble a "fool."

Avoiding such a "false step," but on the contrary walking with wisdom, will depend on how much effort we put into "making the most of the time."  This can also be translated as "redeem the time."  To "redeem" the time is, first, not to "waste time," especially on what is superfluous.

More positively, it could mean to spend our time in worthwhile pursuits, seeking to do the good in all of life's various circumstances.  We are a child of God at all times, not only when we are in church or before the icons in our domestic prayer corner.  How we live and how we interact with others, is basically how we express our Christian faith on a daily basis.

On a deeper level, to "redeem the time" could also mean to sanctify time, both remembering and honoring the fact that the full expanse of our lives - our "lifetime" - is a gift from God, for as humans our lives unfold within the time of this world as created by God.  Our time is limited because our lives are of finite duration.  An awareness of this, can go a long way in how we appreciate - and therefore "redeem" - the time.

We are drawing closer to December 25 and the celebration of the Lord's Incarnation.  We can "redeem" this time within the rhythm of ecclesial time, the time of the Church.  We need to pick up where we perhaps left off for the long Thanksgiving Day weekend.  We have "feasted" along with our fellow Americans; now let us fast as Orthodox Christians. To squander a season of preparation before a Feast by neglecting prayer, almsgiving and fasting is to act "unwisely" if we claim to be serious Orthodox Christians.  Any struggle against our lower instincts to eat, drink and be merry as the most meaningful pursuits in life, is one sound way of redeeming the time.

The Apostle Paul writes that "the days are evil." In a fallen world, every single day presents us with the possibility - if not probability - of encountering evil on a grand or limited scale.  To somehow believe the days we are living in are not all that evil, is to be lost in a wishful thinking divorced from any rational perception of reality. We live in a time wherein people have forgotten God, and through this forgetfulness lose sight of our basic humanity.  To de-sanctify the world (by claiming that the world is an autonomous reality and a result of blind forces)  is to debase humanity, for only through faith in God can we have faith in the goodness of human nature.

We can be "in the world," but not "of the world" if we choose to "make the most of the time, because the days are evil."  One of the key words here is "choose."  Do we really have a hard choice to make?  Hardly! In my humble opinion, within the grace-filled life of the Church the choices before us are very easy to make!

Here is a "simple" prayer (but just try to put it into daily practice) from a holy elder that teaches us how to redeem the time:

O God, be attentive unto helping me.
O Lord, make haste to help me.

Direct, O Lord God everything that I do, read
and write everything that I say and try to
understand to the glory of Your holy Name.
From You have I received a good
beginning and my every deed ends in You.

Grant me O God, that I might not anger You,
my Creator, in word, deed or thought, by may
all my deeds, counsels and thoughts be to the
glory of Your most holy Name.  Amen.

From the diary of Elder Anthony of Optina, 1820