To Get Roused and Warmed

Dear Parish Faithful,

Our parish is currently preoccupied with the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and this is for two basic reasons: 1) On the Church’s liturgical lectionary it is the Epistle appointed to be read during the month of July; and 2) we are reading and studying this Epistle together in our Summer Bible Study. Of course, you can be preoccupied with anything but the Epistle to the Romans, but that choice would only further intensify the spiritual drought that threatens to keep us “thirsty” through the summer months of the liturgical year. The many distractions that we turn to for amusement cannot fill the deeper vacuum that ever-widens when not being “filled” by God. Those distractions seem to be an odd choice – and a poor set of substitutes - when the Church delivers the Epistle to us and only asks for our attention.

At the beginning of his series of great homilies on Romans, St. John Chrysostom said the following:

As I keep hearing the Epistles of the blessed Paul read, and that twice every week, and often three or four times … gladly do I enjoy the spiritual trumpet, and get roused and warmed with desire at recognizing the voice so dear to me, and seem to fancy him all but present to my sight, and behold him conversing with me…

Is it possible for a contemporary Orthodox Christian to “get roused and warmed” by hearing or reading the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans as did the great St. John? Certainly! For it is the same Gospel we hear today as was preached to the recipients of the Epistle in Rome centuries ago. And that Gospel remains “the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith …” (ROM. 1:16). The question is rather: How can an Orthodox Christian not “get roused and warmed” when hearing the Apostle Paul declare:

"While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man – though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved to his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation" (ROM. 5:6-11).

What has happened to the Orthodox Christian over time who can hear that text and remain indifferent, unmoved, or who restlessly seeks his/her relief from the burdens of life elsewhere and essentially outside of the Gospel? Is that who St. John is forced to address when he continues in his introductory homily on Romans?:

But I grieve and am pained, that all people do not know this man, as much as they ought to know him; but some are so far ignorant of him, as not even to know for certainty the number of his Epistles. And this comes not from incapacity, but of there not having the wish to be continually conversing with this blessed man. For it is not through any natural readiness and sharpness of wit that even I am acquainted with as much as I do know, if I do know anything, but owing to a continual cleaving to the man, and an earnest affection towards him.

After lamenting the fact that many of his flock were ignorant of the Apostle Paul, St. John goes on to speak more generally of the manifold dangers that ignorance of the Scriptures can lead to:

For from this it is that our countless evils have arisen – from ignorance of the Scriptures; from this that the plague of heresies has broken out; from this that there are negligent lives; from this labors without advantage.

To do his pastoral best to familiarize his flock with “this man” – the Apostle Paul – St. John Chrysostom would bring his flock together during the week in order to teach them the Scriptures, through his homilies and catechetical instruction. For St. John was a tireless and relentless advocate of the Scriptures, that no amount of “busyness” should keep us from reading and studying with care. Keeping things simple and to the point, St. John said that it was a matter of “interest.” He was always encouraged by, and had much praise for, the many who responded with interest and attended these gatherings.

Following in the footsteps of St. John Chrysostom, we have our own parish Bible Study in which we are reading and studying the Epistle to the Romans. We will meet this evening at 7:30 p.m. in the church library. All who are “interested” are encouraged to participate.

Fr Steven

Guest Op-Ed: 160 Million and Counting

Dear Parish Faithful,

Here is a chilling Op-Ed by Ross Douthat, that further expands the moral quagmire that state-sponsored and promoted abortion leads to. A tragically ironic commentary on the growth of “women’s rights” in different parts of the world.

Fr. Steven


OP-ED COLUMNIST
160 Million and Counting
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: June 26, 2011

In 1990, the economist Amartya Sen published an essay in The New York Review of Books with a bombshell title: “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing.” His subject was the wildly off-kilter sex ratios in India, China and elsewhere in the developing world. To explain the numbers, Sen invoked the “neglect” of third-world women, citing disparities in health care, nutrition and education. He also noted that under China’s one-child policy, “some evidence exists of female infanticide.”

The essay did not mention abortion.

Twenty years later, the number of “missing” women has risen to more than 160 million, and a journalist named Mara Hvistendahl has given us a much more complete picture of what’s happened. Her book is called “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.” As the title suggests, Hvistendahl argues that most of the missing females weren’t victims of neglect. They were selected out of existence, by ultrasound technology and second-trimester abortion.

The spread of sex-selective abortion is often framed as a simple case of modern science being abused by patriarchal, misogynistic cultures. Patriarchy is certainly part of the story, but as Hvistendahl points out, the reality is more complicated — and more depressing.

Thus far, female empowerment often seems to have led to more sex selection, not less. In many communities, she writes, “women use their increased autonomy to select for sons,” because male offspring bring higher social status. In countries like India, sex selection began in “the urban, well-educated stratum of society,” before spreading down the income ladder.

Moreover, Western governments and philanthropic institutions have their fingerprints all over the story of the world’s missing women.

From the 1950s onward, Asian countries that legalized and then promoted abortion did so with vocal, deep-pocketed American support. Digging into the archives of groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Hvistendahl depicts an unlikely alliance between Republican cold warriors worried that population growth would fuel the spread of Communism and left-wing scientists and activists who believed that abortion was necessary for both “the needs of women” and “the future prosperity — or maybe survival — of mankind,” as the Planned Parenthood federation’s medical director put it in 1976.

For many of these antipopulation campaigners, sex selection was a feature rather than a bug, since a society with fewer girls was guaranteed to reproduce itself at lower rates.

Hvistendahl’s book is filled with unsettling scenes, from abandoned female fetuses littering an Indian hospital to the signs in Chinese villages at the height of the one-child policy’s enforcement. (“You can beat it out! You can make it fall out! You can abort it! But you cannot give birth to it!”) The most disturbing passages, though, are the ones that depict self-consciously progressive Westerners persuading themselves that fewer girls might be exactly what the teeming societies of the third world needed.

Over all, “Unnatural Selection” reads like a great historical detective story, and it’s written with the sense of moral urgency that usually accompanies the revelation of some enormous crime.

But what kind of crime? This is the question that haunts Hvistendahl’s book, and the broader debate over the vanished 160 million.

The scale of that number evokes the genocidal horrors of the 20th century. But notwithstanding the depredations of the Chinese politburo, most of the abortions were (and continue to be) uncoerced. The American establishment helped create the problem, but now it’s metastasizing on its own: the population-control movement is a shadow of its former self, yet sex selection has spread inexorably with access to abortion, and sex ratios are out of balance from Central Asia to the Balkans to Asian-American communities in the United States.

This places many Western liberals, Hvistendahl included, in a distinctly uncomfortable position. Their own premises insist that the unborn aren’t human beings yet, and that the right to an abortion is nearly absolute. A self-proclaimed agnostic about when life begins, Hvistendahl insists that she hasn’t written “a book about death and killing.” But this leaves her struggling to define a victim for the crime that she’s uncovered.

It’s society at large, she argues, citing evidence that gender-imbalanced countries tend to be violent and unstable. It’s the women in those countries, she adds, pointing out that skewed sex ratios are associated with increased prostitution and sex trafficking.

These are important points. But the sense of outrage that pervades her story seems to have been inspired by the missing girls themselves, not the consequences of their absence.

Here the anti-abortion side has it easier. We can say outright what’s implied on every page of “Unnatural Selection,” even if the author can’t quite bring herself around.

The tragedy of the world’s 160 million missing girls isn’t that they’re “missing.” The tragedy is that they’re dead.

The Greatest and Most Righteous Pillars of the Church

Dear Parish Faithful,

“During their earthly lives, all the saints are an incentive to virtue for those who hear and see them with understanding, for they are human icons of excellence, animated pillars of goodness, and living books, which teach us the way to better things.” (Homily on Saints Peter and Paul by St. Gregory Palamas).

Today we celebrate and commemorate the two great Apostles Peter and Paul. Their martyrdom in Rome is a very well-attested historical event, happening probably between the years 64-68 A.D. under the Roman emperor Nero. This is considered within the Church to be such a great Feast that it is preceded by a prescribed time of fasting, a practice only reserved otherwise for the great Feasts of the Lord (Nativity and Pascha) and the Mother of God (Dormition). This both stresses the historical greatness of these two apostles, the accomplishments of their respective ministries, their martyric ends, and the very ministry and role of an apostle in proclaiming the Gospel to the world in fulfillment of the Lord’s command to preach the Good News to “all nations.” (MATT. 28:16-20) Indeed, St. Clement of Rome in his First Epistle, referred to Sts. Peter and Paul as “the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church].” On careful reflection, it is not simply pious rhetoric that informs some of the hymns chanted in their honor during this Feast:

What spiritual songs shall we sing for Peter and Paul? They have silenced the sharp tongues of the godless. They are awesome swords of the Spirit. They are the adornment of Rome; They have nourished the whole world with the Word of God. They are the living tablets of the New Testament written by the hand of God; Christ who has great mercy, has exalted them in Zion. (Great Vespers)

In the New Testament, fourteen of the Epistles are traditionally attributed to St. Paul and two are attributed to St. Peter. While the entire Acts of the Apostles is basically devoted to recording some of the major events in the history of these two apostles “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” (ACTS. 1:8) It may not be wholly accurate to refer to Sts. Peter and Paul as the apostles, respectively, “to the circumcised” (the Jews) and the “uncircumcised” (the Gentiles) – for St. Peter preached to the Gentiles and St. Paul to the Jews) – but this is a way of capturing the fullness of their combined ministries so that Jews and Gentiles would be united in the one Body of Christ in fulfillment of God’s design.

At Great Vespers of this Feast, three New Testament readings are prescribed, all from St. Peter’s first Epistle. We hear from the magnificent opening of I Peter, and this passage profoundly presents the essence of the Gospel as proclaimed in the apostolic age of the Church’s foundation, by the “prince of the apostles.” For those who have not heard or read this passage recently, a good portion of it deserves to be recorded here so as “to make your day:”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious that gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Without having seen him you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls. (I PET. 1:3-9)

In this passage, St. Peter reminds us that from the beginning the Gospel bestowed upon on Christians a “living hope” that was based on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. All New Testament writers establish Christian hope on the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. (In his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul did not want his early converts to be “without hope” like their pagan neighbors, thus attesting to how important hope is for the believing Christian). The Apostle Peter was not offering yet another philosophy, but proclaiming the activity of God – “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” – within the realm of human history; that is that God has acted decisively on our behalf by overcoming death itself through the resurrection of Jesus. He then describes our “inheritance” in heaven in strikingly powerful images, emphasizing the eternal and unassailable reality of heaven – “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” This is in sharp contrast to life as we now know it in this world, for all created things are perishable, subject to defilement and destined to fade away. The Apostle Paul confirms this also by saying that “the form of this world is fading away.” (I COR. 7:31) “Guarded by faith,” we await a salvation that will be “revealed in the last time,” meaning the Parousia and end of time.

Yet, the apostle knows that this gift cannot be lightly received and treated. It will only come after “various trials” that are inevitable in a fallen world. In this instance, St. Peter was most likely referring to persecution as this had already broken out against the earliest Christians. However, suffering comes in other forms. These trials will test the “genuineness”of our faith, purifying it if we emerge from these tribulations purged like gold “tested by fire.” All of this is true even though we have not seen nor “see” Jesus even now. This is true of all of Christ’s disciples through the ages, called by Jesus Himself “blessed” by believing though not actually having seen Him. (JN. 20:29)

The strength of this experience is beautifully expressed by St. Peter when he confidently states that we “rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy.” This is almost embarrassing when we admit dragging ourselves to church or praying as if constrained under a heavy obligation or a “religious duty” that takes us away from more “interesting” activities! A joyless Christianity is completely foreign to the New Testament. As is a “second place” (or “third” or fourth,” etc.) Christianity in the priorities of our lives. The intended “outcome” of all this is “the salvation of your souls.” Is this why every liturgical service that begins with the Great Litany has us praying to the Lord in the first full petition, for the “peace from above and for the salvation of our souls?” There is nothing “selfish” in seeking or accepting the “salvation of our souls.” This is the gift of God that is intended for all. In the assurance of this gift, we can work more steadfastly on behalf of others, and share what God has done on our behalf.

The Apostles Peter and Paul are truly “Rivers of wisdom and upholders of the Cross!” They exemplified the later teaching of St. Ignatius of Antioch of the mystery of Christ that conveys “life in death.” For they died as martyrs but are eternally alive in Christ. We can now read their epistles and their lives as “living books which teach us the way to better things” as St. Gregory Palamas said of them. We seek their prayers as we strive to be worthy of the title of “Christian.”

Fr Steven

Live Dangerously! Come to the Bible Study!

Dear Parish Faithful,

Due to the importance I ascribe to our annual Summer Bible Study – one reason being that the Bible comes from and belongs to the Orthodox Church - I always begin with a letter of exhortation to try and “recruit” new participants before we begin each year. Whether or not that exhortation falls on deaf ears or not, is beside the point. My pastoral conscience impels me to make the effort, and every year it seems as if we have some new members that join our circle. So, if you belong to the species of homo sapien, and if you are simultaneously a member of our parish, then this letter is meant for you.

Just a generation ago, many Orthodox parishes may not have had a Bible Study. Under those circumstances, parishioners justifiably hungry for the spiritual nourishment that comes from the living Word of God may even have participated in a local non-Orthodox Bible Study in order to satisfy that hunger. The inherent danger in this is confusing an Orthodox and heterodox interpretation of the Scripture, and thus relativizing the Truth as we understand it, proclaim it, and live it within the Church. Fortunately, what may have been true a generation ago, is no longer the case, as most Orthodox parishes today do provide a setting for reading and studying the Bible together. Our parish clergy today are much more thoroughly educated in the Scriptures from seminary and beyond, and are quite capable of offering quality classes. Therefore, the only further “ingredient” needed is parishioners who desire to learn and who make the commitment to do so.

We now have a complete Orthodox Study Bible, providing us with excellent commentaries that inform us of the Church’s interpretation, as well as providing great quotes from the Church Fathers, such as St. John Chrysostom. I understand that there are also Orthodox “online” studies that you could turn to. With such access, why even “bother” to have a parish Bible Study? Why not stay home, find some free time, and study alone or perhaps even with the family? (This is something like the “Netflix approach” applied to the Bible). Certainly things that I would encourage. But these are the obvious things to do if you cannot attend your own parish Bible Study for “reasons worthy of a blessing.” What I have learned over the years, is that it is the fellowship of coming together that is a key component to the parish Bible Study.

The parish Bible Study builds a sense of community and an awareness that there are others in the parish who also “hunger and thirst” to go as deep as possible into the source of our Orthodox Faith – the Holy Scriptures as the living Word of God. Learning something new, discussion, sharing, listening to the insights of others, building closer relationships, meeting other parishioners beyond the surface greetings of the “coffee hour;” all these components make the parish Bible Study a key event in the ongoing life of the parish. It is making a conscious commitment to set aside that most valuable of commodities – time itself – for the “things of God.” And to choose a “churchly activity” over a “worldly activity.” To set aside “worldly cares” for the sake of the “world to come” – revealed in the Scriptures and discussed together as a Body which is an extension of the Liturgy.

When I was young, I did not like to experiment with new foods. My mother would say: “Try it, you’ll like it.” Could we apply that to the Bible Study: “Try it, you’ll like it.” Especially those of you who have never tried it. “Live dangerously” – come to the Bible Study! (The “danger,” of course, is learning the hard reality that each one of us has a long way to go in being an authentic Christian – a genuine follower of Christ).

We will begin next Wednesday, June 29, at 7:45 p.m., appropriately the Feast of the Synaxis of the Apostles (following the Vespers) since we will be reading from perhaps the greatest of the Apostle Paul’s epistles: Romans. We will begin at ch. 12.

Fr Steven

Guest Op-Ed: The Saga of Sister Kiki

Dear Parish Faithful,

I found this Op-Ed by David Brooks, to be an “object lesson” in the multiple dangers posed by an uncritical and unsupervised use of the internet (for children and young adults, at least). It also probes our current obsessions with celebrity, appearance, and the lurid side of sexual fantasies. Lately, we have been reading about the “dark side”of facebook and twittering/tweeting. This may be a spectacular – and exaggerated - example of what can go bad, but it remains cautionary, nevertheless. Why does “virtue” sound so archaic and reactionary today? It is up against some real stiff competition!

To re-formulate an old question: Do you know what your child is doing on the internet or on his/her cell-phone?

Fr. Steven


OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Saga of Sister Kiki
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: June 23, 2011

In 1900, Theodore Dreiser wrote “Sister Carrie,” about a young woman who left the farm and got mauled by the crushing forces of industrial America: the loneliness of urban life, the squalid conditions of the factory, the easy allure of the theater, the materialism of the new consumer culture.

If Dreiser were around today, he might write about Kiki Ostrenga. Kiki, who was the subject of a haunting profile by Sabrina Rubin Erdely in the April issue of Rolling Stone, was a young teenager who got mauled by the some of the worst forces of the information age.

Lonely at school, she took refuge by creating an online persona, Kiki Kannibal, posting photos of herself with various hairstyles and looks — goth one day; sexually charged, Lady Gaga-style temptress the next.

Though 13, Ostrenga was a phenomenally good shape-shifter. The photos often show her in her underwear or short skirts, with lurid make-up, edgy poses and pouty come-hither expressions. In them, you see the child’s ability to mimic the looks and attitudes of what she admires — in this case the cult of high-fashion celebrity as glamorized in Vogue or Cosmopolitan, on E!, TMZ, “Real World” and a thousand other outlets.

In sports, speed and strength are king. In music, talent and application are king. But online, eyeballs and page-views are king. Achievement is redefined as the ability to attract attention. And, with today’s technology, this sort of celebrity is not just a dream. Young people can create it for themselves.

Continue reading . . .