'Are You Flossing?' — Spiritual Insights from the Dentist's Chair

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

My trip to the dental office on Wednesday proved to be anti-climatic, as the encounter between two clashing worldviews (those who floss and those who do not) never materialized.  This was due to the fact that my hygienist for the morning was Tracy, and she and I know each other well from the past.  (From past conversations she always asks if and when my parish is planning another mission trip to Guatemala). And having a good memory of her patients' dental habits, she remembered that I am not a flosser, so she tactfully decided not to ask the big question:  "Are you flossing?" And I was prepared to just say no. Tracy is a very conscientious hygienist, so that level of restraint was admirable in my view. 

However, this did not prevent the day from being enlightening as I learned something that could be recast in a theological "key."

In those few precious seconds between the invasive dental pick and the "water-pistol," I thought to engage in some dental office small talk, so searching for a "hot topic" and playing to Tracy's strength, I asked her:  "Just what is the distinction between plaque and tartar?" 

This was Tracy's specialty, so I was the recipient of an impressive summary that proved to be a bit technical, but clearly well-expressed and with genuine enthusiasm.  (To get a feel for this dialogue, you may imagine trying to make small talk with me by asking:  "Just what is the distinction between ousia and hypostasis in Trinitarian theology?")  When all was said and done, I learned that tartar is "calcified plaque."  Quite interesting.

After a thorough and very professional teeth cleaning, I set off for home with that expression of "calcified plaque" in my mind. I was playing a CD of the Vespers of Dormition, and then it struck me:  The passions are "calcified" sin! 

If calcified can be loosely translated as "hardened" then the point is very clear.  For when a particular sin becomes habitual — "hardened" — the Fathers tell us that it then becomes a "passion."  And the passions, according to the Fathers, not only invade the heart, but actually "harden" the heart, spiritually conceived.  (To employ another metaphor, we could describe this condition as a spiritual cardiac sclerosis, perhaps).  As Archbishop Kallistos Ware summarizes this teaching, he writes:

By "passion" here is meant not just sexual lust, but any disordered appetite or longing that violently takes possession of the soul: anger, jealousy, gluttony, avarice, lust for power, pride and the rest.  (The Orthodox Way, p. 116)

Once hardened in the heart, the real spiritual center of our being, the battle to remove the passions becomes especially fierce, to the point that we speak of "warfare against the passions."  We can live with this condition on the surface quite well, perhaps, but underneath the surface the "soul-destroying passions" continue their erosive effect on our entire being.  Then we face the danger of being a "white-washed tomb" according to Christ.  Or something like the "picture of Dorian Gray."

This comes to mind as Tracy was telling me that the visible plaque or tartar on the surface of the teeth can be removed rather easily; but it is the "invisible" traces of those invasive bacteria underneath the gums that needs to be "dug out" if your mouth and teeth are going to be healthy - hence the unpleasantness of that pick and the occasional sensitive nerve that once struck, can make you squirm a bit. 

It is one thing, then, to flash a set of white teeth, but it is more important to remove that "calcified plaque" that we call tartar, not only on the surface but underneath the gums as well.  So, it is one thing to "look good" on the surface and project an image of moral rectitude, if not religious piety; but another thing to remove the "soul-destroying passions" underneath the neat exterior so as to become "pure in heart."  For, as Archbishop Ware further writes:

Many of the Fathers treat the passions as something intrinsically evil ...  Some of them, however, adopt a more positive standpoint, regarding the passions as dynamic impulses originally placed in man by God, and so fundamentally good, although at present distorted by sin ... Uncontrolled rage must be turned into righteous indignation, spiteful jealousy into zeal for the truth, sexual lust into an eros that is pure in its fervor.  The passions, then, are to be purified, not killed; to be educated, not eradicated; to be used positively, not negatively.  To ourselves and to others we say, not "Suppress," but "Transfigure." (The Orthodox Way, p. 116)

Now that an expert has told me that "tartar is calcified plaque" I will remember that as a helpful metaphor that can be applied to our spiritual lives, for the "passions are calcified sin."  The "passions" are removed by prayer, fasting and almsgiving; by Confession and Communion; by meditation upon the Scriptures; by those "tools" given to us by God so that we may emerge victorious in this life and death struggle for the "salvation of our souls," what St. Peter hopes is the "outcome of our faith." (I PET. 9)

St Herman of Alaska: A 'nobody' who became a 'somebody'

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

We served the Akathist Hymn to St. Herman earlier this morning, as we commemorate his glorification/canonization on August 9. 

At the Liturgy yesterday morning I reminded everyone that this was the forty-fifth anniversary of his official glorification which occurred in Alaska on August 9, 1970.  This Service of Glorification was the first major action of the OCA's Holy Synod, which only four months earlier, on April 10, 1970 received its status as an autocephalous Church.  We have an almost inexhaustible collection of resources on our parish website - books, icons, even YouTube videos!  Please spend some time with St. Herman there.

We need to know our North American saints as well as possible.  No better place to begin than with the humble yet holy elder and wonderworker of Alaska - the Venerable Fr. Herman!  As I said yesterday, Blessed Fr. Herman was a "nobody" (in the eyes of the world) who became a "somebody" (his name written in the Book of Life).  As Fr. Hopko of blessed memory expanded on this theme in his inimitable style:

By American standards, Saint Herman of Alaska, like the Lord Jesus Himself, was a miserable failure.  He made no name for himself.  He was not in the public eye. He  wielded no power.  He owned no property. He had few possessions, if any at all.  He had no worldly prestige.  He played no role in human affairs. He partook of no carnal pleasures.  He made no money.  He died in obscurity among outcast people. 

Yet today, more than a hundred years after his death, his icon is venerated in thousands of churches and his name is honored by millions of people whom he is still trying to teach and seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness which has been brought to the world by the King who was born in a cavern and killed on a cross.  (The Winter Pascha, p. 47-48)

There are so many current "somebodies" today who are making a name for themselves by various methods:  endlessly talking and twittering in an effort toward self-promotion.  To say something provocative, controversial or politically incorrect is to almost insure coverage on the national news or on talk radio and other sources of social media. It is getting difficult (because it is all so tedious?) to keep up with it all.  Who said what about whom, etc.?  Who has managed to be the most offensive? These statements and the ensuing debates often inflame and provoke passionate responses - if not our actual "passions."  

This is true of politicans, entertainers, professional athletes and other figures in the public eye.  There are even faces that seem ubiquitous and who are "famous for being famous" and not much else.  Their fame may last more than the now-proverbial fifteen minutes, but one has to wonder about any long-lasting fame or, more importantly, about the over-all quality of what they are promoting.  How long before today's "somebodies" are tomorrow's "nobodies?" In all of this "noise" just what are we being taught to seek?  Certainly not the kingdom of God as taught by St. Herman!

I am not counseling passive withdrawal from some of the current issues that we need to respond to thoughtfully and carefully.  We live at a certain point in history and as "historical beings" we cannot but enter into the current debates that will shape our culture and society for the future. In fact, withdrawal from the debates swirling around the burning moral and ethical issues of the day can even be irresponsible. 

But when someone like St. Herman enters into the conversation, because we encounter him within the life of the Church - our true "home" - then we begin to understand  the overwhelming importance of the eternal questions that will shape our destiny, as our response to those questions will shape our apprehension of the world.  Then "fame" recedes in importance before the goal of truth and holiness.  

Then we understand that the scandal and madness of the Cross far exceeds the "wisdom" of the world.  For we follow the One "who was born in a cavern and killed on a cross."

A Feast of Light - 'All human faces have acquired a new brightness'

Dear Parish Faithful,


A Feast of Light

We experienced a splendid celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration yesterday evening.  There were many faithful parishioners present, though I wish we had more of our children and young adults also present.  The purpose of the Vesperal Liturgy is to make that possible. Be that as it may, we have entered into a "feast of light" a light meant to dispel some of the darkness of the world around us, and perhaps in our minds and hearts "from time to time." 

There is a splendid new book on the Transfiguration recently published:  This is My Beloved Son, by Andreas Andreopoulos (I think he is Greek Orthodox).  From the preface of that book, Archbishop Kallistos Ware writes the following:

Who is Christ?  What am I?  For an answer we may turn to one of the most mysterious events in the Gospels:  the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountain in the presence of his three chosen disciples - Peter, James and John.  The dazzling light that shone from the face of Jesus reveals to us his true stature as the eternal Son of God.  It reveals to us also the highest potentiality of our created nature, our ultimate vocation as human beings.

In the light of Christ's face that was so strangely and so strikingly altered upon the mountaintop, in his garments that became dazzling white, all human faces have acquired a new brightness, all common things have been transformed. For those who believe in Christ's Transfiguration, no one is despicable, nothing is trivial and mean...

A Challenging Saint: Mother Maria Skobtsova

Icon of St Maria of Ravensbruck

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

For those unaware of the remarkable twentieth century Orthodox saint, St. Maria of Paris/Ravensbruck (+1945), I made a modest attempt to introduce her to the parish at large at yesterday's Liturgy through the form of the homily. 

Saint Maria, commonly known as Mother Maria, is actually commemorated on July 20. Together with the Venerable Martyr the Grand Duchess Elizabeth (July 18th), we encounter in these holy martyrs two of the most extraordinary women of the twentieth century.  Both bore witness to Christ under truly horrific conditions, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth dying at the bottom of a mine shaft into which she was flung by Bolshevik thugs in 1918; and Mother Maria dying in a gas chamber at one of the notorious Nazi concentration camps, that at Ravensbruck, in 1945.  (From the beginning, Mother Maria understood the Nazi threat, referring to it as a "new paganism").

In this short meditation, I am going to further concentrate on Mother Maria, and point out here that she was glorified/canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2004, together with her son, Yuri; her priest, Fr. Dmitri Klepenin; and the religious philosopher, Ilya Fundaminsky, a Jewish convert to Orthodoxy.  These saints also perished in concentration camps, at Dora,  Buchenwald and Auschwitz  respectively.

Below, you will find some links to excellent material of a detailed nature outlining Mother Maria's unique path through life. Above is one of many wonderful icons that have been written of her since her glorification, depicting her standing before the gates of Ravensbruck.

In addition to writing poetry, Mother Maria was a writer of very trenchant essays and we are now fortunate enough to have a fine collection of them translated into English under the title, Mother Maria Skobstova, Essential Writings. The essays are introduced by a solid thirty-page biography of Mother Maria, by the book's editor, Jim Forest.

Mother Maria's essays are highly recommended.  But to read Mother Maria is to place oneself in the vulnerable position of being not only challenged, but convicted.  She had an uncompromising understanding of the Gospel and adamantly refused to soften its proclamation of the Cross.  A characteristic passage, would be one like this, from her essay "On the Imitation of the Mother of God:"

What is most essential, most determining in the image of the cross is the necessity of freely and voluntarily accepting it and taking it up. Christ freely, voluntarily took upon Himself the sins of the world, and raised them up on the cross, and thereby redeemed them and defeated hell and death.  To accept the endeavor and  responsibility voluntarily, to freely crucify your sins - that is the meaning of the cross, when we speak of bearing it on our human paths.  Freedom is the inseparable sister of responsibility.  The cross is this freely accepted responsibility, clear-sighted and sober.  (Essential Writings, p. 64)

This is why Olivier Clement, in the Preface to this collection of her essays, could write this about Mother Maria:

Her immense, forceful, and passionate vitality expressed itself in a surge of love.  Her love was not increasingly calm, but crucified; it expanded into infinity and was transformed into spiritual  motherhood...  Later she would see the prototype of this love in the love of the Mother of God at the foot of the cross, contemplating both her son and her God in the Crucified Jesus.  In the same way, she said, we have to discern in the face of everyone both the image of God and of the Son who was so compassionately given to us.  This was the theme of her last icon at Ravensbruck. (Essential Writings, pp. 7-8)

There is no doubt that Mother Maria was considered a controversial figure, strongly criticized in her lifetime and afterwards.  Her approach to monasticism was very unconventional and she never spent time in a monastery once she was tonsured a nun. Her life of cross-bearing service she described as "monasticism in the world."  Jim Forest speculates that it was this type of unconventionality that may have delayed her official recognition by the Church until the beginning of the twenty-first century, even though she died a martyr's death on behalf of others.  Again, it is Olivier Clement, who stated that the life of Mother Maria was seen by many as "one long scandal" - she was a former socialist revolutionary who was twice-married for starters, and she "remained an intellectual of leftist bent" throughout her life.  Olivier writes further:

This nun, who denounced most monasteries as mediocre substitutes for family life, scandalized many committed to solitary contemplation and carrying out the "works of God."  For Maria, it was a matter of renouncing all comfort - whether it was a soothing liturgy or the peace of a cloister - to completely dedicate herself to a life of poverty and love for others.  She immersed herself in a form of abasement similar to the abasement of God, who became human because of love.  (Essential Writings, p. 7)

Clearly, not someone everyone can fully emulate! With her passionate and intense nature, perhaps she failed to understand that about others.

Be that as it may, we can summarize her approach to the life of a Christian as primarily one of service to "the other" by an oft-quoted text from her writings:

The way to God lies through love of people.  At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made.  Instead I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners.  That is all I shall be asked.  About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says "I:" "I was hungry, and thirsty, I was sick and in prison."  To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need... I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.

That may come across as an "uncomfortable" reminder, but one of the most spiritually deadly temptations for us today is to remain in our "comfort zones."

- Fr. Steven

Resources for further reading on St Maria of Paris:


Biography:
Pearl of Great Price: The Life of Mother Maria Skobtsova, 1891-1945, by Sergei Hackel.


Articles and Resources from In Communion:
http://incommunion.org/st-maria-skobtsova-resources/


Numerous icon images here:
http://incommunion.org/2004/10/18/icons/


There is also this insightful article by Fr Peter Preble:
Engaged Monasticism: Mother Maria Skobtsova and Twenty- First Century American Orthodox Monasticism

Children's Book on Mother Maria:
Silent As A Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue

Embracing the Tradition

Dear Parish Faithful,

The meditation below was written with the upcoming Dormition Fast (August 1-14)  in mind in addition to the incredible account of the Seven Maccabean martyrs.  It is that wonderfully-placed mid-summer reminder that we are called to be practicing Orthodox Christians.  The practicing Orthodox Christian combines orthodoxy ("right belief")  with orthopraxis ("right practice/action").

Or, as St. John Chrysostom said, "This is true piety: to combine right belief and right action."  Orthopraxis combines prayer and almsgiving and fasting (MATT. 6).  All of this is to prepare us to honor the most holy Theotokos.

Embracing the Tradition

On August 1, we will commemorate the Seven Holy Maccabee Children, Solomone their mother, and Eleazar their teacher, all of whom were put to death in the year 168 BC.  As such, they were protomartyrs before the time of Christ and the later martyrs of the Christian era.  They died because they refused to reject the precepts of the Law when ordered to do so by the Syrian tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes IV.  

After conquering the Holy Land, Antiochus wanted to subvert the uniqueness of the Jews and force them to assimilate to the standards and practices of the prevailing Hellenistic culture.  By attacking the precepts of the Law, Antiochus was aiming to destroy the very heart of Judaism.  The Jews would then become like the “other nations,” and perhaps their smoldering resentment against their conquerors would be extinguished.  This, of course, did not happen, because the Maccabean revolt, led by Judas Maccabaeus, not only resisted but expelled the Hellenized Syrian invaders and restored the Kingdom of Israel to its former glory days one last time (142 - 63 BC) before the Romans under Pompey reduced the Kingdom of Israel to a conquered province.

To return to the story of the Maccabees, we find them, under the guidance of their teacher Eleazar, resisting the decree that they eat pork, which was prohibited by the Law.  Understanding that this was a threat against their entire traditional way of life, Eleazor refused and was subsequently tortured until he died.  He was simply asked to “pretend” to eat the meat, so as to encourage others to do so.  In reply, his dying words as recorded in the first book of Maccabees eloquently attest to his fidelity to the Law of God: 

"Send me quickly to my grave.  If I went through with this pretense at my time of life, many of young might believe that at the age of ninety Eleazar had turned apostate.  If I practiced deceit for the sake of a brief moment of life, I should lead them astray and bring stain and pollution on my old age. I might for the present avoid man’s punishment, but, alive or dead, I shall never escape from the hands of the Almighty.

"So if I now die bravely, I shall show that I have deserved my long life and leave the young a fine example to teach them how to die a good death, gladly and nobly, for our revered and holy laws."

Following the death of Eleazar, the seven Maccebee brothers and their mother Salomone were arrested.  They were also tortured for refusing to eat pork, and one of them said:  “We are ready to die rather than break the laws of our fathers”  (2 Maccabees 7:2).  

Enraged by such pious resistance, the tyrant ordered that all seven brothers be tortured by various inhuman means.  All of this was witnessed by their mother, who watched all seven of her sons perish in a single day.  Acting “against nature,” she encouraged her children “in her native tongue” to bravely withstand the assaults on their tender flesh: 

"You appeared in my womb, I know not how; it was not I who gave you life and breath and set in order your bodily frames.  It is the Creator of the universe who moulds man at his birth and plans the origin of all things. Therefore he, in his mercy, will give you back life and breath again, since now you put his laws above all thought of self”  (2 Maccabees 7:22-23).  

We find in her last sentence, a clear allusion to belief in the resurrection from the dead.

Especially poignant is the death of her last and youngest son.  He was promised riches and a high position if he only agreed to “abandon his ancestral customs.”  Salomone his mother was urged to “persuade her son,” which she did in the following manner: 

“My son, take pity on me.  I carried you nine months in the womb, suckled you three years, reared you and brought you up to the present age.  I beg you, child, look at the sky and the earth; see all that is in them and realize that God made them out of nothing, and that man comes into being in the same way. Do not be afraid of this butcher; accept death and prove yourself worthy of your brothers, so that by God’s mercy I may receive you back again along with them”  (2 Maccabees 7:27-29). 

In verse 28, we hear the clearest declaration of the belief that God creates “ex nihilo”—from nothing—in the entire Old Testament.

The youngest of the brothers then died after both witnessing to the meaning of their martyrdom and warning the tyrant of his own inevitable fate:  

“My brothers have now fallen in loyalty to God’s covenant, after brief pain leading to eternal life; but you will pay the just penalty of your insolence by the verdict of God.  I, like my brothers, surrender my body and my life for the laws of our fathers”  (2 Maccabees 7:36-37).  

We then simply read, in verse 39, that “after her sons, the mother died.”

It is difficult to say to what extent we can actually relate to all of this today.  We may deeply respect the devotion to the Law that is exhibited in this moving story of multiple matyrdoms—and perhaps be especially moved by the beautiful words of the mother that express our own belief in the creative power of God, His providential care for us and the ultimate gift of resurrection and eternal life with God—but this is far-removed from our contemporary Christian sensibilities.  In fact, such devotion today could very well strike us as being overly zealous, if not fanatical.  The prospects of such martyrdoms are not exactly on our radar screens.  Be that as it may, I believe that we have something greater than mere passing importance that we can learn from this ancient story.

In several days—also on August 1—we will begin the Dormition Fast.  We are encouraged by the Church—our “Mother” we could say—to embrace the fast with the certainty that we are being guided into a practice that is designed to strengthen our spiritual well-being.  

This is part of an Orthodox “way of life” that has been witnessed to for centuries by the faithful of the Church.  We also could say that such practices belong to the “laws of our fathers.”  By embracing such practices we continue in the Tradition that has been handed down to us, the Tradition that we have “received.”  To ignore such practices is to break with that Tradition.  That can lead to an erosion of our self-identity as Orthodox Christians, especially considering our “minority status” in the landscape of American religion.  

The spirit of the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes is alive and well in the constant temptation we face to assimilate to the surrounding society and its mores, which are often reduced to finding the meaning of life in “eating, drinking and making merry.”  There are no official decrees that demand that we abandon our Faith.  But there is a never-ending drone that “pollutes” the atmosphere with the seductions of a Godless way of life, precisely because of how pleasingly it is presented.  In other words, a dear price is paid for the comforts of conformity.

We are hardly being asked to be martyrs but we are being asked to manifest some restraint and discipline in order to strengthen our inner lives as we fast bodily to some extent.  If we convince ourselves that this is inconvenient, uncomfortable, or undesirable, then we place ourselves outside of the very received Tradition we claim to follow and respect.  

Older members of the community can bear in mind the words of Eleazar and realize that we are setting an example for our younger members.  We are responsible for preparing the next generation.  Mothers—and fathers!—can exhort their children in a way that is encouraging and not just demanding.  This has nothing to do with mere “legalism,” but with a “way of life” that has been practiced for centuries by Orthodox Christians, and which is just as meaningful today as in the past.  

And, as with the Seven Maccabee Children, it is ultimately a matter of choice.