Indulging not in food, but in giving thanks to the Lord!

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

A few years ago I ran across an op-ed piece in our newspaper titled "A Moveable Fast" by Elyssa East.  Such a title in a well-known urban secular publication was a bit intriguing, especially since the article's concluding paragraph can be read in an "Orthodox manner" without a great deal of manipulation: 

In the nearly 400 years since the first Thanksgiving, the holiday has come to mirror our transformation into a nation of gross overconsumption, but the New England colonists never intended for Thanksgiving to be a day of gluttony.  They dished up restraint along with gratitude as a shared main course.  What mattered most was not the feast itself, but the gathering together in thanks and praise for life's most humble gifts.   Perhaps this holiday season we could benefit from restoring a proper Thanksgiving balance between forbearance and indulgence.

In other words, the uneasy alliance that has formed over the years between Thanksgiving and indulgence does not properly capture the meaning of this national holiday.  For Thanksgiving to be properly "observed," a "gathering together in thanks and praise" is the most appropriate response. 

This is a good, albeit brief, definition of what we do in the Divine Liturgy.  The Eucharist is about our thanksgiving to God not only for what we may have, but for who we actually are as the People of God in the process of growing in His likeness, our life in Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We celebrate that service of thanksgiving — the Eucharist — so that we may realize our vocation as "eucharistic beings," and not as mere "consumers."  For those who like theological jargon, our anthropology is maximalist, not minimalist.  So, just as we engage in the festal Thanksgiving Day table in our homes, we continually make the effort to receive the eucharistic food from the altar table in a spirit of praise and thanksgiving.  And we do so joyfully and eagerly.

Elyssa East's op-ed article includes a fascinating historical sketch of the mind and practices of the early Puritans in 17th century New England.  Fasting and feasting were part of their way of life.  Admittedly, I would acknowledge that the "Orthodox ethos" and the "Puritan ethos" are as far apart as one could imagine.  There is the saying that a Puritan is a person who is afraid that someone, somewhere, and for some reason is actually enjoying himself!  The Calvinist conception of an angry God Who needs to be appeased before He acts swiftly through punishment does not resonate for Orthodox Christians.  And we thank our merciful God for that. 

Perhaps the harsh environment and struggle for survival experienced by these early Puritans further influenced some of their bleak theological conclusions.  However, some of our practices may coincide.  The author relates that the Puritans' fear of "excessive rains from the bottles of heaven," in addition to "epidemics, crop infestations, the Indian wars and other hardships," led them to call for community-wide days of fasting or a "day of public humiliation and prayer."  She further writes:

According to the 19th-century historian William DeLove, the New England colonies celebrated as many as nine such 'special public days' a year from 1620-1700.  And as the Puritans were masters of self-denial, days of abstention outnumbered thanksgivings two to one.  Fasting, Cotton Mather wrote, 'kept the wheel of prayer in continual motion'.

Our fasting as Orthodox Christians, however, is not based on a fearful notion of appeasing God; rather, it is a freely-chosen ascetical effort of self-discipline so as to actualize the words of the Lord when He fasted in the desert: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" [Matthew 4:4].  The rhythm of fasting and feasting is directed by our liturgical calendar, as we are now fasting in preparation for the Feast of the Nativity.  We are, however, granted a hierarchical "dispensation" on Thanksgiving Day to "break the fast" in order to celebrate this national holiday as Americans. 

Actually, the Orthodox can hold their own with any other religiously-based culture when it comes to feasting.  We have a great deal to feast about when we reflect upon the "divine economy!"  Yet even feasting is not about "gross overconsumption" and mere indulgence.

A few more of Elyssa East's paragraphs help us understand the historical, cultural and religious background of our Thanksgiving Day celebration. "It was in the late 1660s that the New England colonies began holding an 'Annual Provincial Thanksgiving,'" she writes.

The holiday we celebrate today is a remnant of this harvest feast, which was theologically counterbalanced by an annual spring fast around the time of planting to ask God's good favor for the year.  Yet fasting and praying also immediately preceded the harvest Thanksgiving. 

In 1690, in Massachusetts the feast itself was postponed, though not the fasting, out of extraordinary concern that the meal would inspire too much 'carnal confidence.'  As life in the New World wilderness got easier, the New England colonies gradually began holding only their annual spring fast and fall harvest feast. 

Even after Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863, Massachusetts continued to celebrate its spring day of abstention for 31 more years.

As "right believing" Christians, we know to Whom we offer our thanksgiving and why — not only on Thanksgiving Day, but at every Eucharistic Divine Liturgy.   As the "royal priesthood" of believers, it is our responsibility to hold up the world in prayer before God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  If this national holiday is now characterized by "gross overconsumption," that does not mean that we need to follow such a pattern when we have the opportunity to thank and praise God before we share our domestic meals together.  Perhaps a properly understood "fear of God" can be spiritually healthy when we contemplate our choices.

We have a wonderful opportunity to begin our Day of Thanksgiving by first attending the Divine Liturgy on Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m.

           

True Love of Wisdom

Dear Parish Faithful,

I have a new book that I am looking through, entitled Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers.

With such a title, you may justifiably think that it covers some of the great philosophers throughout history, with a good deal of admiration, if not exaggeration, expressed in the title by referring to them as "divine."  I could understand that being said of such philosophers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, for many of their insights have been absorbed, refined and incorporated into Christian theology, especially the theology of the great Church Fathers.  (Yet, I would have a very time referring to such philosophers as, for example, Descarte or Satre as "divine!").

However, this book is actually an anthology of wonderful texts taken from the saints of the Church — theologians, ascetics, pastors, etc.  If "philosophy" means the "love of wisdom" — philia in Gk. is one of the words for "love;" and sophia is the Gk. word for "wisdom" — then the great saints were true lovers of wisdom, and their pursuit of wisdom was their life's vocation. 

Of course, Wisdom is also one of the key scriptural titles for Christ - the eternal Wisdom (Sophia) of God.  In this light, the Christian "love of wisdom" is synonymous with the love of Christ. Any and all other concepts of wisdom found in other religions, philosophical systems or cultural expressions could be interpreted as an intuition that divine Wisdom did exist and that a lifetime of pursuing such wisdom was a profoundly worthy enterprise.  That is why Christians can appreciate genuine philosophers even outside of the Christian revelation.

Another way of looking at this is closely related:  Many of the Church Fathers referred to the Gospel as the "true philosophy" that was not a matter of speculation, but rather of revelation.  All of the ancient, pre-Christian claims about seeking, finding and loving wisdom were so many anticipations of the true philosophy that came down from heaven, so to speak.  Even the Old Testament descriptions of the pursuit of Wisdom were interpreted in this light.  God has revealed to us the one true philosophy in the Gospel, and if a person wanted to live life in its purest and noblest expression, then to follow and love Christ is the road that one needs to travel.

Returning to this new book I have at hand, Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers, compiled by Tom and Georgia Mitrakos, we find here a wide range of topics that all come together as part of the love of wisdom revealed to us in Christ.  The editors simply anthologize a wide variety of texts under various heading, conveniently listed in alphabetical order.  Thus, they begin with "Anger" and conclude with "Worship."  In between, we find such topics as "Conscience," "Forgiveness," ""Jealousy," "Remembrance of Death," and "Slander," to choose just a few examples. 

All together there are eighty topics and each topic is given about two pages of coverage.  Throughout the book, we read/hear the voice of the Fathers, ascetics and pastors mentioned above teaching us something worthwhile and for our meditation and reflection on these themes.

There is no commentary in between, so we perhaps lose something in the way of context, but each insight seems able to stand on its own level of truthfulness.  Also absent from the book is any mention of when a particular "divine philosopher" lived, so that we could distinguish say, St. Basil the Great (+379) from St. John of Kronstadt (+1908).  Perhaps this lack of dating points to the timelessness and consistency of the teaching of the saints throughout the ages. It is, ultimately, a book that you can open up at any page, and find something that can "hit home" and thus help us in our pursuit of "wisdom" in the process.  A page at a time, provides a great deal to think about!

As mentioned, the book begins with the topic of "Anger."  I therefore thought to share a few of these sayings as we are all wrestling - at least from time-to-time - with "anger issues" or "anger management."  I will also present them without commentary and allow everyone to absorb these words of wisdom as they stand:

+++

Anger is a strong fire, consuming all things in its path; it wastes the body and corrupts the soul, and renders a man base and odious to look upon.

And if it were possible for the angry man to see himself at the time of his anger, he would not need any other admonition, for there is nothing less pleasing than an angry countenance. Anger is an intoxicant and more wretched that a demon.  

— St. John Chrysostom

 +++

The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; the next, to keep the thoughts silent when the soul is stirred, the last, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing.   

— St. John Klimakos

 +++

 Firmly control anger and desire, and you will speedily rid yourself of evil thoughts. Control desire and you will dominate anger; for desire gives rise to anger.   

— St. Thalassios the Libyan

 +++

To bear a grudge and pray, means to sow seed on the sea and expect a harvest.  

— St. Isaac the Syrian

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Strive to receive a sure, unequivocal pledge of salvation in your heart, so that at the time of your death you will not be distraught and unexpectedly terrified.  You have received such a pledge when your heart no longer reproaches you for your failings and your conscience stops chiding you because of your fits of anger; when through God's grace your bestial passions have been tamed; when you weep tears of solace and your intellect prays undistracted and with purity; and when you await death, which most people dread and run away from, calmly and with a ready heart.  

— St. Theognostos of Alexandria

From Wisdom of The Divine Philosophers, Volume I, p. 1-2.

What can I do to bring Christ back into Christmas?

Dear Parish Faithful,

The Nativity/Advent Fast is underway, and I addressed some of the (many) challenges that we are thus facing in the "Fragments for Friday" from last week, and in yesterday's homily at the Liturgy. I will try to avoid repeating myself, but I would again like to remind everyone of the existing tension between an ascetical approach to the Nativity and a consumer-driven approach to Christmas. 

There is a genuine spiritual "tug-of-war" inherent in that tension. If consumerism eclipses the ascetical in us, then when we complain that "Christ has been taken out of Christmas" we, as Christians, must accept our responsibility in allowing that to happen.  (And what kind of example is that for our children?) We must acknowledge that the commercialization of Christian happened within a Christian society! We may not be able to change the surrounding secular culture and its "allergic" reaction to anything "religious," but we can change ourselves and some of our own patterns of behavior.

So, when we bemoan the commercialization of Christmas, we can only look first at ourselves and try and honestly analyze our own "contribution" to this seemingly irreversible trend.  I periodically bring up a wide-ranging study from the past, that concluded that there are no discernible distinctions that can be made between the consumer patterns of Christians and non-Christians. That just might say it all.  And I highly doubt that that has changed since I first became aware of that study.  I also remember Fr. Alexander Schmemann's perplexity and disappointment that in our contemporary cultural milieu, human beings are defined as "consumers."  That is far from the "Eucharistic being" that he envisions for "the life of the world!"

Therefore, when I hear about "Christ being taken out of Christmas," I must ask myself:  To what degree am I responsible for that happening?  Now, what can I do to bring Christ back into Christmas? I believe that this type of self-examination can protect me from judging or complaining about others.  It is this propensity to judge others - the secularist, the humanist, the atheist, etc. - that gives non-Christians the impression that "Christians" are narrow-minded moralists.

I would like to briefly summarize three questions that I posed yesterday in the homily:

1.  What can I/we do to be less distracted as we pass through this season of preparation?  What are my habits or obsessions that demand my undivided attention and from which I can "fast" as a way of recovering a sense of balance or even a touch of inner stillness?  That may begin with the prescribed fast from certain foods and drink, but it probably entails a great deal more.  Is it Facebook or is it bookstore browsing? What will that, in turn, leave me with more time and energy to do that is truly meaningful?

2.  What can I/we do to be less consumer-driven as we move toward the Feast of the Nativity?  Can I look over my Christmas spending budget honestly and realize that perhaps I am over-spending?  Can I make that qualitative shift from being a consumer to being a Eucharistic being?  A consumer seeks to get something out of Christmas (and may get exhausted in the process), while a Eucharistic being will be overcome with a sense of awe and thankfulness before the great mystery of the Incarnation.

3.  What can I/we do to be more charitable?  Can some of that money directed to my Christmas spending budget be re-directed to others who are in need at this time of year?  Besides the issue of money, can I use my time and energy in a more productive manner that embraces the neighbor in need?  Since God "gave" us His Son, can I "give" of myself to others?

This is a wonderful time of the year.  We don't have to spend a great deal of that time playing bumper-car in overcrowded mall parking lots.  We could use some of that time to become more Church-centered in our choices.  And that will depend upon just how Christ-centered we are in our lives.

Forty Shopping (and Fasting) Days Until Christmas

Dear Parish Faithful,

On November 15, we will observe the first day of the 40-day Nativity/Advent Fast, meant to prepare us for the advent of the Son of God in the flesh.  For some/many of us, this might very well catch us unaware and unprepared.  However, as the saying goes, “it is what it is,” and so the Church calendar directs us to enter into this sacred season on that day. This indicates an intensification of the perennial “battle of the calendars” in which every Orthodox Christian is engaged—consciously or unconsciously. 

The two calendars – the ecclesial and the secular – represent the Church and “the world” respectively.  Often, there is an underlying tension between these two spheres. Because of that tension, I believe that we find ourselves in the rather peculiar situation of being ascetical and consumerist simultaneously. 

To fast, pray and be charitable is to lead a simplified life that is based around restraint—a certain discipline and a primary choice to live according to the principles of the Gospel in a highly secularized and increasingly hedonistic world.  That is what it means to be ascetical.

It further means to focus upon Christ amidst an ever-increasing number of distractions and diversions. Even with the best of intentions and a firm resolve, that is not easy!  From our historical perspective of being alive in the 21st century, and leading the “good life” where everything is readily available, practicing any form of voluntary self-restraint is tantamount to bearing a cross.  Perhaps fulfilling some modest goals based on the Gospel in today’s world, such as it is, amounts to a Christian witness, unspectacular as those goals may be.

Yet, as our society counts down the remaining shopping days until Christmas; and as our spending is seen as almost a patriotic act of contributing to the build-up of our failing economy; and as we want to “fit in” – especially for the sake of our children – we also are prone (or just waiting) to unleash the “consumer within,” always alert to the joys of shopping, spending and accumulating. When one adds in the unending “entertainment” designed to create a holiday season atmosphere, it can all become rather overwhelming. 

Certainly, these are some of the joys of family life, and we feel a deep satisfaction when we surround our children with the warmth and security that the sharing of gifts brings to our domestic lives.  Perhaps, though, we can be vigilant about knowing when “enough is enough”—or even better, when “enough is a feast.”  An awareness – combined with sharing—of those who have next to nothing is also a way of overcoming our own self-absorption and expanding our notion of the “neighbor.”

Therefore, to be both an ascetic and a consumer is indicative of the challenges facing us as Christians in a world that clearly favors and “caters” to our consumerist tendencies. 

To speak honestly, this is a difficult and uneasy balance to maintain. How can it possibly be otherwise, when to live ascetically is to restrain those very consumerist tendencies? 

I believe that what we are essentially trying to maintain is our identity as Orthodox Christians within the confines of a culture either indifferent or hostile to Christianity.  If the Church remains an essential part of the build-up toward Christmas, then we can go a long way in maintaining that balance. 

Although I do not particularly like putting it this way, I would contend that if the Church is a place of choice that at least “competes” with the mall, then that again may be one of the modest victories in the underlying battle for our ultimate loyalty to which a consumerist Christmas season awakens us. The Church directs us to fast before we feast.  Does that make any sense? Do we understand the theological/spiritual principles that are behind such an approach?  Can we develop some domestic strategies that will give us the opportunity to put that into practice, to at least some extent?  Do we even care enough?

The final question always returns us to the question that Jesus asked of his initial disciples:  “Who do you say that I am?”  If we, together with Saint Peter, confess that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” then we know where we stand as the “battle of the calendars” intensifies for the next 40 days.

What earthly sweetness . . .

Dear Parish Faithful,

"But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are fallen asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope."  (I THESS. 4:13)

We served the funeral service yesterday for one of our oldest parishioners, Vasilka Bitsoff.  A stroke last January left her quite debilitated for many months, and she died last Sunday, never having recovered. Because of her declining health, she was unable to attend the Liturgy for about the last five years.  If you have joined our community in these last five years or so, you would therefore, I assume, not have known Vasilka .  For those who knew her well, she was a faithful member of our parish who became part of our community in the earliest years of its formation.  She was a member of the Holy Spirit Bulgarian Orthodox church, and that parish united with the early Christ the Savior mission, which resulted in our parish of Christ the Savior/Holy Spirit.  Vasilka was a refined person with a lively intelligence and over-all wisdom gained through the many years of her life (she was almost ninety-six at the time of her death). She will be missed. May God forgive her of her sins "both voluntary and involuntary" and receive her into His eternal Kingdom.  Memory Eternal!

It is my belief that it is virtually impossible to attend an Orthodox funeral and not leave pondering both the universal reality of death, and one's own personal and inevitable death.  To do otherwise is to have been totally unaware of the surrounding environment of the church and the service; or to be lost somewhere in "la-la land."  Certainly, we put up strong barriers of denial of our own impending demise, but the prayers and hymns of the service, together with the appointed Scriptural readings, should be able to penetrate those barriers if we are attentive and if we have not lost touch with reality.  Our death-denying culture ( a "comfortable" casket, an embalmed body with make-up. etc.) tries to shield us from that reality, but all such efforts are rather shallow and meaningless. Thus, as we bid farewell to a loved one or a friend, we are allowed the opportunity to come away with a reminder of our mortality so that we can continue to live our lives with depth and meaningfulness.  All, of course, enlightened by our faith in Christ the "Vanquisher of Death."

In sharp contrast to our death-denying culture, the funeral service of the Church places the tragic reality of death rather graphically before our minds in one of the service's hymns, known as an Idiomela:

I weep and I wail when I think upon death, and behold our beauty, created in the likeness of God, lying in the tomb, disfigured, bereft of glory and form.

O Marvel!  What is this mystery concerning us?  Why have we been given over unto corruption? And why have we been wedded unto death? Truly as it is written by the command of God, who gives the departed rest.

Another Idiomela  makes the same point with a certain rhetorical somberness, but ends with a clear reference to Christ as the source of our rest:

What earthly sweetness remains unmixed with grief? What glory stands immutable on earth?  All things are but feeble shadows, all things are most deluding dreams: yet only one moment only, and Death shall supplant them all.  

But in the light of Thy countenance, O Christ, and in the sweetness of thy beauty, give rest unto him/her/them who Thou hast chosen:  forasmuch as Thou lovest mankind.

Other hymns offer a superb combination of the recognition of death with a prayerful plea to Christ to receive us into Paradise, and in so doing reminding us of our desired goal - our restored beauty in the Kingdom of God:

Blessed art Thou, O Lord:  teach me Thy statutes.

The Choir of the Saints have found the Fountain of Life and the Door of Paradise. May I find also find the way through repentance. I am a lost sheep:  call me,
O Savior, and save me.

You who have trod the narrow way of grief; all you who in life have taken upon you the Cross as a yoke, and followed me by faith; Draw near, enjoy the honors and celestial crowns I have prepared for you.

I am the image of thine ineffable glory, though I bear the brands of transgression:  Pity Thy creature, O Master, and purify me by Thy loving-kindness; grant unto me my desired fatherland, making me again a citizen of Paradise.

O Thou who of old formed me from nothingness, and honored me with Thine image divine, but by the transgression of Thy commandment has returned me again unto the earth from which I was taken: Restore Thou me to that image, and to my former beauty.

This honest combination of recognizing our own sinfulness while in this world, together with our hope that we have placed in Christ as our Savior and as the One who will forgive us of our sins, is captured by this beautiful prayer with its Christ-centered and hopeful exclamation/doxology that is repeated throughout the service and then offered one last time at the graveside (and for forty days):

O God of spirits, and of all flesh, Who hast trampled down Death, and overthrown the Devil, and given life unto Thy world:  Do Thou, the same Lord, give rest to the soul of Thy departed servant(s) ____________, in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where all sickness, sorrow, and sighing have fled away.  Pardon every transgression which he/she has (they have) committed, whether by word, or deed, or thought.

For Thou art a good God, and lovest mankind; because there is no man who lives and sins not; for Thou only art without sin, and Thy righteousness is to all eternity, and Thy word is true.

For Thou art the Resurrection, and the Life, and the Repose of Thy servant(s) ____________, who is (are) fallen asleep, O Christ our God, and unto Thee do we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy and good, and life-creating Spirit:  now and ever, and unto ages of ages.  Amen.

This prayerful recognition of Christ as "the Resurrection, and the Life, and the Repose," allowed Fr. Alexander Schmemann to write the following about the Orthodox funeral service:

 "The Orthodox funeral service is a wonderful expression of this faith.  Both its words and music convey to us the certitude that death is not the absurd end, which deprives life of its meaning and permeates everything with its poison of despair, but the passage into the "desired fatherland," the return to Him in whom is all joy, all peace, all fulfillment.  Indeed it makes life meaningful - it gives it a sense of direction, it makes it a movement toward Paradise."

If what I said at the beginning of this meditation is true - that you cannot attend an Orthodox funeral service without being aware of the universal and personal dimension of death - then I can equally claim that it would be just as impossible not to come away with a lively sense of Christ as the Victor over death, and that we depart this life with a "sure hope" that by His great mercy and grace, we can make that paschal passage into the life of the world to come.  In such a way the reality of death need not have such a corrosive effect upon us and our lives.  As someone wrote:

Lord, let not the corrosive
fear of dying someday,
eat away the wonder of
living this day. Amen.

This does not mean, however, that we are "licensed" to "eat, drink and be merry" - or to have as much "fun" as possible before the inevitable end - somehow justified by a religious faith in "life after death."  It rather means traversing the road of repentance and constant renewal of our "inner person" as the "outer person" is wasting away.  It is about believing and taking to heart the wonderful words of the Apostle Paul:

"neither death, nor life ... shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  (ROM. 8:38)