Coffee with Sister Vassa: HOW DOES THE THEOTOKOS “SAVE” US?

Coffee with Sister Vassa

HOW DOES THE THEOTOKOS “SAVE” US?

 

“The laws of nature are overcome (Νενίκηνται τῆς φύσεως οἱ ὅροι / Побеждаются естества уставы) in you, O Pure Virgin: for birthgiving remains virginal, and life is united to death; a virgin after childbearing and alive after death, you ever save your inheritance, O Theotokos.” (Canon of Dormition, Ode 9)

On the eve of the great feast (or fast, if we’re on the Older Calendar) of the Dormition of the Theotokos, I’m reflecting on how the above-quoted hymn helps us better understand its final words: “you ever save your inheritance (i.e., all of us), O Theotokos.” 

Let’s first note that we do not confuse the Theotokos with our one-and-only Savior. What we are doing, when we affirm that the Theotokos “saves” us, is professing the indispensable role that she played, as Theo-tokos, in His incarnation, without which we would not have salvation. 

What is “salvation”? It means “a return to wholeness” from previous fragmentation or separation from that wholeness through all the contradictions of our being. Salvation is accomplished by the “Theo(s)”-part of the “Theo-tokos,” by God, but not without her part, the “tokos” or “birth giving” part. Our incarnate Lord integrates and overcomes our contradictions, like life and death, birth giving and virginity, fruitfulness and barrenness, victory and defeat, divinity and humanity, heaven and earth, spirit and body, by becoming one of us, in the flesh, through one of us – the Theotokos. The Mother of God exemplifies, par excellence, the whole Mother-Church that participates in this integration of the contradictions, in this return to wholeness that is “salvation,” in communion with Christ. The above-quoted hymn celebrates the salvific overcoming or integration of the contradictions in and through our “Theo-tokos.” That is to say, through the synergy of God and the human being that is manifested in her unique vocation, which continues to “save” us on a daily basis.

This is why we say, “Most Holy Theotokos, save us!” – and not, “Mary, save us!”because we are professing our faith in the vital, indispensable part of our salvation that is the incarnation. And this is why traditionally we do not depict the Theotokos alone on icons, but always together with the Lord. It’s not just about her, nor just about God. It’s about both her, – a human being just as human as the rest of us, and God, Who invites all of us to participate in the synergy she exemplifies. We’re all invited to be “blessed” by receiving the Word of God (inside us, in our “wombs”) and then to “keep it” by giving it away; by giving birth to it in our world and sharing it in our own context. As Christ said to the woman who cried out from the crowd and blessed His mother (Lk 11:27): “Moreover, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it!”

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A timely reflection from Sister Vassa as we approach the eve of the Feast of the Dormition. In addition to offering us some very good over-all theological insights into what is a somewhat controversial liturgical text - "Most holy Theotokos, save us!" - when heard in isolation and not placed in a wider context; she also may provide some further insights that we can convey to our Protestant friends (many of whom accept the title Theotokos, or at least in terms of what it reveals about the identity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ). 

Coffee With Sister Vassa: BLINDED BY SECONDARY ISSUES

Coffee With Sister Vassa

BLINDED BY SECONDARY ISSUES

 

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Mt 23: 23-24)

Here the Lord is warning me about focusing on secondary issues, while losing sight of the whole point of God’s law, or “the weightier matters” that are“justice and mercy and faith.” 

It’s easy to slip into neglecting “justice and mercy and faith,” while being very meticulous about some aspect of living our tradition. For example, I might be a member of the church choir, attending and singing all the church-services with zealous attention to every detail of the Typikon, while being complacent about, say, an outstanding resentment I am harboring against a certain someone. Perhaps the mere mention of them irritates or angers me, which should signalize to me that I’ve neglected “justice and mercy” (both of which are restored, when I responsibly make amends), but this fact doesn’t burden me nearly as much as those times when I skipped a church-service, for whatever reason. Or maybe I support the right causes and charities, while on a daily basis I am crippled, in my heart, by merely-human fears, say, of financial insecurity or of human opinion, rather than taking pause to fortify my faith; to let God be really present in my life.

Instead of continuously swallowing these “camels” and schlepping them around, today let me take pause to look at these ugly “camels,” and let God cast them out by the grace of His “justice and mercy and faith” in me. Lord, open my eyes to the “camels” I may have been ignoring, while focusing on what comes more easily to me, or the “gnats.”

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A very fair and honest point is being made here by Sister Vassa. As we strive to fulfill the words of the Apostle Paul: "but all things should be done decently and in order" (I Cor. 14:40); we can indeed neglect what Christ taught us about "justice and mercy." It is very important in parish life that we indeed do things decently and in order - think of the chaos caused by indecency and disorder! - yet, the core of the Gospel is revealed in the challenge to seek first "justice and mercy." When we blind ourselves to that, we have recourse to the Sacrament of Confession within which, by repenting of our sinful inclinations, we indeed restore "decency and order" to our interior lives and so recover our lost sense of "justice and mercy."

 

Coffee With Sister Vassa: TRANSFIGURATION

Coffee With Sister Vassa

TRANSFIGURATION

 

“You were transfigured on the mountain, O Christ God, and Your disciples beheld Your glory as far as they were able, so that when they would behold You crucified, they would understand that You did suffer of Your own will, and would proclaim to the world that You are truly the brightness of the Father.” (Kontakion of Transfiguration)

This hymn explains to us the reasons that our Lord let the disciples (Peter, James and John) witness His glorious Transfiguration on the mountain, to the extent that “they were able”: It was so that they would not lose faith in Him, when He was crucified, and would proceed to proclaim to the world that He, truly, is “the brightness of the Father.” 

How is this relevant to our lives? We also have our moments “on the mountain,” that is, when we witness God’s goodness or grace, “as far as we are able.” These “high” moments are meant to strengthen our faith at those “low” moments of our cross-carrying journey, when we might feel God has abandoned us.  

And this is how the hymn that immediately follows the above-quoted Kontakion, called the “Ikos,” urges us to turn our thoughts around, at those low moments: “Awake, you sluggards, and lie not forever on the ground, you thoughts that draw my soul to the earth! Arise and go up to the high mountain of the divine ascent! Let us run to join Peter and the sons of Zebedee, and go with them to Mount Tabor, that with them we may see the glory of our God and hear the voice they heard from heaven, and with them proclaim that this is the brightness of the Father.” Let’s look up today, my friends, if we are feeling down, because our Lord’s “brightness” sustains our world and transfigures us, even when we might not see it because of the clouds.

A Feast of Theology: The Transfiguration, the Heart of the Orthodox Faith

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

On August 6 we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The Leave-taking of the Feast is on August 13. A time to think deeply on this wonderful and unique event from Lord's earthly ministry.

This feast is thus embedded in the time of the Dormition Fast, but still retains all of its festal splendor. What a truly blessed Feast! 

The Transfiguration is particularly rich in essential theological themes that reveal the very heart of our Orthodox Christian Faith. These dogmatic/doctrinal themes are expressed poetically throughout the services - Vespers, Matins, Liturgy - of the Feast in an abundant variety of hymnographical forms. The troparion and kontakion of any given Feast offer a "summary" of the Feast's over-all meaning and place in God's oikonomia (divine dispensation):

Thou wast transfigured on the Mount, O Christ God, revealing Thy glory to Thy disciples as far as they could bear it. LetThine everlasting light shine upon us sinners! Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Giver of Light, glory to Thee! (Troparion) 

On the mountain wast Thou transfigured, O Christ God, and Thy disciples beheld Thy glory as far as they could see it; so that when they would behold Thee crucified, they would understand that Thy suffering was voluntary, and would proclaim to the world that Thou art truly the Radiance of the Father! (Kontakion)

Over the years and through repeated use, many of the faithful know these hymns by heart. If we listen carefully, or even study it outside of the services, the hymnography reveals very profound truths in the realm of Christology (the Person of Christ, both God and man); anthropology (the human person created in the image and likeness of God); triadology (the dogma of the Trinity); and eschatology (the Kingdom of God coming in power at the end of time).

Christology

On Mt. Tabor, when transfigured before His disciples, our Lord reveals to His disciples - and to all of us - His divine nature "hidden" in humility beneath the human nature of His flesh:

Enlightening the disciples that were with Thee, O Christ our Benefactor, Thou hast shown them upon the holy mountain the hidden and blinding light of Thy nature and of Thy divine beauty beneath the flesh. 

The nature that knows no change, being mingled with the mortal nature, shone forth ineffably, unveiling in some small measure to the apostles the light of the immaterial Godhead. (First Canon of Matins, Canticle Five)

As St. John of Damascus has written: 

"He was transfigured, then: not taking on what he was not, nor being changed to what he was not, but making what he was visible to his own disciples, opening their eyes and enabling them, who had been blind, to see. This is what the phrase means, "He was transfigured before their faces" (Matt 17:2); he remained exactly the same as he was, but appeared in a way beyond the way he had appeared before, and in that appearance seemed different to his disciples." (Oration on the Transfiguration)

Anthropology

Christ is fully and truly human. He is without sin. Thus, He is the "perfect" human being, by revealing to us the glory of human nature when fully united to God - something that we lost in the Fall. To be filled with the glory of God in communion with God is the true destiny of human beings and thus the true revelation of our human nature. By assuming our human nature, Christ has restored that relationship:

For having gone up, O Christ, with Thy disciples into Mount Tabor, Thou wast transfigured, and hast made the nature that had grown dark in Adam to shine again as lightning, transforming it into the glory and splendor of Thine own divinity. (Aposticha, Great Vespers) 

Thou hast put Adam on entire, O Christ, and changing the nature grown dark in past times, Thou hast filled it with glory and made it godlike by the alteration of Thy form. (First Canon of Matins, Canticle Three)

In the words of Archbishop Kallistos Ware:  

"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 or mean."

Triadology

The Three Persons of the Holy Trinity were revealed on Mount Tabor, as they were revealed in the Jordan at the time of the Lord's Baptism. On Tabor it is again the voice of the Father, and the Spirit now appears in the form of a luminous cloud. Every revelation and action of God's is trinitarian, for the Father, Son/Word and Holy Spirit act in perfect harmony revealing thus the unity of the one divine nature:

Today on Tabor in the manifestation of Thy Light, O Word, Thou unaltered Light from the Light of the unbegotten Father, we have seen the Father as Light and the Spirit as Light, guiding with light the whole creation. (Exapostilarion, Matins)

Again, in the words of St. John of Damascus: 

"For God is recognized as one, in three hypostases(Persons). There is one substance of Godhead: the Father who bears witness, and the Son to whom he witnesses, and the Spirit who overshadows him." (Oration on the Transfiguration)

Eschatology

The Lord reveals by anticipation in His transfiguration on Mount Tabor, both his approaching Resurrection and the glorious appearance that we await at His Second Coming. He also reveals the transfiguration of our own lowly human nature in the Kingdom of God, where the righteous will shine like the stars of heaven. Thus, this is a Feast of Hope, as well as a Feast of Divine Beauty, as we anticipate His eternal and unfading presence and our transformation in Him, also eternal and unending:

Thou wast transfigured upon Mount Tabor, showing the exchange mortal men will make with Thy glory at Thy second and fearful coming, O Savior. (Sessional Hymn, Matins) 

To show plainly how, at Thy mysterious second coming, Thou wilt appear as the Most High God standing in the midst of gods, on Mount Tabor Thou hast shone in fashion past words upon the apostles and upon Moses and Elijah. (Second Canon of Matins, Canticle Nine)

We bless fruit on this Feast because all of creation awaits transfiguration at the end of time. Even the garments of Christ were shining forth with a radiance brighter than the sun. The blessed fruit represents this awaited transfiguration when the creation will be freed from bondage. In earlier times, the grapes themselves would be used for the eucharistic offering of wine.

The importance of the Transfiguration is shown by the fact that it is recorded in three of the Gospels: MATT. 17:1-13; MK. 9:2-8; LK. 28-36. It is also clearly alluded to in II PET. 1:16-18.

To appeal one final time to St. John of Damascus:

"Let us observe these divine commandments with total concentration, so that we too may feast upon his divine beauty; and be filled with the taste of his sweetness: now, insofar as this is attainable for those weighed down by this earthly tent of the body; but in the next life more clearly and purely, when the 'just shall shine like the sun,' when they shall be released from the body's necessities, and shall be imperishable, like angels with the Lord, at the time of the great and radiant appearance of our Lord and God and Savior from heaven, Jesus Christ: with whom may glory be given to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, now and to the endless ages of ages. Amen." (Oration on the Transfiguration)

Sister Vassa: 'What are you looking for?'

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

 

“The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say (this), and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, ‘What are you looking for (Τί ζητεῖτε)?’ And they said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.” (Jn 1: 35-40)

Andrew already had a great teacher, St. John the Baptist. But still, he hadn’t found what he was looking for. And John the Baptist does what great teachers do, not clinging to “his” disciples but pointing them in the right direction, to find their true vocation.

Christ greets them with an important question: “What are you looking for?” – to which they have no real response, but another question, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Some commentators suggest that this response meant that they only wanted to know where to find Him in the future, (similar to our custom of asking for someone’s business card), but did not expect to stick around more, at this point. But Christ invites them to come right over; to “come and see” more.

As we prepare to celebrate the great feast of the Transfiguration tomorrow (NC), I’m thinking that the feast itself is an invitation to come over to His place, and “see.” In preparation for this feast, I think it’s helpful to hear the Lord ask us, once again, “What are you looking for?” (I’ll add inappropriately that this makes me think of the Lionel Richie song, “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”) Let me come over to “His place,” once again, – whether I’m able to be in church for the upcoming feast or not, and let me visit with Him in some heartfelt prayer, that I may not wander about on my own, but see the things God has to show me today. Thank You, Lord, for calling us, again and again, to “come and see.”