The Bodiless Powers

 

Image source: https://oca.org

"All my angels praised Me!"

"Uplifted Godwards, from their beginning it has been the angels' greatest joy to choose freely for God and to give him their undaunted flow of life in unending love and worship." ~ Mother Alexandra

On November 8, we commemorate The Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers. This gives us the opportunity to explore the Church's well-developed angelology. Orthodox theology reveals to us the fulness of all created reality, beginning with the realm of the bodiless powers: "When the stars were made, all my angels praised me with a loud voice." (Job 38:7) When we remove the angelic orders from our account of reality, we diminish our sense of wonder and our sense of "mystery" in the best sense of that word. I recall once, speaking with one of our parish’s Church School teachers about the nature of angels and how we convey this to our children. One of our first tasks, I believe, is to overcome the caricature that has developed over the centuries concerning the appearance and role of angels. (Do adults also need to be liberated from this same caricature?).

That caricature imagines angels to be puffy and fluffy “cherubs” that are basically rosy-cheeked floating babies. Cupid-like, they carry bows and arrows that appear harmless enough. They are often naked, but at times they appear to be covered in what can only be described as a celestial diaper. How these Hallmark card fantasies, based on Renaissance and Baroque-era deviations from the sacred and profound iconography of the earlier centuries both West and East, can be associated with the “Lord of Sabaoth” and the celestial hierarchy of angels that surround the throne of God with their unceasing chant of “Holy, Holy, Holy!” is something of an unfortunate mystery. In the words of Lev Gillette, a Monk of the Eastern Church: "There is nothing rosy or weakly poetical in the Angels of the Bible: they are flashes of the light and strength of the Almighty Lord." And in her wonderful book The Holy Angels, Mother Alexandra writes: "In a certain sense, if it can be so expressed, they are the individualized selfness of God's own attributes."

The Scriptures and the Holy Fathers only describe powerful celestial beings that serve God and fulfill His will for the well-being of the human race and our salvation. Angels are not eternal or immortal by nature. They are creatures, coming forth from the creative Word of God perfected by His Spirit. It was Saint Basil the Great, based on Job 38:7, as quoted above, who taught that angels were created even before the cosmos. These genderless beings are described by Saint Gregory the Theologian as “a second light, an effusion or participation in God, in the primal light.” 

Whenever a human being is visited by an angel and receives this heavenly messenger’s revelation, his or her first impulse is to bow down and worship this celestial visitor as a divine being! Warm and fuzzy feelings with any impulse toward cuddling and kissing are hardly implied in the biblical texts. It is again, Mother Alexandra who reinforces this: "Angels are of a superiority all but incomprehensible to us, but they are a part of our lives. By God's boundless mercy, they are destined, in the great moments of history, to be the heralds of the Most High to man below; they are, as well, our guides, guardians, mentor, protectors, and comforters from birth to the grave." Actually, our use of the term “angel” – based on the Greek angelos or “messenger”—is a generic term used to describe all of the many kinds of heavenly hosts described and named in the Scriptures. In fact, this celestial hierarchy, according to Saint Dionysios the Areopagite, is comprised of a triad of ranks, three angelic orders in each rank. The names are scriptural, but the triads have been conceived of by Saint Dionysios: 

• First Rank:  Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones (Is. 6:2; Ezek. 10:1; Col. 1:16)
• Second Rank:  Authorities, Dominions, Powers (Col. 1:16; I Pet. 3:22; Eph. 3:10)
• Third Rank:  Principalities, Angels, Archangels (Col. 1:16; I Thes. 4:15)

This structuring of the celestial hierarchy has had an enormous influence on the angelology of the Church.

Actually, Saint John Chrysostom tells us that even these names and “classes” do not exhaust the heavenly ranks of angelic beings: “There are innumerable other kinds and an unimaginable multitude of classes, for which no words can be adequate to express.” he writes. “From this we see that there are certain names which will be known then, but are now unknown.”

With his great ability to summarize and synthesize the Church’s living Tradition, Saint John of Damascus (+749) gives us this description of what an angel actually is in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. “An angel, then, is a noetical essence, perpetually in motion, with a free will, incorporeal, subject to God, having obtained by grace an immortal nature. The Creator alone knows the form and limitation of its essence.”

Admittedly, this is a very brief description of the true nature of the bodiless hosts of heaven, based on the Scriptures and the Fathers. Hopefully it will restore a genuine sense of awe and veneration before these incredible beings that only further amaze us with the creative power, energy and will of God.

Coffee With Sister Vassa: Don't Grow Weary of Doing Good

 

DON’T GROW WEARY OF DOING GOOD

“But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all.” (2 Thess 3: 13-16)

It's hard not to grow weary of doing good, especially if we are new to it, as were the recently-converted Thessalonians and hence might expect good-doing to be easy or “rewarding” in this-worldly ways. It’s also hard for us, not to tire of doing the little or big good thing we are doing, especially because of our culture of instant gratification. We probably tend to have an even smaller capacity for endurance and patience with ourselves and others, than did the ancient Thessalonians, when certain people or institutions remain indifferent or even hostile to our good-doing. We might develop a sort of Unrequited Love Syndrome, toward the people and institutions of our world. 

But St. Paul was no stranger to failure in his own ministry, which fell on deaf ears among his own people, or worse, led him to being kicked out of more than one city, and even worse, led him ultimately to prison and getting beheaded by his state authorities. His little flock in Thessaloniki was also dealing with institutional persecutions, but in the passage above he calls them to level-headedness with the annoying people in their own community. He does call the Thessalonians to “not keep company” with such brethren, but not to count them as enemies and to admonish them. That’s a difficult balance to strike, but today let us take heart and “not grow weary of doing good.” St. Paul says, as he knew from experience, “the Lord of peace Himself” can and does give us peace through our patience with ourselves and others. “The Lord be with you all,” he says to all of us this post-election season. Thank you, dear St. Paul, and please pray to God for all of us.

____

A timely message from Sister Vassa. The moral landscape in our country has changed considerably in just the last generation or so. NOT doing good is being rewarded now, in a way that would have been inconceivable just a generation ago. This does not bode well for future generations, who are already cut off from a Christian moral vision  of life. As Christians, we need not reward moral turpitude. It is difficult "not to keep company" with those who abandon all moral and ethical norms, but even so, we can maintain our own moral dignity without succumbing to the temptation of awarding what is NOT good in our society today. May the Lord sustain us and bless us as we go forward into a challenging moral landscape.

The Woman with the Issue of Blood

 

Image source: https://oca.org

At the Liturgy this last Sunday, we heard the Gospel narrative of a miracle within another miracle. The raising of the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue ruler, is momentarily interrupted when Jesus encounters the woman with an issue of blood (Lk. 8:41-56). After Jesus heals her, and in the process praises her faith: "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace," he will go to the home of Jairus and bring his daughter back from the realm of the dead by and restoring her to her family, once "her spirit returned." Certainly two amazing and dramatic events. Studying this event through a contemporary biblical commentary, I always recall a statement by Brendan Byrne, a New Testament scholar who wrote a memorable sentence in his fine book, The Hospitality of God - A Reading of St. Luke's Gospel. In speaking of this woman's lack of place in the world of her day, Byrne wrote tellingly: "She is in many ways one of the most marginalized figures in the Gospel." Considering the level of human misery and suffering encountered in the Gospel, that is saying a great deal! And Byrne makes the case in the following succinct paragraph:

"In contrast to the influential ruler of the synagogue, how different the situation of this nameless woman (v. 43-48). As far as the community is concerned, she is as good as dead; according to Lev. 15:25-31, her condition renders her permanently unclean, and she in turn renders unclean any person or objects she touches. It is scarcely possible to grasp the loneliness and isolation of her situation - accentuated now by poverty, since she has spent all she had on physicians (v. 43)."

Loneliness and isolation are two conditions corrosive of a healthy personality. One can sink ever deeper into a debilitating depression. Are loneliness and isolation self-inflicted; or are they inflicted from without, from the icy disregard of a closed social order? The presence of the woman with an issue of blood, as we just read, was unwelcome, and thus she remained marginalized by the prejudice of her society, even if we acknowledge that isolation driven by adherence to the Law. We like to think that our social world is more tolerant today, and perhaps that is true. But perhaps the same kind of prejudice and marginalization is equally present today as then. We certainly have countless people in our midst today who are actually pushed off to the margins as human beings unwanted and uncared for. 

It is often the "other," the person we cannot relate to in his/her full and distinct humanity. The "other" is a person who embraces a life-style we consider sinful or aberrant; or someone who looks or speaks differently; or a "displaced person" entering into our world from outside (which is why Flannery O'Connor wrote that Jesus was just another DP). We are to assist persons to move in from the margins, not to stay out there in isolation. Jesus restored this woman to fellowship with her fellow countrymen. It is a noble task, worthy of the Gospel, to embrace, not to exclude. May the Lord give us the strength and vision to fulfill that ministry as we claim to serve and belong to Him.

Coffee With Sister Vassa: The Hole in the Heart

 

THE HOLE IN THE HEART

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan (στενάζομεν), and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” (2 Cor 5: 1-5)

St. Paul is talking about the mystery of our bodily resurrection, in which we will be “further clothed” in a transfigured, resurrected body. What will that body be like? I don’t know. What I do know is that in my present-day body, or“earthly tent,” a part of me feels insufficient, as it “groans” and “longs to put on our heavenly dwelling,” as the Apostle observes here. It’s the God-given (or“God-shaped,” as some have said), hole in the heart. It’s the part of us that feels a bit sad, when encountering beauty, whether in music or nature or people, because we’re reminded we want more of it, and that there’s more of it, in the Source of Beauty Who is God. On the cross-carrying journey, in the Holy Spirit, this is not an unhappy or unhealthy kind of “groaning” and “longing.” In the light of faith, it is forward-looking and hopeful, as we say in the Creed: “I look for/expect the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.”Outside of faith, on the other hand, and outside a connection with God, the“hole in the heart” is a dark pit that looks into nowhere, and we might fill that void with merely-human anxiety or even dread.

Let me not ignore the hole in my heart today, but prayerfully expose it to God’s light, “so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life,”already in my here and now. Thank You, Lord, for shining Your presence on me today, and making me A-OK, even in my insufficiency.

Coffee With Sister Vassa: How Do We Celebrate The Saints?

 

HOW DO WE CELEBRATE THE SAINTS?

“…Woe to you! for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required of (ἐκζητηθήσεται) this generation.” (Lk 11: 47-51)

How chilling, that in this series of “woes” on the Pharisees and lawyers, the Lord equates their “building the tombs of the prophets” with condoning the killing of the prophets. Clearly, our Lord knew that the usual meaning behind“building a tomb” of a prophet, – just like financing a church-building in honor of certain martyrs, – is to honor the martyrs, and not their killers or persecutors. But in the case of the “building-projects” of the Pharisees and lawyers, our Lord sees the hearts of the builders, filled not with the Spirit “Who spoke by the prophets,” but with enmity to Him and His truth-tellers, including Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Prophets that now stood before them, in the flesh, and Whom they intended to kill. 

So, in our Church’s reading for this November 1, when many Christians celebrate the feast of All Saints, I’m reminded of the fact that our external veneration of the saints is also to be aligned with being “on their side” in Spirit. I’m also reminded not to be discouraged in our day, when we see churches being erected by those who persecute the truth-tellers of our time; when we see how the Patriarch of our own church is building more and more new churches in Moscow, while defrocking and persecuting our truth-telling priests; while blessing the destruction of churches and people in Ukraine; while condoning the imprisonment and/or execution of journalists and others who testify against all this. But God doesn’t “forget” those He sends us, as Christ tells us above, however marginalized and forgotten they may be today, and just as we, ultimately, will not forget them, but will celebrate their memory. All Saints, pray to God for us!

____

A timely reflection, indeed, from the indomitable Sister Vassa! A much-needed prophetic voice within the Church! Please be sure to read her final paragraph very carefully and all that it implies for the Church's witness - or is that lack of witness - to the world. When it comes to the Spirit-inspired saints, we need to be "on their side" as we read above - even when that is unpopular. Are "truth-tellers" becoming a  rare phenomenon? That would be a real loss, for that is the way of Christ.