Meditation for the Apostles Fast - June 16, 2025

 

Today is the beginning of the Apostles Fast. The length of this particular fast is ultimately determined by the date of Pascha, because this fast always begins eight days after Pentecost, the date of which is dependent on the date of Pascha for a given year. This year we are entering into a two-week fast that will culminate with the Feast of the Apostles Peter & Paul on Sunday, June 29. 

An Orthodox fast is basically vegan in its dietary discipline. There are exceptions, so please look at the Church calendar. This is a rather neglected fast, but it is my role to inform you of the fast, and your role to make some decisions about how you will observe the fast on some level.

In addition, I have "signed us up" to receive a meditation on a daily basis for the course of the Fast. This series of meditations is sponsored by St. Vladimir's Orthodox seminary. We begin with the following from Dr. Peter Bouteneff:

Beginning of the Apostles’ Fast

A healthy approach to yourself as sinner depends upon knowing something of God’s mercy. Without faith and trust in God—as merciful and loving beyond measure—our self-condemnation would be impossible to bear. It would be self-destructive. And there is no clearer portrait of God than the crucified Christ, who has voluntarily surrendered everything for us. The cross—the limitless self-giving, voluntary co-suffering that it represents, the extent of love and mercy that it conveys—reveals to us what it is to be God.

—Dr. Peter Bouteneff, How to Be a Sinner

The Sundays of Pentecost

Source: legacyicons.com

The Sundays following the Feast are numbered as “after Pentecost.” This is a liturgical reminder of the Holy Spirit’s ever-abiding presence within the Church; and that everything we do within the Church – especially the celebration of the Sacraments – is sealed by the Gift of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, there are no “ordinary” Sundays – including those in the summer months! Our entire lives as Orthodox Christians – from cradle to grave – are an unceasing rhythm of progressing from one Lord’s Day celebration to the next. Our hope is that our earthly Liturgies will prepare us for our “passage” into eternal Liturgy of the Kingdom of God. There is no “summer vacation.” And that includes families with small children who are on “vacation” from Church School. It is a good thing if your children truly miss being in Church School; but that is no reason to miss church and the Liturgy during the summer months. That may be the best “lesson” that you teach your children. 

I just received a very encouraging letter from a mother who shared with me that over time, and with patience and perseverance, her children are now much more focused on the Liturgy; and that they now always say the “Amen” when we consecrate our gifts of bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ, including the final triple “Amen” when we call down the Holy Spirit to seal, complete and perfect the consecration. That is the result of “sticking with it” Sunday after Sunday. 

Once again, if you are traveling, there is no reason why provisions to attend a local Orthodox parish cannot be made. Try and work your schedule around the Lord’s Day. If we want God to be with us on our vacations, then perhaps we should make the effort to be with God whenever possible.

Thursday's Theological Thoughts

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 Dear Parish Faithful,

Come, O Comforter, Holy Spirit, and make Your abode within us!

This morning, we chanted the "Akathist Hymn to the Most-Holy and Life-Giving Spirit." I am going to share Oikos 4, from this Akathist.

Often, there is an eschatological ("future-oriented") dimension to the presence of the Holy Spirit manifested in our prayer, when specific mention is made of the Spirit,as if we are giving a glimpse into to the Age to Come - or Kingdom of Heaven - by the indwelling presence of the Spirit. This is made expressively clear in Oikos 4, as it focuses our attention on the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. It is "meet and right" to at least periodically turn our attention to that future that we await in faith as the fulfillment of our deepest hopes as Christians:

Come and deliver us from spiritual death.

Come and, before our end, satisfy us with the Body and Blood of Christ the Savior.

Come and grant that we may fall asleep in peace, our conscience clean.

Come and make radiant our awakening from the sleep of death.

Come and grant that we may gaze with joy upon the morning of eternity.

Come and make us children of incorruption.

Come and, like the sun, enlighten our bodies, which will be immortal.

Come, O Comforter, Holy Spirit, and make Your abode within us.

Midweek Morning Meditation

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 Dear Parish Faithful,

"The Holy Spirit is God himself enabling our faith: not merely the object of our worship but the one by whose power and inspiration we worship." 

St. Gregory the Theologian (+395) earned that title of "theologian" primarily through his great series known as the Five Theological Orations (27-31) that he wrote in the fourth century, as the Church was still engaged in articulating the dogma of the Trinity as fully and convincingly as possible. These Orations, then, are classics of Orthodox trinitarian theology. The final Oration 31 is further entitled "On the Holy Spirit." The purpose of this Oration was to demonstrate the following: "All that the Godhead actively performs, the Spirit performs." This is due to the identical divine nature that the Father and the Spirit share from all eternity. 

In that same Oration, St. Gregory further states this about the Holy Spirit:

He is the subject, not the object, of hallowing, apportioning, participating, filling, sustaining. We share in him; he shares in nothing. He is our inheritance, he is glorified, counted together with the Father and the Son. ... That means that the Holy Spirit is of the same essential nature as the Father. 

This is all beautifully and profoundly expressed in one of the hymns for the Sunday Vespers of Pentecost that we heard during that service:

The Holy Spirit always was and always shall be, for He is with the Father and the Son, One of the Trinity. He is both Life and Life-giving; He is Light, and by nature, the Giver of Light; He is All-Holy and the Source of Holiness. Through Him, we know the Father and glorify the Son, understanding that the Holy Trinity is a single Power, Three of equal rank and equally to be worshipped.

Perhaps the unknown person who composed this hymn was inspired by carefully reading St. Gregory's Oration on the Holy Spirit. When we sing "Christ is born! Glorify Him" during the Feast of the Nativity, we know that that well-known hymn was taken directly from the opening of St. Gregory's Nativity Oration. There is a very close relationship between theology, hymnography and worship within the Church. We pray our theology - and absorb a great deal in the process.

49 plus 1: Pentecost and the Life Beyond Time

 

Source: legacyicons.com

Dear Parish Faithful,

"And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting."  (Acts. 2:2)


At the Vespers of Pentecost, celebrated yesterday on Pentecost Sunday, we  implored the Risen Lord, Who sat down at the “right hand” of God the Father, to send the Holy Spirit upon us, as He did upon the apostles who “were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1).

It is quite significant that Pentecost occurred exactly 50 days after the Resurrection of Christ. In the ancient world, there was a deep symbolic—or even sacred—character to the use of numbers, and this is fully shared and reflected in the Scriptures. Father Alexander Schmemann explains this “sacred numerology” as it relates to the Feast of Pentecost. He writes:

“Pentecost in Greek means 50, and in the sacred biblical symbolism of numbers, the number 50 symbolizes both the fullness of time and that which is beyond time: the Kingdom of God itself.

It symbolizes the fullness of time by its first component—49—which is the fullness of seven (7 x 7): the number of time. And, it symbolizes that which is beyond time by its second component — 49 + 1 — this "1" being the new day, the “day without evening” of God’s eternal Kingdom.

With the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s disciples, the time of salvation, the Divine work of redemption has been completed, the fullness revealed, all gifts bestowed; it belongs to us now to “appropriate” these gifts, to be that which we have become in Christ: participants and citizens of His Kingdom.”

This reality that takes us beyond the fullness of time as experienced in this world we call eschatological—the fullness of the Kingdom of God which is “not of this world” but yet experienced here and now within the grace-filled life of the Church, herself the Temple of the Holy Spirit. The “appropriation” of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, referred to above by Father Alexander, implies the rejection of a way of life that is described as “fleshly.” 

In an extraordinary passage of the Apostle Paul found in his Epistle to the Galatians, we encounter the contrast between the “works of the flesh” and the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16-24). Saint Paul emphasizes this contrast at the beginning of this passage: 

“But I say to you, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:16-17).

It is essential to realize that the Apostle Paul does not mean by “flesh” what we would call our “bodies” or physical existence. He is not attacking our bodily, physical existence as such. That would introduce us to the realm of dualism, an artificial and non-Scriptural conflict between the spiritual and the material. By “flesh,” the Apostle Paul means the human person in rebellion against God, that results in a self-centered way of life that further results in perversions of both the body and soul. 

As this passage continues, you can clearly discern the comprehensive nature of the “flesh” as encompassing both the mind and body and directing them to sinful activities or attitudes:

“Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like” (Galatians 5:19-21).

My intention is not to be discouraging, but if anything here sounds self-descriptive or reminiscent of one’s most recent confession, then one is still contending with the “works of the flesh.” According to the Apostle, the long-term prospects for such a way of life are not very promising, if not altogether bleak:  “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21).

However, the “good news” is that there exists another way of life, one that is “spiritual” but expressed through our bodily existence in the rhythms of our daily life:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

There is no mention in these “fruits of the Spirit” of miracle-working, visions, ecstatic and/or mystical experiences. Saint Paul calls upon very human virtues, but with the implication that they are heightened—or deepened—by the Holy Spirit in such a way that a new manner of living is being manifested, one he calls elsewhere a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This newness of life in the Holy Spirit distinguished the early Christians from their environment, and is meant to distinguish Christians to this day.

Failure to live by the “fruit of the Spirit” is essentially a failure of our Christian vocation. Saint Paul implies as much when he writes with confidence: “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). 

And a final exhortation with behavioral consequences concludes this remarkable passage on the newness of life made possible by the Holy Spirit: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another”(Galatians 5:25).

As members of the original Pentecostal Church, Orthodox Christians have every opportunity to both “live by the Spirit” and “walk by the Spirit.”