Catechumen

Becoming a catechumen in the Orthodox Church is a formal process, as are most things in the church. The ceremony takes place in the threshold of entering the place where the believers stand in worship. It involves a renouncing of one's past life and obedience to the Devil, an exorcism, and an acknowledgement of the Lordship of Christ. By taking this step one is saying that he/she is serious about following the path of Christian obedience. It is a time of preparing oneself so that when the time for baptism comes one will have a better understanding of what it means, both at the moment and for the rest of one's life. One is given a new name, that of a saint.

My months as a catechumen were times of longing. It was very difficult to be present for the Divine Liturgy and not be able to participate in receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. The Divine Liturgy is, at least, a weekly event. And, when Fr. Michael was our priest it was not uncommon to celebrate it multiple times in the course of a week. I tried to be at the Liturgy as much as I could, as well as the other services of the church.

These months were filled with weekly classes in which the basics of Orthodoxy were discussed, as well as personal study of the writings of the Church Fathers. Involvement in the services of the church was expected, as was personal prayer and devotion. I found myself having to evaluate my previous understanding of basic concepts of the faith. There was much that was very familiar. And, there was much that was different. There is a great deal to have to digest: the church calendar, fasting, behavior during the services, the diversity within the services, and the protocols of being within a hierarchical church.

It was customary in the early years of the church to baptize catechumens on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday. As it turned out, that was to be the day of my baptism. We had some discussion early on as to whether or not I should be baptized. I had been baptized by immersion when I was in high school in a Baptist church. Our priest was very emphatic that three fold immersion, "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" was the proper way. I knew that I had only been put under the water one time, so it was determined that I would be baptized in the Orthodox manner.

It is easy to get caught up in the actions, and the concepts of a new type of faith. What cannot be lost is a living, breathing devotion and growing love for the true God. As I read the Church Fathers in conjunction with the Bible, I began to see that my concept of God was so very small. The Orthodox Church has such a greater appreciation of the greatness of God. The fathers say He is "uncircumscribed". I like that. And, as I studied, and as I prayed I found that God, or rather my understanding of what I don't know about Him, began to grow.

On this anniversary of the day that I first saw a Divine Liturgy, may God, through the prayers of Cosmas and Damian and all the saints, bless and bring us closer to His kingdom.

Sinatra and Woodstock: Youth and Old Age

It is a common thing to be amused at the sight of older people "acting" like younger people. As a youngster, seeing on television a group of blue haired ladies swooning over a very grey haired Frank Sinatra was a thing of amusement. And, the drama continues: forty years after Woodstock we have pudgy hippies getting misty eyed in the presence of the poets and minstrels who remain from that generation. I was amused at this behavior when I was a kid, my kids are amused at people of my generation who try to "act" like them. But, the fact is this: I can hear a song from the 1960's or 1970's and smell the interior of my 1968 Torino, or remember the feel of a particular day long ago, or be reminded of a person or an event. These memories of youth, evoked by a song, have a way of transporting one back to a far away moment. And, if one is dishonest to the self, one is once again young, healthy, and free from the baggage of growing old. The same can be said for the Christian experiences of my youth. It's easy to be transported by a Larry Norman song, to feel the warmth of a Son House worship service, or revisit the excitement of Friday night evangelism in the parking lot of the McDonald's. So, it is easy to understand (with time) why we are drawn by singers and songs back to earlier (perhaps simpler) times. Nostalgia reigns. Nostalgia deceives. Nostalgia distracts.

The truth is that the oldster cannot and should not go back. Youth is not a thing to long for. Wisdom comes with age. Would I trade my thimble of wisdom for the youth of my children? The answer is a resounding "no". Having their youth could not guarantee that I would find my way (or be drawn) to Holy Mother Church. It has taken my lifetime of faith, lack of faith, pain, joy, failure, distractions, steps and missteps to get to the lowest rung of the ladder that leads to the Eternal City of the King. It is better to let the past go. It is more profitable to look toward the eternal future, acknowledging that it will bear little resemblance to what I have become all too comfortable with in my earthly sojourn.

To the young people I say: your laughter at the old folks "acting" like you is a denial of your own mortality. If you live long enough you will be them. If you don't change your ways you may emulate them. Youth is an illusion. Some of the Fathers caution us not to be too attracted to youth. Men are reminded not to let their eyes rest too long on the young female forms that they pass on the street. After all, we are told, in a few short years those forms will be lying in the grave, unattractive, repulsive, fleshless bones covered with worms.

You don't have time to revel in your youth. You don't have time for the distractions that this world offers. You don't have time to put off till tomorrow the preparation for your eternal reward. You were made to walk in the Garden in the cool of the day with your Creator. Even in youth, you don't have enough time to prepare adequately. For this reason, we should all be thankful for God's grace and God's mercy.

So, when you hear that singer, whether it is Sinatra, McCartney, Bono, or whoever is popular today: let the voice pass in one ear and out the other. Take as little time as you can to savor it (if you must), and then dismiss it. Don't let it transport you anywhere for very long. Dwell on the heavenly things, and strive to be more ready each day for the angelic hand that will most certainly lead you before the One who made you and loves you more than you can possibly know.

Theologians are Scarce

There is no end to the number of books about Christian spiritually. As the expense of printing books lessened the number of books expanded. Now, with the internet, one doesn't even need pen and ink to write, and to reach a global audience. As a result, it is important to understand that one cannot blindly accept what one reads, even if it comes from some sort of "expert".

The Orthodox Church has been guarding itself against the so-called experts since the beginning: from the first discussions among the disciples, to the Jerusalem Council, to the great Ecumenical Councils, right back to the local parish priest who must discern what is being said and done among his own flock.

To those of us who have grown up with a western, scholastic model of learning the ways of the East are quite foreign. In the Orthodox Church, only three men have been given the title of "Theologian": the apostle John, the great cappadocian father Gregory of Nazianzus, and Symeon the New. These men exposed to the world what the Orthodox construe as true theology: knowing God (as compared to knowing about God).

Symeon was born around 949, as a young man worked in the imperial court in Constantinople, before turning completely to the spiritual life. Like many before him, he experienced the illumination of God in a brilliant light that encompassed him one night as he was praying. This illumination has been compared to the brilliance that shown on Moses' face when he descended with the Ten Commandments. This illumination is not at all foreign to those in the Orthodox tradition, and there are numerous examples of its occurance among those who live a virtuous life and who are devoted to prayer.

Symeon got himself in trouble with the local church authorities when he stated that only those who had received divine illumination should be speaking on divine things. Later, as people looked at his life, and at the things that he wrote he was given the title of "Theologian". Shortsightedness was overcome with illumination, time and context.

What all three of these Theologians had in common was extreme piety, direct experience of God (think of John's vision as recorded as the Book of the Revelation), and actions that matched their words. We would all do well to aspire to emulate their lives, and read what they wrote.

If we did we might shy away from the "vain speculations" that we are warned about in the New Testament. A case in point is trying to synthesize the so-called "higher criticism" of the Bible with the teachings of the Church. For example, the critics say that the Books of Moses in the Old Testament were written by four sources that they call J,E,P,D. The critics of the New Testament say that the synoptic gospels were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, but rather, they used a source called "Q" (of which there is not one shred of physical evidence among all of the thousands of pieces of the scriptures from the first few centuries) along with other sources.

My opinion is that if Jesus said that Moses wrote the Law, who are we to question Him ? Do we know more than the God-Man who we believed died so that we might live? Concerning the New Testament, it is no coincidence that we have written testimony of people like Clement and Ignatius who knew the gospel writers personally, and who testify to their authenticity. For my money, I will accept the testimony of first hand sources who were known as virtuous, Godly men before I will accept the testimony of theologians who write 2000 years after the fact, and who do not share any of the presuppositions that we do as Orthodox Christians.

Be economical with your time. Pray, read the scriptures and the great Fathers of the Church. Don't dwell on things that don't matter.

Pentecost

The  Orthodox Church keeps the remembrance of God ever before our eyes in a series of remembrances and commemorations.  They are participated in privately or corporately,  and are of a daily, weekly, or annual nature.

This Sunday is the commemoration of Pentecost in the Orthodox Church, the day that the Holy Spirit descended upon the Church as recorded in the second chapter of the Book of Acts.

Most icons of Pentecost show the apostles sitting, typically in a semicircle, which represents the unity of the Church.  At the top is another semicircle.  These  "tongues of fire"  represent the Holy Spirit  descending upon the individual members of the Church.  Christ, the invisible head of the Church, is represented by the vacant spot in the center of the apostles.  Unlike  Ascension icons, the apostles are sitting in an orderly manner.  This is representative of how their previous confusion has been replaced with the inner life of grace.  Like other icons, this one depicts events that transcend time and space:  Paul is shown, as well as the four evangelists who are holding their Gospels.  At the bottom is a stooped figure,  a representation of the whole world  once in darkness, but now lit by the light of apostolic teaching.

The great Serbian archimandrite and doctor of theology, Justin Popovich,  writes:

"The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, tells us all the truth there is about Him, about God in Him and man in Him and all that is given us through Him. All this immeasurably transcends everything that the human eye has ever seen, the ear has ever heard, or has ever entered into the heart of man.

On the holy Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended from heaven into the theanthropic Body of the Church and remains eternally in it as its life giving Soul.  This the day of the Holy Spirit, which began on the  holy Day of Pentecost, is ever present in the Church in the inexpressible fullness of all the divine gifts and life giving powers.  Everything in  the Church comes about through the Holy Spirit from the least to the greatest.  

When the priest blesses the censer before censing, he prays to the Lord Christ to  'send down the grace of the Holy Spirit'.   The clearest testimony that the entire life of the Church comes from the Holy Spirit is at the consecration of a bishop when God's indescribable miracle, holy Pentecost, is repeated and the fullness of grace is given.

In fact, every holy mystery and holy virtue is a little Pentecost; in them the Holy Spirit descends upon us, into us." 

There is no Church without Pentecost.  There are no Christians without Pentecost.  There is no true worship without Pentecost.  There is no Pentecost without the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Glory to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!

The Mother of.... Who?

The one thing that most protestants have trouble with when they walk into an Orthodox Church has to be Mary.  It doesn't help when one sees a huge icon of her with arms outstretched above the altar area, with a smaller figure of Jesus either in her lap or appearing to be peering  out from within her womb.   The general consensus is that we Orthodox worship Mary, especially when we have such large icons of her, and since we actually call her the "Mother of God".  I'll admit that I had my reservations about Mary.  But, the reservations went away as I came to understand what is meant by the large icon over the altar, the title Theotokos, or Mother of God, or the God Bearer, or any of the other things that are associated with Mary in the Church.

Mary is viewed as the preeminent Christian.  She was the one person in the history of the world who was deemed worthy to carry within her womb the second Person of the Trinity.  In the Old Testament the primary place of God's habitation  was the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple.  The high priest entered the Holy of Holies once per year on the Day of Atonement with a rope tied to his leg.  If he was deemed to be unworthy his fellow priests would drag his dead body out of the sanctuary.  How much more holy is the space that holds God Himself for nine months?  That is why we often sing:

Greater in honor than the Cherubim, and greater beyond compare than the Seraphim

You without corruption gave birth to God the Word

and are truly Theotokos, you do we magnify.

During the early years of the church many false ideas arose concerning the nature of Christ.  Some said that He was man who became God, some said he was part God, and part man.  When the Church Fathers in their wisdom, and in ecumenical council gave Mary the title Theotokos, the One Who Bore God, or loosely translated "Mother of God" this was more about who Jesus was than who Mary was.  It was a declaration that Christ was fully God and fully man.  

We sing during St. Basil's Liturgy:

In you, O full of grace,  all of creation rejoices, the angelic hosts, and the race of men.

O hallowed temple and supersensual paradise, glory of Virgins,

of whom God was incarnate and became a little child,

even our God who is before all the ages,

for He made your womb a throne, and your body more spacious than the heavens.

In you rejoices, O full of grace, all creation, glory to you.

Or,

O holy tabernacle,

when Gabriel cried out to you:

Rejoice, O Virgin, full of grace,

the Lord of all became incarnate of you,

as the righteous David had foretold.

In bearing your Creator

you have shown yourself

to surpass the vastness of the heavens.

We, therefore, cry out:

Glory to Him who dwelt in you!

Glory to Him who came forth from you!

Glory to Him who has set us free

through your life giving birth!

Mary bore God Himself, the God who would live as a man and die on the cross for our sins.     So, when one walks into the church and sees the huge icon of Mary over the altar with Christ in front of her it is an acknowledgement and a reminder to all  that Christ is God, and Christ is Man, and that He came into the world within and through the body of a virgin.  

And so we sing:

You are supremely blessed, O Virgin Theotokos. 

 For thru Him who from you became incarnate, was Hades taken prisoner,

 and Adam has been summoned back, 

and the curse has been neutralized, 

and Eve has been liberated;

death has been put to death, and we have been brought to life.  

Therefore extolling we cry out: 

O Christ our God, You are blessed, for so was Your good please. Glory to You. 

Or:

In very generation we pronounce you blessed, the only Theotokos.  

In you the laws of nature are defeated, O undefiled Virgin pure.  

In virginity childbirth was accomplished and death introduces life.  

You after bearing are virgin, and after dying are living. 

Because she was deemed worthy to bear the God Man, because she lived a virtuous life as a witness of her Son, it is obvious that she would be respected and help us as the greatest example of Christian obedience.  Christians believe that we should ask each other to pray for our needs.  The Orthodox Church teaches that we should ask the living and the departed, and especially those who are considered righteous (as the Bible says "the prayers of a righteous man accomplish much").  This first among all Christians receives a great many prayer request.  Mary prompted Jesus to perform his first public miracle, turning water to wine at the wedding at Cana.    Those who pray to her hope that she can encourage her Son to perform other miracles.

And so we sing:

Amazed was the  universe by your divine magnificence 

For while never consumating  wedlock you held, O Virgin 

the God of all in your womb and gave birth unto a timeless Son 

Who awards salvation to all who chant  hymns of praise to you.  

Let us possessed of a godly mind observing this divine and all venerable feast 

in honor of the Theotokos come clap our  hands while glorifying God who was truly born of her.

Or,

All you born on earth with festival lamps in hand  in spirit leap for joy 

heavenly intelligences of incorporeal Angels celebrate and honor 

thus the sacred feast of the Mother of God crying loudly 

O rejoice all blessed one ever virgin and pure who gave birth to God.

Don't let your preconceived notions get in the way of understanding what the Church teaches about Mary.  Attend a service.  Ask a priest.  Have your misconceptions cleared up.

"The Virgin Spring" and other thoughts

People at times express amazement that I am a fan of Ingmar Bergman's films.  After all, he finished his life as an avowed atheist,  in his films he is very uncharitable in his portrayals of clerics and those involved in institutional religion, and he tends to be very cynical in his outlook on life in general.  All of these things are true, and there is no dispute on my part about them.  

What appeals to me is that he, at least, is willing to take on some of the hard questions of life, including the spiritual ones.  His movies were not made so much to entertain us as they are to challenge us to think about who we are, why we are here, and what we can do about our relationships with those around us.   He admits that life is a struggle.  Although we are beginning to have a greater sense of this in my country at the present time, the fact is that my generation (as a whole) has not had to struggle all that much in a material sense.  And, because we have lived a relatively comfortable life (as a whole) it has been easy to not struggle with the important things: our relationship with God, and how that relationship works itself out with those around us who are also made in His image.  

Even though many of my generation have gone through the motions of Christian spirituality, we have done it on our own terms.  We have tried to reinvent what it means to be a Christian.  We have tried to reinvent what a life of prayer is.  We have tried to reinvent worship.   We have tried to reinvent the  defining characteristics of  Christianity.  We have made our own golden calf.

I always saw myself as one who was trying to live a Christ-like life.  But, as I have been exposed to the lives of those truly Godly people who the Orthodox Church calls "saints", as I have read the lives and testimonies of the martyrs and monastics who have either a) sacrificed their lives because of their testimony for Christ or b) who are dying daily to self by being committed to a life of prayer cloistered away from the world, I have come to realize that I have fallen far short.  

The standard by which we judge ourselves can be deceiving.  We need to measure ourselves against the life of Christ, and against those who have gone before us who have emulated His life through the workings of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and through the gifts of grace that have permeated them.  And, we need to realize that we will all continue to fail, but we need to get up, to turn from what has caused us to fall, to be honest before God, and  to turn back to Him in humility as we accept His mercy for granting us another breath that we can praise Him with.

The other night I sat with my son as he had his introduction to Bergman's films.   We watched  "The Virgin Spring".   It is set in a pagan world that is just beginning to embrace Christianity.  Max Von Sydow's character has forsaken his Norse gods to follow the Christian God of his wife.   A crisis of the greatest sort challenges that new faith, as well as the faith of those around him.   I won't give the story away,  but I will say that people are forced to face their most internal sins and doubts.  Von Sydow's character expresses one of the most honest prayers I have ever heard in a movie, and that prayer is honored in a miraculous way. 

We all need to embrace the struggle with our spiritual lives.  We all need to realize that we fall much shorter than we care to admit.  We all need to realize that God's love and mercy is far greater than we can possibly understand.  We need to realize that the easier we have it (or make it) the harder it is for us to even want to be on the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal glory.   We can be comforted that there is a great "cloud of witnesses"  who intercede for us, and cheer us on as we struggle to follow the Shepherd who walked before us.

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, have  mercy on us, and save us, O Lord.

A Gift from the Metropolitan

This past Sunday I had the opportunity of being in the presence of Metropolitan Nicholas of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church.  The occasion was the ordination of Deacon Maximos to the priesthood.  The service was special for many reasons.  The Metropolitan gave a very thoughtful message that I am sure Fr. Maximos will never forget.  Afterwards, we all retired downstairs to enjoy a communal meal.

Of course, the Metropolitan had the place of honor. In front of him was a beautiful arrangement of spring flowers.  Early on in the meal, some of the children of the church presented him with a  bouquet of long stemmed red roses. He immediately  began to take the bouquet apart and began the process of distributing individual roses to the ladies in the room.  He then passed off this action to Fr. Nectarios, who continued to distribute the flowers  until they were all gone.  It was a wonderful object lesson in what to do with our gifts.

After the meal, when people were leaving, we took the opportunity to approach him to ask for his blessing.  The first thing that he did was reach into the arrangement in front of him and pull out some of the spring flowers which he made into a little bouquet and handed to me.  Then, he commented that he  had noticed us during the liturgy because  he had not seen us there during his previous visits.   Other words passed between us, and we left with his blessing.

In each Orthodox church there is a chair that sits in the nave, near the iconostasis.  It is the bishop's chair.  It is symbolic of the fact that, although the priest has care of the congregation,  this is the bishop's congregation.  Because of the number of churches under his authority, it is difficult to get to each one more than once every couple of years, unless there is some special event going on there.  But, the bishop must keep in regular contact with his priests.  He must encourage them, feed them, pray for them, and do all that will insure the continued growth and health of the faithful in their care.  Like St. Paul, he must encourage those Tituses and Timothys  who look to him.

Hierarch Nicholas' reputation had proceeded him that day.  I had heard many good things about him.  I had been told that he does tend for his flock following the example of his good shepherd.  In our brief time with him on Sunday I was encouraged by his presence, his humor, his concern, his example,  his blessing, and his gift to me of spring flowers.   

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, may  God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit grant him many more years of service.