Orthodox Truth

Monday of the 3rd Week of Luke

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In today’s Gospel, the Lord turns worldly reasoning upside down, and He commands His followers to do that which is above nature:

The Lord said to the Jews which came to Him: woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. – Luke 6: 24-30

St. Theophan the Recluse, in his commentary on these verses, points out that Our Lord is painting a picture of the entire Christian life as a time of exile and pilgrimage, not security and rest:

Woe to those who are rich, who are full, who laugh, and who are praised. But good shall come to those who endure every wrongful accusation, beating, robbery, or imposed hardship. This is completely opposite to what people usually think and feel! The thoughts of God are as far from human thoughts as heaven is from the earth. How else could it be? We are in exile, and it is not remarkable for those in exile to be offended and insulted. We are under a penance, and the penance consists of deprivations and labors. We are sick, and bitter medicines are most useful for the sick. The Savior Himself did not have a place to lay His head for His whole life, and He finished His life on the Cross. Why should His followers have a better lot? The spirit of Christ is the spirit of preparedness to suffer and good-naturedly bear all that is sorrowful. Comfort, conceit, splendor, and ease are all foreign to its strivings and tastes. Its path lies in the fruitless, cheerless desert. Its model is the forty-year wandering of the Israelites in the desert. Who follows this path? Anyone who sees Canaan beyond the desert, overflowing with milk and honey. During his wandering he too receives manna – however, not from the earth, but from heaven; not bodily, but spiritually. All glory is within.   – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 219-220

We all agree with the truth of this of course, but if we are honest, we admit that we do not feel the truth of it.   Think about it: When is the last time we rejoiced in spirit because someone hated us, cursed us, abused us, physically assaulted us, or stole from us?

How do we do this – rejoice in hardship, love our enemies, and so forth? How do we follow the divine charter for Christian living as found in the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in St. Luke, from which we read today? Here is a short to-do list:

One: Admit that we cannot live the Gospel. Admit that to the end of our lives we will fail. As St. Ignatius Brianchaninov says in The Arena, even the greatest saints fall short of the Gospel. It is beyond the power of human nature; it is “above nature,” as the Fathers say. We should not give in to the temptation from the right side, to be made despondent by the false accusation that we are hypocrites, an accusation usually made by someone who wants to use our weakness as an excuse to deny the truth of our Faith. When a sincere, repenting Christian fails to live up to the Gospel, this is not hypocrisy; a hypocrite is someone who habitually pretends before others to be the opposite of what he really is, not someone with high standards who tries hard but falls short. Even if we are striving, we shall still fall, at least in small ways. Grace comes always if we ask for God’s help to get up again. And remember: salvation, much less Christian perfection, is the free gift of grace.

Two: So we must pray daily with all our hearts that God forgive us for not living the Gospel, that He give us the grace to live it better, and that He give us the grace daily to admit our failure and to ask for more grace.

Three: Force ourselves to thank God when bad things happen.

Four: Pray for those who harm us, both the great and the small, but especially the small, that is, the person right in front of us.

Remember, as St. Theophan points out, that we are exiles and pilgrims in this life. We are on a journey going to our true home, and we should expect discomfort. The warm fire, fuzzy slippers, and comfy armchair are at the end of the journey, not on the road.   All of our problems arise from delusions, and all of our delusions start with the idea that we are little gods creating a nice little world here in this life.   But our true home is in the heavens; our life is hid with Christ in God. This life is an arena, a contest, a struggle, and a trial.   Our Judge awaits us, with the crown of life in His hand for those who do not give up.

It is always later than we think. Death is always at the door. This is indeed a sobering thought, but, if we live in repentance, it is also a thought that conveys ineffable consolation. The Lord is near.

Friday of the 1st Week of St. Luke

In today’s Gospel, the Lord’s own relatives and townsmen reject Him out of envy:

At that time, the people wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of Jesus’ mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way.   – Luke 4: 22-30

There is something inconsistent here: First they marvel at the Lord’s gracious words, but then they turn against Him.   First they think, “How marvelous, how beautiful, how true!” Then they think, “Wait a second: this is just some other ‘guy’ from our own town, not anyone important. Who does he think he is, anyway? He is not better than we are!” In other words, they were envious. They were so envious that they tried to murder Him.

It was envy that caused the Nazarenes to reject the Lord Jesus Christ.

It was envy that caused the high priests, Pharisees, scribes, and rulers of the people to hate Him.

It was envy that caused Judas to betray Him.

But this is not surprising, because it was envy, at the beginning of creation, which caused Satan to tempt our first parents. God had created man to take the place of the fallen angels, and they cannot rest until they destroy us.   Or, rather, they will never rest for all eternity, because the more they destroy, the more envious they become.  Their hunger grows the more it is satisfied, and they will be endlessly more and more tortured for all eternity.

In the same way, an envious person – and, sadly, such a person may be an Orthodox Christian – cannot rest until he destroys the person he envies. He is constantly thinking about him with anger: “Who does he think he is? Why does the think he is so great?   Why does he get to have such-and-such or be such-and-such?” And this hatred, this anger, this internal torture has no end. Even if he succeeds in utterly destroying the happiness of the other person, even murdering the other person: Far from having rest, he will grow even more tortured, constantly revolving in his mind how bad the other person was and justifying himself. And this torture continues after death and increases endlessly for all eternity.

Today we are all suffering from the consequences of envy.   Once the Christian nations lived under a legitimate and God-blessed hierarchy of Church, king,  aristocracy, intellectual class, merchant class, working class, peasantry, and so forth.   This hierarchy reflected the hierarchy in creation itself, in which God is the king, and the angels and saints in heaven are His ministers, and on earth all men are arranged in stations, ranks, and classes according to the divine constitution of the Church and according to age-old, organically developed and traditional laws of those nations whose laws reflect the Law of God, and according to their birth and ability. Some men are necessarily higher than others. Some cultures are higher and more beautiful than others.   There are men and cultures and traditions that are high and noble, and others that are low and ignoble.   This is reality.

For generations now, however, the formerly Christian nations have listened to the siren song of envy, and now they have handed themselves over to the power of wicked demagogues who promise “equality” and teach, “No one and nothing is better than or different from anyone or anything.” With all boundaries, all standards, all traditions, all true hierarchy abolished, we are now reduced to the law of the jungle: Power is all, and might makes right.  Darwinism, which bases all life on the power of the strong to devour the weak, is laughably bankrupt as science, but it has certainly succeeded as a maniacal religious and political ideology, for we are ruled today by a criminal class of demonized and envious predators.   This is the politics of envy: if I can destroy you, this is the only justification I need.   This is the “revolutionary justice” of Marxism, of “civil rights,” of the sexual revolution, of feminism, homosexualism, and every other -ism that overturns the Christian order of society. It is a revolt against reality itself, ultimately against God.   And – apart from a miracle of repentance by a critical mass of mankind – we are living in the final stages of it. This is the end game.

For our part, let us courageously refuse to be part of this demonic anti-hierarchy of envious pseudo-justice. The first step in refusing the politics of envy is to cleanse our own hearts of all envy of other people, the great and the small. We have no worldly control over the vast changes that are overturning normal life all around us. But we do have the kind of control that counts: We can choose to stay in the Faith, to pray, to obey the commandments, to order our households according to God’s Law as best we can, and to tell others the truth and obey our consciences in the choices that face us on a daily basis.   We do have control over our minds and wills, to turn away from evil and do good.

Let us ask ourselves, “Do I nurture envy in my heart against those who seem to prosper while I suffer? Do I wish evil to others?” And let us fall down and beg the Lord to cleanse our hearts, to give us that peace which He alone can give, which the world cannot give and the world cannot take away. Let us forgive our enemies, and like St. Stephen we will see the heavens opened and Christ standing at the right hand of God.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

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Thursday of the First Week of Luke

In the cycle of the daily readings, today we read once again the Gospel passage that we read on the Church New Year: St. Luke’s account of the Lord’s entering the synagogue at Nazareth and announcing His Messiahship by proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord.

At that time, Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? – Luke 4: 16-22

St. Theophan the Recluse points out that, unlike all the prophets before Him, the Lord Jesus Christ not only could preach about the acceptable year of the Lord, He could – and did – make it happen; He brought it with Him.

The Lord not only came “to preach the acceptable year,” but He brought it as well. Where is it? In the souls of believers. The earth will never become a Paradise under the current state of affairs; but it is and will be an arena of preparation for the heavenly life. The rudiments of heavenly life are placed in the soul, and the possibility for this lies in God’s grace – Who brought, consequently, the acceptable year for souls. He who listens to the Lord and fulfills all that is commanded by Him receives grace, and with its power enjoyes the acceptable year within himself. This truly occurs in all who sincerely believe and act according to faith. You will not fill your souls with “acceptableness” by thinking; you must act, and it will enter in on its own.   There might not be any outer peace whatever, just inner peace, yet it cannot be separated from Christ. But it always happens that as soon as inner peace is established, outer disturbances are neither bitter nor heavy. Consequently, the acceptable year is there even in this respect – it only seems like a cold winter on the outside. – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 210-211

These brief words of St. Theophan address a spiritual malaise most of us share: sluggish inactivity based on a dreamy desire for a phony paradise both without and within.   The phony external paradise we dream of is an earthly life with no problems, in which everyone is just and kind to us.   The phony internal paradise we dream of is a state of inner purity, calm, and happiness based simply on thinking and not on doing.   The heresies associated with these delusions are, respectively, chiliasm and gnosticism, and the two work together and feed each other.

As St. Theophan rightly points out, this earth will never become a paradise in the present, fallen state of affairs prior to the destruction and re-fashioning of the cosmos into a New Heaven and a New Earth.   This earthly life, rightly understood, is an arena in which we struggle for our salvation, a very short trial in which we choose to do or not do that which is acceptable to the Lord. Chiliasm – derived from the Greek word for “a thousand” – is, strictly speaking, the heresy that teaches that the thousand-year reign of Christ spoken of in the Apocalypse is a future event that will take place here on earth, in the form of an outward, global political order.  But there is also a broader application of the concept: anyone who wants “the Kingdom of God on earth” in the literal sense partakes of the chiliast spirit and the chiliast delusion.   Surely we desire for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven – the Lord Himself told us to pray for this. This takes place, prior to the end of the world, in the lives of those who do God’s will, and certainly there have been families, monasteries, parishes, whole national Churches and kingdoms in which God’s light, the light of Orthodoxy, showed forth more brilliantly than in other places: these people and communities were (and, we pray, will be) little icons of the heavenly kingdom, little foretastes of what is to come in eternity.   But there will never be a time in which Christ will reign on earth as an earthly king, either directly or through a vicar like a pope or emperor, or through a “chosen race.”

The ever-present spirit of chiliasm distracts the pious from what they have control over – struggling for their salvation – by entertaining them endlessly with the demonically orchestrated struggles of financiers, politicians, parties, races, and nations for dominance.   Today this is far truer – quantum leaps truer – than ever.   I say “quantum leaps,” because global communications technology has given worldly powers the ability to distract and delude everyone 24 hours per day in such an addictive fashion, it is a wonder there is anyone left who can think straight. Facing this state of affairs realistically, we must beg God for the grace to re-double our efforts to pray and work in a disciplined fashion, simply to pay attention to that over which we have control, and deal with it. We must remember, always: this life is short, death is certain, and judgment is eternal.   Seen in this light, promises of an earthly paradise will not entrap us in the cycle of excitement, failure, disappointment, and despair.

When one despairs over the phony, chiliast earthly paradise, then one is tempted to retreat within selfishly, give up on the moral struggle, and desire a phony, gnostic internal paradise.

Gnosticism is the idea that if you have a certain secret knowledge about “what’s really going on behind the scenes,” you are among the elect.   A gnostic does not have to be moral or receive God’s forgiveness or even try to do anything good. He just has to sit around smugly and say to himself, “I know what’s really going on, unlike all those suckers out there.” And with this he is content. We are not going to join sects and secret societies that offer such a bogus salvation, but, as with the chiliast temptation, we all have the gnostic temptation: to try to think our way to salvation instead of seeking and doing God’s holy will. We can spend endless hours on websites to “find out what is really going on” and thereby feel secure through our “knowledge.” We can turn Orthodoxy into a kind of gnosticism in which, despite the manifest reality that we are enslaved to various passions, we read books on spiritual life and, instead of being brought to repentance, we imagine that we are thinking or feeling the thoughts and feelings of the saints, or in which we read the canons and derive satisfaction from knowing that so-and-so over there is breaking them, and since we are not (or think we are not), we are the good guys. All the while, we are wasting time, skipping prayers, fasting poorly, gossiping, not supporting our parish, neglecting our family, spending money on stupid things, and looking at some kind of screen x hours per day far in excess of what is necessary.

Being “in the know” does not save. The Lord said that the truth will set us free, but this comes true only if, having learned the truth, we obey it.   “If you love Me, keep My commandments (John 14:15).” St. James says that the demons believe – and tremble (James 2:19). Not falsehood only is demonic. Accurate knowledge without repentance, without humility, without morality, without the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, is also demonic.

Therefore, with the ever-present help of the divine grace so abundant in the Church, let us make a short list of our real, daily spiritual and earthly duties, and do them, praying always.   Let us heed the admonition of our Venerable Father Herman of Alaska, and if God be with us, we cannot fail:

“For our good, for our happiness, let us at least make ourselves a vow: that from this day, from this hour, from this minute, we shall strive to love God above all and do His commandments!” – from “Little Russian Philokalia,” Vol. III, St. Herman, St. Herman Press, 1989, p. 108

Tuesday of the 1st Week of Luke

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Today’s Gospel reading is the genealogy of Our Lord according to S. Luke:

At that time: Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, Which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph, Which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge,Which was the son of Maath, which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda, Which was the son of Joanna, which was the son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zorobabel, which was the son of Salathiel, which was the son of Neri, Which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Addi, which was the son of Cosam, which was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er, Which was the son of Jose, which was the son of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, Which was the son of Simeon, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim, Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David, Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson, Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which was the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda, Which was the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor, Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala, Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech, Which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan, Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.   – Luke 3:23 – 4:1

When we get to the genealogies in Holy Scripture, either in Genesis or in the Gospels – the beginning of St. Matthew’s Gospel and here in St. Luke – we may be tempted just to skip over them, thinking, “These names are exotic and difficult, and I am not sure why they are here, anyway.” It may be difficult to derive a spiritual lesson of some sort, and we move on.   But this of course, we should not do. The Holy Spirit told the inspired writers to write down these genealogies, and the same Holy Spirit inspired the Church to appoint the genealogies in both St. Matthew and St. Luke to be read at the Divine Liturgy every year. There must be a reason.

We acquire grace through reading Holy Scripture, and especially the Gospels, whether we think we are deriving a clear meaning from them or not. When we read Scripture, we should read aloud, at a measured pace – not too fast, not too slow – and let the words sink in.   Every word of Holy Scripture is invested with infinite divine power, and the very experience of reading it will change our hearts, confirm us in faith, and bring peace to our souls.

Another thing to remember is that when we read Holy Scripture piously and reverently, especially when we do not understand what we are reading (or why it is there), we are making an act of faith in God’s wisdom, which placed these very words before us, for our salvation.   This small effort, made in Church or made in our private prayers, is an act of quiet militancy against the skeptical and materialistic views of “scientific” Biblical critics, who are always reducing God’s Word to a random product of cultural evolution. There is nothing random or evolutionary about Holy Scripture. Every word was put there at a specific point in history by a specific man specifically inspired by God, Who determined this from all eternity in infinite wisdom. Compared to the endlessly flowing, fresh and pure river of God’s wisdom, the prattling of the critics is a cup of polluted water. From which do we wish to drink?

The genealogies, by the way, do have profound theological meaning.   Here St. Luke, by taking the genealogy of the Lord back to Adam, is saying that Jesus is the new Adam, Who in his sinless but actual human nature restores man to the communion with God that he lost in Paradise. Both evangelists who record the genealogy of Jesus – Matthew and Luke – are also demonstrating that Jesus Christ really is a man like us, with human ancestors. This was necessary to counter the Docetist heresy, which taught that Christ only appeared to be human but really was not.  By showing that Christ was descended from King David, they were demonstrating that He was of the line from which the Messiah was supposed to come.  There is no end to the theology concealed in the Scriptures, even the most seemingly routine or obscure passages.

Let us resolve firmly to drink the pure water of God’s Holy Word every day!   May His Word, purer than gold and sweeter than the honeycomb, enliven us and strengthen us always!

Friday of the 13th Week of Matthew 

The reading from the Holy Gospel today is Mark 4: 1-9 

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At that time:  Jesus began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

St. Theophan the Recluse states confidently that each of us can become the good ground that bears fruit, and he tells us how to do it:  

“Behold, there went out a sower to sow.”  Since the time that this sower went out to sow, He has not ceased to sow. In the beginning He sowed personally, then through the Apostles and at last through Divine Scripture and divinely-wise teachers. To this day the word of God’s truth is being sown everywhere. Just be prepared to show yourself as good ground and you will be sown without fail.  God will raise up what has been sown. How do you make yourself into good ground? With attention and study of the Word of God, sympathy and love toward it, and readiness to immediately carry out what you learn. With such a mindset, not a single word will lie on the surface of your soul, but all will pass within. Uniting there with the elements of the spirit which are native to it, it will take root and sprout. Being nourished then—from above through spiritual inspirations, and from below through good desires and labors—it will grow into a tree, give flower and fruit. God Himself arranged everything around us this way, and this is why we cannot but be amazed at our fruitlessness. But all of this is due to our inattentiveness and carelessness. – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, p. 182 

Becoming the good ground that bears fruit is our path to salvation.   If we want to live with God forever, we have to become that good ground.   And, behold, here a saint gives us a short to-do list, in plain language, on how to do it:  “…attention and study of the Word of God, sympathy and love toward it, and readiness to immediately carry out what you learn.” 

The “Word of God” in this context means, in the strict sense, the Holy Scriptures, but in the broader sense it also includes all of the teachings of the Church found in the Holy Fathers, the decisions of the Councils, the Lives of the Saints, the approved catechisms and sermons of the saints on the the doctrines of the Church and on ascetical striving,  the inner life of prayer, and so forth – in short, everything that can be called “spiritual reading.”    We have to be attentive and studious towards spiritual reading;  we have to acquire sympathy and love towards it; we have to be prompt in carrying out what our reading teaches us and inspires us to do.   If this happens, we will become the good ground; if it does not, we won’t.  Either way, there will be eternal consequences.  

The good news is that the Holy Scriptures, and pre-eminently the Holy Gospels, are invested with divine, infinite, and self-acting power.   And, in that they illustrate the Gospel with inspired accuracy, according to the mind of the Church,  the writings of the saints and approved teachers of the Church also share in this power.  We don’t – we can’t – force ourselves to feel the power in these words; we force ourselves simply to be regular in our habit of reading and to fight vigorously against distraction, paying attention to what we are reading. The words themselves do and will act upon us, often without our knowing it.  

Perceptible spiritual feeling – the warmth of that sympathy and love for God’s Word that St. Theophan refers to – comes with time and patience, as a gift of grace and according to God’s will and perfect knowledge of what is good for us at what time.  We must be patient, and all good gifts that we need for our salvation will be given in time.  

When those precious moments occur in which we are given a genuine spiritual insight during our daily reading, we must cherish this holy thought  – think of it throughout the day and as we go to bed at night, repeating it to ourselves mentally, until the heart is drawn to the thought.  And we must ask the Lord to show us how to put it into action, with zeal according to knowledge, so that we do not act in a self-willed fashion.  He will not disappoint us.    It may be the action of prayer; it may be the action of hating a bad habit and fighting it; it may be the action of practicing an active virtue in showing love to our neighbor in a concrete way.    

The Almighty God and Lord of all is thinking about me this very moment, desiring me with all of His divine desire, and willing eagerly to give me every spiritual insight needed for my salvation.   What am I waiting for?  

Thursday of the 13th Week of Matthew 

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In today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches about the sin that cannot be forgiven:

The Lord said: Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.  – Mark 3: 28-35

What is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Since it is the sin that cannot be forgiven, we should be very eager to find out what it is and to flee it by all means.

St. Theophan the Recluse, quoting a standard Orthodox catechism of his day, relates the following answers: “Great or excessive hope in God’s grace; despair or lack of hope in God’s compassion; contradicting manifest and confirmed truth, and rejection of the Orthodox Christian Faith… (Orthodox Confession, part 3, question 38).”   – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, p. 181

Let us examine these sins one by one.

The first two ways of sinning against the Holy Spirit are related: they are the opposites of each other.   A Christian lives between hope and fear: hope in God’s mercy and fear of God’s judgment. If we lose the fear of God, we will say, “Oh, God forgives, God forgives” carelessly, assuming that anything we do will be forgiven no matter what, and we will live as if God’s judgment does not exist. This is excessive hope in His mercy, taking it for granted. This attitude is typical among certain Protestant sects as part of their teaching, but each of us can consciously or unconsciously adopt this attitude and thereby give up any efforts at repentance.   “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,” says the Scripture. We must live in Godly fear and have an intense hatred of sin, revulsion to sin. To adopt a careless attitude about one’s sins and to presume on God’s forgiveness makes forgiveness impossible, because one is not repenting. This is a form of the sin against the Holy Spirit. To combat this, we must ask God for a healthy hatred of sin, for the desire to please Him and do His holy will, and for constant remembrance of death and God’s judgment.

The opposite of this excessive hope is excessive grief over sin, as if God cannot forgive us. To fall into despair and give up all hope is spiritual suicide. This comes from intense pride, a pride so great that we believe that our sin is greater than God Himself.   We must pray daily for true humility, in order to accept completely, with all our hearts, that God alone is the source of our life, while everything that is from us, including sin, is something finite and subject to God’s sovereignty and omnipotence.  There is nothing more powerful than God’s love. There is nothing He cannot overcome. Despair is a denial of God’s love, of His omnipotence, and of His sovereignty over His creation.   It is the ultimate fruit of listening to the lies of the master accuser and liar, Satan. When dark thoughts of hopelessness assail us, we must go into action immediately with prayer, reading psalms, prostrations, and thanksgiving and praise to God.   We should chant Church hymns and psalms that we know, since singing spiritual songs is a great help against despondency. We must run to confession and carefully confess all of our sins in detail, with compunction, since often depression and despair arise from unconfessed sins.  We should also apply ourselves assiduously to productive work, and manual labor especially, which acts very powerfully to drive away despondency.

“Contradicting manifest and confirmed truth” leads ultimately to “…rejection of the Orthodox Christian Faith.” If one stubbornly rejects the teaching of the Church, one loses the saving effect of one’s baptism, even if one does not formally renounce one’s identity as an Orthodox Christian. How many times do we hear, “Oh, yes, I am Orthodox, but, you know, I think the Church is wrong about such-and-such,” or “I just cannot accept such-and-such that the Church teaches because it just does not seem right to me,” and so forth.   To deny Truth is to separate the soul from grace, to kill the soul. If one chooses to kill one’s own soul, God does not force us to be forgiven. Holy Tradition is not a cafeteria from which we choose the items we like, in order to make up our own lunch tray of tasty religious beliefs, leaving off the dishes we find unpalatable. We must wholeheartedly embrace all that the Church teaches.

Let us open our minds and hearts to the Faith. We do not have to understand everything .  We cannot understand everything.  We certainly may and should ask questions, in order to deepen our knowledge and strengthen our commitment to the Faith. But we must do this with the predisposition to be obedient and docile to the Church, to be her loving child, not her critic, accuser, and judge.

May the All-Holy Spirit, sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to lead us into all truth, open our minds and hearts to all the saving truths of our Holy Faith, give us the grace of the fear of God coupled with all-daring hope in His mercy, and guide us securely on the path of salvation, right up to our last hour.   Believing wholeheartedly, repenting humbly, and hoping in God with childlike trust, may we find Paradise. May He bring us all together to life everlasting.

Wednesday of the 13th Week of Matthew

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In today’s Gospel, we see both the Lord’s friends and His enemies stating that He is possessed.

At that time, the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils. And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. – Mark 3: 20-27

This passage reveals that during His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ had friends who were not His disciples.   They were simply His friends, the relatives and neighbors among whom He had lived during the time before His three-year mission for the salvation of the human race. Perhaps these friends were among the people who, in another place, the Evangelist records as saying, “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” or, in other words, “Is this not just another ordinary fellow like ourselves?” Their saying that “he is beside Himself” means, according to St. Theophylact, that they believed He was possessed with a demon.   Being His friends, though uncomprehending ones, they say this out of concern for His welfare. They think of Him as a victim of evil. Being His enemies, the scribes from Jerusalem say the same thing out of malice. They call Him a servant of evil.

Does not the same thing occur to us Orthodox Christians?   We have friends and relatives, both non-Orthodox and nominal Orthodox (or even those who claim to be pious!), who try to dissuade us from a Gospel mindset, an otherworldly life, because they believe that it is bad for us, something evil.   It interferes with having a “good life,” and being our friends they want us to have a “good life.”   They think that we are victims of evil. We have enemies who hate the Faith and claim that we are not mere victims but active servants of evil.   Which kind of person, one wonders, does the greater harm to us? Often, perhaps, it is our friends, because we are more inclined to listen to them.

Here is a rule of thumb you can count on: Most human beings – the overwhelming majority (99.9%?), including the overwhelming majority of baptized Orthodox – are, to a greater or lesser extent, in delusion (plani in Greek, prelest in Slavonic). Most are not seeing strange visions or doing obviously crazy things (though that sort of thing is certainly on the rise these days).  Most have garden-variety prelest; that is, they are fundamentally mistaken most of the time about what is really going on outside of them and inside of them.   This includes us. The difference between them and us (God willing there be a difference!), is that we know we are mistaken but we are working on it. We are crying out day and night, “O Lord, deliver me from delusion!”  We frequently repeat the favorite prayer of St. Gregory Palamas:  “O Lord, enlighten my darkness!” 

If we, who are Orthodox – and moreover trying to do something about our delusion – are nonetheless frequently mistaken about what is going on, what about all the other people out there? In other words, why should we listen to them?   I do not mean that they cannot teach us how to grow vegetables or drive a car or do algebra. I mean that they cannot give direction to our lives. They cannot advise us as to what it is all about. Let us not be swayed when they claim that we are out of our minds.   Of course we are, but we know the way back into our minds, and we are trying to go there.   They too are out of their minds, but they do not know the way back in, and they cannot show it to us.

O Lord, only Truth and only Way, deliver us from delusion, heal our fragmented minds and divided wills, and keep us on the straight path to Thee, Who art our only Life! Amen.

Monday of the 12th Week of Matthew

You can listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/repent-ye-and-believe-the-gospel-monday-of-the-12th-week-of-matthew–56541204

The reading from the Holy Gospel today is Mark 1: 9-15.

And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him. Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

Today we begin reading from the Gospel According to St. Mark, the shortest and most direct of the four Gospels.  (It is still the season of St. Matthew, because we are still reading from St. Matthew on Saturdays and Sundays, but during the week we have begun reading St. Mark.)

St. Mark, the disciple of St. Peter, wrote his Gospel for the Church at Rome, and the terse and concise character of this Gospel corresponds to the old Roman character: simple, direct, and to the point. Today, St. Mark briefly recounts the Lord’s baptism and temptation in the wilderness, and tells of the beginning of Christ’s preaching.  All in seven verses!

St. Mark’s brevity brings into relief a fact about all the Gospels.  They are not biographies of Jesus Christ; they simply proclaim Who He is. They contain only what we need to know, to believe, and to do in order to find salvation. We must read and hear these words (literally, physically read and hear them), make an act of faith in their truth, pray for understanding, resolve to live according to their demands, and repent for failing to do so. This must happen day after day, or we forget what a Christian is.

If we have been slack in reading the Gospel lately, this new beginning, with the shortest Gospel, at the beginning of a fast, is a good place to start again. We need to open the Gospel, stand or kneel in front of our icons, and read aloud the appointed daily passage or perhaps a whole chapter, going passage by passage or chapter by chapter, day by day. Read aloud, at a moderate pace. Struggle for attention. The Holy Spirit infuses the words of the Gospel with infinite divine power, and they are self-acting. If we read them and  struggle for attention, they will produce spiritual fruit.

Reading the Gospel itself is the first step, and the Holy Spirit will grant us understanding if we ask for it. If we desire to take another step and study the Gospels as well as read them, we should use a patristic or patristically inspired commentary. Though the commentaries of the ancient Fathers are the most complete, most of us need something shorter, and the normative short commentary is the explanation of the Gospels by St. Theophylact of Ochrid. Formerly these were available in four volumes from Chrysostom Press in House Springs, Missouri, but now they are being distributed by St. Herman Press. Here is a link to the page on the St. Herman Press site: https://www.sainthermanmonastery.com/category-s/1896.htm

The best guide to the Gospels by a recent author is the commentary by Archbishop Averky, available from Holy Trinity Monastery at http://bookstore.jordanville.org/9781942699002. Just reading a page every day from one or both of these commentaries will change us greatly for the good.

Fr. Seraphim Rose used to ask a question we should ask ourselves: “We know we are Orthodox, but are we Christians?” Of course, he did not mean that being Orthodox and being Christian are really two separate things: being Orthodox assumes being a Christian, and to be a Christian in the most accurate sense, to be in the Church, one must be Orthodox. He was using irony to make a point, that one can become fixated on discrete aspects of the Faith intended to help us live the Gospel while simultaneously disobeying the Gospel itself. If one’s mind is not immersed in the Gospel, and if one does not submit one’s will to the commandments of the Gospel, then the dogmas, canons, liturgical services, liturgical arts, domestic customs – the various manifestations of Church life – easily become idols, ends in themselves. Our understanding of them fragments, we alienate them from their true meaning and coherence in the light of the Gospel, and instead of using them as instruments for our salvation, we misunderstand and misuse them in such a way that their power – which is indeed great, whether to salvation or damnation – transforms us into Sadducees and Pharisees. Sadducees worship the liturgical cult and the clerical power structure. Pharisees worship the rules and the customs. Christians worship the Holy Trinity.

Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov writes in The Arena that God will judge us – both in the particular judgment after death and in the general judgment at the Second Coming – according to the commandments of the Gospel. This judgment determines our fate for all eternity. Let each of us hasten to make himself most intimate with this book by which he  shall be judged and daily compare to its demands the contents of that other book the Judge shall open on that Day, the book of each man’s heart. 

Wednesday of the Eleventh Week of Matthew

You can listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/matt11wed

In the Gospel today, the Lord announces to the unbelieving Jews that God rejects them, because of their unbelief and hardness of heart despite all of His mercies to them:

The Lord said, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. – Matthew 23: 29-39

St. Theophan the Recluse applies this example to our spiritual life: God gives us numerous opportunities to repent and form a firm intention to please Him, but at some point, unknown to us, there can be a final turning away from Him and the loss of His grace, if we stubbornly refuse His call:

How many mercies the Lord revealed to Jerusalem (that is, to the Jews)! And, in the end, He was still forced to say, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” It is well known to all what the consequences of this were: the Jews are homeless to this day. [This was written in the 1880’s, long before the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel.] Does not a similar thing occur with the soul? The Lord cares for the soul and teaches it in every way. An obedient soul traverses the path indicated, but a disobedient soul remains in opposition to God’s calling. However, the Lord does not abandon even this soul, and uses every means to bring it to reason. If stubbornness increases, God’s influence increases. But there is a limit to everything. A soul becomes hardened, and the Lord, seeing that there is nothing more that can be done with this soul, abandons it to its fall, and it perishes like Pharaoh. Let anyone who is beset by passions learn from this the lesson that he cannot continue indulging himself indefinitely without punishment. Is it not time to abandon those passions – not just to deny oneself occasionally, but to decisively turn away? Indeed, no one can say when he will overstep the limit. Perhaps God’s long-suffering is just about to end.   – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 170-171

Sobering words!   Some may object, however: “God’s mercy is without limits!   One can repent until death!” Of course it is absolutely true that God’s mercy is without limits, and, if a man come to his senses, and be in this life still, he can certainly repent. But note the condition: “…if a man come to his senses.” What St. Theophan is pointing out is that at some point before death a man may make a final turning away from God and never come back to his senses. God, for Whom there is no present, past, or future, and Who knows all things, withdraws His grace from such a person, knowing that he will never repent. This is what it means in Exodus when it says, “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”

We must, then, keep careful watch over the life of the soul and not take God’s long-suffering for granted. Criminal psychologists note that it is a mark of sociopaths that they have no gratitude whatsoever for the many times that others have forgiven their crimes, and they have no remorse. We can be sociopaths in regard to God, taking His mercy for granted and becoming hardened in heart.

Why does this occur?   Of course, there is the obvious explanation, that we cherish our sins and passions and do not want to give them up. But there is also another reason, that God is not real to us.  Even if we feel helpless to fight our sins, even if we feel what is, humanly speaking, an irresistible attraction to them, yet if we had a lively faith in God, and deeply desired to please Him while feeling at the same time that all of our hope is in Him and that without Him we can do nothing – then He would show His might and come to save us. Our enemies would vanish very quickly. But lively faith and the desire to please God arise from a living sense of His presence, that He is right here, close to us, that indeed He is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

How do we obtain this lively sense of His presence? We must go to Christ, our Incarnate God, a man like us in all things but sin, and pour out our hearts before Him. We must approach the mercy seat, His Cross, and throw ourselves entirely on His mercy. We must approach Him, cling to Him, and not let go until our hearts are softened, and we are set again on the path to salvation.

In his last testament to his spiritual children, the Elder Gabriel of Seven Lakes Monastery (+1915), gave very straightforward advice to those in spiritual trouble. What is remarkable is how simple are the actions that he recommends and yet what transcendent benefits he promises if one does them. I would like to reproduce this Testament in full, and I pray that those who read it will take it to heart. It is taken from pp. 234-235 of a book we should all read: The Love of God – the Life and Teachings of St. Gabriel of the Seven Lakes Monastery (St. Herman Press, 2016):

Elder Gabriel’s Testament to His Spiritual Children

            Soon, perhaps, I will die. I leave you an inheritance of great and inexhaustible riches. There is enough for everyone, only they must make profitable use of it and not doubt. Whoever is wise enough to make use of this inheritance will live without want.

One: When someone feels that he is a sinner, and can find no way out, let him shut himself alone in his cell and read the Canon and Akathist to Sweetest Jesus Christ, and his tears will be a comforting remedy for him.

Two: When someone finds himself amidst misfortunes of any kind, let him read the Supplicatory Canon to the Mother of God (“Distressed by many temptations…”), and all his misfortunes will pass without a trace, to the shame of those who assailed him.

Three: When someone needs inner illumination of soul, let him read the Seventeenth Kathisma [i.e., Psalm 118] with attention, and his inner eyes will be opened. The need to bring what is written in it to realization will follow. The need to cleanse the conscience more frequently in Confession and to communicate of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ will arise. The virtue of compassion for others will be manifest, so that we will not scorn them but rather suffer for them and pray for them. Then, the inward fear of God will appear, in which the accomplishments of the Savior will be revealed to the inner eye of the soul – how He suffered for us and loved us. Grace-filled love for Him will appear with the power of the Holy Spirit, Who instructs us in every ascetic labor, teaching us how to accomplish them and endure. In our patience, we will perceive and sense in ourselves the coming of the Kingdom of God in His power, and we will reign together with the Lord and become holy.

            This world will not appear to us the way it is depicted to us now. However, we will not judge it, since Jesus Christ will judge it. But we will see the falsehood of the world and the sin that is in it. We will see righteousness too, but only in the Savior, and we will partake of it in Him alone.  

            Falsehood! We see it and yet we do not. False is this world with all its quickly passing deceptions, for all will pass away, never to return. But Christ’s truth shall endure unto the ages of ages. Amen.

                                                      – Schema-archimandrite Gabriel

By the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.  Amen. 

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week of Matthew 

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In today’s Gospel, the Lord reproves the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, whose entire religion is a calculated method of pretense before the eyes of men, while their souls are filthy  within.   

The Lord said, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.  Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.  Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup ad platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.  Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.  – Matthew 23: 23-28 

The Lord’s great diatribe against these pretended spiritual guides of the Old Testament Church contains, first of all, a theological meaning:  The revelation of the Gospel is the true interpretation of the Old Testament, and rabbinical Judaism, of which the Pharisees of the time of Christ are the originators, is not the religion of the Old Testament;  it is, rather, a clever distortion thereof, a system of outward conduct that  fosters the most profound disorder within the soul.   St. Theophan the Recluse, however, in his commentary on this passage, explains its practical meaning for the spiritual life of the Christian.  He applies the Lord’s words to us, in order to warn us of the dangers of a purely outward religious life and to encourage us to develop the interior life of the soul:  

Cleanse the inner so the outer will be clean.  Our outward behavior in society is almost always proper – we fear the judgment of people and restrain ourselves. If we give ourselves over to vices outwardly, this is the end – it means that all shame is lost. But when one’s visible behavior is proper, the inner tenor of thoughts and feelings is not always proper.  Here complete freedom is given to pleasing oneself, which is satisfied outwardly to the degree that the eyes of men can bear it and as far as it can hide its works from human sight.  This is precisely what a whited sepulcher is.  Furthermore, inner uncleanness makes what is on the outside unclean.  Cleanse yourself inwardly, and then the exterior will become clean, and you will be entirely clean.  You will be made into a vessel that is fit for all the good uses of a householder.  One must marvel at how the inside remains neglected; after all, no one wants perdition.  Truly,  the enemy keeps such a soul in blindness – [he says] that there is no problem as long as there are no obvious sins, or he teaches the souls to put off what is important until tomorrow.  “Tomorrow we’ll work seriously on ourselves, as we ought; but now let my soul take some pleasure in passionate thoughts and dreams, if not deeds.”  Let us be on our guard that we do not grow old in such a frame of mind, lest correction become impossible for us, like teaching an old man new things.  – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, p. 170 

It is easy to compare our outward conduct to that of the clueless degenerates who now surround us and conclude that we are doing pretty well in the eyes of God.  In the midst of the present moral chaos, good old fashioned bourgeois respectability seems a miracle of divine intervention, and it probably is.   But we are called to higher things, and the Lord is not satisfied with us until we give Him our hearts.  

Years ago, I was struck by another, related passage from Theophan the Recluse, which I came across in the anthology entitled The Art of Prayer by Igumen Chariton of Valaam.  I repent of not putting it into practice vigorously and consistently, but now, as always, is the time to start.  The saint here teaches that the spiritual father should not wait until his spiritual children have shown regularity in outward prayer rules before teaching them about the interior life of the Jesus Prayer and constant inward attentiveness. Rather he should do this right away, both because the latter is more essential and because without it the former does not bear fruit. Worse, it actually hardens the soul against purity and holiness; it produces the soul of a Pharisee. Here is a section of that passage:  

Gather yourself together in the heart, and there practice secret meditation.  By this means, with the help of God’s grace, the spirit of zeal will be maintained in its true character – burning sometimes less and sometimes more brightly.  Secret meditation sets our feet on the path of inner prayer, which is the most direct road to salvation [emphasis mine].  We may leave all else and turn only to this work, and all will be well.  Conversely, if we fulfill all other duties and neglect this one task we shall bear no fruit. 

He who does not turn within and look to this spiritual task will make no progress.   It would be true to say that this task is extremely difficult, especially at the beginning, but on the other hand it is direct and fruitful in result.  A spiritual father should therefore introduce the practice of inner prayer among his spiritual children as early as possible, and confirm them in its use.  It is even possible to start them in this before any exterior observances, or together with them; in any case it is essential not to leave it until too late.  This is because the very seed of spiritual growth lies in this inner turning to God.  The Art of Prayer, 1997 ed. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, pp. 77-78

To begin is simple:  Set aside ten minutes a day to stand or kneel or sit, alone before your icons, and say the Prayer of Jesus, aloud but quietly, at a moderate pace, and struggle for attention.   As many times as your mind wanders, force it back to the words of the prayer.  Throughout the day, say the prayer mentally as much as possible.   At the end of the day, review your thoughts, words, and deeds of the day, ask God’s forgiveness for your failings, and then go to sleep saying the Jesus Prayer.  As soon as you wake up, start saying it again.   

Do not worry about how to proceed. Prayer teaches itself. If we are faithful, the Lord will give abundant grace, and He will come to dwell in our hearts.   

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, and save us.  Amen.