Orthodox Truth

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 

You can listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/matt11tues

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.  

Friday of the Tenth Week of St. Matthew

Listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-god-of-the-living-friday-of-the-tenth-week-of-matthew–61209515

In today’s Gospel, the Sadducees reveal their hypocrisy and spiritual bankruptcy by asking the Lord a non-question, in order to trip Him up:

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also.
Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine. – Matthew 22: 23-33

More often than not it is the Pharisees that we see twisting Scripture to advance a pathological ideology and keep power in their own hands, even if if means, ultimately, killing the God-Man. Here, however, it is the Sadducees who are playing with Scripture and making up a contrived scenario, while pretending to be serious, in order to deny the reality of life after death and thereby justify their practical atheism. Strange to say, though they are the priestly party and have charge of the Temple worship, they do not believe in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, or life after death. They are practical atheists who make a comfortable living by being in charge of a religious institution (sound familiar?). Knowing that the Lord Jesus preaches the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life, they think they can make Him look silly. Instead, He turns the tables on them, and they look silly, which is what happens when integrity confronts hypocrisy.

For our part, we have to look at the poor old Sadducees and say, “There but for the grace of God go I.” The siren song of practical atheism – living as if this life were all there is – threatens daily to hypnotize all of us, and we can always dig up a quote from some supposed authority – Bishop So-and-So, Elder So-and-So, Theologian Dr. So-and-So, etc. – to back up our own twisted reasoning based on some misunderstood fragment of Scripture or Tradition, in order to justify our lack of integrity.

How do we avoid being Sadducees and become – or stay – Christians? Let us undertake a short list:

Pray earnestly, daily, for the Lord to reveal to us the extent of our own blindness and proud self-reliance. To motivate this prayer, read chapters two, three, and four of Unseen Warfare, an essential volume for your Orthodox bookshelf which you should acquire if you do not own it already. The early chapters on the absolute necessity of giving up self-reliance and placing all of our hope in God could be re-read with profit frequently throughout the year.                                                                                                                                          

Read and re-read our recent trustworthy Orthodox writers in order to make sense of the kaleidoscopically fragmenting and re-forming ecclesiastical landscape. For example, we should read and periodically re-read the Sorrowful Epistles of St. Philaret the New Hiero-Confessor of the Russian Church Abroad – (http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/sorrow.aspx and http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/sorrow2.aspx) – and Archbishop Averky’s writings on the present church situation (see  http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/keepstep.aspx). What you will find with these men, instead of the Newspeak, obfuscation, coldness, and threats of the new Sadducees of ecclesiastical officialness, is the simplicity, clarity, and life-giving warmth of evangelical love.

Remember death daily. Today or tomorrow you will face death and God’s judgment. So live with integrity today. Speak the truth, be not afraid. The Lord loves you and desires your salvation more than you do. But you have to be loyal, and you must not lie to yourself. 

O Lord, the Truth and source of all truth, glory be to Thee! O Lord, give us the light and the strength to live in truth. Amen.

Thursday of the Tenth Week of St. Matthew

You can listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-believing-mind-thursday-of-the-tenth-week-of-matthew–50949641

In the Gospel today, we see the chief priests and Pharisees refusing to repent and, instead, hardening their hearts against the Lord:

The Lord said to the Jews which came to Him: Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet. – St.Matthew 21: 43-46

St. Theophan the Recluse remarks that the opposition to the Gospel is always irrational:

The chief priests and Pharisees perceived that the Lord was telling parables on their account, that He was opening their eyes so that they would see the truth. But what did they do with this? They thought about how to kill the Lord. If their common sense had not been distorted by their prejudice, then even if they could not believe, as the clarity of the instruction required, they would at least have carefully considered the truth of the Savior’s words. Their prejudice pushed them onto a crooked path, and they then proved to be God-killers. It has always been this way, and it is this way now. The Germans [i.e., the liberal Scripture scholars in the German universities], and our people who have become Germanized in their mentality, immediately cry out whenever they come across a miracle in the Gospels, “Not true, not true; this did not happen and could not happen, this needs to be crossed out.” Is not this the same as killing? Look through all the books of these clever men – in none of them will you find any indication as to why they think this way. Not one of them can say anything against what the Gospel truth proves, and not one cares to comprehend the arguments which sober-minded people use to convict their falseness; they only continue insisting that [what is written] could not be, and that is why they do not believe the Gospels. And you cannot do anything with them – they are ready to defy God Himself. –  Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 164-165

St. Theophan likens the blindness of the modern skeptic to the blindness of the Pharisees, and, indeed, it is the same, arising from the same cause: pride and hardness of heart. The materialist outlook, which the humanists and liberals call “rational,” is profoundly irrational, because it cannot explain the existence of mind itself, of knowledge itself. A person would only adopt such a philosophy from the primordial Luciferian urge to pretend to be god in spite of all evidence to the contrary. The offspring of the liberals, the nihilists, are at least honest to this extent: they not only admit but revel in their irrationality, and they not only admit but revel in the fact that the only possible outcome of their philosophy is total destruction.

All of us, living as we are in an “unbelieving and perverse generation,” suffer temptations to doubt, at least now and then. We have available to us excellent works of apologetics to help us overcome this on the intellectual level. But more importantly, we must immerse ourselves in the Orthodox worldview by constant reading of Scripture, of the Lives of the Saints, and other authentic Orthodox sources; by prayer; and by being present, with attention, as at many divine services in Church as possible. Our minds have to swim, as it were, in the Orthodox spiritual and mental universe, because being convinced at one point by an intellectual argument does not give us sufficient strength to stay convinced.  Our minds are naturally attracted to what they are exposed to, and our hearts follow our minds. This is simply human nature.

Such an immersion in Orthodox sources rewards us immediately with clarity of the mind and lightening of the heart. In contrast to the heavy burden of worldly thoughts and worldly subject matter,  God’s truth is the light burden that gives rest to our souls. In contrast to the mental  hell of this world’s confusion, it is Paradise before Paradise.

The next time, then, you are burdened by the world and its “news,” instead of doing something useless and destructive (like surfing to the next website in order to become more confused, helpless, and angry), open the Holy Gospel, stand in your icon corner, and start reading aloud.   Read the Life of a saint that has helped you in the past. Grab your prayer rope, take a walk, and glorify God for His beautiful creation.   We have an entire spiritual universe open to us, wider than the heavens, which no one else has. We need to show our gratitude by choosing to live in it.

16 August OS – Afterfeast of the Dormition; Feast of the Icon of the Lord “Not Made by Hands”

Listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/thy-face-o-lord-do-i-seek-hide-not-thy-face-16-august-os-the-icon-of-christ-not-made-by-hands–56627182

Today, the sixteenth of August, we honor the Holy Mandylion, the icon “Not Made by Hands.” Here is the account of the icon’s origin taken from the Prologue from Ochrid:

     At the time when our Lord preached the Good News and healed every illness and infirmity of men, there lived in the city of Edessa on the shore of the Euphrates Prince Abgar who was completely infected with leprosy. He heard of Christ, the Healer of every pain and disease and sent an artist, Ananias, to Palestine with a letter to Christ in which he begged the Lord to come to Edessa and to cure him of leprosy. In the event that the Lord was unable to come, the prince ordered Ananias to portray His likeness and to bring it to him, believing that this likeness would be able to restore his health. The Lord answered that He was unable to come, for the time of His passion was approaching. He took a towel, wiped His face and, on the towel, His All-pure face was perfectly pictured. The Lord gave this towel to Ananias with the message that the prince will be healed by it, but not entirely, and later on, He would send him a messenger who would erase the remainder of his disease. Receiving the towel, Prince Abgar kissed it and the leprosy completely fell from his body but a little of it remained on his face. Later, the Apostle Thaddaeus, preaching the Gospel, came to Abgar and secretly healed and baptized him. The prince then destroyed the idols which stood before the gates of the city and above the gates he placed the towel with the likeness of Christ attached to wood, framed in a gold frame and adorned with pearls. Also, the prince wrote beneath the icon on the gates: “O Christ God, no one will be ashamed who hopes in You.” Later, one of Abgar’s great grandsons restored idolatry and the bishop of Edessa came by night and walled up that icon over the gates. Centuries then passed. During the reign of Emperor Justinian, the Persian King Chozroes attacked Edessa and the city was in great hardship. It happened that Eulabius, the Bishop of Edessa, had a vision of the All-Holy Theotokos who revealed to him the mystery of the sealed wall and the forgotten icon. The icon was discovered and, by its power, the Persian army was defeated.

This miraculous image undoubtedly served as the model for all subsequent icons of the sacred face of the Lord. Thus our iconographic tradition is based on an accurate image that Christ Himself gave us: this is what Jesus Christ looks like. This is the face of the God-Man.

When Moses spoke with God on Mt. Sinai, he asked to see God’s glory. Here is God’s answer:

And [Moses] said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And [God] said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. – Exodus 33: 18-23

“…for there shall no man see me, and live.” “…but my face shall not be seen.”   In the Old Testament, a chosen few, such as Moses and Elias, were graced with seeing God indistinctly, His “back parts.” If they had encountered God directly, they would have been struck dead.   In the Gospel, we see a multitude of sinful men not only enabled to see God’s face, but to touch Him, to hear Him, to eat with Him and speak with Him. According to His human nature, they were even allowed to murder Him. What more can God do to show that He loves us?

Whenever our faith is weak, whenever the circumstances of life press upon us and we feel alone and helpless, whenever our spiritual life has become something theoretical and abstract, without inner warmth, without life-giving power: Let us go before the Icon of the Face of the Lord and read the Akathist to Our Lord Jesus Christ with attention.   Let us ask God Who became Incarnate for us to renew in us holy zeal and the desire to do His will.   “If you love Me,” says the Lord, “keep my commandments.” And what is the first commandment? “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.”

Christ gave us this most accurate image of His Holy Face as a lasting pledge of His love for us. May it be a means of our growing in love for Him.

Tuesday of the Tenth Week of Matthew

You can listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/living-with-integrity-tuesday-of-the-10th-week-of-matthew–61168851

In the Gospel today, Our Lord confronts the chief priests and elders with their self-serving hypocrisy:

And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority? And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him? But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet. And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell. And he said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things. – St. Matthew 21: 23-27

St. Theophan the Recluse uses this Gospel passage to describe the mindset of the truth-deniers of every age:

When the Lord asked the question about John the Baptist, the chief priests and the elders thought, “If we answer this way or that, either way is detrimental for us,” and that is why they decided it would be better to use ignorance as a cover. Their self-interest tied their tongue and did not allow them to witness to the truth. If they had loved truth more than themselves, the words would have been different, as would their works. Their interests buried the truth and would not let it reach their hearts. Their interests kept them from forming a sincere conviction, and made their hearts indifferent to the truth. This is how it always is – egotistical strivings are the primordial enemies of truth. All other enemies follow them and act by means of them. If one investigates how all delusions and heresies have arisen, it turns out that this is precisely the source of them all: In words, truth is truth; but in reality, the truth hinders us in one regard or another and must be eliminated, and a lie must be set in its place which is more favorable to us. Why, for example, are there materialists and nihilists? Because the idea of God the Creator, Provider, and Judge, together with the idea of the spirituality of the soul, hinders those people from living in grand style according to their inclinations, and so they push the idea aside. it is clear from the worthlessness of their premises that nihilists are not guided by the truth. They want everything to be just as they think it is, and every phantom that reflects their thoughts is exhibited by them as a witness to the truth. If they would sober up even a little, they would immediately see their lie. But they feel sorry for themselves, and therefore remain as they are. – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 164-165

“…egotistical strivings are the primordial enemies of truth.” In the case of both religious and secular power-mongers, this egotism takes the obvious form of the publicly flaunted pursuit of self-interest. But “egotistical strivings” are not the sole property of the rich and powerful. All people, because “…they feel sorry for themselves…” shy away from holding the mirror of truth up to their own lives. Every man has a fallen nature, and therefore every man blinds himself to the truth.   Salvation requires that man assent to the revealed truths of the Faith, receive the grace of faith, and let the light of truth enlighten his darkened mind. The world (society), the flesh (our passions), and the devil fight this every step of the way. But God’s grace is all-conquering, and a man who wills not to feel sorry for himself, who desires to know and to live by the truth at all costs, will receive grace in abundance.

Avoiding heresies and delusions, then, is not simply a matter of the mind but also of the will. Someone has to will to know the truth at all costs, no matter what it takes. Then, for that truth to be his glory instead of his shame, he has to live by it, at all costs, no matter what it takes, for to accept the truth in word but deny it by one’s life is the same – or perhaps worse – than never having accepted it at all.

The age we live in, however, in the apt expression of the late Fr. Seraphim Rose, is an age of spiritual fakery par excellence. It is literally a pandemonium, an age in which all the demons of hell have been let loose, for “he that restraineth” (i.e., the divinely anointed Orthodox emperor, and true Christian authority in general) has been removed, evil men rule the nations, and therefore, in the short run, evil seems to have free rein. Every kind of false opinion and phony “goodness” is exalted, and the hard truth of God’s Word is derided, even denounced as evil itself. To fit in, to serve one’s immediate self-interest of societal acceptance and advancement, one avoids thinking about the truth and never lets it reach the heart, or even if one does know and feel the truth, one nevertheless ties one’s tongue and does not witness to it.  The only path open to integrity, therefore, is not to fit in, to live as did Noah before the Flood, Lot in Sodom, Joseph amid the fleshpots of Egypt, and Daniel in the court of Babylon.

Obviously, one can live in this way only by faith, by prayer, and by grace.  Only a “man of divine desires,” like Daniel, can keep the truth firmly fixed in mind and heart, and live by itit, while surrounded by the enemies of truth and their witting or unwitting slaves. Only the burning love for Christ can give one the ability to keep going when everything in this world militates against the truth of the Faith.   Therefore conscious, attentive, and heartfelt prayer, done daily without fail, is not an add-on, an optional adornment of the obvious saints but not required for the salvation of us sinners.  On the contrary, it is the life preserver of every sinner drowning in the sea of life.

The next time, then, you are tempted to skip your prayers, or inattentively to rattle through them, remember that you are indeed drowning, but the Lord is holding out His hand. He is saying, “Keep fighting, pay attention to Me, and I will save you.”

Wednesday of the Eighth Week of St. Matthew

You can listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/matt8wed

In today’s reading from the Gospel, the Lord foretells His suffering and death to the Apostles: 

At that time, Jesus charged his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. – Matthew 16: 20-24

St. Theophan the Recluse, by way of commenting on this passage, addresses a specific type of temptation in our spiritual warfare, what the Fathers call the temptation from the right side, and how the Lord protects us from this kind of demonic interference by the means of enabling us to endure sorrows for the sake of our salvation: 

When the Holy Apostles confessed the Saviour to be the Son of God, He said, I must…suffer…and be killed. The work had ripened; it remained only to complete it through the death on the cross. The same thing occurs in the course of a Christian’s moral progress. While he is struggling with his passions, the enemy still hopes somehow to tempt him; but when passions have settled down and the enemy no longer has enough power to awaken them, he presents external temptations, all sorts of wrongful accusations, and, moreover, of the most sensitive kind. He tries to plant the thought: “So what did you work and struggle for? No good will come of it for you.” But when the enemy thus prepares a war from without, the Lord sends down the spirit of patience to his struggler, thereby preparing a lively readiness in his heart for all sorts of suffering and hostility before the enemy can manage to stir up trouble. As the Lord said about Himself, “I must suffer,” so spiritual strugglers also feel a sort of thirst for sorrows. And when the suffering and hostility come, they meet them with joy, and drink them in as a thirsting man drinks cooling water. – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 154-155 

Here the saint is addressing a spiritual problem common to sincere Orthodox people who are striving to obey God’s commandments and lead a pious life: during the periods of their lives when temptations from the left side arising from the lower passions – such as anger, lust, sloth, gluttony, and so forth – are quiet, and they are having some success in their struggles with these kinds of sins, the enemy of our salvation approaches with temptations from the right side, appealing to the deeper and more hidden passion of pride, which is, of course, the worst passion and foundation of all the passions. These subtle temptations take two forms:  Either to tempt one to spiritual efforts for which one has not received the specific graces from God needed for such efforts,  or to recall past sins and present shortcomings in order to lead one to lose the grace of hope and to despair of one’s salvation.  In his essay today, St. Theophan describes the latter kind, when the demons slander us in our minds and tell us to give up.   Let us speak briefly of the first kind and its remedy, which is quite simple, and then go on to the saint’s description of the second kind and the remedy that the Lord sends for our relief from these thoughts, which are so painful to a sensitive soul. 

When we conceive the idea of adding to our spiritual exercises, such as prayer and fasting, this may be an inspiration that is pleasing to God or it may be a temptation from the right side, especially if the addition is something completely new and somewhat dramatic.  The right way to approach our decision is simple:  to reveal our thought to our father confessor and get a blessing for our efforts.   With a blessing comes grace, and in consultation with our spiritual father, we will discern, after some days of experience, whether these greater efforts are truly according to the divine will or not, before making any promises to God to keep doing them.  If the spiritual father does not give a blessing, we need to obey.  The greatest spiritual efforts, if not done in obedience, are not pleasing to Our Lord, and humility is among the greatest virtues, whereas prayer and fasting are not, strictly speaking, virtues;  they are, rather, instruments in the service of virtue.   

This is the safe path for gradually adding to one’s ascetic routine.  

The other kind of temptation from the right is demonic slander, by which the demons attempt to cause us to despair of our salvation and to give up the spiritual life.   This usually takes the form of recalling our past sins of commission, especially the more shameful sins, or presenting to our minds all kinds of real or imagined sins of omission in our present situation:  “You should be doing this or that, but you are not!   You are doomed!”   

How should we deal with the memories of shameful sins from the past?  In the case of adult converts, most or all of these probably took place before our Baptism.    We need to be absolutely convinced that all sins prior to Baptism are forgiven by God through the grace of Baptism. There is simply no question of this: it is a dogma of the Orthodox Faith.  In the case of serious sins we committed after Baptism but have not confessed, we simply must run to the saving tribunal of Confession, make a completely transparent and honest confession of our sins, believe without doubting in the grace of the absolution pronounced by the priest, and carry out whatever eptimion (kanona, penance) prescribed by the spiritual father. This should set our conscience completely at rest.   

But what of sins we have already confessed, but the memory of them keeps coming back to mind and troubling us?  In the case of carnal sins related to the passion of lust, the Holy Fathers tell us to forget them completely, forcing all remembrance of them from our minds with violence and consistency.  There is no benefit whatsoever from recalling them:  these thoughts will either cause us to despair or they will attract us to commit the sin again.  We absolutely need to look ahead and forget that such things ever happened. 

In the case of the other passions, the remembrance of past sins that have been confessed and absolved is not pleasing to God if it causes us to doubt the forgiveness granted us in the Holy Mystery of Confession.  This doubting thought is usually accompanied by gloom and by the loss of hope in our salvation: it is obviously a demonic slander, a temptation from the right side.   If, however, recalling the past sin does not cause gloom but rather compunction, a sweetly painful sorrow for our sins accompanied by joy and gratitude to the Lord for His mercy to us, and if this memory spurs us on to greater efforts for our salvation, it can be beneficial.  Our Guardian Angel has, perhaps, given us the thought in order to help us repent more deeply of a sin for which we have indeed received God’s forgiveness in the Holy Mystery of Confession but have not yet repented of as thoroughly as we should; perhaps we have not yet replaced the passion with its corresponding virtue and therefore the door of the soul remains open to committing the sin again.  We should reveal all such thoughts to our spiritual father, and in the grace-filled arena of Confession, the Holy Spirit will help us to discern where these thoughts are coming from and for what purpose. 

When not slandering us with devious thoughts about our past sins of commission, the demons may be slandering us with accusations of present sins of omission:  “You should be doing X, Y, or Z, and you are not!  Look at So and So over there, who is so wonderful and prays so much and helps others, and so forth, while you are a worthless person who barely does anything for your own soul or for other people; you are doomed!”    Again, the best medicine is to reveal these thoughts in Confession, and with the unique grace that is in the Holy Mystery, the spiritual father can help discern how much more we should be doing in order to fulfill our duties to love God and our neighbor.   We need to pray for the grace of humility, to be free from vanity, and see ourselves as we really are.   A deluded picture of ourselves brings either exalted notions on the one hand or despair on the other hand, and the two false images will often alternate in order to create a confusion of soul that can become very dangerous.  An accurate picture of ourselves pleasing to God grants humility, stability of purpose, and peace of heart, and, having a mind cleared of delusion, we can, with prayer and good counsel, make prudent decisions and make do-able resolves to serve God and our neighbor.      

St. Theophan offers, finally, the conscious and joyful acceptance of the Cross as the best solution to demonic slander.   “All right, you demons, you can say all you want about me, but I am resolved to suffer all things for my salvation.   May the Lord’s will be done in me, may I receive whatever sufferings I need for the forgiveness of my sins, and may He grant me the patience to endure all things for Christ.”   The Lord will undoubtedly send or allow various sufferings for the cleansing of whatever impurities remain in our souls,  and by embracing these sufferings willingly, with gratitude, we will receive the joy that comes  from the assurance of the hope of salvation.  We will learn to drink sorrows as a refreshing spring,  as the All-Patient Lord patiently trains us to fulfill His holy, perfect, and pleasing will.   

O most gracious and long-suffering Lord, Who endured all things for us, glory to Thee for all things!  Glory be to Thee!   

Monday of the Eighth Week of St. Matthew

Listen to an audio podcast of this post here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-miracle-of-faith-monday-of-the-8th-week-of-matthew–56202397

In today’s reading from the Holy Gospel, the Lord refuses to give the leaders of the Jewish nation a “…sign from heaven,” but He instead tells them that they will receive “…the sign of the Prophet Jonas,” that is, as Jonas was in the belly of the whale for three days and came forth alive, Jesus would die, be buried in the earth, and rise from the dead on the third day.

The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven. He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed. And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. – Matthew 16: 1- 6

Now think about this. These men, no doubt the best informed people in that country, knew perfectly well that Christ had been working a great number of miracles that were both demonstrations of divine power and eminently useful and compassionate – exorcisms, healing, feeding the hungry, even raising the dead. But they still demanded that He prove Himself by something as spectacular as it was pointless, a “sign from heaven,” i.e., lightning bolts, an eclipse, shooting stars, etc. It strikes one as incredibly immature and shallow. Why would the leaders of this captive nation not rejoice that the poor and suffering of their own people, their own flesh and blood, were already receiving a truly great consolation? Why did they so oppose the one who was bringing them, both through tangible physical help and the liberating truth of His preaching, a real deliverance from oppression and sorrow?

Their hatred of Jesus sprang primarily from envy. The patristic commentaries and the services of Great Week state this over and over again. They knew deep down that Jesus was the Real Thing, while they were spiritually bankrupt phonies and power-seekers, and instead of bringing them to repentance, this knowledge filled them with envious hatred. Both parties, the Pharisees and Sadducees, had made idols out of some outward thing: the Pharisees were busily constructing a nitpicking, complicated, oppressive, and ultimately meaningless code of behavior to replace the true practice of the Mosaic Law, while the Sadducees worshipped their own authority as the priestly caste and the glories of the Temple worship over which they presided. Both parties were determined to project a false image of their supposed spiritual superiority, which gave them power over others.

The resulting emptiness of their inner life corresponded precisely to the inanity (literally “emptiness”) of this absurd cosmic fireworks show they were demanding from the God-Man to prove His credentials. Their brand of religion was all about outward show. Today we might say that it was all about marketing.

How do we prevent ourselves from falling prey to false religious leaders who maintain their authority through outward show but are actually apostate by reason of their having renounced the confession of the Orthodox Faith? It get backs to the basic question: Do I want my faith to be the Real Thing? The Real Thing requires the narrow way Christ speaks of in the Gospel. Do I want that, or do I want a reasonable facsimile thereof, a pleasant and, yes, convincing, simulacrum that offers a broad and smooth highway on which one can enjoy the sensations of a pretended spiritual, intellectual, and cultural superiority (“Orthodoxy, the Coolest Religion Ever!”) combined with worldly advantage?

Hebrews, chapter eleven, gives us a criterion of discernment. We must ask ourselves if we honestly agree to pay the price required to spend eternity among that “cloud of witnesses” of whom the Apostle writes that they

…had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. – Hebrews 11: 36-40

We must daily search our hearts and ask the Lord to enlighten our minds to see our true motivation. The bedrock, essential, and eternally efficacious miracle of our times is simply that we keep the Orthodox Faith, and that we receive the grace to stay in “dens and caves of the earth” in order not to join the great lemming rush to the Great Apostasy. The foundational miracle, the only sign we really need, is the Faith itself. Without the pure Faith, nothing – neither the following of a supposed holy elder on the right nor a fashionable academic theologian on the left, nor seeking security in the historical titles of patriarchs and synods – will save us. The Lord did not say, “When I return, will I find monasteries and cathedrals?” He did not say, “When I return, will I find elders with visions and miracles?” He said, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the Faith on the earth?”

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. – Hebrews 12: 1-2

P.S. A suggestion for spiritual reading relating to this Gospel text: “On Miracles and Signs” by Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, which you can find at http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/st-ignatius-brianchaninov-miracles-and-signs.aspx.

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Matthew 

Listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-still-small-voice-tuesday-of-the-seventh-week-of-matthew–60938565

Today’s Gospel reading recounts Herod’s wickedly killing St. John the Baptist, which ever after tormented his conscience.

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife. For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her. And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod’s birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask. And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist’s head in a charger. And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath’s sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her. And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison. And his head was brought in a charger, and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. – Matthew 14: 1-13

St. Theophan the Recluse points out that Herod jumped to the conclusion that John had been resurrected because the tyrant had an uneasy conscience:

…He could have thought of anything, yet he thought of no one but John. Who led his thoughts in that direction? His conscience. From it you cannot hide unconscionable deeds; you cannot correct its judgment with anything…There is a voice within us that we must acknowledge is not our voice. Whose is it? God’s. He Who gives us our nature, gives us this voice. If it is God’s voice, we must obey it, for creatures dare not contradict their Creator. This voice says that God exists, that we completely depend upon Him, and therefore we cannot but have a reverent fear of God. Having this fear, we must fulfill God’s will, indicated by the conscience… – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 148-149

Conscience is one of three innate attributes of the human soul which demonstrate undoubtedly that man is the creature of a personal God Who intends for man to know Him, to obey Him, and to love Him.  These attributes are conscience, the fear of God, and the thirst for God.  God placed them in human nature, but the inherited sin of Adam prevents them from performing their proper functions.   Holy Baptism awakens their natural energies, and thereafter the saving and sanctifying liturgical and moral life of the Church, if undertaken consciously, with the fear of God, develops them.  In the saints, we see them developed to the highest degree. 

Conscience speaks first: It is the voice of God telling us what is right and what is wrong. Our gnomic will, the darkened, opinionated, and unsteady will we have inherited from our First Parents because of the Fall, may choose to obey or not obey this voice. Humanistic thinking mistakenly identify this will as “free will,” but in fact this fallen will both frees and enslaves itself by turns, depending on its choice of good or evil. We must force it always to obey God and thereby recover our natural, Edenic will, which always chooses according to conscience and is thus the only truly free will.

Heeding the voice of conscience energizes man’s potential for the fear of God:  As he trains his will to obey the innate Law of right and wrong, man naturally begins to fall down before the Lawgiver in reverent awe, humbly acknowledging God’s absolute right to command and to judge him, fearing lest he should displease his Creator and desiring to offer Him the un-hypocritical worship possible only when he has a clean conscience.

Living according to conscience in holy fear, man begins to feel his thirst for God, that is, he begins to energize his potential not only to know and obey God, but to love Him, to be united to Him, to have Him dwelling within. At this point, the spiritual life properly speaking can begin, characterized by attentive, regular prayer and by the regular reception of Holy Communion for which he has actively and attentively prepared under the Church’s direction. This spiritual life in turn becomes a foretaste of Paradise, and the Christian acquires a firm hope of salvation, disposing himself to receive the grace of persevering in faith and repentance to his last breath.

Sadly, these instinctual powers – conscience, fear of God, thirst for God – planted in each man by the Creator and restored through Holy Baptism, find themselves starved, crushed, distorted, and eventually ignored in the life of of those Orthodox Christians who choose to live in such a way that conscious moral struggle, daily repentance, and attentive prayer are foreign to them.  Their way of life is indistinguishable from that of the mainstream society around them, and their Orthodoxy is purely an external identification.  This may be true even if they go to church regularly and take part in the external functions of parish life. 

Moreover, today we live in an age of unprecedented apostasy by the historical Church hierarchies, so that it is likely that only a small percentage of those identified outwardly as Orthodox Christians actually possess – ontologically, that is, and not only notionally – the true Faith, are in union with a valid hierarchy, and have access to valid Holy Mysteries.   And within that small remnant, the True Orthodox, how many of us really grasp the enormity of the situation we are facing and the radical response that this requires?   Is it not true that many of us, including those who speak freely and often about the apocalyptic character of current events, nevertheless consistently make choices that ensnare them in distraction and worries, a habit that  precludes a repentant life of conscience, fear of God, and thirst for God?  

It is this situation within the historical Church bodies that has allowed the current apocalyptic scenario to come about. The outward forces visible and invisible, the dark powers of evil that we love to blame, as real as they are, constitute in fact mere circumstances allowed by God to test us, fully in accord with His all-wise providence and His sovereign will. 

Thoughts such as these should indeed make us sober, but they should not make us sad, for God is sovereign, the Master over all things. And, what is more, He is paying attention to each of us personally, He desires our salvation infinitely more than we do, and He is waiting to give us His all-powerful help in time of need.  Let us be glad then and fear not. The duty is ours; the consequences are God’s. Let us heed the voice of conscience, live in holy fear, and desire to love God with all our hearts. He will take care of the rest.

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator. – I Peter 4: 17-19

Thursday of the Sixth Week of Matthew

You can listen to an audio podcast of this commentary at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/matt6th

In today’s Gospel reading, the Lord Jesus teaches the disciples that He permits the existence and intermingling of both the good and the evil during our earthly life, and how this relates to the Dread Judgment:

At that time, Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. – Matthew 13:36-43

St. Theophan the Recluse takes this occasion to explain the role of evil in the spiritual life of the faithful:

…Thus will be carried out the division of good and evil, light and darkness. Now is the period of time in which they are mixed. It pleased the Lord to arrange that the freedom of creatures should grow and be strengthened in good through the struggle against evil. Evil is allowed, both in connection with inward freedom and outside of a person. It does not determine anything, it only tempts. One who feels a temptation must not fall, but enter into battle. He who conquers is freed from one temptation, and advances forward and upward to find a new temptation there – and so on, until the end of his life. Oh, when will we comprehend the significance of the evil which tempts us, so that we might arrange our lives according to this understanding? The strugglers are finally crowned, and pass on to the next life, where there are neither sicknesses nor sorrows, and where they become inwardly pure like angels of God, free from the sting of tempting inclinations and thoughts. This is how the triumph of light and good is being prepared, and it will be revealed in all of its glory on the last day of the world. – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, p. 145

One of the stock arguments of atheists is the so-called problem of evil: “How can a good and all-powerful God allow evil? Either He is good but not all-powerful and therefore cannot prevent evil, or He is all-powerful but evil, since He causes or allows evil to exist.” There are several things wrong with this argument, but let us make one thing clear: Only the Christian understanding of evil allows for man’s moral freedom, for man to be a spiritual and free being capable of loving God.   No other explanation makes room for this. God does not will evil, but He allows it, so that man may choose freely to obey Him or not, and so that the existence of evil may provide the arena for man’s spiritual struggle; truly do the Fathers say that without temptations no one would be saved.  Anyone who has engaged in conscious spiritual life in an Orthodox setting understands this immediately.

Our intellects say, “Yes, now that someone has explained this to us, it is quite reasonable,” but we initially received this lofty understanding of man’s vocation through divine revelation, by grace, not by our own mental efforts. We realize that, being of divine origin, this truth is of course incomparably superior to the explanations that the fallen mind of man has created. We perceive that it gives us both peace of soul and the incentive to fight evil and to do good, and therefore not only is it intellectually satisfying but of the highest therapeutic and moral value.   Experiencing this, we ask, “Why would anyone not want to believe in the Faith?”

The answer, of course, is pride of mind, pride of will, and pride of sensuality: Fallen man wants to create his own reality, fallen man wants to disobey God’s law, and fallen man wants to indulge his passions. Even so, man has always wanted to explain evil, and therefore the finite and fallen intellect of man has constructed three basic explanations of evil: either good and evil are illusions because all distinctions are illusions, or all outcomes are determined and you have no freedom, or everything is matter, and so God, soul, mind, and will do not exist.

The Eastern religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, and their variants – say that this world is an illusion, that evil is being trapped in the illusory, material world due to some cosmic accident no one can explain, and that you need to go through various incarnations to get rid of your materiality, in order to realize that even your personal existence and the existence of a personal God are illusions (or, conversely, that you are God, which amounts to the same thing), and that once you get rid of all mental distinctions, you will be absorbed into the World Soul, totally lose your individual existence, and feel no pain. One is eerily reminded of the epitaph of the apostate Greek novelist, Nikos Kazantzakis, who claimed to have no religion at all: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”

Islam – and, to the extent that they are infected by determinism, schools of Roman Catholic and Protestant thought – say that only God’s will is operative in the universe, that He is not interested in explaining anything to us, that what constitutes good and evil is not even a question open to rational discourse, and that your job is to submit without question or thought to the great Divine Steamroller, Allah, or whatever you want to call it.   Admit His total sovereignty, do not question anything, and jump onto this cosmic juggernaut before it runs over you.   On Judgment Day, all you can do is hope for the best, because you have no idea whatsoever if you have pleased the GUI (the Great Ultimate It) or not.

Materialism says that everything we experience is an accidental concourse of material stuff, and therefore nothing means anything. Eat, drink, and be merry, or seek total power over others for the thrill of it, or commit suicide, or whatever. Since mind does not exist, who cares what good or evil are, anyway, or who could offer a meaningful definition, since what the neurons in your brain invent is an accident, and what the neurons in my brain invent is another accident, and the two do not have anything to do with each other, do they?

What all three explanations have in common, ultimately, is nihilism, “nothing-ism.”   At root, all three deny Who God is, deny who man is, and deny the love of God for man.   All three, at root, are the fruit of pride, of Satan’s rebellion against the All-Good and All-Loving God Who created him, the fruit of Satan’s choice to “reign in hell rather than to serve in heaven.”   To adopt any of these three views and really live by it is to consign oneself to hell in this life, much less the next. Yet people fall very easily into these views, and only with great difficulty, and by God’s grace, do they accept the Truth. Without the miracle of grace, humankind cannot bear too much reality.

The Orthodox Church teaches us the truth, which is that God created man out of love and for love, so that man could freely choose to love God and do His holy will.   Advancing step by step from the fear of punishment to the desire for heavenly rewards to the love of God for His own sake, and thereby attaining the freedom of divine friendship, a man becomes a “god by grace,” and in the process, far from being absorbed into the Cosmic One, and far from being the helpless pawn of an inscrutable fate, he becomes more, and more truly, himself. To accomplish this, however, we must be courageous and full of hope in God’s mercy; we must open our hearts and throw ourselves into the abyss of His love, trusting Him to catch us.   We have to look evil square in the face and bravely hope in the all-loving and all-wise God, Who cares for us, Who became a man and died for us, and Who rose from the dead, giving us the hope of an everlasting life.

Kazantzakis claimed that he had no fear because he had no hope. This is not courage but the very essence of cowardice. We can choose this way – the way of nihilism – or we can go the path of the saints.   Increasingly it becomes clear, from all that is happening around us, that there is no other choice.