Orthodox Truth

21 October OS 2020 – Tuesday of the 5th Week of St. Luke, St. Hilarion the Great

In today’s Gospel, the Lord calls upon us to confess Him before men:

The Lord said to His disciples: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God. – Luke 9: 23-27

If we desire to follow Christ, we have to take up our cross – daily, as St. Luke records the Lord saying – and follow Him. Part of this daily cross is not to be ashamed of Jesus Christ and His Gospel before other people, which is actually a tall order, because we are very prone to cringing before the opinion of society – we want others to like us, or at least we want to avoid conflict with them.   But if we are to be true Christians, conflict is inevitable, for the world is at war with God.

St. Theophan the Recluse laments over the fact that no one talked about God or salvation in the fashionable Russian society of his day:

Do not be ashamed to confess the Lord Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Son of God, Who redeemed us through His death on the Cross, Who through His Resurrection and Ascension opened for us the entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. If you are ashamed, then He will be ashamed of you “…when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.” Now it ahs become fashionable in society not to talk at all about the Lord and about salvation, whereas in the beginning these precious subjects were all that people talked about. One’s talk more readily flows from the place where the heart abides. Can it really be that people’s hearts abide less with the Lord? Judging from the talk, this must be the case. Some do not know Him at all, and others are cold toward Him. Fearing encounters with such people, even those who are warm toward the Lord do not direct conversation toward Him, and the priesthood is silent. These days, discussion about the Lord and Savior and about our main concern – salvation – is excluded from the range of conversation acceptable in society. “What?” you say, “Is that really all we’re supposed to talk about? Why only about that?” It is possible to talk about anything, but it must be done in a way that is underscored by the spirit of Christ. Then it would be possible to guess whether the speaker is a Christian or pagan. Now, however, it is impossible to guess what they are, either by their talk or by their writings. Look through all the periodicals – what don’t they write about? But no one wants to make Christian conversation. Strange times! – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 231-232

In our own experience, of course, we do meet people who want to “talk religion,” but usually their ideas are so inadequate, strange, or even blasphemous that it is painful to talk with them; we feel that we are casting our pearls before swine. What to do?   I think that what is left to us is the constant struggle for prayer, so that we are ready to say a good word in season when the occasion arises.   If we always are abiding in the Lord, then the people in front of us will, as St. Theophan says, be able to discern that we are Christians, and they will respond to us accordingly. It may be that people with a genuine thirsting spirit, with the fear of God, will cross our path, and that we must be ready to respond to them. May God grant!

If in our inevitable run-ins with unbelievers and freethinkers, someone says a blatant untruth about God, about the Christian faith, we simply have to say, “That is not true.” We do not have to engage in argument, but simply confess our faith: “I believe in the Holy Trinity, in Christ, in the Orthodox Faith, and in everything the Church teaches.” If they want you to explain, and you do not feel up to the task, give them your priest’s email address or telephone number.   If they are serious, they will contact him.   When they see that you are serious, they should respect you for sticking to your guns. If they do not, their good opinion is not worth having.

It is a great thing to become a skilled apologist for Orthodoxy, which is why our St. John of Damascus online school offers a course in apologetics (go to https://orthodoxlearninggoc.com/apologetics/ and take a look!), and we have to train the next generation, especially, to be able skillfully to stand up for their Faith. But all of us – the trained apologists and the simple believers, the young and the old – all of us are expected to be courageous confessors. This takes few words but much faith, with peace of heart. The world is going its way: let it go!   We must go our way. This thought should give us peace in the midst of the turmoil and spiritual barrenness of contemporary life.

16 October OS 2020 – Thursday of the 4th Week of St. Luke, Holy Martyr Longinus the Centurion

In today’s Gospel, Herod exhibits the vain curiosity of those who want to “talk religion” but do not want to live according to the demands of truth:

At that time: Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him: and he was perplexed, because that it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead; And of some, that Elias had appeared; and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again. And Herod said, John have I beheaded: but who is this, of whom I hear such things? And he desired to see him. And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. And the people, when they knew it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing. – Luke 9: 7-11

St. Theophan the Recluse comments on the mindset of Herod:

Hearing about the works of Christ the Savior, Herod said, “John have I beheaded; but Who is this?” And he desired to see Him. He desired to see Him and sought an opportunity for this, but was not made worthy, because he sought not unto faith and salvation, but out of empty curiosity. Inquisitiveness is the tickling of the mind. Truth is not dear to inquisitiveness, but news is, especially sensational news. That is why it is not satisfied with the truth itself, but seeks something extraordinary in it. When it has contrived something extraordinary, it stops there and attracts other people to it.   – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, p. 227

There is a great difference between the desire for truth and empty curiosity. The desire for truth is a profound longing planted in the soul by God, and it is inseparable from the longing for justice, for the good, for doing God’s will: I seek the truth because knowing truth is a moral imperative, because remaining ignorant of truth is a sin, is displeasing to God, is a socio-pathological state which hurts my neighbor, is a destruction of my soul and my eternal destiny.   Knowing truth is what God made my mind for: it is pleasing to Him and enables me to love Him and love my neighbor as well as to attain my earthly purpose and my eternal happiness.

Pilate’s retort to Truth Incarnate when He stood before him – “What is truth?” (i.e., one cannot know the truth, truth is relative) – excuses the speaker from the task of being human.   Judas knew Who Christ was and betrayed Him. Pilate does not even get around to betraying Christ, because he does not even bother to find out Who He is.   Judas goes out with a bang, Pilate with a whimper – the result is the same.

Today everyone excuses his own and everyone else’s ignorance: no one is going to hell because, well, “He does not know any better.”   Everyone has forgotten that there is such a thing as culpable ignorance, the guilty ignorance chosen by the man who does not care to find the truth, or, having an inkling of the truth, does not want to follow it up.   The same person may be like Herod in today’s reading – he may actually enjoy “talking religion.” This usually entails his pontificating about things he knows very little about, concluding that all truth claims have more or less the same value, and that he has the moral and intellectual high ground because he is a relativist.   A sorry spectacle: A person who has made himself stupid on purpose in order to avoid the pain of intellectual, spiritual, and moral struggle. He prides himself on having a permanently open mind, but the problem with having an always-open mind is like that of having an always-open mouth: unless you close it on something, you will starve.

How can we flee the vain curiosity we see in Herod and attain the love of the truth we see in the saints?   Here are three steps we can take:

First: Pray earnestly for the love of the truth, for ourselves and others.   We should weep over the indifference to truth we see everywhere, for the vacuity and idiocy of 99% of contemporary thought, speech, and writing.   We need to become interior martyrs for truth, with constant suffering over the darkness of men’s minds.   We should hurt over it. We need to pray for this grace.

Second: Stop being information junkies. Remember: information is not truth; it’s just stuff. Today’s information technology has enabled an entire way of life based on distraction, which is fatal to coherent thought, much less accurate rational and intuitive philosophy and theology, and therefore our first step has to lie in radically disciplining our use of the Internet.  Look at it this way: “Alright, my work may require x amount of time on the Internet. Beyond that, I will be on it x amount of time at y time of day.   I will use it to find things I need or talk to people I need to talk to, but I will not live in it.   The real world is the visible world around me and the invisible world of the soul. I will choose to spend my time in the real world whenever possible.”     The Internet is not the real world; at best it simulates the real world, and the accuracy of the simulation is questionable. It is a tool we use, not an alternate universe to move into because we do not like the world we live in. It is understandable that Orthodox Christians who are isolated and spiritually lonely will use this powerful tool to communicate with the like-minded (and even to listen to talks like this one!), but it’s all too easy to leave a healthy and refreshing conversation or video and then, click, in less than a second you are looking at images or words that are poison for the soul. We must beware.

Third: Spend time reading books. I know that this sounds radical, perhaps even subversive, but I highly recommend it. Pick one good book of Orthodox spiritual reading and another good book about something real – serious history or literature or science, etc. – and put in x hours (or minutes…just get started!) reading them.

At one point in their lives, both Herod and Pilate had Truth Incarnate standing before them, and they could not see, because they did not care. Let us care to the point where it hurts and cry out to the Lord to enlighten our darkness.

15 October OS 2020 – Wednesday of the 4th Week of St. Luke, Holy Hieromartyr Lucian Prince of Antioch, Venerable Father Euthymios the New, Venerable Catherine of Lesna

In today’s Gospel, the disciples have a close brush with death and experience their complete dependence on the Master:

At that time: Jesus went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him. – Luke 8: 22-25

St. Theophan the Recluse takes the disciples’ experience as a reminder that we should daily and hourly remember death:

When they boarded the ship to sail to the other side of the lake, did the Apostles think that they would meet with a tempest and expose their lives to danger? Meanwhile, a tempest suddenly arose and they did not expect to remain alive. Such is the path of our life! You do not know how or from where danger will sweep in, capable of destroying us. Air, water, fire, beasts, man, a bird, a house – in a word, everything around us – could suddenly be transformed into a weapon for our death. From this comes a law: live in such a way that every minute you are ready to meet death, and fearlessly enter into its realm. This minute you are alive, but who knows whether you will be alive the next? Keep yourself according to this thought. Do everything you have to, according to the routines of your life, but in no way forget that you could immediately move to a land from which there is no return. Not remembering this will not postpone the appointed hour, and deliberately banishing this crucial change from your thoughts will not lessen the eternal meaning of what will happen after it. Commit your life and everything in it into God’s hands. Spend hour after hour with the thought that each hour is the last. From this the number of empty pleasures will decrease, while at death this deprivation will be immeasurably recompensed with a joy that has no equal among the joys of life. – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 226-227

Recall that all of our spiritual problems come from pride, which is essentially the primordial delusion that we are in charge of everything, the source of our own existence, and that somehow we can preserve ourselves indefinitely if only we are clever and powerful enough.   We forget that we have a Creator, that we are entirely contingent beings, and that without His upholding us in existence we would return immediately to the abyss of non-being from which we came. Are you 15, 45, 75, 105 years old?   Looking back to the time of your coming into being, that number of years plus nine months is all that separates you from the realm of absolute non-existence. Now put that number of years next to the 7,000+ years of the earth’s history. Put it next to the immeasurably vast aeons of the angelic universe. Put it next to eternity.   Think about it.

One mark of the spiritual poverty of contemporary Christianity is that the most fundamental spiritual exercises known to our forebears, including the unlettered ones, have become utterly foreign to us.   One of these essential practices is the constant remembrance of death.   For the Christian, this does not produce gloom and depression but rather the opposite: joy, spiritual freedom, and hope in the life to come; not, however, without sobriety regarding one’s spiritual state and constantly striving in repentance, abiding in humble self-reproach.

The constant remembrance of death, yoked with a pure conscience, opens the inexhaustible wellspring of courage, a virtue noticeably absent from Christian life today.   Everyone grows calculating and cold, holding something back; it is rare to see the childlike, self-forgetting zeal of the martyrs and ascetics of old, to see a David dancing before the Ark or a Peter impulsively setting out to walk on the water. Our fathers of old were kings, warriors, monks, scholars, artists, craftsmen, and rugged men of the wilderness and of the soil, while we have become gadget minders, money-counters, clock-punchers, paper-pushers, and screen-watchers. This cosseted artificial life creates an illusion of comfort and even immortality; we forget that only a life lived as an adventure full of risk is worth living, and that the final adventure of death awaits every man, whether he be hero or coward. We shall die nonetheless.

We cannot change our circumstances, at least not much. But we can change ourselves. Let us be warriors of the spirit, forgetting our absurd egotistical demands for guaranteed security, comfort, and entertainment, and setting out on the beautiful adventure of knights errant for Christ.   Remembering death at every moment, let us scorn the illusion of happiness promised by the usurious elite and their technocratic hirelings to their slaves, the mindless thumb-suckers and hollow men of the New Normal, and let us freely confess our Faith, practice the virtues, and rejoice in being regarded as fools by the world.   We have nothing permanent to lose, except for an eternity in hell with Satan and his angels. We have everything permanent to gain: eternal rejoicing at the victory banquet of our Mighty Warrior and Victorious King.

14 October OS 2020 – Tuesday of the 4th Week of St. Luke, Holy Martyrs Nazarius, Gervasius, and Protasius, Venerable Mother Paraskeva

In today’s Gospel, we see the holy women who accompanied the Lord in His preaching journeys ministering to Him “…of their substance.”

And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance. – Luke 8: 1-3

“…of their substance” means that the material resources they helped Christ with – time and work, food, clothing, money, etc. – were things that they themselves really needed for their families and for themselves, not surplus, not what was left over after their needs were met.   They were making real sacrifices. After they had met Christ, their priorities became radically different from before, and they put caring for Him and enabling Him to spread the Gospel over other priorities.

The Lord Jesus was of the tribe of Judah, not of the tribe of Levi, who, being the priests of the Mosaic covenant, were supported by tithes from the other tribes, which freed them to perform the complex and time-consuming duties of the Old Testament worship. Until His Baptism in the Jordan and beginning His preaching at age 30, the Lord had had to earn His living like everyone else, probably working in the family trade – recall, the people in Nazareth knew Him as “Joseph the carpenter’s son.” When He began preaching, however, He left all earthly work behind completely and dedicated Himself entirely to announcing the Gospel, the coming of the Kingdom of God. When He called His disciples, both men and women, it compelled them so powerfully that they realized that they either had to drop everything and preach the Gospel, like the Apostles, or support those who were doing so “…of their substance.” By their material sacrifice, they were enabling the spread of the Kingdom of God and would thereby inherit that Kingdom.

Today’s economy is tough on people who are honest and not buying into the corruption at the top of the “food chain” or the welfare dependency at the bottom.   The government and corporate crooks who run the rigged game of contemporary society are making sure that it will be increasingly difficult to get ahead or even tread water without prostituting yourself to something inherently evil, so that honest and God-fearing people will be tempted to despair.   In this setting, it is tempting to give up making material sacrifices for the mission of the Church, because we feel that we face an uncertain material future and therefore cannot spend on anything extra.

The reality, however, is that the Church is not the extra thing – it is the most essential thing. It has become obvious that from now on serious Christians will be increasingly marginalized in the rat race.   So, who wants to be a rat, anyway?   We may as well radicalize our priorities and life choices, and go for the crown of a pure confession and a Gospel life.   St. Paul says in Philippians 3:14: ” I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”   Let us press forward with him, through the prayers of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women who served the Lord and of all the saints.

10 October OS 2020– Friday of the 3rd Week of St. Luke, Holy Martyrs Evlampios and Evlampia, Venerable Fathers of Optina

Today, the tenth of October on the Orthodox calendar, is the feast of the Venerable Fathers of Optina, a golden chain of God-bearing elders who flourished in Optina Monastery in Russia from the early 19th century until the monastery was closed by the atheist revolutionaries in 1928.   They are saints newly revealed for the consolation and edification of the universal Church of the latter times, and by their prayers and holy teaching we can learn to travel the path of humility and the hidden life in Christ, in order to tread the extremely narrow way, difficult to discern, leading us to salvation in this period of the Church’s history, when spiritual delusion is everywhere, those who are publicized as God-bearing elders are not, and those who are genuine spiritual guides hide themselves and offer counsel with reluctance, knowing their own capacity for delusion. We are thrown back upon the expedient of reading books and leading a life of mutual counsel and support, the way of life that St. Ignaty Brianchaninov, a spiritual offspring of Optina Elder Leonid, recommends as the safe path in these latter days. In such a situation, the lives and counsels of very recent true elders is a precious treasure.

The reading from the Holy Gospel for Matins of a monastic saint, read today in those churches celebrating services for the Optina fathers, is Matthew 11: 27-30.

The Lord said to His disciples: All things are given unto Me by My Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him. Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me that I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid, in his commentary on St. Matthew, answers the question, “What is the yoke of Christ?” thus:

The yoke of Christ is humility and meekness. For he who humbles himself before all men has rest and remains untroubled; but he who is vainglorious and arrogant is ever encompassed by troubles as he does not wish to be less than anyone but is always thinking how to be esteemed more highly and how to defeat his enemies. Therefore the yoke of Christ, which is humility, is light, for it is easier for our lowly nature to be humbled than to be exalted. But all the commandments of Christ are also called a yoke, and they are light because of the reward to come, even though for a time they appear heavy. – The Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, by Blessed Theophylact (Chrysostom Press 1992)

The yoke of Christ, then, can be understood as being humility and can also be understood as being the commandments of the Gospel.   The two, of course, are intimately related: We attempt to carry out the Gospel commands, and we find that by our own power we cannot. This realization brings on a deeper understanding of ourselves – that we are dust and ashes, that all is given by God and we have nothing of ourselves – and thereby to humility. Once we give up the heavy burden of the illusion of self-sufficiency and take on ourselves the light yoke of humility, all goes well.   There will be many external trials and temptations – indeed these normally increase for those who attempt to follow the Gospel – but within we are at peace.

When reading the counsels of the Optina elders, one is struck by the constantly recurring themes of humbling oneself, giving up one’s self-will, and total reliance on God. These men had the prophetic spirit, and they knew that terrible times lay ahead for the Church.   They knew that only the most profound humility would carry the faithful through the trials that were shortly to befall. Their entire century-long ministry can be seen as a catechesis preparing an entire people for martyrdom.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the Optina fathers, a word of counsel from the Elder Nikon, a confessor for the Faith persecuted by the Bolsheviks as well as a monastic saint (he died prematurely from the sufferings of imprisonment and exile, in 1931, at the age of 43):

One must always pray that the Lord will show him the way…Let us pray to the Lord that He will save us and will come to our aid in times of sorrow and need. I see no other refuge or hope. Human solutions are vain and mistaken. When you have to endure something which is very difficult, but you know that it is not of your own will, you receive moral relief and peace of soul. May God’s will be done! May the Lord not discredit our faith and devotion to His will. Our only hope is in God. He is our firm foundation, for everything else is unsure. You absolutely do not know where it might be better, where it might be worse, or what to expect. May God’s will be done! Our work is to preserve ourselves in the faith, and to keep ourselves from every sin, and entrust everything else to God.   – Living Without Hypocrisy, Spiritual Counsels of the Holy Elders of Optina (Holy Trinity Monastery 2005)

“Our work is to preserve ourselves in the faith, and to keep ourselves from every sin, and entrust everything else to God.”

Amen.

The Lives of the Elders Moses and Joseph of Optina in English are published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery.  The Lives of all of the other Elders are available in English from St. Herman Press.  

8 October OS 2020 – Wednesday of the 3rd Week of St. Luke;  Ss. Pelagia and Taisia

Listen to a podcast of this commentary at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/lk3wed

In today’s Gospel, the Lord exhorts us to match our actions to our confession of Faith in Him:

The Lord said: And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. Now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. – Luke 6:46-7:1

If you are a sincere Orthodox Christian trying somehow to have a conscious spiritual life, these words are always hovering around you, and there is always (at least a slight) twinge of conscience.   We know we do not fulfill Our Lord’s commandments, and yet we continue to say, “Lord, Lord.”   How can we place the house of our soul more firmly on the rock of His commandments?

The first thing to remember is that we must not stop saying, “Lord, Lord,” even if we look silly doing it. We have to keep confessing our Faith in Jesus as our Lord and God. If you say, “Well, I do not want to be a hypocrite; I cannot fulfill the Lord’s commandments and therefore I give up calling Him my Lord,” you will still be a hypocrite (who is not a hypocrite?) and will have also become a coward and traitor as well.

So here we are, still crying out “Lord, Lord,” and yet imperfectly and unsteadily fulfilling His commandments. What to do? St. Theophan the Recluse, with his unerring sense of the essential, zeroes in on the problem, which is the conversion of the heart:

“Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Why do they call Him Lord, but do not do the Lord’s will – that is, why do they not acknowledge His lordship in their works? Because they only call with their tongue, and not with their heart. If their heart were to utter, “Lord, Thou art my Lord,” then complete readiness would abide therein to submit to the One Whom they confess as their Lord. But since this is not the case, their deeds do not match their tongues; whereas, deeds always match the heart. Well, what then – is there no use in calling “Lord, Lord”? No, that’s not it. But it is necessary to make the external word match the inner word, which is the feeling and disposition of the heart. Sit and reflect upon the Lord and upon yourself; what is the Lord and what are you? Think about what the Lord has done and still does for you, why you live, and how it will end. You will immediately come to the conviction that there is no other way than steadfastly to fulfill the Lord’s entire will. There is no other path for us. This conviction gives birth to a readiness to fulfill in deed what is expressed by the word “Lord.” With such readiness a need for help from above will be awakened, and from it the prayer: “Lord, Lord! Help me and give me strength to walk in Thy will.” And this call will be pleasing to the Lord.” – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, p. 221

St. Theophan here lays out a simple plan:

1. Sit for a bit and reflect on Who God is and who you are. Think about all that He has done for you: He brought you into existence; without Him you would not exist.   He became a man and died for you.
2. You will realize quickly that you depend on Him for everything, that you owe Him everything, and that you must do exactly what He wants at all times, or you will perish.
3. Cry out to Him and beg Him for help to know and to do His will.

The saint concludes, “And this call will be pleasing to the Lord.” In other words, by the very act of asking Him to help us do His will, we are already doing His will. We are acknowledging His lordship over our lives, admitting our inability to do His will, showing our utter dependence on Him, and fulfilling His commandment to pray and ask Him for that which we need. We have begun to pray from the heart, which is man’s essential function, and therefore at one stroke we have begun to do God’s will in the most essential way.

If we keep at it, then little by little our actions will match our words, because now our words will be coming from the heart and therefore our own created energies are focused on what needs to be done instead of being scattered in the pursuit of myriad inessentials, and we will simultaneously and directly be invoking the power of God, and therefore His divine and uncreated energies will accomplish what our poor strength cannot do.

Here indeed is in brief a program for the Christian life.

You can listen to an audio podcast of this commentary at https://orthodoxlearninggoc.com/scripture/bible-study-for-oct-7-20/ or at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/lk3tues

7 October OS 2020 – Tuesday of the Third Week of St. Luke; Holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus

The reading today for the Holy Gospel, according to the daily cycle, is Luke 6:37-45

The Lord said to His disciples: Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye. For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

Forgiveness and non-condemnation have been called the “easy way to salvation.” On the one hand, it seems easy, does it not? Do this one thing, and regardless of all your sins, you will find salvation.   On the other hand, we know that it is not easy, that it is perhaps the hardest thing of all.

Before we go on, let’s be clear that we are not talking about forgiving or not judging people afar off: Politicians, journalists, celebrities, and the like. Too often we rivet our attention on people unrelated to us and events beyond our control, as if ghost-like figures on a screen were more real than the person next to us.  Let us for awhile tear ourselves away from the demonically orchestrated circus of unreality, the virtual version of what used to be the public square, and look at how we respond to the people with whom we actually live.

When dealing with our relatives, fellow Church members, fellow workers, and neighbors who offend us in any way, great or small, it is essential to remember that the Lord does not command us to excuse them but to forgive them.   If we can excuse them plausibly (which is more often the case than we think), this is all to the better – it makes forgiveness much easier, when we realize that they really did not mean it, or cannot help it, and so forth. But, admittedly, there are cases when the other person, as far as any finite intelligence can discern, is just dead wrong, and only God Himself can see deeply enough into his heart to discover if in fact there is some mitigating factor. This makes it harder to forgive, but remember, we are not being asked to excuse but to forgive, and since forgiveness is the gift of grace, it is not beyond our power if God so wills, for where God so wills, the order of nature is overruled.

St. Gregory the Theologian, in his commentary on the Our Father, when speaking of the words, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” points out that we are never more like God than when we forgive. Judgment and forgiveness are both divine prerogatives; judgment God has reserved for Himself, but the power to forgive He has bestowed also upon us. Let us then act like God and forgive!

This grace of forgiveness, so conclusive a proof of the Church’s divine origin, is seen pre-eminently in the tribunal of confession, where, having accused ourselves, we receive from God neither an excuse nor a condemnation, but forgiveness. We are the servants who have been forgiven the ten thousand talents; now let us forgive our brethren the one hundred denarii.

We will never have peace in this life as long as we predicate our happiness on others’ behaving justly and rationally towards us. St. Seraphim of Sarov said that if we acquire the spirit of peace, a thousand souls around us will be saved.   Let us take him seriously and acquire the spirit of peace, through forgiveness.

6 October OS 2020 – Monday of the 3rd Week of St. Luke, Holy Apostle Thomas

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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 all 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 you were filled with unspeakable joy because someone robbed you or insulted you? See what I mean? Today I propose to address how not to be hypocrites (or at least not complete hypocrites) when we claim to believe this Gospel.

Before going on to the “how” of doing this, however, I would like to clear up one important thing: In today’s brainwashed mindset, “forgiving your enemies” has been twisted to mean being cowards who identify love with tolerating unspeakable evils, hollow men who refuse to fight for God and for what is right. This is totally false. If the people preaching (and legislating and imposing) evil and falsehood are not really enemies, then the word “enemy” has no meaning – there are no enemies. And if there are no enemies, the Lord’s command to forgive them has no meaning, which is obviously not possible. The Church in this world is the Church Militant, and that includes all of her members with all their faults, not just calm, loving elders sitting in a cave somewhere. We cannot wait until we are passionless holy saints with only pure, righteous anger, to call out the liars, perverts, and creeps who now dominate our government, media, financial system, corporate structures, and educational establishment. We have to fight them with all our strength, even at the cost of losing our temper, showing our weaknesses, and being called “haters” because we show justifiable anger at their demonic lies and their soul-destroying system of sexual perversion, worship of money, and mindless distraction masquerading as human existence.

So we have to fight these monsters, these undead zombie post-humans who are coming after us to suck the souls out of our bodies, with all our strength, and yet not hate them.   It is easy to curse the people you fight, or do the opposite and throw in the towel in order to have that warm fuzzy feeling of getting along with everybody, even while they destroy your faith, your morals, and your children’s souls. It is easy to be an angry jihadist on the one hand or to love Big Brother on the other hand – all the tension goes away and we feel good again. What is hard is to be a Christian. It is not only hard, but also embarrassing, because we never live up to our Faith. It is the only Faith designed on purpose so that one cannot live up to it, which only goes to prove that this Faith alone is of divine origin.

So 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, or today’s Gospel, which is taken from the Sermon on the Plain in St. Luke? Here is a short to-do list:

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. When people call us hypocrites, say, “Yes, you are right, I am a worthless hypocrite. But my Faith is still true, whether I live up to it or not.”

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.

Force ourselves to thank God when bad things happen.

Pray for those who harm us, both the great – like the mainstream media – and the small – like the coworker at the office who stabs us in the back.

Remember, as St. Theophan points out, that we are exiles and pilgrims in this life. We are on a pilgrimage going to our true home. One expects discomfort while on a journey. 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.

Whether that last thought is consoling or depressing is up to us.

1 October OS 2020 – Wednesday of the Second Week of St. Luke; The Protection of the Theotokos; St. Ananias, Apostle; St. Romanus the Melodist

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The reading today for the Holy Gospel, according to the daily cycle, is Luke 5:33-39.

At that time, the Pharisees came to Jesus and said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

Fasting is good, of course – the Lord does not deny that. But there is a time for fasting, and a time for not fasting. During His time on earth, the disciples did not fast, for He was with them. After His Ascension, they began to fast, to keep watch for His Second Coming. And so we still do today.

St. Theophan the Recluse derives a general lesson for us: that all good works must be practiced with discretion, and in harmony with each other:

It is unbecoming for the children of the bridechamber to fast while the bridegroom is with them, said the Lord, and thus He pronounced the law that even with virtues and spiritual endeavors everything has its place and time. And this is so crucial that an untimely and inappropriate deed loses its value, either entirely, or in part. The Lord arranged everything in visible nature with measure, weight, and number. He also wants everything in the moral realm to be decent and in order (cf. I Cor. 14:40). Inner decency consists in a joining of each virtue with all the virtues in conjunction, or a harmony of virtues, so that none stand out needlessly, but all are in accord, like voices in a choir. Outward decency gives each deed its place, time, and other connections. When all of this is properly arranged, it is like a beautiful lady dressed in beautiful clothes. Virtue which is decent both inwardly and outwardly is desirable. It is Christian good sense that makes it this way. With elders it is discernment acquired through experience and the sensible examination of the Lives of the saints in the light of the word of God. – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 215-216

How does one acquire discretion, the ability wisely to order the priorities and activities of one’s life?   Both in the specifically spiritual arena of our life – our prayers, fasting, preparing for confession and Holy Communion, Church attendance, etc. – and in our practical daily lives, we often experience that things are out of joint.   We do not know what to put first, second, and third. We start new projects or activities with enthusiasm and do not finish them.   We emphasize one aspect of life to the exclusion of others, and life becomes unbalanced. And so forth.

There are countless self-help books from secular writers about prioritizing, planning, and organizing. But what we need is deeper: the profound wisdom by which we know intuitively what to do and when to do it; to keep in mind always that which is most important; to be attentive and conscious in our daily activities and not to “go on auto-pilot.” If we are in order inwardly, whatever outward order needed will naturally arise.

The first step in acquiring discretion is the same as the first step in acquiring all spiritual gifts: We must ask for it!   Let us not fail each day to begin our day with prayer, and as part of our prayers, to ask the Lord to give us prudence, discernment, and practical wisdom to order our lives aright inwardly and outwardly. We must ask the Lord to show us the way, to give us the light of understanding His holy will, and the resolve to do His will come what may.

Another simple step is to write down our core duties, first spiritual duties and then practical ones, and ask if we are doing them.   Resolving to say 1000 Jesus Prayers on the prayer rope every day does not make sense if, so far, we have failed to say five minutes of morning prayers in the morning.   Resolving to help the poor in a faraway country does not make sense if we are not helping our relatives and our fellow parishioners. We need to make a short list of the ABC duties of our Orthodox life, resolve to fulfill them, and ask God’s help to do so.

Another simple step is to seek counsel.   There may be ways in which our life is out of balance, in which we are being imprudent, that we cannot see ourselves, but that others who love us and understand us can see. Let us not forget to seek counsel from our priest and from the one or two very trusted and close spiritual friends upon whom we can truly rely.

May Christ, the Wisdom of God, bestow upon us His divine understanding, so that our hearts will sense naturally what to do and when to do it, both inwardly and outwardly.

30 September OS 2020 – Tuesday of the 2nd Week of St. Luke; St. Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia; St. Michael, Metropolitan of Kiev

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In today’s Gospel, the Lord works an astonishing miracle – the healing of a leper – and then immediately withdraws into the wilderness for prayer:

At that time, when Jesus was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities.
And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. – Luke 5: 12-16

A wonderful thing about the four Gospels is their diversity in unity.   They are all testifying to the same reality – the coming of the God-Man into the world, His real historical presence, His miracles, His teaching, His death, resurrection, and ascension – but each Gospel has its own emphases and peculiarities. Divinely inspired, each one is yet intensely human, reflecting the peculiar gifts of soul of the real man who wrote it.   St. John’s Gospel, of course, is really different – it soars above the other three in its sublime theology and mystical content. The other three are called the Synoptic Gospels, because they see the events described with “one eye” or a “shared vision,” a “seeing together with” (synopsis); they are quite similar.   Yet each one of them has its own beauties and identifying characteristics.

St. Luke delights to record the memory of the Lord Jesus Christ at prayer, as at the end of today’s reading.   There are several places in his Gospel where he mentions the Lord’s praying, while St. Matthew and St. Mark omit this detail. The most striking instance occurs in his account of the Transfiguration: “And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering (Luke 9: 28-29).” As God, Jesus opens the eyes of Peter, James, and John to see the uncreated light of His Divinity shining through His holy Humanity. As a man, as the Man, so to speak, as the New Adam, this occurs while He is really and truly praying, praying as no man ever did before or since.

Christ really did pray while He was on earth. He prayed because He was really a man, and human beings pray. As a matter of fact, it is the pre-eminent and most important thing we do; it is what God made us for. As the New Adam, Our Lord is praying as a man, for He came not only to show us Who God really is, but He also came to show us what a human being really is. He made our First Parents to talk with Him in Paradise.   He came as a man to restore us to Paradise, so we could talk with Him forever.   What could be better than that?

The upshot of all this is that we need to take our prayer life seriously, more seriously than any other activity of our lives. How can we start or re-start our habit of daily prayer, if we have fallen off?   There are numerous good books out there: I heartily recommend the chapters on prayer in The Arena by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov and the chapters on prayer in Unseen Warfare, which St. Theophan the Recluse wrote and put in the book in place of those written by the original Roman Catholic author.   In the shadow of these spiritual giants, I make bold to offer a little story from my own experience, given below. It is especially intended for people like me, who do not pray very well, who have a hard time praying at all:

HOW DO WE ACQUIRE THE HABIT OF DAILY PRAYER?

 Prayer is the Essence of Christian Life

Prayer is the single most important activity of the Christian’s daily life, and it is also the one we neglect or resist the most. This is why:

Prayer is what God created us for; that is, He created us to be always in loving communion and communication with Him. The fundamental capacity for this prayerful communion was disabled by the sin of our first parents and it is passed on to every human being. Now, by means of Holy Baptism and the other Holy Mysteries, we receive the grace of God to acquire this saving, ongoing relationship with God. But the fallen nature is still fighting us, and the demons fight us; prayer is the last thing they want us to do. So we struggle, even to pray for a short time.

We must, however, establish a daily habit of prayer, in order to have any kind of real relationship with God. But how? I wish to present a story from my own experience, in order to explain the simple yet powerful means to acquire the daily habit of prayer:

An Instructive Story: Learning How to Pray

I will never forget the night I learned how to establish a daily habit of prayer. It seems odd that it should come only after six years of being a priest, but there you are.

My spiritual father then was an elderly and very austere Russian bishop who had the reputation for eating priests for dinner. I had decided that I needed whipping into shape and therefore asked him to take me on. Since he lived several states away, we agreed that I would write him my confessions in letters, and, after reading them, he would call me. What follows is the story of his response to my first confession.

Several troubling sins had never ceased bothering me, despite being confessed here and there to various priests. I had never actually laid them all out to a single confessor at one time and therefore thought it worth the try to tell them all to Vladika. I wrote the letter with great trepidation – I knew his scary reputation and expected a great reaming out, either for the sins themselves or for not trusting in God’s forgiveness and thus confessing anew previously confessed sins. When the phone rang that night and my wife called down, “Dear, it’s Vladika ________!” I trudged to the receiver like a condemned man to the scaffold.

His voice came on, very soft. I will not attempt to reproduce his actual speech here, only the content of what he said. Imagine a calm, grandfatherly voice with a soft Russian accent, speaking with the precision of an Oxford don.

“ Ah, is this Fr. Steven?”

“ Yes, Vladika. Bless.”

“ Fr. Steven, I have read your letter very carefully,” (He would! I thought), “and I want to teach you something.”

Teach me something? What? I thought he was calling to strip me naked, crush me, and throw the remains to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air.

“ I want to teach you how to find consolation in prayer.”

At the time, my only feeling was one of overwhelming relief. Later, I realized that it was one of the chief moments in my life. This was a man who meant business. He did not moralize, did not criticize, did not justify this and condemn that. He taught me what I needed to do in order not only not to sin, but also not even want to sin. If the Lord Jesus dwells in the heart through prayer, we are in Paradise, and we do not want to leave.

What did he teach me?

“ The Holy Fathers, and most recently the Optina Elders, teach us that the secret to consolation in prayer is regularity and the struggle for attention. How long is your evening prayer rule?”

“ A half-hour, Vladika.”

“ Too long.”

Too long! I thought, astounded. What kind of a bishop is this?

“ You wander in your thoughts and finish your rule only with difficulty. You actually omit it many evenings and go to bed without prayer. You make no progress. Is this not so?”

“ Yes, Vladika.”

“ I want you to do exactly what I say and do not deviate.”

“ Yes, Vladika.”

“ The important thing is not how many prayers you read or which prayers you read, but the amount of time that you pray every day, that you always devote this amount of time every day without fail, and that you struggle for attention. I want you to start with ten minutes – no more, no less. Set an alarm clock or timer for ten minutes, so that you do not have to look at the clock. Read the appointed evening prayers or the Psalter or an akathist. When the timer goes off, stop. While you are reading, your mind will wander, perhaps five to ten times per minute. Each time, you must force your mind back to the words of the prayers. You must do this without fail.”

“ Yes, Vladika.”

“ As time goes on, if you are regular in performing this rule, and if you struggle for attention, you will naturally gain stability in performing it, and you will gradually desire to add time to your prayer. When you desire to keep praying, keep praying as long as you wish that day, but do not yet add the time to your rule. When you feel this desire daily for several weeks, then you may add another five minutes to your rule. Once you add time, however, you must never subtract it. This is why the desire must be tested, not obeyed immediately. After awhile, your prayer time will grow, you will perceive that this prayer is a great consolation, and you will never want to give it up. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Vladika.”

That was it.

My experience before and after this great event in my life is that people who are wavering and confused in their faith are not praying regularly or properly. Their souls are confused because the light of the soul, the noetic mirror of the spiritual intellect, is darkened, and this darkness is darkness indeed. A person in this state will wander forever in the labyrinth of opinion, attraction, and emotion, never finding rest. He will eventually compromise, distort, or lose his faith, because he has no inner experience corresponding to that faith’s dogmatic and moral teachings. On the other hand, one who is praying regularly and in the right manner receives great firmness in his faith, stability of life, and inner calmness. He has a firm foundation for the activities of daily life and for the struggle for salvation.

If prayer is going right, everything is right, for prayer will let nothing go wrong.