Orthodox Truth

17 October OS 2018 – Tuesday of the 5th Week of St. Luke; Holy Prophet Hosea, Holy Monk-Martyr Andrew of Crete, Holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian of Cilicia 

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 in American life, 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.   If they are worthy people, they will respect you for sticking to your guns when they see that you are serious.

The important thing is not to be skilled apologists but 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.

11 October OS 2018 – Wednesday of the 4th Week of St. Luke; Holy Apostle Philip of the Seventy; S. Theophanes “the Branded,” Confessor

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 pit 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.

Let us ask the Lord for courage and hope, and become warriors of the spirit, forgetting our absurd egotistical demands for guaranteed security, comfort, and entertainment, and setting out on the beautiful adventure of soldiers for Christ.   Remembering death at every moment, let us scorn the illusion of happiness promised by the Luciferian global elite and their technocratic hirelings to spiritual thumb-suckers, 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 to gain: eternal rejoicing at the victory banquet of our King.

4 October OS 2018 – Wednesday of the 3rd Week of St. Luke; St. Hierotheos, Bishop of Athens 

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.

27 September OS 2018 – Wednesday of the Second Week of St. Luke; Holy Martyr Kallistratos; Holy New-Martyr Aquilina

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.

26 September OS 2018 –   St. John the Theologian

Today is the feast of the Beloved Disciple, the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. St. John is called “Theologian” because the theology of the Fourth Gospel that he authored flies far above earthly things, like the eagle that is his symbol.   Pre-eminently among the Apostles, he was given the vision of divine things, culminating in his old age with the awesome visions he saw while exiled on the isle of Patmos, which he set down in the Book of the Apocalypse.

Why did the Lord Jesus choose John as His best friend, and why did the Holy Spirit reveal to him the highest mysteries? The answer lies in St. John’s great purity of body and of soul. As well as being the Beloved Disciple, he is also the Virgin Disciple; that is, alone among the Twelve, he was a lifelong celibate. This is not to say that the married state of the other Apostles was in some way against the will of God; no, marriage is blessed, as Our Lord demonstrated at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. Marriage is precious, like silver.   But virginity is precious like gold.

We have two great needs in the Church today, for our salvation and for the salvation of the world: to raise up godly children to be stalwart and faithful married people, and to raise up godly children to enter the monastic life. We must firmly resolve to shield children from the earliest infancy from impure images, words, and music, and to keep their souls pure.

There are two excellent books that every Orthodox parent, prospective parent, grandparent, and godparent should read and put into practice: Raising Them Right, which is composed of the early chapters of The Path to Salvation by Theophan the Recluse, the chapters on infancy, childhood, and adolescence; and Orthodox Christian Parenting, a book published by Zoe Press consisting of a collection of short passages from the Fathers and from recent Orthodox writers. I encourage everyone to obtain them, read them, and provide them to those you know who are in any way involved in rearing children.

May the Savior of the world, Our Most Pure Lord, preserve us in the purity of consecrated virginity and sacramental marriage, so that our bodies and souls may be preserved unto the resurrection and eternal life.

22 September OS 2018 – Friday of the 1^st Week of St. Luke; Holy Hieromartyr Phocas 

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

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

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

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

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

It was envy that caused Judas to betray Him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

This morning (Friday) I discovered that I had written two commentaries on yesterday’s Gospel reading, both inspired by the same commentary by St. Theophan the Recluse! Here, a day later, is the second commentary: 

21 September OS 2018 – Thursday of the First Week of Luke; Apodosis (Leavetaking) of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross; Holy Apostle Codratus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

21 September OS 2018 – Thursday of the 1^st Week of St. Luke, Leavetaking of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross;  Holy Apostle Codratus of the Seventy 

 In today’s Gospel, the Lord inaugurates His public ministry in His hometown of Nazareth, announcing that the prophecies are fulfilled, and that He, the Savior, has come.

At that time, Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. – Luke 4: 16-22

 The Lord had come to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven promised by the prophets. But what kind of Kingdom is it? How can we on earth participate in it?   St. Theophan the Recluse says the following:

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

St. Theophan here presents a framework for understanding our entire situation, in a few weighty words, and his message is indeed Good News.   I would like to summarize his message point by point and apply it to our current situation:

1. The Kingdom of heaven is not a Paradise on earth.   We must resist getting involved in any utopian dreams and schemes to create heaven on earth.  The messiah who promises such a thing is the false messiah, the Antichrist.   The entire revolt against God we see reaching a climax today is based on the idea that this world must become perfect, a paradise, and that man’s efforts will bring this about.   Christ and His Church preach the opposite: The only Paradise is in the next life, and this life will always be imperfect. It is an arena of struggle, a test, not a permanent resting place.

2. In this life, the true Kingdom of God is experienced within, in the soul of the one who has Faith. This is a gift of grace and not anything man can possibly create.   Faith leads to grace, and grace establishes the Kingdom in the soul. This Kingdom of the soul, if it is real, will naturally manifest itself in family life, parish life, community life, and even national life, but this is not the same as some kind of Utopia, some kind of permanent heaven on earth. Outward results come and go, until the end of this world, but faith and grace must remain within the soul always.

3. We must act, i.e., lead the Orthodox Christian life of prayer, fasting, and charity.   The life of grace is not an ideology, not a secret knowledge for insiders, and not a mere philosophy. It is not some “ah-hah!” moment we have while reading something on the Internet. It is not Peter Pan thinking happy thoughts. It is not sitting around and feeling pseudo-spiritual feelings. The life of grace is precisely that: life.   Do what the Faith teaches, and the Kingdom of God will warm you from within.

4. Outer disturbances usually increase in proportion to the inner peace growing within, but they are felt less.   It is like living in a warm house and looking out at the bitter winter weather. The acceptable year of the Lord has been inaugurated in the soul, and it is a time of joy, regardless of outer circumstances.

Let us then resolve, with God enabling us – for we can do nothing of ourselves – to…

Be realistic about the times we live in, not getting caught up in the lies of the rapidly developing New Religion and New Order, while simultaneously…

Acting on our Faith, not just sitting around and wringing our hands: Daily prayer, worship at Church (you don’t know how much longer it will be available or even legal), keeping the holy fasts established by the Church (to keep us detached from earthly pleasures), confessing and preparing for Holy Communion, doing the good you can do, the good you have control over, for those for whom you are responsible, including speaking the truth in love to those around you, even if it seems uncomfortable, and …

Always being grateful to God and not feeling sorry for ourselves.

“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!”