Orthodox Truth

16 August OS 2018 – Wednesday of the 14th Week of Matthew;  Afterfeast of the Dormition; Feast of the Icon of the Lord “Not Made by Hands”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11 August OS 2018 – Friday of the 13th week of Matthew; Dormition Fast; S. Euplus, Deacon and Martyr; S. Nephon of Constantinople, Patriarch

In the Gospel today, the Lord illustrates the several types of soul who fall away and the one type that endures, by means of the Parable of the Sower:

At that time, Jesus began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. – Mark 4:1-9 

St. Theophan the Recluse tells us very simply how to be the good ground that yields spiritual fruit:

…How do you make yourself into the good ground? With attention and study of the word of God, sympathy and love toward it, and readiness to immediately carry out what you learn. With such a mind-set, not a single word will lie on the surface of your soul, but all will enter within. Uniting with the elements of the spirit which are dear to it, it will take root and sprout. Then, being nourished – from above through spiritual inspirations, and from below through good desires and labors – it will grow into a tree and will flower and give fruit… – Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, p. 182.

Notice that St. Theophan says that the word of God will unite with the elements of the spirit which are dear to it. In other words, God made the soul for Himself, to hear Him, to delight in Him, to want to do what He wants.   And furthermore, souls enlightened by Holy Baptism have the power to overcome the fallenness of human nature and to do all this. This is not impossible, by any means, but rather quite natural. We simply do not take advantage of the gifts we already have.

So let us begin on the basis of the assumption that our souls are designed to be the good soil, not the other way around.   What steps do we take? St. Theophan says 1. Attention and study of the word of God, 2. Sympathy and love toward it, and 3. Doing what it says.   These three activities correspond to the three powers of the soul: The reasoning power (ὁ λόγος – logos, mind, understanding, reason), the desiring power (ἡ επιθυμία – epithymia, desire, attraction, love), and the incensive power (ὁ θυμός – thymos, drive, anger, ambition, will to action). We simply have to turn the soul in the right direction as it performs its natural functions – to understand, to love, and to act. The soul is going to do this with or without guidance: there is no question that it will understand, love, and act. The question is whether it will understand, love, and act based upon the true or the false, the beautiful or the ugly, the good or the bad.

Let us, then, resolve each day, with God helping us, to spend time in prayer and sacred study, with the struggle for attention. Our hearts will naturally be attracted to the beauties of holiness depicted therein, if only we give it enough time and attention. Then we must listen to the promptings of conscience and do what the mind and heart are inclining towards. Thus we become the good earth that yields spiritual fruit.

10 August OS 2018 – Thursday of the 13th week of Matthew; Dormition Fast; Ss. Lawrence, Hippolytus, and Sixtus of Rome, Martyrs

In today’s Gospel, the Lord tells us there is a sin that cannot be forgiven:

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

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

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

Let us examine these one by one.

The first two ways of sinning against the Holy Spirit form inverse opposites. A Christian lives between fear and hope: fear of God’s judgment and hope in His mercy.  If he loses the fear of God or gives up hope in God, he sins against the Holy Spirit. 

When we lose the fear of God, we say, “Oh, God forgives, God forgives” carelessly, assuming that anything we do will be forgiven no matter what, and we live as if God’s judgment does not exist. This shows excessive hope in His mercy, taking it for granted. Certain sects, popular in American culture, teach this form of the unforgivable sin as their central dogma, but Orthodox Christians also may adopt this attitude through ignorance or carelessness and give up any effort to repent for their sin. “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,” says the Scripture. We must live in Godly fear and cultivate an intense hatred of sin, revulsion to sin. To adopt a careless attitude about one’s sins and to presume on God’s forgiveness makes forgiveness impossible, because one is not repenting. To combat this, we must ask God to give us a healthy hatred of sin, the desire to please Him and do His holy will, and the constant remembrance of death and God’s judgment.

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

“Contradicting manifest and confirmed truth” leads ultimately to “…rejection of the Orthodox Christian Faith.” If one stubbornly rejects the teaching of the Church, one loses the saving effect of one’s baptism, even if one does not formally renounce one’s identity as an Orthodox Christian. How many times do we hear, “Oh, yes, I am Orthodox, but, you know, I think the Church is wrong about such-and-such,” or “I cannot accept such-and-such that the Church teaches because it does not seem right to me,” and so forth. To thus deny Truth separates the soul from grace; it kills the soul. If a man chooses to kill his own soul, God does not force forgiveness on him.

Let us open our minds and hearts to the Faith. We do not have to understand everything…we cannot understand everything! We ask questions, using the mind God gave us, to deepen our knowledge and strengthen our commitment to the Faith. But each must do this as a docile child of the Church and not Her judge.

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

Mosaic of Pentecost, Katholikon, Hosios Loukas monastery, Greece

9 August OS 2018 – Wednesday of the 13th Week of Matthew; Dormition Fast; S. Matthias, Apostle; S. Psoes, Monk

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

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

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

Our own friends and relatives, both those inside and outside the Church, may try to dissuade us from a serious life according to the Gospel, because they think it bad for us. Being our friends they want us to have a comfortable life, but they (correctly) note that the Gospel interferes with this. They think us victims and wish to deliver us. Our enemies, those who openly hate the Faith, say that we are evildoers, and they wish to destroy us. Which does the greater harm, friend or foe? It is chiefly the former, because we are more inclined to listen to them.

All human beings are beside themselves from birth, in the sense of being born with minds naturally receptive to demonic deception, as a result of the ancestral sin. This is why the Holy Fathers say that all men are in plani (delusion). Most do not see strange visions or do obviously crazy things. Most have garden-variety delusion: they are fundamentally mistaken about what is really going on outside of them and inside of them. This includes us. But if we have the grace of Baptism and struggle to live the grace-filled life of the Church, we have both abundant power and accurate teaching to enable us and guide us to escape delusion in order to know and live according to truth. The entire contest of life consists in this, and we contest daily until and including the hour of death.

If we, who are both Orthodox and trying to lead a conscious spiritual life, must engage in a life-long struggle to escape delusion, what about all the other people out there? In other words, why should we listen to them? I do not mean that they cannot teach us how to grow vegetables or drive a car or do algebra. I mean that they cannot point the direction for our lives. They cannot advise us as to “what it’s all about.” When they claim that we are out of our minds, let us recall that so are they, and that probably they are farther out than we are.

O Lord, Thou only Truth and only Way, deliver us from delusion and save our souls!

1 August OS 2018: Tuesday of the Twelfth Week of St. Matthew; First Day of the Dormition Fast; the Procession of the Life-giving Cross; the Holy Maccabean Martyrs 

Today’s Gospel passage in the daily lectionary is Mark 1: 16-22.

At that time, as Jesus walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him. And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.

The first day of a fasting season is a good time to renew a spiritual discipline we may have been neglecting.  During this Dormition Fast, let us honor Our Lord in His awesome Transfiguration and Our Lady in her holy Dormition by renewing our resolve to read the Holy Gospel daily. 

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

St. Mark, the disciple of St. Peter, wrote his Gospel for the Church at Rome, and the terse and concise character of this Gospel corresponds to the old Roman character: simple, direct, and to the point. Yesterday, St. Mark began with the preaching of the Forerunner, briefly recounted the Lord’s baptism and temptation in the wilderness, and told of the beginning of Christ’s preaching.  Today he relates His calling the first disciples and His preaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Tomorrow he will recount the exorcism in the synagogue. Three days, 28 verses, and the mind reels from the impact. The Kingdom is breaking into this world at breakneck speed. 

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

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

Reading the Gospel itself is the first step, and the Holy Spirit will grant us understanding if we ask for it. If we desire to take another step and study the Gospels as well as read them, we should use a patristic or patristically inspired commentary. Though the commentaries of the ancient Fathers are the most complete, most of us need something shorter, and the normative short commentary is the explanation of the Gospels by St. Theophylact of Ochrid. This is available in four volumes from Chrysostom Presss in House Springs, Missouri, at 

 https://www.chrysostompress.org/explanation_of_the_new_testament.html . 

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

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

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

26 July OS 2018 – Wednesday of the Eleventh Week of St. Matthew; Ss. Hermolaus, Hermippus, and Hermocrates, Hieromartyrs; S. Parasceva, Martyr 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Gabriel’s Testament to His Spiritual Children

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                                        – Schema-archimandrite Gabriel

21 July OS 2018: Friday of the Tenth Week of St. Matthew; S.Ezechias (Ezekiel), Prophet; Ss. Symeon and John, Monks

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

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

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

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

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

1. We have to pray earnestly, daily, for the Lord to reveal to us the extent of our own blindness and proud self-reliance. To motivate this prayer, I strongly recommend reading chapters two, three, and four of Unseen Warfare (if you do not have the book, you can find the text at http://www.stnicholasdc.org/files/Orthodoxy/Unseen-Warfare.pdf).                                                                                                                                                
2. We have to constantly read and re-read our recent trustworthy Orthodox writers to give us a grip on the kaleidoscopically fragmenting and re-forming churchy landscape out there. For example, we should periodically re-read St. Philaret’s Sorrowful Epistles (http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/sorrow.aspx and http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/sorrow2.aspx), and Archbishop Averky’s writings on the present church situation (for example http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/keepstep.aspx). What you will find here, instead of the Newspeak, obfuscation, coldness, and threats of the new Sadducees of ecclesiastical “officialness,” is the simplicity, clarity, and life-giving warmth of evangelical love. Take your pick.

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

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

20 July OS 2018 – Thursday of the Tenth Week of St. Matthew; S. Elias, Prophet 

In the daily Gospel reading for the Tenth Thursday of St. Matthew, we see the chief priests and Pharisees refusing to repent and, instead, hardening their hearts against the Lord:

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

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

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

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

All of us, living as we are in an “unbelieving and perverse generation,” suffer temptations to doubt, at least now and then. We have available to us recent works of apologetic to help us overcome this on the intellectual level. But, more essentially, we must immerse ourselves in the Orthodox worldview by constant reading of Scripture, the Lives of the Saints, and other authentic Orthodox sources; by prayer; by standing with attention in as many divine services at the parish church as possible; and, as the keystone of this structure of life, frequent confession as part of preparation for and reception of Holy Communion, which is the most powerful means of grace-filled enlightenment after our Baptism.  Our minds have to swim, as it were, in the Orthodox spiritual and mental universe, because being convinced at one point by an intellectual argument does not give us sufficient strength to stay convinced if we pay more attention to things that are not true than to things that are. Our minds are naturally attracted to what they are exposed to, and our hearts follow our minds. This is simply the way God made us.

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

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

18 July OS 2018 – Tuesday of the Tenth Week of St. Matthew; S. Emilian, Martyr

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

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

 St. Theophan the Recluse uses this Gospel passage to illustrate the bad will of all those who refuse to live by truth:

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

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

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

The age we live in, however, in the apt expression of the late Fr. Seraphim Rose, is an age of spiritual fakery par excellence. It is literally a pandemonium, an age in which all the demons of hell have been let loose, for “he that restraineth” (i.e., the divinely anointed Orthodox emperor, and therefore legitimate authority in general) has been removed,  the malicious – which literally means those with an evil will – rule every nation, and therefore  evil has free rein. Every kind of lie and phony “goodness” is exalted, and the hard truth of God’s Word is derided, even denounced as evil itself. To fit in, to serve one’s immediate self-interest of societal acceptance and advancement, one must bury the truth and not let it reach one’s heart, or if one does know the truth, one must tie one’s tongue and not witness to it.  The only path open to integrity is therefore not to fit in, to live as Noah before the Flood, Lot in Sodom, Joseph amid the fleshpots of Egypt, and Daniel in the court of Babylon.

Obviously, one can live this way only by faith, by prayer, and by grace.  Only a “man of divine desires” like Daniel can keep the truth firmly fixed in mind and heart while surrounded by those man-devouring lions, the enemies of truth. The  burning love for Christ powers him to stay alive when the world says to curl up and die. He knows that conscious, attentive, and heartfelt prayer, done daily with no excuses, is not extraneous to existential survival.  It is the life preserver for every sinner drowning in the sea of life.

The next time you are tempted to skip your prayers, or inattentively to rattle through them, remember that you are drowning, but the Lord holds out His hand. He says, “Struggle a bit, pay attention to Me, and I will save you.”

13 July OS 2018: Thursday of the Ninth Week of St. Matthew; S. Gabriel, Archangel

In today’s Gospel, the mother of James and John reveals her comically mistaken idea of what the Messianic kingdom is actually going to look like.

And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. – Matthew 20: 17-28

We may smile indulgently at Mrs. Zebedee’s crude notion that the Christ would be a worldly king whom old ladies could cozen into making courtiers out of men with the right connections, but I fear that we may not grasp the Kingdom of God better than she. On earth we live in the Kingdom of God by living in the Church, but, imitating the mother of the Thundersons, we may assume that we are here to use the Church and not to serve Her.

Let us ask ourselves a few questions.  How do we see the Church?

Is the Church my dear Mother, whom I must reverence and obey, or is She (or it, rather) an impersonal thing, a necessary evil essentially unloved, a rusty old contraption for dispensing salvation, to be kicked, tricked, and otherwise abused into compliance with my wish for pie in the sky at discount prices?

Is the Church the precious Body of Christ, to be cared for and ministered to by me, as the Holy Myrrhbearers ministered to the Body of the Crucified Lord, or is She simply an organized religion business, a vendor to dispense benefits as I decide I want them when I want them, with as little fuss as possible?

Is the Church “we”:  my primary place, my primary people, of belonging, identity, loyalty, and love? Or is the Church “they”: priest, council, catechist, coffee hour ladies… [fill in the blank] providing “goods and services” for “customers,” of whom I am one?  

When things go wrong in the Church, do I confess that I have a share in the blame, by my lack of faith, prayer, repentance, dedication, sacrifice, and actively doing good to my brothers?  Or is it always “they” who are responsible?

One of my favorite Southern writers, William Alexander Percy, says that the human race is divided into “lean-ers and lean-ees,” those who lean on others and those who get leaned on. Of course, we all need to lean on others sometimes, but those who orient themselves primarily to being lean-ees in the Church on earth are the ones who get into the Church in heaven. At least they want to be leaned on, even if human weakness prevents it sometimes. Such people have always been the minority, of course, and that makes sense, since the Lord did say that only the few get into His Kingdom, much less sit next to Him. 

Decide today! Lean-er or lean-ee? Make your choice.

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Amen.