In almighty God’s own good time

Our Lord is not bound by time. But our Lord chooses to act in time – in his own good time. The first deacon says quietly to the priest at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, “It is time for the Lord to act.” The Lord acts in time. He is acting here and now. However, it seems to us sometimes that he takes his time.

Not until the fourth watch of the night does Jesus come walking on the water to his disciples (Matthew 14:25). As soon as evening had fallen, the boat bearing the disciples was beaten by waves – and the wind was against them all night long (14:24). But not until the fourth watch of the night does Jesus come to them and cause the wind to cease (14:32). He had been alone in the hills praying. This teaches us something about the importance of prayer as compared to earthly cares.

What are these watches of the night? In the custom of the Roman military, the night was divided into four parts by soldiers who stood watch in shifts. That way, everyone could get at least some sleep and also the watch could continue ceaselessly. Each of these watches lasted 3 hours so that the four watches of the night together made up the 12 hours of night. So, the fourth watch is the last watch and is from about 3 am until 6 am.

This is when Jesus comes to them who are in the boat, walking to them on the windswept water, after they had been fighting the wind and waves all night long. “They had been in danger the whole night,”[i] but the Lord comes in his own good time.

We also wait upon the coming of the Lord. And maybe we are tossed about by the disturbances and cares of the world, by unremitting temptations, and by demonic provocations, just as the disciples are harassed by the wind and the waves. But the Lord is coming in the fourth watch – in his own good time. He will return perhaps to a roving and shipwrecked Church, but he will return.[ii]

We must wait upon the Lord, and, at the same time, practice an awareness of his presence in every moment of time, even when it seems to us that he is distant. Even when Jesus was praying in the hills, he who knows all things knew of the disciples’ plight in the water. And he also knew they would be alright. So, he let them struggle a little while, as he does with us. St. John Chrysostom says that “He was instructing them not too hast­ily to seek for deliverance from their pressing dangers but to bear all challenges courageously.” We must have a little courage for this life.

It’s clear that for his own reasons, the Lord allows us, his disciples, to be tossed about a bit. And it is also clear that he brings some good out of our time of struggle. Through it, he increases our desire for his coming, helps us remember him, and reveals to us our complete dependence on him.[iii]

We must have a little humility for this life. St. Peter, who was in that boat, instructs us from his experience to “humble [ourselves] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt [us]. Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5:6). He will deliver us in time. We must have a little hope and a little trust and a little faith for this life.  

St. Paul says to Timothy, that “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ… will be made manifest at the proper time by the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen” (1 Tim 6:14-16).

As we wait upon his coming, we must paradoxically remember his constant presence with us. Every hour of the day and every watch of the night, we must be waiting and watching for the coming of the Lord. This is why, in our Byzantine tradition, there are services of liturgical prayer for every time of the day and night.

In charts of Byzantine time, one can see that there are still four watches and 12 hours of the night and day. There are traditional times of prayer throughout this cycle. There is Vespers, which belongs to the time of the setting of the sun, Compline, which is prayed usually around 9 in the evening just before bed, Mesonyktikon, which is the Midnight Office, and Matins – or Orthros as it is also called – which is meant to begin to come to an end about dawn. Other times of prayer in our tradition are First Hour, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, and Ninth Hour, corresponding to 7 and 9 in the morning, noon, and 3 in the afternoon. All this is to say, that all the time of the day and night is time for prayer, for calling attention to the presence of the Lord in each time, as we wait upon the Lord to come to us in his own good time.

There was an elderly and saintly priest in the parish I grew up in whose sermons eventually got to the point of always being the same. In every sermon, every Sunday, he said the same things – perhaps in a different order, but there were several key phrases that always got said. One thing he said again and again was that “almighty God will do what he will do in almighty God’s own good way and in almighty God’s own good time.” Wisdom. This is a voice of experience, I believe. We must wait upon the Lord.

God will act on our behalf just exactly when he means to. We must trust in him and hope in him. As we are buffeted by the storms of life, let us wait upon the Lord, watch, and pray for his coming. He is coming and he will calm the storm in due time.

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[i] Jerome

[ii] Hilary of Poitiers, On Matthew 14:14

[iii] Chrys.: “But He suffers them to be tossed the whole night, exciting their hearts by fear, and inspiring them with greater desire and more lasting recollection of Him; for this reason He did not stand by them immediately.”

The Meeting of Time and Eternity

St Simeon the God Receiver

Moscow, Old Believers' workshop, circa 1800

Forty days ago, Christ is born! So now it is time for him and his mother to go to Jerusalem – to the temple – according to the law of Moses (Luke 2:22). The book of Leviticus states that when the forty days of purification are complete after the birth of a son, the mother is to bring a yearling lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering (Leviticus 12:2-6). Mary doesn't do this, but rather brings a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons (Luke 2:24) – because Leviticus goes on to state that if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons – one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering (Leviticus 12:8). The Lord's Christ and his mother come to the temple in Jerusalem in some measure of poverty – unable to afford a lamb – but also with an unseen poverty greater than this poverty which would have been apparent to all. For here is the giver of the law subjecting himself to the law – "him who as God is the legislator, [is seen now] as subject to his own decrees."[ii]  Here is God coming now as a baby boy. Here is an incomprehensible self-emptying – a giving up of everything for us – the creator become a creature – the divine made human – the infinite made finite – the eternal made temporal. Such impoverishment!

We call this feast the Meeting. Here eternity is meeting time. Here an old man is meeting a baby boy. Simeon is meeting Jesus.

Simeon has been waiting a long time to meet the Lord's Christ at this intersection of time and eternity in the temple in Jerusalem – in the house of the Lord. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not see death before he sees the Lord's Christ (Luke 2:26).

Listen to some of what he says when finally lays his eyes on Christ. We hear these words so often – at every vespers and at other services – that maybe sometimes we forget to listen to them as they wash over us day after passing day, night after passing night. Simeon says that his eyes have seen the Lord's salvation, so now he is ready to depart in peace (Luke 2:29-30).

How does the Lord Jesus Christ save us? How can Simeon say he has seen our salvation? As if it is already accomplished here in this baby boy – this baby who has not yet spoken a word, though he is already and from eternity the word of God. Yet, he has not yet preached a single word of the Gospel to the world. He has not yet died for us so that he may rise for us and by his death trample death. Yet here is Simeon saying he has seen the salvation prepared by the Lord before the face of all people (Luke 2:30-31). How can this be?

For one thing, Simeon is a prophet of the Lord and he speaks of what is coming as well as of what is present before him and what has been (eg. Luke 2:34-35). Nonetheless, his eyes have already seen this salvation. And the Incarnation of God in Christ Jesus even as a baby can truly be understood and expressed as already accomplishing our salvation by uniting the divinity with our humanity. But does this mean that what was to follow – his life, his preaching, his teachings, his healings, his transfiguration, his death, his resurrection, his ascension – are all superfluous addenda to our salvation already accomplished in this baby boy? No! This is not what it means.

Rather, this reveals to us something of the prophetic mind – the mind we ought to yearn to acquire for ourselves. We ought to "earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that [we] may prophesy" (1 Cor14:1). And we must seek to acquire the mind of Christ (cf. Phil 2:5). When a prophet speaks, the Lord speaks through him. When a prophet thinks, the Lord also thinks in him. When a prophet sees, he sees with the eyes of the Lord. This is the way to be – more and more configured to the Lord – more and more like him in every way, each and every day. Then we can begin to see things as he sees them.

And the Lord's understanding is not confined by our chronology. This is a point we often forget, being so limited in our understanding, but which is greatly helpful to remember as often as possible: God is not confined by our chronology.

In the Divine Liturgy, after the epiklesis, we offer the spiritual sacrifice for the Theotokos and all the saints. Now, what need have they of our prayers? – You may well ask. Their salvation is accomplished. We have need of their prayers more than they do of ours, it seems to us. While from a chronological perspective, this question makes sense, it forgets what the Divine Liturgy is and it forgets that we are in the house of the Lord who is not confined by our chronology.

In the house of the Lord, Simeon looks upon the baby Jesus and sees our salvation already accomplished. In this house of the Lord here today, if we look with prophetic eyes, we will see our salvation already accomplished.

Does this mean our salvation does not require us to work it out in fear and trembling (Phil 2:12)? Or that we don’t need what remains of our lives, filled – as they doubtless will be – with many sufferings and blessings? Or that we need not die? Or that the Lord need not come again in glory? Or that we need not rise again to live eternally in Christ? No! That’s not what it means. But at every Divine Liturgy we remember the second coming in glory, in the same breath as we remember the cross the tomb the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven and the sitting at the right hand. We remember these things as already accomplished – for our Lord is not confined by our chronology and today on this Feast of Meeting, our time meets with eternity.

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[i] Inspired by Nicole M. Roccas, “Meeting Vulnerability in the Presentation of Our Lord.”

[ii] Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, Homily 3.

Lifted Up in the Tree

Tree of Zacchaeus
Jericho

Jesus was certainly able to draw crowds, as the story of Zacchaeus illustrates (Luke 19:1-10). 

There are people today with that same sort of popular draw. For example, whenever Pope Francis is announced as the celebrant of a Liturgy, the place is packed. The crowds often spill into the street. And anyone short of stature, like Zacchaeus, likely has difficulty even getting a glimpse of the pontiff – unless they put up those big screens all over the place, as they usually do.

But, you know, at every Divine Liturgy, there’s someone who’s even better than the pope. The great high priest is not the pope but is our Lord Jesus Christ, who is personally present among us and in the Eucharist. This should draw more crowds than it does. If we only realized in whose presence we are standing in the midst of the Church.

If we really believe the Lord is present in the Church, we will demonstrate that faith by how we live and behave. Maybe there are usually no great crowds in our parishes because it doesn’t seem to the world that we ourselves even believe he is present there.

Yet in the world as it is, it is movie stars and singers, presidents and kings who are able to attract large numbers, anyway.

After World War II, King George personally visited the damaged cities to oversee the reconstruction efforts. When he would come into town, as you can imagine, the crowds would gather. The shops would close, the schools would close, and the people would line the streets hoping for a glimpse of their king as he went by. Well, in one of these cities, a young schoolboy, excited to be freed from school and excited to see the king, stood in the crowd and excitedly waved his flag as energetically as he could. But after the fanfare had died down, his teacher found him crying inconsolably. She asked him “what’s the matter, didn’t you get to see the king?” He replied, “Oh yes, I saw the king, but he didn’t see me.”[i]

This is how it goes, ordinarily, when a great and powerful person passes briefly in our midst. At first, it is exciting just to be near someone so famous. Years later, we may tell of the time we saw the president or the singer or the movie star, but really the experience will probably be a letdown if we enter into it hoping for any kind of real human connection with the person we so admire, as did the English schoolboy in his innocence.

And yet, Zacchaeus found that this is not what it is like with the Lord Jesus. I have no idea what was going through Zacchaeus’ mind when he decided to climb up that tree – whether he, like the schoolboy, was hoping to make himself conspicuous to the King, or whether he was merely curious. The gospel only tells us that he desired to see who Jesus was. It doesn’t say whether he also desired to be seen.

In any case, seen he was. And known. And called to. And loved. Jesus didn’t pass by Zacchaeus, leaving him unfulfilled, but rather called him down and fulfilled him ultimately, bringing salvation to his house.

He calls out, “Zacchaeus, you hurry down here for I need to stay at your house today.” Now, our etiquette might insist that one shouldn’t invite himself over, but remember that this is not a conversation between peers. Even an ordinary king may speak thus to his subjects, but here is the peerless One and Lord of all calling out to a simple sinner like us.

And listen to his insistence: Jesus says “I need” (δεῖ με – it behooves me) “to stay at your house today.” Now, in his humanity, of course Jesus needs food and shelter like all humans do, and Zacchaeus, being a rich man, had plenty of this to provide. But let’s not forget that this is God become man telling a sinner that he needs him. What love! What kenosis! God empties himself. Becomes nothing. Takes the form a slave. Makes himself dependent on a sinner like Zacchaeus. Like us. So if Jesus seems a little forward here, a little insistent, let him! It is all grace. He is knocking at our doors, inviting himself into our houses, and it is all for us and for our salvation, because when Jesus the Savior enters our house, it is salvation coming to our house. “For where Christ enters,” as St. Cyril writes, “there necessarily is also salvation” (Commentary on Luke, 507). The name Jesus means “God saves.” 

This isn’t the first time that God has called out to one of us. God always initiates the conversation that leads to our salvation. He always is the one to invite us to accept him into our homes and hearts.

He called down Zacchaeus, who, thanks be to God, joyfully accepted him into his house.

He called out to some fishermen, “Come, follow me.” And they left behind their nets and followed him.

He called out to Adam in the garden “Where are you?”

God has been looking for us and inviting us to reunite with him from the moment we departed from him in our sins. And his invitation demands a response on our part. We must repent as Zacchaeus did. We must follow Christ, as the fishermen did. We must put our faith in Christ and make room for him to come and stay in our houses – in the house of our heart – in our inmost being.  St. Cyril also writes, “Christ… is in us when we believe; for he dwells in our hearts by faith, and we are His abode” (507).

This divine condescension to dwell in and with our fallen humanity is consummated in Jesus, our Savior, in his incarnation, in his ministry to Zacchaeus and to all of us, and in his cross.

Here is a strikingly inverted image for us to contemplate:

Jesus, our Savior, is standing at the foot of a tree looking up. In the tree is Zacchaeus – a sinful man – and the Savior calls him down and saves him.

Later, Jesus, the sinless One, will hang on a tree. And we, a sinful people, will stand at the foot of that tree, looking up at him and mocking him, telling him to come down and save himself.

Zacchaeus, being short, was lifted up from the earth by a tree, the better to see Jesus – and quite rightly, for Jesus, too, will be lifted up from the earth by the tree of the cross. Like Zacchaeus, we cannot see Christ unless we climb the tree – that is, unless we embrace the cross. Because of our sins, we all come up short, like Zacchaeus, and only the cross can lift us up to see Christ.

Ultimately, Jesus saves us from suffering and death, from ignominy and punishment, from every evil that our sins have brought into the world, and from all that the tree of the cross represents – by going up onto the tree himself. Seeing Zacchaeus in the tree, Jesus freely identifies with him. He trades places with Zacchaeus. He calls down Zacchaeus, and all of us together with him, and goes up himself in our place. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” as Peter writes, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

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[i] Fr. Anthony Coniaris connected this story with the story of Zacchaeus. Anthony Coniaris, Gems from the Sunday Gospels in the Orthodox Church(Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing Co., 1975), 1:24.

A Time of Silence about the Mystery

St John the Theologian in Silence
Village of Vladimir, 18th Century
source

Well, they tell me some of the radio stations have already started playing Christmas music. It seems like everyone I know loves to complain about this. I mean really across the spectrum of ideologies and denominations, people love to complain about this. My secular friends and former coworkers sigh derisively and roll their eyes at the sound of “Silver Bells” in November, saying, "It's not even Thanksgiving yet!" Meanwhile, our Roman Catholic friends complain, "It's not even Advent yet!"

Of course, to us, that sounds a little odd because, well, it is. Our Nativity Fast began on November 15th after the feast of Saint Philip. Our altar covers are already red. The secular and commercial world has nothing on us when it comes to getting ready early.

But the way and the spirit with which we prepare to welcome the Lord and to celebrate his birth in a cave in Bethlehem is very different. Or, it ought to be. How ought we to prepare?

It is interesting to compare our Byzantine approach to this season with the approaches taken by the world and even by the other Churches.

It may surprise some to learn that our lectionary has no readings particularly associated with the coming feast of the Nativity - until the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, which, at the earliest, can fall on December 11th. This year, it falls on December 17th - its latest possible date. (By the way, it is traditional to intensify our fasting around this time - either on December 10th or December 20th). So, there's always about a full month of the Nativity Fast - and that's the majority of the fast - during which our lectionary makes no direct mention of the Nativity.

There are some liturgical changes that occur. For example, starting on November 21st, we sing the katavasiai from the Canon of the Birth of the Lord at Matins. There are also throughout this season occasional Days of Alleluia. These are particularly penitential days during which the Divine Liturgy may not be celebrated and the other services become longer and more penitential, with prostrations, the beautiful and convicting Prayer of Saint Ephrem, and other features you would expect, actually, from a liturgical service during the Great Fast.

Also, of course, in addition to these increased prayers, we are to be actually fasting - each of us to the extent that we are able - and we are to renew and intensify our practice of almsgiving - of sacrificial giving to those in need, to the poor, and to the real needs of the Church.

But, despite all of these changes to our way of prayer and life during the Nativity fast, our lectionary, as I say, makes no direct mention of the particular reason we are doing this in this season. The changes that do occur in our liturgical life often make it look more like Lent than Advent.

Now, some perceive this as a deficiency in need of correction. And maybe people do need more explicit reminders of what this season is all about. Perhaps to help with this, our own Eparchy's Archpriest David Petras has written a book of meditations for the Nativity fast, which I look forward to reading, but it draws on the lectionary of the Maronite Church for inspiration because, as I say, the Byzantine lectionary is silent at this time.

On the other hand, it's not so silent as it used to be, because now we celebrate beautiful services like the Emmanuel Moleben during the Nativity fast, which includes readings chosen for their relevance to the coming Nativity of the Lord. However, it should be known and remembered that this is no ancient Byzantine service. Its form and its original texts are the work of the Right Reverend Mitered Archpriest Conrad Dachuk, who just recently celebrated his 40th year of priesthood in the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto. So, we have a great Byzantine hymnographer here in the West and among the living. Our tradition is not dead nor static. There is room for new prayers.

But before we go too far in filling up all of the absences we perceive in this fasting season, let’s pause for a moment and considered whether or not the silence itself might be meaningful for us. Perhaps it's only an accident of history that the Feast of Christmas developed first in the West and so other Churches have more to say about it. Or, perhaps, as I say, our silence is meaningful. But what could it mean?

Well, our understanding of the mystery of Christ grows better in the silence than in the noise. The noise of “Jingle Bells” and “Here Comes Santa Claus” is one thing - seemingly bent precisely on distracting us - but even the sacred sound of hymnody and holy words do not teach us what silence does. The mystery of Christ - his incarnation and his birth - is so great that one wonders whether every word we speak about it draws us nearer to it or moves us further from it. So perhaps a time of silence - a fast from words about the mystery - joined with quiet contemplation of that mystery - would do us good. It could help to empty us.

This is a fast - and a fast empties our bellies.

This is a time of almsgiving, which empties our wallets.

And this is a time of prayer - without so many words about the very inspiration for our fasting and our almsgiving and our praying - the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps this kind of prayer could help empty our hearts of earthly cares so that they may receive the king of all.

Fr. Jack Custer says that this is a "period of fasting by which we prepare an empty place for God to fill with joy, and by which we cleanse our lives of sin and selfishness so as to welcome our Savior." This kind of holy emptiness creates in us a receptivity to the Lord that we lack when we are overfull with food and possessions and self-satisfaction, like the rich man in today's parable, who pulls down his barns to build larger ones and there store all his grain and his goods (Luke 12:18).

It is especially in this season of the year with its pre-emptive holiday parties and rampant consumerism that we - especially those of us who are rich - are tempted to say to our soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry" (Luke 12:19). Let us remember that at any moment God may say to us, as he does to the rich man, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Luke 12:20).

When the Lord comes to us, as he comes to the world in his Nativity, may he find us hungry, empty, and yearning for him rather than satisfied, full, and taking thought of no one but ourselves and our own families. Then, he will be the one to satisfy us eternally. 

Instead of stuffing ourselves full with rich foods and stuffing our barns full with needless possessions, let us empty ourselves and our barns by fasting and almsgiving. And with the help of prayer, let us become rich in the things of God, rather than the things of the world, whatever avarice the worldly celebration of the holidays may seem to justify.

Instead of laying up treasure for ourselves, let us be rich toward God (Luke 12:21). Let us be rich in what matters to God. The Lord requires of us only to do right, to love goodness, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). The way is simple, really, though at times difficult. Now is the time to simplify our lives not complexify them, whatever the world may say.

There is one holiness

For All Saints Sunday 

Matthew 10:32-33,37-38; 19:27-30

Icon of All Saints
16-20 c.

Paul addresses most of his epistles to the saints of this or that city. And, I hope, if he were writing to us, he would say the same and would address the saints among us.

Although, when he addresses the Galatians, he does not call them saints. His letter is written to rebuke them because they have been turning to a different gospel, a perversion of the gospel of Christ.

So, if Paul were writing to our church, would he call us saints? Or, would he, as he did addressing the Galatians, leave that part out? Are we following the gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul preaches? Or are we accepting a different gospel, receiving a different spirit, or preaching another Jesus (cf. 2 Cor 11:4)?

Some in Galatia were holding up circumcision and the works of the old law over and against faith working through love in Christ, the love which in truth fulfills the whole law (cf. Gal 5:6,14). This excessive regard for externals I don’t think is the typical error of our age, but we are inclined toward other errors.

Sometimes, we excessively internalize our faith. We regard it as a private matter, not something to be discussed in public. We are sometimes cowards and we sometimes fail to acknowledge Christ before others. Today, Christ tells us that if we acknowledge him before others, he will acknowledge us before his Father. That is, he will make us his saints. Likewise, if we deny him, he will deny us before his Father (Matt 10:32-33).

If we love Jesus, we will keep his commandments (John 14:15). Among other things, He commands us to acknowledge him before others (Matt 10:32). He commands us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation (Mark 16:15). And he commands us to baptize every nation in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19).

If we keep these commandments, Christ will acknowledge us before his Father (Matt 10:32). He will remember us forever. And so we will live forever in him, our resurrected Lord. In Christ, we will know the Father, which is eternal life (John 17:3). This is holiness indeed: oneness with God. This is what it is to be a saint.  

This word “saint” is interesting. If we look at the Greek, ἅγιος, it’s the same as the word for holy. Sometimes Greek has many words for which we have only one, as in the case of “love,” but sometimes, it goes the other way and they have one word, for which we have many. And this is the case with the word ἅγιος, which means holy, which means saint, which means sanctuary (e.g Heb 8:2). At times, even Jesus is simply called the Holy – ὁ ἅγιος (e.g. Mark 1:24). This is worth keeping in mind when we think about the saints. Saint and Holy are utterly synonymous. There is no difference at all in the mind of the fathers, or in the mind of Paul. There are not two holinesses, but one holiness. If someone or something is holy, it can only be because they are partakers of the one holiness.

The single greatest teaching of the second Vatican council, in my opinion, is that there is a universal call to holiness. This is not a new teaching. Not by any stretch.  This was already the teaching revealed by the Lord God through Moses in the wilderness of Sinai 3,310 years ago – or so. The Lord our God says in all ages, “be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:44-45).

There’s a tall order. The holiness of the Lord our God cannot be overstated. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the God of hosts. Three times holy is he. In Hebrew, this is a superlative. He is the holiest one and the source of all holiness, in whom is any holiness that is.

Yet, as the Lord, he is God of hosts, that is, as Fr. Stephen Freeman puts it, God of a huge crowd. He is in and with and surrounded by his saints. “Orthodox worship and prayer,” Fr. Stephen writes, “is simply crowded. Though we worship only the Triune God, we nevertheless do so in company with a ‘great cloud of witnesses.’” God, who alone is holy, has chosen not to be alone in his holiness, but to surround himself with those he has made holy, those he has made one with himself by his grace.

In the Divine Liturgy, after the consecration, the priest holds the holy lamb and says, “Holy gifts to holy people.” Does this mean you have to be a saint in order to come forward to receive Holy Communion? Yes, it does! There is no difference between “saint” and “holy.”

Then how do we become saints? None of us is sinless – but among the saints are sinners, every degree of sinner, and every kind of sinner – just like us. So when I say, yes, we have to be holy before we come forward, we have to be saints before we receive the holy things which are for the holy ones, I am speaking of a miracle of God’s mercy and grace with which we cooperate through prayer and humility and confession of our sins. We do not make ourselves saints, the Lord makes us saints.

Every saint he makes is unique. We honor them all. We need them all. Just as in one body, every member is different, yet every member needs the others for the whole body to thrive (cf. Rom 12:4-5). Every person that God makes, God wants and needs for his purposes. We are wanted and needed by God. We should seek God’s purpose for our own lives. As Fr. Thomas Hopko points out, if we are condemned or damned it will not be because we are not the Theotokos, or we are not John the Baptist, or we are not Isaac the Syrian. It will be because we are not truly ourselves. It is for not being who God created us to be that we could be damned. The ultimate authority on who we should be and what we should do is our author and creator.

He reveals a lot of this to us through the Church, so don’t think this means that we can go it alone. Because God gave us the Church to guide us into holiness, that is, into the person that God made each of us to be. Going it alone was never his vision for any human being. We are communal creatures. We are a community of persons, in the image of God, who is a community of persons. The Church is that community - that coming together as one with God and one another.

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza has a beautiful image of a wheel, in which the center – the axis – is God, and each of us are somewhere along the spokes of the wheel. You see, the closer we get to God, the closer we get to each other. Also, the further we get from God, the further we get from each other.

For this reason, it makes no sense to receive communion – to enter into communion with God – if we have animosity toward our brother or sister (Matt 5:23-24). There is no communion with God without communion with one another. First of all, we must “be reconciled with everyone and have no animosity toward anyone.” This is the first rubric in the Liturgikon.

Before we dare to approach with the fear of God and with faith, we pray that the holy mysteries be for our healing and not for our condemnation. We pray that the Lord make us worthy to receive. And we pray for mercy. This prayer – this Kyrie eleison – is our path to holiness. Holiness never comes from relying on the self, but rather on the one to whom we pray. To rely on the Lord, who alone is holy and who alone can make us holy.

So, when the priest holds the Eucharist in his hands and says, “Holy gifts to holy people” what can we say? We can only say, “One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.” All holiness that is comes from the holy one.

The holy one, Jesus Christ, teaches us how to be holy in today’s gospel. We must confess Christ before others, we must love him more than all others, even more than our fathers and mothers and sons and daughters. And we must take up our cross and follow him (Matt 10:37-38). These are Jesus’ own words. This is his prescription for holiness.

When we are baptized into Christ, we are clothed with Christ and we begin to become one with him. We must thereafter imitate him, especially in his self-sacrificial love, to remain and grow toward ever greater union with the holy one, Jesus Christ, who is one in essence with the Father who is holy.  

A reality to which we must respond

On Matt 4:12-17

Sunday after Theophany

Christ is born! Christ is baptized! Christ is risen! Glory to Jesus Christ!

Today we are at a great convergence. It is the Sunday after Theophany, and so we are still remembering Christ’s baptism. And yet, according to one reckoning, it is also still the season of Christmas until the feast of the Encounter on February the 2^nd, forty days after his birth. Meanwhile, today would be the first day leading into the Triodion – the Sunday of Zacchaeus – were it not for certain liturgical peculiarities due to Pascha being so early this year. There is no Sunday of Zacchaeus this year, but I think it’s still worth noting that the Great Fast is already right around the corner.

Time, the order of things, chronology, chronos is muddled, it seems. Simultaneous. Converged. It is as if all salvation history is happening at once. The first forty days of Christ’s newborn life is converged today with the forty days he fasted in the desert just after his baptism by John – which is a forty days that inspires our forthcoming Great Fast in preparation for Holy Week and Pascha, our commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus – the point of it all, the cause of our joy, our only hope.

Today’s gospel occurs immediately after Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness after his baptism by John in the Jordan. Jesus hears of John’s arrest and withdraws to Galilee, not out of fear, but to fulfill prophecy – and to there call forth the men that would be his apostles.

It is at this time that Jesus begins to preach. “Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” These are the first words of his preaching and with them, he pays homage to John, his baptizer, the greatest of the prophets, his forerunner, who made straight his way. Jesus’ first kerygmatic words directly quote the preaching of John, who went before him to prepare his way.

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." These words are especially suitable today – on this day of convergence. What’s going on in the church calendar today reflects the timelessness of deeper reality. As does the imminence of the coming kingdom of heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Jesus says this, as did John before him. But didn’t these preachers live and preach about 2000 years ago? How could the coming kingdom have been imminent then? Aren’t we still waiting for the kingdom? Don’t we pray, with every Our Father, “Thy kingdom come”?  We do, and our King is coming. But he has also already come. He is both already and not yet come. It is as if time is muddled. Simultaneous. Converged. It is as if all salvation history happens at once. God’s time is not like our time.

When John preaches that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, he preaches as one waiting for the coming king. When Jesus preaches the same thing, it is the very king who is preaching. The kingdom is indeed at hand when Jesus says that it is at hand – for he is the king and the kingdom is in his hands.

He is already come. He is in our midst whenever we gather in his name. He is now reigning in the hearts of those of us who believe.

We must not become like some of the fundamentalist prophecy enthusiasts of our era, obsessed with doomsday calculations and bible codes and what not. That, I think, is to miss the point.

In the Gospel of Luke, “the Pharisees [ask Jesus] when the kingdom of God [is] coming – [and] he answer[s] them, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Lo, here it is!' or 'There!' for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you" – or – it is “within you all” (Luke 17: 20-21).

God is to reign in our hearts. And we must make our hearts a suitable palace for our king. Origen observes that “The kingdom of heaven is not in a place but in disposition. For it is within us. John preaches the coming of that kingdom of heaven, which Christ the King will deliver up to God, even the Father” (Fragment 74). 

This is the reality to which Christ calls our attention with this – his first sermon – one sentence in length, but infinite in meaning. The kingdom of heaven is reality – not mere perception. Our perception, in fact, often misses it. We often fail to see that “The LORD is king for ever and ever; [and that] the nations shall perish from his land.” (Psalm 10:16). We often think that it is our worldly kingdoms or republics that are of primary importance and that deserve our most devoted attention.

But no, the truth is that the Lord is king and his kingship is over all the earth (cf. Psalm 22:28). In 2007, there was an effort in Poland to declare Jesus the king of Poland. Well, Jesus is king, but it is not by our fiat. He does not rule by the consent of the governed. Rather, the governed have being by the word of God, who is Christ, our king. The king of kings and lord of lords.

The kingdom of heaven is the world we are actually living in. It is the world that God so loved. It is the world we often cannot see because our vision is so clouded by sin. The kingdom of heaven is among us. It is imminent. The reign of God is in our hearts.

And this is a reality to which we must respond with repentance. If we do not repent, we cannot know the truth of God’s sovereign presence in our lives. He is present whether we know it or not. Repentance is how we come to know it. He is with us, and we must understand this and submit to him, for he is with us. Repentance – metanoia – is a turning toward the Lord and away from our consuming passions.

Away from gluttony and toward self-control.

Away from lust and toward desire for God.

Away from greed and the love of money and toward compassion for the poor.

Away from anger and toward goodwill and love for all. 

Away from dejection and toward joy.

Away from sloth and despondency and toward patience, perseverance, and thanksgiving

Away from vainglory and toward doing good in secret and contrite prayer

Away from pride and toward judging no one and regarding no one as beneath us.

These are the eight passions outlined by St. John Cassian, (whose leap day feast we incidentally get to celebrate this year on Feb. 29^th) and their opposite virtues, which St. John of Damascus describes (On Virtues and Vices). Studying these can help us make a beginning of repentance. 

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Therefore, let us repent.

The Obligation to Pray

In 1890, the Synod of Lviv unsuccessfully attempted to obligate clerics - and only clerics - to pray the Divine Praises. Thus obliging some of the people of God (clergy), while not others, would violate the spirit of public liturgical prayer. As Fr. Robert Taft writes, “The burden of common prayer is incumbent on all.”[1] Liturgical prayer is communal by its very nature. The faithful – both lay and ordained – ought to live as vibrant and full a liturgical life as their lives reasonably allow. Daily celebration of the Divine Praises ought to be an act of, by, and for the whole community. The whole community is, in some sense,  "obliged." The Apostolic Constitutions instruct the bishop to “command and exhort” both clergy and laity to communal morning and evening prayer in the church every day: 

When you instruct the people, O bishop, command and exhort them to come constantly to church morning and evening every day, and by no means to forsake it on any account, but to assemble together continually.... For it is not only spoken concerning the priests, but let every one of the laity hearken to it as concerning himself. [2] 

Clericalizing the Divine Praises by obliging clerics and only clerics to pray them is imbalanced and contrary to the true spirit of liturgical prayer. Clergy are not properly thought of as those who pray in the place of or instead of the laity. This mentality weakens the communal and public celebration of the Divine Praises. Rather, the clergy are to lead the laity in prayer. 

An example of the clergy celebrating Vespers together with the laity 

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[1] Taft, Robert. The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1986. 362.

[2] Apostolic Constitutions II, 59.

Praying for Mary

In the Divine Liturgy, just after the epiklesis, we offer to the Lord "spiritual worship for those who in faith have gone on before us to their rest: forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics and every just spirit made perfect in faith, especially for our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary". 

Sometimes someone will object that we should not pray for the saints and especially not for the Theotokos. They are already with Christ, after all! We should pray to them, but surely we should not pray for them! They should pray for us!

Well, if we understand what actually occurs in the Liturgy, prayer for (ὑπερ) all the saints and especially for the Theotokos will not scandalize us. The Divine Liturgy, inasmuch as it participates in Christ, is the instrument of all salvation, even and especially that of his mother. Praying for the Theotokos, we still acknowledge that her salvation is already accomplished, but that is just the point – so is ours, in Christ, if we accept it as she has. This liturgical prayer, which the celebrant offers immediately after the epiklesis, is not bound by chronological time (χρόνος).

The Sacrifice of Praise

Worthy sacrifice, which is a loving “giving up”(Luke 22:19) or “laying down” (John 15:13) of self or a precious life or thing, is not necessarily traumatic, but brings about a unification that sometimes supersedes the pain of loss. With this said, the truly worthy sacrifice of Christ on the cross is traumatic. The traumatic event that “happens” in the Liturgy already happened there “once for all.” (Heb 10:10). The Liturgy, which is timeless, re-presents his traumatic sacrifice to us nontraumatically. In the Eucharist, our Lord gives up his broken body for us as he did at the mystical supper – without suffering again.

The Angelic Liturgy

This icon depicts the angels
carrying the gifts
for the Great Entrance.

            Angels fill the Divine Liturgy. The Little Entrance recalls the concelebration of angels. The Great Entrance recalls the angelic escort of the King. In the Anaphora, the triumphal hymn is introduced as angelic praise of God, to which we add our Liturgy. These symbols of angelic presence in the Liturgy reveal the reality that the Liturgy takes place also in heaven where angels ceaselessly worship God. Liturgy is not only material, but also spiritual, not only human, but also angelic. Angels remind us that to worship our spiritual God liturgically “in truth,” we must worship him “in spirit” (John 4:24).

Thanksgiving

One human being can and has given adequate thanks (εὐχαριστέω)[1] to God – Jesus Christ alone. In thanksgiving for God’s creation, redemption, and deification of us, to him is “due all glory, honor, and worship”[2] from all us other humans. Yet we, of ourselves, are “unworthy servants,”[3] and so we pray for God, who alone can do so, to “make us worthy to partake… of [his] heavenly and awesome mysteries.”[4] Only when we have thus participated in the thanksgiving of Jesus and mysteriously become one with him, can we pray, “let us worthily thank the Lord”[5] and adequately thank him.

Damiane's fresco of the Mystical Supper in Ubisi monastery , Georgia - 14th century

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[1] Mat 26:27; Mar 14:23; Luk 22:17,19

[2] Prayers of the First Antiphon, the Entrance, the Thrice-Holy Hymn, and the First Prayer of the Faithful; see also 1 Tim 1:17

[3] Prayers of the Thrice-Holy Hymn, and the Cherubikon. 

[4] Preparation for Communion.

[5] Prayer of Thanksgiving.