Well this is what I get for not looking ahead to what the topic of the 40 Days of Pastoral Blogging would be for today. I have previously written on Vestments and although I do not just want to link to previous posts I am going to so today.
In case you missed them I will post the links below.
The Divine Liturgy ~ Vestments
The Divine Liturgy ~ Vestment Colors
It is part of the history of America that one of the founding fathers liked the Turkey over the Bald Eagle as the symbol of the America. I find this a very interesting a curious tale. The hint of this comes from a letter he wrote to his daughter Sarah Bache on January 26, 1784. The main subject of the letter was concerning the Society of the Cincinnati and his objections to it but in the letter he has this to say about the Bald Eagle and it’s representation of America:
Others object to the Bald Eagle, as looking too much like a Dindon, or Turkey. For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country…
I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For in Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.
So as you prepare your bird for the table, this Thanksgiving, just remember that if Franklin had his way you would be serving up the symbol of America!
Today, in the 40 Days of Pastoral Blogging, is bloggers choice. This is a day that Fr. John has given us to write about whatever we want, sort of freestyle if you will. So today I am going to write about a recent trip I took to Florida. Not that Florida.
One of the many hats I wear is the hat of Animal Control Officer in the Town of Dudley Massachusetts. Appointed on July 1st of this year it is my job to pick up stray dogs, investigate abuses claims and also inspect barns and livestock in the Town, this is the part I like best about the job. We also, from time to time, have to deal with residents who, for whatever reason, need to surrender their companion animal. Without going in to much detail I took in a senior dog that I knew was going to be hard to place. I also do not like to keep animals in the shelter any longer than I have to as the dog really starts to deteriorate.
I needed help to place this dog so I started calling other shelters and I came across the Berkshire Humane Society in Pittsfield Massachusetts. They are a nonprofit shelter and they were will to take Dakota into their shelter and place her in a good home. Larger shelters usually have a network that they can reach out to in cases like this. So on Friday I loaded Dakota in the truck and headed west to Pittsfield. I arrived and got her all settled in without incident. I decided that on my return trip I would take a little detour and head to Florida Massachusetts.
Florida Massachusetts is in the upper western corner of Massachusetts on the Vermont boarder in Berkshire County at the highest point on the Mohawk Trail. Florida was settled in 1783 and given the name Florida, some believe, because Spanish Florida was a topic of conversation at the time. Florida is a farming community producing maple syrup, wool, and potatoes. In 2010 Florida had a population of 752, not the smallest community in Massachusetts but close.
I like small towns, I like the feel of them and I like to see what happens to be around. Usually steeped in history there is something that one can find that is out of the ordinary. You never know what you will find as you take the next turn and that sense of adventure drives you forward in the hopes of discovering something.
Friday was a rainy day and up in the mountains the fog had begun to settle in. The road was winding along, following the contours of the mountain, when all of a sudden there it was a giant bronze elk standing right there atop Whitcomb’s Summit. The summit is actually the top of the Hoosac Mountain, at 2272 feet, but it is called Whitcomb’s Summit because that is the name of the hotel that is right there at the top.
Back to the elk. I was amazed and almost caused an accident trying to get across the road to see what this magnificent creature was doing perched at the top of this mountain. The bronze elk was behind a black fence standing on top of a large rock. On the face of the rock was a dedication plaque giving a bit of history.
The Elk on the Trail in Memory of the Brothers of the Massachusetts Elks Association who died in the World War. Erected by the Association 17th June 1923.
Tradition tells the story that the summit was chosen because it is the highest point along the Mohawk trail and with all of the visitors, with their new automobiles, coming by each year it was a fitting place for the memorial. I was amazed! Who knew!
I stood there, shivering in the cold, and pondering all of this and giving thanks for what these men had done, given their lives in the service of their country. Seemed somewhat fitting since it was the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy and the next day was the 150th anniversary of the dedication of the military cemetery at Gettysburg.
I will have to return on a clear day and take in the view that the Elk has each and every day. If you ever find yourself driving along the Mohawk Trail, take a moment to stop in Florida and check out the Elk on the Summit. You will not be disappointed.
Each of the days during Advent Fr. John Peck is giving us words or concepts to blog about as part of the 40 Days of Pastoral Blogging exercise. This is day nine, and I have to say that most of the past eight days have been a challenge to blog but also a challenge to blog on the topic he has selected. I usually just open a blank page and write. I am not sure where it is going to go or how it will end, I just write. Today will be no different.
Sabbath is one of those hotly debated items in the Church. Not really the day of the Sabbath, as Christians we have moved this day to Sunday as the day of resurrection, but the original meaning of the Sabbath was a day of rest. This was a day free of all work, some can take that to a high degree as we see in Scripture when the leaders heckle Jesus because his followers picked a head of grain whilst walking through the fields, or it can go the other way where Sunday is just another day of the week.
Some call Sunday the Lord’s Day and it is a day that is given to worship and family. Most do not worship any longer and the view of family has changed. Sitting in room together tapping on the latest electronic gadget is not really communication, but I guess the object is being together.
The problem, as I see it, is that nothing in American culture is sacred any more. For some, church is something that we do when there is nothing else going on. “My child is involved in sports and they practice on Sunday.” Well that is a choice we make. If we are true to our faith then the choice is simple, we attend Church. Practice happens on Sunday because we let it happen. Stores opened on Sunday because, we the consumer, wanted stores to open on Sunday. If we did not shop the stores would not be open.
There is a point in Orthodox Worship, just before the priest enters the Holy Place with the gifts that are about to be offered, when the sing “lets us lay aside all the earthly cared of life.” We come to worship to forget about all that is going on in the world. For those few moments a week our focus should be on nothing but the Holy and how we are living our lives. The question we should be asking is “are we living the life God wants us to live?” If we do not know the answer to that question, ask Him!
But what about after worship? How do we spend the rest of the Sabbath day? Are we involved in worldly pursuits, and by that I mean are we working at or profession. Some people have to work on Sunday because of their jobs, medical folks, people in emergency services, and because of us, those in retail all have to work on Sunday. But what of the rest of us? Sunday is a time for rest, and this time of year watching football!
It is hard to listen to the voice of God when we are so busy that we do not take the time to listen. Stop and listen, take Sunday to rest and restore your body. Hang up that phone if you are talking about work, there are six days in the week for labor and one for rest. Use that day as it was intended.
If you have been reading these pages for any period of time you will know that my parish St. Michael Orthodox Church in Southbridge Massachusetts provides a free meal twice a month to people in the community. We do not run a soup kitchen but we offer a community meal and there is a difference.
What we are trying to do is build community and that is not an easy task. Our meals bring together people from all along the economic spectrum for a free meal, conversation, and friendship. As a parish community this is our way of living the Gospel message of loving our neighbor. We have made some great friends during the last 4 years and, although it is a lot of work, I don’ think any of us would miss the opportunity to serve this meal.
Last night we served our annual Thanksgiving Meal complete with turkeys, 9 of them, stuffing, mashed potato, veg, pies, etc. We had help serving the almost 130 people who came, by the youth of St. Ann/St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church in Sturbridge Massachusetts and we could not have done it without them!
So what of canned goods?
Well, each week I make a trip to the Worcester County Food Bank to get the food that we will be using for these meals. Part of what I pick up is a variety of canned goods that we put on a table for those who come to take. It is not much, but maybe it will supplement a meal or two and make life a little easier for some.
There used to be a sign that hung above the table that said, “if you need something, take it if you have extra, leave it.” This harkens to the Gospel message of helping out our brothers and sisters. St. Basil the Great believed that if everyone took only what they needed there would be no poverty in the world, a nice thought and perhaps a bit utopian, but it is something we should strive for non the less. That single can will feed a person, or a family, and keep them from going hungry. That simple can, that some make take for granted, will keep someone alive.
Next time you are out shopping for food, but a couple of extra cans of something and donate it to the local food pantry. You just might save a life!
St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews 9:1-7
BRETHREN, the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tent was prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence; it is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain stood a tent called the Holy of Holies, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, which contained a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. These preparations having thus been made, the priests go continually into the outer tent, performing their ritual duties; but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people.
The passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews is read in Orthodox Church on feasts of the Virgin Mary and it illustrates the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Mary’s womb was prepared to be Christ’s tabernacle and become the very place where God dwells.
St. Paul describes the details of the Holy Place and draws attention to the second veil, that separates the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, the place that contained the Ark of the Covenant and only the High Priest, and only once a year, could enter.
A separation existed between the people and God. There was a physical barrier, the veil, but there was also a spiritual barrier, Ancestral Sin. When Christ came and sanctified the womb of Mary and was born, all of that started to come to an end. When Christ was crucified for our Sins that separation ended in fact Scripture tells us that veil was torn in two! No longer are we separated from the Father, unless we choose to be by our sins.
Because Christ died for us he broke the hold that sin had one us and repaired the relationship between the Father and His creation. Each sin draws us away, but through the Church, we have the ability to be reconciled through confession.
Take time during this Holy season of the year to repair that relationship. Open that veil that separates you from God. No longer is the tabernacle hidden from the view of the people, the tabernacle is the people for we hold God inside each of us, we are the Holy of Holies.
A Sermon by Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica
If a tree is known by its fruit, and a good tree bears good fruit (Mt. 7:17; Lk. 6:44), then is not the Mother of Goodness Itself, She who bore the Eternal Beauty, incomparably more excellent than every good, whether in this world or the world above? Therefore, the coeternal and identical Image of goodness, Preeternal, transcending all being, He Who is the preexisting and good Word of the Father, moved by His unutterable love for mankind and compassion for us, put on our image, that He might reclaim for Himself our nature which had been dragged down to uttermost Hades, so as to renew this corrupted nature and raise it to the heights of Heaven. For this purpose, He had to assume a flesh that was both new and ours, that He might refashion us from out of ourselves. Now He finds a Handmaiden perfectly suited to these needs, the supplier of Her own unsullied nature, the Ever-Virgin now hymned by us, and Whose miraculous Entrance into the Temple, into the Holy of Holies, we now celebrate. God predestined Her before the ages for the salvation and reclaiming of our kind. She was chosen, not just from the crowd, but from the ranks of the chosen of all ages, renowned for piety and understanding, and for their God-pleasing words and deeds.
In the beginning, there was one who rose up against us: the author of evil, the serpent, who dragged us into the abyss. Many reasons impelled him to rise up against us, and there are many ways by which he enslaved our nature: envy, rivalry, hatred, injustice, treachery, slyness, etc. In addition to all this,he also has within him the power of bringing death, which he himself engendered, being the first to fall away from true life.
The author of evil was jealous of Adam, when he saw him being led from earth to Heaven, from which he was justly cast down. Filled with envy, he pounced upon Adam with a terrible ferocity, and even wished to clothe him with the garb of death.Envy is not only the begetter of hatred, but also of murder, which this truly man-hating serpent brought about in us. For he wanted to be master over the earth-born for the ruin of that which was created in the image and likeness of God. Since he was not bold enough to make a face to face attack, he resorted to cunning and deceit. This truly terrible and malicious plotter pretended to be a friend and useful adviser by assuming the physical form of a serpent, and stealthily took their position. By his God-opposing advice,he instills in man his own death-bearing power, like a venomous poison.
If Adam had been sufficiently strong to keep the divine commandment, then he would have shown himself the vanquisher of his enemy, and withstood his deathly attack. But since he voluntarily gave in to sin, he was defeated and was made a sinner. Since he is the root of our race, he has produced us as death-bearing shoots. So, it was necessary for us, if he were to fight back against his defeat and to claim victory, to rid himself of the death-bearing venomous poison in his soul and body, and to absorb life, eternal and indestructible life.
It was necessary for us to have a new root for our race, a new Adam, not just one Who would be sinless and invincible, but one Who also would be able to forgive sins and set free from punishment those subject to it. And not only would He have life in Himself, but also the capacity to restore to life, so that He could grant to those who cleave to Him and are related to Him by race both life and the forgiveness of their sins, restoring to life not only those who came after Him, but also those who already had died before Him. Therefore, St. Paul, that great trumpet of the Holy Spirit, exclaims, ““the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit”” (1 Cor. 15:45).
Except for God, there is no one who is without sin, or life-creating, or able to remit sin. Therefore, the new Adam must be not only Man, but also God. He is at the same time life, wisdom, truth, love, and mercy, and every other good thing, so that He might renew the old Adam and restore him to life through mercy, wisdom and righteousness. These are the opposites of the things which the author of evil used to bring about our aging and death.
As the slayer of mankind raised himself against us with envy and hatred, so the Source of life was lifted up [on the Cross] because of His immeasurable goodness and love for mankind. He intensely desired the salvation of His creature, i.e., that His creature would be restored by Himself. In contrast to this, the author of evil wanted to bring God’s creature to ruin, and thereby put mankind under his own power, and tyrannically to afflict us. And just as he achieved the conquest and the fall of mankind by means of injustice and cunning, by deceit and his trickery, so has the Liberator brought about the defeat of the author of evil, and the restoration of His own creature with truth, justice and wisdom.
It was a deed of perfect justice that our nature, which was voluntarily enslaved and struck down, should again enter the struggle for victory and cast off its voluntary enslavement. Therefore, God deigned to receive our nature from us, hypostatically uniting with it in a marvellous way. But it was impossible to unite that Most High Nature,Whose purity is incomprehensible for human reason, to a sinful nature before it had been purified. Therefore, for the conception and birth of the Bestower of purity, a perfectly spotless and Most Pure Virgin was required.
Today we celebrate the memory of those things that contributed, if only once, to the Incarnation. He Who is God by nature, the Co-unoriginate and Coeternal Word and Son of the Transcendent Father, becomes the Son of Man, the Son of the Ever-Virgin. ““Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today, and forever”” (Heb. 13:8), immutable in His divinity and blameless in His humanity, He alone, as the Prophet Isaiah prophesied, ““practiced no iniquity, nor deceit with His lips”” (Is. 53: 9). He alone was not brought forth in iniquity, nor was He conceived in sin, in contrast to what the Prophet David says concerning himself and every other man (Ps. 50/51: 5). Even in what He assumes, He is perfectly pure and has no need to be cleansed Himself. But for our sake, He accepted purification, suffering, death and resurrection, that He might transmit them to us.
God is born of the spotless and Holy Virgin, or better to say, of the Most Pure and All-Holy Virgin. She is above every fleshly defilement, and even above every impure thought. Her conceiving resulted not from fleshly lust, but by the overshadowing of the Most Holy Spirit. Such desire being utterly alien to Her, it is through prayer and spiritual readiness that She declared to the angel: ““Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto Me according to thy word”” (Lk. 1:38), and that She conceived and gave birth. So, in order to render the Virgin worthy of this sublime purpose, God marked this ever-virgin Daughter now praised by us, from before the ages, and from eternity, choosing Her from out of His elect.
Turn your attention then, to where this choice began. From the sons of Adam God chose the wondrous Seth, who showed himself a living heaven through his becoming behavior, and through the beauty of his virtues. That is why he was chosen, and from whom the Virgin would blossom as the divinely fitting chariot of God. She was needed to give birth and to summon the earth-born to heavenly sonship. For this reason also all the lineage of Seth were called ““sons of God,”” because from this lineage a son of man would be born the Son of God. The name Seth signifies a rising or resurrection, or more specifically, it signifies the Lord, Who promises and gives immortal life to all who believe in Him.
And how precisely exact is this parallel! Seth was born of Eve, as she herself said, in place of Abel, whom Cain killed through jealousy (Gen. 4:25); and Christ, the Son of the Virgin, was born for us in place of Adam, whom the author of evil also killed through jealousy. But Seth did not resurrect Abel, since he was only a foretype of the resurrection. But our Lord Jesus Christ resurrected Adam, since He is the very Life and the Resurrection of the earth-born, for whose sake the descendents of Seth are granted divine adoption through hope, and are called the children of God. It was because of this hope that they were called sons of God, as is evident from the one who was first called so, the successor in the choice.This was Enos, the son of Seth, who as Moses wrote, first hoped to call on the Name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26).
In this manner, the choice of the future Mother of God, beginning with the very sons of Adam and proceeding through all the generations of time, through the Providence of God, passes to the Prophet-king David and the successors of his kingdom and lineage. When the chosen time had come, then from the house and posterity of David, Joachim and Anna are chosen by God. Though they were childless, they were by their virtuous life and good disposition the finest of all those descended from the line of David.And when in prayer they besought God to deliver them from their childlessness, and promised to dedicate their child to God from its infancy. By God Himself, the Mother of God was proclaimed and given to them as a child, so that from such virtuous parents the all-virtuous child would be raised.So in this manner, chastity joined with prayer came to fruition by producing the Mother of virginity, giving birth in the flesh to Him Who was born of God the Father before the ages.
Now, when Righteous Joachim and Anna saw that they had been granted their wish, and that the divine promise to them was realized in fact, then they on their part, as true lovers of God, hastened to fulfill their vow given to God as soon as the child had been weaned from milk. They have now led this truly sanctified child of God, now the Mother of God, this Virgin into the Temple of God. And She, being filled with Divine gifts even at such a tender age, … She, rather than others, determined what was being done over Her. In Her manner She showed that She was not so much presented into the Temple, but that She Herself entered into the service of God of her own accord, as if she had wings, striving towards this sacred and divine love. She considered it desirable and fitting that she should enter into the Temple and dwell in the Holy of Holies.
Therefore, the High Priest, seeing that this child, more than anyone else, had divine grace within Her, wished to set Her within the Holy of Holies. He convinced everyone present to welcome this, since God had advanced it and approved it. Through His angel, God assisted the Virgin and sent Her mystical food, with which She was strengthened in nature, while in body She was brought to maturity and was made purer and more exalted than the angels, having the Heavenly spirits as servants. She was led into the Holy of Holies not just once, but was accepted by God to dwell there with Him during Her youth, so that through Her, the Heavenly Abodes might be opened and given for an eternal habitation to those who believe in Her miraculous birthgiving.
So it is, and this is why She, from the beginning of time, was chosen from among the chosen. She Who is manifest as the Holy of Holies, Who has a body even purer than the spirits purified by virtue, is capable of receiving … the Hypostatic Word of the Unoriginate Father.Today the Ever-Virgin Mary, like a Treasure of God, is stored in the Holy of Holies, so that in due time, (as it later came to pass) She would serve for the enrichment of, and an ornament for, all the world. Therefore, Christ God also glorifies His Mother, both before birth, and also after birth.
We who understand the salvation begun for our sake through the Most Holy Virgin, give Her thanks and praise according to our ability. And truly, if the grateful woman (of whom the Gospel tells us), after hearing the saving words of the Lord, blessed and thanked His Mother, raising her voice above the din of the crowd and saying to Christ, ““Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps Thou hast sucked”” (Lk. 11:27), then we who have the words of eternal life written out for us, and not only the words, but also the miracles and the Passion, and the raising of our nature from death, and its ascent from earth to Heaven, and the promise of immortal life and unfailing salvation, then how shall we not unceasingly hymn and bless the Mother of the Author of our Salvation and the Giver of Life, celebrating Her conception and birth, and now Her Entry into the Holy of Holies?
Now, brethren, let us remove ourselves from earthly to celestial things. Let us change our path from the flesh to the spirit. Let us change our desire from temporal things to those that endure. Let us scorn fleshly delights, which serve as allurements for the soul and soon pass away. Let us desire spiritual gifts, which remain undiminished. Let us turn our reason and our attention from earthly concerns and raise them to the inaccessible places of Heaven, to the Holy of Holies, where the Mother of God now resides.
Therefore, in such manner our songs and prayers to Her will gain entry, and thus through her mediation, we shall be heirs of the everlasting blessings to come, through the grace and love for mankind of Him Who was born of Her for our sake, our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory, honor and worship, together with His Unoriginate Father and His Coeternal and Life-Creating Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
These words come from the Prophetic Words of Isaiah and describe the worship of all believers in the Heavenly places. This is also one of the verses that influence the development of the worship in the Orthodox Church. Orthodox believe that our worship mimics if you will, the worship that we will be engaged in when are in the presence of the Almighty.
Isaiah 6:3 “And one cried to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”
This is the vision of Isaiah and the vision that all Orthodox worshippers should have during the services of the Church. When Prince Vladimir of Kiev was in search of a Church for his people, he sent our emissaries to the various centers of the word. When those who he had sent to the East returned they told stories of the worship being so beautiful that they could not determine if they were on earth or in heaven, this is the essence of Orthodox Worship.
The Church is like heaven and has an altar, a throne, smoke from incense and the believers singing Holy, Holy, Holy, the thrice holy hymn.
On this date, November 19th, 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at a new cemetery in a small Pennsylvania town that saw one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War. A very short speech, by modern standards, he had a lot to say. I have printed the text of the speech below.
The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
I think it goes without saying that St. Paul is one of the greatest missionary figures of the New Testament. In fact, most of the Epistle writings are those of St. Paul to the churches that he founded and they leave us with an enormous amount of theology, spirituality, missiology, and the like.
St. Paul was under some sort of house arrest in Rome between AD 61-63 and that is the time that most scholars believe he wrote his letter to his Church in Philippi. In the opening sentences of that letter (verse 6 to be exact) he says, “being confident of this very thing He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
What is St. Paul saying will be completed in the through Jesus Christ? In the previous verse he mentions the “fellowship in the Gospel” and he is pleased with that. The Philippian Church had taken up a collection and sent it to Paul who was in desperate need of those funds. They had been faithful and St. Paul is writing to thank them for their generosity. But it is more than that.
The Greek work “koinonia” is central in St. Paul’s writing in this Epistle and to the Church that had formed in Philippi. But this sense of fellowship is also central to the life of Orthodox Christianity. This word moves past friendship and implies true communion, communion not only in the sense of the Sacramental action but in the care and love that the people have for each other and those in need.
Care for each other and for those around us is fundamental to our lives as Christians, we do not have a choice to help or not, we are commanded to care for those around us. In one sense we are accountable to each other for not only what we do but what we do not do. If we see someone in need we must help them, we must give them our coat, our food, or other help they might need. But it has to go deeper than that.
Feeding and clothing people is wonderful and it is a fulfillment of the Gospel command, but we also have to feed and clothe them spiritually. We have to share our lives with them and bring them to the love and light of Jesus Christ. This is what the Church in Philippi was doing and tis is the reason St. Paul wrote to them.
Share what you have with those in need, food, clothing, money, but also share what God has given you and that is life in Christ.
