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Vocations and Sharing our Faith

Posted on by Fr. Peter

The other day I linked to an article debunking reasons for women to become nuns.  The article was written by, and for a Roman Catholic audience but there were some points that could be useful to an Orthodox audience as well.

A rather lively discussion took place following the posting of the article and that led to a discussion about vocations and sharing our faith.

One commenter took issue with what she called “advertising for vocations.”  The issue was that vocations are just that, vocations, and not careers.  I agreed but said vocations need to be nurtured not only by the parish but most importantly by the family.

We have, here in the United States, somewhat of a vocation crisis.  In my Archdiocese, I am the last home grown vocation, and I was ordained in 2004.  When a priest is needed we just bring a priest over from Romania.  The reason for this is that we need Romanian speaking priests.  I support that, for now, but what about the future.  What are we doing to support the call in young men to the priesthood?

God is constantly calling men and women to the ministry in the Church.  He is planting the seeds but those seeds need to be nourished and cared for.  Healthy parishes will produce healthy vocations to the various ministries in the Church.  I also believe that we need to stop thinking of the priesthood as the only vocation in the Church.  What of monks, nuns, teachers, missionaries, chanters, choir directors, theology professors all of these are vocations, and they all need nurturing.  The most valuable thing we can do is pray, pray for vocations every day.

The nurturing of any vocation begins in the home; parents are the first teachers of their children. When I said this on Facebook yesterday the response was, what if we do not know about our faith?  Well I certainly understand this situation.  We have done an extremely poor job of teaching the faith to the people in the Church.  In my experience, we spend far too much time on festivals and language schools and other such things and remarkably little time on any kind of religious education.  Call a meeting about fundraising and the room will be packed, schedule a Bible Study and suddenly everyone has something to do.

So I ask this question, what are you doing to teach your children the faith?  Are you attending Liturgy on Sunday, every Sunday, or do you only attend when you have nothing else to do.  I am sorry but allowing your child to play sports on Sunday morning is a heresy and not what Orthodox Christians should be doing.  Do you attend Vespers on Saturday night, or does your Church even have Vespers on Saturday night?  Do you show up late or just on time for Liturgy or do you come to Church early enough to quiet your mind and pray a little bit?  How many of you have never heard the words, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”?

Do you pray together as a family?  Do you pray before meals, not only at home but when you are out to eat?  Do you have an Icon corner in your home and is it in a place that everyone can see and do you use it.  Praying together as a family is extremely valuable.

What about feast days?  Do you attend either Liturgy or Vespers of the Feasts of the Church?  Do you know when they are and what they represent?  Do you follow the fasting and abstinence rules of the Church?  Do you have a spiritual Father?  Do you go to confession?  Do you take communion?  I cannot count the number of time I have seen parents bring their children up to communion but then not receive themselves.  Parents you are the first and most influential teachers of your children.  They will model your behavior, and they see everything.

Parents need to talk to their children about vocations in the Church.  Parishes need to do this as well.  When was the last time your community invited a missionary or a monastic to come and visit your Church? There are a number of monasteries here in the United States with many monks and nuns.  Invite a monk or a nun to come to Church and talk about monastic life.  Does your community know about Orthodox missionaries and the countries they serve in?  The Orthodox Christian Mission Center has many resources available for free, picture of missionaries and biographies of their work and the countries they serve.  Post the photos, pray for the missionaries by name at Liturgy and when they are home, ask them to come to the Church and talk about missions.

When choosing a college for your child to attend how much of an influence is the location of an Orthodox Church or an OCF Chapter on campus.  Have you considered Hellenic College or the new Saint Catherine’s College?  All of these are crucial in fostering vocations in the Church.

The fostering of vocations is the job of all of us in the Church.  The whole Church needs to be involved in fostering vocations to all of the ministries in the Church.  The Church of tomorrow needs the vocations of today.  What are doing to ensure there will be vocations tomorrow?

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Paraclis’ service of the Mother of God is very spiritually useful

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Patriarch Daniel of Romania

On 1 August 2012, 17.00 hours, the Paraclis Service of the Birth Giver of God was celebrated at the Patriarchal Cathedral of Bucharest, on the first day of the fasting for the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God. To end with the religious service, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania delivered a sermon in which he emphasised the significance of the Paraclis of the Most Holy Birth Giver of God for the life of the faithful. “Paraclis” means comfort, consolation, spiritual strengthening. This is why unlike Akatistos, the Paraclis is made up of condacs, troparions and complete canon, having been named comfort canon. This Paraclis service urges us to unite prayer with repentance – during the fasting period of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God – as well as with the request of help, so that we may become obedient to God, just as she is a model of obedience, lowliness, holiness and devotion to God. When the Paraclis is read our people feel spiritual strength, help, joy and peace. Thus, the Paraclis is a source of spiritual power, strength, encouragement and victory over temptation, suffering, disease and trouble. This is why people love this Paraclis very much, which is very spiritually useful.

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel showed the reasons why the Orthodox Christians worship the Birth Giver of God: “We worship the Mother of God because it was through her that joy has come to everybody. It was through her that the fallen Adam rose up and Eve’s tears were wiped. This is also because the Mother of God helps us. She is the protector of the pure girls, of the monks and nuns who live in monasteries. She is the protector of the mothers who gave birth to children and grow them up in faith, so the protector of the family. She is the protector of the deacons, priests and hierarchs because her Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord is the eternal High Priest. She is the protector of the orphans, widows and of the aged persons. This is why she is the protector of the wronged ones, guide of the confused, healer of passions and troubles, of trials and hardship. She is very merciful and helps a lot, always praying, namely never overlooked.”

At the same time, the Patriarch of Romania urged the faithful to pray Holy Virgin Mary because she is a fast helper and protector: “The Mother of God knows what every family and person needs. This is why we must spiritually strengthen ourselves, especially during the fasting period for the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God, and increase our devotion, and prayers to the Mother of God. Let us pray Mother of God to protect us, help us, and bring peace to our souls, joy in the family and give us the joy of Saint Elisabeth when Mother of God entered her house. We must always ask for her help in the morning and evening, before every activity and afterwards. The Mother of God is our prayer to God, during our lifetime, at death time and at the last judgement.”

Following the urge of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel the Paraclis service of the Mother of God will be celebrated during this fasting period in all the parishes and monasteries of the Archdiocese of Bucharest, and at the Patriarchal Cathedral every day.

Source:

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Preparing for Battle

Posted on by Fr. Peter

Today is a sad day in America for on this day the religious liberty that we have cherished for low these many years has come to an end, for now anyway.

Today is the day that the HHS Mandate that those of us who hold traditional beliefs are required to violate our conscious and pay for things that we find morally repugnant.  It is truly a sad day.

Today is also the start of the Orthodox Fast period before the Great Feast of the Dormition of the Holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary.  As Orthodox we are called to repentance during all of the fast periods of the Church but this one seems extremely important.  As the Roman Catholics used the days leading up to the 4th of July as the Fortnight for Freedom, we Orthodox should use these days of the fast to pray for our country and its leaders. That, as the Divine Liturgy says, “in their calmness we may lead religious and serene lives.”

Today is also the day we commemorate the Procession of the Holy Cross.  This description of the Feast is taken from the website of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese: (emphasis mine)

Because of the many diseases that occur in the month of August, the custom prevailed of old in Constantinople to carry the precious Wood of the Cross in procession throughout the city for its sanctification and its deliverance from illnesses. It was brought forth from the imperial treasury on the last day of July and placed upon the Holy Table of the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom; and beginning today, until the Dormition of the Theotokos, it was carried in procession throughout the city and was set forth for veneration before the people.

I celebrated a Divine Liturgy today and the Gospel reading assigned for this day was also very poignant for this particular day and what we as a nation and as believers are going to face:

The Reading is from Matthew 10:16-22

The Lord said to his disciples, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

For me this reading was a battle cry for us to be prepared for what is coming.  As the Gospel says we will be hated for the sake of the Son of God but we need not fear for God will be with us and we who endure to the end will be saved.

God Bless all of you and God Bless America!

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Ministry to the Sick

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Jesus heals the Blind Man

“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” James 5:14

One of the aspects of pastoral ministry is visiting people when they are sick.  The Romanian Patriarchate has designated this as one where we should focus on the ministry of the sick.  We need to study this Sacrament and teach about it because we have lost the meaning of it.

In times past when the priest came to the hospital it was because the end was near.  Sometimes that is in fact the case.  Our Orthodox spirituality has been infected by this western concept of last rites or extreme unction.  From an Orthodox perspective this is the Sacrament of the Sick or the Sacrament of Anointing if you will.  This is for all illness of not only the body but of the mind and of the spirit.

In the Scripture rom St. James I quoted above, James does not say when you are dying, or if you are critically ill call the elders, no, he says, “If anyone is sick” no other qualifiers are used.  If you are sick, or having surgery or for a spiritual matter call the elders and we will pray for you.

The healing ministry of the Church is as old as the Church is itself.  There are many examples in Scripture of Jesus healing various people and there is also the patristic tradition of praying for those who are ill.  St. Ireneaus writing the second century, tell the story of miracles during his day.  Many of the fathers and mother that followed would write about healing in their days as well.  The 18th century Russian Monk, St. Seraphim of Sarov is credited with many healings and the oil from the lamps of such saints at John Maximovitch have been known to work miracles.

When the priest prays for the person who is sick he does not pray alone but the church prays with him.  When we pray we are never alone, we are surrounded by a cloud of witness.  However when we do pray for the sick we neither command God to heal or doubt his ability to heal.  Rather we plead for his promise mercy on all who are ill.  We also pray for those who are present for the family and friends of the one who is sick for the strength they will need to sustain them along the journey.

In the Orthodox Church today there exists a prayer that can be used at any time.  There is of course the longer prayer service that is customarily used in Byzantine Churches during Holy Week when the oil is blessed and all present are anointed.  That service is much more complex.  But when the priest is called he prays for the sick person and anoints them with oil saying the following prayer:

O Lord Almighty, Healer of our souls and bodies, who put down and raise up, who chastise and heal also, visit now in Your mercy our brother or sister (N), who is ill.  Stretch forth Your arm, which is full of healing and health, and raise (him/her) up from this bed, and cure this illness.  Put away the spirit of disease and every malady and pain and fever.  And if (he/she) has committed sins and transgressions, grant remission and forgiveness, because You love mankind.

Again, we ask God we never command, and we ask that His will be done in this and in all things.  If it be His will we ask that He heals the person who is sick.  Asking for the priest to anoint a sick person does not mean that the end is near, it simply means we are following the example left to us in Scripture, If anyone is sick call the elders and they will pray and anoint with oil.

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Metropolitan Hilarion: Our love of God is tested beyond the church walls

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk

On July 29, the commemoration way of the Holy Fathers of the Six Ecumenical Councils, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the church of Our Lady the Joy to All the Afflicted in Moscow.

After the liturgy, Metropolitan Hilarion delivered the following homily:

‘In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

‘In today’s Reading of the Gospel, we heard the story of how our Lord Jesus Christ, at the request of His disciple, fed up a multitude of people with bread and fish. The Gospel speaks of five thousand men who were fed by the Lord, not counting women and children. So, we do not know the exact number of people. The Lord fed them with five thousand loaves and two fishes.

‘This miracle of the multiplication of loaves in a desert reminds us that the Lord is the Giver of every blessing, the Giver of both material and spiritual food. It is not accidental that every time before eating we ask the Lord to bless our meal and after the meal we thank Him for satisfying us with His earthly gifts and ask that He may not deprive us of His Heavenly Kingdom.

‘Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Giver of all blessings and it is He Who gives us food, even if we buy it in a grocery or cook it with our own hands.

‘In a quite different manner however, the Lord gives us Himself as the Bread which gives eternal life and gives us His Holy Blood as the source of water running into eternal life. And it is not accidental that from the very beginning of the Church of Christ on earth this miracle of the multiplication of the loaves was seen as the image and prototype of the Holy Eucharist which we received from the hands of the Lord Himself. We ask for bread and wine produced by human hands, but the Lord by His divine power turns them into His life-giving Body and His honourable Blood to feed not five or fifty or five hundred thousand but millions of people around the world – the people to whom the Lord Himself said, ‘I am the bread of life’ (Jn. 6:48). ‘I am the source of living water; whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst’ (cf. Jn. 4:14). The Holy Eucharist is the source of spiritual blessings which helps us in our earthly life to unite with the Lord Himself, while remaining in our material bodies.

‘There is a simple physical law: when man takes food, this food is digested by his organism. Particles of this food are absorbed by his flash and blood to become part of his own flesh. When man takes in the Divine Bread – the Body of Christ, this material bread is miraculously united with the material body of man and the Body of Christ becomes part of our body, and the Blood of Christ becomes part of our blood. This is that ineffable and incomprehensible union between God and man which is possible only in the Christian Church and for the sake of which the Lord came to earth.

‘Holy Fathers say that the goal of Christian life is deification, that is, the union of man with God in which man, while remaining in his material body, becomes imbued with the presence and energies of God, in which man, while on earth, lives the life of the upper world. This happens to us in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. In this sacrament we unite with the Lord and the Lord begins to live in us, begins, from within our own body, to feed us with His own Divine Body and His Divine Blood, thus enlivening and giving life to our human nature and burning the sinful principle present in each of us. This sacrament is a great gift of God, but it places a great responsibility for our life, our behaviour, our attitude to God and people.

‘The Lord demands that we should fulfil His holy commandments, that we live by His laws, that the Gospel should be for us not just a book to read but the book with which we verify our everyday life. The sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is indissolubly linked with what happens before and after it. It is not accidental that the Church calls us to be thoroughly prepared for the communion, to purify our hearts through the sacrament of confession, to purify our minds through prayer and repentance, through the attentive and heartfelt participation in the Divine Eucharist. The Eucharist however is also linked with what happens after we have taken communion and after we have been dismissed and come out of the church. Indeed, it is beyond the church that lies the space in which we should manifest our Christian love, our Christian courage, and in which we should do as it befits Christians. If we partake of the Holy Gifts of Christ but our life is not consistent with the gospel’s ideal, then this sacrament proves to be, as St. Paul put it, ‘in judgment’ of us (see, 1 Cor. 11:28-29), like one of the apostles, having partaken of the Last Supper, proved to be unworthy of that holy gift. Whenever we come up to the Holy Cup, we remember this former apostle and pray that we may never make his mistakes, never lapse into duality which led him to betrayal.

‘Our love of God is tested outside the church walls where we encounter human grief, need, evil and perfidy, where the Lord calls us to act in the way He Himself acted among people. In our everyday affairs we should emulate the Lord Himself, looking at Him as the image we should imitate.

‘Whenever we partake of the Holy Gifts of Christ, we will pray that the Lord may give us strength to be good Christians in this world where Christian values have been forgotten by many, where the gospel’s commandments are unknown to many. We will ask the Lord to fill our hearts with the grace and love which helps us to carry our cross of life, which helps us in all life situations to act as it befits Christians. Amen’.

DECR Communication Service

Source:

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The Wonder of the Multiplication of the Loaves of Bread Anticipates the Holy Eucharist

Posted on by Fr. Peter
His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel

Today, 29 July 2012, it is the 8th Sunday after the Pentecost, also called of the Multiplication of the loaves. The Evangelical pericope of Saint Matthew, chapter 14, lines 14-22, presenting the miraculous multiplication of the five loaves of bread and of the two fish in the desert by Jesus Christ, our Saviour was read during the Divine Liturgy.

His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania showed in the sermon delivered in the chapel of the “Great Martyr George” of the Patriarchal Residence that this wonder of the multiplication of the loaves speaks, first of all, about the priorities that the Christian faithful should have: “We must have the spiritual food first, acquired through the meeting with God. We first feed our soul listening to the words of the Gospel, and our being with the Holy Communion, and only afterwards we may have the common meal. This is the order: first the soul which has eternal value, having been created in the image of the Eternal God, and the body afterwards”, informs Trinitas Radio station.

“We have two sorts of gifts. There are, first of all the permanent gifts which are the Word of God and the Holy Eucharist, because when the bread and wine are turned into the Body and Blood of the Lord we receive heavenly gifts; and then, there are the temporary gifts, such as the daily food, which are also gifts of God which we must receive with prayer and thanksgiving. The Saviour shows this by the very fact that before multiplying the loaves and the fish He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke them. Here we have an anticipation of the Holy Eucharist. So, Jesus Christ blesses the gifts brought to Him with His prayers and then breaks and gives them to the disciples, and the disciples to the crowd. So, we understand that the wonder of the multiplication of the loaves is also related, through a deeper meaning, to the Holy Eucharist. We bring the gifts of bread and wine to the Holy Eucharist, a part of them used for the Holy Eucharist, while the other ones are shared as Eucharist bread”, also said His Beatitude.

The Patriarch of Romania has also spoken about the Eucharist and social-philanthropic dimension found in the wonder mentioned in today’s pericope: “Today’s Gospel shows us on one hand that we are called to feed our soul with spiritual food, and on the other hand, to help the hungry ones, the sick and the helpless.

Thus, the mystery of the Holy Altar unites us with the mystery of the needy brother who needs the love of the generous one. Thus, we see how the wonder of the multiplication of the loaves and fish in the desert becomes a spiritual programme of our life, of the entire Church and of every separate Christian.

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel mentioned that in three days time, the Orthodox faithful begin the fasting of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God. During the two fasting weeks His Beatitude urges us to purify our senses and increase our good deeds. Having been the icon and protector of all Christians, merciful and prompt helper, she becomes especially during this period of fasting a great help for the Christian life. We must read the prayers dedicated to her and intensify the merciful deeds. If we fast and do not give presents to the poor, our fasting is not complete. Fasting must be united with prayer and mercy.

Source

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Sermon ~ Getting to the heart of the Problem

Posted on by Fr. Peter

 

Last week, I spoke about the need for us to seek forgiveness for past hurts and for the transgressions that we might have committed.  I used the image of the spare room where we keep all of those things that we do not want anyone to see.  We stack them all up, one on top of the other, until they hit the ceiling and from wall to wall and there just is no more room.  In this area is stored not only our transgressions but our hurts, our fears, our unfulfilled desires, we lock them away, and we try not to deal with them.

The problem is as we try and deepen our spiritual life that area stand there like a beacon urging us to open the door and start to clear out all of that clutter.

At the very center of our spiritual life is repentance, conversion, and the transformation of our thoughts and our life.  For many of us, we spend time beating ourselves up when we fail, or we miss the mark in our spiritual life.  But if we are working towards a truly authentic spiritual life, and I hope we all are, then we will not beat ourselves up instead we will confront them, head on, and reject them, confess them, and then try not to fall again.  We must always remember that we are not our sins, our thoughts or our actions.  People are not defined by what we do or say, we are defined by being children of God and loved by God because of the very fact the He created us.  When we repent of all that we have done, we stop and renounce not only the actions that we are guilty of, but we also have to renounce the identity that goes along with it.

For many of us, we come to confession once or twice a year.  Many of us sitting here today have not been to confession in many, many years!  But when we come to the “annual” confession we are only dealing with that which lays on the surface our lives.  Because we only come once or twice a year, we do not have the time to do the work that is necessary to get to the root of the problem.

As you know I have a rather large garden planted out back.  Several times a week I spend time in the garden pulling weeds.  I try as hard as I can to pull them up by the roots so they will not grow back.  It would be easier for me just to trim off the part that sticks above the ground and leave the difficult part under the ground where no can see it.  But soon or later that weed will come back.  We pull those weeds because they take necessary nourishment away from the plants that produce the food that we need to sustain us.  Our transgressions work the same way.

When you come to confession and say things like I am sorry I get angry, or sorry I am judgmental towards another person, that is fine, but you are only slipping off that which is above the soil of our soul.  We need to go deep, much deeper than we have been willing to go before.  What causes us to get angry and what is the reason we are so judgmental.  The anger and judgment is a symptom, we can treat the symptom that is easy, but if we truly want to be cured of the illness that we need to get to the root of the problem.

As we place our hand on the door knob and begin to open that door to the secret place that we all have, we will come into contact with things that we have not spoken of ever or that we have not spoken of in many years.  Even after we have confessed a certain thing we might be bothered by the thoughts or the feelings that the remembrance of what it was that we confessed.  These thoughts and feelings might make us feel guilty and provoke our conscious to remind us that we have a broken relationship with God.  We have to prepare ourselves of what breaks our relationship with God and with other people.

Metropolitan Kalistos Ware reminds us that there are no personal sins for all sin affects our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Something like feeling anger towards one of the brethren and the evil that we might bear in our hearts toward them will have a damaging effect on the community.  At the start of every Liturgy we pray, “In peace let us pray to the Lord.”  We have to be at peace with all or we will be distracted in prayer.  We have to fix that relationship not only with God but with the community as well.

One of the questions that I often hear asked about confession is why do I need to confess before a man when I can stand before God and confess?  There are two answers, one you are not confessing to a man because two you are standing before God.  It is not the priest who forgives, but God.  Metropolitan Kalistos also says  “every sin however secret is a stumbling block for others and makes it harder for them to serve Christ.”  Confession, in the early Church, used to be done in public.  People would rise, and confess what they had done and ask forgiveness from the entire community.  As the Church grew this became a time for scandal for some and thus was born confession between the parishioner and the priest.  Rather than standing before the community, the penitent stands before the priest and opens his/her heart under the conditions of secrecy.

When you come to confession here in the Church, you and I stand here before God. My role is to stand here and represent the community.  By our confession before another human being we realize that we have sinned against the community and our sins have a social aspect to them.  We seek not only forgiveness from God but from the community.  We stand here and speak out loud what we have done, not only in breaking our relationship with God, but to our relationship with the community.  God forgives you, and absolution is given not only as an assurance of that, but also to repair the damage that has been done in the community.

The confession that I am describing is a confession that cannot be done just once or even twice a year.  If we are going to get serious about our spiritual lives then we have to be willing to put the work in that is necessary.  Many of you spend time working out and watching what you eat.  We do this so our bodies will be healthy.  Perhaps we have been to the doctor, and he has told us that we need to shed a few pounds.  Maybe we tried to put on last year’s pants and somehow them shrunk in the wash.  We read labels and count calories, we run on the tread mill or we walk around the block.  Whatever it is that we do we have to do it more than once or twice a year, or it is not going to work.  The same is true with our spiritual life.  We need to spend time on it.  Once a week will just not do!

As I said before, there are reasons why we do what we do and that is what we need to get to.  The reasons we do what we do are the things that we keep way in the back of the room under the pile at the bottom.  Those are the things that we cannot see because we have piled up all of the symptoms in front of them.  These are the things that might cause us pain, and so we do not want to remember them, we push them down, and we try to ignore them, and we become depressed and bitter.

As we progress through the spiritual life we have to confront this face to face, and we can only make this happen if we come and stand naked before God, and talk about what we need to talk about.  We have to be willing to do the work that is necessary to get to the root of the problem.  Just like in any physical activity, “no pain, no gain” is what we have to get to.  But we cannot do this alone.  We need someone who can lead us along this path, and point out where we need to go.  But it all begins with confession and a willingness to change our lives.

Last week I mentioned that we were going to spend the next few weeks looking at how to deepen our spiritual life.  No one, bishop, priest, or parishioner, can make this journey alone.  We need a guide to help us along the path.  That is my role, that is why I am here.  The work of the Church is healing and purification of the people.  The Church is where we come for healing of the passions so we might attain communion and unity with God.  The Church is the hospital for the those who are sick with sin and the bishops and priests are the healers of the people of God.

 It is the ministry of the priest, the spiritual father of the community, to help you along the journey to healing and a deeper spiritual life.  There is such richness in our Orthodox Spiritual tradition that is ripe for the taking.  We need to move past the surface and advance deeper and deeper below the surface to the roots of it all.

The work of the Church is therapeutic.  The Church and her priests seek to heal the sickness of the soul which torments all of us.  The tools are available, and we all need someone to show us how to use those tools.

The time has come for us to begin that work that is necessary to deepen our spiritual life.  On Wednesday we begin the fast period leading up to the great Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos.  The fast periods of the Church are designed to be penitential and ideal times to return to confession, the ideal time to begin the work required to get to the roots.  Let us not allow that time pass.  Do not squander the opportunity you are being given to deepen your relationship with the God who created you.

The time is now, what are you waiting for?

 

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On those Orthodox who Support Abortion and Homosexuality

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Fr. Thomas Hopko

“In Orthodoxy, communicants in the sacramental mysteries are not only obliged to be steadfast in the Christian faith and perpetually repentant over their failures, they are also obliged to take full responsibility for the Church’s teachings and practices, and to be ready, at least in intention, to defend them unto death. For this reason, those who publicly affirm and promote homosexual behavior (like those who publicly advocate abortion) cannot be sacramental communicants in the Orthodox Church”

Fr Thomas Hopko (Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction, 108)

h/t Orthodox Christianity

 

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The Patriarch of Romania at the Celebration of the Saint Patron’s Day of Techirghiol Monastery

Posted on by Fr. Peter

Friday, 27 July 2012, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania was present at the celebration of the saint patron day of Saint Maria – Techirghiol, patriarchal stavropighia.

In the sermon delivered, the Patriarch of Romania showed that Saint Great Martyr Pantelimon represents a model of mercy and kindness for all those who suffer.

His Beatitude has also emphasised the importance of the prayer said for the sick: “Today, we pray Saint Great Martyr Pantelimon to protect us, to give us good health, help us heal the diseases of our soul and body and help us, at the same time, be more merciful because his name contains the mercy virtue. May the merciful one help us be merciful too and be able to help the poor, sick and grieved with our prayers, good words, a loaf of bread, and some money for medicine! We badly need to think of those who suffer. If we are in good health we must thank God for it and pray, at the same time, for the good health of those around us. If we help the sick, we visit them, show them mercy as Saint Patelimon did, and then we feel in us the joy of the presence of the merciful Christ in our life and become the merciful hands of Christ for our fellow beings”, informs us Trinitas Radio station.

To end with the Divine Liturgy, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel consecrated the icon of Saint Great Martyr Pantelimon made of the mosaic of the fountain in the monastery court.

“This mosaic icon of Saint Great Martyr Pantelimon was consecrated by God’s grace. We thank Rev Archimandrite Cleopa Nistor who had this icon framed”, said His Beatitude.

Situated close to the shore of the Black Sea, in Techirghiol resort, “Saint Maria” Monastery dates as far back as 1928, when patriarch Miron Cristea bought a house with 16 rooms here. Later on, in 1951, a wooden church was brought here from the royal sheepfold of Sinaia, making a nuns’ skete. After several extensions, in 1999-2000 a treatment centre was arranged here, under the protection of Saint Pantelimon, which operates at present within the social-pastoral centre of Saint Maria. In 2003 the construction of the new brick church dedicated to the “Falling Asleep of the Mother of God” began, and in 2009, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel consecrated the chapel dedicated to “Saint Pantelimon” at the semi-basement of the new church.

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Eyeing the Catacombs – Again

Posted on by Fr. Peter

by Fr. Lawrence Farley

Fr. John Peck, Author of the Orthodox Church of Tomorrow, has an excellent discussion on his blog about how we Christians can survive in this world we live in today.  This essay by Fr. Farley is just one point in that discussion.  I suggest you surf on over and follow the discussion.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his essay “A Meaningful Storm”, described the history of the Church as consisting of a series of layers.

The earliest layer (and most fundamental, I would suggest) is that of the early church, a time of pagan persecution when the Church lived its life in the catacombs as a hounded and illegal sect.  (Well, it lived in the catacombs metaphorically speaking—the Sunday service never was actually held in the catacombs, which were places of burial.)

Then came the second layer, after the Peace of Constantine, when the first Christian Emperor called off the dogs of persecution and gave the Church a privileged place in the sun, beginning the long and glorious Byzantine experiment of Church-State symphonia.

After about a millennium, when the Empire suffered increasing reversals and eventual overthrow in 1453, this was followed by the third layer, characterized by the growth of national churches in the various territories of what used to be the Byzantine Empire.  It has been called Byzance après Byzance, (Byzantium after Byzantium) when the double-headed eagle of Byzantine Rome made a reprise role among the newly-formed nations in the Balkans.

The Orthodox Church in North America, of course, while inheriting all this layered history, never experienced it directly, being far from the territory of Byzantium.  North America did, however, experience wave after wave of immigration, and became a kind of receptacle for a whirlpool of piety and practice from the Old World.  And though some would minimize the Christian foundations of America, it can make a credible claim to have been a Christian nation:  Abraham Lincoln called its citizens on three separate occasions to “a day of humiliation, prayer and fasting” in times of national crisis; the motto “In God We Trust” is famously inscribed on its currency; and Christian holy days still offer the occasions for its public holidays.  Even north of the US border, in the previous generation of the ‘50’s, pretty much everyone went to “the church or synagogue of their choice”.   It wasn’t exactly Byzantium or Holy Russia, but it sure felt Christian (especially, one imagines, to its Jewish population).

As anyone can see who hasn’t just emerged from a long snooze like the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, things have changed.  Our long kick at the Byzantine can is over, and we now live in a militantly post-Christian culture.   Witness the notorious 1989 “work of art” by American Andreas Serrano “Piss Christ”, consisting of a picture of Christ in a container of urine, and show-cased in the Vancouver Art Gallery.  Witness the current debate over homosexual marriage— for it doesn’t matter which side “wins” the debate; the very fact that it can be held reveals that a Christian cultural consensus has been lost.  Culturally-speaking, it is always open season on the Christians, for Christian symbols and beliefs can be openly mocked in a way no others can inNorth America.  (If you doubt this, ask yourself what the reaction would’ve been to a “Piss Mohammad” art exhibit, and whether or not an art gallery of a major city would have allowed it to be shown.)

So what does this mean?  I would suggest it means that it is time to “return to the catacombs”. Please don’t misunderstand me:  this does not mean that we opt out of public debate, or cease to vote, or refuse to run for office.  It does not mean that we no longer value the good things in North American culture (including the freedom of speech to debate unpopular things).  It does not mean that we eschew patriotism, as if love of country and love of God were somehow incompatible.  (Byzantium at least taught us that.)  It does not mean that we fill the moat, pull up the drawbridge and retreat into a frightened and paranoid huddle, fearing any contaminating contact with the world.

What then does it mean?  Life in the catacombs simply means that we acknowledge that to be a confessing Christian involves embracing a life that is now in open conflict with the reigning values of our culture.   And, I further suggest, this involves the following:

1.  We must at all costs retain the world-affirming sacramental approach of Orthodoxy and refuse to adopt a cultish mindset.  In a lecture in Delaware in 1981, Fr. Alexander spoke of the need to live “between Utopia and Escape”, avoiding the extremes of imagining we could create Utopia through our own efforts, or of making a retreat from the world, escaping into closed communities dedicated to re-creating Byzantium, Holy Russia or some other mythical version of our past.  It is significant that the liturgies of the early church reflect a world-embracing concern for all, giving thanks for everything and offering it back to God in a spirit of peace and joy.  One would never know these liturgies were prayed by people under threat of arrest and death. In “the catacombs” especially it is important to remember that “the whole earth is full of His glory” (Is. 6:3), and to retain the joy of living in God’s world.

2.  We must recover a sense that to be baptized means that we have come out of the world, and now belong not to this age, but to the age to come.  In the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, the groom-to-be allows himself to be baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church, and then immediately afterwards says to his intended Greek bride, “Now I’m a Greek!” Voila l’enemie!—our enemy is the attitude which equates being a Christian with being a respectable member of an earthly culture.  In fact Christians have always been “a third race”—neither Jew, nor Greek (i.e. Gentile of any kind, be that American, Canadian or any other people), but the Church of God(see 1 Cor. 10:32). We must recover a sense of being different, of being, as St. Paul says, “blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).  Baptism brings us out of one culture and into another; it is an act of spiritual emigration from this world to the next.  All immigrants know they have left one country and entered another.  We too must recover this sense of distance from the culture around us.

3.  Finally, living as a catacomb people will give us a particular love for others who share that space, even if they are not of our jurisdiction—even if (dare I say it?) they are Christians who are not yet Orthodox.  Don’t get me wrong—our ecumenical mandate to heal the schisms remains.  Bluntly put, we still need to offer the fullness of the Faith to all who love Christ, and pray for them to become Orthodox.  But living as part of an increasingly-marginalized Christian minority means the things we share with non-Orthodox Christians are more important than the things which separate us, and nothing drives that point home like persecution targeting all who confess the Holy Name.  It is possible that what the World Council of Churches could not accomplish, increased hostility from outside the churches will.

In conclusion, one might think that a “catacomb” existence would be a cramped one, darkened by fear and hopelessness and depression. I assert the opposite. The catacombs (as the early church knew) are illumined by the light of Christ, and made spacious by His joy which swells the heart.  And when things get really bad, we have been told to straighten up and lift up our heads, because our redemption is drawing near (Lk. 21:28). Life in the catacombs will be just fine, because in the catacombs or out of it, we live as glory-bound children of God.

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