Ben Stein on Christmas

Posted on by Fr. Peter
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a Nativity Scene, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.

I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking. Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events.. terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school The Bible says “Thou Shalt not Kill, thou Shalt not Steal”, and “Love your Neighbor as Yourself.” And we said OK. Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it…. no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards,
Honestly and respectfully.
Ben Stein

More Ridiculous Photos

Posted on by Fr. Peter
In case you missed this the last time here is another stupid photo. I am sure this is what Jesus had in mind for his church. I will say again that I like vestments and I think one should look the part during Liturgy but this is just stupid!

Christmas Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

Posted on by Fr. Peter
I behold a new and wondrous mystery! My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn.
The Angels sing!
The Archangels blend their voices in harmony!
The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise!
The Seraphim exalt His glory!

All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side the Sun of Justice.

And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, he had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things move in obedience to God.

This day He Who Is, is Born; and He Who Is becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became he God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassibility, remaining unchanged.

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Yet He has not forsaken His angels, nor left them deprived of His care, nor because of His Incarnation has he departed from the Godhead.

And behold,Kings have come, that they might adore the heavenly King of glory;
Soldiers, that they might serve the Leader of the Hosts of Heaven;
Women, that they might adore Him Who was born of a woman so that He might change the pains of child-birth into joy;
Virgins, to the Son of the Virgin, beholding with joy, that He Who is the Giver of milk, Who has decreed that the fountains of the breast pour forth in ready streams, receives from a Virgin Mother the food of infancy;
Infants, that they may adore Him Who became a little child, so that out of the mouth of infants and sucklings, He might perfect praise;
Children, to the Child Who raised up martyrs through the rage of Herod;
Men, to Him Who became man, that He might heal the miseries of His servants;
Shepherds, to the Good Shepherd Who has laid down His life for His sheep;
Priests, to Him Who has become a High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech;
Servants, to Him Who took upon Himself the form of a servant that He might bless our servitude with the reward of freedom;
Fishermen, to Him Who from amongst fishermen chose catchers of men;
Publicans, to Him Who from amongst them named a chosen Evangelist;
Sinful women, to Him Who exposed His feet to the tears of the repentant;
And that I may embrace them all together, all sinners have come, that they may look upon the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world.

Since therefore all rejoice, I too desire to rejoice. I too wish to share the choral dance, to celebrate the festival. But I take my part, not plucking the harp, not shaking the Thyrsian staff, not with the music of pipes, nor holding a torch, but holding in my arms the cradle of Christ. For this is all my hope, this my life, this my salvation, this my pipe, my harp. And bearing it I come, and having from its power received the gift of speech, I too, with the angels, sing: Glory to God in the Highest;and with the shepherds: and on earth peace to men of good will.

12 Days of Christmas

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Got this in an email and thought it was good! Thanks to Fr. Ken

From 1558 until 1829, Protestants in England prohibited Catholic Christians from practicing their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this Carol as a Catechism song for young Catholic Christians.

It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of the Church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

-The Partridge in a Pear Tree is Jesus Christ

-Two turtle doves are the Old and New Testaments.

-Three French hens stand for faith, hope and love.

-The four calling birds are the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

-The six geese a-laying stand for the six days of creation.

-Seven swans a-swimming represent the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit – Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership and Mercy.

-The eight maids a-milking are the eight beatitudes.

-Nine ladies dancing are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit–Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control.

-The ten lords a-leaping are the ten commandments.

-The eleven pipers piping stand for the eleven faithful disciples.

-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Nicene Creed.

So there is your history for today. This knowledge was shared with me and I found it interesting and enlightening and now you know how that strange song became a Christmas Carol…so pass it on if you wish.’

Cherish, keep and defend the Faith once delivered…

Merry (Twelve Days of) Christmas Everyone and May the rich blessings of God be upon you and your loved one’s

Great Op-Ed

Posted on by Fr. Peter
WHEN THE Christian holiday dominates the culture, sometimes oppressively, a newspaper column may not seem the most appropriate venue for personal reflections on the meaning of Jesus. Yet even as Western Civilization has been nourished by religious and philosophical traditions that have nothing to do with Jesus, it has also been profoundly influenced by the memory of this man. It can be more than merely sectarian to ask, Who was he?

The stories told about the nativity – Caesar’s census order, Bethlehem, Herod’s threat, three kings, star, no-room-at-the-inn, manger, angels, slaughter, flight – do not aim to be historical, yet in its deeper meaning, the beloved Christmas narrative gives us a portrait of a person that squares with the most important features of the actual Jesus. He was a counter-force to the Roman emperor. He was of the poor and powerless. He conveyed his message by indirection – more by poetry than doctrine. At heart, his story is tragic. Yet it is a source of hope and joy, which is why his friends clung to his memory. The problem he addressed was violence.

Violence was overwhelmingly the normal condition of the world into which Jesus was born. Jerusalem and its environs had long been what the scholar John Dominic Crossan calls the “cockpit of empire,” a crossroads region that had been the scene of brutal imperial conflicts going back 1,000 years. The Jewish people had mostly lived as vassals of one foreign sovereign or another, with oppressive violence a steady note of the Hebrew situation. Survival of Jewish nationhood in this milieu was a marvel, and key to that survival was a conscientious wrestling with the problem of violence, the record of which is the Bible.

Rome, when it came, was the most brutal imperial force of all, and its violence peaked several times during the century of Jesus and his movement, beginning with the savaging of the region around Nazareth not long before Jesus was born, and ending with the final destruction of Jerusalem as the story of Jesus was assuming the form we know.

But Jesus was not a mere victim of this violence. Acting in his Jewish tradition, he confronted it, rejected it, and proposed a new way to think of it. His followers knew at the outset, and ever after, that they failed to live up to the standard he set, but that very knowledge shows that the myth of what Crossan calls the normalcy of violence is broken.

Humans have an inbuilt tendency to find the solution of violence in yet more violence, with the result that it spirals on forever. The victory of coercive force is inevitably the cause of the next outbreak of coercive force. Jesus proposed that the answer to violence is not more violence, but is forgiveness and righteousness – or, as we would put it, peace and justice. For 2,000 years, this program has been able to be dismissed as piety’s dream. But something new is afoot. Since 1945, the normalcy of violence is armed with weapons that will surely render the human species extinct unless a different way of thinking of violence is found.

That is the promise of Christmas.

A different way of thinking of violence has already lodged itself in human consciousness. This is not just a Christian phenomenon. The great religions of the world – Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism – and the no-religion of rationalism have all countered the normalcy of violence with assertions of compassion and loving kindness. In the history of Western Civilization, no figure has represented that ideal more resolutely than Jesus. His story offers a masterpiece expression of the possibility of forgiveness and righteousness not only as a saving program, but as the basis of an intensely personal relationship.

Because Jesus is understood by those who believe in him as offering not only a sign of what is needed, but a way to achieve it – “I am the way,” he said – he has survived even for those who regard him in purely worldly terms as an image of a hope that cannot be fully articulated, and that can never be exclusively claimed by any group, including Christians. In that sense, the observances of this week can belong to everyone who chooses to enjoy them.

Peace.
James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Globe

Merry Christmas

Posted on by Fr. Peter
*Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas – no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a ‘ Holiday ‘.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs fro m Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
*At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears*
*You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me..*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter. *
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream Tree’*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS , not Happy Holiday !*

Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet a MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is !The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!

Pastor Rick Warren at the Inauguration

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Much has been written and spoken about the last few days over President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to ask Pastor Rick Warren to say a prayer at the Inauguration on January 20th. And just as much has been written and spoken about Pastor Rick Warren’s decision to accept. I cannot recall a time when both the left and the right have gone crazy over the same issue.

Pastor Rick Warren made a name for himself on the national stage when during the election campaign he asked both candidates to come to his church and have a conversation with him about how they would handle situations. He asked each of them the same questions and they were given the same amount of time to respond. I actually thought this was a good idea. Just because we are religious does not mean we cannot involve ourselves in the public arena. On the contrary, I believe as Christians we need to be involved in the public square and our voice needs to be heard loud and clear. Kudos Pastor Warren for having the guts to put yourself forward on this.

The left is not a big fan of Pastor Warren due to his stance on gay rights, same-sex marriage and evolution just to name a few. The right has gone off the wall because they cannot understand how this preacher could accept an invitation from someone that the religious right finds so objectionable because of his stance on many of the same issues. This choice has caused leaders in the gay community and other liberal groups to speak about the choice. They said that choosing such an outspoken person on issues like gay marriage was tantamount to endorsing bigotry.

For his part, the President-elect has defended his decision because he has chosen another minister, Joseph Lowery, a Methodist minister to deliver the benediction. Pastor Lowery is a supporter of all of the above. “During the course of the entire inaugural festivities, there are going to be a wide range of viewpoints that are presented,” Obama said. “And that’s how it should be, because that’s what America’s about. That’s part of the magic of this country… We are diverse and noisy and opinionated.”

This past weekend Pastor Warren spoke out on the subject of being invited to pray at the Inauguration. “Three years ago I took enormous heat for inviting Barack Obama to my church because some of his views don’t agree with mine, now he’s inviting me.” Pastor Warren also said that he prays for the same things that Obama prays for, integrity, humility and generosity.

So I guess the question is what would I do if I was asked to pray at the Inauguration? Well I would start by saying that he has been elected president and we need to support him. We do not always have to agree but we need to support him. I have not always agreed with President Bush but each Sunday I pray for him during the Liturgy and I pray for him each and everyday. I would also say that I would not pass on the opportunity to pray with such a large group of people and we should never pass on an opportunity to pray. Why would anyone say no?

As an Orthodox Christian and a pastor of a church I am called upon to pray at all sorts of gatherings. Some of them are religious and some are secular. I always accept the opportunity to pray as it brings me closer to a group that I would not otherwise come in contact with. I am also asked by all sorts of people, religious and not so religious, to pray for them and I do so. We have a duty to pray for those who ask us to and I believe we have a duty to pray for those who govern us.

Near the end of the Orthodox Liturgy there is a little phrase the priest says quietly. The phrase is part of a larger prayer but says something like, “for our civil authorities so that we in their calmness may lead religious and reverent lives.” There it is religious and reverent lives. How bad is that?

Patriarchal Encyclical for the Nativity of Our Lord

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Istanbul, Turkey
12/18/2008

BARTHOLOMEW
By the Mercy of GodArchbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch

To the Plenitude of the Church

Grace, peace and mercy from the Savior Christ, born in Bethlehem

Beloved brethren and children in the Lord,

The great and sacred day of Christmas has dawned, the metropolis and mother of all feasts, inviting each of us to spiritual uplifting and encounter with the Ancient of Days, who became an infant for us.

As St. John of Damascus underlines: “By the grace of God the Father, the only begotten Son and divine Word of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the pre-eternal and perfect God, who is without beginning, condescends to us as His servants, becoming fully human and achieves that which is newer than new, the only new thing under the sun.” (On the Orthodox Faith) This incarnation of the Son of God is not merely symbolical, like the other incarnations of the numerous gods in mythology; it is reality, a truly new reality, the only new thing under the sun, which occurred at a specific historical moment in the reign of the Emperor Octavian Augustus some 746 years (according to new astronomical data) since the establishment of Rome, in the midst of a specific people, from the house and line of David (Luke 2.4), in a specific place, namely Bethlehem of Judaea, with a very specific purpose: “He became human in order that we might become divine,” in accordance with the succinct expression of Athanasius the Great. (On the Divine Incarnation 54)

The event of incarnation of God’s Word grants us the opportunity to reach the extreme limits of our nature, which are identified neither with the “good and beautiful” of the ancient Greeks and the “justice” of the philosophers, nor with the tranquility of Buddhist “nirvana” and the transcendental “fate” or so-called “karma” by means of the reputedly continuous changes in the form of life, nor again with any “harmony” of supposedly contradictory elements of some imaginary “living force” and anything else like these. Rather, it is the ontological transcendence of corruption and death through Christ, our integration into His divine life and glory, and our union by grace through Him with the Father in the Holy Spirit. These are our ultimate limits: personal union with the Trinitarian God! And Christ’s nativity does not promise any vague blessedness or abstract eternity; it places “in our hands” the potential of personal participation in God’s sacred life and love in an endless progression. It grants us the possibility not only “of receiving adoption” (Gal. 4.5) but also of becoming “partakers of divine nature.” (2 Peter 1.4).

Of course, amid the global confusion and crisis of our time, these truths have a strange echo. Most people’s hope, resting on worldly “deities,” is falsified on a daily basis in the most terrible ways. The human person is humiliated and crushed by numbers, machines, computers, stock markets, and diverse flags of vain ideological opportunism. Nature is blasphemed; the environment groans; young people despair and protest against the injustice of the present and the uncertainty of the future. “Darkness, clouds, storms and noise” (Deut. 4.11) prevail in our world, giving the impression that even the light of hope that dawns in Bethlehem is threatened with extinction and the angelic hymn of universal joy — “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will to all people” (Luke 2.14) — is in danger of being overcome. Nevertheless, the Church calls everyone to sober attention, re-evaluation of priorities in life, and pursuit of divine traces and value in every other person of respect toward the image of God. Indeed, the Church will not cease to proclaim — with all the strength acquired by its two millennia of experience — that the child that lies in the manger of Bethlehem is “the hope of all ends of the earth,” the Word and purpose of life, redemption sent by God to His people, namely to the whole world.

We share this good news with much love from the martyric Throne of the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, proclaiming it to all children of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and to every person that thirsts for Christ, invoking upon all of you the mercy, peace and grace of God, together with the saving gift of the only-begotten Son of God, who came down from the heavens — for us and for our salvation — and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, becoming human. To Him belong the glory, power, honor and worship, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, to the ages.

At the Phanar, Christmas 2008
Fervent supplicant to God for all

+ BARTHOLOMEWArchbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch

Maggie Downham Accepted as a Mid-Term Missionary Candidate to Albania

Posted on by Fr. Peter

St. Augustine, FL—The Orthodox Christian Mission Center announces the acceptance of Maggie Downham, from All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Bloomington, Indiana, as a mid-term Missionary Candidate to Albania. Ms. Downham will be teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) classes at the Protagonist Elementary School in Tirana, Albania, during the spring semester. The school is especially grateful for her willingness to serve, because the shortage of ESL teachers for the spring semester would have reduced the school’s ministry if someone had not been available. In additin to teaching full time, she will also have the opportunity to participate in an afterschool catechism class which will be offered each week, and to assist the missionary team in other ministries.

Ms. Downham has a deep and life-long desire to immerse herself in different cultures for the sake of the Gospel. This desire has led her to participate on several short-term mission trips. On these trips she felt a calling to seek a life of grateful service and love in action for others. Upon returning from Albania, she hopes to further her education in graduate studies at St. Vladimir’s Seminary.

In order to be in Albania by the start of the spring semester (February 5) Maggie needs to raise $6,500. This money will be used for her airfare, a small stipend, insurance and other costs. You may make a donation and participate in this vital ministry at www.ocmc.org or by sending a check payable to OCMC with “Missionary Downham” written in the memo line. Maggie will also appreciate your daily prayer support as well. To find out more about answering the call for missionary service, contact the Missionary Department of your Mission Center at: missionaries@ocmc.org.

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