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Sunday School: Repentance

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“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” – Matthew 5:8

“Every Christian feels a natural yearning of the heart towards God, a true desire to taste the sweetness of communion, of being with Him as He created us to be: but the impurity of our hearts – full of passions conflicts, and fear bars the way. Yet, there is a cure for the weight of sin which burdens the heart and soul of each of us and afflicts the conscience, keeping us from inner peace and from peace with our neighbors and loved ones.”

In the Holy season of Great Lent we contemplate the mystery of repentance. But what does it mean to be repentant? In the overly intellectual modern age we tend to focus on how we have violated moral laws either through action or inaction. Repentance is much more than a passing feeling of sorrow for wrongs done which, upon reflection can easily overwhelm us and lead to despair. It is a turning away from focusing on worldly matters to those of God. It is a new outlook, a new, correct spiritual direction which we should strive to live at all times, not just during this special season.

According to Saint Gregory Palamas, “Repentance, is to hate sin and love virtue, to reject evil and to do good.” But how do we reach this state? Why should we even strive for repentance? Should we as some modern people say, let go of the guilt and just do good? It may be helpful to reflect on our fallen state as humans to light the way.

orthodox-prostration

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Sunday School: The Meaningful Life

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What path will you choose? How will you live out a meaningful life? Who wants to be a failure?

Aren’t the accomplishments that are most satisfying those requiring sacrifice and effort, the meeting of a challenge and overcoming it? Isn’t this the theme of inspiring movies we love and just about every sports movie ever made? Rarely do we tire of moving stories where the little guy conquers against all odds or where truth and justice persevere. How interesting would movies be if the main characters regularly failed to succeed in their quest to overcome and succeed?

Flip it around now; how inspiring would a movie be if the supposed “hero” had everything handed to them without effort and gained everything they desired. Would you take them seriously? Would you respect a person that achieved much from nothing? Wouldn’t you come to dislike this person if they insisted they deserved it?

Christ is our role model and He calls us to practice His witness of self-sacrificial love in both small and large ways. Denying ourselves what we desire at times to sacrifice for the other helps us to grow stronger in faith and as a human person… really they are inseparable, just as we are body and soul, a mystery of unity.

There is something deeply interwoven into each of us that understands to truly value something, whether it be an accomplishment, honor, title or even physical item, it must have come at some cost or with some struggle. One of the great lies straight from the pit of hell is happiness is a state derived from pleasure and leisure. The really profound moments of life only occur after sacrifice, this is why we fast before great feasts. In fasting we prepare ourselves for the great feast we are to participate in. We struggle to empty ourselves from all of the “junk” we hang onto that is of the world in order to have the space be filled with the life and gifts of God. Recall also when celebrating a great feast, or struggling to fast before one, you are doing so in communion with those who came before you and even those who have yet to come. Truth be told, we are only capable of small glimpses of true sheer joy. These fleeting moments can have life altering consequence urging you forward to become closer to God the source of all life. Were it not this way, we would develop a spiritual sweet tooth or that of an entitled child expecting a treat at every turn and focus on the gift and forget the Giver. It’s normal to feel periods of spiritual dryness and distance. The voice of the saints and mystics is to just keep going. Struggle and sacrifice always wins out in the end and you can write a new story of valor in your own family and community.

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Sunday School: Good, Evil and God

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Have you accepted the modern two story world narrative as your own? What story are you living in?

Our Faith is the greatest love story ever and it’s being written as we speak. It is a story about God and his people, us. We are immersed in it and we have a chance to shape it. It’s a life that leads to union with the creator God and deep, profound happiness. It isn’t a life of hopelessness awaiting a miraculous transformation at the end of time. The immense gift of our Byzantine Faith is lived experience of God here and now transforming, sanctifying, healing the sickness of our fallen humanity. We must tell ourselves, our friends and even someday, perhaps, our children this story.

The video for this week starts by posing the question; can we be good, without God? More importantly though, can we know what good is without God?

As the video demonstrates, without God, there is no objective reference point for determining what is moral or immoral. Just as our senses convince us of the reality of the physical world, so our moral sense convinces us that moral values are objectively real. It’s not a matter of preference or opinion.

Some ask; is something good because God wills it, or because God wills it therefore it is good. The reality is good, or moral acts, are characteristics of Gods nature. The more our actions align with them, the more we are becoming like God. As Byzantine Catholics we believe this is much more than an intellectual exercise. We believe that when we “do good” we are actually being transformed toward Christ-like holiness. We can and are participating with God in the act of our own and humanity’s redemption.

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Head back to Sunday School, Colbert…

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On Catholic Memes, I just saw a video where Stephen Colbert challenged another celebrity to a Catholic throwdown. This time his opponent was Patricia Heaton, star of “Everybody loves Raymond” and “The Middle”:

Oh Stephen…you disappoint me.

I counted at least three major Catholic mistakes in this throwdown, three “maxima culpas”, if you will. So get out your sackcloth and ashes, and let me I teach you something about the Catholic Faith…

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The hem of His garment…

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I’m winding down for the evening, but I wanted to quickly share something from Divine Liturgy this morning. The Gospel today on the Byzantine Calendar was the healing of the woman with a haemorrhage:

 And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. – Mark 5:25-29

As I heard the Scriptures proclaimed today I had an epiphany, seeing an Old Testament connection to this passage which I had not previously seen:

And when [the priests] go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off the garments in which they have been ministering, and lay them in the holy chambers; and they shall put on other garments, lest they communicate holiness to the people with their garments – Ezekiel 44:19

As you can see, in the Old Covenant the garments of the priests where to be kept away from the rest of Israel, but what a wonderful reversal we have with the New Covenant! Jesus, “our Great High Priest”, goes about among His flock, freely available to the people, with His vestments bringing healing and holiness.

There’s a beautiful practice in the Eastern Churches which is inspired by today’s Gospel. I first saw it at my old Ruthenian parish, but I’m told that it’s more common in Melkite and Antiochian churches. As the priest passes along the aisles, you’ll occasionally see members of the congregation reach out and touch the priest’s vestments, made holy not by his own sanctity, but by virtue of the office given to him by Christ through the Church.

Vestments

 

Mangled Matins: Probus, Tarachus & Andronicus (12th October)

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So today is the last day of my sabbatical and tomorrow I’ll be back to work..but I also have Matins to sing…

From Byzantine Monthly Menaion

Troparion of the Martyrs (Tone 5)

Communion Hymn

From Divine Liturgy Book

Prokeimenon (Tone 4)

Alleluia (Tone 4)

Something other than God…

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FulwilerAs you may well know, I’ve been working through a long list of books during my sabbatical. I recently finished one of them, Something other than God, written by Jennifer Fulwiler. Mrs. Fulwiler grew up an an atheist, but blogged her way into the Catholic Church.

I really enjoyed the book. It’s a page-turner and I finished it in short order. In it she discusses how she grappled with the philosophical arguments for the existence of God, the person of Jesus Christ, the problem of suffering, as well as the Church’s teachings of contraception and abortion. I’d say it’s a really good book to give to a real range of people, from atheist to fallen-away Catholic.

There were a couple of passages from Mrs Fulwiler’s book I just wanted to share in this post before I pass on the book to someone else. The first quotation is about Purgatory. I wanted to share it because she writes very eloquently about it, using the same line of argumentation I used in my earlier post about purification after death:

“The Catechism basically said: If you’re a believer and a jerk, you don’t walk right in to heaven after you die. ‘All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” Heaven is the place of perfect good and perfect love. To enter it while in a disposition of selfishness or hatefulness or unkindness would be like entering into a gleaming clean house with muddy boots; the house would not be clean anymore” -Jennifer Fulwiler, Something Other Than God

The second quotation I wanted to share also related to the subject of the departed in faith, but in the case the practice of praying for them:

“The Catechism explained that praying for the souls of the dead is a tradition going back to the first Christians and to the Jews before them. On the walls of the catacombs, where the earliest Christians worshipped, there were scrawled prayers for friends who’d died during persecutions. The living sent their love for the deceased into the spiritual world, like adding water to a stream that would eventually float their lost friends home.” -Jennifer Fulwiler, Something Other Than God

Someone at our parish died a week or so ago and it was the first time I got to pray the Panachida, the funeral prayers of the Byzantine Church. After the service it’s traditional to sing the psalter (or at least as much of it as you can) over the body. Mrs Fulwiler’s description of praying for the dead perfectly coalesced with this quite moving experience, “adding water to a stream that would eventually float [our friend] home”.

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