Coffee With Sister Vassa -- HOW CAN WE RELATE TO THE DESERT-DWELLERS?

Today, when Older Calendar people celebrate the Forefeast of the Lord’s Baptism, and NC-churches – the day of St. Anthony the Great, I’m thinking about the two desert-dwellers, John the Baptist and St. Anthony. What does the desert or ‘wilderness’ signify in their lives, and how can we relate to it?

We don’t know anything about what John did in his solitude in the wilderness, before his “voice crying out in the wilderness” started to attract crowds of city-dwellers to him. But we can presume it was something similar to what Anthony did: Anthony engaged in solitary fasting and prayer, by which he battled various temptations (like boredom, laziness, and ‘phantoms of women’) from demons. The uninhabited desert was teeming with demons, until Anthony’s persistent prayer (and abstinence from what they had on offer) cleared the place of their villainous dominion. This ‘work’ took Anthony at least fifteen years, after which he started to attract people who wanted to learn from him, and many who even wanted to live side-by-side with him, in the now-safe place he had (co-)created with the power of God. Thus, the ‘ human footprint” in the desert was a good thing, because it was a deified human footprint.

After our baptism, we all go out into our own ‘wilderness,’ which is our life, more or less teeming with demons. Even our Lord was “ led by the Spirit into the wilderness” after His baptism, “to be tempted by the devil” (Mt 4:1). We have important ‘work’ to do in our respective wildernesses, both inside and outside ourselves, so that the space we occupy in this world becomes a haven for others. We have a little seed of faith planted in us, that we are to let God grow into a beautiful, shady tree, “ so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Mt 13:32), as the Lord tells us in the Parable of the Mustard Seed.

The point of solitude and ascetical discipline, which we may not think are accessible or perhaps even desirable for us, is to stop fighting or competing with fellow human beings, so we can clear our hearts to focus on the root(s) of what makes the ‘space’ inside and outside our hearts uninhabitable or unwelcoming, to God and others. We don’t have to move to the desert to find alone-time with God; there were and are those who live/d in big cities, like the fools-for-Christ, who have found creative ways to exit the rat race of competition with others, while living in their midst. Sometimes God does this for us, when we couldn’t do it for ourselves; He allows us to lose something or someone, through physical or other maladies (our own or theirs), or simply through our ageing process, which takes us out of the rat race at least to some degree. We might find ourselves alone with our ‘demons’ in new ways, at this point, not entirely unlike the challenges confronted by Anthony in his desert. These are dignifying challenges, because God is calling us to collaborate with Him in the big project of redeeming us and the world, in each of our little spaces. God, let us do our little bit today, to re-focus and re-deem (take back) our time, by the prayers of John the Baptist, St. Anthony, and all Your saints. Amen!

The Prayers of the Saints

The Saints of North America

One of our parishioners recently shared this excellent explanation of the role of the saints in the Church, especially in regard to their intercessory prayer. This can be very helpful to all of us, but especially to people with a Protestant background, and to those for whom this is such a foreign concept and experience. For the Orthodox, it is natural.

Do we pray to saints—or ask them to pray for us?

Behind this question is a deeper one: what do we really believe about the Church, the resurrection, and the communion of saints?

In the Orthodox Church, we don’t see death as a wall that severs us from those who’ve gone before us in Christ. We proclaim the life everlasting. And if Christ is risen, then the saints are not gone—they are alive in Him.

We affirm that Christ is risen. And if He is truly risen, then death is not the end. It is not separation. It is not silence. For those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, death has become the gateway to deeper life. They are not gone—they are alive in Him.

When we ask a saint to pray for us, we aren’t replacing Christ. We aren’t offering them worship. We are asking our brothers and sisters—who now behold the face of God without veil or distraction—to intercede for us in love.

We are participating in the communion of the Church, which is not divided by the grave. The saints are members of the same Body we belong to, only now they see clearly, love fully, and pray without ceasing in the presence of God.

Revelation 8:3–4 gives us a glimpse of this heavenly reality:

“And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints... and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God.”

What do we see here? The prayers of the saints—both those on earth and those in heaven—rising before God together. Offered with incense. Borne up by angelic hands. Received by the Lord.

Prayer, in the Orthodox life, is not a solitary act. It is communion. It is participation in the worship of heaven. And the saints, who now stand in the light of Christ, are not passive observers. They are active intercessors—part of the great cloud of witnesses who pray with us and for us.

The problem comes when we reduce prayer to a transaction—words sent upward, hoping for a response. But prayer, in the Orthodox life, is communion. It’s a relationship, a participation in the life of God. And because the saints are in Him, our relationship with them continues in love.

To ask for their prayers is not idolatry. It’s not superstition. It is faith in the risen Christ, who unites heaven and earth in His Body, the Church.

To ask for their prayers is to confess the Gospel: that Christ is alive, that His Church is one, and that nothing—not even death—can separate us from the love of God in Him.

So when we whisper, “Holy Theotokos, pray for us,” or “St. Nicholas, intercede for my child,” we are not breaking faith. We are confessing it.

So yes—we ask the saints to pray for us. Because we believe in the life of the world to come. Because we believe the tomb is empty. Because we believe in Christ.

Father-Don Purdum

Orthodox Priest/Pastor, Holy Trinity Orthodox Church-AOCC (Elizabethtown, PA), Historian, Theologian

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- DOES THE DEVIL RULE THE WORLD?

“Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” (Mt 4:8-10)

The Gospel-reading in some of our churches today is Mt 4:1-11, about the Lord being “ led up by the Spirit” into the wilderness for 40 days right after His baptism, “ to be tempted by the devil” three times: 1. To make bread out of stones, “ If You are the Son of God”; 2. To throw Himself down from the temple and be preserved by angels, “ If You are the Son of God”; and 3. The one quoted above, which I’m thinking aboutthis morning. Does it mean that the world and its ‘kingdoms’ belong to the devil? If not, why is the world something of a mess? Wouldn’t all of us, and our world, be ‘fixed,’ if Christ were in charge, or at least if a Christian leader were? And is this temptation only relevant to the empire-builders of our world, or can each of us relate to it, somehow?

The Lord is showing us here, actually, that He is the One to Whom belongs all ‘the kingdom, the power, and the glory.’ But howHe exercises His authority, free from the corruption of self-service, is not the way the devil or his servants would want. The devil would want Christ (and Christians) to act in self-serving ways, specifically because these lead to human enslavement (to him) and ultimately self-destruction. Christ remains free of the devil’s ambitions and sticks to the will of His Father, filled with the Holy Spirit who led Him into the wilderness for this ‘test.’ Just like He leads us out into the wilderness of our lives after our baptism.

God manifests to us in His Son the way of exercising His power, in sync with His will and His word. “ If you are the Son of God,” if you are so special, as a ‘chosen’ child of God, – the devil sometimes whispers to each of us, or sometimes to an entire church or entire nation, – then go ahead and flex your muscles, and ‘fix’ what is lacking in your life (turn stones to bread), and show everyone else how special you are (by doing something reckless, like throwing yourself off the roof of the temple or invading another nation, yet remaining unharmed), and take charge “ of all the kingdoms of the world,” because you can! But at this point, you’ll be enslaved to, nay, even worshipping, me, is what the devil is saying. Because the devil is not about freedom, the freedom that God offers via His unifying Spirit; he is about his own will, which is just one of many wills outside of God. Subjection to any will outside of God’s, including our own (if it is not in sync with God’s will), invariably leads to bondage. It’s ultimately self-destructive, because God’s grace is the source of Life and Light, without which we eventually wither and die.

So, the devil tries to offer to Christ shortcuts, suggesting He ‘fix’ certain things by asserting Himself, His own power outside His Father’s. But that’s not how our Triune God works. He works in tri- unity, based on an obedience that is based on love. Not self-serving power. In our world, that kind of freedom, which God extends to all of us, who can choose to be the good guys or the bad guys, looks like quite the mess. It doesn’t look like our ‘success’ in securing unity and harmony everywhere. Maybe some or many people in North Korea think that unity and harmony has successfully been achieved, by the subjection of everyone to one will in that country. It’s simple, and the country seems to be at peace. But I prefer the ‘mess’ we have, to that kind of ‘fix,’ is what I’m thinking this Saturday morning. Happy weekend, dear friends!

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- THE ‘SCANDAL’ OF DIFFERENT CHURCH-CALENDARS

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, / and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One! / Angels with shepherds glorify Him. / The wise men journey with a star, / since for our sake the Pre-Eternal God was born as a young Child.” (Kontakion of Nativity)

It’s ‘today’ that the Virgin gives birth, for those on the Julian Calendar, while others are going back to work or school, having more or less completed the high liturgical season of Epiphanies. In fact, it’s ‘today’ in Bethlehem, because the Patriarchate of Jerusalem celebrates Christmas according to the Older Calendar. This difference in calendars among us, as Christians, is something we tend to regard as a scandal, and a painful reality for those who have friends or family who celebrate great feasts like this one separately from us. But let’s consider the above-quoted hymn, my friends, which offers some consolation on this matter, because it unifies those who celebrate(d) the Lord’s birth in Bethlehem at different ‘times.’

While the hymn does describe an event that happened at a specific time in history, one could say it was not ‘celebrated’ at the same exact time by the Virgin, the shepherds, and the wise men. She (and Joseph) were presumably the only ones there, along with the farm-animals mentioned in Christmas carols. (The Protoevangelium of James inserts also a midwife and Salome at the scene, but our tradition usually ignores this factoid.) The shepherds arrive at the scene somewhat later, while the wise men still ‘ journey with a star.’ The wise men beheld and celebrated the ‘ young Child,’ or celebrated Christmas, days or weeks later. So, we can compare them to Older Calendar folks, if you will.

And then there is One mentioned in this hymn who transcends time altogether: He’s called in this hymn the ‘ Transcendent One,’ the ‘ Pre-Eternal God,’ accentuating His transcendence of our time. In His ‘mind,’ the mystery of His incarnation was never unknown; you could say, God always ‘celebrates’ the mystery revealed to us only at a specific time in history, under Caesar Augustus and “ while Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Lk 2:2): it’s why, when He created the human being, He recognized His own image and likeness in us.

As for the angels, I don’t think they ‘knew’ about the mystery way back then, when we were created, but at the very least Gabriel knew about it since the time of the Annunciation. I don’t know if he could keep it to himself at that point, or if he shared it with other bodiless powers, if they chat among themselves. In any event, the angels did know and celebrate the birth of Christ before the shepherds knew, so they also celebrated Christmas a bit earlier.

To conclude this long reflection, if it’s any consolation, let’s remember that the ‘today’ of the Nativity of our Lord extends beyond our specific calendars; it always extended beyond our calendars. We can always join in its celebration, as we do, actually, throughout our lives in Christ, who is One that is always ‘coming’ to us, in the flesh, in His word, and by His life-creating Spirit. And let’s join in saying Merry Christmas to our Older Calendar brothers and sisters today! Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, among people of good will!❤

Let Us Receive 'The Blessing of the Jordan'

 

Source: orthodoxroad.com

"For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men ... awaiting our blessed hope, the appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ ..."

- Titus 2:11-13

On January 6, we celebrate the Feast of Theophany. To use its full title, we celebrate THE THEOPHANY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, a title that we usually summarize as "Theophany" (sometimes "Epiphany"). 

The Theophany commemorated on January 6, is actually the original date on which the Lord's Nativity was observed, together with the Visitation of the Magi, and the Baptism of Christ. This nexus of events are distinct "theophanies," or "manifestations of God" to the world, each of which reveals the presence of Christ as a light illuminating the world, as well as being the long-awaited Messiah and Savior. In fact, Theophany is sometimes called "The Feast of Lights." It was in the 4th c. that our current Christmas day of December 25 was established slowly throughout the Christian world. The Nativity of Christ was a more hidden theophany; while the Baptism was more open in nature.

From the appointed Epistle reading of the Feast, TIT. 2:11-14, 3:4-7, we learn of the two "appearances" (the Gk. word is epiphania) of Christ: basically His Incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth, and His Parousia, or Second Coming, as the Lord of Glory. Thus, the first appearance was in the past; while the second will be in the future. The first appearance was in humility; the second will be in glory. We live in the present, between these two appearances. We commemorate the one, and await the other. And our mode of life should reflect the fact that we have been baptized "into Christ."

In his Epistle to Titus, the Apostle Paul refers to this baptism as "the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit"(3:5). The purpose of this baptism was "so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life"(3:7). The appearance/epiphany of the grace of God and the grace that we receive in Baptism is "training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world" (2:12). Baptism essentially allows us - by the grace of God - to transcend our biological mode of existence; so that we are now open-ended beings capable of transformation by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Although subject to our biological condition, we are not enslaved to it, with "no exit" in sight. That is a potential gift unique to human beings.

At the Third Royal Hour for Theophany, we heard a beautiful passage from the Prophet Isaiah, who anticipated the transforming power of Baptism and the mode of life that would accompany it: 

Thus says the Lord: "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless; plead for the widow. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

The Baptism of the Lord is directly related to our own personal baptism. This was prophetically delivered to Israel; anticipated by John's baptism in the River Jordan for the "remission of sins;" and now actualized in the Church each and every time that a person - infant, child, adolescent, adult - "puts on Christ" in the sanctified waters of the baptismal font. If, as the Apostle Paul declares, we have "put on Christ," then we need to manifest a Christ-like life to the world to the extent that we are able. The Feast of Theophany brings that to life for us as we now, as then, receive the "blessing of the Jordan."

When we "bless" the waters, we are basically acknowledging the initial "very good" with which God blessed the created world "in the beginning" (GEN. 1:31). We do not disparage the created world, but rather rejoice in it. We are definitely not dualists! However, that initial state of pristine purity was lost through the subsequent presence of sin within the world, to such an extent "that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now" (ROM. 8:22). Therefore, the entire cosmos has been awaiting the redemption that only the Son of God could bestow through His Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. In this way, "the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God" (ROM. 8:21). By blessing the material world — probably best exemplified through the blessing of that most primal and foundational of all earthly elements, water — we anticipate that eschatological liberation here and now within the grace-filled life of the Church. To summarize this ecclesial recognition of the goodness and sanctification of the world around us, we can turn to the explanation offered by Archbishop Kallistos Ware, from the Festal Mention:

The fall of the angelic orders, and after it the fall of man, involved the whole universe. All God's creation was thereby warped and disfigured: to use the symbolism of the liturgical texts, the waters were made a "lair of dragons.'

Christ came on earth to redeem not only man, but - through man - the entire material creation. When He entered the water, besides effecting by anticipation or rebirth in the font, he likewise effected the cleansing of the waters, their transfiguration into an organ of healing and grace.

Further, in discussing our traditions of taking some of the blessed water home with us, Archbishop Kallistos writes the following:

...Orthodox are encouraged to drink from the water that has been blessed at Epiphany and to sprinkle themselves with it; they take it also to their homes, and keep it there to use from time to time. In all this they are not guilty of superstition. If they act so, it is because they are convinced that in virtue of Christ's Incarnation, of His Baptism and Transfiguration, all material things can be made holy and 'spirit bearing." ( The Festal Menaion, p. 58-59.

The Leavetaking of Theophany is not until January 14. That means that we will continue to celebrate the Feast on Sunday at the Liturgy. During this time of the Afterfeast, a good practice is to incorporate the troparion of the Feast into our daily prayer life: both in our personal prayer and as a family. Before blessing our family meals together, we could sing or chant the troparion of the feast, so that we are doing at home, what would be done in church - extend the celebration of the Feast and thus be more attentive to the liturgical rhythms of the Church calendar.