“A martyrdom is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom. So thus as on earth the Church mourns and rejoices at once, in a fashion that the world cannot understand; so in Heaven the Saints are most high, having made themselves most low, seeing themselves not as we see them, but in the light of the Godhead from which they draw their being.” (Archbishop’s Sermon, “Murder in the Cathedral” by T.S. Eliot)
Month: December 2020
Sadness serves only to destroy
“Do not surrender to the sadness that only serves to destroy our best energies … expand your heart and let the sun that gives life to joy enter into it. Joy, but with so many trials? Look what I tell you: who have you seen yet without a cross? The cross follows us wherever we go and we must carry it; and, if we do not want to lift it generously and carry it in our arms for embraces, that is to say; with all the ardor of our heart, which will make it more light, we will have to take it behind us, dragging it.”
~ Bernardo Vasconcelos, OSB
We need the truth
Earlier today a group of people of faith and culture that I frequently attend to had a cultural exchange where several shared poetry
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Emily Dickinson is one of those poets that sometimes crosses over into the realm of theological reflection from time-to-time. Her poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” for me is a lesson about one’s approach, one’s receptivity one has with the gift of divine revelation. It may turn dogmatic theologians on-end because they teach that revelation is full and complete and immediate. While I believe this formulation to be true on a high level, I do also think that the human experience takes more time to integrate.
The person who proposed Dickinson’s poem also recognized that the Church admits to a personal integration of God’s glory into our life when she says in the troparion for the feast of the Transfiguration: “… you [Christ] showed your friends as much of your glory as they could bear.” Slow and deliberate seems to be reasonable. I can only take so much glory at once. This seems to be recognized by the Lord Himself. The Liturgy is a superb teacher; the Liturgy knows her pupils.
Indeed, revelation is still unfolding.
The Candle
A Blessed Christmas feast to you and your family. I ended up going to the midnight Mass at the local monastery of Dominican nuns to help with a potential problem of crowds given a C19 crisis at the Catholic parish whose pastor was exposed. Luckily, the crowd was small. Protecting the nuns is of the utmost concern. Since I am in bed nightly at 9:30 I have a renewed appreciation for those who make the sacrifice to spend it in watching –in vigil– with the Lord. So much of the important biblical narratives happens at night thus making the night solemn, holy, peaceful, set-apart. Keeping vigil with the Holy Family refocusses me on the desire to be with the Lord as he gives witness through His Life-giving Incarnation for the life of the world.
On Christmas Day I assisted at my Melkite parish of St Ann (Waterford). The emphasis of the Christmas troparia (the hymns) was not only on the Nativity in the Flesh of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ,
“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 Eternal God is born as a little child” (Kontakion).
BUT also to reframe the pagan (unbelieving) crowd who hold to secular and folks tales as true offering them the possibility of salvation with, in and through Jesus Christ –the True Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4). The false beliefs of the pagans of 2000 years ago are the same today: the rejection of the revelation of the One, Triune God in Jesus’ becoming flesh for our redemption. There is a polemic established in the Church’s troparion because it puts aside pagan worship and gives truth and adored. The Church sings,
“Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has shone to the world the light of wisdom! For by it, those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to adore You, the Sun of Righteousness and to know You, the Orient from on high (LK 1:78 also translated as Dawn or Dayspring). O Lord, glory to You!”
The pulsating heart and mind comes to accept and confess that at Christmas we know and love and adore Son of God became man so that man might become divine, sons and daughters of God the Father by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Father Alexander Men (1935-90) was martyred for the Christian Faith by the Soviets. Men is a compelling preaching in part because of heritage a convert from Judaism to the Orthodox Church. My friend Bishop Seraphim Joseph Sigrist posted this poem about Men by Alexander Zorin, “The Candle”. Zorin helps us better understand the mystery we are observing today using the Father Alexander’s a mirror to Jesus the New Light.
The Candle
(A Poem about Fr. Alexander Men)
“He came out to guide us to the gate,
but then became our escort through the forest.
Black on black
the night stood like a wall, close in.
On a rolled-out, starry scroll
super-worldly letters twinkled.
His candle cast its light
and from the darkness–sheds, a brick-pile,
footbridges, ditches, a muddy road
spiraling beyond our comprehension,
leading on through time and ages.
He joked: from here on out this star here
will guide you. Follow it gracefully.
And since it seems no one else here below
will light the way, he raised his candle high.”
Translated by Richard Dauenhauer
(third working draft, Advent 2007)
Needing a savior
“In our sickness we need a savior, in our wanderings a guide, in our blindness someone to show us the light, in our thirst the fountain of living water which quenches for ever the thirst of those who drink from it. We dead people need life, we sheep need a shepherd, we children need a teacher, the whole world needs Jesus!” –St. Clement of Alexandria
Forward in Orthodox-Catholic Relations
Here is a very interesting and important conversation among the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics. I’d also include in my descriptors is beautiful. This particular presentation is the first of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute online lecture series addressing issues, obstacles, and ways forward in Orthodox-Catholic relations.
The host is Sr. Vassa Larin of “Coffee with Sr. Vassa.”
The lecture’s participants:
Fr. Cyril Hovorun (Loyola Marymount University)
Fr. Mark Morozowich (Catholic University of America)
Something greater to come
On this Third Sunday of Advent —Gaudete Sunday—, or the Sunday of the Forefathers (as it is called on the Byzantine liturgical calendar) we have some things to consider.
As friend drew my attention to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s reflection on Advent which really caused me to think about the state of my soul. Complacency (mediocrity) is an enemy to one’s preparation to receive the Newborn Lord at Christmas. Of course, Gaudete Sunday with its exhortation to rejoice is has its own strength to mind. Here’s what Bonhoeffer said: “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manger. God comes. The Lord Jesus comes. Christmas comes. Christians rejoice!”
Right now I am feeling troubled of soul, poor and imperfect; sin has taken over and there is a need for reconciliation. Perhaps you are feeling something similar. The sacred Liturgy of the Latin Church for Gaudete Sunday teaches us something we need to bring to our discernment of things. Deep down in my being I know that I need to be humble in fact, and not merely as an abstraction. Deep down in my being I desire “to attain the joys of so great a salvation” known affectively “with solemn worship and glad rejoicing” through the beauty of living reality as it is and not as I want it to be. Deep down in my being I want “something greater.” I want to the Lord.
Moving through the Nativity Fast that is observed by the Byzantine Church preparing for the newborn Lord, we acknowledge and desire that what the martyrs experienced, “in their struggle,” we may “receive an incorruptible crown from you.” And that “With your strength, they brought down the tyrants and broke the cowardly valor of demons.”
I can tell you from experience that the struggle against the demons is difficult. What I also know is that only God’s grace and the companionship of others makes it possible to receive the gift of the incorruptible crown.
Bonhoeffer names the truth for us that ought not be missed in the season’s chaos —our looking forward to something greater to come: “Holy One himself … God in the child in the manger.”
May we know the substance of what the priest prays: “that with this divine sustenance [the Gospel proclaimed and preacher AND Eucharist] may cleanse us of our faults and prepare us for the coming feasts” (The Prayer after Communion).
May St. Benedict guide us.
St Nicholas
The Troparion for today’s feast of the great St Nicholas, wonderworker, teacher, model of sanctity and bishop reads:
Nicholas, holy hierarch, your flock has recognized you by the brilliance of your works. You are a model of kindness and rule of faith, a teacher of self-control. Your lowliness has raised you to the heights of fame, and your poverty has filled your hands with riches. Beg Christ, our God, to save our souls.
Nicholas has captured the imagination of many through the years because of charity which morphed into gift-giving. He’s not remembered in popular culture as a teacher of the Christian Gospel, the bishop who faithfully served the Divine Mysteries, for saving the innocent from death, and for calming storms nor challenging the false teachers. And yet, he’s more than all these things. He allowed the Lord to speak eloquently through his life and thus comes to us in 2020 as a friend and disciple of the Lord Jesus.
Would that we could live and act as Nicholas did in the face of false teaching by a life of virtue and charity, by worthily receiving the Divine Mysteries. Nicholas is asked to beg Christ to save us. May we, in fact, have our sins forgiven and be brought one day into perfect communion with the most holy Trinity.
St Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier has always held a special place in my heart. Being on mission is a singular grace given to for the sake of the Kingdom.
One of his biographers, Fr. Georg Schurhammer, SJ, has a 3 volume biography of Xavier that is quite moving and beautiful. Without exaggeration he is the greatest missionary Christianity has ever seen outside of St. Paul the Apostle. As the collect of his Mass says below, may we all be gifted with the zeal for the faith that he had!
“O God, who through the preaching of Saint Francis Xavier won many peoples to yourself, grant that the hearts of the faithful may burn with the same zeal for the faith and that Holy Church may everywhere rejoice in an abundance of offspring. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”