Upon the Circumcision

Milton: Upon the Circumcision

YE flaming Powers, and winged Warriours bright,
That erst with Musick, and triumphant song
First heard by happy watchful Shepherds ear,
So sweetly sung your Joy the Clouds along
Through the soft silence of the list'ning night;
Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distill no tear,
Burn in your sighs, and borrow
Seas wept from our deep sorrow,
He who with all Heav'ns heraldry whileare
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease;
Alas, how soon our sin
Sore doth begin
His Infancy to sease!

O more exceeding love or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightfull doom remediles
Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakednes;
And that great Cov'nant which we still transgress
Intirely satisfi'd,
And the full wrath beside Of vengeful Justice bore for our excess,
And seals obedience first with wounding smart
This day, but O ere long
Huge pangs and strong
Will pierce more neer his heart.

Ultimately, distractions

One of the interesting things about the Epistle reading on the Sunday after the Nativity of the Lord is that, although the day is a festive commemoration of the Prophet David, Joseph the Betrothed and - pointedly - James the Brother of the Lord, the Apostle Paul insists on down-playing the role of Jerusalem and James in his own encounter with - and understanding of - the Gospel. He takes pains to insist that his own encounter with Christ and understanding of the Gospel is not mediated through the witness and teaching of the disciples-turned-apostles. He has not sat as a student at their feet, He has not made a pilgrimage to the Jerusalem to soak up its sanctity, to join in its fellowship, to receive its tradition. He does not mention his baptism or preaching in Damascus, but instead highlights the fact that he travelled to Arabia and Damascus for over three years after his conversion before returning to Jerusalem. And in Jerusalem he spent only a couple of weeks, and in those few days met only with James and not with any other apostles. In this text he mentions nothing at all about the teaching of the apostles, the fellowship of the Jerusalem believers and their worship, his own 'connection' with these eye-witnesses of Christ. Instead of gushing about this encounter, he writes about it as if it were a a mere formality, perhaps something that he has to mention simply to establish his bona fides without crediting any of it with too much importance for his proclamation of the Gospel.

So: here we are on a day which commemorates the Apostles James - and the Epistle actually tends to minimize the importance of James in the spiritual formation and message of Paul.

This reminds us that as wonderful as the Holy City and the Holy Land are, and as important as they may be, our faith is not ultimately tied to them. So too, authenticity of Orthodox faith - the Gospel itself - is not tied to this or that Apostle, this or that place, who we met, who was our teacher, the golden chain of the spiritual teaching we have received. These things are indeed wonderful and inspiring and powerful as well as comforting. But however proud we may be of our citizenship, our cultural tradition, our nations - and no matter how grateful and truly indebted we are to those who are our touchstones and authorities in the faith, even those who gave us spiritual birth and those who nurtured us - we have to distinguish between the message and the messengers, the one thing truly needful and those who have pointed us toward it. We need to be able to shed the enchantments - without repudiating anything save their totalitarian claims - to shed the enchantments which we substitute for the personal appropriation of the Gospel.

The Apostle Paul stands in a certain contrast to all those who appeal to the authority of holy places and holy teachers to justify their own claim and position in matters of faith. I think this an important reminder to us, as even now our own church life is coloured by urgent appeals of some to the past or elsewhere as sources of authentic church life, as well as appeals to the putative uniqueness of the American experience and its vocation as the destiny of our little flock.

In poetry, wonder is coupled with the joy of speech.

- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie

Praying dangerously

Q: Father, what do you think about when you serve Liturgy or those other services?

I would like to answer - to be in the position to answer - something along the lines of Louis Armstrong's words as quoted by Dave Brubeck:

Whenever he sat down at the piano— an instrument as satisfying, to him, as a whole orchestra—his aim was to get somewhere he had never got before. It didn’t matter how tired he was, how beat-up he felt. He wanted to be so inspired in his explorations that he would get beyond himself. He liked to quote Louis Armstrong, who once told a woman who asked what he thought about as he played: “Lady, if I told you, your mind would explode.” In his own words, he played dangerously, prepared to make any number of mistakes in order to create something he had never created before.

- from the obituary for David Brubeck in The Economist, Dec 15th 2012

A Prayer for the Departed

Prayer for the Departed

O thou whose everlasting providence surpasses understanding, who dost prepare the world for everlasting blessedness, thou hast ordained for each the moment and manner of his death. O Lord, grant pardon to the dead from every generation.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

To save fallen Adam and all mankind from condemnation, thou hast opened, through the Cross and Resurrection of thy Son, the way to life eternal. Trusting in thy mercy, we pray that our departed brethren may reign with thee in glory. Give joy, O Lord, to the souls exhausted by the tempests of this life, make them forget their earthly sorrows, and accept them among the angels and the saints.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

From the skull of a dead pagan, St Macarius once heard these words: ‘When you pray for those in hell, the heathen receive consolation.’ How marvelous is the power of Christian prayer! Even unbelievers are consoled when we sing for all the universe, Alleluia!

'A merciful heart never ceases to pray for men, for the beasts, for the whole of creation.’ With these words St Isaac the Syrian bids us intercede for the departed from every generation. Remember, Lord, all who have asked us in our unworthiness to pray for them. Blot out the sins which they forgot to mention in confession, take pity on the souls of those buried without the Church’s prayers, cut down suddenly in the midst of joy or sorrow, who at their burial were deprived of the intercession of the Church.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

It is we men who are to blame for the sufferings of the world, for the illness and pain which children undergo, since it was man’s original sin that destroyed the beauty of creation. O Christ, the greatest of innocent martyrs, thou alone hast power to grant unconditional forgiveness. Bestow again upon the world its former splendour, and then both dead and living will rejoice, as they sing Alleluia.

Infinite Love, Redeemer of the world, we hear the cry from the Cross, spoken in compassion for thine enemies: ‘Father, forgive them.’ With boldness, then, we also beseech the heavenly Father that rest eternal may be granted to thine enemies and to ours. They have shed innocent blood, they have filled our life with sorrow, they have built their prosperity upon the tears of their neighbor. Bestow thy mercy upon all the victims of our involuntary sins.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

Save, O Lord, all who have suffered a tragic end: massacred, buried alive, drowned or burnt, destroyed by hunger or thirst, abandoned in the frost or storm, killed in some accident on earth or in the air. They will bless the time of their ordeal as a means of redemption, singing Alleluia.

Father of all consolation, thou makest glad with earthly blessings not only thy friends but thine enemies; and thy mercy extends beyond the grave, embracing even those who are utterly wicked. The prisoners of destructive unbelief, with blasphemy they spoke against all that is holy; here on earth they knew and understood thee not: may they learn to love thee in heaven! Grant pardon unto all who died without repentance, and forgive the momentary error of their suicides.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

The darkness of a soul estranged from God is terrible, and our heart trembles at the thought of it. May all who are condemned gain refreshment and revival, as we sing Alleluia.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

At every hour in all the world the Church prays for the departed, and sins are washed away through the Blood of the Lamb. By this intercession may the souls rise up from death to life, at the prayers of thy most holy Mother and of all the saints. Look upon the innocent children, O Lord, and for their sake take pity on the parents; and may the tears shed by mothers blot out the offences of their sons. Let the prayers of guiltless victims and the blood of martyrs avail in thy sight for the forgiveness of the sinful.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

The whole earth is one great cemetery, enclosing the dust of our brethren and our fathers. In thy love, O Christ, grant pardon unto all that died since the beginning of time, and to eternity they will sing Alleluia.

Expectantly awaiting our own resurrection, we celebrate also the future transfiguration of the whole created order in harmony and beauty. Lord, thou hast made the world for joy, and thou leadest souls from the depth of sin to holiness. Grant top the dead a new life in the unchanging light of the Lamb of God, and may we celebrate with them the eternal Passover.

O Lord, Love ineffable, remember thy departed servants.

O Father, rich in mercy, thou hast sent thy Son to the outcast, and thou givest them thy life-creating Spirit. Have mercy on our departed parents and relatives, and on the dead from every generation. Bestow upon them pardon and salvation; and grant that, through their intercession, with them we may together raise to thee, our God and Saviour, this our triumphal hymn:

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia

O God of the spirits and of all flesh, who hast trampled upon death, destroyed the power of the devil, and given life to thy world: Receive into thy rest the most holy patriarchs, the most reverend metropolitans, archbishops and bishops, all who served thee in major or minor orders of the priesthood, or in the monastic life; the founders of this holy church; our parents and ancestors who are buried here and elsewhere; all who died for faith and country, all believers killed in civil war, all victims of the elements or of wild beasts, all who perished before they could make their peace with the Church and with their enemies, all who in a moment of stumbling took their own life, all who have asked for our intercessions, all the forsaken, with no one to pray for them on earth, all the faithful who have not received Christian burial. Receive them into thy rest, where there is no more pain and sorrow. Forgive, O God who lovest man, every sin committed by them in word or deed or thought, for there is none among the living who does not sin: thou alone art without sin, and thy righteousness is eternal, and thy word is truth. For thou art the resurrection, the life and the repose of thy servants who have fallen asleep [names], and to thee we ascribe glory, with thy Father who is without beginning, and thy Holy Spirit, O supreme Beauty and Master of Life, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.


• This Akathist for the Departed was written in the period between the two world wars by a Russian bishop, a confessor for the faith. The full text contains twenty-four stanzas, with one additional stanza at the beginning and the concluding prayer. It is published in French translation in Cahiers Saint-Irénée, no. 25 (Eglise Orthodoxe de France, Paris, 1960), pp. 22-29 • Also in Contacts (Revue Française de l'Orthodoxie): 44 (1992), pp. 274-282 • This text from Eastern Christian Review 6 (1974), pp. 189-191

Love is never finished expressing itself...

- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos

A beautiful poem makes us pardon a very ancient grief.

- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos

http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/


Fr Touma (Bitar) on Who Should be Chosen as the Next Patriarch

Anew the Antioch of the Spirit

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall
stand forever." (Isaiah 40:8)


On Wednesday, December 5, Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazim of Antioch and all the East fell asleep in the Lord following a stroke. He lied in state in the upper church at the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Beirut during the following days, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so that the faithful could receive his blessing. Today, Sunday, December 9, they will pray over him at noon. He will be transported to Damascus' Maryamiyya on the same day and will be laid to rest the following day, Monday in the burial-place of the patriarchs. May God's mercies be upon him. May his memory be eternal.
In effect, the See of Antioch is vacant. If the departure of His Beatitude has left sadness in the hearts of many, it is fitting not to delve into who will succeed him while his body, filled with years and toils, lies amidst the faithful. However, everyone-- within the Church and outside her-- is asking and wondering automatically, "Who is to come?" This is natural. The election of a patriarch happens once or twice in a lifetime. His Beatitude occupied the See of Antioch since 1979. One who was 37 then is now in his sixties. The custom is for a patriarch to remain in his see until his death. Naturally, this has advantages and disadvantages.
Whatever the case may be, a very important issue is before us for the foreseeable future. Its importance only grows when we realize the centrality of the image of the patriarch has for us in tradition and in the ordering of unity between the faithful and the Holy Synod.
In reality, questions and discussion about this matter have been going on for some time, especially since His Beatitude, today, is over 92 years old. He enjoyed pointing out, in his love for life, that both his parents lived over a hundred years. But no one chooses their time of death-- every hour could be the hour!
Because of this, discussions have been going on, here and there, about who and when and how? Today the issue is multiplied and arguments are being made about filling the position. In the coming days we must, with God's permission, quicken the pace. Possibilities are opening up. Interests are overlapping. Calls are being made. Maneuvers are being made. Statements are being issued. Names are being proposed. There are trial baloons. The pulse is being taken about some. Gifts and favors, at inappropriate times, play the role of implicit simony! Politicians and powerful men are suggesting this or that name! Likewise, perhaps, some government organs are wining and dining in secret as, perhaps, are some ambassadors and church leaders from outside Antioch. The point is that the affairs of the Church are being treated like one of the playthings of the gentiles!
Others have their proposals and opinions but we, as the people of God, have our say that we derive from what has come down to us from the tradition of the holy fathers.
Before delving into who is to come, we must define how the one who is to come should be.
There are opinions that are put forward.
One of them calls for a patriarch who knows how to deal tactfully with thorny sectarian and political matters. On the one hand, he should preserve the community's unity and works to ensure their rights that are wasted vis-a-vis other communities and the government. On the other hand, he should strive, to keep members of the community safe from the dangers of the political and sectarian conflict that is raging among us and attempting to embroil us, despite ourselves, in issues that do not concern us, neither on the level of our community or on the level of our belonging to the same nation, even as we are situated in the midst of it.
There is another opinion that calls for a patriarch who has good relations with Muslims and the Vatican and other sects, as well as with politicians and the current regime and the opposition. This comes within the context of looking for a patriarch who is open and who will do away with fundamentalism, closed-mindedness, and reactionary thinking!
There is an opinion that calls for an administrative patriarch, one who is eloquent, well-versed in sociology, capable of dealing with all the communities, groups, and interests in the nation, and who is extraordinarily ecumenical in his relations!
There are those who desire a patriarch who, naturally, performs Byzantine chant well, is knowledgeable, scientific, organized, in tune with modernity, liberal in outlook, of a pragmatic tendency, a good social pastor, a man of institutions...
These opinions overlap in some elements to produce an image that varies from one person or group to another.
But what do we say?
We are a church. We have no right to forget this or to ignore it, not even temporarily! We are not a municipality. We are not a charitable society. We are not a political party. We are not a social club. If we did not say church, we would say a group with a theanthropic nature, not a purely human group. Our concern is that we have a patriarch who is first of all and last of all a man of God. This does not come from peoples' choices and arrangements. This comes from God's choice that the faithful grasp through purification, fasting, and prayer and then make their own and announce it! Otherwise, there is no meaning to when God says, "God must be obeyed, not men" or to when the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers to His vineyard." The people, no matter what heights they reach, cannot guide what belongs to God. It is God and God alone who guides what is His, and only in those who are trained in saying to Him, "Amen!" Thus, any deliberations or maneuvers outside of this context are corrupt and to be rejected, completely worthless before your Lord and in His Church!
The one whom your Lord desires comes from His Spirit and His Book. The important thing about the one who is to come is that you ask, what if his faith is like the faith of Abraham? What if his gentleness is like the gentleness of Moses? What if his childhood, humility and repentance are like the childhood, humility, and repentance of David? The most important thing is that you find an echo in him of the theology of John the Beloved, of the love of Paul. Even more important is that you examine him to see if he bears the cross of his Lord every day. If you do not find that he is poor in worldly things but does not care, because for him wealth is from above, then he is of no use! Closely examine his patience: If you sent him into the desert, would he flee? Would he melt in fire? Or would he consider the desert a divine oasis and fire like the dew upon the three youths? It is not a problem-- indeed, it is better and more appropriate-- if he has a plain appearance and is without form or beauty like the Suffering Servant. The important thing is that the power of the Spirit of God is thick within him, so that he can destroy the Devil's strongholds along with the people of God and so he can drive every thought toward obedience to God. What concerns us also is that the man of God be of the same stuff as his Master, that he not snap a damaged reed, that he not snuff out a smoking wick, that no one hears his voice in the streets. That he is gentle and long-suffering! That he rejoices with the joyful and weeps with those who weep. That he is small with children, youthful with those growing up, middle-aged, elderly... that he be all things to all people so that he might spread hope in God to all. That he not snuff out the Spirit but that he breathes it into those languishing in darkness and the shadow of death-- and how dark it is today! A man of prayer and fasting. A man who has the aroma of Joseph's chastity in the land of Egypt. Who knows how to make supplication. Who is well-versed in giving thanks. Who is pleased with everything that comes to him and accepts every flock without complaint. Persisting, with the people of the house of God, in hope until dawn shatters the shadows of temptation. One who is firm in faith until the end. One who is Orthodox in doctrine and worship. One who neither shows favor nor compromises. One who loves to teach and to mobilize talents in the service of preaching the Gospel, bringing salvation, and spreading the Word and the joy of the Lord. One who is careful, not to unify the people and the Synod, but to draw all to the One in every situation so that our unity may be preserved in Spirit and in truth. After this, everything follows. What he lacks will be given to him by the Spirit of the Lord in its time. If he is young, grace will increase his wisdom. If he has little experience in a given matter, the Spirit of the Lord will illuminate for him the paths of salvation. We are in need of one who will raise us up, through his sweat and tears, from our falls. We need one who asks about our suffering. We need one who helps us to leave behind our scandals. He alone is a man of God, a man for all seasons! For the springtime of ascent. For the summer of temptations. For the autumn of maturity. For the winter of hardships. One who distributes his Master's food without pay. One who pastors us with the behavior of the Good Shepherd and who disciplines us with God's mercies.
Where can we find a patriarch like this?! The Lord God has not left His people, for whom He sacrificed His blood, without a witness, even for a day! Far be it for Him to relinquish them to Azazael! There is always a way out! The grass withers and the flower fades, for a time, but the Word of our God shall stand forever!
Thus, brothers, fathers, bishops and metropolitans, unleash the candles of your consciences, and search out for us a man of God! Today or tomorrow you will die, just as His Beatitude our Patriarch Ignatius died, God's mercies be upon him. Do not look for a patriarch for us who will be the stepson of your moods, your honors, your alliances, and your worldliness! Give us a man who will shepherd us according to God's heart or do not give us anyone at all! The spirit has grown old in Antioch and the heritage has been scattered. But the time has come for the spirit to be renewed and for scattered things to be gathered! “O Lord, O Lord, look down from heaven and behold, and visit this vineyard, and perfect that which Your right hand has planted.”
By no means let us be like Moses who doubted God's power to shepherd His people and so did not enter into the Promised Land and whose bones lie on a hill overlooking it. The man whom the Lord desires for you stands among you! Open the eyes of your heart and you will find him!
Indeed, behold the man! I did not know him. I discerned the Spirit of the Lord in him once and I wrote about it, but did not mention his name!
Who do you think he is?
With all the force of my conscience in Christ, I will say his name! I will not only say his name. I will call for him to be named the new patriarch of Antioch and All the East: Metropolitan Siluan Muci, bishop of Argentina! Place your hand upon him and make him your servant brother and patriarch! He is the chosen one of Christ and His consolation for you!
Siluan for patriarch!

In the Lord's love,
Archimandrite Touma (Bitar)
Abbot of the Monastery of St Silouan the Athonite-- Douma
December 9, 2012

III

Rachel

On the Left are grinning dogs, peering down into a solitude too
deep to fill with roses.
On the Right are sensible sheep, gazing up at a pride where no
dream can grow.
Somewhere in these unending wastes of delirium is a lost child,
speaking of Long Ago in the language of wounds.
Tomorrow, perhaps, he will come to himself in Heaven.
But here Grief turns her silence, neither in this direction, nor in
that, nor for any reason.
And her coldness now is on the earth forever.

- from 'The Massacre of the Innocents' in Auden's For The Time Being

What is a question mark? An exclamation point in middle age.

- in Francis Spufford, Red Plenty

from the known to the unknown

I had spent the previous twelve years interviewing religious leaders, and I recognized Father Amphilochois as a promising interviewee: he was firmly rooted in a primitive Christian faith which shaped his every waking hour... Since he had experience as a missionary, spreading the Christian message among the tribal people of West Africa, it seemed fair to ask him about his techniques for enlightening unbelievers. I was one of them, and I was tackling him on behalf of liberal humanism.

I explained to him that I was a member of an enormous modern tribe that rejected the Christian message. This was not because we knew too little but because we knew too much. We understood the human psyche; we had analysed the workings of the human mind, conscious and unconscious... we knew that religious faith was simply a compensatory mechanism that gave emotional reassurance to the insecure... We sought the truth and, unlike Christians, saw no virtue in putting our trust in so-called realities for which there was insufficient evidence. For the past three hundred years leading intellectuals of our tribe had examined the philosophical proofs for the existence of God and found them wanting. Our scholars had looked at the linguistic and archeological evidence for biblical truths and pronounced them flawed. Our biologists accepted a version of the story of life on earth that needed no external directing hand. So, we had abandoned Christianity after long and careful consideration of its claims and with much regret. That rejection was a consequence of our fearless pursuit of truth. "If you came," I said, "as a missionary to my tribe today, what would you say to us?" I sat back, conscious that I had put him on the spot. He looked at me with a smile and said simply: "I would not say anything to you. I would simply live with you. And I would love you."

This was not the answer I expected from a theologian... When I heard these words from that man at that time, I experienced a shift in understanding. It was like the impact of great music. We all hear important truths many times in our lives, but it is only when we are ready for them that they penetrate... That morning a door opened. I realized that to approach Christianity, as I had tried, from what seemed to be the logical first step - that is, by examining the arguments for the existence of God - was to tackle it from the wrong end. The most basic principle of learning is to start with the known and move to the unknown. I had been trying to start from the unkowable. Father Amphilochios was proposing that the journey to Christian truth should start with the human experience of life: it should move, that is, from the known to the unknown.

- Peter France, A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos

Ῥάβδος ἐχ τῆς ῥίζης Ἰεσσαὶ

Ῥάβδος ἐχ τῆς ῥίζης Ἰεσσαὶ
St Cosmas, Bishop of Maiuma, the Melodist

Rod of the Root of Jesse,
Thou, Flower of Mary born,
From that thick shady mountain
Cam’st glorious forth this morn:
Of her, the ever virgin,
Incarnate wast Thou made,
The immaterial Essence,
The God by all obeyed!
Glory, Lord, Thy servants pay
To Thy wondrous might today!

The Gentiles’ expectation,
Whom Jacob’s words foretell,
Who Syria’s pride shall vanquish,
Samaria’s power shalt quell;
Thou from the Root of Judah
Like some fair plant dost spring,
To turn old Gentile error
To Thee, its God and King!
Glory, Lord, Thy servants pay
To Thy wondrous might today!

In Balaam’s ancient vision
The eastern seers were skilled;
They marked the constellations,
And joy their spirits filled;
For Thou, bright Star of Jacob,
Arising in Thy might,
Didst call these Gentile first-fruits
To worship in Thy light.
They, in holy reverence bend,
Gifts acceptable present.

As on a fleece descending
The gentle dews distill,
As drops the earth that water,
The virgin didst Thou fill.
Tarshish and Ethiopia,
The Isles and Araby,
And Media, leagues with Sheba,
Fall down and worship Thee.
Glory, Lord, Thy servants pay
To Thy wondrous might today!

- translated John M. Neale, Hymns of the East­

the numina of localities and differentiated traditions

We have seen that, stated very baldly, he is concerned to show that in some sense or other all that is valuable derives from an Hellenistic norm. Supposing, for the moment, that we concede that; what then? Does it mean that the metamorphoses of Hellenistic forms demanded by the numina of this or that locality are to be regarded as aesthetically suspect? If so, then, we would indeed protest. I shall use an analogy to illustrate one ground for objection. The news of our Redemption was told to us in a Latin voice in Judeo-Hellenistic terms, we received it as Mediterranean news couched in Mediterranean forms; but when a poet of our Western seaboard expressed what that Mediterranean event meant to him, he wrote a poem, three lines at least of which are familiar to us in modernized forms:

Then the young hero stripped himself, that was God Almighty
strong and steadfast; he mounted the high gallows
proud in the sight of many, then he would loose mankind.

The MS. is in late West Saxon, but it is perhaps not without significance that a fragment of this great poem was inscribed in the old Northumbrian dialect of the seventh century on the Anglo-Celtic Ruthwell Cross in Scotland. This suggests a valid and wide appeal on this island. Neither a Jew nor a Greek nor a Roman could have had that particular dream of the rood; not a converted pharisee, nor a converted philosopher, nor a converted centurion, could have been granted that particular vision (for art, as they of Grace, follows nature), only a converted barbarian from the Celto-Teutonic north-west seaboard could offer munera of that shape. This, I have said, serves only as an analogy: the northern poem could not have been written except Mediterranean men had brought the story, but no Mediterranean man could have told the dream that the rood dreamed. He would not have known how to make that particular shape.... It takes all sort to make a world, and if it was a great labour to make the Roman people, it takes an infinite variety of endlessly and mysteriously interrelated art-forms, labour and stress past reckoning to make up the sum of beauty of the forms which human beings have made 'ad hoc and de novo' as offerings to the Maker who makes all things 'ex nihilo' as a passage in The Letters of Eric Gill reminds us. Now it is only the numina of localities and differentiated traditions that could have dictated the metamorphoses in any and every art. This remains true even if we allow the Greek miracle to be at the navel of it all.

- David Jones, 'A Note on Mr Berenson's Views' in Epoch and Artist

seventy times seven kinds of loving

Veterans

There are seventy times seven kinds of loving
None quite right:
One is of making, one of arguing,
One of wheedling in the night
And all the others one can think of, none quite right.

They are all good,
Paying attention, giving the low-down kiss;
Answering back in the heart is always good
And coming out of a sulk is almost bliss.

There is a kind of loving in grass and weeds,
One in brass beds, another in corridors;
An uncanny kind that turns away and bleeds
And a gorgeous kind, practised by saints and bores.

They are all hard,
All seventy times seven, hard as can be:
Veterans of loving are wary-eyed and scarred
And they see into everything they see.


- George Johnston, Home Free (1966)

the optimal educational tool

The Place of Reading in the Christian Life

Metropolitan Longin of Saratov and Volsk Nov 13th, 2012

Lessons of the classics: a sentimental education

Vladyka, have there been cases in your own life, or in the lives of people close to you, in which a book has radically changed your life? This happens, after all. Why is it that books can change someone’s life and worldview?

Indeed, I know of many cases when reading a book has, if not changed someone’s life, then at the very least had a very strong influence on it. Moreover, this can happen with any kind of book, not just with the Gospels or spiritual literature. For instance, when I was young I knew several people who, having read The Master and Margarita – a book of excellent literary quality, if otherwise quite questionable – became so interested in the subject of the Gospels, which was practically unheard of then (this was in the late 1970s and early 1980s), that it caused them to seek out and read the Gospels. Many of them became believers; I can remember this happening to more than just one or two people. Here the proverb says it all: “An egg is dearest on Pascha.” [1] When a subject is in demand, even a controversial book can provide the small shocks necessary to set off an avalanche.

I myself have read, and continue to read, a great deal. In my case, it so happened that my mother accustomed me to reading, at first even forcing me. My mother’s friends had a very good library, a typical library for Soviet intellectuals in the humanities, with the collected works of classics by Dickens, Balzac, Dumas, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy… Later I began to wonder how I managed to endure it all: Mother forced me to read not just individual pieces, but their collected works, volume by volume. Fortunately, I was relieved of the duty of reading their letters – back then I could not understand why they were published. It is only now that I understand that letters are the most interesting things in collected works.

I read so many books, and at some point became so engrossed in reading, that Mother had to limit me. I read during class and under the blankets with a flashlight. Probably the funniest moment happened in seventh grade, when I was caught reading the next volume of Balzac’s collected works in class. The book was under my school desk. The teacher picked it up, looked at it and at me, then respectfully handed it back.

I learned to read quickly and became nearly omnivorous. Then came the philological faculty, where I read what the program assigned: Russian, foreign, and contemporary literature. I signed up in five or six city libraries, from which I always checked out quite a few books.

I mention all this to make it clear that I have a fairly large experience of reading; I am, I hope, knowledgeable about literature and have a taste for reading. Therefore, I remember very well the impression that the first patristic books I read made on me. These were Abba Dorotheos, The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus, and Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov’s Paterikon. [2] After I read these three books – this was during my first months of seminary – I told myself: fine, from now on I won’t read anything else. In fact, for a long time I read nothing but spiritual literature. Several years later I gradually began to read again, first of all rereading the classics.

Therefore, I can testify from personal experience that a book can have a substantial effect on someone. Why? Because the book is the optimal educational tool developed by human culture. One can learn a great deal from good books. One can, first of all, obtain an essential education of sentiment, something that non-readers have no way of getting elsewhere – certainly not on the Internet, with its constant abusiveness and its meager and often coarse lexicon.

By reading the classics, one gains the ability to understand such lofty ideals as friendship, love, honor, loyalty, courage, and heroism. Although today this probably seems ridiculous to some… Moreover, it is an entry into the world of human history, which places one concretely within the historical process, since the classics are always historical.

Books are, among other things, important tools for understanding the world. It is one thing to have a child learn something in school – say, geography or history. He is required to memorize various names, highest elevations, natural resources, dates of battles, names of tsars and generals with their dates, and so on. It is, of course, very difficult for children or adolescents to get interested in any of this. But books – whether fictional, historical, or educational literature – broaden one’s mind, creating a context in which all this is remembered in a natural manner. It is one thing, for instance, to learn biology from textbooks and quite another to learn it from books by Gerald Durrell.

Therefore, literature, in my opinion, is not just a part of human culture – it is its foundation. Perhaps someone will argue with this, but I, as someone biased towards the humanities, think that this is the case.

Unfortunately, when talking with young people today one sees that the vast majority of them have never had the opportunity to learn how to read books. When someone does not love to read, when he has not grown accustomed to reading, this is not simply sad, it is tragic. I know a large number of wonderful young people with excellent instincts whose development nonetheless ended in the seventh grade of middle school. They cannot rise above this level because they have not grown accustomed to reading. There are, unfortunately, more and more such people today.

Is it possible to teach someone to read if he has not acquired the skill or habit of reading in childhood or youth? What is your experience as the rector of a seminary and former superior of a monastery?

This was possible in the monastery, because people who enter monasteries are more inclined to obedience. I gave a blessing – “Here is a book for you, read it!” – and then he read it. Unfortunately, this works much less well in seminary. I will therefore say that it is possible, but difficult. After all, it is very important that parents “seize the moment” when a child might become interested in reading.

Holy Scripture cannot be read once and for all

Does the reading of Holy Scripture differ from other reading?

Yes, certainly it differs.

When reading Holy Scripture, especially for the first time, it is essential to understand what it is, what kind of book it is – so as not to put it in the same category as The Iliad or The Odyssey, or some other ancient tale of bygone days. One needs to understand this book’s place in the history of human civilization. Before opening the Bible, therefore, one should be sure to read something about the Bible itself, about the history of its formation, as well as about the basic content of the books included in its canon.

Moreover, one needs to understand that the New Testament – the Gospel – cannot be read like an ordinary narrative. It happens that one can read a book, even a very good one, once through and then put it aside. “Have you read War and Peace?” “Yes, in ninth grade.” But one should read the Gospel continuously throughout one’s entire life – then new facets of this Book will be revealed with every new reading.

Holy Scripture requires much greater attention than do ordinary books. When we read an ordinary book, especially if we are good at reading quickly, we might try to rush through the story as quickly as possible, perhaps even skipping over certain “extras” such as descriptions of nature or battles. However, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). Every word, every phrase, has a definite and profound meaning ­– not just in the literal or narrative sense, but spiritually.

For this reason there is a vast reservoir of interpretation (exegesis) of Holy Scripture. The Lord Himself spoke in the Gospel of the need to “search the Scriptures” (cf. John 5:39). Christian exegesis takes place simultaneously with apostolic preaching: no prophecy in Scripture can be interpreted independently. No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21). Scripture, therefore, can be seen in all its fullness only within the context of patristic interpretation.

Someone who is just becoming acquainted with the Church’s life and teaching should, of course, first read the New Testament and only then read the Old Testament, even though they are in the opposite order in the Bible. It is very good to read the commentaries of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospels according to Matthew and John and, if one has the patience and energy, his commentaries on the Epistles as well.

Does one need any “special conditions” in order to read Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers? Many people today read while taking public transport, since this is their only “free time.” Once one gets home after work and has taken care of all one’s household chores, it seems impossible to absorb anything serious…

There is the practice, recommended by quite a few people with spiritual experience, of beginning one’s day with the reading of Holy Scripture – if only a few chapters of the Gospels. One should literally feed one’s soul with them, so that the Gospels might guide one in all the situations of life.

Besides which, people do indeed feel tired in the evening – literally overloaded. The classical European tradition included reading the Bible as a family in the evening – which, incidentally, found expression in both literature and painting. Alas, this tradition belonged to other times, when life was more balanced. Their daily labor may have been physically difficult then, but their heads still remained in relative peace – unlike in today’s “information society,” when we hardly know who or where we are by the time we get home.

In my opinion, therefore, it is best to read Holy Scripture at home in the morning. Sometimes people taking public transport read serious books. This depends more on whether someone is good at attentive reading. If one is, then one can read on the go – this is certainly better than just looking around.

Spiritual literature: the word about God

Which books, in your opinion, should every Christian read?

One should certainly read Abba Dorotheos, the Russian ascetic strugglers Sts. Theophan the Recluse and Ignatius (Brianchaninov), and then The Philokalia. Properly speaking, The Philokalia is an anthology of patristic texts. I think it is impossible to tear oneself away from the first four volumes of The Philokalia. In St. Theophan the Recluse’s Russian translation, The Philokalia is suitable reading for all Christians, since St. Theophan attempted to adapt even the most difficult monastic and hesychastic texts for use by average people. [3] Therefore, notwithstanding the misconception that The Philokalia is only for monks, it can and should be read by everyone. When becoming acquainted with spiritual literature one should start, as with regular literature, with the classics: first read the fundamental, essential works of the Holy Fathers, and only later read books by modern authors. There are, for instance, some very good books by Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain that have entered our life fairly recently.

According to St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), spiritual instructors have grown scarce. In our times, therefore, we should “live under the guidance of patristic writings.” Does this mean that we need to learn the spiritual life primarily from books?

That goes without saying. It is indeed impossible to assimilate any of the basics of the spiritual life without reading the Holy Fathers, even with spiritual instructors – even good ones. Not even the most extraordinary Elder can know everything. But the works of the Holy Fathers are an encyclopedia of spiritual experience. It is no secret, after all, that everyone is different and that there are many paths in the spiritual life: one thing is within the grasp of some people, while another is within the grasp of others. Therefore, reading the Holy Fathers is a virtue that is mandatory for monks and very desirable for laypeople.

This is especially true in the case of Holy Fathers and ascetic strugglers who are close to us in time. They wrote for people like us, who have the same problems and ways of life. It is one thing to read about the Desert Fathers of Egypt, and quite another thing to read, say, the letters of Abbot Nikon (Vorobyov) to his spiritual children, written in the 1960s, or those of the Elder Paisios mentioned earlier. [4]

The difference between spiritual literature and other literature is that with the former one should not only read it, but also put it into practice. How does one learn to do this? What should one pay attention to?

Still, the most important difference between them is that even the most profound classical literature is still fiction, of varying degrees of success, even when it is about very important things (“typical characters under typical circumstances”). [5] It is, if you will, a genre of parables, just very well developed. But spiritual literature is the word about God; it is an illustration of the Gospel. These are people who were able to follow the Gospel commandments in their lives; they did not simply read Holy Scripture and wonder out loud: “My goodness, how well-written, how well-said!” They accomplished it in practice. Take the life of St. Anthony the Great. Look at how he heard the words of the Gospel in church: Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor… and come and follow Me (Matthew 19:21). And then he gave up everything and retreated to the desert. This is completely inconceivable to our mindset today! Indeed, one does not find such many cases at any point in Christian history – but they are nonetheless real.

When entering the realm of patristic and spiritual literature, therefore, the main thing to bear in mind is that here we have the word about God, here we have “theology.” The Gospel is God’s own word. We must strive to treat it just like St. Anthony the Great, to the extent to which we can bear it.

Interview conducted by Natalia Gorenok.

Translator’s notes:

[1] I.e., something becomes valuable when needed. [2] Two translations of the works of Abba Dorotheos exist in English: Dorotheos of Gaza: Discourses and Sayings (Cistercian Publications, 1979); and Practical Teachings on the Christian Life (University of Athens, 2002). Two English translations of St. John Climacus’ work likewise exist: The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Holy Transfiguration Monastery, rev. ed. 2012) and John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Paulist Press, 1988). The Paterikon (Otechnik) of St. Ignatius does not yet exist in English, but The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cistercian Publications, rev. ed. 2006) is very similar in content. [3] The four volumes of The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Faber & Faber, 1979 ff.) are translated directly from the Greek text. Two volumes translated into English from St. Theophan’s Russian version also exist: Writings from the Philokalia: On Prayer of the Heart (Faber & Faber, 1951) and Early Fathers from the Philokalia (Faber & Faber, 1954). [4] For Abbot Nikon, see Letters to Spiritual Children (Nikodemos Orthodox Publication Society, 1997); for Elder Paisios, see his Epistles (Holy Monastery “Evangelist John the Theologian,” 2002). [5] A reference to Friedrich Engels’ characterization of literary realism; see his letter of April 1888 to Margaret Harkness.

http://www.pravmir.com/the-place-of-reading-in-the-christian-life/

We share with people that which we possess ourselves

http://www.mospat.ru/ru/2012/11/25/news76409/

....

D. Kogan: .... What do you think, is it necessary to influence the youth so that they would attend churches, so that they would go to concert halls, to theatres, museums, or should this process be a matter of personal choice for each person, a sum of his own ideas and understanding of the world?

Metropolitan Hilarion: Looking at us from the sidelines, a few people think that the Church is preoccupied with attracting young people because it wants to increase its numbers, and that a musician worries about the hall being full so that there would be income from ticket sales. But I am convinced that our main motivation is to share with people that which we were fortunate enough to obtain in this life, that which we were imparted. We will take your example. You are a third generation musician. Your grandfather is the great violinist Leonid Kogan. I listened to him as a young boy. His name was known to everyone in our country. Today you are fulfilling that very same mission, you are continuing the work of your father, your grandfather, you are sharing with people that which you obtained from them and that which you received yourself in the process of your formation. You, of course, want to convey this to the largest number of people as possible. You do this because the music which you perform and which you translate for people bears positive news. The task we are fulfilling is similar to a great degree. We share with people that which we possess ourselves. We tell people what is the meaning of life, but not because we want to impose something, but because we ourselves have come to this –through our parents, through our spiritual formation, mostly through our own life experience. Sometimes people ask us: “And how will you prove the existence of God?” We in no way can prove it. We can only refer to the experience of our own personal life. Life has taught me that there is a God. Thousands of times I have been convinced of the fact that God helps me. I can tell this to other people: whoever wants will believe, whoever does not want to will not believe.

....

Metropolitan Hilarion: According to the teaching of the Church, God created man in His image and likeness. And this image of God in man is expressed, among other things, through the creative act: when the Lord sent Adam to paradise, He said: “Here is paradise for you, so that you would cultivate it” (Cf. Genesis 2:15). All was already accomplished there, all was prepared, but man needed to be the creator. He comes into this world not simply to pass some kind of segment of time and leave, - he comes in order to bring something into this world. I think the absolute significance of creative achievements is found in this. And the general task of people of the Church and people of culture is to propagandize the legacy of great composers, artists, thinkers, writers, poets, to attract to this legacy the maximum number of people.

....

Metropolitan Hilarion: .... For me, music is one of the forms of preaching. I think that a priest should use all available means to preach. If he finished art school and loves to draw, it means he can in addition to his usual service, in addition to the sermons he preaches at church services, use these talents. A priest, and every Christian, can preach by all means available to him and in all languages in which he is fluent. Music is a language, moreover a very powerful language, very strong, and with the help of this language you can convey that which in words you will never convey. You can convey to the listeners the energetic charge you have if, when you write music, you put yourself wholly into it. I invested in that music not only my heart and soul, but also, of course, my experience of the Church. The idea included relaying the atmosphere of the church, the atmosphere of the church services of Passion Week to the stage of the concert hall, to give to people who do not go to church regularly the possibility of feeling that atmosphere, to become familiar with it, to give to churchly people who regularly attend church, but, perhaps, do not know very well the services of Passion Week, the possibility of experiencing at a new level these texts and most importantly – to experience the story of the Passions of Christ.

D. Kogan: So it is possible to say that the educational aspect is clearly evident here?

Metropolitan Hilarion: The educational aspect is a missionary aspect. All my life is devoted to bringing people to Christ, His teaching and His image. And I am glad if through the aid of musical art I manage to bring this image to people.

......

Да ісправится молитва моя...

An excerpt from an article in honor of the ten-year anniversary of the death of Anton Chekhov in “The Work of the Choir and Director”, 1914, No. 9:

http://kliros.org/content/view/43/4/.

 Pavel Egorovich is the father of Chekhov. He was a choir director, and attempted to drag his boys - including Anton, who did not care to sing - into church singing....

"...Finally the desired day came. Pavel Egorovich found out that services would be offered for a while again in the Taganrog palace - where Emperor Alexander the Blessed had lived for some time and died. Both the palace and the church had stood on the grounds of a castle and no services had taken place for years. But now, here in the palace church, services were to begin again. Pavel Egorovich was encouraged to sing with his choir. He expected that it would all unfold in new way, with the elite of the city attending the palace church. He would celebrate a sort of victory … The former choir of Pavel Egorovich was resurrected and serious work was undertaken by the singers. The choir began to sing from the start of Passion Week. But few of the local elite came as Pavel Egorovich had expected: the old-lady-benefactor, two or three important figures from the circuit court with their wives, some kind of colonel, an elderly woman from the Smolny Institute, the mayor, and that is all … But Pavel Egorovich was buoyant. He assumed a dignified air, straightened his tie, smoothed his beard, and peering out at the choir with a strict stare said quietly:

“Attention, sirs…”

The most important moment for him arrived at the moment for stepping out to the center of the church to begin “Let my prayer arise…”. He made a sign with his hand to the children, who had turned pale, and he set out with them to the middle of the church.

“Tra-ta-ti-ta-tom,” Pavel Egovorich gave the pitch, bringing the tuning fork to his ear.

The gymnasium students coughed and froze, the director moved his hand, lifted it, and whispered:

“Begin... Let my…”

Not a sound from the gymnasium students! An awful pause ensued. Pavel Egorovich again gave the tone:

“Tra-ta-ti-ta-tom. Hm… Let my…”

“Let my prayer,” Sasha begins without any confidence and looks at his brothers.

But the brothers were mute. Kolya was completely dumbstruck. Antosha opened his mouth but was unable to make a sound. Sasha becomes timid, stops suddenly and remains silent. Pavel Egorovich blushes and continues on:

“Let my prayer…”

The children were completely at a loss, but the father urges them on from behind. Sasha begins to join in singing. After him Kolya and Antosha begin haphazardly. But Antosha - due to a lack of pitch - in no way can get to the tone. All three of them feel that they will simply die, but Pavel Egorovich bravely holds his own part and little by little carries the children along with him. The matter haphazardly adjusts itself and the students almost take heart, but their voices waver and each second teeters on the brink of ruin.

The two verses are completed. There only remains to sing again “Let my prayer…” - not standing, but kneeling – and the matter is finished. Pavel Egorovich in a whisper indicates to the children to go down on their knees and he himself kneels. Sasha and Kolya obey unquestioningly, but Antosha becomes confused and stalls. Father gestures to him and he – red in the face – falls down, but he cannot sing. From behind, in the congregation, a restrained laughter is heard and tears begin to run down Antosha’s cheeks. From his face it is clear that he is suffering. Pavel Egorovich is perplexed and then, looking at the feet of his son, is confused himself. Terribly worn out soles gape from Anton’s boots and worn out stockings and a dirty, naked toe are visible from two enormous holes.

Scandal! Even Pavel Egorovich never envisioned such unhappiness! It is true that Antosha two weeks ago had announced that his boots were in serious “need of repair,” but his father did not pay the necessary attention then. Who would have been able to foretell such a misfortune?

The singing stops haphazardly with great confusion. Pavel Egorovich leads the children away and returns to his place as director and begins to lead the choir.

The situation is not a happy one, and there is no one to blame, and the matter cannot be rectified. Instead of his victory – defeat…"


- translated RM; revised AM

such a nose!

Valvert: Ahem - your nose - is -very -very - big.
Cyrano: It is indeed.
Valvert: (laughs nervously) Ha! Ha!
Cyrano: And is that all?
Valvert: (perplexed) Why, what -
Cyrano: Too short, young man. You might have said many sharp things by varying the tone. You might have put it some such way as this:
Aggressive: Sir, if I had such a nose I'd cut it off to please, not spite, my face.
Friendly: A nose like that must dip so deep a special goblet should be shaped for it.
Descriptive: 'Tis a rock! A peak! A cape! Did I say "cape"? 'Tis a peninsula!
Inquisitive: Is it an oblong box for pen and ink? Is it a scissors-case?
Gracious: I see you love the little birds and offer them this perch for tired feet.
Belligerent: Sir, when you light your pipe, and smoke blows through your nose, the neighbors cry "Look out! Another chimney is on fire!"
Kindly: With such a burden on your head, take care you do not topple to the ground.
Considerate: Have an umbrella made to keep its hues from fading in the sun.
Pedantic: Monsieur, Aristophanes' Hippocamp-elephanto-camelos, that fabled beast, could not have borne so much great bone and heavy flesh upon his head.
Flippant: The latest vogue, I have no doubt; clever and fashionable and useful, too: a perfect hook on which to hang a hat.
Rhetorical: No spiteful wind that blows makes you catch cold, O magisterial nose!
Dramatic: When it bleeds, 'tis the Red Sea! And what a sign for perfumery!
Lyric: Is this the ocean shell, the wreathed horn, that Triton blew when the old gods were young?
Innocent: Tell me, when do they unveil the monument? And may we visit it?
Respectful: My congratulations, sir, that thing's a house - with a tremendous view!
Rustic: Don't tell me that's a nose. I know a melon or a giant cucumber when I see one - and sure I see one now.
Militaristic: Load that gun of yours, and aim it point-blank against cavalry.
Practical: Entered into a lottery fifty to one it's sure to take first prize....

-Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

dedicated to you

... it would be well to bear in mind that the cemeteries are full of men this world could not get along without.....

- Abilene (Oklahoma) Reporter, 1909

We would rather be ruined than changed

We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

(W.H. Auden, “Epilogue.” The Age of Anxiety, 1948)

raining spiritually

He’s the most difficult convert I have ever met. He doesn’t seem to have the least intellectual curiosity or natural piety. I asked him if Our Lord had more than one nature. He said, “Just as many as you say, Father” I said, “Suppose the Pope looked up and said it was going to rain would that be bound to happen?” “Oh yes, Father” “But supposing it didn’t rain?” “He said, “I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it."

- Fr Mowbray on instructing Rex Motram in Brideshead Revisited.

It is not right

Saint Basil the Great once defrocked a priest because he committed adultery. After many years, this priest was at a funeral. He approached the casket and touched the dead man and the dead man rose. He went to Basil and said to him, “Do you need a greater sign than this of the holiness that I have acquired in order to send me back to my flock?” Basil replied, “Your holiness is between you and God, but I cannot return you to your flock because you scandalized them. It is not right for you to go to them again.”

Who will give us the like of Basil the Great so that we feel that the group we are a part of is truly the Church of Christ?

- Metropolitan Georges Khodr
http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/2009/10/georges-khodr-on-corrupt-bishops.html

On Concealing the Truth Partially

By St. John the Prophet

Question 758: If I do something against my brother and he grieves upon hearing about it, is it perhaps a good thing to hide the truth from him in order to stop the grief? Or is it better to admit my fault and ask for forgiveness?

Response: If he has clearly learned about it, and you know that the matter will be examined and revealed, then tell him the truth and ask for his forgiveness. For lying will only further provoke him. However, if he has not learned about it and will not examine the matter, then it is not improper to keep silent and not give occasion to grief.

For when the Prophet Samuel was sent to anoint David as king, he was also going to offer sacrifice to God. Yet, because he was afraid lest Saul learn about this, God said to him: "Take a heifer with you; and if the king asks you: 'Why did you come here?' tell him: 'I have come to sacrifice to the Lord'" (1 Sam. 16:2). In this way, by concealing one thing, which brought the wrath of the king, he only revealed the other.

You too, then, should be silent about that which causes grief, and the problem will pass.

- From The Letters of Saints Barsanuphios and John; translated by John Chryssavgis.

our desert

The desert is the home of despair. And despair, now, is everywhere. Let us not think that our interior solitude consists in the acceptance of defeat. We cannot escape anything by consenting tacitly to be defeated. Despair is an abyss without bottom. Do not think to close it by consenting to it and trying to forget you have consented.

This, then, is our desert: to live facing despair, but not to consent. To trample it down under hope in the Cross. To wage war against despair unceasingly. That war is our wilderness. If we wage it courageously, we will find Christ at our side. If we cannot face it, we will never find Him.

- Thomas Merton (Thoughts in Solitude)

What does not need to be endured indefinitely

.... It is one thing, however, to talk of a dialectical tension implied in the very idea of an historical Church, and quite another to excuse the corruptions and follies that are peculiar to our own time and place. What does not need to be endured indefinitely is the special irrelevance of so much of the behaviour of Church officials. Alongside the actual agony of growth in the Church there seem to be these men playing a private game amongst themselves in which the moves are directives and prohibitions and the players score points for formally going through the motions of docility or of repeating the orders correctly. It seems to me that we should treat this game as we do the phantasies of adolescence of any of the other ways in which men escape from reality; we should combine a firm determination to get rid of it eventually with a certain tolerance of it while it is being played. While Church authorities are occupied with these domination games they are neglecting their true role. It would be quite unrealistic to expect them to be sources of enthusiasm and original thought but it is their basic task to be the link between such sources, the framework within which they are kept in balance. To maintain this balance they must, of course, speak with authority, the real authority that comes with understanding and concern and listening to others; the authority that sees itself not in terms of power but as a service to the community, the channel of communication by which each part of the community is kept in touch with the whole, a whole that extends through time as well as space. - Herbert McCabe, New Blackfriars (February, 1967)

a creature in trouble

What distinguishes Judeo-Christianity in general from other world religions is its emphasis on the value of the individual person, its view of man as a creature in trouble, seeking to get out of it, and accordingly on the move. Add to this anthropology the special marks of the Catholic Church: the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, which, whatever else they do, confer the highest significance upon the ordinary things of this world, bread, wine, water, touch, breath, words, talking, listening — and what do you have? You have a man in a predicament and on the move in a real world of real things, a world which is a sacrament and a mystery; a pilgrim whose life is a searching and a finding.” – Walker Percy, “The Holiness of the Ordinary,” in Signposts in a Strange Land

The Stadium of Virtue

The word virtue has lost its force over the ages: we tend to think of a virtuous person as someone who avoids evil-doing and resists temptation. The Greek word we translate virtue means excellence. The ancient philosophers thought of the virtuous person as the one who is outstanding, who excels others. The stadium of virtue is the arena where we compete to excel - to excel in love, kindness, wisdom, self-control, justice and honesty. It is the battle-ground where we fight the dark and dangerous aspects of our own personality, the tendency to meanness, foolishness, injustice and dishonesty, the temptation to see others simply as a means to our own ends, people to be used and manipulated, for our own pleasure or our profit. - David Melling

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

To magnify something is to make it appear larger—thus the magnifying glass, and reading glasses—and to magnify someone is to praise them. With things, this is a matter of appearance. It is helpful to enlarge something in order to see it more clearly. Praise of persons is also a matter of appearance—it heightens aspects of their character or draws attention to their achievements. It is also, on the part of the one who praises, an expression of an attitude or inner disposition. Someone who truly praises others thinks well of them, has good will towards them, wishes to honour them, does not want in any way to diminish or belittle them. Such praise is truly selfless—it doesn’t attempt to grasp a little bit of the praise, or bask in the glory. It does not calculate its own interests in magnifying the other. In this sense, true praise and authentic glorification expresses real humility, since it recognizes that in giving praise, it is not 'about me' but the one praised. This is so obviously true and important when it comes to God, uniquely worthy of all praise and honour. It is also true of the Mother of God and all the saints, for whom a relative praise and honour spring from our lips. But it is tremendously important that we see in Mary’s magnification of God a clear example and pattern for the believer of a desire, a willingness, an eagerness to enlarge and magnify others. We are to build one another up, not to make each other feel small.

that greater and better deputy

According to his own express words, Christ left two sorts of deputies in the world, two sorts of human substitutes for himself, besides that one divine invisible deputy, the Holy Ghost, who is the soul of all the love we have. But these are deputies of flesh and blood; the deputies of his power and the deputies of his weakness. The deputies of his power are his apostolic ministers, to whom he says, He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. They speak his word, they pronounce his pardon, they give his body and his blood. The deputies of his weakness are the little and the needy; and of these equally he says "He that receiveth one such child in my name, receiveth me. Neither sort of deputies represent Christ by virtue of their merits. The infirmity of the ministers always hinders the word, yet faith can hear, through all their folly, the voice of Jesus. And the weak, the little, are not always amiable. Are we not both little and weak, but mostly on the side of our faults and vices? Yet faith can see the passion of Christ in all; and faith is the gift of that greater and better deputy, the Holy Ghost who will not fail us, the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit whom Jesus was born to bring us. - Austin Farrer, Said or Sung

Beneath your compassion

Beneath your compassion we take refuge, Virgin Theotokos; despise not our prayers in our necessity, but deliver us from harm, O only pure and blessed one.

This ancient hymn - and so beloved of Orthodox faithful! - identifies the Mother of God and her compassion as a refuge and protection for believers. Another wonderful hymn affirms For those in great sorrow you are joy, and for the oppressed a protection, and for the hungry their food, comfort unto those estranged; you are a staff to the blind, visitation of all those who are sick and to those held by pain a shelter and comfort, to the orphaned, an aid.

Our hymns and prayers give voice to our conviction and experience that the Mother of God intercedes for us - and for our salvation - out of her deep, embracing compassionate love. Therefore, on this feast day of the Protection of the Mother of God, let us call to mind just how important compassion is as a Christian virtue!

Compassion is a certain tender-heartedness, the capacity to be moved by the misery and needs of others. From it comes the desire to alleviate suffering, a desire which - in the name of Christ - is the ground of our good works on behalf of those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick, in prison, captives, our acts of kindness and hospitality, and our care for the departed.

So too there are also works of compassion with a spiritual focus, such as education, counsel, correction, patient listening, forgiveness, offering comfort, intercessory prayer. Out of a compassionate heart spring works of mercy and all manner of good.

God Himself models compassion. Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who .... moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt (Matthew 18:27). In the story of the Prodigal Son we read: But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him (Luke 15:20). The Good Samaritan, a figure of Christ, when he saw the half-dead man, had compassion on him (Luke 10: 33). Indeed, throughout the Gospel we meet the Lord's compassion for the sick, the sinful, the needy, crowds, children... and perhaps most poignantly for those that persecute and torture Him.

God is compassionate! St. Isaac the Syrian writes: Among all His actions there is none which is not entirely a matter of mercy, love, and compassion: this constitutes the beginning and the end of His dealings with us.

We pray in our evening prayers and bring this to mind on our altar feast: O blessed Theotokos, open the doors of compassion to us whose hope is in you, that we may not perish but be delivered from adversity through you, who are the salvation of the Christian people.

I want whoever is near me to feel that he has room to breathe, not that he is suffocated. I don’t call anyone to me. I don’t hold onto anyone. I don’t chase anyone away. Whoever wants comes, whoever wants stays, whoever wants leaves. I don’t consider anyone a supporter or a follower - Father Epiphanios (Theodoropoulos)

response to a friend

Religion is more like response to a friend than it is like obedience to an expert. - Austin Farrer

For the superficial observer, the Staretz continued to the end of his days to be an ‘ordinary’ man. He lived like all good monks in general, fulfilling his tasks of obedience, abstinent, observing the monastery rules and traditions, taking communion twice a week – three times during Lent and other fasts. His work in the store-house was not difficult – for a man of his physical strength it was even easy, requiring comparatively little time although it did demand his presence during the daylight hours. To the end he continued tranquil and good-tempered. There were never any outbursts, no ugliness, external or internal. Like a really experienced ascetic he showed nothing outwardly, standing before the Father in secret, as the Lord commanded. To the end he stayed remote from mundane interests and indifferent to the things of this world. But deep in his heart the fire of Christ-like love burned without cease. - Archimandrite Sophrony, on Saint Silouan

One likes one's saints to be 'meaningless'

.... That friend of mine, for example - except as serving the divine mission of Christ, his life was meaningless; and it was meaningless except as directed to that great goal or consummation, where all things shall be fulfilled in the light of the countenance of God.

Here then is the principle of breadth, to set beside the principle of narrowness. Spiritual truth is narrow, in the sense that the sort of spiritual evidence which will carry weight fills a minute area. But again, and in another sense, spiritual truth is broad. For no piece of this most rare and precious evidence can be understood by itself, but only as a detail in the vast divine action it subserves. Our weak prayers and weaker virtues are understood in the saints, and the saints on earth are understood in Jesus Christ; while Jesus Christ, the saints and our own Christian existence are understood in that end alone towards which they strive, and in assuring which the love of God to us is love indeed.

There light spills evermore from the fountain of light; it fills the creatures of God with God as much as they will contain, and yet enlarges their heart and vision to contain the more. There it is all one to serve and to pray, for God invisible is visibly portrayed in the actions he inspires. There the flame of deity burns in the candle of mankind, Jesus Christ; and all the saints, united with him, extend his person, diversify his operation, and catch the running fire. That is the Church, the Israel of God, of which we only exist as colonies and outposts, far removed and fitfully aware; yet able by faith to annihilate both time and distance, and offer with them the only pleasing sacrifice to God Almighty.....

- Austin Farrer, Narrow and Broad (1960)

the Cross is raised and the world hallowed

From a sermon preached by Fr. Bulgakov at the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
14 September, 1924

Today the Lord's Cross is raised before all the world; today 'the Cross is raised and the world hallowed', and the faithful are called to worship the thrice blessed Tree on which Christ was crucified. We pray to the tree of the Cross, and we pray to the holy life-bearing Cross itself, we invoke it, we call to it: 'Thou art my mighty defence, tri-partite Cross of Christ, hallow me with thy power that I in faith and love may worship thee and glorify thee.' 'Rejoice, life-bearing Cross, unhindered victory of godliness, the door of Paradise, the confirmation of the faithful, the defence of the Church...impregnable armour, bane of devils...bestowing mercy upon the world.' 'O Cross of Christ, thou hope of Christians, teacher of those in error, haven of the storm-tossed, victory in battle, pillar of the universe, physician of the sick, resurrection of the dead, have mercy upon us.' 'Those who rely upon thee, O thrice blessed and life-giving Cross, rejoice together with the heavenly hosts.' 'Invincible, unfathomable and divine power of the life-giving and honorable Cross, do not forsake us sinners.' 'O glorious and life-giving Cross of the Lord, help us together with our Holy Lady the Mother of God and all the saints, world without end. Amen.'

But however much we may revere the actual precious and life-bearing Cross of the Lord, surely we are not tree worshippers who pray to a tree as to a living being, as to an intelligible essence? Is it to a tree, even if it be thrice-blessed, that we pray, or to the divine power and mystery of the Cross manifested to us in that tree? Worship of Christ's Cross is indeed inseparable for us from the worship of of the Cross abiding in heaven, a divine and unfathomable power. The earthly Cross leads our minds to the contemplation of its archetype the heavenly Cross, as indivisibly united to it as the divine and the human nature are indivisibly but without confusion united in Christ. The heavenly Cross of the Lord shone forth on earth in the tree of the Cross, the instrument of our salvation.

At the creation of the world the seed of trees for the Cross was planted in it - the cedar, the oak, the cypress; on the day when the earth was bidden to bring forth every kind of plant, the trees for the Cross sprang up. But the Cross made of wood is the symbol of the Eternal Cross, the revelation of the mystery of the Cross. The sign of the Cross is written upon the world as a whole, for in the words of the Church anthem, it is the 'four pointed power' binding together the 'four corners of the world' as 'height, breadth, and depth'. It is written too in the image of man with his arms outstretched: Moses and Joshua praying with their arms uplifted prefigured the Crucified. The form of the body calls forth, as it were, the tree of the Cross, for it is itself a Cross, the centre of which is the heart. In the image of the Cross the Creator inscribed His own image in the world and in man, for according to the testimony of the Church, the Cross is the divine image printed upon the world. What does the sign mean? It proclaims God's love, and in the first place God's love for His creation. The world is created by the power of the Cross, for God's love for the creation is sacrificial. The world is saved by the Cross, by sacrificial love; it is blessed by the Cross and overshadowed by its power. But the mystery of the Cross, is even more profound, for it wondrously the image of the Tri-Personal God, of the Trinity in unity. The Church teaches that it is the symbol of the unfathomable Trinity, the three-membered Cross bearing the tri-personal image of the Trinity. The Cross is the revelation of the Holy Trinity, and the power of the Cross is a divine power. When we call in prayer upon the incomprehensible, invincible, and divine power of the precious life-giving Cross, we pray to the Source of life, the Trinity in unity, one and divine in life and substance. The Cross is God Himself in His revelation to the world, God's power and glory.

God is love and the Cross is the symbol of divine love. Love is sacrificial. the power and flame, the very nature of love is the Cross, and there is no love apart from it. The Cross is the sacrificial essence of love, since love is a sacrifice, self-surrender, self-abnegation, voluntary self renunciation for the sake of the beloved. Without sacrifice there can be no acceptance, no meeting, no life in and for another; there is no bliss in love except in sacrificial self-surrender which is rewarded by responsive fulfilment. The Cross is the exchange of love, indeed love itself is exchange. There is no other path for love and for its wisdom but the path of the Cross. The Holy Trinity is the Eternal Cross as the sacrificial exchange of Three, the single life born of voluntary surrender, of a threefold self-surrender, of being dissolved in the divine ocean of sacrificial love. The tri-partite Cross is the symbol of the Holy Trinity. How is this true? In the Cross three lines meet and intersect; they approach one another from different points but as they intersect they become one in the heart of the Cross, at their meeting point. Similarly in the Holy Trinity the divine life of the Tri-unity is an eternal meeting, exchange of self-surrender and of self-discovery in the two other Hypostases. No limits can be set on love or sacrifice. Renouncing oneself in order to live again in the other--such is the bliss of love. He who loves another loves the Cross as well, since love is sacrificial. Love itself, God, in the Eternal Cross surrenders Himself for the sake of His love. The three points in which the lines of the Tri-cross end are images of the Three Divine Self-subsistent Hypostases, and the point of their intersection is the co-inherence of the Three, the Trinity in unity in sacrificial exchange.

The bliss of divine love is the sacrificial bliss of the Cross, and its power is a sacrificial power. If the world is created by love, it is created by no other power than the power of the Cross. God who is love creates it by taking up the Cross in order to reveal His love for the creature. The Almighty Creator leaves room in the world for the creature's freedom, thus as it were humbling Himself, limiting His almightiness, emptying Himself for the benefit of the creature. The world is created through the Cross of God's love for the creature. But in creating the world through the Cross, God in His eternal counsel determines to save it, also through the Cross, from itself, from perishing in its creatureliness. God so loved the world that from all eternity He gave His only begotten Son to be sacrificed on the Cross to save the world and call it to eternal life through the death of the Cross and Resurrection. God seeks in the creature a friend, another self, with whom He can share the bliss of love, to whom He can impart the divine life, and in His boundless love for the creature He does not stop at sacrifice, but sacrifices Himself for the sake of the creature. The boundlessness of the divine sacrifice for the sake of the world and its salvation passes all understanding. The Son humbles Himself to become man, taking upon Him the form of a servant and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. The Father does not spare His beloved, His only-begotten Son, but gives Him to be crucified; the Holy Spirit accepts descent into the fallen and hardened world and rests upon the Anointed, Christ, dwells in His Mother, and sanctifies the Church. It is the sacrifice not of the Son alone, but of the consubstantial and indivisible Trinity as a whole. The Son alone was incarnate and suffered on the Cross, but in Him was manifested the sacrificial love of the Holy Trinity--of the Father who sends Him, and of the Holy Spirit who rests upon Him and upon His sorrowing Mother. The Cross was prepared in the world by God for God and was therefore prefigured in the Old Testament by many symbols and images. And the Cross appeared to the world as the salutary tree, as victory over the world; hence the sign of the Cross will victoriously appear in heaven at the second glorious coming of the Son of God, and in the heaven of heavens there ever shines the Holy Cross, the vision of which was vouchsafed to St. Andrew.

Demons tremble at the blessed sign of the Cross. The Cross is to them a consuming fire. Why do they tremble at this fore of love? Because they hate love, because they are darkened by selfishness and cannot abide the path of the Cross; they are united in their legions by the power of common hatred and not love. The cheering and comforting fire is to them an unendurable flame.

The Cross is the figurative inscription of God's Name, working miracles and manifesting powers, like the name of God revealed to Moses. The Cross is the symbol of the Holy Trinity, the sacred sign of God who is in love, burning up enmity, malice, and hatred.

This heavenly Cross has been revealed to us men in the Cross of Christ, in the blessed tree the image of which we worship and kiss with awe. We are signed with it as soldiers of Christ, we wear it on the breast and carry it in our hearts. A Christian is essentially a Cross-bearer. The sweetest Name of Jesus is said to have been inscribed on the heart of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the God-bearer; and similarly the heart of a Christian holds the Cross of the Lord which has pierced it once and for all and set it aglow. A Christian lives in God, and, in so far as he enters into the love of Christ, shares both in the burden and in the sweetness of His Cross. To worship the Cross and to glory in it is for him not an external commandment, but an inner behest: 'Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his Cross, and follow Me.' we can only worship the Cross to the extent to which we share in it. He who is afraid of the Cross and in his inmost heart rejects it worships it falsely and deceives his own conscience. This is why today's feast is both sweet and terrible, and the Church accompanies its celebration with a strict fast. The Cross shines in the sinful darkness of our heart, illumining it and at the same time exposing it. Our sinful, self-loving nature fears it and resists it. Why deceive ourselves? The natural man is afraid of the Cross. And yet we must overcome this fear; we must bring forth the tree of the Cross in our hearts, lift it up, and worship it. We must lay on our shoulders, too, as did Simon, the Cyrenian passer-by, the burden of Christ's Cross. Everyone must take up his Cross and never leave it, and, raising the Cross in his own soul, help to raise it in the world.

The Saviours command to bear one's Cross is not a harsh infliction of pain, but God's great mercy towards man. It is a sign of God's love for man, of great respect for him. God wants His highest creation to participate in His Cross, in His joy and bliss. It was vouchsafed to Adam while still blissfully ignorant of good and evil to taste the sweetness of the Cross through obeying the divine command not to eat of the fruit of tree of knowledge. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge grew together in the garden of Eden. That was the paradisal sign of the Cross: renouncing his own will and doing the will of the heavenly Father, man was crucified on the tree which became for him the tree of life, full of eternal bliss. But through the whispering of the wily serpent, Adam and Eve rejected the Cross; they came down from it having willfully disobeyed. And the tree became deadly for them and gave them knowledge of good and evil, which entailed exile from paradise. But the New Adam, the Lord, the Son of man and only-begotten Son of God, ascended the Cross which the first Adam had forsaken; He was lifted up on the Cross so as to draw all men unto Him, for there is no way except that of the Cross to the sweetness of paradise. The ancient serpent tries to get Him too, saying to the Crucified through the mouth of his servants: 'Come down from the Cross!' But the new temptation was rejected, and the tree of knowledge became once more the tree of life, a life-bearing garden, and those who taste its fruit partake of immortality. In every man so long as he lives there lives the seed of the old Adam; he hears the unceasing whisper seconded by his natural frailty and infirmity: 'Come down from the Cross, don't torture yourself.' The world wars against the Cross, is driven to fury by the preaching of the gospel; love of the world is hatred of the Cross. But love of God is also love of the Lord's Cross, for our hard, rebellious heart can only love it if it be pierced by the Cross. Sweet are thy wounds to my heart, O most sweet Jesus, and it knows of no greater sweetness!

O Glorious Miracle, the width of the Cross matches the breadth of heaven, since divine grace hallows all. Amen.

- trans. Boris Jakim

old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies

Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves?

- John Dowell in Ford Maddox Ford's, The Good Soldier (1915)

The narrator, John Dowell, in Ford Maddox Ford's famous novel The Good Soldier, poses this rhetorical question in light of the personal changes that have shaped his own life and relationships against the background of the massive social changes of the early 20th century. Things change, especially the known and the lovable, and the circumstances in which we have been happy (or at least comfortable). In this passing life there is much opportunity for regret, melancholy and sorrow. For a broken heart. This tragic knowledge is encoded in the wisdom of most cultures down through the ages.

The early Christian author Boethius attempts to make the best of this, with a sort of hopeful counterpoint. He writes: Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it's also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away... (The Consolation of Philosophy)


St Gregory of Nyssa offers a rather deeper, more explicitly Christian and optimistic understanding of mutability, this mood and and its significance: But in truth the finest aspect of our mutability is the possibility of growth in good; and this capacity for improvement transforms the soul, as it changes, more and more into the divine. And so what appears so terrifying (I mean the mutability of our nature) can really be as a pinion in our flight towards higher things, and indeed it would be a hardship if we were not susceptible of the sort of change which is towards the better. One ought not then to be distressed when one considers this tendency in our nature; rather let us change in such a way that we may constantly evolve towards what is better, being “transformed from glory to glory” [2 Cor 3:18], and thus always improving and ever becoming more perfect by daily growth, and never arriving at any limit of perfection. For that perfection consists in our never stopping in our growth in good, never circumscribing our perfection by any limitation.

The feast of the Dormition - the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God - already points towards the Christian experience of the transformation of tragedy in Christ. This is not simply improvement but transformation. As we have noted over the past few weeks, we see in the death of the Mother of God that she by grace, has made of death an act of life. Death has been taken up into the Paschal mystery. Since all that is good, and all love, is rooted in God and finds its reality, stability, meaning, purpose and hope in Christ, we are allowed to think, to hope that all that is known and lovable in this life will be gathered up and mysteriously present in Christ, in the Kingdom of God. There God will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 7:17, 21:4). There the old beautiful dances, the old beautiful intimacies having passed away will find their ultimate truth.

Between Transfiguration and Dormition

Between Transfiguration and Dormition

Both these feasts are connected with death. The first comes before the death of Our Lord and anticipates it. The second commemorates the death of the Mother of God, and comes after His the death and resurrection.

We are told in the liturgical hymns for the feast that the Transfiguration was a gift to the disciples Peter, James and John in anticipation of the suffering and death of the Lord. It was meant to give them something - some hope - to see them through their experience of holy week, in order to strengthen them: Thy disciples beheld Thy glory as far as they
could see it; so that when they would behold Thee crucified, they would understand that Thy suffering was voluntary.... (Kontakion)

The Dormition is a death that becomes a gift, a gift of hope, because it reveals that death is no longer the master of our life, but is itself subject to the power of the love of God in
Christ. It is as if the theory of Resurrection is here manifest and demonstrated in practice. The reality and power of the resurrection of Christ is applied to our common human life in the person of the Mother of God. What is proclaimed as Gospel - the risen Christ, the Lord of Life, trampling down death by death - is experienced here in the reality of the believer's new life in Christ. For being the Mother of Life, she was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb (Kontakion)

Both are therefore feasts of hope. The hope of the Transfiguration is that in spite of appearances, the Lord is Lord, and on the other side of His betrayal, suffering and death is the resurrection, ascension and glorification - in which we are called to share. The hope of the Dormition is that in spite of appearances, death is for believers a falling asleep, a letting go in an act of love and trust, a departure or 'translation' into the arms of the risen and glorified Life-Giver.

Christ did not enchant men

Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and John were permitted to see Him in His glory. For that brief while they had no need of faith. The vision vanished, and the memory of it did not prevent them from all forsaking Him when He was arrested, or Peter from denying that he had ever known Him.
- W. H. Auden in A Certain World (London: Faber and Faber, 1971)

our mutability is the possibility of growth

But in truth the finest aspect of our mutability is the possibility of growth in good; and this capacity for improvement transforms the soul, as it changes, more and more into the divine. And so what appears so terrifying (I mean the mutability of our nature) can really be as a pinion in our flight towards higher things, and indeed it would be a hardship if we were not susceptible of the sort of change which is towards the better. One ought not then to be distressed when one considers this tendency in our nature; rather let us change in such a way that we may constantly evolve towards what is better, being “transformed from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18), and thus always improving and ever becoming more perfect by daily growth, and never arriving at any limit of perfection. For that perfection consists in our never stopping in our growth in good, never circumscribing our perfection by any limitation.

- St Gregory of Nyssa, On Perfection

the overcoming

Dormition Fast (August 1 - 14)

In general, in following our "nature" we want only to eat, drink, sleep and enjoy ourselves. However, Christianity calls us to a new birth in the Holy Spirit.... That birth of spirituality is a mystery to us, and that is precisely what scares off people. Christ said to Nicodemus "You must be born from above," and Nicodemus was frightened by those words. A righteous man and a lawyer, he immediately understood that this was more than a talk about the battle with sin, and anyone who has not taken the step, to even the slightest extent, into the supernatural, has not yet begun [the Christian journey]. However, that interior overcoming of nature, the overcoming on which rests all Christian podvig, i.e. of the everyday occurrences in Christian life, is merely "the sun in a tiny drop of water." All Christianity rests in the original, supernatural nature of the Divine Incarnation. The Church sings in the 9th Song of the Canon for the Dormition of the Virgin and Mother: "In thee, O Virgin without spot, the bounds of nature are overcome: for childbirth remains virginal and death is betrothed to life"
- S. I. Fudel, Notes on the Liturgy and the Church

Sergei Fudel notes that Christian life involves not only the struggle against sin - our fallen nature - but a striving for something beyond our nature - a positive transformation, a new birth in Christ. In other words, the path of Christian life has both a moral and a mystical dimension. Or to put it yet another way, the goal of our moral effort is holiness.

In this holiness it is not only sin that we strive to overcome, but also the bounds and limits of our nature, and above all the stark, inevitable limitation of death - the fact of death, the approach of death, the anxiety concerning death, the dying - that so shapes our entire experience in this life. For believers, our life in Christ is not just about becoming good and decent people - as wonderful and challenging a task that is! - but about a longing for purity, for love, for life, for the Kingdom of God.

The significance of the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God is that it gives a personal substantiation of the truth and reality of this deep longing. Our desire is vindicated in what happens to her when she dies: she makes of her death an act of life.

In the icon of Pascha - of the Resurrection, the Descent into Hades - we see Christ pulling Adam and Eve up out of Hades, yanking them hard by the hand out from that spiritual prison that signifies the rule of death. At the center of the icon of the Dormition, the Lord holds the Mother of God, child-like, in His arms, above her earthly body on its funeral bier. To be held by Christ! The truth of the Dormition, and our own hope, is grounded on the Paschal Mystery.

Perhaps our two week effort at keeping the fast should be inspired by this wonderful affirmation...

These help you on your way

One day the abbot took me to see the monastic library. It was not a very large collection of books. There were a lot of elderly, well-used volumes of the Fathers. 'Here', said the abbot, 'is a book which you give to beginners.' 'This is a work which is useful for someone who is depressed.' 'Here is a book which give very clear instructions about the Jesus Prayer.' Any Westerner showing you round this collection of books, even someone to whom they were of practical use, would have said: 'Here is an interesting sixth-century text.' 'This writer shows influences from the Syrian tradition.' 'Here is a work important in the later development of Hesychasm.'

We look at books chronologically and classify them in terms of influences and development. To the abbot they all had a simultaneous existence and composed a simultaneous order. They were all books which were useful in the life of the Spirit. Their authors were fathers and teachers who had become friends, to whom one spoke in church and at other times; it was of little importance whether they had lived six hundred, twelve hundred or fifty years ago. He showed me his library rather in the way which an expert gardener might show you his collection of books on gardening, or a cook a collection of cookery books. These help you on your way. They are not an end in themselves.

- A.M. Allchin, The Dynamic of Tradition (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1981)