Lorica: Recent Episodes
Fr. Patrick Cardine
A Lorica is a prayer recited for protection in which the petitioner invokes the power of God as a safeguard against evil. lōrīca originally meant “armor” or “breastplate.” The title is taken from St. Patrick’s Breastplate, his much loved prayer written in 433 A.D.
Gaudete! Hail! Rejoice! This decree and command has been present for all of human history. But how does the Sunday of rejoicing fall in a season before the feast? Shouldn’t we rejoice when the wait is over? What does rejoicing really mean anyway?
Christ is King, he reigns in our age. Why are we still so restless? How long must things go on this way? And what compass will guide us through the age before the end?
We have an enemy, and he has weapons. The sharpest and most insidious of which may also be the most widely accepted and ignored in our modern day. Where is the barb that awaits us today? Into what net does he most desire us to fall? Let us be watchful as we enter this advent season.
The XXV and final Sunday of Pentecost leads us into Advent, and the preparation for Christmas. Why as we prepare to meet Our Lord are we met with apocalypse, and a warning about his dread second coming? His appearance in the manger begins the end of all ages, it is the call to stock our oil and trim our wicks. Prepare the way O Zion, your Lord is drawing near.
Brethren, be sober and vigilant. Your enemy prowls like a lion hoping to devour you. Cast not your pearls before swine. We are given admonishment and warning time and again in the Gospels. But what ought we watch for? And what must we do with this pearl of great price? A great task lies ahead of us, let us rise to meet it in the Name of the Lord.
Why bother with the Saints? Is Christ not enough? Why ask for help from anyone else? And why does St. Paul tell us to imitate himself instead?
We are not our own. We are not self-generating, self-preserving, self-directed, self-answering, not indepedent beings free from debt and obligation. Yes, we have to get along in this world. So, you know, keep your scruples, but be practical about it. Don't give in to scrupulosity, don't become an ideologue. Have some convictions. But what's really important, and what really matters, is what you owe God.
The proclamation "Jesus Is Lord" not only declares Jesus of Nazareth, Mary's boy, to be eternal God, it also declares him as the fulfillment of all divinely inspired images of King and Ruler in the history of mankind going back to Adam himself.
Imagine a graph which tracks your spiritual life. There is a beginning down here, and an end, a goal up here. We imagine that the line should go straight up to the goal. That is what we want it to do, what we think it should do. But that is not what happens, ever. That is not how it works.
In [the parable of the wedding feast] there are four types of guests. Those who didn't care, and ignored the invitation. Those who cared but manifested in hatred and murder. Those from the streets, the good and the bad, who came and received, gratuitously, the robe of righteousness. And then finally, he who came, but did not put on his garment. When we read a parable like this, obviously, we want to ask a question: who are we, in this parable?
It's very helpful to have one calling. It makes things simple. Life seems so complex sometimes. There's so many choices, so many things tugging at us in so many directions. It's easy to get confused. We end up turning ourselves in circles, trying to decide which way to go, what to focus on. It actually creates an existential crisis, a paralysis, and certainly contributes to our anxiety, which seems to be an epidemic in our day and age.
When Jesus says "Weep not", He means trust me, do not give in to despair, do not lose hope, for I am the Resurrection and the life, and I promise to make all things new, even if for a while there will be suffering.
What we're after is security and happiness. That's what we all want, what we all desire. But in our current condition, we feel this deep insecurity, and everything we do is trying to alleviate this. God made us hungry, that we might hunger for Him. We are vulnerable beings, and God made us vulnerable that we might rely on him.
Often when one reads a passage in the Bible, the first question we ask is "what is the moral lesson here, how does this passage instruct me to live?" There is nothing wrong with asking those questions, but they are not the first, nor most important questions we should ask when seeking to understand a scriptural passage.
The first and most important question is always theological. What is the Christological significance of this passage? How does this passage reveal Jesus Christ and his saving work? Our parable today of the Good Samaritan is one of the best examples to illustrate what I mean because, while it has an obvious moral message, it has an even more profound Christological revelation.
Christ came for the sick, not for the healthy. For sinners, not for the righteous. The only way we are going to experience the power of God in our lives is by seeking his mercy. And the only way we can actually, truly, deeply seek his mercy is to truly recognize our need for it.
This is what St. Peter is saying in his second epistle, which was our first reading today, where he speaks of his personal experience when he witnessed Christ's Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. As he writes St. Peter is preparing for his imminent death by crucifixion, when he will put off his tent (you remember he wanted to set up tents on the Mountain). As he prepares for his death, he recalls this event in order to remind the Faithful what they are destined for, what God has promised them- if, and there is an if. If they do certain things.
In your baptism something truly miraculous and powerful took place in your person, something wrought by the Holy Spirit which changed you indelibly. The old sinful man died, and it is completely unnatural for you to continue to behave like you are still that old man. Unnatural but possible. What happened does not function like gravity, it does not impersonally override our will and cooperation, this powerful gift must be embraced daily.
True religion is to offer the sacrifice of worship, to fast, pray, give tithes, care for the needy, abstain for sexual impurity, to conform to the family rules in mutual submission and to do it all with the right interior disposition, with true faith, humility, and love.
If you do all the stuff without the right interior disposition, you have false religion. If you try to have the right interior disposition without obedience, you have no religion, and end up with the subjective god of self.
John was the greatest born of Woman, the greatest born of Eve who had become barren and cast into the wilderness because of her sin. After a long line of Adams toiling in the wilderness and the pain of childbirth- in the fullness of time, at the watershed of history, the last and greatest descendent of the old Adam was conceived of a barren woman and lived in the desert. And this man John also happened to be the cousin of the New Man Jesus Christ. These two meet today.
We so often read the gospels as moral admonitions. Which is fine, and good, but that is secondary. The gospels are about God, about Jesus Christ, revealing Him to us so that we can know and love Him as He is. The Scriptures are Christological, they reveal Jesus Christ. Take the Good Samaritan for example, people read that parable as a moral tale of how we should behave, but it is first and foremost a parable about what God has done in Christ to redeem us.
Receiving Christ in the Divine Sacrament is not the only thing we do in this life. We work, we eat other food, we marry and raise children, we enjoy creation, and rest, we buy and sell and go about our business from day to day. But in all these things we do, we are still seeking Christ, to be close to Him, to please Him, to Know Him in our core.
We have holy things among us, holy things to venerate and through which we receive grace and taste the goodness of God. But nothing compares to the very body of God which we receive in the Divine Sacrament. Not the sacred waters of the blessed font, not the sacred chrism, not the holy relics of the saints, not Icons which we venerate, nor the living icons- the saints themselves- Nothing He has given us that we can handle compares with His very body and blood, which is truly divine and worthy of our adoration.
This Orthodox Christian life is not simply about getting all the t's crossed and i's dotted- as important as that is- getting the Faith right is important so that we can authentically know God in the Spirit, and that knowledge, which is intimate and personal results in us becoming faithful and holy.
We must reignite our commitment to the mission. Even in times of persecution we are not to simply hunker down and survive- we are called to bear fruit, to multiply our talents. It is time to put the hand to the plow and not look back, time to do the work of the kingdom. There are souls to save, nations to conquer, cultures to build, there is work to be done.
Someone once said I do not do the things I want to do and I do the things I do not want to do, and this makes me very unhappy- Well, stop! Start doing the things you want and stop doing the things you don't want to do, and be happy. Be obedient to the command of the Lord and declare the praises of His wonder and be joyful.
Jesus tells tells his disciples a short little parable. He says in verse 21, "the woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow, because her hour is come, but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has come into the world." This is not a simple, random illustration or some generic narrative about what women experience in childbirth and how that might be comparable to what the disciples are about to go through. That is not what this parable means. This parable is a very particular reference to a very particular Woman, and Human Being which she bore.
The Shepherd nurtures and feeds. The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. Isaiah tells us that God will feed His flock like a shepherd and Jesus says in today's Gospel that "if anyone enters through him they will come in and go out and find pasture... I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly". The shepherd feeds his sheep, not with rations of gruel, but abundantly.
"The Lord is King and hath put on glorious apparel, He hath put on his apparel and girded Himself with strength." Our Lord has transformed the Cross, this ugly, brutal instrument of torture, into something so beautiful and victorious. And then we begin to say the psalms, and something wonderful happens: the same psalms we chant so many times, year after year, are, all of a sudden, completely new. They come alive and are filled with the power and grace, in the wake of suffering and death, and hell, these prayers are all of a sudden infused with such glory and joy and victory.
Jesus was baptized Himself by John in Jordan- that was water without blood, but today when He is glorified in His ultimate act of love, the water comes forth with the blood, and we receive the Spirit in the water and the blood.
We do not see Him in the flesh like He once was among us, but still just as John has promised we look upon Him who was pierced for our transgression, we look upon Him in the water and the blood, in baptism through which we are washed and receive the Spirit, and through the Eucharist in which we receive His life giving blood and divine immortality.
We call today Maundy Thursday which comes from the Latin "mandatum", meaning "command", and this is a reference of Christ's words to his disciples on this night "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another". Well that fits nquite nicely with the symbolic act of washing feet, we are to love one another by serving one another in humility. But what he said was "I give you a new commandment, to love one another, just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples - if you have this kind of love for one another." To put it bluntly, Jesus did not love his disciples by washing some dirt off their feet, He loved them by dying for them.
This is what has been going on since sunday, when He rode into Jerusalem to draw demons out of their lair, that they might kill him. As I said last night, all Hell has been unleashed- this is in fact what he says to the mob who came to arrest him- "This is your hour, and that of the power of darkness." He tells us what is going on so that his plan of redemption can be fulfilled.
The Fathers agree that the primary sin of Satan, the sin which caused him to rebel against God and fall from heaven, and the sin that he introduced into the heart of man through his cunning, was the sin of envy.
Lucifer was envious of what God had planned for man. He was envious that man had been made in God's image and when he was perfected, man would surpass the angels in glory. Instead of rejoicing in God's goodness, Lucifer was eaten up with murderous envy- He didn't just want what man was promised, he wanted to destroy man and keep him from ever attaining it.
In Leviticus Chapter 23, Moses lays down a law, for a great celebration of joy. The Israelites were commanded, in the sternest possible language, to express their thanksgiving and joy to God with a great celebration. They're actually warned that, if they fail to do this, if they fail to be happy and celebrate, that they will be cut off from Israel. Very interesting, to think that we need to be commanded to be happy and have a party. How many times have you told your kids, "stop sulking around and put a smile on your face"? In this feast of feasts, God tells us the same thing, precisely what he's telling us on this day: Rejoice, and again I say rejoice! The joy of our Lord is our strength.
As we continue to Golgotha may we be sober and circumspect. We are further aided today by the disturbing veiling of our friends and the light of Christ. The Jews tried to stone Him and He hid Himself. Our Lord Jesus, do not hide yourself from us, make yourself known!
We want to be closer to God, but something unexpected happens when he takes a step toward us: we often step back away from him. This is just what happens when God shows up at the door of your heart, but if you let Him have his way, your whole house will be illumined and filled with Joy.
All other provisions in this like are secondary to the provision of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is our healing and salvation. We enjoy them, we are thankful when they are given but our very life does not depend on them like it does on the Holy Sacrifice, which will never fail, and never be taken away.
In this combat remember who you are with, you are with the stronger man- Jesus. If you are not with him, then, as he warns- you are against him, and He tells us how to recognize what side you are on: The one with him gathers, the one against him scatters.
To be with Jesus, to be holy and good is to gather. It is to reconcile, to make peace, to forgive, to sympathize and understand, to come along side and defend, to remain loyal, to work through conflict with humble sincerity. It is to be loyal to those you are in the fox hole with, not to turn on them and bite and devour- we are on the same side, we have a common enemy, and it is not one another.
Don't be confused by the fact that only three of the disciples were there on the Holy Mount at the Transfiguration. We were not at his Nativity, nor did we witness his miracles or hear his teachings, we did not see Him die or the empty tomb and glorious body, we did not put our hand in the scars or have him breath on us the Holy Spirit. And yet all of these things are ours, as much as those who were there are the time. We have received them by the word of their testimony and through faith, and they are every bit as real to us as they were to them, because we have the Holy Spirit.
This is the power of God's love, that he can through our repentance even make use of our own failures to bring about our salvation and perfection. God's love and power are absolutely triumphant over every evil, He uses the Devil and He even uses our own sin for our salvation. But we have to go willingly, we have to follow the Spirit like Jesus into this wilderness and participate in the great reversal of Adam's disobedience and enslavement to the flesh, by fasting, by renunciation, by dying to self.
Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between God’s loving discipline unto redemption and God’s wrath unto destruction- difficult, except for faith and trust in the love of our heavenly Father who sent His son to die that we might be made holy.And this the constant theme in all the prayers we pray tonight, an expression of confidence in God’s mercy, while we are crying out lamenting our woeful condition.
Are you ready to go with Him? We set out this Wednesday, as a family we go up together so that we can walk with him to Golgotha as he bears our sin, so that we can stand at the foot of the cross with our Mother and adore the Savior's sacrifice, so that we can meet him with Mary Magdalene at the tomb as he comes out in glorious victory.
Now the takeaway from this parable is simple. There is one good heart and three defective hearts. What makes the three defective hearts defective is not three complex problems but in the final analysis, essentially just one problem. And the good heart is described as possessing the one thing the defective hearts lack.As I said the takeaway is pretty simple, there is one thing we must avoid and if we are to be good there is one thing we must attain.The defection in each case is to lack perseverance and faithfulness and the essence of the good heart is in Jesus words to cling to the word with steadfast endurance. That word cling is katecho means to hold fast with tenacity, to bind it to oneself and possess it.
If you came and said to me, "Father, I have a passion to become a master blacksmith", and I told you that you need to be prepared for five hard years of humiliation and failure before you even begin to see much success, and then you get started, and in the first month you are shocked at how hard it is to do anything resembling skill, you will either give up, or remember what you were told, and perservere. The mystery lies in your own heart as to what you will do, but the warning should steel your resolve to fight on. The same goes for anything worth doing, including marriage, ministry, and being a Christian, in which you are invited to die on a cross.
Do you think Peter understood what awaited him when Jesus said "Follow Me" and Peter followed Him? How about Matthew, Andrew, James and John? Perhaps St. Paul had a slight indication that he wasn't going to club Med when Jesus knocked him off his horse and blinded him but it wasn't till after he said yes that Jesus showed him all the things he must suffer for Christ's sake. Your contract is not a thousand pages to be scrutinized by you and your legal counsel. It consists of one clause- Jesus is Lord, follow Him and do whatever He tells you and you will have eternal life.
It does not really matter what is going on circumstantially- If we know that we are pleasing to God, even if the waves rage, there will be peace within. But if we doubt, if we are in the throws of shame and dubiety, then even the thrill of hitting all the green lights is not going to be satisfying for long. So in times of uncertainty, and in times of ease, we must always be asking ourselves: "What pleases you Lord?" And our joy comes from pleasing Him.
Among all the things John is communicating to us in the story of the wedding at Cana, he is depicting the Woman, the Mother of the Living One in her role as confident and at peace with herself and what she had to do. And she gives a command, not just to the servants, but to us all: "Whatever he tells you, do it"
We want to live, and to live to the fullest, and if we are not pressing on toward that high calling we will never feel contentment. It is no news to us that this is not easy, that there are many distractions, assaults, and offers of Turkish delight to draw us off course. We must be alert, vigilant, watchful, thoughtful, circumspect, prudent, brave, and courageous to fight the good fight and come out with the crown.
If that sounds daunting and even impossible (I can't do it! I'm too weak! Too bad! I give up!), we should remember that any kid can do it. In fact, only a kid can do it- so we have to be little Children. It takes the faith of a child, the simplicity of a Child, the trust of a Child, the utter dependence of a Child. Jesus not only told us this in plain and direct terms- You must become like a child to enter the kingdom- but He demonstrated it for us by becoming himself a little child.
The event we celebrate this day runs counter to modern sensibilities- feast of the what? Some may ask. The Roman Catholics discarded it in their liturgical reforms as they got with the times- but we still celebrate, if with a wince, the circumcision of the God Child and Savior of the Human race Jesus Christ. This is in fact the Saviors first shedding of blood in his holy sacrifice for the remission of sins and our redemption from iniquity and the curse, punishment and death. How could we not stop and worship Him on this day?
He did not need to undergo the suffering and humiliation of circumcision for his own sake- He was the lawgiver he did not need to subject himself to the law. But we needed him to come to where we were and rescue us, and so ...when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Gal. 4:4-5
When we are enveloped by the power of God’s love in Christ, by what he has done for us, by our freedom and glory then all of the present sufferings will be as nothing to us. Sure, there are times to mourn and grieve in this life but it never eclipses the deep abiding presence of Joy and Peace because we know, we know deeply and feel the reality that this is all very temporary and will soon pass away as if it never existed and there will be only light and glory.A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being- a Man- has been born into the world.
Christs first coming which inaugurated the age of perpetual coming, which age we are in, is the age of mercy for sinners. As long as we are in this age, there is still opportunity to respond to the Evite- the call for repentance which is the prerequisite for entry is still being sounded. The door has not been shut, get your oil now- we are in the age of longsuffering.
Even though the King of Justice has come and brought Judgment- that judgement is still largely redemptive, it is for the purpose of leading us to repentance.The day will come that He will come again bodily and the time of repentance will be over, the time of redemptive judgment will be over, that will be the final judgment- the reconciling and closing judgement- when the tares are pulled and burned, when the goats are separated from the sheep.
The Forerunner prepared the way for the manifestation of the Son of God, for the gospel- for the coming Kingdom. We can think of him like we do the Blessed Virgin. God prepared her from before creation in order to cross the infinite divide and become man, without her fiat there would b no Jesus the Man. God also prepared the Forerunner to prepare the way for Christ to manifest himself and bring the Kingdom of God to us.
I suppose folks just don't want to think about the Judgment, it's so unpleasant and negative, while the birth of the Holy Babe is so sweet and joyful. But this is to misunderstand both the Judgment and the Birth. The Birth in fact begins with the great kenosis, the divine humiliation. Talk about negativity- He crossed the infinite divide, and went down. It then proceeds with the death of the Holy Innocents, moves on to exile, scandal, suffering rejection, trauma, and crucifixion.
The Judgment on the other hand, while being a negative experience for some, is in reality, the great and final victory dance for those who have prepared for it. It is the consummation of the power of God poured out on those who love Him. It is their hope fulfilled, the final destruction of their enemies, and their complete and total perfection brought to completion.
Faithfulness is the brass ring, and the thing that we so often lack. And what is critical to achieving this sturdy faithfulness in the Christian life is Knowledge and understanding of the gospel and grace, followed by obedience to what we have learned.
In the last few verses of our reading St. Paul prays that their love may abound. This is a thematic prayer of St. Paul in his epistles. Our love needs to grow and be perfected. We need to love more, and love better. One of the perennial problems we face is sluggishness in spiritual zeal, pulling up short, atrophy, lolly gagging, coasting, half hearted effort, maybe not going in for that sin whole hog but dancing around the edges, playing with fire- snooze button faith- I told my class the other day whoever invented the snooze button was probably inspired by a demon.
Paul runs with vigor, fights with force, presses on towards the high calling. This is what he earnestly prays for when he prays that our love would abound. If you have been sitting on the sidelines, it’s time to get back in the race.
The whole point of fasting is to override the fleshly hunger, by ignoring it and turning to your true desire which is for God. But this can only be effectively done if you realize what is actually going on in the process, otherwise you may fall prey to the temptation. The enemy is shrewd and powerful, dangerous and threatening... only to those who are ignorant or blatantly disobedient. To those who are aware and lovers of God, he has no more power than a marshmallow.
When we say He is master and ruler to whom we owe obedience, we do not mean despot. He is a benevolent ruler who has laid down his life for us. As King he defeats our enemy and brings peace to his subjects. He then rders our life in harmonious proportion so that it is a content and beautiful life in the kingdom. He provides nurture and sustenance for his subjects. He feeds us a sumptous banquet. And not just in food but in treasure, as king He is a gift giver. Christ the King ascended on high and gave gifts to men.
The Parable of the Wedding Feast is really about the uncompromising nature of God, which is just, good, and holy. And if we're going to enjoy the wedding feast with His Son, we must be clothed with goodness and holiness. Simply because darkness has no fellowship with light. Simply, because light destroys the darkness. This is not a moralism. This is just a metaphysical reality: light destroys darkness.
Would we have God become darkness, so that we might feel a little better about Him in this parable? Would that make Him kinder, gentler, more merciful? If He became a little bit dark? So that this poor old sap didn't get thrown into outer darkness? If He were to become part of the evil? Is this the kind of God we would imagine that would be more loving? Or do we cry out with the holy ones for justice, for God to destroy evil in the world, and in our hearts? To liberate us from the tyranny of sin and death, to set all things in order? To set all things rightly: that is what justice is.
Jesus' answer to the lawyer concerning which commandment was greatest does not devalue or dismiss the Law and Prophets. It actually sets them in the highest order. He says that the law and prophets are in fact all about Love. They have been sorely misunderstood and Jesus gives the key which unlocks their true meaning.
It is only through the lens of love that you will understand the Law and the Prophets, the Divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. He is not depreciating the Scriptures by his statement but raising them to the highest order.
The context of our existence is time, and the very meaning of our life is revealed in the consecration of time- by making life liturgical. To fully arrive at the sabbath is to be perfected in God. That is the Sabbath over yonder, the Eternal Sabbath post Resurrection. But what is the Sabbath now, on this side?
The Sabbath now is a journey to being fully alive, and we pass through times, and seasons, and cycles of life, in which this journey must be consecrated to God continuously. There are many side ramps along the way which would distract us, so we need something to hold on to that will lead us home: and that is the liturgical life. A major part of us keeping the Sabbath is to prioritize the sacrifice of the Mass and a life of prayer.
We know that Jesus has overcome the power of death, he has restored life and given us a reason to live with hope. And yet he has not removed death from our experience, not yet. He has not removed the stimulus of grief and sorrow and pain in this present life- we still go through it. We still face disappointments and temptation to despair.
We can get angry and resentful and accuse God of all kinds of things, or we can trust in His goodness, and justice, and love, and know that while we still exist in a place where death and sorrow must be passed through, we know through godly hope that Jesus will have the last word, He will be there to say "stop weeping and arise".
There may be other ways of diagnosing or describing our problem, but I do think that this one thing that I'm going to share with you is the underlying catalyst for all of it, and that recognizing it in all its forms would be very helpful for us. The thing that I think lies at the root of all our trouble, is a feeling of insecurity. Some might appropriately call it fear, but I think "insecurity" is more helpful, it's more relatable, and descriptive to what we are feeling. From a scriptural and theological point of view, we can actually say that this feeling of insecurity lay at the bottom of the very first sin, and at the root of every other sin that follows. Our parents were tricked into taking the forbidden fruit by the deciever because he was playing on their natural state of vulnerability.
While all will be raised, not all will be made whole. This is where we come to the second story, "the story of the one grateful leper". This is where Luke zooms in and asks us who we are: are we the one grateful leper? Or are we one of the 9 who has ignored what God and Christ has done for us? Remember, when Luke writes this, he writes this for Christians. It's to remind us of our faith and to apply to our own lives. All were healed in the story but only one was made whole. All were healed in the story but only one was saved. Jesus has healed us all by the power of His Love, but the only one who was saved was the one who had faith.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Hear that as a command. It's not as if He is saying to us that some of you have ears and others don't, so I guess it's just too bad that you can't hear. To us today when He says "he who has ears", he means you. All of us who have received Christ- we have ears, so listen. Listen carefully to the Word of the Lord, as it comes to us in the still, small voice, as it comes to us from the Scriptures and as it comes to us through our brothers and sisters' mouths.
This is our chief work: it is to pray. To cry out to God for help, to offer him thanksgiving and praise. This is what we are to be about. And if anything takes precidence over this, it is idolatry. That's what the primordial sin was, in the garden of eden when they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The essence of our sin, the sin of our parents, was basically to take control of their lives, apart from God.
St Paul is saying to the Church, you need to understand something important here- I don't want you to be unaware. There are not two different people of God, the Nation of Israel and then the Church. There is just one people of God. Israel is the Church and the Church is Israel, now some have been pruned out and others have been grafted in but there is one vine. God's work is of a whole cloth, the new is not new because it is a radical departure from the old or of a different species. The New is the Old but fulfilled. The purpose for the point in this passage is to say to the Corinthians that you are perfectly capable of repeating what they did and suffering the consequences.
A true, sacramental Christian marriage is the domestic church. It is the manifestation, between a man and a woman, of the bond of love which exists between the head and the body, between Jesus Christ and his Church. And a marriage, a godly marriage, functions and flourishes according to the same grace that governs how we, as the body of Christ, love our Head, Jesus Christ, in obedience. Authority, in the sense of servant-leadership, is foundational and necessary in all divinely appointed relationships. It even exists within the Godhead. And if a marriage is going to be godly, good, and beautiful, it will exist there as well.
The steward shrewdly uses mammon to obtain future security once he was cast out of his master's house. He made friends by reducing their debt. So that when he was thrown out he could go to them and they would give him a place to stay in return for the good deed he did for them. Jesus is saying that we should use mammon to make friends so that when we leave this world we will have an eternal home. Through the right relationship with things, we can achieve a right relationship with other people, and with God.
What we all want is to see the beauty of the Lord. But we can only see it in a state of holiness, the prophets speak of the beauty of holiness because the prophets were caught up and saw the beauty of the Lord. The pure in heart shall see God, St. John tells us. Our gradual taken from Psalm 34 says: "They had an eye unto him and were enlightened, and their faces were not ashamed". To be illumined is to gain the knowledge of God through encounter, and that encounter only comes through holiness.
It is not good for man to be alone- that is a practical and metaphysical declaration that God made clear from the very beginning of our existence. It is not good to be alone- and one can be alone even in a crowd. It is not good to go it alone. it is good to be in the sheepfold among the flock.
The enemy of our soul is the divider of the brethren, he plots and schemes as to how he can divide and fracture and tear asunder the unity of the brethren, this is his primary goal, if he can do this he has set the stage for the kill. We must be wise to his schemes, and not allow ourselves to be drawn into this trap, to be lured away from the sheepfold.
There are enemies all around whose sole purpose is to steal our peace by destroying our gentle and tranquil spirit. They have all kinds of tricks and weapons to incite us to anger and agitation. But the truth is, we are our own worst enemies because they can do nothing to us without our cooperation. At the end of the day our enemy does not take our peace away, we give forfeit it. We must not engage in things that will disturb that peace. Not only must we avoid doing things that trouble our tranquility be must also actively guard it. We are in fact engaged in a war to maintain peace.
Someone who fears the Lord is someone who is not playing games with reality. To fear the Lord is to face reality with humility and respect, this is the beginning of Wisdom- We cannot rightly see the truth if we are trapped in the deceit of desire and irrational emotion. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because it is only after we face the bald truth of things only when we see things as they are that we can align our lives with that truth- that is wisdom made possible by the fear of the Lord. I suppose there is no greater fool than the one who knows the truth and does not love the truth by living according to the truth.
We have work to do. We have come a long way, God has been so gracious to us, but we have work to do. The absolute meaning of our life, our very existence is to feed on god by offering the sacrifice, by offering ourselves in the sacrifice of the lamb, and then going out into the world in the spirit of power to live holy lives and to draw all men to god. Todays Feast of the Body of Christ, Corpus Christie, this is the feast of great joy and satiation, because our hunger has been satisfied with angels food, the bread of heaven, the flesh of God made Man, there should be no greater joy for us. This is how we feast, we should pull out all the stops. We need to learn how to feast. We need to learn how to rejoice and give thanks.
And it's not just something that happens spontaneously, you realize that feasting requires asceticism and discipline every bit as much as fasting does? We fast so that we can offer the sacrifice with purity of heart, we feast so that we can offer the sacrifice in joy. But they're both so that we can offer the sacrifice.
The knowledge of God, and of the fulness of life, and truth, and joy, and love, comes to man at Pentecost because that is when we received the Holy Spirit, and that is why we celebrate the dogma of the Trinity in association with the feast of Pentecost- which is the culmination of Pascha. Today, this very particular Sunday is the octave day of Pentecost, and the capstone of Pascha, and on this day we celebrate the knowledge of God who is Father, Son and Spirit because we have received the Holy Spirit into our very selves.
This 50 day revelry comes to fruition today and what is His is now ours, the Spirit who is the love between the Father and Son is ours and we are His. His power is ours, His peace is ours, His victory is ours, His Majesty, and scepter, and throne, and confidence that all will be well is ours even in this world which is still trying to kill us. Let it try, let it spit and spurt it’s dying threats- it is no consequence for us because we have received The Spirit of life and power, we have been enflamed with Holiness and cannot die.
When Jesus said on the Cross that "it is finished", He did not mean that there is not still a lot to be done. It is finished, but there is stil much to be brought to fulfilment. Death is dead- sin is broken- but we still contend with death and sin in this world. He warned them repeatedly of what they would face even though He was glorified and said it was finished. So where does that leave us, 2000 years later? Where did it leave the disciples huddled together in an upper room praying and waiting for God knows what- something that Jesus told them to wait for. It leaves us desperate and hungry for the one thing, the only thing, the absolute one thing in the in-between time while we prepare for his return, while we contend with our enemies, while we are being made perfect and Christified. And that one thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus makes the wild promise to the disciples when he tells them that whatever they ask the Father in the name of Jesus, he will give it to them, a little common sense tells us that Jesus is not talking about power ball, a reservation at Noma, a high IQ or even a miracle of healing. He refused that to Paul, and I'm pretty certain that Paul, being a good baptist, must have ended his prayer with "In Jesus' Name".
He still didn't get what He asked for. Neither did Job. I'll tell you who got their prayer answered: it was Satan, when he asked for access to attack Job. God granted Satan his request and refused both Paul and Job. He refused their prayer requests unto their salvation, and granted Satan's request unto his condemnation.
The only way we can be solidly fixed and find the joy we desire is if we are all fixed on the same desire and commandment. In our life in the here and now, there is something at the center which holds us all together as one: there is a power to unite that works though our faculties. Our individual faculties, of love and desire, when we share the same love and desire within a community of persons, then, we will share one mind, and one will.
How important were these days for the future of the Church and the mission of the apostles. It was in these 40 days that Jesus instructed the apostles concerning the kingdom of God, He gave them commandments and commissioned them to build His Church.
In these sweet days of light and happiness their cups run over with joy even as he was preparing them to die- but they could not be sorrowful because he had Risen from the dead and they would die no more- in these days even death was a joy to them because in the Risen Lord they were witnessing the net result of a holy death- eternal glory.
The Good Shepherd knows his sheep and they know him. He has come to give abundant life for the sheep. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, while the hireling is only concerned for himself and when he sees the wolf coming he abandons the sheep and runs away. The sheep are left defenseless, the sheepfold is broken apart, the sheep flee and are separated from one another and dispersed into the wild.
There are many lessons to be learned from this but I want to emphasize one thing which is necessary for our perpetual gladness. In all the passages about bad shepherds and good shepherds there are three aspects which come up again and again, three things which the bad shepherds fail to do and three things which The Good Shepherd does. The Good Shepherd feeds the sheep, protects the sheep and gathers the sheep together into one flock. That is the last line of our gospel lesson today, Jesus says: "and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
It seems to me that we know how to fast better than we know how to feast. Which is odd, if you think about it, I mean who would not rather feast than fast? Why would we do a better job at fasting than feasting? I think perhaps we have a a much better idea of the tools or instruments of fasting, and we are a bit fuzzy on the means of feasting. We simply don't know how to feast properly.
The crucifixion took place near a busy road for maximum impact on the populace. And there were many passing by. The Jews vehemently hated Jesus, they thought he was a blasphemer, unclean, possessed by an evil spirit, one who wanted to defile their temple. They wag their heads in derision as they revile him with taunts and ridicule. There were three categories of mockery which resembled the three satanic temptations of Jesus, this is a return of Satan to try and torment him.
Ultimately, Jesus washing the disciples' feet was a prophetic act predicting His death. That is why they did not yet understand, that is also why Jesus said if I don't do this, you have no heritage with me. If you do not embrace the scandal of the cross, you are none of mine.
In addition to a prophetic act, the foot washing also has the symbolic power of demonstrating humble servitude as the norm amongst his family. But it is a humble servitude rooted in the willingness to die for one another because Christ has died for us. It is not just about servitude, it is about dying.
There was no noble motivation for Judas' betrayal, no deeper logic to it. It is a dire warning to all Christians that Judas fell into such depths of wickedness, his heart was utterly blackened as a culmination of repeated petty sin. It shows the power and danger of sin if it is not dealt with. How many people have betrayed Christ, perhaps not as famously as Judas, but nevertheless they have walked away one small step at a time, ever so slowly, just as John tells us they did in his day.
The Collect for Holy Monday mass says: "...that we who amidst so many adversities do fail by reason of our weakness; may be renewed through the pleading of the Passion of thy Only- Begotten Son." But the phrase in last night's collect rendered in English: "may be renewed..." is far more powerful and startling in the Latin. What it says in the original Latin is: "That we... may breathe in the suffering of your Only-Begotten Son."
The physical act of taking fresh clean air into our lungs, moment by moment, as a natural, life sustaining rhythm of assimilation is a very good metaphor for what this collect says we are to be doing, and this is how we avail ourselves of God's pardon, this is how it becomes real, and immediate in our life, prayer is breath.
Today in this very holy week, six days before the Passover we have a story of beauty. Not just any story of beauty, and there are many, but this is a beautiful story for the ages according to Jesus' own reckoning. This is one of His personal favorites and He immortalizes it with his prophetic Word, He sanctions this story of his anointing by Mary as the beautiful story which will be remembered and adored for all time. Thank you, Mary, for showing us how to love our Lord, how to be beautiful in the midst of ugliness.
Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem which we celebrate this day comes before His Passion- the great joy and triumph of this event replete with cries of hosanna and praise is going to be shortly followed by another journey of the greatest sorrow, suffering and death.
What happens today is a foreshadowing of His ultimate and final entry into the heavenly Jerusalem, which occurs at His bodily Ascension into heaven. This is the significance of our procession halting at the doors of the Church and the Subdeacon banking on the door with the cross. Lift up your heads oh ye gates, that the King of Glory may come in- who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty- it is through the cross that the doors are opened to the heavenly kingdom.
Jesus rejected any semblance of individual autonomy, He never fought for himself as an independent individual, He never put himself forward to gain something for himself, never succumbed to the temptation to secure himself, even in his darkest hour when he felt alone.
Christ's perfection through suffering was, essentially, the reversal of the human attempt for autonomy. Christ took our humanity to subjugate the human will and person to the Heavenly Father- even in the midst of suffering, even unto death, especially unto death, it was a destruction of autonomous human will: a total burning and holocaust of our independence from God.
We have so many needs in this life, so many fears, so many insecurities, so many wants and desires, there's so much discontentment in our life, we're searching searching search. Trying to fill up something, running about, looking here, there... looking for some kind of satiety. Answers. And we forget about Jesus. We forget about him like he's not even there. Like he's an afterthought. We forget to pray. We forget to pray! We grab everything, except go talk to Him about it. We don't hound Heaven. We don't look to Him as our Source, as our Helper, for everything. For your headache! Pray, before you pop the asprin! Pray first. Seek him first. If you're happy, who are you going to go to first? Go tell Jesus you're happy! First! Before you tell anyone else! He should be, in Deacon David's words, your best friend.
I can think of no better representation of Satan in pop culture than King Théoden's counselor, Grima Wormtongue. If you've seen that movie, you can't get that image out of your head. Grima means "mask" in old english, and so Grima Wormtongue means a "masked deceiver". Théoden is trapped under this spell, he becomes a shell of a man. He's basically lost his marbles. He's held under this force of darkness, both his mind and his body is riddled with disease. This is a good depiction of the effects of how the devil works. Saint Paul writes in his epistle, "Let no one deceive you with empty words", and going on he says, "The wrath of God falls upon the sons of disobedience, do not be partakers with them". But the source of their power to enslave, is evil words, empty words, words that are not of the truth.
On this feast, we remember when a young girl was alone in her house in contemplation. She had, for many years, been fostering a spiritual state of preparedness, indifference. Her indifference was, she was ready to do whatever God asked of her. Her yes was critical to this event of God becoming man. But she was ready to obey, not knowing what it would mean for her. She was just prepared, prepared to say yes to God. No matter what that entailed. Her heart was in a condition for many years of being prepared. That was her only concern: that she would give herself, to God, without reservation. And that's why we look at her as a model, that's what we're trying to emulate.
Our life is full of choices. Full of choices. Moment by moment, we have choices: what we're going to think about, what we're going to do and not do. A good and holy life depends, largely, on making very deliberate and wise decisions. Not just the big long term decisions, but the immediate, little ones. One of the consequences of the fall, and our mortality (and really, the permeation of death in all creation, one of the most insideous consequences is really our lack of ability to focus. We are distracted. This is perennial for all of us. There is an inner dividedness, this aimless wandering, even in our thoughts. It's hard to know what we are to do.
This is the source of a lot of woe in this world. This problem is so serious, in fact, that the entire apparatus of the liturgical and devotional life (of which Lent is part) has been constructed by the Church, in the Spirit, to deal with it.
Episode Notes What's our attitude as we charge off into this Holy Season of Lent? Are we, like our elder brother driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to fight the devil, with fasting, and penitence, prayer and sacrifice? Every day in Lauds I love saying verse 6 of Psalm 149: "Let the praises of God be in their mouth; and a two-edged sword in their hands." Praise God, and slay the enemy.
Remembering is always the first step in turning to God. Man's first step away from God was a failure to remember. It doesn't sound nearly as hideous as it is, but what really lies at the root of all our sin, and all our woe, is forgetfulness. It's not so much what we have done that is man's great failure, but what we have failed to do. The on-going power of sin, even in our lives, those of us who have come to chirst and been baptized, is simple neglect. And a Holy Lent for us will consist of attentiveness and remembrance.
Saint Paul says that we can be eloquent, we can be eloquent to the point of the angelic, we can see the mysteries, we can expound upon them, we can enlighten those around us. We can do miracles. We can give all that we possess, and be great altruists. We can suffer in our body for God and for others. But Saint Paul says that if we do these things without Love, then all of these things that we might do are meaningless. Without love, all these works, and amendments, and satisfactions, turn to dust.
When we hear Christ speak of the one with the noble, good heart (and how does He describe this person? The one who clings to the word), there is a seriousness about it. The Word of God in Christ is not for silly, lazy people. The demons are going to steal it, or, you know, it's not going to last. it won't take root. If we are going to last, if we are going to be saved, we have to bury it deep. So the demons can't get at it. So the love of the world can't choke it out. And burying the word in our heart, as the psalmist says, requires something of us.
Jesus spoke in parables. Is Jesus still speaking in parables? The obvious answer is, we just read the parables this morning, and we take the reading of scripture in the context of liturgy as Jesus directly speaking to us, so we have to say yes, He is still speaking in parables. But beyond and past the Holy Writ, is he speaking to you in parables, in your life? Is he speaking to the world in parables? Or has he given up parables? Maybe he's given up parables and gone on to more straightforward means of communication in your life. That shouldn't be too difficult of a question to answer. If he does still speak to us in parables, do we get what he's trying to say to us? Or are we left scratching our heads? Does the seed of the word of christ penetrate the soil of our heart? Does it take root? Or does it get swept away by the wind, snatched up by the birds? Do we get additional information from Christ? Well, if we're left in the dark, which we so often are, there's a reason for it.
Since we have been redeemed by the Blood of Christ we live for Him now, there is a kingdom coming down out of heaven of which we are citizens, he has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of the Son. Our loyalty lies with the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, his body the Church.
The letter itself testifies that the events being described show us an example of martyrdom which is conformable to the Gospel- which is to say we are going to describe for you the exemplary death of a great and holy man who died in the same holy way that our Lord and the Apostles died.
The Epistle of the Smyrneans which describes Polycarp’s death is the Proto-Martyrology- the first work of its kind in the Church. It is notable not just because it is the first- it really set’s the tone for all subsequent martyrologies- it is Polycarp after Jesus and the Apostles of course, but it is Polycarp who teaches us how to die- and there is little in this world more beautiful than a holy death.
Episode Notes Leviticus 14:1 begins: “The Lord spoke to Moses….” What follows in chapter 14 are the complex instructions for what to do when a person thinks they have been cleansed from leprosy. These detailed instructions are given to Moses directly from the Lord.
As we look at Leviticus chapter 14 and read the story of Jesus healing the Leper and then instructing him to go now and follow these very requirements, we should keep in mind just who the Lord is who gave Moses these very instructions.
The Lord who, several thousand years ago gave Moses detailed instructions for a cleansed leper is the very same person telling this leper to go and fulfill these requirements. The Lord in Leviticus is Jesus Himself now standing before this recently cleansed man and referring him back to his original directive.
The things of greatest significance in this life have something to do with birth, death or conjugation. The arch of a life is defined on both ends by baptism and a funeral and marriage at the center holds equal place of import. The very creation and fullness of the human, male and female is summed up in marriage. Likewise the new creation is fulfilled as Christ and His bride the Church.
Episode Notes Not many of us are from noble stock or the aristocracy- (is anyone here from the aristocracy?) we should relish this story which draws attention to the simple poor rustic shepherds who were lowly esteemed laborers in their day. And it is even more impressive that Luke devotes so much space to them. They who were invisible and lowly esteemed by society have been highly esteemed by the Evangelist who goes on and on about them, they were highly esteemed by the angels who put on quite a show for them, they were most highly esteemed by God Himself who arranged all of this and has had it recorded for all the ages to delight in.
Episode Notes Tonight, the Lord of Hosts, Judge of Nations and terror of the wicked- is a small, helpless, vulnerable baby who is crying and wants his mother. The Man of War is a crying baby, and his mother coddles him, wraps him tightly in strips of cloth and holds him close and nurses him. This is the man of war, a plump little baby crying for his mother.
We must feel some tenderness knowing the holy baby Jesus. Tenderness that His mother feels for him. For all the talk of war, and enemies, and hard brutality and destruction- On this night, this festival reveals our God, our man of war as He also is to us, a tender precious, gentle, weak, vulnerable baby.
This sentiment is every bit as central to our faith as that of war and the destruction of the Devils works- more so, because the war will end but the tenderness will only grow and the sweet fragrance that we enjoy in this festival of Christmas will wash away all the residue of the ugly and hard battle of our punishment.
Episode Notes We are often befuddled by the Jews rejection of Jesus. Even with all the physical evidence staring them in the face, the astonishing undeniable miracles- I mean they tried to kill Jesus after he raised Lazarus from the dead- It is bewildering to us to conceive of their rejection of Jesus after all he did. But we are told in the Gospels repeatedly the reason they rejected Jesus- they rejected him because their hearts were hardened. Ok… That’s no reason to crucify Him. Well this is only bewildering because we do not understand what a hardened heart can do to a person- it makes them insane, incapable of seeing clearly, of making wise decisions, of knowing what’s what. It takes away their reason and makes them beasts. That’s the reality of someone who’s heart has become truly hardened. Now who wants to be a foaming pet on a demon’s leash? Good news is we know how to avoid such a condition. Repentance- that is the cure and preventative medicine for a hardened heart.
Episode Notes John was a man -sent from God. We know that his conception was miraculous, next to our Blessed Mother and the Savior John’s nativity is the one other nativity feast we celebrate- he was slightly older than Jesus, of the priestly class, they met while in their mothers wombs and John leapt for joy. We read that John was filled with the Holy Spirit while in the womb- he went out into the wilderness and became a great ascetic and to be with God. He knew God in the Wilderness, God spoke to him and told him things as he did the prophets of old but John was greater than all the prophets of old, there had been no one greater born of women.
Episode Notes I have heard recently of a person who is very angry at God for all the awful things he does to people or allows to happen to people- which I suppose, in this person’s mind is the same thing- if he allows it, he might as well have done it himself- in the final tally, He is responsible for all the awful things. It is a somewhat understandable position to assume and one that God anticipates. He is quite aware that this is how things appear and He warns us repeatedly of the threatening delusion.
God is not the author of evil, can not be tempted by evil nor does he tempt any man with evil. And yet all the same he does test our faith that it might be proven. Proven to be true- and proven as in refined and made perfect. And the testing of our faith consists in a fiery trial of suffering- in some form or another. Why does he have to be so mean, can’t he just prove our faith another way, with walks by the lake and mimosas at brunch? We’ll no he can’t as a matter of fact or else I’m sure he would.
Episode Notes There is no one without sin. Our confidence is not in our sinlessness but in the Goodness and mercy of God to forgive the honest sinner who fears and waits upon the Lord. What does it mean to fear and wait upon the Lord? To wait is one who has hope in God’s mercy and goodness, to fear is to recognize the uncompromising nature of reality, that is the Holiness of God- that this eternal blaze of glory, goodness, joy and truth will destroy all that is treacherous and disloyal. Jesus said if you deny me before men I will deny you before my Father in heaven. God does not just forgive the honest sinner but he invites him into his divine counsel and gives him and his descendants the earth.
Episode Notes Jesus warns us in the gospel this morning that there is a great tribulation coming. Whether he speaks of something yet to happen or something that has already happened- there will be tribulations until the end. He promised us in the world you will have tribulation. Why? He is God, He is good and wants us to be happy, I mean he created us for the express purpose of being filled with delight and joy. So why doesn’t he just fix it all with a wave of His hand- why this tribulation? Apparently it would not be what is best for us or else He would.
Episode Notes A phrase from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians caught my attention this morning. He tells the Ephesians to redeem the time because the days are evil. The days are evil… It’s hard to image something written 2K years ago that could sound more contemporary. We are likely in the beginning throws of the collapse of a civilization. It has happened before, and if Jesus tarries it will happen again. Feeling our contemporary demise acutely we may miss the obvious, St. Paul was also in days which were evil, and that was long ago with much historical and social water under the bridge. We have no corner on evil days, mankind has been living in days which are evil for a very long time.
Episode Notes When we study Jesus' life in the Scripture he appears as many things, he is a shepherd carrying for his sheep, a vintner growing and tending his vine, a creator bringing things into existence, a teacher showing the way, a miracle worker setting people free, a destroyer of death, a redeemer who offers his life to pay the price of our salvation and deliverance from enslavement to the enemy. He is certainly all of these things and more. The first clear apostolic proclamation to the world was: JESUS IS LORD!
Episode Notes The temptation of any heresy is to choose. That's what heresy means, to choose. The tension between truth and love, the seeming tension, as if somehow we need to "strike a balance", is a false dichotomy. And whenever a choice is made, in choosing that thing that is chosen, the choice becomes something other than it is, when it is left without its partner. Things that are good and true are only good and true when taken together. As soon as they are broken apart, they become something else. Love becomes "tolerance", niceness, an occasion to blur reality in order to salve our broken psyche. Truth becomes some radicalized system which excludes judges, radicalizes and oppresses people. We have to ask, how can Christ himself, who is the Truth and who is Love, how can Christ be divided? We cannot choose! To choose is heresy.
Episode Notes God has not predestined anyone to perdition- that notion is an obscenity to be denounced and rejected. We are not trapped in a hopelessly irreversible trajectory towards our fate. You can choose the good and the beautiful or you can do nothing in which case by tragic default you will succumb to the powers of this fallen state, the overlords of corruption and atrophy. These harsh taskmasters will carry you down a dark river to a place you do not really want to go but you will go because you did not bother to desire what you truly desire. That is up to you. That is the power that God implanted in your being and which identifies you as human made in God’s image.
This is a test of keeping your bearings, of good judgment and discernment about what is true, about what matters, about who butters your bread, about what kingdom you belong to, where do you draw your breath, what is the source of your life? Whose your mother? Everything that can be shaken is shaking right now, are you shaken? Confused and destabilized? This world will burn, the kingdom of God alone will remain.
In times like these when everything has been thrown into disorder and chaos, when our lives have been disrupted by threat of sickness and death and loss of property and comfort we must be courageous and steady in our faith and in our living as well. There is no more important time than in this to live orderly.
We shall go on living- if you are a follow of Christ that is what you shall do, you shall live, that is not a prophecy that you will not get sick itis a fact- whether you get sick or not you shall live and so live your life free from fear, live courageously in faith.
The symbolism of ashes goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 3 where God is telling Adam the consequences of his sin. He tells him that the ground, the earth has been cursed and now since Adam broke the fast and ate the forbidden fruit his eating from now on –all the days of your life- will be in sorrow. He goes on: Through thorns and thistles and sweat and toil and pain will Adam eat and to make matters worse- in the end his eating will not result in life anyway. His painful eating will prolong his painful life but in the end he will return to the dust from which he came. “For dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return”
When you said I will fast and I will pray, and I will deal with my besetting sins over the next 40 days you picked a fight. And whatever this confrontation may mean we must not remove the demonic element from this discussion.
And we can be valiant because we have been armed with the ashes of penitence. Our foreheads have been sealed with the mark of Christ, we have been branded as his own and our victory is assured by His Resurrection. This call to battle was issued on Ash Wednesday at the conclusion of the imposition of ashes in the following collect:
Grant to us, O Lord, to put on the armor of our Christian warfare with holy fastings: that we, who are to fight against all spiritual wickedness; may be defended by the power of abstinence. Through Christ, our Lord.
The life of Jesus of Nazareth did not unfold before the eyes of God, it was all of it- always present before Him, His Birth, Passion and Glorious Resurrection the whole life fully present, His glory was present in his birth and in his death, there was no uncertainty about how things would end up.
Your life too- for all the doubt, uncertainty and vacillation, for all the weariness and wandering- your life, your whole life past present and future is all present before the face of God, God knows you in this way, even the you - you do not yet know is present before His face.
One of the most basic fundamental duties of a Christian soldier is to be attentive to their thoughts. This is where the battle will be won or lost. We are admonished to take every thought captive. It is astonishing to realize how many people do not understand the critical battle ground of our thoughts. If you do not do something about your thoughts, if you do not take this seriously and address this you will lose the fight.
Whether you know it or not everyone here today is a runner, a boxer, an entrepreneur, a vineyard worker, this is what you are, it is what God made you to be and you will never be happy until you start running, boxing, buying and investing, pruning and harvesting. Now the good news is this- if you run you will win, if you box you will overcome, if you buy you will get rich, if you prune you will reap a great harvest- it is guaranteed- you can have total confidence in the outcome if you only engage- be courageous, take up your sword and go into battle and you will be victorious. Sit on the couch- give up- quit- despair- and you will be lost.
Jesus does not provide the answer that so many are demanding of God on their own terms, shaking their silly little fists in the face of the one who died for them. But he does give an answer, he gives the only answer that will enable man to endure and make it safely through this stormy trip. It is up to us whether we will hear what Jesus tells us with faith and love, and trust because we know Him, we know he is trustworthy, he is true and good and just and we know that he loves us, really know it, that is faith, knowing you are loved and so we receive His word and it is enough.
If you are a Christian you have declared your allegiance to this kingdom. You are no longer a member of the world kingdom, even though you physically still exist in this world you are not of it, you are from above, your citizenship is in the kingdom of God and you are a member of the Family of God. And our society has different rules and a different way of life. We live here in God’s house.
Life is in the temple because Jesus is in and is the Temple and that temple as far as we are concerned is the liturgically gathering Apostolic Eucharistic Church. This is where we fulfill the very meaning of our existence, to offer ourselves to God in sacrificial worship as a community. We do this for one reason only because it is right, this is the only reasonable response of the creature to His creator.
The mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” Jesus does not respond, there is only silence and yet there is so much for us to lean in that space of silence. Her confidence, her trust and faith ring out in the silence. In the empty pause when the Word did not speak - the Woman without much ado confidently gives a command that has echoed throughout the ages. With this command and her fiat spoken to the angel, the Woman has taught the world about the one thing most important- “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
The family becomes a true reflection of the divine society only in as much as they flourish in the Church, otherwise they can become a stumbling block to salvation. Jesus makes it clear in this story that his earthly mother has no rights over him which are at odds with His heavenly Father. The family is a sacramental union of divine life but only if it is subservient to the Church, to the Family of God in the Spirit.
Typically when a husband and wife have a baby they have the privilege to choose a name for their child. In the case of the naming of Mary’s baby things went a little different than usual. As far as I am aware this is the only known case in history where the baby… actually named himself.
What a glorious faith we have that mocks the fruitless foe that can do nothing to hurt God’s children; the more we are assailed the more we are blessed who trust in God if only we become like these innocent babes.
This is the irony of it. The immaterial God who cannot be seen has made himself known by becoming a man. In olden times he manifest himself in fire, smoke, or a burning bush, He hid in the rock and behind a thick curtain. But now he comes and is, Jesus of Nazareth, Mary’s boy. And yet- while He makes himself so very accessible and vulnerable he becomes more hidden. His manifestation in the flesh becomes a cloak. He takes form and in so doing becomes to many imperceptible.
“For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from Thy royal Throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction.”
There is only one power and force in this world which can keep me from being close to Jesus and that is me. And I know what I must do. I must stop looking for someone to blame. I must stop looking to temporal things to make me happy, I must repent.
We are still in Babylon preparing to enter the eternal city. The sooner we embrace this reality the sooner we can find Christ in the midst, the sooner we can experience the comfort of the comforter.
Maranatha! is the bold cry of the Christian who is ready and desirous of the coming of the Lord. Why bold? Because he knows full well that that coming means judgment, but his conscience is clean, he is ready and anxious for the judgment because for those who love God the judgments means eternal joy, final deliverance, absolute perfection. The early Christians did not utter Maranatha with a tepid whimper but with great earnest pleading: Come Lord! The more confident we can say Maranatha the more ready we are for Christmas and the Holy Babe.
The Penitential fasting season of Advent (not as severe as Lent) uses the theme of the second coming and calls for repentance to prepare the soil of our hearts to fully embrace the seed of Christmas joy. We cannot fully embrace the holy babe if we do not adequately fear the judgment.
The forgiveness of God is not simply a general attitude of mercy toward us. It is our very real and actual redemption. Can we say God forgives all, yet not all are saved or is it more accurate to say, God has an attitude of mercy and forgiveness towards all but not all are forgiven and redeemed. Our parable helps us to understand why not all are forgiven their debt.
Both the Centurion and the Nobleman had faith in Jesus. The difference is the centurions faith was perfect and mature and relied solely on the Word of Jesus, the nobleman’s faith was imperfect and weak and required a sign. When Jesus rebukes the nobleman’s faith and refuses to come he is disciplining the nobleman and doing what is needed to perfect his faith.
If someone asks you why we pray for the departed- ask them why do we pray for anyone? God knows what we need, He does not need us to inform him. Jesus is the Mediator, Jesus finished the work, Jesus is our intercessor, He doesn’t need us to pray. Why pray at all?
Johns prophecy to the first Christians is that while apostate Israel will be destroyed- they will survive, they will not go down with old Israel, they will emerge as the remnant, they will endure the coming persecution and tribulation and it will become clear that they are the true Israel the perfected Israel of which the former was a type and a shadow.
When He Ascended into Heaven accompanied by the Angelic Host trumpeting His return to majesty as the glorified God-man the conqueror of death and reconciler of creation. He entered into the Heavenly tabernacle and presented before God the Father a new Humanity, Holy and Blameless and he said: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”
And because we know and we believe we must speak, we must respond to the Word we have received. We have a voice, the Logos has been put into our mouths from the knowledge of the voice and we must bear witness, we must speak the truth to the world and back to God in praises.
If we think of our creation as God throwing us into existence and thus propelling us toward a goal the image is not of God throwing a ball-- but a boomerang. The Divinely caused trajectory of our existence is meant to be an arc which comes back to the source. We who came forth from God must return to God.
Love God and Love Neighbor this is everything. This love is manifest thru worship. Worship is the offering of sacrifice which we associate with the direct worship of God but may not realize that the sacrificial deeds we do on the behalf of our neighbor are accounted as sacrifices offered to God and they are pleasing and acceptable to Him. Our good deeds, our love of neighbor are part of our worship of God.
When man became his own god and started fabricating rules the rules he made destroyed love. And this is the constant challenge that Jesus runs into with the Pharisees and lawyers. Their rules are tyrannous and love depleting. God’s rules are life giving and love building. It is not a matter of rules or no rules. Of law being bad and lawlessness being good. The problem is the source and the inner meaning and motivation.
We honor the great warrior Archangel this day and celebrate his mighty defeat of Satan, if we want St. Michael to be our friend and defender we must become like a child seated on the lap of Christ. This is how we will make his victory our own and the angels will fight for us and bring us to Christ through all the dangers and snares of this world.
There is only one way, one door, to finding life, to becoming truly human and that is to be willingly joined to Jesus Christ upon His cross. God has shown us how to live, how to be a human being, we have seen it with our eyes when we have seen him hanging upon that cross. When we see how God has chosen to die we have seen what it means to live.
What are you going to do? You- no one else, you what will YOU do? Will you become a human being? Will you turn yourself toward the light of your being and fulfill that deep hunger and longing to be the fullness of what you were given in your creation?
Our Lords passion, his suffering and sorrow is his embrace of us in our grief- and thus his embrace of our grief- this is His love for us. He first love us in this way so that we might be able to Love Him in the same way. He enters our grief so that we might enter Gethsemane and pray with Him, so that we might stand at the foot of the cross and die with him, this is how we will also live with him. When we embrace his grief and passion then we will be lifted up on high and know the joy of His immortality.
Mary is not a doctrine to be figured out or explicated. She is not a conundrum, she is not a concept or abstract philosophical theory to resolve. The Blessed Mary is the Woman who bore the God Man, she is His Mother, she is our Mother- she is a person- She is a person we can know, you don’t solve a person, you know and love a person.
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
God’s Almighty power is displayed chiefly in showing mercy and pity. The power of God which transforms all, which brings something out of nothing, which brings the world into existence and your little life into existence, which creates light out of darkness, which brings beauty and goodness out of your own darkness, your own ugliness and sin, which goes into death and thru His embrace of our suffering and death subjecting himself to it he overcomes it’s power and destroys it, all of this is accomplished not by a sheer overwhelming force of raw power, a simple strength which is stronger than the one opposing Him, no his power is Love, is humility, is his own sacrifice for us. His power is shown chiefly in His mercy and pity for us.
The God of the Old Testament is the Same God who hangs upon the Cross. We were made for Him and He comes to claim us for Himself and to give us everything He has for our own enjoyment but He is fire and light and the darkness has no fellowship with the light and that is absolute and cannot be otherwise. We are in great danger when we dispense with all fear and trembling in the Christian life. How many have adopted a presumptuous devil may care attitude and perished along with it. The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.
Asterius 4th Century "When, therefore, any one anticipating his end and his removal to the next world, lightens the burden of his sins by good deeds, either by canceling the obligations of debtors, or by supplying the poor with abundance, by giving what belongs to the Lord, he gains many friends, who will attest his goodness before the Judge, and secure him by their testimony a place of happiness."
Late have I loved Thee, 0 Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee! For behold Thou wert within me, and I outside; and I sought Thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that Thou hast made. Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. I was kept from Thee by those things, yet had they not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness: and Thou didst send forth Thy beams and shine upon me and chase away my blindness: Thou didst breathe fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for Thee: I tasted Thee, and now hunger and thirst for Thee: Thou didst touch me, and I have burned for Thy peace. Saint Augustine "Confessions"
Episode Notes Notes go here
If Orthodox Christians seek to practice true religion then we must recognize the inherent danger of becoming Pharisaical. Of keeping the rules without paying attention to the inner disposition. We believe that we are to become holy, not just on paper but really holy, that is a dangerous belief, but we must believe it despite the risk.
In the Old they were commanded to walk but they had no legs, in the New we are commanded to fly but now we have wings.
Episode Notes Notes go here
When God created us He did not create us in motionless static position and then say chose what direction you will go. When man comes into being he is thrown into being, our coming into being is a kinetic event in which God hurls us into existence in a very specific direction. He did not throw us down like a rock in the mud. He throws us toward our beautiful and holy purpose of sharing in His fullness of being. And as long as we are ascending unimpeded in this God induced directional movement there is bliss, it is all peaceful and light, everything is beautiful and keeps getting more and more beautiful the further we progress. # Episode Notes
Notes go here
Episode Notes We often feel like we need to do God’s job for him. That’s a heavy weight to bear, being God - Judge and Jury of the cosmos. A weight we were not designed for. A weight that will crush us if we are not careful. It is a heavy burden holding everyone to account, it is a light yoke to forgive and show mercy to feel empathy for the sinner who is suffering under the weight of their own sin. This is much better than being a critical judge who is eaten up with anger and bitterness which will lead to our own destruction.
I assure you there is fire in that chalice, divine fire, the very blood of God who was made Man. There are angels all around this altar standing in awe at the great miracle. That the Glorified Crucified Lord of Heaven and Earth is with us not just Spiritually but bodily and we take him into ourselves, we eat his flesh and drink his blood and we do not even realize what we do but with some measure of fear and trepidation and joy we do it in faith.
The enemy offers a faux power, it is a power which destroys and tears down and leads to emptiness and annihilation. The power of the Spirit creates and builds up and makes something out of nothing. You have received the Eternal Spirit as your friend and comforter he who hovered over the waters in the beginning and formed the structures and order of the cosmos is in you in the most intimate way. Do you not think He is capable of ordering your life? Of making something beautiful? Is your sin and dysfunction so great that the One who set the boundaries of the seas cannot make something of your life?
Not only priest and victim He is also King and Ruler of all. And all of this as God made Man, as your elder brother as your new and true Father-Adam in whom your humanity is ransomed, crowned, and fulfilled.
How important is faith? Without it you cannot be pleasing to God. Faith is what compels you to go search for God because you believe that He exists and that He will reward you with delectable delights if you chase Him down and catch Him.
Jesus endured His cross was glorified, made immortal and went home to majesty while we remain in the polluted world that killed him and wants to kill us. This could be taken as a negative but Jesus says it is for our good and to our advantage that He go away so that He might send another comforter who will not only be with us but in us and be the instrument that will enable us to follow Jesus thru the cross into resurrection-immortality-eternal glory-union with God.
Your potential for Joy or despair depends on one thing and that is how close you are to Jesus. He has made Himself known to us in various ways, there is a way, a door, to Him if we avail ourselves. But we must also realize that there is an insidious enemy which seeks to prevent us from passing thru that door, this enemy above all else wants to keep us from being close to Jesus.
“You were sheep gone astray but now are returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”
The image of shepherd and sheep is a life defining metaphor for St. Peter. As he writes the words no doubt St. Peter has in mind his encounter with the Risen Christ some 30 years earlier. It was an early morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, an encounter St. Peter would never forget.
Jesus: “Now is the Judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out…” And just a few moments later: Jesus: “And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” So which is it? Jesus came to die and His death is the judgment of the world and yet he says he did not come to judge the world.
The purpose of the remembering through ashes is not for morbidity sake. But rather as a means to return to God in humility, repentance and purity of heart. The sacramental and willing embrace of the ashes are an embrace of God’s just sentence upon man and at the same time a plea for His mercy and the power to be redeemed.
Epiphany IV - Jesus sleeping in a storm tossed boat is a picture of Christian Maturity. Jesus does not hold your hand while you drown, he does not comfort you and say perish in peace, He destroys your enemies and delivers you from the storm.
For the Feast of the Holy Innocents: "Never, in fact, would that impious tyrant have been able to benefit these children by the sweetest kindness as much as he has done by his hatred." -St. Augustine
His manifestation in the flesh becomes a cloak. He takes a perceptible form and in so doing becomes to many imperceptible.
Adam, full of guilt and shame hid from God. But we having been washed from an evil conscience should be ready to meet Him. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.