Why the Lord came

The Lord came, not to do something easy, but to do something true. He came to bring truth and life. By His obedience unto death, He rent from top to bottom the veil of corruption and rebellion that separated us from God, and He opened to us the entrance to the Holy of Holies of freedom and unity. He did not come to unite men among themselves by making light of their differences. He did not come to exhort us to mere "peaceful coexistence." He came to unite us, through Himself, with His Father and our Father. "For through Him we have access in one Spirit to the Father" (Ephesians 2:18).

He did not aim to leave behind Him a group of individuals working well together, for even sinners do this: they cooperate with sinners (cf. Matthew 5:47). He came to give us rebirth and to bring a new unity, one which is trinitarian; to bring a peace which passes all understanding, His own: "My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you" (John 14:27).

…He came to give Himself, to distribute His flesh: "Take, eat My Body which is broken." He came to give His Spirit: "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). So He created the little flock of the twelve, the Church. He brought to the world the dynamic force and health of the Trinity, the leaven of the Kingdom which will leaven the three measures which represent the whole of creation (cf. Luke 13:21).

What the world needs is the trinitarian flock, regardless of whether it is small or large. Its greatness is to be found in its trinitarian nature. What man thirsts for is eternity, "even a little part of eternity"; and this is what we have here. To have the character of the Trinity is to be eternal. "This is eternal life, that they know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

— Archimandrite Vasileios

Becoming the gift

How good, how delightful it is

for all to live together like brothers:
fine as oil on the head,

running down the beard,

running down Aaron's beard

to the collar of his robes;

copious as a Hermon dew

falling on the heights of Zion,

where Yahweh confers His blessing,

everlasting life.
Psalm 133 Jerusalem Bible

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 21:20-23 NIV

How people strive for unity, how much they desire it, but they stop as soon as they think they have reached it, and it is still terribly far from the unity that Christ prayed for us to have.

The unity that comes from above is the gift of the Spirit of God, not in some magical fashion that does not ask anything of us, but as a gift that can be received only by those who give themselves to it.

Unity is a gift that draws us in, all that we are and have. Unity is a gift that we receive only when we become the gift.

When we possess this unity, it possesses us. We no longer seek ourselves, but always the other. We are all of one mind and of one will, while remaining distinct persons, and we begin to understand the Holy Triad, not by thinking, but by living.

We become the trinitarian flock.

This unity, once experienced, even between only two persons, proves every word of the Gospels and of the whole of sacred scripture to be entirely true.

Open our eyes

O God,
how can we

whose minds are so unstable
keep our eyes focused on You,
so that we can do
what we see You doing
every day
and all around us?

For You fill our world
at every moment
with creatures
just like us,
falling into need and sin,
or arising out of it
following the call of life
that You’ve planted in us,
though we might not know it.

Your Word has been strewn among us,
seeking that fertile humus in which it can sprout,
grow and eventually bear fruit,
so that it does not return to You void.

Open our eyes, Lord,
to see the world as You see it,
at every moment, in every place
hearts crying out for mercy,
to receive it, but also to bestow it.

Show us, Father,
that we are not alone,
and that to show mercy
can be as humble as yielding to another’s infirmity,
to overlook our brother’s ignorance,
to forgive one who injures or insults us
before, or even without, being asked.

Help us to see
that mercy has no size limit,
large or small, visible or hidden.
It is an arrow that never fails to hit its mark.
That to stand confidently before Your seat of mercy
is to be merciful wherever we are,
just as You are merciful.

And to always pray
what we hear Jesus praying every day,
‘Father, forgive them,
for they do not know what they are doing.’
x

In Christ is forgiveness

No, there's nothing we can find to picture this, nothing we can photograph or paint or draw or write poems and songs about, nothing we can fully describe, not even in the deepest and most heartfelt testimony. Still, we try.

One autumn day driving home from work, my heart crushed with sorrow over a broken friendship, I hadn't brought it to mind so intensely before, my soul's lamp was nearly extinguished, and I was very close to weeping, so sorry was I about it all.

And about my life, what a complete disaster, what a catalog of catastrophes and bad judgments, of failure to act when I should have, and of acting when I should have not, speaking up when I should have been silent, being silent when I ought to have shouted.

The thought of my mentor, 32 years my senior, telling me of the misfortunes that not just tainted his life, but ruined it, his reputation, his personal wealth, his family, all affected, and by things outside his control, a pious man whom others judged helpless.

Yes, ‘the victory, the victory is in the Blood.’ He used to tell me, while recounting, almost without intending to, and not complaining or blaming anyone except himself, how his life had turned out. Philip, the pentecostal, unwelcome in his own church.

I didn't see him do it, he would never have let me, but he told me how sometimes he would drive home crying, knowing how he had failed the Lord, failed himself, his son, his wife and daughters, all of whom he loved so much, even though he gave them all he had in him.

As I was close to tears, driving home, feeling sorry for my own failures, my own sins, wishing they could be lifted from me, I thought of him, and his life far worse than mine, and how he never ceased asking the Lord for forgiveness, even knowing it was granted.

I was on the point of crying, but something made me look up. Of course I was watching the road as any driver does, almost in a dream, reaching a destination without remembering the driving. I looked up. In front of me was an SUV with a wide, white sticker on the hatch.

In bold black letters on white, In Christ is forgiveness. That's all it said. There were almost no other stickers on that car, except for one of those crossed stoles that I first remember seeing years ago when they were pink and had something to do with AIDS victims.

Just four words plainly printed, black on white, In Christ is forgiveness. Something we all know, something I believe, yet to see it there on the car right in front of me was like Jesus Himself entering my inner conversation, overturning the sentence against me.

I noticed the license plate as well, 669 ZKR, the three letter root of the Hebrew word for ‘remember,’ zayin, kaf, resh, remember. When I came home I checked to see if there was a 69th verse in Zechariah chapter 6, but there wasn't. Numbers haunt me.

Nothing this side of heaven will ever heal some of our wounds, broken friendships, lost loves, missing children, childhood traumas, compromised marriage beds, untimely deaths. I feel I cannot live, sometimes, knowing what I have done wrong in my life, and I beg for mercy.

Sometimes with words, sometimes with deeds, sometimes by prayer, or reading the psalms, my usual comfort, that mercy comes to me, quiets the grief of my soul, opens my eyes to again see light where I thought all was blackness and idiocy. For that, I thank the Lord.

He knows. He knows us. He knows all about us. He knows what we are, why we are, what we have done or not done, and why. He has been through it with us all millions of times, walking beside us to steady our steps and keep us from falling into the pit where praise is no more.

Forgive your brother who has offended you seven times? ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times,’ says Jesus (Matthew 18:22), who has forgiven and keeps forgiving us seven times to the infinite power, from before time was, until the Day He comes.

Yes, Lord, as we pray on the 19th day, ‘…at the presence of Yahweh, for He comes, He comes to judge the earth, to judge the world with justice and the nations with His truth’ (Psalm 96), we await Your grace and mercy, now in the time of this mortal life.

Grant it to us, Lord and God, who in Christ suffers all, walks in all, healing us of our diseases, giving us sight, and speech, raising us up to walk where our infirmities prevent us. Yes, Lord, grant us Your grace and mercy, for in Christ is forgiveness.

More like Jesus

I too sometimes catch myself condemning sinners with the words of my lips, or with the words I have written (which are, of course, much harder to take back). It usually happens, though, when my soul is mobilized by something outside me, like thinking about people who are being oppressed, or whatever.

When I stop and just get quiet, with the Lord being right there with me as He always is, it doesn't even enter my mind to judge or criticise even someone who has purposely wronged me. That's why I always retreat to that private chamber as often as possible, certainly every day, usually several times a day.

The world has a way of soiling our feet as we go about in it. Only Jesus can wash those feet clean again. And He is so faithful to forgive us and turn the other cheek to our sin.

It is so obvious to me after living a very tempestuous life, that the function of the Law is, as holy apostle Paul says, to simply tell us what is wrong. It's the prognosis, but not the cure. Only the living One, the only Lover of mankind, the only Physician, Jesus, can cure, but the medicine He applies is Death. For many Christians that is too severe a treatment, so they prefer to hobble along with the burden of their unforgiven sin weighing them down. In that condition, being too sick to live but afraid of Death, they yield to the kind of grouchiness that exhibits itself as judgmentalism.

Who has been forgiven much, loves much.

How sick our world is! How deceived we all are! Only by turning to Jesus, who is always near, can we be delivered ‘from this body of death,’ by conquering death by death, as He did, and finally be freed from bondage so that we, like Him, can bring life to those in the tombs…

Lord Jesus! I wish You would let me wash Your feet, for it was by walking about in me that You soiled them!

Who forgives sin?

To suggest to someone that the Christian faith might work better for them in a life crisis than the religion or philosophy they are perceived to hold does nothing but pit one religion against another. It also underscores the American mentality about religions in general, which is quickly becoming the world mentality: Religion is a commodity or product, and as such, religions can be compared and selected based on ROI (return on investment), versatility, customer service, and even by what’s covered in their (limited) warranties. This is especially evident in the world of media and mega-church embodiments of “Christianity.” There are auto rows, where all the car dealers are lined up in one place. There are also, in some places, church rows. Acres and acres of parking and stadium-like worship centers, some boasting as many as six or eight services on a Sunday. Luckily, their main product, ecstatic, entertaining “worship” is usually available only one day a week. Their God has apparently turned tables on the biblical division of time. Instead of work six days, rest one, it is work one day, rest six.

It is not what “the Christian faith” has to offer a man who has been publicly caught in a private sin that will do him any good. At this level we’re still comparing apples to oranges, still some kind of home remedy. Buddhism is rarely practiced, even in America, but there are many people who, admiring some of its ideas and imitating some of its practices as a leisure activity, consider themselves “Buddhist.”

Just the other day, having a friendly chat with a cashier at a large book store, a French woman who described herself as a “Buddhist,” I experienced a little of the depth of her painful past, and patiently listened as she blamed her unhappy girlhood as a Catholic on the Christian God. She actually opened up the chat, noticing I was buying a book on linguistics, and proudly announced that she had a favorite new word, “isangelous,” and asked me if I knew what it meant.

“Well,” I said, “it sounds like a Greek word, but I can’t tell for sure from the way you’re pronouncing it.” She offered to write it down, and handed it to me on a slip of paper. “Oui,” I said, switching over into her native French, “c’est un mot grec,” and continuing, I told her it was a Greek word meaning “equal to an angel” much as the word, “isapostolos” means “equal to an apostle,” which is a title, I explained, that the Greek church gives to men and women whose life and work in Christ was comparable to the apostles. Then, switching back and forth between French and English we had a friendly dialogue, talking about what an angel is—pas ces bébés à ailes dans les peintures de la Renaissance, “not those flying babies in the Renaissance paintings!”—even talking about Christ, and as I took my leave with a “bon soir,” she said, “Hope to see you again.”

If being forgiven for sin were simply a matter of feeling good about yourself again, then, yes, probably any religion or philosophical or self-help discipline would work, and some might work better than others. The thing about Buddhism, for example, and the Buddha, is that though it expresses itself as a religion, it is fundamentally not about God (there is none) but about the unending struggle throughout space and time of numberless consciousnesses to extinguish their illusion of separateness. To follow Buddha and be a Buddhist, you accept that theory of “how things are” and you integrate yourself into that, hoping for the best, but knowing that your life is still ultimately your responsibility. Even the Buddha can’t change that.

But being forgiven for sin is not just about feeling good again. It’s about gratitude to our Owner, to the One who made us, whom we acknowledge as our Creator and even more, our Father, because of a new relationship and a new form of being that has been bestowed on us by Someone who is at one and the same time a man and “beyond being.”

Being forgiven for sin is to hear that Someone speak His Word into our torn and ravaged hearts, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

Do we do what He says? Can we do it? We try, and yet somehow we fail again. Are we abandoned? Does He leave us in our sins and turn away from us in impatience and disgust? No, He doesn’t. He knows that His work in us, from our point of view, is not the work of an instant, though to Him it is. He worked hard to create us, even harder to redeem us. Do you think after all that, He would turn away from us? No, only we might turn away from Him.

Tell a man who is in bondage to sin not about “the Christian faith,” but about Christ. Tell a woman caught in the act of adultery—or a man caught in it—what the Master says to them, not what you say to them. He is more gracious, more forgiving, more loving than we are. In fact, He is the Only Lover of mankind. The rest of us are just trying to follow Him and do what we see Him doing. Some people said of Him, “How dare he presume to forgive sins! Only God can forgive sin!” True, and we agree with them, but in a different way: No one can forgive like That Man, and that man is Jesus Christ.

Day without night

I saw that there was no temple in the City since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the Temple, and the City did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it. The pagan nations will live by its light and the kings of the earth will bring it their treasures. The gates of it will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there…
Revelation 21:22-25 Jerusalem Bible

The whole of the message of Christ is contained and taught in two yearly feasts: Christmas, the nativity of Christ, at the time of the winter solstice, and Easter, Pascha, the resurrection of Christ, at the time of the spring equinox. This isn’t the Church taking over two pagan religious festivals and converting them into Christian ones. This is Nature itself pointing to the truths of faith and existence given a place within the New Creation, demonstrating that there is only Christ, who is in all, and in whom all ‘live and move and have their being’ (cf. Acts 17:28).

The world wants to localize these holidays, wants to contain them within calendar dates, wants to milk us for money as ants stroke and milk their aphids for nectar, giving us short respites between ‘holidays’, between milkings, so we can sufficiently recover. It doesn’t matter to the world whether the holidays are real or not. We tend to blame commercialism for spoiling the holidays, especially Christmas but to a lesser extent Easter, but it’s not their fault. ‘It’s not against human enemies that we struggle, but against fallen spiritual powers’ (cf. Ephesians 6:12).

So, they make Christmas end with a splash of presents and crumpled, glittering wrapping paper on the afternoon of December 25th, and they’d just as soon like to see Easter disappear under mountains of discarded candy boxes and deflowered Easter lilies: all very valuable and costly in the days leading up to the holiday, and suddenly transformed by studied consumption into garbage before sundown of the Lord’s Passover. Just as there is no mention of the birth of the God-Man during official Christmas, there is no mention of His resurrection during official Easter.

For the disciples of Jesus Christ whom He has ‘set free like birds from the fowler’s net’ (cf. Psalm 124), the great and holy Pascha does not disappear after the day of Resurrection, nor does the God-Man’s taking birth from the Theotokos retreat into mere myth and folklore after the day of Incarnation: These holidays are not days that inhabit one number on the world calendar. They are not days at all, as we experience them, but entrances into the Divine Nature, into the life eternal, the life of the Holy Triad, which begins in time but proves to contain even time itself.

In Christ’s birth, God becomes Man, not once, but forever, taking human nature up into the Divine Nature, divinizing the whole Tree that Man is, Himself one of us, by hanging on that Tree as its first fruit.

In Christ’s resurrection, Man becomes God, not once, but forever, reopening to us the gates of Paradise, a Serpent raised on a stake, inviting us to partake of the Fruit of the tree of life, renewing all creation.

In Christ’s birth, the two greatest commandments, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself’ (Luke 10:27) become One commandment: to love your neighbor is to love God, thus brotherly love is theological.

In Christ’s resurrection, His entire life as Man becomes the pattern of our life, and only by following Him, by doing what we see Him doing, ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill’ (Matthew 5:17), can we fulfill the One commandment, becoming by grace what He is by nature.

Tradition mandates twelve days to celebrate the birth of Christ, and after the day of His resurrection an entire week is gathered up into a single liturgical day, and a total of forty calendar days will hear the greeting ‘Christ is risen! He is truly risen!’ But after celebration, life must go on. We still must live our day to day lives. Tomorrow, I must return to the office and deal with what I find there, pretending to be ‘only human’ when I know by the testimony of His rising from the dead, that Christ is with me, even as He stands in the Presence of His Father, for He says ‘where I am, there will My servant be also’
(John 12:26).

In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus: His state was divine, yet He did not cling to His equality with God but emptied Himself to assume the conditions of a slave, and became as all men are; and being as all men are, He was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross. But God raised Him high and gave Him the name which is above all other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:5-11 Jerusalem Bible

This, beloved brethren, is the Day of Resurrection,

the Day without night,

the Life without death,

and the Love without end.

Which will it be?

Divine humanity, or human divinity? Which would we rather have? This is the question that is presented to man in every generation from the first to the last.

The first is not in our control, something we could not even guess at, something only dreamt of by those whose hearts persistently seek the Most-High, wondering what He is.

The second is what we found ourselves left with. Since we couldn’t discover divine humanity, we consoled ourselves by inventing human divinity.

Human beings, worthy or unworthy, raised some of themselves to the status of gods. The ancient heroes of the Greeks, of the Indians, of the Chinese, gods.

The wielders of earthly power, those in whom their peoples invested the ring, orb and crown of authority, lauded ‘guardians of mankind’ and ‘benefactors,’ gods.

Those fools who once graced the courts of kings with levity to assuage the harshness of our earthly exile, now electronically glorified, our entertainers, gods.

Human divinities all, they are sculpted images of the human nature, to be worshipped by their adorers, or vilified by opponents who worship not men but things.

Yet, divine humanity, after long ages, He did appear. He, the bedreamt of prophets and prophet-kings, has appeared, does appear, and now lives among us.

No sculpture, no painted image can convey Him to us better than He Himself can, walking in our midst, as one of us, though we do not recognize Him but in retrospect.

He is Divine Humanity, having taken our human nature into the fiery folds of His sixfold wings up to the Throne of the Divine Nature, making us enter heaven, and the heaven of heavens.

Making us sit upon His Throne and upon His Father’s Throne, making us sup with Him and with His Father and the Spirit Holy at the banquet Table, in the light of a thousand suns.

Every molecule of our humanity transformed in Him into Divinity, no particle of darkness remains, no shadow, only light, light, wonderous light, bright, bright, brighter.

Divine humanity, or human divinity? Which do you choose?
‘No one lights a lamp to hide it under a bushel.’
‘A city set on a hill cannot be hid.’
‘I set before you life,
And death.’

Inherent righteousness

Chafing at the fact that some people take payment for doing nearly nothing, while others work day and night for barely a pittance, I marvel at the mystery—not of pain or evil, but of patience. Some people ask, ‘If there is a God and if he is good, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?’ But I ask, not if there is a God, but, ‘How can He be so patient with us? and how can we be so patient with Him?’

Preachers and prophets warn us and reveal our transgressions and sins against righteousness, but we don’t listen. We let their words tickle our ears and, if we apply them at all, we apply them to others, not to ourselves. We feel put out that anyone should have the nerve to tell us we’re not righteous, not good, not going the right way. We excuse ourselves a hundred times for each time we excuse the faults of others.

Though we don’t even know what righteousness is, we’re experts at tormenting others, and even ourselves. We call it ‘guilt tripping.’
(Usually former) Catholics often tell me that they’re very good at it. They tell me they learned how to do it at church. This could be true of anyone who had a fussy, scolding mother when they were growing up. Too bad ‘Holy Mother Church’ is often ‘wholly step-mother church’.

Yet, righteousness is inherent in reality. It’s nothing other than ‘how things work.’ It’s not a system of morality imposed from the outside, either by a god or by ourselves. When we go against our nature—because unlike irrational creatures, we can—we set into motion series of events that deviate from this inherent righteousness and lock us in, passengers comfortably seated on a train that soon or late plunges into an abyss. Why? Because there is no bridge, and we didn't know.

If there is a God, why did he make such a dangerous place and put us in it? So he could arrange a rescue and make himself look good? Is he just a boy playing with us, his toy soldiers? Why didn’t he make a level playing field with limitless possibilities, since he knew he’d be making creatures like us who’d want to try everything without restraint? If we can’t be righteous the way we are, neither can God!

There simply is no answer to this dilemma, so it seems. That’s just the nature of reality. The scientist can’t argue with physical constants when they won’t do what he wants them to, and he can’t negate them with impunity. Neither can the mathematician get around the multiplication table when it suits him: it’s absolute and inflexible. He’ll never come up with the correct product if he ignores it. Ours is a hard universe.

Whatever it is we are—call it human—this inherent righteousness is as necessary to us and as inseparable from us as our own bodies. It’s as indispensable as the time and space we inhabit. It’s an inalienable part of our nature. In alignment with it, that nature fulfills itself, is successful, and endures. In opposition to it, that nature is stifled, malfunctions, and freezes. This is exactly not the problem with God. It is the problem with us.

Where now are the accusers of a cruel and judgmental God? On the contrary, He does everything He can to help us recover our course when we get off track. When, not if. Inherent righteousness is not an issue of crime and punishment, but one of sickness and death. Sin is to turn against nature, to effect a lasting state of suicide of the soul. ‘I’ve come not for the righteous, but for sinners, not for the healthy, but for the sick.’

He builds a house, gives it to us, and tells us to maintain it. He gives us bodies, instructs us in the ways of cleanliness and health, and expects us to follow His instructions. For the world to exist at all, it must be what it is. Inherent righteousness is its nature. We can call it whatever we please—His law, His statutes, His decrees, if we are speaking theologically, natural law if we are speaking scientifically. It’s all one.

In the second year of Darius, in the eighth month, the word of Yahweh was addressed to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, as follows, ‘Cry out to the remnant of this people and say to them, Yahweh Sabaoth says this: Return to Me, and I will return to you, says Yahweh Sabaoth.’

Zechariah 1:1-3 Jerusalem Bible

Seek His face

“Seek His face.” Psalm 27:8 Jerusalem Bible

Psalms for the 5th Day:
Psalms 24 ~ 29 inclusive.
The psalms of the fifth day include many, many prayers. Reading them this evening ushered me into my prayer room like a welcoming old friend. Let me share some of the verses from this evening…

Who has the right to climb the mountain of Yahweh,
who the right to stand in His holy place?
He whose hands are clean, whose heart is pure,
whose soul does not pay homage to worthless things
and who never swears to a lie. Psalm 24: 3-4 JB

The next verses form the text of the consecration service of an Orthodox house of worship. The epískopos raps the butt of his staff against the closed western doors reciting the first part. A voice from within asks the question. The epískopos answers. This is done three times, and then the doors swing open, and the congregation, waiting outside, enters the newly consecrated temple.

Gates, raise your arches,
rise you ancient doors,
let the King of Glory in!

Who is this King of Glory?
Yahweh the strong, the valiant,
Yahweh valiant in battle!

Gates, raise your arches,
rise you ancient doors,
let the King of Glory in!

Who is this King of Glory?
He is Yahweh Sabaoth,
King of Glory, He! Psalm 24:7-10 JB

Psalms 25 to 28 are full of prayers.
These are some that speak for me…

Yahweh, make Your ways known to me,
teach me Your paths.
Set me in the way of Your Truth, and teach me,
for You are the God who saves me. Psalm 25:4-5 JB

Do not remember the sins of my youth;
but rather, with Your love, remember me. Psalm 25:7 JB

Let innocence and integrity be my protection,
since my hope is in You, Yahweh. Psalm 25: 21 JB

Test me, Yahweh, and probe me,
put me to trial, loins and heart;
for Your love is before my eyes,
and I live my life in loyalty to You. Psalm 26:2-3 JB

One thing I ask of Yahweh,
one thing I seek:
to live in the House of Yahweh
all the days of my life,
to enjoy the sweetness of Yahweh
and to consult Him in His temple. Psalm 27:4 JB

Yahweh, hear my voice as I cry!
Pity me! Answer me!
My heart has said of You,
“Seek His face.”
Yahweh, I do seek Your face;
do not hide Your face from me. Psalm 27:7-9a JB

This I believe: I shall see the goodness of Yahweh
in the land of the living.
Put your hope in Yahweh, be strong, let your heart be bold,
put your hope in Yahweh. Psalm 27:13-14 JB

Yahweh is my strength, my shield,
my heart puts its trust in Him;
I have been helped, my flesh has bloomed again,
I thank Him with all my heart.

Yahweh is the strength of His people,
a saving fortress for His anointed.
Save Your people! Bless Your heritage!
Shepherd them; carry them forever! Psalm 28:7-9 JB

The last verse above, “Save Your people…” I remember well the beautiful roar of song that the mighty man of God, bishop Anthony, let out when he was with us at Aghía Triás, blessing us with this verse, in English and in the original Greek, “…και ευλογησον την κληρονομιαν σου.” Though he has gone to be with his Lord, I can hear him singing still…

The last psalm for the fifth day, Psalm 29, didn't have the meaning it has for me today, until I heard the Jews at the Sephardi synagogue of Ahavath Achim, ‘brotherly love’, singing it, in Hebrew of course, during the Shabbat evening service. Since then, I have also taken to reading and praying the psalms in Hebrew at home from my copy of the Tehillim. You can read it, and even hear it being read, in Hebrew at my Tehillim blog, here.

Pay tribute to Yahweh, you sons of God,
tribute to Yahweh of glory and power,
tribute to Yahweh of the glory of His name,
worship Yahweh in His sacred court.

The voice of Yahweh over the waters!
Yahweh over the multitudinous waters!
The voice of Yahweh in power!
The voice of Yahweh in splendour!

The voice of Yahweh shatters the cedars,
Yahweh shatters the cedars of Lebanon,
making Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild bull.

The voice of Yahweh sharpens lightning shafts!

The voice of Yahweh sets the wilderness shaking.
Yahweh shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The voice of Yahweh sets the terebinths shuddering,
stripping the forests bare.

The God of Glory thunders.
In His palace everything cries, “Glory!”
Yahweh sat enthroned for the Flood,
Yahweh sits enthroned as a King for ever.

Yahweh gives strength to His people,
Yahweh blesses His people with peace. Psalm 29 JB

End of the Psalms for the 5th Day.

And you too

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.

Before the world was made, He chose us, chose us in Christ,
to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in His presence,
determining that we should become His adopted sons,
through Jesus Christ, for His kind purposes,
to make us praise the glory of His grace,
His free gift to us in the Beloved,
in whom, through His blood, we gain our freedom,
the forgiveness of our sins.

Such is the richness of the grace
which He has showered on us
in all wisdom and insight.
He has let us know the mystery of His purpose,
the hidden plan He so kindly made in Christ from the beginning
to act upon when the times had run their course to the end:
that He would bring everything together under Christ, as Head,
everything in the heavens and everything on earth.

And it is in Him that we were claimed as God's own,
chosen from the beginning,
under the predetermined plan of the One who guides all things
as He decides by His own will;
chosen to be,
for His greater glory,
the people who would put their hopes in Christ before He came.

Now you too, in Him,
have heard the message of the truth and the good news
of your salvation,
and have believed it;
and you too have been stamped
with the seal of the Holy Spirit of the Promise,
the pledge of our inheritance
which brings freedom for those whom God has taken for His own,
to make His glory praised.

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of Him. May He enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope His call holds for you, what rich glories He has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that He has exercised for us believers.

This you can tell from the strength of His power at work in Christ, when He used it to raise Him from the dead and make Him sit at His right hand, in heaven, far above every sovereignty, authority, power, or domination, or any other name that can be named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. He has put all things under His feet, and made Him, as the ruler of everything, the Head of the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills the whole creation.

This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name:

Out of His infinite glory, may He give you the power through His Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.

Glory to Him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; glory be to Him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 1:3-14, 17-23; 3:14-21 Jerusalem Bible

Unconditional

Between religions, there are defections going in two directions all the time. The devil particularly delights in defections from clerical families. I have never heard of the son of an Orthodox presbyter becoming a Muslim, but I’m sure it happens from time to time.

We tend to rejoice (why should we not?) when Muslims or other non-Christians embrace Christianity, especially when we can tell from their living testimony that the conversion is genuine. Many times, though, converts talk as if they have really accepted our faith, when in fact they have just exchanged one religious ideology for another.

The same is true when Christians become Muslims or Jews, probably more so, because though Christianity expresses itself as a religion, at its core it is something entirely different: it is the presence of the living God who interacts with us in the most intimate terms.

In Islam and Judaism that intimacy cannot occur, unless believers in those creeds are actually in a relationship with Jesus Christ without knowing it. Aside from what anyone says, Christian or non-Christian, churched or unchurched, there is no mediator between God and man except the God-Man Jesus Christ, who is both Son of the Father and the Word of God.

Though we churchables define and try to confine Him within our doctrinal formularies, we know from watching Him in the written gospels and in today’s world where He is still active, that like the Spirit of God, He goes where He wants to go. He can go and show Himself anywhere, and He usually does.

Yes, He abides with us, among the sheep of His pasture, the flock that He guides, but at the same moment He is before His Father’s throne interceding for us, and again at the same moment He is out walking the world seeking His lost sheep.
Do we accompany Him there?

All of us, no matter who we are, or in what state of life, are poor before the Lord. We know we lack and all of us try to make up for it somehow. Just because we find what we think we lack in our native religious culture is not a sign that we have found it, found Him, who alone fulfills our every true desire and withers our every fantasy.

What we think about God is what comprises our religion, but He loves us and saves us without our thoughts, even without our doctrinal beliefs, that is, totally without our help. He loves us and saves us only because we come to Him in whatever way, crying out to Him,
‘I am Yours, save me!’

Don’t we believe that He knows all about us? Don’t we believe He knows who it is we’re crying out to? Just as He loves us in this unconditional way—what else can unconditional mean, if not, total abandon on our side, total mercy on His?—so we must continue to love our children, even when they sin, even when they stray.

It is not when our families have turned out as we expected because we faithfully carried out our responsibilities, because we were good examples, or because we loved and provided for them sacrificially, that we can consider ourselves blessed. These are the works and the expectations of the natural man. What if Christ wants to change us into men and women supernatural? What might that look like? This is not to say that when families stay true to the Lord in everything, it is not a good thing, or blessed, but that what we do when we are driven into the wilderness, proves our faith and purifies our inner man.

It is when things have not turned out as we expected, when we have suffered disappointments that mock our faithfulness, when our family members reject not only the faith we tried to hand over to them, which was the best we had, but when they reject us as well, and we still love them, still pray for them, still welcome them, still praise the good they do, refrain from judging them, abstain from blaming them, still want them even when they don’t want us, that we can consider ourselves blessed. ‘Be perfect,’ says the Lord Jesus, ‘as your heavenly Father is perfect…’

My prayer book

Hidden in the Clefts
My prayers, collected from various posts in Cost of Discipleship.

For those who would like a printed copy of the prayers in my blog Hidden in the Clefts can download as a 40 page PDF that can be printed as a booklet or as individual pages.


Click HERE to download the PDF (5,723KB).

Only entrances

True love is like the flame of a candle. However many candles you light from the flame, the initial flame remains unaffected. It doesn’t lessen at all. And every freshly lit candle has as much flame as the others do.

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.

Speak more to God about your children than to your children about God. The soul of the teenager is in a state of an explosion of freedom. This is why it is hard for them to accept counsel. Rather than counseling them continuously and reproaching them again and again, leave the situation to Christ, to the Panagia [Mother of God], and to the Saints, asking that they bring them to reason.

I have made an agreement with God: I will empty my pockets in almsgiving and He will fill them. He has never violated our agreement. Will I violate it? May it never happen!

My heart only has entrances. It doesn’t have exits. Whoever enters remains there. Whatever he may do, I love him the same as I loved him when he first entered into my heart. I pray for him and seek his salvation.

My worst hell is to realize that I have saddened a beloved person.

These quotes, from Elder Epiphanios of Athens, are reproduced here from Fr Stephen's post A Heart Without Exits. When I read them I was instantly struck by their familiarity. These ideas are the same as what I have heard and observed in the Orthodox community. I know that every kind of person of whatever belief system can have the same or similar ideas, but I find such as these particlarly abundant among the Orthodox of all nationalities. Greeks, Russians, Lebanese, Eritreans, Americans—the communities I'm familar with—I know people there who live this way. And I do too, to the best of my ability. For us this is the Orthodox way.

The saying that was truest of all to me is the last one, "My worst hell is to realize that I have saddened a beloved person." And it's a hell that only the grace of Christ can deliver from, because our words and acts cannot ever be taken back by us. Only Jesus can unspeak them for us. Only in Jesus can we have that blessed hope, to be forgiven.

Written too large or too small

Everyone has had the experience of time seeming to fly by too quickly, or drag on too slowly. Why that happens might have something to do with the observer’s volume of activity or level of expectation. When we are very busy, time seems to fly by, but if our work is slow moving or monotonous, time drags. Ask any production worker or office clerk. A similar thing seems to happen when we want something or someone to arrive—time seems to slow down—but if we are afraid of some future task or event, we are often fast forwarded at incredible speed. Two examples drawn from the present moment: Who has enough time to get all those Christmas gifts for everyone, wrap them, mail them, and do all the other preparations that make the day special? That’s the grownups. Who can wait for a Christmas that seems never to come, while being cruelly tantalized by the growing pile of presents under the tree? That’s the kids (and the kids at heart).

They say that time is a fourth dimension, added to the three of height, width and depth. Sometimes it seems to me that there is a fifth dimension that somehow encompasses these other four, and if I can put my finger on its name, I would call it ‘size.’ They say that space is curved, and that if you traveled a very, very long time in a straight line, you would return to your starting point without ever having to turn around. We know this is true in a two dimensional context, like the surface of a globe. Satellites orbit endlessly around the earth in what would seem straight lines if the observer were small enough. Small enough? Well, yes, just the size of a man, really, and one who is not looking at a scale model of the orbit, but at the object actually moving, like watching the space station pass overhead from my back yard at dusk. It seems to be traveling in a straight line.

It seems that there is a limit to everything created, but it’s not always the limit we expect. So, space itself is curved, according to science, but who could have guessed? Time also, according to Indian cosmology, is curved. It has no beginning or end, but keeps going round and round, filled with a definite number of life entities that enter and leave incarnation within its cycles. To think this provides a fertile soil for the imagination, and India’s wealth of epic poetry and mysticism attests to this. But what of size, my fifth dimension?
What is the limit imposed on size? Or is there one? I have pondered this question all my life and have never found the answer. I have this odd feeling that the vast distances of space and the infinite number of objects that fill it might somehow be related to the likewise infinite number of particles in the vast sub-atomic world. At the extremes of great and small we meet the same bewildering infinity.

And then there’s God, uncreated Creator, unmoved Mover. They say the test of greatness is passed in the ability to become small, and small He became in becoming a human being, He whom the whole world cannot contain enclosing Himself in the womb of a woman of our species. He lived among us. The Greek of the gospel written by holy apostle John says, ‘He pitched His tent among us,’ He who stretched out the heavens like a tent over us. Speaking again of size, it’s not just the three dimensions, it’s the fourth as well. The God we know is larger than the universe we see, Himself containing it, longer than time is long, they say He is outside of it, but what this means we can’t grasp. But we say He is fully present even in the smallest space and the shortest time, without abandoning His greatness at the other end of that ‘limited’ dimension of size. Infinitely great, He is infinitely small.

Read Immanence by Evelyn Underhill.

‘Where is this God of yours? Why can’t we see Him?’ the perennial challenge is tossed, but we have no answer that anyone will receive, because every man must see it for himself. Try as we must, we cannot see for others with our eyes or feel for them with our hearts. Yet we know the God who is, because somehow, in spite of our size, we can read His message to us. Perhaps some of us are positioned at just the right distance to read the writing on His wall, but for others, it seems the message is written too large, or too small.
They don’t see it as writing, but as disruptions, as obstacles to climb over, while they look for comfort, whatever form it takes. It doesn’t help that they are very tired, very cold and hungry, or that they have been told a warm welcome awaits them at a giant’s castle. There it is again—size! And I keep wondering, what else have I missed that is written too large, or too small?

Letting Him in

Christian faith, and the Christian faith—not exactly the same thing, almost not the same thing at all, sometimes even mutually exclusive. Languages with definite articles—Germanic, Romance, Greek, for example—that have words like ‘the’, can use them to draw subtle distinctions between otherwise almost identical terms. I’m not sure how other languages make these distinctions, but I’m sure they do. But Christian faith, and the Christian faith—these each have their own meaning, and to have one is not always to have the other. A contradiction in terms? Maybe, or maybe as matters become profound, human language just fails us.

The Christian faith. Most people know what this means. It’s the Christian religion, of course. It’s a body of doctrinal belief, and patterns of moral, social and ceremonial behavior that arise from it. It can be further broken down into denominations. It can be studied from the inside or the outside. It can be experienced as a moral, social and ceremonial environment. It can be examined, and accepted or rejected philosophically. It can give those who ‘believe’ in it a sense of stability and security in life, and assurance of a ‘happy ending’ in death. Most of all, it provides a framework for daily living that, if followed, works. That’s the Christian faith.

Christian faith. This sounds nearly the same, but when we say or think the words most of us, if we think about them, know that they mean something at least a little different. If we are Christians, we will just assume that we ‘have’ Christian faith, often without asking ourselves what this means. Some of us may ask ourselves, and answer in the same breath, that it’s ‘just going to church, following the golden rule, and reading the Bible and Christian books.’ If we are not Christians, ‘Christian faith’ will be meaningless at worst, or a mere abstraction at best. We just don’t care. For both believers and unbelievers, Christian faith can just be a ‘given’—you either have it or you don’t.

Both terms pivot on the word ‘faith’ which has a different value in each. In ‘the Christian faith,’ it is more of a thing. In ‘Christian faith,’ it is more of a person. In the first, it is another name for intellectual agreement with a system. In the second, it is another name for a proactive relationship with a person. Of course we understand that the system is ‘religion’ and the person is ‘God,’ but the first condition is not necessarily paired with the second: You can belong to the Christian faith without necessarily having Christian faith. The same is true institutionally: A church claiming to be Christian may in fact know nothing of Christ, even though it’s covered with His name.

Faith in the one is assent to a proposition. In the other it is ascent to a disposition. What do I mean by this? Somebody proposes an idea, and you assent to it, or reject it. You are doing the work. You are making the choice. Somebody is disposed to love you, to vouchsafe you goodness itself, and is drawing you upwards, gradually and graciously, in an ascent to Himself. He does the work. He makes the choice. The Christian faith is a kind of deus ex machina that can make the drama of our day to day life endurable. Christian faith is having a dialog with the Writer of our day to day life, in which we join with Him in writing the script, knowing that He wants us.

The feast of the Nativity of Christ lies ahead. The Christian faith will express itself directly in celebrating it religiously, and indirectly by participating in the economic and social phenomena of the Christmas season. Christian faith will express itself in welcoming once again, and in a special way, the ‘Lord before all ages coming to us as a new-born babe.’ What special way? It is the offering, the giving back to Him all that has been given to us in trust, for that is the real meaning of faith—trust. It is the finding Him again born as a man, or a woman, or a child, in our daily life, as the ones who are placed in our path. It is opening to Him, in them, our doors. It is letting Him in.

Η Παρθένος σήμερον, τον προαιώνιον Λόγον, 
εν Σπηλαίω ερχεται, αποτεκειν απορρήτως. 
Χόρευε η οικουμένη ακουτισθεισα, 
δόξασον μετα Αγγέλων και των Ποιμένων, 
βουληθέντα εποφθηναι, 
παιδίον νέον, τον προ αιώνων Θεόν.

The Virgin today, to the Word before all worlds,
comes into the Cave, to give birth, to the unapproachable Being.
Dance, all the universe, in hearing of this,

glorify with angels and shepherds
Him who was willing to manifest Himself
as a new-born babe, the God before the ages.

Romanos the Melodist
Kontakia of the Nativity

Apostle Andrew

Iconography by the hand of Matthew D. Garrett

November 30 is the feast day of holy apostle Andrew the First-Called.
Happy name day to all Andrews and Andreas.
God grant you many, many years!

Download a printable 8½x11 PDF file of this poster.

Midnight of the saints

May 21st, 2012, about 6 p.m. [*]

The day has come and gone. Uneventful as to massive earthquakes, the graves opening to release billions of bodies into the sky, dragging along with them allegedly a mere two hundred million souls of those who had not yet been unbodied till that moment, to ‘meet the Lord in the air’ according to words of pure vanity never written or thought by the apostles but stuffed into their mouths by teachers of unwisdom.

Fractious, factious, unfriendly, fiery purveyors of fantasy, egged on as always by the evil one, peddling dispensations that never were in the mind or word of God, nevertheless so sure of themselves that they are willing to wreck the work of God, to despoil the vineyard of the Lord, to hold up to the world’s ridicule the precious promise of the Christ to come again, all to succor their own vain hopes, to exalt their names above the Name.

It is the midnight of the saints, their time of tribulation, the hour of their testing, the furnace of their purification, the deepest darkness against the bright dawn of the true resurrection of the dead, but also the time when the angelic hosts offer their praises, unseen by the eyes of worldly wisdom, unheard by the ears of those deafened by the roar of the lies spawned by their divisive delusions. Yes, we are all still here, and Christ Jesus is still among us.

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
2 Timothy 3:1-9

Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene.

Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.’

In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
2 Timothy 2:14-26

Holy unreason

I picked up my Jerusalem Bible and began to read again the 1st book of Maccabees, just because I like to read history sometimes. I’ve read this book a dozen times or more cover to cover. It’s the book that underlies the Jewish feast of Chanukah.

What struck me today, and what always strikes me when reading the history of God’s people, whether Jews or Christians, when they are under attack by their enemies, is how reasonable, sometimes, their enemies try to be in attempting to convince them to submit to their overlordship.

True, when it’s an invading enemy like the Seleucids, the successors to Alexander the Great, who subjected the ancient Near East to Greek rule, they start out with quite violent and merciless attacks. That’s stage one, and its method is to break resistance and dishearten the victim people by an extreme show of force and cruelty. After the political conquest, though, they have to somehow keep it, and to do that they have to win over the vanquished.

Antiochus Epiphanes, like the modern statesmen of today, wanted to establish peace and order under his iron-clad rule, and his method, stage two, was to make all the nations he conquered give up their ancient culture and religion, and adopt his—Hellenism. For all the nations, this wasn’t a problem: just add a new layer of pagan gods and ceremonies to what they already had. For the Jews, it was another matter. They were the worshippers of a single God, the only God, Yahweh, and they had a Law from Him they must obey. Though some Jews complied with the king’s command, many did not.

As the king’s representatives visited each village, they came to Modein where the family of Mattathias Maccabaeus had taken refuge after the conquest and desecration of Jerusalem. They were addressed by the king’s officer in friendly terms and promised special status and an increase of wealth, if they only would come forward and make the official sacrifice, to show that they obeyed the king’s new “one empire, one people, one religion” edict. Mattathias refused, and while he was refusing, a Jew stepped forward to take his place at the pagan altar to offer the sacrifice. Filled with zeal for the Law and in righteous indignation, Mattathias threw himself on the Jew and killed him on the spot, then turned and killed the king’s representative. That was the beginning of what is now called the Maccabaean Revolt.

But really, how unreasonable of Mattathias and his five sons and their followers not to comply with the king’s decree! The king wasn’t asking for much, just a token performance of a pagan ceremony to show that they accepted their new rulers and agreed to shed their out-dated, fussy religion. The rewards offered were great, amounting to prestige and success as members of a new elite, the “friends of the king.” How unreasonable of them!

This is not my feeling, of course, but the sentiment of those who saw no harm in going along with what was apparently the “wave of the future.” It would bring Israel a lot of benefits to become part of a world government that stretched from Egypt all the way to the frontier of India. Think of all that they would forfeit by resisting! Why couldn’t they just be “nice” Jews and cooperate like the others?

I notice this same pattern when I read the stories of the Christian martyrs. They are so much closer to us in time and culture. There are reports that have come down to us that read like today’s newspapers. The Romans weren’t all that bad. Except for mob violence against Christians, the authorities always tried to do all in their power to make it easy and attractive for a Christian to show allegiance (or worship) to Caesar, who represented the Roman one world government—in fact, when reading the dialogs, one is impressed by the fact that in most cases, the Romans were being as reasonable as they could be; it is the Christians who seem stubborn and unreasonable.

Drawing even closer to our own times, we have seen the same thing happening in the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans, with Turkish judges trying their best to get a Christian off the hook and live, rather than die because of his stupid insistence, “I was born a Christian, and I will die a Christian.” How unreasonable! The Turks really had to exert a lot of patience with these “new martyrs of the Turkish yoke.” Some caved in to the friendly persuasion, but many didn’t. That’s why there are still countries like Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia even today. If it weren’t for their holy unreason, they would all have become part of the mass of Islamic states that now fills the Near and Middle East.

Knowing a little bit of history like this helps as we face the next surge of that “Prince of Persia” (it really all started with Nimrod, and continued through tyrants like Xerxes) who wants to make us all one under his authority. All we have to do is give in, just a little.

We are not alone, brethren. From the time of the three hundred Spartans, to the Maccabees, to the Christian martyrs through the last two thousand years, we are in good company as we face the age old enemy, the shape- and name-shifter, as he again amasses his millions with their sky-darkening cloud of arrows aimed at us.
Let us stand firm, as we approach the Day. Our redemption is always close at hand. Our God is faithful, and true. Let us continue in our holy unreason till He returns.

Sorrowless

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza writes,

People usually get annoyed either because they are in a bad mood, or they are nurturing unpleasant thoughts about another. However, the main reason for our annoyance is that we don’t reproach ourselves: this incurs spiritual disturbance and loss of inner peace. The true and genuine path toward a calm disposition is continual self-reproach. Even if a person had accomplished many good deeds yet doesn’t hold fast to the path of self-reproach, he will never cease being annoyed and insulting others, thereby losing the fruits of his good labor. In contrast, what joy and tranquility that person acquires who reproaches himself! Wherever he goes and whatever unpleasantness happens, or whatever insults he hears; he has convinced himself beforehand that he deserves all types of sorrows. That’s why when something unpleasant does happen, he doesn’t get annoyed. What more sorrowless condition can there be?

This kind of saying, ‘we should always reproach ourselves,’ always seemed nonsensical to me, somehow masochistic, and I didn't understand it or want to believe it was true, but I kept running across it, not so much in the scriptures, but in the Church fathers. I just figured it must be some kind of personal excess of theirs, and it just wasn't a word meant for me. It sounded to me like an instruction to always be putting oneself down, always blaming yourself for everything. That just didn't seem right.

But I was stupid and shallow in my understanding. Still, I have much compassion for people who thought like I did, because they really do misunderstand what is meant by self-reproach, and no one can naturally be ready to receive this word with understanding and reap the sorrowless condition that results from it, no one can be glad as long as they think of it as sorrow.

Self-reproach is the constant remembrance that all is lost, that all we hoped and worked for is vain and lost, that nothing we wanted to accomplish saw success, that everything we sought and slaved for came to nothing. Self-reproach is the willing acceptance and realization that of ourselves we are total failures, that we have missed the mark, that we gambled and lost, that we deserve nothing good, that our lives were empty and joyless, and that, like Job, we inwardly ‘shout for joy to see the tomb.’

“How is this possible? This is sheer madness!
It's much worse than I thought!”
Such is the response of the natural man,
who trusts in his own strength, his wisdom,
his virtue or his valor.

He forgets that his birth was nothing that he wrought,
that his health and life were nothing that he earned,
that the excellence of which he is so proud is nothing that he bought,
that the grave awaits him, as it awaits all,
and from it no one has returned.

Yes, it is much worse than almost anyone has thought. I know that now, and I know that only when you know for sure that nothing you can do, could do, or ever could have done would have achieved what only the Son of God has achieved for you, then you are able to truly reproach yourself, only then know for sure how to reproach yourself, only then finally know why to reproach yourself, and only then arrive where you can say for certain, as did Abba Dorotheos,

“What more sorrowless condition can there be?”