Μακραν εγγυς - Far… near

Νυνι δε εν Χριστω Ιησου υμεις οι ποτε οντες μακραν εγγυς εγενηθητε εν τω αιματι του Χριστου.

But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very near, by the blood of Christ.

Ephesians 2:13

Far… How hard, how painful it is to hear this word that describes the state of separation! Whether it be our state before we meet the Lord, or whether it be our state after, it doesn't matter. In either case, it is sin that separates us from Him. Why is this? Because a holy God demands holiness in us, ‘I am the LORD your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy’ (Leviticus 11:44), and not only under the old Law, but even under the Law of Christ, for apostle Peter writes the same, ‘Be holy, for I am holy’ (1 Peter 1:16).

The ancient Church was far more rigorous than the Church today, yet they too had Christ and lived the life of grace, not works. Here follows an excerpt from the book An Interpretation of the Divine Liturgy Based on Actual Events and Experiences of Holy Priests, Monks and Lay People by Protopresbyter Stephanos K. Anagnostopoulos. When writing about the litany of the catechumens he explains the different categories of penitents. This was posted in Fr Milovan's blog Again and Again, and it was too good not to share.

What a discipline the ancient Church exercised within herself! Why am I drawn to say, ‘This is the good way,’ even though I might find myself in one of these categories of penitents? I would rather that the Church today could speak, act and live under such authority, so that she would reflect her Lord even more, of whom they said, ‘What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey Him!’ (Mark 1:27).

Thank you, Fr Milovan, for again bringing our attention to something very important. This is not merely a historical curiosity. We must think within ourselves, as the Church, ‘Why are we not living like this?’ And then, after thinking, praying, let us act as the Lord directs. His Word to us is always fresh and true, and we should always be like young plants awaiting eagerly the Sun of Righteousness and the Water of Life. These are only in Jesus. Then we can truly begin to grow and bear fruit.

Different Categories of Penitents

Firstly: The excommunicated. The Church would cut them off completely from its Body and considered them as dead. Only after a repentance that was big and proven in action after they had confessed and signed a libel, would they again be received in her bosom. Moreover, “the ones who had denied God through sin” belonged to this category. According to the sacred Canons, those who were absent from Divine Worship for three Sundays consecutively without any serious reason – like health reasons – were excommunicated as well. Today this measure has been abolished. In those days it was applied and thus its results were beneficial. The Church would decide, and the Christians were totally obedient.

Secondly: The crying and afflicted. It concerned those who had committed deadly sins, who remained outside the Temple, in the countryside, come winter or summer (in snow, rain, cold weather, hail or extreme heat) and would ask from the Christians that would enter the Church, in lots of tears, on their knees, to pray so that God would forgive them. They would not even take Antidoron.

Thirdly: Those who fall. Inside the Temple those “falling” were constantly on their knees, even on Sundays. Due to the large number of sins they had committed they would only receive the bishop’s blessing – if there was one – or that of the priest who would perform the Liturgy, and would depart from the Church together with the Catechumens.

Fourthly: Those who stand in obedience. They are the majority of Christians today who are under a certain penance that forbids them to receive Holy Communion. They attend the Holy Liturgy until the end and take Antidoron.

There was another category of Christians who stood in obedience. They were inside the Temple during Divine Worship, they communed Immaculate Sacraments but the Church forbade them to knead prosphoron bread, that is to say, bring Precious Gifts for sanctification (offertory, nama = the wine used in the Holy Eucharist, candle, oil…) to the Temple.

Fifthly: Another category of Christians, who also remained in the Nave, departed the Holy Table together with the Catechumens. It was those who were under the influence of unclean spirits. On the one hand, they were baptized but demon-possessed.

The “Apostolic Injunction” says the following about them: When the deacon proclaimed “As many as are catechumens, depart. Depart, catechumens”, also addressing those who were under the influence of unclean spirits, he would say: “Pray for those who are under the influence of unclean spirits. Earnestly, all of you, pray for them so that our Befriended God through Jesus Christ rebukes the unclean and evil spirits and delivers His supplicants from strange authority… Those who are influenced, depart.” In other words, let them also depart. This ancient liturgical order like so many others, waned or rather was abolished.

Sixthly: the hearers. The hearers could have been the Jews or heathen idolaters who used to enter the Narthex to listen to and see the first part of the Divine Worship – and to especially attend the homily – and afterwards together with the Catechumens they would step out of the Holy Temple and the congregation.

While those crying and afflicted would remain outside, the hearers, even though they could have been Jews or heathen idolaters, would step into the Narthex!

The deacon would say aloud to the “hearers”: “Let none of the hearers remain. Let none of the unfaithful. Depart…”

During the moment of their departure the Celebrant used to pray with fervor for them, so that they would not feel embittered, supplicating: “That the Lord God, the All-Merciful, may open the ears of their hearts… catechize them with the word of truth… grant them a virtuous life…etc.”

The interest of the Church for the “hearers” was real to the point that most of them would depart the holy congregation of the Divine Worship with tears in their eyes. During these prayers the people used to chant multiple times and in a spirit of devoutness the prayer “Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.”

Μαθητεύσατε πάντα τα εθνη

Make disciples of all nations

Matthew 28:19

Love and hate

We love those whom we want to love, and we hate those whom we want to hate. Reasons why we love someone are real, but love itself has a greater reality than those reasons. Love is its own justification. It’s different with hate.

Hate knows that it’s unreal, that it’s an intrusion of nothing into something, and without an army of reasons to justify it, it can’t support itself. Once we’ve decided to hate, we have to work very, very hard, making up reasons to justify it.

Reasons we can find, reasons we can fabricate, whatever it takes to prove our hate, to justify ourselves for hating, we make the effort. It doesn’t matter that we pay a very high price. We’re even willing to stake our lives on it, when we want to hate.

Who goes searching through the Bible to look for proof texts to justify his love for his neighbor? Sure, the words are there, even voiced as commands, ‘You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbor as yourself’ (Matthew 20:37-39).

The passages enjoining love do nothing for our ego. They neither magnify nor diminish us in our own eyes; they are simply there to be followed, and if we want to love, we don’t need them to justify ourselves. Love is its own justification.

When we hate, our ego is like a drowning man grappling for a plank to hang on to, and if he finds enough planks, he feels safe. So passages enjoining not hate, but providing what we think are reasons to hate others, are found, and we cling to them.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that has given Christianity a very bad taste in the mouths of those who are haters ‘in the second degree.’ They justify their hate of Christians not by bible proof texts, but by the behavior of the haters ‘in the first degree.’

The haters ‘in the first degree’ carry signs that they say speak for God, for righteousness. They say they are His witnesses, but I doubt very much that the god for whom they are witnesses is any different than the god of terrorists. Hate is hate, and it cripples.
It doesn’t matter what name we place on love or on ourselves when we love: it is obvious to all what we are, and what we are doing. They may not like us, they may not like our love, and they may persecute us for it, as did pagan Rome, but they can’t deny it.

It doesn’t matter what name we place on our hate or on ourselves when we hate, either: it is obvious to all (but ourselves) what we are (for hate blinds those who practice it). Even the world, all on its own, can raise itself above hate sometimes, though not ingloriously.

But we know where love comes from, and wherefrom is hate. ‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God’ (1 John 4:7).
‘Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother’ (1 John 3:12).

Yes, we love those we want to love, and hate those we want to hate. The better way is to hate no one at all, but to love our neighbor as God has loved us, for that is truly the yoke that Christ calls ‘easy’ and the burden that He calls ‘light.’

The lorica of Patrick, enlightener of Ireland

Patrick made this hymn: in the time of Loegaire macNeill it was made, and the cause of its composition was for the protection of himself and his monks against the deadly enemies that lay in ambush for the clerics. And it is a lorica of faith for the protection of body and soul against demons and men and vices.

I arise today in vast might,
in vocation of the Trinity,
belief in a Threeness,
confession of Oneness,
towards the Creator.

I arise today
in the might of Christ’s Birth & His Baptism,
in the might of His Crucifixion & Burial,
in the might of His Resurrection & Ascension,
in the might of His Descent to the Judgment of Doom.

I arise today
in the might of the order of Cherubim,
in obedience of angels,
in ministrations of Archangels,
in hope of resurrection for the sake of reward;
in prayers of Patriarchs,
in predictions of Prophets,
in preachings of Apostles,
in faith of Confessors,
in innocence of Holy virgins,
in deeds of Righteous men.

I arise today
in the might of Heaven,
brightness of Sun,
whiteness of Snow,
splendor of Fire,
speed of Lightning,
swiftness of Wind,
depth of Sea,
stability of Earth,
firmness of Rock.

I arise today
in the Might of God for my piloting,
Power of God for my upholding,
Wisdom of God for my guidance,
Eye of God for my foresight,
Ear of God for my hearing,
Word of God for my utterance,
Hand of God for my guardianship,
Path of God for my precedence,
Shield of God for my protection,
Host of God for my salvation,
Against snares of demons!
Against allurement of vices!
Against solicitations of nature!
Against every person that wishes me ill,
far and near, alone and in a crowd!

I invoke therefore all these forces
against every fierce, merciless force
that may come against my body and my soul:
Against incantations of false prophets!
Against black laws of paganism!
Against false laws of heresy!
Against encompassment of idolatry!
Against spells of seductresses,
tinkers and druids!
Against all knowledge that is forbidden
the human soul!

Christ for my guardianship today
against poison,
against burning,
against drowning,
against wounding,
that there may come to me a multitude of rewards.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ under me,
Christ over me,
Christ to right of me,
Christ to left of me,
Christ in lying down,
Christ in sitting,
Christ in rising up.
Christ in the heart of every person who may think of me,
Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak to me,
Christ in every eye which may look on me,
Christ in every ear which may hear me.

I arise today in vast might,
in vocation of the Trinity,
belief in a Threeness,
confession of Oneness,
meeting in the Creator.

Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is from the Lord,
Salvation is in Christ!
May we always remain in Your Salvation, O Lord!
Amen!

The strong name

‘I arise today in vast might,
in vocation of the Trinity,
belief in a Threeness,
confession of Oneness,
towards the Creator…’

Thus begins ‘the Breastplate,’ or Lorica, of Saint Patrick, a mighty prayer invoking Divine Might and clearing the road ahead of all possible obstacles and dangers, making mighty ‘against every fierce, merciless force’ him who recites it. It is also called ‘the Deer Cry’ because the occasion of its composition was the journey of Patrick and his monks to convert one of the Irish kings to Christianity. The king did not want to convert and sent armed men to ambush the missionaries. Somehow, Patrick and his monks got through the ambush chanting his prayer. When the king later asked what happened, his men replied, ‘We did not see them. We saw only a few head of deer go past.’

As a new Christian, a ‘born again’—though what I call my ‘born again experience’ looks in retrospect like nothing other than the moment I became aware of the fact that I was born again ‘of water and the Spirit’ without my knowledge or consent when I was baptised as an infant—as a new disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, confronted by ‘the world, the flesh, and the devil,’ I recited this prayer of the apostle of Ireland frequently, complementing it with many signs of the cross, bows and prostrations. Yes, I had a whole ritual worked out, almost a dance movement, to pray with my body those mighty petitions my lips uttered. I fully intended my performance to be efficacious.

Yes, performance maybe more than prayer. Such are the faults of beginners, and that is what I was, a very, very green Christian. I hadn’t spilt my blood yet, not really, and I was going to make sure I never did. I hadn’t yet noticed that a follower of Jesus does what he sees his Master doing. Green, not red, was the color I wanted my life in Christ to be. This was the deal: I follow Christ, and He protects me. He keeps me safe. I can trust in His promises. That’s why He says, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ Christ spilt His blood to save me, so I don’t have to spill mine. I even went so far with this color thing, that I had a picture of Jesus in a green robe!

Becoming ‘born again,’ joining the Church, I felt good. I felt I had really accomplished something. Looking back I now call it, ‘pretending you’re a sinner, so you can pretend you’re saved.’ I didn’t really know what it meant to be a disciple. I thought to myself, I had finally outgrown the ‘children’s version’ of Christianity, and I was now a Christian man. I now knew ‘the rules’ and henceforth I would follow them. Then, God would bless me, just like it says in the Psalms. What a happy life! But, back to the Lorica, that most powerful prayer that I offered to ward off the evil that surrounded me and my little family on all sides. As my life became less and less precarious, I offered it less. What a mistake!

It even seemed to me, finally, a quaint relic, almost a magical incantation. I now realize that, of course, it can become that, and it probably was that for me in my youthful folly. For I did not have real faith then, only folly disguised as faith. Real faith is not mercenary, but I wasn’t listening closely enough to the Word of God preached to me in church, or when I read it at home. Misguided teachers of a materialistic gospel—which is no gospel at all, but just another way to make money—hid the truth from me, just as they still do for many new believers, whether they are young or old. Captured like a bird in the fowler’s net, the Lord had mercy on His unworthy servant. He tore the net, and I escaped…

The strong name of the Trinity. Yes, it is strong. It is very strong, for the Lord is in His name, and His name is in Him. But this name, and this Trinity, though they are mighty, though they protect—yes, like Abram, we know the Triad as three yet call them ‘my Lord’—this might is not what we call might, nor is this protection always what we expect. It cannot be, because He treats each of us in a unique way—as there is only One God, so there is only one of each human being, all different, all unrepeatable, and so are His ways with us. The prayer always ‘works,’ and we always need what it asks for, but we almost never know what it is we need.

Like the Irish kings of old, deep within the walls of our self-protection we hide, unwanting light, pretending to good but rejecting the only One who is good. We send our sentries to ambush them whom God sends to convert our hearts, yet because He loves us more than we hate Him, they pass through our ambush and pierce our defenses. To chant this Lorica, we switch sides against our selves, against the ‘old man’ in us, and join the ‘new man’ whom Christ has formed in His Divine Image. This prayer has now, for me, truly become ‘the Deer Cry’ because it is no longer something I can perform, but the bleating of my heart for a protection not only promised but delivered.

‘Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ under me,
Christ over me,
Christ to right of me,
Christ to left of me,
Christ in lying down,
Christ in sitting,
Christ in rising up.
Christ in the heart of every person who may think of me,
Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak to me,
Christ in every eye which may look on me,
Christ in every ear which may hear me.’

Now I know, it is one thing to simply recite this prayer, and another to walk in it. Just as the holy gospels are all contained in the name of Jesus, and that name is the same as the name of the Trinity, so is this Lorica of Saint Patrick, not a spell of white magic, seeking that our will be done instead of the will of our heavenly Father, but an expression of the Divine name for us to walk in. That walking will, and of necessity, must be following Jesus wherever He leads. Yes, for if we are disciples, we shall walk like Patrick and his monks: ‘They have kept themselves as pure as virgins, following the Lamb wherever he goes.’ That is might. That is protection against all harm. That is life.

These Jews

Once upon a time, the world was divided up into regions of predictable homogeneity. I don’t know what else to call it. Europe was the place where everyone was Christian of one sort or another, except for the scoundrel, barely tolerated Jews and, of course, the Gypsies, whatever they are. Then there were ‘the lands of Islam,’ almost all of them stolen from Christian or other nations and religions, and converted by the sword. In some places and times, non-Muslims living there were tolerated by accepting lower social status and the payment of protection money. One of the largest of these non-Muslim groups was, as in Europe, the Jews. Some say that the Jews fared better in the lands of Islam than in Europe.

What is it with these Jews? No matter what we do to them, they never seem to go away. They only seem to get stronger and more numerous. Every few centuries, maybe decades, they get too numerous and rich, and we find excuses to reduce their number and influence, sometimes killing them off altogether. When we do that, we usually find that we can’t live without them. Like Joseph in Egypt at whose touch everything prospered, whatever these Jews handle sees increase, both for them, and even for us. Though we don’t trust them one bit, we feel safer when they’re quietly running our banks, our schools, our hospitals, and if and when something goes wrong, we always have them to blame.

I’m not going to address the issue of Jews in the lands of Islam, the Sephardic Jews, because they’re not a purely European phenomenon. Though some of them originated in southern Europe, most live or lived in the lands of Islam. Those Jews, then, belong to them, to the Muslims. But I want to consider ‘our Jews,’ the ones we’ve been rubbing shoulders with (when we couldn’t help it) for about two thousand years on the European continent and later here in the Americas. Yes, they are our Jews. They mostly resemble us racially because they’ve been living with us for so long. Whether by intermarriage or by accidents of pillage and war, their gene pool and ours has become a merged continuum.

The Jews are a European people, just like the Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Austrians, Russians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, and Brits among whom they used to live. Of course, many of them still do, but in greatly reduced numbers because of the combined effects of the Holocaust and the Aliyah. Some Jews exhibit racial features reminiscent of their remote Levantine ancestors, the Israelites, but unless one is very sensitive to racial types and characteristics, many Jews pass among us without notice. The ones that stick out like a sore thumb are Jews belonging to sects that emphasize biblical and rabbinical traditions, the Hasidic Jews, for example. But most look and act just like us.

What’s on my mind this morning is our Jews, the ones with whom we share the development and spread of our European civilization, which has by and large become the civilization of the planet. The Jews and their religion and traditions are just as much a part of our European heritage as is our Christianity. In fact, our faith couldn’t exist without theirs, not only because ours is a simplified version of it, but because the very fact of their survival is what gives our Christianity its vitality. In an odd sort of way, the Jews are the guardians of Christianity, its tutors, sometimes its babysitters, certainly in many cases its providers. That they refuse to assimilate and remain aloof from us is what keeps us going.

Blaise Pascal was right about them. He wrote many things about our Jews in his anthology Pensées, but one of the best things he said about them was, they continue to live among us in order that the claims of Christ might be proven true to every generation. He says that, had the Jews accepted Christ, they would’ve been suspect witnesses, and the Gentile (non-Jewish) world would never have accepted Him. It’s like this. If I have a son who is a child prodigy, and I keep bragging him up and promoting him, you might think, ‘Of course he says he’s good, the best. It’s because it’s his son.’ But if I run my son down and don’t even want to hear his name mentioned, if he is a prodigy, you’ll recognize it on your own.

As we are now in the Church season of Great and Holy Lent, and the Jews, our Jews, are with us making their own ‘journey to Pascha’ which they call ‘Pesach’ and which is a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, I want to join our two journeys, our two exoduses, together. I want to remind us that we are not two peoples, but one. That we are not enemies, but brothers, even as Jacob and Esau. Yes, we have had and still have our problems, our disagreements, but we are ‘family’ and we belong to each other. There never was a need for our Jews to escape us and make themselves a state on other people’s soil, had we not forced them to it by persecuting them, and look what our blind hatreds have cost us.

There cannot be a ‘Christian’ civilization that excludes the Jews. There can only be a ‘Judaeo-Christian’ civilization, which acknowledges and promotes the contributions and welfare of both religious traditions. Again, I reiterate, we are not two peoples, but one, both here in America, and in Europe, where our civilization began. I have to remind us of these things because I am a Christian, and I need to stand up for my people Israel, the kinsmen of Jesus Christ. The ignorant and irreligious are once again raising the standards of anti-Jewish hatred. Perhaps this is sparked by the establishment of the Jewish state. Perhaps it is just a reawakening of that demon that inflamed the ignorant in former times, but it must be defied.

As we make our way to the bright and holy feast of the Lord’s Resurrection, this year beginning on the evening of the 30th of April at the Vigil of Pascha (Easter), let us remember with respect and love our Jewish brethren who will be experiencing the annual reenactment of the Exodus from Egypt, this year beginning on the evening of the 22nd of April at the first Seder of Pesach (Passover). There is only one Pascha, one Pesach, one Passover. It is the Passover of the Lord, as our ancient fathers sang,

Come, ye faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness;
God hath brought His Israel into joy from sadness;
Loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke Jacob’s sons and daughters;
Led them with unmoistened foot through the Red Sea waters.

‘Tis the spring of souls today; Christ hath burst His prison,
and from three days’ sleep in death as a sun hath risen;
all the winter of our sins, long and dark, is flying
from His light, to whom we give laud and praise undying.

Now the queen of seasons, bright with the day of splendor,
with the royal Feast of feasts, comes its joy to render;
comes to glad Jerusalem, who with true affection
welcomes in unwearied strains Jesus’ resurrection.

Neither might the gates of death, nor the tomb’s dark portal,
nor the watchers, nor the seal, hold Thee as a mortal:
But today amidst Thine own Thou didst stand, bestowing
that Thy peace which evermore passeth human knowing.

— St John of Damascus, 8th century

The Beginning and the End

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,
the Beginning and the End.
Revelation 22:13

Jesus Christ is one Person fully human and fully divine, but as He enters and permeates time, we experience Him as He describes Himself to John the Revelator, as the Beginning and the End.

Philosophers and theologians have written volumes about this, but I only want to say a few words about the Good News of Jesus Christ, which I believe also is experienced and works in us as the Beginning and the End.

The Good News “looks” different when it is the Beginning. It is a word that could be written down: The beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah… 
Mark 1:1-2a

The Good News is a word that could be spoken, that can be preached: Jesus went into Galilee. There He proclaimed the Good News from God. “The time has come,” He said, “and the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.”
Mark 1:14b-15

The Good News as the Beginning is what the Church through the ages and up till today has busied itself with, planting the seed of the Word, laying the foundations for the Kingdom, that which is the Good News as the End. It is just as necessary that the Good News should be the Beginning, as it should be the End. And though there is only one Good News, it “looks” different when it is the End.

The first Christians evangelized the world by bringing to it the Good News, the Beginning: Remember the Good News that I carry, “Jesus Christ risen from the dead, sprung from the race of David.” 
2 Timothy 2:8

Yet even back then, the Good News, the End, was revealed: For I am not ashamed of the Good News: it is the power of God saving all who have faith. 
Romans 1:16a

The Beginning of the Good News was proclamation such as this:
“Yes, God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost but may have eternal life.”
John 3:16

The End of the Good News was demonstration such as this:
This has taught us love—that He gave up His life for us; and we, too, ought to give up our lives for our brothers. 
1 John 3:16

The Good News, the Beginning, consists of transmitting the teaching of Jesus and the story of His saving acts: “I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to My voice.” 
John 18:37b

The Good News, the End, consists of Christ living in us and gathering His lambs into the Kingdom: Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to pass from this world to the Father. He had always loved those who were His in the world, and now He showed how perfect His love was. John 13:1

I’m not entirely sure that I have been able to express my meaning well. Let me try again.

The Good News, the Beginning, is doing all the explicit evangelizing, missionary work, church “life,” everything that lays foundations for the building up of the Kingdom in spirit and truth, which is itself the Good News, the End, of which it is said, it “is close at hand.”

The Good News, the End, is letting Christ in us do that which He alone is capable of doing: “You are the Light of the world. A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lampstand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in the sight of men, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven.” 
Matthew 5:14-16

Our world, our culture, has been irradiated repeatedly and for a very long time with the Word of truth, and yet most people do not accept it, do not accept that Word which alone can save them—Jesus Christ. The same was true in the days of the Roman Empire. Yes, many were “added to their number,” through the preaching of the Good News, the Beginning. But back then, far more were added by their witnessing the holocaust of the martyrs, who went to their deaths without explicit preaching, who were transformed before the world by the love that they had, not only for their brothers, but for their enemies. That was the Good News, the End.

It is the demonstration of the Good News, the End, that is revealing Jesus to the world in this final age, effecting the true “end times harvest” of saints.

Do not keep the prophecies in this Book a secret, because the Time is close. Meanwhile, let the sinner go on sinning, and the unclean to continue to be unclean; let those who do good go on doing good, and those who are holy continue to be holy. Very soon now I shall be with you again, bringing the reward to be given to every man according to what he deserves. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Revelation 22:10-13

To Him that was crucified

My spirit to yours, dear brother,
Do not mind because many sounding your name
    do not understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you,
    and to salute those who are with you, before and since,
    and those to come also,
That we all labor together
    transmitting the same charge and succession,
We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes,
    allowers of all theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions,
    but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
We hear the bawling and din, we are reach’d at by divisions,
    jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over,
    journeying up and down
    till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time
    and the diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras,
    that the men and women of races, ages to come,
    may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.

— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Sarakostí

For forty days, for us, He struggled with the tempter in His humanity.
For forty days, for Him,
let us struggle with the tempter in our humility.
What is this humility?
To know that we, who are but dust and of yesterday, have been raised on high with Him, and made worthy to share with Him the glory of His victory over sin and death.

Even now as we wait

It is the day of Resurrection, let us be radiant for the feast, and let us embrace one another. Let us say: ‘Brethren,’ even to them that hate us, let us forgive all things in the Resurrection, and thus let us cry out…

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life.

Yes, I know it is not Pascha yet. It is still Lent. In fact, we have just entered on the forty-day road to the Paradise of the New Adam, where there is no prohibition against reaching out to the Tree of Life, that is, the Cross, and plucking the First-fruit of Salvation hanging there, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know we have just begun. We are not there yet. But our longing for the End that is the Beginning of all things simply overwhelms me.

‘To forgive all things in the Resurrection,’ how sweet this sounds, yet how impossible to perform. To say ‘Brothers’ to those that hate us, how unthinkable to us who have never succeeded in understanding how deep is the hatred within us that puts to death, every day, those around us (whom we simply want to hate), and even the Son of God, whose last prayer to His Father was, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’

Unlike the sinner who knows he is a sinner and is ashamed to even draw near to ask forgiveness, we sin, and we sin boldly, and go to confess what trifles we deem our ‘sins’ while leaving covered and festering the putrid secrets of our inner deformities. He who is forgiven much, loves much, but the forgiveness we ‘humbly’ apply for is no medicine for those sicknesses and no antidote for those poisons we partake of, and hence we love little.

This is the time, the acceptable time, not to crouch behind our mirrors and fight on, shattering the world around us into splintered fragments, but instead to break those mirrors through which we love to see so dimly, and to come out into the light, yes, into the Light of Christ, which shines perpetually, even in this forty-day sojourn, to show us who and what we are, for though we divide time’s flow into seasons, the Resurrection is always now.

Let us be radiant (as we prepare ourselves) for the feast, and let us embrace one another (putting away our divisions). Let us say: ‘Brethren,’ even to them that hate us (and to them whom we hate), let us forgive all things in the Resurrection (because it has already unsealed the gates of Paradise), and thus let us cry out (even now, as we wait)…

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life.

Of coal and diamonds

Yesterday, the Lord’s day of Forgiveness, I was standing in the doorway of a little country church, the doorway between the narthex, which was hardly large enough to hold ten people, and the nave, where people were sitting about cross-legged on the floor or on wall-side benches and a few folding chairs, to hear the homily after the reading of the Holy Gospel.

I’m too proud to sit on a chair or bench in a traditional Orthodox temple, and this morning I was feeling the stiffness of my sixty-five year old frame too much to try rumping it on the rug-covered wood floor. I thought, maybe I can lean against the doorpost and both preserve my false humility and watch out for my beloved god-children, who hadn’t arrived yet.

In fact, I had originally planned to sneak outside the narthex and sit on a wooden bench in the temple porch, where it was cool and uncrowded, and I could still listen to the sermon, and be there to welcome my kids. But the narthex was so crowded, I couldn’t get to the outer door and just stood in the other doorway, and at that moment my god-children stepped in.

Father preached a short, loving, and reasonable message, drawing frequently on Holy and Divine Scripture for example and inspiration. Then, at one point, when expanding on how we should not draw attention to ourselves fasting as did the Pharisees, he contrasted those who begin Lent by dabbing ashes on their foreheads with us, who do no such thing.

Something inside me squeamed (yes, that’s a real word, but only in the ‘Urban Dictionary,’ a back-formation from ‘squeamish’). It was like hearing someone scratch their finger nail across a blackboard, making that awful sound. I hate it when Orthodox people compare our faith and practices to those of other Christians who are a few or more notches beneath us.

I swallowed hard, remembering how many times I’ve spouted worse things, and just kept listening to what was otherwise a humble message. I wouldn’t have even noticed what he said or heard it amiss, were I innocent myself. But hearing him bring up the ‘dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return’ reminded me of one of my favorite analogies, of coal and diamonds…

I know that man was made out of the dust of the earth, that he is red like the clay out of which he was fashioned. I know that of the body it is said, ‘Remember, O man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return,’ while the soul is not addressed at all, since ‘the soul of man is immortal, and cannot die,’ as some church formularies have it (that’s what I was taught as a child).

But in my metaphoric mind, I like to think of man as a lump of coal. Why? Because coal is carbon, for one, the building block of life. For another, because, take coal and subject it to intense heat and pressure and, voilà, you have a diamond. This is what I see makes a man bright and hard (in the sense of indestructible), that he is subjected to heat and pressure, and instead of burning up, turns into a diamond, the brightest and hardest of all gems. A man who reaches this I call ‘Adamantios.’

There are plenty of man-made diamonds around, maybe as good as the real thing, I don’t know. I’ve also seen what used to be called rhinestones, maybe they still are. That’s the kind of jewelry my mom had, (her only real diamonds were tiny ones in her wedding band). But rhinestones are not diamonds at all. They try to glisten, they try to look real, but they’re only glass, just sand melted up and crystallized.

Everyone starts out, continuing my metaphor, as a lump of coal. Some of those lumps want to become diamonds, but they don’t want to have to go through the ‘treatment.’ Instead of turning themselves in, letting themselves be buried deep in the earth where heat and pressure can crunch them into what they want to be, they stay on the surface. Some of them pretend to do the heat and pressure treatment, but they’re like pieces of coal that just jump into a furnace of their choice, thinking that’ll be enough heat and, hey, who needs the pressure anyway? But what happens to them? They only glow red for awhile, then they burn up, carbon in the form of soot, smoke and ash. So much for just wanting to become a diamond!

But there are those who know that there’s no way around it: to become a diamond, you have to let yourself be buried. You’re afraid that maybe you’ll be crushed, but that won’t happen, so long as you let yourself be buried deep enough. That’s another problem with being buried, that has to be deep too, otherwise you just get crushed. But crunched, not crushed, is what you want to be. That’s how a diamond is made. So the lump of coal has to first ask, ‘Is this what I really want?’ and then if the answer is ‘Yes,’ to turn itself over to the Diamond Maker.

Why this silly metaphor? Well, I really do think like this. I look around me at the lumps of coal that go rolling by, up above the dig that I’m in (by the way, I hope my dig is deep enough!) and some of them that I see will stop by, and stay a spell. We’ll have a little chat, lump to lump, and I’ll look hard to see if there’s a diamond lurking in there somewhere. Sometimes the lump will come right out and tell me he wants to be a diamond. A few even tell me they’re diamonds already. Heck, I’m not color-blind! And I admit, sometimes I want to see diamonds so bad, I’ll even talk myself into thinking a passing lump of coal is a potential. Then again, sometimes I’m wrong. It’s one thing to just read about the bell of Dharma, and quite another to ring it.

So, in closing, my brother lumps and lumpettes, I ask your prayers for this lump to get crunched enough to join the brethren in the diadem of the King of kings of kings (blessed be He!). It’s dark down here, but I know it’ll be, I will be, light soon.

Man makes an end of darkness
when he pierces to the uttermost depths
the black and lightless rock.
Job 28:3 Jerusalem Bible

A love letter

‘I am really in love with you,’ says the Lord God of Hosts. ‘I love you for the beauty of your manhood, which is a reflection of Mine. I am captivated by the modesty of your womanhood, which was before time the envy of the angels. I love you for your strengths, and I love you for your weaknesses, for your humiliation is fertile ground for the seed I have planted in you. I love you for your wealth, and I love you for your poverty, for your lack has propelled you into My arms so that I may heal you.’

‘All that I am, and all that I have, I surrender to You, O my God, that You may reform me, that You may strip away from me all that offends You, that all my filth may be cleansed. I want nothing and no one but You, O Lord, to be my light, my love, and my hope,’ sometime is said by one responding to the Lord’s call, and it is well said, but He who thrusts His hand through the door-latch of our hearts wants both more and less. ‘I have come to You, that we may become one, for love knows or wants nothing else.’

So the mystery of existence, of our very being, is laid bare when we hear His call, and accept His love. ‘Come to Me, you who are burdened, you who are overwhelmed, by the world you have chosen to live in. Come to Me, come to My home, which is Ours before you ever heard of Me, before you ever knew who it is that was calling you. I am really in love with you. I went away to prepare this place where you and I will live, in peace, in safety, in happiness, in joy. Where I may enjoy you forever, and you Me.’

He's a Lover

            
            He’s been walking in us all
            He’s been seeing through our eyes
            He’s been battered by our falls
            He’s been gladdened by our rise
            and there’s been no body here
            that He hasn’t been inside
            He’s no secret to our ears
            and He’s got nothing to hide

            And He’s a lover,
            He’s a lover, Babe
            Don’t run for cover
            Don’t go hiding now, girl
            He’s a lover
            He’s a lover

            Were you walking in the street?
            Was it you I saw last night
            looking like you couldn’t sleep
            and your heart done up too tight
            with your painted eyes and face
            holding back the tide of fear?
            Did you finally find a place
            where someone paid to drink your tears?

            But He’s a lover,
            He’s a lover, Babe
            Go, run for cover
            Go, run to Him now, girl
            He’s a lover
            He’s a lover

            Where you look it can’t be found
            Man, the books just fill the sills
            of your mind, you can’t get down
            from your bed of selfish will
            For the Spirit’s just a clown
            who’s been dressed up for the kill
            In His letters you may drown,
            but He’s waiting for you still

            ‘Cause He’s a lover,
            He’s a lover, Man
            Don’t blow your cover
            Don’t go crazy now, oh no
            He’s a lover
            He’s a lover

            He’s been counting out our days
            He’s been filling in our names
            He’s not satisfied with praise
            we offer up between our games
            He’s so tired that we must sleep
            but He offers us a light
            as He walks the lonely street
            He’s been walking every night

            ‘Cause He’s a lover,
            He’s a lover, Babe
            Throw off the cover
            Get up and open the door, girl
            He’s a lover
            He’s a lover

— Romanós

Commentary on this song by the author

      What is the meaning of that recurring description of God as mónos philánthropos, ‘only lover of mankind,’ that appears in so many prayers and hymns?

      In this song I explored this idea of the ‘One Who Alone Loves Us’ in four metaphors:

      The first stanza and refrain allude to Adam and Eve, particularly to Eve, on whom was heaped the blame for their common transgression. (Genesis 3:8-13)
      The second stanza and refrain refer to the woman caught in the act of adultery. The crowd wanted to stone her. Jesus, however, released her without harming her. He was her protector.
(John 8:1-11)
      The third stanza and refrain echo Christ’s indictment of the lawyers and pharisees, though He still loved them and held out the offer of His love. (Several passages in the synoptics and John)     
      The fourth stanza and refrain recounts the all-knowing forebearance of God, the forgiveness Jesus had for the sleepers in Gethsemane, and closes with a paraphrase of a scene from the Song of Solomon. (Song of Solomon 5:2-8)

Late morning vespers

I dunno. I’m just thinking a lot about love today. When am I not thinking about it? or about Him?

So, it’s the first day of Lent, yes, ‘the Great and Holy.’ We’ve been eschewing (not chewing) meat these last seven or eight days, getting ready to take the plunge into meatlessness for forty plus days. We’ve had our last egg and piece of cheese yesterday, and then off in the late winter rain to forgive and be forgiven at vespers, waiting in line to see if any of our enemies showed up. That way, we could feel triumphant when kissing them and forgiving them verbally. Ah, as for our hearts? my heart? did I see anyone I hate there? No? well, that’s good. Maybe I’ve talked (or thought) myself out of hating anyone, since hating costs so much, and love is cheaper. In fact, it’s free.

But I didn’t do any of the above, except for plunging into meatlessness. And what a dive! Actually, it was less a dive and more like falling off a cliff overhanging the raging sea. It’s one thing to eat meat during a fast to avoid giving offense as someone’s guest, and quite another to bold-facedly prepare a meat dish when you know the fast has begun. Nothing works faster to call down God’s loving rebuke and our own guilt-laden conscience’s judgment than to do something you know is wrong, no matter how trivial. So I paid the price. No, it should’ve been death, but it was only a bad case of runs. Barbecue pork steam buns (made in China), never again! Especially, not on a fast day…

Love, thinking about love, it’s inescapable. That must be what makes Hell such a hot place. Can you imagine? you find yourself with the one Person you absolutely can’t stand in a room without a door, and They won’t leave you alone, but keep bothering you by telling you They love you, and then following it up by showing you just how much? No matter where you look or look away, there They are, like a non-stop movie unraveling Their acts of love, everything They ever did for you in your life, every blessing, every happiness, every joy, and you can’t even shut your eyes? Like the episode of The Twilight Zone, you’re a man who discovers he has no eyelids, and there’s no way to sleep.

Yes, inescapable. That’s what love is, or rather Who He is. But why try to run away? How long must it take, how old do we have to be, before we realize that run we must, and that the only road there is, is a one-way? Do we run with Him, toward Him, behind Him as He runs on ahead of us to show us where He’s going and where we’ll finally get to meet Him? Or do we turn tail and skidaddle in the opposite direction as fast as our feet can carry us, even though we know we’re heading the wrong way on a one-way street? It’s not our fault that we love, not Him, but ourselves, and prefer the liberty of Hell to the freedom of the Sons of God, you know, that crazy bunch of harpists ‘up there.’

Love has opened a way for us to return to Paradise. It’s through a gash in the side of a hung Man, yes, and it’s a bloody mess to go through that gate. But it was a bloody mess to go through it going the other way, out of Paradise and into a world where people like us get crucified every day, and even pay to have them do it to us. Love has showed up as a Man, as one of us. History tells the story. Go to church. You’ll hear it there too. You may not believe it, but if you had to believe, what better story could there be to put your faith in? The mob is waiting for you, for me too. Not the mob we’re used to, that we’re afraid of. No, it’s a different mob, and they’re all running this spring marathon.

First day of Lent, and here I am plunking away at this silly keyboard instead of out there on the greenway flying a kite. You know, if I had one, it would be a perfect day to fly it, right now in fact, as the on-again off-again sun shines down on my end-of-the-world street. In case I didn’t get a chance to ask you, my dear friends and enemies, to forgive me at last night’s vespers, I ask you now. Not for offenses against you personally. I may not know you well enough to have offended you. But for offenses of any kind that may have escaped this blind, battered manikin that calls himself a follower of Jesus and an Orthodox Christian, especially for not loving when I could, brethren, forgive.

Lights in the darkness

Brethren, salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light…
Romans 13:11-12

Without the slightest intention to malign the fathers, they all had faults, many of them the faults endemic to the age and the culture in which they lived. John Chrysostom, for example, by today's standards might be classified as anti-Semitic.

The Greek fathers who hashed through the doctrinal quagmires of the late Greco-Roman period, having to sort out dozens of heresy-laden, faith-diluting and soul-destroying ideas, also thrashed each other, sometimes mercilessly and were so focused on petty details, what I call 'nitpicking', that they forgot their first love, even while singing about it in the liturgy.

Their struggles were, I suppose (since God allowed them), necessary, and they certainly provided us with a very strong doctrinal base, and perhaps that was necessary while humanity was still at the childhood level. But childhood's end really has arrived if we want to exit it, our racial childhood I mean.

Ten centuries ago, Vladimir, prince of Kiev, gave this instruction to his childlike people: ‘Above all things, forget not the poor, but support them to the extent of your means. Give to the orphan, protect the widow, and permit the mighty to destroy no man. Take not the life of the just or the unjust, nor permit him to be killed. Destroy no Christian soul, even though he be guilty of murder.’

Are we there yet? The modern world culture pretends it is now where Christ, the first really modern, truly free man in all of history, wants it to be, that is, in terms of access to education, health, and so on: are we going to now really start building the Kingdom on earth, or using our freedom from want and fear for self-indulgence and backpedaling into darkness?

Post-Christians, some though calling themselves Christians, think that once Christianity has upgraded you to a modern, healthy human, you can discard it. But every man is a microcosm of the world culture he is part of, thinking itself the best ever, letting its guard down while not noticing its liberated behaviors are throwing it back into unhappiness and even savagery.

But those who know that what they have and are is by God's grace and that by His grace they endure, keep vigilant, live in the Word not in the world, and so remain lights in the darkness. Because for all its freedom and material achievements, the world is still a very dark place. And you can never outgrow your need for love. And it is only in love, that is, in Christ, that reality lives.

Home

Every year, for the last few years since I wrote it, I post my little poem ‘Clean Monday’ to mark this day, the beginning of Great and Holy Lent. I did so again this year, but I also want to post a song that I believe was inspired by the same spirit, maybe the same childhood memories—sea coast, sun, kites in the wind—the warm, friendly kindness of the heavenly Father who calls us home, to be with Him, in this beautiful time when we journey to Pascha, the resurrection and life eternal…

Home
[Audio Link]

Home on a kite we fly,
home on a breeze we blow,
eyeing the folks below,
and watching everybody run,
each one heading for a different place,
watching everybody hide,
each behind a different face.

Home, where the days are long,
back where the people are free,
home, where all sides agree,
and everybody has a friend, oh,
and no one ever has to grab—
Everybody shares the love,
giving everything they have.

Forever, forever, your lamp will burn.
Forever, home forever, would that you'd learn,
that you came with nothing,
so with nothing you'll return.

Home.

You know you’re not alone.
It's only ‘cause you’re not at home
That you feel so out of place

Forever, forever, your lamp will burn.
Forever, home forever, would that you'd learn,
that you came with nothing,
so with nothing you'll return.

Home, where all the mums can sing,
back where the children don't cry,
home, where you never ask why.
Everybody has enough,
and you don't have to put on clothes.
Nobody has to hide
‘cause everyone already knows.

— Steven Demetre Georgiou

The song’s author, once well known pop singer Cat Stevens, now and for most of his adult life Muslim believer Yusuf Islam, may he return Home, as he once wrote and sang in this song, by the grace of the Father whom he believes in so strongly, through the prayers of the most-holy Theotokos and all the saints, especially Stephanos the Proto-martyr, and Demetrios and Georgios the Trophy-bearers, all witnesses of Him who was dead, but is alive now and ever, the Alpha and the Omega, He who is, who was, and who is to come, the Pandokrator.

Clean Monday

                    The sound of the tide
                    woke me.

                    Any day
                    can be clean Monday.

                    Any day
                    not too early
                    nor too late,
                    I follow You, Lord,
                    as You walk along the sea.

                    Your foot steps leave no trace,
                    but mine,
                    heavy with the weight of sins,
                    mar the smoothness
                    of the sand of time.

                    Cannot erase them,
                    cannot hide them,
                    the path they trace,
                    where I walked without You,

                    but Your mercy, Lord,
                    Your mercy,
                    blows them away.
                    They vanish
                    in Your wind.
                    Following You,
                    like You
                    I leave no trace.

                    The sea washes away,
                    the wind clears the sand,
                    the wind carries them away,
                    the sun shines softly,
                    lights the beach
                    invisibly through the mists,
                    the roar of the waves
                    carries them away,
                    far as east is
                    from the west.

                    Alone with You,
                    I walk with You
                    along the sea, Lord,
                    and in silence
                    You unburden me.

                    You release me, Lord,
                    and so
                    I follow You.

— Romanós

Cast out

Today was the last Lord's Day before the beginning of the Great Fast (Sarakostí, ‘Lent’), beginning tomorrow, Monday (Kathará Dheftéra, ‘Clean Monday’). As the day begins at sundown according to the scriptures, the first service of Sunday (Kyriakí, ‘the Lord's [day]’) was the vesper service on Saturday night. I want to invite my readers and visitors to join us on the journey to Pascha. To start on this pilgrim way, I would like to share with you some of the spiritual poetry that comprised our worship for this day.

The Lord, my Creator, took me as dust from the earth,
and with the breath of life He gave me a soul
and made me a living creature.
He honoured me as ruler on earth over all things visible

and as a companion of the Angels.

But Satan the deceiver, using the serpent as his instrument,
enticed me by food,
separated me from the glory of God and gave me over to the earth
and to the lowest depths of death.

But as Master and compassionate, call me back again.

Wretch that I am, I have cast off the robe woven by God,
disobeying Your divine command, Lord, at the counsel of the enemy,
and I am clothed now in fig leaves and in garments of skin.

I am condemned to eat the bread of toil in the sweat of my brow,
and the earth has been cursed
so that it bears thorns and thistles for me.

But, Lord, who in the last times were made flesh of a Virgin,
call me back and bring me into Paradise again.

O precious Paradise, unsurpassed beauty,
tabernacle built by God, unending gladness and delight,
glory of the just, joy of prophets, and dwelling place of saints,
with the sound of your leaves implore to the Maker of all
to open for me the gates which I closed by my transgression,
and may count me worthy to partake of the Tree of Life,
and of the joy in which I delighted when I dwelt in you
before Adam was banished from Paradise through disobedience
and cast out from delight, beguiled by the words of a woman.

Naked he sat opposite the place,
lamenting, Woe is me!

Therefore let us all make haste
to accept the season of the Fast
and obey the traditions of the Gospel,
that through them we may become
well-pleasing to Christ
and once more receive Paradise as our dwelling.

Adam sat opposite Paradise and, lamenting his nakedness, he wept,

Woe is me! By evil deceit was I persuaded and robbed,
and exiled far from glory.

Woe is me! Once naked in my simplicity, now I am in want.

But, Paradise, no longer shall I enjoy your delight;
no more shall I look upon the Lord my God and Maker,
for I shall return to the earth whence I was taken.

Merciful and compassionate Lord, I cry to you,
Have mercy on me who am fallen.

Through eating Adam was cast out of Paradise.

And so, as he sat in front of it, he wept,
lamenting with a pitiful voice and saying,

Woe is me, what have I suffered, wretch that I am!

I transgressed one commandment of the Master,
and now I am deprived of every good thing.

Most holy Paradise, planted because of me
and shut because of Eve,
pray to him who made you and fashioned me,
that once more I be filled with your flowers.

Then the Saviour said to him,

I do not want the creature which I fashioned to perish,
but to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth,
because the one who comes to me
I will in no way cast out. 
(John 6:37)

‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’
John 11:25-26 NIV

No matter where it takes us

Orthodoxy is knowing that love has entered the world in the man Jesus Christ, and living in that love no matter where it takes us.

He who loves father or mother more than Me 
is not worthy of Me. 
And he who loves son or daughter more than Me 
is not worthy of Me. 
And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me 
is not worthy of Me. 
He who finds his life will lose it,
and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

Matthew 10:37-39 NKJV

Orthodoxy is knowing that faith is not belief, but trust so certain that we know there is no loss with Jesus, and are fearless to do whatever He asks. It is knowing that obedience is love and draws us into the very life of God, where Father, Son and Holy Spirit all live together with us in one house. It is seeing with unveiled faces Him whom the world cannot see even through a veil. Yes, Orthodoxy is knowing that Love has entered the world and remains here among us, as long as we obey His teaching, no matter where it takes us.

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him…"

John 14:12-23 NIV