Author: Fr. John Chagnon

There’s a Beautiful Thing…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

that can happen in the life of a parish. Its not something that can be manufactured or sold because its a God thing, a spark of life from the Holy Spirit with the power to transform people and in transforming people transform a parish.

Somewhere along the line in the business and routine of being a parish there will be a someone, or perhaps a group of people, who will take a step out from business as usual and ask “Where is God in all we’re doing?” Now, most of the time that pause will be drowned out by the systems, structures, and business as usual and everything returns to what is considered “normal”.

For that rare person or person, though, the question remains and it begins a quest to seek out and draw closer to God in everything, including their local church. After years of doing things for the sake of doing things they will start to ask about why and to what end and the lure of something more, something holier, something deeper, will start to capture their imagination. Faith begins to emerge, not faith in an institution and its plans but rather faith in God and the sense that they, and their parish, were created for something far more wonderful than what they see around them, more wonderful than even their own imagination.

As this fire sparks and then smolders to life inside of them, they start to look for answers to their questions and search for examples of the dreams growing within. The Bible, the ancient writers, the lives of Saints, all of these start to take on a new life not just as relics of some long ago past but rather as real possibilities in the present. They seek, as well, to know if there are others like them, people who are starting to welcome and listen to the Holy Spirit, people with a holy discontent and a spark of heavenly life seeking to actually live the promise for which they were baptized. It may take days. It may take years. Still this life, because it comes from God, has a quality that endures.

At first the expressions are personal. Prayer becomes more important. Being at church for worship becomes increasingly joyful. The awareness of, and repentance for, sin increases but in a freeing and not a morbid sense. The Eucharist stops being a formality and its power to give life becomes more apparent. There is a hunger there, but its not a bitter hunger but rather a hunger for that which is the best, namely God.

Then personal action follows, an increase in quiet charity, a care for people in hard circumstances, a growing list of godly behaviors that become part of the routine of everyday life. From the inside the person, down to their daily habits, is being transformed. Some in their parish will dismiss these things as the person being “religious” and they may even criticize because the light beginning to shine is exposing them, but others will recognize, instinctively, what is happening because it is also happening with them.

From there come the quiet voices speaking up. “What happens if instead of having a festival where we charge people we decide to have a meal where we invite the poor to come to our church without charge?” They’ll start to ask if their church has done anything, recently, to spread the Gospel to those who may not have heard it. They’ll wonder, out loud, why there’s no Bible study. A host of questions will emerge, and these questions are not, as some would think, about a dislike for their parish but rather a desire for that which they already love to become what God would wish it to be.

At this point the trouble may start. Priests and councils and people can become wedded to an order of things. This is not necessarily due to malice but rather the power of a routine to take the place of Faith. It can happen to the best of us, people with good intentions that have somehow gone into auto-pilot without even being aware of it. These new ideas, which are actually the real content of the historic Faith, can be troubling, seeming to be risky, extravagant, and unwise in the ways that the world measures wisdom. The world of balance sheets, reports, and keeping the lights on can be deeply challenged by a vision rooted in the Word, the Tradition, and the living reality of the Holy Spirit in the life of the parish. Those balance sheets and reports can, over time, become masters of a parish and they will relinquish their rule very grudgingly.

Still, even a small risk of faith, a willingness to see both our personal and parish life as being first and foremost about God and a heavenly way of existing, can move a parish to a next step, one after another, until the people discover something that has always been both true and widely ignored. This Christian life, this beautiful path, is dynamic, powerful, life giving, even enchanting in the best sense of the word, and in  living it fully we begin to realize what God, as our Faith and Holy Tradition guide us, designed us to be.

If you are the person with a holy discontent inside of you, and you will know its holy and not just simply discontent if it draws you closer to God,and fills you with enduring love and deep peace, stay the course. Don’t give up on your parish or any of the people who worship with you. Pray for them, for your parish, for your leaders, and be an example in your own life of the kind of parish you would like to see. Seek out kindred spirits to share the journey.

If you are still going with the flow, stop for a moment. Imagine that there are possibilities in life and faith for both you and your parish that are greater than your imagination. If you hear that still, small, voice, inside of you calling you to draw close to God, to the higher, better, and blessed that your heart tells you might be inside of you waiting to get out, listen. You may be one step at a time away from the most remarkable and beautiful life of faith.

There is more. There is so much more. Seek, as our Lord says, and you shall find.

 

 

 

 

For Your Consideration…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

If you are looking for a charity to support or an almsgiving opportunity as you prepare for Christmas please consider Jakob. This young man is a member of the parish I serve and his cause is the real deal. His struggle with illness defines courage and whatever you could do to help would be appreciated. Thank you.

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https://www.gofundme.com/sh6z66ad

 

 

Pray for Charlie…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Pray, first, because we are more alike than different. Given the money, fame, and access, which one of can say with certainty that we could have kept the powers of sin, struggle, and addiction away from our lives? Even without them we often fall so it is perhaps a grace that we don’t have more and thereby increase our risk.

Pray, again, because more than likely that wealth and access will be quickly gone and the fame will grow very shallow. There will be lawsuits by those who were deceived and damaged. There will be opportunities lost and expenses incurred. When the good times stop the good time friends may disappear, replaced by a kind of loneliness softened only by the discovery of those who were true and good all the time.

Pray, some more, because these wonderful drugs that keep people alive also rule the lives of those who take them. Life is measured by the dates and times and doses and everything must be done with great precision and little spontaneity Far away from the lights and the public persona there will always be a Charlie who knows that his life hangs by a pharmaceutical thread and even the lowest of viral loads doesn’t mean that this infection is gone, just hidden somewhere in a quiet spot where the current tests still can’t reach. This will be his life.

Pray, as well, because the potential of his life is still enormous. Sanity, health, and wholeness are often found through difficult circumstances and as long as there is life there is always hope. Truly, as St. Augustine is reputed to have said “There is no Saint without a past or a sinner without a future.”  God is not done with any one of us and neither is he done with Mr. Sheen.

Pray, finally, for ourselves. Seeing someone struggle and bear the consequences of that struggle should never elicit any thought or emotion in us save for humility in knowing that we, too, are capable of our own kinds of struggles, sins, and darkness. Yes, perhaps this was not our particular sin but we each have our own and in their own way they are deadly to us as well.

If he were here, I guess I would say only this to Charlie,  “God loves you more than you can possible imagine and His grace is greater than any darkness you or I may wrestle with in our lives. There is better for you if you want it and God’s door is always open.”

I Live in a World of Rage…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

born of selfishness and entitlement unfulfilled. All around me the world I live in shouts “What you feel is what is real and what you feel you need is what the rest of the world is obligated to provide.” When this is not true, which is more often the case than not, I am told that raging against whatever is outside of me that has failed my feelings is my right, my obligation even, until the ever-changing feelings and needs inside of me are satiated.

I reject this even as I understand that in doing so it can be like a fish rejecting water. This is the ocean I swim in, the river that is my home, and the pond where I was born, and yet I know this, all around me, is not the real world even as it surrounds me everywhere. So I resist as I can, asking God for peace, for insight, and a sense of eternity in the world of time. My own world is too small and it is constantly unsettled and angry because of its smallness and in moments when I am distant from the Truth I can feel the anger of my tiny world’s unfulfilled entitlement swelling inside until I am ready to burst.

I must die, daily even, to this small world and its rage. Daily I must recall its illusions, its shadows, and its emptiness. Instead of the thousand shouting voices all around me telling me  to burn and hate and consume and make war I must listen to the one voice that matters, the still, small, voice that comes after the storm and earthquakes and fire have passed. That is the voice of God. The rest is madness.

 

 

Sometimes Faith…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

is really just patience, the art of not trying to make things happen before the times and seasons that God, and only God, knows are best. It is the act of surrendering agendas and timetables of our own design to the better plan of the One who sees everything from a better vantage point, namely eternity. Such a surrender can be a difficult thing because it means giving up the cherished sense of identity we ascribe to the illusion of being in control of every aspect of our world.

Above All There is Christ…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

This life, this Christian way, is not a path for cowards. Our Lord was not joking when he told his followers they would have to, if they wished to be with him, “Take up their cross…” and the longer you travel along this Beautiful Path the more you will see of just that.

Still, although there are often temptations to step back from the challenges, go with the flow, and somehow find a way to walk without always having to face into the wind there is, above all, Christ.

There is a deep and profound beauty in Jesus, a vibrant and lively truth, and a sense of eternity embodied in Him that endures through time. When we draw close to Him there is a deep blessedness and even when we wander away there is still a light and hope  that can draw us through the darkness.

In this world, our Lord says, we will have many troubles but his voice also adds this calm assurance “Do not fear for I have overcome the world…”. Banged up and bruised, crawling through the night if that’s the best we can do, we remain his and he is ours and those who truly understand this can never go back.

Starbuck’s

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 2 Comments

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This says everything to be said about why I’m not even slightly interested in this manufactured “crisis”.  That, and the reality that I prefer Dunn Brothers anyway.

In Recent Days…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

the efficiency and beauty of the Lord’s Prayer have been brought to mind.

Life is busy, full of stimuli, things to do, places to go, and work to be done. Prayer can be like just one more thing swirling around waiting to be grasped. But how to pray? How to know what to say, what to ponder, what to remember in the 24 hour news and information world? There can be simultaneously too many things and things that escape memory all at the same time.

Enter the Lord’s Prayer, beautiful, poetic, and restful. Simple and direct it can, by itself, contain in broad strokes all that the faithful person wants to say, all they need.  If time and the craziness of life rise up it provides a moment of peace, a place where the words themselves point to the deep longings of our heart and God is able to both hear the prayer and those longings between the lines.

Yes, I have wishes and specifics but those are already known to God. I inform Him of nothing in expressing them. Mostly it seems in these days what I need to do is not fill God’s ear with my endless words but simply put myself in His care and the Lord’s Prayer is, above all else, an act by which this is done. Short on specifics and long on the broadest human needs it says, simply, “You are my heavenly Father, help me to want what you want and trust you for everything else.” There is great peace in that, the freedom of not worrying about every little thing that God already knows and releasing the worry of the details to the One who knows and loves me more than I know or love myself.

Truly, the God who knows my longings also knows what, in the end, is first, best, and most conducive to my greatest good. I’m not to that point of total reliance and peace yet, but this prayer, this Lord’s Prayer is increasingly my friend on the journey there.

I Sometimes Envy the Dead…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 4 Comments

in a certain kind of way. Yet, before you get worried or call 911 or think I’m off my rocker I need to explain what I mean because in a Christian context that statement is remarkably different from how it may be expressed in the world.

As I get older I have the advantage and disadvantage of having more experience, of having seen more of life than I did when I was in my youth and physical prime. There’s a good to that because one can learn much and gain wisdom if their eyes and ears and heart is open through the years to take in and learn the lessons of life. I sometimes tell people that I wish I had everything I know about the world now and my 18-year-old body. Alas, my whole self has had to travel through time to get to this point and while parts of my body are already beginning their slow decline,  I feel a sense of depth, wholeness, and understanding flourishing within of the kind that only comes with age.

The disadvantage that comes with age is that experience is also the experience of years of struggle and pain. The longer one lives the more one sees of war, poverty, brokenness, all the pathologies birthed in human sin. Such things stack up over the years and they can be wearying to the soul. Within myself I am continually reminded of enduring temptations and challenges and without I see a world simultaneously full of great beauty and great pain. It can be overwhelming.

And because of that as I get older I am growing less wary of death. Yes, I would still like to live because there is much that is worth keeping alive even in a fallen world. There are places to go, things to see, people to meet, and above all there is still, despite our best efforts to extinguish it, love and hope everywhere if people would only look up from their phones to see it. This world is still a place of God’s grace and an arena where we can know and live in it.

Still I see the gift that is death, at least if you see it from the Orthodox perspective. While death is an expression, the ultimate expression, of our brokenness and alienation, it has within it it, because of Christ, the seed of eternal life. It would not be good, I think, to live perpetually in a broken world. It would be wearying and deadly to us to experience over and over again the countless challenges and struggles of this world as it is. There is a kind of mercy in death, a mercy God provides so that we can rest and be taken from this world to be with Him until such time as God returns this world to what it was meant to be. In that sense I sometimes envy those who have gone to be with Christ. Their course is finished. Their tasks are completed. The pains of this present world have no power over them. They rest, and there are days when that rest in Christ can be quite appealing.

Still, my turn, for sure, will also come. I don’t plan to either hurry it along or needlessly attempt to delay its arrival. When it comes it comes and I hope that its presence will find me in faith and doing good things until the very last. Christ’s transforming death is also, for me, Christ’s transforming of life. My prayer is that because death has been transformed I can be transformed even now in anticipation and hope of that day when I, too, will rest in hope.

22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me. Philippians 1