tells you, as a Christian, that “You’re on the wrong side of history” remember two things. First, history is fluid. What is on the “wrong side of history” now may very well change as the times change. We know from our recent Orthodox experience that the Communists were confident that history was on their side and religion would disappear. In actuality only a few moments of history, painful ones for sure, were theirs and then only partially. Only those who have no understanding of eternity place all their hope in a moment or era of history. The second thing to know is that history is in God’s hands and to be with, and in, God is always to be on the right side of history because it is His realm. Moments come and go, but God, and all things godly, endure.
Author: Fr. John Chagnon
You Should Be at Matins (Orthros)
Sometime around 9 tomorrow morning a handful, just a handful, will be in Church. That’s a shame.
Busy with what a Sunday morning brings, much of which could have been handled on another day, it’s a mad rush to get things together and everyone packed in to the car. Many, maybe most, will find themselves skidding into the nave just seconds behind the beginning of Divine Liturgy and more than a few will try to sneak in the doors while the Priest’s back is turned during the Epistle.
So before you tell me about kids and stuff and getting everyone up in the morning please know that I’m not angry and I don’t have to judge. I’m just sorry you’re missing one of the best services of the Orthodox Church, a treasure right underneath your nose. A treasure which, for most Orthodox in this country, remains unclaimed.
Matins, Orthros, or morning prayer is a service that proceeds the Divine Liturgy. For the person outside the iconostasis there’s actually not much to do. You come in, take your place, and listen. There’s one procession to venerate the Gospel and in many parishes there is also time to make a good confession. For the most part its quiet an uneventful. Sit, stand, listen.
And that’s the beauty, the treasure of it. The world is busy, challenging, fragmented, and noisy. It’s nearly impossible for a person to come rushing in from that kind of world into the Divine Liturgy and, as the service asks us, “Lay aside all earthly cares.” The Orthodox Liturgy is not mindless, it requires thought, engagement, and time to instill the sacred in hearts that have been immersed in the world for most of the past week. There is no “microwave” version of this recipe and the Liturgy refuses to trade a quick sentimentality for lasting and deep transformation.
In Matins (Orthros) a person is given the gift of time. Time to be bathed in holy hymns, prayers, scripture, and most of all the presence of God. It’s a kind of decompression from everything outside the walls of the church, a time to slough off everything out there and prepare yourself to taste of heaven. This is crucial time, time of value to prepare yourself for the Divine Liturgy, time to reflect, confess, pray, get the noise out of your head, and be ready when the presence of the Kingdom is announced.
It takes, like many things in Orthodoxy, effort. You have to rearrange your schedule on Sunday morning to focus on the services of the Church. You’ll need to get the kids set up for Sunday on Saturday and make sure you don’t hit the snooze button either. Let Martha fuss over Sunday dinner, Mary has chosen the better part and so should you.
When you get there it might take some getting used to everything. We’re so used to constant noise and busy work that we’re often stunned, sometimes even traumatized, by holy peace. Give yourself time to adjust. Yet, when, over time you “get” it you’ll probably never want to go back. Because as the holy words, holy space, and holy Presence begin to find their way into your heart during the service of Matins you’ll understand why your fathers and mothers in the Faith took time to let the world fade away before they stepped into the light of the Kingdom of God.
I know, you’re busy, the whole world is busy. Yet no time in the presence of God is ever wasted, either now or in all the time to come. Come to Matins (Orthros) and begin to understand.
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The Guitar Playing Priest…
Apparently that’s how I was described a few days ago and there’s some truth to it. I do make music out on the town a few times a month and its also part of my work with seniors in Assisted Living. On the whole it was something that has always seemed “natural” for me and in my life music has been one of the constants. Yet, the truth is I rarely play the guitar and my “bread and butter” instruments are the bass and the ukulele.
Although I’ve made a little money at it, music is basically a serious hobby for me. When you serve others there’s a need to have things to fill you up for whatever you give away. I do enjoy being with people, and I’ve spent most of my life caring for them, but there are times when an hour or two with music can be remarkably refreshing. Sometimes people can’t imagine the clergy in their lives having, well, a life outside of the church. We do. I like, among other things, westerns on TV, reading history, traveling, and music. As I write this I’m on the couch and wearing a baseball jersey from a local minor league team and athletic pants. I never have slept in my vestments and my house doesn’t smell like incense.
And my life, like many people’s, is quite varied. I’m neither a full-time Priest or a full-time musician. When I’m not helping out as I can at St. George Church here in Minnesota I travel to other parishes around the area filling in when their Priests are ill, on vacation, or need to be away. I’ve served in probably 20 different parishes in a five state area and I’ve had the privilege of serving overseas as well. Two other out-of-state parishes are in my plans for the coming months. In fact, the original name of this blog was actually “The Traveling Priest Chronicles” and if the reader cares to read back far enough they can hear the tales of the various places I’ve been along the way. When I’m not doing that, I work with Seniors in Assisted Living to pay the bills with another kind of ministry, and once in a while someone gives me some money for my music. Sometimes when there are gaps in this blog it’s because I’m out and about somewhere doing something and time just slips away.
I actually don’t mind the travel. It’s good to see new things and be with new people. I hope some day to be able to serve a parish as a Priest in Residence but things haven’t worked out that way quite yet and so I do what I can and try to help people where the opportunity rises. Until a more settled time presents itself I consider myself a kind of missionary, a Priest out and about, mixing and mingling with people in a variety of places and hoping to share some grace wherever I go. That I happen to be a sometimes gigging musician is just a plus because it gets me in to places where my collar may not.
Overall, that may be the point. Whatever our situations we can be the presence of Christ where we are, being who God wants us to be wherever our talents or travels take us. Wherever I am is where my ministry is, and that truth applies to every Christian. Precious time is sometimes wasted by people seeking out some kind of “call” when, in fact, the very place they live, work, make music, or do whatever they do is, in fact, their call, their mission, and, as it were, their parish.
One day, perhaps, I’ll get that letter from the Bishop and there will be a single place for me. Until then wherever I am is where God has something for me to do and I plan on doing it until I’m told otherwise.
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It’s Not So Much…
the spiritual and moral breakdowns I see all around me that causes me to fear. More often than not I simply grieve for those people who are looking for something, accepting less than the best, and then suffering the consequences. We’re paying a steep price because we thought that by discarding the “rules” we would be free, and have, instead, often found ourselves in even greater slavery.
What gives me pause, though, is that one day at the darkest point of this breakdown, people will not choose to understand that the solution is the rebuilding of themselves as moral and spiritual beings but will rather opt for the easy answer of a dictator, someone who promise them simple answers, scapegoats for their problems, and takes away freedom in the guise of providing security and predictability.
That truly frightens me.
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A Bit of Beauty…
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Indeed…
From the spiritual diary of St. John of Kronstadt, “My Life in Christ”
What do I need? There is nothing on earth that I need, except that which is most essential. What do I need, what is most essential? I need the Lord, I need His grace, His kingdom within me. On earth, which is the place of my wanderings, my temporary being, there is nothing that is truly mine, everything belongs to God and is temporal, everything serves my needs temporarily. What do I need? I need true and active Christian love; I need a loving heart which takes compassion on its neighbors; I need joy over their prosperity and well-being, and sorrow over their sorrows and illnesses, their sins, failings, disorders, woes, poverty; I need warm and sincere compassion for all the circumstances of their lives, joy for those who are joyous and tears for those who are in tears. Enough of selfishness, egoism, living only for oneself and acquiring everything only for oneself: riches, pleasures, the glory of this world; enough of spiritual dying instead of living, grieving instead of rejoicing, and carrying within oneself the poison of selfishness, for selfishness is a poison that is continuously poured into our hearts by Satan. O, let me cry out with King David: Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart. Grant me, O Lord, true life, dispel the darkness of my passions, disperse their power with Thy strength, for with Thee all things are possible
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The Date of Christmas is Pagan?
link for your study of the date of Christmas…
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-10-012-v
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Liturgy Today…
It was a Hierarchical Liturgy today. For those who aren’t Orthodox it means that our Bishop was at the service and because of that the service was longer, more involved, and had added dimensions. These kinds of liturgies don’t occur very often in the life of a parish simply because Orthodox Bishops, in our current state of things, are often far away from their parishes and live their lives out of their cars as they go to one parish or another. Our Bishop for Minnesota actually lives in Ohio and being hours away from a Bishop is fairly normal for American Orthodox. Because of that your Bishop might visit your parish, barring any kind of trouble, once every year or so. Still, these occasions are a special time and often there are significant preparations made for such a visit and the liturgies with a Bishop.
Some people, of course, view these visits with a certain kind of dread. A Priest and parish can sometimes be overwhelmed by the work and resources needed to make an episcopal visit a reality. There is the pressure many Priests feel to make a good impression in front of the person who literally can change your life with a phone call. Your whole routine as a parish changes when the Bishop comes and any or all of the prior items, by themselves or combined, can make the Bishop’s visit a challenge.
There is a benefit, though, to these visits that might not always be apparent. Because the liturgy is changed for at least the services where a Bishop is present, the Priests and people have to possess a kind of intentionality about the services. In normal Parish life the worship can become routine because people, over time, have settled in to an understanding of what they can, or should, do and what the celebrants are also most likely to do as well. A Bishop’s presence changes that. People can’t sleepwalk through the rubrics and they need to think about what they’re doing. It’s a teachable moment coming to a parish wearing an omophorion.
For that alone its good to have the Bishop visit. If there is no other liturgical education offered at a parish his presence will at least prompt a crash course and its amazing what people can learn when they have to.
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The Picture…
in the header is from my recent Orthodox Christian Missionary Center short term trip to Uganda. I’ve been processing everything in the several weeks I have been back and hope to post my thoughts on it in the near future. In this particular picture I am with primary students from the school attached to St. Obadiah Parish on Lake Victoria some kilometers away from Jinja, Uganda. It was a profound honor to serve these people and a part of me will always belong there.
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The Whole World…
lies naked before God. In His eyes there are no deceptions possible, no lies that cannot be discovered, no secrets left hidden, no motives exposed. All is truth, the actual truth, clear as the purest water and without nuance or distortion. We may deceive others. We may deceive ourselves. God is not deceived and sees all of us as we really are, with greater clarity than we will ever see ourselves.
So every bit of our darkness is present to God. Everything we’d rather die than reveal about ourselves is in broad daylight in God’s view. The thoughts we would never tell anyone are as bright as morning in the presence of the One who lives without shadows. I, we, you are infinitely exposed in heaven even if we are expert in presenting carefully crafted images on earth.
Yet, we are loved. Deeply, profoundly, truly, and really, in ways beyond our imagination by the very One who knows more about us than we know of ourselves. If my closest acquaintances knew every nook and cranny of my soul, my thoughts, my temptations, my closeted pains, and every hidden thing I’m not sure they would be my friends. The darkness, the darkness I struggle against, could easily overwhelm them. Still, God, aware of it all, loves, you, me, the world, and every living soul. Not just superficially, but with a depth that human intellect will never fully grasp.
All that I can offer in return is my awe, my surrender, and my life.
The Beautiful Path 