Life Along the Orthodox Way
From the Holy Fathers Facebook Page.
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.
Saint Augustine of Hippo
O how great was the fearlessness of the holy men and holy women! When we read about their lives, both shame and pride is awakened in us unwillingly – shame that we have lagged so far behind them and pride that they are of our Christian race. Neither sickness, nor prison, nor exile, nor suffering, nor humiliation, nor the sword, nor the abyss, nor fire, nor the gallows were able to shake the exalted peace of their souls, firmly attached to Christ, the Helmsman of the universe and human history. When Emperor Julian apostasized from the Faith and began to make waste of Christianity throughout the entire empire, St. Athanasius the Great quietly spoke of him to the faithful: “The cloud will pass!” (Nibiculaest, Transibit). And indeed, that dark cloud quickly passed and Christianity lowered its roots even deeper and spread its branches all the more throughout the world. The weakened wickedness of Julian against Christ was ended after several passing years with Julian’s cry: “O Nazarene, You have conquered!” O sons of God, why then should we be afraid of anything from which God our Father is not afraid?
Prologue from Ochrid
From Holy Fathers on Facebook.
A review of the book “The Unintended Reformation”…
The underlying problem is that most people seek–and through relentless advertising are encouraged to pursue–ever greater material affluence and comfort, despite the fact that the average American income, for example, rose eightfold in real terms during the twentieth century. Westerners now live in societies without an acquisitive ceiling: a distinctly consumerist (rather than merely industrial) economic ethos depends precisely on persuading people to discard as quickly as possible what they were no less insistently urged to purchase, so that another acquisitive cycle might begin
If “rights” and “persons” no less than “morality” are mere constructs without empirical grounding in the findings of science, and only science can legitimately tell us anything true about reality, then such constructs can be deconstructed and dismissed in the pursuit of alternatives.
>Reformation leaders thought the root problem was doctrinal, and in seeking to fix it by turning to the Bible they unintentionally introduced multiple sorts of unwanted disagreement. This constituted a new set of problems, different from the first. What was true Christianity and how was it known? Doctrinal controversy was literally endless, and religio-political conflicts…were destructive and inconclusive.
What sort of public life or common culture is possible in societies whose members share ever fewer substantive beliefs, norms, and values save for a nearly universal embrace of consumerist acquisitiveness?
Read more here.
mistake technological progress for human evolution. We have better machines but our human nature, broken and challenged, touched by eternity and yet so very mortal, has remained a constant over the eons of human existence. Thus while an old machine may have truly outlived its usefulness an old truth, even an ancient one, related to the human condition may still be valid precisely because it has endured.
to the Orthodox Church more than a decade ago I had the privilege of spending time with Fr. Michael Harper and his wife at a local restaurant. Fr. Harper had been an Anglican Priest and a leader in the world charismatic movement and was now Orthodox. As the meal progressed we spoke of the transition to Orthodox Christianity and he said something that has stuck with me over time. He told me that as he was on his own journey to Orthodoxy he struggled with the idea of praying for the departed, a common Orthodox practice. Yet, he said, there was a choice. He could form the “Fr. Michael Harper Orthodox Church without prayers for the departed” or trust that even though this issue was personally difficult there was a larger wisdom on this matter in the life of the Church, a wisdom in which he could rest.
The challenge in this understanding lies in being able to rest, to trust, and to believe and not be the center of your own theological universe. To be Orthodox is to belong to something larger than yourself, to be a thinker, for sure, but one who thinks in community and communion. A person does have to set aside a certain amount of ego to make this a reality in their lives. In a culture where the emphasis for some time has been on micro-religion, that is individual and atomized belief structures peculiar to a person’s own experiences, this may require a lifetime of adjustment and be a central struggle to adopting not just the Orthodox label but the Orthodox way of life.
The strength, though, of this understanding lies in the freedom that comes with not having to personally reinvent the wheel each time a wheel is needed. There is none of the loneliness that comes with believing you have to create and sustain a spiritual way of life with only what you might have on hand at any given moment. You can learn from others, share in wisdom that’s been worked out over time, and realize a whole universe of fellow travelers walking with you on the beautiful path.
The late Fr. Harper made his choice and stepped through the doors of Orthodoxy. I took his words to heart and stepped through myself some time after this encounter. A perfect world all of the time? No. Yet there is rest here and that’s made it worth it all.
of the sins, the struggles, the general craziness that rears up, sometimes daily, in the Orthodox Church. I’m aware of our scandals, our tragedies, the games played behind the scenes, and many places where we fall short of our ideal. I am touched by them. At times I am, regrettably, part of them. I sin and struggle and so do the people of my Church.
I’d like it to be better. I wish everyone in my Church were perfect and myself the first. The process of becoming perfected is horrible sometimes. There is so much to clear away, so much to remove, so much illness to be scoured out. The thought of it overwhelms me at times. Sometimes I despair. Sometimes I think of just letting it all fall away and leave for that elusive something, somewhere, where the grass across the fence seems greener.
But I won’t. I plan to stay.
I know that the day to day affairs of Orthodoxy can be touched by deep darkness and knicked by a thousand small sinful cuts. Yet I know that its also the way out of all of those things, the sins, the struggles, the dark moments, and the disease which sometimes effects everything from the largest structure of the Church to the smallest corner of my soul. It remains the beautiful path. Narrow for sure, often untrod, and surrounded by dangers, but yet the beautiful path.
My prayer is only that I stay on this path as best as I can and when I wander away I retain enough sense to find my way back. While I see the cares and struggles around me I pray that God gives me the vision to keep my eyes focused on Christ who walks with me on the way and is also the goal of my travels. If I do that I may not always be in the most comfortable spot but I will be safe, and that makes all the difference.
The venerable Maxim the Confessor says: “Should we not tremble, hearing how God the Father, without judging anyone Himself, ‘hath committed all judgment unto the Son’ (John 5:22)? And the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, says to us: ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged’ (Luke 6:37). Similarly Apostle Paul says: ‘Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes’ (1 Cor. 4:5), and again: ‘for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself’ (Rom. 2:1). I tell you, it is so: for men, having ceased to weep over their own sins, have taken the judgment out of the hands of the Son, and judge and condemn each other as though they themselves were sinless! Truly this frightens the heavens and makes the earth tremble.”
Centuries pass, yet men still stand before this unassailable wall of condemnation and are unable to overcome it. Adam, justifying himself in paradise before God, condemned Eve; Cain, having condemned his brother Abel in his heart, killed him; the sin of condemnation led the Jews to kill the Messiah; and we, modern Cainites and Pharisees, are pushed by condemnation to a daily spiritual execution of our brothers.
Judgment tortures the doers of it themselves, takes away their peace of mind, forces them to continuously monitor the actions of those around them, and poisons their souls with the bitter poison of suspicion.
An elder once said: “It is easy to step unto the path of salvation: you must only firmly decide that from this moment you will no longer judge anyone.” We can understand these words with our mind, but how do we actually accomplish them? For this we must understand why we judge others. The reason lies in our false self-evaluation: he judges others, who feels that he has a right to judge, who places himself higher than others, who sees himself blameless of the sins of which he accuses others. Whoever is not aware of his own spiritual corruption, will never cease to judge others.
But we are all tarnished by sin, we all agonize over our corruption, we all hope for deliverance in eternal life, we all have need of Divine aid. Again we know all this theoretically, but in practice it is painfully difficult to refrain from judgment; we yearn to judge others. Why? Because judgment has become a passion with us and, like all vices, it gives us demonic pleasure, a shiver of prideful delight. How “delightful” to judge someone in the course of a friendly conversation, to laugh at another’s deficiencies… But do we not heed the warning of the Gospel that some day we will have to answer for every single word we utter, and that includes this false delight which is based on condemnation?
The struggle against the vice of judgment, like any other vice, cannot be theoretical; it must take place every day, every minute, throughout one’s entire life; it must be based on forcing oneself to be attentive to all one’s words and thoughts. In other words, we cannot do without spiritual labor.
But of what should this spiritual endeavor consist in such a case? In monitoring oneself with utmost attention throughout all the various circumstances of life. Moreover, we will soon notice that, in the course of the day, occasions for judgment surround us like invisible underwater reefs and threaten to destroy the ship of our soul. However, with God’s help, we will gradually learn to avoid collision with these underwater reefs: where we formerly became irritated – we will remain calm; where we became angry – we will remain silent; where we tried to justify ourselves – we will remain humble; where we judged others – we will pray for them and for ourselves, in order to avoid similar sins.
Very soon we will notice that our soul, no longer burdened by judgment, will experience genuine spiritual joy and lightness; and that is only natural, since the yoke of the sins of others will no longer oppress us.
Just as judgment attracts other vices: anger, quarreling, enmity, so a victory over condemnation opens the way to other virtues: pure prayer, tranquility, a true evaluation of one’s sins. It is for this reason that demons do their best to ensnare the soul into the nets of judgment, and to hinder its liberation from this vice. In turn we, too, have no right to delay our struggle with judgment for the same reason, but must immediately begin to watch ourselves attentively.
“To watch oneself” is the golden rule of Christian morality, which – alas! – is so often neglected by Christians. How much effort we spend on external activities and how little energy we save for the task of monitoring ourselves. And yet, without this internal endeavor, nothing external will ever lead us to salvation…
Saint Seraphim of Sarov said that the goal of Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. And to attain this goal we must step onto the path of a spiritual struggle with passions, and with God’s help, overcome them one by one. But we can begin the battle with this same passion for judgment.
Let us remember the words of the elder: “It is easy to step unto the path of salvation: you must only firmly decide that from this moment you will no longer judge anyone.”
(Reprinted from “Orthodox Russia,” No. 20, 2002)
“It’s like an arms race … everything is an emergency,” said Tanya Schevitz, spokeswoman for Reboot, an organization trying help people unplug more often. “We have created an expectation in society that people will respond immediately to everything with no delay. It’s unhealthy, and it’s unproductive, and we can’t keep going on like this.”
Read more here.
The Beautiful Path 