Category: Faith

It’s War You Know…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

this Christian life, probably always has been and probably always will be.  Advance, get attacked, fall, recover, rest, rejoin the fight. Every day, all the time.

Sometimes I wonder if people really understand this. Sometimes I wonder if I do. Imagine how things would be if we told people “Welcome to the Faith and be ready because sometimes all hell is going to break loose, literally.” Yet you know that when you try to live in one world while residing in another that sometimes things are just not going to be easy.

Strangely enough simple, straight forward, opposition is possibility the least difficult things to handle. It’s not pleasant but you know who and where its coming from and why it’s happening. The lines of battle are clear and the you know who has what flag. So much harder is when the push back against your life in Christ comes from the twisting of the good, the realm of shadows where things appear different from what they really are, and lies that sound sincere. That’s a different kind of struggle entirely and while the aim is the same as a full frontal assault the treachery involved makes it seem so much more difficult and dangerous.

In ways beyond counting the world we live in, although it has moments of beauty and wonder, is full of pathology and that pathology has become so normalized that health is perceived as an illness, light is considered darkness, and truth is a lie to be exterminated. In a world such as this we will struggle in the attempt to be a person of a different and better world. Sometimes we will fall, wounded and disfigured in the heat of this battle, this challenge to live as Christ in a world twisted by sin.

It can be very difficult to be vigilant all the time, to have our guard up, to stay awake on every watch in the night. Sleep can overtake us. Fatigue can get the best of us. Confusion can do its work and disorient us. Sometimes the pure shock, awe, and horror of things can leave us cowering under what ever shelter, good or bad, that seems close at hand. This, too, is part of the Christian life, the life of a Kingdom in time, a heavenly reality in a pained world.

What we have, though, in the face of all of this, is grace. We fall and God will lift us up again. We struggle and God extends, as it were, a hand to help. We doubt and God gives us faith. We are humbled and God meets us in our humility. We sin and God forgives and makes clean. We taste the bitter darkness and God finds a way to fill it with light. We die and God will raise us up again.

How I wish that I could be only a fraction of what I am called to be. How I desire not to fall in the heat of battle, to lose my head in the swirl of life, or to be caught in traps I’ve been caught in a hundred times before. As the Apostle says “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Yet, even in all my messiness, my sins, my self-inflicted wounds, and every moment when I am cut down on the field, I still come back. Grace, God’s grace, calls me back, picks me up, cleans my wounds, strengthens me in my weakness, and calls me to engage life as a citizen of a Kingdom not of this world. Until that day when I can finally rest from the strife this is all I have, this is all I claim, and this is all I need.

The Problem is…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

that I sin.

Now I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish I had whatever it takes to live in such a way that the crazy stuff of the world doesn’t bleed over into my life to the point where I become part of it myself. Despite what you may see on the television, doing anything you want any time you feel like it is a kind of slavery, a life spent being trapped by perpetually changing desires. Those desires, for the most part, are easily twisted into dark things, love turns to lust, sustenance to gluttony, security to hoarding, the list goes on ad nauseam and giving myself to them makes me vulnerable to their captivities.  I wish I was immune. I wish my life was centered, whole, focused, and not so easily captivated by things that have the capability to enslave and destroy.

Holiness, in the best sense of the word, is a beautiful thing. True holiness, I think, is not so much about a list of do’s and don’ts as it is about a direction of the entirety of a person’s existence. I suppose that when a person’s life is directed towards God there will be things they will and will not do but the point behind it is not so much a list of laws as it is trading something less for something better. Purity is a better thing than giving in to every carnal temptation. Living a life not captured by the ever-changing demands of a consumerist culture is better than being a hamster in a wheel perpetually chasing whatever the world says is the next best thing. There is a witness inside all of us, I think, that affirms the beauty of this kind of holiness even if we ourselves see no way to achieve it. Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, this desire for the beauty of holiness is expressed in a deep discontent with the world as it has become. I share this discontent, this desire for something better, more true, more real, and more connected to the Source.

Yet I sin, I miss the mark. Sometimes its overt and I know exactly what I’m doing and how it will lessen and degrade me. Sometimes its something that catches me unaware, a fault so ingrained that it seems a normal part of my life. Regardless, each incident illustrates how far it is I am from being in the place I was designed to be, of being centered, whole, and focused in God. Each moment is a reminder that the pain of the world is my own personal pain as well. Each act or thought or desire that is less than holy is humbling and exposes me.

Now I suppose I could just give in and say the whole idea of being holy is impossible or perhaps even redefine my vices as virtues and my sins as simply “Who I am.”  It’s been done before and if I decided to follow this path I wouldn’t be alone. I could simply take that wisdom over time, those guidelines, the light that has lived in history, and relegate them to a quaint section of the museum like a horse and buggy. Perhaps long ago those things had some meaning, but in the face of my new enlightenment I can simply decree them of no further use and go on my way.

I could also give in to despair and, seeing the multitude of my own failings, decide there is no hope and nothing worth the effort. After all the evidence is in and if I have chosen to believe in the existence of things like “sin” and “holiness”   there is more than enough in my file to convict me of being a sinner. In the face of this evidence it would be easier to just give up and perhaps see life as just a few moments of fleeting happiness floating in an ocean of brokenness.

The truth is that I can’t do either. I’ve seen enough evidence in my own experience of the reality of sin and brokenness to know that simply denying or redefining it does nothing to change its reality. Sin, brokenness, human struggle, imperfection, all of it can be made legal, redefined, baptized, and turned into canon but the reality of it, and its consequences, will still be there. The degradation of it will occur even if we deny the existence of the cause and a lie often repeated remains a lie that will, in time, be exposed for what it is. I’ve also seen enough of holiness, small lights in the darkness, to know that it is a good and desirable thing even if I am so far away from it myself. Just as redefining my sins and struggles as “normal” does nothing to take away their reality or their consequences so, too, the reality of holiness and its value are not changed by the fact that I am often far from its essence.

I, then, have no choice but to struggle. The reality of my status as one who sins is clear and so is the eternal beauty of holiness. In my broken state I have an instinct for sin and yet, by the grace of God I also have an instinct for holiness. While I live I will struggle between the two, a sinner who desires to be something else. I will fall, often, and yet I also cannot give up on the idea that I could be something much more than I am at any given moment, something more like God. My hope is that God in His mercy sees me and understands this more than I can even imagine myself and in His goodness will lead me safely home.

I Was Hoping…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

for a perfect Lent, you know, the kind where everything lined up just as it was supposed to be, the food, the services, the plans for doing this and that.

Then life intervened.

There was family to take care of, extra hours at work, health issues of my own, snow storms, the list goes on. In the face of it all it wasn’t long before my well thought out plans to make all the services, read all the ingredients on the food boxes, and spend hours in spiritual reading sort of fell away. Whatever it is I thought I was going to accomplish came with a big stamp on the box that now reads “Not This Year”.

In looking back at it, as I try to make of Lent what I can in the swirl of things, the operative thing seems to be “My” plans. Now I’m not saying that it’s not good to plan for Lent. One of the great gifts of our Faith is the two Sundays prior to Lent when we can ponder the time to come and ease into its life. What I have discovered, again, is, however, that if it’s about “My” plans then it’s probably not going to work out so well.

There are two errors, perhaps, in observing Lent. The first is to simply ignore it as some kind of anachronistic ritual with little meaning in the real world. The reality is our American culture is a gluttonous culture, gluttonous for everything, and we and I need the spirit and reality of Lent now more than ever. The second trap may be just the opposite, that is to make Lent an end in itself, to keep its technicalities and miss the larger picture.

In my case I wanted a Lent with no “mistakes” where all the required observances were met with precision and I could look back on things with a sense of accomplishment. What I got was a busy, crazy, world of people who just needed someone to help them, tired days and nights, swirls of events beyond my control, and the reality that I’m going to be one of those “11th hour” people mentioned in the Paschal Homily.

What I had hoped for, the “ideal” Lent, isn’t going to happen. What I didn’t want to happen, namely that I would fall into Pascha all banged up, tired, and in tatters, seems to be the current trajectory. Yet since God’s power is manifest in my time of weakness and His grace is sufficient for me I still long for the banquet to come and the joy of saying, as frazzled as I am, “Christ is Risen”.

Among the Challenges…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

we face in Orthodoxy here in the United States is the idea that infrastructure is the goal and end of the mission of the church and not the servant of that mission. We pride ourselves on beautiful temples that are used a few times a week at best and spacious offices, halls, and classrooms, that mostly sit empty. That we possess such things is  too often considered a sign of the health and wealth of a parish and often the clergy of a parish are judged by their skill in growing and maintaining infrastructure.

The problem with this is that we are not called by Christ to build infrastructure so much as we are called to build a Kingdom. How many of our parishes are actually hobbled in the building of this Kingdom because time, money, and resources are expended in the care and feeding of infrastructure over and against doing the things that Christ actually asks us to do? How many poor are not fed? How many prisoners remain unvisited? How many sick are not tended to? How many places is the good news of Christ not heard? All because we’re so busy keep largely empty spaces funded and intact?

One of the ways a parish can measure its actual, as against perceived, impact in a community is to ask a simple question. “If our parish were to close tomorrow who, besides the members, would miss it?” In answering that question a parish can discover whether they are simply a group of people with nice facilities or a meaningful part of the movement that is the Kingdom of God, active and alive in the world around them. This can also be sobering because for many of our parishes the unclouded, truthful, answer will be “We’ve got a lot of nice things but we really don’t mean much to anyone outside our doors.”

The hard truth, though, can be very liberating as well. When parishes see themselves not as institutions whose energy is directed towards maintaining that institution’s infrastructure but rather as a mission station of the larger movement that is the Kingdom of God they can see all they have, and there’s nothing wrong with having resources per se, in its proper context. Crucial, powerful, dynamic, and wonderful changes can happen when a parish says “How do we use what we have to reach out to the world? How do we channel our resources to do what God wants us to do?”

In the case of buildings we need to ask “How can we sanctify all this space for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the blessing of the world around us?” In the case of programs and resources we need to shift them away from maintenance for its own sake into growth, charity, and the advancement of the Gospel. In doing this our infrastructure becomes not an end in itself but a powerful tool for the glory of God and a servant of the actual mission of the Church. And as we do this we may discover a joy, passion, meaning, and life in our Faith that we thought had long disappeared.

 

The World We Live In…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

is not the real world. Don’t get me wrong, its not an illusion its just not the world as God intends it. There is a brokenness in it that has distorted it from its original design, purpose, and reality and so there is a kind of unreality, a sense of it being skewed, that permeates it. There are markers of the real world in this world but the fullness seems always just out of our grasp.

The Kingdom of God is the real world, the world as it should be, a world restored to its design, purpose, and destiny by the One who created it in the first place. It is also real and can be experienced in time. The difference between the Kingdom of God and the world we experience is that the Kingdom of God, its values, its Faith, its vision, embody the fullness of what God intends and the fullness of what it means to be a human.

This creates a tension for the observant Christian. We live in a world that has an unreality to it because it is good, because it was created by God, but broken because it is tarnished by human sin and mortality. We experience this brokenness in so many ways and the power of it can often be overwhelming. Even if we are truly convinced there is more and better that more and better can seem far away and extraordinarily difficult to achieve. We also live in a another world, as it is, a world we call the Kingdom of God the reality of which sometimes intersects the world we experience every day but also has the potential to alienate us from it as well.

The result is that we are travelers in time. We live in places and share the common lot of those who share this time and place with us yet we also know that even in its best moments our experience is touched with the sadness, sin, and death that has been horribly inserted into this realm. And its hard to live that way, caught between two worlds, the world we were born into and the world we called to. Choices have to be made. Loyalties need to be discerned. Where, in the end, do we belong? To what world will our final allegiance be given? Jesus was so right when He said our heart would be where our treasure is.

In these times, when the veneer of respect for our Faith is rapidly wearing off in the public arena, where the times are growing dark as people in greater numbers seem to have cast their lot with this world, and where even people who were entered the Kingdom are now looking over their shoulders at the world they left behind, we will all be tested. What realm can lay claim to our true citizenship? What storehouse holds our true treasure? Which world’s thoughts will become our thoughts? And the stakes may be eternal.

The answer? All I know to do is to stay as close as possible to Jesus and together we’ll ride out the storm and make it safely home.

Saints and Sinners…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

Understand two thoughts, and fear them. One says, “You are a saint,” the other, “You won’t be saved.” Both of these thoughts are from the enemy, and there is no truth in them. But think this way: I am a great sinner, but the Lord is merciful. He loves people very much, and He will forgive my sins.

– St. Silouan the Athonite

Via the OCA Bulgarian Diocese Facebook Page

Sin and Forgiveness…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

When St. Amphilochios was asked how to avoid despair over reoccurring sin, he answered with the following account:

“A certain brother, overcome by the passion of immorality, sinned every day. However, each time, with tears and prayers, he would fall before Christ and receive forgiveness from Him. And as soon as he had repented, the next day, being misled again by shameful habit, he would fall to sin again.

After having sinned, he would go to the Church, prostrate himself before the Icon of our Lord Jesus Christ and tearfully confess: “Lord, have mercy upon me and takeaway from me this fearful temptation, for it troubles me fiercely and wounds me with the bitter taste of pleasure. O my Master, cleanse my person once more, that my heart might be sweetened and thankful. My Lord, on my word, I will no longer commit this sin.”

And though his lips had just whispered these words, no sooner would he leave the Church than he would fall once again to sin. This happened not for one or two or even three years, but for more than ten years.

One day when all that we have described again occurred, the brother, having fallen to sin, rushed to the Church, lamenting, groaning, and crying with anguish, to invoke the mercy of God, that He might have compassion on him and take him from the sin of immorality.

No sooner had he called on God, the lover of man, than the Devil, that destroyer of our souls, seeing that he could gain nothing, since whatever he accomplished by sin, the brother undid by his repentance, became infuriated and appeared visibly before the brother. Facing the Icon of Christ, the Devil said to our compassionate Savior: “What will become of the two of us, Jesus Christ? Your sympathy for this sinner defeats me and takes the ground I have gained, since you keep accepting this dissolute man and prodigal who daily mocks you and scorns your authority. Indeed, why is it that you do not burn him up, but, rather, tolerate and put up with him? To this fellow here, even though an immoral man and a prodigal, you calmly show your sympathy, just because he throws himself down in front of your Icon. In what way can you be called a just Judge, then? The Devil said all of this, poisoned with great bitterness, while there poured forth from his nostrils a black flame.

Having said these things, he fell silent and a voice from the sanctuary answered him, “O, all-cunning and ruinous Dragon, are you yet not satisfied with   and destructive desire to gobble up the world? Now you have even the nerve to try to do away with this man here, who has come with contrition to entreat the mercy of my compassion to devour him, too? Can you offer up enough sins that, by them, you can tilt the balance of justice against the precious blood which I shed on the Cross for this man? Behold my murder and death, which I endured for the forgiveness of his sins.

“You, when he turns again to sin, do not turn him away, but receive him with joy, neither chastising him nor preventing him from committing sin, out of the hope that you might win him over; but should I, who [taught my disciples] to forgive sins seven times seventy (Matthew 18:22), not show him mercy and compassion? Indeed, simply because he flees to me, I will not turn him away until I have won him over. I neither turn away nor reject anyone, even if he should fall many times a day and many times return to me; such a person will not leave my Temple saddened, for I came not to call the righteous, but to call sinners to repent. Look at this man who a few moments ago repented, having returned from sin and having fallen at my feet with a sincere resolution to abandon sin, has thereby conquered you.”

While [all of] this was being said, the repentant brother had thrown himself before the Icon of the Savior. With his face to the ground and lamenting, he surrendered his spirit to the Lord. From this incident, my brothers, let us learn of the limitless compassion of God and of His love of man, that we might never again be disheartened by our sins, but rather look after our salvation with zeal.”

Via the Facebook Page of Fr. Thaddeus Hardenbrook