Every Priest Has Thought of It…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

one time or another, especially if things are bumpy in their own jurisdiction. They look over the fence, see the greener grass and wonder, “What’s it like to be with __________?”  It’s what sometimes happens when you’re a kid and mad at your parents. You think “Boy I wish I was that family’s kid they have it so nice over there.”

Well, not really.

Most of the time when you see someone else’s family they’re on their best behavior, the house is cleaned, the meal is good, and everything looks, well, polished. If you were to drop in a few days later, who knows? Dad in his underwear. Toys all over the floor. House smells like yesterday’s supper. When we don’t need to put on our best face we’re more like who we really are.

It’s the same with Orthodox jurisdictions. When things are challenging in ours we see the other “family” down the block and envy their supposed peace and stability. Tired of whatever is challenging us the grass on the other side does look greener. A Priest thinks “Boy, if I was just part of that jurisdiction everything would be better.” Compared to our mess the family down the street looks real good sometimes.

It’s understandable. To be in ministry requires a certain amount of idealism. The long hours and lower salaries would make no sense if there wasn’t some vision out there, some shining light to make up for the routines. You have to keep your eyes higher and your soul on better things to make it as a Priest. Nothing is worse than a tired, cynical, Priest. Nothing is more pitiful.

So we always look for silver linings in every cloud. It’s a survival thing. Sometimes those silver linings look like another jurisdiction, another Bishop, a point on a distant but not too clear horizon. Who wants to stay and work through pain and troubles when they could be avoided? Who wants to endure the slog of bearing each others burdens when a lighter yoke seems close by? It is a sweet illusion.

Yet that’s what it is, a dream. The Church is full of people, made up of human beings. Sometimes we’re really great to hang around with and other times we’re just a pain in the rear. All of us have our own dads in their underwear and toys all over the floor. Moving down the street doesn’t make that go away. After the honeymoon is done you’re pretty much back where you were before. It shouldn’t be, but crazy stuff is part of the reality of the Orthodox Church, from day one until now, and there will be no escape until angelic trumpets sound.  Get used to it.

Now this doesn’t mean that we can’t seek the best, the most holy, the most good and work to implement it in our life. The ideal is important and we should always strive for it. People forget, though,  that the Church is about human beings in training to be saints and the majority of us will never get most of it in this life. That shouldn’t excuse our sins and struggles but it should put them in perspective. Sometimes people in the Church can be cruel, vindictive, selfish, arrogant, and dark, myself included. Sometimes the consequences of their actions can be grim. Yet it’s that way with all of us. There may be a temporary respite somewhere but the same human failings are present no matter where the Church is, and so, by the way are its glories.

Moving to a new town? The only close Orthodox parish may be in another jurisdiction. Go and enjoy. Involved in a new ministry? Jurisdictions swap clergy for a variety of reasons all the time. Go with a blessing. Ticked off at someone or some group in your own jurisdiction and looking for an escape? Might as well stay and work it out because the chances are you’re just going to be with a new group of fallible humans struggling to live up to the high calling and dropping the ball. In other words the real world.

 

Your Spring…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

has come early this year.
The air is warm.
The earth gives up its cold.
Ice becomes fresh water.
Trees and people wake from their winter slumber.
So it is with me.
I am waiting for Your spring.
Tired and frosted, my face turns towards Your sun.
Out from snowy darkness and bathed in light.

 

Wise Words…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

Via Bishop Mark on Facebook…

How is it that I think and do things that I don’t want or desire to think or do”?
I answered that everyone is that way, and so forth. Therefore, the more one conquers himself, the greater the reward that he will receive there in eternity. This is the Christian’s most essential duty, and for this one needs God’s help, which is received through prayer…

St. Innocent of Alaska

Being Orthodox…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

is like living in another world, not a particular ethnic world but rather a world that intersects with what we commonly understand as the “world” and yet at its core is very different and directed towards wholly different ends. I’m not sure that a person could understand Orthodoxy in its best sense and not be a little bit, or sometimes a lot, estranged from the everyday world. You are part of a tribe that ultimately belongs elsewhere and your travels have such a remarkably different destination.

To be Orthodox is to always be ill at ease, in the best sense of that phrase, with what’s around you. As you grow in your faith you begin to see the fallacies, the errors in logic, the terrible consequences of live lived without God. By seeing them you become “peculiar” as St. Paul would like to say it. How you process information. How you see and envision the world. How you actually live in the world. All these things begin to happen on different terms and those terms make you irregular in the usual course of things.

To be Orthodox is to wake up from a bad dream, a night vision of a world broken by its mortalities and subject to the unnatural rules of sin.  There is more. There is better. There is truth and reality and it’s not where your old dream told you it was but rather where your new vision leads you. It’s why people left civilization for the deserts. It’s why wealthy people gave their riches to the poor. It’s why you feel best when you’re closest to the Holy. You are being transformed from a citizen of earth to a citizen of heaven. New rules apply. Old patterns lose their charm. A new person is being built inside your existing body and one day you, body and soul, will realize its potential.

For now we have to be here. This is okay. There is beauty and truth and love and many good things, shadows of the perfect that cause us both to mourn for Eden past and to know, in part, what good lies ahead. Yet we, if we are true to our faith, will always be a little unsettled while we’re here, involved but not attached, alive but not totally belonging, present but not completely accounted for. There is a great freedom in this and life abundant as we grasp this truth.

I Burned my Letterjacket…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 4 Comments

today. In fact its still burning as I write. Nothing to do with hate, revenge, fear, or shame, it just seemed time to offer it as a sacrifice and with it any remaining pain or hurt from those long ago days.

There is nothing to go back to, all that was done was done and all that was forgiven was forgiven. There is nothing I need from that time and nothing to cling to. I found that symbol hanging in my closet, a symbol of everything good and bad. heights and depths, nothing more, nothing less, and it was time for it to go. Why cling to that which cannot be changed? Why seek redemption in a past when there is so much good in the present?

I am not the person I was in high school. I have played music before hundreds. I have preached before Bishops. I have given my life to one woman. I have been at the bedsides of the dying and I have brought people into life through baptism. I have written poems. I have faced danger and demons. I have talked to lost teenagers in the middle of the night. I make people laugh and I do my best to love freely. Whatever I was I try to be better. I choose to forgive and forgive myself. I pray for my classmates. I’m Ithankful for all that went before because it helped shape me  and looking forward to what lies ahead.

The jacket was in the way, it was a reminder of days past, a memory of harder times. I couldn’t go on with it dragging me to a distant past so remote from who, by the grace of God, I have become. Those days are gone. This day is good. The fire was the way to offer it all up to the God who loved me then and loves me now. He is my purpose. And it didn’t fit anyway.

No more regrets. No more need to look to that time to redeem me. If my stay there wasn’t always exemplary my life after would certainly do credit to Mahtomedi High School yet it was not me, but Grace that has brought me safe thus far.

Come to think of it, though, I do have one regret. Years after graduation I found out that Chris Mauricio was interested in me. I like where I am now, and deeply love who I am with, but had I known back then I would have asked her out in half a heartbeat.

The Answer…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

to the struggles and challenges of those who are dying is not to come to their house and dispose of them but rather to walk with them in love, compassion, caring, and friendship along the way. Even the dying have the image of God and should never be considered an inconvenience. The sick and the dying are given to us so that we can grow out of our self centeredness and become more human.

On Loving God…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

How to Learn to Love the Lord

Last week the Holy Myrrh-bearers instructed us on love and today St. John the Theologian also instructs us concerning love. He loved the Lord more than anyone else and was loved by Him. Let us imprint in our minds this image of love, and let us begin to turn our feelings according to it and our attitude in relation to the Lord. How did St. John the Theologian attain such lofty love for the Lord and become a model of love for all of us? I think that he did this in the same way that people begin to love one another. They see the beauty and goodness of a person and become attracted to them with all their heart. In like manner St. John saw the beauty of the Lord and was attracted to Him. He sensed the Lord’s special love for him and likewise was inflamed with love for Him. He saw the great, wondrous, and fruitful works of the Lord and, moved by fervent piety, he became completely devoted to Him. He tasted the sweetness of love for Him and, immersed with his whole heart in this love, took rest in it. Here follows the path of assent in love for the Lord. Let us enter upon it, and in the end we will acquire it.

First: St. John saw the beauty of the Lord and was attracted to it. In the same manner love among people is born. They see someone’s beauty, spiritual or physical, and begin to love one another. Let us lift up our mind to the contemplation of the Lord’s beauty, and surely we will not remain cold and indifferent towards Him. The Lord’s beauty is the sum total of all His perfection. “Look and observe, what does the Lord lack?” says St Tikhon of Zadonsk. Anything that you might desire can be found with the Lord in indescribable and unlimited fullness. Do you seek blessedness? He has eternal and true blessedness. Are you seeking beauty? Comely art Thou in beauty more than the sons of men; (Ps. 44:3). Do you seek nobility? Who is more noble than the Son of God? Are you looking for honor? Who has more honor or is more elevated than the King of the heavens? Do you seek wisdom? He is the Person (Hypostasis) of God’s Wisdom. Do you want gladness? He is the joy and gladness of blessed spirits and the chosen of God. Do you need comfort? Who can comfort you more than the Lord Jesus? Do you seek rest? Here is the eternal rest of those souls that love Him. Do you want life? He is the fountain of life. Are you afraid of being lost? He is the way. Do you fear deception? He is Truth. Are you in fear of death? He is life as He Himself assures us: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In short, all the perfection, beauty, and goodness that the human soul could love is found in Him. Force your mind to grasp this and, you will not be able to do otherwise than love the Lord. St. Catherine the Great Martyr promised to love the one in whom she would see the same wealth that she possessed, the same beauty, the same wisdom she boasted of, expecting that in the whole world she would not find such a person. But when she came to know the Lord, she saw that compared to His beauty, wisdom, and wealth her own was nothing and contemptible. She then gave herself completely to Him, clinging to Him and offering herself to Him as a sacrifice.

Secondly, St. John the Theologian, sensing the Lord’s love for him, was inflamed with love for Him. Sincere and selfless love, when experienced from another, always inspires a corresponding feeling. Let us experience the Lord’s love and kindle our love for Him. “What did the Son of God not do for us?” asks St. Tikhon. “What did He not attain for us? What did He not bear and suffer for the sake of our poor and needy souls? What labors and sufferings did He not take upon Himself in order to bring us, who had fallen away, to His Heavenly Father? He came down from Heaven in or der to raise us, who had been cast out of Paradise, up to Heaven. For our sake He was born in the flesh in order to bring us unto Himself through spiritual regeneration. He humbled Himself for our sake, in order to lift us up. He became impoverished, in order to enrich us wretched ones. He suffered dishonor and wounds in order to heal and glorify us. He died for us in order to give life to us who were dead. Behold what condescension and humility His perfect love and sympathetic mercy brought Him to.” Has not each one of us experienced this movement of God’s love? How often have we fled from this love by sinning? Every time, because of one phrase, “I am guilty and will not do it again,” have we been reunited through His mercy. How many times have we angered Him by giving into the temptation of the delights of this world. Then when we turned to Him again we were admitted to the Lord’s Table, to partake of His Body and drink His Blood. Is this not the embrace of His merciful love? Christ is among us in our everyday life. Who among us has not experienced His caring nearness to us, in deliverance from misfortune, illness, sorrow, difficult circumstances, in all needs spiritual and physical? Is it possible not to respond to such great love and turn to One who so untiringly loves us? Is it possible because of distraction and inattention to forget about the Lord’s love for us? Having known and remembered this love, it is then impossible not to experience a feeling of love for the Lord no matter how calloused one’s heart might be. He who continually walks in the presence of God’s love will always be kindled with love for Him. Such is the nature of love!

Thirdly: St. John tasted the sweetness of love for the Lord and with perfect peace rested on his breast. Love is in itself a gift which can be compared with no other. It brings a blessing which is higher than anything in heaven or on earth. The Lord says, He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him, and If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him. (Jn.14:21,23). How comforting are these words! What great and exalted promises the Son of God offers to those who love Him – that the true lover of Christ will share in friendship with the Father and His Son! The human mind cannot fathom God’s goodness. God Who is great, endless, and unattainable, desires to have friendship with man whom He created and who is His slave. He desires to have friendship as long as man does not reject it …fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ (I Jn.13) writes St John. Where the Son and the Father are, there also the Holy Spirit is not excluded. Behold what the love of Christ attains! He who loves is worthy to be the dwelling and home of of the Most Holy Trinity. The Tri-Hypostatic God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is well disposed to dwell in man by Grace. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (I Jn. 4,16). Blessed indeed is such a heart! Even here on the earth it feels joy which is abundantly poured forth into the hearts of the chosen unto eternal life. The heart tastes the very essence of “how good the Lord is” and possesses that which is meant by the words, The Kingdom o f God is within you.

For there where God is, is also all that belongs to Him. If God is within you because of your love, than you will have His justification for your sins, deliverance from your captivity, peace instead of your evil conscience, joy instead of your misery, comfort instead of your sorrow, justification at God’s judgement, assistance against your enemies, wisdom and intelligence instead of confusion an d ignorance, strength in your weakness (from St. Tikhon same citation). If the Lord dwells in you for the sake of your love, then who can be against you, what harm can befall you? If He is your peace, then who can disturb you? If He is your joy and comfort, then who or what can cause you sorrow? If He is your strength, then who can overcome you? If He is your King, then who can subjugate you? I f God is with us then who can be against us, boldly exclaims St. Paul together with all those who love the Lord (Rom. 8:31). Such is love, and behold what it brings with it! Those who enter into the love of the Lord feel that they are more and more filled and perfected. For love is the bond of perfectness (Col. 3,14).

If you desire to love the Lord then strive to contemplate with your mind His beauty, or the fullness of His perfection, sense the warmth of His love and taste the sweetness of love itself with your heart. One cannot learn love, it takes place in the hidden places of the heart. It is sown in secret and ripens unobserved, like seed cast on the ground which sprouts without the knowledge of the sower, bringing forth a stem, an ear of grain and seed in the ear. Love is sown mysteriously, always, however, from the effect on the heart, the object of love. Turn your mind in your heart to the radiant, visage of the Lord, full of love and worthy of love, and from His eyes a spark will descend into your heart and kindle it with love for Him. He who stands by a fire is warmed by it, and he who turns to the Lord with his mind and heart is warmed by the fervor of His love, and himself begins to return a warm disposition towards Him. …The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts… (Rom. 5:5), the Apostle Paul teaches. Love is a gift, but a gift prepared for everyone who seeks it: only desire it and seek, and immediately you will receive it. Just as the Lord embraces everyone, so it is impossible not to love Him. However, since not everyone turns to Him and seeks Him, so not everyone loves Him. For indeed He loved us first, and therefore we should love Him [even after the fact].

As it is, we have loved something instead of Him, something not pleasing to Him and not blessed by Him – and are not capable of loving Him since we have but one heart and not two. Therefore we cannot work for God and mammon [the world]. Remember, brethren, that the friendship of the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). Enmity with God! This is terrible! But worse are the words, If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maranatha (I Cor. 16:22). Such was the expression of St. Paul’s zealous love.

Let us dwell on these things brethren, and force ourselves to love the Lord with all our hearts, all our souls, and all our strength. Even better, let us arouse the love for Him sleeping in us and bring it out into action to be seen by us and everyone. Amen.

On Instinct and Life…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people.’ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war…. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest….

C.S. Lewis