How Then Shall We Live? Our Use of Time

Sunday, September 14, 2008: Today's commemorated feasts and saints... 13th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST-Tone 4. THE UNIVERSAL EXALTATION (ELEVATION) OF THE PRECIOUS AND LIFE-GIVING CROSS. Repose of St. John Chrysostom (407 A.D.). Monk Martyr Macarius of Dionysiou (Mt. Athos-1507). Monk Martyr Joseph of Dionysiou (Mt. Athos-1819).

Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him." The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid, and went again into the Praetorium, and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. Then Pilate said to Him, "Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?" Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin." When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" But they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!" Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center. Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.

(John 19:6-11,13-20,25-28,30-35)

We are continuing our consideration of Christian stewardship. To summarize what we said last week, stewardship is concerned with how we use our time, talent and treasures to make of the creation a fit and beautiful home for the human family. In other words, our stewardship is part of how we fulfill God's call to our First Parents Adam and Even "to be fruitful and multiple, to fill the earth and subdue it."

There is, and again as we saw last time, a second level as well to stewardship. If stewardship is a synonym for the general human vocation to work, as a uniquely Christian pursuit, stewardship takes on an ascetical character. Christian stewardship is concerned with the redemption of human work, effort, creativity and ingenuity in and through our personal and shared obedience to Christ. It is important to keep in mind that no matter how much I imagine myself to be a good person I am always subject to the temptation to exercise my own creativity and ingenuity in a way that separates me from God or my neighbor. Or, and this is worse still, I might (as many have done) put my efforts into projects that separate from God or my neighbor, obscuring or even undermining by my actions his vocation, his own calling. All of this is to say that often human effort and creativity are misdirected.

In the Old Testament especially, sin is often described as "missing the mark." The idea here is this: Just an archery a small deviation left or right, up or down, will cause an arrow to miss the target, so too I often deviate from what God would have me do and so I "miss the mark" for my own life. Often the work I do is marred by sin. This often reflect my own personal sin (I do something sinful), but it might also reflect the selfishness of others, or simply some form of material want.

Our work than is an experience of joy and of corruption and frustration marred as it is by sin. Our work, as with the whole of human life, must be redeemed by Christ. To see this a bit more clearly, let us together reflect on the Cross of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ as we celebrate the Exaltation of the most Holy Cross. When we do we see immediately two different, but not unrelated truths.

First and foremost, the Cross makes manifest to a fallen world the depth of God's love for us poured out in Jesus Christ. Second, it is by the very brilliance of the light of God's love for us, which makes abundantly clear how corrupt human work has become. Let me explain.

Think for a moment of the long history of human effort, legal, religious, cultural, scientific and technological, that preceded the Cross. The Cross was for the Roman Empire a favorite means of executing those who--whether criminal or not--threatened the power of Caesar. It was imposed and sustained not only by the legal authority of the Empire, but also its military might and administrative genius. All of this human effort had to be brought to bear in order for Jesus to be crucified. And not only that. As the Gospel makes clear Jesus was sent to the Cross by those religious authorities who misappropriated and corrupted for their own purposes, the profound religious heritage that was the birthright of the whole Jewish people.

All of this otherwise good and fruitful human work was misdirected. The Cross makes manifest how the best in human ability can tragically miss the mark. Failing not only to glorify God and create for the human family a fit home, our work instead creates in the human heart a depth of fear and shame to the human heart so profound that "nothing is too hard" for mankind, even the murder of God.

At the same time that the Cross reveals the depth of human sinfulness, of my sinfulness, we must remember that it is first and foremost an expression of God's love and mercy. As such, the Cross reminds us that even horribly corrupted, human work still reveals God. But how different from the experience of Adam and Eve before the fall is my discovery of God on the Cross, for on the Cross, and by my own hand and as a reflection of my own misdirected work, He is killed and I reveal myself to be not a steward of His gifts but in fact the one who turns those gifts against the Giver.

How can we avoid then the misuse of the gifts we have been given?

As wise stewards of the gifts that God has given us, we should first and foremost use the gift of time to draw closer to God the Father in Jesus Christ through the Power of the Holy Spirit. "From this moment on," St Herman of Alaska says, "let us serve God at all times." This is accomplished not by simply spending time in church at Vespers or Liturgy. Don't mistake my meaning, I not suggesting people stay away from the services, far from it in fact. It is here, in the Church assembled in prayer before our Creator, that we learn how and for what we are to pray.

But too easily I can fall into the reassuring, but mistaken, notion that the measure of my relationship with Christ is how many hours I spend in services. For too many Orthodox Christians, participation in the formal worship of the Church is seen as the whole of what it means to spend time with God.

What I have in mind is a little different I think. As wise stewards of the gift of time we need to cultivate in ourselves a gentle openness and remembrance of God's presence in our lives. How easy it is for me to forget that each moment of my life is a sacrament of God's loving presence not only for me, but the whole human family. Just as Christ come to you in the Eucharist under the form of Bread and Wine, so too He comes to you in the seconds and minutes, the hours and days, the weeks, months and years that make up your life. In each moment, great and small, Christ is there with you and it is only necessary that you remember that at all times, and so in all places and in all things, you are in His Presence and He has embraced you with His love.

With this realization in my heart, whatever might be the frustrations and even failures I may encounter in my work--whatever that work might be--each moment of my life carries within it the possibility of my drawing nearer to Christ.

And not only that.

Mindful of Christ's presence in my life opens me to the realization that in each moment of my life Christ can draw others to Himself through me.

And not only that.

Mindful of His Presence in my life, he is able to draw me to Him through others.

How then should we spend our time, that one gift that, once used, can never be replenished? By striving to keep in mind that God is With Us at each moment of our life and that far one distracting from the other, our communion with God and our work (granted in very different ways) can each support and sustain the other. A wise steward of the gift of time sees time as much a sacrament of God's love for us as the Cross or the Eucharist.

Through retreats, daily prayer and the reading of Scripture, fasting, participation in the services of the Church, the cultivation of times of silence in our lives, and above through all the regular reception of Holy Communion, frequent Confession we come to an ever deeper awareness and appreciation of the presence of God in our lives. Though it may represent a relatively small percentage of how we spend our time, a sound spiritual life is essential if we, personally, as a parish and as a Church are to fulfill Christ's call to create a fit and beautiful home for the human family.

Having now secured the foundations of Christian stewardship, our vocation to work and the right use of time, we will in the next two weeks turn our attention to the practical means of stewardship: the use of our talents and our treasure.

May Christ our True God, through the power of His Precious, Life-Giving and most Holy Cross, open our hearts to a lively awareness of His Presence in each moment of our lives.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Syndiakonia: Lay and Clergy Cooperative Leadership and the Spiritual Formation Group

To repeat what I have said earlier, the goal of a spiritual formation group is to help participants grow in self-knowledge and self-mastery in Christ. In other words, the aim of this type of group is vocational and ascetical and as such is a process grounded not only in the grace of baptism and personal experience, but also tradition. And again to reaffirm what I said earlier, group formation is not a time set aside for people to simply share their own, idiosyncratic (and often narcissistic) views on the spiritual life. Avoiding this temptation and keeping the focus on personal formation within the context of the tradition of the Church requires a leader who is him or herself not only personally mature spiritually and psychologically, but also well grounded in the tradition of the Church.

One of the great temptations in any formation group is for one member, either through force of personality or the collusion or passivity of other group members, to dominate their time together. Whether the dominate personality is that of a group member or the group leader is secondary; in either case the substance of the formation process is undercut to the determinate of all.

Ideally small group leaders should be chosen from among those who have already demonstrated their commitment to Christ and potential for leadership in and through not only the quality of their spiritual life (including regular attendance at Liturgy and frequent confession) but also their willingness to participate in the philanthropic, evangelistic and/or catechetical ministries of the Church on either the parochial or diocesan levels.

In addition to the careful selection of who directs such a group, there are I think some practical things that can be done in a parish setting to help make a formation group a fruitful undertaking for not only the group members themselves, but also the larger parish community. Let me suggest some things that might prove helpful.

As with any small group meeting, there is a temptation, and sometimes a tendency, for the group to become elitist. I remember in my own early experiences with Charismatic prayer groups this was certainly a problem that we often encountered. Besides being contrary to the Gospel, elitism is harmful for both the group members and the larger parish community. For this reason it is important that any small group ministry, but especially a formation group meeting under lay presidency, remain in regular contact with the parish priest, the council and the parish as a whole. This I would add, is also true for choirs, Church School teachers, parish Sisterhoods or Brotherhoods, and any of the myriad small groups that meet formally or informally under the auspices of the parish. Any group needs to make regular reports to the pastor, the parish council and the parish community as a whole. Cooperative ministry does not "just happen," it requires planning and effort. Or maybe more accurately, cooperative ministry is built on the foundation of good planning, regular communication with the larger community, and under the supervision of the pastor. Let us look at these in order.

Any small group, but especially a formation group, needs to be planned. With a formation group one of the most effective things that can be done is to have the group leaders themselves be members of a formation group lead by the parish priest. Following the general structure I outlined earlier, this group should meet on a regular basis with the priest and look together at texts chosen to help them not only with their own personal spiritual lives but also with the demands of leadership. Some of my favorite texts for this are The Holy Rule of St Benedict, the various rules written by St Basil, St Augustine's First Catechetical Instruction, and On Pastoral Care by Pope St Gregory Dialogous (in the West, Gregory the Great).

In my next post I want to offer some suggestions not only cooperative ministry between the laity and the clergy, but with the order of the laity.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcomed, they are actively encouraged by me.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Stewardship & the Human Vocation to Work

As part of my parish's stewardship campaign, I will be preaching of various aspects of Christian stewardship for the whole month of September. I will include for reference the Gospel for the Sunday, but since my sermons are more catechetical than exegetical this month I will deal only marginally with the text.


On re-reading the sermon this morning, I noticed a number of typos that I have since corrected.

+Fr Gregory

Sunday, September 7, 2008: 12th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST-Tone 3. Forefeast of the Nativity of the Most-Holy Theotokos. Sunday Before the Elevation of the Cross. Martyr Sozón of Cilicia (ca. 304). St. John, Archbishop and Wonderworker of Novgorod (1186). Ven. Serapion of Spaso-Eleazar Monastery (Pskov-1481). Martyrdom of St. Makáry, Archimandrite of Kanev (Pereyaslavl'-1678). Apostles Evodia (Euodias) and Onesiphorus of the Seventy (1st c.). Martyr Eupsychius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia (2nd c.). Ven. Luke, Abbot, near Constantinople (10th c.). Ven. Cloud (Clodoald), Abbot, founder of Nogent-sur-Seine near Paris.

Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" So He said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." He said to Him, "Which ones?" Jesus said, "'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' " The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

(Matthew 19:16-26)

If we think about stewardship at all, we usually limit ourselves to concerns about money and then only insofar as we need to keep the lights on and pay the priest.

While certainly these are laudable goals for the parish (especially paying the priest!), Christian stewardship is significantly more than simply a matter of paying the bills. Together with our prayer life, our fasting, and our participation in the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church, stewardship is an essential part of our Christian life. More than what we say how we use the three basic elements of stewardship, time, talent and treasure, reveals what we value, how we view ourselves, and what we imagine it means to be human. To begin our consideration of stewardship and its role in my life as I strive both to understand who I am in Christ (vocation) and live out that identity (asceticism) let me begin with the most universal question raised by stewardship: What does it mean to be human.

This may seem to be a strange place to begin, but think about it for a moment. Before we are any of us Christians, that is before any of us our baptized or make a commitment to Jesus Christ, we are all of us human. The importance of our shared humanity should not be minimized; after all we are saved and made one in Christ precisely because God took on our humanity. He becomes as we are, in the frequently repeated phrase of the fathers, so that we might become as He is. Deification, theosis, presupposes not only divine grace poured out by the Holy Spirit (above all through the sacraments) but also a common humanity shared not only with other men and women, but also with Christ our True God. Too often, especially in the early years of my own spiritual life, I saw the Gospel as an escape from the shared human nature and struggle.

As I have grown older, if not necessarily wiser, I've come to appreciate St Irenaeus' argument that in Christ the whole of human life is recapitulated, or assumed, by Christ. Why is this important? Because as the saint reminds us, that in us which is not assumed by Christ is not healed by Him.

So faithful to the example of Christ and the teachings of the fathers, let us look first to our common human vocation as we struggle to be faithful to who Christ has called us to be.

The human vocation is written not simply in the first pages of the Holy Scriptures, but (if we accept the testimony of the Scriptures) inscribed also in the creation itself. Indeed, reading the opening chapter of Genesis and seeing the creation of the human couple, Adam and Eve our First Parents, the fathers saw humanity not only as an icon of the Most Holy Trinity, but also as the goal of creation. It for us that God creates; even as later it will be for us that He becomes Man in Jesus Christ.

Taking a longer view, and mindful of the incarnation, the fathers saw humanity as the point at which the Uncreated and created met. To be human is to be the place of communion between God and the cosmos. We are this because we are both a microcosm and a macrocosm; we are both the creation in miniature even as we also contain the whole creation in ourselves. For this reason on turning his mind and heart to God King David says of us all: "What is man that you care for Him?"

In the moment in which our creation is completed, we read in Genesis the divine command to our First Parents: "Be fruitful and multiple, fill the earth and subdue it." While this certainly refers to procreation, to the begetting and raising of children in marriage, it also has a more general application. To be human is to be productive and profitable and to make of the creation a fit home for the human family. In a word, the vocation of the human person is to work.

But work in Genesis means much more than what we think of it now on the other side of Adam's transgression. In Genesis, we see God first and foremost as an artisan. As a potter forms clay into vessels both beautiful and useful, so to God takes the unformed matter of the cosmos and shapes it into something beautiful and good. This is not an abstract goodness or beauty, but one that is fitting for man. God creates something beautiful and good for us and then He charges us to continue that work of shaping creation as a beautiful, good and fit home for ourselves.

The primordial human vocation is this: After God and in God, we are to be as God for the creation and one another. We are called by God to exercise our gifts and ability to shape not only the material world, but also the social and cultural world according to the needs of the human family. This is not simply a functional task, but one which from (beginning to end, in both means and modes) is to be characterized by beauty and goodness.

Before all else, to be a steward is to commit oneself personally and generously to using the gifts of time, talents and treasure God has given each of us to create a good and beautiful home fit for the human family. But how we use out time, talent and treasure is not only an expression of our original vocation. While it has always required effort, even before the Fallen, because of Adam's transgression our work is often frustrating and marred by want and conflict. If sin has marred our vocation, it has not been undone. If anything one of the great sorrows of human life is the myriad ways in which our original vocation is so often left unfulfilled, still born and even aborted by human selfishness and material want.

It is for this reason that our work must be in Christ making our stewardship not only an expression of our shared human vocation, but also an expression of our personal effort to redeem human work, creativity and ingenuity.

In the next three weeks, I want to explore with you the three elements of our stewardship: time, talent, and treasure. As I said at the beginning, how we use time, treasure and talent reveals not only what we value, but also who we understand ourselves to be as a Christian community. May we by our stewardship show ourselves to be faithful disciples of Christ and found worthy at the end of our life to inherit the place prepared for us from all eternity.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Syndiakonia: Lay Cooperative Leadership and the Spiritual Formation Group

In my last post, I encouraged regular meetings between the priest and small group leaders. While these meetings are important (essential really) they are not sufficient. Effective lay leadership also requires regular that is to say, at least quarterly, communication with the parish council and at least an annual report to the whole parish. Not only does this help keep the group from focusing on itself, it also keeps the larger community aware of what is happening with the various small group ministries. It also, I should add, helps build these small group ministries--people won't participate in a ministry they don't know exists or, if they know it exists, understand. Remember, that a formation group is what sociologists call a "mediating structure" between the wider realities of parish, diocese, the Church or culture on the one hand, and the particular reality of one's daily life. The small group is then inherently a place of some tension and there is always the risk of the group become an occasion for isolation from either pole of the members' lives.

Small groups and especially spiritual formation groups that meet on a regular basis for common prayer and shared reflection can be a great source of strength and encouragement for not only the laity but also the clergy. Precisely because their focus is vocational and ascetical, or if one prefers, Christian discipleship. They provide a means to help people discover the joyful challenge of not simply being called Christian, but actually being Christian.

Great rewards however require great effort and risks. Effective small group ministry in generally, and spiritual formation groups particularly, don't simply happen. Nor are they without their own possibilities for failure. This is in the nature of the Christian life isn't it? The angel of the Lord instructed St John the Theologian to write these words to the Church Laodicea:

These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Rev 3.14-22)

No question, the words are harsh. But again, in what other area of life do we succeed without effort and at the risk of failure? To my knowledge none.

In my next post I want to offer what I think is an exciting ecumenical opportunity for the spiritual formation of the laity that my own parish will be undertaking later this fall.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcomed, they are actively encouraged by me.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The "Mechanics" of Group Spiritual Formation: A Spiritual Conversation

Mindful that the goal is to help people help each other come to self-knowledge and self-mastery in light of the Tradition, I find it best to begin with a brief, 10 minute reflection on the text assigned for that meeting. As I have mentioned in another place, in this talk I will ALWAYS make three points:

1. What is the aspect of the Christian faith illustrated by the text? ("What do we believe?")
   
2. How in the Tradition of the Church is that faith typically embodied? ("How have the saints who have gone before us lived?") and finally,
   
3. What are the typical obstacles and facilitating conditions for our incarnating the faith? ("How then are we to live?")
   

In presenting the opening talk, it is important that the group leader bear in mind that the objective here is three-fold. The talk should be (1) an inspirational reflection on the text (2) in light of what he or she has appropriated and applied from the text to their own life and (3) what the leader thinks is foundational for the group as a whole.

So in a group of retired men and women, for example, the fact that the director is quite taken with the Pilgrim reciting the Jesus Prayer 10,000 or more times a day, doesn't mean he should suggest this as a standard to be imitated by the group. But he might reflect on how overwhelming is the Pilgrim's example but how it has inspired him to set aside a few minutes at the beginning and end of everyday to recite the Jesus Prayer. Or, how he recites the prayer at quiet moments during the day. And all of this might be introduced by the Scripture command to pray constantly as a command to be always mindful of the Presence of Christ in our life.

Learning how do offer a talk that is inspirational in character takes practice. One sign that a speaker has learned to do so is the response s/he gets from the group. The initial talk is meant to be a stimulus for conversation in the group. For this reason there needs to be clear a transition from conference to conversation. Leaders need to be attentive therefore to tone, gesture, etc. There are three intertwining methods:

1. The leader might wish to ask the participants to discuss those parts of the assigned text that they resonate with/resisted.
   
2. Sharing of reflections/thoughts by the participants in the service of the group helping each other in their journey toward self-knowledge and self-mastery.
   
3. Integration and articulation of the suggestions for the spiritual life that are not only held in common but which people in the group as particularly important.
   

Obviously, I have only offered a very brief sketch here the process of group formation. And it should be clear that what I have outlined is very demanding of the group leader. In the next series of posts I want to speak directly about the group leader and his or her relationship with the parish priest.

As always, your questions, comments, criticism are most welcome and actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

AXIOS!

It is with great joy that I convey to you that my friend and brother in Christ Archimandrite Jonah, abbot of St John of San Francisco Monastery, Manton CA has been elected Bishop of Forth Worth for the Orthodox Church in America.   I got to know Fr Jonah when Mary and I lived in Redding and he came up from the Bay area to start SS Cyril and Methodius Orthodox Mission in Chico, CA (about 70 miles south of us).

May God grant His servant, Bishop elect Jonah many years!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

From the OCA web site:

Archimandrite Jonah (Paffhausen) elected Bishop of Fort Worth and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of the South

Posted 09/04

SYOSSET, NY [OCA Communications] – On Thursday, September 4, 2008, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America issued the following statement.

“On September 4, 2008, the Holy Synod of Bishops of The Orthodox Church in America elected Archimandrite Jonah (Paffhausen) to be Bishop of Fort Worth, and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of the South.

“Details regarding the consecration of Bishop-elect Jonah will be announced later.”

The "Mechanics" of Group Spiritual Formation: Prayer & Text

Group spiritual formation is not group therapy, an adult religious education, or group sharing. Nor, I hasten to add, is it an occasion for sermonizing by either a lay or clergy leader.

It is rather a prayerful conversation in which the group members help each other discover and incarnate who they are and are called to be in Christ. In other words, the goal of the group is self-knowledge and self-mastery in Christ. The means of accomplishing this two-sided goal is a conversation that is both rooted in, and leads to, prayer.

The twin goals of self-discovery and self-mastery might see odd to many. In more typical Orthodox theological language we might say that the concern of group formation is vocation (i.e., self-knowledge in Christ) and ascetical (i.e., self-mastery in the service of living out who I am in Christ). In this post I am less concerned with the teleos of this process and more in briefly describing in a practical fashion the process of the spiritual formation group itself.

The formation group itself begins and ends with prayer. In an Orthodox Christian context there are a number of different options for the opening prayer. For a more formal beginning, we might gather to pray Vespers, one or more of the Hours, an Akathist or Moleben. Less formally, the group might recite the Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner") with the group leader reciting say the first half of the prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God. . . ") with the group either singularly or corporately responding with the conclusion (". . . have mercy on me a sinner"). Another option is for the leader to read a short passage from Scripture or a spiritual text, followed by a time of silence. As a personal matter, I find the more informal approach, limited to 2-3 minutes, to be more effective than a formal service.

However the group beings, I find it best for the group to conclude with silence. Early on the group as a group may only be able to tolerate a minute or two of silence before people begin to fidget. As the members of the group become more familiar with each other the silence can be extended and take up a larger percentage of their time together. In a group that lasts approximately 90 minutes, 10 or 15 minutes or even more time can be given over to the concluding period of silence.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As a practical matter, I find it best to focus the group's time together around a classical spiritual text. There is a wide-range of works that can be used and they should be selected with an eye not only to their centrality to the Tradition of the Church, but also the needs of the group members. This means that we need to take into account the difficulty of the text in terms of language and concepts, length, and the "existential" distance between the text and the group members.

So for example, in the first spiritual formation group I lead as a graduate student we used The Way of the Pilgrim. The text itself has come to hold a central place in not only Orthodox spirituality but is valued by Catholic and Protestant readers as well. The text itself is easy to read and is not overly demanding either intellectually or emotionally for the average reader. And while the Pilgrim whose adventures are chronicled is a Russian peasant wandering through 19th century Russia, the basic themes he addresses are very basic human themes, for example, grief, disappointment, and fear.

St John Climacus's The Ladder of Divine Ascent, on the other, is unlikely to prove effective especially for a beginning group. The work is long, culturally alien and is narrowly concerned with the experience of early Christian monastics. Again, this doesn't mean that the book shouldn't be used, only that it may not be as effective text for a general audience as say St John Cassian's On the Eight Vices which, while also quite challenging, is a shorter, more focused and accessible work for the average adult.

Also helpful are works of a more theological or systematic nature. I'm thinking here of Bishop Kallistos (Ware) The Orthodox Way, Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom), The Courage to Pray, Fr Alexander Schmemann's Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodox, or Of Water and the Spirit: A Liturgical Study of Baptism.

Novels and short fiction is also a possibility. And of course there is Scripture. But whatever text is used it must be not only generally accessible but classical text. We ought to avoid more marginal or specialized works.

Whatever is read, is best read according to a schedule so that the group members can focus their reading and thoughts on the same section of the text. Failure to do so usually results in some group members reading ahead, others lagging behind, and no one on the same page. When people really are not really basing their reflection on a common text there is a tendency to substitute one's own idiosyncratic (and not infrequently, narcissistic) views on the spiritual life for a shared response to the Christian tradition.

In my next post, I will look at how this shared response might be structured.

As always, your questions, comments, criticism are most welcome and actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Why Group Spiritual Formation

Having explored yesterday what I mean by group spiritual formation, I want in this post to offer a justification for it as a potential area of lay ministry in the Church.

The tradition of the Orthodox Church is incredibly rich in not only theological insight, but also anthropological wisdom. At the same time the very depth and breadth of the tradition tends to lull us into a mindset that assumes--wrongly I would argue--that the tradition is (to use a contemporary phrase) turnkey. All I need to do, so the thinking goes, is simply listen to my spiritual father, go to church, keep the fasts, go to confession and say my daily prayers and I am living an Orthodox life. Most Orthodox priests, and not a few attentive lay people, will tell you that this approach to the spiritual life is at best naive and at worst self-deceptive.

Living a wholesome spiritual life requires instruction and guidance. This is why Orthodox Christians place such a value on the office of spiritual father or mother. We all of us need a guide in the spiritual life. In my own pastoral experience however, I've found that my own ability to guide people is somewhat limited. In part this reflects my own limits both profound and mundane. Even assuming that I could overcome the more substantial of my limitations, I often find (as most priests do) that I do not always have the time or energy to offer guidance to everyone who might want my attention.

Beyond my own limitations though, I often discover real limitations in the people who seek guidance from me. At times these limitations are benign; a lack of sound catechesis being the prime deficient to be overcome. Other times there are underlying psychopathologies that are more appropriately engaged by a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. And for still others, their motivation in seeking me out has little if anything to do with growing in the spiritual life and more to do with an almost compulsive need to have an external authority figure in their lives.

These, and other limitations, aside however it seems to me that the biggest pastoral challenge we face as Orthodox Christians (and I think this is also a problem for Catholics, Anglicans and any other Christian tradition that takes seriously the demands of the inner life) is our tendency to want to limit the work of spiritual formation to as few people as possible. In a word, we have clericalized (or maybe more accurately, monasticized) the work of spiritual formation.

Partly this has happened because of a lack of sound catechesis for the laity. Though we are the inheritors of a rich theological tradition, few among the laity have even a basic grasp of the catechism. Absent this knowledge, much of the work of spiritual formation necessarily becomes remedial in nature and so limited to "experts" if I may use this term in reference to the spiritual life.

But I also think that our limiting spiritual formation work to the clergy and monastics also reflects a fundamental lack of appreciation of the Mystery of Holy Baptism and the call of each of us to serve as priest, prophet and king in Christ. Even absent moral, spiritual or educational reasons that would preclude a lay person engaging in the ministry, we simply they are not capable of engaging in the work of spiritual formation. We live as if lay people are not able to offer guidance for one and other. But whether true or not, if this is our working assumption, what does this say about the spiritual state of the Church as a body of believers in general and about the effectiveness of the clergy in particular as spiritual fathers for our respective diocesan and parochial communities? If the laity cannot serve as priests, prophets and kings within the Church (albeit with the guidance of the clergy) how can they fulfill these same offices outside the Church in evangelistic or philanthropic ministries?

Establishing and encouraging the work of group spiritual formation as a lay ministry guided by the clergy, or so I would suggest, is potentially a way for parish priests help lay people come to appreciate not only in a general sense the baptismal call of the whole Body of Christ to serve as priest, prophet and king, but also to do so in a specific sense within the context of their own daily lives. But this raises a question: How do we do the work of group spiritual formation?

Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus, one Christian is no Christian. The very word "church," reminds us that our Christian life is lived as a member of a community, of a group, or fellowship of believers, called together in Christ, by the command of God the Father, and through the work of the Holy Spirit. Further, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, we are all of us given gifts, charisms, for the building up of the Body of Christ, for those men and women with whom we have been gathered together. In fact, let me push this further, not only are we given gifts for the Church, it is only through these gifts and their exercise, that we can in truth claim to be in communion with Christ and His Body the Church. The charisms are given to each of us in baptism and are the links, or if you'd rather, points of contact and communion between the person and the Church. Failure to exercise these charisms means that we fail to live the very communion we profess.

In tomorrow's post I will briefly outline the "mechanics" of how we can offer these gifts to each other in a group setting.

As always, your questions, comments and criticism are most welcome.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

What is Group Spiritual Formation?

In the next several posts, I want to offer some theoretical and practical thoughts about group spiritual formation. Maybe the best place to begin is by asking what I mean by "group spiritual formation"?

All Christian life then is communal and all of us have been called by God to help, each in our own unique and personal way, foster this share life in Christ. In light of this, group formation is simply a practical means of exercising this shared responsibility given to each of us in our baptism.

Unlike say group therapy or a support group, group spiritual formation is built on a shared adherence to tradition. (In the current example, this means the Tradition of the Orthodox Church, likewise for a Catholic or Protestant group. ) But while there is a shared commitment to a tradition, the exploration of this tradition as such is not the goal of a spiritual formation group. The goal rather is to allow that tradition, as expressed by the insights of the group members, to serve as a guide for how we live our daily lives.

One touchstone of group formation then is the tradition of the Church as an objective standard. Again unlike psychotherapy that is concerned with the identification and correction of psychopathological tendencies through the strengthening of the ego, group formation is concerned with helping people stand in appreciative openness and gratitude toward the tradition of the Church. Or, to put the matter more directly, the goal of group formation is to make Orthodox Christians who are Orthodox Christians not only in name but in fact.

The other touchstone of group formation is actual life experience and the concerns that emerge from daily life (therapeutic group or support stop here). One brings to the group then not simply insights about the tradition we share, but also how our understanding of that tradition and our life experience mutually interpret each other.

Let me explain.

The Orthodox Church has a very rigorous tradition of fasting. Followed strictly, this means that for something like half the year we don't eat meat, chicken or dairy products, we don't drink alcohol, use olive oil to cook, or (if we are married) engage in sexual relations with our spouse. At the risk of understating the matter, few Orthodox Christians follow this tradition rigorously but our lack of rigor does not admit to only one explanation and, for this reason, only one solution that can be expounded in a Sunday sermon.

In a group formation setting, however, the role of fasting in my spiritual life can be explored with more specificity. How? Well, say the group reads together the various biblical references to fasting, as well as a selection of works from the fathers on fasting. If this was all they did, this would be merely a "group" sermon or catechesis on fasting. What they might also do is have discuss on the demands of their daily life and how, within the limits of that life, they are able in good conscience fulfill the ascetical tradition of the Church. Going beyond this, they might also appropriately challenge each other to a more rigorous asceticism. But just as likely they might also challenge each other to a more balanced approach to asceticism that acknowledge the concrete demands of their own life circumstances,

The point here is this: One's adherence to the Tradition is shaped not only by one's own, personal, views and life circumstances, but also how they are discerned by a small community of brothers or sisters in Christ. As we will see, grounded in a common faith and the grace of baptism, in and through the group, through our times of corporate prayer, silence, reading and mutual reflection, there emerges in and through the group a direction for my life. This isn't to shift responsibility for my life to the group. Nor does it mean that my parish priest, as the spiritual father of the community, has no role in my life. It means only that the spiritual formation group serves to help me be evermore faithfully in the appropriate application of the wisdom of Holy Tradition (which includes the Scriptures and the Fathers) to the concrete circumstances of my own life.

In tomorrow's post I will offer a theological justification of group spiritual formation as a lay ministry grounded in Holy Baptism.

As always, your questions, comments and criticism are most welcome.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Limits of Forgiveness

Sunday, August 31, 2008: 11th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - Tone 2. The Placing of the Cincture (Sash) of the Most-Holy Theotokos (395-408). Hieromartyr Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (258). St. Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople (471).

Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!' So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 'Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?' And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.

(Matthew 18:23-35)

Forgiveness, for me at least, is one of the hardest subject on which to preach. The struggle that I have is this: People tend to absolutize forgiveness. What I mean by that is that for many Christians, and even non-Christians, forgiveness is the most important of all Christian virtues. In fact for many, forgiveness, together with its ancillary virtues such as compassion, tolerance, and understanding, seems to have become the only virtue. As with other approaches (Christian or not) to the moral life that make, for example peace or justice, the only virtues, making forgiveness the only, or even the central, virtue of the Christian life betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the virtuous life.

In the classical Christian, and even some pre-Christian such as we see in Plato and Aristotle, understanding, virtue is a matter of balance. So for example, Plato understandings justice as the functioning of each part according to own limits and purposes. For Aristotle, courage is the means between the extremes of recklessness and cowardice. And for both Christians and non-Christians virtue is not simply a matter of balance, but the ability of the person to act or behave habitually in a right (that is, balanced) fashion.

Christ in the Gospel, or so I would argue, presents a similar understanding of the virtuous life as one of balance. The parable recounted in Matthew 18.23-35 is in response to Peter's question in v. 21: "Then Peter came to Him and said, "'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?'" Jesus respond by saying, in v. 22, "Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.'" He then proceeds to offer the parable of the wicked servant.

From an exegetical point of view the interesting thing about the parable is that it seems to contradict what He has just told Peter. Yes, initially at least, the king forgives his servant an extraordinarily large debt in response to his servant's pleadings. But while the master's forgiveness is real, it is not unconditional, it is not absolute. What do I mean by this?

When the newly forgiven servant is himself approached by his fellow servant with a request similar to that he earlier made to the king, the wicked servant not only does not forgive the debt, he has the debtor thrown into prison. Hearing of this from other servants the king calls his servant into his presence and, in response to the servant's lack of compassion, rescinds his forgiveness and delivers the wicked servant over "to the torturers" until he is able to pay all that he owes the king.

Jesus concludes by telling Peter, and us, that the "Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses." (v. 35)

So here then is problem, it would seem that divine forgiveness is not absolute, has its limits. God does not forgive the unforgiving, He does not have mercy or compassion on those who themselves lack mercy and compassion on their neighbor. Let me offer a somewhat shocking summary of the point where we find ourselves: It would seem that there are circumstance is which forgiveness is not the God-pleasing thing to do. Evidently there are times when, as in the case of the servants who in their grief reported to the king the actions of the wicked servant, when a response other than forgiveness is required of us. Or maybe it is more accurate to say, that the virtuous response is not exhausted by forgiveness.

Let me explain.

St Matthew begins this chapter with the disciples coming to Jesus and asking "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (v.1) In response Jesus calls "a little child to Him, set him in the midst" of the disciples. (v. 2) Turning to His somewhat misguided followers, Jesus tells them "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. (vv. 3-5) But this doesn't end Jesus' response. He continues His teaching on "Christian greatness" with three brief lessons that come rapidly one after the other in verses 6-19.

He begins by offering a negative example of Christian discipleship. He warns His disciples that they must have a special care of the "little ones" of faith. To lead the weak of faith into sin is a horrible crime, so horrible in fact that it would be better for me "millstone" hung around my neck and be "drowned in the depth of the sea." (v. 6) In a fallen world, the little one's of faith will be offended, "but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!" For this person it would be better for them to cut off a hand or a foot or pluck out their own, and so enter into the Kingdom of God "lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire." (vv. 8, 9)

In verses 10-14, Jesus instructs His disciples to be always on the look out for the "lost sheep" among the faithful. The return of even one who has fallen away brings about more joy in Heaven than the 99 who remain faithful. Why? Because our Father in heaven desires that not even "one of these little ones should perish." (v. 14) Notice here the shift in Jesus' argument. The "little one" is no longer simply the child or the innocent among us, but the lost sheep, the sinful man or woman, who has strayed from the Gospel. Without losing sight of the innocent among us, we are also called to reconcile those who have a fallen into sin. How?

"Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.' And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. "Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." (vv. 15-19)

Again, we are called to forgive, to call back those who have strayed. But we are to do so only within limits. What are these limits? Taking my cue from not only the first verse of the chapter (vv. 1-9) but also the reaction of the king to the wicked servant at the end if the chapter, I would suggest the limits of forgiveness are found when forgiveness comes at the expense of the weak and vulnerable among us. When forgiveness means tolerating harm done to the little ones of faith, when it allows for the exploitation of others in their vulnerability or weakness, then forgiveness must be with held.

Think for a moment of what it means to forgive someone who has harmed you? What are you doing in this situation but, like the merciful king in the parable, refusing to press your own legitimate advantage in the face of the other person's real and objective debt to you?

And when I refuse to forgive, what am I doing? It doesn't mean asking for my due. Rather, when I withhold my forgiveness, I not only ignore the demands of justice, but use your debt to me as a means to harm you. When I am unforgiving, I don't ask for what is owned me, I use what is owned me to punish you. So egregious is this behavior, that it evokes from the king a harsh, and seemingly unforgiving, response. But are things as they appear?

The wicked servant is willing not simply to press the demands of justice under the law, but to exploit the king's own earlier act of mercy to harm his fellow servant. The wicked servant poisons his lord's mercy by his willingness to inflict harm on his fellow servant. As the complaints of the other servants suggest, the willingness to make use of the mercy, compassion, forgiveness, understanding and freedom showed me to harm you undermines the very possibility of a peaceful communal life. We cannot live together in harmony or justice when the wicked are allowed to exploit the freedom of forgiveness to harm others.

Feelings of resentment (which no doubt the servants of the king felt for their wicked fellow servant), while not good, don't necessarily signify the lack of forgiveness. Neither does the unwillingness to trust someone or spend time in their presence necessarily mean that I have failed to forgive. Much as I wouldn't trust an alcoholic with the ability to limit his own drinking, there are people for whom my trust is likely to result in their fall.

Forgiveness then is my refusal to exploit others in their weakness, their poverty, their vulnerability.

When someone has harmed me, when by how they act or fail to act, they have indebted themselves me, forgiveness is the virtue on my part that keeps me from pressing my advantage over them. But I must do so in such a manner that a third party does not pay the cost for my action. This concern for a third party is critical because forgiveness is simply negative, it is more than simply writing off a debt owed, or not exploiting another's weakness. Forgiveness is in the service of reconciliation, of re-establishing a lost communion between God and humanity and humanity with itself.

For this reason, when I forgive someone I must do more than simply refusal to use people's own weakness against them or for my own gain, it also means that I refuse to colluded (even passively or unintentionally) with their mistreatment of others, even if they person they harm is themselves. It is not forgiving to allow others to use my gift to them to be used against others. Again, forgiving the criminal, for example, does not mean overlooking the harm he has done others, ignoring the possibility (granted more or less likely) that he will harm someone in the future, much less my remaining passive in the face of his willingness harm others. Likewise, forgiveness does not preclude reparations for harm done.

In the final analysis, though forgiveness is always more than NOT doing something; forgiveness must also be positive. The negative movement of forgiveness is ALWAYS in the service of the positive movement of reconciliation.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Archbishop Chaput's response to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi about the Church's historic stand on abortion

As I've mentioned here, the number of Orthodox Christians who favor few or no restrictions on abortion is terribly high (just over 60%). Given that number, I found the following from Denver's Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J Chaput, O.F.M. Cap on abortion worthy repeating here.

You can download the rest of Archbishop Chaput's statement as a PDF, "ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE: A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH IN NORTHERN COLORADO" by clicking on the title.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Pelosi: "I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that def-inition . . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."

Chaput's response:

"Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:

"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."

Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."

Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But nonediminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian
community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.

Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief.

Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.

The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches."

Wow. Praise God and pass the ammunition . . . There will no lack of clarity in Chaput's town this week - at least about what the Church Church teaches on the subject of abortion. Pelosi walked right into that one.

H/T Sherry W on Intention Disciples:

Related articles by Zemanta

• "Orthodox" Moral Reasoning

Healed of Our Sins, Healed of Our Passions

Sunday, August 24, 2008: 10th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST — Tone 1. Hieromartyr Eutychius, disciple of St. John the Theologian (1st c.). Translation of the Relics of St. Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia (1479). Ven. Arsény, Abbot of Komel' (Vologdá—1550). Martyr Tation (Tatio) of Claudiopolis (305). Virgin Martyr Cyra (Kira) of Persia (558). St. George Limniotes the Confessor of Mt. Olympus (8th c.). St. Kozma of Berat, Evangelizer of Southern Albania (18th-19th c.). Repose of New Hieromartyr Cosmas of Aetolia, Equal-to-the-Apostles (1779). The "PETROVSKAYA" Icon of the Most-Holy Theotokos.

And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him." Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me." And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up. And they were exceedingly sorrowful.

(Matthew 17:14-23)

We need to be careful in how we understand the idea that illness (whether physical or mental) is the result of sin.

While it can be, and at is, the result of my personal sin, for the Fathers of the Church sickness is a symptom of the fallen condition of all humanity. In other words, while I might be sick because of something I did, it is also possible that my sickness is the result not of my personal actions but rather a consequence of Adam's transgression all those many years ago in the Garden.

And even here, with the idea that illness is a result of our fallen condition, or of human sinfulness, we must exercise great caution. Again for the Fathers, illness, like physical death and all our other experiences of our own limits, is not a punishment. Rather sickness is given to humanity by God to help remind us of our absolute dependence on Him and our relative dependence upon each other. In other words, physical and mental illness are therapeutic, they are part of how God heals us--personally and communally--of our sinfulness.

With this in mind we can turn to the Gospel for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost. In line with the general patristic understanding of sickness, in his own comments on this passage, Origen (Commentary on Matthew, 13.4) says that "every disease and weakness which our Savior cured" during His ministry on earth "represents different symptoms in the soul." So, for example, "the paralytics" represent those who paralyze the soul by wedding it to the desire of the flesh. The "blind" symbolize for Origen those who are indifferent, and even hostile, to the "things seen by the soul alone," for example, faith, hope and love the three great virtues of the Christian life. (see, 1 Cor 13.13) The "deaf" remind us of those he says of those who close their hearts and will not receive "the word of salvation."

For Origen, as for the Fathers of the Church more generally, the meaning of the material world was found on two levels simultaneously. The physical (which includes the body and society) and the spiritual (which permeates the physical and both undergirds and transcends it). As with paralysis, blindness and deafness, so to with epilepsy, it has a physical, or we might say medical meaning, but also a spiritual meaning that transcends (but does not minimize or invalidate) the physical meaning. Origen tells us:

On the same principle it will be necessary that the matters regarding the epileptic should be investigated. Now this affection attacks the sufferers at considerable intervals, during which he who suffers from it seems in no way to differ from the man in good health, at the season when the epilepsy is not working on him. Similar disorders you may find in certain souls, which are often supposed to be healthy in point of temperance and the other virtues; then, sometimes, as if they were seized with a kind of epilepsy arising from their passions, they fall down from the position in which they seemed to stand, and are drawn away by the deceit of this world and other lusts.

In other words, Origen see epilepsy as symbolic of the passions.

We hear a great deal about the passions in Orthodox theology and spiritual writings but often we might not know what the word means. The word itself comes from the Greek word, pathos, meaning to suffer. It has the connotation of something in the face of which I am passive. So a passion is something that controls me that can come and (like an epileptic seizure) take over my life and rob me of my autonomy.

In coming then to heal the epileptic boy Jesus demonstrates His desire as well to heal all humanity of our passions, of those things in our life that rob us of self-possession, that enslave us and rob us of our freedom.

Thinking about it for a moment, the connection between my passions and my own lack of inner freedom should become clear to me. For example, I might be the nicest guy in the world (I am not I assure you. Nor, I hasten to add do I aspire to be, but that is for another day). But (and we all know someone like this, we might be related to this person, or even be this person) there are just little things that set me off--cause me for example to fly into a rage or sink into depression. When these things happen, I am no longer in control of my actions or (especially in extreme cases) my thoughts. What is in control? anger or despair.

Likewise we can see something similar happening with lust, or envy, or greed, or any of the Seven Deadly Sins in classical western theology or the eight evil thoughts about which Evagrius warns his monastic readers. Whatever list we use, the point is the same: We need to struggle against those habits of thought and action that have the power to rob us of our ability to act freely.

How do we do this? There are I think four things we can do.

There is first of all Holy Confession. When I come to confession I do so not simply to say what I have done wrong (much less what my spouse, children or co-workers have done wrong), but also to seek the help of Christ and the priest to understand why I have behaved as I have. In other words, not just what sins have I committed, but what are the particular passions that have control over me? This is what the father does when he confesses to Christ his own unbelief.

Second, it is important that as I come to understand what particular passions have gripped me, I need to learn two things: when are these passions likely to be aroused in me and how do I avoid feed into them when they do? The second of these is by far the harder of the two tasks since, especially early on, I am often unaware that I am consenting to the passion until it is too late. As a quick aside, this is why we have in the Church formal periods of communal fasting--so that we can slowly wean ourselves from our addictions to different passions.

Third, I must pray. Not only do I have to ask God, like the boy's father, to heal me, I also must be in the habit of setting aside time to simply sit in the presence of God with a listening and obedient heart. It is all too easy for me to always run to God with the things I want, asking Him in effect to bless my passions (especially if I have a passionate need to be seen by myself and others as a "good Christian"!). While it is good and proper to ask for what I need (as the father does, "Help my unbelief!"), it is also important that I allow God to instruct me in how He would have me live. I should ask Him to make me a good Christian, but to be a good husband or priest according to His will for my life.

Fourth and finally, I must be willing to bear patiently with not simply the will of God but the timing of God. Often it seems God allows me to suffer my own passions as a way to break me of my habits. In effect God seems to practice the spiritual equivalent of aversion therapy with me. There are times when God will keep giving me what I want until I realize I really don't want it. This actually seems to be Origen's opinion. He writes:

Perhaps, therefore, you would not err if you said, that such persons, so to speak, are epileptic spiritually, having been cast down by "the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places," (Eph 6:12) and are often ill, at the time when the passions attack their soul; at one time falling into the fire of burnings, when, according to what is said in Hosea, they become adulterers, like a pan heated for the cooking from the burning flame; (Hos 7:4) and, at another time, into the water, when the king of all the dragons in the waters casts them down from the sphere where they appeared to breath freely, so that they come into the depths of the waves of the sea of human life. This interpretation of ours in regard to the lunatic will be supported by him who says in the Book of Wisdom with reference to the even temperament of the just man, "The discourse of a pious man is always wisdom," but, in regard to what we have said, "The fool changes as the moon." (Sir 27:11) And sometimes even in the case of such you may see impulses which might carry away in praise of them those who do not attend to their want of ballast, so that they would say that it was as full moon in their case, or almost full moon. And you might see again the light that seemed to be in them diminishing,— as it was not the light of day but the light of night,— fading to so great an extent, that the light which appeared to be seen in them no longer existed. But whether or not those who first gave their names to things, on account of this gave the name of lunacy to the disease epilepsy, you will judge for yourself.

Again, while it is important to distinguish physical and spiritual illness, it is clear that for Origen, the spiritual epileptic is so as a result of his own foolish desires. God has given him over to what he (imagine) he wants until, finally, he repents.

My friends, Christ has offered us, and through us the whole human family and indeed the whole creation, the possibility of being free. This freedom does not come as the result of human action, I don't make myself free. It comes rather as a free gift of divine grace. When you or I struggle against are passions what we are really doing, is struggling against our own tendencies to reject the gift of freedom and divine life. Again as Origen says in his sermon, "they are free who abide in the truth of the word of God, and on this account, know the truth, that they also may become free from sin. If, any one then, is a son simply, and not in this matter wholly a son of the kings of the earth, he is free." Let us turn from our own willful, and unintended, rejection of divine grace and instead, with open and obedient hearts, stand together in Christ in Whose will for us personally and as a community we can find true freedom and life everlasting.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Setting the Stage: The Logic of Spiritual Formation

Returning to a topic introduced in an earlier post, I offer for your consideration some thoughts on the practical elements of spiritual formation in groups. Given the recent discussion in the comments section on the psychological and spiritual health, this topic is especially important. Let me explain.

Psychological testing for candidates for ordination (at least for priests and deacons) is important. There are a number of tests that are useful in identifying those candidates who have mental health concerns that might make them unfit for ministry. But no test is any better than the one who administers it. And, no matter how well the test in administered, it is of no value if we fail to act on the results. As I see it the irony in testing is this: The best science in the world is useless, and even harmful, in the hands of those who the intellectual and moral abilities to apply it to appropriately to the needs of the candidate. Psychological testing, at its best, helps us exclude those men for whom holy orders and ministry would be an unbearable burden because of their own psychological makeup. Testing can tell us who not to ordain; it cannot tell is who to ordain.

Empirical sciences (and this includes psychology and psychological testing) function inductively. This is to say that science makes general statements that are probably true, based on individual instances. For example, if you answer X to question Y then you are probably depressed. The Pew Charitable Trust Survey of the US Religious Landscape is an example of inductive reasoning. A large number of people are interviewed and the researchers draw general conclusions (expressed statistically) about religious life in the United States. While there has been over the years criticism of inductive reasoning, I think that if we bear in mind its limitations it is a valuable tool for ministry.

Most clergy are not trained in science, that is there are not (as part of their own education as clergy) expected to be experts in inductive reasoning. This I think is one of the reasons that frequently bishops and the lower clergy have difficulty in understanding, much less using appropriately, the findings of the social and human sciences. If scientists are trained in inductive reason, by virtue of their theological education clergy are more inclined to proceed along different lines in their understanding of the world of persons, events, and things. At least vocationally, clergy are theologians and theology, unlike empirical science (including psychology) typically uses deductive and not inductive reasoning.

Unlike inductive reasoning that moves from the particular to the general, deductive reasoning moves from the general (or universal) to the particular. For example, let's say you hold to the premise that all human beings have "sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." You know that I am human and while you know nothing about me except that I am human, you concluded that I am a sinner. This doesn't tell me how you I sin, but it does give you some insight into my life. Unlike inductive reasoning that offers us states of probability (or assertoric knowledge or information that is likely true) deductive reasoning offers (or claims to offer) certain knowledge (or apodictic knowledge or information that is necessarily or absolutely true).

Especially as an applied discipline, spiritual formation, to get finally to our topic here, uses a third, and often overlooked, form of logical reasoning: abductive. Unlike inductive and deductive reasoning, abductive reasoning is concerned with trying to reason, often by trail and error, to the best explanation. Abductive reasoning is by its very nature heuristic that is it is a way of focusing, and often refocusing, our attention in the search for a solution to a concrete problem.

Abductive reasoning is the mode of reasoning that we encounter in a story. Narratives are abductive in character; they are not necessarily true in an empirical or ontological sense. But a good story, even if it is fails to be truthful in an empirical or ontological sense, is still true. G.K. Chesterton puts it this way: "Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

So what am I saying in asserting that as an applied discipline spiritual direction is a mode of abductive reasoning, a story, if you will?

Simply this, the goal of spiritual direction is to help people see how the little story of their lives fits within the larger story of the Gospel and the salvation of the human race. It is essential that people see where their lives fits in that overarching story.

But not only this.

It is important that they see where the large, cosmic and heavenly story of salvation is written out in the smaller, but no less valuable, story of their own lives. This is why while both inductive and deductive forms of reasoning have their value, in the final analysis they both fail us, or rather we fail ourselves, if we try and use them to explain the spiritual life. This is why, if I may offer an opinion, why so much Orthodox preaching is bad; priests offer lectures and not stories--they offer history classes, but fail to show how the larger and smaller stories of salvation history presuppose each other. A good storyteller always suggests that he's leaving things out, that their are things he's left unsaid maybe to be said on another day, but then again maybe not. A storyteller and the story he tells has its own logic, but that logic is neither deductive nor inductive, but the logic of narrative, of the myth or the fairy tale or poetry, but never the lecture hall or the seminar room.

In spiritual direction, in the work of spiritual formation, we are primarily tellers of tales, of the true story of God, of the creation, the human community, and this community, or that person. How do we do this? That is for a later post.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

A Thought from Kierkegaard

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament. "

Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, ed. Charles E. Moore (Farmington, PA: Plough, 2002), 201

H/T: ochlophobist

Meg Funk: About Spiritual Ambition

Given the current series of conversations about spiritual formation I thought a recent post by Sr Mary Meg Funk, OSB, on Spiritual Ambition was appropriate. Sr Mary describes herself on her blog as "a nun seeking God through the monastic way of life under a Rule and a superior." She is a member of Our Lady of Grace Monastery Beech Grove, IN.

Sister is involved in ecumenical and interfaith dialog about monastic life. Her words bring a helpful mix of insights not only from Roman Catholicism, but also Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Buddhism. I would encourage people to take a look at Sr Mary's blog. While I am on the subject, I would recommend as well Vow of Conversation by the Roman Catholic Cistercian nun Sr Macrina. Post for both blogs will appear under My Blog List in the lower right.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory


Humility thrives without ambition. Yet, the ascetical life has the root word of an athlete. I've heard the Dalai Lama say competition for monks is desirable to assist the weak and encourage the strong.

We rightly esteem our Olympic Athletes. We applaud their discipline and mastery of skill demonstrated through their sport events.

St. Paul uses the athlete as an ideal for us to measure our efforts to life Gospel values with such dedication.

Benedict says he wants to temper the rule to have nothing harsh to discourage the weak, but also keep the strong motivated and on the path during the whole of his/her life all his/her life.

So, when is ambition opposing humility?

Spiritual ambition has attachments to special clothes, using objects and appropriating gestures without authentic initiation and ordination lineages. Spiritual consumerism has a profit motive rather than sacrifice.

Spiritual ambition implies competition that could foster violence rather than the warm community known as koinonia in the Acts of the Apostles.

Money exchange for services rendered is blessed and helpful for stability and good order. The services rendered by a competent and authorized minister warrant wages. To take advantage of spiritual hunger and exploit through consumerism is an affliction of vainglory.

Ambition is about motivation. Spiritual ambition risks the self-willed agenda rather than selflessness that gives honor and glory to God and right effort to the seeker.

Towards others we teach by example and words of encouragement. Here we see how the teachings on laughter fit with the teaching on spiritual ambition. We would not laugh or make fun of another. We applaud any effort toward doing the right thing with right intention.

We also imitate the good we see in others and remain supple to catch our next point of conversatio. on our spiritual journey. It comes from the inside, this impulse of grace. Spiritual ambition comes from the outside, i.e. impressing others, being higher and taking the places of honor. Leadership roles can be seductive as can be scholarship and academic rituals of advancement.

Our American culture sponsors ambition. Business, sports, musical accomplishments have a place in society, but in the realm of the Spirit there is Soul to Soul calculus.

Our ambition is helpful to repent and wait upon the subtle graces that come to ready hearts.

Some Further Reflections on Why Converts Leave

The response to the post that looked at why converts leave the Church they have joined as adults were thoughtful and thought provoking. Let me respond here in turn to each of these comments.

Tony-Allen recommends an essay by Fr Seraphim Rose (Converts - Chapter 88 from Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works). There is here a great deal of very good advice for all concerned whether we were born into an Orthodox family or joined the Church later in life.

Stuart Koehl offers a number of very helpful observations. His distinction between those who convert TO and those who convert FROM is right on target. I have told a number of inquirers that I will not make them catechumens, much less receive them into the Church, until they resolve their problems in their tradition of origin. Basically my thinking is this: Angry, unhappy Evangelical Christians (or Protestants or Roman Catholic) are eventually going to be angry, unhappy Orthodox Christians. Again as Stuart's words suggest, left unhealed, this foster in the person a growing "sense of betrayal which either causes the convert to move on to something else (the perpetual seeker syndrome), or worse, to abandon faith altogether."

Stuart's observation is also correct. He writes that:

I don't think, therefore, that catechesis is a the heart of the problem, unless you use the term to include discernment of a person's motives for joining the Church. I know a lot of pastors and catechists are reluctant to do that, given that converts aren't exactly falling off trees. We want to put the best possible face on the Church, we create the idealized image in an attempt to "sell" the faith to the seeker. Since most of us do truly love the Church, we tend to gloss over the grubby reality of parish life, focusing instead on the glories of the Liturgy, the spiritual riches of the Tradition, and that sense of koinonia that we sometimes manage to achieve despite our various foibles.

Where I might disagree in that (and S-P mentions this as well) catechesis includes (or should include) an examination of the person's motives for joining the Church. As I've mentioned before, the catechumenate is a graduate seminar--it is a formation process. After some initial failures, I learned not to enroll people as catechumens until (1) I was morally certain that God had called them to enter the Church and (2) that they demonstrated the necessary resolve and fortitude to remain faithful. The catechumenate itself, as I tell people, is meant to begin what should be a life-long process of repentance. In other words, the catechumenate is a school of repentance. Yes, there are facts about the Church to be learned, but (as with the whole Tradition) serve repentance. For what it might be worth, as I have become more and more consistent in my approach to inquirers and catechumens, I have never lacked for people to receive. I suspect that if converts aren't falling off the trees, or are staying once they arrive, it is because we have fundamentally misunderstood the catechumenate. (St Augustine has some helpful advice on all this in "On the Catechising of the Uninstructed." It is well worth a read.)

Theo's own story of entering and then leaving the Orthodox Church I think illustrates the importance of really scurtinizing the motives of inquires BEFORE they are made catechumens. The failure to do this is harmful not only to the inquiry but the parish that he joins and will later leave.

I think Stuart is right in his call for a more realistic, warts and all, presentation of the Church and how we live our Christian lives is something I have tried to follow since I first got into the evangelism and apologetics "business." While I have been criticized for it, since it seems to cause "some people to turn away," I have found that "those who persist will be entering the Church with their eyes wide open, less prone to disillusionment,[and] more willing to stick it out through the rough patches."

Finally, I would (maybe?) disagree with Stuart about the need for a Spiritual Father. At least in the Orthodox world that term carries a great deal of freight, not all of which is helpful. What we need, above all else (as S-P and Chrys both suggest), are well rounded, emotional and developmentally mature men in the priesthood. On this score I think the Orthodox Church could learn a great deal from the Catholic Church's emphasis on the human formation of candidates for the priesthood. You can read more about this here: Institute for Priestly Formation.

As part of this move away from catechesis as dogmatics (S-P) and the overselling of the faith (Chrys), and toward communities of mature mena and women under the leadership of clergy drawn from mature men, married to mature women, in good and sound marriages, we would do well I think to take our cue from Ben. The Orthodox Church (and I have Catholics friends who a similiar need there) needs to do more to encourage priest to share the load. That might mean more priests and deacons relative to parishioners. But it certainly means the encouraging a more active approach to lay ministry guided by the clergy. I am trying to do this at Holy Assumption Orthodox Church (the parish I currently serve) and, while it is early days yet, it seems to be working.

Michelle's observation about the Orthodox Church being a lonely place is often true. For several years I did supply work for vacationing and ill priests in the Pittsburgh area. While often people in the parishes were warm and welcoming, it was not uncommon for them to be cold and distant. That said, I have found in the main that the things Michelle wants parishes to do, are often done by many parishes, but still it is not uncommon to run into resistance from the "old guard." This, as AMM suggests, is not unique to ethnic parishes, nor (as my friends who are Evangelical and Mainline Protestant pastors have assured me) for that matter to Orthodox communities. While we might use different means of excluding others (as Chrys said), it happens in all communities. Yes, to return to Michelle's later comments, many, even most, Orthodox Christians are warm and hospitable. Where the problem develops, in my experience, is not so much that people are not hospitable as it is that parishes tolerate the lack of a welcoming attitude, or even a hostile attitude, in members of the community. The fact is, even if 9 out of 10 people in a parish are welcoming, if they do not correct that 1 person who is closed to new people, they end up colluding--and even encouraging--that negative attitude.

That said though, we do need to do better--we must move beyond a mechanical approach to our spiritual life. This, as Chrys points out, is the common human problem of nominalism. We all of us want to reap rewards without making an investment. He is right when he says that

The issue, it seems to me, is how to structure local parish communities so that they are able to prudently and faithfully tap into the tremendous resources of "the whole Body of Christ." This issue is urgent not only for the building up of the convert (whether cradle or otherwise), the development and exercise of each member's gifts, and the formation of tomorrow's leadership, but also to relieve the horrendous burden placed on our clergy. They should be "spiritual coaches" (as I have noted elsewhere), building up "the team" for the challenges entailed in a life faithfully lived. Clergy are not, can not be -- must not be -- the only active members of the team. So much more could be done for Christ if we could figure out a way to unleash the gifts of everyone in the parish. Yet so much care must be taken to do so in a way that is faithful to that which has been "handed on" to us. This, it seems to me, is one of the most critical challenges facing the Church today and would go a long, LONG way toward addressing the reasons (whatever they are) that cause so many to leave.

Trying to answer this question is why I was asked to start the Palamas Institute. We need to invest more resource not simply in training future priests, but studying and supporting the work of the parish, the parish priest and the ministry of the laity.

Again, thank you to all for your generosity in offering such thought provoking observations.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory