Eastern Orthodox New Testament Reading Plan

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This plan was prepared by Esteban Vázquez and is based on the rule for reading the New Testament in the kellia at the Optina Monastery, which prescribed a chapter of the Holy Gospel (89 in all) and two from the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation for every day, with only one chapter from Revelation on the last seven days in order to make up 89 readings.

Column I gives the chapters from the Gospels in succession.

Column II gives the continuous order of Apostolic readings as prescribed by the Optina rule, and according to the order of New Testament books found in the Slavonic Bible. However, this order
sometimes causes the reader to finish the last chapter of a book and then start on the first one of the next, which may confuse some readers acquainting themselves with the subject matter of the
New Testament.

For their benefit, Column III gives a revised order in which the reading of each Apostolic book is completely finished before starting on the next one; the sole exceptions to this are one-chapter
epistles (Jude, Philemon, etc.), which are combined with the last chapter of the previous book.

Column IV also gives this revised format, but according to the order of New Testament books usually found in our English Bibles.

This plan is under continuous revision, and any suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated by Esteban and Kevin P. Edgecomb.

h/t: Kevin P. Edgecomb

Day	I	II	III	IV
Day 1	St Matthew 1	Acts 1-2	Acts 1-2	Acts 1-2
Day 2	St Matthew 2	Acts 3-4	Acts 3-4	Acts 3-4
Day 3	St Matthew 3	Acts 5-6	Acts 5-6	Acts 5-6
Day 4	St Matthew 4	Acts 7-8	Acts 7-8	Acts 7-8
Day 5	St Matthew 5	Acts 9-10	Acts 9-10	Acts 9-10
Day 6	St Matthew 6	Acts 11-12	Acts 11-12	Acts 11-12
Day 7	St Matthew 7	Acts 13-14	Acts 13-14	Acts 13-14
Day 8	St Matthew 8	Acts 15-16	Acts 15-16	Acts 15-16
Day 9	St Matthew 9	Acts 17-18	Acts 17-18	Acts 17-18
Day 10	St Matthew 10	Acts 19-20	Acts 19-20	Acts 19-20
Day 11	St Matthew 11	Acts 21-22	Acts 21-22	Acts 21-22
Day 12	St Matthew 12	Acts 23-24	Acts 23-24	Acts 23-24
Day 13	St Matthew 13	Acts 25-26	Acts 25-26	Acts 25-26
Day 14	St Matthew 14	Acts 27-28	Acts 27-28	Acts 27-28
Day 15	St Matthew 15	James 1-2	James 1-2	Romans 1-2
Day 16	St Matthew 16	James 3-4	James 3-4	Romans 3-4
Day 17	St Matthew 17	James 5; I Peter 1	James 5	Romans 5-6
Day 18	St Matthew 18	I Peter 2-3	I Peter 1-2	Romans 7-8
Day 19	St Matthew 19	I Peter 4-5	I Peter 3-4	Romans 9-10
Day 20	St Matthew 20	II Peter 1-2	I Peter 5	Romans 11-12
Day 21	St Matthew 21	II Peter 3; I John 1	II Peter 1-2	Romans 13-14
Day 22	St Matthew 22	I John 2-3	II Peter 3	Romans 15-16
Day 23	St Matthew 23	I John 4-5	I John 1-2	I Corinthians 1-2
Day 24	St Matthew 24	II John; III John	I John 3-4	I Corinthians 3-4
Day 25	St Matthew 25	Jude; Romans 1	I John 5; II John	I Corinthians 5-6
Day 26	St Matthew 26	Romans 2-3	III John; Jude	I Corinthians 7-8
Day 27	St Matthew 27	Romans 4-5	Romans 1-2	I Corinthians 9-10
Day 28	St Matthew 28	Romans 6-7	Romans 3-4	I Corinthians 11-12
Day 29	St Mark 1	Romans 8-9	Romans 5-6	I Corinthians 13-14
Day 30	St Mark 2	Romans 10-11	Romans 7-8	I Corinthians 15-16
Day 31	St Mark 3	Romans 12-13	Romans 9-10	II Corinthians 1-2
Day 32	St Mark 4	Romans 14-15	Romans 11-12	II Corinthians 3-4
Day 33	St Mark 5	Rom. 16; I Cor. 1	Romans 13-14	II Corinthians 5-6
Day 34	St Mark 6	I Corinthians 2-3	Romans 15-16	II Corinthians 7-8
Day 35	St Mark 7	I Corinthians 4-5	I Corinthians 1-2	II Corinthians 9-10
Day 36	St Mark 8	I Corinthians 6-7	I Corinthians 3-4	II Corinthians 11-12
Day 37	St Mark 9	I Corinthians 8-9	I Corinthians 5-6	II Corinthians 13
Day 38	St Mark 10	I Corinthians 10-11	I Corinthians 7-8	Galatians 1-2
Day 39	St Mark 11	I Corinthians 12-13	I Corinthians 9-10	Galatians 3-4
Day 40	St Mark 12	I Corinthians 14-15	I Corinthians 11-12	Galatians 5-6
Day 41	St Mark 13	I Cor. 16; II Cor. 1	I Corinthians 13-14	Ephesians 1-2
Day 42	St Mark 14	II Corinthians 2-3	I Corinthians 15-16	Ephesians 3-4
Day 43	St Mark 15	II Corinthians 4-5	II Corinthians 1-2	Ephesians 5-6
Day 44	St Mark 16	II Corinthians 6-7	II Corinthians 3-4	Philippians 1-2
Day 45	St Luke 1	II Corinthians 8-9	II Corinthians 5-6	Philippians 3-4
Day 46	St Luke 2	II Corinthians 10-11	II Corinthians 7-8	Colossians 1-2
Day 47	St Luke 3	II Corinthians 12-13	II Corinthians 9-10	Colossians 3-4
Day 48	St Luke 4	Galatians 1-2	II Corinthians 11-12	I Thessalonians 1-2
Day 49	St Luke 5	Galatians 3-4	II Corinthians 13	I Thessalonians 3-4
Day 50	St Luke 6	Galatians 5-6	Galatians 1-2	I Thessalonians 5
Day 51	St Luke 7	Ephesians 1-2	Galatians 3-4	II Thessalonians 1-2
Day 52	St Luke 8	Ephesians 3-4	Galatians 5-6	II Thessalonians 3
Day 53	St Luke 9	Ephesians 5-6	Ephesians 1-2	I Timothy 1-2
Day 54	St Luke 10	Philippians 1-2	Ephesians 3-4	I Timothy 3-4
Day 55	St Luke 11	Philippians 3-4	Ephesians 5-6	I Timothy 5-6
Day 56	St Luke 12	Colossians 1-2	Philippians 1-2	II Timothy 1-2
Day 57	St Luke 13	Colossians 3-4	Philippians 3-4	II Timothy 3-4
Day 58	St Luke 14	I Thessalonians 1-2	Colossians 1-2	Titus 1-2
Day 59	St Luke 15	I Thessalonians 3-4	Colossians 3-4	Titus 3; Philemon
Day 60	St Luke 16	I Thes. 5; II Thes. 1	I Thessalonians 1-2	Hebrews 1-2
Day 61	St Luke 17	II Thessalonians 2-3	I Thessalonians 3-4	Hebrews 3-4
Day 62	St Luke 18	I Timothy 1-2	I Thessalonians 5	Hebrews 5-6
Day 63	St Luke 19	I Timothy 3-4	II Thessalonians 1-2	Hebrews 7-8
Day 64	St Luke 20	I Timothy 5-6	II Thessalonians 3	Hebrews 9-10
Day 65	St Luke 21	II Timothy 1-2	I Timothy 1-2	Hebrews 11-12
Day 66	St Luke 22	II Timothy 3-4	I Timothy 3-4	Hebrews 13
Day 67	St Luke 23	Titus 1-2	I Timothy 5-6	James 1-2
Day 68	St Luke 24	Titus 3; Philemon	II Timothy 1-2	James 3-4
Day 69	St John 1	Hebrews 1-2	II Timothy 3-4	James 5
Day 70	St John 2	Hebrews 3-4	Titus 1-2	I Peter 1-2
Day 71	St John 3	Hebrews 5-6	Titus 3; Philemon	I Peter 3-4
Day 72	St John 4	Hebrews 7-8	Hebrews 1-2	I Peter 5
Day 73	St John 5	Hebrews 9-10	Hebrews 3-4	II Peter 1-2
Day 74	St John 6	Hebrews 11-12	Hebrews 5-6	II Peter 3
Day 75	St John 7	Heb. 13; Rev. 1	Hebrews 7-8	I John 1-2
Day 76	St John 8	Revelation 2-3	Hebrews 9-10	I John 3-4
Day 77	St John 9	Revelation 4-5	Hebrews 11-12	I John 5; II John
Day 78	St John 10	Revelation 6-7	Hebrews 13	III John; Jude
Day 79	St John 11	Revelation 8-9	Revelation 1-2	Revelation 1-2
Day 80	St John 12	Revelation 10-11	Revelation 3-4	Revelation 3-4
Day 81	St John 13	Revelation 12-13	Revelation 5-6	Revelation 5-6
Day 82	St John 14	Revelation 14-15	Revelation 7-8	Revelation 7-8
Day 83	St John 15	Revelation 16	Revelation 9-10	Revelation 9-10
Day 84	St John 16	Revelation 17	Revelation 11-12	Revelation 11-12
Day 85	St John 17	Revelation 18	Revelation 13-14	Revelation 13-14
Day 86	St John 18	Revelation 19	Revelation 15-16	Revelation 15-16
Day 87	St John 19	Revelation 20	Revelation 17-18	Revelation 17-18
Day 88	St John 20	Revelation 21	Revelation 19-20	Revelation 19-20
Day 89	St John 21	Revelation 22	Revelation 21-22	Revelation 21-22

Last updated 17 January 2009

The Psychology of Leadership: Personality Disorders and Failed Leadership

First let me say skills based approaches to leadership, and our focus on psychopathology or overt moral misconduct, are all essential to the life of the Church. Identifying the necessary skills for a parish priest and removing from office (either temporarily or permanently) incompetent, mentally ill or moral corrupt clergy are all perfectly appropriate and necessary. But we error if we imagine that this is a sufficient basis for selecting and fostering effective clergy and lay leadership.

Second, as I pointed in my previous post on the matter, besides the inherent limited and limiting nature of these standards, they fail to take into account the primacy of character in those who would lead the Church. While not without its own challenges, an objective, dispassionate consideration of the character of those who would hold leadership roles in the Church is by far more important than a simple consideration of their skills or the presence or absence of mental illness or moral misconduct. The presence of a short list of specific skills, the absence of psychopathology, or the lack of gross moral failings does not make someone an effective leader.

Without going into a technical discussion, Hogan and Kaiser's emphasis on personality disorders I think offers the Church a helpful first step in the discernment of who should and shouldn't have a leadership role in the Church. The reason I say this is because, while not "forms of mental illness," personality disorders "they are dysfunctional interpersonal dispositions that (a) coexist with talent, ambition, and good social skills and (b) prevent people from completing the essential task of leadership: building a team." (p. 176) To help us understand the implications of a personality based approach to evaluating an individual's leadership potential, let's look at Hogan and Kaiser's contention that all of us have a bright side and a dark side to our personality.

The "bright side concerns the initial impression we make on others—it reflects our social performance when we are at our best—for example, in a job interview or on a first date." On the hand, the dark side of our personality "reflects the impression we make on others when we let our guard down or when we are at our worst, such as when we are stressed, ill, or intoxicated." Or, as they say in summary, the "bright side concerns the person you meet in an interview; the dark side concerns the person who actually comes to work." (p. 171)

What is most important, however, is not simply the fact of the bright and dark sides of my personality, but how these two sides interact and relate to each other. The dark side "tendencies typically coexist with well-developed social skills that mask or compensate for them [i.e., the dark side of my personality] in the short run. Over time, however, dark side tendencies erode trust and undermine relationships." Let's stop and reflect on this for a second.

The argument being made is that my positive qualities, the aspects of my character that others find attractive in me, are real—but in addition to the value they have in themselves, I also use them to (again as Hogan and Kaiser put the matter "mask or compensate" for those aspects of my character that are more likely push others away or cause them to think (legitimately or not) ill of me. To use more behaviorally oriented language, the bright side of my personality is an perfectly appropriate, and even likely a healthy, adaptive mechanism that serves to minimize for me the cost of the dark side of my personality.

And so, I strive to be good person not simply because I am good, but because (for one reason or another) I wish to distance myself from my own moral and social weaknesses. When we are talking about, for example, the role of a priest in a parish this insight is critically important. No matter how talented the priest might be, no matter how brightly his light might shine, he has (as does everyone else) a dark side to his personality.

In the social context of the parish, there is a dance between the bright and dark side of the priest's personality. Reflecting of this fact, Hogan and Kaiser draw three conclusions about how the dark side of my personality functions in a social setting. First it is important to keep in mind that it is "hard to detect" the dark side of someone's personality, "for two reasons." As I said above, " they coexist with well-developed social skills." In addition, "although flawed" they "are intended to make a positive impression on others something which "they do [at least] in the short run."

Hogan and Kaiser illustrate with by offering the example of some the priest with a narcissistic personality will "initially seem confident and charismatic." But as our relationship with him develops, as we experience together the typical ebb and flow, bumps and bruises and ordinary (and sometimes, extraordinary) stresses associated with parish life, "these [same] features turn into a sense of entitlement and an inability to learn from mistakes."

I think parish priests are especially prone to this dynamics. I say that because parishes tend to be relatively unstructured. In such a context, a tendency toward "narcissism" typically makes "a strong initial impression" and will, initially at least, be accepted by the community as a good leader. But over time, and especially absent any intervention and re-direction, the priest will find himself "rejected by the group as a result of arrogance and high-handedness." Again, without proper formation and supervision, priests are as prone to the same "forms of self-defeating behavior" as anyone else, we too will often "pursuit . . . short-term gains that carry significant long-term costs." What is important, as the example above illustrates, is that often these self-defeating behaviors are reward by the very community that will later reject the priest and for the same personality traits that we initially considered desirable.

At the same time, while the dark side of my personality "are associated with negative consequences in the long run," their absence is also "not necessarily desirable either." For example, "Low levels of dutifulness suggest problems with authority; low levels of imaginativeness suggest lack of vision; low levels of boldness suggest indecisiveness; and so on." When trying to discern the personality qualities for effective leadership, we are evaluating people on relative not absolute scale. And so "[o]ptimum performance is associated" with having a balanced personality. In other words, what we need in our leaders is virtue, or the proven ability (or at least potential) to balance the different aspects of their own personality. It is only when they are able to do this (relatively speaking) in their own life that we can reasonably hope that they can do the same thing in, and for, a community.

As a practical matter (and this is the third and final point made by Hogan and Kaiser) a personality based model of leadership requires that we change how we make the decisions about who is and isn't fit for leadership. In the Church as in business, "formal selection tools are rarely used." In addition, "Former subordinates—those who are best able to report on a person's talent for leadership—are almost never consulted." In addition, as we more and more not only send recent converts to seminary, but ordain them relatively quickly after they are received in to the Church, we find ourselves in a position very similar to what happens in the business world.

Often new executives are recruited from outside the organization, making it even more difficult to evaluate the candidate appropriately. The most common selection tool is an interview, and the dark side tendencies are designed to create favorable immediate impressions; narcissists and psychopaths excel during interviews. We speculate that many executives [and not a few priest] are hired [or ordained and assigned] for the very characteristics that ultimately lead them to fail.

So what might we want to do not only with the selection of future clergy, but also current lay leaders? I will attempt an answer to that in my next post.

As always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

Who doesn't like Saturday morning cartoons?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Psychology of Leadership: Character and Not Simply Skills

Over the next few months I have several presentations scheduled; all are variations of the theme of parish leadership.

As part of my preparations for the talks, I've been researching some of the current the psychological research on leadership. Reading through the various studies and theories of leadership has been very helpful for my own thinking on leadership. More importantly, I think the empirical findings of the different studies will be of great help to those with whom I will be speaking.

What I find most helpful in the scientific literature is its potential to ground conversations about the parish life in the everyday world. The tradition of the Orthodox Church is incredibly rich. Unfortunately in many parishes, if we talk about leadership at all, the conversation often turns into a parody of a graduate seminar in patristic theology or church history. As I have said in other posts, our relationship to the tradition takes on an unhealthy aspect when we use its richness as an excuse to avoid the hard, and often painful, work of critical self-examination. While there are any number of reasons to reject the so-called "hermeneutic of suspicion," it has the undisputable value for members the Christian community of reminding us of the unpleasant truth of our own sinfulness and ability to pervert the Gospel to a message of something more to our liking.

One of the articles I just finished is by Robert Hogan and Robert B. Kaiser ("What We Know about Leadership." Review of General Psychology 2005, Vol 9 (2): 169-180). Hogan and Kaiser offer a number of helpful insights about leadership from the perspective of personality theory. One of the points that caught my attention was their observations about the use of "competency models" to explain leadership and to prepare people for a leadership role.

A competency model approach to leadership theory is "designed to identify competencies that [are] specific to a particular job in a particular organization, with no intention of generalizing." (p., 172, emphasis added) A number of things about this struck me as significant.

First, this skills based approach to leadership is the one often used by seminaries—including Orthodox seminaries in the United States. While there is nothing wrong, and indeed there is quite a bit right, with identifying the necessary skills for leadership in general and priestly ministry in particular, it is not without its own glaring weaknesses. Specifically, because this approach tends to focus on the skills necessary for a specific job, it leaves unexamined addressed what I would call a more foundational approach to human formation. As a result of emphasizing the specific over the more general these methods "spread rapidly [but also] quickly became chaotic and idiosyncratic." (p. 172) In the case of seminary education what this means is that no matter how much care is given to identifying the necessary skills for future priests, the specific skills that we focus on becomes more and more ends in themselves. Not only that. Unless balanced by a more foundational approach, the acquisition of specific skills becomes the engine that drives both seminary education and parish ministry. Or, as Mark Twain had it, "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Again, what is needed is a more foundational approach to leadership and the formation of both clergy and lay leaders. For Hogan and Kaiser, find this more foundational approach in personality theory. In their own personality theory has two major concerns: "(a) generalizations about human nature (what people are like way down deep) and (b) systematic accounts of individual differences (which differences are important and how they arise)." It is from this perspective that they critically re-appropriate a competency model of leadership with the context of a "domain model." In their own words (with my emphasis):

this model identifies four broad classes of managerial competencies: (a) intra-personal skills (regulating one's emotions and easily accommodating to authority), (b) inter-personal skills (building and maintaining relationships), (c) business skills (planning, budgeting, coordinating, and monitoring business activities), and (d) leadership skills (building and motivating a high-performance team).

They continue by highlighting "three points about this domain model" that they think make it a superior model for understanding leadership (again, with my emphasis):

First, it is developmental: Intrapersonal skills develop first, probably in the preteen years; interpersonal skills develop next, probably during the teenage years; business skills develop when a person enters the work-force; and leadership skills develop last. Second, the model is a hierarchy of increasing trainability, with intrapersonal skills being hard to train and leadership skills being the easiest to train. Third, the model is comprehensive; every existing competency model can be organized in terms of these four domains. (p. 172)

Thinking about parish leadership (and again, whether clergy or lay leaders), this model has is useful. While, for example, there is a great deal to be said for testing potential seminarians for specific psychopathological concerns (for example, schizophrenia) or screening them for issues around habitual unchaste behavior or substance abuse, these matters are (relatively) easy to identify.

The concerns that Hogan and Kaiser raise pertain less to psychopathology and more to those issues of personality or character that are likely undermine "the characteristics people [rightly] look for in their leaders." Based on research in positive psychology, they identify in "order of importance, the four themes" of an effective leader: "integrity, decisiveness, competence, and vision." (p. 173)

These qualities, or more accurately their relative presence or absence in the person, have a direct effect on how well (or poorly) a person in a position in authority is able to contribute to "the success of [an] organization." Success, in their view, is not strictly speaking a matter of financial success, but (and again, more foundationally) also "the well-being of employees or citizens" in the case of a business or country, or (which is more our interest here) parishioners in a parish or the members of a diocese. Whether we are taking a business or a country or a parish however, sound leadership is essential "for individual and group survival." (p. 170)

For Hogan and Kaiser, "leadership primarily concerns building and maintaining effective teams: persuading people to give up, for a while, their selfish pursuits and pursue a common goal." Their central point, however, "is that the personality of a leader affects the performance of a team: Who we are determines how we lead" (my emphasis).

Again it is important to emphasize that none of this is meant to deny the importance of specific skills for leaders; leaders must possess in sufficient measure and diversity the skills need to accomplish the tasks associated with the role in the organization or community. But any social group—secular or religious—is a complex, dynamic reality. A merely skills based approach to leadership is necessarily limited and (as Twain points out) necessarily limiting.

One final point, in approaching leadership from the point of view of personality, Hogan and Kaiser shift the conversation for seminary education and parish leadership away from a concern with overt psychopathology and moral failing and to an approach that sensitizes us to the role that "dysfunctional interpersonal dispositions" (i.e., personality disorders) play in undermining the life of the community. (p. 176)

In my next post on leadership, I will address more fully the importance of focusing on personality rather than overt psychopathology or moral misconduct in discussing failed leadership.

As always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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More Thoughts on Trust and Obedience

Roger Dooley, president of Dooley Direct, LLC. has an interesting on the psychology and biochemistry of trust. The post I think bears directly on our conversation here on the role of obedience in confession and spiritual direction. While not always immediately applicable, his blog, which combines "knowledge of emerging phenomena like neuromarketing and social networking with decades of hands-on marketing experience" brings an helpful perspective to pastoral work.

Dooley asks, "Want your customers to trust you?" Well, if you do, "Demonstrate that you trust THEM!" While the immediate concern in the post is with marketing, it is based on sound science and so, I think anyway, it is applicable to pastoral life as well.

As I argued earlier, obedience is the fruit of trust. If this is the case, then (as Dooley work argues) clergy can foster a healthy and appropriate form of obedience in a parish context by our willingness to first demonstrate that we trust our parishioners to be responsible for their own spiritual formation and direction.

I was first introduced to the idea of spiritual self-direction in the writing of the late Fr Adrian van Kaam. In one of his earlier works, Dynamics of Spiritual Self Direction, van Kaam argues that necessarily all spiritual direction must embrace an element of spiritual self-direction. Like it or not, I cannot live a spiritual life for someone else nor can they live it for me. I can pray for you certainly. But I cannot pray for you in the sense of praying in place of you praying.

Practically this means that if I hope to offer any direction to someone, I have to trust them to make their own decisions, to live their own life. And so again, if I want you to trust me, I have to first demonstrate by my words and deeds that I trust you.

"This may seem counterintuitive," Dooley argues, "but there's sound neuromarketing reasoning behind it." His argument is based in what he characterizes as the function of the "seemingly magical neurochemical, oxytocin, which is a key factor in forming trust relationships." Dooley quotes the work of "Paul J. Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University and unofficial oxytocin evangelist."

As a young man, Zak "was the victim of a small-scale swindle. He now concludes that a key factor in getting him to fall for the con was that the swindler demonstrated that he trusted Zak." He quotes Zak that

The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you. Conmen ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable… the human brain makes us feel good when we help others–this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers. "I need your help" is a potent stimulus for action. [From The Moral Molecule - How to Run a Con.]

According to Zak the biochemical basis of trust is found in what he calls "THOMAS - The Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System." He continues:

THOMAS' effects are modulated by our large prefrontal cortex that houses the "executive" regions of the brain. THOMAS is all emotion, while the prefrontal cortex is deliberative… THOMAS causes us to empathize with others, the key to building social relationships.

Sales (Dooley's concern) and pastoral care (our concern here) are "NOT a con game" and any salesperson (and spiritual director or priest for that matter), "who treats it as one is unlikely to be successful for very long." It might sound unimaginable, not to say offensive, to suggest that any spiritual director or priest might see his or her work as a con game, it is not unheard of that some do betray the trust put in them by spiritual children and parishioners. (The literature on clerical misconduct refers to the misconduct on a great sin against the trust people place in them. But I leave this for any other time.) In both sales and pastoral care "building trust IS an essential part of the . . . process, and anything that we can do to foster that will pay dividends" in whether or concern is financial or spiritual.

So how can we build trust?

Based on Zak's work, Dooley suggest that we can do this first and foremost by "behaving in a transparent and trustworthy manner." From the point of view of developmental psychology, a child develops a sense of trust in their parents through the parent's consistent, demonstrated willingness and ability to meet the child's physical and emotional needs. And so, we can say that a key to behaving in a trustworthy manner is consistency in manner and expectations for those who are entrusted to our care. In many parishes, to take only one example, Liturgy more often than not does not start on time. Or, and more significantly, in some communities there might be clearly different expectations for different groups in the parish. For example, "converts" are expected to fast and come to confession, but the vast majority of the parish who were baptized as infants are not.

Ironically, the problem with holding one group in the parish to relatively minimal standards is not simply that it divides the parish into factions, but that the priest does not extend that liberality to all. Liberality, it is important to stress, is not an end in itself. Part of fostering trust is not only leaving people free, but doing so intentionally and with a clearly and publicly articulated explanation of what is being done and that this is being done because the priest trusts his parishioners to direct their own spiritual lives.

A conversation about the role of trust in spiritual direction and confession is also a conversation about leadership. While I will have to leave a fuller discussion for another day, effective leadership emerges out of a sense of vocation (personal & communal). At a minimum, vocation or calling is the idea that my life is part of a larger story that is told primarily--though not exclusively--by God. Viewed vocationally, the story of my life, embraces not only me, but you, the whole human family and all creation.

In order to foster trust between us, I must trust you and to do this means that I must come to see that this larger story isn't simply something of which I am a part, like a character in a story. Yes, I find myself, my vocation, in this larger story (again, like a character in a novel) BUT I also find this larger story being told in the small details of my own life. In other words, trust requires that I am come to see myself both a character in the story, and the story itself.

So much of the violence that we see in human life, and in the life of the Church, is I think because we live lives absence a sense of our own vocation--absent any tangible sense of a call that orders my life (both from outside AND within), what else can I do but impose what is inside me on what is outside of me?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Religious Freedom Day, 2009

Religious Freedom Day, 2009
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Religious freedom is the foundation of a healthy and hopeful society. On Religious Freedom Day, we recognize the importance of the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. We also celebrate the first liberties enshrined in our Constitution's Bill of Rights, which guarantee the free exercise of religion for all Americans and prohibit an establishment of religion.

Our Nation was founded by people seeking haven from religious persecution, and the religious liberty they found here remains one of this land's greatest blessings. As Americans, we believe that all people have inherent dignity and worth. Though we may profess different creeds and worship in different manners and places, we respect each other's humanity and expression of faith. People with diverse views can practice their faiths here while living together in peace and harmony, carrying on our Nation's noble tradition of religious freedom.

The United States also stands with religious dissidents and believers from around the globe who practice their faith peacefully. Freedom is not a grant of government or a right for Americans alone; it is the birthright of every man, woman, and child throughout the world. No human freedom is more fundamental than the right to worship in accordance with one's conscience.

Religious Freedom Day is an opportunity to celebrate our legacy of religious liberty, foster a culture of tolerance and peace, and renew commitments to ensure that every person on Earth can enjoy these basic human rights.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 16, 2009, as Religious Freedom Day. I call on all Americans to reflect on the great blessing of religious liberty, endeavor to preserve this freedom for future generations, and commemorate this day with appropriate events and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Superior Scribbler Award

Byzantine Texas awarded me a Superior Scribbler Award. I am in turn obliged to pick five bloggers of my own list those worthy of the Superior Scribbler Award. These most now abide by the following rules:

• Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass the award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
• Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author and the name of the blog from whom he/she has received the Award.
• Each Superior Scribbler must display the award on his/her blog, and link to this post, which explains the award.
• Each Blogger who wins the Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List (scroll down). That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives this prestigious honor!
• Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

And now my five Superior Scribblers!

1. A Vow of Conversation
2. Fr. Ted's Blog
3. Way of the Fathers
4. Ochlophobist
5. Orrologion

A Teaching on Economic Asceticism from SNL

For consideration:



In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

More thoughts on Spiritual Direction & Confession: Trust & Obedience

My original post went up at 5.00 am and, well, needed a good proofreading and edit (I pray well enough in the early morning, but I'm not much of an editor at the best of times!).

My apologizes for any lack of clarity. The revised text starts after my signature.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Obedience in a monastic setting presupposes a shared life characterized not only by mutual respect and trust but also a willingness to share in the consequences of any and all decisions made. When the abbot or an elder in the monastery gives an obedience to a novice, he share with the monk the consequences of both the monk’s success and failure. If the meal is poorly prepared, for example, it isn’t simply the novice is suffers a bad dinner but the abbot and the whole community as well. As a friend of mine puts it, the elder has "skin in the game.” Or to use more formal language, obedience in a monastic setting reflects the in investment of both the elder and the novice in the outcome of any direction that's given.

Unfortunately many Orthodox Christians do not understand what I would call the human or lived context of monastic obedience. Many have a very abstract and mechanistic understanding of obedience. Frequently, to illustrate my point, I hear of a parish priest giving an obedience to a parishioner. My objection to this is not with the concept of obedience per se, but that the priest does not, and cannot, share tangibly in the consequences of the parishioner’s potential failure. Because he is largely insulated from the consequences of his advice, a priest (whether married or monastic) is not in a position to require obedience from a parishioner the way an elder can in a monastery. Absent this personal share in the other’s failure, the application of a monastic understanding of obedience is simply inappropriate; at a minimum it is immature and fanciful, at its worse, it is abusive and a gateway to all manner of pastoral misconduct.

Whatever might be its other strengths, parish life is not a shared life in the sense that life is shared in the monastic community. This difference is of critical importance, because there can be, or so I would argue, no real obedience apart from a shared life. Put another way, obedience is the fruit of a life of mutual trust and respect, and requires from the one who asks for obedience a shared acceptance of the immediate and long term consequences of directives that are given.

Let me put that a slightly different way.

Obedience is only possible to the degree that there is trust born of real interdependence. Absent this interdependence, absence this mutual dependence of one upon the other, there can be no real obedience.

So now, what does this have to do with confession and spiritual direction?

However a valuable to the spiritual life, obedience is not sui generis. Rather it presupposes a very particular set of social circumstances that are not (and cannot be) fully present in a parish setting. Monastic obedience is the fruit of a life of shared respect and trust in which all parties see themselves as responsible to, and for, each other and share practically in the consequences of decisions.

As a said a moment ago, I often hear of priests, and sometimes parishioners, trying to duplicate monastic obedience in a parochial setting. But doing this (or so it seems to me) is wrongheaded. The reason, and again as I said above, is that we do not share the direct consequences for each other's behavior in the parish in the way in which monastics do in a monastery. When, for example, an abbot gives an obedience to a monk participate in all the liturgical services to be celebrated on a given day at the monastery, he does so with the awareness that it is not possible for the monk to do manual labor for those hours that he is in church. But the work still needs to be done and so a brother who prays eight hours a day in church needs to be replaced by a monk who is able to work of some or all of those eight hours. If this exchange is not made, then the work remains undone and all suffer the consequences.

This is admittedly a crude example but I think it makes the point. In a parish setting or with non-monastic spiritual children, the spiritual father (whether a monastic or parish priest) does not have this kind of an investment in the person to whom he is ministering that an abbot has with a monk of his monastery. Nor, for that matter, does the penitent have that kind of investment in the priest that a novice has in his abbot or elder. And maybe most important of all, the members of parish do not have the kind of investment in the priest (or each other), that the monks in a monastery have one in their abort or one another.

Simply put, in the parish, we all go home, but for the monk the monastery is his home. If life gets too hard for us in a particular parish, or we don’t get along with our parish priest, we can (usually anyway) go to another parish without suffering nearly the dislocation that a monk would in transferring to another monastery.

In my own pastoral praxis, I ask not for obedience but deference, which is to say, I ask simply to be given the benefit of the doubt in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Of necessity this means that I must accept that my decisions, my guidance, my suggestions, are all open to criticism, disagreement, revision, and yes even rejection. More importantly though, none of this is (necessarily) the result of bad will on the part of those involved in the conversation; disagreement is not disobedience.

Does this mean that we do away with obedience in an absolute sense? No of course not. What it does mean, however, is that we need to understand that there are limits to obedience. The limit to obedience is our mutual investment, in our ability and willingness to bear the consequences of our own decisions and the decisions of others.

Obedience can never be asked for, much less demanded. Like trust, of which it is the fruit, obedience can only be itself when it is freely offered and freely received. In one sense, obedience is trust in work clothes—obedience is the less glamorous, more practical, side of trust (and for that matter, respect and love). If as a confessor or spiritual father, I lose sight of the priority of trust, mutual respect and love, I undermine my ministry regardless of the theological orthodoxy of my counsel.

In the Creed, we profess faith in the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” We often, and rightly, think of the Church in institutional terms, as something objective and in a sense external to ourselves. But this is only half the mystery. I am also a part of the Church, and the Church a part of me. I cannot therefore have faith in the institutional aspect of the Church unless, or so it seems to me, I understand that faith in the Church also includes a faith or trust in the members of the Church who are first and foremost my brothers and sisters in Christ. Faith in the Church is a matter of trust in bishops and clergy; it is also a matter of my having trust in my brothers and sisters in Christ and a relative trust in myself. These three elements are not opposed to each other, rather they presuppose and reinforce each other. I would suggest that the ministries of confession and spiritual direction, and in fact in all the Church’s ministries, that we work by God’s grace and our own efforts are in the service fostering this expansive view of trust in self and others.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Site News

I am experimenting with a new comment recording system. From the homepage, you can leave comments have you ordinarily do by clicking on "comment" at the bottom of the post. Alternatively, if you click on the post title itself, you will open the post a new screen with the new comment box at the bottom of the post.

This new comment box does not require registration. It does, however, allow the readers to express whether or not they agree with what others have said. I rather like this feature because it allows the readers to regulate the content of the comments. In most studies of online communication, this self-regulating feature typically fosters more communication and a decrease in the infamous tendency of online conversations to degenerate into flame wars. While flame ware are not a problem here right now, but readership is growing on a regular basis (we are currently some 200 strong when I factor in rss feeds, email subscriptions and regular readers who surf in).

So, try out if you would the new comment system and let me know either in the comment box of by email what you think.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Memory Eternal: Richard John Neuhaus, 1936-2009

From First Things: Fr. Richard John Neuhaus slipped away today, January 8, shortly before 10 o’clock, at the age of seventy-two. He never recovered from the weakness that sent him to the hospital the day after Christmas, caused by a series of side effects from the cancer he was suffering. He lost consciousness Tuesday evening after a collapse in his heart rate, and the next day, in the company of friends, he died.

My tears are not for him—for he knew, all his life, that his Redeemer lives, and he has now been gathered by the Lord in whom he trusted.

I weep, rather for all the rest of us. As a priest, as a writer, as a public leader in so many struggles, and as a friend, no one can take his place. The fabric of life has been torn by his death, and it will not be repaired, for those of us who knew him, until that time when everything is mended and all our tears are wiped away.

Funeral arrangements are still being planned; information about the funeral will be made public shortly. Please accept our thanks for all your prayers and good wishes.

In Deepest Sorrow,

Joseph Bottum
Editor
First Things

On Fr. Richard John Neuhaus- Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner on National Review Online

From National Review Online:

His friends and family are keeping vigil and he was administered last rites shortly after midnight. Fr. George Rutler, who gave him the Catholic Sacrament, says that “he is not expected to live long” and suggests “that it is appropriate that prayers be offered for a holy death.”

Fr. Neuhaus has come close to this moment before and been back. If it’s his time: Go in peace. He\'s a man who has loved and served His Lord. When he leaves this world, his vast intellectual and spiritual body of work will have a long life here.

Speaking of his archives: Fr. Neuhaus might agree with his brother priest on the appropriate prayer for him. Fr. Neuhaus might say, if he could right now, what he\'s already written:

We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already underway. The work of dying well is, in largest part, the work of living well. Most of us are at ease in discussing what makes for a good life, but we typically become tongue-tied and nervous when the discussion turns to a good death. As children of a culture radically, even religiously, devoted to youth and health, many find it incomprehensible, indeed offensive, that the word \"good\" should in any way be associated with death. Death, it is thought, is an unmitigated evil, the very antithesis of all that is good.

Death is to be warded off by exercise, by healthy habits, by medical advances. What cannot be halted can be delayed, and what cannot forever be delayed can be denied. But all our progress and all our protest notwithstanding, the mortality rate holds steady at 100 percent.

Death is the most everyday of everyday things. It is not simply that thousands of people die every day, that thousands will die this day, although that too is true. Death is the warp and woof of existence in the ordinary, the quotidian, the way things are. It is the horizon against which we get up in the morning and go to bed at night, and the next morning we awake to find the horizon has drawn closer. From the twelfth-century Enchiridion Leonis comes the nighttime prayer of children of all ages: \"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take.\" Every going to sleep is a little death, a rehearsal for the real thing.