Sorrowful Joy

In “The Lenten Spring” Thomas Hopko describes St. John Climacus as one of the most “severe” of saints. Yet, Dr. Hopko points out, it is St. John Climacus who speaks of the joy that can be found only in godly grief.

Schmemann tells us that “the spiritual fathers had a unique understanding of the human soul. They truly knew the art of repentence, and every year during lent they make this art accessible to everyone who has ears to hear and eyes to see.”

“Blessed are those who mourn,” our Lord promised us, “For they shall be comforted.”

The Blessed (and theremore mourning) apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians an epistle whose soul is “Bright sorrow”– “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” In it, he reflected on an earlier letter in which he had caused the Corinthians to grieve over sin in their company.

“For even if I made you grieve with my letter,” he said, “I do not regret it… Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentence. For you were made sorry in a godly manner… For godly sorrow produces repentence leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

It would seem that the mourning our Lord blesses is not the artificial, self-centered mourning of the world - a self-pitying grief over the misery of life and all the disappointments it inevitably brings - most of all from ourselves. This mourning arises from sloth and brings in its wake profound regret. It is a faint-hearted and disspirited mourning that achieves nothing of value. Indeed, it produces death.

Such a mourning gives rise to artificial rejoicing, a juvenile pep-talk that thrives on denial of reality. “I’m alive! I’m alert! And I feel great! (So what if my soul is in mortal danger, the anxieties of life are more than I can handle, and I don’t know the way to go.) I’m alive! I’m alert! And I feel great!”

Godly sorrow produces repentence, and repentence produces life - it leads to salvation!

St. Paul proceeds to demonstrate to the Corinthians how they can see for themselves that their sorrow produced salvation:

For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing, what indignation, what fear,
what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.”

The result? “Therefore we have been comforted in your comfort. And we rejoiced exceedingly more for the joy of Titus… Therefore I rejoice that I have confidence in you in everything.” (I Corinthians 7: 8-16)

When Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden, necessity thrust upon them a fundamental choice: Will they grieve over the lost paradise, sitting on the ground and despairing over all that was once theirs? Or will they grieve over the broken relationship with the God who make their former paradise, wailing in repentence over their sins, knowing that the evil they endured was not the change in their environment but the destruction of their souls. Would they grieve with the grief of the world and produce death, or would they grieve with a godly sorrow and bear the fruit of salvation.

The fathers knew that we would confront the same choice every day, so they set aside the season of Lent, during which we could learn to sorrow in a godly way, to repent of the sins that have destroyed our souls, to begin to taste the mourning more painful than despair and the rejoicing more comforting than escape: to learn the art of repentence.

We can examine our own sorrows and ask whether they are godly. Indeed, we must examine them. We are prone to grumble and call it godliness. But do they produce the fruit listed above: diligence, clearing, indignation, fear, vehement desire, zeal, vindication!?

May God grant softness and honest repentence to the callous heart of His most unprofitable servant.

Synaxis of the three hierarchs

In the gospel account, the sons of Thunder (James and John) and others were arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. They were young.

Today is the synaxis (Greek for “gathering” - same root as synagogue) of John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory the Theologian. The tradition hands down the account of this gathering, informing us that in the 11th century some Orthodox had divided into factions over the question of which of the three was greatest. They’d even taken the names of the fathers to identify themselves. All three of them appeared to a monk, telling him that their glory was equal and they should be remembered together.

This story reminds us of the Corinthian hang-up: I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, and I am of Christ. Is Christ divided, St. Paul asks. When we cannot achieve greatness on our own due to our unwillingness to pay the price of greatness: becoming a servant, then we strive for greatness by association.

The only authentic greatness our God offers us is the greatness of the servant. Seeking that greatness, so contrary to our hearts low desires, would cure us of every division. May we be numbered among the peacemakers, and thus be called the sons of God!

Confession

I went to confession tonight and entered with my head full of strategies by which I could overcome my sins so I’d never sin again and all that. My sins are pretty disturbing.

When I finished, Father reminded me that all I have to do is keep my wedding garment clean. He kept it very simple. No strategies necessary. No cleverness. Just confess your sins, receive the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist, love your neighbor. Keep it simple.

And then he did something extraordinary. Having heard my confession and learned even more about my wicked soul, he asked me if I had thought about serving on the vestry. A part of me felt as if he had not heard a word I had said. But there it was - the forgiveness of sins, exhibited before the icon, before I could even leave the sanctuary.

At the end of vespers we repeated these priceless words: “He is a good God and loves mankind.”

 Indeed.

Icon of the Feast of the Dormition

Here is a link to a beautiful icon for the feast of the Dormition with a brief explanation of the parts of the icon and the feast itself.

After two weeks of fasting, fulfilled by the interruption at its center of the feast of the transfiguration, we honor the Dormition of the Theotokos with a commemorative feast. Today we sing of her “deathless dormition,” that death that she died without anxiety, without alienation, without separation - without death.

In the icon, her body is lying on her death bed, surrounded by Peter and Paul and the apostles, but in fact, in reality, in actuality, she is in the arms of her Beloved Son. Here is the fulfillment and redemption of the pieta, that soul-piercing sword of her Son’s crucifixion. Here is the fulfillment and redemption of all her suffering.

And she is one of us and the mother of God. Her glorification, an offense to the simple, is a foreshadowing and promise of the glorification of all who become “partakers of the divine nature.” Her honor honors her Son. The incarnation of our Lord cannot be felt properly without reverence to His mother, or so it has been for me.

Here is how John of Damascus expressed his wonder and veneration to our mother, and his worship to our Lord:

What shall we say, O Queen? What words shall we use? What praise shall we pour upon thy sacred and glorified head, thou giver of good gifts and of riches, the pride of the human race, the glory of all creation, through whom it is truly blessed. He whom nature did not contain in the beginning, was born of thee. The Invisible One is contemplated face to face. O Word of God, do Thou open my slow lips, and give their utterances Thy richest blessing; inflame us with the grace of Thy Spirit, through whom fishermen became orators, and ignorant men spoke supernatural wisdom, so that our feeble voices may contribute to thy loved Mother’s praises, even though greatness should be extolled by misery. She, the chosen one of an ancient race, by a predetermined counsel and the good pleasure of God the Father, who had begotten Thee in eternity immaterially, brought Thee forth in the latter times, Thou who art propitiation and salvation, justice and redemption, life of life, light of light, and true God of true God. (From his First Sermon on the Assumption)

Today we honor the Dormition of her whose Son we worship as our Lord and our God and in so doing we share in His act of honoring His mother whom He welcomed into the death-conquering life He purchased for us all, and first, perhaps, for her.

Leavetaking of Transfiguration

In two days we celebrate/commemorate the Dormition of the Theotokos. Today we acknowledge the leavetaking of the transfiguration. I confess I don’t know the signficance of a “leavetaking” unless it is simply to recognize that this season in the calendar is now past.

Even if that is all it is, I remain grateful for it. The calendar of the church has become a precious gift to me, like an article of clothing I am learning to wear, like a tool I am learning to use - maybe like a guide I am learning to follow. Once I felt that it was restricting and legalistic to build one’s life around a calendar ordered by someone else who knew nothing about you personally.

It doesn’t take a great deal of insight to expose the false premises of that way of thinking. What I cherish most about the calendar is the manner in which it draws me back to the concrete/timely realities of the gospel. The Christian life takes place in time and place and that is why it can be a community life. When Christians abandoned the calendar it didn’t take long for the secular state to establish their own saints and events.

The high holy day of the Secular calendar is the Superbowl, played regularly on the first day of the week, as are its weekly sacrament. The nacho of communion is partaken with the cup of beer or pop (or soda, depending on where you live).

We celebrate a secondary holiday on July 4 (our nativity), remember all saints on the last Monday in May (this holiday demonstrates the fragility of the secular calendar), and recognize a few saints explicitly along the way: Washington and Lincoln, though not as explicitly as once, King, Jr., Columbus - a fallen saint to whom we owe our vicious character as a people, the anti-Christ of the true secularist. We also borrow some Christian holidays, but neutralize them with fairy tales of the forgotten St. Nicholas and Easter bunnies. Of course, Easter happens on a Sunday, so we don’t need to take work off for it, and it isn’t as easily sentimentalized as the birth of baby Jesus, meek and mild.

It’s a shredded and patched up calendar with all the spiritual food of a concrete garden.

But we have, in the fountain of God’s grace that we love as Holy Church, a rich, festal, satisfying calendar that fulfills the guidance of God in Genesis 1 when He told us that the stars and moon would be for signs and for seasons, directing us continually into the death and resurrection of our Lord, bringing the stars to the soil and the heavens to the earth.

So today we take leave of the week of transfiguration.

Forgiveness and Transfiguration

On this our Sunday after transfiguration we read the parable of the unforgiving steward. Owing his master 10,000 talents (one talent was approximately enough gold to pay for a Roman battleship), the steward begged for mercy and time. His master granted both. The steward then encountered one who owed him 100 denarii (approximately three months slave wages - maybe enough to buy a tunic and a used pair of sandals) and demanded payment. When the debtor was unable to pay his debt, the steward ordered him thrown into debtor’s prison until the last farthing was paid. Hearing of this injustice, the lord rebuked the blindly cruel steward and ordered him cast into prison until his debt also was paid - and, frankly, he had no hope of ever paying it in full. 

Even so, our Lord tells us, if we will not forgive others, our Father in heaven will not forgive us.

In today’s sermon, Father remarked on the presence of this parable in the church calendar on the Sunday after Transfiguration. He wisely pointed out that we also are called to be transfigured - “metamorphosised” - and that we are transfigured by forgiveness and forgiving.

Without too much oversimplification, one could argue that there are two basic forms of plot: the tragedy and the comedy. In both cases, the plot is propelled by broken relationships and the dramatic question of how the characters will respond. In a tragedy, the characters seek revenge, and the tale ends in death. In a comedy, the characters forgive, and the tale ends in a dance.

So it is with our lives. We decide whether we are living a comedy or a tragedy.

The Transfiguration

Today, in the middle of the Dormition fast, we celebrate the feast of the transfiguration. It is fitting to do so for a number of reasons. First, we can see the transfigured Christ only because “He was born of the virgin Mary and was made man.” The glorification occurs in the midst of and is the fruit of the humiliation.

Second, it is in our death to self that we are transformed into the image of Christ.

Third, because when Christ came down from the mount of transfiguration, He found his disciples unable to heal an epileptic. He rebuked them for their lack of faith, then pointed out that this particular kind of demon could come out only by prayer and fasting. Thus we fast.

But we also feast. We do not fast to be sorrowful or to show off how bravely we can suffer. We fast because that is what it takes to escape the power of our own demonic pride.

Always, and every step of the way remembering the final promise of transfiguration:

We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Thou wast transfigured on the mount, O Christ God,
revealing Thy glory to Thy disciples as far as they could bear it.
Let Thine everlasting Light shine upon us sinners;
through the prayers of the Theotokos,
O Giver of Light, glory to Thee!

The ironic anaphora

Christian tradition has always favored literature and one reason for this must be the appreciation for irony that the Christian and the literary mind share. Try to picture this:

Donald Trump, Barry Bonds, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Brad Pitt are sitting at an executive table. They are discussing greatness and which of them is greatest, outdoing one another in their descriptions of their accomplishments. In fact, this is a practical discussion. They need a chairman, and each is positioning himself for that position - except for Brad Pitt, who doesn’t care.

Each of them has a secret envy of the others because, in spite of all their accomplishments, they have to admit the others have done things they could never have done.

Before settling the seating issue, another person enters; a consultant. This man, they’ve been told, will take you to the next level. In fact, if you follow his advice, he’ll make you think everything you’ve achieved to date has been a joke. So they agreed to meet with him this afternoon.

Then he enters. He’s dressed modestly, nothing estentatious - nothing noteworthy either way. He looks like someone who works with his hands, so they all feel a little uncomfortable, but they don’t know why because they don’t realize how little regard they have for such work - except, of course, Barry Bonds. In fact, some of them are a little worried, though they don’t know why because they would never let this idea reach their conscious minds, that this man might ask them to do some physically demanding work that won’t obviously fit under the heading “exercise” or “self-development.”

He enters silently, looks each in the eye, and approaches the table, where he takes the seat farthest from the head - the one over which they had been bickering. He sits silently, assuming nothing, asserting nothing. He waits.

When the rest see that He is not speaking, they revert to their argument and after a while it is determined that Bill Gates should occupy the chair because he has the most money and therefore can fund any decisions they make.

The consultant is still in His seat, observing silently. Waiting patiently.

At last, the new chair, Mr. Gates, addresses the consultant, concerning whom the whole group has decidedly negative regard. He seems indecisive, hesitent, maybe even slow-witted. Something annoying about him.

But they are paying him to sit there, so Mr. Gates calls the meeting to order and directs their attention to the consultant.

He speaks clearly, deliberately, and authoritatively, but he doesn’t say much. He says:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Tried that,” says Pitt to himself. “What the hell does blessed mean?” mutters Trump under his breath. “Kingdom of heaven?” whisper a few. When one snickers quietly, the rest join in.

He goes on:

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Clinton smiles slyly, but Trump is annoyed and starts to say something, but the consultant looks at him and he is silenced.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Irritated laughter from Trump, raising of the eyebrow from Putin, folded arms around the table.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

“Filled?” Bonds and Pitt, simultaneously. Trump rises to leave.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Trump throws his Waterman, just missing the consultant and slams the door behind him. Bonds chuckles, Putin sighs.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The six remaining check their watches, Clinton yawns.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” Bonds laughs, “For they shall be called the sons of God.”

“Only sons?” Clinton objects, though not aloud.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Pitt rises, slowly - Gates resigns the chair to Putin and leaves, followed by Pitt.

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

Bonds and Clinton glance at each other knowingly. Putin follows Gates our the door.

The Dormition Explained

Alexander Schmeman suggests that the death of the Theotokos is “best explained explained through the Dormition icon.” I have inserted one above from the icon gallery at GOAOA.

 I don’t know icons well, but this seems to be a rather old one. In it, the body of the Theotokos lies on her deathbed while her soul is held in Christ’s arms. It’s an extraordinary image of the conquest of death that her Son had achieved only a few years before. Considering how our Lord famously wept at the grave of Lazarus, it must have provided immense satisfaction when He was able to bring His mother home.

Repentence

From Frederica’s The Illumined Heart:

Repentence is the doorway to the spiritual life, the only way to begin. It is also the path itself, the only way to continue.