Our father among the saints Gregory of Nyssa was bishop of Nyssa and a prominent theologian of the fourth century. He was the younger brother of Basil the Great and friend of Gregory the Theologian. He is one of the “Cappadocian Fathers,” a title which reveals at once his birthplace in Asia Minor and the magnitude of his intellect.

He is commemorated on January 10.

But the spiritual Lawgiver, our Lord Jesus Christ, strips the Law of its external coverings.

He discloses for us the inner meaning of the symbolic riddles.

First of all, He does not separate one man from everyone else in order to lead only him to spiritual converse with God.

He grants this privilege equally to all, presenting the grace of priesthood as common to those who aspire to it.

[…] The spiritual Lawgiver then leads the priest into the Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the sanctuary.

But this Holy of Holies is neither lifeless nor handmade. It symbolizes the hidden treasury of the heart, that is, if the heart is truly inaccessible to evil and impenetrable to wicked thoughts.

And the head He adorns with a heavenly mind, not engraving the form of letters on golden leaf (Ex 28:36) but imprinting the image of God Himself on the ruling faculty of reason.

On the hair He pours myrrh produced inwardly by the soul itself through the virtues. By means of the mystical liturgy He prepares a victim and sacrifice for the priest to offer to God, which is none other than Himself.

He who is thus led to this priesthood by the Lord puts to death the carnal mind by means of

“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:17).

He then enters the Holy of Holies and appeases God, offering himself as sacrifice and

“presenting his body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom 12:1).

However, is this the obvious meaning of the Lord’s Prayer which we are interpreting? Someone will perhaps object that we are contriving these ideas and do not connect the text of the prayer to familiar things.

Let us remember, therefore, what the Lord’s Prayer has already taught us about approaching God.

Who has prepared himself to name God as his own Father with confidence? It is precisely he who is vested with such a spiritual robe described above.

[…] He enters into the Holy of Holies above the heavens which are truly in accessible and impenetrable to all profane thought.

Source: Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): Third Homily on The Lord’s Prayer.

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Our father among the saints Ambrose of Milan came to be bishop of Milan as the only competent candidate to succeed Auxentius, a bishop of Arian persuasion, in 374. A catechumen and trained as a lawyer, he learned his theology through intense study of subject as he was successively baptized and then consecrated as Bishop of Milan. He held to the Nicene belief and through the eloquence of his arguments he persuaded Emperor Gratian to the Nicene confession.

He was known for his sermons which greatly influenced the conversion of St. Augustine of Hippo.

“Where a man’s heart is, there is his treasure also.”

God is not accustomed to refusing a good gift to those who ask for one.

Since he is good, and especially to those who are faithful to him, let us hold fast to him with all our soul, our heart, our strength, and so enjoy his light and see his glory and possess the grace of supernatural joy.

Let us reach out with our hearts to possess that good, let us exist in it and live in it, let us hold fast to it, that good which is beyond all we can know or see and is marked by perpetual peace and tranquillity, a peace which is beyond all we can know or understand.

[...] We have died with Christ. We carry about in our bodies the sign of his death, so that the living Christ may also be revealed in us.

The life we live is not now our ordinary life but the life of Christ: a life of sinlessness, of chastity, of simplicity and every other virtue.

We have risen with Christ. Let us live in Christ, let us ascend in Christ, so that the serpent may not have the power here below to wound us in the heel.

Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord.

Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show. You must take refuge in him.

He is your refuge and your strength. David addresses him in these words:

“I fled to you for refuge, and I was not disappointed”.

Since God is our refuge, God who is in heaven and above the heavens, we must take refuge from this world in that place where there is peace, where there is rest from toil, where we can celebrate the great sabbath, as Moses said:

“The sabbaths of the land will provide you with food”.

To rest in the Lord and to see his joy is like a banquet, and full of gladness and tranquillity.

Let us take refuge like deer beside the fountain of waters. Let our soul thirst, as David thirsted, for the fountain.

What is that fountain? Listen to David:

“With you is the fountain of life”

Let my soul say to this fountain:

“When shall I come and see you face to face?”

For the fountain is God himself.

Source: Ambrose of Milan (c. 337-397): from Flight From The World (Cap. 6, 36; 7,44; 8, 45; 9,52).

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St. Leo the Great was the bishop of Rome during difficult times. He was an eminent scholar of Scripture and rhetoric. During an invasion by Attila the Hun, St. Leo met him outside the gates of Rome. After some short words, to everyone’s surprise, Attila turned and left. Three years later, during an invasion by Genseric the Vandal, St. Leo’s intercession again saved the Eternal City from destruction.

On this day during Lent, we are reading from the Ladder of Divine Ascent, and are reading the chapter “On Avarice,” so in light of that, we offer this admonition from St. Leo.

For the man who loves God it is sufficient to please the one he loves; and there is no greater recompense to be sought than the loving itself; for love is from God by the very fact that God himself is love.

The good and chaste soul is so happy to be filled with him that it desires to take delight in nothing else. For what the Lord says is very true:

Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

What is a man’s treasure but the heaping up of profits and the fruit of his toil? For as a man sows, so will he reap, and each man’s gain matches his toil; and where delight and enjoyment are found, there the heart’s desire is attached.

Now there are many kinds of wealth and a variety of grounds for rejoicing; every man’s treasure is that which he desires. If it is based on earthly ambitions, its acquisition makes men not blessed but wretched.

But those who enjoy the things that are above and eternal rather than earthly and perishable, possess an incorruptible, hidden store of which the prophet speaks:

Our treasure and salvation have come, wisdom and instruction and piety from the Lord: these are the treasures of justice.

Through these, with the help of God’s grace, even earthly possessions are transformed into heavenly blessings; it is a fact that many people use the wealth which is either rightfully left to them or otherwise acquired, as a tool of devotion.

By distributing what might be superfluous to support the poor, they are amassing imperishable riches, so that what they have discreetly given cannot be subject to loss. They have properly placed those riches where their heart is; it is a most blessed thing to work to increase such riches rather than to fear that they may pass away.

Source: Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 92,2-3; from Office of Readings.

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As a little change up from the normal Lenten fare, we thought was time for something completely different!

It was reported in November 2009 that the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church. The Director of the Vatican Observatory commented that the discovery of possible alien life would have “many philosophical and theological implications” for Catholics.

In 1965 Fr. John Romanides offered a valuable resource on this topic for a series run by the Boston Globe in which he gives the unique Orthodox perspective. Originally printed in the Boston Globe on April 8, 1965 (page 18), the full text of this reprinted article is below.

All Planets the Same: Religion’s Response to Space Life V

I can foresee no way in which the teachings of the Orthodox Christian tradition could be affected by the discovery of intelligent beings on another planet. Some of my colleagues feel that even a discussion of the consequences of such a possibility is in itself a waste of time for serious theology and borders on the fringes of foolishness.

I am tempted to agree with them for several reasons.

As I understand the problem, the discovery of intelligent life on another planet would raise questions concerning traditional Roman Catholic and Protestant teachings regarding creation, the fall, man as the image of God, redemption and Biblical inerrancy.

First one should point out that in contrast to the traditions deriving from Latin Christianity, Greek Christianity never had a fundamentalist or literalist understanding of Biblical inspiration and was never committed to the inerrancy of scripture in matters concerning the structure of the universe and life in it. In this regard some modern attempts at de-mything the Bible are interesting and at times amusing.

Since the very first centuries of Christianity, theologians of the Greek tradition did not believe, as did the Latins, that humanity was created in a state of perfection from which it fell. Rather the Orthodox always believed that man [was] created imperfect, or at a low level of perfection, with the destiny of evolving to higher levels of perfection.

The fall of each man, therefore, entails a failure to reach perfection, rather than any collective fall from perfection.

Also spiritual ‘evolution’ does not end in a static beatific vision. It is a never ending process which will go on even into eternity.

Also Orthodox Christianity, like Judaism, never knew the Latin and Protestant doctrine of original sin as an inherited Adamic guilt putting all humanity under a divine wrath which was supposedly satisfied by the death of Christ.

Thus the solidarity of the human race in Adamic guilt and the need for satisfaction of divine justice in order to avoid hell are unknown in the Greek Fathers.

This means that the interdependence and solidarity of creation and its need for redemption and perfection are seen in a different light.

The Orthodox believe that all creation is destined to share in the glory of God. Both damned and glorified will be saved. In other words both will have vision of God in his uncreated glory, with the difference that for the unjust this same uncreated glory of God will be the eternal fires of hell.

God is light for those who learn to love Him and a consuming fire for those who will not. God has no positive intent to punish.

For those not properly prepared, to see God is a cleansing experience, but one which does not move eternally toward higher reaches of perfection.

In contrast, hell is a static state of perfection somewhat similar to Platonic bliss.

In view of this the Orthodox never saw in the Bible any three story universe with a hell of created fire underneath the earth and a heaven beyond the stars.

For the Orthodox discovery of intelligent life on another planet would raise the question of how far advanced these beings are in their love and preparation for divine glory.

As on this planet, so on any other, the fact that one may have not as yet learned about the Lord of Glory of the Old and New Testament, does not mean that he is automatically condemned to hell, just as one who believes in Christ is not automatically destined to be involved in the eternal movement toward perfection.

It is also important to bear in mind that the Greek Fathers of the Church maintain that the soul of man is part of material creation, although a high form of it, and by nature mortal.

Only God is purely immaterial.

Life beyond death is not due to the nature of man but to the will of God. Thus man is not strictly speaking the image of God. Only the Lord of Glory, or the Angel of the Lord of Old and New Testament revelation is the image of God.

Man was created according to the image of God, which means that his destiny is to become like Christ who is the Incarnate Image of God.

Thus the possibility of intelligent beings on another planet being images of God as men on earth are supposed to be is not even a valid question from an Orthodox point of view.

Finally, one could point out that the Orthodox Fathers rejected the Platonic belief in immutable archetypes of which this world of change is a poor copy.

This universe and the forms in it are unique and change is of the very essence of creation and not a product of the fall.

Furthermore the categories of change, motion and history belong to the eternal dimensions of salvation-history and are not to be discarded in some kind of eternal bliss.

Thus the existence of intelligent life on another planet behind or way ahead of us in intellectual and spiritual attainment will change little in the traditional beliefs of Orthodox Christianity.

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The newly ordained priest Barnabas

Today, at the Annunciation Cathedral in Atlanta, Fr. Dcn. Barnabas is being elevated to the Holy Priesthood. Axios!

Fr. Barnabas is a gifted (and well formed) preacher, and we will be seeing and hearing more from him once he recovers somewhat from his oppressive schedule. Fr. Barnabas is not only a friend, he is one of us – a member of the Preachers Institute, and student at Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, MA. At the recent Art of Speaking Workshop (you can see the Review here), he was one of the four presenters.

To the entire Powell family – congratulations and many, blessed years to you all!

More information about Fr. Barnabas.

Fr. Barnabas (Charles) Powell is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. Having been raised in a small Pentecostal church as a boy, Fr. Dcn. Barnabas grew to love the church, enjoy the music, and eventually came to be the youth pastor of his home church.

Fr. Barnabas attended Toccoa Falls College, an Evangelical Protestant school in North East Georgia, and received his theology degree there in 1988. He then went on to establish a new church in the Atlanta area that was an Evangelical congregation with Charismatic distinctives. While pastoring, Barnabas also was heavily involved with Evangelical Christian media.

He served Dr. Charles Stanley’s In Touch Ministries as Promotions and Public Relations coordinator, and also served as the Affiliates manager for Leading The Way Ministries with Dr. Michael Youssef.

He pastored for several years and saw the congregation grow from two families to over 200 in the space of a few years. During this time, Barnabas became interested in the history of the Church, and began a reading program that would eventually lead him to enter the Orthodox Christian Church. Several of the families that had been with him during his pastorate entered the Orthodox Christian Church together with Barnabas in November of 2001.

Fr. Barnabas joined the staff of Orthodox Christian Network, the producers of Come Receive The Light, in April of 2003, and now serves the media outreach as the director of development. Orthodox Christian Network is the SCOBA Agency commissioned to create and sustain a national media outreach for the Orthodox Christian Churches in the U.S.

In 2007 Fr. Barnabas was given the blessing of Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta to enter Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and he and his wife and daughter moved to Boston to pursue his Master of Divinity in preparation for ordained ministry in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, if God wills. He is currently finishing his senior year at Holy Cross while also serving as adjunct professor for Public Speaking/Communications at Hellenic College.

Of special interest to us, He also assists in the graduate school in teaching the Preaching course for senior seminarians.

Fr. Barnabas is married to Presvytera Connie (Demas) Powell and they have one daughter, Alexandra.

As I wrote in my review of the Art of Speaking Workshop, he’s a southern gentleman with a fire in his belly for the Gospel, and a clear vision of the future of the Orthodox Church in the USA.

He also writes the blog, Sober Joy. The article below is taken from his blog, and is a small example of his excellent work.

Axios! Priest Barnabas! Congratulations, and many, blessed years to you.

Here is an article from Fr. Barnabas’ blog, for your reading enjoyment. As for me, I never get tired of reading his writing!

“DRESS UP” ORTHODOXY

Monday, June 30, 2008

Dear Readers (both of you! )

Below is a response I recently wrote to an announcement about “two new Orthodox parishes” being established in the Baltimore area. It turns out that these are two Old Catholic groups wanting to advertise themselves as “Orthodox.”

The reality of our current situation here in America is that of religious “entrepreneurial” chaos. In other words, every man can do what is “right in his own eyes.” I prefer the chaos over government control, but that means that each of us must be diligent in knowing and living the fullness of the Faith. No automatic pilot allowed!

Here’s my response. I offer it to you for your critique, response, and correction:

Fr. XXXX, please forgive me, but I spent (I won’t say “wasted” but I want to) almost 10 years of my life playing “dress up” Orthodoxy in a group that desired the ancient faith without all that messy hard work of actually being in organic communion within the Orthodox Church.

I don’t say that is what’s happening here. How could I know? But I do know that any real and lasting work any of us do will have to be eventually brought to the Church in communion if it is ever going to be “fruit that remains.” This “we are going to do Orthodoxy right” mentality is absolutely a dead end. If you and your Old Catholic group have charisms and talents, bring them to the Church. Perhaps the Church can put them to use, but more than likely it will be as it has been for me, a time when my own foolish notions of my gifts and abilities will be put to the test in the fire of the hard work of communion within the Church.

I also don’t mean to engage in any lengthy discussion of the merits of this or that vision of communion and bringing America to Orthodoxy. I simply wish to share my own regrets for waiting so long to enter into the hard work of communion within the Orthodox Church. The fruit that this work has produced in my own life is worth much more than any of the perceived “gains” I thought I had outside of the organic and canonical communion within the Church. Please know that ever fear I had about the Orthodox Church was well founded.

There are many within the Church who see it as nothing more than a place to preserve yia yia’s recipes and a few colorful costumes and dance steps, or some ultimately futile attempt to pretend they don’t live where they live now. There are many within the Church, especially here in America, who are so narrow minded that you could put out both eyes with one bb! There are far too many who know so little about their faith that they resort to silly nationalistic (and sometimes racist) motivations for preserving the ancient traditions of the faith. The sad and overwhelmingly obvious results of these weaknesses is that these motivations will not preserve anything these folks want to preserve. These weak motivations are, after all, too small to preserve the timeless beauty of the Faith, and too irrelevant to keep any of the “old world” alive. All of these fears are well founded and certainly insist on an “eyes wide open” approach to entering the Church.

But in spite of these very real weaknesses, there is simply no substitute for the hard work of dealing with these shortcomings, especially with all the benefits that come.

Because, for every narrow-minded person I have encountered in the Orthodox Church, I have encountered a hundred sincere, faithful, and loving believers who, through patience, compassion, and love have guided me to a fuller understanding of the Faith. I have seen my initial impressions of some of the ethno-centric baggage of the Church as being too short sighted myself. I have found some of these cultural expressions (certainly not all) to be worthy bearers of deeper truths that have been helpful to me in deepening my own piety and faith. I have watched as so-called “cradle” Orthodox, grasping the deep healing given to them by the Faith, raise their children as committed believers and I’ve watched as so-called “converts” finally see the power of humility in living out a sense of gratitude for those who preserved the faith so they could receive it. I have watched as young men and women come to understand that if they first dwell deeply on the “sublime theology” of Orthodoxy, their children will want to keep alive those special cultural markers that allow them to display their Orthodox faith in a healthy and welcoming way. Their children want to learn the “language” not because of some foolish and shallow nationalism, but because that “language” best captures the precious nuances of the Faith they have come to love and has so transformed their lives. It has been worth the work.

My journey isn’t over, anymore than I’m sure yours is as well. Here at seminary I am learning more than I ever dreamed, and much of that education is occurring not in a classroom but in the daily living with so many different people from so many different places. I have found my worst fears and my greatest hopes both confirmed in my canonical communion within the Church,

and I wouldn’t go back to my “dress up” days for anything!

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Our Venerable and God-bearing Father Theodore the Studite was a hymnographer and theologian as well as the abbot of the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Studios, outside of Constantinople, during the ninth century.

His great theological contribution, On the Holy Icons, was for the defense of icons during the Second Iconoclasm Period (814-842). He is also known for his writings and influence on monastic reform.

On our Accomplishing the Days of the Fast Gently and Readily in the Hope of Life Without End

Brethren and fathers, fasting is good if it possesses its own special characteristics, which are to be peaceable, meek, well-established, obedient, humble, sympathetic and all the other forms of virtue. But the devil hurries to suggest the opposite to fasters and to make them insolent, angry, bad-tempered, puffed up, so as to produce hurt more than gain.

But let us not be ignorant of his plans, but continue our path peaceably, gently, meekly and steadfastly bearing with one another in love, knowing that this is what is acceptable to God; for though you bend your neck double like a hoop and smother yourself with sackcloth and ashes, if these qualities are lacking to you, you would not be well-pleasing to him. Because while fasting batters and wastes the body, it clears the soul and makes it flourish.

“For as much as our outer nature is perishing,” it says, “by so much the inner is being renewed day by day.” And our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding weight of glory.

So that looking at the recompense, let us bear the toils of virtue with long-suffering, giving thanks to the God and Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.

Do we not communicate each day of his immaculate body and blood?[1]

What could be sweeter and more filled with enjoyment than this, since those who partake with a pure conscience will obtain eternal life? Do we not converse each day with the godly David and the other Holy Fathers through taking in the readings? What could bring greater consolation to the soul? Have we not broken off contact with the world and with our relatives according to the flesh?

Again is anything more blessed or higher than this? For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to Himself. And so, my brothers, let us rejoice and be glad as we repudiate every pleasure.

“All flesh is grass, and all human glory like the flower of the grass.”

The grass withered and the flower faded, but the work of virtue endures for ever.

“Is anyone among you suffering?” as the brother of God says, “Let him pray. Is anyone sad? Let him sing psalms.”

Is anyone tempted by evil passion? — since the tempter is always at work — let him endure patiently as he listens to the one who says,

“Blessed is the one who endures temptation; for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them,” said the Lord,

to whom be glory and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

1 This suggests that daily Communion was the norm for St Theodore’s monks. This would imply that during Lent the Liturgy of the Presanctified was celebrated every weekday, not just on Wednesdays and Fridays.

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by St. John of Krondstadt

“It is remarkable that however much we trouble about our health, however much care we take of ourselves, whatever wholesome and pleasant food and drink we take, however much we walk in the fresh air, still, notwithstanding all this, in the end we sicken and corrupt; whilst the saints, who despise the flesh, and mortify it by continual abstinence and fasting, by lying on the bare earth, by watchfulness, labors, unceasing prayer, make both their souls and bodies immortal. Our well-fed bodies decay and after death emit an offensive odor, whilst theirs remain fragrant and flourishing both in life and after death. It is a remarkable thing: we, by building up our body, destroy it, whilst they, by destroying theirs, built it up-by caring only for the fragrance of their souls before God, they obtain fragrance of the body also.”

- The Spiritual Counsel of Father John of Kronstadt

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This is a recording of our father, Archbishop Job of Chicago singing the 15th Antiphon at Matins for Great and Holy Friday 2009.

We include it for your own spiritual edification. Contemplate this worthy meditation on the Cross in anticipation of Holy Week.

May his memory be eternal!

If anyone has access to sheet music for this, please contact us here.

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His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony Bloom (1914 – August 4, 2003) was bishop of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. He wrote masterfully about Christian prayer, and many Orthodox Christians in Great Britain and throughout the world consider him to be a saint.

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

In today’s Gospel the Lord says to us that if we want to be followers of His, disciples, we must take up our crosses and follow Him. And when we think of the Cross of the Lord, we think of His gradual, painful ascent to His Crucifixion, we think of the way of the Cross, of His death. And indeed, the Lord calls us, if we want to be faithful to Him, if we want to be His disciples, to be prepared to walk all the way with Him – all the way.

But on the other hand, we must remember that He does not call us to follow a road which He has not trod Himself. He is a Good Shepherd that walks ahead of His sheep, making sure that all is clear, that dangers have been removed, that they can walk safely in His footstep. His call to take up our cross and to follow Him is a call, at the same time, to accept to be true disciples of Him, and also to do it in the certainty that He will never ask from us what He has not done or endured Himself. We can follow Him safely; we can follow Him with assurance, but also with a sense of peace in our heart and our mind.

And yet, this following is not devoid of tragedy because to be disciple of Christ we must, as the reading of the Epistle at our baptism warned us, die with Him in order to be risen with Him. To die means to renounce, in an act of loyalty, of friendship, of solidarity with Him, of respect and veneration for Him, of recognition of the cost to Him for His love of us, to renounce everything which was the cause of His death. We must reflect on everything which is within us which makes us alien to God, unworthy of ourselves, unworthy of His love.

And when we discover, whatever it may be, to set out to reject it out of our lives. It may be things that seem to be easy, or small, it may be things that are very heavy and difficult to reject. But we must not imagine that things which seem to be small things separate us less from God than

those things which appear to be great to us. There is story in the life of one of the ascetics to whom two persons came; the one have committed a grievous sin and the other one recognised only a multitude of little sins. And to make them understand that both matter and could be as destructive of life of the one as the other, he told the first one to go into the field and to find the biggest boulder that was to be found and bring it, and to the other one to collect pebbles, everywhere. The one found easily a boulder and brought it; the other one as easily found a multitude of little pebbles. And when they came back, he said to them, and now – go, and put them back exactly in the way where you found them. The first that brought the big boulder found easy to find the place, it was deeply imprinted in the earth, and to place the boulder exactly where it had lain. The other one, after hours, and hours, and hours came back with all the pebble, because they had been collected at random, and yet, it was impossible to remember where. So is it with our sins: there is nothing which is small, and there is nothing which is great, if – and the ‘if’ is important – if we do not find a way of putting it aside.

So, let us reflect on this. In the weeks of preparation for Lent, we were confronted in one parable after the other, in one reading after the other with images of sin; the blindness of Bartimeus, the pride of the Pharisee, the rejection of his father – our God! – by the prodigal son; we were confronted with the reading of the judgement in which it was so clearly set out that we are not going to be judged on the faith we professed, but on whether we were human throughout our lives, whether we were simply human, perceptive, cruelly sensitive to the sufferings of other people, and whether we have done for them, our neighbour, all that could be done, whether we have loved our neighbour actively as we wish to be loved actively by our neighbour. And then we were confronted with the days of the end of this period of preparation when week after week it was twilight and darkness that was revealed to us within ourselves by the readings if we only had the honesty to respond to the message of God.

And then we entered into a new period of time; into Lent proper; the period which is called ‘the spring’ – because this is the meaning of the word ‘lent’, a time on newness and of renewal, a time when God can, c a n make old things new if we only allow Him to. And we are confronted with the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the triumph of Orthodoxy when the Church proclaimed that God had become man, that man was so great, so vast, and also so precious to God that He gave His life for Him, a God of sacrificial love, a God who was prepared to live and die for us because He treasures us so much.

And then, the next Sunday, the Sunday of Gregory Palama – the proclamation of the fact that we are truly called to be partakers of the divine nature according to the promise and the word of Saint Peter in his Epistle: that God wants to give Himself to us, that divine grace is God Himself pouring Himself into us and giving us a possibility, a chance, if we are only capable of responding to it, of making Him our King, enthrone Him as a Judge and Ruler of our mind, as the One Who rules our heart, the One Whose will is our will, the One Who may cleanse us even in our bodies of all sins spiritual and fleshly.

And now, we are going to see one after the other what the grace of God accepted, heroically received, can make of people: in the person of Saint John of the Ladder, in the person of Saint Mary of Egypt, in the person of every sinner who is been remembered in these weeks, and who by the power, and the grace, and the love of God, but also by his heroic, wholehearted, sincere response proved capable of receiving what God was giving.

And then, we will come to Holy Week; and from the light which has shone as a promise, which had dimly or brightly in the Saints, we will see the blinding light of love Divine incarnate, of what God means when He says that He loves us. And again, it is judgement, because if men, women, children as frail as we are, could respond as the Saints did, what are we going to say to God if we respond in no manner to His own sacrificial, crucified love?

And so, from the twilight of sin revealed to us, to the light which has shone through the Saints and in the Saints, of the Divine grace, we come to the light pure, perfect, revealed in God, and at each stage we are told by God: are you going to respond to this? Is the horror of darkness not sufficient to make you shudder? Is the vision of what can be done not enough to inspire you? Is My Own life and death for your sake not sufficient to move you? We are given one chance after the other to change, to respond: let us do it! Let us make haste to do it! There is a passage in the Great Canon in which it says, Let the hand of Moses covered with leper convince you that God can cleanse your own life which is covered in leper… Yes – if leper could be washed by an act of God, all leprosy which stains us, destroys us in soul, in body, which undermines the purity of our heart, darkens our soul, makes our will unfaithful to our own vocation and to the calling of God, all that can be healed.

And so we can enter into these days with hope, because one sigh of the Publican was enough to make him a child of the Kingdom, to restore him to wholeness. Let us bring at least one sigh from the depth of our heart – and salvation is ours… Glory be to God, Glory be to God in all things… Amen.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

Our venerable and God-bearing Father, Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (or Nikodemos the Hagiorite) was a great theologian and teacher of the Orthodox Church, reviver of hesychasm, canonist, hagiologist, and writer of liturgical poetry. St. Nicodemus reposed in the Lord in 1809 and was glorified by the Orthodox Church in 1955. He is a local saint of the Metropolis of Paronaxia and the Holy Mountain. His feast day is celebrated on July 14.

What is repentance?

My brother sinner, this is the preparation you must undergo before you repent and go to confession. Know firstly that repentance, according to St. John of Damaskos, is a returning from the devil to God, which comes about through pain and ascesis.[25] So you also, my beloved, if you wish to repent properly, must depart from the devil and from diabolical works and return to God and to the life proper to God. You must forsake sin, which is against nature, and return to virtue, which is according to nature. You must hate wickedness so much, that you say along with David:

“Unrighteousness have I hated and abhorred” (Ps. 118:163),

and instead, you must love the good and the commandments of the Lord so much, that you also say along with David:

“But Thy law have I loved” (ibid.),

and again:

“Therefore have I loved Thy commandments more than gold and topaz” (Ps. 118:127).

In brief, the Holy Spirit informs you through the wise Sirach what in fact true repentance is, saying:

“Turn to the Lord and forsake your sins Return to the Most High, and turn away from iniquity, and hate abominations intensely” (Sir. 17:25-26).[26]

The aspects of repentance

Know secondly that the aspects of repentance are three: contrition, confession, and satisfaction.[27]

Contrition

Contrition is sorrow and perfect grief of the heart,[28] which comes about in a person who, on account of the sins committed, disappointed God and transgressed His divine Law. This contrition comes only to the perfect and those who are sons of God, because it only proceeds from the love for God, just as a son repents simply because he disappointed his father, and not because he was deprived of his inheritance or because he will be ousted from his father’s house. Concerning this the divine Chrysostom says:

“Groan after you have sinned, not because you are to be punished (for this is nothing), but because you have offended your Master, one so gentle, one so kind, one Who loves you so much and longs for your salvation as to have given even His Son for you. On account of this, groan.”[29]

Affliction

Related to contrition is affliction, which is also a sorrow and imperfect grief of the heart, which comes about, not because a person disappointed God by his sins, but because that person was deprived of divine grace, lost Paradise, and gained hell. This affliction belongs to the imperfect, that is, to the hired hands and slaves, because it proceeds not out of love for God, but out of fear and out of love for themselves, just as a hired hand repents on account of losing his wage and a slave repents because he fears the disciplines of his master.[30]

So you also, my brother sinner, if you wish to acquire this contrition and affliction in your heart, and through these for your repentance to be pleasing to God, you must do the following.

Confess to an experienced Spiritual Father

First, search around and learn who is the most experienced Spiritual Father, because Basil the Great says, just as people do not show their maladies and bodily wounds to just any physician, but to experienced physicians who know how to treat them, so also sins must be revealed, not to just anyone, but to those who are able to heal them: “The same fashion should be observed in the confession of sins as in the showing of bodily diseases.

As then men reveal the diseases of the body not to all or to chance comers but to those who are experienced in their treatment; so also the confession of sins ought to take place in the presence of those who are able to treat them, as it is written:

‘Ye that are strong bear the infirmities of the weak’ (Rom. 15:1)

that is, take them away by your care.”[31]

How one is to examine his conscience

Second, just as you would sit down and count your money after a certain business transaction, in like manner go to a particular place, my brother, and two or three weeks before going to the Spiritual Father you found, especially at the beginning of the four fast periods of the year,[32] sit down in that place of quietude, and bowing your head, examine your conscience, which Philo the Jew calls:

“The testing of the conscience,”

and become:

“Not a defender, but a judge of your sins,”

according to the divine Augustine. Consider, like Hezekiah, the whole span of your life in sorrow and bitterness of soul:

“I will ponder all my years in the bitterness of my soul” (Is. 38:15).

Consider also how many sins you committed in deed, word, and by coupling with thoughts,[33] after you last confessed, counting the months, weeks, and days. Remember the people with whom you sinned and the places where you sinned, and diligently reflect upon these things in order to find every one of your sins. This is how the wise Sirach counsels you from one side saying:

“Before judgment, examine yourself” (Sir. 18:20),

and from the other, Gregory the Theologian says:

“Examine yourself more than your neighbor. Account of actions is superior to an account of money. For money is subject to corruption, but actions remain.”[34]

And just as hunters are not satisfied with merely finding a beast in the forest, but attempt through every means to also kill it, likewise, my brother sinner, you should also not be satisfied with merely examining your conscience and with finding your sins, for this profits you little, but struggle by every means to kill your sins through the grief in your heart, namely, through contrition and affliction.

And in order to acquire contrition, consider how much you have wronged God through your sins. In order to also acquire affliction, consider how much you have wronged yourself through your sins.

From Part III, Chapter 1 of Exomologetarion (A Manual of Confession), by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite (Thessaloniki, Greece: 2006, Uncut Mountain Press).

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.