St John Chrysostom: A Homily for the New Year

St John Chrysostom: A Homily for the New Year (On the Kalends of January)

[Translated by Seumas Macdonald], an excerpt…

[…]  The whole year will be fortunate for you, not if you are drunk on the new-moon [New Year’ Day], but if both on the new-moon [January 1st], and each day, you do those things approved by God. For days come wicked and good, not from their own nature; for a day differs nothing from another day, but from our zeal and sluggishness. If you perform righteousness, then the day becomes good to you; if you perform sin, then it will be evil and full of retribution. If you contemplate these things, and are so disposed, you will consider the whole year favorable, performing prayers and charity every day; but if you are careless of virtue for yourself, and you entrust the contentment of your soul to beginnings of months and numbers of days, you will be desolate of everything good unto yourself. […]

  Strong drink does not produce delight, but spiritual prayer; not wine, but a learned word. Wine effects a storm, but the Word [of God] effects calm; the former transports in an uproar, the latter expels disturbance; the former darkens the understanding, the latter lightens the darkened; the former imports despondencies that are non-existent, the latter drives away those there were [1]. For nothing is so accustomed to produce contentment and delight, as the teachings of [our] philosophy [wisdom]: [which is] to despise present affairs, to yearn for the things to come, to consider nothing of human affairs to be secure, and if you behold some rich man not to be bitten with envy, and if you fall into poverty not to be downcast by that poverty. Thus you are always able to celebrate festivals.

  For the Christian ought to hold feasts not for months, nor new moons, nor Lord’s days, but continually through life to conduct a feast befitting him. What is the feast that befits him? Let us listen to Paul speaking, “Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not in the old leaven, nor by leaven of evil and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” [1 Corinthians 5,8].

  If then you have a clean conscience, you hold a feast continually, nourished with good hopes, and reveling in the delight of the good things to come; then just as if you conducted yourself lacking boldness, and you were liable from many sins, and if there be ten thousand feasts and holy-days, you would be in no better state than those grieving. For what is the benefit to me of bright days, if my soul is darkened in its conscience? If then one wishes to gain some benefit from the new moon, do this. When you see the year ending, thank the Lord, because he had led you into this cycle of years. Stab the heart [‘prick the heart’] reckon up the time of your life, say to oneself: “The days run and pass by, the years fill-up, we have progressed much of the way; What good is there for us to do? Will we not depart from here, empty and deserted of all righteousness, the judgment at the doors, the rest of life leads us to our old age.”

  These things, [from the new moon], contemplate on New Year’s Day, these from the circuit of the years, recollect. Let us reckon the future day, no longer something spoken to us that, which was said to the Jews by the prophet, “Their days slipped away in vanity, and their years with haste” [Psalm 77:33 LXX]. This is the feast which I mentioned, the continual one, and the one not delayed by the passage of years, not limited by days, both the rich and the poor will be able to celebrate in the same manner: For here there is no want of wealth, nor provision, but only of virtue. Do you not have wealth? But you have the fear of God, a treasure more fruitful than all wealth, not consumed, not changed, not spent-up. Look to heaven, and to the heaven of heavens, the earth, the sea, the air, the kinds of the animals, the manifold plants, the whole nature of human-beings; consider the angels, archangels, the powers above; recall that these are all creations of your Master. It is thus not poverty to be the slave of the providential Master, if you have him as your propitious Lord. The observation of days is not of Christian philosophy [teaching, wisdom, see notes], but of Hellenic error.

  Into the city above you are enrolled [i.e. as a citizen] into the polity [2] there you are reckoned, you will mingle with the angels; where light does not give way to darkness, nor day fulfilled to night, but is always day, always light. To these therefore let us look continually. “For seek”, he says, “the things above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand.” [Col 3:1] You have nothing in common with the earth, where the courses of the sun are, and circuits, and days; but if you live rightly, the night will be day for you; just as then for those living in licentiousness and drunkenness and intemperance, their day is turned into the darkness of night, not with the sun’s extinction, but the darkening of their mind by inebriation.

  To be passionately excited towards these days, and to receive greater pleasure in them, and to kindle lights in the forum, and to weave wreaths, is of childish folly. But you have been freed from this weakness, and come into adulthood, and been enrolled in the polity of the heavens. Do not therefore kindle sensate fire in the forum, but kindle spiritual light in your mind. “For let”, he said, “your light shine before men, so they may see your good works, and they will glorify our Father in the heavens.” [Mt 5:16; Chrysostom has ‘our Father’ for ‘your Father’].

 This light brings you much recompense. Do not crown the door of the house, but display such a way of life so that you will receive the crown of righteousness on your head from the hand of Christ. Let nothing be done rashly, nor simply; thus Paul enjoins that all things be done for the glory of God. “For whether you eat,” he said, “or drink, or do whatever, do all for the glory of God” [1 Cor. 10:31. This verse provides the theme for the rest of the sermon].

  And what is it, he says, to eat and drink for God’s glory? Call the poor man, make Christ a participant of the table, and you eat and drink for God’s glory. But not this alone does he enjoin us to do for God’s glory, but all the rest as well, as to go into the forum, and to remain at home; let these both be done for God’s sake [διὰ τὸν Θεὸν and so throughout]. And how are these both to be done for God’s sake? Whenever you come into church, whenever you partake of prayer, whenever of spiritual teaching, the advance has occurred for God’s glory. Again, it is to remain at home for God’s sake. And how is this? [i.e. How will one glorify God in this action of staying at home?]

  Whenever you hear disturbances, disorderly and diabolical processions, the forum filled with wicked and undisciplined men, remain at home, free from this disorder, and you remain for God’s glory. Just as spending time at home and going-out is able to be done for God’s sake, thus also of praise and censure. And what is it to praise something for God’s glory, he says, and to accuse? You sit frequently in workplaces, you see evil and wicked men passing by, raising the eyebrows [a sign of haughtiness and importance], puffed up, trailing many parasites and flatterers, wearing expensive clothes, surrounded with some mystique, seizing all things, avaricious. If you hear someone saying, “Is he not enviable, is he not blessed?” Rebuke [the word], accuse it, [have] silence, pity, and weep; this is what it means to censure for God’s sake.

  Censure is teaching of philosophy to those meeting together and is so strong of virtue [3], so as to no longer long [more literally, ‘gape’.] for the things of everyday life. Say to the one saying these things: “Why is this man blessed? Because he has a marvelous horse and a golden bridle, and possesses many servants, and wears bright clothing, and bursts [4] each day in drunkenness and luxury?” But for this reason he would be wretched and cursed, and worthy of a thousand tears. I see then that you are able to praise nothing of him, but all things external to him, the horse, the bridle, the clothing, of which nothing is his. What then, tell me, is more pitiable than this, when his horse, and the horse’s bridle, and the beauty of his clothes, and the bodily vigor of his servants are marveled, but he passes by upraised? Who then could be poorer than this man, having nothing good of his own, nor anything that he is able to carry away from here, but is adorned entirely by external things? For adornment and riches are properly our own, not servants and clothing and horses, but virtue of soul, and wealth of good deeds, and confidence towards God.

  Again, you see another man, a pauper, rejected, despised and passing his life in poverty and virtue, considered unhappy by his companions: commend this man, and the praise of this man as he passes by is exhortation and counsel of a useful and good way of life [politeia]. If they say, “He is wretched and miserable,” say that this one is the most blessed of all, having God as his friend, passing life in virtue, possessing a wealth never failing, having a pure conscience. For what harm is there to him from the lack of possessions, when he is going to inherit heaven and the good things in heaven? And if you yourself philosophize in this manner, and instruct others, you will receive a great reward from both censure and from praises, doing both for God’s glory. And that I do not allure you vainly saying these things, but that a certain great recompense exists with the God of all things for those whose intellect is thus disposed, and that the thing has been considered a certain virtue, [that is] the resolving to do such things, hear what the prophet says concerning those so living, and how he places things in an order of perfections, the despising of those doing wickedness, and the glorifying of those fearing God.

  For after recounting the other virtue of the one who will be honored by God, also he says, of what sort one must be to dwell in the holy tabernacle, that is blameless, and performing righteousness, and wicked-less, and this he adds: For saying, “Who did not deceive with his tongue, and did no harm to his neighbor” [Ps 15:3 (Ps 14:3 LXX)] he adds, “The one doing evil is set at naught before him, but those fearing the Lord he glorifies” [Ps 15:4 (Ps 14:4 LXX)] showing that this is one of those perfections, that is to despise the wicked, and to praise and bless the good. And again elsewhere this same thing he makes plain, saying, “Your friends were exceedingly honorable to me, God, their beginnings [poss. authorities] became very strong.”[5] Whom God praises, do not censure: he praises the one living in righteousness, even if he be poor; whom God turns away, do not praise: he turns away the one living in wickedness, even if he be surrounded by much wealth. But if you praise, and if you censure, do both as God wishes. For there is even accusing unto the glory of God. How? Frequently we are vexed with our servants. How then is there accusing for God’s sake? If you see someone drunk, or stealing, whether servant, or friend, or some other of those related to you, whether running into the theatre, or having no concern for their soul, or swearing [i.e. swearing oaths], or perjuring [i.e. to swear falsely] or lying: be angry [6], punish, turn them back, correct; and you did all these things for God’s sake. And if you see someone sinning against you, and omitting something of their service toward you, pardon them, and you are forgiven for God’s sake. But now many do the opposite, both to their friends, and to their servants. For when they sin against them, they become bitter and unforgiving judges; but when they insult God, and ruin their own souls, they produce no rationale. Again, is it necessary to make friends? Make them, for God’s sake. Is it necessary to make enemies? Make them, for God’s sake. And by what means does one make friends and enemies for God’s sake? If we do not attract those friends, whence money is taken, whence sharing of a table, whence obtaining of human patronage, but pursue and make those friends, those able always to order our soul, counsel necessities, rebuke sinners, expose trespassers, restore those fallen, and aiding by counsel and prayers to lead to God. Again, it is permitted to make enemies for God’s sake. If you see someone undisciplined, abominable, full of wickedness, replete with unclean teachings, tripping you up and harming you, stand apart and turn away, just as also Christ commanded, saying, “If your right eye trips you up, pluck it out and cast it from you” [Mt 5:29] commanding those friends, those being desirable in the rank of eyes [7], and necessary in the things of everyday life, to cut off, and to cast out, if they harm you with regard to the salvation of the soul. If you share in their meetings, and you prolong your speech, do even this for God’s sake, and if you keep silent, keep silent for God’s sake.

  And what is it to participate in the meeting for God’s sake? If you are seated with someone, converse nothing concerning daily affairs, nor of simple things even vainly and nothing of those related to you, but concerning our philosophy, concerning Hell, concerning the Kingdom of the Heavens, but not superfluities and unprofitable things, such as, “Who entered authority? [8] Who lost power? For what reason was so-and-so injured [possibly with a technical or financial sense: fined, punished]? Whence did so-and-so profit and become better off? What did so-and-so dying leave behind to such-and-such? How did so-and-so miss out, expecting to be listed among the foremost of the heirs?” And many other such things. Let us not then discuss such things, nor bear others discussing [them]; but let us consider what-doing or what-saying is to please God. Again, it is to keep silent for God’s sake, being maltreated, abused, suffering a thousand evils, if you bear them nobly, and emit no blasphemous word against the one doing these things to you. Not to praise and to censure alone, nor to remain indoors and to go out, not to utter and to keep silent, but also to weep and mourn, and to enjoy and delight is to God’s glory.

  For when you see either a brother sinning, or yourself falling into a transgression, [if] then you groan and mourn [these two verbs continue the protasis of the conditional], then you gain from the grief a salvation without regret, just as Paul says, “For grief according to God produces a salvation without regret” [2 Cor. 7:10]. If you see another person being highly esteemed, then do not disparage him, but as for one’s own goods give thanks to God, to the one making your brother illustrious, and you receive a great reward from this joy.

  What then, tell me, is more pitiable than the envious, when it is permitted both to rejoice and to profit through joy, and they prefer rather to grieve upon the advantages of others, and with the grief to yet also attract a punishment from God, an unendurable retribution. And what need is there to speak of praise, and of blame, and of pain, and of joy, when indeed even from the least of these things and from the meanest [‘mean’ in the sense of cheap, frugal, vulgar] events the greatest things are to be profited, if we do them for God’s sake?

[…]

  “Whether you eat, whether you drink, whether you do some other thing, do all for the glory of God” [1 Cor. 10:31]. If we pray, if we fast, if we accuse, if we pardon, if we praise, if we censure, if we enter, if we exit, if we sell, if we buy, if we are silent, if we converse, if we do any thing else whatsoever, let us do all for the glory of God, and if something be not for the glory of God, neither let it be done, nor be spoken by us; but in place of a great staff, in place of arms and safeguard, in place of unspeakable treasures, wherever we might be, let us carry around this word with us, having inscribed it upon our understanding, so that doing and speaking and trafficking all things for the glory of God, we shall obtain the glory that is from him both in this world and after  the journey here [i.e. after this life]. “For those that glorified me”, he says, “I will glorify” [1 Sam 2:30; (1 Reg. 2.30 LXX)]. Not therefore with words, but also through deeds let us glorify him continually with Christ our God, because all glory befits him, honor and worship, now and always unto the ages of ages. Amen.

For the entire sermon see Source. 

Notes:

Philosophy, both here and throughout Chrysostom, refers to Christianity as both a distinct set of beliefs, and a set of practices or way of life. It highlights the rivalry between the Christian philosophy, and the philosophical schools of the Hellenism.

[1] i.e. the former brings new dependencies that previously were not there, but the latter drives away those that were present beforehand.

[2] politeia, like philosophy, is a key concept-work for Chrysostom. It refers variously to the body of Christians both on earth and in heaven, their way of life as citizens, and their ordered existence in the church. It is also a rival politeia to that of Plato’s Republic and the like.

[3] This first half of the sentence is as confusing in the Greek as in the English.

[4] Migne’s Latin has solvitur which we might render ‘dissolves’, thus picking up the idea of moral dissolution in a wanton life. The Greek διαῤῥήγνυται is difficult to construe.

[5] Ps 138:17 LXX. Ps 139:17 MT differs radically from this reading.

[6] ἀγᾰνακτέω, the same verb used for ‘vexed’ above.

[7] Chrysostom’s meaning seems to be ‘those friends whom we hold as dear as our own eyes’, which Migne’s Latin also implies.

[8] N elected officials would enter office on the Kalends, which presumably explains the kind of political conversation Chrysostom has in view.

Father George Calciu – On New Year’ Eve Celebration

  This end of the year – the New Year’ Eve that the world celebrates – not been established or sanctified by the church, cannot be considered sacred, but only a human invention. Do we (Christians) have to celebrate it? Are we to attend the fireworks, the songs and all sorts of scandals, parties? … No.
We praise our Lord in the church. For it is in the church we’re awaiting “the end”. If God would have ordained the end of times tonight, He wouldn’t made His Son’ Nativity at Christmas!
What is the relation between a sacred event and the first of January? Absolutely no connection. And why some say that the end (of the world) is when the world decides – as a new millennium begins – and not when Christ will come? Or at least at the Annunciation!
All these are for the devil’ deceit. The overcrowding of people, the delirium seizing all, the craziness, the fireworks, the drinks, the champagne flowing … I was watching last night what happened in Paris. Someone said that in Rome, where the congregation of the Pope gathered (and I could not understand why he gave blessing to the world and the city on January 1st 2000 when there is no sacred event to celebrate)… we do not know how many millions of bottles of champagne flowed…. And someone else wound announce: more champagne in Paris! Then, more beer in Germany! So, this is the measure of “sanctity” for the New Year!  [...]

To read the entire sermon see Here.

A wish for the New Year: towards eternity…

(Fragment of a Homily delivered by Metropolitan Augustine of Florina in the Church of St. Panteleimon, Florida, 31.12.1974, during the New Year’ Eve services)

 […] Towards the eternity we step, my brothers. And now, another year had passed. We welcome a new year. What will it bring us? We do not know.

  As for us been dull, we do not know if we will live tomorrow. Unceasingly one has to wait his departure, especially us elders, reaching the sunset of life. But also the young. We do not know “What the present moment will offer “.  And I wonder next year, in a day like this, how many of us will still be here living? And what events await our people in the New Year? What will it happen in the Balkans, the Mediterranean and the world? … Are you imagining dreams and envision an endless life? But eternity is approaching my dear; the biggest moment is waiting to rise.

  What should I wish you, my dear? Wealth, glory, honors, delights, pleasures? … How meaningless is everything. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity“ (Ecclesiastes 1, 2). Only one thing remains: your belief in Christ. There is no other name that can give us joy and hope during this coming year, Whom us children praise and exalt into the ages of ages. Amen!

Father George Calciu – On Pious Prayer

(This is part of a retreat given by Fr. George Calciu in Romania

- November 2006 – few weeks before departing in the Lord).

May his memory be eternal!

 I would like to speak to you few words on pious prayer.

 I do not like definitions because prayer is undoubtedly a work of God that returns to God. The spirit of prayer is a gift that the Holy Spirit places in each of us, according to our more or less intense labor, while eliminating the barrier raised between God and us.

  In our attempt to pray, there is always a communion of divine will with the human will.  And know that without perseverance and piety, there is no prayer.

  I am not a pietistic, but I’d like to say that without the will of God, we wouldn’t be able to pray even the “Our Father”. This is because when we start praying, thousands of demons assail us.

  When I was a child, my mother would take me to church. We were eleven children in our family, and when she took us to church, we wound complain that our feet hurt from standing and that we wanted to go outside.

  And my mom would say: “As kids you do not understand, but know that the pain of your feet is your prayer before God.”

  She would also tell us this story: “In a village there was a bar where people and especially men will go out to drink (because at that time women will not go to bars, but now they do…). There, people would get dank, swear and fight, but in the entire place there was only one demon and perhaps the weakest that slept on the countertop because he had no work to do. In that same village, there was also the house of a widow who had seven children, and they all prayed at night. And her house was surrounded by a legion of demons… laboring hard”

  Then know my brethren that our churches and surrounded by legions of demons, striving hard to surrender us. For where the demon ought to accomplish its evil work! at the disco bar or at the beach? It has no work to do there. Of course that the evil spirits are also present in those places, but without much labor.

  But in the church, where the true faith is preached and we strive to practice true prayer, so the demons surround us from all sides striking where we’re most vulnerable.

  They temp you with doubt that your prayer is in vain, that you have something better to do, or perhaps with thoughts that God will not hear your prayer. But if you persist, this state of doubtfulness will vanish.

  When they first arrest me and I entered the Gulag, my faith was weak.

  When I started the school of Medicine, I knew some things about prayer and coming to Bucharest, I witnessed the beginning of a movement called the “Burning Bush”, a group of faithful dedicated to prayer that was initiated by Sandu Tudor [the future hieromonk Daniel from Rarau Monastery who later died as a martyr in communist gulag of Ayud - Ed], Father D. Stăniloae, Fr. B. Ghiuş, Father Babus, [Alexander "Codin"] Mironescu and other laymen and clergy engaged in the practice of prayer and catechesis, speaking on the great perils (elders) of the desert, and I was surprised of the deep treasures that prayer hides within and how much we can possibly grow that our prayer may become genuine.

  All these men I’m referring to – were extraordinary figures of our Church that with time have passed in the Lord, but they left behind a shinning mark and many of us today follow in the spirit that these fathers have instructed us then.

  In their presence I’ve learned greatly, and with time I strived to deepen my prayer life, until 1948 when I was arrested and sent to the gulag where I really felt the work of prayer.

  I shared the prison cell with various politicians, bishops, priests and monks, then I understood that prayer is a battle, a great effort.

  From the moment you sit or kneel down to pray, many demons attack you, even at your first words of prayer; the evil one fills your mind with many worldly thoughts, all sorts of unimportant things. Even the curiosity to know the time will occupy in your mind. Or the interest to know whether is sunshine or cloudy outside. All these thoughts may seem innocent, but they vanish the voice of prayer from our hearts.

  Elder Porphyrios says that these thoughts that assault our mind while we’re praying are like airplanes. You hear them from afar like a soft noise without much disturbance, then they grow stronger and when they fly above your head they overwhelm you with their noise, but then they’ll passed away.

  But if you get into conversation with such thoughts – says father Porphyrios – they’ll make your heart an airport.

  I was asked by many faithful how to fight the human thoughts that come to mind while praying. First, don’t pay attention to them. Let them pass by.  Second, call for the help of the Lord and of your guardian angel. And thirdly do not open your heart to the conversation with evil thoughts. Because the demon is stronger than us.

  Then we ought to pray with piety and humility. While reading the prayers of confession and Holy Communion written by Saint John Chrysostom, St. Simeon the New Theologian and other great saints of our Church that we seek as models for our lives, we see how these fathers confess the temptations that themselves had encountered, the evil thoughts, the malice… explanations given to help us with our prayer.

  Here is what St. Symeon Metaphrastes said, quote:

“What evil have I not committed? What sinful things have I not done? What form of wickedness have I not imagined in my soul? You know that I have gone beyond the bounds of depravity in my deeds. I have been proud, arrogant, contemptuous, blasphemous, gossiped, laughed uncontrollably. I have been drunk, gluttonous, malicious, envious, and greedy, judged others, conceded, sought praise, and been unjust, covetous, and consumed with shameful thoughts”…

  This is how Saint Metaphrastes was praying!

  When I read these prayers before confession and Holy Communion, I reflect on how much I have sinned in my whole life. If these saints were tempted, then how much more am I being (tempted)? If these saints were speaking of committing vain talk, drunkenness, gluttony, envy and love of wealth, then how much darker my thoughts ought to be?

  But St. Simeon the New Theologian will then continue: “Lord, You know my many errors, You know my sores and You behold my wounds; but You also know my faith, You behold my will and You hear my sighs. Nothing is hidden from You oh Lord, my God, my creator and deliverer, not a teardrop nor even part of a drop”…

  And this is a great consolation for us. Because God does not take into account only my prayer, but also my labor.

  Satan is outraged seeing someone praying. This explains why we are so attacked when we pray. There is an army of demons that try to inflict us with many despicable thoughts. They may not seem of a great harm, but are enough to interfere and separate us from God: worldly thoughts, memories that alter your peace, all sorts of unimportant things that imprisoned our minds.

  When you have prepared your heart and have emptied your mind of all daily cares – which however you cannot vanish completely – be watchful to see which side the demon will strike. At that moment, the angel of prayer that watches over you will help you “from the right” but the demon will strike “from the left”. The demon will try to distract you from prayer so you may lose the connection with God but the angel of prayer will place in your heart undisturbed thoughts and will aid your mind – its rational part, so you may oppose all evil influences and make a pure prayer.

  Father Roman Braga would says that when you sit down to pray, you ought to empty your mind of all images and during prayer to reflect not, so God may place in your emptied mind His Holy Spirit, filling you with His presence.

 I must confess that I had tried to follow this instruction – to empty my mind of all images, of anything that connects me to this material world, but I didn’t always succeed. There are moments when I can…. There are times when I raise myself above these images, but these moments don’t last very long because of my weakness.

  So I believe that been made of flesh and spirit, having a material body and an earthy mind, we need practice. We need to connect the rational or the imaginative part of our being with what we can see, for instances an icon. The icon especially, is the first step to help to lift up our spirit. It is good if you have an icon in front of you, to gaze your attention on it. To make from its sacred image – the saint represented on it, the link between you and God.

  Then can you can reflect on the saint’ holy life, the wonders he has done, the help he offered you in various circumstances, and feel his presence from the icon or his relics, in your soul. In this way you have come to the second stage.

  The third stage is when these worldly images no longer work in your mind and everything comes from God, Who fills the empty space in your soul with His divine presence.

 If you pray out loud, and many times we pray this was because we can focus more, do not let yourself carried out by the resonance of words, or by the beautiful phrases, as some prayers are indeed very beautiful. Do not be tempted by the “aesthetic”.

  I remember when I first read the acathyst prayer of the Burning Bush [composed by Daniel Sandu Tudor: Acathyst Hymn to the Mother of God, the Burning Bush - Ed], I did not comprehend very much. It sounded so beautiful, so theological that I was left only with a pleasant idea. However, this was also good, because through its mystical beauty God worked within us.

  Typically when we pray without words, only with our minds, there is a gap between the mind and the words. The doctors would say that when we recite something in the mind – for example the prayer Our Father – we do it in one breath, but the epiglottis – the phonetic organ, works more slowly.

  So, there is a gap between my thought and the prayer itself.

  Therefore, if you pray in your mind and utter incomplete words, it is good to work a resonance between the word and the thought. Otherwise the image becomes double, once through the thought and then through epiglottis by its small movement that creates inertia. Thus you are been left behind and lose the connection between your thought and the words of prayer.

  If your mental concentration leaves you during prayer taking you in vain, strive to return to prayer. Try to strengthen your attention and the angel of prayer would not only guide you in knowing that you last your attentiveness but he will also instruct you when you lost it.

  But if this interruption becomes rather a habit while praying, then the angel will no longer instruct you.

  Then repeatedly you’ll be losing and gaining… and you’ll advance very little.

  Thus, if you hold your attentiveness watching over your thoughts, your mind and your heart, then the angel will remind you where you lost the sweetness of prayer.

  These are small exercises to (help you) reconnect your thoughts to prayer. For instance, when you bend down your knees, your whole being is engaged in prayer. The simple union of your palms will engage you back into prayer. The sign of the Cross or other pious acts will help you bring back the payer. Thus, through small and unspectacular gestures, we can attract the angel of the Lord to help us bring back the prayer so we can go forward.

  There are people who try to replace all prayers with the prayer of the heart (the Jesus prayer). I think this practice is for those advanced.

  Once I went to Essex – England where they practiced the Jesus prayer in the church taking turns and they often replaced the service of Vespers with this prayer. There was a group of monastics, monks and nuns, and each one would say the Jesus prayer a hundred times… It seems like a record/book keeping offered to God, by counting exactly how many times you would say the prayer.

  My brethren, I’d like to say this: all prayers should start with the beginning prayers, the troparies: Heavenly King … Holy God…, the prayer to the Most Holy Trinity… Our Father…, the Creed, Psalm 50, then the prayers to the Most Holy Theotokos.

  These are the basic prayers. Without them one cannot really get to the essence even thou you may seem advanced; as we’re not at the level of the fathers of the Holy Mountain.

  You must prepare your heart before getting to more advanced prayer. You begin with the first prayer dedicated to the Holy Spirit, then to the Holy Trinity, then the third to God the Father – and so on. They all have a purpose. Often I would ask my younger seminarians, to whom is “the Heavenly King prayer” addressed? And they did not know. They would pray without knowing…

  For it is better to start with the introductory prayers then to advance. Even if you say only these basic prayers ten times, a hundred times, over and over, with time the prayer works in our heart to restore it and to advance it to deeper prayer.

  Then you can utter another prayers and the Jesus prayer (the prayer of the heart).

  For I believe that the prayer of the heart, said especially at night, is a gift of the Holy Spirit that works in our hearts, and we ought to practice it with deep piety/humility.

  Before I been sent to prison for the second time, I was received to the priesthood and serve from 1972 until 1978.

  In 1978 I was removed/band from teaching at the Seminary and from serving the Church, so I was given into the hands of the communist regime (“the Securitate”), with no ecclesiastical protection.

  I no longer had a parish or a sit to teach, no one offered me protection, no bishop would take responsibility for me and I felt lost.

  I was arrested again and sent to prison.

  During my time at the seminary, many days I would pray with my students.

  We met in the evening, read from the Bible and said some prayers. If God would inspire one of us with a new word of explaining the biblical text we read, he will speak it out, otherwise we would depart home reflecting on how we ought to approach it next time.  And I thought I truly knew prayer…

  But when they took me to the gulag, I realized that I knew not how to pray.

  For I lived in a permanent fear being always distracted. When I wanted to pray, the guards troubled me or even beat me so I may cease praying and I could not go beyond this inner battle I was fighting… I was not able to concentrate to make a genuine prayer. I could not pray: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”. I could not even say this much…

  There was a war with myself…

  Then I remembered what St. Maximus the Confessor said about prayer and indeed, slowly I started to connect to prayer… the deeper prayer; I was striving to empty my mind of all evil, of all that was negative within me and the evil that surrounded me, so I advanced to a point where an abyss was laying before me… a frighten abyss… and I did not know what would follow.

 To throw myself into the abyss as Satan tempted Jesus that God will send His angels to save Him? I was frightened so I pulled back.

  But it happened that God sent the angel who saved me, and the stone did not hurt my foot… 

 

(Transcribed and translated by EC. Please do not copy without permission).   

 

A Hagiorite monk is being sent to prison for “accusations” they cannot prove.

  It is extremely provocative to say the least to put into prison the Abbot of the Vatopaidi monastery, Efrem, when politicians who have confessed to accepting bribes are still at large! The judicial council decided on December 23 to remand into custody Fr. Ephrem in order to ensure that he will not leave the country. The prosecutor clashed with the investigator on the issue. After the elder’s apology, the prosecutor, Panayiotis Matzounis, argued in favor of the imposition of restrictive conditions rather than the custody remand. The conditions were prohibition of travel, bail of 200,000 Euro and personal appearance at a police station twice a month. Mr. Yiannis Matzouranis, who appeared for the Elder argued that ‘the remand into custody decision had no moral or legal base’.

  The custody decision against a clergyman renowned world wide for his charitable work and spiritual mission a few days before Christmas comes to add to the woes which befell the country as a result of the gloomy political and financial conditions. Needless to say no one has so far been accused or found guilty or imprisoned for the country’s degradation! It was only yesterday that the Vice President of the government, E. Venizelos told the plenary of the House of Representatives that any investigation into money laundering in Switzerland on behalf of Mps constitutes a mockery since ‘anyone can set up an offshore company rather than keeping a personal account’.

  Deep down no one wants to remember those who confessed that they had accepted bribes from Siemens, which they either put in their pockets (as in the Manteli case) or in the party coffers (as in the Tsoukatou case). Yet justice and the political system have found a monk as a target for their purging; a monk whom for a long time they hold hostage to political intrigue without any evidence as to his personal involvement in any issue under investigation. In this indescribable Greek reality show, monk Ephrem is judged as ‘likely to leave the country’ and is remanded into custody. Yes, during the entire time of his judicial ordeal, this ‘likely to leave’ monk has visited several countries and gave 48 presentations. Recently he even visited Moscow at the invitation of the Russian President and the Prime Minister. At the end of these visits, Elder Ephrem always returned to his country and his monastery even though he suspected that the outcome of this whole process might be regrettable.

  Elder Ephrem of Vatopaidi is therefore accused of financial machinations, him that once returned from Russia, gave away all the money he had gathered from donations (made by the faithful venerating the Holy shrine: “the belt of the Virgin” during his recent pilgrimage to Russia) to the Greek dioceses and a philanthropic canteen from the cities of Thessaloniki and Athens, to help the suffering believers due to Greece’ recent economic crisis.

  Abbot Father Ephraim received the unexpected news with Christian love and deep faith in the divine providence. He appeared ready to comply with any provision of the authorities, including preventive detention. Elder Ephrem addressing to his monastic community of Vatopaidi, had asked the fathers of Vatopaidi to receive these news with spiritual eyes and not to condemn those who accuse him, and to continue their religious asceticism in unity, love and harmony.

 Source

The Russian Church believes that the arrest of Abbot

Ephrem of Vatopaidi is a groundless sanction

Moscow, December 26, Interfax – The decision to arrest the Rector of Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos, Archimandrite Yefrem (Ephrem) is “unreasonably tough”, the secretary for Inter-Orthodox Affairs in the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk told Interfax-Religion.

 
”It is an unprecedented event and, of course, we’re concerned. Even if Father Yefrem is someway guilty, to arrest of a rector, a monk is an extreme sanction,” Father Igor said.

  According to him, it is difficult to say whether there are grounds for detaining as it requires good knowledge of Greek legislation and the essence of the case, but the very fact of detaining Father Yefrem on the Eve of Christmas in Greece “raises big questions.”



  Father Igor is perplexed that “a new turn of this case” started after Father Yefrem triumphantly returned from Russia with the Belt of the Mother of God. 

”Perhaps, is a coincidence, but many people see some political backgrounds here,” the interviewee of the agency said. 

The Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called believes that such legal decisions can be explained only with “political engagement of certain circles of Greek establishment, which thus want to demonstrate the West that they are ready to refute principles pertaining the spiritual life fixed in the Greek Constitution.”



”The fact that court actions were turned against a spiritual leader, one of the most respected people on Athos, an elder suffering from many diseases is especially outraging,” the Foundation officials wrote in their statement. 

The Foundation urges the governing body of Athos, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, representatives of other local Orthodox Churches and ordinary believers to speak for Father Yefrem as he “is exposed to prosecutions, which exceed the formal reason for launching the case.”

Earlier, the Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called had for the first time received the Belt of the Mother of God from the Vatopedi Monastery. After visiting St. Petersburg the shrine was taken to other Russian cities. The last point was Moscow. The belt returned to Athos on November 28.

Three million of people venerated the Belt of the Holy Virgin while the shrine was in Russia.

Please also see:

http://vatopaidi.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/filladio-immb-english.pdf

UPDATE:

Cyprus stands by Elder Ephrem

The Arrest of Archimandrite Ephrem is a hostile attack against Athonite monks and Orthodoxy

True motives for Father Yefrem’s arrest is struggle against Athos independence and Russian influence there…

The Holy Community of Mount Athos Stands By Elder Ephraim of Vatopaidi

Guardian of Holy Virgin’s Belt from Mt. Athos Decides To Go To Jail

Greek Abbot Jailed Pending Trial Over Land Scandal Probe That Cost Ministers Their Jobs

Cypriot Abbot To Be Held Behind Bars in Greece

Greek Monk On His Way To Jail

Photos of Elder Ephraim Leaving Mount Athos

Photos and Video of Protests Supporting Elder Ephraim

Russian Orthodox Rise in Defense of Arrested Vatopedi Monk

Patriarch Kirill Asks Greek President To Release Vatopedi Monastery Superior From Custody

Vatopedi Monk in Jail as Minister Warns ‘Meddlers’

Archimandrite Yefrem’s Arrest Violates European Human Rights Court’s Decisions – Russian Foreign Ministry

Greece Jails Abbot Ephraim in Mount Athos Fraud Case

Father Ephraim – Prisoner of Cell 2 in the Koridallos Prison

The Church of Nativity, Bethlehem

Nativity’ Troparia!

“Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
has shown to the world the light of wisdom;
for by it, those who worshipped the stars
were taught by a star to adore Thee
the Sun of Righteousness,
and to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee.”

 

 

  The Church of the Nativity and the oldest Church of the Holy Land  is situated approximately 8 km from Jerusalem to the east of Bethlehem. Its surrounding covering some 12,000 square meters, include an Orthodox Monastery,  a Catholic and an Armenian quarter.

 

  Its foundation begins in the second century, when St. Justin the Martyr identified for the first time the grotto or the cave of the Nativity as been the sacred birthplace of Jesus Christ. The original  church was erected quite early – in the year 326 –  by Saint Helena the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great .

  In 531, the Emperor Justinian the Great gave it a new shape which has been preserved until today. Some of the historical facts about the church are quite interesting. For example, during the invasion of the Persians (in 614), the place was left untouched by the invaders, which were impressed to see the Nativity scene with the Magi from the east dressed in Persian’ costumes.

 

The entrance into the church is through a carved door, very low into the ground and suggestively called ‘the door of humility”. The tradition testifies that the height of the door was intentionally carved this way by Christians, to prevent non-believers to enter and as a  defense to the Muslim’ attacks.

 

  The basilica of the Nativity is divided into four separate longitudinal areas   divided by four rows of columns that were built in the Corinthian style. Each row includes 11 columns depicting the apostles of Christ’s with their names written in Greek and Latin. Recent archaeological excavations had revealed part of the old Byzantine mosaics that were covering the original ground-floor of the church.

 

  The Shrine of the Nativity has three altars: a central altar and two others on the side apses. From here, one can descend into a small cave – the Nativity Cave –  located just below the central altar.

 

  A silver star fixed in marble represents the place of the manger and is surrounded by fifteen candles that burn continuously. A Latin inscription testifies that: “”Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est” („Here the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ”).

  The basilica of the Nativity is administered by different Christian denominations.  The Cave of the Nativity is under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church.

 

“From heavenly skies, I hear a song divine,

Thy three Magi, with gifts they come,

From far above, a star that shines

Enlightens the Magi.

That mighty gifts they may bring forth

In white rucksacks, while signing

To One new baby born.

The humble baby lays in peace

And joyful in a manger,

While Holy Virgin sways.

And seeing this,

We all rejoice.

Thy heavenly sky and the whole earth

Are sanctified by Him

Christ our King,

Came to redeem

All those who may believe.

We worship Thee,

Christ long-awaited Savior,

Eternally being glorified;

From far above, a song divine….”

A Blessed Nativity to all my readers!

 

The Byzantine Image (Icon)

A documentary on the history of Orthodox – Byzantine iconography

Please also see

“Testimonies of the Icon of Nativity”

St. Katherine the Great Martyr of Alexandria

 

 

  THE GREAT MARTYR OF ALEXANDRIA St. Catherine is one of the early Church most beloved Saints, honored and esteemed for over 1,600 years. She lived in Alexandria during the time of the Emperor Maxentius at the beginning of the fourth century. She was not only a lady of stunning beauty and considerable wealth, but had also been blest to be the recipient of a first-rate education, the best education that money could buy in that age. She was thoroughly tutored in all of the philosophy, history, science, and poetry of the ancients: Homer, Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Thucydides, Hippocrates, Galen, and so forthand she excelled at logic, rhetoric, and languages. All who knew her were astonished at her brilliance.

  As one would expect, many of the rich and famous sought her hand in marriage, for in addition to all that we have just mentioned, she was an heiress to a throne. However, Catherine was not particularly interested in all of these proposals of marriage. She let it be known that the man she would marry would have to be young, and would have to be her equal in wealth, wisdom, beauty, and compassion. Any petitioner for her hand less than her equal in all these things rendered him automatically unworthy. So it was that all potential suitors were decisively stopped in their tracks. Even the son of the emperor himself, though certainly wealthy and apparently compassionate, lacked wisdom and beauty.

  Since this meant that her daughter would likely not in the circumstances find a spouse at all, St. Catherine mother sought the counsel of a wise and saintly ascetic, who lived on the outskirts of Alexandria. The holy man listened to the story of the girl life and of her resolve not to marry an inferior, which actually denoted her determination not to marry at all. Since this man was a Christian, he decided to tell the young lady of Christ Jesus and His teachings. I can direct you to a magnificent man, a man who is lordly and majestic in his bearing, who is wise and wealthy beyond your greatest dreams, who is compassionate beyond compare, and whose beauty causes the very sun itself to fade. Catherine was, needless to say, astonished, believing that the hermit was speaking of some extraordinary but still wholly earthly man. When she asked whose son this wondrous person might be, he replied that this man had no earthly father. He was, said the ascetic, born of a holy Virgin, who is the very Queen of Heaven and Earth and who is honored and served by the angels.

  Catherine asked how she might see and meet the young man of whom the hermit spoke, to which the old man replied that he was prepared to instruct her so that she might someday look upon the eternal and excellent man. Young Catherine was not sure why it was so, but she nevertheless was moved by the warm expression on the old man face to place her trust in him. Giving her an icon of the Holy Virgin Mother holding the Child Christ, the hermit told her to pray before it and ask the Holy Virgin to grant her the privilege of seeing Him whom she was seeking.Catherine returned home and that night prayed, as she had been instructed. Soon, she fell deeply asleep and dreamt of the Holy Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, as they appeared in the icon she had been given. In her dream, the Child kept his gaze on His mother, but away from young Catherine.

   The Holy Virgin spoke to Him, saying, Look, my Son, at Your beautiful and pious servant, Catherine.

   The Child answered, No, she is not beautiful but ugly and unbelieving, and I will not look at her.

   The Holy Mother implored Him again, saying, But she is among the wisest, wealthiest, and most beautiful of people in the world.

   No, he responded, she is silly and ignorant and I will not let her see me.

   However, he added, if she will return to the man who gave her the icon and follow his instructions rigorously, then she will someday see me and be consoled.

  Upon arising from sleep, Catherine immediately went with her entourage to see the hermit again, and upon reaching his cave, bowed deeply before him. She told him of the dream and begged him to instruct her fully in the Christian faith.

  She, being very gifted, soon absorbed all of the ascetic teaching about God glory, of His creation of the world, of the mission of Christ God here on Earth, of the wonders of Heaven, and of the terrors of hell. Soon, she consented to be baptized.

  The night after her baptism, she dreamt again of the Mother and Child, but this time Christ said, Before she was poor, and now she is rich; before she was ignorant, and now she is truly wise; before she was proud, and now she is humble. She is now worthy and I accept her as my bride.

  Christ then placed a ring on her hand, saying, Today, I take thee as my bride, for all eternity.

  It happens that at this time the Emperor demanded that the people of Alexandria show their loyalty to the state through their devotion to the old gods, and so they were instructed to offer animal sacrifices to the idols; Catherine refused. Instead she publicly proclaimed her devotion to the one God who had given Himself over to be crucified for the sake of humanity. I am the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, she insisted.

  She, a prominent person, was arrested for outraging the pagan gods, and detained. Thereafter, she was examined by various scholars and philosophers, who attempted to win her away from the Christian Faith she had adopted. Instead, she convinced them.The Emperor was furious and ordered that they be burned, but God intervened and none were harmed. Maxentius then used promises of great fortune alternating with threats of terrible calamity to try himself to win Catherine away from her newfound religion. It was to no avail. She was then flogged and tortured. She was, among other things, attached to a huge wheel edged with sharp blades, but it fell apart before it could do harm. Finally, his patience exhausted, the Emperor ordered her executed by beheading. Before her repose, she spoke these words, Do not grieve, but rather bejoyous, for I go now to meet my Savior, my Creator, and my Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. In His Heavenly Kingdom I shall reign with him for ever more. Do not cry therefore for me, but for yourselves who will soon suffer greatly. She then was executed. Immediately, her body was taken by angels to Mount Sinai, where later it was discovered by pious monks who built a monastery at the site. That monastery, named for St. Catherine, still stands and there, to this day, the relics of the Great Martyr are still honored.

 

  “The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

  Indeed that has proven true, time and again, for 2,000 years. Early Christians noted that the more the pagan state tried to obliterate them by mowing them down, the more of them that sprang up afterwards, until Christianity came to be the religion of the whole of the civilized world. The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno once commented that faith does not make Martyrs, Martyrs make faith, and what he meant by this is that Martyrs, by their blood, energize and vivify a faith that may otherwise be a mere intellectual exercise, and demonstrate by their towering and incomparable example its true worth. We sometimes think that Martyrs and Saints were phenomena that abounded in the early centuries of the Faith, but that they are scarce today. That is not so. It is true that the first three centuries of Christianity produced tremendous numbers of Martyrs, but it is correctly noted by scholars & historians that there have been more Christian Martyrs in our own twentieth century than in any other era of history, and just as the martyrdoms of the early era presaged a flowering of Christianity after the opening of the fourth century, so the tens of millions of Martyrs of our time are harbingers of world-shaking events yet to come, events that will proceed from the outpouring of God Grace that accompanies so great a shedding of Christian blood, events that will surely confound those who foolishly believe that Christianity is now a spent force. Martyrs are examples, they are witnesses to truth; the very word martyr means witness in the Greek. They glorify God, and God in turn glorifies them. They stand as brightly-shining beacons that do not dim as the years pass, but that illuminate ever more radiantly with the passage of time. In addition, their supreme act of sacrificing all that is beloved in this world–comfort, beauty, prestige, popularity, material goods, and earthly life itself–places the things of this world in their true context vis-a-vis the eternal things of heaven.

  May all of us learn from the splendid model offered us in the life of the Great Martyr St Catherine of Alexandria, that our pride and love of the treasures of this earth must give way to humility before God, and to love of the treasures of the spirit.

  (article by Fr. James Thornton) 

The Monastery of St. Katherine from Sinai 

 

  Located at the bottom of Mount Sinai, where Moses once received the Tables of the Law, the Monastery of Saint Catherine is almost a millennium and a half old and  one of the most famous pilgrimage centers of Orthodoxy,  a citadel of spirituality,a  patristic and a Research Center.

  The monastery dating back  1400 years in the desert of Sinai, has retained the original features from the time  of the reign of Emperor Justinian (257-565 AD). From Muhammad, the founder of Islam, to Muslims and  Turkish sultans, passing through the era of Napoleon, all took the monastery under their protection. In its long history, the Monastery of Saint Catherine has never been conquered, damage or destroyed. Across all ages, it kept intact the image of the sacred place of the Bible and placed a light on the events of the Old Testament and the continuity of praising God through  our Lord  Jesus Christ. and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

  The Monastery of Saint Catherine had crossed history as an oasis of Christianity and it is  an independent, autocephalous monastry. It is practically the smallest Orthodox patriarchate in the world, its leader being also its Abbot.

  The tradition tells us that, in the year 337, holy Empress Helena (the finder of the Cross of our Lord Jesus) built a shrine around the site, following the tradition that this was the place of the burning bush and the  unconsumed fire, where God first spoke to Moses. The chapel has attracted thousands of pilgrims and eremites  which seeked safety in the wilderness of Sinai, during the Christians persecution.

  However, continuous attacks of neighboring nomadic tribes have made the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century,  to transform the sanctuary in a monastery-fortress.

  Holy Great Martyr Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us!

“The Rightful Life of Monastics”

Fresco from Huretzi Monastery, Romania

  This fresco depicting “the life of the genuine monk” is especially found in older Orthodox monasteries. Although this fresco depicts “the steadfast monk – the Christ’ follower,” we should also affirm that it represents “the one true Christian” who regardless of his social status, is a follower of Christ through his actions.

  The genuine monastic is he who dies for the world to take on a permanent battle with his passions and his thoughts until his last breath. Ordinary Christian, married or not, has the same duty, to die to the world and start the same battle towards passions until the end.

  Since the path to Christ’ Kingdom is narrow and rough, it is clear that the Christian whether be a monk or a layman, faces similar difficulties. St. John Chrysostom referring to the great labor toward salvation of both monastics and laymen alike, said: “The only difference between a layman and a monk is that the first is married and the other is not.”

  The fresco representing the true monastic is usually depicted in the entrance of the church near other icons such as “the Ladder of Divine ascent” and “the Dreadful Judgment.”

 In the center of the icon, the monk is showed as been crucified, dressed in his black cassock, barefooted, with his feet nailed to the bottom of the cross; his face is peaceful and his eyes and his mouth closed. To his right it is written: “Place a watch oh Lord upon my mouth.”

  In his hands, he holds two burning torches, and an inscription near this says: “Thus, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds.” On his chest, he lays a parchment baring the words: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

  On his womb, another writing will say: “Oh man, do not be deceived by gluttony.” Bellow his womb, another inscription writes: “Kill the members of thy earthly man!” Then, bellow his knees: “Prepare your feet for the Gospel of peace.”

  At the top of the cross, a paper chiseled in stone depicts the following: “As for me, I will boast only in the cross of my Lord. 

  Both arms of the cross bare a seal at the end. The seal on the right bares the word: “And ye shall be hated by all for my name’ sake, but he who endures to the end shall be saved.” The seal at the left says: “Anyone of you, who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple.” And the seal at the bottom of the cross, placed under his feet, writes: “Narrow is the gate and rough is the path that leads to salvation and few are those that find it.”

  A dark cave with a dragon coiled inside is represented at the right side of the cross, near which it is written: “the consuming/eternal hades.” Above the mouth of the dragon, a naked young man with his eyes tied by a knot, holds a bow with its arrow pointing at the monk asking: “Commit fornication!” A name is written over the young man as: “the lover of fornication.” Many snakes are depicted above the cave, which suggest: “our thoughts.”  A demon is portrayed near this scene with a rope pulling away the cross and saying: “You cannot bare it!”  And on the right side of the cross, another small cross is placed with a flag upon which is written: “I can do all through Christ, Who has clothed me with power.”

  A tower and a gate are seen at the left side of the cross.  A man clothed in gold and fur, riding a white horse passes through this gate holding a glass of wine in his right hand and a spear in his left hand.  Above his spear it is written: “Take pleasure in the riches of this world, the vain world!”

  A hole is drawn behind this rider and death coming out, wearing a big coat over its shoulders and a clock upon its head, upon which it is writing: “Death and the grave.”

  Two angels are depicted near the monk arms on both sides, each holding a paper in his hands; the angel from the right bares: “God sent me to your strength ” and the angel from the left: “Do good and do not be afraid.”

  At the top of the cross lies the open sky, where Christ stands with the open Gospel upon His chest that reads: “If any man wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. ” In His right hand He holds a crown, and in His left a wreath of flowers. Immediately below our Savior, two angels are looking at the monk holding a long parchment where it is written: “Fight the good fight so you may receive the crown of righteousness.”

Some Thoughts On Fasting

Some Thoughts On Fasting

Source: Conciliar Press

(From an Orthodox Pastor, From the Fall 2008 issue of The Handmaiden Journal – Vol. 12)

   

   Fasting is not optional for Christians. Neither are prayer and almsgiving. Our Lord did not say “if you fast,” but rather “when you fast.” He Himself fasted. Those to whom He personally directed His words and teachings maintained a tradition of fasting. Perfecting that tradition by coupling it with prayer and almsgiving, our Lord revealed that the very heart of our lives as Christians is rooted in these ascetic traditions.

  However, our Lord was also clear in chastising those who observed the fast, who prayed, and who gave alms for the purpose of being observed and applauded by others or as a means to fulfill the law. Indeed, the Pharisees received their reward: “My,” they delighted in hearing, “aren’t they spiritual, aren’t they righteous, aren’t they generous, and aren’t they worthy of emulation?” But their actions were to no avail, and brought with them no heavenly blessing. Hence, we are taught to fast “in secret,” to pray “in secret,” to give alms “in secret,” not allowing our left hand to know what our right hand is doing, so that our heavenly Father will reward us openly.

Fasting as Preparation for True Celebration

  Our Lord fasted for forty days before beginning His public ministry. This indicates that one aspect of fasting is preparation. The Church’s fasting seasons prepare us to celebrate, to feast, and to focus our attention on that which we anticipate celebrating, rather than on the mundane things that all too often compete for, or dominate, our attention.

  While food is an essential element of any celebration—as we are reminded on Pascha, as our festal food is blessed, or as we bless fruit on the Great Feast of Transfiguration—it can also be a preoccupation, something that can dominate our time and attention to the detriment of more important aspects of our earthly existence. Sadly, before major celebrations we tend to spend inordinate amounts of time planning menus, testing new recipes, and the like, all with the hope that our celebration will be memorable, enjoyable, and tasty. In the process, the very thing we gather to celebrate is often obscured, misplaced, and lost.

  This is especially so in the days—or, to be more specific, the months—leading to the celebration of Christmas, during which we are tempted to focus our preparations on foods, decorations, gifts, and the like, rather than on the glorious mystery of the Incarnation, which is at the very heart of our faith as Christians. The Nativity Fast (like all the fasting seasons) is meant to remind us to prepare ourselves spiritually, to bring under control those things, including food, that are well within our control, but that we have allowed to control us, and to apply the self-control that fasting teaches us to other areas of our lives.

Fasting from Passions, not from “Prohibited Foods”

  During the first week of Great Lent we are reminded that, while fasting from food, we must fast from our passions—anger, gossip, jealousy—while intensifying our vigilance, our prayer lives, and our ministry to others, especially the least among us. Hence, fasting as a preparation is quite the opposite of the worldly preparations that all too often focus our celebration on ourselves, rather than on our Lord and the joyous mysteries He so lovingly shares with us and engages us in celebrating.

  Of course, fasting from food is at the very heart of the ascetic life. Food can be a passion, a preoccupation that can easily dominate our lives. We fret over what to eat and what not to eat. We agonize over trans fats, cholesterol, carbs, and calories. We drink Ensure to gain weight, and then sign up at a weight loss clinic to lose it. In fact, we have an entire TV network devoted to food! All too often, we have ceased “eating to live” and instead “live to eat.”

  If fasting is ever to become a real solution to this preoccupation with food, we need to recognize that fasting does not mean merely avoiding certain “prohibited” foods while partaking of others that are “approved.” Years ago, I was given a Lenten cookbook that, in the preface, offered an extremely detailed explanation of the Church’s fasting tradition. As was to be expected, it noted that one should refrain from eating meat and meat products, dairy products, fish, wine, and oil. And also, as was to be expected, it noted that eating shellfish—lobster tail, crab legs, scallops, prawns and shrimp, clams, and the like—does not violate the fast. But, curiously, this preface offered a warning, in bold underlined letters, that when eating shellfish, one should not use drawn butter, but melted margarine, since butter is a dairy product! How ridiculous, I thought. Emptying ourselves of our passion for food involves reducing not only how much and what we eat, but also how much time we spend thinking about food, preparing food, reading about food, discussing food, and manipulating food to fit the fasting tradition of the Church.

  The same cookbook offered a recipe for a Lenten chocolate cake, at the end of which was written, “Your family will enjoy this delicious cake so much that you’ll want to serve it all year ’round!” Consider this: One could devise a Lenten weekly menu that, while fully avoiding meat and meat products, dairy products, fish, wine, and oil, would be anything but ascetic—lobster tail on Monday, grilled prawns on Tuesday, Alaskan king crab legs on Wednesday, lemon-drenched shrimp on Thursday, and scallops on Friday, all with melted margarine so as to avoid butter, of course! Legally, this indeed fulfills the fasting laws, but it completely misses the spirit of fasting, as does the yummy Lenten chocolate cake or the tofu Italian “sausage” or “chicken wings” guaranteed to “taste like the real thing.”

  It’s only my opinion, but approaching fasting in this manner—”this is permitted, but that isn’t”—not only misses the mark of fasting, but can become a spiritually dangerous temptation, the same temptation to which the Pharisees succumbed by adhering meticulously to the externals of the law while remaining clueless as to its internal spirit. This approach can easily lead to spiritual pride and delusion and the self-satisfaction that comes in assuring oneself that “while I’m delighting in this tasty cake, I’m relieved to know that it meets all Lenten requirements since there’s not a drop of half-and-half in it.” This, it seems to me, is neither fasting, nor ascetical, nor a desire to free oneself from a preoccupation with food. In fact, it reflects the opposite, as more time is spent figuring out how to make tofu taste like sausage than it would take to simply and mindlessly fry a link of real sausage.

Putting the Time Saved and Money Saved to Work

  Taking things one step further, this legalistic approach to fasting is utterly detached from prayer and almsgiving. The time saved by not worrying about what we’ll eat or how we’ll prepare it, much less adapting recipes to fit Lenten rules, could be more wisely spent in prayer, in worship, in meditation and the reading of Scripture or the Holy Fathers. To the degree we rely on very simple and basic foods and spend little time in food preparation during the fast, we’ll have time to reflect on the countless other things (our anger, our jealousy, our self-centeredness, our sloth, our despair, our lust for power, our idle talk) that are surely within our control, but that we so often have allowed to control us.

  And, to take all of this one step further, might not the money saved by purchasing simple food be stewarded more wisely by giving it to those who have less, or nothing? By quietly and anonymously giving it to an agency that assists those who are out of work or homeless or abused? Might we not devote a portion of our time to volunteering at one of those agencies, feeding those in need with the loving and personal human contact that reveals God’s presence in this world?

Preparation for the Heavenly Banquet 

  Fasting is not optional. Neither are repentance, prayer, almsgiving, preparation, asceticism, ministering to the least among us, wisely managing our time and talents and treasures, struggling to overcome our passions, and so on. They’re all related, interconnected, essential. So fast we must—to the extent that we can—without comparing ourselves to others. Still less should we engage in endless and spiritually dangerous public discussions on what we’ve given up this Lent or how weary we’ve become by fasting from those things (including but hardly limited to food) that we’ve allowed to control us even though we have the ability, with God’s help, to control them.

  Fast we must, in the Holy Spirit rather than in the spirit of the Pharisees, and in secret, without fanfare or discussion. And fast we must, delighting not in our ability to transform chocolate cake into a Lenten delight, but in allowing our Lord to transform us as we delight in tasting and seeing how good He, the “Bread which came down from heaven,” truly is. Such fasting not only prepares us for the celebration of His Incarnation or Resurrection, but prepares us for the eternal heavenly banquet, to which He invites us, in His Kingdom.

(The author, a priest of thirty-four years, is rector of a parish of the Diocese of the Midwest of the Orthodox Church in America). 

On the Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer

A documentary on the Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer

 

 

 

One correction to the narrator remark comparing the Patriarch with the Pope of Rome;

- In the Orthodox Church the Patriarchs are the ‘First Among Equals’, not above the others. In the early history of Christianity, before the Schism in 1054, there was no “Pope of Rome” (to the rang he elevates himself today) but only Patriarchs of local Orthodox Christian Churches, which they all were “First Among Equals”. The Pope of the Christian Church of Rome (the Western Christian Church) before the Schism had the same status with the rest of the Patriarchs of the Christian East.

 

(The Jesus Prayer in Greek recited by Elder Ephrem Phyloteuos)

More on The Jesus Prayer from the Wisdom of Greek Elders

 

 (more on youtube)

 

 

More from the wisdom of the Orthodox Elders (Elder Ephrem) on “Vain Glory and Emptiness”

 

 

The Enemy Within

Simonopetra Monastery, Mount Athos

 

The Enemy Within

(an interview with Archimandrite Dionysios taken from the Enlighten Magazine)

Elder Dionysois spent many years in Simonopetra Monastery of Mt. Athos and is now a much loved Elder and the Archimandrite of an Orthodox Monastery in Greece – northern Athens

  […] As the fourth-century desert father St. John Cassian writes in The Philokalia, perhaps the most celebrated of all Orthodox sacred texts, “[The ego] is difficult to fight against, because it has many forms and appears in all our activities. . . . When it cannot seduce a man with extravagant clothes, it tries to tempt him by means of shabby ones. When it cannot flatter him with honor, it inflates him by causing him to endure what seems to be dishonor. When it cannot persuade him to feel proud of his display of eloquence, it entices him through silence into thinking he has achieved stillness. . . . In short, every task, every activity, gives this malicious demon a chance for battle.” […]

 

WIE: Father, what is the ego?

Archimandrite Dionysios: When Satan, who was the first and highest angel, looked away from God and turned his attention to himself, there we had the first seed of ego. He took his spiritual eyes from the view of the Holy Trinity, the view of the Lord, and he looked at himself and started to think about himself. And he said, “I want to put my throne in the highest place, and to be like Him.” That moment started the history, the reality and the existence of ego—which is not in fact a reality, but the refusal of reality. Ego is the flower that comes out from the death of love. When we kill love, the result is the ego.

WIE: What is the character of the ego? How does it manifest within a human being?

Dionysios: When we don’t trust. Ego is born when we don’t trust others. When we’re afraid of others, when we need guns against others, then we need to have an ego because we are in the wrong way of life. We think only of ourselves, and we see only our ego. But when we see each other, when we trust each other, there is no need for ego, no reason for ego, no possibility for ego.

WIE: So in the way you’re speaking about it then, ego is the insistence on our separation, our independence?

Dionysios: Yes, on our solitude. Our need to be alone, to have our own way of thinking that satisfies us and preserves our personality in the wrong way.

WIE: Putting ourselves first and foremost?

Dionysios: Yes. And Christ said, “The last is the first.” Because when you want to be the last and you choose the last seat, only then may you call the others friends of yours.

WIE: The ego, this sense of self-importance you’ve been speaking about, is often described in The Philokalia and other writings of the Christian mystics as the primary enemy with which the spiritual aspirant must wrestle in their quest for union with God. Why is the ego considered to be such a formidable adversary on the path?

Dionysios: It is such a powerful enemy because it is the enemy within us. We are enemies to ourselves, like Adam and Eve in paradise. Of course, the snake talked to Eve. But she could have avoided him. The snake said to her, “The Lord lied to you,” but if she would have trusted the Lord, she would not have started to talk to the snake. And Adam, too, lost his communication with the Lord and stayed with his ego. And the two egos worked together, Adam and Eve.

The real enemy is the ego. It is the enemy because it is against love. When I look at myself, I don’t love others. When I want to occupy for myself what is yours, I become the killer of my brother, like Cain killed Abel. When I want to satisfy myself, this satisfaction is gained through sacrificing the freedom of the other. Then my ego becomes my lord, my god, and there is no stronger temptation than this. Because to us, this ego may seem like a diamond. It has a shine like gold. But whatever is shining is not gold. The ego is just like a fire without light, a fire without warmth, a fire without life. It seems that it has many sides and many possibilities—but what is this possibility? What is ego? Only the means by which I protect myself as if I were in a battle, as if every other person is my enemy, and the only thing I care about is winning the victory.

WIE: It has been said by some of the greatest spiritual luminaries that when one takes up the spiritual path in earnest, one often comes face-to-face with the ego in a way that one never could have imagined previously. In describing their encounters with the ego, many saints have characterized it as an almost diabolical force within that does not want the spiritual life, that does not want God, but that wants to do everything it can to obstruct our illumination, to undermine our firm resolve to stay on the path.

Dionysios: Saint Paul writes beautifully about this event, this struggle inside the human heart. He says, “There is another law inside me telling me to refuse the will of God, to do things against Him, to refuse the grace. It tries to keep me in my past, in my old life, to take me far away from the Lord, to prevent me from following the Lord.” This is why I said that the biggest problem in mankind is in each person, not outside of him. For this we need spiritual fathers. For this we need spiritual doctors. We need surgery; we need an operation; we need something to be cut in our heart.

We don’t understand that this enemy that we have inside us is not our self; it’s not our personality. It’s only a temptation. This is the seed of the problem of the ego. We unite our personality, which is a priceless event, with our faults. We confuse our personality with our sin; we marry these two things, and we have a wrong impression of what we are. We don’t know what we are, and we need someone to show us who we are; we need someone to open our eyes so that we can at least see our darkness.

There’s a mystic, the greatest of the mystics, Saint Gregory Palamas. For thirty years, he was praying only this prayer: “Enlighten my darkness. Enlighten my darkness.” He did not name the Lord because he did not feel worthy to name him. He did not address it to anyone, but he said this prayer day and night, more than he was breathing. Because all he knew in himself was his darkness. And he was talking to someone—to whom else?—to Christ, who said, “I am the Light.” But he said only, “Enlighten my darkness.”

 WIE: Show me my faults?

Dionysios: Or come to my darkness and burn it. Make fire in it and make light in it. The greatest thing we can do in our lives is to discover that by ourselves we are nothing. We are darkness. We are dust.

WIE: The ego is often characterized in the spiritual literature as a cunning and opportunistic adversary, capable of turning any situation to its advantage in its attempt to obstruct our spiritual progress. What do you feel is the most important quality within the individual that can help us to win the fight against the clever and ever-changing ego?

Dionysios: Repentance. Recognizing our mistakes and our sins, this is the highest thing that we can do. And not to recognize our sins in order to succeed at something else, but just to see the truth about ourselves. Saint Isaac, the great mystic of the Church, says that one who accepts, who understands, who recognizes his sin in front of the Lord, in reality, he is the highest. He is greater than one who has gained all the world, who feeds all the people, who makes miracles, who resurrects the dead. This man, the first one, is bigger because he can never fall down. He has a stability, a level, a place where he can talk to the Lord. He has a place where he can invite the Lord with his tears, with his repentance, with the understanding that he has done wrong. And straightaway he becomes clear. The light comes from him. He becomes a spiritual doctor, a teacher or father, because he’s not afraid to recognize sins. It is not a problem for him to say, “Excuse me, it was my fault.” This is the key to escape from all the drops of the devil.

WIE: Would it be accurate to characterize this quality you’re describing—this willingness to face oneself honestly—as humility?

Dionysios: Not humility. Humility is the result. It would be better to say “wisdom.” We press ourselves to be humble. But to recognize my faults—what does that have to do with humility? I have to be humble in order to recognize my faults? No. I have to see them. It’s an emergency. It’s my way to exist for the next second. How can I exist with my faults for one second? In front of whom? In front of myself—how can I be with my faults, with my sins? I have to say, “I did it!”

Dostoyevsky expresses this so beautifully in Crime and Punishment. The main character, Raskolnikov, kills someone, and almost immediately he understands what he did. He doesn’t recognize it by himself, but with the help of the strict hard words of a prostitute, Sonya, who says to him, “Look what you did.” She guides him to go into the middle of the plaza, in front of all the people, to say what he did. And he does it. He confesses. He says that otherwise he could not exist, that he would have to commit more and more and more crimes. And he accepts the sentence of the court to go for at least twenty years to the hardest prison. And he goes, and there he feels the medicine of his heart. And he takes this medicine. We have problems in life because we don’t want to accept or recognize our sins. And this is the key. What else do we have to offer to each other? Gold, money, lust, food? Long life? No. Only to recognize our sins and straightaway we have a new world.

WIE: You seem to be speaking about a kind of deep conscience that stirs when we face ourselves.

Dionysios: It’s love. Love is more than conscience. Conscience is something that says to you, “You do this, you do this, you do this.” It’s like we’re under our own personal court. But love is something much more. Love makes us ready to pay for the sins of others. It’s a much higher step. Not only to recognize our sins but also to be able to pay for sins for which we are not responsible, as Christ did. This is love.

WIE: The writings of the Christian fathers speak of the goal of the spiritual journey as a transfiguration of the human being into an entirely different order of human existence—one in which the ego is killed and we are, in a sense, reborn. What does it mean for the ego to die? And in what sense are we reborn?

Dionysios: The Lord calls us to transform. He wants to give us our reality, our real self, which we have lost. And in spiritual life, especially in the monastic life, this ego really can transform, just as when the disciples, having followed Christ to the top of Mount Tabor, witnessed his body transformed into light. Many fathers used to explain that the transfiguration didn’t actually happen to the body of Christ but to the eyes of his students. Because at that moment, their eyes transformed and they could see what Christ had always been—shining, full of light. Through their humility, through following Christ, they were brought to the top of this mountain to enjoy this reality. And every one of us can receive this blessing. Our nature can be transformed.

This transfiguration is our real progress, our real growth. It’s not a matter of using our spiritual life in Christ to become better, to become more clever, to know more things, to have more friends, to influence others, to have authority and power, to have money, good health, a good name, and a good face. It’s only a matter of what’s inside our heart. The important thing is that in daily practice there cannot be any seed of ego in the field of our heart. Because when temptation comes, it can destroy the quality of life and of the relationships between people. The Lord taught us to be awake all the time and to pray to him, to say, “Protect us and don’t let us enter into temptation.” Through this protection from temptation, we can come to see very clearly into our hearts. And by following the simplest, normal life, we can purify ourselves, our spirit and our mind. It’s very easy after that for the Holy Spirit to come. It’s like in the Eucharist, we are ready all together in the church with the bread and the wine. We pray, and the Holy Spirit comes and makes the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ. In the same way, we can purify ourselves, and the Holy Spirit comes and transforms us in all the ways we have read about in books and brings us many more experiences that all the books of the world cannot contain.

WIE: In the Orthodox tradition there has been a long-standing lineage of illumined spiritual fathers, great individuals who have demonstrated with their own lives the possibility of destroying the ego and discovering a new life in God. What are the marks of one who has won the spiritual battle? How does the expression of the personality change in one who has truly gone beyond the ego?

Dionysios: He’s ready for everything always. He never is or says or feels that he’s tired. He has joy. He’s always ready to give. He exists only for others. He’s ready to serve everybody. He does not judge anybody, including the deepest sinner. He’s there as a child, but as a child of a king. Who can touch the son of a king? Who can touch a newborn lion knowing that the mother lion is nearby? Being this way, you’re like a small lamb among the wolves, but you’re not afraid. You’re there offering, receiving everybody, loving, serving, praying for everybody and being ready to die in each moment, and in that, you’re totally and completely free. All these are fruits of love because we become the source of love. So is a man without ego. This is the transformation. It’s like we are a wild old tree and we need something to come into us and transform this tree into a good fruitful tree. A man without ego is a man with God, is a man with the Holy Spirit.

When you are ready to die for everybody in each moment, when you love, when you respect, when you prostrate to the other, it’s like you prepare him to be ready for an operation; but it’s not that you judge the other or feel that he needs something from you. When you are perfect before Him—and we can be perfect; in fact, we have to be perfect; it’s the principal need—then right away people need it, know it, understand it. Very quickly everybody comes to take a seat in front of such a person, in front of a spiritual son or a spiritual father.

WIE: Is it also your experience that a spiritual father who has truly gone beyond the ego not only inspires people to reach for their highest potential but also presents the ultimate challenge to the ego of those who come to see him?

Dionysios: Absolutely. In fact, in the presence of such a person, the devil comes out straightaway. And you can see very clearly how the devil makes people crazy or angry or disrespectful when you haven’t even said anything. Just because you are there, they explode. And you can see terrible things in people where otherwise you would see only kind people with ties and gold jewelry. When someone appears who embodies the spirit of God, there you can see what you could see when Jesus was walking in the streets. The devils who were in the people said, “Whoa, who are you? You came here to put us in trouble.” Some were scandalized by him, others were thinking about how to kill him, and still others were thinking things against him. He was speaking not to what they said but to what they were thinking. And the same Holy Spirit exists in the spiritual fathers, and it can also create this kind of confrontation. This happens because the other person understands that he cannot play with this man. He cannot hide from this man.

WIE: In Christian writings, the enemy of the spiritual path is often referred to in dramatic terms as Satan, Lucifer, the devil. Is Satan simply a metaphor for the human ego? Or is it something independent of us?

Dionysios: Satan is the teacher. And the ego is the means by which we fulfill his theory. Living from our ego is like burning incense to him. When he smells it, he comes. It is familiar to him; it’s his relative, his tongue, his dialect. He likes it. So he comes, and then he starts to open company with our ego. Then he starts to be related to us.

WIE: So would you say that Satan exists in this sense as an impersonal force of evil that operates within each of us as the ego? Or would it be more accurate to say that the ego is already there in us and Satan is the voice of temptation to which the ego listens?

Dionysios: The second. He doesn’t have the authority to work through our ego. We’re free all the time to decide.

WIE: There are many spiritual authorities in the modern West who are attempting to bring the ideas of Western psychology to bear on the spiritual path. In fact, it is now commonly held that in order to withstand the difficulties of the spiritual path, one has to first develop a strong ego, a strong sense of self. One statement that has become almost a credo in many spiritual circles is: “You have to become somebody before you can be nobody.” What do you think of this idea?

Dionysios: That’s like saying, “We first have to be the head of the Mafia and then we can become president.” Or, “I will first work together with the devil; I shall make common company with him so that he will give me whatever I need, but because I am more clever than he is, I will then use my power for good.”

It’s good to send children out to study, to learn to sing, to learn athletics, to be well educated, to have an economic basis from which to start their life. But how often do we see that the dreams of all the rich men and their children are broken? The Bible says that “if the builders are working very hard to build a tower that the Lord does not bless, they have worked for nothing.”

This ego is the modern god of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century. And the idea you referred to in your question is the modern religion. But we know this temptation. Ego means, “I don’t believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit does not exist.” But this is a lie. The Holy Spirit guides the world and blessed are they who want it, who see it, who breathe in it, who move in it, who inspire through it, who love it, who are uniting with it.

WIE: There are also many spiritual authorities today who insist that the ego is an inherent and irreversible fact of our humanity and that any attempt to give up the ego, to transcend our lower nature in pursuit of perfection, is itself an expression of the greatest hubris. Jungian psychologist Marion Woodman goes so far as to say that the very notion of perfection “rapes the soul.” How would you respond to those who assert that we are, by nature, flawed and incapable of reaching perfection?

Dionysios: Christ said, “Be perfect. Become perfect. And when you will be and you will do everything perfectly, saying within yourself and believing that you are miserable, terrible lost sinners, servants, there you will find humility and glory.” It’s possible to be perfect because He is perfect, because He received our nature. So if He did this, we can do it; we can be with Him. It’s possible to be perfect because of this gift. And it’s possible to not be perfect because we have the authority to refuse the gift, to refuse the love. And when we refuse it, then we need theology, then we need philosophy, then we need to create new books and new theories that say that the ego cannot be transcended.

It is possible to be free of the ego. It has to be. It’s necessary. It’s only because people don’t know of this possibility, don’t want this possibility, and don’t permit this possibility to exist that they need to create all these ideas. But they know that they are speaking lies. This is the craziest thing we can hear. What doctor says to a sick man, “Look, sickness is a part of our nature. We have to be with it. So we don’t have to cut our nails. We don’t need to wash our face, because we shall be dead tomorrow anyway”? What kind of teaching is this? Yes, it is possible to be free of the ego, but it’s a mystery.

WIE: The ascetic practices of Orthodoxy place a strong emphasis on the need to suppress our instinctual drives. Impulses like lust, hunger, thirst, and even the desire for sleep are often held at bay for long periods in extreme acts of renunciation. What is the role of ascetic practice in attaining freedom from the ego?

Dionysios: Asceticism is a means to get where we want to go. It is a railway on which the train can run. Many people feel that asceticism means following a set of rules, but it’s not a law that is imposed on us. In football, for example, it’s not that the rules of the game are hard, but that they help the game to come out perfectly. And so it is with ascetic life. The special periods and rules of fasting, vigil, and prayer serve as mystical ways or means. We follow these mystery ways, these divine commitments, these divine orders. And outside of the general rules, there are also personal rules that are given in the communication between spiritual father and son, special vocations for each individual. We see saints who spend much time in the caves or in the forest or in the desert. And they don’t go there with plans to come back; when they go there, they go forever. And the Lord guides them then.

When Christ went to the desert after his baptism, he went to face the devil. He didn’t think in his mind, “After forty days I will return.” He just went there. He came out of the Jordan River, baptized by Saint John the Baptist, and he went to the desert. From one point of view, he lost time being alone there. He didn’t go to his people to give them food, to bless them, to guide them, to give the Holy Spirit to them. No. He went to the desert. And he said to the devil, “My friend, look, until now you were playing with the people. You started with Eve in paradise, and now you are finishing with me. I am here alone. I’m not eating. I’m not drinking. And the cold in my bones in the night in the desert is terrible. I suffer. But I don’t play games. I’m here. Alone. And you come to me and you tell me to turn stones into bread. You tell me to prostrate to you. You? To give you the authority of my people? Go now. We have seen each other. I know who you are and you know who I am.” And in that moment the devil gave up everything.

So the ascetic life is necessary. To be ready in each moment to die, in front of everybody for everything—this is the desert, this is the ascetic life. And it brings the Holy Spirit. And if we go, the Lord will guide us.

–An Interview by Craig Hamilton

Prayer for the Enemies

by St. Nikolai Velimirovic

 

  Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them. Enemies have driven me into Your embrace more than friends have. Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished 
all my aspirations in the world. Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal found its safe shelter, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath Your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.

Even I bless them and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.

They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself

They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.

They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself

They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.

Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf.

Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.

Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.

Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.

Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, the enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of Your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.

Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:
so that my fleeing to You may have no return;
so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs; 
so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;
so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;
so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;

Ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

My
 enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself.

One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies.

Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies.

A slave curses his enemies, for he does not understand.

But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life.

Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.

Even I bless them and do not curse them.

(St. Nikolai Velimirovic, was a Twentieth Century Serbian Orthodox bishop who opposed Nazism and was 
eventually taken to Dachau. In this prayer he no doubt has in mind personal enemies, rather than national ones; the prayer is not intended as a guide for political and military decisions. But in thinking through such words we may be more able to act justly rather than rashly and in hatred or bloodlust).