On war with the passions

Let us submit to God and humble ourselves, and the Lord will cover us, and we will be holy. But until we humble ourselves and accept God’s will, until we propitiate God—though we beat our heads against the floor doing prostrations—the passions will not diminish. 

 

Iconography of Great & Holy Week

Please visit this link for a beautiful gallery of iconography from Great & Holy Week:  http://www.pravoslavie.ru/foto/set515.htm

May your journey through Holy Week be blessed,

Presbytera Candace

PALM SUNDAY MEDITATION

The Lord’s Entry Into Jerusalem

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

The Lord's Entry Into Jerusalem. Icon of Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos

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

Today Christ enters the path not only of His sufferings but of that dreadful loneliness which enshrouds Him during all the days of Passion week. The loneliness begins with a misunderstanding; the people expect that the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem will be the triumphant procession of a political leader, of a leader who will free his people from oppression, from slavery, from what they consider godlessness – because all paganism or idol-worship is a denial of the living God. The loneliness will develop further into the dreadful loneliness of not being understood even by His disciples. At the Last Supper when the Saviour talks to them for the last time, they will be in constant doubt as to the meaning of His words. And later when He goes into the Garden of Gethsemane before the fearful death that is facing Him, His closest disciples, Peter, John and James – whom He chose to go with Him fall asleep, depressed, tired, hopeless. The culmination of this loneliness will be Christ’s cry on the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Abandoned men, rejected by the people of Israel He encounters the extreme of forsakenness and dies without God, without men, alone, with only His love for God and His love for mankind, dying for its sake and for God’s glory.

The beginning of Christ’s Passion is today’s triumphal procession; the people expected a king, a leader – and they found the Saviour of their souls. Nothing embitters a person so much as a lost, a disappointed hope; and that explains why people who could receive Him like that, who witnessed the raising of Lazarus, who saw Christ’s miracles and heard His teaching, admired every word, who were ready to become His disciples as long as He brought victory, broke away from Him, turned their backs on Him and a few days later shouted, “Crucify Him, crucify Him.” And Christ spent all those days in loneliness, knowing what was in store for Him, abandoned by every one except the Mother of God, who stood silently by, as she had done throughout her life, participating in His tragic ascent to the Cross; she who had accepted the Annunciation, the Good Tidings, but who also accepted in silence Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce her heart.

During the coming days we shall be present – not just remember, but be present – at Christ’s Passion. We shall be part of the crowd surrounding Christ and the disciples and the Mother of God; as we hear the Gospel readings, as we listen to the prayers of the Church, as one image after another of these days of the Passion passes before our eyes, let each one of us ask himself the question, “Where do I stand, who am I in this crowd? A Pharisee? A Scribe? A traitor, a coward? Who? Or do I stand among the Apostles?” But they too were overcome by fear. Peter denied Him thrice, Judas betrayed Him, John, James and Peter went to sleep just when Christ most needed human love and support; the other disciples fled; no one remained except John and the Mother of God, those who were bound to Him by the kind of love which fears nothing and is ready to share in everything.

Once more let us ask ourselves who we are and where we stand, what our position in this crowd is. Do we stand with hope or despair, or what? And if we stand with indifference, we too are part of that terrifying crowd that surrounded Christ, shuffling, listening, and then going away; as we shall go away from church. The Crucifix will be standing here on Thursday and we shall be reading the Gospel about the Cross, the Crucifixion and death – and then what will happen? The Cross will remain standing, but we shall go away for a rest, go home to have supper, to sleep, to prepare for the fatigues of the next day. And during this time Christ is on the Cross, Christ is in the tomb. How awful it is that, like the disciples in their day, we are not able to spend one night, one hour with Him. Let us think about this, and if we are incapable of doing anything, let us at least realise who we are and where we stand, and at the final hour turn to Christ with the cry, the appeal of the thief, Remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom. Amen.

Sourced from:  http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/69857.htm

Don't be surprised

Our life on earth is like an epitimia*.  Don’t be surprised that bad things happen all the time. 

*epitimia:  a penance given to bring a soul to repentance and return it to health.

That which is below was sourced from Fr. Milovan Katanic’s blog, the Feb 5, 2010 entry:
 

One of the newest publication from St. Herman’s came in the mail last week: Our Thoughts Determine our Lives: the Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica. Elder Thaddeus has not been canonized yet but above is an icon of the venerable Elder which, as you can see, began stream forth myrrh. I can’t remember exactly where I found this photo but it was on an Orthodox forum.

The book is filled with so much beauty and wisdom. Below is a small sampling:

“Life on earth is not easy, no matter how favorable the circumstances. There is one person who lived according to his heart’s desire, and that was King Solomon, the son of King David. He ruled for forty years and never went to war. The Lord rewarded him with great wisdom. He built the great temple of Jerusalem. People came to him from all over the world in order to hear his advice. He said, “I have fulfilled every desire of my heart. I wished for vineyards and I planted them.  I wished for palaces and I built them. In Jerusalem I had the best trained army, but I never went to war with anyone. I wished for silver and gold, and the Lord gave them to me. I engaged in different things in order to see whether there was any lasting comfort on earth. And I understood that in this life everything is vanity and pride and sickness of spirit. There is no lasting comfort…” These are Solomon’s words. Solomon was wise. He says that whatever you may possess will be for a brief time only, and then it will be as though you had never existed. A man thinks that he has all the wisdom of this world. But if he could look at himself as others see him, he would see himself strutting like a turkey. He would see his own vanity and empty-headedness…”

Who are the Nephilim?

Great article, sourced here:  http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/91971.htm

 

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

(where are the Nephilim today? here, and nowhere)

 

Who are the Nephilim?

Come with me, and let’s solve an ancient Bible mystery. This will be an adventure worthy of Indiana Jones.

Who in the world are these strange people, the “Nephilim”?

Here are two passages in Scripture that mention them:
Genesis 6.4: The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
Numbers 13.33 And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.'

In our Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts last Friday evening, we heard about these mysterious people right before the account of Noah’s Flood. Remember that after Cain slew his brother Abel, he wandered into the chaotic space called the land “East of Eden.” If this reminds you of the story of the Prodigal Son, you’re right: sin always takes the direction of Cain, and that is why his script crops up over and over again. There, east of Eden, he established human culture as we know it today: clever, technological, but also God-rejecting, supposedly totally self-reliant. Cain is the proper father of secular culture that so many people want today.

Meanwhile, Adam and Eve produced a third son, whose name was Seth. The Bible says that he was different from Cain. He called upon the Name of the Lord, and “put his hope in God.”

Thus in these early times before the Flood there were two directions that humanity was taking -- the way of Seth, which was the way of humility and seeking God in the heart. Then there was the way of Cain, which was the way of self-centeredness, the way of rejecting God. The people of Cain soon found that there is no way that God could be known if the self is not first sacrificed in love. Seeking God in the heart requires pouring oneself out: that is exactly what God is like ... after all, this is God’s name, His personality, or -- as St Gregory Palamas would say thousands of years later, this is is “energy,” or uncreated Light of Grace.

Life was different back then. Seth’s family, at least, lived a very, very long time. Some lived almost a thousand years. The Fathers say that they still benefited from the human nature so close to Eden and its creation. And, it could be that the Earth itself was different. Before the Flood, it is possible that nature was a lot friendlier to life worldwide. Of course, there is no scientific proof for this (but then again, there is a lot of reality that science has no explanation for, so that doesn’t bother me).

Things would have been better if Seth’s people would have stuck to themselves. But they didn’t. The sixth chapter of Genesis recounts that the “sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them that they chose.” The “sons of God” are the people of Seth. And the “daughters of men” are those of Cain. This verse describes, in a short symbolic way, the tragedy of how Seth’s culture got mixed up with Cain’s culture. People not only intermarried, but more importantly, they gave up their belief. Seth’s people -- or most of them -- no longer sought God in their heart. They no longer prayed the old prayer of Adam and Eve that they prayed as soon as they left Eden: “Lord, have mercy on me.” Instead, Seth’s people started living the self-centered life of comfort, technology, power, greatness ... and violence.

Thus we hear of the appearance of the “Nephilim” in that mysterious, ancient age before the Flood. Most of the time, that word “Nephilim” is translated as the English word “giants.” But “giant” does not come close to the full meaning of the term. “Nephil” carries the meaning of “superiority,” “great and powerful,” and also “violent.”  
And also “fallen” -- as in apostasy. As in, the people of Seth who had first believed in God, had “fallen away” from belief into the egocentric rejection of God of the culture of Cain.

The Nephilim were the people of the time before the Flood. They were far, far greater in intelligence, strength, attractiveness and skill than we humans are today. They are not “fallen angels” or space aliens (there are a lot of trashy TV pseudo-documentaries and blathering articles that suggest this).
Instead, the Nephilim were the original aristocrats. It could be that memories of them survived the Flood and have passed into legend: and thus we have stories of Hercules, Thor, perhaps the pagan gods in general. Later on, when people of great height and strength appeared, like Goliath (the Philistine who fought David), they were called “Nephilim,” because they reminded people of the old memories.

It is possible that the civilization of the Nephilim was more advanced than ours. There is no proof of this. And certainly, not a single paragraph of this essay would ever see daylight in school. It is an altogether “alternate” history, or story of the past.

But here is the main thing. The Nephilim were exactly what people, nowadays, want to become. They were beautiful, in an alluring way. They were strong and powerful, many times more than we are. They were long-lived, seemingly immortal. They were great, feared by the weak and the meek. They were important.

I imagine that the philosophy of the Nephilim could be summed up by the last two lines of a horrid little poem (called “Invictus”) that too many people have memorized, to their embarrassment: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” This piece of ugliness is certainly something that the Nephilim would have endorsed, enthusiastically.

Because whatever they wanted, they went out and got. Immediately.

Which is always an evil thing, and always involves the “collateral” pain and suffering of the weak.
The Nephilim were therefore violent and God-rejecting.

They had become demonic.

The rest of Creation -- from the sky to the seas, from the mountains to the green fields, from the blue whale to the lambs -- depended from the beginning of time on mankind to bring the grace of Christ to it: “Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8.19). Creation has always needed the true culture, the ethos, of Seth and his people.

But now, instead of God-seekers, they who sought the uncreated light of grace in their hearts ... now, instead of Seth’s children, Creation was afflicted by a human population that had become dark, violent, and not human at all, but demonic instead.

Creation is allergic to the demonic. Remember the story of the Gadarene demonic, when the Lord permitted a thousand demons to enter into a herd of pigs. They had the sense to stampede off a cliff and dive into the sea. Remember, more importantly, the fact that the sun itself darkened at the sight of the Artist of Creation raised to the dark sky on Golgotha.

Creation waits for the “sons of God,” the descendants of Seth. It reacts to the violent, demonic God-rejection of Cain with utter revulsion.

And thus, the floods came.

* * *

Better to go the ethos, the way of Seth, which is now even better, more beautifully formed, better known, as the Way of the Cross. Since the Incarnation, now the old prayer of Adam and Eve -- “Have mercy on me” -- has been improved: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Now the way of Seth has been expanded into the fullness of beauty and peace.

It is known, today, as Orthodoxy, which is a lifestyle of Christ making you shine like Him, having given us the “power to become children of God” (John 1.12), receiving and living in His uncreated light of Grace, and broadcasting it to our neighborhood and the universe.

This is what Creation waits for.
You.

Not in the horrible demonic form of the grotesque Nephilim.

But only you as cross-bearing, self-sacrificing, in the likeness of Christ. You as meek, not violent. You as peace-making, not self-worshiping. You as truly beautiful, not vulgar. You as cruciform, not egocentric.

You, only as deified, not demonic.

You.

The only way you were meant to be.

Fr. Jonathan Tobias

Second Terrace

29 / 03 / 2016

On warring with the passions

My simple words are comprehensible to a five-year-old child, but the meaning of all of life is contained in them. Learn to war with your passions—this is very important, and even imperative. The best guide for you will be the Lives of the Saints. The world abandoned this reading long ago, but don’t conform to the world, and this reading will console you greatly. In the Lives of Saints you’ll find instructions on how to conduct warfare against the spirit of evil and remain the victor. May the Lord help you. 

St. Barsanuphius of Optina

Advice for the afflicted soul

Go to God’s temple more often, especially when you’re in afflictions. It’s good to stand in some dark corner and pray and weep from your heart.  St.  Barsanuphius of Optina