The Catalog of Good Deeds

By Fr. Sergius Nezhbort

People have a hard time trying to let others into their hearts. More often than not, God becomes “my personal God” instead of “our God”, and therefore attempts by other people to enter this “sacred” union are perceived as spiritual aggression. It is vital for a person to have the experience that my God is also your God, and your sin, regardless of how abominable I may find it, is also my sin in a sense. I cannot push you off and say, “You’re a bad person, go away.” I have to understand that you’re so bad because I’m bad, too: if I were different, you would also be different.

It is often the case that a person who apparently leads a more or less pious life (at least, visibly) thinks that he is superior to other people, as if they were lower class because they live differently. In fact, we have to realise that God does not treat us like lower class. He loves us all. He does so not because He is so magnanimous but because He sees each person as a unique personality. We can’t be more misled than when we start to divide people into castes and classes, even unwittingly!

We’re so messed up. We are touched by grace and our hearts soften; we want peace and tranquillity; but then we see a child running around the church and misbehaving, and we catch ourselves reacting with “righteous” anger: What’s that? Why don’t his parents look after him? Take that boy away! On the one hand, it’s excusable but we forget that the child and his mother might also be having a very important moment.

A man told me that he has two adopted children, and he has a lot of trouble with them. He goes through various times with them, sometimes even becoming desperate. That’s why he seeks God’s support and comes to church with these kids. Unfortunately, these children can’t stay still in the church even for a brief period of time. Other people in the church start complaining and demand that he either “teaches his kids to behave” or “leaves”… People just don’t care to know why these children act like that. If only they stopped to think what kind of life these children had had, what traumas they had endured, and why they had been left without their parents. We don’t know the full story and we are hardly capable of digesting it. We prefer to focus on our own stories and feelings.

Here I am with my prayer, my fasting, my righteousness. Okay, I admit it’s not as perfect as I would like it to be, but everything else is rubbish.

It would be great if, before commenting or complaining with someone, we could pause to think that I might have a stake in that person whom I dislike and whom I prefer not to see or hear. Maybe it’s me who is responsible?

Therefore, when we come to church, we should lay all earthly cares aside but remain thoughtful towards the people around us. God sometimes acts through these people. It is through them that He can tell us something, warn us, or stop us from doing something wrong. If we become sensitive and compassionate, we will really abide in God.

May 14, 2018

St. Elisabeth Convent

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry speaks on the most important miracle in every man’s life, and the speedy aid and miracles of St. Nicholas by prayers to him.

—Your Beatitude, the Church celebrates the holy hierarch Nicholas of Myra on December 19 and May 22. Tell us please about St. Nicholas’ main miracles in his lifetime, and about his wondrous deeds.

—St. Nicholas was a naturally very active person. He tried to harmonize all his deeds with the Divine will; his life was guided by the sacred laws and rules of the Holy Gospel. Being a bishop in the city of Myra in Lycia, he greatly helped the poor and defended the downtrodden. St. Nicholas used his great authority and respect among the secular rulers, and if someone was unjustly condemned, they would turn to the saint, and he would come with a petition for the condemned. But the saint not only gave alms to the poor, helped orphans, and defended those who were unjustly condemned to death—for this is not enough for man’s salvation. It is also necessary to preserve the purity of the holy faith. That is precisely why St. Nicholas was so zealous at the First Ecumenical Council, when the question of the relationship between the Savior and God the Father was raised. The problem consisted of one letter: “Homoousios” is a Greek word meaning “of one essence,” and “homoiousios” means “of similar essence”—that is, it was about the definition of the essence of Christ in relation to God, with Whom Christ is of one essence. St. Nicholas defended “homoousios” and struck Arius on the face for his blasphemy, and the Lord did not condemn him for it, although the bishops decided to deprive the saint of his episcopal rank. The worthy men had a vision: The Lord gave the saint the Gospel, and the Mother of God placed an omophorion on him. The holy fathers understood that God had forgiven the saint his sin, because he had done it not out of personal predilection, but because he was zealous for the purity of the holy faith.

Metropolitan Onuphry

—And what is known about the modern miracles and help from St. Nicholas in our day?

—When I was in the city of Myra (within the territory of modern Turkey), our guide, a Turk, told us an amazing story about the intercession of St. Nicholas. Once she had to work with a group that had a little three or four-year-old boy. For some reason, he got cranky and began to cry. His crying grew worse and worse, and finally the child threw such a tantrum, that, as our guide said, he was crying both “on the inhale and on the exhale.” Everyone was afraid, not knowing what to do, but the child turned blue, dead in the eyes. Then Suma (our guide) turned to St. Nicholas: “Nicholas, we’re coming to see you, but this child’s not allowing us to; we should return, because he could die from such strong, constant crying. If you want us to come to you, make this child stop.” As soon as she prayed, the child stopped. The group arrived to St. Nicholas, and the child didn’t even make a peep. Suma told us of many other instances (she was Muslim, by the way) where St. Nicholas worked miracles by her prayers, and those of other Turks, who turned to him for help.

—Why is St. Nicholas’ help considered the quickest?

—If a man does not have the true faith, he cannot find the correct place in relation to the Creator to restore within Himself the image of God and to enter the Heavenly Kingdom, because there is no path there for the impure.

St. Nicholas helps those who believe, to affirm their faith, and those who do not yet know God, to kindle in them the flame of faith, but certainly not to approve of their lives and deeds. As the Lord makes the sun to shine upon all, whether good or evil, and the rain to fall upon all, and calls everyone to salvation and knowledge of the truth, so St. Nicholas does good deeds for those who do not know the true God in the hope that they will understand and turn to the Creator.

—What is the most important miracle in any man’s life?

—The most important miracle in our lives is to meet God, and for this, every man must see his negative sides within himself. We should condemn ourselves and say, “That which I do is wrong; I should not act thus.” Even when we can’t deliver ourselves from some sin, we should not welcome it. This is the first step a man must take to bow before the merciful God. And then it is important to pray, to beseech God, to repent, to turn to the holy God-pleasers, above all St. Nicholas, that they might help us defeat our weaknesses and infirmities, that we would be vessels able to bear the grace of the Holy Spirit.

The main miracle in any man’s life is the man himself. Look at yourself in the mirror! How much wisdom, harmony, and beauty is found within you! In you is the gift of life; you can feel, see, hear, walk, and create. And Someone gave you all this and preserves it in you. This Someone is our God. Whoever sees it, and comprehends it with gratitude to the Most High for all the days of his life, whoever repents of his falls and stands again, the same becomes like St. Nicholas and all the saints.

Natalia Goroshkova spoke with Metropolitan Onuphry (Berezovsky)

Translated by Jesse Dominick

Source: http://orthochristian.com/103687.html

At three in the morning, our house is quiet and dark. The distractions of the day all fade into silence, no to-do lists, no errands, no calls, nothing. I learned this the night we brought Elise home from the hospital and was reminded the countless nights over the next coming months. We learned quickly that I could wake up and fall back to sleep much easier than my wife, so I took night duty. After changing Ellie’s diaper, we would sit in the living room with all of the hustle and bustles of life far away. I watched that precious little girl for hours as she ate and slept in my arms. I didn’t know nursery rhymes so I would chant the hymns of the Church to her. Granted, at three in the morning my mind reached for what it could, and I remember one night chanting the Troparion of the Cross, followed by a Nativity hymn, then “Open to Me” and the Troparion of Epiphany. The next morning I laughed at the odd prayer service I had put together mashing up hymns that spanned the entire liturgical year. But I figured I couldn’t introduce her to the Faith too early.

This became my routine. I would hold her and pray (quickly trading my prayer book for the Dynamic Horologion on my phone) because, as St. Paisios taught us, “Prayer has great power within the family.” Christine and I went months without eating a hot meal together (truth be told, I don’t know how many hot or even warm meals either of us had in the first six months). I didn’t know it at the time but things like exhaustion and loss of free time would become our new normal. Fatherhood held something for me I didn’t honestly expect…

In Holy Orthodoxy, we place a real emphasis on asceticism; it’s an integral part of our faith. When people think of asceticism, the first image to come to mind is that of a monk or nun and their hours of prayer, days of fasting, submission to a spiritual elder. Maybe, if we look at little deeper, we see the asceticism of our parish priest, others in our communities, perhaps within our homes; those who keep vigils, feasts, fasts, who pray the hours, study the scriptures. I don’t mean to downplay those men and women of faith, but, in the last year, I’ve learned about a whole new kind of asceticism in fatherhood.

Saint Porphyrios tells us, “What saves and makes for good children is the life of the parents in the home. The parents need to devote themselves to the love of God. They need to become saints in their relations to their children through their mildness, patience, and love. They need to make a new start every day, with a fresh outlook, renewed enthusiasm, and love for their children. And the joy that will come to them, the holiness that will visit them, will shower grace on their children… Love, harmony, and understanding between parents are what are required for the children. This provides a great sense of security and certainty.” This is our calling as Orthodox Christian parents. To love our children, devote ourselves to God as parents. We know the bar is set high and that we are responsible for raising the children God has given us charge over. Our children teach us and help us grow to meet this challenge we face.

When I look at my daughter, there’s a mirror that somehow she holds up to me. I see myself laid bare, open and vulnerable in ways I never imagined possible. I am challenged and pushed by her to become the person that she sees her dad to be. Now that she’s over a year old, she loves to chant during services with her mom (I’ve occasionally heard her sweet voice from the altar), she kisses and venerates icons, both in the parish and at home, smiles when we take her little hand and “help” her cross herself, and becomes excited when we as a family say, “Amen.” I’m encouraged by her faith, a faith so innocent that trusts. She leads me to long for this and helps me to rely more on God, even reminding me if we don’t pray in the morning (she points and reminds me she has to kiss Jesus and Mary good morning). Despite reading books, listening to podcasts, and attending parenting seminars, I have no real clue what I’m doing here. I now realize I have no clue what I’m doing as a husband or really as an adult; it becomes harder and harder to hide when you have someone who depends so much on you. This honesty with myself has caused me to depend more and more on God, and I pray more now than ever, continually seeking God’s guidance and wisdom in all that I do.

Romanian theologian Dimitru Staniloae penned that, “Orthodox spirituality aims at the perfection of the faithful in Christ. This perfection is rather a mystical union with God through participation in His divine-human life, and Christian perfection requires a whole series of efforts until it is attained.” I haven’t attained that perfection, far from it actually and I don’t have all of the answers on how to get there. I unworthily go through life, usually trying to follow the example of Christ and His saints, to follow the teachings and practices of the Church, praying and fasting, no matter how many times I fall. I can honestly say, I haven’t experienced anything as humbling and enlightening as seeing my daughter look to my wife and me for everything in her life. She depends on us to feed her, change her, carry her (less now than she did before walking, but still), comfort her when she’s sad, mad, or scared as well as things she doesn’t know like making sure she’s on her sleeping schedule and getting her shots. As I look into her eyes and see the way she looks back at me, pure and innocent, full of love and complete dependence, I can, for the first time, concretely understand Christ’s words in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter 18, calling us to “become like children.” I pray I become the father, Christian, and the person my daughter thinks I am and may I learn to see God as she does.

I’ll leave you with this, an Orthodox prayer of parents for their children that I use to pray for my daughter:

O God, our heavenly Father, who loves mankind and are a most merciful and compassionate God, have mercy upon Your handmaiden Elise for whom I humbly pray to You to care for and protect. O God, be her guide and guardian in all her endeavors, lead her in the path of Your truth, and draw her nearer to You, so that she may lead a godly and righteous life in Your love as she does Your will in all things. Give her Your grace, and mercy so that she may be patient, hard working, tireless, devout and charitable. Defend her against the assaults of the enemy, and grant her wisdom and strength to resist all temptation and corruption, and direct her in the way of Salvation, through the goodness of Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the prayers of His Holy Mother and the blessed saints. Amen.

By Fr. Thom Crowe

Source: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8069144293415979705#allposts

There is a lot of literature out there today that seems to lean towards parents needing to override their own emotions and “not get angry when dealing with our kids” in order to parent effectively. Is this really the best advice? Is that even realistic? What is that actually teaching our children?

The other day, I was sitting with a little girl who looked over at her mother with disdain, and said, “You are so annoying to me. I just can’t stand you sometimes.” Mom, of course hurt, embarrassed and feeling utterly disrespected, became enraged and spewed out, “You will not speak to me that way. You have absolutely no respect for people.” The little girl described her negative perception of her mom and mom retaliated with her own negative perception of her daughter. Both describing each other instead of their own feelings. The little girl sat smirking as if even more validated in her position about her mom, and mom sat steaming. Immediate detachment without a road for repair and all having taken place in 30 seconds.

The first step I ask parents to think about when parenting issues come up is, “What do you feel? What do you want to teach here? What do you want your child to actually learn from this?” Knowing what you are bothered by, and what you feel in those moments, can often point you in the right direction to a teachable moment. Our own emotions can be a life giving tool to our children when used with good intention. I don’t think it is realistic or healthy to override our own feelings as parents. We do however, need to use them with a mission to teach rather than to preach. When our children feel the natural consequences that their words and behaviors have on others’, without our adding fuel to the fire, they are learning a powerful life lesson.

So, how did I intervene? The first thought I had when this happened was, “Wow, that must of hurt to hear.” I went immediately to my own emotions. “Did that hurt your feelings?” I asked the mother. “Of course it did,” she said, as tears welled up in her eyes. “Tell her that,” I said. Let her know what you felt when she chose to speak to you that way. So, she turned to her daughter and said, “Your words just now…they hurt me.” The daughter sat quiet, but you could see the tears welling up in her own eyes. “What do you feel in hearing that?” I asked. “Bad about myself,” she said. “Was that your intention?” I asked the little girl. “Do you want to hurt your mom?” “No,” she said, “I just don’t like when she asks me to do chores right when I get home after school.” “Wow,” I said, “What would happen if you just shared that with her?” She looked at her mom and said, “When I first get home from school, I need time to decompress before you start asking me to do chores. I am tired and overwhelmed by all the work I have that I can’t even keep up with.” Mom, in hearing that, was of course absolutely able to relate and said, “All you had to do was tell me that. I get that. I just need your chores done, I don’t care when you do them.”

A simple fix for what could have been a lasting moment of detachment. Its moments like these that can so easily end poorly if we aren’t careful. Next time your children talk back to you, do plug into your own emotions as a parent. Let them point you in the right direction of what you actually want to teach your child. Share with them your intention. Ask your children to describe their own feelings rather than describing you, so that real problem solving can occur. Our feelings as parents, can and will encourage limits within our children when used with purpose, intention and value.

“Bring up a child by teaching him the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn away from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Source: http://www.familylifeministry.atlanta.goarch.org/healthy-minds-healthy-souls-parental-emotions-to-yell-or-not-to-yell/

According to the official OCA service book, the Divine Liturgy begins when the deacon “bows his head to the priest and says, ‘It is time to begin the service to the Lord. Bless, Master’”. (The words translated thus are rendered in the venerable Hapgood version as “time to sacrifice unto the Lord”) The Greek original is καιροζ του ποιησαι τω κυριω/ kairos tou poiesai to kurio. In the Septuagint of Psalm 118/ 119 verse 26, these words are translated as “It is time for the Lord to act”. Ideas of doing service or sacrificing are therefore interpretive renderings. The words do not so much inform us about what we should do (e.g. offer service or sacrifice) as about what God is about to do. In these words the deacon tells the priest that the Lord is about to act, and because of this they should do something.

One may ask why it is the deacon who tells this to the priest. Why doesn’t the priest say this to the deacon? Or why doesn’t the reader say this to the priest? Or the choir director? After all, the service can’t properly get going until the choir director is ready to roll. Why is the deacon the one who says this?

The answer takes us out of the present and back to a time when the deacon, who was supported by subdeacons and door-keepers, was in effective charge of the assembled crowds. “If anyone misbehaves,” Chrysostom advised in his day, “call the deacon” (from his homilies on the Acts of the Apostles). In that day, when the people had assembled, the deacon would be informed, and he then would tell the priest that everyone had assembled. That is what he meant by saying “It is time for the Lord to act”—it was because everyone had now assembled that Christ was about to act and manifest His presence. The Lord had promised that “when two are three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20), and now that the people had gathered in His name, He was about appear in their midst. “The Church” is not so much an organization to which one belongs as it is an event that takes place when Christians gather together in liturgical assembly. The term “church” in part refers to the experience of Christ manifesting Himself in the midst of His people when they assemble in His name. In the words cited at the beginning, the deacon is telling the priest that this assembling or gathering had taken place and that Christ was ready to manifest Himself. They had better therefore begin to do their part.

We see the same significance of the assembly in the original opening of the Liturgy as served in Constantinople in Chrystostom’s day, though that opening is now buried further into the service. In Chrysostom’s day the celebrants would enter the church in silence and ascend into the altar area. The main celebrant (the bishop) would then takes his episcopal seat or throne in the high place and greet the assembly saying, “Peace be unto all!” to which they would respond “And with your spirit!” This was not just a way of the presider saying, “Hello everybody, nice to see you”. The exchange was his formal acknowledgment of the assembled Christians as those who have assembled in Christ’s name and who now had Christ in their midst. The mutual blessing set the liturgical seal on the assembly.

This is obscured somewhat in our present Liturgy, where this mutual greeting which once opened the service now takes place many minutes into the service itself, preceded by the opening doxology, the Great Litany, three Antiphons and their accompanying prayers/ litanies, a series of troparia, the Trisagion Prayer and the singing of the Trisagion Hymn. One would never guess that this liturgical exchange was once the effective beginning of the service, and as it now is, it serves little point. It once sealed the opening assembly. Now it looks like a quick exchange introducing the prokeimenon and the epistle.

That is probably why in the service book the response is given to the celebrant’s blessing of “Peace be unto all!” not by the assembled people whom he was addressing, but by the Reader. Why the reader? He was not addressing the Reader in particular, but rather peace was offered to “all”. The Reader however now responds because the blessing now serves to introduce to the readings, not to seal the assembly. Given this diminution of meaning it is not surprising that in some versions of the Liturgy (such as in the Antiochian Liturgikon) it is simply omitted or appended as a footnote documenting the odd practice of “some traditions”. It has been effectively emptied of meaning.

This unfortunate change of meaning is not simply of historical or archaeological significance, but witnesses to a more profound change in our whole understanding of Liturgy. Before the assembling of the people was of crucial importance—it was the sign that Christ was about to act and manifest His presence in their midst. That is, the diaconal signal and the presider’s greeting witnessed to the fact that

Liturgy was something priest and people did together, and it was in this cooperative action that the gift of divine presence was given. The assembling of the people is now no longer viewed in the same way. In Chrysostom’s day, the deacon would be told that everyone had gathered and that therefore something was about to occur. The fact of assembly was the precondition for doing everything else, for Liturgy was a corporate action. Now the Liturgy can begin at a set time (e.g. 10.00 a.m.) regardless of whether or not the people have gathered. The deacon now no longer says, “It is the time for the Lord to act” because the subdeacons or door-keepers have told him that everyone had gathered. He now says “It is time for the Lord to act” because his watch tells him it is 10.00 a.m. regardless of who has gathered. (Perhaps this is why the rendering “It is time to begin the service to the Lord” is now used, for this rendering expresses not the thought of God’s imminent action, but of our obligation. It’s 10.00 a.m.—time to start.) The people can come in anytime they like, and drift in throughout the service. Their gathering is now longer crucial or the sine qua non of liturgical functioning. As long as the priest and cantor or choir director are present, things can proceed. We Orthodox may say we do not believe in “private Masses” as in the historical western practice, but this offers a close enough approximation. Like the private Mass, the assembly of the people is no longer crucial. The canonical requirement of two or three people present in the nave (who may or may not eventually communicate) is a poor substitute for the earlier expectation that the people would assembly in their fullness.

We observe that in this mentality the performance of the Liturgy has become clericalized—it is now no longer something the clergy do as a part of the assembly and for which the gathered assembly was a crucial requirement. It is now something the clergy do for the people—a product to be consumed by consumers, regardless of the number of them present. The people feel free to come late for the Liturgy in the same way as they feel themselves free to come into a theatre late for a movie, and for the same reason—the movie will begin whether or not they are late, and their lateness will not effect the quality of the movie. The clergy do not feel free to come late to the Liturgy because their presence is crucial to its performance. We need to recover a sense of the significance of the assembly, and of the sanctity of the laity. They must come for the Liturgy on time for the same reason that the priest must come on time— because their presence also is crucial to its performance. That does not mean that Christ legalistically withholds His presence until a certain number have gathered. The Lord is gracious and condescending, and bestows the gift of His presence even when many are tardy and drift into the service after the Gospel. But His kindness must not be received as divine permission to be late or misconstrued that their presence if superfluous. As Paul said, God’s kindness leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

Every baptized Orthodox is called to do his or her share and should assemble on time to make their contribution to the Liturgy. Their presence is not superfluous. It is essential. It is so important that Christ pledged His presence to those who would gather in His name. Our service books tell the deacon to be on the lookout for the fullness of their presence and to announce this fullness to the priest: the Church of the living God has assembled! It is now time for the Lord to act.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/time-lord-act-significance-assembling/

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Parable of the Day: May 22, 2018

It is “Our” God, Not “Mine”

What is known about the modern miracles and help from St. Nicholas in our day?

A Whole New Kind of Asceticism in Fatherhood

Should parents show their emotions, or suppress them in favor of good parenting?

“It is Time for the Lord to Act”: the Significance of Assembling

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