The Catalog of Good Deeds

I really like this icon. As is to be expected, all the apostles are mourning her passing. And why not? Scripture lists her as among the people present during the first Baptism of the Holy Spirit after Jesus’ Baptism. While nothing is found written in Scripture after that event, there is no reason to think that she was not highly honored among Christians. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” exclaims Elizabeth upon seeing Mary for the first time after she is pregnant. Would it be so strange that the apostles would mourn her passing? While the records of the apostles mourning her passing are all extra Biblical, they make sense. She was full of the Holy Spirit. She suffered much. She was present at the Cross. She is mentioned in the recollections of the apostles. Given that all the apostles were the age of her only child, would it be so strange that they would honor her in a special way, particularly since she was among the first of the Spirit-filled? The older I get, the more I realize that Protestants go overly far in almost making her disappear from history, removing her from all human relationships, and almost making her little more than a baby incubator. Again, this does not mean that one has to buy into every Roman doctrine, only that one has to own up to the illogicality of every so removing her.

Also pictured on this icon is something that would be natural. Yes, Jesus is God, but Jesus is also Man. Why would it be so strange that he would mourn the earthly passing of his mother? May “Jesus wept” only be applicable to Lazarus and not to Mary? It is as though upon Ascending, Jesus becomes nothing more than God. His humanity appears to disappear, and it is little acknowledged, outside of Orthodox circles (and maybe Roman) that the two-natured person very well probably mourned the passing of his mother every bit as much as he mourned in the New Testament over several other issues! But, notice that Mary is pictured twice. Once she is pictured as the dead Mary, whom her Son is mourning. The other time she is pictured as a glorified Mary in white robes, going to the bosom of her Son. Both are true of us as well. Our bodies shall die–unless the Lord come first–but our souls/spirits shall be with the Lord. And we shall be clothed in white and every tear shall be wiped away.

But, yesterday (Note: The Feast of the Dormition is celebrated on August 15 or August 28 for those following the Julian Calendar), we remembered the pain of her passing, a pain strong enough that this is one of the earlier feasts of the Church. By the mid-300s, we have records of its being celebrated in Jerusalem on August 15. It may have been celebrated earlier than that, but we simply do not have records. Images of her holding Jesus in her arms are found by the early second century, when those trained directly by the Apostles were still alive. Mary’s impact on the Church was strong enough and early enough that the fundamentalist claims of her being a replacement mother-goddess fall (that is unless one buys into the mid-19th century pseudo-history concoctions of the Germans). I am not arguing that there have not been some Roman extremes concerning Mary. Yes, there have been, and various of those have been repudiated by the Orthodox. But, those extremes do not justify the Protestant/Evangelical/Fundamentalist extremes on the other side.

The bottom line is that Mary died. One of the most courageous women found in Scripture went to her deserved reward. A woman who was told by an angel that a sword should pierce her heart, because of the pain she would feel, was finally laid to rest. The pain was over. The mourning was done. Rest had come. Joy had begun.

Source: http://www.pravmir.com/dormition-theotokos-icon/

Prayer requires a certain longing of the heart. Certainly discipline is involved; but, and this is merely my opinion, forcing yourself to say prayers may not be the answer either. People seem to make too big a deal about prayer rules. Like the Sabbath keeping that made some of the Jews miss Christ in their midst, so I think prayer rules sometimes keep us from growing in our relationship with Christ. A prayer rule exists to help us, we do not exist to keep the prayer rule. If my prayer rule is not working, I change it.

The goal of a prayer rule is to produce prayer, not merely to say prayers. Jesus tells us that we are not heard because of our many words in prayer. A prayer rule that is drudgery and continually dry is no prayer rule at all, for it is not producing prayer. Prayer is communion with God, not saying words. Words are useful, they can help us pray; but what our soul longs for is connection —communion — with God. Sometimes (and this may go on for several days at a time) all I can do during my prayer time is stand before my icons and say “Lord have mercy.” I say “Lord have mercy” again and again until my heart is pained and I feel a little sadness, a little longing for God in my heart. If this feeling doesn’t come, then I kiss my icons, ask the forgiveness of Christ and all of the Saints and go on with my day gently repeating “Lord have mercy” and carrying a little sadness that I have not been able to connect with God. Sometimes, I need to read an inspiring book or passage to help me pray. There are times when I spend my whole prayer time reading, which creates a longing in me and produces prayer that stays in my heart throughout the day.

Keep in mind that the “ideal” prayer life that seems to influence most of us is based on a very regulated life, a life based on a monastic pattern. Most of us do not live such a life. And even in a monastery, not everyone attends every service (someone has to be cooking dinner during vespers) and not every season is the same (when the monks have to do hard manual labor, the prayers are greatly shortened, and sleep and food are increased). And yes, even monks fall asleep during services or saying the Jesus Prayer in their cells. We read the stories about saints who after a lifetime of labor (and with their unique graces and calling) are able to keep vigilant prayer alive in their hearts at all times. Who are we? We are beginners. We haven’t even yet begun to learn how to repent. In fact, it is only as we accept our failure, our inability to make ourselves pray, that we can start to know our dependence on God for help. This is where repentance begins: in accepting our failure. So long as we keep saying to ourselves, “I just have to try harder,” we are only extending our miserable delusion. Once we allow our hearts to be broken by our weakness, our lack of love, our inability to pray, then we can begin to find God’s help.

It wouldn’t hurt most of us who struggle in prayer to repeat continually the words of psalm 50, “A broken and a contrite heart You will not despise.” Let your own weakness break your heart, and God will accept that as an offering of much greater worth than any mechanically pumped out prayer rule.

Source: http://holynativity.blogspot.com/2009/11/advice-on-prayer.html

Since the beginning of Christianity, its critics saw it as a spin-off of earlier pagan cults because some elements of Christian worship appeared to be similar to those cults. They wrongly accused Christianity of copying its doctrines or rituals out of earlier polytheistic traditions' handbooks. For instance, they said that the theme of the resurrection of a deity was ostensibly based on the Ancient Egyptian myth of Osiris rising up from the dead every year; the veneration of Theotokos was allegedly rooted in pagan worship of Mother Earth; and the Eucharist was said to have been adopted by Christians from Mithraists. Veneration of icons was no exception. It was wrongly perceived as a particular case of idol worship. How can we counter that?

First, the human race has few universally observed ritual practices. Lighting candles, singing religious hymns, special meals, washing of body parts, and funeral rituals are culturally universal. It's only natural that human religiosity will take similar forms in Christianity. Does it mean that these rituals have the same meaning in pagan cults and in Christianity? Not at all! Moreover, the very fact that these rituals first appeared in polytheistic religions does not prove that Christianity is derived from those religions. Christianity brings back the forgotten original meaning to these common and authentic religious practices. That is why we cannot consider the acts of kissing icons and lighting candles in front of them to be equal to idol worship, no matter how similar they appear.

Secondly, we have to differentiate between veneration (δουλειά) and worship (λατρεία). We worship only God but it is totally fine and acceptable to venerate not only Jesus Christ himself but also the Mother of God and the saints. This is evident from bronze images of Christ made in the 1st century, which were excavated in Palestine. It must be noted that all members of the Church, the Body of Christ, are referred to as "saints", e.g., in the liturgical call, "Holy things to the holy." Our status is further confirmed by the fact that a deacon censes both the icons *and* the parishioners while walking around the church. The Orthodox Christians, even the simplest and the least educated ones, never consider the wooden boards and paints to be the object of their worship; nor do they suppose that the substance of the Body of Christ during his incarnation was identical to the stuff which icons are made of. Saint John of Damascus wrote, "I don't worship the inanimate matter; I worship the Creator of that matter who became incarnate for my sake, who deigned to settle in the matter and thus became my salvation." St. Theodore the Studite adds, "[Deity] is present also in the image of the Cross and other sacred objects, not because they have the same nature, for these objects are not the Divine flesh; but due to their relative connection to the Divine, for they participate in grace and honour." Other theologians have noted that we honour the Bible because of the Word of God that we find in it, and we don't worship the "paper and ink". Likewise, we honour the One whose image is painted, not the paints and planks. The respect that we have for the icon is in fact the respect and honour for the person who is portrayed on that icon.

Thirdly, those who cite "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" as the reason for their opposition to icons, forget that Moses also received an order from God to make gold statues of Cherubims and put them by the Ark of the Covenant (see Exodus 25:18-22) and to embroider the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the sanctuary in the Tabernacle with images of Cherubims (see Exodus 26:31). We can't help mentioning the brass serpent that the Lord ordered Moses to make so that those who had been bitten by snakes could be healed (see Numbers 21: 8, 9; John 3:14). The brass serpent is seen as the symbol of Jesus. Therefore, as we have seen, only the images of false gods were forbidden. The images of the only true religion were allowed, which is proved by archaeological discoveries in the 1-3rd century synagogues, as well as a bronze icon of Christ found in Palestine and dating back to the 1st century, the age of Apostles.

Finally, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the Word that became flesh; if we think that his incarnation was real and not illusory: then we have to approve the images of the human nature of Jesus. Consequently, veneration of icons is a logical conclusion and a visible expression of Orthodox view of Christ. Opponents of icon veneration might say that by painting icons we either dissect the Divine and the human natures of Christ like Nestorians, or mingle them like Monophysites. Is this claim justified? No, it isn't. We are perfectly aware that the image is not Jesus himself: in fact, the image might not even resemble his facial traits. The icon is a symbol, a sign, a reminder that helps to kindle our faith and multiply our love of God and his saints. The ban on painting and venerating the holy icons is based on Platonic philosophy, which taught that "a body is a cage of the soul," that the dull matter defiles the spirit, and that the spirit can avoid reincarnation only if it eliminates all kinds of connection to the matter. On the contrary, Christianity declares the sanctity of the matter. Jesus ascended to the Heaven and sits to the right of his Father in this human body; He santified waters of his baptism; even his clothes possessed healing powers, as is demonstrated by his healing of a blood-shedding woman. However, the matter is holy not in its own right, not from the outset but solely thanks to its transformation by the Life-Giving Spirit.

Therefore, veneration of icons, which was confirmed as one of the tenets of Orthodox faith during the Seventh Ecumenical Council, is an expression of our faith in the Incarnation and the basis of our faith in holiness and salvation. It is based on the Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition, so it is praiseworthy and merits all kinds of acceptance. Glory be to our God always, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages! Amen.

By Fyodor Vaskovsky

The Catalog of Good Deeds

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