The Catalog of Good Deeds

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my reception into the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church — the Orthodox Church. I was just 22 years old at the time and still in college (I had something of a “career” in college, accumulating one BA, most of another, and three minors, all while working to support myself).

In 1998, April 19 was Pascha, and at that Pascha 20 years ago, it was between Matins and the Divine Liturgy, when I was received into the Holy Orthodox Church.

2018 was my 21st Pascha, including 12 as a presbyter. It never gets old but instead is newer every year.

A lot has happened these past 20 years, and I can’t say that I really knew what to expect. There has been both pain and joy, both loss and gain, over the past two decades.

But I will say that this faith is deeper and stronger and more pervasive in its practice than I could have imagined in 1997 when I first learned of it. It is also both more difficult and more merciful than I could have known 20 years ago.

I have a long ways to go, but here are six things that I’ve learned over the past couple decades, and I do hope that my old friend Chris (a cradle Catholic) will stop referring to me as a “recent convert” now. (Heheh.)

1. It’s way less work than I could have imagined.

My impression 20 years ago of Orthodoxy was that it was like a kind of life-long boot camp, in which one is constantly engaged in grueling effort — all that fasting (yes, we always mention the fasting first), prayer, long services, etc. — in order to repent of sin and acquire the Holy Spirit. When I was 22, the “hardcore” feeling of Orthodox Christianity is part of what drew me to it.

But eventually I found out that it becomes part of “normal” life. You don’t stay in boot camp forever. Eventually you get out on the ocean and have to just mind the ship. And that’s what most people do most of their time. Of course, there are periods (e.g., Lent or pilgrimages) when we kick it up a few notches, because we need to do that from time to time, but human beings can’t spend all their time at full intensity.

2. It’s way more work than I could have imagined.

When they said that Orthodox Christianity was about repentance, I didn’t really know what that meant. For sure, when I did my life confession before becoming Orthodox, I had a lot of sins that I confessed, many of which I was quite ashamed of. But I didn’t really know how many deep-seated tendencies toward selfishness, being closed off, anger, resentment (I could go on) I actually had. And I didn’t know how much practice it would take to see improvement on those things.

This is not to downplay God’s grace, of course. The point here is that God’s grace is freely available to those who freely reach for it. But I wasn’t very good at reaching for it 20 years ago, and I didn’t really even know that. I know it much better now, and I pray that, by grace, I am better at reaching for it.

3. It’s much deeper than I could have imagined.

When I became Orthodox at 22, I thought I understood Orthodox theology and practice pretty well. That’s why I became Orthodox, right? But here I am, 20 years later, with an M.Div. under my belt, with seminary 11 years in the rear-view mirror, with 11 years of priestly ministry, including 9 as a pastor, and there are still a lot of things I just don’t get. There are still a lot of things I’m just beginning to get.

I’ve had to learn to say “That just isn’t my field” when asked questions I’m not really qualified to answer. And I’ve also learned that there is still so much of this beautiful Kingdom to explore. Even with 20 years of Orthodox life behind me — nearly my entire adulthood — I feel like I’m just getting started! That’s a great feeling.

4. Prayer is much more than I could have imagined.

When I really began to start paying attention to just trying to keep a daily prayer rule, I noticed something. First, I should say that it was “easy” when I was 22 to say morning and evening prayers every day — no problem! But then at some point it wasn’t happening every day. And then I’d start again. And then I’d have long periods where I just didn’t actually pay much attention to it — including after ordination. What was so basic, easy and elementary at first became almost the whole of the struggle. Thank God, though, that He’s sent me guides to help me in this.

One of the things that I’ve seen clearly — some of it only just within the past few years — is that prayer actually does do something. It may not “do” the thing that I’m wanting, hoping or asking, but it really is an opening up of the person to the grace of God. One experiment that I did (at the behest of my confessor) was to notice how I felt at my worst times of day and then to see if there were any correlation between that experience and whether I prayed that morning. And you know what? There was!

Probably the biggest reason that I have been so inconsistent with daily prayer at times in my life is that I generally didn’t think it did anything. I had no problem being consistent with brushing my teeth, getting coffee, eating breakfast, etc., because I could see and measure the effects of doing those things. But I had never actually checked whether daily prayer did anything. Well, it does. In praying in the morning, I receive God’s protection from many temptations. I’m not perfect — far from it — but when I do that prayer, the day is observably different.

5. Parishes are much more different from each other than I could have imagined.

When I became Orthodox, I don’t think I’d even visited more than a couple other parishes than the one I was joining. I didn’t know how different the customs, the music and even the commitment levels could be from one parish to another.

I remember one of my first conscious moments of knowing that there were differences was when I was asked by a fellow seminarian why I was Antiochian (some 6.5 years after I became Orthodox). The answer was that it had been the parish closest to my house. His question presumed, however, that I had made some kind of conscious choice between different parishes and picked the tradition that suited me best.

I’ve now been an active member of 5 different parishes all within the same tradition, and wow! are they different from each other. Even the two “converty” parishes I’ve been part of are quite different from each other.

And now especially with getting a chance to do speaking engagements all over the country, I’ve seen a lot of different traditions and ways of doing things. The thing I’ve learned is that every parish is on a journey. None will remain exactly as they are. So when I become part of a parish’s life, even if it’s just for a day, I’m joining them on that journey. I’ve also learned that experiencing other traditions and even other ways of brokenness is an enriching experience.

6. The only way to be an Orthodox Christian is to focus on Jesus Christ.

This might seem like a no-brainer, but honestly, 20 years ago, I don’t think I really knew that. I sort of assumed it, but focus isn’t made of assumptions. We have to keep returning to Jesus, exploring Who Jesus is, exploring how Who He is shapes everything in spiritual life. He is the One Who opens the door for us, the One Who is the Way, the One Who accompanies us on the journey, and the One Who is the destination. Everything is about Jesus Christ.

Possibly the most important thing to note about #1 and #2 above is that in both cases, what I had to learn was that spiritual life isn’t about making me a better person (however defined). It is about learning how to invite Christ more deeply into every part of myself.

And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in this regard is that I can’t let myself become focused on the brokenness of either myself or other people within the Church. I recently watched a video of someone who visited an Orthodox church one time and decided not to be Orthodox because he experienced a particular kind of brokenness in that parish. He then extrapolated outward that brokenness is what the whole Orthodox Church is about. This man was looking at us from the outside, so it’s perhaps understandable how he could walk away with such a false sense, but those of us on the inside do it, too. We make our spiritual lives about the brokenness, and sometimes we walk away or just check out because of it — either because I can’t do it well enough myself or because those around me aren’t doing it well enough.

But it’s about Jesus. It always has been and always will be.

By Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/roadsfromemmaus/2018/04/19/20-years-of-being-orthodox-6-things-ive-learned/

I’m finally home from my running around all summer. It feels good to be (mostly) home for the next nine months.

One of my trips early this summer was to a clergy symposium. The speaker was Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos. I was amazed and blessed by both his presence and his teaching. It wasn’t that His Eminence Hierotheos said much that was particularly new or unknown—certainly not if you have read some of his many books that have been translated into English (such as “The Mind of the Orthodox Church” or “A Night In The Desert Of The Holy Mountain” or “Life After Death,” just to name a few). But he spoke with a kind of humility and gentleness that gave his words amazing power. Of the many pages of notes that I took, one of the quotes has particularly stayed with me this summer. The quote is this (at least as I wrote it in my notes): “The West emphasizes God’s justice as the highest rule or judgement; but the East emphasizes love: God’s love as a father.”

Now the reason this quote has stuck with me has nothing to do with the theological differences between western and eastern forms of Christianity. Rather, it has to do with the reality that although Orthodox theology emphasizes God’s Fatherly love, many of the fathers in the church, the clergy—myself chief among them—emphasize their rights rather than fatherly love when when it comes to dealing with conflicts with their parishioners.

Let me explain. Many Orthodox clergy are quite isolated. Commonly Orthodox priests live in communities where there is no other Orthodox priest with whom he can develop a friendship. There may, indeed, be a few other Orthodox priests within driving distance, but (as everyone knows) just because you share the same professional career as someone else, that doesn’t mean that you will automatically be good friends. And particularly in the case of Orthodox clergy, just because there may be a few Orthodox priests in a city, that doesn’t mean that they all speak the same language or share the same culture.

Consequently, when Orthodox clergy get together in meetings or at camps or for retreats, you will often find them huddled in small groups or paired off in intense conversation pouring out their woes, concerns, angers, fears and conundrums to one another. A theme that came up in more than a couple of the settings I found myself in this summer was the “rights” of a priest. Particularly, it came up in the context of rights of a priest vis-a-vis the parish or the parish council. For example, according to the constitution of a parish and the instruction of the bishop, a priest has a right to expect to be taken care of financially by the parish he is serving.

However, I also heard the word “right” being used in another context, a context that disturbed me somewhat, and this is what I would like to look at today. The context that bothers me is when I, or any priest, speak of a right to be respected as the father of a community. Now, on the one hand, it has been the consistent teaching of the Church from the earliest days that the grace of the priesthood is to be respected regardless of the worthiness of the man who bears that grace. This principle is not that different, actually, from respecting rank in the military or the office in politics. Whether or not I respect our Queen personally, I must respect her office. On the other hand, it sometimes happens that a man bearing the grace of the priesthood speaks or behaves in ways that are not worthy of respect. When this happens, it is very difficult for priests to hear lay people as they try to communicate to him that, although they respect the grace of the priesthood that he carries, certain of his words or actions are unworthy of that very same grace. In fact, apart from a miracle, it may be impossible for a priest to hear this.

Usually, the best you can hope for on a human level is that the priest’s bishop will be near enough and attentive enough to hear the bleating of the sheep, to hear their frustrations and concerns, and then to speak himself to the priest about the unworthy speech or behaviour. But even then, although it is much easier for a priest to hear and heed criticism from his bishop, even then it may be very difficult. It has been my observation that people in positions of respect and power often cannot hear the valid criticism, not only of those under their care, but even of those who oversee them. And I am not only talking about priests. I spent about 25 years in academia. If there is any position in modern society more unassailable then a priest by his parishioners, it is a tenured university professor by her or his students. I could tell you stories that would make your ears burn at the hubris and insensitivity and sometimes just plain cruelty of university professors. No, doctors, police, politicians, teachers, bureaucrats of all shapes and sizes, basically anyone with authority in society can be quite deaf when it comes to listening to the legitimate concerns of those under their authority.

But, you might say, shouldn’t priests be different? Shouldn’t priests have a higher standard? Shouldn’t priests be more—well, more Christian? Yes, I guess so, just, perhaps, as you would expect doctors to be healthier. But doctors don’t always follow their own advice either.

So what should we do? What should lay people do when they have a priest whose words or actions are unworthy of the grace of the priesthood? What should priests (or any person in a position of authority) do to better hear the voice of those under their care, especially when that voice is critical of them?

When a lay person is offended by the speech or actions of a priest, he or she should first and always pray. I can only speak to someone’s ears, God can speak to a person’s heart. Prayer isn’t our last resort, it is our first and only really effective response to conflict with others, especially within the Christian family. In addition to praying, in any conflict with a priest (or with any person for that matter) it’s generally a good idea to follow the advice of Matthew 18: 15-17. Respectfully, you should go to the priest privately and share you concern with him. If he doesn’t hear you, you should ask to speak to him again with one or two others. If he still refuses to listen, talk to your bishop. At this point, it is out of your hands. You have done all that you can do—at least all that you can do righteously. Of course if righteousness doesn’t matter to you, then there are all sorts of political ways to drive a priest out of a church. But think about it: if righteousness doesn’t matter to you, why are you expecting it in your priest?

But you might say, “He will destroy the Church! I have to do something.” Well, in case you have forgotten, praying is doing something. Whose Church is it anyway? Do you think you care more about the Church than God does? Ours is to pray and maintain righteousness even in difficult circumstances. If we fight fire with fire, if we resort to unrighteous gossip and back-room political maneuvering to get our way, how are we acting any differently from the priest we are offended by? Perhaps we receive the priest we deserve, as I heard Fr. Thomas Hopko once say.

From the other end, what can a priest do to listen better? Well, as a priest myself I can confidently say, I don’t know. One piece of advice that I heard my bishop give at a clergy meeting a long time ago has, however, been helpful to me over the years. He told the priests that they had to win the respect of the people through love. He said that it was not the priest’s business whether or not the people respected him. It is to the people’s advantage to respect their priest; but if they don’t, it is their business, not the priest’s. It is the priest’s calling to earn their respect through love.

These words remind me of a story I once read (I don’t remember where) about a man who returned home after ten years in a communist labour camp. When he left home, his wife was pregnant. When he returned, he had a nine and a half year-old son who perceived him as a stranger and an intruder on the intimate family relationship the boy had with his mother. There was no doubt that the father was indeed the father and that he had all of the rights of a father in the family. The father had a right to be respected. But even though the boy neither respected nor trusted the father and saw him only as a stranger, the father loved the boy. Yet the boy was incredulous. Even the words of the mother were unhelpful; in fact, her exhortations to him to respect his father only made matters worse. It only made the boy more confident that the father was an outside, corrupting influence destroying his family, and her earnestness even led him to consider running away. The wise father realized the boy’s frustration and anger, and very slowly, over a couple of years, worked to earn the boy’s trust and eventually his respect and love.

I have come to think that this is how I must learn to relate to my parishioners. On the one hand, I have been ordained and assigned by the bishop to pastor a certain parish. The “rights” or respect associated with this ordination and appointment are not in question. However, on the other hand, like the nine and a half year-old boy in the story, my parishioners do not know me. I am a stranger, an outsider to them. If I insist on my rights, if I insist on their respect, then there is a good chance that I will alienate some people in the community giving them an excuse to stay away from Church (to their own hurt—and perhaps to my condemnation on the day of judgement). But if, as a loving father, I can ignore the expressions of disrespect; if I can overlook matters that I might have a right to insist on; and if I can love, love and listen to the pain and confusion and cares of my parishioners, maybe over a few years I can earn their respect, earn their respect, not for my sake, but for the sake of their salvation and perhaps for my salvation also.

The theory of living together peacefully as a Christian family within the church is deceptively simple. To live it, however, will require all of us to die to ourselves and to trust in God with all of our hearts.

By Fr. Michael Gillis

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/prayingintherain/2016/08/a-priests-rights/

1. God is the perfect good that we must love; sin is the utter evil that we must abhor and disdain. God is the immeasurable ocean of perfection, while sin is the abyss of evil. God is the goodness infinitely higher than all goodness; sin is the evil infinitely worse than all evil.

2. Wake up, O brother, be vigilant and seek to abstain from every kind of sin that defiles you. Upon partaking of the most pure Sacraments, say to yourself, “Now I am the house of God. How can I let myself to convert into the den of sin?”

3. Beloved brother, think about the love that God shows to you in the gift of the Holy Communion. It is in this Sacrament that his love reaches the apex of its perfection. Saint John the Evangelist states that Jesus having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. (John 13: 1). A furnace is known by its heat; similarly, the Lord’s love is known by the Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist.

4. We must love God more than anyone else because it is in him that the plenitude of all virtues—beauty, wisdom, might, holiness, majesty, goodness, infiniteness, life, peace, liberty, glory, justice, and salvation—abounds. All these are not God but they are God’s qualities.

5. The true sacrifice is almsgiving, doing all kinds of good, and cutting off passions.

6. When a pious and virtuous soul does not purify itself from minor sins, they do a lot of damage because if they remain in the soul for too long, it starts to pay attention to them; hence, chastity of virtue and the fragrance of the Divine grace withdraw from it, and it becomes extremely difficult for such a soul to achieve perfection.

7. The vocation of a Christian is that of a warrior. Regardless of how tempting worldly pleasures might appear, they can’t overcome a Christian warrior.

8. Faith is the power that dwells in the mind and the will of a human being. One’s mind is kindled by the heavenly light and stores the truths revealed to it by the Lord. Likewise, one’s will is moved by God to do everything that is true and is guided by the mind. When one’s faith is powerless, one’s mind can’t grasp God’s mysteries, while the will doesn’t want to love them even before the mind comprehends them.

9. You might ask: is it a sin to sleep peacefully, eat and drink well, and have fun? This is a question that you justify yourself with because, although it isn’t a sin, it encourages you to sin. It prevents you from tasting spiritual gifts from God.

10. It is hard to describe how pride devastates one’s soul. Consider this: the worst evil in this world is sin; the greatest good is Divine grace. Pride is the root of all evil. It opposes God’s grace and does us immense harm. It is the worst of mortal sins because it leads one to commit all other sins.

11. Christ and pride cannot coexist in one’s heart: where there is pride, there is no Christ, and vice versa.

12. O wretched man, do you want to know what you really are like? Consider this: Prophet Isaiah says that the nations are as a drop of a bucket before God (Is. 40: 15). Now divide that drop into the number of all people, dead and living and those who will live after we die, and see how tiny each of us is. You are that tiny particle of a drop of a bucket. Your powers are as negligible as you are. You are nothing, and your power is zero. You’ve solved this problem, now be proud of yourself, if you can. If you continue to think high of yourself even after that, behold: you’re very close to failure…

13. Persevere in this life so as not to hear the dreadful words of Christ, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things (Luke 16:25). Understand at last that the Heavenly Kingdom is achieved by those who exert themselves, as the Lord said, The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force (Matthew 11:12), and not by those who sit idle and comfortable.

14. While we are alive, we can turn our lives into the time of repentance and cling to the merciful Lord who is always ready to forgive us and grant us everlasting bliss in his paradise, even though we often forget about our sins.

15. Do not praise yourself and do not seek to be the first. Do not attempt to look better than others because that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God (Luke 16:15). Remember that the Lord can tolerate any of your sins except pride. Bring to mind the mockery, the insults, and the disgrace that Jesus Christ endured on the Cross. It will help you to humble yourself down.

From Homilies by St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

By Fr. Sergius Nezhbort

We keep preparing for the spiritual life but never embark on it. We are waiting for the best time or the most appropriate day. We expect that on Monday (or as soon as the Great Lent begins) we will finally be able to do something but for now, we feel that we aren’t prepared enough. We may spend years—or our whole lives—waiting for something to happen. That is why we shouldn’t be waiting for the most beneficial time to start a spiritual life. The best time is now. Our spiritual life may not be as heroic as the lives of St Anthony the Great or St Macarius the Great. It may be way simpler. First and foremost, you should attune to the right wave.

Sometimes people are busy doing something but gradually lose respect and reverence for what they do. They bake prosphoras, paint icons, and embroider vestments. At first, they get up early in the morning thinking, “I’m going to do great things today!” Unfortunately, when you keep doing those great things for years, they turn into a monotonous routine and you stop seeing the beauty that you used to admire because you are as accustomed to it as fish is to the water. The beauty still exists but that person doesn’t notice it because he is wrongly attuned.

You should keep tuning yourself in and inspiring yourself. Say to yourself “This day is going to be the day when I am finally able to do something no matter how small or insignificant it might seem. Even if I don’t want to do it right now, it is going to be beneficial for me in the long run.” There was a sister who came to me for advice (I hope I don’t let out her secret), and she told me, “They’ve invited me to sing in the choir early in the morning. I think I should decline the invitation because I don’t want to get up so early.” I exclaimed, “My dear sister, praise the Lord that someone needs you so much that they invited you to sing with them. You could be sitting around in your house or sleeping till lunch but it would mean that no one needs you.”

I mean, thank God that people still need us. If anyone asks for your help today, rejoice and say to yourself, “Isn’t it great that someone still needs me?” And hurry up. This is what is going to make you happy. You’ll be wrong if you respond to an invitation with “Oh I wish you didn’t call me! I’m so tired and busy…”

Whenever the Lord calls us to do anything, let’s do it to the best of our ability. That’s when our spiritual life will flourish.

June 12, 2018

St. Elisabeth Convent

When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them two commandments: (1) to tend and keep the garden, and (2) to abstain from eating the forbidden fruit. Both of these commandments were ways of practising asceticism. There were further instances of asceticism in the Old Testament, for example, with Jonah and the Ninevites.

In the New Testament, we read about the ascetical life of St John the Baptist. Christ Himself fasted for forty days prior to starting his ministry, and at other times, he would retreat at night to pray. He had stated that his followers were to fast as well (Matthew 9:15). The early Christians also gave emphasis to fasting and prayer (e.g., Acts 10:30, 13:2-3, 27:21). Asceticism was taken up in full fervour by those who left the cities to go to the deserts as monks, nuns or hermits. Countless Saints have been formed by the ascetic tradition, which has been preserved in the Orthodox Church.

But what is asceticism? Asceticism consists of spiritual labours that include prayer, fasting, prostrations, vigils, hardships or canons of various sorts, and contemplation. Acts of asceticism combine physical undertakings in conjunction with focusing the heart and mind towards God. Why fast? Why subject the body to such exercises? How does asceticism help? And is it just for monks and nuns? The purpose of our lives is deification, which means to become saints. In order to be deified, we need to be illumined with Christ. And in order to be illumined, we need to be cleansed from our spiritual stains; those blotches on our souls separate us from the love of God.

Those stains are our sins; our bad habits and evil inclinations. Ascetic practices are the methods of cleansing our hearts. They are our gymnasium; the training program for the spiritual Olympics, which is the great and final judgement. They are the true and trusted method of cleansing the body, mind, heart and soul. Asceticism is the antidote to the idolatries of materialism and egotism that pervades our contemporary life.

Asceticism is not the goal of the spiritual life but simply the method. Asceticism is not about building “points” or achievements of spiritual feats; such an approach often leads to pride. Instead, it is the product of our repentance. We remember the example of Zacchaeus, whose repentance was realised though his almsgiving and hence his personal deprivation. And just as an athlete requires a coach to guide them to train and preparing correctly, any ascetical endeavour requires spiritual coaching. These coaches are our spiritual fathers.

Without such guidance, our ascetical efforts are likely to miss the mark. Whilst monks and nuns have very specific methods of asceticism, we too can benefit from the ascetical phronema, or mindset. We can try and live simply, without excesses. We can try to observe the prescribed fasts of the Church. We can attend Church services as much as possible. We can practise almsgiving. We can familiarise ourselves with the prayer rope (κοµποσκοίνι) and the Jesus Prayer. And as stated, these efforts need to be guided by our spiritual father.

When done properly, asceticism gives us the wings to soar into the embrace of God’s love. We thus pray that the good Lord inspires and guides us to espouse an appropriate ascetical phronema. Amen.

Source: https://www.lychnos.org/why-does-the-orthodox-church-value-asceticism/

According to the Church tradition, Joachim and Anna, the pious spouses and the parents of Virgin Mary, fulfilled their pledge and devoted their child to God’s service. The tradition states that in the age of 3, Virgin Mary was brought from Nazareth, where She lived with Her parents, to the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. There She was met by the archpriest, and many Church authors state that it was Zachariah, the father of John the Forerunner. To everyone’s surprise, Virgin Mary, Who was only 3 years old, overcame that 15-stairs obstacle on Her way to the Temple and Zachariah’s arms, without any fear or parents’ support, being led only by the Holy Spirit.

Then, as certain Church authors write, on inspiration from above, Zachariah decided to bring Mary to the Holy of Holies, where according to the Law, only the archpriest was permitted to enter and only once a year after he had made sacrifices for his own sins and the sins of the people. Was it so for real? Could the archpriest violate the Law so seriously? He was not allowed to enter the Holy of Holies at the wrong time and could not bring a girl there: she was not just prohibited from entering the Holy of Holies, but even could not enter the sanctuary, which was a special place for priests in the Temple, and had to stay in the women’s yard? We do not know the exact answer. The Church tradition accepts the story about Mary’s entry to the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple, although the canonical Gospels say nothing about that. In general, the early years of Virgin Mary were summed up well by St. Jerome of Stridon: “If someone asked me about how the Holy Virgin spent Her youth, I would answer him: only God and archangel Gabriel, Her constant guardian, know that”.

However, what does it all mean for us? Sure, the Holy Virgin had Her own great mission, and the Lord prepared for Her a very special way of life and a very special service in the work of the humankind’s salvation. Through prayer and obeying God’s word, Virgin Mary had to grow so high spiritually that she became worthy to be the Throne of the King, the Temple for God’s Spirit, the Ark of the Covenant, the One from Whom the Bread of life would grow – the Manna that would grant us immortality and resurrection.

We can take this ancient and great event as a lesson for us all. Virgin Mary ascended 15 stairs that led to the Temple of Solomon in order to become the Mother of the Word. While raising those stairs, ancient Jews were singing certain psalms, in which they glorified God and with which they prepared their souls for even more sincere prayer in the Temple.

The same we can say about us. We should not just wait for God’s gifts and grace, but we should do our best to come to God, to climb these stairs of virtues so that we can soften and prepare our hearts for God’s Spirit that wants to consecrate us. Let us lift up our hearts! This is the sense of the Orthodox teaching about synergy – the collaboration of the man and God in the work of our salvation. Virgin Mary was not just chosen from the beginning of ages to become the Mother of the Word. She had to work a lot living by God’s commandments: “remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father” (1 Thessalonians 1:3).

The same concerns us, if we really want to fulfill God’s words: “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50).

So, we all are called upon to become the vessels for the Word. Through following the Father’s will, through preaching Gospel with our own lives, through climbing the stairs of virtues that the Holy Theotokos has ascended in the beginning of Her life, we are called upon to give life to Christ in other people’s hearts, bringing them to the wonderful Light of Christ.

The word of St. Gregory Palamas:

“The High Priest, seeing that this child, more than anyone else, had divine grace within Her, wished to set Her within the Holy of Holies. He convinced everyone present to welcome this, since God had advanced it and approved it. Through His angel, God assisted the Virgin and sent Her mystical food, with which She was strengthened in nature, while in body She was brought to maturity and was made purer and more exalted than the angels, having the Heavenly spirits as servants. She was led into the Holy of Holies not just once, but was accepted by God to dwell there with Him during Her youth, so that through Her, the Heavenly Abodes might be opened and given for an eternal habitation to those who believe in Her miraculous birthgiving.

So it is, and this is why She, from the beginning of time, was chosen from among the chosen. She Who is manifest as the Holy of Holies, Who has a body even purer than the spirits purified by virtue, is capable of receiving ... the Hypostatic Word of the Unoriginate Father. Today the Ever-Virgin Mary, like a Treasure of God, is stored in the Holy of Holies, so that in due time, (as it later came to pass) She would serve for the enrichment of, and an ornament for, all the world. Therefore, Christ God also glorifies His Mother, both before, and also after His birth.

We who understand the salvation begun for our sake through the Most Holy Virgin, give Her thanks and praise according to our ability. And truly, if the grateful woman (of whom the Gospel tells us), after hearing the saving words of the Lord, blessed and thanked His Mother, raising her voice above the din of the crowd and saying to Christ, “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps Thou hast sucked” (Luke 11:27), then we who have the words of eternal life written out for us, and not only the words, but also the miracles and the Passion, and the raising of our nature from death, and its ascent from earth to Heaven, and the promise of immortal life and unfailing salvation, then how shall we not unceasingly hymn and bless the Mother of the Author of our Salvation and the Giver of Life, celebrating Her conception and birth, and now Her Entry into the Holy of Holies?

Now, brethren, let us remove ourselves from earthly to celestial things. Let us change our path from the flesh to the spirit. Let us change our desire from temporal things to those that endure. Let us scorn fleshly delights, which serve as allurements for the soul and soon pass away. Let us desire spiritual gifts, which remain undiminished. Let us turn our reason and our attention from earthly concerns and raise them to the inaccessible places of Heaven, to the Holy of Holies, where the Mother of God now resides.

Reflections in the Church liturgical tradition:

Kontakion — Tone 4:

The most pure Temple of the Savior; the precious Chamber and Virgin; the sacred Treasure of the glory of God, is presented today to the house of the Lord. She brings with her the grace of the Spirit, therefore, the angels of God praise her: “Truly this woman is the abode of heaven.”

End of Part II

To be continued…

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