The Catalog of Good Deeds

Israel Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a 1,400-year-old Christian devotional aid (dubbed a “Prayer Box”) made of bone, with two paintings believed to portray the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The size of the box (a tiny 0.8 x 0.6in, or 2 x 1.5cm), led experts to think the object was designed to be worn round the neck, possibly by a pilgrim.

Small icons of Christ and the Theotokos, hinged as a diptych (here is an example) are well-known to Orthodox Christians today, being useful portable, personal devotional aids. What is fascinating about this discovery is that it shows such items were around even in the first millennium. There are plenty of examples of icons being found and used in churches and monasteries from their earliest histories, but this is the first discovery of an early icon not made for adorning a church, but for personal use. Whether the owner used it for personal devotion, protection, or both, is a mystery, as throughout the Church’s history Icons have served Christians in many ways.

As reported by the Associated Press:

JERUSALEM (AP) — A tiny, exquisitely made box found on an excavated street in Jerusalem is a token of Christian faith from 1,400 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday.

The box, carved from the bone of a cow, horse or camel, decorated with a cross on the lid and measuring only 0.8 inches by 0.6 inches (2 centimeter by 1.5 centimeter), was likely carried by a Christian believer around the end of the 6th century A.D, according to Yana Tchekhanovets of the Israel Antiquities Authority, one of the directors of the dig where the box was found.

When the lid is removed, the remains of two portraits are still visible in paint and gold leaf. The figures, a man and a woman, are probably Christian saints and possibly Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

The box was found in an excavation outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City in the remains of a Byzantine-era thoroughfare, she said. Uncovered two years ago, it was treated by preservation experts and extensively researched before it was unveiled at an archaeological conference last week.

The box is important in part because it offers the first archaeological evidence that the use of icons in the Byzantine period was not limited to church ceremonies, she said.

Part of a similar box was found three decades ago in Jordan, but this is the only well-preserved example to be found so far, she said. Similar icons are still carried today by some Christian believers, especially from the eastern Orthodox churches.

The relic was found in the City of David excavation, a Jerusalem dig named for the biblical monarch believed to have ruled a Jewish kingdom from the site.

The politically sensitive dig is located in what is today the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, just outside the Old City walls in east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as their capital.

Source: https://iconreader.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/tiny-6th-century-icons-found-in-jerusalem/

The Cathedral in honour of the Nativity of Christ was consecrated on Sunday, November 26. The workshops of St Elisabeth Convent made a significant contribution to the decoration of the cathedral. Brothers and sisters from the Icon Painting Studio, Mural Painting workshop, and embroidery workshop have participated in decorating this church.

The image of Christ the Pantocrator in the central apse's conch is the first thing the faithful see as they walk into the cathedral. The side apses feature paintings with icons of the Mother of God the Orans and Prophet John the Forerunner, the so-called Deësis (praying to the Saviour), which is a popular theme in traditional fresco painting art.

The icons in the two-tier iconostasis are coloristically and compositionally united with the fresco paintings on the wall of the Holy Nativity Cathedral. The upper-tier icons, which are often referred to as festive icons, portray Gospel events. Their location is not accidental, either. The icons of the Marian feasts are located in the side apse with an image of the Mother of God; the icons of Lord's feasts are located in the central apse under the image of the Holy Saviour; and the icons that describe the life of St John the Baptist are located under the image of St John the Baptist.

The lower tier is interrupted by the central door and the side (deacon's) doors. There is an image of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Royal Door, with Archangel Gabriel to the left and Virgin Mary to the right. The side doors are decorated with icons of Old Testament prophets: Moses and his older brother Aaron the High Priest. The authors implemented the idea to hang curtains with embroidered Seraphim and Cherubim above these doors. Embroidered images like these can be traced back to the decorations of the Old Testament Tabernacle. The Royal Door curtain has an embroidery of the Crucifixion with the Theotokos and St John the Theologian on both sides. The icon of the Crucified Lord must remind us of his great sacrifice for the sake of our salvation. The Cross is the Tree of Life, the fruit of which we all are called to eat during the Holy Eucharist.

The believers will see full-figure icons of the Holy Saviour and the Mother of God with Baby Jesus in her arms on both sides of the Royal Door. An icon of the Nativity of Christ, which is the main icon of this cathedral, is to the right of the icon of the Holy Saviour, and an icon of the Resurrection of Christ, which shows his descent into hell, is to the left of the icon of Theotokos.

The lower-tier icons in the side apses include full-figure images of Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, St Nicholas the Wonderworker, St Cyril of Turaŭ, the holy patronesses of Belarus — St Euphrosyne of Polotsk and St Sophia of Slutsk, as well as the saints who are especially venerated by the residents of Salihorsk: St Gabriel of Bialystok, Great Martyr Barbara, and New Martyr John of Čyževičy.

Our icon painters painted the Calvary cross, too. A Calvary cross is a standing crucifix with figures, which the faithful can kiss in prayer.

The Most Reverend Pavel, Metropolitan of Minsk and Zaslavl, the Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus, who performed the rite of Great Consecration of the Cathedral and celebrated the Divine Liturgy together with other hierarchs, also noted in his sermon how beautiful this cathedral is. Metropolitan Pavel thanked the Rt Rev Anthony, bp. of Slutsk and Salihorsk, for finishing the construction of the Cathedral.

Many pilgrims from all over Belarus prayed in the Cathedral during the Liturgy. There were representatives of the local authorities, directors of industrial enterprises based in Salihorsk, and the benefactors of the Cathedral among the honorary guests.

The parish of the Holy Nativity Cathedral includes several churches: a baptismal church in honour of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos; a lower church in honour of the Nativity of St John the Baptist; and the Cathedral in honour of the Nativity of Christ. There will be a two-storied building for the Sunday School, a Sisterhood and a Youth Fellowship, near the Cathedral. The Holy Nativity Cathedral is intended to become a spiritual education centre for the Diocese of Slutsk and Salihorsk.

November 28, 2017

St. Elisabeth Convent

An excerpt from “Glory and Honor: Orthodox Christian Resources on Marriage,” edited by David and Mary Ford, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Why do people get married? How do they stay married? If there is a sanctity to marriage, a holiness in the wife’s and husband’s calling, what is the nature of that holiness? Just how much exalted significance can married life bear, when it has to be conducted by people who are crabby, oblivious, or bored?

I don’t have wisdom adequate to such lofty questions, but over the years I’ve learned some lessons that, I hope, might prove helpful to others:

- Perhaps the first difficulty is that we don’t expect marriage to be difficult. We think, “We’re in love, and that solves everything.” But as long as the two people in love are human, there are going to be misunderstandings, miscommunications, and misplaced expectations. The most pernicious factor in a marriage (or any other relationship, really) is a sneaking suspicion that the other person has more power—that he’s getting his own way too often, and things aren’t fair. You can develop a habit of wary watchfulness, standing guard over your rights and viewing your husband with suspicion. It’s easy to do this, and it’s entirely contrary to our calling in Christ, which is to bear all and embrace humility.

A power struggle is a teeter-totter that never comes to rest. As both partners adapt to it in self-defense, they form a long-term habit of vigilance and mistrust. This makes them unwilling to risk generosity, unwilling to let past “unfairness” go. Nothing good comes of this.

This mutually-assured dysfunction occurs so naturally that preventing it requires deliberate counter-moves. We already know that we’d rather live a different way; we already know that the people we most admire are those who are kind and generous, and that the best love stories are the ones marked by great self-giving. You can start living in such a story any time you want. All you have to do is start practicing generosity, humility, and self-giving.

But, since we’re human and timid and afraid of loss, it helps to make this goal mutual and explicit. One couple I know made a vow on their wedding day to “out-serve” each other. My husband and I evolved a pattern of making decisions based on who feels most strongly about the matter. If I want Chinese food, but he really wants Italian, we get Italian. If I really want him to watch a Jane Austen movie with me, he does, until he falls asleep 45 minutes later. It doesn’t matter who “won” last time, because a next time is always coming up. The future just keeps rolling into the present, and more good things to give and to receive will always be appearing.

-Sometimes it is harder to receive than to give, actually. Receiving implies need, and admitting need takes humility. Allow your husband to serve you sometimes. Take notice and be grateful, and say so, out loud.

- Learn this: many regrettable situations can be avoided by keeping your mouth shut.

- A good time to keep your mouth shut is when your husband is telling a story and gets something wrong. If he’s doing anything less serious than teaching brain surgery, resist the urge to interrupt with a correction. If the listener walks away with a misremembered anecdote or a fumbled joke, no lasting harm is done.

This is an example of a larger principle, that of honoring your husband: “Let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Eph 5:33). When you love your husband, you come more and more to be on his side. You want him to succeed. You want people to look up to him. You don’t want people to notice that he’s getting the story wrong; you want to cover his flaws and highlight his gifts. You come, that is, to feel for your husband the kind of fierce loyalty that you feel toward your children.

Married people should praise each other. Praise your husband to other people. Everyone can use a cheering section.

- A corollary is: Don’t complain to others about your husband. Don’t tell stories designed to make him look small or stupid. If your relationship needs help, get help, but don’t be a casual traitor.

- Nobody talks about this, but one of the best things in marriage is the way you can get punchy and silly when you’re both over-tired late at night. That’s when some of the best long- running jokes of the relationship are going to make their debut. Much can be said about the archetypal dignity of the marriage bed, but being silly there is a great joy, too.

- Defenders of traditional marriage often point to procreation as its self-evident purpose, and it’s true that mating holds an irreducibly basic place among human activities. But many things we do have meanings beyond their simple physical effects. The basic purpose of food and drink is to keep the body alive; yet we eat and drink for many other reasons, having a slice of cake at a party, a cup of coffee with a friend. While marriage is the right setting for sex, the sexual union of two people means much more than making babies. As St. Paul says, “This mystery is great, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32).

- Here’s something practical I wish I’d known a long time ago. It’s something I learned from an episode of WNYC’s RadioLab. In it, neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky explained that our bodies go through swift, predictable changes when we get angry: muscles tighten, heart beats faster, and adrenalin starts to surge.

When the argument is resolved, men’s bodies quickly go back to baseline normal. But not women’s bodies. Her body keeps telling her “You’re really angry!,” even when the argument is over.

In trying to figure out why she still feels angry, a wife may cast about, looking for a reason. She might land on an entirely different topic to argue about. The husband suddenly finds himself re-accused of past events that he thought had been resolved.

A woman can’t force her body to return to physiological equilibrium, but she can decide, in the interim, to stop arguing and go do something else. Sapolsky said that he and his wife have found it useful, in the throes of an argument, to say “Honey, don’t forget what the half-life is on the autonomic nervous system.”

- Here follows a way to put that information to practical effect. Go ahead and go to bed angry. Those lingering late-night arguments are the worst; you’re exhausted, bleary, and miserable, and you’re not making any sense. Just stop talking. Turn out the light. Sleep is truly a blessing, and things actually do look better in the morning.

- One of the most difficult tasks in marriage is forgiveness. My husband has been a pastor for nearly 40 years, and we’ve seen many a marriage struggle back from a severe violation of trust. It’s not easy, but it’s possible; and since love is the essence of marriage, recovery should be the goal.

One reason people find forgiveness difficult is that they don’t know what it is. (I’m thinking now of forgiveness in general, and not only in marriage.) Some think it means pretending that the hurtful deed never happened, or that it was excusable, or wasn’t really wrong. On the contrary, the very premise of forgiveness is that real damage was done. That’s the basis on which God forgives us. Forgiveness does not preclude justice; it might still be necessary for that person to pay for his wrong, even though you have forgiven him.

So forgiveness is not denial or overlooking a wrong. It simply means making a decision to move on—a decision to stop cultivating anger and cherishing revenge. As they say, staying angry is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Even when the other person is unrepentant, the injured person can decide to forgive for the sake of her own soul’s health.

Forgiving the past does not obligate you to trust the person in the future. In some situations, you may need to break off the relationship entirely. That would be the usual course in a low-commitment situation, for example, if a person you’d hired for some home repairs failed to do what he promised. But in marriage a lot more is at stake. It’s possible to make a new start in the ashes of disappointment; some marriages come back even stronger, when pain and humiliation have opened a way to deeper honesty. There will be plenty of reasons over the years to ask forgiveness, and to give it, in every marriage.

- Always remember that marriage does not exist in theory. It exists only in specific real-life manifestations, an ongoing improvised project conducted by two fallible people. Our ideas about marriage (or Marriage) are encumbered by so many preconceptions that at-home reality can suffer in comparison. We may think something is going wrong if marriage doesn’t fit our expectations, but it might be merely that this is what this particular marriage is going to be like. One partner’s pre-set notions of what a theoretical Husband or Wife should be like can hurt the real-life spouse in untold ways, even to the point that he or she gives up.

As an early-seventies feminist, my image of what a marriage was, or what a husband was, was pretty dour. It was a surprise to find out that real marriage was something else entirely. It turned out that I didn’t have to be married to “a husband;” instead, I would be married to G.—my love, my hero, my fun and funny best friend. I felt like I had cheated the “oppressive” expectations of society; I had married G. instead of a husband.

- The purpose of every life is union with God. Those we journey with—in friendships, families, and particularly in marriage—are put there to help us on our way. A husband and wife, knowing each other’s faults and struggles, can make up what is lacking, and learn from each other’s strengths. Accountability shores up resolve. Unity is a bulwark. “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Eccl 4:12).

The common center of their love gives each partner greater stores of stability, security, and generosity, resources that flow from them out to the world. We can see a parallel example in the pairs of saints who worked together in this life, like the physician-healers Zenaida and Philonella, the “roving reporters” Sophronius and John Moschus, and the spiritual fathers Barsanuphius and John. They felt for each other love of a familial or friendly kind, and married love is of a different order; yet, like them, married couples can find that sharing great love with another person in no way limits your ability to care for others. In fact, having the support of another person enables more love for others, giving twice the resources to draw on, twice the strength, insight, and compassion.

When spouses are praying for each other, encouraging each other, they spur their mates to greater heights. “Let the husband hear of these things [the ways of virtue] from the wife, and the wife from the husband,” said St. John Chrysostom. “Let there be a kind of rivalry among all, in endeavoring to gain precedence.”

- The older I get, the more clearly I see that I need my husband. The last decades of life are unpredictable, and potentially tragic. It doesn’t stop being tragic just because tragedy is so likely. I heard that the wife in an elderly couple I know was losing her mind to dementia, and was sad to hear it, but accepted the news in the usual way; it’s just one of the unfortunate things that can happen when you’re old. But if you imagine that it was a couple in their twenties, and heard the wife had begun gradually and irreversibly losing her mind, you wouldn’t just say, “Ah, what a shame.” It would be horrifying. Well, it’s just as horrifying to lose your beloved at the age of 70 or 80. The fact that everyone is treating it as “just one of those things” would only make you feel more alone.

Old age is surprisingly hard. My husband had had, from the time we met, a sentimental expectation that our golden years would be restful and content; but as we march through our 60s we’re discovering that everything hurts. And nobody prepares you for this. When you’re a teenager, people are always shoving booklets into your hands with titles like “Your Body is Changing.” When you’re old your body once again goes through dramatic changes, but nobody warns you ahead of time. Old, reliable parts start unexpectedly failing. It seemed there was a wry joke hidden inside the saying, “Two become one.” We used to be two whole people, but now we have only one functioning pair of knees, one reliable pair of ears, one pain-free right thumb. We’re being gradually whittled down from two to one.

It does no good to go to a doctor expecting healing; you’re more likely to encounter a shrug. I went to a neurologist to find out why, after a lifetime of being a great speller, I was now forgetting how to spell even some simple words. He told me that this was perfectly normal: by the age of 60 we have lost 25% of our brain cells.

How can that kind of loss be “normal”? It’s not normal for me. In my experience, “normal” means enjoying use of 100% of my brain cells. It is normal only if you mean that what happens to my brain doesn’t matter, because I am last year’s model and being phased out anyway.

These losses would be hard to bear at any time of life, and being old and weak and facing multiple losses at one time doesn’t make it any easier. This is when you really need a good marriage. You need someone who will be on your side, who will care about you and fight for you, as you become weaker and less able to do everything for yourself. You might wind up with dementia. You might be incontinent. People hired to give care in such cases are not well-paid. Few go into that line of work because they love old people. (Not all old people are loveable; some are angry or verbally abusive. That could be you, too.) When you are old and helpless, you are only as safe as the amount of love inside the person beside you.

Are you saving up for retirement? Save up for this impoverishment every day. It might turn out to be a hard job, being with you in your old age. If you pour yourself out in love for the other every day, you make the best possible investment against that time.

***

The calling of being a wife is high and holy because it is eternal. Look at the things in the room around you right now: everything you see is temporary. The only thing that last forever is people. Each of them is an eternal being, called and destined to blaze up with the glory of God. Wives and husbands are especially called to tend each other as they walk the way of the Cross, the way of transformation, a way that never ends.

When St. John Chrysostom comforted a young widow, he reminded her that she would be with her husband for eternity, not in his earthly beauty but in radiance of an eternal and unimaginable kind. “You shall depart one day to join the same company with him, not for twenty or one hundred years, nor for a thousand or twice that number but for infinite and endless ages. […] Then you will receive him back again no longer in that corporeal beauty which he had when he departed, but in luster of another kind, and splendor outshining the rays of the sun.” This is our destiny, as wives; let us spend our humble, earthly lives in the sort of love that prepares us for such glory.

Source: http://frederica.com/writings/the-high-and-holy-calling-of-being-a-wife.html

While coaching my daughter’s soccer team a few years back, I invited Katherine, an accomplished high school soccer player, to work with my ten-year-old girls for one practice. After teaching them a trap-and-kick exercise, she gathered the team together and told the girls, “You have to keep practicing this drill, but you must realize that practice doesn’t make perfect.” Several kids raised their hands and replied, “My mom said if I practice my violin, I’ll play my piece perfectly,” or “If I practice my dance steps, I will become perfect…”

Katherine looked at them and said that what they have been told was a lie. I held my breath waiting for this sixteenyear-old girl’s explanation. She boldly said, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.” That bit of wisdom resonated within my heart and is an important model for our spiritual lives. Practice makes permanent! Indeed, our patterns and behavior will set into motion the direction of our lives. The way we pray and prioritize our spiritual life, the way we speak, the way we love, the way we respond to conflict; all have been consciously or unconsciously practiced over the years and have become a permanent part of our life.

We often find ourselves practicing what the world tells us is important, as found with the daily bombardment of commercials, music, news, self-help books, fad diets, products and ideas that can present a treasury of empty promises. We are told we will be happy, sexy, rich or successful if we simply purchase a certain product, take an energy supplement, read a particular book, subscribe to a tested financial plan or try the next exciting “special offer.”

Our life then becomes a continuous search for the next thing that will fulfill us—the next thing that will bring us happiness. What are we practicing and making permanent? Is it a cycle of false hopes, wishes and worries? Or are we practicing patience, compassion and love?

Jesus tells us that the eye is the lamp of the body and our body will be full of light if our eye is clear (Matthew 6:22). Our eyes and ears are the gateway to the soul. Just as the practice of eating healthy food helps nourish a healthy body, what we practice receiving with our eyes and ears affects the health of our souls. How are we engaging with our family? What are we watching? What music are we listening to? What conversations are we having that help strengthen our relationship with God and one another?

The information we digest will impact and shape us, whether we know it or not. As Orthodox Christians, we must be vigilant and watchful of the messages we receive and careful of the words that we speak to one another. All have a vital influence upon our souls. We must be intentionally mindful of what actually feeds the soul—resisting words, images and conversations that distract us from living a life of true holiness.

The Church implores us to be selective about what we see, hear and do, as we strive to make choices that edify our souls. We are invited to examine what we practice in our lives, to see where we devote our time, energy and thoughts. We need to take a hard look at our daily schedule. Are we spending enough uninterrupted time with our families? Are we eating meals on the run? Are we taking time in prayer to be still with God? Are we reaching out to others who are in need?

St. Paul encourages us to wake up! He says, “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep…The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11–12). To wake up is to turn off the TV and have a conversation with your spouse and children. To wake up may prompt you to hand an apple and a smile to a homeless person. To wake up will motivate you to attend Divine Liturgy on time and with full awareness that you are in the presence of God. To wake up is to re-examine your life and seek confession and forgiveness. Let us not go through life asleep, falling into habits of laziness and complacency. Rather, let us live intentionally seeking Christ and all that is holy and good. Every day, we are given the chance to be transformed and made anew.

This week, make it a point to notice what you look at, what you listen to, what you read and what you say. St. Basil says, “We should not be deceived by the corrupting delights of this world, but rather become strengthened in the desire to attain the treasures of the world to come.” Consider practicing and making permanent the action of love, the gift of compassion and the practice of being truly alive.

Our Lord constantly reminds us that He wants to help us write a new story of life centered in His love, His will and His purpose. God transforms our relationships and He promises to restore us and help redirect our path to a new way of living. Jesus says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

He is speaking to each one us. He offers us transformation from old to new, from broken to whole, from sorrow to joy, and from death to life. May we “show up” and “wake up” so we can become renewed people living out this promise as we practice loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27).

Mother Maria of Paris said, “No amount of thought will ever result in any greater formulation than the three words, ‘Love one another,’ so long as it is love to the end and without exceptions. And then the whole of life is illumined…” (Essential Writings, page 19).

Remember: Practice makes permanent!

By Fr. Tom Tsagalakis

Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/praxis-magazine/Praxis-v14-2-2015-Winter.pdf

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A Brief Overview of Liturgical Colors in the Orthodox Church

Catalog of Good Thoughts for December 6th, 2017

About the Small 1,400-year-old Icons Uncovered in Jerusalem

The Work of the Workshops of St. Elisabeth Convent in New Church in Salihorsk, Belarus

The High and Holy Calling of Being a Wife

Personal Stories: Practice Makes Permanent!

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