The Catalog of Good Deeds

In both Eastern and Western liturgical traditions, March 25th marks a special event in the life of Jesus Christ: His conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This event is also known as the Annunciation, when according to the Gospel of St. Luke, the Archangel Gabriel came to the Virgin and announced, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” (Luke 1:30-31)

Mary’s response to this announcement is a familiar and beloved one: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) According to Church tradition, her words of acceptance were what allowed God’s Word to enter and initiate within her the human conception of her Son.

Less well known is why March 25th is the date of the Annunciation. Some scholars argue that Christian chose the pagan feast of Sol Invictus (“the Invincible Sun”) on December 25th to celebrate the birth of Jesus. As a result, the feast of Jesus’ conception was established nine months earlier on—you guessed it—March 25th.

This line of argumentation has recently been replaced by a more interesting explanation. Scholars now suggest that some early Christians believed that Jesus actually died on March 25th. And because they ascribed to Him the ancient Jewish piety that a prophet died on the same day as he was conceived, they also established the date for His conception. While the celebration of Jesus’ death later shifted, becoming dependent on the lunar cycle, the Annunciation remained fixed, with Christmas nine months later.

Whether this explanation is ultimately factual, I neither know nor care; entertaining its possibility does, however, offer a rich opportunity for reflection. If Jesus did die on the same day as He was conceived, then from the moment of His conception, He was destined to die. Further, if Jesus is the pattern after which every human being is supposed to be made, then you and I are also born to die, as He was.

This is more than just to say that one day, all of us are going to die. The coincidence of Jesus’ conception and His death suggest to that the purpose of our existence is to die, not just “in the end,” but every day, moment by moment. Just as Jesus’ ultimate death coincided with His conception, every instant of my life must also coincide with a death—an offering of myself for others without concern for my own welfare.

Frankly, the world around us takes the opposite tack. We are born, are taught to survive, are filled with knowledge and skills, find jobs and careers, acquire wealth and material possessions, invest, save money for day—all so that we can manage our destinies, if not completely then a little more completely than before.

Beneath that imperative to manage and control is a more primeval impulse: the fear of death, over which we have no control. The need to survive, to cheat death or put it off for as long as possible is the ultimate driving force behind almost every aspect of individual, social, economic and political life in this world.

The Annunciation, linked with the Cross, is a flat out rejection of this Darwinian way of thinking. When I affirm that my life is a series of deaths to self, I choose something other than “survival of the fittest” and “kill or be killed.” Rather, I make choices as a consumer, as a parent, as a spouse, as a citizen, as a member of the Church, that benefit someone other than myself. I am willing to take cuts, live with less, deprive myself of comforts and conveniences, so that other individuals, communities, species, the world outside myself—might survive and thrive. It’s counterintuitive and revolutionary.

Am I destroyed when I make the decision to make my life choices a series of little deaths? By no means. After all, if I die to myself so that you might live, and you die to yourself so that I might live, we both end up, not just alive, but enriched by one another’s lives. And even if you refuse to respond in kind to my act of self-sacrifice, I can still choose to die in imitation of Jesus’ own self-emptying death for me and the entire human race, and in doing so, I find myself resurrected and transformed by a His resurrection.

The Annunciation, then, is a call to death, but not destruction. It is a challenge to relinquish fear, to reject self-interest, to demonstrate the courage and the conviction of the Virgin Mary’s simple acceptance of Gabriel’s announcement, trusting like her that though the water may come up over our heads, God will not allow us to be drowned in our sufferings, but will lead us through into the promised land of life and joy.

Source: http://stillwaterorthodox.org/2016/04/annunciation-call-life-death/

This Saturday we chant the Akathist Hymn during Matins. In our days however this does not happen except in the holy monasteries, since in the parishes it is chanted the evening before, on Friday during the Small Compline.

The Akathist Hymn is a "Kontakion". In olden times a Kontakion was a series of hymns, analogous with a "Canon". The name probably comes from the short stick with which the parchment that contained the hymn was unwrapped [kontakion means "short stick" in Greek]. The first troparion is called a "prooimion" or "koukoulion" and those after are called "oikoi", hence why the entire hymn is considered an entire structure [oikos in Greek means "house"] dedicated to the memory of a certain saint. Today the first troparion of such a hymn is usually called a Kontakion.

The Akathist Hymn contains a prooimion and 24 "oikoi". The prooimion in the olden days was not where "O Champion General" is today, but after ("When he perceived what had secretly been ordered"). The "acrostic" of the hymn is alphabetical, that is it follows the order of the alphabet [in Greek] A, B, C, D, etc. An acrostic is a phrase that is formed when the first letter of an eirmos and troparion continues in a certain continuous order for a hymn. This phrase sometimes refers to the name of the author of the hymn, or at other times to the subject of the feast, and so on. Of course not all hymns have acrostics. There are also two "Ephymnia" [Refrains] in the Akathist Hymn: "Rejoice, Bride unwedded" and "Alleluia". The first is the response for the odd numbered "oikoi" (1, 3, 5, 7, etc.) and the second is for the even numbered "oikoi" (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.). An "ephymnion" is the last word or phrase of a hymn which the people repeat, since the chanters of course chanted the entire hymn.

The Akathist Hymn begins with the Annunciation of the Virgin, and then refers to the events thereafter. It speaks of the visitation of the Virgin to Elizabeth, of the suspicions of Joseph the protector of the Virgin, of the veneration of the Lord by the shepherds and magi, of the fleeing of Christ to Egypt and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. These are in the first half. In the second half of the Hymn are words about the incarnation of Christ, the theosis of mankind and the worthiness of the Panagia to be the Mother of God.

Who was the author of the Akathist Hymn? To this question there has not been given an answer till this day which would not be disputed. Despite all the research and discussions the problem remains a problem. Some - and these are the majority - theorize the Hymn was written by Romanos the Melodist. Others theorize it was Patriarch Sergios of Constantinople. Others bring forward George Pisida, while others bring forward others. What seems most likely is that the Hymn was composed during the reign of Emperor Justinian, if not even a bit older.

The reason the Hymn is called "Akathist" is the following, in accordance with tradition:

About the year 626 Constantinople was beseiged by the Persians and Avars for some months. Emperor Heraclius at the time was in Asia Minor battling the Persians. When he found out his city was beseiged he sent 12,000 men of his soldiers to the patrician Bonos in Constantinople in order to defend, with the patrician, the capital of the empire. Bonos along with Patriarch Sergios gathered as many citizens as possible with weapons. They all swore to fight till the end. The Patriarch was running around the city encouraging the people and the fighters. The entire city placed their hopes in their Protectress, the "Champion Leader", the Most Holy Theotokos. The seige was near and strong. Despite this the city withstood the attacks of the seige, yet the seige persisted. Suddenly a fearsome hurricane broke up all their ships, and they rushed throughout the night from the 7th till the 8th of August to abandon their seige and leave empty-handed. The kingdom was saved! The people of the city, celebrating their salvation, which they ascribed to the Mother of God, assembled at the Blachernae Church of the Theotokos, where they gathered for an all-night vigil of thanksgiving, presided over by Patriarch Sergios. During this the entire crowd chanted the Hymn while standing, and from this time on it became known as the Akathist Hymn [akathist means "not sitting" in Greek]. Indeed the Hymn existed before this time and was chanted to the Most Holy Theotokos, but on that night it was established in a festive way for our Church. The troparion "O Champion General" (which replaced the pre-existing "When he perceived what had secretly been ordered") was unquestionably composed at that time. For this reason the entire deliverance of the city from clamity "ascribed the victory" to their Protectress the Theotokos.

The Akathist Hymn begins with a particular Canon, which begins "I will open my mouth". This is an even numbered Canon, which means that it has eight Odes. The acrostic says: "Giver of joy, to you alone belongs rejoicing. Joseph." The name Joseph refers to the author of the Canon. This is probably Joseph the Hymnographer, who was from Sicily and lived during the ninth century. The eirmoi do not belong to him, but were from the Canon of the Dormition of the Theotokos. They probably belong to John the Damascene. Every Ode in the Canon has an eirmon and four troparia. Thus the Canon has 8 eirmoi and 32 troparia.

This Canon is most beautiful and festive, and characterized as a poetic masterpiece. It sings of the Ever-Virgin Daughter as "the living book of Christ", as "the palace of the only King", as a "fiery throne of the Almighty", as a "treasury of purity", as a "sweet smelling lily", as a "dwelling place of light", as a "mercy seat for the world", as "higher than the heavens", as "incomprehensible depth", as "height unspeakable", as "the bridal chamber full of light", as "the fiery chariot of God the Logos", as the "living Paradise", as "the cause of all the deified", as the "unconsumed bush", as the "mystical rod", as the "pillar of fire", etc.

The Akathist Hymn is also chanted in sections in our churches in the first four Fridays of Great Lent. The entire Canon which accompanies the Akathist is also chanted on these Fridays.

Well-known and much-loved is the troparion which is chanted during the Service of the Akathist Hymn:

O Champion General, we your City ascribe to you the victory in gratitude for being rescued from calamity, O Theotokos. But since you have invincible power, free us from all kinds of perils so that we may cry out to you: Rejoice, O Bride unwedded!

Most beautiful also is the apolytikion:

When he perceived what had secretly been ordered, to the abode of Joseph urgently reported the bodiless one and said unto the Unwedded: The Lord who has bowed the heavens in His descent, in you is contained completely and without change; and beholding Him in your womb taking the form of a slave, astounded I cry out to you: Rejoice, O Bride unwedded!

By Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos

Translated by John Sanidopoulos

Source: johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/04/saturday-of-akathist-hymn.html

The question may strike you as irreverent. How dare I suggest that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, Tower of David, and all the other titles, could have left us in the lurch like that?

But what if she had?

Could she have said No? You might say that of course she couldn’t, she was far too holy — but you would be guilty of demeaning and dangerous sentimentality. It is demeaning because it turns Our Lady from a free human being into a sanctified automaton. The whole glory of the Annunciation is that Mary, the second Eve, could have said No to God but she said Yes instead. That is what we celebrate, that is what we praise her for; and rightly so.

This sentimental view is dangerous too. If we believe that the most important decision in the history of the world was in fact inevitable, that it couldn’t have been otherwise, then that means it was effortless. Now we have a marvellous excuse for laziness. Next time we’re faced with a tough moral decision, we needn’t worry about doing what is right. Just drift, and God will make sure that whatever choice we make is the right one. If God really wants us to do something he’ll sweep us off our feet the way he did Mary, and if he chooses not to, it’s hardly our fault, is it?

So Mary could have said No to Gabriel. What if she had? He couldn’t just go and ask someone else, like some sort of charity collector. With all the genealogies and prophecies in the Bible, there was only one candidate. It’s an alarming thought. Ultimately, of course, God would have done something: the history of salvation is the history of him never abandoning his people however pig-headed they were. But God has chosen to work through human history. If the first attempt at redemption took four thousand years to prepare, from the Fall to the Annunciation, how many tens of thousands of years would the next attempt have taken?

Even if the world sometimes makes us feel like cogs in a machine, each of us is unique and each of us is here for a purpose: just because it isn’t as spectacular a purpose as Mary’s, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. When we fail to seek our vocation, or put off fulfilling some part of it, we try to justify ourselves by saying that someone else will do it better, that God will provide, that it doesn’t really matter. But we are lying. However small a part I have to play, the story of the Annunciation tells me it is my part and no-one else can do it.

Faced with the enormity of her choice, how was Mary able to decide? If she said No, unredeemed generations would toil on under the burden of sin. If she said Yes, she herself would suffer, and so would her Son; but both would be glorified. Millions of people not yet born would have Heaven open to them; but millions of others would suffer oppression and death in her son’s name. The stakes were almost infinite.

You might say that Mary didn’t worry about all this, just obeyed God; but I don’t believe it. What God wanted was not Mary’s unthinking obedience but her full and informed consent as the representative of the entire human race. The two greatest miracles of the Annunciation are these: that God gave Mary the wisdom to know the consequences of her decision, and that he gave her the grace not to be overwhelmed by that knowledge.

When we come to an important decision in our lives, we can easily find our minds clouded by the possible consequences, or, even more, by partial knowledge of them. How can we ever move, when there is so much good and evil whichever way we go? The Annunciation gives us the answer. God’s grace will give us the strength to move, even if the fate of the whole world is hanging in the balance. After all, God does not demand that our decisions should be the correct ones (assuming that there even is such a thing), only that they should be rightly made.

There is one more truth that the Annunciation teaches us, and it is so appalling that I can think of nothing uplifting to say about it that will take the sting away: perhaps it is best forgotten, because it tells us more about God than we are able to understand. The Almighty Father creates heaven and earth, the sun and all the stars; but when he really wants something done, he comes, the Omnipotent and Omniscient, to one of his poor, weak creatures — and he asks.

And, day by day, he keeps on asking us.

By Fr. Gregory Jensen

Source: http://palamas.info/what-if-she-had-said-no/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed

"What are the controversial issues in Orthodoxy?" This question, recently posed on a Beliefnet message board, is the dandelion in the lawn of Orthodox inquirers. It’s the question I kept asking, fifteen years ago, when my family was deciding to leave our mainline denomination. If we became Orthodox, what would we be getting into? Was it going to be the same heartbreaking arguments and debate - just over pierogis instead of doughnuts?

Well, there are controversies in Orthodoxy, all right, but they’re not *those* controversies. You can find people on the internet arguing heatedly about whether churches should follow the old or the new calendar, or whether Orthodox should participate in any kind of ecumenical dialogue. But the fierce internet debates don’t seem to come up much at the parish level (though you’ll find garden-variety power struggles, nominal faith, and other frustrations that plague any church).

Some very big controversies are actually on the mend. For a century there was a split between those Orthodox who left Russia in order to preserve the faith, and those who stayed behind. But on the feast of Pentecost (June 19, 2005), leaders of both bodies signed an agreement that paves the way for reunion. That’s cause for rejoicing.

So, yes, there are controversies — but that’s not what American inquirers mean. What about gay marriage? What about women’s ordination? Is there an abortion-rights movement in Orthodoxy? Are there bishops who teach that the Resurrection was a myth?

Those are the questions causing turmoil in most American denominations. When my husband and I began looking into Orthodoxy, gay issues weren’t yet on the horizon, and we didn’t have any problem with women’s ordination. (I attended seminary myself and sought ordination, until I got a good look at how hard a pastor’s job is.) What concerned us instead was theological upheaval - for example, bishops questioning the Virgin Birth, miracles, and the bodily Resurrection. We wanted to find a place where our children could be secure in the original faith. My husband had a t-shirt that read, "Have a Nicene Day!"

But as I moved toward my chrismation I felt worried. I could see that Orthodoxy was preserving the faith just fine - for now. But it had no visible means of *enforcing* that faith. The Orthodox hierarchy doesn’t have the kind of power that high-ranking clergy do in other churches. There isn’t even a world-wide governing board to hold all the various Orthodox bodies together. On the ground it looked pretty ad hoc, especially in America, where waves of immigrants have set up parallel administrative bodies.

And there didn’t even seem to be an Orthodox *catechism,* for goodness’ sake. It seemed like the faith was supposed to be learned almost by osmosis, by living it. How could that work? If a church with an infallible pope and a magisterium could have as much rioting in the pews as the Catholics did, what hope did the Orthodox have?

So I figured it was just a matter of time. Trying to maintain the classic faith without a powerful hierarchy didn’t look like doing a high-wire act without the net; it looked like doing it without the *wire*.

The following fifteen years have been devastating to the peace of most American churches. People who have lived through these battles are battered and worn. And yet - unbelievably enough — Orthodoxy has remained untouched. It’s as if the contemporary American furor is just a tiny blip in history, and not our concern. We still don’t have demands for gay marriage, or nuns agitating for women in the priesthood. We don’t see theological revision or liturgical innovation. The biggest controversy today would be the painful wrangle among Greek Orthodox about their charter - yet, when it comes to theological and moral issues, people on both sides there still believe the same things. That’s what being Orthodox means: holding a common faith. All the "big questions" were settled over a millennium ago, and no one is inclined to revise them.

How can we resist the cultural tides this way? I have a theory. I think it’s because you can only change something if you have the authority to change it. You have to be in a position of power, enabled to explain and define the faith anew; or you can battle noisily against those in that position, and make it awkward for them to use their power. In any case, faith is understood as something eternally under construction, responding to the challenges of each new generation.

But in the Orthodox Church, nobody has that kind of power. The church is too decentralized for that. Even those who are our leaders are a different kind of leader. Orthodoxy is less of an institution (like, say, the Episcopal Church) and more of a spiritual path (like Buddhism). It’s a treasury of wisdom about how to grow in union with God — theosis.

And that wisdom works, so people don’t itch to change it. It doesn’t need to be adapted to a new generation, because God is still making the same basic model of human being he has from the beginning. Practictioners of the way don’t find it irksome or boring; they just want to get into it deeper. For us, authority is not located in a person or an organization, but in the faith itself - what other Orthodox before us have believed.

Every question is settled by asking, What did previous generations believe? And since previous generations asked the same thing, the snowball just keeps getting larger. Against that weight of accumulated witness, a notion that blew in on the cultural breeze doesn’t stand a chance.

What’s surprising is that there is so little variation from culture to culture. As missionaries carried Christianity to new lands, each new outpost looked back to the "faith once delivered." So Russian, Greek, Romanian, Antiochian and other Orthodox all share the same beliefs. Even the Oriental Orthodox, the Armenians and Copts and others, who have been separated from us since the fifth century, still look an awful lot like us. They, too, are looking back toward the authoritative early faith.

So someone who wanted to challenge Orthodoxy would not be able to locate a building to hold a protest march in front of. The faith is too diffused. And what if a high-ranking hierarch attempted to enforce innovations? He’d be recognized as a kook and rejected. Anyone who disagrees with the inherited faith has stepped outside the building.

Although we don’t have innovation, we do have nominalism. Lots of Orthodox go to church every Sunday but don’t know much about the faith. Yet they know that there is something that they don’t know much about. They don’t try to redefine "Orthodoxy" to cover whatever they’re doing or not doing. If they’re dissatisfied, if they want something more contemporary, if they want to attend a more "American" church, there are plenty they can choose from.

And meanwhile, of course, lots of people are coming in the other door. The Dallas Morning News reports that, in the Antiochian Archdiocese, 78% of the clergy are converts. This means an infusion of parish leaders who are very well-informed about theological and cultural issues, and very intentional about why they have become Orthodox (sometimes at great personal sacrifice).

So instead of spending the last fifteen years fighting and worrying and being bruised in a hostile denomination, I’ve been able to focus on the face of Jesus Christ. I’ve been able to dig deeper into awareness of my own sinfulness, and take baby steps toward spiritual healing. I’m able to worship in an ancient communion full of awesome beauty, one that is now being blessed with quiet revival. My one regret? That I didn’t do it sooner.

By Frederica Matthewes-Green

Source: http://ww1.antiochian.org/node/18441

Our Lenten journey has several important markers, several special liturgical days. One of these remarkable landmarks is the “standing of St. Mary”—the day [in the fifth week of Great Lent] when at the evening service the entire Canon of repentance of St. Andrew of Crete is read, and along with it, the faithful listen to the amazing life of a woman acetic who lived in the late fifth-early sixth century—St. Mary of Egypt.

I remember when I was fifteen years old, I went for the first time to the Standing of St. Mary Service, and heard the Life of the saint. It made an indelible impression on me. Even now I remember this service in minutest in detail: the unforgettable feeling of the triumph of life over sin, which this Saint’s Life impressed upon me. This feeling remains with me even now, two decades later; the life of St. Mary continues to amaze and inspire me.

I would like to note a number of remarkable moments in that life. First there is the figure of the ascetic monk Zosima, “of glorious life and gifted in speech, raised from childhood in monastic laborers and virtues.” The image of the Elder who had lived his entire life far from the vanity of the world and its temptations, from his earliest years practicing asceticism, made worthy of spiritual vision—is this not the ideal Christian ascetic? The confirmation of this can be heard in elder Zosimas’s question: “Is there a monk on earth who can be of use to me and show me a kind of asceticism that I have not accomplished? Could another wisdom loving desert dweller be found who has surpassed me in life or contemplation?” This question opens the amazing life of the ascetic woman, the history of a life so different from that of the Zosima, that you could even call it the direct opposite of the elder’s life, like black-and-white, if it weren’t for the second half of the story, which provides such an astounding contrast with the first half.

The story of Mary before her conversion to God is particularly realistic; it contains all the details of her life of fornication in her youth. One would think that the Author of this saint’s life would do well not to go into such detail about this, recalling various unseemly circumstances, so dissonant with the traditional example of a saint and angel in the flesh. But nevertheless, this fact of her life is underlined, and the author of the life through Zosima accents this part: “Speak, for the sake of God, my mother. Speak and do not break the thread of such an edifying story.”

The edification itself in the life begins with the episode in which Mary the harlot tells about her attempt to enter along with the faithful into the church for the services to the Exaltation of the Lord’s Cross: “When I stepped onto the threshold over which all the others were passing unhindered,” the saint relates to Zosima, “When I trod on the doorstep which everyone passed, I was stopped by some force which prevented my entering. Meanwhile I was brushed aside by the crowd and found myself standing alone in the porch. Thinking that this had happened because of my woman's weakness, I again began to work my way into the crowd, trying to elbow myself forward. But in vain I struggled. Again my feet trod on the doorstep over which others were entering the church without encountering any obstacle. I alone seemed to remain unaccepted by the church. It was as if there was a detachment of soldiers standing there to oppose my entrance. Once again I was excluded by the same mighty force and again I stood in the porch.”

From the Saint’s words we get a picture of the incompatibility of a sinner’s inner impurity with the true life going on outside of it; not with the life of “this world” but with the sacred Cross, thanks to which the world still stands. It is certainly no accident that Mary cannot get in to the church during the service to precisely the Cross of the Lord—this most important holy shrine of Christians and the first symbol of Christianity. From apostolic times, the Cross of Christ was understood to be the new tree of life—the symbol of God’s uniting with fallen man, the symbol of the path to the heavenly fatherland. A little later Christian apologists would treat the cross as a symbol of the whole of the world’s creation, or more precisely what strengthens it, upholds it, fills it with meaning, and prevents it from dissolving into chaos. Mary wants to see the life-Giving tree of the Cross but she cannot, for she had dedicated her entire existence to what opposes the cross—sin, mad passions, deeds of death.

And now the time has come for her to see. Horrified at the inexorable reality—her alienation from the sacred, from true life, Mary for the first time turns her mental gaze within: “The word of salvation touched the eyes of my heart, showing me that the impurity of my deeds barred my entrance.” Mary’s entire being is shaken with a deep, heartfelt repentance; in tears she turns to the mother of God, begging her to open the way for her to the church, that she might worship the life-creating cross. Mary makes a vow to the Heavenly Queen to abandon her sinful life, renounce the world, and go wherever she might lead her.

Thus, Mary finds the path to salvation first of all within herself, in repentance, in a self-denying yearning to follow God’s will. She embarks on the way of the Cross. And, finding herself on this path in her heart, she no longer meets that terrible external Barrier that separates her from the cross of life: “Having got as far as the doors which I could not reach before—as if the same force which had hindered me cleared the way for me—I now entered without difficulty and found myself within the holy place. And so it was I saw the Life-giving Cross. I saw too the Mysteries of God and how the Lord accepts repentance.”

Having turned into the path of salvation, Mary did not immediately become a saint. She had to pass through many trials, and overcome great temptations. The saint tells of her temptations in the Trans-Jordan desert, where she had been commanded from on high to go, far from the world, and again the details are just as realistic as they were in the narration of the sinful period of her life. The acetic tells how over the period of seventeen years since she departed into the desert, she lived “amidst thousands of dangers”: She was drawn to her former way of life, to entertainments and pleasures. Lustful thoughts and the fire of passion scorched her heart. She warred with her passions as with wild beasts. It is beyond human strength to withstand such mighty violence from the devil, but God, as the Life shows us, strengthened her in her struggle. The story of St. Mary’s temptations shows us the true cooperation between man and God in spiritual struggle. Here we also see the ascetic’s colossal effort of will to reject temptations and sinful passions; we see also the presence of God’s grace, illuminating the exhausted hermitess, and giving her blessed respite from temptation. Even more: we see here the link between human and divine will—the icon of the mother of God in the ascetic’s consciousness. Mary the desert dweller counters all the evil one’s calumnies with the Virgin Mary—the image towards which she strives with all her strength; her leader, to whom should promised to live a new life, and to fulfill the task that had been entrusted to her. The presence of the image of the Mother of God in St. Mary’s soul is also the presence of God in her life, strengthening and transforming her. It is also the ultimate expression of all her yearning—to correspond to the image of the true human being, the true Mary.

The figure of elder Zosima continues to be quite noticeable throughout the entire Life of St. Mary. As we said before, the life of St. Mary of Egypt begins with the question posed by this monk made wise through the reading of sacred books, ascecis, and years: “Is there any monk on earth who can show me and give me something new, Some Is there a monk on earth who can be of use to me and show me a kind of asceticism that I have not accomplished?” From the Life of St. Mary we receive not only an unambiguous answer that, yes, there are ascetics who are greater, but we also notice a certain sinfulness in Zosima’s question. First of all, we are given to know the relative nature of human measuring in the spiritual realm. No outward criteria can make a man righteous before God. The (formally) ideal monk Zosima pales in comparison with the former harlot, the unlearned desert dweller, the one who found within herself the boldness to call out to God from the abyss of her sin and to confirm herself in the word of God through the help of God himself. St. Mary ascends to sanctity entirely in God, without the support of a single step on the “ecclesiastical ladder” (traditions and cannons) in her spiritual ascent.

After the period of temptations and trials, Mary acquires blessed repose in God, but in this angelic state she presents herself as an earthly human: she forbids Zosima to tell anyone about her life until she has left this temporary life; she resist the elder’s reverence for her, wishes to receive the holy gifts from the hand of a priest, asks that he pray for her, and shows concern for the churches, the kings, and the people. Despite the fact that the Saint renounced the world, she does not separate herself from the earthly Church, or from sinful mankind. Even at the recollection of the miracles the saint performed, the reader does not get the impression of a saint completely estranged from the earthly life— she continues to be a person on earth, while at the same time, a dweller of Heaven.

Nevertheless, the mystery of her sanctity, her transformed, grace-filled state, came to be only between herself and the one to whom she dedicated her life. Through Christ is St. Mary given the whole world; she needs nothing in particular, possesses everything in her communion with God—“I eat and clothe myself with the word of God, the Master of all things.” Having acquired “the mind of Christ”, the acetic possesses perfect knowledge of everything—“I never studied from books. Neither have I heard anyone singing or reading from them. But the word of God, living and effective, itself teaches men knowledge.” Without a doubt, these words not only testify to the grace-filled, spirit-filled state to which she came after seventeen years of spiritual struggle in the desert. It is also an instruction to elder Zosima, who dared to consider himself perfect based on his scrupulous following of a traditionally correct life vocation, at which he had been placed from his early childhood. Mary, on the other hand, never sought the ideal way of life, but sought God Himself in Whom she attained perfection. The essence of this instruction helps us understand the remarkable theologian, ascetic, and monk—St. Maximos the Confessor. He distinguishes different kinds of knowledge of Christ—knowledge of Christ according to the flesh—this is the knowledge of God received indirectly through the letter, text, rites, history, or tradition. The knowledge of Christ according to the flesh isn’t perfect, because “fleshly” measuring is imperfect in and of itself. Here the word of God is present, but not directly—it is diffracted through the thickness of linguistic, cultural, and other human layers. The person who knows Christ only through the flesh is imperfect in his knowledge of the divine—though he may know all the church dogmas, cannons, and texts of Holy Scripture. You see, human language (no matter which one) cannot express the word of God flawlessly, to the full. In full measure and perfectly, the Word of God Itself is expressed from Himself, in the Spirit; and to be a possessor of the Spirit is the portion of him who strives towards the Living God through the multitude of reflections and images of the Divine Word in the in the “human” sphere; who strives to behold the word of God directly, to make his mind touch the divine Word, pulling away the veil that envelopes Him. According to St. Maximos’s thought, the apostle Paul witnesses precisely to this: Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more (2 Cor. 5:16). (Chapter on theology, 2:61). St. Mary called such knowledge of the Word of God the knowledge of Christ Resurrected. This knowledge can be obtained only through personal experience, as opposed to knowledge of Christ after the flesh, which is accessible to all.

St. Mary’s ascetic labor surpasses Zosima’s ascesis precisely by its all-conquering aspiration towards the Risen Christ. This is not even the ascetic labor comprised of some series of self-denying acts, but the state of the ultimate openness to God, to His action, which makes any ascetic labor, any action in the name of the Creator possible.

I am sincerely convinced that at the remarkable service of the Great Canon and “Standing of St. Mary” we can feel, comprehend, and understand the essence of Christian ascetic labor, co-standing with St. Mary in her fiery, bold striving toward the Savior, Who seeks out the soul of a sinner.

By Priest Maxim Prikhodko

Source: http://orthochristian.com/92473.html

Like many other “second-order” virtues, fasting is spiritually beneficial principally because of what it enables us to do, or learn, or achieve, rather than intrinsically, in its own right. Fasting assists us in prayer by a) clearing the mind, b) by removing certain common physiological and psychological shackles to concentrated and sustained prayer, and c) by putting us back in touch with the reality of our genuine dependence upon God’ providence, instilling in us a sense of humility and realism about our factual situation as created beings. In addition to these more practical benefits, fasting is also important as an obedience, one which builds character by instilling in us the more general virtue of self-restraint, giving us practice in setting our own desires to one side for the purpose of fulfilling God’s will. Finally, fasting is a momentary and deliberate mode of participation in a higher life, a paradisical life, in which the death, pain, and suffering of other creatures is not a condition for human survival – a moment which both forshadows the final eschaton, and looks backwards to the life of Adam and Eve before the fall, enabling those of us who have not taken upon ourselve the more demanding obligations of the monastic life, a temporary mode of participation in that ascetical ideal. For all of these reasons, fasting is important, and indeed, obligatory for Orthodox Christians.*

This week, I’d like to specifically address the question of precisely how fasting helps us in the art of prayer. To a great extent, this assistance is physiological in character. One of the general results of reduced food intake is that the body begins, instead of burning ingested calories, to use resources already stored in the body as fat for food. This biological process, called ketosis, was absolutely essential for human survival during periods of want, and was found by most ancient cultures, including the ancient Jews, to be highly effective for clearing the mind from some of its customary frenetic activity, and for encouraging a certain degree of dispassion (in that one finds it easier not to obsess about what one “wants”). Both of these effects are, for obvious reasons, helpful in one’s religious life.

Fasting also helps one stay alert, since while one is fasting one is not subject to the usual glut of high calories after one’s meals, and so not as strongly affected by a desire to sleep after eating. This too, is useful, both for staying awake during private prayer, and during the public services of the Church, which tend to be more frequent during the fasting periods.

Amazingly enough, fasting even helps one be less concerned about eating and, once one is accustomed to it, less distracted by food. Biologically speaking, in addition to helping one burn body fat, ketosis also has the advantage of helping one feel less hungry and helping one to maintain muscle tone. So fasting, when taken seriously, actually helps one overcome one’s obsession with food itself. This is, I think, helpful for people to know, since I find that converts, for instance, are often afraid to keep the fast for fear of dealing with the discomfort of actual hunger. This is not generally a problem, for simple biological reasons related to ketosis.

The part of us that fasting usually causes to suffer is the part of us that wants to be constantly entertained and catered to – and, of course, this is one of the very aspects of our character that we are seeking to overcome through fasting and prayer in the first place.

To be fair, ketosis, as a sustained biological process, is usually not fully entered into save after a somewhat longer period of extended or complete fasting, which is why the so called “Ninevite Fast” (a complete three-day fast) at the beginning of Lent was customary for Orthodox Christians of the past and also why a regimen of no more than two small meals a day was proscribed for weekdays during Lent. When fasting is practiced in such a way, in its fullness, as it were, so that one begins to realize the degree of one’s fundamental dependence upon God and the kindly benefits of His sheltering and nurturing creation, then we are also given a visceral sense of our own habitual ingratitude and the goodness of God’s creation. Without such additional efforts, however, the practical impact of fasting on our prayer life may be relatively small, and difficult to perceive, and this appears to have led many in the modern Church to question its usefulness on empirical grounds. Those of the faithful who have made use of the traditional fasting practices of the Church in their fullness, however, are well aware of the prayerful and dispassionate benefits of the practice. If you don’t believe me – go ask any monastic!

In any case, fortunately there are other benefits of fasting available even to those of us who do nothing more than keep the basic fasting rules regarding what types of food may or may not be eaten on given days. I’ll discuss that more next week.

Source: http://www.ocf.net/why-we-fast-purifying-our-prayer/

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