I have begun a new podcast called Orthodox Daily Prayer. I will endeavor to keep it updated daily with Morning and Evening Prayer. This is a condensed version of the prayer cycle of the day as printed in the Orthodox Study Bible. It will eventually be available on iTunes but I am waiting for their approval. For now you can follow this link. I will also place a permanent link on the sidebar and on the parish website at http://www.stmichaelorth.org/.
Keep in mind that for Orthodox the daily cycle begins with evening prayer. So the evening prayer that is on the site now is for Monday.
Archbishop Nicolae’s Meditation on the On the 21st day of the month of November we celebrate the bringing to the temple of Jerusalem of the Virgin Mary. The dismissal hymn sung at the Vespers and Matins reveal the significance of this feast: Today is the prelude of God’s generosity, the herald of the coming of salvation for all mankind. In the temple of God the Virgin is revealed to all, her presence foretelling the coming of Christ. With all our hearts, let us, therefore cry out to her: Rejoice, O Fulfillment of the Creator’s plan.
This is the forefeast of the Annunciation of the Incarnation of the Savior of the world. The bringing of the Virgin to the temple shows us, before its fulfillment, the Annunciation, the good will of God toward His creation. This act of the holy parents Joachim and Anna, of offering the Holy Virgin for service to the Temple reveals to us the fulfillment of the plan of the Creator to redeem the human race.
Let us remember that Joachim and Anna were God-fearing people who respected the guidance of the Old Law, but did not have children, which according to the beliefs of the Judean people, meant that God did not look favorably upon their family. God chose these righteous and faithful people to be “the prelude of God’s generosity” because they had promised that should God bless them with a child they would offer this child for service to the Temple, for service to God. Through the fulfillment of this promise, not only was the blessing of God poured upon them, but the gift which they received from God became a gift to the entire creation. God had turned His face toward them, but also toward the entire humanity.
The Entrance of the Mother of God in the Temple is the feast which heralds the benevolence of God, but also of the faithfulness of Joachim and Anna, who kept their covenant with God. Their faithfulness to God has brought them grace upon grace. Although they were advanced in age, they continued to pray for child. They continued to believe that their prayer would be heard and that matters which are impossible to man are possible to God. They believed that only God could change the purpose of their life, and He could bring the blessing for which they wished their entire life. And they were thankful for the gift received from God.
It is appropriate for all those who are faithful to be thankful; all of us who believe in God the Creator, Preserver, and Savior. It is appropriate to be thankful at this time when we prepare for the national holiday of Thanksgiving. It is appropriate to set aside for ourselves a moment of reflection and thanksgiving. Reflect on the history of the American colonists who sought for a land of liberty and well being. Likewise, reflect on the history which followed since that time, a history which has shaped this longing of the first colonists for religious freedom. Our reflection is made whole through thanksgiving. As we gather as families for this holiday, we thank God for the good things He has showered upon our forefathers, but also upon us.
Let us give glory and thanks to God for all things.
Blessed Thanksgiving,
† Archbishop NICOLAE
So what is the virtue of faith and how can we define it? My dictionary defines faith in several different ways. 1. Confidence in or dependence on a person, statement, or thing as trustworthy. 2. Belief without need of certain proof. 3. Belief in God or in the Scriptures or other religious writings. My theological dictionary defines faith in some of the same ways but adds this one; Belief and trust in Christ as one’s savior. No doubt this is a decidedly Christian view. Basically faith is a belief without proof but also steadfastness in this belief.
Faith is the foundational virtue of all Christian belief. We cannot go any further in our discussion if we do not have faith. Faith is the natural possession of all human beings that are wise and virtuous. Without faith in humanities ability to know, to do well, and to find meaning in life then nothing wise or virtuous can be achieved.
In his letter to the Hebrews St. Paul defines faith in these words, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Faith then is the confidence in the spiritual capabilities of humanity and in the goodness and power of God. Faith is a gift from God that is given to all and accepted by all who are open to activity of God in their lives. (Ephesians 2:8)
Sometimes we have the tendency to believe that faith is a blind leap into the dark and the unknown. Sometimes the Church has used faith to explain everything that we do. “We just need faith.” But genuine faith is in fact not a blind leap it is not an irrational or unreasonable acceptance of the unreasonable and the absurd. Faith that is rooted and grounded in our reasonable nature that is made in the image of God is genuine. If we do not have faith in the Scriptures this becomes the epitomes of foolishness and absurdity. “The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good.” Psalm 14:1-2) “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any that act wisely that seek after God. (Psalm 53:1-2)
As humans, we were made to have faith in God. We were created in His image and likeness and to worship God the creator of all things. If we do not have belief in God then we pervert human nature and this is the cause of all evils. The weakness of our faith in God is rooted in sin, impurity and finally pride. This is not something on the intellectual level but it is in fact our suppression of the truth of God and our refusal to acknowledge God with honor and thanksgiving.
Those of us who wish to be spiritual are people who live “by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) The spiritual person then is one who, by the grace of God, is faithful in all things.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
The Orthodox Church, on the night of Pascha, gives witness to this great mystery of the coming of the Lord. St. John the Evangelist has said it this way, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us…” (I John 1:1-2).
The Church is the new temple in which resides the grace which restores man to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the laboratory of the love and holiness of God given to us men, it is the new life of the Trinity which has been incarnated and communicated to us through the Church in the Holy Mysteries.
The Paschal period particularly accentuates the Apostles’ need to be strengthened in their faith, for even though they had accompanied the Savior for more than three years and had seen His miracles and witnessed His word of power, they were still confused at His resurrection. This shows us clearly that man needs something more than the word, something constitutive—the grace of God which brings new life. In fact, the Savior tells them at His Ascension, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witness in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the ends of the earth”(Acts 1:8).
The Holy Apostles received the mission to proclaim the word, but not just in any way. The work of salvation is not human, but divine. In the Church, God gives us Himself, making us partakers and fellow-laborers in salvation. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in the Holy Mysteries, we receive from the power of God’s grace, which profoundly illumines and renews mankind and the entire world. From the beginning until now, the Church, through its ministry manifested in the Holy Apostles, the Holy Fathers, and all the Saints, reveals the new life. In every time and epoch, Tradition has represented the way in which man has understood and translate into deeds this understanding of how to live that new life.
For those of us today who are involved in the life of the Church, society expects us to give authentic responses to the problems of our time, in the spirit of the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition. Therefore all of us—both the young and those who are older, men and also women, simple people as well as scholars—are one body and each of us members working toward the same goal—salvation.
In our Archdiocese in North America we find ourselves in a specific context, which requires a spiritual strategy that is adapted to the major problems that confront us—to name a few: Christian identity and witness, universality and specificity, the perennial and the contingent, tradition and renewal, mission, new and renewing standards, etc.—just to mention a few. To all these things the Church must respond with its message to become exemplary history. The response we give as members of the Church, modeled on the image of Christ, must incarnate the commandment of love of neighbor which God has given us, and which our forefathers and mothers have demonstrated in founding churches as witnessing communities of faith in God.
May Christ the Lord illumine us through His grace, that through our ministry we may be living stones of the spiritual edifice which is the Church—the Body of Christ.
Once he arrived in Thessalonica and took up his post as proconsul, Demetrios confessed the Resurrected Christ and encouraged the Thessalonians to embrace the new faith. As St. Paul had done, Demetrios showed himself as a true Apostle to the city of Thessalonica. Not even the arrival of the emperor made him change his attitude, even though he knew that the punishment was prison or even death. A young servant by the name of Nestor, receiving the blessing of St. Demetrios, defeats the famous arena fighter Lyaeus, which angered the emperor greatly. Like many other Christians, Demetrios and Nestor are sentenced to death for their courage to confront the emperor and for the confession of their faith in Christ.
The story of the martyrdom of St. Demetrios is known to all Christians. We are all aware of the persecution of the early Christians in the first centuries after Christ. We are all aware of the fervor of those Christians, who paid a price of suffering and death, for confessing Christ as the God who saves us. They paid a price in likeness with the sacrifice that the Savior himself suffered for us.
How do we understand that we must confess Christ today? We live in a free world where we fear neither an emperor nor his servants. Therefore, we do not fear for our lives. Thus we can believe that confessing the Christian faith can be accomplished without danger. However, it is too seldom that we ask ourselves how we confess Christ in our times. We forget too quickly the words of the Savior himself, who exhorts us to confess that: „Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32) But we especially forget the warning which follows: „But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:33)
Consequently the example of St. Demetrios’ confession of the Christian faith before the emperor, is not simply a beautiful story of courage, worthy of history textbooks. It is the fulfillment of Christian life which requires confessing our faith in Christ. Irrespective of time and place, the Christian reveals himself according to the measure of his courage to confess his faith. The words of the Savior are clear and they are not subject to our self-serving interpretations.
Let us listen to His words again and to ask ourselves how we will confess Christ before men in order to receive His confession before the heavenly Father.
In Latin a virtue is described as personal characteristics valued as promoting individual and collective well being and therefore are good by their very definition. In the early usage of the word it was used to describe something as masculine or war like. The opposite of a virtue is a vice, something we are all too familiar with I am afraid.
In a wider definition of virtue the word would refer to excellence and something that is essentially good. Virtues are something that should be practiced all of the time. The three major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share the virtues is common. In the Jewish tradition God is known as the compassionate one and is often times invoked as the Father of Compassion. In the Islamic tradition the Qur’an is the great repository of all virtue in earthy form and the Prophet Mohamed and his reported sayings are the exemplar of the virtue in human form.
In addition to the beatitudes that Jesus spoke in the Gospels, there are many fruits of the Holy Spirit as found in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5:22-23 “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” In many ways the fruits listed are virtues in a strict sense of the definition we have laid out at the beginning.
The Orthodox Christian Church teaches that the human body as well as the soul has to be trained and disciplined because after all we humans are a unity of soul and body. For the Orthodox Christians we use fasting and self-control as the primary source of all good and the foundational act in acquiring virtue. This is something to work up too not something that happens over night.
In the book of Genesis we read that human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. The 7th Century Theologian John of Damascus writes, “The expression according to the image indicates rationality and freedom, while the expression according to the likeness indicates assimilation to God through virtue.” All of the human virtues can be attributed to God. They are the property of the divine which should be in all of us by the gift of God during creation and our salvation through Christ Jesus.
The likeness of God depends upon our moral choices upon our virtues and the likeness can be destroyed by sin in the very real sense. The image of God however can never be lost even by the most sinful act. We do not possess these virtues from the start. The virtues are a goal that we all must aim for. The virtues are something which we can only hope to acquire by degrees through the grace of God.
Faith, “the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Hope, the assurance of the good outcome of our lives lived by faith in God. Love, The greatest virtue of all. If we do not love one another we cannot love God, for God is love.
If we just take aim at these virtues who knows our world might just be a better place.