Resources

Many informative articles were published in our parish newsletters in the years prior to Covid. Email to the friends and faithful of Holy Cross has replaced our newsletters, but many of the articles are collected here. Use the indexes below to find the topic or author you’re interested in. (Once you click on a topic or author, scroll to the bottom of the page to see the search results.)

Also, have a look at the Recommended Readings on the OCA (Orthodox Church in America) website for a list of books covering a wide range of topics. Essential Orthodox Christian Beliefs: A Manual for Adult Instruction is also available for free download on the OCA’s website.

(Speaking of our parent jurisdiction, the OCA traces its origins to the arrival in Kodiak, Alaska in 1794 of eight Orthodox missionaries from the Valaamo Monastery in the northern Karelia region of Russia. Today, the OCA includes some 700 parishes, missions, communities, monasteries, and institutions throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.)

We hope you’ll find these suggested readings to be both edifying and encouraging!

Fasting, Practices Anonymous Fasting, Practices Anonymous

On the Nativity Fast

It all begins with an idea.

2011

Make ready, O Bethlehem: let the manger be prepared, let the cave show its welcome. The truth has come, the shadow has passed away...1

The herald of the pending miracle begins. It is the Eve of the Nativity as these words are sung. The transformation of the world, the birth of God, is but hours away, and it is through such words that the faithful are called into attentiveness and anticipation. ‘Make ready, O Bethlehem!’ We can see the radiant lights of of the feast just beyond the horizon, we can taste the sweetness of the miracle that took place beneath a star; and through the words sung around and within us in the Church, the great eve of the birth of God is made a reality in our present experience. We make ready, and we wait.

But this is not the first moment of preparation for the Feast. For ‘forty days’, with the usual adjustments to that length for Sabbaths and Sundays causing it to begin on 15 November 2, the Church has been setting herself in readiness, drawing her attention to the mystery to come, waiting in expectation. She has made use of the great joy that will arrive on Christmas day as occasion to take up the task considered by so many as opposite to joy: fasting, with all its rigour, its harshness, its discomfort. These are the steps which, for Orthodox Christians throughout the world, lead to the radiant wonder of the Nativity of Christ.

Whence the spirit of this fast, which each year ‘stands in the way’ of our arrival at Christmas rejoicing? The question itself helps guide the way to an answer: the fast seems awkward because so often we see Christmas as joy alone and do not appreciate fully the deep and profound mystery that is at the heart of our rejoicing. ‘Hark, the herald angels sing!’ we are eager to recall, but quietly we forget the universal significance of the event that is the cause of their singing. It is not just that a babe is born: He who is without birth is born. He who created all is made a created child. He who holds the universe in the palm of His hand, is held in the hands of a tender mother.

Before Thy birth, O Lord, the angelic hosts looked with trembling on this mystery and were struck with wonder: for Thou who hast adorned the vault of heaven with stars hast been well pleased to be born as a babe; and Thou who holdest all the ends of the earth in the hollow of Thy hand art laid in a manger of dumb beasts. For by such a dispensation has Thy compassion been made known, O Christ, and Thy great mercy: glory to Thee. (Sticheron of the Third Hour, Eve of the Nativity)

We do not tremble when we think of Christmas, we are not always struck with the wonder of the Nativity. Instead, we buy gifts and plan parties, catching a glimpse of the joy of the Feast, but without a heart immersed in its wonder. Thus the fast becomes that which we must ‘get through’ in order to reach that joyful day. When we arrive there, however, if this has been our attitude, we are caught askance by the hymns the Church feeds into our hearts. We find ourselves joined to a celebration of triumphal release from bondage, but we little understand what that bondage means. We sing songs of joy for deliverance, but we do not truly comprehend how we are enslaved. We find ourselves suddenly transported to the mountaintop, but without having climbed there from the valley far below, the scene we see is only another beautiful picture casually set before our eyes, and not the vision for which we have worked and struggled and longed with all our being. We may feel joy, perhaps even Christmas joy; but we will know, deep inside, that our joy is not like that which is exalted in the hymn:

Make glad, O ye righteous! Greatly rejoice, O ye heavens! Ye mountains, dance for joy! Christ is born; and like the cherubim the Virgin makes a throne, carrying at her bosom God the Word made flesh. Shepherds, glorify the newborn Child! Magi, offer the Master gifts! Angels, sing praises, saying: ‘O Lord past understanding, glory to Thee!’ (First sticheron of the Praises, Nativity Matins)

A Time of Preparation

The Fast of the Nativity is the Church’s wise solace and aid to human infirmity. We are a forgetful people, but our forgetfulness is not unknown to God; and our hearts with all their misconceptions and weakened understandings are not unfamiliar to the Holy Spirit who guides and sustains this Church. We who fall far from God through the magnitude of our sin, are called nonetheless to be close to Him. We who run afar off are called to return. Through the fast that precedes the great Feast of the Incarnation -- which itself is the the heart and substance of our calling -- the Church helps draw us into the full mystery of what that call entails.

Like Great Lent, the fast of the Nativity is a journey. ‘Come, O ye faithful, and let us behold where Christ is born. Let us join the Magi, kings from the east, and follow the guiding star’ 3. Let us ‘join the Magi’, let us ‘follow’ and ‘behold’. On the fifteenth of November, the Church joins together in a journey toward that salvation first promised to Adam in God’s curse laid upon the serpent (Gen 3.14-15). The One who will crush the head of the serpent, of sin and the devil and all that is counter to the life God offers, is Him to whom the star leads us. The fast of the Nativity is our journey into the new and marvellous life of the Holy Trinity, which is offered by God but which we must approach of our own volition. In this act, we are joined to the story of our fathers. The gift of a new land and great blessings was freely given by God to Abraham, but in order to obtain it, ‘Abram went, as the Lord had told him’ (Gen 12.4).

A journey is, by its nature, naturally ascetic. Unless my life is already very humble, I cannot take the whole of my possessions on a journey. I cannot transport social and political ties along a journey’s path. I can never be too reliant on the plans I have made for my journey: a control lying beyond the self must be admitted and accepted. This is the spirit to which the fast calls us.

A journey is, by its nature, an act of movement, of transportation, of growth. What is old is left behind, newness is perceived and embraced, growth of understanding takes place. And even if the journey comes to a close in the same physical location from which it began, that place is transformed for us by the journey through which we have re-approached it. The aid shelter on a street corner in London is no different after a journey to the Middle East; but after witnessing there first-hand the struggles and torments of poverty, of suffering, of sorrow, the meaning and importance of that small shelter is indeed different for me.

Here the importance of the fast. As the Nativity approaches, that great feast of cosmic significance and eternal, abounding joy for which heaven and earth together rejoice, the fast calls me to consider: do I rejoice? Why do I rejoice? The hymnography of the Church makes it clear that this is a feast for all the world, for all creation; and the fast calls me to take my place in that creation, to realise that, despite all my infinite unworthiness, Christmas is a miracle for my soul too.

Make ready, O Bethlehem: let the manger be prepared, let the cave show its welcome. The truth has come, the shadow has passed away; born of a Virgin, God has appeared to men, formed as we are and making godlike the garment He has put on. Therefore Adam is renewed with Eve, and they call out: ‘Thy good pleasure has appeared on earth to save our kind’.

Adam and Eve, all of humankind, are renewed and made alive in the Incarnation of God in Christ, who ‘appeared on earth to save our kind’. Fallen flesh, so long bound to death, so long yearning in for growth and maturation into the fullness of life, is sewn into the garment of Christ and at last made fully alive. There is a pleasing old saying, with perhaps more than a touch of truth to it, that humankind drew its first full breath at the infant Christ’s first cry.

We are called, then, to approach this great mystery as God’s condescension into our own lives, personally and collectively. The Canon of Matins for the Nativity lays it out clearly: ‘He establishes a path for us, whereby we may mount up to heaven’ 4. The Nativity is not only about God’s coming down to us, but about our rising up to Him, just as sinful humanity was lifted up into the person of Christ in the Incarnation itself.

We are called to arise, then, during the fast that is the journey into this Feast. ‘O blessed Lord who seest all, raise us up far above sin, and establish Thy singers firm and unshaken upon the foundation of the faith’ 5. The faithful take up this call through the abandonment of those things which bind, rather than free, in order that a focus on God as ‘all in all’ might become ever more real and central to daily life.

Meals are lessened and regimented, that a constant, lingering hunger may remind us of the great need we each have for spiritual food that goes beyond our daily bread. The number of Church services is gradually increased, that we might know whence comes that true food. Sweets and drink are set aside, that we might never feel content with the trivial and temporal joys of this world. Parties and social engagements are reduced, that we might realise that all is not so well with us as we often take it to be. Anything which holds the slightest power over us, whether cigarettes or television, travel or recreation, is minimized or -- better -- cast wholly aside, that we might bring ourselves to be possessed and governed only by God.

The fast is an ascetic time, designed by the Church to strip away common stumbling blocks into sin, to provide us with the means of self-perception that we lack in our typical indulgence, and to begin to grow the seeds of virtue. All these are necessary if we are ever to know even partially, or appreciate even menially, the ‘depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God’ 6. We must take up the task of our own purification, gifted by God and achieved only through His grace, that we might approach Him on Christmas Day as did the Magi and the shepherds in Bethlehem:

Come, O ye faithful, inspired by God let us arise and behold the divine condescension from on high that is made manifest to us in Bethlehem. Cleansing our minds, let us offer through our lives virtues instead of myrrh, preparing with faith our entry into the feast of the Nativity, storing up treasure in our souls and crying: Glory in the highest to God in Trinity, whose good pleasure is now revealed to men, that in His love for mankind He may set Adam free from the ancestral curse. (Sticheron of the Sixth Hour, Christmas Eve)

True Joy in the Mystery of the Nativity

The Church journeys toward the birth of Christ God, steered by the ship that is the Nativity fast. She does so with the knowledge that unless she struggles up the mountain that is desperately too steep for her to climb, she will never know the breadth of the gift that is the mountain’s levelling by the hand of God. Resurrection unto life is the ultimate gift of the Incarnation, but unless a man understands that he is dead, he will never know the meaning of resurrection.

The fast is a holy and blessed tool that brings us closer to such self awareness. It reveals to us who we are, perhaps more importantly who we are not, and makes us more consciously aware of that for which we stand in need. Then and only then, with eyes opened -- even only partially -- by the ascetic endeavour, we will truly know the life-giving light of the Nativity of Christ. We will hear with awe the proclamation of the hymn at vespers, taking the mystery presented therein as united directly to us:

Come, let us greatly rejoice in the Lord as we tell of this present mystery. The middle wall of partition has been destroyed; the flaming sword turns back, the cherubim withdraw from the tree of life, and I partake of the delight of Paradise from which I was cast out through disobedience. For the express Image of the Father, the Imprint of His eternity, takes the form of a servant, and without undergoing change He comes forth from a Mother who knew not wedlock. For what He was, He has remained, true God: and what He was not, He has taken upon himself, becoming man through love for mankind. Unto Him let us cry aloud: God born of a Virgin, have mercy upon us! (Sticheron of Vespers of the Nativity)

We will never fully comprehend this ineffable mystery; some knowledge is properly God’s alone. But by His grace through the ascetic effort, we will come to understand -- perhaps, most of us, only to the slightest degree -- how this mystery is our own mystery, how His life is our own life, and how the salvation of Christmas Day is, indeed, our own salvation. And with this realisation, joy: joy far greater than a mere entrance into the temple on Christmas Day could ever bring us. This is the joy of the age-old journey of man, our own journey, come to its fulfilment in the awe-inspiring mystery of God Himself become a man. With this joy in our hearts, we shall embrace the hymnographer’s words as our own:

Today the Virgin comes to the cave to give birth ineffably to the pre-eternal Word. Hearing this, be of good cheer, O inhabited earth, and with the angels and the shepherds glorify Him whose will it was to be made manifest a young Child, the pre-eternal God. (Kontakion of the Forefeast)

Article from Monachos.net with permission: http://www.monachos.net/content/liturgics/liturgical-reflections/97 (Link no longer works but left here for attribution.)

Notes:

1. Sticheron at the Royal Hours, by St Sophronius of Jerusalem.

2. According to the Church Calendar; 28th November on the civil calendar.

3. Sessional Hymn of the Nativity Matins.

4. Irmos of Canticle Two, from the Iambic (second) Canon of the Nativity Matins.

5. Irmos of Canticle Three, Iambic Canon of Nativity Matins.

6. Cf. Romans 11.33; found in the sticheron in tone four from the Sixth Hour of Christmas Eve.

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Fasting, Practices John Boojamra Fasting, Practices John Boojamra

Some Reflections on Fasting

It all begins with an idea.

by John Boojamra

2011

Fasting, or more correctly, the practice of abstinence for certain days and certain periods of the year, has long caused difficulty in the minds of many Orthodox in North America. Every year, as the Easter lent approaches, Orthodox begin to wonder what, if anything, to do in preparation for the feast. (Very little direction has come from the hierarchs of the Church by way of guidelines or explanations and each parish priest, if he does more than simply announce that the fast is beginning, will say something different.) In general, I think it is safe to say that the practice and idea of fasting is largely ignored. Many people generally dismiss fasting with the rather simple and naive “This is the twentieth century; those rules were made for the past and simpler days.”

Nonetheless, in spite of practice of most people, we must take the practice of fasting seriously, if for no other reason than other people, throughout Christian history, have taken it seriously. It is valuable here to consider not so much “how” to fast, as “why” fast. This deeper understanding of the reason for this practice in Christianity will help us in determining our own fasting practices.

We must first admit that fasting has a firm foundation in the Scripture and Tradition of the Church, as well as the practice of the Jewish community which gave birth to the Church. We know for instance that Jesus fasted, that the disciples of John the Baptist fasted, and that Jesus said that prayer and fasting were necessary for casting out certain evils.

Fasting And This World

To this emphasis we must add a certain otherworldly emphasis in Jesus’ teaching. Perhaps the most realistic treatment of this is in Matthew (6:19-21).

Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be.

In spite of the great love which Jesus and His Church have demonstrated for the world and life in the world, there is in Christianity a reservation about the world and human life as it is now. The Church calls it “fallen world,” a world in all its aspects in some way separated voluntarily from the love, and life of God, its Creator. Fasting must be seen in this light —”Seek first the kingdom of God and all else will be added.” It is a matter of priority. Fasting cannot be separated from a struggle for the Kingdom of God and from a realistic appraisal of what the world is. There is something about fasting, something about refusing, as it were, to make a total investment in the world as it is, that is associated with the struggle to build the Kingdom of God.

Before discussing what fasting is, perhaps it would be beneficial to say a few words about what it is not. This is a valuable approach since there is a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the nature and function of fasting, both as an idea and as a practice.

God, we must admit first, is not simple-minded: He has no need of our fasting. Our efforts do not affect Him in any way. We cannot buy His love or His grace. This immediately takes fasting out of any legalistic framework and puts it on the level of personal spiritual growth and struggle. For instance, because one person fasts more strictly than another does not mean that God loves the first more or gives him more grace. It is as unimaginable that you could get more grace from a greater effort as getting more grace from a larger portion of the Eucharist.

Yet many people think of it in strictly legalistic terms. God’s love is always given freely and the degree of participation in that love is conditioned by our ability to receive it and be changed by it. This is the brilliant Orthodox idea of cooperation or synergy — we must open ourselves to the love and strength that God offers freely. Fasting is a way of achieving this openness.

Another view of fasting, which, like the previous one contains an element of distortion, is that which sees it as a means of voluntary suffering, a way of atoning for sins. Indeed, there may very well be an element of this in fasting, but this cannot be a predominant one. This would bring the practice to the level of individual pathology. Again, we cannot pay God back for our sins and fasting as a means of atoning for sins must be seen in the light of trying to reshape our spiritual lives in a more positive direction.

A third view of fasting is common among both Christians and non-Christians. This view mistakenly sees fasting in the history of the Church as an expression of a pathological morbidity with regard to the world, which is based on a dualistic view — the world, the body, sex, all created and material things are essentially evil; all spiritual things are good. Hence, fasting is an effort to disconnect the self from the use of matter — food, sex, etc. There has indeed been a tendency towards this in the Christian history, but it has been consistently condemned by the Church when it expressed itself. The Church has always affirmed that the created world is essentially good, though suffering from a profound distortion and misdirection.

Fasting As Preparation

What fasting is will necessarily involve us in a discussion of the nature of man and the nature of the world. Fasting is, as the Church uses it, a preparation. Every time we encounter a fast it is prior to a feast. We all know the fast before the Eucharist as preparation for the Eucharist and the fast before Easter as preparation for the great feast. Nothing in life just happens; that is obvious; all sorts of things require a variety of preparations. The Church recognizes the fact that part of getting somewhere is the trip and more than the trip, the anticipation. This is a basic human psychological quality. Perhaps children understand this expectation and anticipation best of all. Full participation demands this kind of expectation and preparation. Now, the nature of Orthodox preparation is no mystery. The Church has taught that man is a unity, he is not a being which has a body and which has a soul; rather, he is a body and he is a soul. The Christian vision is that of a total and unified personality — body and soul. Hence, the Church calls on the entire being to share in the fast and the feast. A season changes in Church — the colors change, the music changes, the services get longer, the icon changes. How does our body share in this except through fasting, except through initiating a change in its normal procedure. Now this description keeps the nature and degree of fasting open. It can involve food, entertainment, sex, in fact, any aspect of our daily and routine lives. It is clear that we Orthodox are not spiritualists or intellectualists, we are Christian “materialists.” The Church’s emphasis on fasting is precisely a reflection of this materialism.

Our Lord says, “lay not up treasures on earth” and fasting is in effect the reminder that our heart cannot be invested like our money in the world. We all know the feeling we have for something when we have an investment in it. People always try to protect their investment. This is natural. That is what our Lord meant. Here we find a rejection of the world, not in an absolute sense, but in a relative sense. The world in itself is valuable only when it is seen in its relationship to God. Since the world is in effect separated from God, freely, then it cannot be fully normal and the Church says limit your participation in the life of the world, not because it is evil, but because it in itself is limited.

Food is the most obvious example. Everyone agrees that eating, after the process of breathing, is the most necessary and normal activity of our life. It is in this area which is regarded in a worldly sense as normal that the Church says stop! think! question everything which the world calls normal and necessary, because the world itself is “abnormal.”. That is, it is abnormal as it now exists apart from God’s love. But fasting is only a beginning and this questioning must be our approach to all the values that the world regards as necessary and even virtuous — victory, self defense, getting ahead, accumulating wealth and property, competition, popularity, self-aggrandizement. All of these are then signed with a question mark.

Fasting And A Clear Image Of The World

Mind you, this is not a rejection of the world, it is a questioning of the values which the world as it now exists, and human societies which characterize it, hold as valuable. Inasmuch as the world is treated as normal, because this is in fact all we know, and inasmuch as it is not normal or truly worldly in the Christian sense, then it is a deception and a lie and we must tell it as it is. In a real sense the Church in asking her people to fast is declaring a moratorium on the world. Remember the various moratoria against the Vietnam war? The same idea is implied. The war had been going on for almost ten years on an incredibly brutal level characterized by My Lai, yet everyone went about his business, apart from inflation which was blamed on pay raises, no one’s life was really affected. We bought our food, celebrated all those little occasions, there was no shortage of butter or meat or autos. The very normalcy of life here at home, at the same time that wholesale death swept Southeast Asia, was a deception. On a cosmic level, the fast is this effort to put the world and life in the world in its proper perspective. To accept the present patterns of the world as normal is a deception! There is no hate for the world in this and it recognizes that something has happened to the worldliness which God created.

I think we must then see fasting, never as a rejection of food or the world, but as a search for true worldliness; a search which must necessarily pass through the stage of preferring something else to the world. “Seek first the kingdom of God and all else will be given to you.” In the same way we fast from all food before liturgy so that we might receive the one true food in the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist that we can get a glimpse of the true nature of food. There is no judgment on food as such. The same is true of the world. As food completes itself in the Eucharist, so the entire created world completes itself in the Kingdom of God.

The world is ours, it belongs to us and needless to say we were not meant to be slaves to its pleasures, its categories, and its values. Fasting is then a declaration of independence from the world and a proclamation of victory over its limitations and evil. “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

It is a recognition that the values of the world are limited and often perverted. Here we are freed, liberated in a real sense, not only from sin but from the fears that characterize life, free to act without fear of criticism as God wants us to act in our everyday life, in politics, in business, in social affairs.

Nothing in human society, the fast declares, is sacred in itself and can demand our loyalty, no form of government, no regime. We are freed to conform to the patterns of the Kingdom of God here and now —love, charity, justice, faith. To those for whom the world is the ultimate reality and the ultimate value it is essential to buy the love of the world and the world will only love those who accept its values. Our Lord assures us that the world will hate us; it has to, because the Christian is the on-going judgment on an on-going corruption that infects human relations and human societies.

For us Christians who live in the world, we are offered a choice: we can consume the world or allow the world to consume us. The first is the only creative approach. The second is psychological and personal disintegration. The fast is what gives us this opportunity.

God, we must admit first, is not simple-minded: He has no need of our fasting - Our efforts do not affect Him in any way. We cannot buy His love or His grace. This immediately takes fasting out of any legalistic framework and puts it on the level of personal spiritual growth and struggle.

Article reprinted from: http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/boojamra_fasting.htm

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Practices, Prayer Metropolitan Jonah Practices, Prayer Metropolitan Jonah

Do Not Resent, Do Not React, Keep Inner Stillness

It all begins with an idea.

by Archimandrite (now Metropolitan) Jonah

When I was in seminary I had the great blessing of becoming the spiritual son of a Greek bishop, Bishop Kallistos of Xelon. He ended his life as the bishop of Denver of the Greek Archdiocese. It was he who taught me the Jesus Prayer. The whole spiritual vision of Bishop Kallistos had three very simple points.

Do not resent. Do not react. Keep inner stillness.

These three spiritual principles, or disciplines, are really a summation of the Philokalia, the collection of Orthodox Christian spiritual wisdom. And they are disciplines every single one of us can practice, no matter where we are in life – whether we’re in the monastery or in school; whether we’re housewives or retired; whether we’ve got a job or we’ve got little kids to run after. If we can hold on to and exercise these three principles, we will be able to go deeper and deeper in our spiritual life.

Do Not Resent

When we look at all the inner clutter that is in our lives, hearts and souls, what do we find? We find resentments. We find remembrance of wrongs. We find self-justifications. We find these in ourselves because of pride. It is pride that makes us hold on to our justifications for our continued anger against other people. And it is hurt pride, or vainglory, which feeds our envy and jealousy. Envy and jealousy lead to resentment.

Resentfulness leads to a host of problems. The more resentful we are of other people, the more depressed we become. And the more we are consumed with the desire to have what they have, which is avarice. Often we’ll then engage in the addictive use of the substance of the material world – whether it’s food or alcohol or drugs or sex or some other thing – to medicate ourselves into forgetfulness and to distract ourselves from our resentments.

One of the most valuable and important things that we can thus do is look at all of the resentments that we have. And one of the best ways of accomplishing this is to make a life confession. And not just once, before we’re baptized or chrismated. In the course of our spiritual life we may make several, in order to really dig in to our past and look at these resentments that we bear against other people. This will enable us to do the difficult work that it takes to overcome these resentments through forgiveness.

What does forgiveness mean? Forgiveness does not mean excusing or justifying the actions of somebody. For example, saying “Oh, he abused me but that’s O.K., that’s just his nature,” or “I deserved it.” No, if somebody abused you that was a sin against you. But when we hold resentments, when we hold anger and bitterness within ourselves against those who have abused us in some way, we take their abuse and we continue it against ourselves. We have to stop that cycle. Most likely that person has long gone and long forgotten us, forgotten that we even existed. But maybe not. Maybe it was a parent or someone else close, which makes the resentment all the more bitter. But for the sake of our own soul and for the sake of our own peace, we need to forgive. We should not justify the action, but we should overlook the action and see that there’s a person there who is struggling with sin. We should see that the person we have resented, the person we need to forgive, is no different than we are, that they sin just like we do and we sin just like they do.

Of course, it helps if the person whom we resent, the person who offended us or abused us in some way, asks forgiveness of us. But we can’t wait for this. And we can’t hold on to our resentments even after outwardly saying we’ve forgiven. Think of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If we don’t forgive, we can’t even pray the Lord’s Prayer without condemning ourselves. It’s not that God condemns us. We condemn ourselves by refusing to forgive. We will never have peace if we don’t forgive, only resentment. It is one of the hardest things to do, and our culture does not understand it. It is to look at the person we need to forgive, and to love them – despite how they may have sinned against us. Their sin is their sin, and they have to deal with it themselves. But we sin is in our reaction against their sin.

Do Not React

So this first spiritual principle – do not resent – leads to the second. We must learn to not react. This is just a corollary of “turn the other cheek.” When somebody says something hurtful, or somebody does something hurtful, what is it that’s being hurt? It’s our ego. Nobody can truly hurt us. They might cause some physical pain, or emotional pain. They might even kill our body. But nobody can hurt our true selves. We have to take responsibility for our own reactions. Then we can control our reactions.

There are a number of different levels to this principle. On the most blatant level, if someone hits you don’t hit them back. Turn the other cheek – that’s the Lord’s teaching. Now, this is hard enough. But there is a deeper level still. Because if somebody hits you, and you don’t hit them back – but you resent them, and you bear anger and hatred and bitterness against them, you’ve still lost. You have still sinned. You have still broken your relationship with God, because you bear that anger in your heart.

One of the things which is so difficult to come to terms with is the reality that when we bear anger and resentment and bitterness in our hearts, we erect barriers to God’s grace within ourselves. It’s not that God stops giving us His grace. It’s that we say, “No. I don’t want it.” What is His grace? It is His love, His mercy, His compassion, His activity in our lives. The holy Fathers tell us that each and every human person who has ever been born on this earth bears the image of God undistorted within themselves. In our Tradition there is no such thing as fallen nature. There are fallen persons, but not fallen nature. The implication of this truth is that we have no excuses for our sins. We are responsible for our sins, for the choices we make. We are responsible for our actions, and our reactions. “The devil made me do it” is no excuse, because the devil has no more power over us than we give him. This is hard to accept, because it is really convenient to blame the devil. It is also really convenient to blame the other person, or our past. But, it is also a lie. Our choices are our own.

On an even deeper level, this spiritual principle – do not react – teaches us that we need to learn to not react to thoughts. One of the fundamental aspects of this is inner watchfulness. This might seem like a daunting task, considering how many thoughts we have. However, our watchfulness does not need to be focused on our thoughts. Our watchfulness needs to be focused on God. We need to maintain the conscious awareness of God’s presence. If we can maintain the conscious awareness of His presence, our thoughts will have no power over us. We can, to paraphrase St. Benedict, dash our thoughts against the presence of God. This is a very ancient patristic teaching. We focus our attention on the remembrance of God. If we can do that, we will begin to control our troubling thoughts. Our reactions are about our thoughts. After all, if someone says something nasty to us, how are we reacting? We react first through our thinking, our thoughts. Perhaps we’re habitually accustomed to just lashing out after taking offense with some kind of nasty response of our own. But keeping watch over our minds so that we maintain that living communion with God leaves no room for distracting thoughts. It leaves plenty of room if we decide we need to think something through intentionally in the presence of God. But as soon as we engage in something hateful, we close God out. And the converse is true – as long as we maintain our connection to God, we won’t be capable of engaging in something hateful. We won’t react.

Keep Inner Stillness

The second principle, the second essential foundation of our spiritual life – do not react – leads to the third. This third principle is the practice of inner stillness. The use of the Jesus Prayer is an extremely valuable tool for this. But the Jesus Prayer is a means, not an end. It is a means for entering into deeper and deeper conscious communion. It’s a means for us to acquire and maintain the awareness of the presence of God. The prayer developed within the tradition of hesychasm, in the desert and on the Holy Mountain. But hesychasm is not only about the Jesus Prayer. It is about inner stillness and silence.

Inner stillness is not merely emptiness. It is a focus on the awareness of the presence of God in the depths of our heart. One of the essential things we have to constantly remember is that God is not out there someplace. He’s not just in the box on the altar. It may be the dwelling place of His glory. But God is everywhere. And God dwells in the depths of our hearts. When we can come to that awareness of God dwelling in the depths of our hearts, and keep our attention focused in that core, thoughts vanish.

How do we do this? In order to enter in to deep stillness, we have to have a lot of our issues resolved. We have to have a lot of our anger and bitterness and resentments resolved. We have to forgive. If we don’t we’re not going to get into stillness, because the moment we try our inner turmoil is going to come vomiting out. This is good – painful, but good. Because when we try to enter into stillness and we begin to see the darkness that is lurking in our souls, we can then begin to deal with it. It distracts us from trying to be quiet, from trying to say the Jesus Prayer, but that’s just part of the process. And it takes time.

The Fathers talk about three levels of prayer. The first level is oral prayer, where we’re saying the prayer with our lips. We may use a prayer rope, saying “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” or whatever form we use. The next level is mental prayer, where we’re saying the prayer in our mind. Prayer of the mind – with the Jesus Prayer, with prayer book prayers, with liturgical prayers –keeps our minds focused and helps to integrate us, so that our lips and our mind are in the same place and doing the same thing. We all know that we can be standing in church, or standing at prayer, and we may be mouthing the words with our lips but our mind is thinking about the grocery list. The second level of prayer overcomes this problem, but it is not the final level. The final level of prayer is prayer of the heart, or spiritual prayer. It is here where we encounter God, in the depths of our soul. Here we open the eye of our attention, with the intention of being present to God who is present within us. This is the key and the core of the whole process of spiritual growth and transformation.

The Prayer of Stillness

The foundation of the spiritual process is learning to keep inner silence, the prayer of stillness. On the basis of this, we gain insight into how to stop resenting and to stop reacting. Then the process goes deeper and deeper, rooting out our deeply buried resentments and passions, memories of hurt and sin, so that the silence penetrates our whole being. Then we can begin to think clearly, and to attain towards purity of heart.

Before beginning this process, it is important to have an established relationship with a spiritual guide, a father confessor or spiritual mother, to help you. Confession is a central part of the spiritual life, and things that come up in prayer, as well as resolving resentments and other issues, are part of that. It is also valuable to expose obsessive or sinful thoughts to your confessor. Simply exposing them deprives them of their power. We always need to be accompanied on the journey within. Prayer is always a corporate action, leading to the transcendence of our individual isolation into a state of communion with God and the Other.

The Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,” or some form of it, can be used as a vehicle to help us bring our attention into a prayerful state. The Jesus Prayer states the intention of our prayer, and we use it first verbally and then mentally until it goes beyond word and thought and becomes pure intention in deep silence.

A prayer rope is very helpful to get started, not so much as to count prayers, but to keep the physical level of attention. We say one prayer on each knot, going round and round the rope, until our attention is focused in prayer. Then we can stop moving around the rope, and be still. The rope is not important in and of itself; one can pray just as well without it. It is an aid. Another aid is to follow your breath. What is important is not to get caught up in technique, but to pray.

The Prayer can be said standing, kneeling or sitting. If one is ill, lying down is acceptable; but it is hard to preserve focused attention while lying down. Prayer is not relaxation. It may relax you, but that is not the point. Posture is important to help keep your attention focused. If you’re sitting, it helps to keep your back straight and your shoulders back. One can also be prostrate on the ground, but it takes practice to let go of the physical distractions.

In beginning to pray, remember that God is “everywhere present and filling all things.” In prayer, you make yourself present to God. Open your mind and heart, your awareness of God, so that the sense of God’s Presence fills your consciousness. At first, we may not have a sense of God’s Presence. But the more disciplined our practice of prayer, the more that conscious awareness of God will fill our mind and heart. This is not an image, a thought “that” God is present (though this is a place to start), or a feeling or physical sensation. It is simply an awareness. This is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, where our awareness moves from the head to the heart, and from God as an object to a sense of being rapt in God’s Presence.

How to Enter the Prayer of Stillness

In short, sit down and collect yourself, and remember that God is present. Say the Trisagion Prayers if you wish. Breathe in slowly and deeply a couple of times, following your breath to the center of your chest. Begin to say the Jesus Prayer quietly, slowly, until you have a sense of God’s Presence. Then let the Jesus Prayer trail off, and go into silence. Thoughts will come, but simply let them go by. Don’t let them grab your attention. But if they do, gently dismiss them and bring your focus back to God’s Presence, perhaps using the Jesus Prayer to reestablish your intention to pray. Go deeper within yourself, below the thoughts, into the deeper stillness and awareness of Presence, and simply abide there.

The period of prayer should start out with a few minutes, and may entirely be occupied at first with the Jesus Prayer. Eventually, over a period of weeks or months, as you begin to master keeping your attention focused and dismissing thoughts, let it expand up to twenty or thirty minutes. Two periods of prayer, early in the morning and early in the evening are an excellent discipline.

Surrender and Detachment

The Prayer of Stillness is a process of inner surrender to the Presence and activity of God within yourself. Surrender your thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, agendas, plans, images and submit them to the Divine Presence. This is surrender of the ego, and the enkindling of our spiritual awareness. We stop our ego and its thoughts from distracting our attention, and permit God’s energy to work within to heal our souls. This is a kind of active and willful passivity, so that God becomes the active partner in prayer.

It becomes obvious that we cannot hold any kind of rancor or resentment, lust or passion, in our minds while trying to enter into silence. In fact, all our attachments to things, people, concepts and ideas have to be surrendered during silent prayer, and thus, they are brought into perspective. The more we connect with God in prayer, the more detached we become. It is a necessity if we are going to progress in prayer and in communion with God. All things that are obstacles to our living communion fall away, if we let them. The key, of course, is to surrender them and let them go.

The Emptying of the Subconscious

One critically important process that occurs is the emptying of the subconscious. After we have gotten to a point of stillness, over a period of days or weeks, we will be flooded by memories of past hurts, sins, resentments, images and sensations, and wrongs done to us. At first, we feel like we make progress in the prayer, and it is nice and peaceful. Then, with the flood of memories, we feel like we are going backwards. This is progress! It is the beginning of the process of the purification of our soul. It is extremely unpleasant, at times, but the key is to not allow ourselves to react. These memories have been suppressed, and are now coming to awareness so that they can be dealt with. This purification is already the action of grace illumining your soul.

During prayer, make a mental note of the memory or sin, and then take it to confession. Sometimes these memories and the feelings connected with them can be overwhelming. This is why accompaniment on the spiritual journey is so important. You need someone who can encourage and reassure you, as well as help you resolve the issues that come to awareness, and forgive your sins. It is extremely distressing when suppressed memories of abuse and violent emotions come up. It can not only be confusing, but it can dominate our consciousness. We have to deal with these issues, as they come up, in order to be purified and open ourselves to God. This means working through forgiveness, accepting forgiveness, and forgiving ourselves and God.

The Imagination

Another thing that comes up is images, which play on our mind and imagination. There are two main levels here: first, the memory images we have seen that are connected with our passions; the second, images from our imagination. All the images we have ever seen are stored in our brain. They range from the face of our mother from our infancy, and other joyful images, to pornographic and violent images or those who have hurt us. These images are especially powerful if they are attached to some kind of passionate act, of lust or anger. They can be a strong distraction from awareness of God. What is important is to remember that these are just thoughts, memories, and we can dismiss them. They have no power over us that we do not give them. The task is to get beneath them, and let them go, and eventually take them to confession.

The second level of images is what is produced by the imagination. We quiet down, and start to pray, and go into all sorts of imaginal realms, populated by angels, demons, and any and everything else. Many people take this as spiritual vision. But it is not. It is the realm of delusion, and there is nothing spiritual about it. This is especially dangerous if one has a past with hallucinogens and other psychotropic drugs. The task is, first, to stay with the Jesus Prayer. Then, after much practice, go into silence and be absolutely resolute to allow no images, even of Jesus or the saints, into one’s mind during prayer. The imagination is still part of the mind, not the spirit (nous). Even icons are not to be contemplated in an objective sense, bringing the image into the mind. As St John Chrysostom wrote, somewhere, “When you pray before your icons, light a candle and then close your eyes!” The icon is a sacrament of the Presence.

Spiritual work is very serious business. If we do not work through the issues that arise in a healthy way, they can literally drive us crazy.

It takes a deep commitment to the spiritual process, so as not to be distracted by the emptying of our subconscious, and led into despondency or despair. The task is to persevere, and let the process take its course. This means confessing our thoughts and resolving our resentments, and receiving absolution of our sins. Eventually, it works itself through, though it may take months or years to do so. As Metropolitan Anthony Bloom said, somewhere, when it gets too heavy, sit back and have a cup of tea! God is going to be there; it is we who have to work through our issues so we can be present to Him.

Dealing with Resentments

Resentment and reaction are deeply interrelated. Resentment is an impassioned reaction, based on a judgment of a person (or the self), where our passions are ignited. Resentment is a reaction which we hold within ourselves, and allow ourselves to nurture. It comes from and feeds off our passions, from judgment of others. Resentment is judgment and objectification of a person according to his actions which have offended us.

The real key to resolving resentment is to realize that it is not the other person who is causing it, but that it is our own reaction. The actions of the other person may have precipitated the reaction, his words or deeds, his sin; but the reaction to those sins, words or deeds is purely our own.

We can only control what belongs to us; we cannot control another person. It is our decision to allow ourselves to be possessed by our passions and reactions, or to take control over our own lives. It is our decision to take responsibility for our own reactions, or to allow ourselves to be caught in the vicious cycle of blaming the other person, in resentment and selfrighteousness.

Blame and resentment lead nowhere, except to bitterness and unhappiness. They make us into helpless victims, which in turn robs us of the power to take responsibility for ourselves.

Resentment comes when we refuse to forgive someone, justifying ourselves by our self-righteous indignation at being hurt. Some of these hurts can be very deep: abuse, abandonment, betrayal, rejection. Sometimes they can be very petty. We keep turning the hurt over and over in our minds, and refuse let it go by justifying our anger. Then we feel justified in hating or despising the person who hurt us. Doing this, we continue to beat ourselves up with someone else’s sin, and compound the other person’s sin by our own resentfulness. We blind ourselves to our own sin, and focus only on the sin of the other, and in so doing, we lose all perspective.

We have to put things into perspective, and realize that the other person’s actions are only part of the equation, and that our own reaction is entirely our own sin. To do this, we have to move towards forgiveness.

To forgive does not mean to justify the other person’s sin. It does not mean that we absolve the other person— not hold them responsible for their sin. Rather, we acknowledge that they have sinned and that it hurt us. But what do we do with that hurt? If we resent, we turn it against ourselves. But if we forgive, we accept the person for who he is, not according to his actions; we drop our judgment of the person. We realize that he is a sinner just like me. If I am aware of my own sins, I can never judge anyone. We can begin to love him as we love ourselves, and excuse his falling short as we forgive ourselves. It helps when the person who hurt us asks for forgiveness, but it is not necessary. We must always forgive: not only because God forgave us; but also because we hurt ourselves by refusing to forgive.

Our resentments can also be extremely petty. Sometimes we resent because we cannot control or manipulate someone to behave according to our expectations. We become resentful of our own frustration, where the other really had nothing to do with it. All our expectations of other people are projections of our own self-centeredness. If we can let other people simply be who they are, and rejoice in that, then we will have tremendous peace!

We have to be watchful over ourselves, so that we do not allow ourselves to project our expectations on others, or allow resentment to grow within us. This kind of awareness, watchfulness, is nurtured by the practice of cutting off our thoughts and practicing inner stillness. By this, we practice cutting off our reactions, which all start with thoughts. We can come to see what is our own reaction, and what belongs to the other.

Eventually, we see that our judgment of the other is really about ourselves, our own actions, words, attitudes and temptations, which we see reflected in the other person. To face this means to face our own hypocrisy, and to change. If we judge and condemn someone for the same sins, thoughts, words and deeds that we have ourselves, then we are hypocrites. We must repent from our hypocrisy. This is real repentance: to recognize and acknowledge our own sin, and turn away from it towards God and towards our neighbor.

We have to see how our sins distract us from loving our neighbor, and from loving God. Our love of our brother is the criterion of our love of God. St John tells us, How can we love God whom we have not seen, if we can’t love our neighbor whom we can? If you say that you love God and hate your brother, you are a liar. If we love God, then we will forgive our neighbor, as God has also forgiven us.

The conscious awareness of our own reactions and judgments, of our attachment to our passions of anger and our own will, is the first level of spiritual awareness and watchfulness. We have to move beyond self-centeredness (oblivious to others), to becoming self-aware, aware of our own inner processes through watching our thoughts and reactions.

Repentance and Confession

Awareness of our sins and hypocrisy, our short comings and falls, leads us to repentance and the transformation of our life. Repentance, conversion, the transformation of our mind and our life, is the core of the Christian life. Repentance does not mean to beat ourselves up for our sins, or to dwell in a state of guilt and morose selfcondemnation. Rather, it means to confront our sins, and reject and renounce them, and confess them, trying not to do them again.

What this does is, that to the extent we renounce and confess our sins, they no longer generate thoughts, which accuse us or spur passionate reactions. Sometimes we have to confess things several times, because we only repent of, or are even conscious of, aspects of the sin. Things that make us feel guilty, provoke our conscience, or that we know are acts of disobedience all should be confessed. We have to train our conscience, not by memorizing lists of sins, but by becoming aware of what breaks our relationship with God and other people. We need to be conscious of God’s presence, and realize what distracts us from it. These things are sins. Of course, we are experts at deluding ourselves, when we really want to do something, and we know that it is not blessable.

Confession is not only Christ’s first gift to the Church, the authority to forgive sins in His Name; but is one of the most important means of healing our souls. Sins are not sins because they are listed in a book somewhere. They are sins because they break our relationship with God, other people, and distort our true self. Sins are sins because they hurt us and other people. We need to heal that hurt, and revealing the act or thought or attitude takes away the shame that keeps it concealed, and prevents healing. We need to confess the things that we are the most ashamed of, the secret sins which we know are betrayals of our true self. If we don’t confess them, they fester and generate all sorts of despondency, depression and guilt, shame and despair. The result of that is that we identify ourselves with our sins. For example, same-sex attraction becomes gay identity. Failure in some area becomes a general self-identification with being a failure.

What is critically important is that we are not our sins, thoughts or actions. These things happen, we sin, have bad thoughts and do wicked and evil things. But we are not our thoughts or actions. Repentance means to stop and renounce not only the actions, but to renounce the identity that goes with it. Thoughts are going to come. But we can learn, through practicing inner stillness, to let our thoughts go. They will still be there, but we can learn to not react to them, and eventually, simply to ignore them.

The process of purifying our self is hard and painful, at first; but becomes the source of great joy. The more we confess, honestly and nakedly, the more we open ourselves to God’s grace, and the lighter we feel. Truly the angels in heaven (and the priest standing before you bearing witness to the confession) rejoice immensely when a person truly repents and confesses their sins, no matter how dark and heinous. There is no sin so grievous that it cannot be forgiven. NOTHING! The only sin not forgiven is thinking that God cannot forgive our sin. He forgives. We have to forgive our self, and accept His forgiveness.

Preparing for confession is an important process. It means to take stock of our life, and to recognize where we have fallen, and that we need to repent. The following should help to prepare for confession, but it is not a laundry list. Rather, it should help to spur our memory, so that we can bring things to consciousness that we have forgotten. It is more of an examination of conscience.

The Passions: Gluttony, lust, avarice; anger, envy, despondency; vainglory, pride. The Commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

Loving God

Do I love God? Do I really believe in God, or just go through the motions?

Do I pray, and when I do, do I connect, or is it just mechanical? Do I rush through prayers, Scripture readings, and spiritual literature? Do I seek the will of God in all things? Do I rebel against what I know to be God’s will, and the Christian life? Do I try to be obedient, and constantly surrender my life to God?

Do I go to church, go to confession and communion regularly, keep the fasts?

Do I try to be conscious of God’s Presence, or not?

Do I try to sanctify my life? Or do I give in to temptation easily? Thoughtlessly?

Loving our Neighbor

How do I treat the people around me? Do I allow myself to judge, criticize, gossip about or condemn my neighbor? Do I put people down? Do I look for their faults? Do I condescend and talk down to others?

Do I treat others with kindness, gentleness, patience? Or am I mean, rough and nasty?

Do I try to control others, manipulate others?

Do I regard others with love and compassion?

Do I bear anger or resentments against others? Hatred, bitterness, scorn?

Do I use and objectify others for my own pleasure or advantage? For sex, for profit, or for anything else which de-personalizes him/her?

Do I envy and bear jealousy towards my neighbor? Do I take pleasure in his misfortunes?

Do I act thoughtlessly, oblivious to the feelings or conscience of the other? Do I lead my neighbor into temptation intentionally? Do I mock him or make fun of him?

Do I honor the commitments I have made? Marriage vows? Monastic vows? Do I honor my parents? Am I faithful in my relationships? Do I have stability in my commitments? Am I conscious of how my words and actions affect others?

Have I stolen anything, abused or hurt anyone? Have I committed adultery? Have I injured or killed someone?

Do I covet other people’s things? Do I lust after possessions or money? Does my life revolve around making money and buying things?

Loving Our Selves

How am I self-centered, egotistical, self-referenced?

Do I take care of myself, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually? Am I obsessed about my self, my image, my appearance, my desires and agenda?

Do I indulge in laziness? Do I get despondent, depressed, despairing?

Do I beat myself up, indulge in self-hatred or self-pity? Do I injure myself? Do I have low self-esteem, or think myself worthless?

Do I blame other people for my reactions? Do I feel myself a victim? Do I take responsibility for my own reactions and behaviors?

Do I engage in addictive behaviors, abusing alcohol, food, drugs, sex, pornography, masturbation? How do I try to console myself when I’m feeling down?

Do I have anger and resentment, rage, and other strong emotions and passions suppressed within me? Do I act out on them? How do they affect my behavior? Can I control them or do I abuse other people?

Am I conscious of how my words affect people?

How am I a hypocrite? Can I face my own hypocrisy? Am I lying to and deluding myself?

Do I have a realistic idea of myself? Am I honest with myself and others? What kind of façade do I put up?

Have I done things which I don’t want to or am too ashamed to admit? Abuse of others or animals, incest, homosexual acts, perverse actions? Have I abused drugs, sex or other things which I don’t want to acknowledge? Am I afraid that I am those things—an alcoholic, drug addict, gay, child abuser? Am I afraid to confess them? Can I forgive myself for these things? What do I feel guilty about? Does guilt control my life? Am I being faithful to myself, to God, to others? Does my life have integrity?

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Practices Fr Christopher Foley Practices Fr Christopher Foley

What Would Jesus Do?

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Christopher Foley

There was a time not to long ago when there were bracelets, t-shirts and various marketed products with the letters "WWJD?" I don't see them as much now, but I am sure you can still find them. WWJD stands for "What would Jesus do?" This campaign was a way to remind all of us that in any given situation it is important to stop and think about what Jesus might do if He were in the same circumstances. This is something that could be practical and, at the very least, build a discipline of pause and hesitation before one simply reacts, or gives into temptation. I think that, while this is helpful, it doesn't really go far enough or puts the focus on mere externals or imitation and doesn't quite get to the heart of the matter. This is not an attempt to totally discredit this, but I think as Orthodox Christians, we take this much more seriously.

From an Orthodox Christian perspective, salvation is the full renewal of mankind into the image and likeness of God. Because of Christ's incarnation, passion, resurrection and glorification we have the possibility of partaking of the divine nature. We become "by grace all that God is by nature," to quote the fathers. This means that we very literally die to the old man and "put on Christ" in our baptism. We actualize this by our continual daily martyrdom where we take up our cross and follow Christ. This means that we do not only imitate Christ, but we are called to be transformed into His image and likeness. It is not something merely external, but a transformation and recreation of the old Adam into a new and glorious "christified" humanity. We are meant to be participants in Christ. We are transformed from within and are past the point of simply asking "what would Jesus do?" but more "what would Jesus be?" (WWJB?) or more correctly "who is He?" This echoes Christ’s own question he asked the disciples in the Gospels, “who do you say that I am?” The focus, you see, is more about being rather than doing. It is here that we can echo St. Paul and say that, as Christians, the more that we become like Christ in our very being and "become like Him in His death" the more that we participate and "attain the resurrection from the dead." He then goes on to say, "Not that I have already attained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me.”

Is this not the whole basis for our approach to the mysteries, or sacraments of the Church? Life in the Church has been called "life in Christ." It is in the Church that we fully participate in the life of Christ. Fr. John Meyendorff reminds us that "Christ's humanity, (by virtue of the incarnation), is penetrated with divine 'energy.' It is, therefore, a deified humanity, which, however, does not in any way lose its human characteristics. Quite the contrary. These characteristics become even more real and authentic by contact with the divine model according to which they were created. In this deified humanity of Christ's, man is called to participate, and to share in its deification. This is the meaning of sacramental life and the basis of Christian spirituality. The Christian is called not to an 'imitation' of Jesus - a purely extrinsic and moral act - but, as Nicholas Cabasilas puts it, to 'life in Christ' through baptism, chrismation, and the Eucharist." All of our worship - hymns, icons, incense, candles, kissing, bowing, etc - become a real participation in this life in Christ. The sacraments of the Church provide an immediate participation in Christ Himself through partaking of His most precious Body and Blood. We die and rise with Him in our baptism. We receive the Holy Spirit at our chrismation. We are healed in body and soul through the anointing of oil. We are blessed through drinking Holy Water. These are all a means of participation in life in the Kingdom of God made present within the Body of Christ - the Church. It is through this participation that we become transformed and changed and can then go out into this world and be a light in the darkness and bring Christ to every place and situation that we find ourselves in. This is why it is so vital to our spiritual life to participate in the sacramental life of the Church. When we commemorate the Great Feasts of the Church Year we enter into the reality of the events and become participants in them. St. Leo the Great said, "Our task now is not to earn this new life but to live it, to enter into the riches of Christ's redemptive work and to allow the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection to enter into our daily lives; for when the Lord Jesus took His seat at the right hand of the Father, He poured out His Spirit on His Church, the Spirit whose mission it is to make available to all believers the salvation Christ has won for us."

So let us ask ourselves not "what would Jesus do?" but "who is He and how can I participate in Him." It is here that we realize that we have been given so much within the life of the Church as consolation and joy. We are given the wonderful and joyous opportunity to share in Christ's life through participation in the Holy Mysteries of the Church. "WWJB?"

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Practices St Innocent of Alaska Practices St Innocent of Alaska

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Christ

It all begins with an idea.

St. Innocent of Alaska

The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny oneself. To deny oneself means: to give up one’s bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world . . . to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God.

A Christian’s second duty is to take up one’s cross. The word “cross” means sufferings, sorrows and adversities. To “take up one’s cross” means to accept without complaint everything unpleasant, painful, sad, difficult and oppressive that may happen to us in life. In other words, to bear all laughter, scorn, weariness, sorrow and annoyance from others; to bear all poverty, misfortune, illness, without regarding yourself as offended. And if, when you are bearing your cross according to the will of God, a proud thought suggests to you that you are not weak like others, but that you are firm, pious and better, root out such thoughts as far as you can, for they ruin all your virtues.

Now there are “external” crosses and “interior” crosses. All the above mentioned “crosses” are external and the Lord will not let the man perish who struggles to bear them wisely. The Holy Spirit will strengthen and guide him and lead him further. But in order to become holy and be like Jesus Christ, merely external crosses are not enough. Outward crosses without interior ones are of no more use than exterior prayer without interior prayer. Outward crosses are borne not only by Christians, but by everyone! There is not a man on earth who hasn’t suffered is some way or another. But whoever wants to follow Jesus must bear interior crosses as well.

Interior crosses can be found at all times, and more easily than exterior ones. Direct your attention to yourself with a sense of penitence, and a thousand interior crosses will spring up! For instance, consider: How did you come to be in this world? Do you live as you ought to? Ask yourself these questions sincerely and you will see that you are the creation and work of God and that you exist solely in order to glorify Him with all your acts, your life, your whole being. But not only do you not glorify Him, but you anger and dishonor Him by your sinful life! Then consider: What awaits you on the other side of your grave? On which side will you stand at the time of Christ’s judgement, on the left or the right? Have you even thought of the eternal separation from God that is Hell? Have you scarcely given one thought to Paradise which the Lord has prepared for you? Have you ever thought that you are depriving yourself of its eternal blessings through carelessness and stupidity? If you begin to reflect in this way, you will undoubtedly begin to be alarmed and disquieted. Don’t try to drive away such thoughts through empty worldly diversions and entertainments for the are profitable for you. In fact, you will find still more crosses!

We can never see the state of our souls in all its nakedness without the special help and grace of God because the interior of our souls is always hidden from us by our own self-love, passions, worldly cares, delusions. What little we see is only superficial and no more that what reason and conscience can show us. The enemy, Satan, tries to keep us blind to ourselves so that we will be prevented from running to God and seeking salvation. But if he cannot discourage us from seeking God, the devil tries another trick. He tries to show us our soul in all its weakness and sin in order to tempt us to despair, for he knows that few of us would stand firm if we saw the really extremely dangerous condition of our souls.

Now when the Lord leads us to knowledge of ourselves, we will certainly be filled with fear and sorrow because we have for so long stubbornly closed our ears to His gentle voice calling us to the Kingdom of God. But the Lord will not tempt us with despair, for any sin can be erased through repentance. But as the Lord reveals to us the state of our souls, what interior crosses we must bear! Just as not all people have the same virtues and the same sins, so interior crosses are not the same for all. For some they are more oppressive, and for others less: for some they come in one way, and for others quite differently. Everything depends on the person’s state of soul, just as the length and method of curing a physical illness depends on the patient’s condition. It is not a doctor’s fault if he must sometimes use very powerful medicine for a prolonged period to cure an illness which the patient himself may have irritated and increased! Whoever wants to be well will consent to bear everything!

Such interior crosses sometimes seem so heavy that no consolation can be found anywhere. Should you find yourself in such a state, or whatever sufferings of the soul you may feel, do not despair or think that the Lord has abandoned you. No! He will always be with you and strengthen you even when it seems to you that you are on the very brink of perdition. He will never allow you to be tempted more than He sees fit. Don’t be afraid, but with full submission surrender to Him, have patience and pray. For He is always our Father, and a very loving Father. And if He leads a person into sufferings or lays crosses upon him, it is in order to make him realize his own weakness and to teach him never to trust in himself and that no one can do anything good without God. It is only to heal his soul, to make him like Jesus Christ, to purify his heart, so that it will be a fit dwelling for the Holy Spirit.

Blessed, a hundred times blessed, is the person whom the Lord grants to bear interior crosses because they are the true healing of soul, a special favor of God, and they show His care for our salvation. Blessed is that man, for he has attained a state of grace impossible to attain without God’s assistance, and which we, to our harm, do not even consider necessary! If you bear your sufferings with submission and surrender to the will of God, He will not abandon you and will not leave you without consolation. And if the Lord grants you such peace and consolation, allowing to experience the sweetness of His grace, do not think this is given because you have attained sanctity. Such thoughts come from pride and can make their appearance even when a person has the power to work miracles! These consolations are the mercy and grace of God alone, Who grants you to taste what He has prepared for those who love Him, so that you will be strengthened for fresh troubles and sufferings and so that you will seek Him with greater zeal.

The third duty of a disciple of Christ is to follow Him. To follow Jesus means to act and live as He did upon the earth.

Jesus always gave thanks and praise to God, His Father, and prayed to Him. We, too, must praise Him and love Him both openly and privately.

Jesus honored Him immaculate Mother and His foster-father. In the same way we should honor and obey our parents and teachers, not irritating them or grieving them by our behavior.

Jesus loved everyone and was kind to all. So too, we should love our neighbor and endeavor, as far as possible, to be on good terms with all (without compromising our faith) and do good to them by word, deed, or thought.

Jesus willingly surrendered Himself to suffering and death. So too, we should not avoid the sufferings of life, or allow them to drive us to despondency, but we should bear them with humility and surrender to God.

Jesus forgave His enemies all that they did to Him. He did them every kind of good and prayed for their salvation. By bearing wrongs without complaint, without revenge and with love you will act as a true Christian (Mt. 5:44)

Being humble in heart, Jesus never sought or desired praise from others. And we should never pride ourselves on anything at all. For example, if you do good to others, give alms, if you are more pious than others, more intelligent, wealthier, etc., this has absolutely nothing to do with you, but has come as a gift of God – only sins and weaknesses are your own, and all the rest is God’s.

To follow Jesus means to obey the word of Jesus Christ. We must listen to, believe and practice what we hear in the Gospel without pretense and in simplicity of heart. Only if we listen intently to His word and struggle to carry its directives in our lives will we become true disciples of Jesus Christ.

And so this is what it means to deny oneself, to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus Christ. This is the true straight way into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the way by which Jesus Himself went while He lived on earth, and by which we Christians must go. There never was and never will be another way.

Certainly this way is rough, narrow and thorny, and seems especially so at the beginning. But on the other hand, it leads straight to Paradise, to the Heavenly Kingdom, to God Who is the Source of all true life. Sorrowful in this way, yet for every step we take along it thousands of spiritual rewards lie ahead, of which the world knows nothing. The sufferings on this way are not eternal, and one can say that they are even no more than momentary, whereas the rewards for them are unending and eternal, like God Himself. The suffering will become less and lighter from day to day, while grace will increase from hour to hour, throughout infinite eternity.

And so, do not be afraid to follow Jesus Christ. Follow Him, hasten and do not delay! Go while the doors of the heavenly Kingdom remain open to you. And even while you are still a long way off our heavenly Father will come to meet you on the way, will kiss you, will put on you the best garment, and will lead you into His Bridal Chamber where He Himself dwells with all the holy Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, and all the Saints, where you will rejoice with true and eternal joy. Amen!

This article originally appeared at http://www.stsymeon.com/stinnoc.html

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Practices, Prayer Fr Christopher Foley Practices, Prayer Fr Christopher Foley

Some Thoughts on Prayer

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Christopher Foley

2007

As Great Lent is approaching let us take some time to dwell on prayer. Lent is usually a time of greater concentration on our spiritual lives and a time of renewal and thoughtful reflection on where we need continued repentance in our lives. This should include more intensified prayer. We should make an effort to keep our prayer “rule” more consistent and to make more space to listen to God as he speaks to us through silence and the “Jesus prayer.” Prayer is so vital to our lives as Christians, and we hear much talk of prayer. There are many books written on the subject and many people ready to tell us the “secrets” of prayer. The one thing we don’t do that often is ask ourselves “what is prayer anyway?” What do we mean when we say “prayer?” This word gets thrown around so much that it can be confusing to understand what it is. There are many different ways to define prayer and theologically discuss it. All of these definitions are wonderful and articles could be written detailing all of these wonderful meanings of prayer. For the sake of focusing some thoughts on the subject, I think the best definition that I have found of prayer is the following: prayer is the remembrance of God in all things. We could also say that this is really the goal of all prayer.

The Fathers of the Church speak a lot about prayer and all seem to come back to this one point - that prayer helps us become mindful of God in the midst of every area of our lives. This includes not only intentional prayer at specific times throughout the day, but also in the midst of one’s tasks and responsibilities at work and home. St. Paul’s injunction to “pray without ceasing” (I Thess. 5:17) is certainly a possibility with this expanded definition of prayer. Origen once said, “He prays unceasingly who combines prayer with necessary duties and duties with prayer. Only in this way can we find it practicable to fulfill the commandment to pray always. It consists in regarding the whole of Christian existence as a single great prayer. What we are accustomed to call prayer is only part of it.” Thus prayer can encompass our whole lives. Our whole life then can become an extension of unceasing prayer. St. John Cassian once said, “For whoever is in the habit of praying only at the hour when the knees are bent prays very little. But whoever is distracted by any sort of wandering of heart, even on bended knee, never prays. And therefore we have to be outside the hour of prayer what we want to be when we are praying.” Our lives become the “amen” and activity to our prayer. We become a living prayer always offering up ourselves to God in all things. In this way, whatever we are doing, we are continually praying. By doing our God-given tasks and fulfilling our responsibilities as unto the Lord we continue in our prayer.

It is this type of prayer that is less about words and more about action. The Monks of New Skete comment on this in speaking of unceasing prayer. They say, “We can only be faithful to the mandate to unceasing [prayer] when we seek it qualitatively, by reverently listening and discerning the presence of God in every situation in life; by conforming our hearts and minds and behavior with the words and attitudes we articulate in prayer; and by embracing our whole life and presenting it as a gift to God.” This is not to diminish personal prayer time or our corporate prayers in the liturgical life of the Church. Rather, it should encourage us to think of the totality of our life as a continual prayer being offered up as one who “hears the Word of God and keeps it.” We encounter Christ within prayer and we love Him and strive to keep His commandments in every area of our life. St. Maria Skobtsova calls this the “churching of our life.” This is where we become outside of our prayer what we are when we are praying.

The goal of prayer is the remembrance of God in all things. We do this not only through intentional prayer, but also through embracing what we may call “the sacrament of the present moment.” It is our ability to see the presence of God all around us. Christ Himself is present in all our tasks throughout the day. Paul Evdokimov says, “It is not enough to say prayers, one must become, be prayer, prayer incarnate. It is not enough to have moments of praise. All of life, every act, every gesture, even the smile on the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should not offer what one has, but what one is.”

May God help us to see the totality of our life as one ceaseless prayer especially as we enter the Great Fast. Let us be open to seeing the presence of God in all things. Let it be so, Lord, have mercy.

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Prayer, Practices Fr John Breck Prayer, Practices Fr John Breck

Archbishop Anastasios on Prayer

It all begins with an idea.

Very Rev. John Breck

2007

(from “Life in Christ” March 2004)

His Eminence Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) arrived in Albania in 1991, to assume archpastoral duties in this impoverished country, which during the Communist period had been militantly atheistic. Since that date, under his guidance and through his prayer, the Orthodox Church in Albania has experienced what has rightly been proclaimed a "Resurrection" (Anastasis!).

Jim Forest, a well-known Orthodox journalist and head of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship (OPF), visited the Church in Albania a few years ago and met with the Archbishop and many other people there who are involved in various kinds of mission work. The fruit of that visit was a remarkable little book, published by the World Council of Churches in 2002, entitled The Resurrection of the Church in Albania: Voices of Orthodox Christians. Jim has kindly given permission to quote from that book a portion of Archbishop Anastasios’ thoughts on prayer (pages 123f). They are vibrant words that issue from a living experience of the God of love, who is present and acting in the midst of the world’s turmoil and suffering. Yet their simplicity and depth is such that they offer direction to anyone who seeks, in the midst of everyday activities, to commune with the life-giving Trinity.

Prayer summarizes a longing. The problem is that so often we become ego-centered, lacking humility. Thus it is good to pray, ‘Oh Lord, deliver me from myself and give me to Yourself!’ – a cry of the heart. It is similar to the prayer, ‘Lord, I believe, please help my unbelief.’ Often it is necessary to pray for forgiveness.

Many times in my life, there has been no opportunity for long prayers, only time to go quickly into what I call the ‘hut of prayer’ – very short prayers that I know by heart or to make a very simple request: ‘Show me how to love!’ Or, when you have to make a decision, ‘Lord, help me make the right estimation and come to the right judgment, to make the right action.’ Then there is the very simple prayer, ‘Your will be done.’ I have also learned, in Albania, what it means to be a foreigner, to come from a country many regard with suspicion. This, however, can help one become more humble. It helps one pray with more intensity, ‘Use me according to Your will.’ Often I pray, ‘Lord, illumine me so that I know Your will, give me the humility to accept your will and the strength to do your will.’ I go back to these simple prayers again and again.

“Many times, the psalms are my refuge. You realize that in the spontaneous arising of certain phrases from the psalms you are hearing God speak to you. Perhaps you are reciting the psalm, ‘My soul, why are you so downcast…’ And then another phrase from the psalms arises which is a response. It is an ancient Christian tradition that a bishop should know many psalms by heart. The psalms provide a spiritual refuge. In each situation there is a psalm that can help you, in those critical moments when you have no place of retreat.

Perhaps you remember the words, ‘Unless the Lord guards the house, they who guard it labour in vain.’ You are reminded that your own efforts are not decisive. You also come to understand that your own suffering is a sharing in God’s suffering. It is a theme St. Paul sometimes writes about. You come to understand that the resurrection is not after the cross but in the cross.

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Practices, Fasting Fr Stephen Freeman Practices, Fasting Fr Stephen Freeman

The Nativity Fast - Why We Fast

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Stephen Freeman

[November 15th marks the beginning of the Nativity Fast (40 days before Christmas). The following article offers some thoughts on the purpose of fasting. - Fr. Christopher]

Fasting is not very alive or well in the Christian world. Much of that world has long lost any living connection with the historical memory of Christian fasting. Without the guidance of Tradition, many modern Christians either do not fast, or constantly seek to re-invent the practice, sometimes with unintended consequences.

There are other segments of Christendom who have tiny remnants of the traditional Christian fast, but in the face of a modern world have reduced the tradition to relatively trivial acts of self-denial.

I read recently (though I cannot remember where) that the rejection of Hesychasm was the source of all heresy. In less technical terms we can say that knowing God in truth, participating in His life, union with Him through humility, prayer, love of enemy and repentance before all and for everything, is the purpose of the Christian life. Hesychasm (Greek hesychia = silence) is the name applied to the Orthodox tradition of ceaseless prayer and inner stillness. But ceaseless prayer and inner stillness are incorrectly understood if they are separated from knowledge of God and participation in His life, union with Him through humility, prayer, love of enemy and repentance before all and for everything.

And it is this same path of inner knowledge of God (with all its components) that is the proper context of fasting. If we fast but do not forgive our enemies – our fasting is of no use. If we fast and do not find it drawing us into humility – our fasting is of no use. If our fasting does not make us yet more keenly aware of the fact that we are sinful before all and responsible to all, then it is of no benefit. If our fasting does not unite us with the life of God – which is meek and lowly – then it is again of no benefit.

Fasting is not dieting. Fasting is not about keeping a Christian version of kosher. Fasting is about hunger and humility (which is increased as we allow ourselves to become weak). Fasting is about allowing our heart to break.

I have seen greater good accomplished in souls through their failure in the fasting season than in the souls of those who “fasted well.” Publicans enter the kingdom of God before Pharisees pretty much every time.

Why do we fast? Perhaps the more germane question is “why do we eat?” Christ quoted Scripture to the evil one and said, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” We eat as though our life depended on it, and it does not. We fast because our life depends on the word of God.

I worked for a couple of years as a hospice chaplain. During that time, daily sitting at the side of the beds of dying patients – I learned a little about how we die. It is a medical fact that many people become “anorexic” before death – that is – they cease to want food. Many times family and even doctors become concerned and force food on a patient who will not survive. Interestingly, it was found that patients who became anorexic had less pain than those who, having become anorexic, were forced to take food. (None of this is about the psychological anorexia that afflicts many of our youth. That is a tragedy)

It is as though at death our bodies have a wisdom we have lacked for most of our lives. It knows that what it needs is not food – but something deeper. The soul seeks and hungers for the living God. The body and its pain become a distraction. And thus in God’s mercy the distraction is reduced.

Christianity as a religion – as a theoretical system of explanations regarding heaven and hell, reward and punishment – is simply Christianity that has been distorted from its true form. Either we know the living God or we have nothing. Either we eat His flesh and drink His blood or we have no life in us. The rejection of Hesychasm is the source of all heresy.

Why do we fast? We fast so that we may live like a dying man – and that in dying we can be born to eternal life.

[From http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2011/11/12/the-nativity-fast-why-we-fast-2/]

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Practices Fr Thomas Hopko Practices Fr Thomas Hopko

55 Maxims of the Christian Life

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Thomas Hopko

(Below is a series of short phrases, or maxims, that I have found to be very practical and helpful. We can often times think that the spiritual life is very complicated and and hard to live. Fr. Thomas was asked to come up with a simple and concise list of the essence of our Life in Christ as we struggle on the path towards salvation. He came up with these 55 maxims. I would encourage you to post them somewhere where you can see them often. - Fr. Christopher)

  1. Be always with Christ and trust God in everything.

  2. Pray as you can, not as you think you must.

  3. Have a keepable rule of prayer done by discipline.

  4. Say the Lord's Prayer several times each day.

  5. Repeat a short prayer when your mind is not occupied.

  6. Make some prostrations when you pray.

  7. Eat good foods in moderation and fast on fasting days.

  8. Practice silence, inner and outer.

  9. Sit in silence 20 to 30 minutes each day.

  10. Do acts of mercy in secret.

  11. Go to liturgical services regularly.

  12. Go to confession and holy communion regularly.

  13. Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings.

  14. Reveal all your thoughts and feelings to a trusted person regularly.

  15. Read the scriptures regularly.

  16. Read good books, a little at a time.

  17. Cultivate communion with the saints.

  18. Be an ordinary person, one of the human race.

  19. Be polite with everyone, first of all family members.

  20. Maintain cleanliness and order in your home.

  21. Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.

  22. Exercise regularly.

  23. Live a day, even a part of a day, at a time.

  24. Be totally honest, first of all with yourself.

  25. Be faithful in little things.

  26. Do your work, then forget it.

  27. Do the most difficult and painful things first.

  28. Face reality.

  29. Be grateful.

  30. Be cheerful.

  31. Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.

  32. Never bring attention to yourself.

  33. Listen when people talk to you.

  34. Be awake and attentive, fully present where you are.

  35. Think and talk about things no more than necessary.

  36. Speak simply, clearly, firmly, directly.

  37. Flee imagination, fantasy, analysis, figuring things out.

  38. Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.

  39. Don't complain, grumble, murmur or whine.

  40. Don't seek or expect pity or praise.

  41. Don't compare yourself with anyone.

  42. Don't judge anyone for anything.

  43. Don't try to convince anyone of anything.

  44. Don't defend or justify yourself.

  45. Be defined and bound by God, not people.

  46. Accept criticism gracefully and test it carefully.

  47. Give advice only when asked or when it is your duty.

  48. Do nothing for people that they can and should do for themselves.

  49. Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice.

  50. Be merciful with yourself and others.

  51. Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath.

  52. Focus exclusively on God and light, and never on darkness, temptation and sin.

  53. Endure the trial of yourself and your faults serenely, under God's mercy.

  54. When you fall, get up immediately and start over.

  55. Get help when you need it, without fear or shame.

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Practices, Prayer Fr Apostolos Hill Practices, Prayer Fr Apostolos Hill

Establishing a Daily Rule of Prayer

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Apostolos Hill

Prayer has been called the breath of the soul. In the same way that the body needs proper daily nourishment and exercise to maintain a healthy state, and the mind needs productive stimulation to learn and develop, the soul needs prayer to grow and thrive. Prayer keeps the soul properly oriented towards God in the same way that a compass keeps a ship at sea oriented toward its destination. When a vessel leaves port and heads out into the open seas it is not sufficient for the captain to set his course heading only once. Constant course corrections are required to counteract the effect of the waves, winds, and currents that nudge it constantly off course. Likewise, prayer helps us maintain a constant heading when the distractions of life, temptations, and apathy blow us off course.

Prayer also serves to give our lives a spiritual context. A story can illustrate this point. A young executive boards a subway train one evening to begin his daily journey home. He is consumed with the demands of his stressful job and the briefcase full of work he carries with him. As he settles into his seat and opens his laptop he becomes aware of a well-dressed man across the aisle from him and the two small children accompanying him. The children are restless and noisy and soon begin to tax the patience of the young executive. Exasperated after several miles of fruitless attempts to concentrate on his work, he looks up at the well-dressed man and, making no effort to conceal his annoyance, asks him to keep his children quiet. The welldressed man replies as if from a distance and relates to the young executive that he and his children are returning from the funeral service of his wife and their mother and that he is somewhat out of sorts, nevertheless promising to keep his children quieter.

Greatly chagrined, the young executive undergoes a radical paradigm shift. The context of his ride home that evening changes dramatically. No longer concerned about his workload, his attention is immediately focused on how he can assist the grieving father and his children.

As we move throughout the events of our days, it is easy for us to get side-tracked from the context that God intends to keep always before us, that of our abiding in His love and allowing Him to make us instruments of His love to those around us. Daily prayer helps us to restore that proper context.

Historically, Christians have been encouraged to pray at least three times a day, morning, noonday, and evening. Specific prayers have been developed around these times as they relate to our own passage through time. So, for example, upon waking in the morning we remember the prayer of St. Basil that begins: "As I rise from sleep I thank you O Holy Trinity..."

We also remember the savings events of our Lord's life-giving Passion in time when, for example, we pray at mid-day" "O Lord Who at this hour stretched forth Your hands for suffering..."

Other appropriate times to pray during the day can be before meals, during breaks at work, while driving in our cars — something we do so frequently that it affords abundant daily prayer time — and whenever else the need arises. As we work on creating a context of prayer throughout our day, we will find more and more occasions for prayer.

When the disciples asked the Lord to teach them to pray, He responded by teaching them the Lord's Prayer. This prayer has become the cornerstone and model of Christian prayer since that time. It contains all the essential elements of a healthy prayer life; praise and adoration, confession, supplication, and thanksgiving. The ancient Jewish prayer practice encouraged prayer to God seven times a day, and the early Church taught that the Lord's Prayer should be said at least three times daily.

Praying the Lord's Prayer morning, noon, and evening constitutes a good beginning towards establishing a daily rule of prayer. This can be expanded to include the Trisagion prayers, the most basic element of liturgical prayer. This set of prayers begins with the prayer to the Holy Spirit: "O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who are in all places and filling all things, treasury of blessings and the Giver of Life, come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One."

The Trisagion prayer continues: "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us" (three times), and ends with the Lords Prayer.

Daily prayers can be further augmented with the inclusion of the Nicene Creed, Psalm 51, David's beautiful prayer of confession, and prayers appropriate to the time of day. There are general petitions which help us frame our petitions to God. They include prayers for the Church, our spiritual and temporal leaders, armed forces and civil authorities, our city, family members, godchildren, friends, the poor, homeless, aged, those under persecution, ourselves, and our departed loved ones. This general petition gives shape and constancy to our daily prayers by reminding us of our connectedness to the Church, our family, and society. It also helps keep our petitions from degenerating into a laundry-list of rather petty concerns. It is also vital to our spiritual health to include time to thank God for the specific blessings He has brought about in our lives. These thanksgivings can be spontaneous when our hearts swell with joy at some unexpected blessing. They also serve to remind us of God's presence in our lives over the years when things seem bleak to us.

St. Theophan the Recluse, a nineteenth century Russian saint, wrote that prayer is standing with the mind in the heart before God. Ultimately, prayer is not about words, whether formal or extemporaneous. Rather, it is the state of being in God's presence. The Patristic tradition of the Church teaches us that prayer can eventually become infused prayer, wherein we learn to "pray without ceasing," as St. Paul enjoins us.

The end of spoken prayer is silence. Silence is an unwelcome phenomenon in modern life and we have effectively eradicated it from society. Television, radio, media, 24-hour news channels, Muzak, cell-phones, pagers, wireless internet; all of these modern contrivances ensure that we need never face silence. However, Christians are encouraged to include as part of their daily prayer life a Rule of Silence. This helps us to maintain a disciplined mind and gives us time to hear God speak to us in the ordinary dayto- day activities of our lives.

In summary, a daily rule of prayer is essential for the health of our soul. A rule of prayer helps to keep us oriented toward the Kingdom of God and creates a Christian context to our lives. The tradition of the Church in terms of a minimum standard is three times a day: morning, noon, and evening. A rule of prayer can include but is not limited to; the Trisagion prayers, prayers appropriate to the day, the Nicene Creed, Ps. 51 as a daily confession, and a general petition to which should be added our own specific needs. Consider beginning with the Morning and Evening prayers offered in this section, and eventually adding either First Hour or Third Hour (the Noon Office). A rule of prayer should also include a time of silence. And a fruitful relationship with one's pastor and spiritual guidance is essential in the development of a rule of prayer.

Prayer is the bedrock of our spiritual life. Without it, the soul languishes and withers. With it, the soul can breathe and flourish. "Prayer is the living water, by means of which the soul quenches its thirst."

[I encourage those who do not have an Orthodox prayer book to pick one up in our “bookstore”. This is a great place to start. - Fr. Christopher)

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Eucharist, Practices Fr Thomas Hopko Eucharist, Practices Fr Thomas Hopko

Preparation for Holy Communion

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Thomas Hopko

November 2006

An Article from Orthodox Education Day Book October 7, 2000

Committed Orthodox Christians order and measure their lives in this world from communion to communion.

We greet the Lord’s Day each week with the eager expectation of entering into holy communion with God by the action of His Holy Spirit in the Church, through Jesus Christ, God’s Son and Word, who is also the Lamb of God and the Bread of Life. Following each Lord’s Day, we live in memory of the blessed experience of holy communion, and we begin immediately to anticipate this divine gift in the next divine liturgy.

Christians live from Sunday to Sunday, and, throughout the year, from Pascha to Pascha. We also live from liturgy to liturgy, from eucharist to eucharist, from communion to communion. Our lives are measured and tested by this sacred event. All that we are and do finds its beginning and end, its meaning and fulfillment, in Gods gift of holy communion through Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Continual Preparation for Holy Communion

Committed Christians remember what God has done in history and anticipate what God is yet to do. We live in function of Christs first coming as a slave to be crucified and glorified, and His final coming at the end of the ages to establish God’s kingdom.

The Church’s eucharistic worship unites and embraces the Lords two comings, together with all of Gods mighty acts in history. It makes them present for our participation, here and now, for the forgiveness of sins, for the healing of soul and body, and for life everlasting.

Every moment of a Christian’s life is a preparation for the encounter with God which is sacramentally realized in holy communion. Every moment we are making ready to enter God’s kingdom which is coming with observation and power at the end of the ages. We live every moment in constant awareness of the Lords presence in our lives here and now, preparing us in hope for unending communion with Him in the age to come.

In this perspective, everything that we Christians think, say and do in every moment of our lives is a preparation for holy communion -- in this life in the holy eucharist, and without end in the age to come at the end of the world.

General Preparation for Holy Communion

Because we Christians living in this world are inevitably caught up in earthly activities, afflictions, trials and temptations, and because we are so easily overcome by sinful passions, God gives us ways by which we are enabled never to forget Him. He provides practices by which we can keep ourselves constantly prepared to meet Him at His coming. He offers rules of spiritual and physical discipline for us to practice so that we can remain constantly alive to His presence and power in our lives and so to be ready to receive Him when He gives Himself to us in holy communion.

The general disciplines for preparing for holy communion are the disciplines of Christian life itself. They are the practices which keep us alive to God, the actions which open our minds, hearts and bodies to the presence of God s grace and power in our lives. They basically include:

  • regular participation in the Church’s liturgical worship

  • regular practice of a rule of personal prayer

  • regular practice of a rule of ceaseless mental prayer, or "prayer of the heart," to insure our constant remembrance of God

  • regular practice of periods of silence

  • regular practice of fasting and abstinence

  • regular reading of the Bible and spiritual writings

  • regular confession of sins (and thoughts, feelings, temptations and dreams) to our pastor, or to someone whom our pastor authorizes and blesses for this purpose

  • regular giving and receiving of forgiveness of sins with all the people in our lives regular donations of money to the Church, and to those in need regular sharing of our time, energies, and possessions with others

  • constant effort to do our daily work as well as we can, to Gods glory, for the good of people, and

  • constant striving not to sin in the smallest way in the routine activities of our everyday life and personal relationships.

The words regular and constant are repeated and emphasized because our spiritual practices and activities must be done according to a rule (regula, kanona, pravilo). They must be done constantly and consistently with conscious attention and discipline. They cannot be left to whim, caprice or feeling.

What a person does in regard to liturgical worship, personal prayer, fasting, reading, contributing, working and serving will be shaped according to the conditions of his or her life. It will be different for each person according to age, strength, health, available time, and personal capabilities. The saints say that rules of prayer, reading and fasting should be brief but frequent, simple, pure, uncomplicated and keepable. They should be determined and established with spiritual advice and counsel in ways which permit them to be easily included within the real possibilities of ones actual life.

Specific Preparation for Holy Communion

In addition to the Christians general spiritual discipline, each believer must make specific devotional efforts in preparing for holy communion. These efforts will also differ from person to person. They will include a set number of specific prayers and readings, a specific practice of confession and reconciliation with others, and specific good deeds, such as almsgiving and financial contributions. They will depend on the conditions of one’s life.

A monastic person or clergyman, for example, will normally have a longer rule of specific preparation for holy communion than a lay person. A person with fewer duties will also be freer to spend more time and effort in concentrated preparation for eucharistic communion than someone who has more tasks to perform (for instance, a mother of small children).

People with disciplined spiritual lives who partake regularly and frequently of the sacraments will have less specific preparation for holy communion than those with undisciplined spiritual lives who seldom partake of the holy mysteries. The latter will surely have to make extraordinary efforts to read special prayers, keep special fasts, do special good deeds, give special contributions, and make special acts of sacramental confession when these practices are not a regular, constant and consistent part of their lives.

Prayers Before and After Holy Communion

The usual psalms and prayers for Orthodox Christians before and after partaking of holy communion are contained in Orthodox prayer books of various editions. Literate believers must decide with spiritual counsel how they will, as a rule, use these prayers of preparation and thanksgiving. When this decision is made, every effort must be made to keep one’s rule until it must be adjusted or altered, again with spiritual counsel and advice, because of the changing conditions of one’s life.

When we believers fail to keep our rules, we must find the reasons for our failures, and take appropriate action, once again with the assistance of our pastors and spiritual guides. In this way our participation in the Lords Mystical Supper will be done in a worthy manner. It will be for the forgiveness of our sins, for the healing of our souls and bodies, and for our eternal salvation, and not for our condemnation and judgment.

May the Lord convince us of our unworthiness to partake of holy communion. May He teach us that nothing we can say or do makes us worthy of this divine gift. May He convince that only the heartfelt confession of our unworthiness to partake permits us to participate in a worthy manner. And may He empower us to obey His Word and receive His Body and Blood in godly fear, with faith and love, so that we may really see the true light, find the true faith, receive the heavenly Spirit, and worship the Undivided Trinity Who has saved us through holy communion with Himself.

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