Bruce McPherson

Finding Our True Selves in Christ

I thought this article which we used way back in 2013 when now Father Innocent (Neal) was leading a class on a book about the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas entitled ‘Passions and Virtues’ might be very relevant to our class this Sunday. This reflection may help us uncover that we have been looking for self knowledge when what is really required is ‘to seek first His Kingdom’. Perhaps , this deepens this theme of humility we’ve been exploring from our first week together. It may also help us more deeply understand why St. John Chrysostom says ‘humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue”.

“Reflections” C.S. Lewis Institute September 2011

Many people today are seeking to know who they really are, but they are going about it in the wrong way. Only Jesus Christ can help us discover and become who we are meant to be. In his conclusion to Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis gives us the answer:

The more we get what we now call “ourselves” out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of “little Christs,” all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented—as an author invents characters in a novel—all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to “be myself” without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call “Myself” becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call “My wishes” become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils…
Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most “natural” men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away “blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about; you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking at Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.1

Giving ourselves wholly to Christ is the only way to discover who we are, the only way to become who Christ means us to be, the only way to experience his riches in this life and the only way to fulfill the purpose for which he made us. It may seem frightening, but once you do it, your only regret will be that you didn’t do it sooner.

C.S. Lewis Institute September 2011

1 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1996), pp 190-191.

St Gregory Palamas – 2nd Sunday of Lent

By Abbot Seraphim Holy Cross Monastery Wayne, WV

St. Gregory was born in Constantinople in 1296. His father, who reposed when Gregory was only seven years old, enjoyed a prominent position in the Imperial Court as a member of the Senate and a Councilor of the Royal Court. He was entrusted by the Emperor to be the tutor of his grandson, who came to be the next emperor. Despite his father’s repose, St. Gregory enjoyed a privileged youth growing up near the Emperor and being educated by the most gifted philosophers and theologians of the time.

Following these studies, St. Gregory left for the Holy Mountain and became a monk. At the same time, his mother and two of his sisters also went to convents in Thessaloniki. In 1325, St. Gregory was ordained a hieromonk. In 1335 he was chosen as Abbot of the Esphigmenou Monastery but afterward stepped down and pursued the hesychastic life until he was asked to defend the Athonite monks against the charges launched by Barlaam the Calabrian. This conflict has commonly been termed the Hesychast Controversy. Later, he was ordained Archbishop of Thessaloniki. During this period, he was sent to Constantinople where the Turks captured him. After having been ransomed, he spent all his time with his flock in Thessaloniki during which period we have a significant portion of the homilies he delivered. He reposed on November 14, 1359. Nine years after his death, he was canonized and placed on the official calendar of the Hagia Sophia.

In his introductory work on the saint, Professor Papademetriou writes,

[Saint Gregory] Palamas did not construct a theological or philosophical system, nor was he a teacher writing academic theology. He was himself a man of prayer – a theologian who devoted himself to prayer, and when the Church was attacked, he was called upon to use his talents to defend it.[i]

Central to the controversy which St. Gregory was involved in is the question “What is the aim of the Christian life?” In its simplest answer, we can say, it is theosis which is the Greek word, usually translated into English as deification. It is a word that expresses the union of the Christian to God.

Further emphasizing this union, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae writes, “Orthodox spirituality aims at the perfection of the faithful in Christ. This perfection can’t be obtained except by participation in His divine-human life. Therefore the goal of Orthodox spirituality is the perfection of the believer by his union with Christ.”[ii]

This word cannot be rendered adequately in any modern language and can appear difficult to understand. Yet the term is used and defined when we read the Fathers of the Church, past and the present.

It is found in the writings of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons and, a hundred years later, in the works of St. Athanasius the Great. St. Irenaeus wrote, “the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”[iii] In the letter to Adelphium, St. Athanasius writes: “For He [i.e., God] has become Man, that He might deify us in Himself”[iv]and in his work entitled On the Incarnation he says, “For He [i.e., the Word] was made man that we might be made God.”[v]

This union with God is not to be confused with an absorption into God in a pantheistic sense like a drop of water into the ocean. Nor is it to be confused with a human relationship wherein is a union between those who love each other. Instead, this union with God is brought about by the grace of God which transforms and deifies man. It is not a by-product of intellection or virtue. As Saint Gregory writes,

Through grace God in His entirety penetrates the saints in their entirety, and the saints in their entirety penetrate God entirely, exchanging the whole of Him for themselves, and acquiring Him alone as the reward of their ascent towards Him; for He embraces them as the soul embraces the body, enabling them to be in Him as His own members.[vi]

God is the Creator and we the created. Some describe this distance as God being “holy” and “other” than us, but He is not entirely so because He still communicates Himself to us in a manner that imparts His life to us. St. Gregory describes this with the analogy of the sun. For us humans, the sun is out of reach, yet we experience the sun’s rays, its solar energy, and heat. In this same way, we are unable to grasp God’s essence, but we can experience Him through His energies. The experience of God in this way and the transformation that it brings about is called theosis-deification. In the words of Professor Papademetriou, “This does not mean that we become God but are instead filled with his energies such as love and grace. As the energy of the sun is in the plants as chlorophyll, yet the plant does not become the sun, in the same way, we participate in the divine energies, and our person is filled with God’s uncreated energies, and we attain theosis…”[vii]

This union with God is not a “manner of speaking” or something symbolical as though we appear perfect or “justified” without actually being so. Rather, as Metropolitan Kallistos writes, “Our theosis is in no sense merely symbolical or metaphorical: it is a genuine and specific reality, a pure gift of grace experienced even in this present life.”[viii] Moreover, it is this experience of God that is central to the Christian life. As Fr. Georges notes, “The ultimate purpose of St. Gregory’s theological teaching was to defend the reality of Christian experience. Salvation is more than forgiveness. It is a genuine renewal of man.”[ix]

How does this happen? Although this transformation is not apparent in the body because of bodily weakness, and the death, yet in regards to the soul, it begins in Baptism, as St. Gregory writes,

This bodily renewal is seen now through faith and hope rather than with our eyes, not being reality yet. The soul’s renewal, on the other hand, begins… with holy baptism through the remission of sins and is nourished and grows through righteousness in faith. The soul is continually renewed in the knowledge of God and the virtues associated with this knowledge, and will reach perfection in the future contemplation of God face to face. Now, however, it sees through a glass darkly.[x]

In his sixteenth homily, St. Gregory describes this transformation noting that it is “complex.” He writes,

There is a starting point and perfection, and an intermediate stage in between. The grace of baptism, which is called the washing of regeneration, inaugurates this action in us, providing remission of all our sins and of the guilt of the curse. Perfection will come with the resurrection of life for which believers hope, and the promise of the age to come. The intermediate stage is life according to Christ’s gospel, by which the godly person is nourished, grows, and is renewed, making progress day by day in the knowledge of God, righteousness, and sanctification. Gradually he reduces and cuts away his eagerness for things below, and transfers his longing from what is visible, physical and temporary to what is invisible, spiritual and eternal.[xi]

In another work, St. Gregory, referring to the keeping of the Lord’s commandments, writes:

For the Lord has promised to manifest Himself to the man who keeps [His commandments], a manifestation He calls His indwelling and that of the Father, saying, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make our abode wth him, and “I will manifest Myself to him.”[xii]

In this way, God’s presence within a person is not related to his intelligence. Rather, it is through the fulfillment of the commandments. For St. Gregory, the fulfillment of the commandments has no other result than the purification of the passions and, according to God’s promise, only this keeping of the commandments will procure the presence, the indwelling, and manifestation of God.[xiii]

Fathers, brothers, sisters although our theosis is a great mystery and its magnitude towers over our understanding, yet St. Gregory tells us simply keep the commandments and God will unite you to Himself.THROUGH THE PRAYERS OF SAINT GREGORY, LORD JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, HAVE MERCY ON US. AMEN.

[i] Papademetriou, George C. Introduction to St. Gregory Palamas (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2004), 42.

[ii] Orthodox Spirituality (South Canaan: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2003), 21.

[iii] St. Irenaeus of Lyons, “Against Heresies” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus; Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Roberts, A. and Donaldson, J. (Peabody, Hendrickson Publishing, 1999) 1:526ff.

[iv] St. Athanasius the Great, “Ad Adelphium” in Athanasius: Select Works and Letters ; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Schaff, P. and Wace, H. (Peabody, Hendrickson Publishing, 1999) 4:576f.

[v] St. Athanasius the Great, “Incarnation of the Word” in Athanasius: Select Works and Letters ; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Schaff, P. and Wace, H. (Peabody, Hendrickson Publishing, 1999) 4:65ff.

[vi] Palmer, G.E.H., Sherrard, Philip, and Ware, Kallistos eds. & trans. “The declaration of the Holy Mountain in Defence of Those who Devoutly Practise a Life of Stillness” in The Philokalia (London: Faber&Faber, 1995), 4:421.

[vii] Introduction., 42-43.

[viii] Palmer, G.E.H.,Sherrard,Philip, and Ware, Kallistos eds. & trans. The Philokalia (London: Faber&Faber, 1995), 4:292.

[ix]“St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers”

[x] “Homily Sixteen” in Saint Gregory Palama: The Homilies, C. Veniamin, ed & trans (Dalton: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2014), 131.

[xi] The Saving Work of Christ: Sermons by Saint Gregory Palamas. Christopher Veniamin, ed. (Waymart: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2008), 97.

[xii] The Triads, Meyendorff, John ed. and Gendle, Nicholas trans. (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1983), 61.

[xiii] The Triads, 59.

Triodion Reflections – Tuesday in the Second Week

In thine idleness my soul, why art though become a slave of sin? And in thy sickness, why dost thou not run to the Physician? Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the true day of salvation. Rise up and wash thy face with tears of repentance, and make thy lamp burn brightly with the oil of good deeds, so that Christ our God may grant thee cleansing and great mercy.
Matins Aposticha Tuesday in Second Week

O Christ, Thou hast stretched out Thy sinless hands upon the Cross, gathering together the ends of the earth. Therefore I cry unto Thee: Gather together my scattered mind, taken captive by the passions; cleanse me in every part through abstinence, and make me a sharer in Thy sufferings.

The season of the Fast is one of gladness. In shining purity and unfeigned love, filled with the light of prayer and every virtue, with rejoicing let us cry aloud: Most Holy Cross of Christ, that has brought us life and joy, count us all worthy to venerate thee with pure hearts, and grant us forgiveness and great mercy.
Vespers Lord I have Cried Stichera Tuesday of Second Week

When Thou was crucified in the flesh, O Lord, Thou has crucified our fallen nature with Thyself; when Thy side was pierced by the spear, Thou has pierced the serpent that destroyed mankind. Nail my flesh with the fear of Thee and wound my soul with Thy love, that, gazing on Thy Passion, in abstinence I may pass through the appointed time of the Fast, governing not my stomach only, but all the other entrances of sin. Repenting over my past sins, may I offer Thee in sacrifice a humble spirit and a contrite heart. O deliver me from my offenses in Thy love for mankind.
Vespers Aposticha

Get Real for Lent – Father Stephen Freeman

According to St. Basil, God is the “only truly Existing.” Our own existence is a gift from God who is our Creator. None of us has “self-existing” life. We exist because God sustains us in existence – in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

Sin is the rejection of this gift of God – a movement away from true existence.

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Much of our attention in the modern world is engaged seemingly with things that have no “true existence.” We engage with illusions, with digital constructs. Our economy allows us to escape the normal necessities such as seasonal scarcity or other mundane concerns. We are increasingly removed from the very environment in which we naturally live.

It is said that astronauts, after spending a prolonged time in space, have lingering effects of zero-gravity. Our bodies are made for gravity and require its constant pull for everything from muscle tone to bone density. But we now live in situations in which many forms of natural “gravity” have been reduced or removed. What effect does the long-term ability to have almost any food at any time of year have on the human body? As someone who has spent the better part of my life at a desk, I can attest to the effect of a sedentary existence. My lower back, my range of motion, the flexibility of my joints are all consistent with the modern white-collar worker.

What effect do such things have on the soul? For the soul requires “gravity” as well. Plato stated in his Republic, that all children should learn to play a musical instrument because music was required for the right development of the soul. We give far too little thought to such things, assuming that no matter what environment we live in, our inherent freedom of choice remains unscathed and we can always decide to do something different, or be something different.

I could decide to run a marathon tomorrow, but I know that the first quarter-mile would leave me gasping for breath and exhausted. You cannot go from 40 years at a desk to the demands of a marathon – just because you choose to do so.

And so we come to Great Lent.

Some see this season of the year as a spiritual marathon. They rise from their sedentary spiritual lives, set off in a sprint and fail before the first week is out. The failure comes in anger, self-recrimination, even despondency.

The first year that I “chose” to fast in the Orthodox manner (it was 4 years before I was received into the Church), the priest I discussed the fast with said, “You can’t keep the fast.” I argued with him until I realized his wisdom.

“Do something easier,” he told me. “Just give up red meat.”

“What about chicken?” I asked.

“Nope. Eat chicken. Eat everything except beef and pork. And pray a little more.”

And so I returned to my Anglican life, a little disappointed that my zeal had made such a poor impression. But my family accepted the proposal and we ate no red meat for Lent. It was, in hindsight, the best Lent my family had ever had. No longer were we musing over “what to give up for Lent,” and instead accepted a discipline that was given to us.

In subsequent years that same priest (who is now my godfather) increased the discipline. And we were ready for it. It is interesting to me, however, that my first experience of an Orthodox fast was being told not to be so strict. The “strict” part was learning to do what I was told. That is sometimes the most difficult fast of all.

Lent is a time to “get real.” Not eating some things is actually normal. In our modern world we have to embrace a natural “gravity” that we could easily leave behind – at least, we have to do this if we want to avoid an atrophy of the soul.

In 2000, the average American ate 180 pounds of meat a year (and 15 pounds of fish and shellfish). That was roughly a third more than in 1959. Scarcity is not an issue in our diet. Our abundance is simply “not real,” and the environment frequently shows the marks of the artificial nature of our food supply. But we have no way of studying what is going on with our souls. What I know to be true is that – as goes the body – so goes the soul. Those who engage the world as consumer are being consumed by the world to an equal measure.

And so we get real.

Getting real means accepting limits and boundaries. Our culture is a bubble of make-believe. It rests on an economy of over-consumption. The crash of 2008 came close to a much greater disaster and could have easily gone into free-fall. Many fail to understand just how fragile our lives truly are. In the season of Lent (and on all the fasting days of the year) we embrace the fragility of our lives. We allow the world to say “no” and take on extra burdens and duties. It is worth keeping in mind that such things do not make us spiritual heroes, first they have to make us human.

Sunday of Orthodoxy Adult Education Class

In our class this week, I’d like us to begin with some observations and reflections on this important first week of Lent. Our efforts individually as well as our experiences more collectively together as the Body of Christ during our many weekly gatherings.

I’d then like us to read and reflect on the short homily from Father Phillip LeMaster entitled ’Become a Living Icon’. It’s a very encouraging call for us ’to think of Lent as a time to make ourselves better icons of the Lord’. He reminds that Christ is the new Adam who has ’become one of us, with a visible human body … who has restored and healed every dimension of our fallen humanity’. Our efforts in Lent can be ’small, humble, imperfect steps to open ourselves to this new life in Christ, to become better living icons – living images – of what it means for human beings to share in God’s salvation’. And in this process as we ’grow in His image and likeness, the more we will become our true selves’. We proclaim on the Sunday of Orthodoxy that ’we not only carry icons, we are icons’.

Our discussion then will get into the crucial issue of how our humility is the ’mother of virtues’ we need for this journey. We’ll review a new posting that relates the Great Canon’s use of the wise thief and harlot as ’icons’ for us to learn and practice humility. We’ll also review Father Thomas Hopko’s excellent insights about humility and hopefully find time to dig deeper into how the Prayer of St. Ephraim can help restore us to the ’life of the spirit’ and how our bodies are ’the temple of the priceless human soul’.

I will print out the following articles for our class tomorrow:

The articles below were created this past week and may be useful for your reflections on the week and preparation for our class. If you find these postings helpful, remember you can subscribe to receive them via email as they are posted during the week. You can do this by simply entering your email address and pressing the update button from the menu of the adult education website.

This week the teens will have a small group breakout that will begin at about 9:30am midway through the class. I’m certainly open to other small group breakouts that could explore this material and perhaps come back together with key observations for the entire group.

Become a Living Icon: Homily for Sunday of Orthodoxy

By Father Phillip LeMaster

At the end of Liturgy today, we will parade around the church carrying our icons in celebration of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, which commemorates the restoration of icons to the church after the period of iconoclasm many centuries ago. We do so because Icons are not mere works of decorative art to us; they are windows to heaven which remind us that the Son of God really has become one of us, with a visible human body, and that we are called to become like the saints whose images are portrayed in them. For we are all icons of God, created in His image and likeness. Jesus Christ is the new Adam Who has restored and healed every dimension of our fallen humanity, and brought us into the very life of the Holy Trinity. It may help us to think of Lent as a time to make ourselves better icons of the Lord.

When we recall the great saints of the Old Testament mentioned in today’s reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are humbled by their faithfulness, obedience, and humility. But even they “did not receive the promise, God provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” As hard as it is to believe, we have been blessed beyond them, for God’s promises in Jesus Christ were not fulfilled in their lifetimes; they hoped for what they did not receive, but their lives were still icons of faithful anticipation of the Messiah.

We live many generations after the New Testament saints Peter, Andrew, and Nathanael encountered Jesus Christ. And the Lord’s promise to Nathanael, “you shall see the heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man,” is the fulfillment of all the hopes and dreams of the Old Testament. In Jesus Christ, humanity and God are united; no longer shut out of paradise, we are raised to the life of the Heavenly Kingdom by our Lord. Our destiny is not for the dust and decay of the tomb, but for life everlasting because of His glorious third-day resurrection.

In Lent, we take small, humble, imperfect steps to open ourselves to this new life in Christ, to become better living icons—living images—of what it means for human beings to share in God’s salvation. The point of Lent is not to punish ourselves or simply to make us feel guilty, miserable, or deprived. Instead, the purpose of our spiritual exercises is to help us share more fully in the promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We want His holiness, love, mercy, and blessing to reshape every dimension of our lives, to be evident in how we go through the day, in how we treat others, in what we say, think, and feel.

And the more we grow in His image and likeness, the more we will become our true selves. Icons portray particular human beings whose lives have shown brightly with the holiness of God. The unbelievable truth is that, in Christ Jesus, we may do the same. No matter our age, health, occupation, family circumstances, personality quirks, or anything else, we too may become living, breathing manifestations of our Lord’s salvation when we open ourselves to His healing mercy through prayer, fasting, forgiveness, generosity to the needy, and all the various forms of spiritual nourishment given through the life of the Church.

There could be no greater optimism about us than what we proclaim on the Sunday of Orthodoxy. We not only carry icons, we are icons. We not only venerate icons, we are called to become living proof of what happens to a human being who enters into the eternal blessedness of God, even as we walk around our parish. Let this sink in: What the Old Testament saints hoped for, we possess. This Lent, let’s take Jesus Christ as His word, and prepare—with humility, persistence, and mindfulness- to “see the heaven open and angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” For that is the good news of our salvation.

What is a Presanctified Liturgy

By Father Thomas Hopko

Because of its paschal character, the normal Divine Liturgy is not served on weekdays of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church. In its place, so that the faithful would not be left without Holy Communion, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served.

The practice of serving the Presanctified Liturgy during Great Lent is an ancient practice witnessed to by the following canon of the church, which certainly bears witness to a piety of a much earlier date.

On all days of the holy fast of Great Lent, except on the Sabbath (i.e., Saturday), and the Lord’s Day (i.e., Sunday), and the holy day of the Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is to be served. (Canon 52, Quinisext Council, 692 A.D.)

At present, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is prescribed for Wednesday and Friday evenings during Great Lent. This liturgy is the solemn Lenten Vespers with Holy Communion added to it. The Communion is received from the Sacramental Gifts of bread and wine offered and sanctified at the Divine Liturgy of the previous Lord’s Day, hence its name of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.

PREPARATION OF THE GIFTS

At the Lord’s Day Liturgy, the priest prepares a “lamb” (the bread which becomes Christ’s Body at the Divine Liturgy), which is then consecrated together with the wine and is kept for the Presanctified Liturgy. On the evening when this liturgy will be served, the Lenten Vespers begins in the usual way. During the chanting of the psalms (kathisma), after the Great Litany, with prayer and incensing, the priest places the Presanctified Gifts on the diskos. He carries them in solemn procession around the back of the altar table to the table of oblation.

HYMNS AND READINGS

After the singing of the evening psalm, Lord I call upon Thee, with the special hymns for the given day, the evening entrance is made and the hymn Gladsome Light is chanted. There then follow the two readings proper to Lenten Vespers, from Genesis and from Proverbs. Between these two readings, with their prescribed prokeimenon verses, the celebrant blesses the faithful with the censer and a lighted candle proclaiming: The Light of Christ illumines all! This blessing symbolizes the light of Christ’s resurrection, which illumines the Old Testament scriptures, and the entire life of man, the very Light with which Christians are illumined the life of the Church through holy baptism.

After the singing once more of the evening psalm, Let my prayer arise in Thy sight as incense, the prayer of Saint Ephraim is read and the augmented litany is chanted. Then the Presanctified Gifts are brought in solemn, silent entrance to the altar table with singing of the special entrance hymn:

Now invisibly the heavenly powers do minister with us.
For behold, the King of Glory enters. For behold, the Mystical Sacrifice, all fulfilled, is ushered in.
Let us with faith and love draw near that we may be partakers of life everlasting. Alleluia.

The prayer of St. Ephraim is read once again, with the proper litany and the special prayer before Holy Communion. The Our Father is sung and the faithful receive Holy Communion from the Presanctified Gifts to the singing of the psalm verse: O taste and see how good is the Lord. Alleluia.

After Holy Communion, the people “depart in peace” with thanksgiving to God for His Coming. The special dismissal prayer asks God for a successful fulfillment of Lent and for the ability to reach a worthy celebration of the Great Feast of Pascha the Resurrection of the Lord.

O Almighty Lord . . . Who hast brought us to these all-holy days for the purification of soul and body, for the controlling of carnal passions . . . and the hope of the resurrection … enable us to fight the good fight, to accomplish the course of the Fast, to preserve inviolate the Faith … to be accounted victors over sin … and uncondemned, to attain unto and to adore Thy Holy Resurrection. . . .

The evening reception of Communion at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is fulfilled after a day of prayer and fasting, with the total abstinence from food and drink at least from the early morning hours of the day. Some consider the taking of even light, lenten food on the morning of the Presanctified Liturgy as a “lessening” of discipline. Those who have fasted a whole working day in preparation for the evening participation in the Holy Sacraments, however, know the great difficulty of the effort, as well as the very special spiritual fruits which it brings from God.

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is one of the great masterpieces of Orthodox piety and liturgical creativity. It reveals in its form and content the central Christian doctrine and experience, namely that our entire life must be spent in prayer and fasting in order that we might enter into communion with Christ who comes at the end, as “a thief in the night.” It tells us that all of our life, and not only the time of Great Lent, or one day of the Fast, is completed with the Presence of the Victorious Christ who is risen from the dead. It witnesses to the fact that Christ will come at the end of the ages to judge the living and the dead and to establish God’s Kingdom “of which there will be no end.” It tells us that we must be ready at His coming, found watching and serving, in order to be worthy to “enter into the joy of the Lord.”

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is one of the most beautiful and most meaningful liturgical services in the Orthodox Christian Church.

The Liturgical Structure of Lent

By Father Alexander Schmemann

To understand the various liturgical particularities of the Lenten period, we must remember that they express and convey to us the spiritual meaning of Lent and are related to the central idea of Lent, to its function in the liturgical life of the Church. It is the idea of repentance. In the teaching of the Orthodox Church however, repentance means much more than a mere enumeration of sins and transgressions to the priest. Confession and absolution are but the result, the fruit, the “climax” of true repentance. And, before this result can be reached, become truly valid and meaningful, one must make a spiritual effort, go through a long period of preparation and purification. Repentance, in the Orthodox acceptance of this word, means a deep, radical reevaluation of our whole life, of all our ideas, judgments, worries, mutual relations, etc. It applies not only to some “bad actions,” but to the whole of life, and is a Christian judgment passed on it, on its basic presuppositions. At every moment of our life, but especially during Lent, the Church invites us to concentrate our attention on the ultimate values and goals, to measure ourselves by the criteria of Christian teaching, to contemplate our existence in its relation to God. This is repentance and it consists therefore, before everything else, in the acquisition of the Spirit of repentance, i.e., of a special state of mind, a special disposition of our conscience and spiritual vision.

The Lenten worship is thus a school of repentance. It teaches us what is repentance and how to acquire the spirit of repentance. It prepares us for and leads us to the spiritual regeneration, without which “absolution” remains meaningless. It is, in short, both teaching about repentance and the way of repentance. And, since there can be no real Christian life without repentance, without this constant “reevaluation” of life, the Lenten worship is an essential part of the liturgical tradition of the Church. The neglect of it, its reduction to a few purely formal obligations and customs, the deformation of its basic rules constitute one of the major deficiencies of our Church life today. The aim of this article is to outline at least the most important structures of Lenten worship, and thus to help Orthodox Christians to recover a more Orthodox idea of Lent.

(1) Sundays of Preparation

Three weeks before Lent proper begins we enter into a period of preparation. It is a constant feature of our tradition of worship that every major liturgical event – Christmas, Easter, Lent, etc., is announced and prepared long in advance. Knowing our lack of concentration, the “worldliness” of our life, the Church calls our attention to the seriousness of the approaching event, invites us to meditate on its various “dimensions”; thus, before we can practice Lent, we are given its basic theology.

Pre-lenten preparation includes four consecutive Sundays preceding Lent.

1. Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee

On the eve of this day, i.e., at the Saturday Vigil Service, the liturgical book of the Lenten season – the Triodion makes its first appearance and texts from it are added to the usual liturgical material of the Resurrection service. They develop the first major theme of the season: that of humility; the Gospel lesson of the day (Lk. 18, 10-14) teaches that humility is the condition of repentance. No one can acquire the spirit of repentance without rejecting the attitude of the Pharisee. Here is a man who is always pleased with himself and thinks that he complies with all the requirements of religion. Yet, he has reduced religion to purely formal rules and measures it by the amount of his financial contribution to the temple. Religion for him is a source of pride and self-satisfaction. The Publican is humble and humility justifies him before God.

(2) Sunday of the Prodigal Son

The Gospel reading of this day (Lk. 15, 11-32) gives the second theme of Lent: that of a return to God. It is not enough to acknowledge sins and to confess them. Repentance remains fruitless without the desire and the decision to change life, to go back to God. The true repentance has as its source the spiritual beauty and purity which man has lost. “…I shall return to the compassionate Father crying with tears, receive me as one of Thy servants.” At Matins of this day to the usual psalms of the Polyeleos “Praise ye the name of the Lord” (Ps. 135), the Psalm 137 is added, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion… If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning…” The Christian remembers and knows that what he lost: the communion with God, the peace and joy of His Kingdom. He was baptized, introduced into the Body of Christ. Repentance, therefore, is the renewal of baptism, a movement of love, which brings him back to God.

(3) Sunday of the Last Judgment(Meat Fare)

On Saturday, preceding this Sunday (Meat Fare Saturday) the Typikon prescribes the universal commemoration of all the departed members of the Church. In the Church we all depend on each other, belong to each other, are united by the love of Christ. (Therefore no service in the Church can be “private”.) Our repentance would not be complete without this act of love towards all those, who have preceded us in death, for what is repentance if not also the recovery of the spirit of love, which is the spirit of the Church. Liturgically this commemoration includes Friday Vespers, Matins and Divine Liturgy on Saturday.

The Sunday Gospel (Mt. 25, 31-46) reminds us of the third theme of repentance: preparation for the last judgment. A Christian lives under Christ’s judgment. He will judge us on how seriously we took His presence in the world, His identification with every man, His gift of love. “I was in prison, I was naked…” All our actions, attitudes, judgments and especially relations with other people must be referred to Christ, and to call ourselves “Christians” means that we accept life as service and ministry. The parable of the Last Judgment gives us “terms of reference” for our self-evaluation.

On the week following this Sunday a limited fasting is prescribed. We must prepare and train ourselves for the great effort of Lent. Wednesday and Friday are non-liturgical days with Lenten services (cf. infra). On Saturday of this week (Cheesefare Saturday) the Church commemorates all men and women who were “illumined through fasting” i.e., the Holy Ascetics or Fasters. They are the patterns we must follow, our guides in the difficult “art” of fasting and repentance.

(4) Sunday of Forgiveness(Cheese Fare)

This is the last day before Lent. Its liturgy develops three themes: (a) the “expulsion of Adam from the Paradise of Bliss.” Man was created for paradise, i.e., for communion with God, for life with Him. He has lost this life and his existence on earth is an exile. Christ has opened to every one the doors of Paradise and the Church guides us to our heavenly fatherland. (b) Our fast must not be hypocritical, a show off. We must “appear not unto men to fast, but unto our Father who is in secret” (cf.Sunday Gospel, Mt. 6, 14-21), and (c) its condition is that we forgive each other as God has forgiven us – “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

The evening of that day, at Vespers, Lent is inaugurated by the Great Prokimenon: “Turn not away Thy face from Thy servant, for I am in trouble; hear me speedily. Attend to my soul and deliver it.” After the service the rite of forgiveness takes place and the Church begins its pilgrimage towards the glorious day of Easter.

(1) The Canon of St. Andrew of Crete

The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. On the first four days of Lent – Monday through Thursday – the Typikon prescribes the reading at Great Compline (i.e., after Vespers) of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, divided in four parts. This canon is entirely devoted to repentance and constitutes, so to say, the “inauguration of Lent.” It is repeated in its complete form at Matins on Thursday of the fifth week of Lent.

(2) Weekdays of Lent – The Daily Cycle

Lent consists of six weeks or forty days. It begins on Monday after the Cheese Fare Sunday and ends on Friday evening before Psalm Sunday. The Saturday of Lazarus’ resurrection, the Palm Sunday and the Holy Week form a special liturgical cycle not analyzed in this article. The Lenten weekdays – Monday through Friday – have a liturgical structure very different from that of Saturdays and Sundays. We will deal with these two days in a special paragraph.

The Lenten weekday cycle, although it consists of the same services, as prescribed for the whole year (Vespers, Compline, Midnight, Matins, Hours) has nevertheless some important particularities:

(a) It has its own liturgical book – the Triodion. Throughout the year the changing elements of the daily services – troparia, stichira, canons – are taken from the Octoechos(the book of the week) and the Menaion (the book of the month, giving the office of the Saint of the day). The basic rule of Lent is that the Octoechos is not used on weekdays but replaced by the Triodion, which supplies each day with,

— at Vespers – a set of stichiras (3 for “Lord, I have cried” and 3 for the “Aposticha”) and 2 readings or “parimias” from the Old Testament.

— at Matins – 2 groups of “cathismata” (“Sedalny,” short hymns sung after the reading of the Psalter), a canon of three odes (or “Triodion” which gave its name to the whole book) and 3 stichiras at the “Praises,” i.e., sung at the end of the regular morning psalms 148, 149, 150 – at the Sixth Hour – a “parimia” from the Book of Isaiah.

The commemoration of the Saint of the day (“Menaion”) is not omitted, but combined with the texts of the Triodion. The latter are mainly, if not exclusively penitential in their content. Especially deep and beautiful are the “idiornela” (“Samoglasni”) stichira of each day (1 at Vespers and 1 at Matins).

(b) The use of Psalter is doubled. Normally the Psalter, divided in 20 cathismata is read once every week: (1 cathisma. at Vespers, 2 at Matins). During Lent it is read twice (1 at Vespers, 3 at Matins, 1 at the Hours 3, 6 and 9). This is done of course mainly in monasteries, yet to know that the Church considers the psalms to be an essential “spiritual food” for the Lenten season is important.

(c) The Lenten rubrics put an emphasis on prostrations. They are prescribed at the end of each service with the Lenten prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian, “O Lord and Master of my life,” and also after each of the special Lenten troparia at Vespers. They express the spirit of repentance as “breaking down” our pride and selfsatisfaction. They also make our body partake of the effort of prayer.

(d) The Spirit of Lent is also expressed in the liturgical music. Special Lenten “tones” or melodies are used for the responses at litanies and the “Alleluias” which replace at Matins the solemn singing of the “God is the Lord and has revealed Himself unto us.”

(e) A characteristic feature of Lenten services is the use of the Old Testament, normally absent from the daily cycle. Three books are read daily throughout Lent: Genesis with Parables at Vespers. Isaiah at the Sixth Hour. Genesis tells us the story of Creation, Fall and the beginnings of the history of salvation. Parables is the book of Wisdom, which leads us to God and to His precepts. Isaiah is the prophet of redemption, salvation and the Messianic Kingdom.

(f) The liturgical vestments to be used on weekdays of Lent are dark, theoretically purple.

The order for the weekday Lenten services is to be found in the Triodion (“Monday of the first week of Lent”). Of special importance are the regulations concerning the singing of the Canon. Lent is the only season of the liturgical year that has preserved the use of the nine biblical odes, which formed the original framework of the Canon.

(3) Non-Liturgical Days

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

On weekdays of Lent (Monday through Friday) the celebration of the Divine Liturgy is strictly forbidden. They are non-liturgical days, with one possible exception – the Feast of Annunciation (then the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom is prescribed after Vespers). The reason for this rule is that the Eucharist is by its very nature a festal celebration, the joyful commemoration of Christ’s Resurrection and presence among His disciples. (For further elaboration of this point cf. my note “Eucharist and Communion” in St. Vladimir’s Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 1957, pp. 31-33.) But twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the Church prescribes the celebration after Vespers, i.e., in the evening of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (cf. the order of this service in I. Hapgood, The Service Book, pp. 127-146.) It consists of solemn Great Vespers and communion with the Holy Gifts consecrated on the previous Sunday. These days being days of strict fasting (theoretically: complete abstinence) are “crowned” with the partaking of the Bread of Life, the ultimate fulfillment of all our efforts.

(4) Saturdays of Lent

Lenten Saturdays, with the exception of the first – dedicated to the memory of the Holy Martyr Theodore Tyron, and the fifth – the Saturday of the Acathistos, are days of commemoration of the departed. And, instead of multiplying the “private requiem liturgies” on days when they are forbidden, it would be good to restore this practice of one weekly universal commemoration of all Orthodox Christians departed this life, of their integration in the Eucharist, which is always offered “on behalf of all and for all.”

The Acathistos Saturday is the annual commemoration of the deliverance of Constantinople in 620. The “Acathist,” a beautiful hymn to the Mother of God, is sung at Matins.

(5) Sundays of Lent

Each Sunday in Lent, although it keeps its character of the weekly feast of Resurrection, has its specific theme, Triodion is combined with Octoechos.

1st Sunday — “Triumph of Orthodoxy” — commemorates the victory of the Church over the last great heresy – Iconoclasm (842).

2nd Sunday — is dedicated to the memory of St. Gregory Palamas, a great Byzantine theologian, canonized in 1366.

3rd Sunday — “of the Veneration of the Holy Cross”– At Matins the Cross is brought in a solemn procession from the sanctuary and put in the center of the Church where it will remain for the whole week. This ceremony announces the approaching of the Holy Week and the commemoration of Christ’s passion. At the end of each service takes place a special veneration of the Cross.

4th Sunday —St. John the Ladder, one of the greatest Ascetics, who in his “Spiritual Ladder” described the basic principles of Christian spirituality.

5th Sunday — St. Mary of Egypt, the most wonderful example of repentance.

On Saturdays and Sundays – days of Eucharistic celebration – the dark vestments are replaced by light ones, the Lenten melodies are not used, and the prayer of St. Ephrem with prostrations omitted. The order of the services is not of the Lenten type, yet fasting remains a rule and cannot be broken (cf. my article “Fast and Liturgy,” in St. Vladimir’s Quarterly, Vol. III, No. 1, Winter 1959). Each Sunday night, Great Vespers with a special Great Prokimenon is prescribed.

At the conclusion of this brief description of the liturgical structure of Lent, let me emphasize once more that Lenten worship constitutes one of the deepest, the most beautiful and the most essential elements of our Orthodox liturgical tradition. Its restoration in the life of the Church, its understanding by Orthodox Christions, constitute one of the urgent tasks of our time.

Come To The Great Canon And Wake Up

Olivier Clément’s book ’The Song of Tears’ begins with this short, powerful chapter that compellingly illustrates how the Great Canon (like the Orthodox Funeral Service) helps awaken us to the reality of our lives. We so often suppress this reality in the busyness of our daily distractions. Awakening to ‘see the reality of our lives in God’ can help us identify these distortions. We are encouraged to embrace the ’mother of virtues’, humility in the Light of this reality. This chapter is full of references to the Great Canon that are italicized and referenced with a parenthesis noting which ode and the specific troparia/verse within that ode. So, the first reference (4:32) is the 4th ode verse 32 of the full version of the Great Canon done in the 5th week of Lent.

Awakening and the Fear of God – Chapter 1 ’The Song of Tears’ by Olivier Clément

Spiritual death, expressed as biological death, secretly eats away at our existence. Yet, by the very intensity of the anguish it provokes, it can set us on the path of awakening. The fickleness of time and the precariousness of an existence in which everything eludes us is something that is repeatedly emphasized by St Andrew of Crete in his Great Canon: The time of my life is short, filled with trouble and evil (4.32); The end draws near, my soul, the end draws near for the days of our life pass swiftly, as a dream, as a flower (4.11); My life is dead, it is petering out and my mind is wounded, my body has grown feeble, my spirit is sick, my speech has lost its power (9.10).

Thus we become aware of a fundamental emptiness and a sense of failure. St Andrew alludes several times to this background of anguish. Feelings of revulsion and yet a melancholic nostalgia take hold of us when we come to realize the hollowness of our preoccupations, the emptiness of the hustle and bustle and the many concerns and preoccupations in which we seek refuge so as to forget our finiteness. My days have vanished as the dream of one awaking (7.20); I speak boastfully, with boldness of heart, yet all to no purpose and in vain (4.33). That is to say, out of a laughable self-importance or, even more tritely, out of the dreary despondency that is so characteristic of our thoroughly nihilistic age. This is argia, the “sloth” or “idleness” spoken of in the prayer that is recited so frequently in Lent, the Prayer of St Ephraim: “O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth . . .” Argia, say the ascetics of old, begets forgetfulness, one of the “giants” of sin: forgetfulness of God and thus of oneself and of the other in his mystery; forgetfulness of the truth about beings and things—a sort of sleepwalking filled with fantasies in which the soul, as it were, splinters, breaks up, splits into two. It is precisely this dipsychia, this double-mindedness that the Epistle of St James (1.8) describes as the major sin. In fragmenting, the soul falls prey to the demon whose name is Legion (Mk 5.9). The same night that falls perceptibly with the approach of death had long since begun to enshroud our life, rising from the cracks and the chaos: In night have I passed all my life; for the night of sin has covered me with darkness and thick mist (5.1). A layer of filth encrusts the soul, hardening the heart and rendering it heavy and insensitive: I have defiled my body, I have stained my spirit (392). We have a sense of foreboding that maleficent powers are on the look-out, and that in the shadows the Enemy lurks with his perverted intelligence. The Enemy—that deceiver, that beguiler, that separator: 1 Let me not become the possession and food of the enemy, we pray four times in Ode Four (4.32, 34, 35, 36).

Then, a first blessing is given: the “remembrance of death.” St John Climacus advises us — to make the constant thought of death our “spouse.” 2 In the sobering light of this “remembrance,” our conscience begins to awaken, regardless of our conditioning or our instinct for self-preservation. Solzhenitsyn3 has shown how the experience of the camps—where the remembrance of death was inescapable—can indeed awaken the conscience. I am convicted by the verdict of my own conscience, which is more compelling than all else in the world (4.14). For several of the Fathers—Dorotheus of Gaza, for example4—the conscience is like a divine spark. Thus man is judged from within, and with no possibility of appeal, by his own conscience. He then becomes aware not only that he “sits in darkness and the shadow of death” (Lk 1.79), but that in a certain sense he is in hell; for hell, as Origen said, is precisely the burning sensation caused by one’s own conscience. 5

There remains a certain persistent hunger. I am barren of the virtues of holiness; in my hunger I cry out (1.21). There remains a certain desire, though it has been disappointed for so long by the fantasies we have projected onto the wall of our finiteness. And so, the understanding and the heart begin to undergo change. This is the real meaning of metanoia, which is too often translated as “repentance” but which in fact signifies the transformation of our entire grasp of reality. We begin to shake off our torpor, our self-sufficiency, and that habit of perpetually justifying ourselves by condemning others. It is a return to one’s true self, which becomes a return to God and which manifests itself in confession: With boldness tell Christ of thy deeds and thoughts (4.12); Turn back, repent, uncover all that thou hast hidden. Say unto God, to whom all things are known: Thou alone knowest my secrets, O Savior; “have mercy on me,” as David sings, “according to thy mercy” (7.19).

As this awakening becomes more clearly defined, it brings with it a second blessing: the “fear of God.” This is an attitude that has become alien to many Christians today, probably because it happens to have been linked to a terrorist conception of God. Yet it is important to rediscover its deeper meaning, otherwise we risk remaining insensitive to the fundamental tone of the Great Canon. “The holy fathers place fear of God after faith in the order of virtue,” write Kallistos and Ignatius Xanthopoulos. 6 It is not fear that incites faith, as a terrorist approach to the mystery might well imply. Rather, it is faith that elicits fear—fear in the sense of a feeling of metaphysical dread or awe that wrests us from this world. One might mention here Heidegger’s analysis of angst in Being and Time. Angst, he argues, is caused by the awareness of our absorption into this world of futility, banality, and death. A world of “vanity,” says St Paul (Rom 8.20), in a sense that might be described not as ontological but as “non-ontological”: I have wasted the substance of my soul in riotous living (1.21). Angst causes man to distance himself from this world, sensing that “la vraie vie est ailleurs,” as Rimbaud puts it. 7 Yet such anxiety, when provoked simply by an intuition of nothingness, is insupportable; so man attempts to rid himself of it by exchanging it for various cares and fears. Always, adds Heidegger, a fear of something in the world, whereas angst proper is nothing other than our very awareness of being-in-the-world. It is noteworthy, he continues, that once such a feeling has passed, we are only too ready to say, “It was nothing”; for it was precisely this nothing that was causing us anxiety in the first place.

The “fear of God” takes up again this theme of fundamental angst, but now from within the perspective of our spiritual destiny. Thus the fear of identifying ourselves with the mortal way of the world, with the thirst for security whilst all escapes us, with the thirst for happiness whilst death stalks us—this fear now calls into question our spiritual responsibility. It is no longer a matter of simply discovering our closed finiteness, but an awareness of our sin as being a voluntary separation from God and neighbor, as a spiritual torpor, as entailing the risk that we might miss out on our eternal destiny: I have killed my conscience . . . making war upon the soul by my wicked actions (1.7).

It is a fear that implies the existence of a spiritual authority that transcends this world and before which man will be accountable for his destiny, or rather in the light of which his destiny will be judged and which can, from this point on, begin to judge itself. If men were orphans, alone in the world, if they did not have to render an account to anyone for their absorption into the world, their angst would be inexplicable. This outpouring of anguish—Give ear to the groaning of my soul (2.28)—only has meaning if said to Someone. It has no meaning unless it becomes “fear of God.” And whereas a fear of the world debilitates us and causes us to lose our footing more and more, the “fear of God,” born of a spiritual awakening and of faith, fortifies us, enables us to tear ourselves away from being captivated by “idols,” whether they be fears, passions, or cares. We begin to understand that letting ourselves be absorbed into the world results in our overlooking God. We begin to realize that we have stoned [our] body to death with [our] evil deeds, and killed [our] mind with [our] disordered longings (2.31) and that to care only for the outward adornment is to neglect that which is within—the tabernacle fashioned by God (2.19). Thus, between ourselves and the world, a certain distance is introduced. We can no longer bury ourselves in it because we now make sense of our destiny in a light that is not of this world. We understand that our being absorbed by the world risks compromising our eternal destiny, turning us away from God for ever. This fundamental angst that worries us points to a risk with everlasting consequences—the absence of God, hell. That the incarnate God has nevertheless come to seek us out, even in hell—that is something we shall discover later. We must first of all have a sense of what we have been saved from; or simply of the fact that we need to be saved!

I lie as an outcast before thy gate, O Savior. In my old age cast me not down empty into hell (1.13).

I have found myself stripped naked of God, of the eternal Kingdom and its joy, because of my sins (1.3).

Fear of God is the acceptance here and now of that krisis, that judgment by which, says St Symeon the New Theologian, we anticipate the Last Judgment and which enables us to pass beyond it: “In this present life when, through repentance, we enter freely into . . . the divine light, we find ourselves accused and under judgement; but, owing to the divine love and compassion the accusation and judgement is made in secret, in the depths of our soul, to purify us, that we may receive the pardon of our sins. . . . Those who in this life undergo such a judgement will have nothing to fear from another tribunal.” 8

In this way, say the Fathers—and the Great Canon as a whole progresses in this same direction—man passes little by little from impure fear to a fear that is pure. Impure fear is vanquished by humility, trust, and openness to the vastness of divine love. More exactly, it becomes this openness. On the other hand, as St Maximos the Confessor writes, “Fear that is pure . . . is always present even without remembrance of offences committed. Such fear will never cease to exist, because it is somehow rooted by God in creation and makes clear to everyone his awe-inspiring nature, which transcends all kingship and power.” 9

Notes

1Clément is alluding here to the etymology of the New Testament Greek term for the devil: dia-bolos.

2St John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent 3.15. Translation: Ladder of Divine Ascent, C. Luibheid and N. Russell, trans. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), 87. (Section numbers within the steps appear in the English translation published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, MA; these are found in many Greek and Russian texts, and are provided to allow readers to navigate other versions of the work more easily.—Ed.)

3See Olivier Clément’s 1974 book on Solzhenitsyn: The Spirit of Solzhenitsyn, S. Fawcett and P. Burns, trans. (London & New York: Search Press/ Barnes & Noble, 1976).

4See Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings, E. Wheeler, trans., Cistercian Studies 33 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2008).

5See Origen, On First Principles 2.10.4.

6Callistus and Ignatius of Xanthopoulos, Directions to Hesychasts 1

7. Translation in Writings from the Philokalia on the Prayer of the Heart, E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer, trans. (London: Faber & Faber, 1951), 190. 7Though Clément must have been aware that what Rimbaud actually wrote in Une saison en enfer (1873) was “La vraie vie est absente,” the misquotation is so well known and so often used that he naturally preferred not to amend it. Moreover, it is admirably suited to the present context.

8Quoted in Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 233–34.

9St Maximos the Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 10.5. Translation in On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture: The Responses to Thalassios, Maximos Constas, trans. (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 118.

How Is The Humility of the Wise Thief and Harlot highlighted in the Great Canon

Olivier Clement has written a wonderful book entitled ’The Song of Tears’ entirely on the Great Canon. In Chapter 6 , he explores how the Great Canon promotes humility that he describes as ’the basis and crown of all virtues’. In the extract below from this chapter , you will find references to the Great Canon denoted with a parenthesis. The first number will indicate the ode or canticle that is involved and the second the specific troparia verse. This book is another reminder of the depth and majesty of this great work.

By Olivier Clement extracted from Chapter 6 Trust & Humility in ‘The Song of Tears’

It is with the good thief and the harlot that those Orthodox preparing to receive communion identify themselves, as the Prayers before Communion emphasize.

By becoming wholly a being of faith, existing only by his relationship with Christ, man frees himself from his various masks and his pride. He learns humility, which is the basis and crown of all virtue: I have passed my life in arrogance: make me humble and save me (4.4). The soul that is humble lives only by God’s mercy. The ladder of virtues is in fact a descent—a descent into humility, but then “he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 18.14). A saint is simply a sinner who has become fully conscious of the fact, and who is thereby open to God’s grace. In the heroic days of desert asceticism, even the monks with the most abrupt of manners ended by recognizing that all that was needed was humility—in a way that heralds the “little way” of St Thérèse or St Silouan. Do not demand from me worthy fruits of repentance, for my strength has failed within me. Give me an ever-contrite heart and poverty of spirit, that I may offer these to thee as an acceptable sacrifice, O only Savior (9.33). In Step 5 of St John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent, there is the harrowing description of his visit to the separate monastery of serious penitents called “The Prison”—a voluntary gulag, as it were, for God. Yet it is noteworthy and significant that much later in his book (Step 25), he writes as follows: “In Scripture are the words, ‘I humbled myself, and the Lord hastened to rescue me’ (Ps 114.6); and these words are there instead of ‘I have fasted,’ ‘I have kept vigil,’ ‘I lay down on the bare earth.’”

The fact is that humility assimilates us to that of God himself, to his voluntary humiliation, his great kenosis of love: “Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Mt 11.29). The revelation of God’s own humility touches the proud heart of man, breaks it, and transforms it into a “heart of flesh” (Ezek 36.26). “Let us eagerly follow the ways of Jesus the Savior and his humility, if we desire to attain the everlasting tabernacle of joy and to dwell in the land of the living.” For trust and humility help us become poor in spirit, and it is those who possess nothing whom God can pervade with his joy. Take pity on me, as David sings, and restore to me thy joy (7.18).