Passions – St John’s Adult Education

Nativity Class #6 – The Cross Of Righteous Suffering – Victory Of The Cross By St. Dumitru Stăniloae

In our final Nativity class as we draw close to the birth of Christ, it is good for us to remember how even Christ’s birth reflects this cross of the righteous suffering. Perhaps you, like me, might be tempted to believe that if I’m trying to do the right thing with God … why is this so hard … why wasn’t there room at the inn … why did even finding a place to lay His head become a struggle? So often my life in Christ is complicated by the doubts of my expectations and desires. And, if I’m honest, placing myself on His throne … playing God by imposing my will … instead of accepting His and trusting that as I participate in His will I deepen an experience of God He desires that unites me to Him and reflects His Goodness. Perhaps in the final class, we need to be reminded of the question of the condition of my heart and St. Dumitru’s explanation of God’s purpose for us:

The fathers emphasized the goodness of God as the motive behind creation … God created all things in order that they might share in his Love, that is, full communion with God … the Good, as scripture testifies, produced everything and is the ultimately perfect Cause… God created the world for the sake of humanity, that the world be led towards the purpose of full communion with Him … only humans in a conscious way can rejoice more and more in the love of God and become God’s partners … The world serves this movement of raising ourselves to our ultimate meaning of achieving our fullness in communion with the personal God. All things impose on us a responsibility before God and before the world itself, and it is by the exercise of this responsibility that we increase in our communion with God and with our fellow human beings.

The Experience of God – Vol 2: The World: Creation & Deification (p.17-18) By Dumitru Staniloae

There is a transcendent mystery to our life in Christ .. one that forces us out of the comfort zone of our own understanding. And our life in Christ will reflect this cross if we live it with the daily willingness he is very clear will be presented to us:

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me

Luke 9:23

Let’s have St. Dumitru use the life of Job to help us more deeply understand this cross of righteous suffering from his booklet ‘Victory of the Cross’ we’ve studied through Nativity.

In the end it is God alone who can explain the sufferings of the righteous, and he does it through the many questions which he asks Job, all of which draw Job’s attention to the Giver of gifts. God in effect says to Job, ‘All my gifts are wonderful, but the intention of their wonder is to reveal the infinite wisdom and greatness of the one who gives them all’.

Then Job answered the Lord and said: I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withheld from thee … I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not … I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Job 42: 1-3; 5-6

This means to say that up until this moment Job had always thought of God in much the same terms in which others had spoken of him; now he begins to understand God himself, beyond all his gifts, the Giver of everything. In order to gain this supreme treasure he had for a while to lose all his possessions. He lost the respect of others, he lost his health, his wealth—all things—in order to see God in all his greatness and wisdom and marvellous nature. In losing all things he did not doubt God and thus he came to see the apophatic, inexpressible character of God who is beyond all human understanding. He saw God in a higher way than is possible merely through his gifts. He saw him immediately through his suffering.

The believer continually needs to make abstraction of the things of this world, needs to put the things of this world into brackets of forgetfulness, in order to think of God who is above all human understanding. But sometimes it is necessary that God himself should intervene in order to throw into relief the little value of the things of this world in comparison with God, their transitory, passing nature in contrast to the eternity of God, in order to show us more clearly God’s infinite transcendence of his gifts and his ineffable presence with us. In such cases it seems to us that God himself abandons us. This is because sometimes we become so attached to things that we can no longer see God. Sometimes we make so close a link between God and the things which he gives, that we identify God with these things and totally forget God in himself, and then if God no longer shows his interest in us by giving us gifts it seems to us that he has abandoned us. For this reason the cross often seems to us a sign of our being abandoned by God. But it can also happen that God does really withdraw himself from our vision in order to prove and strengthen the tenacity of our love for him. Even our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross had this feeling of complete abandonment by God. But even the Lord Jesus never weakened in his love for God.

In reality, God never abandons us in whatever situation we find ourselves. It is possible that he may disappear for a time, for a moment, from our horizon, from our understanding. But the God whom we habitually think of in terms of creation will then appear to us in the true greatness of his glory which is indefinable and inexpressible in human thoughts and words. This is why in the Song of Songs it is said that sometimes God hides himself, and then again reveals himself in a higher and more glorious way:

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me, to whom I said: Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth. I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house and into the chamber of her who conceived me. (Song of Songs 3: 1- 4)

It is only then that we enter into a relationship with God which is truly personal, a relationship which is above all created things. This relationship with God is one no longer dominated by material images. Our ideas about things and about the gifts which God gives altogether disappear in the light of God himself. Thus purified we give ourselves wholly to God; and we are raised into the dialogue of love exclusively with him. Then we feel that God is infinitely greater than all his gifts and all his creatures, and that in this relationship with him we are raised to a different spiritual level at which we regain in him all that we had lost.

The Christian who has the love of God in him and who thus has love for every person—that love which is an imperishable and inexhaustible reality—feels a greater joy than all the joys which the things of this world can procure, a greater joy than his own existence lived as an isolated individual could ever give him. This is the fact which the righteous discover in their suffering. This cross is given to a man in order that he himself may come to discover God at another level, at an apophatic depth, but also in order to show to other men that there are those who can be attached to God in this way even when all their possessions are taken from them, and even when God himself seems to disappear from their view.

The Cross as the Mystery of Love

The mystery of the cross of the just is the mystery of love between men as eternal persons, the mystery of love for God, and also of the love which above all things must be affirmed amongst men. Truly to love a person means to love them for themselves even when they no longer give us anything, when they no longer seem to have goodwill towards us, even when they seem to show us an incomprehensible coldness or hostility which is altogether contrary to the goodness which they showed to us earlier, even when it seems that the other person has abandoned us even to death. For if we remain firm in our love towards others despite their incomprehensible hardness towards us, we make a true proof of love, of the love which we have for them. This is the love which God himself forms in us and which does indeed raise us from death. When love confronts even death, then it conquers death itself.

He who accepts the death which God gives, with the declaration of love on his lips, gives a supreme proof of a love which will never fail, a love which is given to the person himself and not to his gifts. It is in this supreme love for God that we find the mystery of the cross which is carried by the just, of whom God has given the perfect example in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the earthly suffering which he underwent for the love of God. The Son of God in becoming man accepted the cross first of all to show his love for men, despite their hatred and incomprehension of him which were to be the cause of his death in this world. But then by his death on the cross he has given us the example of a man in whom love for God has resisted to the end, even to being given up to death.

…The world has value only in so far as through it we see and receive the revelations and the energies of the person of God who in himself, in his essence, cannot be described, but whose energies are already at work in all creation and will be fully revealed in the transfigured world of the age to come. Until the last day God is at work in this world, leading it towards its resurrection, above all by means of the cross.

Thus the cross is the sign and the means of the salvation of the world. All the world is a gift of God, and by the cross all the world has to be transcended in God. Only in Christ is this meaning of the cross fully revealed. In the cross of Christ the salvation of the world is founded, and the salvation of the whole cosmos, because by the cross the tendency of the whole cosmos to transcend itself in God is accomplished. One cannot conceive of a world which is not saved, a world which would always remain in suffering, enclosed in itself, a world in which the cross would not fully fulfil the destiny of the world. Suffering would have no meaning at all unless it was leading the world towards its salvation in God. The hell of an eternal suffering is no longer ‘a world’, properly speaking, but simply fragments detached from the world without meaning and without solidarity amongst themselves, shadowy, phantasmagoric fragments of the world. In hell suffering is eternal and would finally swallow up the gift. In the kingdom of God the world has been transfigured by the cross through which God himself is finally revealed and glorified.

Father Gabe’s Rich Young Ruler Homily December 1st 2024 Audio & Transcript

Father Gabe’s Rich Young Ruler Homily 12-1-2024

So, we all try really, really hard to avoid the uncomfortable truth of this story.

So, in the interest of time, let’s get right to it.

This story is not simply a diatribe against having wealth. We are all wealthy. Some of us with money, most of us not with money. But with something, we all have wealth. St. John Chrysostom, the Golden Mouth, tells us that giving away possessions is the least of Christ’s instructions in this passage. Indeed, for some people, giving up all their possessions is actually a great relief and would not actually be all that difficult for them.

The true message of this story cuts much deeper. So, that message is this.

Every single one of us, without exception, possesses something or some things that we value more highly than the kingdom of heaven. Things for which we would be willing to abandon God. And by abandoning God, I don’t mean that we become open enemies of God. But rather that we willingly choose something or someone else, something or someone other than God, with which or with whom to become unified.

If we were in the place of the rich young ruler and Jesus asked us to give away or give up X in order to draw closer to Him, we too would walk away sorrowfully, but willingly.

God does not want to see us make this horrible trade.

So, this story is begging us for our own sakes to figure out what X is in each of our lives. So, this thing or things, this could be people, places, goals, expectations, pursuits of respect, honor, glory. This certainly happens within the church as well. This will be different for each one of us, and they may likely shift over time.

I remember myself, my earliest thing that I wouldn’t give up to follow God, was to be famous in a band. It was going to happen. I know it doesn’t happen to most people, but it was going to happen for me. My intentions were pure. I just wanted to make beautiful music. No, no; I wanted to be famous. I wanted to have glory. Riches would come along with that. And I wasn’t willing to give that up until it became very clear that this was not going to happen.

So, I then started a company and tried to make all of those same things happen through the company. And it did, sort of. And then God makes that seem hollow and fleeting.

And oftentimes we have to go through it. We have to learn the hard way. The things that we think we should unify ourselves with will actually destroy us. And usually it takes them destroying us in some way for us to realize that God asked us to trade up long ago.

And so at its core, this gospel is a good, true fatherly exhortation to wisely spend our limited time and energy in the pursuit of true freedom.

God is here leading us to become like He is, to become completely unbound by anything, completely free and completely happy. This prospect terrifies most of us because it means becoming an entirely different creature, which is not an easy process. It’s a really big deal.

And thus God is very, very patient with us.

But be that as it may be, out of true love, God always keeps this transformative task directly before us. We must find the courage which without His help is impossible. We must find the courage to let go of the things that we would trade for the Kingdom of Heaven. To let go of the corruptible things that we would choose to unify with instead of unifying with God.

We have to remember, if we choose to unify with that which corrupts and decays, then we also corrupt and decay. Simple math. If we choose to unify with that which is eternal and divine, then we too become eternal and divine.

This is the cross. And crosses really hurt. But they bring us into union with God. This is salvation.

In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Cross and God’s Revelation of Its Meaning – Victory Of The Cross By Father Dumitru Stăniloae

This is a 2nd extract from a powerful booklet entitled ‘The Victory Of The Cross’ written by the well known 20th century Romanian Orthodox priest and scholar Father Dumitru Stăniloae. You can find the 1st extract from his booklet here.

Then Job answered the Lord and said: I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withheld from thee … I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not … I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Job 42: 1-3; 5-6

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me, to whom I said: Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth. I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house and into the chamber of her who conceived me. (Song of Songs 3: 1- 4)

The Cross as the Mystery of Love

In the case of Job we do not have this picture of a love for God which continues even to death, but we feel that this love could have been there unalterable to the end in Job. All the same, in the beginning Job did not understand the reason for his sufferings which in the end were to be a proof of his love for God. It is Christ who first saw the supreme and absolute value of the cross as a proof of love both of God and of men, love of a worth beyond all else. None the less, Job is the type of Christ, and his second and greater fortune is a type or symbol of the resurrection which the just man who accepts death from God will receive in the end.

Love which does not go so far as the love of Job went or, more clearly, as far as the love of Jesus Christ, is not true love but only conditional, a love conditional on things, that is to say a love of oneself and not a true love of others. It does not reveal the true, infinitely greater worth of persons than of any other created things or the eternal basis of their worth in the personal reality of God. In true love a man should transcend himself, go beyond himself, and the supreme act of this transcendence is fulfilled in love for God, who is the Transcendent One.

It is is doubtless true and right that persons reveal their love for one another by their gifts, and this is also true in God’s relationship with men. In this sense we cannot think of the cross without the world as God’s gift. But on the other side we cannot think of the world without the cross. The cross makes this world transparent for God. The cross shows that the world is God’s gift, and as such is a lower and lesser reality than God himself. The cross is the sign of God as a person who is above all his gifts. But it is also the sign of a perfect relationship between God and man. In this sense the cross is specially the sign of the Son of Man in whom this relationship has been perfectly realised. The cross is the sign of the Son of God become man, the sign which he prints on the world by his solidarity with the world.

Without the cross man would be in danger of considering this world as the ultimate reality. Without the cross he would no longer see the world as God’s gift. Without the cross the Son of God incarnate would have simply confirmed the image of the world as it is now as the final reality, and strictly speaking he could have been neither God nor God incarnate. The cross completes the fragmentary meaning of this world which has meaning when it is seen as a gift which has its value, but only a relative and not an absolute value. The cross reveals the destiny of the world as it is drawn towards its transfiguration in God by Christ. For this reason at the end of this stage of the world this sign, ‘the sign of the Son of Man’, will be revealed in the heavens above all the world, as a light, as a meaning, as a destiny which illumines the whole history of man (Matt. 24: 30).

In this way the cross prophetically points to the eschatological, the final destiny of the world. For this reason we associate the sign of the cross with the Holy Trinity, with the Kingdom of God. This is the reason why in the Orthodox Liturgy the cross is printed on the loaf which is used in the Eucharist, bread being at once the sign of God’s gift and of man’s work, the existential expression of the whole of man’s life in this world offered to God. With this sign of the cross the Church blesses, and before all their actions Christians make the sign of the cross in order to dedicate them to God. With this sign the priest blesses the water of Baptism, and also the holy water with which he sprinkles the house, the fields and the whole world in which the Christian lives and works—all is covered with the sign of the cross.

The world has value only in so far as through it we see and receive the revelations and the energies of the person of God who in himself, in his essence, cannot be described, but whose energies are already at work in all creation and will be fully revealed in the transfigured world of the age to come. Until the last day God is at work in this world, leading it towards its resurrection, above all by means of the cross.

Born To Set Us Free From Our Infirmities

December 4, 2021 · Fr. Philip LeMasters

Galatians 5:22-6:2; Luke 13:10-17

When Jesus Christ was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, he saw a woman who was bent over and could not straighten up. She had been that way for eighteen years. Imagine how her life had changed due to her disability, how frustrating that chronic illness had to be, especially in a time before modern medicine and physical therapy. The Lord said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” When He laid hands on her, she was healed. When the woman stood up straight again, she glorified God.

As was often the case when the Savior healed on the Sabbath day, there were those standing around just waiting to criticize Him for working on the day of rest. He responded to them by noting that people do what is necessary to take care of their animals on the Sabbath. “So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” The force of His point was so clear that those self-righteous hypocrites were put to shame and the people rejoiced.

In these weeks of the Nativity Fast, we pray, fast, give to the needy, and confess and turn away from our sins as we prepare to celebrate the wonderful news of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of our Lord’s birth at Christmas for the salvation of the world. Today’s gospel text provides a beautiful image of what Jesus Christ has done for us by becoming a human being by uniting divinity and humanity in His own Person. These weeks of preparation give us all the opportunity to gain the spiritual clarity to see ourselves in that poor woman bent over and bound with chronic, debilitating infirmity.

Though we often do our best to hide it, we are all too well acquainted with illness, pain, and death. We face chronic challenges of various kinds from which we cannot deliver ourselves or our loved ones. We have diseases of soul, of personality, of behavior, and of relationships that cripple us, that keep us from acting, thinking, and speaking with the joyful freedom of the children of God. We are all bent over and crippled in profound ways in relation to the Lord, our neighbors, and even ourselves. We have all fallen short of fulfilling God’s gracious purposes for us, as has every generation since Adam and Eve.

Joachim and Anna knew all about long-term frustration and pain, for like Abraham and Sarah they were childless into their old age. God heard their prayers, however, and gave them Mary, who would in turn give birth to the Savior Who came to liberate us all from sin and death. We celebrate in the coming week the feast of St. Anna’s conception of the Theotokos, which foreshadows the coming of the Lord to loose us from the infirmities that hinder our participation even now in the joyful life of the Kingdom.

The story of the Old Testament unfolded through the family of Abraham, who was told by God that he would be the father of a large, blessed family. Some think of life after death as being accomplished through ongoing generations of children and grandchildren, not by victory over death itself. If God’s blessings extended no further than the grave, however, then no one would ever be loosed from bondage to the wages of sin, which is death itself. Only a Savior Who is truly divine and human could enter fully into the fatal consequences of our corruption and then rise victorious over them, making it possible for us to participate in the eternal life of the heavenly kingdom.

The history of the Hebrews was preparatory for the coming of the Christ, the Messiah in Whom God’s promises are fulfilled and extended to all who have faith in the Savior, regardless of their ethnic or national heritage. Christ did not come to promote one nation over another or to set up an earthly kingdom of any kind, but to fulfill our original calling as those created in the image and likeness of God. He unites divinity and humanity in Himself and makes it possible for us to share in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity as distinct, unique persons who become radiant with the divine glory by grace. God breaks the laws of nature, at least as we know them in our world of corruption, in order to save us, enabling elderly women like Sarah and Anna to conceive and bear children and a young virgin named Mary to become the mother of His Son, Who Himself rose from the dead after three days in the tomb. He is born at Christmas to work our liberation, to break the bonds of death, and to heal the brokenness of our life in this world of corruption.

The Lord did not treat the woman in today’s reading according to her physical condition as simply an impersonal bundle of disease, even as St. Anna’s fate was not defined by barrenness. Instead, He revealed her true identity as a beloved person, a daughter of Abraham, by enabling her to stand up straight for the first time in years. On that particular Sabbath day, Jesus Christ treated her as a unique, cherished child of God who was not created for slavery to a wretched existence of pain, disease, and despair, but for blessing, health, and joy. She glorified God for this deliverance from bondage, for this restoration of freedom, as did those who saw the miracle.

The good news of Christmas is that the Savior is born to do the same for us all, to set us free from captivity to the decay, corruption, and weakness that have taken root in our souls. He comes to deliver us from being defined by our infirmities so that we can leave behind our bondage and enter into the joyous freedom of the children of God. He comes to restore us as living icons who manifest His glory and salvation as the unique persons He created us to be.

Our salvation is a process of becoming more fully our true ourselves by embracing Christ’s healing of the human person. There is no limit to the unique beauty of our souls other than those we impose by our own refusal to unite ourselves to Him in holiness. The more we share by grace in the life of the Holy Trinity, the more we will see that the process of our fulfillment in God is eternal. Since our fundamental calling is to become like God in holiness, we become more truly ourselves whenever we turn away from slavery to sin and corruption in order to embrace more fully the new life that Christ has brought to the world.

Most people today probably do not think of Advent and Christmas in relation to liberation from our bondage to sin and death. More typically, we distort them into opportunities to strengthen our addiction to the love of money and possessions and to excess in food and drink. Such self-centered indulgence is really nothing but bondage to ourselves, which can easily leave us so weak spiritually that we will never be able to straighten ourselves up. That is not surprising because, as God’s children, we were not created to find our fulfillment in the passing things of creation or in satisfying self-centered desires for bodily pleasure. That is why we must resist the cultural temptation to become so busy with shopping, planning, and partying this time of year that we end up ignoring the profound spiritual gravity of our Lord’s Incarnation. He is born to restore us to the full dignity of His sons and daughters, to make us personal participants in the blessing and joy of the heavenly kingdom. He comes to loose us all from slavery to sin and death.

In the remaining weeks of the Nativity Fast, let us follow St. Paul’s advice to acquire “the fruit of the Spirit…love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, [and] self-control.” Let us use this season to crucify “the flesh with the passions and the lusts” as we are loosed from the debilitating corruptions of sin by the mercy of the God-Man born for our salvation. As we pray, fast, give to the needy, and confess and repent of our sins this Advent, let us do so with the joyful hope of the woman who could finally stand up straight after eighteen years. For the Savior is born to deliver us from bondage in all its forms. It is time to rise up with Him into the blessed life of holiness He comes to share with us, for we have already had more than enough of pain and infirmity. As daughters and sons of Abraham by faith, let us embrace the healing that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Temple Of The Foolish Rich Man – Homily by Father Phillip LeMasters

Have you ever thought about the similarities and differences between barns and temples? Usually when we think of barns, we think simply of places to house farm animals or to store crops. We normally do not think of them as having much spiritual significance. The rich man in today’s gospel lesson thought of his barns only in terms of his business, which was so successful that he looked forward simply to relaxing, eating, drinking, and enjoying himself. Unfortunately, he did so to the point of making his possessions an idol. He was rich in things of the world, but poor towards God. He was ultimately a fool, for he based his life on what was temporary and lost his own soul. His barn became a temple only to himself.

We live in a culture that constantly tempts us to follow this man’s bad example. More so than any previous generation, we are bombarded with advertising and other messages telling us that the good life is found in what we can buy. Whether it is cell phones, clothing, cars, houses, entertainment, food, or medicines, the message is the same: Happiness comes from buying the latest new product. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, this message is particularly strong. We do not have to become Scrooges, however. It is one thing to give reasonable gifts to our loved ones in celebration of the Savior’s birth, but it is quite another to turn this holy time of year into an idolatrous orgy of materialism that obscures the very reason for the season.

We are not really near Christmas yet, as Advent just began on November 15. Today, as we continue to celebrate the ForeFeast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, we are reminded of the importance of preparing to receive Christ at His birth. Instead of looking for fulfillment in barns and the money they produce, we should follow her into the temple. Sts. Joachim and Anna took their young daughter to the temple in Jerusalem, where she grew up in prayer and purity in preparation to become the living temple of God when she consented to the message of the Archangel Gabriel to become the mother of the God-Man Jesus Christ. The Theotokos was not prepared for her uniquely glorious role by a life focused on making as much money as possible, acquiring the most fashionable and expensive products, or simply pleasing herself. No, she became unbelievably rich toward God by focusing on the one thing needful, by a life focused on hearing the word of God and keeping it.

In ways appropriate to our own life circumstances, God calls each of us to do the same thing. And before we start making excuses, we need to recognize that what St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians applies to us also: “[Y]ou are no longer strangers and sojourners, but…fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in Whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in Whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” In other words, to be a Christian is to be a temple, for the Holy Spirit dwells in us both personally and collectively. The only way to become a better temple is to follow the example of the Theotokos in deliberate, intentional practices that make us rich toward God, that open ourselves to the healing and transformation of our souls that Christ has brought to the world. We must participate personally in His holiness if we want to welcome Him anew into our lives at Christmas.

The rich fool became wealthy by investing himself entirely in his business to the neglect of everything else. In contrast, the Theotokos invested herself so fully in the Lord that she was able to fulfill the most exalted, blessed, and difficult calling of all time as the Virgin Mother of the Savior. In order for us to follow her example by becoming better temples of Christ, we also have to invest ourselves in holiness. The hard truth is that holiness does not happen by accident, especially in a culture that worships at the altar of pleasure, power, and possessions. So much in our world shapes us every day a bit more like the rich fool in our gospel lesson, regardless of how much or how little money we have. Many of us are addicted to electronic screens on phones, computers, and televisions. What we see and hear through virtually all forms of entertainment encourages us to think and act as though our horizons extend no further than a barn. In other words, the measure of our lives becomes what we possess, what we can buy, and whatever pleasure or distraction we can find on our own terms with food, drink, sex, or anything else. We think of ourselves as isolated individuals free to seek happiness however it suits us. No wonder that there is so much divorce, abortion, sexual immorality, and disregard for the poor, sick, and aged in our society. Investing our lives in these ways is a form of idolatry, of offering ourselves to false gods that can neither save nor satisfy us. The barn of the rich fool was also a temple, a pagan temple in which he basically worshiped himself. If we are not careful, we will become just like him by laying up treasures for ourselves according to the dominant standards of our culture and shut ourselves out of the new life that Christ has brought to the world.

We cannot control the larger trends of our society, but we can control what we do each day. During this Nativity Fast, no matter the circumstances of our lives, we can all take steps to live more faithfully as members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. In other words, we can intentionally reject corrupting influences and live in ways that serve our calling to become better living temples of the Lord. Yes, we can stop obsessing about our barns and enter into the temple of the one true God.

The first step is to set aside time for prayer. If we do not pray every day, we should not be surprised that it is hard to pray in Church or that we find only frustration in trying to resist temptation or to know God’s peace in our lives. We also need to read the Bible. If we fill our minds with everything but the Holy Scriptures and the lives of the Saints, we should not be surprised that worry, fear, and unholy thoughts dominate us. Fasting is also crucial. If we do not fast or otherwise practice self-denial, we should not be surprised when self-centered desires for pleasure routinely get the better of us and make us their slaves. We should also share with the poor. If we do not give generously of our time and resources to others in need, we should not be surprised when selfishness alienates us from God, our neighbors, and even our loved ones. This is also a time for humble confession and repentance. If we refuse to acknowledge and turn from our sins, we should not be surprised when we are overcome by guilt and fall into despair about leading a faithful life. No, the Theotokos did not wander into the temple by accident and we will not follow her into a life of holiness unless we intentionally reorient ourselves toward Him.

None of us will do that perfectly, but we must all take the steps we are capable of taking in order to turn our barns into temples. Remember that the infant Christ was born in a barn, which by virtue of His presence became a temple. The same will be true of our distracted, broken lives when—with the fear of God and faith and love—we open ourselves to the One Who comes to save us at Christmas. The Theotokos prepared to receive the Savior by attending to the one thing needful, to hearing and keeping His word. In the world as we know it, that takes deliberate effort, but it remains the only way to be rich toward God. And that is why Christ is born at Christmas, to bring us into His blessed, holy, and divine life which is more marvelous than anything we can possibly imagine. As the Lord said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The Foolish Rich Man – Homily by Father Anthony Hughes November 2005

Planted in our hearts are possibilities, good and bad. It is possible for us to become unwholesome people filled with greed, pride, hatred, selfishness, insensitivity, intolerance, judgment, and cruelty. Or we can become people filled with love, peace, tolerance, compassion, joy. It is our decision which seeds take root and grow in us. What shall I nurture in my life? What shall I do with the time and talents that have been given me? The rich man in today’s Gospel, though evidently gifted, talented and intelligent chose unwisely.

The rich man transgressed in a number of different ways. Let’s examine three of them.

First, he ignored one of life’s greatest teachers: death. He seems to have forgotten death entirely. He was so busy worrying about accumulating more wealth that he did not envision an end to his life. He may not have thought of death, but he sure did fear it! The parable ends with God saying to him, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you, then whose will those things be which you have provided?”

The saints of the Church often teach that we should keep death in our minds daily. People often call us crazy when we say that, but think about it for a moment. If we remember that we are going to die, it helps us to prioritize what we do with the time we have left. Thinking on our own mortality need not be morbid or depressing; instead it can help us appreciate life even more and live fuller and richer lives. It certainly causes us to think of God and the after-life. The remembrance of death encourages us to nurture good things in ourselves.

Here is a pithy saying, “All of us will surely die, but will any of us ever really live?” In order to really live we must not run from the remembrance of death.

Secondly, the rich man did not care for the poor. He had more than he needed and kept collecting even more, so much that he needed to build bigger barns. He forgot three important truths: every treasure in this life withers and fades, God gives in abundance so that we can share in abundance and, since all human beings are interconnected, the suffering of one equals the suffering of all.

Jesus tells us to “lay up treasures in heaven” that do not fade and can’t be stolen away. This we do by nurturing goodness in ourselves and sharing it with others. The truly rich are people who are rich in compassion even though they may have nothing in the bank. If we are well-off it is not for our benefit alone that God has blessed us. It is so that we can share even more with others and lay up treasure in heaven. Attachment to wealth, selfish hoarding during our short lives on this earth will impoverish us during our eternal life in the age to come.

Humanity is unity in diversity, one in essence just as we say about the Holy Trinity. Funny! We are indeed made in the image of God are we not? In fact, the truth of the essential unity of humanity is one reason why we Orthodox should be extremely concerned about social justice. Every hungry child is my child, every tortured prisoner is my brother, every mother dying of HIV/Aids in Africa is my mother, every wounded solider is my father, everyone suffering from injustice is my neighbor. Yes, it is our job to see to the needs of our neighbors and to do all we can to alleviate suffering. Like their Savior all true Christian disciples have “bleeding hearts”. After Cain killed his brother he asked God, “Am I my brother’s keeper.” The answer is yes.

St. Basil the Great has a famous quote for this foolish rich man and for us, “The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry, the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked, the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot, the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor, the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.” Sisters and brothers, we do not own anything. What we have belongs to God and to those who are in need. If we do not share, then we are no better than thieves.

God gives abundantly so that we can share abundantly. To those who give, God gives even more so that they can share even more. That is the truth of it.

Remember this wise saying, “All the happiness there is in the world comes from thinking about others, and all the suffering in the world comes from preoccupation with yourself.”

Lastly, the foolish rich man, by not remembering death and by hoarding his wealth and robbing the poor, failed to “lay up riches in heaven where neither rust nor moth destroys, where man cannot break in and steal.” Thus, he ignored God whose treasures are eternal. “Seek first the kingdom of God,” Jesus taught, but to do that we must stop trying to establish our own kingdoms here. Far from trying to ignore and escape death, Jesus teaches that we must embrace it, “Take up your cross and follow me.”

To save our lives we must lose them. To preserve our lives we must give them up. To become great we must become small. All that God teaches is contrary to conventional wisdom. As Christians we are therefore called to be compassionate revolutionaries, to subvert the normal order of things with the radical leaven of the kingdom of heaven.

The foolish rich man ran away from death and discovered himself racing into its arms. He stole from the poor by hoarding his wealth and found himself impoverished in eternity. He ignored God who alone had the power to give him what his heart truly desired – peace, security, eternal life – and ended up empty handed.

While we are able, while the light of day remains, let us learn from the foolish rich man, turn away from our own foolish ways and begin laying up treasures in heaven.

The Victory of the Cross – By Father Dumitru Staniloae

This is Part I of an extract from a short booklet of the same title. As we prepare ourselves for Holy Week, I suspect you will agree with me that his presentation of the Cross is both clear and compelling. It helps us to understand our suffering and His suffering in the Light of the Cross. This Light can focus us on our love of the Giver not on his gift.

In this way, the Cross is constant in elevating us to what is eternal and transcendent in the Triune God where our true faith, hope and love lie.

Our Lord and Savior’s words become so much clearer in the light of this powerful presentation of the Cross by this 20th century Romanian Theologian so highly regarded:

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me
Luke 9:23

The Cross Imprinted on the Gift of the World

The world is a gift of God, but the destiny of this gift is to unite us with God, who has given it. The intention of the gift is that in itself it should be continually transcended. When we receive a gift from somebody we should look primarily towards the person who has given it and not keep our eyes fixed on the gift. But often those who receive a gift become so attached to the gift that they forget who has given it to them. But God demands an unconditional love from us, for God is infinitely greater than any gifts given to us; just as at the human level the person who gives us something is incomparably more important than what is given, and should be loved for himself or herself, not only on account of the gift. In this way every gift requires a certain cross, and this cross is meant to show us that they are not the last and final reality. This cross consists in an alteration in the gift, and sometimes even in its entire loss.

We can see many meanings in this cross imprinted on the gift of the world which God gives to us. St Maximus the Confessor said that ‘all the realities which we perceive with the senses demand the cross’; and ‘all the realities which we understand with our mind have need of the tomb’. To these words of St Maximus we can add this: that in our fallen condition we feel the dissolution of the present world and of our own existence as a pain, a suffering; feel it as a sorrow because we have bound the affections which form part of our very being to the image of this world which is passing away. This attachment to the things of this world is felt particularly strongly by those who do not believe that there is any further transformation of this world after the life which we now know.

The Christian, however, carries this cross of the world and of his own existence not only more easily but with a certain joy, for he knows that after this cross there follows an imperishable life. With this faith he sees the world as crucified and dead to him, and he and all his tendencies as crucified and dead to the present world. This does not mean that he is not active in this world, and that he does not exercise his responsibility towards it; but he works in order to develop in the present state of the world, destined as it is to dissolution and death, the germs, the seeds of its future resurrection. He longs that this world, and his own existence in it, may be crucified as Christ was crucified; that is to say he wishes voluntarily to undergo the suffering of the cross with the hope of resurrection into a higher world, an imperishable world, a resurrection which is truly with and in Christ.

The Christian does not see the transitory nature of the structures of this world and of his own existence as leading towards a crucifixion without hope, or as moving towards a definitive, final death. He see this situation and he lives it, anticipating the crucifixion at its end with hope, the hope of a higher and unchanging life.

However, it is not only the Christian who lives his own life and that of the world in anticipation of their crucifixion, lives them as nailed to the cross of the passing away of their present form; everyone inevitably does so. For everyone knows that those we love will die, and this certainty introduces a sorrow into the joy of our communion with them. Everyone knows that the material goods which one accumulates are transitory, and this knowledge casts a shadow on the pleasure one has in them. In this sense, the world and our own existence in it are a cross which we shall carry until the end of our earthly life. Never can man rejoice wholly in the gifts, the good things, and in the persons of this world. We feel the transitory nature of this world as a continual cross. But Christians can live this cross with the hope of the resurrection, and thus with joy, while those who have no faith must live this experience with increasing sadness, with the feeling that existence is without meaning, and with a certain despair which they cannot altogether alleviate.

The Cross in Relationships

Our responsibility towards those who are near to us forms the weight of a particularly heavy and painful cross on account of the fragility of their life which is exposed to a multitude of ills, a multitude of difficulties which arise from the conditions of this world in its present state. Parents suffer intensely and very frequently because of the ills and difficulties of their children; they fear for their life, for their failure, for their sufferings. Therefore the life of parents becomes a life of continual concern, and the cross of the children is their cross. Our cross becomes heavier with the weight of the cross of those with whom we come in contact, for we share responsibility for the life of our children, our relatives, our friends, and even of all men with whom, in one way and another, we are in touch. We bear responsibility for all that can threaten the life of those for whom we have care, and we have the obligation, so far as we can, of smoothing their difficulties and helping their lives. Thus we can reveal and strengthen our love for them and their love for us; thus we can develop the seeds of a future life in strengthening our and their spiritual existence. In this responsibility towards our neighbour we live more intensely our responsibility towards God. Christ has shown this meaning of his cross, he who had pity on those who were suffering, and wept for those who were dead.

A second sense of the cross in relationships is this: the fallen world is often lived and felt as a cross to be carried until death through the fact that people sometimes act towards us in a hostile way, even though we have done them no wrong. They suspect us of having evil intentions towards them. They think of us as obstacles in the path of their life. Often they become our enemies even on account of the noble and high convictions to which we remain faithful. Our attachment to these convictions brings their evil designs into the light and their bad intentions to view even though we do not intend this. And this happens all the more because by the beliefs which we hold, and which we cannot renounce, we show our responsibility towards them, since we seek the security of their physical and material life and the true development of their spiritual being. This is a responsibility which we reveal in our words, our writings and our actions which become, as it were, an exhortation to them.

We also feel as a heavy cross the erring ways of our children, of our brethren, and of many of our neighbours and contemporaries. We carry their incomprehension of our good intentions and of our good works as a cross. Almost every one of our efforts to spread goodness is accompanied by suffering and by a cross which we carry on account of the incomprehension of others. To wish to avoid this suffering, this cross, would mean in general to renounce the struggle and the effort to do what is good.

Thus without the cross there can be no true growth and no true strengthening of the spiritual life. To avoid the weight of this cross is to avoid our responsibility towards our brethren and our neighbours before God. Only by the cross can we remain in submission to God and in true love towards our neighbours. We cannot purify or develop our own spiritual life nor that of others, nor that of the world in general, by seeking to avoid the cross. Consequently, we do not discover either the depth or the greatness of the potential forces and powers of this world as a gift of God if we try to live without the cross. The way of the cross is the only way which leads us upwards, the only way which carries creation towards the true heights for which it was made. This is the signification which we understand of the cross of Christ.

The Essence of the Passions

From Chapter 7 of Orthodox Spirituality by Father Dumitru Staniloae (pgs 73-75)

The passions represent the lowest level to which human nature can fall. Both their Greek name, pathi, as well as the Latin, passiones, show that man is brought by them to a state of passivity, of slavery. In fact, they overcome the will, so that the man of the passions is no longer a man of will; we say that he is a man ruled, enslaved, carried along by the passions.

Another characteristic of the passions is that in them an unquenchable thirst is manifested, which seeks to be quenched and can’t be. Blondel says that they represent man’s thirst for the infinite, turned in a direction in which they can’t find their satisfaction. Dostoevsky has a similar idea.

Neilos the Ascetic writes that the stomach, by gluttony, becomes a sea impossible to fill-a good description of any passion. This always unsatisfied infinity is due both to the passion in itself, as well as to the object with which it seeks satisfaction. The objects which the passions look for can’t satisfy them because objects are finite and as such don’t correspond to the unlimited thirst of the passions. Or as St. Maximus puts it, the passionate person finds himself in a continuous preoccupation with nothing; he tries to appease his infinite thirst with the nothingness of his passions, and the objects which he is gobbling up become nothing, by their very nature. In fact, a passion by its very nature searches for objects, and it seeks them only because they can be completely under the control of the ego, and at its mercy. But objects by nature are finite, both as sources of satisfaction and in regard to duration; they pass easily into nonexistence, by consumption. Even when the passion also needs the human person in order to be satisfied, it likewise reduces him or her to an object, or sees and uses only the objective side; the unfathomable depths hidden in the subjective side escape him.

Now the infinite thirst of the passions in themselves is explained in this way: The human being has a spiritual basis and therefore a tendency toward the infinite which also is manifested in the passions; but in these passions the tendency is turned from the authentic infinite which is of a spiritual order, toward the world, which only gives an illusion of the infinite. Man, without being himself infinite, not only is fit, but is also thirsty for the infinite and precisely for this reason is also capable of, and longs for, God, the true and only infinite (homo capax divini-man capable of the divine). He has a capacity and is thirsty for the infinite not in the sense that he is in a state to win it, to absorb it in his nature because then human nature itself would become infinite – but in the sense that he can and must be nourished spiritually from the infinite, and infinitely, He seeks and is able to live in a continual communication with it, in a sharing with it. But man didn’t want to be satisfied with this sharing in the infinite; he wanted to become himself the center of the infinite, or he believed that he is such a center; he let himself be tricked by his nature’s thirst for the infinite.

The human being then, didn’t understand that the infinite thirst of his nature isn’t an indication of the infinity of that nature, because the true infinite can’t be thirst. It’s only a sign of its capacity to communicate with the infinite, which isn’t a property of his nature. So the human being, instead of being satisfied to remain in communication with the true infinite, and to progress in it, wanted to become himself the infinite. He tried to absorb in himself or to subordinate to himself everything that lent itself to this relation of subordination: dead objects, finite things. Instead of quenching his thirst for the infinite, he sought to gather everything around himself, as around a center. But because man isn’t a true center in himself, this nature of his took revenge; it made him in reality run after things, even enslaving him to them. So passion, as a tireless chase after the world, instead of being an expression of the central sovereignty of our nature, is rather a force which carries us along against our will; it’s a sign of the fall of our nature into an accentuated state of passivity. Our nature, whether it wants to or not, still has to express its tendency for a center outside of itself. By the passions, this center was moved from God to the world. Thus the passions are the product of a tortuous impulse of our nature, or of a nature which has lost its simplicity and tendency to move straight ahead. In it two tendencies meet; or there is a tendency which can’t fulfill its purpose, but is turned against nature. Passion is a knot of contradictions. It’s the expression of an egotism which wants to make all things gravitate around it; it’s the transformation of the world exclusively into a center of preoccupation as well. Passion is a product of the will of egocentric sovereignty; it’s also a force which pushes man down to the state of an object carried here and there against his will. Sometimes it seeks the infinite; other times it chooses nothingness.

The spirit [of man] has no exact limits and is capable of being filled with the infinite and thirsts to receive it; yet instead of looking for the relationship with the infinite Spirit, it seeks to fill itself with finite and passing objects. So it is left with nothing and its thirst is never quenched.

Passion is something irrational. Everything in the world is rational according to St. Maximus the Confessor, with its basis in divine logoi; only passion is irrational. Note its supreme irrationality: The passionate man realizes more and more that finite things can’t satisfy his aspiration for the infinite, and this bores and discourages him. Even so the next moment he lets himself be carried away by his egocentric passion, as if by it he is going to absorb the infinite, He doesn’t realize that the true infinite is a free Spirit which can’t be absorbed without His will, because He is a subject which one must freely enter into communion with. For example, the glutton knows that no kind of food is ever going to satisfy his gluttony. Likewise he who hates his neighbor, feels that this animosity can’t put out the fire of hatred even if the neighbor is totally consumed by it. The logic should be that neither the glutton nor the hater should let himself be tortured by these passions. But neither one does anything about it, and continues with his irrational tortures.

By their irrationality, by their deceptive character, by turning man away from his true goal, the passions keep man in the darkness of ignorance. By the struggle against the passions the human being escapes ignorance; he returns to the true infinity of God, as a goal of his life and as a liberation of his spirit from the slavery of the world and from the tyranny which the passions represent. This is the meaning of dispassion.