Icon: Seeing the Image of Christ in Each Person

“For the first Sunday of Great Lent, the Triodion calls for the celebration of the ‘Sunday of Orthodoxy’. This commemoration was introduced in March 843 to celebrate the triumph of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Great Lent. This celebration was then added to the more ancient commemoration of the holy prophets Moses, Aaron, David, Samuel, and the other prophets on that day. The Typikon of Alexios the Studite called for the singing of the office for the holy icons combined with the office for the holy prophets. In later Sabaite Typika, however, which reflect the widespread practice at the end of the fourteenth century, the commemoration of the holy prophets has disappeared, and their canon has been moved to compline on Sunday evening.

We should not forget that, after the victory of the hesychasts in 1351, the Sunday of Orthodoxy took on an additional meaning. It commemorated not only the victory over iconoclasm, but the victory over all heresies, including the victory of the hesychast monks over their opponents.[…] These factors can explain the importance ascribed to the office of the triumph of Orthodoxy and the disappearance of the commemoration of the holy prophets in the Sabaite Typika and the Triodia of Palestinian redaction after the fourteenth century.”   (Archimandrite Job Getcha, The Typikon Decoded, pps.184-185)

The triumph of icons today cannot be mostly a commemoration of a historical event in Byzantium.  God swept away Byzantium in history – it is the faith which remains and is important.   For us the significance is theological and its implication for how we see the world, understand salvation and live our lives.  If we only focus on past historical events we lose the direction which Christ gave to our Church: to ever move toward the Kingdom of God.   Fr. John Breck helps us see the theological significance of icons for us today:

“This sacred image illustrates better than most do, the truth that an authentic icon is more than a window that reveals the beauty of heaven within the limits of time and space. The icon is also a mirror. In it, we behold the face of Christ, His holy Mother and the saints. Yet there we also behold our own true face, the glorified persona whom we were created to become. Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (Col. 1, Heb. 1). He is also the visible image of ourselves, as we shall be when – one day by the sheer grace of God – we are transformed ‘from glory to glory’ (2 Cor. 3) into His own divine likeness.”   (John Breck, Longing for God, pps. 176-177)

Great Lent: Looking at the Road Ahead

“Repentance is not a destination; repentance is a journey, and a journey has to start somewhere. This particular journey starts here . . .  each member of the Church is invited to consider himself standing at the beginning of Lent looking ahead to the path of repentance. For those who are fortunate enough to devote the following ten weeks to the full observation of the Church’s prayers, that path is obvious, and although challenging,

it is available to all and well-trodden by the saints of every age. Along the path, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are punctuated by the immediate interventions of God in the holy Sacraments, particularly in confession, anointing, and in Holy Communion, providing each person with the needed support and encouragement to continue.

The Lenten journey of repentance starts with an awareness that change is necessary, and ends with the transformation that outshines all transformations: the Resurrection of Our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” (Father Meletios Webber, Steps of Transformation, pps. 90-91)

Grant Me to See My Own Sins

Throughout Great Lent, we Orthodox recite the prayer of St. Ephrem while humbling ourselves before God by doing prostrations.  We seek God’s help in attaining an inner spirit that will allow us to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ our Lord.

O Lord and Master of my Life,

Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk.

Give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to Your servant.

Yeah, O Lord and King,

Grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother,

For You are blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

St. Ephrem the Syrian (d. 379AD) was a prolific writer who composed many prayers,  as well as theological poems and hymns in his life time.  In one of his poetic writings he offers us some further thought for understanding the importance of being able to see our own sins.   St. Eprhem writes:

A man, indeed, who has acquired

good health in himself,

and is aware in his mind

of what sickness is,

has gained something beneficial

and he knows something profitable;

but a man who lies

in sickness,

and knows in his mind

what is good health,

is vexed by his sickness

and tormented in his mind.

(Hymns on Paradise, pg. 94)

It is those who are spiritually healthy who are able to see their own sins and who can benefit from this insight, for it brings them to repentance rather than to self loathing or denial of the sin.  They are able to humble themselves before God to seek His mercy, knowing they are sickened by sin.  The healthy person knows the suffering caused by the sickness of sin and uses that knowledge to repent and to endeavor to avoid further sinfulness.  The spiritual healthy are able to use their knowledge and experience of spiritual illness to have compassion on others who are suffering.

If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal.  (1 John 5:16)

But Christians who find himself fallen in sin are vexed, for they know the joy of being spiritually healthy but find themselves estranged from God.  Because of their condition they are sometimes unwilling to approach the Physician of Souls, for they feel shame, grief and self-loathing.  They may feel then cannot be healed by the God whom they have rejected through their own decisions and behavior.    They need the prayers of those who are spiritually healthy.  To receive healing, they must be willing to humble themselves before God, acknowledging their own sins in confession and begging God to forgive them.

I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; then You  forgave the guilt of my sin.  Therefore let every one who is godly offer prayer to You; at a time of distress, in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.  (Psalm 32:5-6)

Perfect Image of Fasting

While it is possible to keep the fast of Great Lent by paying strict attention to every ingredient in the foods we eat, in a previous blog, Fasting: the Rules and the Individual, I quoted St. John Cassian, a disciple of St. John Chrysostom, who in the 5th Century reported on the Tradition he received regarding fasting.  He clearly believed it was not possible to have one rule for all and claims that is the Orthodox Tradition he received from the Fathers of the Church who came before him.   St. John Cassian is famous for taking the teachings of the Dessert Fathers and spreading them throughout the church of the 5th Century.

A friend of mine wrote some months ago about a teaching on fasting she had learned from an Orthodox priest which is another way of understanding the Tradition of St. John Cassian.   One might say it is an apophatic fasting teaching:

Remove the food that is between you and God

and

put Christ between you and the food.

Any food – whatever quality, quantity, or type – which in any way gets between you and loving God or loving neighbor is the food you should fast from.  This calls to mind the teachings of St. Paul which we also proclaim on the Sundays before Great Lent begins:

Food will not commend us to God.

We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.  (1 Corinthians 8:8-13 read on the Sunday of the Last Judgment!)

St. Paul reiterates the same teaching in his letter to the Romans:

If your brother is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died.  (Romans 14:15)

And we can have Christ before us when we eat as long as the food – whatever quantity, quality or type – can be blessed by Christ, can be shared with the needy and hungry (or angels unaware or as happened to Abraham when he showed hospitality to the Three), can reveal Christ to us (as happened to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus), can cause us to offer thanksgiving to God rather than causing us gluttonously to over-eat or indulgence.  When the meal puts Christ in front of us and we see the Lord or see Him in the least of His brothers and sisters, then the food is blessed whatever it consists of.

This is a different and more blessed way to understand food and fasting – to see them as both gifts from God for our salvation, rather than to think of them only in terms of rules and regulations which we want to know if we are keeping to the Nth degree, or which we try to figure out how to get around technically without violating the rules.

Our foremother Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) was tricked by the talking serpent  into thinking about God’s food and His fast as merely rule.   She completely puts out of her mind that the fast prohibiting eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is not so much about rules as it was about relationships.

Eve thinks the fruit is good for her.  It is a selfish, self centered idea which is the epitome of self-love.  She forgets about her relationship with God, Adam, and creation.  She forgets to love and engages in self-love.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate… (Genesis 3:6).

Had she thought about the fruit/food of that tree as getting between her and God, she would have said no to it.  But God was gone from her self-loving mind.  Had she kept God’s Word between her and the fruit/food, she also would not have sinned.  Instead she neglected her relationship with God and though only of herself.

Remove the food that is between you and God and put Christ between you and the food.

Food, as St. Paul teaches us, cannot commend us to God – whether it is festal or lenten food.  Food when understood as something to bring us into relationship with God and with neighbor is most blessed – whether lenten or festal.   Heart healthy food is the meal we eat in love for God and for the neighbor.  Food which brings us into communion with God and with neighbor is holy, blessed and divine.

See also my blogs Fasting: The Rules and the Individual and Fasting: It is Not About the Food

Fasting: It is Not About the Food

Some reminders for the beginning of Great Lent from the hymns of the first week of Lent.   Note the words: joy, radiance, love, prayer, courage, light, holiness, purity.   If we think Lent is only about self-denial, suffering and sacrifice, we miss the spirit of the season.   Lent is not only about fasting from food.  We are trying to change our hearts and minds to be more Christ-like.

LET US BEGIN THE ALL‑HOLY SEASON OF FASTING WITH JOY; LET US SHINE WITH THE BRIGHT RADIANCE OF THE HOLY COMMANDMENTS OF CHRIST OUR GOD: WITH THE BRIGHTNESS OF LOVE AND THE SPLENDOR OF PRAYER, THE STRENGTH OF GOOD COURAGE AND THE PURITY OF HOLINESS!  SO, CLOTHED IN GARMENTS OF LIGHT, LET US HASTEN TO THE HOLY RESURRECTION ON THE THIRD DAY, THAT SHINES ON THE WORLD WITH THE GLORY OF ETERNAL LIFE!

The commandments of Christ are eternal life and to love God and love neighbor.   Here are the only three times Christ speaks about commandments in John’s Gospel (in the RSV):

“For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden me.”  (John 12:49-50)

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”  (John 15:10-15)

In his letter to “the elect lady and her children”, St. John states the same teaching again:

“And now I beg you, lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we follow his commandments; this is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you follow love.”  (2 John 1:5-6)

The rules and regulations of Lent must be practiced in the spirit of love for them to be a Christian fast.  If our focus on food fasting rules detracts from our love for God and others if becomes self centered or even causes us to engage in self-love which is the exact opposite intent of the fast.  If our focus becomes food itself, than we are not doing the fast right even if we are following every Lenten regulation perfectly. Remember, in the pre-Lenten Gospel lesson of the Last Judgment from Matthew 25:31-46, no one is judged or condemned for having failed to fast, nor is anyone praised or rewarded for strict fasting!.  True fasting leads to our becoming merciful toward others, especially toward the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters.  The Pharisee who could truthfully boast that he kept the fasts perfectly is not justified by God!

LET US PRESENT A GOOD FAST, WELL‑PLEASING TO THE LORD!  A TRUE FAST IS ALIENATION FROM THE EVIL ONE; THE HOLDING OF ONE’S TONGUE, THE LAYING ASIDE OF ALL ANGER, THE REMOVAL OF ALL SENSUALITY,  OF ACCUSATION, FALSEHOOD AND SINS OF SWEARING.  THE WEAKENING OF THESE WILL MAKE THE FAST TRUE AND WELL‑PLEASING.

 A fast from anger – there is a fast pleasing to the Lord!  Abstinence from lying, fault-finding, cursing and swearing – these are the things we truly must abstain from!  A fast which changes our hearts and our moral practices and stops us from sinning, this is the Lent which God wishes for us.  Let us please God and not make the fast something cursed in His eyes – and the Holy Prophet Isaiah warns us about such a cursed fast.

Hear what the Lord God says to us through the Prophet Isaiah:

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen?

Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’

“In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure,

And exploit all your laborers.

Indeed you fast for strife and debate,

And to strike with the fist of wickedness.

You will not fast as you do this day,

To make your voice heard on high.

Is it a fast that I have chosen,

A day for a man to afflict his soul?

Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush,

And to spread out sackcloth and ashes?

Would you call this a fast,

And an acceptable day to the LORD?

“Is this not the fast that I have chosen:

To loose the bonds of wickedness,

To undo the heavy burdens,

To let the oppressed go free,

And that you break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;

When you see the naked, that you cover him,

And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then your light shall break forth like the morning,

Your healing shall spring forth speedily,

And your righteousness shall go before you;

The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;

You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’

“If you take away the yoke from your midst,

The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

If you extend your soul to the hungry

And satisfy the afflicted soul,

Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,

And your darkness shall be as the noonday.

The LORD will guide you continually,

And satisfy your soul in drought,

And strengthen your bones;

You shall be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

(Isaiah 58:3-11)

 

See also my blog The Perfect Image of Fasting

Great Lent: Journey to Pascha

“LENT is a journey to Pascha. It is thus a season of joyful expectation. If we take Lent seriously, the journey is arduous, but this only makes Pascha all the more radiant and joyful. But throughout Lent, we are never allowed to forget the Resurrection, which fills all things, all ascetic labors, all solemnity, sorrow, and contrition, with gladness and brightness.

Not yet in 2014!

It would be a mistake to think of the sacrifices of Lent in purely negative terms—in terms of struggle and deprivation. We are to think of Lent as liberation. Lent calls us to sacrifice many of those things which, while they tend to occupy such a central position in our lives, while they seem to us to be so important, are in reality things we can do without.  Lent is thus the rediscovery of that which is most essential in our lives. In this rediscovery, we return to God and to the very meaning of life.

Thus, having stripped ourselves of all that is petty and futile, having cast off the burdensome baggage of our worldly and often complex lifestyles, we can truly experience Lent as liberation and purification, as the necessary, fruitful, and wonderful journey to the joy of Pascha.”

(Vassilios Papavassiliou, MEDITATIONS FOR GREAT LENT: Reflections on the Triodion, Kindle Loc. 544-52)

Fasting: The Rules and the Individual

While today many Orthodox assume there is only one way to keep the fast of Great Lent, we know from the writings of the saints that they did not insist on a one-size-fits-all approach to fasting.  St. John Cassian (d. 435AD) was a disciple of St. John Chrysostom and one of the great spiritual writers of his time who helped spread Christian ascetical spirituality throughout the Roman Empire in the 5th Century .   He is an early witness to an ancient Orthodox tradition that recognizes a monastic rule cannot artificially imposed on everyone, not even on all monks.  He did not have a monolithic view of all monks or Christians, nor did he teach that all Christians could walk in lockstep with absolute obedience to one fasting rule.  St. John Cassian writes:

“And so a uniform rule concerning the manner of fasting cannot easily be kept because not all bodies have the same strength, nor is it, like the other virtues, achieved by firmness of mind alone. And therefore, since it does not consist in strength of mind alone, inasmuch as it depends on what the body is capable of, we have accepted the following understanding of it that was passed onto us: There are different times, manners, and qualities with respect to eating that are in accordance with the varied conditions, ages, and sexes of bodies, but there is one rule of discipline for everyone with regard to an abstinent and virtuous mind. For not everyone is able to prolong a fast for weeks, or to put off eating food for three or even two days. Many people who are worn out by sickness and especially old age cannot endure a fast even until sunset without considerable hardship.

A starveling meal of moistened beans does not suit everyone, nor is the frugality of plain vegetables adequate for all, nor is an austere diet of dry bread appropriate for all. One person does not feel full with two pounds, while another is surfeited with a meal of one pound or six ounces. Nonetheless there is one end of abstinence in all these instances – that no one, according to the measure of his own capacity, be burdened by voracious satiety. For it is not only the quality of food but also its quantity that dulls the heart’s keenness, and when both the mind and the flesh have been sated the glowing kindling of the wicked vices is set ablaze.”    (The Institutes, pps.119-120)

St. John Cassian’s rule which he claims is THE Tradition which he received (“we have accepted the following understanding of it that was passed onto us”) is simply not to eat to the point of satiety.   Leave the table feeling some hunger – how much each person eats or what they eat is less important then that they learn self control: one says ‘no’ to oneself at the table even when still a bit hungry.  In some ways, for a culture such as ours which is used to consuming everything to the point of satiety and beyond, this is a harder rule to learn and follow.  It is a fasting rule not focusing on food types (substituting soy for beef, or vegetables for cheese) but considering quantity as well.  We can eat to satiety as vegetarians and vegans just as easily as our more carnivorous fellow humans.  St. John offers us a different way to approach fasting – a way that is part of the Patristic Tradition – that we approach our meals with a conscious desire to eat less, to not satisfy our wants, to experience hunger spiritually not just physically.

For St. John the real goal here is “an abstinent and virtuous mind.”  We are trying to discipline ourselves to learn an attitude or an approach not just to food but to life in the world.   It is much more a matter of the heart than of the stomach, or perhaps of helping the heart rule the stomach.   Like the apostles on the road to Emmaus, we want our meals to reveal Christ to us.

We are not meant to spend more time in Lent focusing on food, but less than we normally do so that we can focus on spiritual issues: issues of the heart, the soul and the mind by saying “no” to the body whose voracious appetite (including lusts, cravings, hungers and passions) often drives us through life, causing us to veer off of the the way to the Kingdom of Heaven.

We are not endeavoring to starve ourselves for 40-50 days and then to gorge ourselves at Pascha.  We are supposed to be teaching ourselves an approach to life in the world of the fall which will not distract us from the Kingdom of God but will keep us ever moving toward living in love for God and love for our neighbor.

See also my blog: Perfect Image of Fasting