LENTEN MEDITATION - Day XXXVIII — 'A Vocation of Loss'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

[Sunday’s] gospel (Mark 10.32–45) describes Jesus’ ascent to Jerusalem before his Passion. Jesus takes the twelve apostles aside and starts to tell them that he will be betrayed, condemned, and put to death, and that he will rise again from the dead. At the threshold of Holy Week could we be “taken aside” by the Savior for a talk in which he explains to us, personally, the mystery of Redemption? Do we ask the Master to help us understand at greater depth what is taking place for our sakes on Golgotha? Do we make it possible for Jesus to meet us in secret? Do we seize opportunities to be alone and quiet with the Lord? Then the sons of Zebedee come to Jesus and ask him to let them sit with him in his glory, one on his right and the other on his left. Jesus asks them—and puts the same questions to us: “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?” The Master then explains to the disciples that true glory lies in serving others. For “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

—A Monk of the Eastern Church, The Year of Grace of the Lord

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This is actually Fr. Lev Gillet (+1980). He once wrote: "What attracts me is a vocation of loss - a life which gives itself freely without any apparent positive result, for the results would be known to God alone; in brief, to lose oneself in order to find oneself." With an all-encompassing simplicity, he once wrote: "The Gospel is all that matters." Perhaps we can sense the truth behind those words most fully in the upcoming Holy Week.

 

LENTEN MEDITATION - Day XXXVII — 'The Lord leads the humble...'

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful, Humility, in the Christian tradition, is called the mother of all virtues. It is the soil out of which grow faith, hope, love and all positive qualities of the spirit. The psalms proclaim that the Lord leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way. They claim also, with proverbs and the prophets, that the Lord cares for the humble and gives them his grace. He listens to their prayers and vindicates them before their enemies. He crowns them with victory and clothes them with honor, giving them the whole earth as their inheritance in the upending kingdom which he establishes in the Messiah. —Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko, The Lenten Spring _____ Every virtue that we are exhorted to cultivate, is always preeminently revealed in Christ, the perfect and sinless Son of God become Son of Man. This is the universal teaching of the saints and any and all more recent theologians, as Fr. Thomas Hopko above. Bearing this in mind, we can then ask, who is more humble than:  "Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,  did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,  being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,  even death on a cross." (Phil. 2:5-8)

 

LENTEN MEDITATION - Day XXXVI — The Mystery of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

If the priesthood established by the law has come to an end, and the priest who is “in the order of Melchizedek” has offered his sacrifice, and has made all other sacrifices unnecessary, why do the priests of the new covenant perform the mystical liturgy? How it is clear to those instructed in divinity that we do not offer another sacrifice, but perform a memorial of that unique and saving offering. For this was the Lord’s own command: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11.24). So that by contemplation we may recall what is symbolized, the sufferings endured on our behalf, and may kindle our love towards our benefactor, and look forward to the enjoyment of the blessings to come.

—Theodoret of Cyrus: The Eucharist

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An important perspective to maintain about the meaning of the "sacrifice" that we offer in the Liturgy. Especially after just hearing the powerful passage from The Epistle to the Hebrews, that "Christ ... entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption" (9:11-12). 

The one sacrifice of the Great high priest, Jesus Christ, is not endlessly repeated, but rather actualized (re-presented) in every celebration of the Eucharist. That is why the ordained celebrant - bishop or priest - is considered to be the sacramental image of Christ, who "offers and who is offered" and who distributes Communion to the faithful. That is the mystery that we enter into at every Liturgy. 

LENTEN MEDITATION - Day XXXIV — Dangerous Prayer

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

If the Lord comes to us, we should receive him with great joy and humility. But let us be careful not to seek mystical experience when we should be seeking repentance and conversion. That is the beginning of our cry to God. “Lord, make me what I should be, change me whatever the cost.” And when we have said these dangerous words, we should be prepared for God to hear them. And these words of God are dangerous because God’s love is remorseless. God wants our salvation with the determination due its importance. And God, as the Shepherd of Hermas says, “does not leave us till he has broken our heart and bones.”

—Metropolitan Anthony Bloom & George LeFebvre, Courage to Pray

 

LENTEN MEDITATION - Day XXXIII — 'When you give alms...'

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

In his sermon on the mount Jesus not only gives instructions about prayer and fasting, he gives commandments about almsgiving as well. Indeed, in the sermon, this part comes first.... Jesus, once again, did not say if you give alms. He said, when you give alms....

The apostles of Christ magnified the Master’s teaching about the need to help the needy. They insisted that human perfection consists in giving to the poor and following Christ. They taught, with Jesus, that the measure one gives is the measure one gets. They were convinced that the greatest imitation of God is to give everything without asking anything in return. And when such perfection could not be literally accomplished, the commandment to share one’s possessions, not from one’s abundance but out of one’s needs, was considered binding on all [Acts 4.32–35]....

A person who claims to believe in God but does not help the needy has no living faith.

—Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko, The Lenten Spring

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We often link together "prayer and fasting," as in last Sunday's Gospel reading from St. Mark, when Jesus taught his bewildered disciples that a certain type of "demon" can only be expelled through "prayer and fasting." (Mk. 9:29). But, we also know that in the Sermon on the Mount it is "prayer, almsgiving and fasting" that are grouped together as the three essential practices of an integrated whole in the "spiritual life."