Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my most loving wife, with out whom I would be nothing. I still remember the day we first met almost 10 years ago when your hair was up in those round balls that made you look like Chi - Chi from DragonBall, and that white coat which made you my mishmallow.

I love you and am so blessed that I have been graced to see you grow and mature another year with our little family, especially as you pursue your dreams and goals whilst still supporting me. One reason I love you and admire you so much is your strength and determination to never give up - which has led our family out of some dire situations.

As you grow older and wiser I'm just glad that I can say you are my wife.

Happy birthday!

Babylas the Holy Martyr

On September 4, we commemorate Babylas the Holy Martyr:

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Did Jesus Ever Really Exist?

I used to be of the opinion that for really far-out whacky stuff, you couldn’t beat Jerry Springer. You all know Jerry Springer—he was the showman who began a talk show in 1991 which within a few years became something of a voyeuristic freak-show, featuring topics like “Teenage Girls who Marry their Grandfathers,” a kind of real-life version of the Muppets’ song “I Am My Own Grandpa.” It has spawned a host of other talk-shows, all of which feature the same sort of sensationalistic format. For the longest time, I thought that Jerry couldn’t be beat for the unbelievably way-out.
Turns out that we have a new winner: Salon.com has published an article entitled, “5 reasons to suspect that Jesus never existed,” by Valerie Tarico. None of the stuff is the least bit new; there have always been the theological equivalent of Flat-earthers, or of people who claim to have been probed by big-eyed aliens aboard the mother-ship. But since the internet gives a platform to such people, some kind of response must be offered, lest the credulous among the internet community imagine that the Church has been struck terrified and mute by the 5 reasons offered by Ms. Tarico. Her 5 reasons to suspect that Jesus never existed may be examined one at a time.


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What Does God Look Like?

A common question people ask a priest goes something like this: “If God is real, why isn’t it obvious to everyone?”

One way I begin to answer such questions is by saying something like this: God is obvious to everyone—as obvious as the air we breathe. But just as we easily take for granted and no longer notice the air we breathe (unless there are some unusual pollutants in the air or we are having trouble breathing), so too we easily ignore the obvious reality of God. The only exception to this tendency to ignore the obvious, is when we intentionally pay attention. When I intentionally pay attention to my breathing, I notice the air. Similarly, unless I work at paying attention to God, I can easily ignore Him.

Many of us, however, would rather that God’s presence be less easy to ignore. Like Isaiah, we want God to tear open the heavens so that no one can deny the reality of the Creator. But this is the very thing God does not want to do. Archimandrite Vasileios says that “He exists as if He did not exist. He intervenes as if He were absent, out of respect for His creature.” God respects His creation so much that He treats the creation as He Himself would be treated: with freedom. God does not come to us in any way that would overwhelm us, that would strip us of freedom and force or coerce us to obey and love him. In fact, once obedience is forced, it ceases to be obedience—not the obedience of relationship, the obedience that a mother wants from her child or a lover expects from his beloved. Forced obedience is mere conformity to outer criteria. God does not want that, for it is no foundation for genuine relationship.

Read more at holynativity.blogspot.ca

How do We Pray the Psalms?

How do we pray the Psalms? We should surely take our lead from the Holy Fathers of the Early Church and learn from their wisdom. Whilst researching the origins of the Jesus Prayer, I came across some fascinating insights in psalm-commentaries accredited to Fathers of the third, fourth and fifth centuries. These insights and the understanding of the Psalms which they promote, would have been available to the earliest monks and nuns of Egypt, from where the Jesus Prayer is believed to have emerged.

The most important of these insights presented to us by the Holy Fathers is that praying the Psalms involves us with an ongoing conversation with our Lord Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we find the writers of these commentaries interpreting the various verses of the Psalms Christologically – seeing in the Psalm-text a clear reference to Jesus. It is not an exaggeration to say that these Fathers make a habit of identifying the God of the Psalter with the Person of Christ.

St. Athanasios of Alexandria (296-373) regularly finds references to Jesus in such phrases in the Psalms as the “name of God” and the “face of God.” For example, “Let them acknowledge his great name, for it is awesome and holy” in Psalm 98.3 (99.3) he takes to mean the name of “Jesus,” with an implicit reference to Philippians 2.10-11. Again, with regard to Psalm 4.7, “The light of your face was made to shine upon us, O Lord,” he understands face to mean Christ, for, he says, “Christ is the Light of the World.”

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The Dark Ages: Who Turned Out the Lights?

Among the literature of those who make it their main business to vilify the Christians, perhaps no concept has served a more useful purpose than the idea of “the Dark Ages.” The Dark Ages, according to this reading of history, were those centuries in which the Church was culturally ascendant, with the inevitable result that civilization sunk into superstition, ignorance, obscurantism, and moral decadence. Here everything that was bad about the world is laid at the Church’s door, especially the decline of Science (with a capital “S”), which apparently had been going great guns until the Church took over.

As evidence of the Church’s war against Science, enlightenment, tolerance, and reason in general, the name of Galileo is usually bandied about, along with the notion that everyone in the Dark Ages thought that the world was flat. It was from this ecclesiastical abyss that Science eventually pulled us all out, saving the world from the Church and restoring civilization. But as we talk about the Dark Ages, it is worth asking how the Roman Empire of the west came to be so dark in the first place? (Of the Roman Empire in the east, usually known as Byzantium, the vilifiers seem to know precious little. Their world is a western world.) In other words, who turned out the lights in the west?

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Congratulations! You are being Cremated Today!

My bishop is probably not going to believe this.

Recently, a member of our congregation was very upset. She heard that the new priest was planning to cremate a young couple, right there in church, on the solea, during Great Vespers on the next Saturday night.

“Doesn’t the Orthodox Church forbid cremation?” she asked her friends. No one had ever heard of such a thing. Exciting gossip began to make the rounds during coffee hour.

No wonder she was concerned. This particular young couple was very promising. Charming and intelligent, they had come to us especially looking for an Orthodox church in the area. Although both had been baptized, they were reared without any particular faith; the young man’s parents were atheist, as was the woman’s mother until recently. Now they had decided to become Orthodox Christians, and to be married sacramentally in the Church. They had their whole life ahead of them…until now.

Read more at myocn.net