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Movements of the Spirit

April 20, 2013, 5:43 am
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Lately as my spiritual reading I have been reading a lovely work entitled The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life. I cannot recommend this work highly enough. It is a collection of short (ca. 5 pages) passages from the great mystics of the Syriac tradition - for those who don't know the Syriac tradition embraces the Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara and Maronite traditions among others. I love the fact that this book, like The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, is also simply a collection of short passages. That makes it possible to read an inspiring piece of advice from a great saint in the morning or evening and then carry that advice with you for the rest of the day.

Contained in this collection is a passage from the writings of Evagrius. Although never canonized, Evagrius is probably the most influential spiritual author in the Eastern and Oriental traditions. Recognized for his brilliance, his works are studied by almost the entire East and Orient alike: Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Slavic, Assyrian, etc. You name it. The passage contained in The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life I found particularly interesting. Although Evagrius himself wrote in Greek, this passage survived only in a Syriac translation - many Evagrius' more speculative theological works were later condemned by the Church and the Greek editions were subsequently destroyed.

The particular passage translated in this lovely book contains many gems of advice, but there was one in particular that struck me. Evagrius says that while we are praying, should we be inspired by some insight from the Holy Spirit, or should the Spirit move our mind to some beneficial thought, we should cease our prayer and focus on the movement of the Spirit. He says that this is more beneficial to our souls than plodding through our prayers for the sake of finishing an allotted number of prayers.

I found this advice particularly interesting because I have read the same piece of advice from almost every great mystic across the traditions of the East and West. St. Teresa of Avila, St. Theophan the Recluse, St. John of the Cross, etc., etc., etc. all say that when we are at prayer or spiritual reading we need to be attentive to these movements of the Spirit. This was one of the reasons St. Theophan recommends allotting a certain amount of time to prayer rather than a certain number of prayers to say. Often when we are at prayer, a word or a phrase catches us, it grips our hearts, and we are led into deeper spiritual insights. Were we to ignore these movements then it is the same as telling God that what we have to say to Him is more important than what He has to say to us. It also stops us from really assimilating the prayer, its content and meaning, into our hearts and making the prayer our own.

The only exception I've seen given to this rule is while one is praying the Liturgy of the Hours. St. Teresa of Avila, if memory serves me correctly, pointed out that when such a movement strikes our hearts during the celebration of the Hours, we ought not to pause over it for fear of disrupting the movement of the prayers. Rather, we ought to make a mental note of the word, phrase, or prayer that struck us, and then go back later on and reflect further on that prayer.

For me personally, this advice from the saints is very difficult to implement both in my prayer time and in my spiritual reading. When praying I want to get through all my prayers before my time is up. And I have so many books that I want to read that should I stop to reflect on every passage that struck a cord in my heart, I would never make it to the end of a single book. But this is one of the most common and profound ways in which the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the prayers of the Church and the writings of the saints. Great patience is needed; patience and the ability to shut up and listen (something that I struggle with). May God grant us all the grace of being attuned to the movements of the Spirit in our hearts during our times of prayer and spiritual reading.

CHRIST IS RISEN!!!
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The Arena: St. Ignatius Brianchaninov's Councils on Prayer: Part 5 The Jesus Prayer in Context

May 9, 2013, 8:07 am
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In chapter 24 of The Arena St. Ignatius gives three guidelines for how to go about one's rule with the Jesus Prayer. The first two guidelines don't really apply to those of us living outside of a monastery (for the most part). They involve how one should begin one's practice of the Jesus Prayer in monasteries where the evening rule is performed with or without bows. But the third guideline is written for those who live in monasteries that have no evening rule whatsoever. Here, I believe, is something that can be applied to the average lay person - at least to such persons that do not attend evening Vespers or Compline at their local parish or monastery.

"If you belong to a monastery where there is no common evening rule but it is left to each one individually to perform it in his cell, first perform the rule with bows, then engage in prayer or psalmody, and finally the Jesus Prayer."

We've spoken in previous posts about bows and prostrations and their role in the practice of the Jesus Prayer. While St. Ignatius does put strong emphasis on bows and prostrations, other spiritual fathers of our own times do not emphasize them quite so much. Again they are something that can be performed according to one's own strength. For some bows and prostrations are more spiritually profitable than for others. I personally don't find them very helpful...

One thing to notice here, however, is that after bows and prostrations St. Ignatius mentions "prayer or psalmody" as the next act before the Jesus Prayer. I personally love to pray the Liturgy of the Hours before I begin to pray the Jesus Prayer. While this is certainly possible in the Roman Catholic, Maronite, Coptic, and Syrian traditions, this is not so easy in the Byzantine tradition. For nearly all the other traditions in the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours is designed to be prayed either in groups or in private; and while it is certainly ideal that the Hours should always be prayed as a group, given that it is the prayer of the Church, the Church in Her wisdom recognizes that this is not always humanly possible. In the Byzantine tradition, however, the Hours can really only be prayed publicly as a group, given that the Byzantine East has maintained the importance of gathering together for the prayer of the Church. What has evolved in the Byzantine tradition, therefore, is a standard set of morning and evening prayers that can be prayed by the Faithful when participation in the public celebration of the Hours is not possible. These prayers can be found in almost every Byzantine prayer book (Catholic or Orthodox).

The point of practicing such a prayer rule, or psalmody, prior to the Jesus Prayer is to focus one's attention and heart on the coming prayer itself. The celebration of the Hours prepares us for our own private prayer life by showing us how to sanctify each moment; to practice the remembrance of God's presence. Ultimately the Jesus Prayer is the sanctification of the moments of our lives spent outside of an ecclesial setting. It is the remembrance of God's presence in the humdrum of daily life. With the Jesus Prayer we take the encounter with the living God that we experience in church, and we live that encounter in the world.

After we have performed our prostrations and our psalmody or prayer rule, then, Ignatius tells us, we are to go about the work of the Jesus Prayer. He says that we ought to begin with 100 repetitions of the Prayer. When prayed with attention and without hurry this practice should take us about half and hour. It is interesting to note that St. Theophan the Recluse stated that a beginner ought to start out by praying the Jesus Prayer for about 20 minutes each day as his or her strength allows. That would most likely give the same result as simply praying 100 Jesus Prayers as St. Ignatius recommends.

Each repetition of the Jesus Prayer ought to be followed by a brief period of silence (although in the Greek tradition, unlike the Slavic tradition, such a period of silence was not recommended because it was believed that one would lose focus on the prayer if one allowed for this silence). While praying the Prayer one also ought to be attentive to one's breathing. Breathing ought to be gentle and slow; "this precaution prevents distraction." The Fathers are almost universal in stating that breathing is key to focusing one's mind and attention. If one breathes deeply and slowly the mind is more able to relax and focus on just one thing. Actually, I remember in a psychology class I was taking some years ago our professor mentioned how he has helped people overcome anxiety and depression simply by teaching them to breathe properly. I find that taking a few minutes to breathe deeply through the diaphragm not only relaxes my body, but calms my mind from the troubles and worries of the day. To use the words of the Cherubic Hymn in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, taking a few moments to breathe before prayer enables me to "lay aside all earthly cares that I may welcome the King of All."

Finally St. Ignatius encourages his readers to pray the Jesus Prayer any time we have a down moment. Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia has mentioned in the past how such an instruction can be applied to those us who live in the world. The Jesus Prayer can be prayed while we're standing in line, waiting for a bus, driving in a car or stuck in a traffic jam, while on daily walks, or watching the kids play in the park, etc., etc., etc. The possibilities are endless. Since it is such a short prayer it is suitable for all occasions. And as I have shown in other posts it can be adapted into even shorter phrases if the occasion doesn't permit one to pray the full form of the Prayer. The goal of all of this, as St. Ignatius points out to us, is "to train yourself to the Jesus Prayer to such an extent that it becomes your unceasing prayer." May Heaven consume us!
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Are You Involved

June 18, 2013, 10:13 am
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Hello All,

So I realize it's been quite some time since I've posted anything. I apologize for that. I've been very busy with work and family issues. But I hope to start posting regularly again. My goal is to have a new post every week. If you all like what you read, please send me an email or upload comments on the posts here. Any words of encouragement and/or suggestions for future posts are always welcome.

Lately I've been listening to lectures and reading books by Dave Ramsey. The man is known as a financial genius and is famous for having helped thousands of Americans swear off debt forever. Obviously I have a good deal of debt thanks to student loans (studying theology at a small Catholic university is not cheap). Financial management has never been one of my strong points, but I've come to realize that as a husband and father I have to be more involved in how my household is managed. My family is not mine. They have been entrusted to me by God to care for, and it is my obligation to care for them in the best way possible, spiritually, financially, physically, etc. It has taken me nearly six years (my wedding anniversary is June 30th) to realize and accept this fact, but I'm going to embrace it with gusto because it is my vocation and, hence, is intimately linked to my own salvation.

But I'm not writing this post to talk about that. Perhaps I could post more on that later on. For now I wanted to comment on a remark I heard Mr. Ramsey make in one of his lectures. "Do you ever get mad at your church?" he asks. "If you don't, you're not involved." The remark comes across as very funny, but it really got me thinking. I grew up in a very Catholic community. The Greater Cincinnati area is heavily populated with the descendants of German and Irish immigrants. The majority of the community was, at one point, German and Irish Catholic. Sure there are plenty of Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, and other ecclesial communions; but at one point the predominant population was Catholic.

Since it was such a strong Catholic community, you can easily find people here who care deeply about the Faith. I remember growing up with people who were very discontent with the direction the Catholic Church (and Christianity in general) was headed. It seems that we stray further and further from our traditions. The music is mediocre at best, and flat out horrible at worst; liturgies are poorly celebrated and the people who attend look like well dressed zombies who seem to experience the resurrection as soon as the priest proclaims "The Mass is ended...;" bishops and priests back agendas that are totally contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church; etc., etc., etc. We've all experienced this. Whether we are Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant anyone who gives two shakes about their Church or parish has some negative experience with it.

For some such negativity is enough to drive them away from one Church or parish and into another. For others it is enough to put out the fires of faith completely and turn them into apathetic agnostics. For others it enkindles the fires of hatred for God and His Church. But what can we do? In the face of such hardships that we suffer in the Church, what is our role? We are not priests. We are not bishops. We are not monks or nuns. We're simply lay-folk.

The reality is that the care of the Church hasn't been entrusted to the clergy alone. We are all "stewards of the mysteries" as Bishop Nicholas Samra points out. We have all been entrusted with the Faith and traditions of our Church. It does us and no one else any good to sit around and bemoan the state of the Church. We have to get more deeply involved. We have to practice stewardship. We have to care for that which has been entrusted to us.

What does this mean in practical terms? How do we get involved? What can we do to support our bishops and priests in furthering the Faith and spreading the Gospel message of Christ?

First and foremost we must pray. We must intercede for our bishops and priests, our monks and nuns, and for one another. Without this spiritual support any other effort will simply fail. This does not mean that we focus on this intercessory prayer to the exclusion of any other form of prayer. Nor does it mean that we focus on prayer itself to the exclusion of any other work. Rather, all of our efforts and actions must begin with prayer and end with prayer. All our efforts and actions must quite literally be prayer. Perhaps part of the reason our Church is in the state it's in today is because our leaders have proceeded with actions in an unprayerful way. Perhaps we as a people have forgotten how to pray and how to be living prayers.

We must also know our Faith. This knowledge need not be a purely intellectual knowledge, but some study is required. Knowledge of basic truths and facts of the Faith is required. You wouldn't marry somebody without a basic factual knowledge of fundamental aspects of who they are. Nor would you encourage a friend to marry someone you'd never met personally. How can we uphold and promote our Faith if we don't know it? How can we cry out for properly celebrated liturgies if we have no understanding of what constitutes good liturgy? How can we call for a return to Tradition when we have no concept of Tradition? How can we demand the Church live by the "spirit of Vatican II" if we have no idea what Vatican II promoted, and we have no idea how Vatican II fits into the 2000 year old Tradition of the Church?

Eastern Catholics ought to ask themselves these same questions. What does it mean to be Eastern Catholic? How can we remain faithful to our Eastern traditions while at the same time being in communion with Rome. Is there a distinction between the traditions of local particular churches (including the Roman Church) and the Universal Church? If so, can we restore our identities as Eastern Christians without belittling the traditions and identity of the Christian West? How does our Eastern identity fit into the life of the Church at a Universal level? And how can we, as Easterners, evangelize the culture around us, even if that culture is a Western culture?

Get involved. Be engaged. Pray. Ask questions. Seek answers, but always seek them in a prayerful manner. Educate others after you have become educated. But do all in love, do all in a spirit of prayer, not in a spirit of anger. Never allow anger, discouragement, and disappointment have the last word.

So many Christians, be they Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant, shout out in anger at the injustices going on in the Church. The see Christians behaving in unChristian ways. They see Church leaders acting not as Christ, but almost as anti-Christs. They see the Church slipping further and further down the slippery slopes of "relevance" and "political correctness." They see all these things going on and they shake their fists in anger. But anger gets us nowhere. The great spiritual Fathers and Mothers of the East feared anger more than any other sin. They admitted that there is such a thing as just anger, but anger in any form can be so dangerous and difficult to control that they said it was better not even to indulge justifiable anger.

I have some friends, and I've seen a good handful of "Catholic commentators" who seem to have nothing but negative things to say about the state of the Church these days. Anger can get one fired up to do the right thing; to be the change that we want to see in the Church. But if we allow anger to consume us, if the injustices and our own anger become our focus, two things will happen. First we will become completely consumed with our anger to the point that it drives us out of the Church, or at least alienates us from the Church if we don't actually leave. Secondly such negativity simply becomes annoying and drives folks away from us, leaving them with a feeling of hopelessness and leaving us again with a sense of alienation - "Why doesn't anyone care as much about this as I do?" becomes our attitude.

Psychologists have told us that for every negative interaction with our children or our spouse there needs to be a good number of positive interactions, otherwise our relationships fall apart. Do you think the Church is any different? Do you think our bishops and priests are any different? If we only have bad things to say about our priests, our bishops, and our Church do you think that those same folks are going to want to be anywhere near us? Or do you think we are going to actually be able to bring new people into the Church?

In one of his books, Dave Ramsey points out that a good manager manages a staff not by putting out fires, but by encouragement. Recognize a job well-done. Encourage someone when they are doing something right. Always have a compliment on hand. If you are going to correct behavior, make sure that you are also affirming a few good things that a person is doing. As stewards/managers of the mysteries this is a responsibility that we, as lay-folk, have towards our priests and bishops. If we are going to approach them about something, we need to first be grateful for the amount of work that they do for our Church. We need to recognize where they have been successful. And then present them with our problems. Remember, they are people too. Imagine if your child only ever spoke with you to tell you how bad of a parent you are. Imagine if they never thanked you for putting a roof over their head, food in their belly, and clothes on their back. Imagine if they did nothing but complain to you. Eventually you're just going to ignore that child because you just can't handle the negativity. It's also going to make you feel like the worst parent in the world. Why do we think our bishops and priests are any different? They need encouragement just like the rest of us. They need a pat on the back for a job well done just like the rest of us.

If you want to be involved, if you want to be the change that you want to see in the Church, don't just stand in the center of your church and shout "repent! repent!" and then point out every little thing that every person in the parish or the Church at large needs to repent of. To repent means to change one's ways, one's mind, one's way of seeing and doing things. Perhaps we need to repent of the negativity that we have instilled in the Church. Perhaps we need to be the voice of hope, encouragement and recognition that people in the Church need to hear. Isn't that what the saints do? They don't just point to injustice. They give us encouragement. They give us hope. They recognize the good at the same time that they are working to change the bad. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hearing what's wrong with the Church. I've heard it my entire life. How can the Good News echo to the ends of the earth when the very people who are supposed to be preaching the Good News are shouting about the Bad News?

We have been given a mission. We have been given a task. We have been filled with the grace and power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill that mission. Now let's go do it! Let's get involved! Let's encourage our leaders and be the voice of hope in our Church and in our world! May heaven consume us.
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Liturgically Engaged

June 22, 2013, 8:27 am
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There's no denying that within the Catholic Church as a whole (and even within some Orthodox Churches) there is a widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the liturgy, particularly the Eucharistic Liturgy (a.k.a. the Mass/Divine Liturgy/Qurbono). In some cases this dissatisfaction, I find, may be ill-founded. Caught up in the trappings of the Liturgy many people complain about choirs that simply can't carry a tune in a bucket, priests whose homilies aren't "good enough" (usually meaning the priest doesn't talk about what they want him to talk about or what they think he ought to talk about), lack of real participation and reverence, etc. Many Roman Catholics see these problems and point to the reforms of Pope Paul VI as the root cause.

In other cases the general dissatisfaction has been based on more legitimate concerns. With the advent of a more widespread use of the vernacular languages in the West we have run into the problem of translation. There is no doubt that there have been a plethora of poor translations of any liturgical Rite. Problems have stemmed from ridiculous paraphrases that are more of the translator's interpretation of the text than an actual translation. We also have been plagued with such silliness as "politically correct" translations and even gender neutral translations. The Romans, Ruthenians, Maronites, and even, to some degree, Ukrainians, Romanians, and Greeks here in the U.S. have had their fair share of struggles with translations.

Poor or banal music seems to be a plague unique to the Roman West, although the Maronites, still clinging to certain of their Latinizations, still have a tendency to borrow the worst of Western hymns for liturgical use (e.g. a couple of Sundays ago my local Maronite parish sang "Gift of Finest Wheat" as a Communion Hymn [insert gagging sound here]). But poorly and improperly trained choirs and cantors are no stranger in the Christian East as well.

But the biggest problem that I've found in our work towards liturgical renewal is not with translations, or banal hymnography, or poor homilies, or anything like that. The biggest problem that I've found is lack of participation, or lack of engagement. Let me explain what I mean and don't mean by this. I certainly don't mean a lack of participation in the sense that everyone comes to the Liturgy and sings all the hymns, says all their parts, performs all the actions assigned to them, etc. These things are certainly important, but in themselves they do not constitute full and active/actual participation. As with all prayer, the heart must be engaged. If the heart is not there, then we can perform the outer trappings of participation until we drop over from exhaustion and hyperventilation, but we are not actually participating.

What I mean by active participation is the "interiorization" of the prayers and movements of the Liturgy so that the Liturgy itself becomes fully our prayer. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger mentions this in his wonderful short book entitled Feast of Faith. The prayer of the Church must become our prayer. We learn prayer from our Mother, the Church. By learning to pray from Her eventually Her words become our words, and Her actions our actions. This is how we enter into the offering of the Church, which is the Body of Christ and hence the offering of Christ Himself to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In a retreat given to Ukrainian Catholic seminarians in Washington, D.C., Fr. Robert Taft, S.J. makes a very practical suggestion that I believe could be of benefit to all of us. In order to interiorize the prayer of the Liturgy, we need to perform a Lectio Divina of the Liturgy as a whole, particularly the Eucharistic Liturgy. Lectio Divina as a slow, meditative, and prayerful reading of a spiritual text: i.e. the Scriptures, the writings of the Fathers and Saints, or the Liturgy. This prayerful reading is meant to draw us into the heart of the text and ultimately into contemplation, loving communion with the Trinity.

There is actually a systematic form of Lectio Divina. Perhaps it would be best not to describe it as "systematic" so much as a tried-and-true method that has been passed down through the ages. According to the classic text on Lectio Divina, the Ladder of Monks by Guigo II, there are four stages to Lectio: reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. The first two steps occur almost simultaneously. One reads the text slowly, noticing key words such as action words (verbs) and descriptive words (adjectives), and also taking note of scenes and sayings. From this reading we are left with questions. What does x word mean here? Why would they use that word instead of another? How has that word been used throughout the history and tradition of my particular Church and the universal Church as a whole? Obviously this second "step," meditation, requires a little bit of study. Now, one does not have to get a doctorate in biblical, spiritual, and/or liturgical theology in order to move on from this step of Lectio. We must maintain a spirit of ongoing meditation, education, questioning, searching, seeking answers. Today we have so many resources at our fingertips that there really is no excuse for us not to fully engage meditation on our liturgical and Scriptural texts. There is so much material available for free on the internet that to ignore such a vast resource is plain ridiculous.

Lest our Lectio of the liturgical texts become too cognitive, we must remember that from meditation we have to move on to prayer. Prayer here can take two forms: our private prayer at home, and our actual participation in the liturgical prayer of the Church. In our private prayer at home we take our questions to God, we thank Him for illuminating the texts of the Liturgy for us in a whole new way, we ask that he deepen our understanding (and hence our participation) in the liturgical reality that is played out before us with the celebration of every single Sacrament, and we praise Him for His great plan of salvation that is laid out before us and that we enter into through the liturgical life of the Church. Then it's time for us to actually go to Church in order to enter into that life!

The last step of our Lectio is contemplation. This is a step that cannot be forced, but is a sheer gift of grace. We must simply predispose ourselves to receive this gift, and then wait for it to be given. God draws us up into His inner life. Through the liturgy He allows us glimpses of what is to come. Now, I'm no saint, and I'm certainly not an expert in Lectio or contemplation, but I do know what it's like to be drawn into contemplation because of one word or one action that jumps out at you during the Liturgy. I've been reduced to tears simply because of a word or phrase at the Liturgy. All else disappeared and I lost track of what was happening simply because God allowed this flood of light to fill my soul. It doesn't happen often to me, but it has happened. It's happened to me at the Roman Mass (even prior to the new revised translation), it's happened to me at Byzantine Divine Liturgies (Ruthenian, Ukrainian, and Melkite), it's happened to me at the Maronite Qurbono, and it's happened to me simply by paying attention to the prayers said or sung at the celebration of the Sacraments. I wept at my wedding because of the sheer power of the words being prayed. I've wept at my childrens' initiation into the Church. I've wept simply by listening to the words of the Anaphora/Canon of the Eucharist. These prayers, whether they are traditional, slightly revised, or even newly written, are filled with a great beauty that comes from 2000 years of the Church living the Gospel message of salvation. We ought to listen carefully. The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom repeats a call to action that would behoove us to remember: "Wisdom! Be attentive!." Are you paying attention? Are you listening? Are you engaged? Once you are you will certainly be consumed by heaven!
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Lessons from the World of Music

June 30, 2013, 6:31 am
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For as long as I can remember I've had unusual tastes in music. I've always tended to prefer the traditional folk musics from all over the world. This fascination has led me to explore the worlds of traditional Irish, Scottish, Chinese, Japanese, and American musics more-or-less in-depth. Growing up, as I did, in the Greater Cincinnati area near the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains I've never wonted for exposure to folk music. Bluegrass and Appalachian music abounds, as does a thriving Irish and Scottish music community, and, I've come to find out, a Chinese music community as well. My family used to make fairly regular trips to Music Hall to listen to some of the great Classical composers, and every year we would sell our wares at the Appalachian Festival in Kentucky, where I'd walk around listening to some great Bluegrass bands and eavesdropping on Bluegrass sessions.

Most recently I've been exploring the world of Tuvan and Mongolian throat singing. This exploration has led me to rediscover a band that I'd actually heard at an Irish music concert years and years ago. The band is called "Huun Huur Tu." At one point in time they did a concert tour with "The Chieftans," one of the classic Irish music groups of the past couple of generations. Why a group of Tuvan throat singers was touring with a group of Irish musicians is beyond me, but I'm sure glad they did.

Why am I bringing up my odd musical tastes? It's not just for curiosity's sake, and it's not to make a big deal over the fact that I have such unusual tastes in music. This morning I was re-watching a concert performed by Huun Huur Tu that has been posted on YouTube. While watching the musicians perform I realized something. Here they are, a group of men that have been performing these songs for years and years, they've performed them so many times that they could perform them in their sleep. And yet there is still a great deal of heart and soul in their music.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that this is true of musicians across the board. The longer you play music, the easier it becomes, but also the more the music transforms you and you transform it. It becomes a part of you. It enters your soul and transforms you. But at the same time it becomes your own and you have a certain impact on it. I've been playing Irish music since I was eleven. Most tunes that I play I could play in my sleep, or hold entire conversations while I'm playing, if I didn't have to blow into my flute. I can play without thinking about it. It's more like I'm listening to someone else play than actually playing the music myself.

I realized here that there is a great parallel between music and the Jesus Prayer. In The Way of a Pilgrim  the anonymous author mentions the difficulty in beginning the Jesus Prayer. His spiritual father recommended he pray the prayer first 1000 times a day, then 2000, then 3000, then to just keep praying it all day long. After some time and great effort the pilgrim found that the Jesus Prayer became automatic, self-actualized, constant within him. He was always praying it even when he wasn't fully aware. He could be having conversations with others and still be praying the Prayer. It was almost as if he wasn't praying the prayer, but Someone was praying within him. Obviously the implication is that the Holy Spirit was praying within him. Isn't this the ultimate goal of prayer; that we cease to be the ones praying and that the Spirit is constantly praying within us?

I find the similarities to learning and playing music striking. The musician dedicates hours and hours to learning the fundamentals of their instrument and some basic simple melodies. Over time more complicated melodies are introduced. Techniques become easier and easier. With a little more time and practice it isn't long before the musician can learn a new melody with little effort. Eventually, after years of practice, playing, and performing the music has become so much a part of him or her that they barely have to think about it when they are playing. This doesn't mean that their heart is not present in the music, but that the music itself has simply become an extension of themselves. Every note they play flows from the heart.

How true this is in our pursuit of prayer as well. At first it is difficult. We have a hard time focusing. We don't have the attention span to be able to concentrate on long prayers, so we must be content with the "short and sweet," those little arrows that are simple to learn, but packed with meaning. We must be content with constant repetition. In our daily prayer we practice the Jesus Prayer or the Rosary over and over again. We delve into the repetitious liturgical cycle, whether that means we follow the cycles of the Liturgy of the Hours along with Sunday Liturgy, or we simply participate in Sunday Liturgy on a weekly basis. After years and years of this sort of practice and repetition prayer becomes a part of us, an extension of ourselves. We are constantly praying. We are constantly with God, aware of His presence. The Spirit moves within us enabling us to engage our relationship with God all the more, while at the same time reaching out to our neighbors. At this point it doesn't take much effort for us to learn a new prayer and for that prayer to simply flow from our hearts. The prayer is already there in our hearts, it has now just been put to words.

Time, practice, patience, perseverance, focus. This is all it takes to learn to pray. I don't mean to imply that the effort is solely on our part. Of course, we must await for our Lord to grant us the gift of prayer. But if we put in that effort, the gift will be given. Whether it is in a day, a year, or sixty years doesn't really matter. I've seen musicians who just seem to pick up an instrument and be brilliant at it within a matter of days. For others I've seen it take them just a little longer. And then I've known others who have put in years and years of practice and yet never seem to improve. But those who persist, whether it take more or less time, the rewards have always been great. The music they've produced has been brilliant. The same is true of our prayer life. We can't worry about how quickly some people seem to "get it," or how long it's taking us. We must simply persist. The fact that it may take us longer doesn't necessarily mean that we are less holy than others. It simply means that the Lord has a plan for our lives and is perhaps working out something deeper within us. May heaven consume us.
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Focus on God's Love!

July 3, 2013, 7:37 am
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The more I pray the Maronite Liturgy of the Hours, the more I am drawn in by it's beauty and theological richness. At least in its English translation, the language is very simple and direct. Although it is poetic in its own way, it does not engage poetry to quite the extent that the Byzantine tradition does. Rather it is very simple in its poetry, maintaining what, to me, is a nice balance between the dignified prose of the Roman tradition and the poetic richness of the Byzantine tradition.

But what draws me in to this the most is its emphasis on the Light of Christ, the mercy of God, the steadfast love of the Trinity, while at the same time reminding us that we are sinners in need of that mercy, love and light. Whereas in other traditions it seems to me that the emphasis is on our sinfulness, the Maronites seem to focus on God's mercy and His plan of salvation. Certainly we are to acknowledge our sins and failings, but not to the point that we lose sight of God's love. To lose sight of God's love is not moving from darkness to light, but from darkness to deeper darkness. I forget where I read it, but I recall reading in some spiritual work that to overly focus on our sinfulness is not humility, but is actually a form of pride. Are we sinners? Sure. We have to acknowledge that. But we must acknowledge all the more that our God is a God of love and mercy. Not the kind of love that is wishy-washy - a mere "warm fuzzy" feeling; nor the kind of mercy that is indulgent. God's love is a love that seeks what is best for us. His mercy is a mercy that recognizes the reality of who we are. God is patient for us to become who and what He created us to be, and so His love for us remains steadfast even when our love for Him falters and our commitment to Him wavers.

In Safro/Morning Prayer this morning we prayed that our minds may always focus on God's love for us, not on our own sinfulness.

" You are the Light that is never extinguished, the Day that never ends, the Morning that has no night.
Lord, may the eyes of our hearts be illumined by your light,
and the rising of your day be  the source of all good.
May our minds be focused on your love.
In your kindness you free us from the darkness of night and
draw us to the light of day;
by the power of your word disperse the evils that come to us.
Thus through your wisdom we will conquer the snares of the
evil one who dons the garb of an angel of light.
Guard us from works of darkness, and keep our gaze fixed on
your resplendent light."
(emphasis mine)

When we focus on the love of God and His steadfast mercy towards us, the snares of the enemy cannot trap us. If, however, we become so self-invovled that we focus primarily on our own sinfulness and the darkness within us, as well as the darkness throughout the rest of the world, then how can we help but fall into the traps of the evil one?

But what is this love and mercy that God has shown and continues to show to us? We pray over it every day. We talk about it almost constantly. But do we ever stop to think about it? Do we ever allow the reality of God's love and mercy sink in? Here is what the Sedro of Safro/Morning prayer has to say:

Christ Jesus, our Lord, God and Savior,
you are long-suffering, full of grace and truth.
You created us from nothing and gave us life.
After the fall you redeemed us and made us your children by
holy baptism.
Now we implore your merciful goodness, as we remember all
you have done for us:

your birth, baptism, crucifixion, death and burial;
your resurrection, ascension, reign at the right hand
of the Father;
your return in judgment when you will come in
glory, on behalf of the Father, to judge the living
and the dead.

We beg you to accept from us, poor and sinful servants, these
prayers and supplications.
Hear the call of our weakness and the plea of our repentance.
Lord, do not turn your face from us in anger;
do not let your justice threaten us.
Remember not the faults and shameful sins we have committed;
do not find us guilty at the moment of judgment
and do not cast us, who have acknowledged you, into the darkness
with those who have not known you.
Grant rather, that purified by our tears of penitence,
we may escape the moaning and gnashing of teeth,
and meet you with confidence at your Second Coming.
(emphasis mine)

We implore God's mercy "as we remember all" He has done for us. Bear in mind that when the Church uses the language of "memory" She uses it in the more ancient sense of making that which is remembered present to those who are remembering. When we remember all that God has done for us, we make present for us the saving reality of God's actions in history, especially as the culminate in the Person of Jesus, Who was born, baptized, crucified, buried, is risen and ascended and enthroned at the right hand of the Father. We remember Jesus, Who will come on behalf of the Father to judge the living and the dead. This is what God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - has done for us. The Second Person of the Trinity became one of us "in all things but sin," died for us in order to conquer the reign of death and darkness, and rose for us that we might rise to glory. He did all of this for us! God does not need us to glorify Him. God does not need us for anything. But in His love for us He wants to give us everything, and He has sacrificed everything - His only Son - in order that we might have everything - the very life of the Trinity!

That is why we can pray that God not look upon our faults and failings; that He withhold His justice and instead show us His mercy and compassion. That is why we can ask Him not to find us guilty at the moment of judgment. We are all guilty of sin, and even the smallest sin deserves eternal punishment (think about that one for a moment). But God was and is willing to do everything to be with us and to have us with Him. All we have to do is keep our minds focused on His love and our gaze fixed upon His light. When we do this, all our sins, faults and bad habits will melt away. Then we can truly stand with confidence before Christ at His Second Coming. We are confident not because we have overcome our sinful nature. No! We are confident in the love God has for us and the mercy He has shown us.

Remember, however, there is a difference between confidence and presumption. Presumption assumes that God will give us the reward even if we have done nothing on our part to merit it. Confidence is to stand in the presence of God knowing that, despite the fact that you have fallen many times, you have persevered in the struggle. You have worked out your salvation in fear and trembling, trusting in the saving power of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, not in your own ability to save yourself. Confidence is knowing that you have worked in synergy with God's plan of salvation. What we do, ultimately, is nothing compared to what God has done for us. We are the baby who takes one step towards its parent and then tumbles. God is the Father Who sees His child taking that one step, and then runs across the room to scoop them up with pride and shed tears of joy over a single step. We have a loving Father. May His love consume us!
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A Conversation on the Philokalia with Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware)

July 4, 2013, 7:13 am
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A friend of mine up in Michigan shared this video interview on Facebook. Having watched the whole thing this morning I felt I had to share it here on "The Master Beadsman." Of course, anything written or spoken by Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) is worth listening to. Given, however, that he has been so heavily involved in the translation of the Philokalia into the English language, his words on the genesis, translation, publication, history, etc. of the Philokalia are all the more pertinent.

Towards the end of the interview he mentions a very fascinating story. Supposedly St. Paissy Velichkovsky was not a supporter of publishing the Philokalia and making it available to the general public. He believed that it should be kept in folio form and only read by monks or nuns who had a spiritual elder to guide them through the writings. St. Nichodimus of the Holy Mountain, however, and somewhat later St. Theophan the Recluse, disagreed. They believed that such an important work should be published and that we should trust in the Holy Spirit to guide the folks who read it. Metropolitan Kallistos, agree with them, even goes so far as to say that the Holy Spirit guides certain people to read the Philokalia, but not everyone is guided to do so. Our reading of the Philokalia should be supplemented by reading the writings of other spiritual masters that are easier to understand. We should also hope and pray that the Holy Spirit send some elder or other spiritual person our way that may, perhaps, give us a deeper insight into the meaning of the texts. As always, we should read slowly, carefully, and with great humility. Enjoy!

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Kallistos Ware - How should we study Theology?

July 4, 2013, 10:45 am
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More gold from Metropolitan Kallistos.

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Kallistos Ware - Saint Gregory Palamas

July 4, 2013, 11:33 am
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One last lecture from the good Metropolitan. :)
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The Arena: Ignatius Brianchaninov's Councils on Prayer Part 6: Practice Makes Perfect

July 7, 2013, 6:30 am
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So often when speaking of the Jesus Prayer or unceasing prayer we have a tendency to focus on one of two topics: 1) the Jesus Prayer itself, its theological richness, its history, its spirituality, etc; 2) the question of prayer, what it is, how we ought to pray, etc. In reading St. Ignatius Brianchaninov's Arena this morning I realized that we ignore a very key aspect in praying the Jesus Prayer. PRACTICE!

Anyone who wants to be good at something knows that they have to practice. We've all heard that worn out adage, "practice makes perfect." Heck, I'm sure most of us have used that on numerous occasions. In the world of music, if someone wants to learn an instrument for the first time, or pick up a second instrument, one of the first things a professional musician will tell them is to practice for at least a half an hour every day (ideally at least an hour). Salespeople are encouraged to practice their sales scripts and pitches. Athletes practice their particular sports for hours and hours. Even soldiers in the military "practice" for combat through drills. What makes us think the spiritual life would be any different? When entering into the arena of spiritual combat, what makes us think we can come out victorious over our enemy if we haven't first prepared by practicing the Jesus Prayer or any other form of prayer?

The goal of all prayer, according to St. Ignatius and countless other great spiritual masters, is unceasing prayer, unceasing communion with God the Trinity, unceasing remembrance of God. St. Ignatius makes a very interesting point:

"In order to become eventually capable of unceasing prayer he (the novice or beginner at prayer) must practice frequent prayer."

"Frequent prayer!" The word is self-explanatory and really needs no definition. Frequent prayer means turning to God whenever we have the chance. We can use the Jesus Prayer or any other short prayer that draws us into God's presence. St. Ignatius says:

"Do you happen to have a free moment? Do not waste it in idleness!... Use it for the practice of the Jesus Prayer."

I remember listening to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware talk on the Jesus Prayer. He mentions some very practical moments in which we can turn to God with the Jesus Prayer. Any time we are standing in line waiting our turn at something we have a free moment to practice the Jesus Prayer. While we wait for the bus at a bus stop. While we're driving in traffic. While we're walking from one place to another. Any time we are engaged in any sort of activity that doesn't require our complete focus we can engage the Jesus Prayer. Practice!

It is this practice of frequent prayer that leads to the habit of prayer. As I mentioned in a previous post, the more we do something the more it becomes a part of who we are. The more we practice frequent prayer the deeper it enters into the core of our being and changes our hearts. In time and by God's gift of grace eventually unceasing prayer will be granted to us. We just have to persevere in hope. We just have to practice!

In our practice, however, we must remember not to become despondent no matter how many mistakes we might make. We will get distracted. We will lose focus. There will be days, months, or even years where it will just feel like our heart isn't in it. Don't let that discourage you. Don't let that lead you to abandon your practice. Stay the course and be strong. Confess your fallenness to God. Beg is forgiveness, mercy, compassion, and help. He's already sent His Son to die for us, so giving us a little help in prayer is an easy thing!

Not to belabor examples from the world of music, but musicians often go through similar struggles as those seeking to deepen the prayer life and spiritual life. Musicians are told to practice the fundamentals. Even professional musicians who have been playing their instruments for decades will always come back and practice scales, various basic finger techniques, proper breathing, etc., etc., etc. When we first get started playing music we don't want to practice this stuff. We want to play music, not scales and techniques. But by practicing these scales and techniques it becomes easier for us to actually play the music and learn new music. I knew a young fiddle player who, for a number of years, could only play a handful of tunes. He focused on those tunes so that he could develop his style and technique. He practiced and practiced these tunes for years, only learning a couple of new tunes each year. Eventually, however, he had solidified his unique style, and then learning tunes was nothing for him. He went from knowing only a handful to knowing a wealth of music; and he is now one of the finest Irish fiddle players you will ever hear (no, it's not me).

The same applies to our prayer life. Sure the Jesus Prayer is simple, it is short, we may get bored of it after some time because, on the surface, it doesn't seem to have the theological richness of some lengthier prayers. But if we stick with it and practice this fundamental prayer, then unceasing prayer will eventually be granted. Once it is we will be able to pray any prayer and be drawn immediately into the heart of that prayer, and that prayer will be immediately in our hearts. God will be with us as He always is, but we will be constantly with Him as well. May heaven consume us.
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A Prayer Before Reading the Scriptures

July 19, 2013, 11:32 pm
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So it's after 2:00 AM and I can't sleep for some reason. That means I'm up and looking at liturgical texts online. About a week ago I stumbled across the liturgical texts for the "Rite of the Divine Mysteries" of the Church of the East (Chaldeans and Assyrians). The texts are those used by Chaldean and Assyrian Catholics here in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries. Curiosity made me bookmark the texts so that I could peruse them at a later date. While going through them tonight I found the following prayer that is perfect for beginning one's Bible study or Lectio Divina. In the Liturgy it is prayed by the priest before the Epistle is read. I believe the priest prays it out loud (I can't say for sure since I've never been to a Chaldean or Assyrian Divine Liturgy).

Enlighten our mental faculties, our Lord and our God, that we may understand and savor the sweet sound of your life-giving and divine commands. Grant, in your grace and your mercies, that we may reap benefit from them: love, hope and the salvation that befits both body and soul. Thus will we unceasingly sing a perpetual praise to you at all times O Lord of all, Father, Son and Holy Spirit forever.

And for good measure, here is the prayer prayed before the announcing of the Gospel in the Byzantine tradition. This translation is from the Melkite text that was revised a couple of years ago.

Shine in our hearts, Master who love mankind, the pure light of Your divine knowledge and open the eyes of our mind that we may understand the announcing of Your Good News; set in us the fear of Your blessed commandments, so that, trampling all carnal desires, we may live according to the Spirit, both willing and doing everything that pleases You. For You are the light of our souls and bodies, O Christ God, and we render glory to You, and to Your Eternal Father and to Your All-Holy, Good and Life-­Giving Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. Amen. 
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Knowledge or Entertainment?

July 20, 2013, 10:02 am
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Recently I was browsing through a work by St. Theophan the Recluse. In a letter he wrote to one of his correspondences he mentions how it is perfectly acceptable for the spiritual person to read non-spiritual books and literature, so long as they are not harmful to our faith and so long as they present truth and not lies. He mentions that the spiritual person can even find a great deal of spiritual insight from non-spiritual literature.

Bearing this in mind, I have recently been reading a lot of books on sales. Working as I do in the sales profession I figured it's best that I hone my skills in order to provide a better service to my clients and a better living for my family. Sales is both a science and an art. As such, good salesmanship can be learned. But I digress.

In the book that I am currently working my way through on the subject I stumbled across a great gem of insight. The book is The Accidental Salesperson by Chris Lytle. On page 120, in the midst of talking about the importance of pre-meeting planning and getting one's prospects involved, he throws out this great comment: "Education without action is entertainment. To know and not to do is not to know."

This got me to thinking, how much of our spiritual reading is done merely for entertainment. All the saints are unanimous that if we are going to do spiritual reading (which we ought to be doing), then we need to put what we read into practice. This does not mean that we do every little thing that we read. We have to use discernment and apply what the saints are talking about to our lives and our unique circumstances as non-monastics living in the world - or even as monastics living in monasteries. But we do have to act upon what we read, otherwise we will never come to know God through the deeper knowledge of experience and experiential relationship with Him. If we do not act upon what we read and discern what is best to apply in our lives, then our reading is nothing more than entertainment. God is not a necessity in our lives, but merely one more form of entertainment competing with other (potentially better) forms of entertainment.

The spiritual life, however, is not entertainment. Of course, it can be fun at times. I will be the first to admit that spirituality can be fun. And there should certainly be an element of fun and playfulness in our spiritual lives. Archbishop Joseph Raya is very adamant about this, as are other great spiritual masters. But there is also a great deal of struggle, suffering, pain, and hardship in the spiritual life. If we only approach the spiritual life and our relationship with God as a form of entertainment, then why would we persevere when the going gets tough?

The saints wrote what they did in order to give us a roadmap in the spiritual life, especially for when the going gets tough. Their writings give us the focus we need to keep our eye on the prize at the end of the journey and to encourage us along the way. They have made the journey and were kind enough to leave us a roadmap. In gratitude, let's put that map to use instead of just looking at it as an intriguing piece of archaic literature and an insight into ancient monastic culture. Practice what they preach! They sure did, and now they are reaping the eternal rewards. May heaven consume us.
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"Hail Mary" of Syriac Christians

July 24, 2013, 3:24 am
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Many Eastern Christians reject the "Hail Mary" as a Western prayer. By now I've come to realize that each Church has its own version of the "Hail Mary." The Byzantine version runs:

"Rejoice, Virgin Theotokos, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, for you have borne the Savior of our sous."

The version used while praying the mequtaria is quite long. I'm not so sure it could be called a "version" of the "Hail Mary," but it certainly bears some striking similarities to the other versions of the "Hail Mary" I've come across.

This morning, while I was searching to find out what "Sootoro" is in the Maronite/Syrian tradition, I came across the following version of the "Hail Mary" used among the Syriac Churches:

"Hail Mary, full of grace, Our Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, our Lord, Jesus Christ. O Virgin Saint Mary, O Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at all times, and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

I believe I'm going to use this as the foundation of a Maronite/Syrian rosary, time permitting. May heaven consume us.

(P.S. Incidentally "Sootoro" is Compline or "Night Prayer" in the Syrian/Syriac tradition and is prayed immediately before retiring to bed.)
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Who Are You?

August 15, 2013, 7:23 pm
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A day or two ago as I was driving around for work and listening to the local AM Catholic radio station (Sacred Heart Radio [740 AM for you Cincinnati dwellers]), I was struck by a quote from St. Francis of Assisi given by the show host. The quote was a prayer of St. Francis that the host credited to instilling Francis with his sense of joy and love of God's creation. "Lord, show me Who You are, and who I am." What a profound prayer in its simplicity. It has been weighing on my mind since I heard it, and it has been welling up from within my heart as well. Lord, Who are You? And who am I? As I was thinking on this tonight, I realized some connections that this has to the Jesus Prayer, and how the Jesus Prayer actually answers both of those questions for us, if we are willing to open our hearts and listen to God speaking to us through the Prayer.

The answer(s) revolves around the simple word "mercy." Our God is a God of mercy. He is a merciful God not only in the sense that when we fell from His love and grace He went to the Cross in order to save us and restore our relationship with Him. But He is merciful in the very act of creation itself! It is, after all, better to be than not to be; there is no question about that despite Shakespeare's question from the lips of Hamlet (I think). God is also merciful in that after creating us He not only wished to maintain a relationship with us, but entered into covenant relationship with us. Dr. Scott Hahn and other biblical scholars have gone to great lengths to demonstrate to us that covenant bonds in ancient societies were oftentimes even stronger than familial bonds. So, although we speak of our being "foster" or "adopted" children of God the Father in Christ Jesus, the reality is that our relationship to our Heavenly Father is much closer than that of adoption. It is so close that Christ taught us to call the Father "Abba" - an affectionate title the connotes intimate familiarity and family ties (in much the same way that my family referred to my late grandparents as "Ma'am" and "Pops," and I refer to my dad as "Pops").

But what does the Jesus Prayer reveal to us about ourselves? Or rather, what does God our Abba reveal to us about ourselves through the Jesus Prayer? At surface-level we might be tempted to say that the Jesus Prayer teaches us that we are sinners: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. I won't deny that such a reading is true. We are all sinners. I am a sinner. I have fallen short of God's plan for me. But there are two things that we must remember here. First, the more ancient form of the Jesus Prayer does not include the final words "a sinner." That was an addition that was added through Russian piety. I am not saying that it shouldn't have been added, but simply that it was a later addition. The more ancient form, in my opinion, focused more on God's mercy and our need of His mercy regardless of whether or not we sin.

Secondly, by admitting that we are sinners and that we are in need of God's mercy we are admitting something else. Archbishop Fulton Sheen points out that "sin" simply means missing the mark, or missing a target. It is, quite simply, falling short of an intended goal. Think of that! Sin isn't a violation of some arbitrary commandment placed on us by a tyrant God. Sin is missing the mark. It is failing to live up to who and what God created us to be! It is failing to "be all that you can be," as the Army so aptly puts it. Who are you? Who am I? We are children of God our Abba! We were created to share in the very life and glory of the Trinity! We weren't created to merely worship God in an extrinsic manner, offering praise and sacrifice to Him because He's God. God, in His love and mercy, created us to share in His very life. Our sins, therefore, are not breaking a commandment that is extrinsic to us. Our sins are a refusal to participate in that life for which we were created! Our sins are a denial of our very nature, who we are! We were created for light, not darkness, for life, not death, for glory, not misery, for joy, not suffering. That is God's mercy!

So Who is God? God is our Abba, our Daddy, our Papa. He is our Abba Who showers His love, His steadfast love, His longsuffering love, His mercy upon us from creation to the very act of sending His only begotten Son for our salvation. He is a God, a Father, an Abba Who so earnestly desires a relationship with us that He is willing to give up and has given up everything for that relationship. "God, show me Who You are."

And who are we? We are His creatures, His greatest creation, His adopted children, His covenant family! What mercy! But we often fall short of our dignity as members of His family. We often cast ourselves out of that family through our own sinfulness. We often participate in that life, the Trinitarian life, for which we were created and we choose, rather, darkness, despair, nothingness, death. But the reality doesn't change. In God's eyes we are still His children. God does not reject us. In our sinfulness we reject Him. But He is always there to welcome us back into the family. What mercy! On the one hand we need to take a sort of "holy pride" in who we are. We are, after all, God's children. What child who grew up in a loving family is not proud of that family? I know some folks who are so proud of their family that it is almost annoying. I'm very proud of my family. I believe that I grew up with the greatest parents and siblings a person could ask for, and I hope to pass that on to my children as well. So if we can be proud of our earthly families and our role in those families, how much more so God's family! But at the same time we must be humble and recognize how we abuse and reject our "family pride;" how we cast ourselves outside of the family through our sinfulness. "God, show me... who I am."

He is Abba, we are His children. Think about that the next time you pray, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me (a sinner)." May heaven consume us!
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What's Coming?

August 18, 2013, 4:03 am
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I know I've not been as good about posting things as I'd like to be, and as I've said I'd be. So I just wanted to let everyone know what I've been working on. Other than actually filling a good number of orders for prayer ropes and rosaries, I've been reading through the series of 100 "sentences" by Sts. Ignatios and Kallistos Xanthopoulos. These "sentences" were written for monastics who lived in inner-city monasteries that were often very busy with visitors and other ministries. Because of this there is a lot of amazing and very practical advice for busy lay folks like myself and, I'm sure, most of you all.

I've almost completed my first reading of their "sentences." Once I'm done with that I am going to go through it and write some meditations/posts on some of their pieces that I think might most easily be applied to our day-to-day lives as lay people seeking to come closer to the Lord, to prepare our hearts to receive Him. So I will be creating another series similar to the one I did on The Arena by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov.

Thanks for your patience with all of this, and thanks for coming back and visiting this humble little blog. Happy Sunday, and may heaven consume us!

ICXC + NIKA,
Phillip
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His Tender Arms

September 1, 2013, 6:12 am
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Have you ever felt as if God has abandoned you? Have you ever looked around the world in fear, feeling as though God was not carrying you in His arms to safety? Have you ever felt as if God has just completely withdrawn from you and left you to the attacks of the world, the flesh and the devil? If so, you're in good company. I believe all Christians who are actively seeking a deeper relationship with God have gone through this at some point. In fact, all of the great mystics - East and West - have stated that such abandonment is a stage in the spiritual life. Our spiritual life begins with great consolations - the "honeymoon phase" I call it - but we eventually get to the point where any and all consolation ceases and we must just press on in hope.

What I've come to realize is that these aren't stages that we progress through, so much as they are intermittent phases. God gives us consolation as we need it and desolation when it will do us some good. Sts. Ignatios and Kallistos Xanthopoulos mention this in their wonderful writings on the spiritual life contained in the Philokalia. But what I'd like to discuss here is an image that they presented that has given me a great deal of comfort and that I will certainly continue to meditate upon as I attempt to progress in the spiritual life.

First, they mention that God never fully withdraws His grace and presence from us, unless we ourselves have first withdrawn from God. Only when we have withdrawn from God does He allow us to go our own way - like the father of the prodigal son allowing his son to abandon him and make his own mistakes, all the while hoping he will come to his senses and return home. No, under normal circumstance God withdraws from us in order to keep us from becoming puffed up, full of ourselves wrongfully proud of the progress that we have made in the spiritual life (as though any progress is a result of our efforts alone). God withdraws from us in order that we might more clearly see just how much we depend on Him.

This is the way they put it. God is like a mother nursing her child. The child becomes fidgety and wants to be put down. It thinks that it will be fine on its own and does not need its mother to protect it. So the mother, in order to teach the child just how much it relies on her, puts the child down. When the child is confronted by the faces of strangers and roaming animals, it perceives the danger that exists beyond its mother's loving arms and comes running back to her, and crying and screaming and reaching up to her until she picks it up.

What a powerful image! God's attentiveness to us and His tenderness towards us is like that of a mother towards her baby. How many mothers can let their child cry for very long before picking up her little baby and comforting it? If our earthly mothers scoop us up so quickly, how much more quickly will our heavenly Father, who's tenderness is beyond that of any earthly mother, come to our aid when we cry out to Him.

We all experience abandonment, desolation, "spiritual aridity," spiritual dryness, etc. Whatever name we may label it with, remember, we have a loving Father. He has only set us down for a short time so that we might come running back to Him with a renewed realization of how much we depend on Him for any progress in the spiritual life. This may only happen once during our lifetime, or it may happen multiple times. It may be of shorter or longer duration, depending on what we need to grow. I know for me it is an almost regular occurrence. I guess I just get puffed up too quickly. I've experienced dryness that has lasted years, and I've experienced dryness that has lasted only a few days. The point isn't the dryness. The point is that we realize just how much we need our loving Father, and we come back to Him begging for His mercy and grace.

In this context, the Jesus Prayer is a wonderful remedy. When we really focus on the words of the prayer and take them to heart, when we descend with our mind into our heart with this Prayer, we realize just how much we are in need of God's mercy. We are constantly admitting to it and asking for it. But we must pray the Prayer in humility and with attention. Otherwise it, like any other prayer, can serve to puff us up, to inflate our self-image and make us think (at least subconsciously) that we do not need God's grace and mercy, His tender embrace. So meditate on the Prayer, think it over, take it to heart. We will still experience those times of abandonment, but when we do we will know that it's for our own good and we will come running back to God with this Prayer, and we will find ourselves again in His tender arms. May heaven consume us.
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Holy Vocation or Vocation to Holiness?

September 15, 2013, 6:39 am
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Whether you're Catholic or Orthodox no doubt you have heard over and over again that we have a vocations crisis on our hands. Parents are told that they need to encourage their children to become priests, monks, or nuns. We parents need to be open to the fact that God may call our children to the religious life. This is all well and good. Of course we do need more vocations to the religious life, and such vocations ought to be encouraged.

Here is something that's been weighing on my mind this past week. So often we hear talk of how we need young men and women to enter the religious life, to embrace a "holy vocation." But often the encouragement towards the religious life is presented in such a way as to diminish the holiness of a vocation to the married life (yes, marriage too is a vocation); as if marriage is, somehow, a lesser vocation. But we need holy men and women to become holy husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, every bit as much as we need holy men and women in the priesthood and religious life.

All vocations start at home. A young person may have a calling to the religious life, but if they are not taught how to listen for that calling within the home, then the call will fall on deaf ears. The Church has been repeating to us over and over again for decades now that all religious formation begins at home. The home is the "domestic Church" where children first learn to pray, to live holy lives, where the consciences are first formed and where they first learn the teachings of the Church. The home is where a child first encounters Christ. As Christian parents we are our children's first contact with Christ. Do we model the love of Christ for our children? Do we pour ourselves out for our spouse and our family in the same way that Christ emptied Himself for us? Have we created a home for our children that would foster holy vocations to either the religious life or to marriage?

The vocation to marriage is the most fundamental to all other vocations in the sense that it is only through marriage that future generations of Christians are brought into the world. But we, as married couples and heads of our families, have a vocation to live holy lives, to model holiness for our children. We must be able to listen to and hear the voice of God so that we can teach our children to do so as well, whether it be through example, direct teaching, or both. It is only through fully living our vocation to marriage that our children will learn how to fully live out their vocations, whether to marriage or the religious life, in a holy way.

In the end we all have the same vocation. We all have a vocation to holiness. To be the light of Christ shining in a world that seems to be ever more darkened by the darkness of sin. But, if we fully live out our vocation to holiness, whether that holiness is lived out in the married life or the religious life, then our children will learn to go out and be a light unto the world. Only when holy men and women fully embrace their vocation to holiness within the married life will we have a greater increase in vocations to the religious life. Think of it this way; all the great saints had at least one parent who modeled holiness for them. Sts. Augustine, Francis of Assisi, and Seraphim of Sarov all had their mothers as models of holiness for them. These three men became some of the most influential saints in their regions and throughout the world. But for them it all started at home. St. Therese of Lisieux and her sisters also learned to live holy lives through both their mother and their father. It is no coincidence that the majority of the Martin (St. Therese's family name) sisters entered the religious life and went on to reach the heights of holiness. Because of her holy parents - who are now "blesseds" in the Roman Church - nearly an entire family has been elevated or is in the process of being elevated to sainthood.

So I suppose my bit of encouragement for all of us this week is to strive for holiness in whatever vocation you find yourself. Fully embrace and live your vocation. As St. Seraphim is so famous for saying, "Acquire the Spirit of peace, and thousands around you will be saved." We could paraphrase that to say, "Fully live your vocation to holiness - whether in the religious or married life - and thousands around you will be saved." May Heaven consume us.
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Pray Continually?

September 22, 2013, 4:09 am
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One of the most challenging aspects of the spirituality surrounding the Jesus Prayer is its emphasis on following the command of St. Paul to "pray always." Prayer, I'm venturing to guess, in the minds of most people means reading written prayers or saying memorized prayers. It may even mean simply turning to God and saying a prayer that wells up from your heart. This, of course, is one aspect of prayer, but it is not prayer at its core. All the great mystics have pointed out that prayer is more an attitude or disposition than the recitation of formulas. No matter the tradition, Eastern or Western, whether you're reading the writings contained in the Philokalia, or the writings of the great Syrian mystics; whether you're reading the writings of Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross or the wisdom of Russian masters like Sts. Theophan the Recluse and Ignatius Brianchaninov, it doesn't matter. They all emphasize that prayer is much more than a mere repetition of written or memorized formulas. Prayer is beyond words.

However, perhaps we still fall into the trap of reducing prayer to words, to a repetition of written or memorized formulas, or spouting out a quick prayer that wells up from within. I know that I personally fall into this trap all the time. I sit in my little corner in the morning and pray my morning prayers out of my little book. Perhaps I sit in "silence" for a little while trying to glean what bits insight I can from the prayers I just read (in reality my mind is racing over the things I need to get done today). Even on my way to work I may pray the Jesus Prayer, but my mind is full of other thoughts and my heart is grasping at the lures of the world which present themselves to me day-in and day-out. I may know in my head what prayer is, I may have an academic understanding of it and be able to define it, but so often my day-to-day prayer life is simply routine. If I miss a day of my routine then my entire day is thrown off.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with routine even in one's prayer life. If you are in a stage in your prayer life where all you can do is go through the motions, then it is better to go through the motions with hope that this time will pass than to give up on prayer all together. Sometimes we have to "fake it 'till we make it." But as we go through the motions we have to still be striving for authentic prayer.

I believe I have mentioned in previous posts that authentic prayer is a Presence. Authentic prayer is a humble awareness of God's Presence with us. Authentic prayer also requires that we be present to God.  Sometimes while I'm at work my fellow employees and I may become preoccupied with whatever tasks we are attempting to complete. We become so focused on our tasks that we are not even aware of each other. We have blinders on, and all we see is the task in front of us. From time to time throughout the day, in order to break up the monotony, I will reach out to the employee next to me and "fist bump" him, or "high-five" my manager, or simply smile at one of my other coworkers. No words are spoken. But such actions demonstrate to my fellow employees that I'm aware of them, I appreciate them. I believe it reminds all of us that we are all in this together. But most importantly for our purposes, it is a form of being present to them.

The same holds true in our prayer life, and particularly in our striving to pray without ceasing. If prayer truly means to be humbly aware of God's Presence, and to be present to Him, then words are not necessary. All we need to do is to turn to God in our mind and heart and acknowledge Him. In dealing with these same questions, Fr. George Maloney, S.J. makes the following comments in his wonderful book Prayer of the Heart: The Contemplative Tradition of the Christian East:

"The majority of the desert fathers saw prayer, not in terms of the strong intellectual accent that Evagrius gave to the subject, but rather in terms of the praxis or ascetical life along with the inner "pushing" of one's consciousness always more toward God as the goal of all one's actions or thoughts..."

Fr. Maloney goes on to describe prayer as "straining toward God" and to say that while the early monks went about their daily labors, the invented short prayers that they would then repeat in order to push the mind toward God. This was the roots of the Jesus Prayer. The short prayers themselves were never meant as an end in themselves. Rather, they were always intended to bring the mind and heart into the Presence of God. These short prayers, and the Jesus Prayer in particular, are meant to break us out of our focus on our day-to-day tasks and to remind us of God's Presence to us and the necessity of our presence to Him. Fr. Maloney goes on to say:

"This is the beginning of the Jesus Prayer that centers around a phrase, including the name of Jesus, repeated as often as the person can do so, accompanied by an interior desire to be in the presence of the Lord and Savior. The prayer element consists in the longing and the stretching out spiritually toward the Lord." (Emphasis Mine).

Prayer consists of longing for and stretching out to the Lord. St. Augustine famously said, "My heart searches restlessly, and it finds no rest until it rests in you." Our hearts long for a Presence. Too often we seek to fill that longing with anything but the Presence for which our hearts desire. The point of written prayers, even the Jesus Prayer, is to remind us that our real longing is for the Presence of God. That Presence, the hesychast Fathers teach us, can be found within us if we have the courage to look for it.

For me I know that my own prayer becomes rout oftentimes because I fear allowing Christ to shed His light into my heart. I am ashamed at what He will find there. But most of all I am ashamed at what I will see there. And so I go through my prayers and I do all the talking. I ignore God's Presence while I pray. It's as though I say to the Lord, "What I have to say to you now is more important than what you have to say to me. So please be quiet, sit back, and listen. And if there's time after I'm done talking, then maybe I'll let you do some talking." But this morning, as I was going through my prayer routine, I realized that I have lost sight of my faith in the power of Christ's light to transform and transfigure. Most importantly I have lost sight of the power of God's Word to heal the wounds of my sins and to transform my heart of stone into a heart of flesh. But Christ can only heal if we allow Him. The Word of God will only exercise His Power over us if we allow Him to be present to us, and if we are present to Him. The power of the Holy Spirit that the Father bestows through Christ Jesus will only come upon us if we invite Him and open ourselves to Him. So much for such a little effort! And yet how often are we hesitant to make such an effort? The "longing and the stretching out spiritually towards the Lord" simply means attentiveness to His Presence, and attentive and humble listening to His Word wherever we encounter it/Him.

In the Cherubic Hymn of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom we sing, "Let us lay aside all earthly cares that we may welcome the King of all." The first step to continual prayer is the laying aside of whatever care we have before us at the moment and welcoming the Presence of God the Trinity within us. Over time the more we break up our day with these moments of welcoming the Trinity, the more we become aware of and attentive to God's Presence until eventually we have a continual attentiveness to this Presence. It is then that the gift of continual prayer has been given to us. But we must do our part and strive, longing and stretching out towards that Presence. May Heaven consume us!
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Making Eye Contact

September 28, 2013, 6:37 am
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Have you ever been in a conversation with someone where the other person was obviously not paying attention to a word you said? They look around at every little thing going on around you, except at you. It's as if they go out of their way to avoid making any sort of eye contact with you. One of my biggest pet-peeves is having a conversation with a person who is messing around with their i-phone. I've gotten up and walked away from folks who were "texting" while trying to have a conversation with me. Conversing with such people is exhausting, maddening, frustrating, and pointless. It makes one feel like you don't really matter to the person with whom you are trying to speak.

Or have you ever been in a conversation with a person who simply seems incapable of making eye contact with you. They stare at the floor, at their shoes, at their hands in their laps, anywhere but into your eyes. For me, conversations like that are unsettling. It makes me feel like the person has something to hide, or as if they aren't really interested in opening up to having any sort of personal relationship with me because such a relationship would require them to move outside of their comfort zone.

But then we've all been in those conversations where eye-contact is constant. The intensity of such conversations is almost electrifying. If you're an observer of such a conversation you can feel the intensity coming from the people conversing. If you are the person in such a conversation you may feel as if you're looking into the soul of the other and he is looking into your soul. Such conversations happen between the twitterpated couple on a date, and between good friends simply sharing their thoughts with one another. Such conversations even happen between married couples and friends without a word being spoken. They glance over at each other, make eye contact, and it seems as if they've just communicated an entire world to one another.

When you work in sales you understand the importance of eye-contact. Eye-contact makes your customer/client/prospect feel important. Eye-contact lets your prospect know that you genuinely care about his concerns and his needs. Through this it builds trust. By building trust you lay the foundation for a solid professional relationship. In my own work in sales I've found that when I maintain eye-contact with my customer I generally have a much easier time selling to them, not because I am manipulating them in any way, but because I am demonstrating that I genuinely care for them and that I think my product and my services are exactly the thing that is going to help make their experience with my company a completely satisfactory experience.

While I was working yesterday all of this flooded into my mind at once and I realized that it applies to our prayer life every bit as much as to our day-to-day relationships. We've all experienced distraction at prayer. It is one of the biggest struggles against which we must constantly fight. I realized, however, that those thoughts and distractions during prayer correspond to the friend who is always fidgeting with their i-phone while we're trying to talk to them. Prayer is a two-way conversation. Even if you are reading your prayers from a book, God is communicating to you through the words of the prayer every bit as much as you are communicating to Him through those same words. It is no wonder that the saints all say that when we just prattle off the words without giving them any thought, without being attentive, then we are not truly praying. When we allow ourselves to be distracted at prayer, thinking of the things we have to do today, or the conversations we had with friends the night before, or fretting about unknown futures, or whatever, then we are no different in our relationship with God than that friend who will not let go of texting for 20 minutes to have a real conversation with you.

For others among us, letting go and letting God penetrate to the depths of our being makes us uncomfortable. Maybe you have a heightened sense of your own sinfulness and unworthiness. Perhaps you are ashamed of some past misdeeds. Perhaps you are afraid that if you enter into a deeper relationship with God - if you make "eye-contact" with Him - then He will see you for what you are and reject you. I know I have been affected by this in my own spiritual life every bit as much as by just general distraction. But here's a news flash for all of us. God knows the depths of our beings. He knew us before we were even thought of by our parents. He knows our hearts inner-most desires and longings, even the disordered and sinful passions that have made their home in our hearts. And yet, despite all that God has not rejected us, nor will He. As St. Paul mentions, Christ came while we were yet sinners, and He died for us in order to heal our iniquities. That thought alone should give us ample courage to lift our mind's eye from the ground and make "eye-contact" with God in prayer, allowing Him to enter our hearts and heal us.

St. Theophan the Recluse spoke of prayer as descending with the mind into the heart and standing there unswervingly before God. Perhaps another way we can think of this is making eye-contact with God, and holding that gaze unswervingly. The Jesus Prayer, repeated throughout the day, becomes that quick loving glance to the Other that communicates more than words alone could ever hope to communicate. In order to pray truly we must learn to enter the with our mind into the heart, and there to gaze into the eyes of a God Who loves us beyond our own comprehension. That gaze is intense. That gaze is purifying. That gaze is healing. I'm reminded of all the times in the Gospels where there is mention of Christ looking upon someone. Any time the Gospel mentions "the look" things happen. Lepers and blind men are healed, the dead are raised to life, hearts are converted. We can also think of the power of Christ's gaze over His enemies. When at Nazareth the people sought to throw Him over the cliff, he simply gazed at them and walked through the crowds unharmed. In the Gethsemene, when the court Temple came to arrest Him Jesus gazed at them and they fell to the ground.

In prayer that gaze, that "eye-contact," has the same power. It has the power to raise us to new life and to heal the wounds of our sin. It also has the power to drive the demons out of our hearts and to cut through the passions of this world that we have allowed to penetrate us. But Our Lord will never allow that power to have any effect on us unless we first turn our gaze to His gaze. We must learn to gaze into the eyes of our Lord and Savior. May heaven consume us.
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From the Mountain to the Cross

October 6, 2013, 4:21 am
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One thing that has always attracted me to the spirituality of the East is the balance between mysticism and the daily grind, between a focus on this world and a focus on the world to come. Growing up in the Roman Church there often seemed to be an emphasis - at least at the popular level - of escaping this world; of running away from the trials and miseries of daily life and running too a prayer life that was less about communion with God and neighbor and more about escaping from problems. I'm not saying that this is the predominant spiritual attitude of the West, nor am I saying that this attitude doesn't exist in the East, I'm simply stating that this was my experience growing up around very devout (if somewhat misguided) Roman Catholics.

In the East, however, there is an attitude that in order for the spiritual life to be truly authentic, it must have applications in this world. Christ went off to pray by Himself, but He always came back to minister to others. The pinnacle moment of the Transfiguration of Our Lord on Mt. Tabor was immediately followed by Christ coming down off the mountain and healing a demoniac. Incidentally the Transfiguration was also followed by Christ predicting His death and starting on His way towards Jerusalem where he would be crucified (a very "this worldly" event). Even in the saints, those saints who went off to be alone with the Alone very often came back to guide others to the Other. Hermits often amassed throngs of followers seeking wisdom and a deepening of their spiritual life. St. Seraphim of Sarov, who lived as a hermit for many years, was called out of his hermitage and became one of the greatest startsi of Russian Orthodox history. St. Theophan the Recluse spent a great deal of time in his reclusion writing letters of spiritual guidance to people who wrote to him. He also wrote numerous books and translated numerous spiritual texts (as well as philosophical texts if memory serves me correctly).

The point is that authentic spirituality always has an impact on our day-to-day living. In speaking of the effects that reception of the Eucharist ought to have in us, Archbishop Joseph Raya says,

"In the Eucharist the Son of God penetrates our bodies and souls, minds and feelings, moral behavior and artistic talents, and all the powers of our personality. Thus nourished by Christ we are empowered to extend his presence on earth. With Christ we can radiate healing, and help inaugurate the era of the Kingdom of  God." (Theophany and Sacraments of Initiation, 131; emphasis mine)

If this can be said about receiving Holy Communion, then it must be said also about personal prayer and the spiritual life, because the reception of the Eucharist is the source and summit of prayer. Why? Because what is prayer if not entering into communion with the Trinity? And what is reception of the Eucharist if not a true and full communion in the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ Jesus and, through Him, an entry into the inner life of the Trinity?

So our prayer and spiritual life must not be used as an escape from this world, but as a reordering of this world to its original purpose - life in the Trinity - by first reordering ourselves to that purpose. Through prayer we develop - with the help of God's grace - this constant communion with God. We learn to work constantly in synergy with God's ongoing transformative actions in our life. We then take not only that experience, but God Himself out into the world. To paraphrase St. Teresa of Avile, through our divinization in prayer we become the hands and feet, the eyes and ears, the mouthpiece of the risen Christ in this world. No one knew this more than the saints.

I was reminded of this in a particular way this week while praying Safro/Morning Prayer in the Maronite tradition. Yesterday, on the Maronite and Roman calendars, was the feastday of one of my all-time favorite saints, St. Francis of Assisi. In the Sedro of the Hoosoyo at morning prayer on the feasts of confessors we find this beautiful prayer:

"O God, we offer you praise and glory on this blessed morning, the feast day of Saint N. You have chosen him as a light for the Church, a model for believers, and a witness to you in the world.

Already at the beginning of this prayer we discover the very "this-worldly" emphasis in the spirituality of the saints as celebrated in the East. God is glorified through the saint because the saint was a witness to God in this world. The saints make God present in this world and allow us to see the face of God. But at this point the prayer continues on with a shift in address. As you will see we address God and then shift to addressing the saint:

Blessed are you who distribute your gifts on those whom you wish and in the measure which you desire, and give a generous part to the saints.

Blessed are you, who did well with the talents you have received, because your Lord has now confided much in you!

Blessed are you who understood the gospel and have put it into practice!

Blessed are you because you have loved God and your neighbor, and observed the commandments and counsels."

We are here reminded of the "Parable of the Talents" found in Matthew's Gospel 25:14-30 in which the master doles out talents to three servants, two of whom invest those talents, and one of whom buries his portion until his master returns. God bestows on us certain blessings or "talents" that are meant to help draw us closer to the Kingdom. Do we invest those talents? As Christians we are called to be stewards of the Gospel. In Christ we have been given the Good News of salvation. This Good News is not meant to be hoarded by us like some old miser hoarding his wealth. We are called to share this Good News with others. But we are each called to share this Good News in ways consistent with the gifts, the "talents," that God has given us. Not all are called to preach. Not all are called to lives of scholarship. Not all are called into the monastery. And not all are called to the priesthood or religious life. So it is important in our spiritual lives that we discern the gifts that God has given us in order that we might more effectively go out and share the Good News of salvation in Christ.

St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans: "Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, your spiritual worship." He then exhorts us on to generosity, giving of the gifts which we have been given, investing the talents that have been entrusted to us. But first St. Paul exhorts us to humility:

"Thus, in virtue of the favor given to me, I warn each of you not to think more highly of himself than he ought. Let him estimate soberly, in keeping with the measure of faith that God has apportioned to him."

Already we are called to discern. What have I been given? What is my portion? How can I best invest that portion so as to bring the most souls to Christ? We must look upon ourselves with humility and not presume that we have been given gifts which are not ours. I am not a priest, and so I cannot go about acting as if I have the specific graces of a priest. Nor am I good accounting. It would be an act of pride for me to take on the role of an accountant even in the service of Christ. St. Paul goes on:

"Just as each of us has one body with many members, and not all the members have the same function, so too we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the favor bestowed on each of us. One's gift may be prophecy; its use should be in proportion to his faith. It may be the gift of ministry; it should be used for service. One who is a teacher should use his gift for teaching; one with the power of exhortation should exhort. He who gives alms should do so generously; he who rules should exercise his authority with care; he who performs works of mercy should do so cheerfully."

And here's the real clincher. After all this St. Paul tells us, "Your love must be sincere." We each have our gifts. In prayer we discern what those gifts are so that we might then come down off the mountain of prayer and be stewards of the Gospel according to the gifts which we have been given. But our stewardship must be in sincere love of God and neighbor.

How do we "do well with the talents we have received?" For those of us who are married our witness to the Gospel is first to our family. Are we generous with our family? Is our love sincere. In ministering to our family do minister cheerfully? Do we use our gift of ministry to our family for selfless service to them, or do we "keep score," expecting something in return? I know there are times when I just don't want to be bothered to change yet another diaper. And while I may go ahead and change that diaper, I am all but cheerful about it. This is not a generous giving of myself. It is not a good exercise of the gift of ministry that has been given me by virtue of the graces of marriage. You can apply this to any aspect of married life. Perhaps you hate doing the dishes, or sitting down to work out the family budget, or running the vacuum cleaner, or shopping for groceries. Perhaps you feel as though you would come closer to God if you could just skip all that and go pray. But this is a deception. We must pray, of course, but our prayer must lead us to action in the world. For us married folks this action starts within our own family and the duties of family life.

Priests, monks, and nuns can apply this to their lives as well. Monasticism has always had a strong emphasis on balancing work and prayer. What is your gift within your monastery or convent? How can you apply that gift to exhort your brethren to deeper holiness? Priests, I'm sure there are days where you just don't want to go out there and hear confessions for the millionth time, knowing that you're probably going to be hearing the same things that you've heard over and over again. Perhaps you don't want to make yet another trip to the hospital to visit that one person who just gets under your skin. Or perhaps there is a young know-it-all punk like me in your parish that you would just rather not talk to, but who seems insistent on coming over once or twice a week for a chat. But what is the gift that has been given to you by virtue of your ordination?

I was challenged this past week by a dear friend of mine. I've been told time and again by numerous people that I have a gift for writing. This friend told me I needed to sit down and start writing some books. I must admit that while I'd love to do this, I am a bit frightened at the prospect of writing a book. I don't really know why, but I am. But I have to discern. Is this really a gift that God has given me? Will my use of this gift be for my own pride's sake, or is this going to be an act of genuine love for Christ and service to my neighbor?

"Blessed are you, who did well with the talents you have received, because your Lord has now confided much in you!"

It seems like something so simple. But what are your talents? How can you invest them? Seek this out in prayer. It may take years, but you will get an answer. Once you have the answer, do not remain on the mountain. St. Peter wanted to remain on Mt. Tabor, to extend that mountain-top experience and to keep it for himself. But Christ, through His action, reminded Peter (and He reminds us) that this mountain-top experience has to be brought down into the world. Christ came down off the mountain of His Transfiguration and shortly thereafter poured out His very life for the salvation of the world. We too are called to come down off the mountain of prayer and pour ourselves out, in sincere love of God and neighbor, for the life of the world. May heaven consume us.
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