The Master Beadsman

There is a prayer from Safro (Maronite Morning Prayer) for Thursday morning that I've been mulling over in my mind and heart for the past couple of weeks. Let me quote the complete prayer as it appears in Prayer of the Faithful.

Lord, in your goodness have compassion on sinners and bring back to your truth those who are wandering.

Draw us to yourself,

enrich our voices with your praises and our tongues with inspired songs.

Captivate us by your teachings.

Drawing from your treasure of compassion,

grant us the consolation that gives healing to body and soul.

Lord and God, to you be glory forever.

Amen.

"Captivate us by your teachings..." Think about that for a moment. Let that phrase sink in good and deep. How many of us can truthfully say that we are captivated by the teachings of Christ? If you look up some synonyms for "captivate" you'll discover the following: enthrall, charm, enchant, fascinate, enrapture, delight, attract, allure. Can we apply these words to ourselves and the level of our captivation with Christ's teachings? More specifically, can we apply these words to ourselves and our reading of the Scriptures?

I bring this up because the daily reading of the Scriptures is something that was central to the spirituality of the Eastern Church Fathers and Mothers. Universally they encourage us to read the Scriptures on a daily basis. St. Seraphim of Sarov is known to have read through all four Gospels once a week. I'll admit that I have a hard time getting through just one Gospel in a week. But we are talking about the Word of God here! Just as Jesus is the Word of God incarnate, so too the Scriptures are the Word of God in the words of man. Are we captivated by the words of Scripture? Are we enthralled by the Word of God? St. Jerome says that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ! Do you delight in the pages of Scripture? Do you encounter Christ there?

I know that I personally struggle with the daily reading of the Scriptures. To me so much of it seems so far removed from our time and space that I feel as though there is no possible way I can understand the text. So I turn to commentaries if I'm having a good day. Otherwise I put down any pursuit of knowledge of the Scriptures and turn once again to that which is comfortable for me - the spiritual writings of the Fathers. But ought not the Scriptures take huge precedence over the writings of the Fathers? After all, the Bible is the inspired (Spirit-breathed) Word of God; the writings of the Fathers are not. Plus, the writings of the Fathers are so steeped in the Scriptures that one would be hard-pressed to accurately understand their teachings without a firm foundation in the Scriptures.

It seems to me that many Christians like the idea of the Scriptures and of reading them daily. But when it comes to the work of actually daily reading the Scriptures and encountering Christ there, I think we all shy away from it. I may be presuming too much here, but this has been my own personal experience. I've made excuses such as, "Oh, I hear the Scriptures every Sunday in the Liturgy," or, "I read a passage from the Scriptures every day in the Liturgy of the Hours," or, "Tradition is so steeped in the Scriptures that I can gain knowledge of them simply by being attentive at Liturgy and reading the writings of the Fathers," etc., etc., etc. All of these are excuses to avoid actually picking up a Bible and reading it. Is this being "delighted" in the Word of God? Is this being "enthralled" by what God has spoken to us? Is this being "captivated" by the teachings of Christ? Certainly not!

Perhaps there are folks out there who are afraid that they will not understand the Scriptures. I know I'm certainly afraid of that every time I pick up a Bible (and I've taken multiple university courses on the Scriptures at both the undergraduate and graduate levels). I begin reading and I just become confused. I wonder why certain passages were retained. I wonder what the significance of certain stories are. Some books I wonder why they're in there at all.

Don't be afraid of the Bible. Pick it up and start reading. If you are actively engaging the Word of God, then questions will start to form. Be attentive for answers. Just as the Scriptures are God's Word in writings, the Liturgy is the Scriptures in action. Being attentive at the Liturgy (and I mean the entire liturgical life of the Church, not just the Divine Liturgy/Mass/Qurbono) does so much to open up the Scriptures to us and reveal their meaning. Also, having a good commentary, or concordance, or Bible dictionary (or all three) can do wonders to aid our understanding. The main thing is that we need to engage the text. We need to start asking questions and seeking answers. This is our conversation with God through His Word. If we don't understand what He is saying to us, then we must as Him what He means and trust Him to reveal the answer. But we must be willing to do the work. To engage the text. To read prayerfully and, yes, even to study prayerfully.

The Fathers of the East and the West all encourage us to read the Scriptures daily. The only way you are going to gain knowledge of the Scriptures is to sit down and read them. May we be captivated by them. May we be enthralled and delighted by the Word of God. And may heaven consume us.

So I've had a number of ideas floating around in my head lately, and I do have some upcoming posts that are still in the development stages, but as I was praying this morning something struck me. I realized that in the Eastern traditions of the Church, particularly in the Oriental traditions, there is a very different attitude towards prayer than there is in the West. Allow me to elaborate a bit.

In the West the predominant attitude towards prayer is focused on the individual and his personal/private relationship with the Lord. The Liturgy of the Hours and even the Mass is almost supplemental to that private relationship. Personally I believe that's why we get so many folks who stop going to Mass because they "don't get anything out of it." The Mass and the Liturgical life of the Church are viewed almost as extensions of our private devotions. What happens when a private devotion doesn't ignite some sort of spark within us? We set it aside and search for another private devotion that does kindle that spark of God's love.

In the East, however, there is this strong emphasis on the corporate or communal nature of prayer. Any and all private devotions are meant to flow from the Liturgical life of the Church and be formed by a healthy liturgical life. I realized this especially this morning when I realized that in the Maronite tradition and the Chaldean tradition there are not numerous books of private prayers, but rather books containing primarily the Liturgical prayers of those particular Churches. Even in certain traditions like the Coptic and Ethiopian traditions there is still a sense that the faithful are obligated to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, even if they cannot participate in the Hours at their parish or a local monastery. So in the East the primary focus is on corporate worship that is meant to form the individual, the private/personal worship and relationship with God.

I'm not here to say that one of these is better than the other. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. In the West the strength is that emphasis on personal relationship. We do need to develop a strong personal relationship with God the Trinity. But we need to learn from the East and realize that our relationship with God is mediated through Christ and His Body, the Church, and that we must allow our relationship with God to be formed within that context.

In the East the strength is that emphasis on the corporate nature of our relationship to God. But we need to learn from the West in developing a healthy emphasis on the personal relationship as well. I've seen far too many Eastern Christians who believe that showing up for Liturgy and for parish events is the sum total of a healthy relationship with God. That completely ignores the priest's injunction at the end of the Liturgy: "Let us go forth in peace!" And we respond: "In the name of the Lord." What we experience in Liturgy is meant to carry over into our personal lives, including a nurturing of the relationship with the Trinity that is rooted in the Liturgical life of the Church.

May heaven consume us.

If anyone is looking to order prayer ropes as Christmas gifts, I strongly encourage you to place the order before the end of this month (November). That way I have the time to complete all orders before the Feast of the Nativity is upon us.

Throughout my own spiritual journey I've noticed that there have been times where I have been on fire for the Lord. With prayer comes great consolations, insights, revelations, etc. Spiritual reading is alive and I see where it applies in my life. The Scriptures leap to life. The Liturgy reduces me to tears with the insight of the love of God that is literally given over to us in Communion. And like the pilgrim in The Way of the Pilgrim, all of creation seems to spring to life and speak of God's love, power, beauty, etc.

But then there are times where all that fades away. Prayer is simply going through the motions. The Liturgy becomes a burden of obligation rather than an occasion of joy. Read the Scriptures or any spiritual writings is dry and they might as well be in a foreign language. And even the joy that I find in creation seems to fade. The birds continue to sing, but I no longer hear them. The sun shines, but I am not illumined. The rain falls, but I don't feel the cooling drops on my face. The snow falls and all I can think of is slick roads and potential car accidents (and all the stupid drivers out there who don't know how to handle snow).

This "heating and cooling" is something that has bothered me for some time. Is it my own lack of true zeal that causes the fire of God's love to cool within me? Have I ever really had zeal for God? Have I ever truly loved God? Does God really love me? Why do I not feel this love constantly? Doubts begin to creep into my mind and I am tempted to just give up on the whole venture.

But I have come to find that these feelings are rather normal in the spiritual life. In fact, St. Theophan the Recluse dealt with these very issues in his correspondence with a young noblewoman who was seeking to live a truly spiritual life. It seems that she noticed such tendencies within her, and that these tendencies caused her no little amount of fear concerning her growth in the spiritual life. St. Theophan's response to her, like his writings in general, is so simple and so beautiful, but so deep and powerful at the same time.

In dealing with the tendency towards spiritual "heating" and "cooling" St. Theophan gives us three reasons that we might experience the (shorter or longer) periods of cooling. I'm going to start with the second one that he mentions. We may experience cooling because of physical illness. It is obviously difficult to maintain zeal for anything when one is ill. I would presume that this is so especially when one has a prolonged illness. That is one reason I admire so much the people who are ill for long periods of time and yet still maintain that zeal for the love of God. When my own mother was dying of cancer the fire of God's love seemed all the more alive in her. I'm sure we all have memories of folks who struggled through a prolonged illness and yet maintained that love of God. As for myself, if I even get the slightest fever I can't even think about uttering a single prayer, let alone maintain the fire of zeal for God.

So with the cooling caused by illness aside, let's move on to the other two reasons for spiritual cooling. The last reason that St. Theophan mentions in the letter is sin. This should be obvious to all of us. Sin - and in particular the habitual and deliberate sin to which St. Theophan refers - causes us to slowly stop listening to God's voice speaking within us. Little by little sin causes us to turn from the face of God and towards the things of the world. Sin causes us to slowly replace God and erect our own idols in His stead. Through sin we gradually deaden our conscience and reason within us and start living according to the passions. Sin really does cause us to become little more than animals, allowing ourselves to be controlled by any impulse that comes up. I'm reminded of the creation story in the Chronicles of Narnia where Aslan gives certain animals the ability to talk, but warns them that they can lose this ability and become like all the rest of the animals if they abuse the gift that he has given them.

Although in the letter St. Theophan doesn't really address the remedy for cooling caused by sin, I believe the answer is obvious. We need to confess our sins, receive absolution, and then go out and do penance. In the East (at least among the Byzantines) it is not the norm for the priest to prescribe some sort of penance after giving absolution; and in the West "penance" has become little more than a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys said immediately after Confession. But the best penances I have ever received have been ones that directly addressed the most common themes of my confession - themes that were noticed after going to the same priest numerous times to confess. The penance assigned becomes a sort of remedy against the sinful habit. That should be the ideal of a penance. In the East this "medicine" would be prescribed by one's spiritual father/mother, not necessarily the one to whom you made your confession. But East and West the concept is the same, prescribe some sort of antidote to the sickness of the sin.

The most common source of cooling among those who actively strive along the path of the spiritual life, according to St. Theophan, is "as a result of excessive tension of the soul's strength." This is quite humbling (and perhaps that's why God allows it). It's as if God is telling us that we are not yet strong enough to handle what He has in store for us. So, in His wisdom, He eases the tension of zeal and forces the soul to rest even if the soul doesn't want it. Perhaps it can be compared to a parent making their young child take a nap in the middle of the day even when the child doesn't think he needs the nap (yes, I'm thinking of my son right now). There will come a time when we will be able to stay awake through the entire day, but for the time being we need our "nap" in order to carry the burden of the rest of the day.

I sort of mentioned that analogy of the child taking a nap as a half-joke. But the more I think of it, the more apt it seems. I know so often in my own journey when these periods of "coolness,""aridity,""spiritual dryness," or whatever you want to call it have come up, I have complained to God - gone to my nap kicking and screaming. "Where are you, God?""Why are you allowing this?""Why can't I be on fire with love for you like everyone else?""Why won't you answer me?""Why won't you help me?" etc., etc., etc. So often I forget that God is a loving Father, and what He does isn't for my punishment, but for my own good. If we progress too quickly in the spiritual life (or perceive that we are progressing quickly), then we run the risk of falling into spiritual pride. We are unable to bear the burden of the day, maintain that spiritual tension, and so, like the child, we crash. Have you ever witnessed or experienced a crash brought about by spiritual pride because the tension of holy zeal was maintained for too long by someone (perhaps yourself) who was not yet strong enough to maintain it? God knows that we need rest. He knows that we are children and we need a break every now and then.

So what, then, is the advice of the wise St. Theophan to those who are going through this form of spiritual "cooling" brought about by too much tension? Patience!

Patience. I love this word. It reminds me so of my own spiritual father. "Calm down, Phillip.""Be patient, Phillip.""Don't worry, Phillip." How many times he repeated those lines to me. "Settle down, Phillip. It's going to be just fine." Reading the words of St. Theophan, I can hear my spiritual father's voice behind them, as if he himself is saying them to me. "Be patient. Hold fast. Don't fear. Don't fret. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well." Patience is so important in the spiritual life. Steadfast endurance! Patience is what allows us to look beyond the struggles of the moment and gaze into the future with hope. There is a wonderful line in Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice (yes, I have read it and seen almost every version put to film) uttered by the father of the heroine's family: "I'm not afraid of being overcome by the emotion. It will pass soon enough." Although he utters the line with an almost phlegmatic apathy, it can be applied to the natural cooling periods of the spiritual life. Don't be overcome by the feeling of spiritual coolness. Be patient. It will pass.

What are we to do in the meantime? How ought we to behave during these periods of spiritual cooling? Simple. Just do what you have been doing! St. Theophan tells us:

"Concerning the unintentional, inadvertent coolings that are the result of fatigue and sickness, there is one rule: Be patient and do not violate any established and pious ways, although in carrying them out, you may just be going through the motions. The cooling will quickly depart from whoever endures this patiently, and the usual warmth and sincere zeal will return... You should keep persisting in your established ways with the conviction that this routine execution of things will soon bring back the liveliness and warmth of diligence."

So first and foremost we are to be patient. St. Theophan really hammers this home by insisting explicitly twice that we must be patient, and then by also mentioning the patience of persistence. But then we are to continue in our spiritual rule - which includes our prayer rule(s) as well as our rule of living - even if that means just going through the motions for the time being. We must learn to "fake it 'til you make it." Keep to your routine. If you wake up early to pray in the morning, then continue to do so. If you have time set aside in the evening for prayer, then don't abandon that time. Don't abandon your daily spiritual reading. And definitely don't abandon your participation in the Liturgy. Keep to this even if it takes years before the fire of zeal is rekindled. Mother Teresa is known to have struggled through this spiritual coolness for the greater part of her life. Now she is considered one of the holiest women of the past century. So be patient. Be persistent. Hold steady, and be steadfast in your endurance. May heaven consume us.

(As an aside it seems very apt that as I'm writing this I'm gazing out my window at the first "major" snowfall this winter in the Greater Cincinnati area. I love the winter because it seems to quiet all the noise, the hustle and the bustle of the spring and summer. With the snow comes a certain silence that seems to deaden or dull noises that seem to echo in the summer. Even the train that passes through the valley below my apartment seems quieter at the moment. Perhaps sometimes this silence, even silence from God, can be refreshing. Have you ever sat silently at your dining room table in the morning with a loved one, just sipping coffee and reading the paper? Even though neither person seems to notice it, the presence is there and one can be refreshed and feel closer to another just by sitting in their company without words).

Here in the U.S. we experience an odd phenomenon every year. The day after Thanksgiving retail stores offer some hefty discounts on items, and folks rush to those stores in the wee hours of the morning to get all their Christmas shopping done at once. The rush can be so intense that some folks are injured and others have been killed, just so that we can save a few bucks on a gift that will most likely be set aside in a matter of a few hours.

Many Christians sit by and shake their heads, condemning the greed that they see; and rightly so. No material thing is worth putting another person's life at risk to obtain. But it has become almost stylish to condemn the "materialism" of Christmas. Today, however, I would like to propose an alternative to both the "materialistic" attitude towards Christmas, and to those who silently (or not so silently) condemn such an attitude.

I would like to put forward to you that Christmas, and particularly our giving at Christmas, is about God's generosity towards us. In His deep love for us, He gave us everything. And after giving us everything, He poured Himself out for us "emptying Himself and taking on the form of a servant." You see, we often get so caught up in giving at Christmas that we forget why we give and Who we are imitating.

This was first brought to my attention while reading one of the books by Archbishop Joseph Raya. I can't remember if it was his book on Christmas or his book on the Incarnation, but in the book Sayedna Raya encourages us to continue to give generously at Christmas, and not to cease giving, because our giving is a reflection of the Gift that God has given us on this Holiday. Our giving is a reflection of God's generosity towards us. Since we are made in God's image and likeness, our very nature demands that we reflect God's generosity. And so this time of year more than any other, we feel the urge to pour ourselves out to those we love through gifts in imitation of the One in Whose image we are created.

I'm not, of course, encouraging anyone to abandon themselves to reckless materialism during this time of year. We can take things too far and we must respect one another. But what we need to do is stand back and reflect on why we are giving (and why we are receiving as well). From the second prayer of Safro this morning we read:

"O Christ,
from your rich treasure you have enriched our poverty."

And we continue to pray that Christ enrich us by filling our hearts with veneration and respect; our souls with faith and love; our minds with spiritual thoughts; our lips with praise and glory; and our lives with good works. Enrichment, filling, abundance, these are the words the speak to us of God's generosity and humility in willing "to submit Himself to the law of human nature," as we pray in the third prayer of Safro this morning.

I think that very often we ignore or forget this great outpouring of God, His magnificent generosity. We think of this outpouring more in terms of His having created us. We think also of His death on the Cross, but I believe we often ignore the immense outpouring of the Incarnation - an outpouring without which the Cross is both impossible and meaningless. But our Liturgies are full of references to this outpouring.

The Proemion of Ramsho says:

"The cherubim fear Him when they bear Him on the fiery chariot
but in His love He concealed Himself within the pure womb of Mary."

And the Sedro of Ramsho reads:

"You are the King of kings who crowns princes and saves His people.
You raised our human nature to the throne of your glory
when you descended from that throne,
took the condition of a slave and truly became man."

And from Safro the Proemion says:

"Praise, glory and honor to the true God
whose Spirit one cannot fathom and upon whose face one cannot gaze."

And yet have we ever stopped to think that through the Incarnation we have been given the great gift to gaze upon the face of God! That is one of the reasons that we can paint icons of Christ. God has taken on flesh and we have seen His face. That is also one of the reasons that the Shroud of Turin is such an amazing gift to mankind. The face of Christ is preserved there! Do we dare to gaze into the very Face of generosity and self-gift?

The Sedro of Safro reads:

"You, Who dwell in the heights and are served by Seraphim and glorified by the Cherubim,
descended from your heavens and came to us.

And finally we pray in the Mazmooro of Saphro:

"The One Whom the Seraphim serve and dare not gaze upon the splendor of His face,
descended into the womb of the pure Virgin
and entered the house of His Forerunner."

Have we stopped to contemplate this generosity? Have we sought to imitate it? Do we embrace this self-emptying attitude towards our giving at Christmas in imitation of the Divine Gift that is being given to us (not has been, but is being given because this Gift is eternal)? Or do we simply sit there and sneer at those "materialistic" folks who simply use Christmas as an excuse to go on shopping sprees? Are we a light to the world as Christ is our Light, or do we hide that light while sitting at home content with our own self-righteousness?

"From on high our Savior came, the Rising Sun who shone from the East, to visit us in His great mercy, we who sat in darkness and gloom. But now we see the Light of Truth, for the Lord Jesus is born of a pure Virgin Mother." (Exapostilarion of the Nativity [Byzantine])

I don't want to make this out as though giving gifts is the only, or even primary, form of generosity that we are to practice particular during this time of year. Christ is "Emmanuel," God-With-Us! Similarly this time of year we gather to be with our families and loved ones. To show them that even when we are physically absent from them, they are in our hearts and we are with them in spirit.

So as we continue to prepare ourselves for the feast of the Nativity of Christ, I think it is important that we keep all of this in mind. We are celebrating God's generosity towards us. The all-powerful One, Whom the Seraphim dare not gaze upon and Who is borne aloft by the Cherubim, emptied Himself and poured His richness upon us. He has allowed us to gaze on His face, to look into His eyes. By taking on our nature He has seated us, the lowest of His creatures, on His very throne. In celebrating God's generosity, we seek to imitate that generosity; to pour ourselves out for our loved ones and to elevate them above ourselves. To set aside our cares, desires and needs for the moment and place those of others before us. Enjoy the giving. Enjoy the receiving. Do all in love for and imitation of Christ. May heaven consume us!

As I was driving out to the administration office of the company I'm working with, I was reminded of a conversation between St. Thomas Aquinas and an anonymous person. It seems the person, curious about what it took to lead a holy life, went up to St. Thomas and asked him, "What must I do to become a saint?" St. Thomas wisely answered, "You must will it."

This conversation has weighed on my mind since I was very young. "You must will it." If you want to be a saint you must will it. As I was driving it suddenly dawned on me how few of us actually will to become saints, not because we don't earnestly desire sainthood, but because we don't believe we can actually achieve it.

It never ceases to amaze me how God can communicate great spiritual insight to us even when we're not exactly seeking it. This insight came to me through some motivational reading that I've been doing lately. In his book, Think & Grow Rich, author Napoleon Hill is very clear in demonstrating that an act of the will is not merely an act that is limited to the cognitive arena. An act of the will doesn't simply take place in our head. We don't will something by thinking it. An act of the will involves the entire person; their spirit, soul, mind, heart, emotion, and body. An act of the will starts as a desire, and, through faith, moves on to planning in order to accomplish one's goal. After planning a definite decision is made to attain the goal no matter the cost, and then we persist in our efforts to accomplish that goal in spite of any/all opposition.

I know for me personally there is certainly the strong desire to become a saint. But that desire is stopped short in its tracks because I've been told over and over that there are few people who actually become saints! We are not told that it is, indeed, possible for us to become saints. We are told, almost with the hint that we shouldn't bother trying, that there are few people who actually attain sainthood. How sad that we are told this, because after awhile we start telling ourselves that same thing. "Oh, I'll never be a saint. So I'll just do the best I can and hope I make it into heaven." Our will-to-sainthood is stopped short in its tracks. But the saints tell us the complete opposite!

The saints tell us that it is, indeed, possible for us to become saints; so long as we are willing to pay the price for sanctity. We must, first, desire sainthood. Then we must have faith that we can attain sainthood. We must look at our goal and make the necessary plans to achieve that goal. We must then make the definite decision to attain that goal no matter the cost, and we must persist in our efforts even in the face of opposition and ridicule.

Can you think of a single saint who didn't put these steps into action? Every saint I've ever read about was so focused on their goal (i.e. Christ) that nothing else mattered to them but living for Christ. Every saint endured ridicule, opposition, persecution, and many even death to attain that goal. What are you willing to endure? What am I willing to endure.

Now, I don't mean to sound as if we can become saints of our own efforts. This is most certain not true. But the fact of the matter is that God the Trinity has given us all the tools necessary to become saints. It is up to us to use those tools. It is up to us to live our lives consistent with the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. It is up to us to frequent the Sacraments (especially Confession and Communion). It is up to us to pray daily. And it is up to us to learn from the host of saints that have gone before us, and from those saints that we encounter around us. God has given us all the tools, do we make use of them?

Another thing that I think we need to start doing is changing our thoughts on the matter. We need to start telling ourselves that we can become saints. We can because God has made it possible through Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me that to deny our ability to become saints is all but tantamount to denying the saving action of God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is amazing how repeating this positive thought helps one to focus and put in the necessary effort to achieve one's goal. You can do it. Imagine a father stretching out his arms to his baby as that baby takes its first steps, out of the arms of its mother and to the arms of its father. All the while the father repeats, over and over, "You can do it! You can do it! You can do it!" What a fitting image as we strive from the arms of our loving Mother, the Church, and into the arms of our heavenly Father. Our Father doesn't tell us, "You're going to fall. You'll never get this. Why bother trying." No! As we strain to take those first steps in sanctity, all the while our Father is there telling us, "You can do it!" He has, after all, given us everything we need.

This, I believe, is why repetitious prayer, both in our prayer time and at the Liturgy, is so important. The repetition helps to change our pattern of thinking and adopt the way God thinks. In particular, when we pray the Jesus Prayer, our focus is not on our sinfulness, but on God's mercy and our need for that mercy. It is because of that mercy that sanctity has been made possible for us. Repeating the Jesus Prayer over and over drills into our minds the wonders of God's mercy towards us. Where would we be without that mercy? But that mercy also calls us to action; to determined efforts to live our lives according to the mercy and grace that has been bestowed upon us. When we live our lives completely focused on Christ as our ultimate goal, then we truly receive the gift of sanctity. May heaven consume us.

Please forgive my absence. I've been struggling through a spiritual dry-spell lately. I've had little to no inspiration; all spiritual reading and prayer have given little consolation; and I feel as though all zeal has been sucked from my soul. Just struggling to live day-to-day and to maintain something of a spiritual life has require a great deal of effort from me. I'm sure you all know how that goes.

However, as I woke up this morning it dawned on me; today is Ash Wednesday in the Roman tradition. Monday marked the beginning of the Great Fast for Catholics of the Byzantine and Maronite (and I presume the other Oriental Catholic) traditions. Great and Holy Lent is upon us! I don't know how I missed this. This great and holy season just sort of snuck up on me.

I've always loved Lent. For me it has always been a time to refocus my heart, mind, and energies on what matters most; i.e. my relationship with God the Trinity. So often I see folks get caught up in the rules of fasting and abstinence. I remember a Greek Orthodox friend of mine making a somewhat snarky comment about the ease of the fasting rules for Roman Catholics. I've seen other Catholics bemoan the relaxing of the fasting rules for their traditions (Roman, Maronite, whatever). I've often also gotten the feeling that friends of mine were looking critically over my shoulder to ensure that I was maintaining the fast. To me this all seems to miss the point of the season.

Fasting is important, don't get me wrong. We should definitely follow the rules for fasting according to our particular tradition to the best of our abilities. That last bit is the most important part; to the best of our abilities. Not everyone has the strength to pull off great feats of fasting. One wise move that the Melkites made several years ago was to establish norms for "beginner,""intermediate," and "advanced" fasting (although I don't believe they used that language). Essentially they established minimum norms while at the same time affirming their traditional fast and holding that up as a goal to work toward. Basically they said, "Here's what our norms are. Do what you can. Push yourself, but don't injure yourself."

But the whole point of fasting is not that we are not permitted to eat certain foods, or until a certain time of day, or what have you. The point of fasting is that we take our minds off of even some of our most basic physical necessities in order to refocus on the more important spiritual necessities, the "one thing needful" so to speak. Food is good (VERY good in my opinion), but it cannot be allowed to dominate our lives. We need to be reminded that God is our heavenly Father and that He does and will provide for even the most basic and mundane needs of our bodies while at the same time supplying the needs of our souls, our innermost person. The Great Fast, Lent, is a time to refocus on our relationship with God by reaffirming our complete and utter dependence upon Him. In a sense Lent is about humbling ourselves enough to admit our poverty without Him. We have nothing apart from God.

That is actually one of the reasons why repentance is meant to be a joyful event, not a guilt-trip. This morning, as I was reading one of the writings of St. Theophan the Recluse, I was reminded that repentance is meant to be joyful. Why? Because of what precedes repentance. Before we repent, we recognize that something is disordered within us and around us. We recognize that we have done wrong. We have injured ourselves and our neighbors. We recognize that we deserve punishment. But where do we turn? What hope do we have? If you watch the people of the world it is interesting and sad to see where they go: drugs, alcohol, sex, cutting, food, etc. Even a disordered focus on building a utopia here and now is a result of the recognition that something is not right. But we know from experience that any attempt for man to build utopia of his own power and will fails.

Repentance is about the recognition that something is wrong, but then seeing that God, through the incarnation, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and glorification of His Son, has offered us shelter from the evil around us. We just need to embrace Him. We need to come under the shadow of His wings, a shadow cast by the Cross, a Cross that gives us hope.

That's what repentance is all about. So whether your Church has strict fasting laws, relaxed fasting laws, or provides norms for both doesn't really matter. What matters primarily is the interior disposition as we follow the rules for the Great Fast. Are we looking over our shoulders to see what others are doing? Or are we looking within in order to untangle ourselves with the help of God's grace from the snares of the world, the flesh and the devil? Are we looking ahead to the open arms of our almighty Father in order to run into His embrace? May heaven consume us!

Sometimes it seems that maintaining hope in the face of my own sinfulness is impossible. With each fall it is easy to become discouraged. And fall after fall the discouragement grows. "How can God pardon so many offenses?" we might often ask ourselves. I know I ask this very frequently. But, as always, the saints have nothing but words of hope for us.

Now, you'll have to forgive me, but I don't know where or who originated the following quotes, but nonetheless they provide a great source of hope. I remember reading or hearing a quote from one Eastern saint that was along the lines of "God desires to give us mercy more than we desire to receive it." Think of that. No matter how much we may desire God's mercy, He desires to give it to us even more! He stands ready to forgive us, even before we are ready to be forgiven.

I believe I've heard once as well that there is more mercy in God than there are sins in us. No matter how much we sin, there is always more mercy awaiting us. We simply have to ask for it, and we have to be willing to receive it; this implies that we must always be willing to change our lives where our lives need changing. The mercy is there, but we have to be willing to cooperate with God's mercy.

One last quote that has impacted me strongly lately comes from a Western saint, St. Alphonsus Liguori. It was the writings of St. Alphonsus that originally got me into reading the writings of the saints. His words are always so simple and to the point, and yet they are always so profound. In meditating on the reasons for our hope, St. Alphonsus has this to say:

"God willed that we should be so inseparably united to Jesus Christ that He cannot be loved except that we be loved with Him; nor can we be hated except that He be hated with us. But now Jesus cannot be hated (by the Father); therefore, we shall be loved as long as we remain united to Him by love."

Have you ever considered this; that the Father has tied his love for us so closely to His love for His Son that He cannot love the Son without also loving us! Nor can he hate us without also hating the Son! Talk about a personal "catch 22." But the Father would have it no other way.

So don't let personal sinfulness get in the way of your hope in God. God has bound His love for us with His love for His Son. And just as He raised His Son from physical death, He will raise us too from the spiritual death of our sinfulness. May heaven consume us!

As we in the Catholic Church - Eastern, Oriental, and Western - conclude the Lenten season and enter into Great and Holy Week, I'd like to reflect for a moment on a central theme of this time of year: repentance. This theme has been weighing on me thanks to some recent conversations I've had, as well as some reading I've been doing and lectures I've been listening to.

"Repentance." For me that word, wrongly, evokes a number of negative connotations: guilt, depression, despair, shame, worthlessness, etc., etc., etc. Judging from recent conversations that I've had with other Catholics, it seems that I am not alone in the evocations that I experience whenever I hear that word. The difference? I understand that the emotional reaction that I have to that word reflects an improper understanding of the word itself. Sadly, however, there are many people who simply have no understanding of what "repentance" actually means. To them it means simply feeling of guilty, inadequate, and shame over their sins. But, as we know, this is not the true meaning of repentance.

But let me take a step back for a moment. In the Gospels both Jesus and St. John the Baptist tell us to repent. They call us to repentance because, as they say, the kingdom of God is in our midst. Some translations have it as the kingdom of God is "within" us. I think a good balance of both translations is in order. As a worshipping community, whether Catholic or Orthodox, the kingdom of God is certainly in our midst, particularly when we celebrate the Eucharist, but certainly in all of our actions as a community. However, as the great mystics of the East and West all point out, the kingdom is also within us, because Christ dwells in us. If you are seeking the kingdom of God, therefore, it is necessary to turn both to the worshipping community and within oneself. It is not possible to be a "solo-Christian." We need our brothers and sisters in Christ, because it is with them that we encounter God's kingdom in a very real way. But similarly we also need to enter within.

The problem of entering within, similar to entering a community, is that we encounter more than Christ there. We also encounter our own fallenness. Just as when we enter any community it become quickly apparent that we are a fallen people, so also when one enters one's own heart it becomes soon apparent that I am a fallen person. We seek Christ within. We seek His kingdom within. We seek His light within. But what we encounter is our personal demons and the kingdom of darkness. St. Teresa of Avila divides the "inner mansion" into rooms, some of those rooms are filled with snakes and reptiles, others with angels. St. Makarius of Egypt (or is it Evagrius of Pontus???) also speaks of the reptiles one encounters within one's heart. And so we have light blending with darkness. Even though we see the light within, so often we are overcome by the shadows within. It's as if one wakes up on a misty or foggy morning. We can see the light, but the density of the fog prevents us from seeing clearly.

As a Christian people we know that we have a certain goal in life. The old Baltimore Catechism sums it up something like this: "The goal of the Christian life is to love and serve God in this life that we might enjoy Him in the life to come." While this is certainly a good enough summary, for me personally it seems rather cold. I prefer St. Seraphim of Sarov's wording of our common goal: "The aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit." Later in the conversation in which St. Seraphim made that definition, he provides an example of what the goal looks like: he is transformed into fire and light! The aim of the Christian life, therefore, is to live in the light, to rejoice in and reflect that light in this world, and to rest in that light in the world to come!

Encountering the darkness within us, therefore, can be discouraging. We long for the Light. We love the Light. We want nothing more than to bathe in the Light of Life, to be fully alive in Christ. And yet, when we enter within - whether within a community or within ourselves - we find shadows mingled with the Light. Here is where we encounter that sense of sorrow and perhaps even guilt and shame over our own sinfulness.

But that is not the end of the story. The darkness we encounter is not permanent, unless we allow it to be. And now enters the true meaning of repentance. Repentance, according to St. John Climacus, is not the mother of despair, but the daughter of hope! Why do we repent of the darkness within? We repent because in Christ we have hope that the light of Christ, the fire and light of the Holy Spirit, will prevail over the darkness. Through His Resurrection Christ raises us to new life; through His Ascension He introduces us into the Kingdom; and through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost fire and light descend in our midst and within us to cast out all shadows and to inflame us with new life!

This winter was a particularly hard winter in many areas of the U.S. Places that don't normally see any snow saw huge amounts of it. Arctic cold descended upon us time after time after time. It seemed as though the winter would never end. Darkness seemed to reign over our world because there were always clouds and heavy snow blocking the light of the Sun. I am one who loves winter. I love snow. I love cold weather. I love cloudy days (my poor Irish skin cannot handle sunlight for too long). But even I was happy to see this winter go. I was happy to welcome warmer weather and more sunlight. I was happy to welcome the new life that is now budding forth as I write this post.

In the Byzantine tradition Great Lent is referred to as a "springtime." Why? Because spring means new life bursting forth. It means more daylight. It means warmer weather. It means the joyfulness of the birds singing. It means color bursting forth in the budding trees and blooming flowers. It means movement and freedom after the frozen rigidity of the winter. This is what repentance is supposed to be. We are called to turn from ("repentance" comes from the Greek word "metanoia" which means to "change direction" or to "turn around") the darkness and coldness of our fallen humanity, of our sinfulness, and to turn toward the warmth and light offered us in Christ. This is why the Pascal season culminates in Pentecost! The warmth and light of the Holy Spirit descend upon us. Repentance, therefore, isn't gloom over our sinfulness. Rather, repentance is joy. It is embracing this new Springtime. It means movement, light, dancing, color, music. To repent is to turn from death and embrace life!

So as we enter into the Great and Holy Week, we should redouble our efforts of repentance. The winter of our sinfulness is casting one last storm, but the joy of the Resurrection follows. Let's weather the storm keep our eyes fixed on the Resurrection. May heaven consume us!

This morning, as I was keeping my regular prayer rule, I sat in awe as a great thunderstorm raged outside. The lightning was bright and streaks of it flashed close to my apartment window. The thunder didn't rumble, it crashed with startling volume. Before one bout of thunder had the chance fade off, rumbling in the distance, there would be three more flashes of lightning and more crashing thunder.

I laughed to myself as I remembered a song often sung among Charismatic groups, "Mercy is falling like the sweet spring rain." Whoever wrote that song, I thought to myself, must not have looked out the window very often during a springtime thunderstorm. There was nothing sweet or gentle about what was going on outside this morning. Had I not been indoors, I would've been terrified, running all helter-skelter trying to find some sort of protection from such severe elements.

As I thought about this, however, I realized that there is a great truth here. God's mercy does fall like the spring rain. Sometimes, however, we may experience that mercy as a dreadful mercy. Who among us cannot relate a time where we went through some horrifying difficulty, only to have our true selves revealed to us during that difficulty? Who among us, during our walk through life, hasn't felt the chaos of life's storm swirling around us.

Even for those of us who strive to live a truly spiritual life, there are moments when we see clearly the darkness that remains within. We walk through the hazy morning of our inner life and don't realize just how much we do not see. Suddenly there is a great flash of lighting and all is revealed. The flash is so bright that every shadow is illumined. Everything is laid bare before our eyes. We even feel our own vulnerability. We feel naked before the great Unknown; unprotected from the great Lightning that flashes within. Flash after flash we see ourselves the way we are, with all of our weaknesses and vices.

Then come the winds and the torrential downpours. The lofty thoughts we have of ourselves are blown over, revealing the shallowness of their roots. The flood waters rise, destroying all that we have given birth to in our hearts. The old man within must die. The staleness, the rot, the decay of the winter months must be washed away in the flood waters. The flood carries it all away. Where it goes, we do not know. Where it goes doesn't really matter. What matters is that it is gone.

As the storm rages, the winds blow, and the waters swirl around us, we feel the chaos with great intensity. We can't see beyond the storm. I don't know if there will be anything left after the storm. We only have a vague memory of life before the storm. All that we know now is the chaos around us. In the midst of this chaos there is only one thing that we can do. "Lord, save me lest I perish!"

At first it may not seem as if the Lord is listening. The storm still rages around us. But over time we notice it starting to taper off. The wind is slowly dying down. The flood waters are slowly subsiding. The torrential downpours taper off. It is then that the sweet gentle spring rain begins.

Suddenly we notice new life around us. Have you ever gone for a walk outside shortly after a storm while there is still a gentle rain but you can see the sun coming out from behind the clouds? All of nature seems to rejoice at the fact that it survived such brutality. The leaves on the trees seem to open wider. The grass looks greener. Colors in general seem more vibrant. And the light from the sun breaking through the clouds seems to shine brighter. Resurrection! I believe this is what the soul experiences when we are given reprieve from the turmoils of life. Resurrection!

Perhaps this is just idle wandering on my part. But I know that this is what I've experienced throughout the struggles of my life. There have been times when I've felt abandoned and alone. I've been in the midst of the struggle and turmoil. I've seen what the lightning has revealed within me and watched as that dreadful mercy washed away what once was. I've stood vulnerable to the elements within and been changed by what was taking place. You come out the other side of that storm and you are changed forever. Hopefully that change is for the better. It seems to me that if one is honestly seeking to live a spiritual life, then that change will be for the better. We may have to endure the storm several more times before we are made perfect, but with each passing storm we are slowly perfected by grace.

Yes, mercy falls like the spring rain. Sometimes that mercy is severe. At other times it is gentle and sweet. We must simply stay focused on the Lord, crying out, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." With His presence within us, we can truly endure any storm so long as we are close to Him. May heaven consume us.

There has always been an attitude that has plagued me at the completion of Great Lent and throughout the Paschal Season. Growing up in a Roman Catholic household my mother made sure that we didn't just "give something up" for Lent, but that we examine ourselves and make a change in our lives that we wanted to be permanent. In my case I always struggled with wasting time and was typically lacking in obedience. I would determine through Lent that I would give up the little distractions that kept me from doing the things my parents asked of me. I would give up television, limit my time playing music, focus more readily on my farm chores, etc., etc., etc. I have also always been a big fan of food, so I would limit my portions and any snack times.

This was all well and good, but what happened after Lent? In the joy of the Resurrection I would relax the good things I had been focusing on during the fast. Gradually I would slip back into my old habits and it wasn't long before my parents were disciplining me for my lack of obedience, or exhorting me to stop wasting time and get my chores done.

I noticed as well that I wasn't the only one with this problem. Folks who had given up soda or coffee delved back into their habits with renewed gusto. I watched with sadness as others who had more serious habits and addictions returned to those habits as if to an old friend. What is the point of fasting, I asked myself, if after the fast we simply return to those things that were keeping us from Christ?

Sometimes God gives answers immediately; at other times the answers come after a great deal of time. These questions bothered me throughout my childhood and during my early teens. I practically forgot about them during my high-school years. But today, as I was reading St. Theophon the Recluse's letters to a young lay woman in the book The Spiritual Life and how to be Attuned to It, the saint addressed those very questions.

He had been encouraging her in her ascetical practices and inner examinations all through the fast. Never have I read more beautiful, practical, and sound advice. It seems providential that I should pick up and read this book in the midst of the Fast and immediately following. After giving her a couple of rules to employ while working towards inner peace, he then proceeded to give her two precautions.

In the first precaution he simply warns her not to think that she has already arrived at her spiritual destination just because she has succeeded in doing something good. Throughout our spiritual life we may hit milestones, receive some consolation, find that a fault within us has been destroyed after long struggle, experience long times of inner peace, etc. Never during any of this ought we to think that we have reached our goal in the spiritual life. St. Theophan tells us that it is only after years of struggle that we reach this goal. I would add that we never fully reach our goal in this life because this life prepares us for the ultimate goal in the life to come.

The second warning he gives, however, is not to relax one's inner attentiveness after one has completed a period of fasting and intense inner struggle. He says the two most likely times that we relax our interior efforts are during the Paschal Season and springtime. We decide to give ourselves a little break. After all, it is the time of Resurrection. I worked hard and struggled hard throughout Great Lent, I deserve a little break, right? Be careful, the saint warns us. If we relax our watchfulness then it is likely that whatever demon we struggled with throughout the fast will return with some friends to plague us all the more.

But, this is supposed to be a time of joy. Are not Pascha and springtime moments of grace and new life in our year (whether we're speaking of the secular year or the liturgical year)? Are we not to be rejoicing in the new life that Christ as given us? Of course! We must thank God for His gift of new life, and rejoice in that new life. But the whole point of Great Lent is to put to death the old man, the old life, in order that we might rejoice in the new! How can we rejoice in the new life if, after the Fast, we simply return to the old? Ought we not to guard the new life with all the more intensity so as to avoid a relapse into our old ways? In the Resurrection we have been given the freedom of the Sons of God. We have been given freedom from the slavery of sin. Great Lent reveals to us in a very real way just how enslaved we are. Our struggle against our various habits and vices reveal to us how attached we become to our sins. But when we come to the victory of Christ crucified and resurrected, do we really rejoice in that victory (and in our victory in and with Him) by returning to the "old man?"

So I suppose St. Theophan's advice to us today is, rejoice in the Feast of Feasts and Festival of Festivals. Rejoice in the new life of Pascha and springtime. Thank God for the great gifts He has given us. But thank God by keeping on the mind of Christ, by continuing to become more and more the man born anew in Christ, not by indulging the old man.

It is often discouraging - or perhaps overwhelming is a better way to put it - to be a layman talking about the deep spirituality of the Jesus Prayer and trying to share it with others. So often we read from the writings of well-intentioned folks that only monastics have a true grasp on the spiritual life and the depths of the Jesus Prayer. We are given the impression that if we really want to live a life of silence and solitude within the heart, then we really ought to be monastics. Folks living in the world can gain an experience of this silence and solitude within, but they can't live in it continually because they are caught up in the cares of this life. Even when encouraged to read writings such as the Philokalia we are given the warning that the writings are directed towards monastics and that they are not really directed at "lay people."

I often get the sense that that phrase, "lay people," is often used as an almost derogatory phrase. We put ourselves down because, after all, isn't holiness reserved primarily for clergy and monastics? Perhaps there are even times when clergy and monastics are hesitant to take the words of the laity seriously because, after all, "they're only lay people."

But I have been encouraged lately through the writings of the saints, in particular through St. Theophan the Recluse and St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. But I'll come to that in a moment. I would like to recommend a lecture given by Fr. Robert Taft, S.J. at an Orientale Lumen Conference given on the "theology of the laity." He titles his talk "The Laity in the Church? The Laity Are the Church." (emphasis is his). Now, one thing I love about listening to Fr. Taft is that while being very highly educated and extremely intelligent, he is also very humble. After all of his years spent in academic theology, he is moved to tears while telling the story of an old woman, a married lay woman, living the Gospel life in a small village in India where her family was the only Christian family and they had no parish church. She had a simple faith and she lived it. She couldn't read, so she didn't even have the opportunity to read the writings of the great Fathers of the Church. But she heard the Gospel message and then lived it. Have a listen to the lecture, it is quite good: http://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/orientale_lumen_xvi_conference/archimandrite_robert_taft_greek_catholic .

Now, isn't that what the spiritual life, the life of a Christian is all about? Aren't we all called to live the Gospel, or as St. Ignatius Brianchaninov says, the "commandments of the Gospel," in a radical way? This radical living of the "commandments of the Gospel" is not something restricted to clergy and monastics, but is the calling of all Christians. And just as this radical living is the calling of all Christians, so too is the calling to support one another in such living. As St. Paul says, we are all members of the one body of Christ, be each member has it's specific role. We must be grateful for our role as lay people in the body of Christ, just as clergy and monastics must be grateful for their roles. And we must support one another as members of Christ's body. The laity require the support of clergy and monastics, and the clergy and monastics require the support of the laity. We all need one another.

This was recently illustrated to me in St. Ignatius' book The Arena. In it he talks about the necessity of a person first living the Gospel life in the world, among the cares and anxieties and distractions of the world, before then entering the monastery. If a person is unable to live the Gospel in the world, then they will certainly be unable to live the Gospel in a monastery. The monastery is not meant to be an escape from the world. It is in the monastery that one intensifies the life of the Gospel that one has already been living in the world.

Another source of encouragement for me has been reading St. Theophan the Recluse's letters to a young lay woman in the book The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It. In one chapter he is teaching the young lady about the use of a prayer rope. He tells her how to establish the number of times one is to go around the prayer rope, what prayers to say, how we can use the rule of the prayer rope to replace the typical morning and evening prayer rules found in the prayer books, and even how some monastics use the prayer rope to replace the singing of the Divine Office. In his discussion with her he goes on to say that he is not trying to "drive her into a monastery." He says that the prayer rope is used by both monastics and lay people alike. What really struck me, however, is the fact that he admits that he himself learned to use a prayer rope from a lay person! Such a great saint was taught how to use a prayer rope by a layman! Think on that.

In the end, we all need each other. The clergy and monastics come from the laity, after all. Where else do we initially learn of the spiritual life if not in the "domestic monastery," the home, family life, our parents, lay people? Our clergy and monastics are formed first in the world. We support them just as they support us. They need us just as much as we need them. They initially learned from lay people, and can continue to learn from lay people, just as we ought to learn from them and from their way of life.

Blessed be God that we are all members of the Body of Christ and can support and uphold one another throughout our struggle in this world, amidst the trials and temptations of this life! There is no separation in vocation between the laity, clergy and monastics. We all have one vocation. We are all called to live the Gospel. We are all called to live lives of Christ-like love. The situations in which we are called to live that life may differ, but the calling itself remains the same. LOVE! May heaven consume us!

I remember listening to religious talks on cassette and CD with my family as a young boy. These talks were given by men and women who had either converted to the Catholic Church from another denomination (usually Protestant) or even another religion. Sometimes they were given by folks who were raised Catholic, fell away from the Faith, then rediscovered their Faith in some sort of dramatic conversion experience. Dr. Scott Hahn, Christopher West, Janet Smith, Fr. John Corapi, a number of priests from the Fathers of Mercy, etc. These folks seemed to be constantly playing on our radio in the car as we drove to and from daily Mass, or as we went about our daily farm chores. Their talks always had an huge impact on me. I was enthralled by every word they spoke. They really made the Faith "come alive" for me.

What struck me most about their talks, however, was the intense zeal that they exuded, along with their deep knowledge of the Faith. Of course at the time I did not realize that most of them had been studying the Faith for decades, and not a small number of them held doctorate and graduate degrees in theology (and sometimes philosophy as well). As a little boy the concept of academic degrees had not yet entered my consciousness. All I knew was that these were men and women who knew their Faith - I mean really KNEW their Faith - and were passionate and full of zeal to share that Faith with anyone willing to listen.

I would often reflect on their lectures with a hint of sadness mixed in with intense longing. I wanted to be like that. I wanted to know my Faith and experience my Faith the way they did. I wanted that fire, that zeal, that passion. But I was a cradle Catholic. I've never had any sort of dramatic "conversion experience" to another Faith, nor have I had any sort of dramatic "reversion" experience where I've rediscovered my childhood Faith. No. For me the Faith of my childhood has been the Faith I've professed all throughout my life, and most likely it will be the Faith I profess right up to the moment that I enter into the new life beyond the grave. Sure I've "discovered" Eastern Christianity in both its Catholic and Orthodox expressions, and I've very much found a home there. But still the Faith is one. The emphases and cultural expressions may differ, but at their root I still discover the same Faith with which I grew up.

So what is a cradle Catholic (or Orthodox for that matter) to do? How is someone who has no dramatic conversion story to kindle within themselves the zeal of those who have had such an experience? St. Theophan the Recluse points out in his marvelous book The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation that even those initiated into the Faith as infants are called to kindle this same zeal. We all reach a definitive moment where we must make the Faith our own. We must choose to embrace the Faith, that was embraced on our behalf as infants by our godparents, as mature adults. This is the "conversion story" of those who are born into their Faith. It is a conversion not of moving from one Faith to another, but of accepting as our own the gift of grace given to us at our baptism. (cf. pages 38 - 41 in The Path of Salvaiton).

We all reach a moment where the seed of faith, planted in us at our Baptism and nourished in us by our parents and godparents, is now ours to nurture. The responsibility for tending and growing that seed passes over to us. The question becomes, will we embrace the responsibility, or will we allow our seed to die?

Every farmer knows the great amount of work that goes into nurturing seeds into mature plants. It takes patience, sacrifice, vigilance, and great care. You face the threat of weeds from within your own soil. They constantly threaten to take over your garden and choke out your crops. I remember at times pulling up weeds that were the size of small trees (yes, occasionally certain areas of our family garden became quite neglected). When weeds grow that thick it is impossible for anything else, except other weeds, to grow. Apart from the weeds, you also must face the threat of disease, insects, animals, and the elements attacking and destroying your plants from without as it were. Insects were always one of my least favorite threats to deal with. They are many, and they eat away not only at the fruit of your plants, but at the plants themselves (plus they just give me the creepy-crawlies).

It took constant watchfulness to bring our garden to fruition. But once harvest season came along, man was the food good!

We can make the same comparison for the spiritual life. Those of us who are cradle Catholics or Orthodox, but long for the zeal of the new convert, must simply tend the garden that was planted within us. God will bring it to fruition, but not without us showing how dedicated we are to the Faith. The fire of the Holy Spirit will descend, but in God's time, not ours. In the meantime we must do the same things that a new convert would do: pray, study, be attentive at the Liturgy, form strong friendships with like-minded spiritual people, seek guidance. In reality the new convert doesn't do anything that we cradle Catholics/Orthodox should not also be doing. We just often take our Faith for granted and then don't do what we ought to be doing. So let's begin, for up till now we have done nothing. May heaven consume us.

I must admit that the Feast of Pentecost has always been a difficult feast for me to understand. Oh sure, I know it's the feast where we celebrate the decent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, and through them on the whole Church. I know too that we are called to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. But I've never been clear on what that means. Studying the Catechism growing up we are told of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, but the inner meaning of those gifts and fruits never really penetrated into my heart. I knew what they were, but I didn't really know what they were, if you get my meaning. Searching out the inner meaning of those gifts and wanting to understand through experience what it means to "live in the Spirit," I began to participate in the Charismatic Renewal.

There is a lot of good in the Charismatic Renewal, and it is my sincere hope that it will continue to grow both in numbers as well as in spiritual depth. But even during my time as an active participant in the renewal, I still felt as if there were something lacking in the depth of expression about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it was because the reception of the Holy Spirit is often viewed as a non-liturgical event, or rather is divorced from the reception of the Spirit in its liturgical setting at Baptism and Confirmation. One goes to a prayer meeting, is prayed over by maybe one person, maybe a group, and one opens oneself to receiving the gift of the Spirit. St. Theophan does talk about this openness. And perhaps what the Renewal has done is to make explicit that moment in our lives where we decide to fully embrace the Faith as our own and to live our lives radically for Christ. But for me there was still something missing.

Then today it dawned on me. What should be completely obvious thanks to the structure of the Church's liturgical life only just now hit me. Had I been paying attention I'm sure it would've hit me twenty years ago or more. But I suppose God waits to reveal certain things until we are ready to receive them. Pentecost is the feast of the completion of the new creation! What was begun at the Incarnation of Christ has now been completed by the decent of the Holy Spirit! Allow me to explain.

In the beginning we are told that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters (Gen. 1:2). The Hebrew word for "Spirit" here is "ruah." Interestingly this same word is used for "breath" when "the Lord God formed Adam out of the soil and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Gen. 2:7). So the very breath of life that is breathed into man is not just the ability to draw air into his lungs and then push the air out so that he can then draw it back in. It is not simply the ability to breathe. The breath of life that is breathed into man is the very Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit! So from the very beginning man is endowed with the very life of God, the Holy Spirit. With that in mind, the end of verse 7 from Gen.2 becomes mind blowing: "and man became a living being."

Imagine, from the first moment of creation we were alive with the very Life of God! From the first moment of our creation we were participants in the life of God! From the first moment of our creation we were participants in the Divine nature! What would that have looked like if we had developed that Life within us? We would've lived lives full of the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity. These things wouldn't have been experienced as something that we acquire as if from outside of ourselves through a great deal of struggle. These fruits were at the very core of our nature! In a sense these fruits are at the very essence of what it means to be human persons! But we lost that. We turned from the Divine Life that was bestowed on us and we became slaves to death and darkness. Sin isn't a transgression against an arbitrary moral code; nor is it merely "missing the mark." Sin is metanoia in the wrong direction! Sin is a turning from light to darkness, from Life to death, from freedom to enslavement. We were sons and daughters of God, and we chose to make ourselves slaves to death. The Life of the Spirit was in us, and we rejected that Life.

So when God commands Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and warns that the moment he eats of that fruit Adam will surely die (Gen. 2:17), God is not so much talking about physical death. If it is the breath (ruah) of God, i.e. the Holy Spirit, that makes man a living being, then death is the deprivation of the breath (ruah) of God. Death is a deprivation of the Holy Spirit. Death is the deprivation of life in the Spirit! Physical death is a consequence of the loss of the Divine Life that was breathed into man from the first moment of his creation!

Now, fast-forward to the coming of Christ. Our Lord Jesus took our fallen human nature to Himself at the Incarnation. He put that fallen nature to death at the Cross. He returned that nature to the dust of the ground when He was buried in the tomb. He formed for man a new body when He rose from the tomb. And then He breathed new life into the new man by sending down the Holy Spirit. Once again we can participate in the Divine Life by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! So Pentecost, then, is the completion of the new creation accomplished in Christ Jesus. Life in the Spirit is nothing less than a restoration of the Divine Life that was originally bestowed upon us at our creation. What we lost through sin has again been restored to us. May heaven consume us.

As we take our leave of the seasons of Easter and Pentecost, we once again resume the life of repentance, of ongoing conversion. Granted our repentance and our penance is not as intense as during Great Lent, or even Advent for that matter, but we are still called to repentance and penance because we all have sinned, we all have some area in our life that lies in darkness and needs to be penetrated by the light of Christ so that Christ can set about the task of healing us of our sickness.

Repentance, I believe, really has a bad reputation among people in the Western world. We think of it in terms of guilt, depression, a "woe-is-me" attitude. We were caught with our hand in the cookie jar, and now we stand before our Father in shame. But that is not what repentance is all about.

We have just celebrated one of the most joyful seasons of the liturgical year. We have been celebrating the fact that we have been made a new creation through Christ's resurrection and been given new life through the descent of the Holy Spirit. We have had breathed into us the new life of grace. How spiritually and psychologically messed up would it be for the Church to shift so abruptly from such a joyous season to a season where we feel nothing but guilt and shame over our falleness! But nothing could be further from the truth.

The Church is very much in touch with reality, not only the reality of the material world, but more fully the reality of the material world in light of the spiritual world. In our Baptism we were given the new life of grace, new life in Christ by the creative (or we could say re-creative) power of the Holy Spirit. The old man was put to death and a new man has arisen from the baptismal font. Or we could think of the font as an entry into the womb of our Mother, the Church, from which we are reborn or "born again" into the life of grace. Through baptism the old creation is destroyed as was the world at the time of the Flood, and from the waters a new creation is brought forth. Death and resurrection, rebirth, a new creation, this is what we celebrate at our baptism and what we enter into every year through the celebration of Great Lent, Easter and Pentecost. In the Roman tradition this is emphasized even more strongly through the renewal of the baptismal vows on Easter Sunday.

Despite this rebirth, this resurrection, this recreation, however, we remain fallen beings. The seeds of sin still grow within us, and we have to work continually to uproot them. Recognizing this, St. Theophan the Recluse, along with other Eastern Fathers and Mothers, identified two hinges upon which the life of grace turns: Baptism and Repentance. Here he means repentance in its fuller sense of the actual Sacramental confession of one's sins in addition to the ascetic life in general. If we are given this new life, the life of grace, in Baptism, then that life is renewed in us after we fall through repentance and Confession.

We have been given the gift of Confession because Christ knows our weakness. He knows that despite the new life that is given to us, we will fall. But He loves us enough to provide us a way back, a way to renew the life within us through humble admission and confession of our sins. Is this not what the Father did at the very first moment after the fall of Adam and Eve! Immediately after our first parents ate the forbidden fruit, our heavenly Father gave them multiple chances to confess in order to renew the life that had just been given them. First He starts with Adam, who accuses not only the woman of causing his fall, but indirectly accuses God (the woman whom you put here with me - she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it). God then turns to Eve, who very promptly passes blame on to the serpent. Instead of owning up to their fall and allowing the Father to then forgive and restore their relationship with Him, they hide in their shame and choose to pass blame from one person to another. I could go on and on about how we continue this trend, not only as a society, but in our own individual spiritual lives as well.

But here is the gift of repentance and Confession that has been given to us. We have been given this new life in grace, but we often turn from that life through our sinfulness. However, our loving Father continues to ask us, "Where are you?" It's as if He is asking us, "Where are you in relation to me?" or "Where do we stand in relation to one another?" Just like with Adam and Eve, we are given the chance to admit our falls so as to restore our relationship to the Father in the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit; we are given the chance to allow God to renew His life within us! Do we take that chance, or do we hide in shame because we are "naked?" Do we attempt to cover up our sin with fig leaves? Or, after we have done that, do we attempt to accuse others of causing us to sin instead of taking responsibility for what we have done?

So not only have we been given new life, but we have been given the means to renew that life within us when we turn from the new life that has been given us in Baptism. Seasons of fasting and repentance, therefore, do not stand in contrast to the great seasons of rejoicing. Rather, repentance, Confession, fasting, ascetic labor, etc. allow us to re-enter the joy of Easter by providing us the opportunity to renew the life of grace within us. This is why repentance should not be an occasion for an overly guilty conscience or an exaggerated emphasis on shame. Guilt and shame certainly enter into our repentance because we recognize what it is that we have done through our sins, but guilt and shame are not the fullness of repentance, only its starting point. True repentance takes that guilt and shame and exposes it naked before our heavenly Father. It humbly acknowledges our sins before the Father so that He might restore us and renew His life within us. Repentance, therefore, is an opportunity for rejoicing and for gratitude. Repentance rejoices because of the life of grace restored in us. May heaven consume us!

In his wonderful "Summa" of the spiritual life, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation, St. Theophan the Recluse describes for us the attitude that we ought to have in approaching the spiritual life and the life of prayer. Amidst the "rules" given to us either by the Church or by our spiritual director; amidst our daily routine of prayer, spiritual reading, and ascetic labors; amidst our weekly routine of participation in the liturgical life and cycle of the Church, we are to maintain the attitude of a beginner. Here is what St. Theophan has to say:

"The beginner thus with fervent and speedy zeal puts everything he has into the most resolute ascetic labors, nevertheless awaiting strength and help from God and giving himself to Him, hoping for success but not seeing it. Therefore he is in a state of perpetual beginning, under the direction of a father, bounded by rules, and holding to the most humble part." (Path to Salvation pg. 217)

We see here a few characteristics that can be summed up with one word: humility. We see that the beginner throws himself into the spiritual life with a freshness and a zeal that is not always found among those who have been struggling in the spiritual life for some years. The beginner has a sense of urgency in the spiritual life. He sees that he has wasted a great deal of his life in vain pursuit. Almost in an effort to compensate for the wasted time he rushes headlong "with fervent and speedy zeal" into the work of the spiritual life. But while doing this he does not rely on his own strength. The beginner knows from past experience that he is weak and very susceptible to fall. He knows that he does not possess the requisite strength to succeed in the spiritual life. So what does he do? He awaits "strength and help from God... giving himself to Him." The beginner hopes fervently for success in the spiritual life, but does not see it - at least not in this life. He is so focused on the love of God for us that he only sees his distance from God and how much further he has to go. At the end of his life, St. Francis of Assisi - often considered one of the most Christ-like of all the saints of the West - is reported to have said, "Let us begin, for up until now we have done nothing." This coming from a saint who brought thousands to Christ in his own lifetime, and who inspired future generations up until our own age to come to a love for Christ and His Church. St. Francis is one of those men who truly gave up everything out of love for Christ, even sacrificing his own self-will and self-seeking pleasure to serve the less fortunate (anyone who knows of St. Francis' aversions to lepers knows what he did, in an act of total self-defiance, to bring the love of Christ to lepers).

There is also the story of, I believe, St. Arsenius the Great. On his deathbed he was seen to be mumbling in prayer. "What are you saying," the brothers asked. "I am asking for more time," the saint replied. "More time for what?""More time to repent," said Arsenius. "Oh, you don't need to repent," said the brothers, "Everyone knows that you are already holy and perfect.""Truly," replied Arsenius, "I don't know that I've even begun to repent."

We see such an attitude also in the great mystics of the Carmelite tradition, Sts. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. Both of these great saints, while describing the various stages or ages of the spiritual life, spoke of how we ought not to gauge our progress in the spiritual life, because such an exercise inevitably leads to the greatest fall of all, pride. Instead we ought to act as humble beginners, with our eyes constantly focused on the love and mercy of Christ. This is especially seen in the writings of St. John of the Cross, particularly in the Ascent of Mount Carmel. St. Teresa, on the other hand, adds an additional emphasis; the need of a spiritual director.

This leads us to the second attitude of the beginner. The beginner in the spiritual life does not trust himself. He does not even trust his interpretations of the spiritual books he reads, but rather submits everything to a spiritual father or mother, or at the very least to a spiritual friend who can help him make the arduous journey through the spiritual life. Anyone familiar with the traditions of the Christian East knows of the very strong emphasis Eastern Christians place on the role of the spiritual director (father or mother). The director needs to be someone who has experience in the spiritual life so that they can guide us through the dense forest and fog that sin has created within us. The spiritual guide need not be a priest, monk, or nun, but simply a holy person to whom God has given the gift of spiritual fatherhood or motherhood (not every holy person, after all, has been given this gift - but that doesn't make them any less holy). A spiritual guide is not there simply to impose rules of prayer, fasting, reading, and ascetic labors on us. Any such thing that a guide imposes is for the benefit of the individual seeking spiritual growth. It is a medicine meant to cure the passions that have, to this point, controlled us. A spiritual guide is meant to lead us to the freedom of the Spirit. The beginner, therefore, recognizing his inclination towards sin, submits his will to his spiritual director in an effort to overcome self-indulgence and self-will.

This leads us to the third attitude of the beginner: submission. Recognizing his need for guidance and healing, the beginner humbly submits and is obedient to the rules imposed on him by his director. Again, these rules aren't meant to bind the beginner, but to heal him from self-will. There is a problem here, however. Many spiritual directors today are hesitant to offer any rule to their directees. Folks come to these directors for advice and guidance, but get the impression that their director is acting more as a sounding board for their spiritual struggles rather than as a guide to bring them through to freedom. I know I've encountered that from time to time in my journey. But here is the way I see it. We are so far removed from holiness and from the "age of the saints" that we need to be even more basic in our search for spiritual healing. The guides that we seek out often cannot help us because they are often not much further along the inner path than we are. They may be able to help us to a point, but only to a point. So what do we do? We must look to the Church. If you are familiar with the liturgical practice of your particular Church, then you have all the rules you need to at least make a good humble beginning in the ascetic life. Every Church has rules for fasting, including when to fast, what to fast from, and a description of the purpose of fasting itself. Every Church also has a cycle of reading found in the Lectionary as well as in the Divine Office. "Oh, but that's just Scripture. what about the spiritual writings of the great mystics?" If you're not reading the Scriptures, then the writings of the great mystics and theologians of the Church aren't going to do you much good. Remember that the Scriptures are the Word of God in human words. The writings of the mystics, on the other hand, are just that: writings of holy people, but not the Word of God. We should at the very least be reading a little Scripture every day.

The final attitude that the beginner possesses, according to St. Theophan, is that of "holding to the most humble part." We need not look for great ascetical feats to accomplish. We needn't kneel on a rock for a year straight like St. Seraphim. We needn't live on top of a pillar and have our food sent up to us in a basket. We needn't live on bread and water for the rest of our lives. We are beginners. We should choose the humble part. We need to learn to show our love for God in the little things of life. St. Therese of Lisieux - another great Carmelite mystic - expressed this in her doctrine of the "Little Way." Throughout our day-to-day lives we do little things that express our love for God and neighbor. Maybe we forgo dessert at dinner time. Maybe we help out a co-worker that we find particularly annoying. Maybe we take out the garbage without being asked by our parents or spouse to do so. Maybe we pack up the family and go to the park despite the fact that we're exhausted from a long day of work and would rather sit at home and relax a bit. It doesn't matter. What matters is that we do these simple things, the little acts of self-denial, with great love.

If we would keep our zeal in the spiritual life blazing, then we must maintain the attitude of a beginner. We must maintain that sense of newness and wonder that you find in any two or three year old child. The spiritual world is always fresh and new, it is we who allow ourselves to grow old and tired. May the wind of the Spirit always blow over us, refresh us, and make all things new in us. And may heaven consume us.

As I was sitting at my kitchen table this morning, tying prayer ropes and listening to an Orthodox pastor give his "testimony" on his journey from Pentecostal/Evangelical Protestantism to Orthodoxy, I looked over and saw one of my completed prayer ropes sitting on a pile of mail. Such a scene is not unusual in my apartment. I've got prayer ropes lying around all over the place here. Some are used for prayer, others are used by my children as toys of some sort, others are uncompleted projects waiting for completion, and others are just a mess made by my children when they got into my prayer rope supplies. But today in particular the scene of this prayer rope lying on top of a stack of mail really struck me.

While listening to this Greek Orthodox pastor speak about his conversion to Orthodoxy, he spoke about how so many Christians think of their faith in terms of a contract: I do xyz, and God doesn't send me to Hell. He pointed out that this is why many can so easily enter into divorce without even batting an eye, as though divorce is simply the natural end of a marriage. This contractual approach to our relationships with one another and with God miss the point of relationships entirely. Relationships are not a "give-and-take," as we are so often told by mainstream "wisdom." Christ Himself shows us that relationships are meant to be self-gift.

But I'm straying a little here. There's a stack of mail with a prayer rope on top, a computer, an empty coffee cup (much in need of refilling), a journal and a book by St. Theophan, some roses I bought for my wife, and behind the roses some empty beer bottles from dinner with my father, sister, and father-in-law three nights ago. This is what I see lying before me as I'm struck by this simple prayer rope on a stack of mail. You see, relationships permeate everything we do and everything we think about. We've all had that experience of "falling in love." We've all been so twitterpated by some person that they are what we think about the moment we wake up. They are what we think about throughout the day. They are what we think about as we lay down to sleep. They can even be what we dream about throughout the night. Have you ever experienced this? You love your beloved so much that your very thoughts and actions become oriented to them. Isn't this what marriage is all about? The lover holds the beloved before his eyes at all times, constantly thinks of ways to please her, and would never dream of doing anything to hurt her. Even in day-to-day activities the thought of how his thoughts and actions may affect his beloved are always in his mind, even of only on a subconscious level.

This is the relationship we ought to have with God, and the relationship He obviously desires to have from us if we are to take Him at His Word. How do our actions and thoughts affect our relationship with God? Is God our first thought upon rising? Are we centered on God throughout the day? Are we continually mindful of God's loving presence with us throughout the day? Do we turn to him before retiring for the night, or do we just turn on the radio or television?

In the midst of our day-to-day living everything we do is supposed to be permeated with the love of God. Our thoughts and actions are meant to be "pregnant" with the love of God so that we might "give birth" to God in the world through our very lives. We are not necessarily called to grand heroic actions, but to the heroic action of living every moment, especially the hum-drum moments of daily life, in the love of God. Studies in marriage relationships have shown that it is not great romantic gestures that make for a happy marriage. In an unhappy marriage such gestures can often at best be moments of awkwardness, and at worst deteriorate into misunderstanding and further marital troubles. What makes any marriage a happy marriage is how the spouses respond to each other in the small day-to-day events.

Why would we think that our prayer life, our life in Christ, would be any different? St. Theophan teaches us that we need to study our Faith, not just for information, but in such a way that it penetrates down into our hearts and eventually transforms and permeates the way we see everything, what we think, and how we act. Sure that stack of mail laying under the prayer rope may be hum-drum - it may be day-to-day; but when permeated with the love of God, that stack of bills, those dishes that still need washed, that dirty diaper, that dead-end 9 - 5 job, all these things become the means of salvation for us. The question is, are we up to the task of day-to-day heroics? Answer: No we're not, but God is; and through prayer He will give us what we need to be "little heroes." May heaven consume us.

Some time ago I recall reading a book by Archbishop Joseph Raya on the Sacraments of Initiation. The late Archbihop Raya - Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Akka, Haifa, Nazareth, and Galilee - is one of my all-time favorite authors. In many ways he is, to me, the Melkite equivalent to Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He may not have had his own television show, and he may not have been as prolific in his writings, but Kyr Raya has this way of taking the great truths of our Faith and presenting them in such a way that they are understandable by all, but without diminishing the depths of the truths presented.

In this particular book, Theophany and the Sacraments of Initiation, Archbishop Raya refers to the Creed that we recite or sing at the Mass/Divine Liturgy as a "Hymn of Harmony and Glory," a "charter of our Christian life." For Kyr Raya the Creed, as with so many other things in our Faith, is a celebration!

This thought has stuck with me since then because how often do we experience the Creed as anything but a cold listing of the essential dogmas of our Faith? If we just skim over it during the Liturgy - and I am as guilty of this as the next person - then we will find little in it to make it seem as a "hymn of glory." At best we will see only the basic kerygma, the essential proclamations of our Faith; truths that we have either repeated or had repeated to us so many times that they no longer strike us with the sense of wonder and surprise that they should produce in us.

But herein lies the problem. We have reduced the Creed (and so many other things in our Faith) to little more than a philosophy. It is, for so many of us, a list of intellectual beliefs. We repeat over and over "I/we believe... I/we believe... I/we believe" and we presume that such "belief" is nothing more than a basic intellectual assent. Sure the intellectual assent is necessary, but that is only the beginning. St. Theophan tells us that if we do not allow the truth of our Faith to penetrate down into our hearts and to completely transform us, then "truth is stuffed into the head like sand, and the spirit becomes cold and hard, smokes over and puffs up" (The Path of Salvation: pg. 249). Isn't this what St. Paul is getting at in his wonderful discourse on love; "If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love... I am nothing."

So what does the Creed do for us? The Creed is a basic catechesis. It distills for us the realities that we profess and that have been revealed to us. These are not just intellectual truths to which we give assent, they are realities that we are called to enter into, to participate in. We profess the reality of one God in three Persons. We rejoice in the reality that God the Father created us out of nothing through His eternal Word and by the power of His Holy Spirit. We celebrate the reality that, out of His great love for us, the eternal Word willed to become man for our sake so that we might glory in the divine life that we had lost through sin. In all of this we hear the voice of the Spirit speaking through the Prophets and throughout all of history, pointing us to the reality of the incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. And we celebrate the reality that Christ has willed to continue His presence among us through His bride the Church, and that He will come again to bring us to our eternal home at the end of time.

When we look at these things as realities and not just as intellectual concepts, they take on a whole new meaning. What cause for rejoicing and celebration! What cause for gratitude! What cause for true conversion to a God who loves us so much! This is the whole point of catechesis. St. Theophan again tells us that we need to "study our catechism," so to speak; that we need to learn the essential truths of our Faith. But learning these truths does not mean learning them as intellectual concepts, or mere facts that we might repeat in a game of trivia. When studying our Faith, learning our catechism (and yes, catechesis applies equally to the East as it does to the West), we must learn with an open heart. We must contemplate the truths of our Faith in our hearts as did the Theotokos. We must allow ourselves to be completely transformed by the realities that we study and profess. The whole point of our study is to know more and more about the One we love, not just to cram our heads full of trivia. Love desires to know the beloved on all levels; and so we seek the Lord in prayer, in the Sacraments, in the Liturgical life of the Church, in study, and in good works. May heaven consume us!

I am coming to realize more and more that there is no room for timidity in the spiritual life. One cannot expect to advance in the spiritual life if one is unwilling to boldly take the first step, even if that first step is in the wrong direction. You cannot draw closer to God if you are not willing to move from where you currently stand. You can read and study and listen to spiritual talks all you want, but if you are too timid to put into action the truths that you study, then you will not progress.

This particularly struck home to me yesterday while I was reading St. Theophan the Recluse's book The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation. I know I have been quoting from St. Theophan for some time now, but I cannot recommend his writings highly enough. He has a way of cutting to the chase and presenting his themes with a clarity and honesty that make his writings easily accessible - and as a busy husband, father and employee I need writings that are easily accessible; I'm sure you all can relate.

St. Theophan tells us that in the spiritual life "Experience is the best teacher - one only needs to have the zealous desire to conquer himself" (The Path to Salvation, pg. 297). This means that, whether or not we have a spiritual father or mother available to us, we can still only progress by jumping headlong into the spiritual life, all the while trusting in our loving Father to send us the people we need to guide and correct us as we go along. The "desire to conquer" oneself is nothing less than the willingness to humbly accept correction when correction is needed, as well as encouragement when encouragement is offered. Sometimes we get so caught up in giving and receiving correction that we forget the necessity of giving and receiving encouragement.

I think that over time and because of our past experiences we develop an almost paralyzing timidity towards life in general, and towards the spiritual life in particular. I know that I personally have encountered so many difficulties, setbacks and failures in my life that I feel more comfortable thoroughly researching any new project or undertaking before I take my first steps - if I take my first steps. I must admit that I've applied this principle, this timidity, in my spiritual life as well. I will sit and read book after book and listen to talk after talk on the spiritual life, but it takes me a great deal of time before I start applying what I've learned in my own life. Not that reading and listening to spiritual lectures is a bad thing, but what use are they if we are not going to act? St. Francis of Assisi was famous for acting before he thought. He would be inspired to some course of action and jump headlong into it. Oftentimes he would realize later that it was a wrong course of action, and then he would correct his course - in essence he would repent. This is characteristic of all the saints. It's not that they had a roadmap completely laid out for them in detail and then they just walked straight into heaven without taking a wrong turn from time to time. No. They made mistakes and then accepted correction and changed course.

"The first ascetics did not study from books, but nevertheless they represent the very image of conquerors" (The Path of Salvation, pg. 297). The ascetics of the early Church, the great desert fathers and mothers, were bold enough to take action on what they heard. We see this in the life of St. Antony the Great. Upon hearing Christ command us in the Gospel to go out and sell our belongings, he willingly gave up everything so that he could follow Christ without attachment. The Scriptures, as they are proclaimed and prayed liturgically, were the primary guide of the desert fathers and mothers. They made mistakes and often times went to excess in their ascetic labors. But they were always open to correction. The main point is that the put the Gospel, the Good News, into action. They took that first step, even if it was in the wrong direction.

Fr. Robert Taft, S.J., in a lecture he gave on the role of the laity in the Church, relates the story of a seminarian's mother at home in India. They lived in a town where they were the only Christian family. This seminarian's mother could not read. But she was attentive to the Gospel message that she heard proclaimed in the Church, and she put that message to action in her life. Her life itself was such an example of holiness that it led her son into the priesthood. Her life itself was such an example of holiness that, upon hearing her story (and even upon retelling it), it reduced such a great scholar as Fr. Taft to tears! A little old woman who could not read reducing the learned to tears simply by her life! That is a woman who heard the message and boldly took those first steps.

In his opening address to the congregation gathered in Rome, anxiously awaiting a word from the newly elected Pontiff, Pope St. John Paul II said, "Do not be afraid." Don't be afraid to throw yourself headlong into the loving arms of our Abba. Sure there will be difficulties and disappointments. Of course you will fall and need to get back up. But fortitude isn't just courage in the face of danger. Fortitude is persistence in times of difficulty. It is resilience during moments of disappointment. It is the ability to stand up after falling and to continue doing what is right. Fortitude is the ability to accept correction and change course when needed.

My son has been very much about watching an old show that I used to watch when I was little; "The Magic Schoolbus." In the show the teacher, Ms. Frizzle, has a line to encourage her students to jump headlong into their scientific inquiries: "It's time to get messy and make mistakes." This could easily be applied to our spiritual life. We have to be bold. We have to be willing to get messy. No soldier in combat comes out of combat clean. He comes out filthy, smeared with dirt, smelling of sweat and gunpowder, sometimes covered in blood. The only clean soldier is one who has never seen combat. A clean soldier does not win victories. It's true in the spiritual life as well. We can study the tactics of spiritual warfare until the day we die, but if we do not utilize those tactics to engage the enemy within, then we will never know the glory of victory. So get messy! Make mistakes! Struggle so as to win the victory. It is time. May heaven consume us.

During my prayer time this morning a thought occurred to me. Among many self-proclaimed "traditional Catholics" I often hear bemoaned the fact that we rarely hear homilies on sin and hell from the pulpit these days. "Oh, if only father would preach on hell and the reality of sin! Give us that good old fire and brimstone, padre! Look at people's lives. They need to hear it. They need to hear that they're on the fast-track to hell. They (literally) need to have the hell scared out of them so they can turn their lives around." I'm generalizing here, but this is a common attitude among many traditionalists - I know because quite some time ago I myself held the same attitude (briefly).

I find two problems with this line of thinking. The first one is the "speck vs. beam" problem. The attitude above betrays a certain amount of self-righteousness. "They need to hear... People need to hear... Scare the hell out of them..." as if we ourselves do not need to be reminded of the reality of sin in our own lives. Our Lord told us to remove the beam from our own eyes before we remove the speck from our brother's. But I don't want to dwell on this point and getting bogged down in something that I think has been rather extensively talked about elsewhere.

What dawned on me in prayer this morning is that people don't need to hear so many homilies on sin and hell because for so many people the reality of sin is a lived daily experience. For so many people their lives are hell-on-earth. If you want to hear a homily on sin and hell, turn on the news channel. You will hear about the chaos in the world: war, sickness and death, starvation, violence, promiscuity, exile, homelessness. For many of us these things are just words, theories. They have a certain amount of meaning attached to them, but they exist in our minds primarily as a theory and not so much as something we've experienced. But for millions of people these realities are a part of their daily lives. They cannot escape the hell that they are living in.

And if these things are too far removed from your own personal reality, then reflect on this. In our society divorce, domestic violence, violence at school, depression and despair, suicide, sickness with unknown causes, stress, anxiety, worry; these are all a part of our daily lives. So often with things like divorce, abuse, drug addiction, pornography, etc. we get so caught up in the sinfulness of the actions and pointing out how wrong such things are that we don't stop to ask what it is that led a person to these things and what effects they are having in their lives. Take, for example, the divorced couple. We've all known folks whose marriages were torn apart by divorce. There is no such thing as a clean or happy divorce. It may tear the couple apart in society's eyes, but it also, in many ways, tears them apart within as well. Anger, resentment, bitterness, etc. they all set in and eat away at the gut.

One thing that I've been encountering on a near daily basis is young women - barely out of high-school if they're not still in high-school - who have had children out of wedlock. They struggle. They suffer. They may feel like their lives are over. Children are a huge responsibility, and how can they lift the burden of that responsibility if they themselves are still children? And it becomes even more difficult when we "churchy" people cast judgmental glances in their direction.

Have you tried to enter the inner world of the single-mother, or the drug addict, or the porn addict, or the depressed person, or the anxious? They don't need sermons on sin and hell. They've lived it. They've experienced it. The world is tired. The world has grown old. The reality of sin and hell in our world has caused it to age more and more with each passing day.

What the world needs is hope, joy, peace. What the world needs is some Good News. Why did Christ command His Apostles to preach the Good News and not the bad news? Because people already know the bad news. Have you ever flipped on the news channel, watched it for about 30 minutes, then shut it off feeling tired and emotionally drained? I can't listen to the news on the radio for more than 5 minutes without feeling that way. We all know the bad news. We all know the reality of sin in this world. We all know and have experienced hell on earth.

But Christ tells us that the Kingdom of God is at hand; and the Church proclaims that She is the Kingdom of God on earth. This theme of the Kingdom is very dominant in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. At the beginning of the Divine Liturgy the priest proclaims, "Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages." But if this theme is explicit in the Byzantine Liturgy, it is still present, although implicitly, in the other Liturgical Rites of the Church.

The Good News proclaims Christ's Kingdom, and Christ's Kingdom is one of peace. In the Maronite tradition every Divine Liturgy begins and ends with peace. We pray "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth and good will to all. Praise the Lord, all you nations. Glorify Him, all you peoples. For steadfast is His mercy towards us, and the truth of the Lord endures forever." And the priest, at the beginning of the Liturgy, blesses the people singing, "Peace be with the Church and Her children." At the end of the Liturgy we are told to "go in peace... with the nourishment you have received from the forgiving altar of the Lord." And as we sing our final hymn the priest prays, "I leave you in peace, O holy Altar..."

Even in the Roman Mass the priest opens by proclaiming "Peace be with you," and closes by proclaiming, "Go in peace..." Through the Roman Mass, the Maronite Qurbono, the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, and all the other Liturgies of the Church we hear these proclamations of peace. The priest is constantly saying to us, "Peace be with you..." or some form of that.

The Kingdom of God ushers peace into the world. How well are we living that peace? Are we letting the peace of Christ, the peace of the Kingdom, shine through us upon the darkness of the world around us? Are we letting that peace shine into the darkness of our own hearts? Are we allowing the peace of the Kingdom to transform us so that we might go out and transform the chaos of the world?

People don't need to hear about sin and hell so much. They need the Good News. They need the peace of Christ proclaimed to them. But most importantly, they need to encounter that peace in another, they need to experience that peace in their own lives. How can they experience it if they have no one to bring it to them? And how can we bring it to them if we have not allowed ourselves to first be transformed by the light of Christ's peace?

St. Paul tells us in Philippian 4:4-7; "Rejoice in our Lord always; and again I say, Rejoice. Let your humility be known to all men. Our Lord is at hand. Do not worry over things, but always by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving (NAB says: "petitions full of gratitude") let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ."

Rejoicing, humiliy, God's presence, calm through trust in God and gratitude for His gifts, peace; these are the signs of God's Kingdom in our lives. May His Kingdom spread, beginning with us. May the Good News touch and transform our lives, so that we might take that Good News out into a world that has been so full of bad news. And may heaven consume us.

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