Examining Our Use of Free Will

God's greatest gift was free will.  Because of this we can offer love to God and our neighbors.  But this is not how we always use it.  I find myself like Paul, wanting to use it with love only to find myself doing something else.  Like him, I feel at times like I am at war with myself.  It's like I am under the control of some other influence and not able to freely choose that which I desire.


Archimandrite Seraphim Alexsiev wrote the following in his book The Meaning of Suffering and Strife and Reconciliation:

Today we, like Adam, constantly misuse our free will ... This is where all our troubles come from, as well as our inability to be consoled in them.

...God has given us health so that we can serve Him and our neighbors with it, but we abuse this precious gift ... God has given us riches so that we will be useful to the least of His brothers, but we misuse our riches as well.  God has given us abilities in order to praise Him, yet we often bring dishonor to God's holy Name with our abilities; it is sufficient to think of those writers who use their gift to slander God and the saints.  Do not the astounding contemporary achievements of technology represent the same kind of abuse of God's gifts by using them to destroy from the air entire cities and to kill peaceful citizens by the hundreds and thousands, instead of implying these achievements for increasing the well-being of mankind?  We often put in service to satan all the blessings and abilities which we have received from God.  Through them we seek glory and pleasures for ourselves, become proud, and harm our neighbors.

What he says rings true for me.
One of the purposes of Lent is to help us reflect on our own struggle.  Through fasting we can see our difficulty with self-discipline.  Through our participation in more prayer and worship services we test our dedication to God.  Thorough our reading of the gospel and the Holy Fathers we examine and enhance our understanding of His commandments.


Reflect on our collective condition.  Examine your own conscience.  Map out a plan to commit to change.


Pray, Fast, Worship, Read, Simplify, Watch, Put Others First.


Ref; The Meaning of Suffering and Strife and Reconciliation, pgs 31-32


More on Orthodox Way of Life

Ongoing Effort of Fasting, Confession and Holy Communion

Many people only take Holy Communion four times a year or even less. In these cases there is generally a week long period of severe fasting suggested followed by Sacrament of Confession and then Holy Communion. Many people do this during one of the fasting periods such as Great Lent. Such people do not necessarily follow the complete fast. In the Slavonic tradition this intense short week long practice is termed govenie. There is no corresponding word in English; govenie means a period of self-examination, prayer and fasting, which ends with confession and communion. A person who starts govenie is expected to spend his week's preparation as in retreat, though he usually remains at home. He attends all the daily services; he fasts rigorously, reads books of spiritual edification, gives alms, and seeks reconciliation with those with whom he has quarreled.

This practice is not sufficient according to Saint Theophan (It also is not in agreement with the Canons of the Church). We must make fasting and repentance a continual part of our life, he says.

Here is how he instructs us on this approach:
Fasting:
   1. Observe all the great fasts.
   2. Observe the fasts on Wednesday and Friday.
   3. Besides this, voluntary fasting on other particular days, especially Monday as is customary.

Confession
   1. Every sin that burdens the conscience should be quickly cleansed by repentance without waiting for any particular time of preparation.
   2. Every day before you go to sleep, make a private confession to the Lord of everything in which you have sinned.
   3. Make a confession minute by minute, that is every impure and blameworthy thought, desire, feeling and movement confess as soon as you realize it to the all-seeing God with contrition of spirit; and ask forgiveness for it and the strength to avoid it in the future.
   4. Reveal every perplexity, confusion or new understanding to another of like mind with you or to your spiritual father, so that he would decide and discern its worth and pronounce a judgment. Curtail the habit of deciding everything for yourself.

Communion
   1. Go as often as possible to Liturgy, and as it is celebrated stand in firm and bright faith in the sacrifice that is being made to God. All should participate. Receive it with reverence, joy, and triumph if it is granted.
   2. If it is impossible to go to church, then do not let the hour of the Holy and Divine sacrifice pass without sighing and turning to God. If possible stand in prayer and make a few prostrations.

We know this latter approach to be consistent with the canons of the Church. They require participation in the fasts and regular participation in Holy Communion (of course by being continually prepared as Saint Theophan suggests above).

I know of no other way to grow spiritually.  This involves a surrender to the teachings, and obedience to Traditions of the Church. If you desire to grow closer to God, make it a Way of Life.

Path to Salvation pp 269 - 279

Ten Point Program for an Orthodox Way of LIfe.

Objections to Confession

So frequently we here all the excuses about why people do not participate in Confession when this is one of the most loving and powerful sacraments of the Church.  Archimandrite Seraphim Alekslev examines some of these excuses in his beautiful book The Forgotten Medicine.

"HOW GREAT must be our wickedness! We do not turn to Confession not only because we forget about it, but we do not practice it even when we know about it. What can be more imprudent than this?

Confession is so important to us sinners that we must boldly say: there is no salvation for us without Confession. Abba Isaiah expresses the same thought: "If there were no repentance, nobody would be saved. just as Baptism cleanses us from original sin and from all sins committed prior to Baptism, so repentance, involving a confession of our sins, cleanses us from all lawlessness committed after Baptism."

We do not confess because we have objections to Confession. What are our objections usually?

Here are the main ones:

1) One says: "I am so sinful! Can God forgive my sins?
I do not believe this! That is why there is no use for me to go to Confession."
But if a man repents sincerely, any sin can be forgiven him. "The power of repentance is based on the power of God. The Doctor is all-powerful, and the Medicine given by Him is all-powerful" (Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov).

St. John Chrysostom, pondering on the miraculous results of sincere repentance, says: "Repentance is a medicine which destroys sin. It is a heavenly gift, a marvelous force which through the grace of God conquers the might and strictness of the laws. It accepts all and transforms all…

Do not tell me: "I have sinned much, how can I save myself?" You cannot, but your God can, and He can do it so that all your sins will be destroyed….

Sin is to God's love for man what the spark is to the sea, not even that, but something much smaller! The sea, however big it may be, has an end, but God's love for man is limitless.

2) Another says: "Why should I go to Confession? I have no special sins.
Let those who have murdered, stolen, raped, or committed some other sin go to Confession."
This objection to Confession is the complete opposite of the first one... Here, there is a lack of any realization of wickedness….

Let those who say, "I have no special sins," answer whether they have Christ in their hearts. He likes to inhabit pure hearts. But are their hearts pure? Hardly! They imagine that they are pure, but imagination is not reality. lf we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). And where there is a lie, there Christ is not.

The Holy Fathers teach us that It Is very hard for a man to see his sins….

It turns out that those who think that they do not have any great sins are actually blind. They must pray to God to enable them to perceive their sins and to save themselves from the extremely fatal spiritual delusion that they do not have any particular sins. Even if their sins are as small as specks of dust, if they are not cleaned with constant Confession, they pile up and dirty the room of the heart so that the high heavenly Guest cannot enter there.

The small sins are often more dangerous than the greatest crimes, because the latter weigh heavily on the conscience and insist on being atoned for, confessed, settled, erased, while the small sins do not weigh too much on the soul, but they have that perilous property of making it insensitive to the grace of God and indifferent to salvation. ….

In order for man to restore his spiritual life, he needs to confess even the smallest of his sins.

3) A third man says: "All this is true. But why should I confess when I know that tomorrow I will sin again? Is there any point In such confession? I see that one should confess only if one would sin no more after that!"
This objection to Confession contains both something which is very true and something which is not. The right thing here is the desire not to sin any more after Confession. But we are feeble humans, and we cannot attain right away such a firmness which makes falling into voluntary sins impossible. If we cannot reach such steadfastness in virtue right away, should we surrender to vice? Or should we stop confessing? Which is better––to roll in the mud of the spiritual swamp, or to pick yourself up after each fall and go on with the hope that someday you may reach the solid and beautiful shore of virtue? If you do not confess, you remain in the mud. If you confess, you pick yourself up from the mud and clean yourself. "But why should I get up if tomorrow I will fall again?" you say. When you fall again, then get up again! Every day begin all over again! This is undoubtedly better than falling out of the habit of getting up….

Leave your house unswept, uncleaned, and unventilated for one year! Will it not turn into a pigsty? Now think about what the soul of a man is like when he has not cleaned it through Confession, not only for a year, but for twenty, forty, sixty, or seventy years!...

4) A fourth man says: "I am confessing before God. What need is there for me to go to the priest?"
... God has ordained the priest to administer the Holy Sacraments so that we can receive through them heavenly all-saving grace. Confession is a sacrament, too. If you confess before God, you are doing well, because you are moving your conscience, remembering your sins, and maybe even shedding tears for them. Yet you do not receive God's grace of forgiveness through all that. ...until you go to the priest to whom Jesus Christ Himself has given the power to bind and loose, no matter how much you confess before God, you do not receive forgiveness for your sins, because God Himself has condescended to say to the priest: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them (John 20:23).

Besides, Confession before a priest has an enormous instructive meaning. It humbles us. It cures our pride; it makes us blush savingly; It instills in us shame and fear and thus protects us from future sins.

"But how can the priest absolve sins?" you ask. He can, since God has ordered it so. "But is the priest himself not a sinful man?" If lie is sinful, what do you lose from that? He is sinful for himself and will answer before God for his sins. The Holy Sacraments administered by him do not cease to be active for you because of his sinfulness if you accept them with faith and humility. Does the sunray get dirty when it falls on mud? In the same way, God's grace does not lessen by being transmitted by a priest muddled with sins. He himself may be denied grace on Judgment Day because of his sinfulness, but you, accepting through him God's grace, will not deprive yourself of it if you show yourself to be worthy.

"But will the priest not give away the secret of my confessed sins?" No! No priest has the right to tell of that which he has heard during Confession. He has to take the secret of the Confession to his grave. So do not worry that the shame of your sinfulness may be announced to society.

But remember that if you avoid Confession because of zeal for your honor, you will shame yourself If you are ashamed to admit your weaknesses before one man, everyone will begin talking about them! Such is the spiritual law. People sense our weaknesses, no matter how diligently we hide them. If you confess them before one man, God, because of your humility before this single witness, will cover you with His grace before the many.

...Your confession will teach you to struggle with your passions; and if you are really fighting against them, the multitude of people will not find out about them. You, with God's help, will be healed before you have shamed yourself. But if you do not want to be healed through Confession, then you will both expose your name to abuse here and then be disgraced before the whole universe at the Last Judgment!"

From: The Forgotten Medicine, pp 29-39

More on Confesion....

Adoration of the Holy Cross

"Many indeed are the wondrous happenings of that time: God hanging from a Cross, the sun made dark, and again flaming out; for it was fitting that creation should mourn with its Creator. The Temple veil rent, blood and water flowing from His side: the one as from a man, the other as from What was above man; the earth was shaken, the rocks shattered because of the Rock; the dead risen to bear witness of the final and universal resurrection of the dead. The happenings at the Sepulchre, and after the Sepulchre, who can fittingly recount them? Yet not one of them can be compared to the miracle of my salvation. A few drops of Blood renew the whole world, and do for all men what the rennet does for milk: joining us and binding us together."
St. Gregory the Theologian




"O Lord, save Your people and bless Your inheritance. Grant victory to the faithful over their adversaries and protect Your commonwealth by Your Cross."

FASTING: The Weak & the West

I found this to be an interesting perspective on fasting and its relationship to our attitude towards human nature.  Why is fasting so neglected in these times? Is Orthodoxy gong the way of the West?

The following two snippets, the words of Mother Mary and Metropolitan (then Archimandrite) Kallistos Ware, come from Fr Josiah Trenham's site, The Arena.

The Meaning of the Great Fast: How the West Changed the Fast
“The second tendency [viewing the fasting rules as outdated] is doubtless the more prevalent in our own day, especially in the West. Until the fourteenth century, most Western Christians, in common with their brethren in the Orthodox East, abstained during Lent not only from meat but from animal products, such as eggs, milk, butter and cheese. In East and West alike, the Lenten fast involved a severe physical effort. But in Western Christendom over the past five hundred year, the physical requirements of fasting have been steadily reduced, until by now they are little more than symbolic. How many, one wonders, of those who eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday are aware of the original reason for this custom––to use up any remaining eggs and butter before the Lenten fast begins? Exposed as it is to Western secularism, the Orthodox world in our own time is also beginning to follow the same path of laxity.”

The Meaning of the Great Fast: Firm Resolve and the Reasons for Contemporary Man’s Weak Fasting
“One reason for this decline in fasting is surely a heretical attitude towards human nature, a false ‘spiritualism’ which rejects or ignores the body, viewing man solely in terms of his reasoning brain. As a result, many contemporary Christians have lost a true vision of man as an integral unity of the visible and invisible; they neglect the positive role played by the body in the spiritual life…Another reason for the decline in fasting among Orthodox is the argument, commonly advanced in our times, that the traditional rules are no longer possible today…it needs to be said that fasting, as traditionally practiced in the Church, has always been difficult and always involved hardship. Many of our contemporaries are willing to fast for reasons of health or beauty, in order to lose weight; cannot we Christians do as much for the sake of the heavenly Kingdom? Why should the self-denial gladly accepted by previous generations of Orthodox prove such an intolerable burden to their successors today? Once St. Seraphim of Sarov was asked why the miracles of grace, so abundantly manifest in the past, were no longer apparent in his own day, and to this he replied: ‘Only one thing is lacking––a firm resolve.’”

Fr Josiah notes: In coming issues of the ARENA you will excerpts like this above from the classic article written by Mother Mary and Metropolitan (then Archimandrite) Kallistos Ware introducing The Lenten Triodion published originally in 1978 by Faber and Faber Limited, reprinted by St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press in 1994.

Image Source

From: http://southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/2010/02/fasting-weak-west.html

Ordering our External Life

This instruction by Saint Theophan may be difficult for many to follow.  He asks that we leave behind all that is passionate, vain or sinful that enters into our family and social life.  This is about "leaving the world," He says. Remember how John reported Jesus saying, "I have chosen you out of the world (Jn 15:19) But what does this mean for those of us who have chosen a life of "this world"? 


Saint Theophan says, 
"Leaving the world does not mean running away from the family or society, but abandoning the morals, customs, rules, habits and demands that are entirely antithetical to the Spirit of Christ which has entered and ripens within us."  
We instead must strive to establish an environment that is congruent with the teachings of Christ as passed on to us through His Apostles.


When we examine the worldly life today we can easily see its many sinful ways.  It's based on a continual fanning of our passions and false desires.  It is primarily secular and without a focus on His kingdom.  God is even incidental to most of the the worldly life we observe around us.  We are constantly tempted and distracted from a true relationship with God. This is where we must act to protect ourselves and our salvation. 


Saint Theophan is saying, 
"abandon everything that is dangerous to the new life [a life committed to Christ], whatever ignites passions, brings vanity and extinguishes spirit.... Now is time to cease from all theaters, balls, dances, music, singing, travels, strolls, acquaintances, jokes, sarcasm, laughter, and idle time.  It is even the time to change the time of arising from bed, sleep, eating and so on.... Leaving the world is nothing other than cleaning up you entire external life, removing from it everything passionate and replacing it with something pure, which will not disrupt the spiritual life, but rather aid it.... establish rules and order in every part of the home, at work, with acquaintances, and when, how and with whom you spend your time."


As if this is not enough, He then says:
The thought that you could live like a Christian while holding on to the world and worldliness is an empty, deluded thought."


Now one may have grave concerns about how this is possible and what the impact of this will be.  But remember, the world and its activities are mainly based on vanity and pride.  It is self-centered in all its activities and cares little for others.


By engaging in the ascetic practices of prayer, fasting, vigil and so forth you will strengthen yourself to be able to take a new approach to your work, family and social relationships.  You will begin to find ways to live that are pure and salvific and that follow God's will.  But you must be willing to brake the old habits a patterns of life.  Once you do, new patterns emerge and you will be led it a toward a more virtuous life.  This becomes what we call the Orthodox Way of Life.  Examine your life and begin to make some changes.  These will lead to others and you will soon find your life transformed.


Saint Theophan says,
It consists in providing a spiritual substitute for everything seen and heard, and to become strong int he remembrance of this spiritual substitute, that every time the thing is seen, its spiritual substitute impresses the senses rather than itself.


Personally, I find his direction to be the most difficult and take it as an indication that in my own life I have much inner-work to do to gain the strength necessary to reorder my external life in this manner.


What are some of the ways you have found to simplify your life and spiritualize your activities in "this world" ?


Reference: Path to Salvation, pp 267-269

Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Heart

Saint Theophan speaks to one of our greatest challenges (At least one of mine).

You've got to get out of your head and into your heart. Right now your thoughts are in your head, and God seems to be outside you. Your prayer and all your spiritual exercises also remain exterior. As long as you are in your head, you will never master your thoughts, which continue to whirl around your head like snow in a winter's storm or like mosquitoes in the summer's heat. If you descend into your heart, you will have no more difficulty. Your mind will empty out and your thoughts will dissipate. 

Thoughts are always in your mind chasing one another about, and you will never manage to get them under control. But if you enter into your heart and can remain there, then every time your thoughts invade, you will only have to descend into your heart and your thoughts will vanish into thin air. This will be your safe haven. Don't be lazy. Descend. You will find life in your heart. There you must live.
- St. Theophan the Recluse

So what does it mean to descend?  Is he talking about surrender?  Surely this involves much ascetic effort to purify our heart, to open its gates, to overcome our ego-centeredness.  

Keep up the fast.  It prepares us to receive many rewards.
* As quoted in Jean-Yves Leloup, Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), p. 124.