Monthly Archives: March 2018

Be A Good Wife

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Friday, March 30 (O.S., March 17), 2018: Friday of the Sixth Week of Lent; Venerable Alexis the Man of God († 411); Venerable Macarius, Abbot of Kaliazin, wonderworker († 1483); New Hieromartyr Priest Alexander († 1919); New Hieromartyr Priest Victor († 1942); Martyr Marinus; Venerable Paul of Cyprus; St. Patrick, Bishop of Armagh and Enlightener of Ireland († 461).

Sixth Hour: Isaiah 66:10-24
Vespers: Genesis 49:33-50:26
Vespers: Proverbs 31:8-31

Tomorrow is Lazarus Saturday and the beginning of Holy Week. So today is the last day of the Great Fast. Given where we are liturgically, today’s Old Testament readings the Church are odd.

Well, actually, not all the readings.

The selections from Isaiah and Genesis make sense. Once again, Isaiah reminds us of the impending judgment in which, to borrow from Jesus’ words in Matthew, God will separate the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:32).

The reading for Genesis is likewise a sensible choice.

With the death of Jacob and Joseph, the patriarchal age comes to an end. There will soon arise “a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8, NKJV). His rule will bring a dark and tragic change. Sin’s hold over humanity will become institutionalized as the Hebrew children find themselves enslaved. It is from this, sin’s “anti-church,” that Jesus comes to save us.

But what are we to make the third reading? Why do we hear about “a good wife” who is “far more precious than jewels”?

Solomon’s description of the good wife isn’t limited to her moral virtues important though they are. No for the King whose “wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the men of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt” (1 Kings 4:30, NKJV), the good wife isn’t simply a morally good woman, she is a successful entrepreneur. She not only excels in managing the household but in business. Far from being a passive participant in her own life, “she girds her loins with strength and makes her arms strong” through her domestic and commercial industry.

The Fathers see in the good wife a type of the Church. St Gregory Nazianzen alludes to this in his funeral oration for his sister Gorgonia.

Solomon … praises the woman who looks to her household and loves her husband, contrasting her with one who roams abroad, and is uncontrolled and dishonourable, and hunts for precious souls with wanton words and ways, while she manages well at home and bravely sets about her woman’s duties.

For marriage to be, as St Paul says, a revelation of Christ’s love for the Church (Ephesians 5:22-32) requires not simply virtuous and entrepreneurial women but men who are worthy husbands of such wives. Men who are worthy of women like those Solomon describes.

With His death on the Cross, the reign of sin and death comes to an end. Though composed of sinners, the Church is also “a city on a hill” and a “light to the nations” (Matthew 5:4). The Church is a foretaste of the Kingdom of God and a “sign contradiction” (see Luke 2:34, Acts 28:22) to the kingdom of sin and death (Mark 1:14-15).

For the Church to fulfill her vocation requires that, like the good wife, Christians learn to be not only virtuous but practical. As we’ve seen throughout our mediations, wealth and power are blessings given to us by God for His glory and the salvation of the world. If we take seriously the “good wife” as a revelation of the Church, we must all–men and women–imitate both her virtue and her industry.

Having been freed from sin by Christ’s death and resurrection, fortified by the sacraments, and trained by the ascetical life, what Solomon presents as an ideal for some, is now a possibility for all.

Let us all of us then become a “good wife” by being a “good and faithful servant” who by our fidelity “over a few things” in the practical order, prove ourselves to be able to rule “over many things” and able to enter “into the joy of [our] Lord” (Matthew 25:23) in the Kingdom to come.

Kalo Pascha!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Lifelong Task

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Thursday, March 29 (O.S., March 16), 2018: Thursday of the Sixth Week of Lent; Martyr Sabinus of Egypt († 287); ✺ Martyr Papas of Lyconia († 305-311); Apostle Aristobulus of the Seventy, Bishop of Britain (1st C); Hieromartyr Alexander, Pope of Rome († 119); Martyr Julian of Anazarbus (4th C); St. Serapion the Archbishop of Novgorod († 1516); Hieromartyrs Trophimus and Thallus, Priests of Laodicea († c. 300); Venerable Christodoulus the Wonderworker.

Sixth Hour: Isaiah 65:8-16
Vespers: Genesis 46:1-7
Vespers: Proverbs 23:15-24:5

Sometimes I’m tempted to confuse the Gospel with a fairy tale in which “they all lived happily ever after.” Like the blessings of wealth and power, judgment and condemnation are part of God’s economy. To be sure, these are not the central elements of the Christian life. But neither can they be ignored much less dismissed.

Taking Isaiah at his word, some will be saved but not all.

Thus says the LORD: “As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.

Compounding my embarrassment about the Gospel–and let’s be clear, that’s what it is, I am at time tempted to be ashamed of the Christ and His Word (see, Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26),–there is the unabashed materiality with which God describes salvation and condemnation.

…thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame; behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart,…

Throughout the Great Fast, God reveals Himself to us as a God Who saves not just the soul but the body as well.  And how could He do otherwise?

To be human means to have a body and to be a member of a community. When God saves Joseph, He also saves “his father Isaac.” And not only Isaac but his whole family. their households and all their worldly goods.

…Jacob set out from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. They also took their cattle and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him, his sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters; all his offspring he brought with him into Egypt.

God saves not simply the individual but the community. This means He also saves the material and social goods that communities need to thrive.

Likewise, God doesn’t just reward our good deeds, He also punishes our wicked ones. He calls us to Heaven but He allows us to choose Hell. And none of this is reserved for the life to come. It begins in this life.

Sin, as Solomon reminds us, is anything that cuts us off from the larger community. In today’s reading from Proverbs, two sins are singled out: Drunkenness and sexual immorality. Both these sins offer the illusion of salvation. Drunkenness offers a counterfeit joy; sexual immorality, a false communion.

And both these sins are their own punishment.

For a harlot is a deep pit; an adventuress is a narrow well. She lies in wait like a robber and increases the faithless among men. … Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.

The challenge we all face in our Christian life is this: How do we balance the different elements of the Gospel?

There is divine mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, on one side, divine justice, judgment, and condemnation on the other.

On the one hand, the blessings of wealth and power, on the other the need to living simply and in humility.

The exact balance will is different for each of us. It will even be different at different times in your life as your circumstances change. Finding the balance is a lifelong task.

When we come to understand this, the Christian life becomes daunting. Living this out is what makes the Christian life exhilarating.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

A Preparation For Love

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Wednesday, March 28 (O.S., March 15), 2018: Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Lent; Holy Martyrs Agapius, Publius, Timolaus, Romulus, Alexander, Alexander, Dionysius and Dionysius of Palestine († 303); New Hieromartyr Priest Alexis († 1938); New Hieromartyr Priest Michael († 1940); Hieromartyr Alexander of Side, in Pamphylia († 270-275); Martyr Nicander of Egypt († c. 302); New Martyr Manuel of Crete; Venerable Nicander of Gorodnoezersk.

Sixth Hour: Isaiah 58:1-11
Vespers: Genesis 43:26-31; 45:1-16
Vespers: Proverbs 21:23-22:4

As we come to the end of the Great Fast, God’s words in Isaiah can feel like a slap in the face. God doesn’t care about how strictly I fast. What matters to God is that whether I “loose the bonds of wickedness” that grip my heart and oppress my neighbor.

Have I undone the “thongs of the yoke … to let the oppressed go free”? Have I shared my “bread with the hungry,” brought the homeless into my home, clothed the naked and all while also caring for my family? Have I, in other words, fulfilled the commandments Jesus gave me at the beginning of Great Fast on the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46)?

Mother Maria of Paris writes that Christians are “called to organize a better life for the workers, to provide for the old, to build hospitals, care for the children, fight against exploitation, injustice, want, lawlessness.” Whether we do this “on an individual or social level” what we do must “be based on love” for our neighbor. Such love, the saint concludes, is demanding and requires from us an “ascetic ministry to his material needs, attentive and responsible work, a sober and unsentimental awareness of our strength” and an accurate and truthful evaluation of the “true usefulness” of our efforts on behalf of others.

Fasting, and indeed all our asceticism, is but a preparation for love.

Our ascetical efforts throughout the Great Fast have been at the service of removing from our own hearts anything the would limit our willingness to love sacrificially. This why, after Isaiah’s stern words on fasting, the Church puts before us the example of the Patriarch Joseph.

Betrayed by his brothers, he is sold into slavery, and is falsely accused of attempted rape. Still he eventually rises to be the second most powerful man in the most powerful kingdom of earth: Egypt. By the time of today’s reading, whatever resentment and bitterness he may have had as a young man, has been washed away.

Joseph was healed by prayer, fasting, and work.

Throughout his time in Egypt, he never forgot his God. To keep the Law, he abstained from the rich food and drink enjoyed by the Egyptians. And he worked to make himself a profitable servant even to those who mistreated him. In this way, to return momentarily to Isaiah, he anticipates the God’s promise to Israel that will be fulfilled in Jesus Christ:

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, “Here I am.”

Joseph stands in stark contrast to the wicked man in Proverbs. He also represents for each of us a choice as we now being to shift our focus from the Great Fast to the events of Great and Holy Week.

In the days leading up to the Resurrection, will I be revealed as a “scoffer,” a “haughty man who acts with arrogant pride”? Or will I, like Joseph, forgive my enemies? Will I “do good to those who hate” me, “bless those who curse” me, “and pray for those who spitefully use” me (Luke 6:27-28, NKJV)?

The sign that I have taken the role of the scoffer is this: My asceticism has become an end in itself. When this happens, Mother Maria writes, “All the ugliness of this world, its sores and its pain, are pushed to one side and obscured so that they will not disturb” me. To the scoffer “even the suffering and death of the Lord himself, his human exhaustion, acquires an aura of beauty, inviting admiration and delight” but is emptied of any power to transform me into one who loves as God loves.

What about love?  It “is a very dangerous thing. At times it must reach down into the fathomless lower levels of the human spirit, it must expose itself to ugliness, to the violation of harmony. There is no room for it where beauty, when once discovered and sanctioned, reigns forever.”

Our asceticism, our wealth, our power these are all just for this one thing: That we become willing and able to receive and to give God’s love.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Neither With Fear Nor Contempt

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Tuesday, March 27 (O.S., March 14), 2018: Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Lent; Venerable Benedict of Nursia († 543); New Hieromartyr Priest Basil († 1943); Holy Hierarch Theognostus, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia († 1353); Right-believing Great Prince Rostislav-Michael of Kiev († 1167); St. Euschemon the Confessor and Bishop of Lampsacus (9th C); Theodore – Kostroma Icon of the Mother of God (1613).

Sixth Hour: Isaiah 49:6-10
Vespers: Genesis 31:3-16
Vespers: Proverbs 21:3-21

We have throughout our reflections on the Lenten readings seen that the Old Testament values wealth and power as morally good. This makes some Christians uncomfortable. They see the acquisition of wealth as tantamount to avarice and the pursuit of power as exploiting the weak.

These and other temptations are real and should be guarded against. At the same time, we can’t be indifferent to the harm by those who don’t understand the uses and limitations of wealth and power and so think Christians should have nothing to do with either.

Isaiah reminds us the blessings God has given the Jewish people are so that they can fulfill their vocation to be “a light to the nations.” God’s material blessings as much as His spiritual blessings are bestowed on Israel so that “salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

We can’t pursue wealth and power for their own sake. When we do, they become idols. The Old Testament is clear on this point. When we situate the Old Testament’s teaching on wealth and power within this context, we see that the right use of wealth and power preparations for the Gospel.

We can’t simply dismiss wealth and power as if they had no positive role to play in salvation. How much harm has been done, how much good has been left undone, by well-meaning Christians who simply didn’t understand how to use money or to exercise authority?

Look at the example of Jacob. God teaches him how to deal with his dishonest father-in-law.

Laban is frankly a cheat. He is willing to harm Jacob and so his own daughters in pursuit of wealth. Rather than having Jacob deliver a sermon, or stand passively and be cheated, God engages in a little sharp dealing.

Every time Laban changes which goats Jacob will receive as his wages, God changes the outcome. When Laban tells Jacob, “’The spotted shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore spotted; and if he said, ‘The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore striped. Thus God has taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me.”

God impoverishes Laban as punishment for trying to cheat Jacob.

Solomon is clear. The wise man knows how to use wealth and exercise authority not simply for his own sake but for the sake of others. “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin. … He who closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself cry out and not be heard. … He who pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honor” both in the eyes of God and neighbor.

Christians can’t be either afraid or contemptuous of wealth and power. We must rather learn to acquire and use them in ways that are pleasing to God and to advance the Gospel.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Destroyers of Grace

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Monday, March 26 (O.S., March 13), 2018: Monday of the Sixth Week of Lent; Translation of the relics of St Nicephorus the Patriarch of Constantinople (846); New Hieromartyr Priest Nicholas († 1919); New Hieromartyr Priest Gregory († 1921); New Hieromartyr Priest Michael († 1938); Martyr Sabinus (Abibus) of Egypt († 287); Martyrs Africanus, Publius and Terence at Carthage (3rd C); Martyr Alexander of Macedonia (305-311); Martyr Christina of Persia (4th C); Venerable Aninas, hieromonk of the Euphrates; Hieromartyr Puplius, Bishop of Athens.

Sixth Hour: Isaiah 48:17-49:4
Vespers: Genesis 27:1-41
Vespers: Proverbs 19:16-25

The Old Testament is unapologetic in praising the moral goodness of wealth in all its forms. As God says through the Prophet Isaiah

I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.

Wealth, peace, children and a good reputation that last through the ages. These are the tangible blessings of keeping the commandments of God and living a life of moral righteousness. Taking Isaiah as our guide, we do well by doing good.

For those who fail to keep the commandments, “for the wicked,” there “is no peace.” In every generation, God raises up prophets to condemn the unrighteous. He calls them to repentance not with a gentleness but with a word spoken from a “mouth like a sharp sword.”

This call to reform always takes the wicked by surprise. Though God calls His prophets “from the womb,” He conceals them “in the shadow” of His hand. They are like a “polished arrow in His quiver,” hidden away until the moment when they are to strike.

God does this because when the wicked hear a prophet has arisen, they respond with violence. Look at Herod. To avoid being called to account for his sins by the Christ, he orders the murder of “all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under” (see Matthew 2:16-18).

Divine condemnation doesn’t keep people from profiting from wickedness. This is one of King David’s great complaints. “I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men nor are they plagued like other men (Psalm 73:-5, NKJV).

Through cunning and a bold lie, Jacob steals Isaac’s blessing for Esau. When the older brother discovers the younger crime he responds “with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, even me also, O my father!’” But his father has nothing for him. “Your brother came with guile, and he has taken away your blessing.”

The real sin of the wicked isn’t greed or pride. It is rather their willingness to rob others of grace. The wicked “steal” a blessing by “guile” as Jacob does from Esau.

Grace is stolen not by injuring God but by spreading mistrust, hatred, and violence. Grace is stolen by wounding the heart of the innocent and plunging the guileless into despair. This is the sin of those who Solomon calls a “man of great wrath” who repay forgiveness by once again falling into the sin from which they were only recently delivered.

God raises up prophets in every generation to save us from these individuals, from these destroyers of grace. When individuals such as are allowed free rein in civil society or the Church–or worse, are allowed to rule–they rob others of God’s blessing.

Solomon compares these people to the “sluggard” who keeps others by eating by burying “his hand in the dish” and “not even bring it back to his mouth.” The wicked neither partake of grace nor step aside to allow others to do so.

Or, as Jesus says of them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (Matthew 23:15).

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory