Among the stewards was a certain monk, Father P., who was outstandingly capable, yet somehow always unlucky – his initiatives usually met with no sympathy among the fathers and his undertakings often ended in failure.

One day, after one such enterprise had resulted in disaster, he was subjected to sharp criticism at the stewards’ table. Father Silouan was present but took no part in the ‘prosecution.’ One of the stewards, Father M., turned to him and said:

‘You are silent, Father Silouan. That means you side with Father P. and are indifferent to the interests of the monastery. You don’t mind the damage he has caused the community.’

Father Silouan said nothing but quickly finished eating and then went up to Father M., who by that time had also left the table.

‘Father M. – how many years have you been in the monastery?’

‘Thirty-five.’

‘Did you ever hear me criticize anyone?’

‘No’

‘Then why do you want me to begin with Father P.?’

Disconcerted Father M. replied shamefacedly: ‘‘Forgive me.’

‘God will forgive.’

(From The Monk of Mount Athos, p. 42-43, by Archimandrite Sophrony)

(a talk for an Orthodox Christian Pro-Life Event; January 22, 2012)

Today is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion—through all 50 states, for any reason whatsoever. When I was a college student, back in the 70’s, I was in favor of legalizing abortion. I wasn’t a Christian then, but I was a feminist, the first feminist in my dorm, and I was loudly in favor of social revolution and women’s rights. I took it for granted that abortion was necessary, if women were ever going to be equal to men.

Of course, I didn’t think the number of abortions would ever be very high. Most of us, at that time, assumed that women wouldn’t want to have abortions, and would do so only in the most extreme situations. Things didn’t turn out that way. As of last June, the number of abortions since Roe v. Wade was 53,600,000.     (NRLC estimate of 49,551,703 through 2007, and 1 million /yr since then)

A number like that is hard to grasp. There’s a quote often attributed to Josef Stalin: “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” So people have tried to think of illustrations to make the numbers real. Many years ago, I heard a speaker say that, if the name of each child killed by abortion was inscribed on a monument like the Vietnam War memorial, the wall would stretch for 50 miles. That was a long time ago, and the wall by now would be several times longer; but of course no such wall could be built, because those children had no names.

Sometimes pro-lifers have tried to represent the statistics by setting up a temporary “cemetery of the innocents,” with one white wooden cross representing each child. A friend of mine worked in the Dept of Health and Human Services under George Bush Sr, and one day she and the director watched out the window as people set up one of these cemeteries; 4100 white wooden crosses stood in lines across the lawn. The director asked what was going on, and she replied that it was designed to make people realize the numbers of abortion; each cross represented an aborted child.

He looked at the multitude of crosses and said, “Imagine, that many in a single year.” She replied, “No, sir. That many in a single day.”

Why should we care about this? Why should Orthodox Christians, in particular, care? Isn’t the pro-life cause something that Catholics get involved in, and evangelical Protestants? What business is it of ours?

You may be surprised to learn that abortion was common in the ancient Roman Empire. The methods were more dangerous than today (I should say, more dangerous to the mother; every abortion is lethally dangerous to the child). But those methods were nevertheless used by women who wanted to conceal sexual activity, or who were forced to have abortions by their husbands and lovers.

The ancient, pagan world was a harsh one. Not only were children aborted before birth, but a newborn child was not officially received into a family until its father picked it up and held it. If the father didn’t want the child he simply refused to take it up, and the child was legally abandoned. This was called “exposing” an infant; it would be placed in some public place, and the social fiction was that someone else might pick it up and care for it. Sometimes people did take in these babies, and rear them to be sold as slaves or put on the street as prostitutes. But, often enough, no one took the child before it was found by dogs or other animals, or died of exposure and starvation.

And this was legal. It was a harsh world. Christians stood out as different, in that world. They were different in seeing every human being as worthy of dignity, whether free or slave, male or female, Jew or Gentile (as St. Paul said in Galatians 3:21). One of the big differences between Christians and pagans was that Christians did not have abortions. From the earliest years, the Church Fathers spoke against abortion. Let me read you some of their statements.

This is from the Didache, a work which was written about the same time as the Gospels: “You shall not murder a child by abortion.”

The Letter of Barnabas, written about the same time, repeats those words. “You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not murder a child by abortion.” Note the connection he makes there. This is not about sexual morality, it’s about loving your neighbor, who in this case is a helpless child.

The Letter to Diognetus, probably written around 125, describes to a nonbeliever what Christians are like. He writes, “They marry, as do all others; they beget children, but they do not abort fetuses.”

The Apocalypse of Peter says that, in heaven, aborted children are cared for by an angel named Temlakos. He writes, “The children shall be given over to the caretaking angel Temlakos, and those who slew the children will be punished forever, for this is God’s will.”

Let’s pause a moment and ask: who slew them? When a woman aborts her child, who is to blame? Most people would say that it is the woman’s choice, so she bears the responsibility. But I learned how complex it can be some years ago, when I was working on a book titled Real Choices. My goal in the book was to find out why women have abortions, and figure out what pro-lifers can do to help them have better alternatives.

In the process I went all over the country interviewing women who had had abortions, and I asked them to tell me what led up to their choice. What I found was that, in many tragic cases, the abortion hadn’t been her choice at all. Sometimes it was the choice of her boyfriend or husband, and sometimes it was her own parents pressuring her to have an abortion. Two women told me the same story, that even while they were lying on the table in the abortion clinic, they were praying the boyfriend would burst through the door and say, “Stop! I changed my mind!”

So it’s not up to us to decide who gets the blame. God alone reads the heart. Surely, we as an entire culture must shoulder some of the responsibility, for giving women the message that abortion can solve her problems, and she should be grateful to have a so-called “choice.” Yet it’s obvious that this “choice” is profoundly unnatural in biological terms; throughout history women would regard the premature end of pregnancy and death of an unborn child as a tragedy. But we’ve been through almost 40 years of brainwashing about how liberating abortion is, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that so many women end up in abortion clinics—and when it’s all over, are left to grieve alone. There is an enormous thundercloud of unspoken grief in America, due to the millions of women who bought the abortion lie, and now are haunted by that so-called choice.

So there’s no room for blame. God sees the heart, and God knows. And whatever the woman’s role in this tragedy might be, surely there’s nothing as cold-hearted as the person who decided to go into business doing abortions all day long.

Yet, even though the early Christians refused to participate in abortion, a terrible rumor circulated about them in those days. You know that, in the centuries when Christianity was illegal, some parts of our faith were kept secret and not shared outside the community of believers. For example, the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist was something only baptized Christians knew about, and it was never spoken about to nonbelievers. We still say, in the pre-communion prayer of St. John Chrysostom, “I will not speak of your mystery to your enemies.”

Yet rumors started to circulate that Christians were cannibals. There was a story going around that in Christian worship a baby was put inside a sack of flour and beaten to death, and then eaten. Well, if you thought people in your neighborhood were doing that as part of a religious ritual, you’d want to see them executed too. And you can see how the rumor is a mixed-up version of our belief that Christ came to earth as a child, and that he gives us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. So, many of the early Christians were martyred because they were thought to be child-killers and cannibals, and some early writers protest it’s a lie, Christians do no such thing, while it’s pagans who commit abortion and expose newborns.

Minucius Felix wrote, around 200 AD, “I would like to meet the person who says …that we [Christians] are brought into the faith by means of the slaughter and blood of an infant. Do you think that it can be possible for such a tender little body to receive such fatal wounds? Is it possible for anyone to pour forth the new blood of a little child, scarcely come into existence? Nobody is capable of believing this—except the person who would do it. Yes, I see that you expose your newborn children to wild beasts and to birds, and at other times crush them to death. There are some women who drink medicines that extinguish the life of a child while it is still inside their body, and thus murder their own relative before they bring it forth.”

Tertullian says that for Christians, “Since murder has been once and for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb. …To interfere with a birth is merely an earlier way of killing a person. It doesn’t matter whether you take away a life that has been born, or destroy one that is coming to birth.” (Apology 9:8) Elsewhere he wrote, “We hold that life begins with conception, and that the soul also begins at conception; life has its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does.” (Apology 27)

St. John Chrysostom wrote, “Do you condemn the gifts of God, and fight against His laws? Childlessness is seen as a curse, but you seek it as though it were a blessing. Do you make the chamber of birth a place of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is formed to give life to perpetuate killing instead?” (Homilies on Romans 24)

St. Basil puts medicines that cause abortion in the same category as other kinds of killing. He writes, “The man or woman is a murderer who gives a potion, if the person that takes it dies from it. So also are they who uses a medicine to procure abortion; and so are those robbers who kill on the highway.”

Our Orthodox Christian heritage is absolutely opposed to abortion and child-killing from its very beginnings. This stand against abortion and exposure of infants is, in fact, one of the things that attracted people to the Christian faith. Women were drawn to a religion that, for a change, would stop men from taking their children away.

Our faith’s affirmation of life from the moment of conception is evident in the passage in the Gospel of Luke, in which Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, and Elizabeth says that her unborn son leaped for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. She says, “Why do I deserve such honor, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.” (Luke 1:39-45) The unborn John the Forerunner recognized the presence of Christ and his mother, and Elizabeth, with prophetic insight, realized what was happening.

Our Lord Jesus Christ did not become a human being on Christmas Day, but 9 months earlier, on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, when the angel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her that she would conceive a child. The Forerunner did not become a human being on the day he was born; he was already a prophet and a servant of the Most High, even in his mother’s womb.

I don’t see how people living in a scientific age can think a fetus in the womb is not a living human being.  People have understood this for centuries—every Christian who went to church on the feast of the Annunciation, for example. Now, we know much more than they did, in terms of prenatal science. We have sonograms and can actually look inside the womb. We know that, at the moment the sperm dissolves in the ovum, there is a living, growing human being.  There is actually no scientific debate about when life begins. From the moment of conception it is alive. From that moment is starts growing, fast. By 21 days, it has a heartbeat. It is definitely alive, and in fact if it was not alive she would not need an abortion, but would have a natural miscarriage. So “When life begins” is not something scientists, or even ordinary people, are confused about.

It is human, too.  If you looked at a cell from the growing unborn child under a microscope, you would say, “Yes, that’s human.  That’s not chimpanzee, it’s not watermelon.  It is human.”  This living being is 100% human.

What’s more, it is a unique living human.  If you took a cell from the mother, a cell from the father, and a cell from the unborn child, and analyzed the DNA, you would say, “There are three individuals here.”  The unborn child is dependent on its mother for sustenance, and after birth will continue to be dependent on both father and the mother for shelter and food. But it is not a part of the mother. It does not have her DNA.

So we know that from the very beginning this unborn being is alive.  It is human.  It is unique.  And that is the basis of the Orthodox Christian belief that abortion is wrong.

Of course, there are many women who’ve had abortions, but didn’t want to.  Or may have felt it was the only choice at the time, and in the years afterward regretted it. There is a lot of hidden grief about abortion, but very little talk about it.

When I was writing Real Choices, one woman told me that, at the time of her abortion, she was pro-choice. But afterward she felt terribly sad, and she told me, “I couldn’t tell anybody how I felt. If I’d told my pro-choice friends that I felt depressed, they would say, ‘Are you a traitor? You had your choice; you should be happy with it.’ But if I told my pro-life friends, I was afraid they might say, ‘You’re a murderer.  We won’t have anything to do with you.”’

So there are many, many women, and certainly some Orthodox Christian women, who have this in their past, and they grieve but don’t feel free to talk about it.  I would urge anyone in that position to talk with your priest.  Believe me, there’s nothing you can say to a priest that he hasn’t heard sometime before.  He’s never going to be shocked.  And priests often say that, when they hear a confession, it makes them admire the person more, who love God so much that they’re willing to speak of painful things. So please don’t keep this in.  If you hide this grief inside it feels even bigger and more overwhelming than needs to be. So schedule a talk or schedule a confession, and begin to be healed from this guilt. God forgives.

If you’ve been involved in an abortion, don’t let yourself be overtaken by despair, but remind yourself that that child is still alive, in heaven. Maybe it did not have a long earthly life, but its eternal life will go on forever, in the presence of God.  Psalm 27:10 says,

Though my mother and my father reject me, you will take me up.

God the Father has taken that child up, as one of his own.  And if you persevere on the path of holiness, one day you’ll be reunited with that child, in the place where all sorrow and sighing has fled away, and the tears have been wiped from every eye.

If you need to talk through you grief, look in look in the yellow pages for “abortion alternatives.”  You will find listed there a number of pregnancy care centers, and these center’s don’t help only pregnant women, but also women who have had abortions, and even the fathers of aborted babies.  Nearly all pregnancy centers offer abortion grief counseling, and they can help you work through this grief to resolution.

In conclusion, I’d like to give you three reasons for hope. Though abortion has been a fixture in America for 38 years, there is reason for hope.

The first is that people can change their minds about this issue. I can give myself as an example. As I said, I was very pro-abortion back in my college days. One day I was home on vacation, and was reading my dad’s copy of Esquire magazine. In it there was an article titled “What I Saw at the Abortion.”

As I read the description of a second-trimester abortion, I was horrified. Because I was anti-war, anti-death penalty, a vegetarian, anti-violence in every form. And I had to admit that abortion was the violent taking of a human life. It was completely incompatible with my other non-violent values.

So the first point of encouragement is—me. It is possible for people to change, even if they’ve been hardened defenders of abortion. If I can change, anyone can change.

The second reason for hope is that polls are just beginning to show a shift in America on this issue. It made the news in May 2009, when the Gallup organization released the surprising results of a poll. For the past 14 years, Gallup has been asking Americans, “With respect to the abortion issue, do you consider yourself to be pro-choice or prolife?”

In 2006, 51% said they were pro-choice and 41% pro-life. But in May 2009, those numbers exactly flipped. For the first time, a majority said they were pro-life; 51% pro-life and 42% pro-choice.

Now, it’s not like there were a lot of pro-life messages in the culture during those three years. If anything, it looked like the abortion debate was over. People weren’t talking about it as much as they used to. Yet maybe, in that moment of silence, some deep-seated ambivalence had a chance to come forward. For whatever reason, America was becoming a country where the majority of the people are now willing to claim the label “pro-life.”

One possible reason this has happened is that young people are more pro-life than older people, and as they come into adulthood the balance is beginning to shift. I think that, for my generation, abortion was framed as being all about the woman, and what struggles she faced, and her right to choose. But I think that for younger people it’s about the baby. Boomers identified with the woman, but they identify with the child who is at risk.

In October, 2010, a book was released titled “American Grace,” and it contained the results of the most comprehensive survey ever held in America on the topic of religion. One thing the authors found was that young people are more pro-life than their parents. Now, young people are not more conservative than their parents, and they’re not religious. They are less likely to attend church, more likely to favor of gay marriage and to call themselves liberals. But they are consistently more opposed to abortion than their parents.

The authors, Robert Putnam and David Campbell, say that this is showing up consistently in many polls, so there’s no longer any doubt about it. They don’t know why it is happening, but they suggest that maybe the prevalence of ultrasound images of unborn babies has made a difference. Also, that young people don’t think it’s likely abortion will be made illegal, so opposing it doesn’t seem likely to cause a drastic change in the law. And they think that young people feel that contraception is available to everyone, so if there’s a pregnancy, it’s due to irresponsibility. They don’t have sympathy with that.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Juno (2007), about a high school student who gets pregnant and places the baby for adoption rather than have an abortion. The authors of American Grace call it “a good illustration of young people’s increasing uneasiness with abortion.”

When Juno gets pregnant she calls up an abortion clinic and makes an appointment, in almost a flippant way. But as she’s walking in to keep her appointment she meets a classmate who is outside protesting. The classmate tells her that her baby already has fingernails, and Juno is surprised. As she sits in the clinic waiting room, she keeps noticing people’s fingernails, clearly thinking about it—and she gets up and walks out without the abortion. The authors ofAmerican Grace say “We mention the movie because the character of Juno neatly embodies young people’s unease with abortion. …At no point in the film does she offer a religious reason for choosing not to abort her pregnancy.”

And here’s a third reason for hope: we don’t have to wait for the laws to change on abortion to start reducing these high numbers. We can make a difference today by helping pregnant women choose life.

When I wrote Real Choices, I was trying to find out what were the main reasons pregnant women chose abortion rather than finishing the pregnancy and either raising the child or placing it for adoption. What do pregnant women need?

I thought the answer would be something like, more maternity homes, more college scholarships. But when I asked women who had had abortions what the reason was, I kept hearing the same thing. Over and over again, women told me, “I had my abortion was because of a relationship.” Most of the time it was the father of the child who was pressuring her to have an abortion; in other cases, it was her parents. In 88% of the cases, the woman had had the abortion because someone she loved told her she should.

When I asked, “What could anyone have done to help you have the baby,” Over and over women told me, “I would have had the baby if there had been somebody to stand by me.” They weren’t asking for a lot; they weren’t asking for housing and jobs and a handout. They were just asking for a friend.

All over this city there are pregnancy care resource centers that exist to give pregnant women that support. They give a lot more than that, but the most important thing is standing by the pregnant woman and helping her be strong. Again, look in the yellow pages under “alternatives to abortion.” These organizations always need help from people who believe in their mission. They need donations of diapers, baby formula, maternity clothes, and they need volunteers, too. Think about giving your time to one of them. That’s the third reason for hope: you can prevent abortion, one case at a time, right in your own neighborhood, just by being a friend.

Finally, I want to recognize you for your courage and dedication. After I’d been speaking and writing about the abortion issue for many years, appearing on TV shows and college campuses all over the country, I came to the conclusion that the biggest influence in the abortion debate is peer pressure. I saw over and over that my opponents in debate had no answer for the arguments I put forth. So they would just ignore them, and talk about how awful pro-lifers are. I would attack abortion, and they would attack me. They didn’t try to defend abortion.

If you stand up on this issue, you will be attacked. Pro-choice is still the socially-approved position, and it takes a lot of courage to publicly say that you stand for life. In every generation there’s an issue like this, that draws a line between those who will stand up for what is right, and those who just go along. Only the bravest people take a stand, and continue to bear witness even when others mock them and misrepresent them; only the bravest keep standing when, from a worldly perspective, the cause looks lost. Only the most dedicated people are willing to keep working for change, when the struggle is all uphill and they reap nothing but rejection.

You are those people. And you are not alone. The angels and saints see you persevering in this labor, just as champions of earlier generations did their part.  The struggle is not lost. Despite overwhelming pressure to favor abortion, the tide of public opinion is beginning to turn. Young people are leading the way.

Your efforts on behalf of this cause, to help pregnant women and preserve the lives of unborn children, are seen by God and the angels, and will stand for eternity. You are the heroes of this hour—and, even if the hour looks dark, it truly is darkest before the dawn. Truth cannot be suppressed forever. You may wonder if the pro-choice side has won the day—but sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. The time to get on the right side of history is now.

Originally at frederica.com

…And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12)

Rotating Obediences and the Plundering of Grace

by Monk Cosmas

As St. Paul says, “If anyone will not work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). So we work. Assigned duties in our monastery are called “obediences” because they are done in obedience to the abbot or the man he designates to assign tasks, and ultimately in obedience both to God and to our brothers in Christ. They fall into two broad categories, revenue-generating on the one hand and housekeeping and upkeep on the other. We do various things to bring in the money needed to pay our bills, and these chores or jobs are given out partly on the basis of an individual’s skills and talents. Revenue-generating obediences include such things as the making of hand-dipped 100% beeswax candles which we sell to churches, a bookstore, our publishing operation, wooden coffins which we make on order, and the importing and selling of liturgical items, primarily priests’ vestments.

The revenue-generating obediences represent the business side of the monastery. What is more interesting in some ways is the set of obediences that fall under the housekeeping and upkeep side of monastic life. These fall into two groups—the long-term assignments and the rotating obediences. My long-term housekeeping and upkeep obediences include making coffee and cleaning the church, the guest bathroom, and the area around the guesthouse. Other people have to sweep and clean the public areas, especially the walkways, the other bathrooms, the office, the dorm, and the dining area. We have a number of vehicles—for the most part fairly old and decrepit—and each vehicle has a “steward” who is responsible for making sure that it has plenty of oil, antifreeze, a good spare tire, and that it is inspected for smog when necessary, and all the other sorts of things required to maintain a car “in the world.”

Now we come to an even more interesting topic—rotating obediences and the plundering of grace. I will try to explain how this works, because it shows the synergy between the rather ordinary and the more spiritual aspect of monastic obediences. Every week a new schedule is posted on the refrigerator in the trapeza—that is, the dining room. It lists the services for that week, including any special feasts and any visits we are making as a group to a nearby church. If we know that the bishop will be visiting that week, that is usually indicated as well, or if a new priest or deacon is coming to practice serving with us before going to his first parish assignment, that will be noted as well. Along the top of the week’s schedule are listed the rotating obediences for the week. There are three of them—dishes, trapeza and compline reader, and tables. Dishes means simply washing dishes after meals and unloading the dishwasher so that the table-setter has plenty of plates, dishes, bowls, glasses, coffee mugs, teacups, and silverware to put out for meals. The trapeza and compline reader has the one-week assignment of reading a selected spiritual or inspirational text while others eat—that is, until someone finishes his meal, and then the abbot nods to him to read so that the assigned reader can sit down to eat—and to be the main reader at the compline service in the evening which is also known as apodeipnon. The obedience we call “tables” consists of setting the table for each meal and gathering the dirty plates, dishes, bowls, glasses, coffee mugs, teacups, and silverware after the meal is over.

My own rule of thumb is that my cycle of rotating duties comes up about every seven weeks, and then I have three weeks of obediences in a row, going from one obedience to the next. In practice it isn’t quite that simple, because we do not have a single list containing all the rotating obediences, but three separate lists and a set of rules for the interaction between the lists. For example, a given person cannot have two of the obediences in the same week, nor can anyone be given dishwashing duty or table-clearing duty if he cooks that week. Besides that, one man has a blessing to be exempted from doing the readings. In addition, if someone is away from the monastery for a week—for example, on a visit to his family—he trades places with someone else. In other words, the formulae for calculating the rotating obediences are something like the formulae for determining moveable feasts and other such niceties of the liturgical calendar. In any case, what it means for me in a practical sense is that most weeks I check the calendar and exclaim, “Oh, cool!—I’m off the hook this week.”

This leads us to the most interesting part of the whole topic—the plundering of grace. As we know, salvation belongs to the violent. But how does “spiritual violence” apply to rotating obediences? Well, one application is that we can seek out opportunities to help our brother when it is not our own turn to do anything that week, and especially when there happen to be a lot of guests at the time. I recall when I was on dishwashing duty the week of Christmas. That night we had the bishop with us for dinner, and we sat around the table late into the night singing Christmas carols and chatting while I contemplated—with great dismay—the huge piles of dishes and pots and pans that I knew were waiting for me in the kitchen. When we finally got up from the table, two of my beloved brothers in Christ asked for a blessing to help me wash dishes, and as a result of their kindness, we were able to finish washing them shortly before midnight. The fact that they willingly helped their brother to bear his burden is a practical example of “taking the kingdom of heaven by force.” What is even more praiseworthy—and I won’t give any examples of it here so as not to spoil the grace of it—is when one of the brothers or fathers sees that someone has left part of his rotating obedience undone and simply does it for him quietly, without complaining about his brother’s lapse or calling attention to the fact that he did something he was not required to do.

Perhaps it seems like we are reading a lot into little ordinary things when we see something so simple as doing another person’s chores as a victory in the spiritual warfare, but stop and think about it. It can mean growth in humility and obedience, and an increased concern for the welfare of others. Those things—not mystical experiences and altered states—are what the real spiritual life in a monastery is all about.

So I enjoy reading how western liturgical Christians adapt their existing cultural observances when they enter the Orthodox Church. Father Ernesto Obregon, who came to Orthodoxy from the Anglican tradition, describes how his family uses an Advent wreath to build anticipation of the feast of Christ’s Nativity as the Church enters the Advent season which begins November 15. He writes:

Advent is the 40 day period prior to Nativity during which we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Messiah. It is a period of fasting, prayer and participation in the church services and sacraments to help us understand the full meaning of Christ’s coming.

One way to observe Advent and involve the whole family is through the Advent wreath. First purchase a wreath (either decorated or a plain one which can be decorated) or make one out of styrofoam. There should be space enough for seven candles (one for each week of Advent). Between the candles spread evergreen branches or arrange the candles around the wreath between the branches. The colors of the candles are: green, blue, gold, white, red and purple. If it is difficult to obtain candles in these colors, tie colored ribbon around white candles.

As the wreath is assembled know the symbolism of each part. The circle (wreath) is the Christian symbol for God Who is eternal. The evergreen branches symbolize eternal life, the life of God, of which Christ came to make us partakers. The candles represent Christ Who is the light of the world. The color of each candle expresses a specific theme which can be discussed as a family or among fellow Orthodox Christians each week as Advent progresses. One candle is lit each week on Sunday.

First Sunday of Advent

Candle: green (faith)

Symbolism: The first candle reminds us of faith, the faith we have in God that He will keep His promise to send His Son.

Scripture: Isaiah 9:2, 6-7; 40:3-5; 52:7

Theme: God’s promise to send the Messiah.

Second Sunday of Advent

Candle: blue (hope)

Light both candles and review the meaning of the first candle.

Symbolism: The second candle reminds us of the hope we have that Christ will come again this year to bring new joy into our lives.

Scripture: Luke 1:5-31

Theme: Ways in which Christ brings joy to our hearts today and why should a Christian be joyful.

Third Sunday of Advent

Candle: gold (love)

Light all three candles and review the meaning of the first two candles.

Symbolism: Remember the words of St. John, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”

Scripture: St. Luke 1:26-38.

Theme: The life of St. Nicholas who was known for his great generosity in distributing gifts and money to the poor. He preferred to deliver his gifts after dark and in disguise so that no one would know who left them. How can we follow his example by giving gifts to the needy?

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Candle: white (peace)

Always review the meaning of the previous candles as the candles are being lit.

Symbolism: This candle reminds us of the Angel’s message to the shepherds, “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

Scripture: Luke 2:1-18

Theme: Reflect on whether there is someone who has something against us, or if we have something against anyone. Are there relationships that need repairing or people we need to forgive? Forgive and be forgiven.

Fifth Sunday of Advent

Candle: purple (repentance)

Review the meaning of the first four candles.

Symbolism: This candle reminds us of our need to repent before we can meet the coming of Christ. “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Scripture: Mark 1:1-8, 14-15.

Theme: Discuss repentance and then prepare oneself with a thorough self-examination followed by confession and communion.

Sixth Sunday of Advent

Candle: red (Holy Communion)

Symbolism: Christ, Who was born in Bethlehem and Who will come again at the end of time, comes to us now in the great Sacrament of Holy Communion. The reason He was born in Bethlehem was that we might allow Him to come and be born in the manger of our hearts.

Scripture: John 1:1-18 and John 6:52-58.

Theme: Reflect on Holy Communion

Seventh Sunday of Advent

Candle: a specially decorated white candle such as the one used at baptism or during Pascha (Christ)

Begin by lighting all seven candles. Review the meaning of the first six candles.

Symbolism: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given and His name shall be called Wonderful.”

Scripture: Luke 2:1-7

Theme: The meaning of Christ’s coming.

1. Spend some time each day quietly reflecting on how we would like to relate to ourselves and others.
2. Remember that all human beings have the same needs.
3. Check our intention to see if we are as interested in others getting their needs met as our own.
4. When asking someone to do something, check first to see if we are making a request or a demand.
5. Instead of saying what we DON’T want someone to do, say what we DO want the person to do.
6. Instead of saying what we want someone to BE, say what action we’d like the person to take that we hope will help the person be that way.
7. Before agreeing or disagreeing with anyone’s opinions, try to tune in to what the person is feeling and needing.
8. Instead of saying “No,” say what need of ours prevents us from saying “Yes.”
9. If we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what’s wrong with others or ourselves.
10. Instead of praising someone who did something we like, express our gratitude by telling the person what need of ours that action met.

The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) would like there to be a critical mass of people using Nonviolent Communication language so all people will get their needs met and resolve their conflicts peacefully.

© 2001, revised 2004 Gary Baran & CNVC

“The right to freely duplicate this document is hereby granted.”

My short response got long, so I’m posting it here.

Our parish was founded about eleven years ago by a priest and a three families from California. We had inquirers’ meetings in homes for a few months, then set up a chapel and began having daily services. Because there was a core community who were already familiar with this kind of sacramental community and worship, there was something for us inquirers to come and be immersed in from the beginning; from day one we had a common ethos. I think trying to start a congregation from zero would be vastly more difficult.

Common worship: We pray Matins and Vespers pretty much every day. Our biggest service is Great Vespers on Saturday evening, together with Matins and the Liturgy on Sunday morning. Folks stay after Vespers to speak with the priests (confession) so after a 45-minute service you’ll have an hour or two of people chatting outside or downstairs while the children run around having fun. Sundays we finish up around 11:30ish, then we have a potluck meal and coffee, and again we spend a while enjoying each other’s company. The shared experience of worship and common spiritual struggle is one of the strongest centripetal factors in our parish community.

We don’t have children’s church. The littles stay in the service with us. Often a family will arrive, hand off their babies and toddlers to the various godparents, and pick up their own godchildren before finding a place to stand for the service. When babies get noisy, we take them outside for a few minutes, then right back in; they learn early that worship services are a natural part of life. And they learn to sing at the same time they’re learning to talk.

Community: Many of us choose to live within walking distance of the temple, so we’re apt to show up on each other’s doorsteps or see one another when we go for a walk. We have one another over for meals frequently, along with folks from outside our community. One of our “core values” is hospitality, so we often have friends-of-friends staying with us.

Mission: We don’t do “evangelism” as a discrete category of action or ministry. But at any given time you’ll find our members interacting in the local art scene, the skater community, the symphony, with moms at the YWCA, in job placement and roller derby and ESL, leading rafting expeditions… all the normal healthy things real people do. Every one of those relationships exposes people to Christians being off-guard — if we’re living up to our hype, that means folks are seeing how genuine Christians treat one another. And pretty much all of these kinds of interactions have resulted in people encountering our web of relationships, becoming interested in our uncommon tradition, and eventually committing to our God in baptism.

Those of us who are former Evangelicals, or have been “witnessed” to, don’t appreciate sales pitches for Jesus; if everyone were an evangelism-target, then we’d never have real relationships with anyone as persons.

Leadership: We have several presbyters and deacons, plus cantors who run the services. The clergy have day jobs, and in the church they provide spiritual direction, help with teaching, and work at the altar. A parish council worries about the money and pays the bills (or so I assume since the lights are still on.) There’s a Sunday choir who lead congregational singing at major services, a ladies benevolent group that looks for charitable projects to support, a small food bank, a primary school, and a number of craftsmen, farmers, teachers, winemakers, web workers, and others who come up with ideas and put them into action. (Leadership is having an idea and making it happen. Nobody needs permission to lead something :-)

I hear a lot of Christians talk about building leaders. From our perspective, that may be skipping a step. Since we practice making disciples, not converts, our goal is holiness and wholeness for each person in the parish community, or who is coming into it. We concentrate on teaching people practical skills for the spiritual warfare of owning their bodies and wills; being intentional and present in the moment; and restoration to balance and inner stillness. There isn’t a point where we graduate and now we’re a spiritual adult. If the process of restoring souls and renewing minds is working, then we ought to see individuals naturally finding their stride and discovering ways they can serve (i.e. lead).

Part 1

Part 2

More information at paradisekids4africa.org.au

Ben Sternke comments on this video:

The only thing I would add is that the church doesn’t simply send out individuals to embody and proclaim the good news, but that the church needs to be equipping individuals-in-community to do these things. I firmly believe what Steve Timmis and Tim Chester say in their book Total Church: “Mission must involve not only contact between unbelievers and individual Christians, but between unbelievers and the Christian community.”

The church must be a community of love, and also be seen as a community of love. You can’t show people a community by yourself. Other than that one thing, I think the video above does a great job delineating the difference between “attractional” church and “missional” church.

Add your thoughts over at his blog…

Stephen Mansfield writes in USA Today:

The company’s 250-year legacy of God-inspired good provides myriad lessons for today. Among them: A benevolent corporate vision is good for business, for its employees and for the world. Interwoven throughout these 2 and a half centuries of brewing success is a legacy of benevolence that we ought to know and that is perhaps an antidote to one of the great crises of our age.

The values Arthur Guinness envisioned for his company were first honed in a life of devotion to God. He was an earthy but pious man who frequently thundered his views despite angry opposition. He was beloved throughout Ireland for his defense of Roman Catholic rights, for example, an astonishing stand for a Protestant in his day. He criticized the material excesses of the upper class and sat on the board of a hospital for the poor. He was also the founder of the first Sunday schools in Ireland. When he died in 1803, the Dublin Evening Post declared that Arthur Guinness’s life was “useful and benevolent and virtuous.” It was true.

Yet it was in the treatment of their employees as much as in their use of private wealth that the Guinnesses honored their founding principles…

More…

One of the common complaints against traditional evangelicalism is that it has been held captive by a distinctly Western approach to rationality. The central target of this complaint is the “Enlightenment,” with its emphasis on reason to the detriment of revelation.

This story about the Enlightenment opens up, I think, the possibility of reflecting about new ways in which we might be captive to the Enlightenment. Specifically, I wonder whether we have adopted of a pragmatic notion of rationality where what we think is subordinated to the ends it produces. To use a popular example, we tend to think that the missionary impulse is enough justification to engage in something like online church.

But our imperatives — our missional impulse — must be chastened and directed by the very real indicatives of theology.

…One more potential implication: evangelicals, in our adoption of technology, need to recognize that we are taking the fruit of a sickly tree. The ideology that undergirds technological production in our era is not neutral, but is grounded in an impulse to subordinate the whole world to our whims and wills. Churches should think seriously about being technological refuges, places where we can escape the principality and power that is technocentricism and adopt — if only for a few hours — a different way of being human. That younger evangelicals continue to be drawn toward Rome, Canterbury, and Constantinople is indicative of the fact that we want an alternative to this paradigm, while many churches are unwittingly perpetuating it.

More…

One reason why people leave the church without leaving their faith is they believe what the local church offers them isn’t significantly different from what they could get with Itunes and youtube.  The currency of the church must shift down the spectrum from knowledge to love.  Immediately people will object by saying we can’t cast away knowledge because we will end up becoming ignorant and futile.  I’m not arguing that we cast away knowledge.  It isn’t an all or nothing thing, just that we need to rebalance things to the point where people feel a tangible connection with others.

More…

“My passion isn’t to build up my church. My passion is for God’s Kingdom.”

Ever heard someone say that? I have. It sounds large-hearted, but it’s wrong. It can even be destructive.

Suppose I said, “My passion isn’t to build up my marriage. My passion is for Marriage. I want the institution of Marriage to be revered again. I’ll work for that. I’ll pray for that. I’ll sacrifice for that. But don’t expect me to hunker down in the humble daily realities of building a great marriage with my wife Jani. I’m aiming at something grander.”

If I said that, would you think, “Wow, Ray is so committed”? Or would you wonder if I had lost my mind?

If you care about the Kingdom, be the kind of person who can be counted on in your own church. Join your church, pray for your church, tithe to your church, participate in your church every Sunday with wholehearted passion.

We build great churches the same way we build great marriages — real commitment that makes a positive difference every day.

I know he’s using “passion” in a way OrthoFolks don’t. But his point is good…

Christianity without the Church isn’t Christian. Nobody is conformed to the image of Christ in isolation from common prayer and work with the body of Christ. And that body is found here in the specific place and time where believers, bishop and Eucharist come together.

The amount of work, inconvenience, and sacrifice we’re willing to put into worship, parish life, developing disciples, and doing love to folks here in the parish, points to how much the Church actually matters to us.

At the Altar Table the overweight parson is doing something or other with the bread as his assistant stands by with the wine. In the pews, the congregation sits more or less patiently waiting to get into the act. The church is quiet. Outside, a bird starts singing. It’s nothing special, only a handful of notes angling out in different directions. Then a pause. Then a trill or two. A chirp. It is just warming up for the business of the day, but it is enough.

The parson and his assistant and the usual scattering of senior citizens, parents, teenagers are not alone in whatever they think they’re doing. Maybe that is what the bird is there to remind them. In its own slapdash way the bird has a part in it too. Not to mention “Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven” if the prayer book is to be believed. Maybe we should believe it. Angels and Archangels. Cherubim and seraphim. They are all in the act together. It must look a little like the great jeu de son et lumière at Versailles when all the fountains are turned on at once and the night is ablaze with fireworks. It must sound a little like the last movement of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony or the Atlantic in a gale.

And “all the company of heaven” means everybody we ever loved and lost, including the ones we didn’t know we loved until we lost them or didn’t love at all. It means people we never heard of. It means everybody who ever did – or at some unimaginable time in the future ever will – come together at something like this table in search of something like what is offered at it.

Whatever other reasons we have for coming to such a place, if we come also to give each other our love and to give God our love, then together with Gabriel and Michael, and the fat parson, and Sebastian pierced with arrows, and the old lady whose teeth don’t fit, and Teresa in her ecstasy, we are the communion of saints

— from Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized

In the new humanity, them becomes us, they becomes we, and those become ours. This is why it is very dangerous when a church becomes known for being hip, cool, and trendy. The new humanity is not a trend. Or when a church is known for attracting one particular kind of demographic, like people of this particular age and education level, or that particular social class or personality type. There’s obviously nothing wrong with the powerful bonds that are shared when you meet up with your own tribe, and hear things in a language you understand, and cultural references are made that you are familiar with, but when sameness takes over, when everybody shares the same story, when there is no listening to other perspectives, no stretching and expanding and opening up – that’s when the new humanity is in trouble.

The beautiful thing is to join with a church that has gathered and find yourself looking around thinking, “What could this group of people possibly have in common?” The answer, of course, would be the new humanity. A church is where the two people groups with blue hair – young men and older women – sit together and somehow it all fits together in a Eucharistic sort of way. Try marketing that. Try branding that. The new humanity defies trends and demographics and the latest market research.

In Acts 8 some of Jesus’ first followers are healing people, and a man named Simon sees this and offers them money and says, “Give me also this ability.” Simon is seduced into thinking that the movement of the Spirit of God is a commodity to be bought and sold like any other product. The apostles chastise him for his destructive thinking, because … the Eucharist is not a product.

Glossy brochures have the potential to do great harm to the body and blood. Church is people. The Eucharist is people. People who have committed themselves to being a certain way in the world. To try to brand that is to risk commodifying something intimate, sacred, and holy.

A church is not a center for religious goods and services, where people pay a fee and receive a product in return. A church is not an organization that surveys its demographic to find out what the market is demanding at this particular moment and then adjusts its strategy to meet that consumer niche.

The way of Jesus is the path of descent. It’s about our death. It’s our willingness to join the world in its suffering, it’s our participation in the new humanity, it’s our weakness calling out to others in their weakness. To turn that into a product blasphemes the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is what happens when the question is asked, What does it look like for us to be a Eucharist for these people, here and now? What does it look like for us to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the healing of these people in this time in this place? The temptation is simply to duplicate the Eucharist of someone else.

— from  Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile

1. Prepare. Go to confession and Holy Communion. Then go forth…
2. Look with fresh eyes. “Who are the people in your neighborhood?…”
3. Meet your neighbors one at a time. Learn their names. This effort is person to person, not group to group.
4. Come near to the suffering to find their need. Don’t tell them what it is.
5. Keep boundaries, but find ways around walls.
6. Ask gentle questions; then be silent for the answers. You will not hear otherwise. Take time to hear their stories.
7. Be a companion and friend, not one who stands above.
8. Look for the Image they bear, not the graffiti that covers it.
9. Know that more than you change them, they will teach you.
10. Pray always for them that by God’s grace you may pray with them.
11. Practice this for a while, and then we’ll talk about “Programs”

Start with what you are able. One step at a time, not always in the same order….

• Offer a cup of coffee. Host a meal or maybe just hand out sack lunches.
• Open up a space (office or outdoors) at a time you can keep to so your neighbors can depend on you. Even for an hour or two a week.
• Outreach. Walk to streets to meet your neighbors. Tell them where you are.
• Offer mail address service at the church. Mail call at the office hours.
• Offer phone number message service. Messages available at office hours.
• Stock a closet of warm jackets, socks, ponchos, tarps, sleeping bags and other life savers.
• Offer hygiene supplies and, better yet, a place to wash up.
• Don’t give cash but offer bus tokens, meal vouchers, laundry service…
• Stock a food pantry. Find resources like Food Bank, markets. Help get Food Stamps
• Provide lockers if possible
• Computer, internet access with filters and safeguards
• Emergency Micro-bank for specific needs like birth certificates or transition to housing
• Referral to services…Help with the paperwork… Walk through the process with them if you can. Be a companion

(via Focus North America)