PARISH EDUCATION PROGRAM (P.E.P.) 2005-06 FALL-WINTER SESSION

   A.     OUR FALL-WINTER 2005-2006 SESSIONS

The Gospel of John alternating with rotating topics. Introducing Orthodoxy; Orthodox Saints; Church History; Our and Other Churches; Parables of Christ, Contemporary Ethical Issues, etc.

B. WHAT WE WILL DO TODAY

Today, we will briefly explore the “Beginnings of Orthodox Christian Spiritual Life.” “Beginnings” can be the “beginnings in history,” or it can refer to the first steps and the journey of a whole life in growing “in the Spirit.” We will come back to the topic of “Living the Spiritual Life” frequently during 2006 as one of our Parish Education Program (P.E.P.) themes.

C. THE BEGINNINGS OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN SPIRITUAL LIFE.

1. Christian Spiritual Life – The Old Testament, Jesus and Paul

A Selection of  Passages – Indicators of the roots of Orthodox Christian Spiritual Life

   Psalm 141:2 “Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice!”

   Psalm 50:1-2  “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!

   Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’”

   John.12:26 Jesus said, “If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honor him.”

   Matt.5:48 (From the Sermon on the Mount) “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. “

   John.17:23 (From Christ’s Great High Priestly Prayer) “I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.”

   Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

   1 Corinthians 13:3-8 (From the “Love Chapter”) “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends”

   Philippians 3:12 “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

   Titus.3:2 (The follower of Christ is) “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all men.”

   Hebrews 2:10 “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

   Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

   Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

   John.3:5-6,8 “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.’"

   John.4:23-24 “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

   John.16:13 “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

   Acts.1:2,5, 8 “. . . until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. . . .for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. . . . You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."

   1 Corinthians 2:12 “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is fromGod, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.

   1Corinthians 6:11, 17, 19 “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. . . . But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. . . . Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own.”

   1Corinthians 12:1, 3, 4, 7 “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be uninformed. . . .   Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit. . . . . Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit . . . . To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

   Gal.5:5, 16-18, 20, 22, 25 “For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness. . . . But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law . . . . (or living against the Spirit in) idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit. . .  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. . . . If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

 

2. ’Spiritual Life’ or ‘Spirituality’?

 From the “What and Whys of Our Church” column in The National Herald, December 7-8, 2002.)

 

   “Our era is full of paradoxes. We are the most materialistic culture ever to exist. Yet, we are also awash with so-called "spiritualities." From the reintroduction of pagan deities to "earth spirituality" with its goddesses, to feminist spirit religions, to the introduction of Far Eastern traditions such as Buddhism. There are the spiritualities of art, music, drugs, yoga and Zen, to mention a few. All of these basically seek a transcendent experience of something beyond the material world, but somehow within it. Their one common characteristic is their rejection of the Christian understanding of being Spiritual. So, you see, there is nothing in the Old or the New.Testaments about "spirituality" or, about "spiritualities." Neither of these words is found in the Bible.

   In the Bible, there are three basic meanings to the word "spirit" or "Spirit." The first refers to the inner world of our human existence. For example, we read "Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols" (Acts 17:16).

   The second use of the world "spirit" in the Bible refers to evil or unclean spirits that are destructive and demonic, i.e., "The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed" ('Acts 5:16)

   The most frequent use of the word "spirit" is with the adjective "Holy." The Holy Spirit is a gift of the Father through the Son to the 'Church: "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). In the teaching of the Church, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, and is God, as is the Father and the Son. At Pentecost, 50 days after the Resurrection of Christ, it was, indeed, given to the Church and is a gift for every Christian to be able to live the Christian life. Thus, in the first Apostolic Sermon we have recorded, St. Peter's declaration: "you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts' 2:38).

   So, the Bible speaks of "receiving the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:15, John  20:22), "living in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 8:5-6), being "in the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 3:6, 14:2), "love in the Spirit" (Colossians 1:8), "praying in the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:18), "rejoicing in the Spirit" (LUke'10:21, Romans' 14:17), "participating in the Spirit" (Philippians 2:1), and so on.'

   For Christians, there is no such thing as "spirituality" without reference to the Holy Spirit of God. There, is to be found the true transcendence, which fills our earthly existence with the divine reality. All other so-called "spiritualities" confuse earthly experiences with the Holy Spirit and miss the mark

 

 

3. The Earliest Christian Concern About Developing the Christian Life

From E. Glen Hinson, The Early Church: Origins to the Dawn of the Middle Ages, Chapter 15.

  “ The age of the martyrs, costly and painful as it was, laid the foundations for Christian spirituality. Living under threat forced the faithful to strengthen and deepen their commitments to God. Critical in this was the formation they received through the catechumenate and baptism. Exhor­tations to faithfulness constantly harked back to the renunciation of Satan and the oath (sacrarnentum) uttered there. Given the ominous conditions under which Christians lived, it is not surprising that the catechumenate lasted up to three or more years and, when it was compromised, lapses of discipline increased. Even in less fearsome circumstances, however, lapses occurred, necessitating a shaping of more formal procedures to rescue the fallen and restore them to their commitment. Nevertheless, Christian spiri­tuality depended then as now on a regimen of regular worship, frequent and fervent prayer, fasting, and other disciplines exercised both individu­ally and corporately.

   However much Christians might aspire to a high level of obedience to God on the part of all, they have had to reckon with the reality that some will honor their commitments more fully than others. In this era (that is, the first three centuries of Christianity), the martyrs set the standard, an artificially high one by virtue of the irregular demands exacted by persecution. When Gallienus opened the way to a long era of peace, the ideal of the martyrs inspired a few to seek solitary places like those to which martyrs fled or had been exiled to during the persecu­tions. Anthony was not the first hermit, but his flight to the desert in 271 marks the beginning of a stream of pilgrims that, a century or so later, turned into a wide river. In this same confluence of circumstances lived those present in every era and realm of human existence who sought more immediate and direct experience with God. . . .  There remained no small number of Christians, especially those of culture and education, who aspired to something more than “faith,” defined as upright conduct and commendable demeanor. They, too, wanted direct and intuitive knowledge (gnosis) of the living God. To such persons, Clement of Alexandria and Origen rendered a priceless service. So also did the desert monks, some of whom could report success in their most earnest endeavor to “see” God.”

 

4. ‘Interiorized Monasticism”

 

From the “What and Whys of Our Church” column in The National Herald, April 8-9, 2000.)

 

      Monastics have been called by God to an intense expression of the Christian life. Though relatively few in number, these dedicated and committed men and women, are known in Greek as "monachoi" (men/monks) and "monachai" (women/nuns). Monastics make three pledges that keep them focused on their special calling.

   The first of these is "chastity." Monastics do not marry nor do they have sexual relations of any kind. This bodily purity is fulfilled by a life-long and complete discipline to eliminate from mind, spirit and desire all sexual yearnings. It is because of this that monasticism is called "the angelic life." Monastics maintain celibacy of body and mind for life.

   The second monastic commitment is "poverty,"  meaning that the monk disavows personal involvement in property, money and materialistic concerns. Unlike the "Foolish Rich Man" of the parable who "lays up treasures for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 20:21), the monastic is just the opposite. He or she owns nothing, knowing that concern with wealth can corrupt the spiritual life: "the cares of the world, and the delight in riches...enter in and choke the word (of God) and it proves unfruitful" (Mark 4:19)

   The third dimension of the monastic life is "hypakoe," that is, obedience. Each monastic has a spiritual father or mother who guides the monastic in the life of spiritual development through the disciplines of prayer, worship fasting, vigils, works of service and obedience. The goal of these aspects of monastic life is to purify the soul, gain the virtues, and reflect the divine life in the heart.

   The vast majority of Orthodox Christians are not called to the monastic life. Does that mean that the monastic way of life has no relevance to ours? Some four decades ago, the Russian Orthodox priest-professor Paul Evdokimov in his book "The Struggle With God," responded to that question with his teaching about "Interiorized Monasticism."

   By this he meant that non-monastic Christians are called to transform and appropriately apply the vows of monastics so as to give deeper meaning to their own Christian lives. For example, those who are married are not to deny the sexual aspect of their married life, but they are to keep the whole of their marriage relationships wholesome, pure and undefiled.

   They are to "interiorize" the proper use of their material resources by using them in love for the needs of the poor and suffering. And they are to take their own role as followers of Christ seriously, obedient to His commands.

   What better time to practice "interiorized monasticism" than during Great Lent? Through the fast, we seek to limit our desires and refocus our lives on our Christian calling. That is why we attend Church services more frequently, pray more frequently, confess our sins, fast materially and spiritually, cleanse our desires, respond to the needs of the poor, and seek to follow Christ more diligently. "Interiorised monasticism" can make Great Lent (and the whole Christian life) more meaningful!

CLOSING PRAYER

   A Prayer at the End of the Day

  At all times and in every hour, You are worshiped and glorified in heaven and on earth, Christ our God. Long in patience, great in mercy and compassion, You love the righteous and show mercy to sinners. You call all to salvation through the promise of good things to come. Lord, receive our prayers at the present time. Direct our lives according to Your commandments. Sanctify our souls. Purify our bodies. Set our minds aright. Cleanse our thoughts and deliver us from all sorrow, evil and distress. Surround us with your holy angels, that, guarded and guided by them, we may arrive at the unity of faith and the understanding of Your indescribable glory. For you are blessed to the ages of ages. Amen