22/04/07 3rd Sunday of Easter
[PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A "MENU" FROM WHICH TO PICK AND CHOOSE ONE OR MORE MEDITATIONS. PLEASE DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE TO PRAY ALL OF IT. PLEASE THINK OF IT AS A BUFFET OF THE DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF CHRISTIANITY. IT IS HOPED THAT ALL WILL PRAY THE COLLECT, REFLECT ON THE DAY'S SCRIPTURES AND PRAY THE ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER. AFTER THAT, YOUR CHOICE. THANK YOU]
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Blessed are those for whom Easter is...
not a hunt, but a find;
not a greeting, but a proclamation;
not outward fashions, but inward grace;
not a day, but an eternity.
Collect
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Psalm 33 or 33:1-11;
Acts 9:1-19a or Jeremiah 32:36-41; Revelation 5:6-14 or Acts 9:1-19a; John 21:1-14
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Acts 9:1-19a. But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done..."
Consider Saul. If God wants to get your attention, you can bet he will find a way!
I have always wondered what would have happened if Saul had been struck blind, heard the voice of Jesus, been led home, and still said no. Imagine him saying to his relatives, "Very upsetting, this blindness, but I'll get someone to run me up to the Mayo Clinic tomorrow. The docs there will figure it out." And as for the voice of Jesus he had heard--well, must have been those mushrooms at lunch. Some weird hallucination. It happens.
The Almighty gives us choices, and even though Saul was his chosen instrument, Saul still could have declined. God would have anointed someone else. The world would still have the gospel, and the church would be the church, even if Saul had kept up the persecutions and stoned a thousand Stephens.
But what of Saul? He would have missed his true calling. Saul was the bright young man of the temple. He was educated, well-off, even a Roman citizen. He recognized the voice of Jesus, said, "I was wrong," and turned his back on all that the world thought was important.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Niagara (Ontario, Canada)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Your heart is made to love Jesus, to love Him passionately.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
Abba Poemen said of Abba Nisterus that he was like the serpent of brass which Moses made for the healing of the people: he possessed all virtue and without speaking, he healed everyone.
++++++++++
Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Pirqe Aboth)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/sjf/index.htm
R. Ishma'el his son said, He that learns in order to teach, they grant him the faculty to learn and to teach: he that learns in order to practise, they grant him the faculty to learn, and to teach, and to practise.
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Going Beyond Our Wants
Sometimes we behave like children in a toy shop. We want this, and that, and then something else. The many options confuse us and create an enormous restlessness in us. When someone says, "Well, what do you want? You can have one thing. Make up your mind," we do not know what to choose.
As long as our hearts keep vacillating among these many wants, we cannot move forward in life with inner peace and joy. That is why we need inner and outer disciplines, to go beyond these wants and discover our mission in life.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Humility
We always keep before us the example of Christ, who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and who, on the last night of his life, humbly washed his disciples' feet. We likewise seek to serve one another with humility.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
THE RISEN CHRIST is with us and therefore we need not fear the events of this day or any day that lies in our future. We know that each day will be lived in companionship with the only One who is able to rescue, redeem, save, keep, and companion us through every experience of this life and the next.
This realization does not take away the pain or uncertainty that life holds. But it does give us strength, wisdom, guidance, and most of all, a Companion to travel through each of these experiences with us.
- Rueben P. Job
A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God
From page 172 of A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God by Norman Shawchuck and Rueben P. Job. Copyright © 2003 by Norman Shawchuck and Rueben P. Job.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Way be Catholic?"
Grace operates best in the realm of freedom. As free people, we listen to the Lord and say, "What are you asking of me, Lord?" and, "Where are you leading me?" That is the nature of a dialogue, of a relationship, in which we are listening and being called. We shouldn't ask, "Why do I have to be Catholic?", but rather, "What's good about Catholicism? How can we make it good in our specific moment of time?" Being a Catholic is not the same as being saved. Love saves us. Education gives us the right questions, if we get a good education, that is. Society makes us practical and effective. Christ, though, makes us free for love, for life and human history. The Church is a means, not an end. The Church is not a necessity any more than Christ is. As the Franciscans once believed, even Christ is a gift, not a necessity. Yet for some reason gifts are considered less important than necessitates! How strange! Catholicism offers the gifts of wisdom, time and universal connection. That's all - but that's a lot.
from Why Be Catholic?
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.htm
Peace with God
Now that we have been justified by faith, therefore, let us be at peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have reached the state of grace in which we now find ourselves, and rejoice in the hope of God's glory. In order to grasp the apostle's meaning more clearly here, we must try to understand what he means by peace, and in particular by that peace which comes to us through Christ our Lord.
Peace is said to exist where dissension, discord, enmity, and cruelty of every kind are absent. Formerly we were hostile to God, followers and captives of his arch-enemy the devil. But now, by throwing away the weapons of the evil one, taking up the insignia of Christ, and following the banner of his cross, we shall indeed once more have peace with God. But this peace will come to us only through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has reconciled us with the Father by the offering of his blood. Anyone, therefore, who has been reconciled through the blood of Christ and is at peace with God must have no further contact with anything that is in league with God's enemy.
Origen of Alexandria, (185 - 253) became head of the catechetical school of Alexandria and devoted his life to the study of scripture.
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
THE LIGHT THAT FAILS
"We all with open face beholding . . . the glory of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we never know we are standing alone. "All men forsook me . . notwithstanding the Lord stood with me" (2 Tim. 4:16-17). We must build our faith, not on the fading light, but on the light that never fails. When "big" men go we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, the one thing that remains is looking in the face of God for ourselves.
Allow nothing to keep you from looking God sternly in the face about yourself and about your doctrine, and every time you preach see that you look God in the face about things first, then the glory will remain all through. A Christian worker is one who perpetually looks in the face of God and then goes forth to talk to people. The characteristic of the ministry of Christ is that of unconscious glory that abides. "Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him."
We are never called on to parade our doubts or to express the hidden ecstasies of our life with God. The secret of the worker's life is that he keeps in tune with God all the time.
++++++++++
G. K. Chesterton Day by Day
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/gkcday/gkcday.html
IT is a common saying that anything may happen behind our backs: transcendentally considered, the thing has an eerie truth about it. Eden may be behind our backs, or Fairyland. But this mystery of the human back has, again, its other side in the strange impression produced on those behind: to walk behind anyone along a lane is a thing that, properly speaking, touches the oldest nerve of awe. Watts has realized this as no one in art or letters has realized it in the whole history of the world; it has made him great. There is one possible exception to his monopoly of this magnificent craze. Two thousand years before, in the dark scriptures of a nomad people, it had been said that their prophet saw the immense Creator of all things, but only saw Him from behind.
'G. F. Watts.'
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 65: On the Prior of the Monastery
It happens all too often that the constituting of a Prior
gives rise to grave scandals in monasteries.
For there are some who become inflated with the evil spirit of pride
and consider themselves second Abbots.
By usurping power
they foster scandals and cause dissensions in the community.
Especially does this happen
in those places where the Prior is constituted
by the same Bishop or the same Abbots
who constitute the Abbot himself.
What an absurd procedure this is
can easily be seen;
for it gives the Prior an occasion for becoming proud
from the very time of his constitution,
by putting the thought into his mind
that he is freed from the authority of his Abbot:
"For," he will say to himself, "you were constituted
by the same persons who constitute the Abbot."
From this source are stirred up envy, quarrels, detraction,
rivalry, dissensions and disorders.
For while the Abbot and the Prior are at variance,
their souls cannot but be endangered by this dissension;
and those who are under them,
currying favor with one side or the other,
go to ruin.
The guilt for this dangerous state of affairs
rests on the heads of those
whose action brought about such disorder.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Too often in the past, the appointment of a subprioress or prior has been the source of serious contention in monasteries. Some, puffed up by the evil spirit of pride and thinking of themselves as a second prioress or abbot, usurp tyrannical power and foster contention and discord in their communities. This occurs especially in monasteries where the same bishop and the same prioress or abbot appoint both the abbot and prioress and the prior or subprioress. It is easy to see what an absurd arrangement this is, because from the very first moment of appointment they are given grounds for pride, as their thoughts suggest to them that they are exempt from the authority of the prioress or abbot. "After all, you were made subprioress or prior by the same members who made the prioress or abbot."
This is an open invitation to envy, quarrels, slander, rivalry, factions and disorders of every kind, with the result that, while the prioress and subprioress or abbot and prior pursue conflicting policies, their own souls are inevitably endangered by this discord; and at the same time the monastics under them take sides and so go to their ruin. The responsibility for this evil and dangerous situation rests on the heads of those who initiated such a state of confusion.
++++++++++
The Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women Christ is Risen!
Tone 2 April 22, 2007
11th Vigil of Pascha: Genesis 22:1-18
Apostle: Acts 6:1-7 Gospel: St. Mark 15:43-16:8
Truly Obedient Man: Genesis 22:1-18, especially vss. 15, 17: "I have
sworn by Myself, says the Lord, because thou hast done this thing and on
My account hast not spared thy beloved son, surely blessing I will bless
thee." St. John Chrysostom draws attention to the Lord's words in these
verses - easily overlooked, yet surprising. "Consider, I ask you, the
Lord's loving kindness: 'On My account you did not spare your beloved
son,' and yet he takes him away alive....You see, as far as intention is
concerned, the patriarch stained his right hand in blood, plunging his
sword into the child's throat and consummating the sacrifice." The act
was not carried out, and still God responded to the offering of Isaac as
if it actually occurred. What is the meaning of this? Plainly Abraham
displayed true obedience, unquestioning application of directions from God.
A fundamental truth must be grasped to appreciate the depth of the
mystery of obedience to God, to discern that within Abraham that made
him truly obedient before contradiction. St. Silouan the Athonite helps
by pin-pointing the key: "The obedient man has surrendered himself to
God's will," to which St. John of the Ladder adds a second point that
"obedience is absolute renunciation of our own life, clearly expressed
in our bodily actions." Here we have it. God spoke and Abraham acted
as directed. A willingness to respond to God instantly and fully marks
Abraham's character all through his life. "And the Lord said to Abram,
Go forth out of thy land and out of thy kindred, and out of the house of
thy father, and come into the land which I shall shew thee....And Abram
went as the Lord spoke to him" (Gen 12:1,4).
One might argue that God early revealed Himself to Abraham, but Abraham
obeyed God even before the Lord openly showed Himself. Note the order:
first, God sent him from his country, "as far as the place Shechem" (Gen
12:6), then he "built an altar...to the Lord," and only afterwards God
"appeared to him" (Gen 12:7).
Do you recall the words of the prayer to God the Holy Spirit? that He is
"everywhere present and fillest all things?" exactly that! The truly
obedient man lives responsively before the presence of God, seen or
unseen. Abraham did not need an apparition from God. He heard God and
he obeyed, and not only at the beginning - at God's earliest command -
but always, even when a strange Divine command came contrary to all
reasonable expectation.
What saves us from delusion, from choosing and responding to the voices
within or around us that we prefer and imagine to be from God? The
Church provides us with pastors as guides. Listen to St. John of the
Ladder. "When motives of humility and real longing for salvation incite
us to bend our neck and entrust ourselves to another in the Lord...we
ought first to question and examine, and even, so to speak, test our
helmsman, so as not to mistake the sailor for the pilot, a sick man for
the doctor." Yes, our clergy are fallible, but God gives them within
the Church to guide and help in hearing His unmistakable voice without
confusion.
Unlike Abraham, we have a good, infallible mother in the Church, in her
Holy Tradition including Holy Scripture and the tested, uninterrupted
teachings of the Holy Fathers passed along in tangible consistent form.
God gives us all this so that, like Abraham, we may voyage on the sea of
great perils - this world - with our hearts constantly open only to the
Lord's voice. If there is doubt, let us go to our pastors for help in
being obedient to God. Mostly, they strive to live openly before God
and under the authority of their superiors. Thus, we have fair cause to
trust and obey the voice of God as He speaks through them; but,
foremost, is our willingness to arise, depart, and go to the place of
which God speaks, to obey Him (Gen 22:3).
Lord, guide me in the way of Thy righteousness and make straight my
way before Thee.
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Blessed are those for whom Easter is...
not a hunt, but a find;
not a greeting, but a proclamation;
not outward fashions, but inward grace;
not a day, but an eternity.
Collect
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Psalm 33 or 33:1-11;
Acts 9:1-19a or Jeremiah 32:36-41; Revelation 5:6-14 or Acts 9:1-19a; John 21:1-14
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Acts 9:1-19a. But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done..."
Consider Saul. If God wants to get your attention, you can bet he will find a way!
I have always wondered what would have happened if Saul had been struck blind, heard the voice of Jesus, been led home, and still said no. Imagine him saying to his relatives, "Very upsetting, this blindness, but I'll get someone to run me up to the Mayo Clinic tomorrow. The docs there will figure it out." And as for the voice of Jesus he had heard--well, must have been those mushrooms at lunch. Some weird hallucination. It happens.
The Almighty gives us choices, and even though Saul was his chosen instrument, Saul still could have declined. God would have anointed someone else. The world would still have the gospel, and the church would be the church, even if Saul had kept up the persecutions and stoned a thousand Stephens.
But what of Saul? He would have missed his true calling. Saul was the bright young man of the temple. He was educated, well-off, even a Roman citizen. He recognized the voice of Jesus, said, "I was wrong," and turned his back on all that the world thought was important.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Niagara (Ontario, Canada)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Your heart is made to love Jesus, to love Him passionately.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
Abba Poemen said of Abba Nisterus that he was like the serpent of brass which Moses made for the healing of the people: he possessed all virtue and without speaking, he healed everyone.
++++++++++
Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Pirqe Aboth)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/sjf/index.htm
R. Ishma'el his son said, He that learns in order to teach, they grant him the faculty to learn and to teach: he that learns in order to practise, they grant him the faculty to learn, and to teach, and to practise.
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Going Beyond Our Wants
Sometimes we behave like children in a toy shop. We want this, and that, and then something else. The many options confuse us and create an enormous restlessness in us. When someone says, "Well, what do you want? You can have one thing. Make up your mind," we do not know what to choose.
As long as our hearts keep vacillating among these many wants, we cannot move forward in life with inner peace and joy. That is why we need inner and outer disciplines, to go beyond these wants and discover our mission in life.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Humility
We always keep before us the example of Christ, who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and who, on the last night of his life, humbly washed his disciples' feet. We likewise seek to serve one another with humility.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
THE RISEN CHRIST is with us and therefore we need not fear the events of this day or any day that lies in our future. We know that each day will be lived in companionship with the only One who is able to rescue, redeem, save, keep, and companion us through every experience of this life and the next.
This realization does not take away the pain or uncertainty that life holds. But it does give us strength, wisdom, guidance, and most of all, a Companion to travel through each of these experiences with us.
- Rueben P. Job
A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God
From page 172 of A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God by Norman Shawchuck and Rueben P. Job. Copyright © 2003 by Norman Shawchuck and Rueben P. Job.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Way be Catholic?"
Grace operates best in the realm of freedom. As free people, we listen to the Lord and say, "What are you asking of me, Lord?" and, "Where are you leading me?" That is the nature of a dialogue, of a relationship, in which we are listening and being called. We shouldn't ask, "Why do I have to be Catholic?", but rather, "What's good about Catholicism? How can we make it good in our specific moment of time?" Being a Catholic is not the same as being saved. Love saves us. Education gives us the right questions, if we get a good education, that is. Society makes us practical and effective. Christ, though, makes us free for love, for life and human history. The Church is a means, not an end. The Church is not a necessity any more than Christ is. As the Franciscans once believed, even Christ is a gift, not a necessity. Yet for some reason gifts are considered less important than necessitates! How strange! Catholicism offers the gifts of wisdom, time and universal connection. That's all - but that's a lot.
from Why Be Catholic?
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.htm
Peace with God
Now that we have been justified by faith, therefore, let us be at peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have reached the state of grace in which we now find ourselves, and rejoice in the hope of God's glory. In order to grasp the apostle's meaning more clearly here, we must try to understand what he means by peace, and in particular by that peace which comes to us through Christ our Lord.
Peace is said to exist where dissension, discord, enmity, and cruelty of every kind are absent. Formerly we were hostile to God, followers and captives of his arch-enemy the devil. But now, by throwing away the weapons of the evil one, taking up the insignia of Christ, and following the banner of his cross, we shall indeed once more have peace with God. But this peace will come to us only through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has reconciled us with the Father by the offering of his blood. Anyone, therefore, who has been reconciled through the blood of Christ and is at peace with God must have no further contact with anything that is in league with God's enemy.
Origen of Alexandria, (185 - 253) became head of the catechetical school of Alexandria and devoted his life to the study of scripture.
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
THE LIGHT THAT FAILS
"We all with open face beholding . . . the glory of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we never know we are standing alone. "All men forsook me . . notwithstanding the Lord stood with me" (2 Tim. 4:16-17). We must build our faith, not on the fading light, but on the light that never fails. When "big" men go we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, the one thing that remains is looking in the face of God for ourselves.
Allow nothing to keep you from looking God sternly in the face about yourself and about your doctrine, and every time you preach see that you look God in the face about things first, then the glory will remain all through. A Christian worker is one who perpetually looks in the face of God and then goes forth to talk to people. The characteristic of the ministry of Christ is that of unconscious glory that abides. "Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him."
We are never called on to parade our doubts or to express the hidden ecstasies of our life with God. The secret of the worker's life is that he keeps in tune with God all the time.
++++++++++
G. K. Chesterton Day by Day
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/gkcday/gkcday.html
IT is a common saying that anything may happen behind our backs: transcendentally considered, the thing has an eerie truth about it. Eden may be behind our backs, or Fairyland. But this mystery of the human back has, again, its other side in the strange impression produced on those behind: to walk behind anyone along a lane is a thing that, properly speaking, touches the oldest nerve of awe. Watts has realized this as no one in art or letters has realized it in the whole history of the world; it has made him great. There is one possible exception to his monopoly of this magnificent craze. Two thousand years before, in the dark scriptures of a nomad people, it had been said that their prophet saw the immense Creator of all things, but only saw Him from behind.
'G. F. Watts.'
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 65: On the Prior of the Monastery
It happens all too often that the constituting of a Prior
gives rise to grave scandals in monasteries.
For there are some who become inflated with the evil spirit of pride
and consider themselves second Abbots.
By usurping power
they foster scandals and cause dissensions in the community.
Especially does this happen
in those places where the Prior is constituted
by the same Bishop or the same Abbots
who constitute the Abbot himself.
What an absurd procedure this is
can easily be seen;
for it gives the Prior an occasion for becoming proud
from the very time of his constitution,
by putting the thought into his mind
that he is freed from the authority of his Abbot:
"For," he will say to himself, "you were constituted
by the same persons who constitute the Abbot."
From this source are stirred up envy, quarrels, detraction,
rivalry, dissensions and disorders.
For while the Abbot and the Prior are at variance,
their souls cannot but be endangered by this dissension;
and those who are under them,
currying favor with one side or the other,
go to ruin.
The guilt for this dangerous state of affairs
rests on the heads of those
whose action brought about such disorder.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Too often in the past, the appointment of a subprioress or prior has been the source of serious contention in monasteries. Some, puffed up by the evil spirit of pride and thinking of themselves as a second prioress or abbot, usurp tyrannical power and foster contention and discord in their communities. This occurs especially in monasteries where the same bishop and the same prioress or abbot appoint both the abbot and prioress and the prior or subprioress. It is easy to see what an absurd arrangement this is, because from the very first moment of appointment they are given grounds for pride, as their thoughts suggest to them that they are exempt from the authority of the prioress or abbot. "After all, you were made subprioress or prior by the same members who made the prioress or abbot."
This is an open invitation to envy, quarrels, slander, rivalry, factions and disorders of every kind, with the result that, while the prioress and subprioress or abbot and prior pursue conflicting policies, their own souls are inevitably endangered by this discord; and at the same time the monastics under them take sides and so go to their ruin. The responsibility for this evil and dangerous situation rests on the heads of those who initiated such a state of confusion.
++++++++++
The Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women Christ is Risen!
Tone 2 April 22, 2007
11th Vigil of Pascha: Genesis 22:1-18
Apostle: Acts 6:1-7 Gospel: St. Mark 15:43-16:8
Truly Obedient Man: Genesis 22:1-18, especially vss. 15, 17: "I have
sworn by Myself, says the Lord, because thou hast done this thing and on
My account hast not spared thy beloved son, surely blessing I will bless
thee." St. John Chrysostom draws attention to the Lord's words in these
verses - easily overlooked, yet surprising. "Consider, I ask you, the
Lord's loving kindness: 'On My account you did not spare your beloved
son,' and yet he takes him away alive....You see, as far as intention is
concerned, the patriarch stained his right hand in blood, plunging his
sword into the child's throat and consummating the sacrifice." The act
was not carried out, and still God responded to the offering of Isaac as
if it actually occurred. What is the meaning of this? Plainly Abraham
displayed true obedience, unquestioning application of directions from God.
A fundamental truth must be grasped to appreciate the depth of the
mystery of obedience to God, to discern that within Abraham that made
him truly obedient before contradiction. St. Silouan the Athonite helps
by pin-pointing the key: "The obedient man has surrendered himself to
God's will," to which St. John of the Ladder adds a second point that
"obedience is absolute renunciation of our own life, clearly expressed
in our bodily actions." Here we have it. God spoke and Abraham acted
as directed. A willingness to respond to God instantly and fully marks
Abraham's character all through his life. "And the Lord said to Abram,
Go forth out of thy land and out of thy kindred, and out of the house of
thy father, and come into the land which I shall shew thee....And Abram
went as the Lord spoke to him" (Gen 12:1,4).
One might argue that God early revealed Himself to Abraham, but Abraham
obeyed God even before the Lord openly showed Himself. Note the order:
first, God sent him from his country, "as far as the place Shechem" (Gen
12:6), then he "built an altar...to the Lord," and only afterwards God
"appeared to him" (Gen 12:7).
Do you recall the words of the prayer to God the Holy Spirit? that He is
"everywhere present and fillest all things?" exactly that! The truly
obedient man lives responsively before the presence of God, seen or
unseen. Abraham did not need an apparition from God. He heard God and
he obeyed, and not only at the beginning - at God's earliest command -
but always, even when a strange Divine command came contrary to all
reasonable expectation.
What saves us from delusion, from choosing and responding to the voices
within or around us that we prefer and imagine to be from God? The
Church provides us with pastors as guides. Listen to St. John of the
Ladder. "When motives of humility and real longing for salvation incite
us to bend our neck and entrust ourselves to another in the Lord...we
ought first to question and examine, and even, so to speak, test our
helmsman, so as not to mistake the sailor for the pilot, a sick man for
the doctor." Yes, our clergy are fallible, but God gives them within
the Church to guide and help in hearing His unmistakable voice without
confusion.
Unlike Abraham, we have a good, infallible mother in the Church, in her
Holy Tradition including Holy Scripture and the tested, uninterrupted
teachings of the Holy Fathers passed along in tangible consistent form.
God gives us all this so that, like Abraham, we may voyage on the sea of
great perils - this world - with our hearts constantly open only to the
Lord's voice. If there is doubt, let us go to our pastors for help in
being obedient to God. Mostly, they strive to live openly before God
and under the authority of their superiors. Thus, we have fair cause to
trust and obey the voice of God as He speaks through them; but,
foremost, is our willingness to arise, depart, and go to the place of
which God speaks, to obey Him (Gen 22:3).
Lord, guide me in the way of Thy righteousness and make straight my
way before Thee.
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 1:03 PM
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