The Pastor, the Pulpit and "the Word"

Risque? O yes!
To the point? You bet!
Orthodox message? I believe so, actually....

Deacon Preaching

Below, our beloved Deacon's notes for his sermon on the Healing of the Widow's Son. The notes give only a glimmer of what was a fine sermon!

In Catholic theology, Christ comes not simply to save something called the "soul," but rather a much more mysterious reality called the person.
Let us consider why it is that the human person, created as we are in the image and likeness of God, is mysterious and what it means for us to walk with God in a life in Christ.
Each of us is unique and unrepeatable.
We share, paradoxically, the quality of being unique.
We are able to experience empathy for others in which we see our unique selves in the other human person.
Empathy for others in their moments of hardship makes it possible for us to transcend our own uniqueness and enter into a sense of sameness between our neighbor and self.
It is often in moments of great need that we come to see our neighbor as really and truly neighbor.
Jesus established the second of the great commandments: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Collectively, we rose in many ways to help our neighbors when we were attacked by Moslem terrorists on Sept. 11th.
We came to our neighbors’ aid when hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast a couple of years ago.
Daily, when we hear that clear small voice that directs our hearts to action, we love our neighbor as our self.
Ideally, all this happens in a way that both preserves, and even sharpens, our uniqueness while making manifest, sometimes unbearably so, our sameness.
Like St Cyril of Alexandria said of the distraught widow: “I want, like Christ, to have "mercy upon the woman, . . . that her tears might be stopped, . . . [and see] the cause of her weeping . . . undone".
But because my communion with God is impaired through my sin, my communion with my neighbor is also wounded.
Because of my sin in the face of human suffering, and the renewed and deepened communion that contact within that suffering offers, I fail.
So often the face of human suffering, with its invitation to experience our common humanity, overwhelms us.
My concerned for my neighbor is well intentioned, but in the final analysis I am only able to lower my friend into his tomb.
Respect for each human person and empathy for our shared humanity are pleasing things.
As in Gal 5 these basic truths of respect and empathy must be transformed by the grace of Christ into "the fruit of the Spirit . . . love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control".
We are warned by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians that it is only through cultivating a life in Christ through the Holy Spirit can we put to death in us:
"the works of the flesh [that] are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like" (vv. 19-21).
These works of the flesh need to be healed since it is these that are the cause of lost resolve in the face of human suffering.
These preoccupations of self blind me to the mystery of the human person since each degrades the person and changes my stance toward him from an end into a means.
Changing him from a human person into an object.
Standing unrepentant in my sins before God in Whose image and likeness I have been created, I do prefer to think that God saves souls and not that He saves persons.
There is a cleanness, a simplicity to the idea of a soul.
This simplicity does not require from me an acceptance of a life of communion with other human persons in their embodied uniqueness.
The salvation of the person, the person in all his uniqueness, however, is an invitation to live a life of respectful communion.
Christ comes to save people, not souls.
Christ gives people life in its full abundance, not amorphous souls.
Again, St Cyril:
Christ raised him who descending to his grave.
The manner of his rising is plain to see.
"He touched," it says, "the bier and said 'Young man, I say unto thee, arise.'"
How was not a word enough to raise him who was lying there?
What is more powerful that the Word of God?
Why then did he not work the miracle by only a word but also touched the bier?
So that we "might learn that the Holy Body of Christ is productive for the salvation of man."
In Christ, human flesh becomes "the body of life" and is "clothed with [divine] might."
To be saved, to have salvation, to be in Christ, means that we are not only liberated from sin, but are united once again to one another.
St Cyril says: Christ has entered into our sinfulness and has delivered us "from evil works, even from fleshly lusts" so that He "may unite us to the assembly of the saints."
Christ unites each unique human person to all others through love!
Jesus commands us: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Life in Christ returns to us the transcendent possibilities of our own full humanity.
We can love one another and need not fear the weight of our shared humanity.
As Christ said to the widow’s dead son, "…I say to you, arise.”
In Christ, life everlasting is given to us in and through his Church.
Let us lift up our hearts.
Let Jesus raise us, as He raised widow’s dead son, to true life and joy in Him guided by and nurtured in His Church. Amen.

[Inspired by Fr. Gregory Jensen]

Our Deacon Hits Another Homer!

Our Deacon preached yesterday for the Greek Catholic Feast of All Saints. As usual, he managed to be both humble and profoundly spiritual in focusing on the essential things we all need to recall. Below are his notes from a wonderful sermon that both makes me proud and jealous at the same time. (Remember, there are occasions of pride and jealousy that are not necessarily sinful!)

Today, the Sunday after Pentecost, we remember all the Saints. The saints are all described at the end of the Gospel reading. Every righteous one that has ever lived, that has ever pleased God, that has ever struggled with his sins, that has ever truly believed in the resurrection, is described today. Jesus says,

"Everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children or lands for My Name's sake, shall receive a hundred fold and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first."

This describes in component parts the life that pleases God, the life that we are called to. We are to abandon that which mires us down and separates us from God. We are to avoid the near occasion of sin that easily lures us, and even father or mother or sister or brother, if they separate us from God. In most cases this is not be necessary. Jesus is not telling us to leave our father and mother behind with enmity or hostility. Indeed we try to love them and honor them, whether they honor God or not. But it is a value judgment here; it is a set of priorities.

At Pentecost, the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit to all in the Church, makes us capable of being part of this choir of Saints. The Holy Spirit helps all persons to attain to the knowledge of God and live lives of righteousness. Jesus showed us how to live, and He lived according to His commandments, and caused Himself to be risen from the dead.

Remember the promise: “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” The gift of the Holy Spirit enlightens us; He strengthens us, and allows us to do the will of God, and to obtain the promise. Jesus said, "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven."

As St. John Chrysostom said, “He is not here addressing his original disciples only but every one of us who follows after his disciples in accord with their witness to him.” This is a fundamental characteristic of righteousness, to confess the Lord Jesus Christ.

And how do we confess Him?

We confess our Lord with our words, with our actions, with our priorities, and by how we interact with people. What we say is important and how we act is important. Are we gentle with our words to others, as Jesus was gentle to those he loved? Do we show respect to our loved ones by how we address them, particularly in public, as Peter showed to the Lord he loved.

There are some other obvious things that come to mind. We can confess the lord by showing that we care about the Church, that we live our life in a moral way. The entire media world in the U.S. has gone off as into Sodom and Gomorrah, but we cannot follow along as if their standard is ours. We must have the courage to stand against it, to do our best to stand against every form of immorality and vice. This is the confession of Christ.

Faith without works is dead. There is no dichotomy between action and belief. We are all human and we all stumble along the way. Nevertheless, God is generous in his love to us. He as sent the Holy Spirit as our Comforter to help us in our weakness as we fight the battle against Satin and his demons.

But if we do not live according to what we say we believe, then we are not confessing Christ. The Holy Spirit will help us in all things, at all times. If we do not live righteously we are not confessing Christ. Christ says He will confess us before His Father, if we live according to His will, and confess Him in this life.

But He won't confess us before His Father if we do not live righteously. I this causes your heart to pause, then we can ask the Holy Spirit to be with us all the more. God has provided us everything we need, and today we celebrate all the saints who have endured to the end, as examples for us.

In the middle of today's Gospel it says, "He that taketh not up his cross and followeth after me, the same is not worthy of me." I continually admire the lives of the saints, and the writings of the Church Fathers. They ceaseless speak of our lure to sin and God's great mercy to direct us to truth. We see their righteousness, their personal struggle with their personal demons, and how God’s mercy brought them home. We see their struggles, and we should compare their struggles to our own. However, the Saints are both a reproach against us, yet also an encouragement to us.

The Saints have all endured, whatever age in time they lived. They had the same difficulties with sins that we have. They were given the same grace that we have been given, the same truth, the same God, the same Holy Spirit. And they fought the good fight, and endured; they finished the course.The same Holy Spirit enlightens us, and will live within us if we live according to His commandments.

May God help us to confess Christ in everything we say and everything we do. Amen.

Thanks be to God for such good men as our own Deacon David!

Diaconal Homily for the Sunday after the Feast of the Cross

Every third Sunday, our Deacon preaches the homily. Today, the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he preached a good one!* Below is the text. It's a "keeper".

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34)

The Cross changed from a means of death and torture in ancient Rome to a symbol of joy and salvation because of the Resurrection of Jesus after his awful torture and death on the Cross.

A sign of execution and torture was changed to a sign of a means for our salvation.

The disciples saw Jesus’ miracles and listened to his teachings but Peter and the other disciples did not know at the time of Jesus’ Crucifixion that he was to rise again as the Son of God.

Peter even proclaimed to Jesus that he believed Jesus to be the Christ. 29And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”(Mark 8).

But at the time the Crucifixion the disciples did not know that Jesus was to rise in Glory on the Third Day.

Jesus had to show the disciples his wounds after his Resurrection and give them Divine Revelation for them to understand that He was raised from the dead, that the Cross was not His end.

The Cross of Jesus does not cast a shadow of death. Instead it emits the light of salvation. The Cross is now a beacon of light to lead people to salvation.

Crosses surround us Catholics. There are Altar-Cross, The Processional Cross, Papal Cross, Pectoral Crosses, Absolution Crosses, Crosses on Vestments, and Crosses for Private Devotion.

Today is the Sunday after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross.

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross, which was to be celebrated last Friday, is so important within the Melkite Church that the Sunday before and the Sunday after, today, are designated as such.

Within the Church Calendar we have the beautiful celebrations of the Holy Days.
The Church Calendar of Holy Days is for us our own personal compass to live our lives in the light of salvation of the Cross.

The feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross and all the Holy Days of the Church and our whole Church Calendar of celebrations makes us unique.

That we celebrate these Holy Days makes us Melkite.

The Antiphon Prayers from Friday’s Liturgy plead our case for salvation to Almighty God and describe our faith.

I. O Christ God, who were nailed upon the Cross for our sake, purify us from our sins. Strengthen our faith. Fortify our hope. Inflame our hearts with love for your Cross. Make us temples of the Holy Spirit. For You are our Light and our Life.

II. O Christ God, enthroned with the Father and the Holy Spirit, when You extended your arms on the Cross, You attracted the whole world to your knowledge. Illumine us today by its light. Sanctify us by its power. Comfort us by its Exaltation. And make us worthy to partake of your divine glory.

The beauty and holiness of our celebrations of the Holy Days gives us true sustenance and meaning to our lives.

Celebrating the Holy Days keeps us centered within the Church.

Each Holy Day teaches us a vital portion of the means to salvation, of our church history, of characters in the story of sacrifice and martyrdom that is our Melkite heritage.

When everything around us pulls us from holiness our life within the Church, when celebrated fully in the framework of Holy Days, in Vespers, in the Divine Liturgy on Sundays, when we live our life within the Calendar of the Church, makes our lives full, complete, and happy.

We have innumerable tentacles of the octopus of modern life pulling at us, dragging us here to this activity, tugging us there to this obligation, pushing us everywhere to the point we are wondering what is next on our endless list of stuff to do.

After a difficult week at school, or at our offices, or traveling in our jobs it requires great physical and mental effort to push us to attend the Holy Days within the Church calendar.

But as I tell my own sons, as I try to instill in them what truly matters in our brief life, true happiness and sustaining strength comes from a life centered in the Church. Little else matters in comparison.

True happiness and sustaining strength comes from a life lived within the Holy Days of the Melkite Calendar where we hear of the Saints throughout the ages who are our guides to a pious life.

We gain strength and sanctification from the sacraments received during the Holy Day celebrations.

We live in love when we gather during the Holy Days, during Vespers, and Divine Liturgy as a parish family, with all our warts and all of our shortcomings and all of our wonderful qualities.

Let us not look at how tired we may be, or how busy we may be, or how our health may not allow us, or all our endless obligations.

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34)

Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church tells us of the Cross:

“For the Cross of Christ, which was dedicated to the salvation of mortal man, is both a sacrament and an example; a sacrament, in which the divine power is made known; an example, by means of which devotion is kindled among men; for to those freed from the yoke of slavery their redemption also brings them this: that they my imitate it.

For if human wisdom takes such pride in its errors, so that each one copies the notions, the manners, all the ideas, of the one he has chosen as guide, what share have we in the Name of Christ if we are not wholly united with Him Who is, as He has taught us, the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6).”

Let us pick up our Cross and follow Jesus through our Melkite Calendar of Holy Days where Jesus shows us the Way of holy living; the Truth of divine teaching; and the Life of happiness without end. Amen.

*The good Deacon's homilies are generally always good!

THE PASCHAL HOMILY OF ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Whosoever is a devout lover of God,
let him enjoy this beautiful bright Festival.

And whosoever is a grateful servant
let him rejoice and enter into the joy of his Lord.

And if any be weary with fasting,
let him now receive his penny.

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let him receive his due reward.

If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join the Feast.

And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt;
for he too shall sustain no loss.

And if any have delayed to the ninth hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay;
for the Lord is gracious
and receives the last even as the first.

He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour
as well as to him that toiled from the first.

Yea, to this one He gives,
and upon that one He bestows.

He accepts works,
as He greets the endeavor.

The deed he honors
and the intention he commends.

Let all then enter into the joy of our Lord.

You first and last receiving alike your reward;
you rich and poor,
rejoice together.

You sober and you slothful,
celebrate the day.

You that have kept the fast,
and you that have not,

rejoice today;
for the Table is richly laden.

Fare royally on it.

The calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry.

Partake you all of the cup of faith.
Enjoy you all the riches of His goodness.

Let no one grieve at his poverty;
for the universal Kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death,
for the Death of our Saviour has set us free.

He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He spoiled Hades when he descended thereto.

He vexed it
even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he cried,
“Thou, O Hades, has been vexed by encountering Him below. ”

It is vexed;
for it is even done away with.

It is vexed;
for it is made a mockery.

It is vexed;
for it is destroyed.

It is vexed;
for it is annihilated.

It is vexed;
for it is now made captive.

It took a body,
and it discovered God.

It took earth,
and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw
and was overcome by what it did not see.

“O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?”

Christ is risen,
and thou art annihilated.

Christ is risen,
and the evil ones are cast down.

Christ is risen,
and the Angels rejoice.

Christ is risen,
and life is liberated.

Christ is risen,
and the tomb is emptied of the dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.