“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” He who is impatient and irritable does not know himself and the human race, and is unworthy of the name of Christian. . . Irritability of temper proceeds from lack of self-knowledge, from pride, and also from the fact that we do not consider the great corruption of our nature, and know but little the meek and humble Jesus” (St. John of Kronstadt).
The woman of Canaan was desperate. Despite shame and embarrassment, she shouted for help: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” Christ was silent. The disciples ridiculed her. “Lord help me,” she persisted. Our Lord’s response to this broken woman is hard and heavy: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
“Any faith in Him, however small, is better than any belief about Him, however great” (George MacDonald).
“When someone gives his heart to God, then the mind of this man is also seized by the love of God. He is indifferent towards worldly things and continually thinks about the Heavenly Father, and being divinely in love, he glorifies his Creator day and night like an angel” (St. Paisios of Mount Athos).
Faith is love of a living person. Our religious acts, prayers, icons, morals, doctrines, everything, are good for only one thing, and we must never forget this. Our talents, upbringing, health, wealth, homes, and relationships, all of these are given to us for one purpose, and one purpose alone, to help us become unreservedly obsessed with our Lord Jesus Christ.
“While everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds” (Matthew 13:25).
Prayer. Asceticism. Fraternity.
A few weeks ago, I overheard a conversation between two men discussing cold showers. It immediately peaked my interest. I had the idea once, and, after a 5 second trial jettisoned it as fast as you can cry ‘help’! For some months now, these men had formed the habit of taking daily showers in glacial temperatures. There are a lot of benefits, they told me. It increases metabolism, improves blood circulation, burns fat and glucose, lowers stress, and gives you a dopamine kick that far out rivals an extra large coffee.
“Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved. And all the people went their way to eat and drink . . . and to make merry” (Nehemiah 8:11-12).
Ezra stepped up on the wooden platform. A hush swept through the crowd. He read aloud God’s commandments, and proclaimed solemnly: “Today is holy. Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drink. The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
There was once a man banished to Siberia. He was pious, but morose and bitter. You see, while a child, his uncle had caused great pain, killing his mother and squandering his inheritance. In a fit of youthful fury, the man shot and wounded his uncle, and now served out his sentence. He married, and settled down, but was never free of a deep gnawing anger. One day, as he wrestled with his anger and knelt in prayer, the man heard a voice in the breeze, “I am coming.” “It is the Lord,” he said to himself, and he became obsessed. His only care was to meet his Savior. He had has wife set the table every night in case the Lord arrived. But no one came. He prayed more earnestly. He longed for Christ. He sought him in every breath. Nothing. Then one day, he heard again in the breeze, “I am coming, soon.” He set out to prepare for a banquet and invited all the neighbors, even the beggars and destitute. This would be the day. They gathered and waited. Immediately, a storm arose outside. It was cold and windy. The crowd waited longer, wondering if this guest would arrive. No one came, and they proceeded to bless the food. No one still. A heavy gust of wind shook the house. The door blew open. A brilliant light shown out of it, and a disheveled old man fell through. The host lifted up the old man and began to weep. He laid him in his bed, nourished and warmed him, and then fell on his knees asking the visitor to forgive him. Who was it? It was his uncle. The uncle had come a long way to find his nephew and reconcile. When the storm picked up he lost his way and despaired. Just then, some few yards from the nephew’s home, he met a man, a beautiful man, glowing in wondrous brightness. “Come with me,” the divine being told him, “I am going to a banquet, but you can take my seat.”
God comes to a man who seeks him. What is preventing God from coming to us? Are we seeking? What is stifling our search? Is there sin, anger, selfishness, or distraction stuffing up our hearts that needs to be healed? What must we do to find Him?
“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”
St. John the Baptist was an extremist. There was nothing soft about him. His skin was parched. His hair wild. He slept on rocks and ate locusts. We hear the scriptures read aloud every Sunday at church. We read the words of the bible at our bedside. “Repent.” But what would it have been like to hear this message called out by this wild, provocative holy man, face to face?
The word ‘Advent’ stems from this ancient Latin prayer. In the historic Church, it was customary for Christians to begin every day of Advent by attending what was known as a ‘Golden Mass.” The faithful first lit a candle at their hearth, offering up this pious prayer, “Paratus sum ad Adventum Domini.” Each soul, candle in hand, walked solemnly to the chapel, which was kept in complete darkness, except for the light cast from altar candles. By the final “Benedicamus Domino,” the dawn’s first rays lit up the sanctuary. These golden dawn rays mystically symbolized the coming of Christ, banisher of darkness.
“Jesus said unto his disciples: There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea, and the waves roaring: men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads: for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:25-33).
Advent arrives to plunge us into this apocalyptic reality.
A hush sweeps across the earth now, in nature, and in our Christian hearts. We should remember that there is nothing arbitrary about the Church Calendar. All nature lines up with it. Indeed, nature was created first to foreshadow the calendar, and is fulfilled in it. The badgers and foxes burrow in their dens. The trees shed their leaves and concentrate their energy down into their roots. The sun hides its rays and rests in darkness. We Christians are called to follow their example, to quiet our lifestyles now, turn out our lights and screens now, and to burrow deeper into our souls.
Advent is an apocalyptic time. What do I mean with this? The Gospel of the First Sunday of Advent sets the tone.
First, the whole world is falling apart. “Signs in the sun, moon, and stars.” “Distress of nations.” “Perplexity in the sea and waves roaring.”
Isaiah describes this tumultuous day in vivid detail: “Behold, the Day of the Lord is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning . . . The stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed its light” (Isaiah 13:9-10).
“The windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken asunder, The earth is split through, The earth is shaken violently. The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard” (Isaiah 24:18-20 ).
The nations on earth will be overwhelmed with distress — συνοχή: acute anxiety, a terror, a tearing apart. It is the same word used in Jeremiah 52:5, when Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, watching as their doom surrounded them.
The worldly minded will suffer great perplexity — ἀπορία: senselessness, bewilderment, gnawing nihilism. Even the powers of heaven will be shaken, the spiritual entities of the airs, the demons and gods under Satan’s dominions, all these too will tremble.
At this moment, Jesus Christ Himself appears. “The gates of heaven, closed from all ages, by the hands of ministering angels are thrown wide open,” Eusebius preaches. “They shall see the Son of man coming, faithful and unbelieving alike shall see Him. Both cross and Redeemer shall shine more splendidly than the sun” (St. Theophylactus).
“Then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27).
This is where our Gospel returns to us.
Where will the people of God be in all this tumult? What is our place when the world falls apart?
“When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads: for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
Look up. Lift up your heads.
ἀνακύψατε καὶ ἐπάρατε τὰς κεφαλὰς ὑμῶν.
Straighten up. Stop walking with a stoop. Lift up your eyes from the ground. Rejoice and Hope.
This is the crux of our Gospel today, and the soul of Advent.
Why do we get upset about the problems in our country? Why do we get anxious about our finances or schedules. Why are we caught up in the stress of the world.
“Look up, and lift up your heads,” our Lord says to us, right in the heart of darkness.
Advent is an apocalyptic time. We must place our hearts in the place of those Medieval faithful, waiting in the dark chapel through the Advent Golden Mass — morning after morning, waiting, longing, and hoping for the light of dawn.
Advent is our season for unplugging from the chaos and anxiety of the world. It does not belong to us. The consumerism, the hedonism, the frenetic entertainment, the sensual distractions — this is satan’s realm: “upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity . . . men’s hearts failing them for fear.” The Christian is called to stand cut off from all of it, with hearts lifted upwards.
Advent is our season for detaching, for getting quiet, for burning anticipation for our Savior: the true celebration, the happy dawn, the Spirit of Christmas, peace and mirth.
Advent is our season for fixing our heart on Christ.
There was another Advent tradition in Medieval Christendom. Each morning and evening leading up to Christmas, in Northern Europe, the people blew a trumpet: the Midwinterhoorn Blazen. Linden wood horns, eight or nine feet long, were blown over frozen wells, ushering loud, deep, solemn calls across the mountain side. One master horn maker in the Netherlands described the sound with wonder:
“On a winter’s night when you hear many horns, sounding from all directions, across ice-sheeted meadows and everything is black and still, then the music is beautiful. The sound carries great distances – sometimes as far as three kilometers.”
Why did they blow their advent trumpets. The call reminded the faithful of the angelic trumpets on Judgment Day.
“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them” (Revelation 8:1-2). “Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them . . . [When] the seventh angel blew his trumpet, there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever”’ (Revelation 11:15).
Advent has come. Christ is coming. We are given a challenge. Will we be able to say, in all due sincerity: “I am ready for the coming of the Lord.”
Offer Christ today. Yesterday and tomorrow do not exist. The day at hand alone is real. We get caught up and choked up with anxiety for tomorrow, or regret about yesterday. It weighs on us like a colossal gravity, but all this is a delusion, an escape from reality. God asks from us only what we can offer him in the current moment, and he is present with us in that moment, if we are still enough to attend.
Television & The Images We Venerate Fr. Peter Kavanaugh
“My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
We must render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God. But what, we must ask, belongs to God? Our eyes, our attention, our contemplation belongs to God.
On Holy Theophany, 1950, St. Lawrence of Chernigov passed away. He was a healer and prophet, but best known for the wise counsel he offered Christians struggling in the modern world. One day, as his faithful gathered around him, he was asked about the Antichrist. “Blessed, and thrice-blessed is the man who does not desire, and who will not see the abominable face of the Antichrist.” “How will this all come to pass?” they asked him. “In the holy place, the abomination of desolation . . . the Antichrist will appear, and the whole world will see him at the same time.” “Where is this holy place? In a church?” they persisted. “Not in a church,” St. Lawrence warned. “Not in a church, but in every house. In the corner, where the holy icons now stand and hang, there will stand captivating devices which will delude the people. Many will say, ‘We need to watch and listen to the news.’ And behold, in [these devices] the Antichrist will appear.”
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).
God has given us our eyes.
Have you ever wondered how marvelous these are? Our eyes open our souls to the wonders of the universe. Think about it. Two tiny spheres in our face allow us to gaze at twinkling stars 1,000 light-years away. The whole spectrum of colors in the sky, the shades of blue and gold and auburn, every manner of light and hue in the world passes through our eyes. Not only do they pass through, they change us. They enchant us. They make us wonder. They inspire and shape us. The whole universe can fit into our tiny hearts, because of these awe inspiring windows: the eyes.
“Death and destruction are never satisfied, and neither are human eyes” (Proverbs 27:20).
The eyes are hungry, just like the stomach. The minute we wake up, the eyes start reaching out to be filled and pleasured. They drink up everything possible, like a horse drinking up a stream after a good gallop. Shape, size, texture, color, depth, symbol, all of it, pours down and through these windows into our souls, where it pleases or saddens us, enlivens or depresses, fills us with hope and love, or despair and hate. You could spend all day awestruck at the thought of these little miracles: the eyes.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23).
The eyes are more marvelous still.
Hippocrates discovered long ago that our food is our medicine. If we fill our stomachs with junk food, our bodies get sick, bloated, and cancerous. If we fill our stomachs with nutrition, we become strong and energetic. As food is to the stomach, the images we contemplate are to the heart. Think of it. Whatever you spend your time looking at creates the man you become. Whatever you feed your eyes, shapes and makes your soul.
If you look at good, beautiful, and wholesome images, your heart grows and flourishes. If you feed your eyes scenes that are peaceful, still, and harmonious, your heart becomes strong and robust. If you feed your eyes junk food — flashing images, entertainment, consumerism, billboards, polemics and propaganda — your heart shrivels. Even little glances, again and again, poison the heart. One lewd image pops up as an internet ad. Another glance in a television show. You look away and feel righteous because of your self-control, but you do not turn away from the devices. You stay plugged in, glued to the screen — you are an “adult” after all — and all those little images keep on showing up, keep on flashing before you, and without ever knowing it, you are desensitized. It has seeped into your heart. One tiny sip of poison may not kill you. A hundred tiny sips and its game over.
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).
What belongs to God? The attention of our heart belongs to God.
We live in an entertainment crazed culture. Indeed, no society in the past has ever been bombarded by such unceasing entertainment as ours. We have to remember, there is no neutral moral ground. In the Book of Isaiah, God laments the lifestyle of His people and destroys Israel because of their luxuries and entertainments. The Church Fathers spend as much time addressing entertainment as they do holy icons. St. John Chrysostom reprimanded the faithful in his days for the time they spent at circuses and races. St. John of Kronstadt urged Christians to avoid worldly pastimes. “Entertainment, cards, dancing, and theaters,” these are things, he said, that turn hearts from God?
I used to cringe at this sort of thing. It sounds so puritanical. We must not go there! We cannot look prudish, or extremist! What a killjoy, a wet blanket, a naysayer.
But with time, I have started wondering. Perhaps they are right. In fact, maybe they are not killjoys after all. Maybe they actually know something about the good life — a life of adoration and leisure.
Worldly entertainments, St. John teaches, “lull the Christian life to sleep.” Modern men suffer from a great amount of anxiety, he said. They run to entertainment to ease their anxiety, but in the end suffer because of it. “Such means afterwards increase still more the anguish and weariness of their hearts. If, happily, they turn to God, then the burden is removed from their heart.”
What are we chasing after? What do we worship?
It is hard to imagine a life without mesmerizing entertainment and brain-numbing screens. What will we discover? The stars, the sun, the changing leaves, the tiny flowers, the quiet.
“When we really let our minds rest contemplatively on a rose in bud, on a child at play, on a divine mystery, we are rested and quickened as though by a dreamless sleep . . . In these silent and receptive moments . . . the soul of man is sometimes visited by an awareness of what holds the world together” (Joseph Pieper).
The Church is not prudish; it is pure. The saints are not bores; they are romantics. They have fallen in love with Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without screens, without shopping, with entertainment, they have learned to cherish and delight in the gaze “at the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4).
“WHAT is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs, and stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass, where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight, streams full of stars, like skies at night.” (W. H. Davies).
“Prayer is the flower of gentleness and of freedom from anger” (St. Evagrius).
“We must, with God’s help, eradicate the deadly poison [of the demon of anger] from the depths of our souls. So long as he dwells in our hearts and blinds the eyes of the heart with his somber disorders, we can neither discriminate what is for our good, nor achieve spiritual knowledge, nor fulfill our good intentions, nor participate in true life; and our intellect will remain impervious to the contemplation of the true, divine light” (St. John Cassian).
A boy once became a saint for his gentleness and forgiveness. Young Peter was born in a pious home in Southern Russia, and enlisted in the Tzar’s army. At the Prutsk Campaign of 1711, he and fellow soldiers were captured by Turks. They were sold into slavery and subjected to cruel torture for their Christian faith. Some were martyred. Others apostatized to Islam. Peter resisted: “You cannot turn me from my holy Faith by threats, nor with promises of riches and pleasures,” he said. “I will obey your orders willingly, if you will leave me free to follow my religion.” He was bold, but also meek and humble, happy to live as a faithful servant so long as he could worship Jesus Christ. The master was moved by his nobility and gave Peter what he asked.
Years went by. In cold and heat, barefoot and clothed in rags, the servant labored for his master and never complained. He was mocked and beaten at times. Yet, he never became angry. His fellow servants often cursed the master behind his back, but Peter refused to join in. Eventually, the household became so impressed by his kindness and gentleness, they invited him to live in the mansion. He declined. He preferred to sleep in the hay loft, where he could pray through the night. Little Peter was no great preacher. He did not have degrees and education. He did not found hospitals or build monuments. He became saint for his gentleness and forgiveness.
“Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’” (Matthew 9:5).
Our Gospel takes us to Capernaum, where Christ encounters a cripple, paralyzed and bedridden, carried in by his friends. He was moved by their faith and spoke to the paralytic: “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” The religious onlookers were indignant. Who does this Rabbi think he is? And Christ taught us a lesson.
“Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’” (Matthew 9:5).
Our sins and sickness are closely related. The evil in our heart eats away at us, body and soul. Psychology, Neurology, Biology, all the medical sciences, closely interpenetrate. A lot of our physical problems are caused by our spiritual struggles, whether from anxiety, fear, or self-indulgence. Jesus Christ shows the crowd that to heal the paralytic of his disease is the same as to forgive him his sins.
This does not mean that the holier you become the healthier you get, or vice versa. God allows us to suffer physically because we need our pain to grow spiritually. Nonetheless, in the end, Christ died on the cross to restore the whole person, our soul, heart, mind, hands, feet, skin, everything.
“Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength” (1 Corinthians 15:43).
“He then said to the paralytic—‘Stand up, take your bed and go to your home’” (Matthew 9. 6).
There is one illness, in particular, which works havoc on our body and soul: anger.
Psychology Today reports that sustained anger injures our cardiovascular system (our heart, arteries, and veins), and our immune system (our cells’ ability to fight disease), and will even destroy neurons in our brain. Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying: “Resentment is like taking poison . . . and waiting for others to die,” and the Buddhists teach: “Anger has a honeyed tip . . . and a poisoned barb.”
We all know anger harms us, but I was recently struck by the emphasis the Church Fathers place on anger. Page after page of the Philokalia talks about anger. It insists that every trace of anger dulls our ability to pray. Anger makes us spiritually sterile. It clouds our heart. It cuts us off from God. It makes us our soul blind, deaf, and dumb.
We share a lot in common with this paralyzed fellow in the Gospel. Do we not?
But are we not justified in our anger? That is how we feel. Is it not? When the anger boils in our blood, we are confident that our anger is righteous?
The Holy Fathers would certainly not agree.
“Thoughts will come to you which make you feel that you have a real right to be angry,” St. Evagrius says. “But anger with your neighbor is never right.”
Righteous anger is only righteous when directed against our sin and the devil, he continues. Anger is never righteous or justified when directed against another human person. It is always a trap.
“No matter what provokes it, anger blinds the soul’s eyes,” St. John Cassian teaches. “Anger, whether reasonable or unreasonable, obstructs our spiritual vision . . . we must struggle with all our strength against the demon of anger and against the sickness which lies hidden within us.”
A couple weeks ago, I woke up filled with anger over something someone had done. I stewed in it for a long time. I even enjoyed it. I felt not only justified, but righteous and noble for flirting with the angry thoughts. I prayed through it for over an hour, but could not shake out of it. Then I remembered all these teachings by the saints about anger. I was harboring these thoughts, even enjoying them, as though they were mine. But that is not so. All angry thoughts come from a demonic spirit. That cloud of anger that chokes us — there is nothing private or personal about it. It is a demon — a malicious and odious demon at that. Do we really want to flirt and snuggle up with a demon?
We become free when we recognize our struggle for what it is. Anger cripples us. So Christ is speaking to us personally. He is speaking to us in our struggle with anger, when he tells us: “Your sins are forgiven . . . Stand up, take your bed and go home.”
The Scriptures are clear.
“Rid yourselves of all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking and all malice” (Eph. 4:31).
In the end, what is a good life? How many today would look at St. Peter the Gentle and see his life as a waist. He could have gone off to go to college? He could have gotten married? He could have become a businessman or entrepreneur. Instead, fate dictated that he would become a slave. But what is the measuring rod of success? St. Peter became forgiving. He became gentle. He learned to love everyone, even the slave driver who beat him. He acquired the Kingdom of God in his heart. That is a successful life.
How can we become more like St. Peter? How can we learn to forgive, to become gentle? We have to learn to rejoice every time we are offended. Every offense is an opportunity to forgive. We have to learn to rejoice when things go wrong. Every inconvenience is an opportunity to become gentle. We have to strive to set aside our hurt and anger and to love. Our Lord’s final words on the cross were: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He spent his life loving others and died with a heart overflowing with gentleness and forgiveness. May we follow him to the last.
