Author: ramez

Unity

Prayer

Lord, please grant me to understand the importance of unity in all aspects of my life. Teach me to seek after unity, even if that means having to give up my own desires and plans. Grant me a taste of the sweetness of unity, that I may strive for it always.

Open my eyes to see the importance of this virtue in my life and in my service. Never let me think that grand ideas and plans are worthwhile, if they come at the expense of unity. Grant that my family and I would live in unity all the days of our lives – so that this would be where you would command the blessing.

Protect our church from divisions. Shield us from fruitless and divisive debates. Amen.

Unity

Focus Quote

The One, indivisible Trinity ever remains the Trinity. The Father always remains the Father, the Son remains the Son, the Holy Spirit remains the Holy Spirit. Besides their personal properties, they all share all in common and in unity. That is why the Holy Trinity is One God.

– St. John Maximovich

Unity Readings

Psalm

Psalm 133

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Hermon, Descending upon the mountains of Zion; For there the LORD commanded the blessing: Life forevermore.

Discussion Questions

  1. The psalmist refers to unity as something that is particularly ‘good’ and ‘pleasant’ – what are some of the ways that unity achieves this?
  2. What is this oil that is referred to in the psalm, and why is it mentioned in the context of unity?
  3. What are some of the ways that we can practice living in unity, in our homes and in our service?

Old Testament Passage

2 Samuel 11: 6-11

Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered. 8 And David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah departed from the king’s house, and a gift of food from the king followed him. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”

11 And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”

Discussion Questions

  1. In this passage, we see how great Uriah’s unity was with his fellow soldiers. He was very conscious of the danger and discomfort that they were in, to the point that he refused to accept his own comfort and pleasures whilst they were in distress. How can we grow this same spirit of unity within us?
  2. Shortly after this encounter, Uriah is killed in battle under the orders of King David. We had previously read in Psalm 133 that unity brings from blessing. How can we then reconcile this with the way that Uriah’s life ended?

Hidden Warfare

Hidden Warfare

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Jonathan Ishak

Passage Matthew 12:22-37

“Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? – Matthew 12:29

This verse on its own is a parable that the Lord eloquently presents to us. If a person wanted to enter the home of a strong man, they would first need to consider binding the strong man so that they would be successful.

We have something good concealed within our hearts. Satan would like to take this from us. In order to defeat us, he first finds ways to bind us so that we are restrained from fighting back. If we are strong, we are untouchable to Satan, but if we are weak, he can steal and destroy as he pleases.

The most valuable thing we own is our faith and the devil wishes to plunder our faith and void our hope. He cunningly seeks out our destruction through a variety of methods. We would be foolish to think that the devil would leave our faith to flourish undisturbed. His aim is to make us believe that we do not have a place in heaven. For every step of faith, the devil fight to pull us back to where we started.

The question remains, if the devil wishes to plunder our houses and our goods, how can we be strong? A certain youth once answered this question with three main attempts;

  1. I can work on my physical strength
  2. I can grow in knowledge and respond in wisdom
  3. I can use weapons

Spiritually, we can do the same. We can be physically strong as Christians so that we fight against the attacks of Satan. Mother Teresa was once asked, “why do you serve in the poorest and sickest of areas?” To which she responded, “Because I love Jesus.” She didn’t give a nice, worldly answer, that is she kind, or altruistic, or it’s a service to Christ, but a simple answer that shows her spiritual strength. Her motivation and goal is to love the Lord our God. Her motivation never faltered, if you love the Lord, you will have strong faith that will compel you to walk on the path of Christ.

When speaking of his book, The Imitation of Christ, Thomas Kempis says, “the most beautiful thing I found in this book is the title because it contains the name of Christ.” When we go to heaven, our Lord will give a summary of our lives on earth as an example of how much we love Him and how much effort we made to grow closer to Him. This is how to be a strong Christian. Satan cannot plunder a heart that loves God.

When the Lord came to Peter after His Resurrection, He only had one question for him; “Do you love Me?” (John 21:15). He didn’t ask him why he betrayed Him or why he denied Him. Only after he said that he did love Him could he be a shepherd of Christ. In everything you do in the church, love the Lord. Measure your Christianity by the amount of love concealed within your heart. If you grow in loving the Lord Jesus Christ, your house is built on a firm foundation.

Next, we must have a strong mind. I can fight back if I can think and mentally prepare for the battle. This preparation comes from the Bible and applying the teaching of the Lord. Read the Bible, know the teaching of the Lord and apply this to the battle that befalls you. When Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph, he applied the wisdom of the Lord. Even if it meant defying her authority, he knew the words of God and remained pure. The word of the Lord was clear before his eyes.

In life, we too, must have the word of God at the forefront of our minds in all our actions and deeds. Those around us have their own thought processes but we remain strong in the Lord. We do not follow the teaching of the world, but the commandments of the Lord. Pope Kyrillos VI during the liturgy was sitting inside and fell asleep. A person was brought to him who was demon possessed. Even while asleep, the demon immediately fled from the man in the presence of Pope Kyrillos. This reveals the power of the Word of Christ within him.

The Lord said, “in vain they worship me, teaching the doctrine of men” (Matthew 15:9). If you would like to be strong, apply this teaching. Never follow the teaching of the people for they lean on their own understanding.

The final thing is to arm ourselves with weaponry. Our weapons are the sacraments of the church. Pope Shenouda III once said that you cannot stand strong against the attacks of Satan without the sacraments. These are Holy Communion, confession and a spiritual canon that you follow without fail. Ask your father of confession to give you a spiritual canon that you can stick with. These are our weapons in the Body and Blood of Christ, in our repentance and confession. Together, these make us strong against the adversity of the devil. This will make the devil flea from you.

When we look at the secret place of our hearts, is it open to attack, or have we armed ourselves with the strength of our faith, the knowledge of the Bible and partaking of the sacraments? At any point when we sway towards things of the world, we let our guard down in the face of adversity. Continual nourishment of these three elements helps us withstand the wiles of the devil. Let us make our homes full of prayer, full of almsgiving, full of blessing, full of love for the Lord and a welcome space for Christ to dwell. Be strong in the Lord so that the devil cannot snatch your faith and claim your eternity.

The Paralytic Man

St Luke’s transcribed sermons- Fr Samuel Fanous

There are some beautiful readings today, and if you look through them there is a common theme that runs through all of them. That theme is healing.

If you look at the Pauline it says;

“eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

So, you can’t even begin to imagine what God has prepared for you. Then if we go to the Catholicon;

“by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped corruption that is in the world through lust.”

This is one of the most famous passages in the whole Bible because St peter teaches us something very profound in this passage; the true incarnation of Jesus Christ through Him coming as fully God and touching humanity in the way He did and uniting it to Himself, He has touched all flesh so that we become like God. God became man, so man could become God. So, this is what Christ offers us through healing our flesh, through touching it and making it holy and divine. Hence why this is one of the most famous passages in the Bible.

If we go to the acts, we hear of St Paul healing a cripple from Lystra. They thought that he was a God because of this healing. As we also hear of St Moses the Strong in the Synaxarion, which is one of the most beautiful stories of repentance we have in the whole church. A man who was so far gone and yet he became one of the greatest saints that we have in the church.

Finally, in the Gospel we have Christ healing the paralytic man, and if you have a look at the order, He doesn’t heal him then forgives his sins. He forgives his sins then He heals him. And the question is, what is the greatest miracle in the Gospels?

He raises Lazarus from the dead after 4 days and He made eyes for a blind man. But is this really what He came to do?

Lazarus rose and then died later on in life. The blind man saw but became blind again when he died and saw nothing. So, is this really what He came to do?

All of these miracles don’t achieve any lasting service in and of themselves, because the healing that he achieves is temporary.

Matthew Henry, one of the great biblical commentators says;

“The only reason Christ did miracles, was to show what He could really do.”

The miracles were just a little taste tester to show what he could really do. The miracles don’t mean anything in and of themselves because of how many people saw his miracles and walked away and kept going on about their lives.

What Christ is teaching us today is the real miracle, which is the forgiveness of sins. The real miracle is the healing of the soul, not the body. The healing of the soul has eternal ramifications, and it is so much harder to do than the healing of the body. That’s why Christ questions, “what’s easier to say?”

It is much easier to heal someone than to forgive their sins. Now in modern medicine, you come, and we have miracle drugs because they cure many diseases and fix problems that we never had before. That’s what medicine can achieve, but what medicine can never achieve is the change of heart, the change of person, helping someone to overcome a particular sin. So, when Christ came, He did not come for miracles, He came to say, “look, you have a physical disease and I will heal it for you. Just to show you. Imagine what I could do with your spiritual disease. For us its standard, I repent, and the sin is gone. This is what we have been taught in Church, but if you look, it wasn’t always the case. In the old testament, if you sinned; let’s say you killed someone, there’s no forgiveness. The punishment is death. It is only through Christ that that changes. Now everything is forgivable, everything is healable. This is why the Pharisees were shocked, they said; “who can forgive sins but God alone?” And God doesn’t refute them, because He forgives the sins to show that “I am God.”

So, all of these readings today show us the process from sickness to health is an incredibly joyful process, not something sad. We often think that repentance is something sad, we should cry and lament, which might be the first part of it. But the reality of repentance is exceeding joy, to that that ‘I was sick and now I am healed’.

From now on in your life, you have to remember that there is nothing that can separate you from God except yourself. The only person standing between you and God is yourself. Many people sin and then they think that is the end of the line for them; ‘Now I am a sinful person; how can God accept me …’

And that is what you call despair, which is the worst thing that you can do in life. Many people think that despair is humility, but it is the opposite. It is pride. When you think of yourself as so good, that you can’t imagine how you have fallen so much, you think that you are better than that, but none of us are better than that. At our best states, we are still the biggest sinners before God, comparatively speaking. But when I think, ‘wow look at what I’ve done, how could I have done this?’ You think your better than what you are, but if you saw realistically you realise that when you sin it is what you are without God’s grace. So, we must remember that nothing can separate us from God’s grace. St Paul says;

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, not height, nor depth, nor any other created thing should be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But there is a catch; and that catch is ourselves. If you do not repent and not feel as though you have sin in your life, or you feel as though you are not worthy before God and you feel that you are ok, you can never have this relationship, it’s impossible. It is you putting yourself a big barrier between you and God, and not allowing God to enter. For us, repentance starts with an acknowledgment of the sin and is completed in the act of confession and achieving healing. Many people feel as though the church made confession up, but if you look at the old testament people would take 2 goats and bring them to the altar and cast lots for them. One of them is God’s lot. And the goat which the Lord’s lot is cast, that goat is slaughtered. The Lord’s one is slaughtered, and the goat that didn’t get killed is set free into the wilderness. Before they set it free, the priest lays his hand on the goat and he confesses the sins of himself and of the whole Jewish people, and that goat goes free while the Lord’s goat is slain. And so, when you come to have confession it is the exact same process; when the priest lays his hand on your head and you’ve confessed your sins you go free as the scapegoat, you’re the one who escaped. But the Lord, the Lamb himself, Jesus Christ, is sacrificed for your sake. Confession is a sacrament in which there is a hidden mystery, in which something happens that you don’t see with your eyes. This is a very beautiful thing that we have to remember, this is the miracle that God gives us in healing. The physical miracles in your life are nothing compared to this healing that can happen to us.

The worst cases as a doctor to see is when somebody comes in with mental health problems. The first thing you ask is a question that tells you what their insight it, do they have insight into their disease, and if they have good insight it is excellent. We can fix it as they will comply with treatment and do what needs to be done because they know that they need it. If you have no insight it becomes infinitely more difficult to treat, if the person has no insight of their mental health problems they won’t comply and thus we can’t treat them. And so, the number 1 marker of whether a person can be healed is whether they have insight into their disease. Sometimes, we walked around like this, with zero insight into what we are. Zero insight into how sinful we are and how much we need God; ‘I’m fine, I’m a good person. I don’t fight, I don’t kill, I don’t do anything, what do I need God for?’ And that is the hardest thing to cure. St Moses the strong, big sinner, no problem, he knows he’s a big sinner. But most of us going about life ordinarily thinking everything is ok, that is a big problem because we don’t recognise what we need and don’t have. This is the hardest job for any priest and even Jesus Christ Himself who came and could not convince the Pharisees that they needed Him.

So, I think for us, God is offering healing for us and if you seek Him as a Physician, He will be given to you. But you must never feel or think that you don’t need it, or that you are too good for God. The moment you do that you are making yourself out to be God.

Glory be to God forever.

How Great is your Faith?

How Great is your Faith

Adapted from a sermon by Fr David Shehata

Passage Luke 5:17-26

The Paralytic Man is read in the gospel of Luke 5, but also in Matthew 9 and Mark 2. It is very commonly confused with the miracle recorded in the gospel of John which recounts a paralytic man that was 38 years old and sat by the pool of Bathsaida. This is usually because Jesus says to both, “rise, take up your bed and walk.”

There are key differences between the two. They are definitely not the same person and when we look at the differences, there are a multitude of benefits that reveal how Christ treated them according to the depth of their faith.

Jesus was in a house in the gospel of Luke and the man was brought to Him, while in John, Jesus sought out the paralytic man. The man in Luke had friends around him while the man by the pool of Bethsaida had no one.

It can come across as insensitive that the Lord – who is all-loving, all-powerful, all compassionate – would allow this man and his friends to go through so much trouble to reach Him. St Mark recounts the extent of the difficulty they had when he writes, “many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door” (Mark 2:2).

He emphasises a house that would have had so many people that they were flooded out the door. There was no room, so the four men looked upon this situation and decided to enter through the roof; “And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was” – Luke 2:4.

If we pause at this verse and put ourselves in this situation. If I was one of the four men in this situation or the paralytic man himself who had come to see Jesus in faith because I have heard of what He has done for others, how do I react to the obstacles in my path?

This applies to every time we want to spend time with God, but find an obstacle along the way. I am making my way to church, I have planned ahead and booked a spot because of the current Covid restrictions. I find rain, storm, cold… what next? Do I wait for the next mass?

Or I come to pray at night at my designated prayer spot but just before I get there, I find the room is cold and I remember the warmth of my bed… what next? This is a question we ask ourselves. What would I do in this situation; when Christ is so close but there is an obstacle in my way?

Do I presume that it’s just not God’s will for me to go to church on that day? There is nothing wrong with waiting, Jesus will still be around when I eventually pray the next day, or the day after that. There are so many ways to justify turning back at the first obstacle we see.

But in Mark, the four friends saw that they could not enter through the door so they created their own entry point through the roof. It seems irrational and beyond the logic of society to enter through a closed roof instead of an open door.

It is not the faith of one alone in this situation but the combined faith of the five men. They had to carry the man to the roof, they had to uncover some of the tiles so that they could lower him into the house. The greatness and difficulty of this task was exemplary of the greatness and unwavering faith of these five men.

The understanding of Jews at the time was that in major disease or illness was the result of sin. Either their own sin or that of their parents, just like in the gospel of John when the disciples asked Christ in front of the man without any fear of whether he would hear them or not, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” This is an insight into the culture at the time. The paralytic man was seen as a sinner, deserving of his punishment of paralysis.

The life of a paralytic would have been extremely difficult, they had no social security, were unable to work and moreover, they were blamed for the state they were in. No one had compassion on them and they were likely to grow irritable and resent society. This man showed willingness to become a public spectacle, to be judged and condemned as a sinner, for a chance to reach Christ and be healed. This was all irrelevant to him compared to what he was about to gain. His gain in this process was far greater than any criticism and social stigma. This is a lesson in faith we can all learn from.

How many times do I sacrifice time with God for momentary praise or pleasure? How many times do I, in my own life, say that I will speak to God later?

When the Lord sees the faith of the paralytic man and his friends, He says, “your sins are forgiven.” This is so powerful and gives us insight into the nature of Christ. The Lord prioritises the man’s sins over his paralysis. This was the more important of the two in the eyes of the Lord. Heavenly healing lasts for eternity, while healing of the flesh is irrelevant to the hereafter.

Perhaps we can learn to prioritise similarly; to work harder on the forgiveness of my sins, to work harder in speaking to my father of confession, to work harder in partaking of the sacraments and finding time alone with God.

God wants to approach Him similarly as Fr Yacoub Magdy points out – “the trust of the beggar, compels the giver.” We learn to approach the Lord in unworthiness, in helplessness and that compels God to come to our rescue, for He is our only hope.

We cannot say we have finished breathing for the day, so we can not say that we have finished praying for the day. Prayer is a continual and ongoing relationship with the Lord. The four men approached the Lord and encountered an obstacle but they kept striving to reach Christ by any means possible. They persevered with greater effort so that they would see the Lord and have the life changing encounter that they hoped for.

One reason why the Lord ensured on that day that He would be so far out of reach was to highlight the extent of their faith on that day to benefit those that witnessed the miracle and even to us, 2000 years later.

The question we then ask ourselves is how much effort do I make to meet the Lord? Is it beneficial to me? I need to keep asking, I need to keep seeking, I need to keep knocking, until I encounter the Lord, whatever it takes.

“Do not be foolish in the requests you make to God, otherwise you will insult God through your ignorance. Act wisely in prayer, so that you may become worthy of glorious things. Ask for things that are honorable from Him Who will not hold back, so that you may receive honor from Him as a result of the wise choice your free will had made. Solomon asked for wisdom (3 Kg 3:8-14) – and along with it he also received the earthly kingdom, for he knew how to ask wisely of the heavenly King, that is, for things that are important.”

St Isaac the Syrian

We have the King of Heaven and Earth before us and He is willing to give us all that we ask for. Ask, and ask for big things. Don’t ask for meaningless things that you would never put before a king. Even if you don’t receive immediately, keep praying for your begging will compel the Hand of God to give.

Put off Worldly Lust, Put on Spiritual Nourishment

The New Man Part 2: Put off Worldly Lust, Put on Spiritual Nourishment

By Ereeny Mikhail

I want you to think to a time you bought your favourite treat. A box of Favourites chocolates. A dozen of Krispy Kreme donuts. A container of cookies. You bought it at the end of the week after you’ve spent the week eating healthy and exercising. You tell yourself I will only have one. Then you have one, enjoy it and carry on with your day. But then you see the rest of the treats sitting there…you eye it…think about it…then you have one more. And once you start, you can’t stop.

How do you feel after it? Guilty? Angry with yourself? Upset? Or maybe you feel happy? Joyful? Satisfied?

Our initial aim is self-control but when the temptation presents itself, we often act on impulse, desire and lust. You may ask yourself; why don’t I have self-control? Why are others able to control themselves with certain things while I cannot?

Let me reassure you, there is an explanation to all this. There are different parts to the brain which control for these responses. The frontal lobe, specifically the prefrontal cortex, controls for resisting temptation. It is actually responsible for something described by scientists as “executive function”. In simpler terms, “executive function” refers to judgment/decision making, focusing, planning, coordinating, social control and emotional control. Individuals who have less activity in this part of the brain may struggle with impulse control problems, lack of self-control, trouble learning from past experiences amongst others. Of course, each individual is affected differently depending on the level of activity. There are multiple other sectors of the brain which ultimately play a role in our fleshly lusts such as the limbic system which supports different functions including our emotions. Our hormones are also responsible for feelings of joy and happiness which results in people seeking certain fleshly lusts. Essentially, multiple factors play a role in temptation. These all interact in ways that we still do not fully understand.

Does that mean we give up? When my brain is wired like this, is there a point? If my brain tells me to fulfil the lusts of my body, should I do it?

St Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:20-24: “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” He specifically says to ‘be renewed in the spirit of your mind.’ St Jerome reflects on this and says:

“We are not being renewed in our thinking process apart from the renewal of our spirits. Nor are we renewed in our spirits without thinking.”

We can only renew our spirits when we renew our mind and vice versa. How can we renew our mind if we are wired as such? Again, let me reassure you, the mind controls the brain, which is the single most malleable organ in the entire body. As it says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” God has given us a sound mind which we can train.

I am reminded of the story of the World War II veteran, Louis Zamperini, who later became a Christian evangelist. His biography “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption,” is the exact example of the flexibility of the mind. At the beginning of his story, he and two others survive a plane crash which leaves them stranded at sea for 47 days. Zamperini and one other plane crash survivor, Phil, live through the extreme circumstances. The third plane crash survivor, Mac, on the other hand, who does not believe he will survive, is the one that dies. All three individuals were put under the horrible circumstances with the same supplies. However, Mac dies because he believed he would die. After the 47 days, they are caught by the Japanese and become prisoners of war. They are faced with extremely harsh and violent conditions but still continue to survive. Zamperini, specifically, is violently targeted by the Japanese corporal, Mutsuhiro Watanabe. Watanabe often hurt Zamperini, leaving him weak and hungry. On a day, when Zamperini’s body was not able to continue working at the camp, Watanabe punishes him by telling him to carry a heavy beam above his head. Watanabe asks the guard to shoot Zamperini if he drops it. Zamperini, put his mind to it, lifts the beam and held the beam above his head for an impossible 37 minutes. Through his weakness, he controlled his mind to believe he could do it and he did. If the mind is focused on something, it can achieve it. No matter the circumstance, no matter the temptation, no matter the spiritual warfare, the ‘sound mind’ Christ has given us can do anything. Thus, we must exercise our mind to overcome our fleshly lusts.

As I mentioned, both the mind and the spirit work hand in hand, not one before the other. St Paul in Galatians 5:16-17 tells us, “Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” The mind can be trained by ‘walk[ing] in the spirit’. And, if we train our mind, then our spirit is also lifted. By doing this, we overcome the lusts of the flesh.

I think the first hurdle to train our mind and spirit, should really be answering the almighty; WHY? Why should I overcome the lusts of the flesh? St John Chrysostom reflects on this and says;

“Pleasures often are destructive. They end up being not really pleasures but bitterness and deceit and pretense, like a theatrical illusion.”

Our lusts are but masked happiness which lead to eternal condemnation. We must not live in lust, because we don’t know when our last day may be. We often tell ourselves, its ok if I overindulge today, I will be better tomorrow. By we must deny ourselves because “…you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” (James 4:14) Likewise, “His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish.” (Psalm 146:4)

A priest once described to me the notion of something called a “beloved sin.” He said it was a sin that a certain individual always finds themselves returning to, a sin they sometimes think they have no control over, a sin they might even enjoy. Let’s return to the donut, the cookie, the chocolate…I asked a question…How do you feel after it? You might feel guilt, upset, or angry. Or you might feel happy, joyful, and satisfied. Our favourite treat is like our ‘beloved sin’, our fleshly lust. We may be burdened by our fleshly lust, we may feel we have no control over our fleshly lust, we might even enjoy fulfilling our fleshly lust. But because our life is but a ‘vapour’, we must put on spiritual nourishment. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26) We must endure and deny our burden, that is our fleshly lust, whether that be money, sexual desire, gluttony, or other sins… because as St Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11 it is a “…war against the soul.”

Most importantly, we are reminded of God’s love. That love is the single, most epic love of all time. No other love can compare. If our body, mind and spirit recognise this love, then all impulse drive in our mind, all emotions in our systems, and all hormones which are associated with temporary fleshly lust, will then desire that eternal love because it is the only way to feel full for longer. Like in the story of the Samaritan woman, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing into everlasting life.” (John 4:13-14)

Now that I have answered the almighty WHY, we know that our fleshly lusts may be a burden, an ‘illusion’ of happiness and to overcome it we are reminded of Christs love and must take up our cross. How do we practically take up our cross? The contemplations of the Saints guide us.

“But the Word of God kills in such a way as to make the dead one come alive. He then seeks the Lord whom he did not know before his death. He does not corrupt but kills the old man…As the outer man decays the inner man is renewed.”

St Jerome

“When you control your body, the spirit will do its job and the might of the body will be controlled by fasting.”

Pope Kyrillos VI

“Ignore the needs of the body when you stand for prayer. Even if you are bitten by a fly or an insect, do not be bothered by it so as not to lose the great benefit of prayer.”

St Evagrius

Through fasting, prayer and the word of God, we put off our fleshly lusts. We put on spiritual nourishment. We become one with God.

“Let us see how the saints reached heaven. They did not have an easy life but had to struggle in patience and great long suffering. The Scriptures gave us the commandments, and the saints left us their experience regarding the path leading to the Kingdom. Let us see how much they loved God. Let us contemplate their lives. We will realize that they lived in humility and meekness, in hard work, in struggle, in love for God and others, in vigilance and prayer, in addition to their manual work.”

Tamav Ereeny

Our Father

Our Father

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous

In the Gospel, there are various accounts where Jesus teaches us how to pray. Often, we may find ourselves asking ourselves, “How do we pray?”. Thus, it is important for us to listen closely to the words which Christ provides us with within the Gospels. He says,

“When you pray, say Our Father,” (Luke 11:2)

He doesn’t give us prerequisites or strict instruction. We probably don’t notice how unusual that language is since we are so used to it. We hear it because we recite this prayer almost if not daily. During Christ’s time, to call God ‘Father’ was unusual.

In the Jewish praise, you will often hear them say, Lord God, creator of Heaven, and that’s how it would begin it. Very rarely would you see somebody called God, ‘Father.’ People were often excommunicated for claiming to call God ‘Father’, due to the audacity to act as though they were a son or daughter of God.

Not only does Christ urge us to call God Our Father, but He himself also uses the title when He prays.

It is unusual. Not only is He claiming to be the Son of God, but he also invites us to partake in this sonship, urging us to approach God as our Father too.

One of the early Church Fathers in early fifth or fourth century Alexandria says,

“He gives His own glory to us.”

He raises slaves to the dignity of freedom. He rescues us from the state of slavery, giving us by His grace what we did not possess by nature, and permits us to call God our Father as being admitted to the ranks of sons and daughters.

Can any of us say that we are truly free. But rather, we are all enslaved to something. All of us are beneath where we should be. All of us find that we do not have freedom or certain control, whether it will be given to anger, words that we cannot stop saying, cigarettes, alcohol shopping, whatever it may be, we’re all enslaved to something attention. However, Christ elevates us back to where we were supposed to be, sons and daughters.

Therefore, since we are all children of God, thus we must also be brothers and sisters to one another. We are all part of the same family raised under our Father’s wing. As He will care for us, so should we take care of our fellow brother or sister.

On Anger

On Anger

By Fr Antonios Kaldas

Original post by Fr Antonios Kaldas blog site

How often do you change your mind about something? I mean, really change your mind? A few years ago I had the privilege of co-authoring a book on Orthodox Christian Marriage with Ireni Attia, and one of the things we discussed was anger. My initial attitude was that anger has no place in a truly healthy, happy relationship. But working with a professional like Ireni, helped me to realise that anger is a very normal human emotion that is neither good or bad in itself. It is how you use it that matters. The more I thought about it, the more I realised she is right: psychologically, biblically, and philosophically.

It is a basic psychological principle that suppressing or burying real feelings inside us is never good. The fact is, I get angry, and to pretend otherwise can only cause harm to my own mental health, and to my relationships. Such a denial is unsustainable in the long term. 

Biblically, I was astonished that I never picked up on this before. Our modern sensitivities tend to downplay the anger inherent in Christ’s driving moneychangers from the temple:

Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” (Matthew 21:12–13).

 I simply cannot imagine Jesus gently strolling up to the moneychanging table, smiling and passing a few polite pleasantries, and then taking permission: “Would you mind terribly if I turned your table over now, sir?” This was an act of anger, and He left no one in doubt about that. Surely, then, if the Word of God Incarnate, the Perfect Man, could rightfully be angry, it must also be possible for us to be rightfully angry. What is it then, that distinguishes the good use of anger from the bad? St Paul gives this advice: “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath (Ephesians 4:26).

 Is that not odd advice from a preacher of the Gospel of divine unconditional love? Can it ever be loving to be angry with someone? It turns out that St Paul is quoting Psalm 4:4, word for word from the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament most familiar to Jesus and His disciples

 The first word, orgizesthe, is a passive construction—roughly, it means to be provoked to passion or anger. So the first thing to note here is that the Psalm (and St Paul) are acknowledging that there are things in this world for which the right response is anger. I can think of a few: the poverty and hunger of millions while a tiny number of rich people keep everything for themselves; the oppression and exploitation of the weak by the strong; the injustice of thousands of innocent people dying at the hand of a state simply because they are too poor to afford expensive lawyers who can navigate a complex legal system; lies being peddled as truth for selfish purposes … the list could go on. If such things don’t get you at least a little hot under the collar, the question to ask is why not?

The last word in that quote, hamartanete, comes from the root word commonly used for the concept of sin in the Bible. Hamartia is missing the mark, failing to be what you were meant to be. Anger may be justified, but if misused, it makes you tremble so much that your aim goes astray and you miss your target. If the target is to right wrongs, unbridled or misdirected anger can make you the cause of even worse wrongs. If you are going to be angry, then, do not let your anger make you miss the mark.

How do we miss the mark? When is anger a sin?
Simply: whenever it contradicts the Gospel of love.

There is a difference between getting angry at someone who has slighted me and plotting my revenge upon him on the one hand, and getting angry at world poverty and being moved to action to do something about it. The first is motivated by self-love, the second, by love of others. The first leads to acts of violence that hurt others, the second to acts of charity that save others. The first breeds hatred, the second breeds gratitude. It is the first—this “wrath of man” untempered by divine love—that “does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).

In brief, then, ‘good’ anger arises from ‘good’ motivations, is properly justified, and leads to ‘good’ actions and outcomes, while the reverse is true of ‘bad’ anger. Bad anger is a failure of love, but good anger is the appropriate expression of love. The proper purpose of anger is to move us to act against evil, whether in ourselves, or in our relationships with others, or in the communities we share with others. Arising from love, it is always tempered by love and by all the other virtues that come with love: wisdom, discernment, humility, truth.

 Another way to think about this is through the lens of the Stoic Greek philosophical concept of adiaphora—things that are ‘indifferent’ or neutral, neither good nor bad in themselves. The Stoics divided stuff up into three main categories. There is stuff that is intrinsically good—that’s basically the virtues, things like wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. There is stuff that is intrinsically bad—that’s basically the vices, the opposites of the virtues, things like foolishness, injustice, cowardice, and excess. Everything else is indifferent(adiaphora)—neither good nor bad in itself, but capable of being used for good or bad.

There’s a couple of interesting things to notice here. Some of the indifferents tend towards being good, but can also be turned to bad. For example, health tends towards the good, but if I use my health break into a house and steal from a poor widow, then it has become bad, not good. Likewise, disease tends towards being bad, but can also be turned to good. For example, if my disease leads me to contemplate more deeply the meaning of life and become a wiser person, then it has become a good thing.

So where does anger fit into the Stoic system? It is an indifferent, neither good nor bad in itself, but it becomes so, depending on how you use it. Perhaps, like disease, it tends in practice more often to produce evil, but that should not discourage us from harnessing its power in the service of the good, along the lines I described above.

 One more qualification is helpful here, and it comes from St Paul again. “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26). In order for anger to be good and remain good, it must be under control. Without control, anger can be more like a wild animal that rages without caring about the harm it does. So even when angry, I should continue to be sensitive to the reactions and feelings of the person in front of me. St Paul’s direction to put a time limit on anger suggests that good anger is anger that is under my control—I can tone it down or even let go of it all together when it is better to do so. And it is almost always better to do so within a relatively brief period of time. Prolonged anger is not only bad for my blood pressure (and that of those who have to bear it)—it also loses its effectiveness after a while. If it goes on too long, nobody pays attention to it anymore. It is wiser to reserve it for the things that really matter.

Anger is a very tricky beast to tame, yet it can move us to do great things. It should be approached with care, used sparingly, only when really necessary, and always practiced with self-control, unselfishness, and love. For most of us, it is not something we can completely cut out of our lives (nor perhaps, should we). But it is certainly something that can be tamed and turned to good. I’m so glad my understanding of anger has changed, but I’m a little cranky with myself that it took me so long to change it!

Original blog found at- http://www.frantonios.org.au/2020/05/08/on-anger/#more-935

The Feast of Pentecost

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Sam Fanous

Passage: John 15:26 – 16:15

Today is the beautiful Feast of Pentecost – the Feast where the apostles and disciples went out and converted the whole world. If you look at the whole history of humanity within the Bible, you can see that it is a process of God teaching humanity. In ancient civilisations, the world was pretty barbaric – humanity behaved in a way that was very depraved in many instances. In those times, they behaved in that way often in service to the gods they worshipped. Some offered up their sons and daughters, and burned them in an act of worship to their gods.

Throughout the Old Testament, God told these people that, though they were primitive, this was not the way to behave. So He revealed himself to them as God the Father, the one God. In those days, the concept of one God was alien to them – there were hundreds of gods. Each tribal group had their own group. He revealed himself to the Jews firstly to teach them the most important lesson: there is only one God. The other gods were idols. But the God of the Jews was the only one to be worshipped. 

And even though he said this to Abraham and Moses, it took about a thousand years for this idea to sink in. Initially, they thought that this was their God who was stronger than all the other gods. But after thousands of years that concept became ingrained that the other gods weren’t real, and were simply works of man. The God of the Jews was the only God. He revealed that He was the transcendent, unknowable, eternal God. 

This is why in the Old Testament the people would question “how can I have seen God’s face?”. They believed that if they saw God’s face they would be immediately killed. But throughout the whole Old Testament there are snippets of revelation that somehow God is further than we could ever imagine, yet somehow close to us. We see Moses in the Burning Bush – the angel of the Lord walks on the earth. But who is the angel of the Lord? 

So somehow, throughout the Old Testament, you get the indication that there may be more to the story than this one, eternal, unknowable God. And finally, when we get to the gospels, we discover a new level of truth: God, the word, the second person, became man.  

He was the angel of the Lord. He was the one who spoke to Moses through the Burning Bush. In the fullness of time, through St Mary, He became man. 

And this movement of revelation from God the unknowable coming towards us moves to another level now. Now, Jesus walks with us. We can listen, touch, hold and see Him. He is there. 

But the movement of God towards us is not finished there. Jesus’ death and resurrection is only the second stage. The next stage is today – Pentecost – when the disciples were gathered together in the upper room, waiting for the Holy Spirit to descend on them. This is the final revelation.

In the Old Testament, we have the eternal God unknowable to us – and that is still true. God the Father cannot be known by us. We cannot put Him in our brains – He is far above us. 

But now, we know Him as Jesus Christ. He is close to us. 

But the final stage of the revelation is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit within us. God is not only beyond everything, He is not only someone we can see, He is someone deep within us, closer to us than we are to ourselves. 

As one theologian puts it,

“God is beyond all things we could think or express, yet closer to us than our own heart”. 

This is God’s revelation to humanity – and we are the heirs of this revelation. We have received the Holy Spirit in baptism and chrismation. God has moved from His eternal throne all the way into our souls, even though we don’t deserve it. 

And now God is fully revealed to the world. There is nothing left for God to teach us from an external perspective. The only thing we have to do is find him. And we cannot say “you’re too far away” or “we don’t know you”. The disciples and Jews saw Jesus walking on earth, but He is closer to us than He was to the disciples because He is within our soul through the Holy Spirit. 

It is the Trinity: God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that works within us for our salvation. It’s the Spirit within us that pushes us to pray and convicts us when we sin. And when we pray, we pray by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father. The Holy Trinity, altogether, is working for our salvation. 

So today we have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Every action and word must be infused with the Holy Spirit. If you are not sowing the Spirit to the people around you, you are giving them emptiness. If you’re a servant in the church, and are empty of the Holy Spirit, your service is futile.

You may do good things for people and help them. Many people help those who are sick, which is a good thing. But what are you doing to make a change eternally? You may ease their pain for a short period of time, but are you easing their eternal pain? Are you giving them eternal glory? Are you giving them anything with substance or meaning? 

If you don’t have the Holy Spirit, whatever good you do will never be eternal. It will only ever be temporary. 

Think about it like a drinking vessel. You could have a drinking vessel that is beautiful and ornaments your house, but when you come to drink from it, it’s empty. Or you could have an ugly jug, cracked, hardly holding itself together, and when you drink from that drinking vessel, it has an outcome. It gives you something.

This is what we have to remember. If we are empty of the Holy Spirit, no matter how good we look, no matter how much we do, we are giving emptiness. We are giving from our own deficiency. 

Without the Holy Spirit guiding our actions, we are like zombies. We can move and do things but there’s no life within us. 

It’s not just in our service. Think about your actions when you raise your own children. When you raise them, you have to raise them with the Spirit. In everything you do, give them the Spirit. Every time you speak to them, when you pray together, when you discipline them, feed them the Spirit. 

We spend so much time making sure we have enough food or clothing so we can provide for them materially, but that doesn’t mean anything. They will only remember if you fed them the Spirit when they looked at you and saw that you had something special, eternal and transmitted it to them. 

St Seraphim of Sarov said,

“Acquire the Spirit of Peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.” 

Just one person can acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands will be saved. With the Holy Spirit, twelve uneducated fishermen changed an entire empire without lifting a sword. With the Holy Spirit, a poor young virgin gave birth to the Saviour of the world. 

This is the purpose of our lives – to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Any church that is not filled with the Holy Spirit is dead. You can do all the services you want, but it is a dead church. And being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn’t start with the priest or the hierarchy. If every member of the church was filled and overflowing with the Holy Spirit, then the whole country would be changed just from that church. If every single person made that their goal in life, the whole world would be changed. 

So this day of Pentecost, let’s not forget our purpose on this earth – to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that it overflows. Let’s follow the example of the disciples. First, they gathered together in the upper room, waiting patiently for the Spirit to descend upon them. We need to drink daily, hourly, minutely, from the Holy Spirit. 

Every time we lift up our eyes to heaven or bow down on our knees to pray, this is us drinking daily. When we fill ourselves up and then interact with the people around us, it’ll naturally be transmitted to them. Even without words, as St Francis of Assisi said:

“Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”

We don’t always need to use words to preach God – we just need to be filled with the Spirit. 

Together, in this season of Pentecost now, remember that God, who is beyond our comprehension and above anything we can begin to imagine is also deep within our souls – our whole purpose in life is to discover and find him there. Glory be to God forever Amen.

Full Sermon Here