Tag: spirit

Healing from the Inside Out

Healing from the Inside Out

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Michael Fanous

Passage Matthew 12:22-28

There was a man that was demon-possessed, blind and mute. Normally those who are mute are usually deaf as well. It would have seemed that nothing was going right for this man.

What does it mean to be demon-possessed? In essence, it is madness. How do we describe madness? The mind that cannot reason or think logically and is constantly confused. All the thoughts produced by this mind are not in line with reality. There are a multitude of problems.

What does it mean to be blind? He was also deprived of seeing the beauty of creation around him, and for him.

On top of that, being mute and deaf meant he could not express or explain himself. We could go so far as to presume that this was a useless person. A man that is not in the image that we know.

But this is the exact state of humanity after Adam and Eve sinned. When we do not know what is good for us, when we cannot reason right from wrong, when we cannot see creation for the beauty that God created it to be, when we cannot praise God, then we are like the madness of this man.

When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, the devil corrupted their minds. The serpent questioned God’s command saying, Has God indeed said, “You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Gen. 3:1). He deceived and confused them so that they forget what God had taught them. The serpent convinced them that the only source of life was from the one tree they were told not to eat from. They were blinded from seeing the good creation of the Lord.

When God called out to Adam when he was hiding, Adam responded, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen. 3:10). What happened to Adam at the point? Had he not heard the voice of God before? What made this time different? Adam became deaf to the voice of the Lord also.

This is the state of humanity when sin entered the world. But Jesus came to bring back normality to the world. He came to earth and gave us baptism so that we may think clearly, see the good of creation and hear the voice of the Lord.

When the Lord healed the man, He renounced Satan, in this same way we renounce Satan before a person is baptised. The person raises their left hand and faces the west where Satan is and they say, “I renounce you, Satan, with all your trickery and hypocrisy”

Christ in the gospel renounces Satan and this brought healing to the man. Healing puts us back to our original state. In baptism, we look toward the east and raise our right hand and says, “I believe in You, Christ.”

In Christ, we can uses our senses for the glory of God. Everything becomes clear – our mind, our thoughts, our sight. We can praise the Lord.

Eventually, we sin again, but the church provides for us the means to return to our original state. The church provides a place where God is upon the altar. We can see and hear God. We have the saints to fill our eyes with goodness. The church gives us the Cross so we can see the Love of God in its fullness. The church gives us the smell of incense that takes us to heaven. The church provides the Holy Body and Blood of Christ to give us power, wisdom and understanding. Then, we are normal again. The things of the world cannot distract the soul that is satisfied in Christ. We look to heaven, and the things of the world become meaningless in comparison.

The Lord tells us, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand” (Matt. 12:25). This is the case when we fall into sin. My kingdom is my internal state. If my mind is divided from my heart and the body is doing what it likes, while the eyes are free to wander, I cannot stand.

The heart says I should be Christian, the mind agrees that this is the right thing to do, but then the body wants to enjoy the pleasures of the world. We become confused and divided against ourselves. How can we stand? This breeds guilt and confusion. We cannot reason when we are divided. The Lord tells us that if he can heal the man that was possessed, blind and mute, He can heal us, too. He can heal us through the church. This gives us eternal satisfaction.

The saints gave all their senses to the Lord, these worked together. They raise their hands to pray, they prostrate, their heart and mind are with God. The spirit moves within them to make them a complete person, lacking nothing and free from all bondage. A true son or daughter of Christ is completely free, nothing can bind them or upset them. Nothing can hold them back.

I will praise You with uprightness of heart when I learn Your righteous judgements

Psalm 119:7

This is the goal – to praise and thank Him for our minds and our senses. We can be whole again, we can be pure, we can be sons and daughters of the Highest.

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

The Sword of the Spirit

The Armour of God Part 5

By Andrew Gad

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” – John 15:7  

A priest tells the following story regarding the value of reading the Bible.

A student received an offer to study interstate, accepted it and left his whole family behind to pursue his dream course. His father missed him very much, and would write him letters every week, checking up on him, updating him and most importantly, letting him know how much he was missed. Initially, the son would eagerly wait for his father’ letters, replying almost instantly and cherishing each and every word written in these letters. However, as time passed and life’s distractions got the better of him, the son began to neglect reading his father’s letters. At first, he would read one letter and skip the next one, but eventually, he would not even open the letters- leaving them to pile up on his desk.

The father missed his son very much, and was extremely worried, wondering why his son stopped replying to his letters. Filled with immense love for his son, he took time off work and decided that his son was due for a visit. The son woke up one morning to loud knocking on the door- to his surprise, it was his father! “Dad I’ve missed you so much!” the son exclaimed, as the pair embraced upon their reunion. The father then sat down in his son’s room, and saw a pile of unopened letters sitting there on his desk. Immediately, he was extremely saddened and taken aback, with tears in his eyes- “Son, for months I’ve been writing to you with no response. I was extremely worried about you. Have you not even been opening my letters?”. The son was greatly humiliated, and sat their speechless, unable to justify or explain himself to his father. The father had spent a great amount of time writing these letters, and the son could not even find five minutes every week to read them?

Now replace the son with yourself, the father with God and the letters with the Bible. Isn’t this a story which sounds all too familiar?

How many times have we come back home after a long day of lectures or study and thought to ourselves…“I’ll probably just give the Bible a miss today” or “I already read the Bible yesterday, I’ll read it again tomorrow”.

Why do we often complain that we have no direction in life? That our prayers aren’t being answered? That we feel anxious, worried or distressed? That we haven’t overcome that annoying, repeated sin, no matter how much we try? Why does God always comforts and reveals things to other people, yet never to me?

Maybe the answer is simple? Perhaps we have the key in our hands, but we refuse to use it? Just like our body needs food in order to survive and function, so too do our souls need the word of God in order to survive and thrive throughout the dilemmas, decisions and hardships that we face each and every day.

When a woman from the crowd saw Jesus walking through the streets, she cried out, glorifying St. Mary and exclaiming: “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You” (Lk 11: 27).  Jesus, instead of agreeing with her, turned around and corrected her, saying: “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Lk 11:28). That’s right! Even though St. Mary was considered blessed enough to be the Mother of God, Jesus Himself says that there is an even greater blessing available to those who hear the word of God (which is the Bible) and keep it!

To be as blessed as St. Mary? This alone should be enough encouragement for us to read the word of God, study it diligently and transform our lives!

Now that we know the great blessings available to those who read the Bible diligently, let’s talk about some of the ways in which the Bible can genuinely transform our lives.

  1. The Bible is a “light to our path”:

In life, we are all faced with big decisions- what university course to study, what job offer to accept, whether it’s really worth moving away from home- and the list goes on and on. Many people make decisions based on fear, others based on advice they’ve heard, and others just leave it all up to chance! But in Psalm 119: 105, David the psalmist teaches us that the word of God can and should be used to direct our steps and guide each and every decision that we make.

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”

But how can the Bible be used to guide such decisions- it just doesn’t seem to make any sense? The word of God is just like a lamp- it won’t show you the whole path all at once, but it will provide you with enough light to see one step, and then the next step, and then the next step. The Bible tells you to “Love your enemy”- that’s the first step. Take it, then the Bible will tell you to “watch and pray”- that’s the second step. Then the Bible will tell you: “The lamp of the body is the eye”. That’s the third step, and so on. And so, by following the words of the Bible step by step, you’ll find that God has just directed you along the entire path.

  • The Bible cleanses our thoughts:

The Paradise of the Fathers tells a story of a monk who was struggling with a particular sin, and went to his confession father asking for guidance. His confession father listened to his complaint, gave him a bucket with a small hole in it, and asked him to go fill it up at the well and report back to him. The younger monk was confused at this request, but out of obedience did exactly what was asked of him. By the time he went back  to his confession father, all the water had seeped out through the hole and the bucket was empty.

His confession father asked him to do the same thing again, and out of obedience, the younger monk did exactly that. After the third or fourth time, the younger monk became frustrated at the waste of time, complaining to his confession father: “Father, can’t you see that there is a hole in the bucket, and every time I fill the water, it seeps out!”. The confession father replied: “My son, even though the water has seeped out, can’t you see that the bucket is now much more clean than it was when I first gave it to you?”. This is exactly what happens when we read the Bible- even if we feel that it is not having a strong effect- it cleanses and purifies our heart, allowing for God to reside and dwell inside us. We just have to persist and keep on reading.

The word of God is your adversary if you want to live in ungodliness, but if you are an adversary to ungodliness, the word of God is your friend.

  • The Bible is an answer to our prayers:

The word prayer in Arabic is extremely powerful, and means “connection” or “relationship”. Now for any relationship to be successful, it needs input from both parties. Often we talk to God through prayer, and then wonder…why isn’t God answering me? Is He not listening to my prayer? Is He really there? Does He really listen? Now even though God can communicate with us in mysterious ways, 99% of the time, God will use the Bible to respond to our prayers.

Feeling worried?

The answer is in the Bible: “Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”- Mat 11: 30

Feeling depressed?

The answer is in the Bible: “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears. And delivers them out of all their troubles” – Psalm 34: 17

Needing guidance?

The answer is in the Bible: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him” – James 1: 5

Feeling alone? Read the story of the Samaritan woman.

Feeling guilty beyond the point of repentance- Why not give the story of the prodigal son ago?

And the list goes on and on.

A final thought- imagine an extremely poor man. Now imagine a rich man who sees him, has compassion upon him and hands him an envelope with one million dollars. Now imagine that the poor man takes this envelope, puts it in his drawer at home, and continues living the rest of his life in poverty! What a great loss! How foolish would this man be! We too, have been given an envelope of much more value than a million dollars. Will we open it or keep it closed till it’s too late?

A Death Leading to Life

A Death Leading to Life

by Angelo Hanna

Christ led a life pointing toward His climactic death, so we may have a death that leads to His promised eternal life. In this we live a life of true internal comfort; we mould into unbreakable fortresses that are hidden under the wings of Christ. No author, no matter how masterful, can fully express the comfort we gain once we learn to understand and feel the seismic shift Jesus’ life brought upon us. We lose our comfort externally by enduring in hunger, prayer and resisting temptation only to receive it tenfold internally. We wish not to live a life of glory, to the extent we see the glory of men as theft, theft from the beneficent glory of God. This is what the life of death looks like. 

We don’t belong here, we are not of this place, we belong somewhere else and we long for somewhere greater. If God was to lead the Israelites to a place on earth He described as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” only if they would obey Him; how much more shall we strive for the transcendent Kingdom that Christ promised if we obey Him? Jesus tells us the Kingdom is in us, then why, Lord, do I not feel this?

‘My Child, I AM this Kingdom. Open the door I always knock, allow Me into you. Only if you knew the wonders that are to come if you would just let Me in. I want you, just trust me, I yearn that you would only just neglect the exterior comfort. Comfort is not riches, it is not the love of men, It does not come from outside. No. No. No. Comfort is Me. I implore you to not worry about this life. Become an inner man so that you may dwell in the kingdom within you; the secret place within you where I shall preserve you under My wings.’

We have the chance now to be with Him, and we MUST yearn for the kingdom to come, not for His sake, but for ours. We MUST live with our eyes up. Christ came and “cried out,” the teachings of everlasting life. It is to our benefit to have no benefit in the world. It is to our detriment to have no detriment in the world. Even St Paul says, “we also glorify in tribulations,” (Romans 5:3); why then seek a life of exterior comfort if not even Christ lived this? Christ willingly becoming the innocent lamb died for us so we may “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.”

Old testament Scripture points towards this internal struggle, and we see this through the narrative of the Israelites; 

During the Babylonian exile, there were two very popular ‘ways of exile’ which the Israelites would take; to ardently reject the Babylonians or to give in to their customs, ultimately forgetting the God of Israel. To many, these were the only two ways possible to take, however we see a third way of exile, the way of Daniel. Daniel and his friends adhere to the harmless aspects of Babylonian life, without compromising his foremost priority, his Godly life. Daniel prays for the wellbeing of Babylon, and even finds favour in the eyes of the King. He lives a righteous life, within the exile. 

We who live now are in exile and have been since the time of Adam and Eve. We too, have these paths to choose from. But one thing is inevitable within the Christian path – continual death to the world and its desires. Daniel fasted despite being told he couldn’t and Daniel didn’t bow down to idols but instead decided to seek a God that he may not see with his eyes- depriving himself of the gratification of seeing this physical ‘god’ of theirs. We too must live a similar life, a life of deprivation, hardship and prayer. 

But how? 

Well, it is important to make a clear distinction between the soul and the body. We hear Christ say to His disciples, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”, Mat 26:41. Our flesh desires earthly and temporal life, and too often do we follow it, neglecting the will of the soul, a will guided by the Holy spirit. In reality, our soul truly wants death, it wants to be free of this exile from God.

Our soul is like the Israelites,

Being entrapped within Babylon,

The ways and desires of our body meander the individual.

The soul wishes to be free of our bodies through death, to enter true life. But just like Daniel and his friends in Babylon, we must live a Godly life- a life which nourishes the soul so that it may be able to enter into eternal life. And then we will come to realise that truly, 

Death is what grants us life.