Father Sophrony on “Dogmatic Consciousness”

I introduced the phrase “dogmatic consciousness” yesterday - a phrase coined by Fr. Sophrony Sakharov to describe the acquisition of grace in a manner that is truly engrafted within our lives and mind. Today some more thoughts:

The Dogmatic consciousness I have here in mind is the fruit of spiritual experience, independent of the logical brain’s activity. The writings in which the Saints reported their experience were not cast in the form of scholastic dissertations. They were revelations of the soul. Discourse on God and on life in God comes about simply, without cogitation, born spontaneously in the soul.

Dogmatic consciousness where asceticism is concerned is not a rational analysis of an inward experience - it is not ‘psychoanalysis’. Ascetics avoid this rational speculation because it not only weakens the intensity of their contemplation of the Light, but, indeed, interrupts it, with the result that the soul sinks into darkness, left as she is with a merely abstract rational knowledge devoid of all vitality.

What is the use of reasoning about the nature of grace if one does not experience its action in oneself? What is the use of declaiming about eh light of Tabor if one does not dwell in it existentially? Is there any sense in splitting theological hairs over the nature of the Trinity if a man has not within himself the holy strength of the Father, the gentle love of the Son, the uncreated light of the Holy Ghost?

Dogmatic knowledge, understood as spiritual knowledge, is a gift of God, like all forms of real life in God, granted by God, and only possible through His coming. This knowledge has by no means always been expressed in speech or in writing. The soul does not aspire to expound her experience in rational concepts when God’s grace descends on her. She needs no logical interpretations then, because she knows with a knowledge that cannot be demonstrated but which equally requires no proof that she lives through the true God. And were there strength left in her, she would aspire to greater fulness of Divine life, and when the action of God is beyond her strength, she swoons in blessed silence…..

The foundations of sure dogmatic cognizance are laid when man first experiences grace; and if this aspect of the spiritual life - one and undivided - is not immediately apparent, it is not because God’s gift is flawed but because a lengthy interior process is required for its assimilation.

These are such important and foundational understandings of the Orthodox mind. It is one of the reasons that conversations between East and West on the nature of grace (uncreated versus created) are often without much success. Orthodox dogma has had its foundations primarily in the experience of the saints and not in the formulations of scholastics. Conversion is not about learning a catechism, but about acquiring the Holy Spirit - knowing God.

Not that other Christian groups know nothing of this. But Orthodoxy’s steadfast refusal to offer an alternate way of explaining itself maintains a faithful witness to the Living Truth. If you want to know the Truth you must pray, fast, repent, give, confess, be patient, and do all of it (and more) with an expectancy for God. He has promised to lead us into all Truth and He is faithful to give that which He promises.

The Patience of the Saints

Christ said, “In patience possess your souls” (Luke 21:19). Orthodoxy presumes patience on our parts. The services take patience - they last a good length of time and without patience your mind will never stop wandering.

Catechumenates can take a while.

Learning many of the things of an Orthodox way of life cannot be rushed. Only time can make a difference.

These are hard words in a culture where time is money and we never seem to have enough of either. But though our culture has changed, human beings have not. We still take 9 months to come to the fullness of time in the womb. We still have to go to sleep for about a third of our life. We still age about the same rate (the Bible speaks of 3 score years and 10, perhaps 4 score, and our span of life on average still has not reached 4 score).

But grace, this marvelous life of God that is given to us, also accommodates to our life as human beings. We do not receive grace and suddenly become angels. We receive grace, and the whole process of our salvation and sanctification (to use Protestant terminology) is a matter of years. I have been posting excerpts from Archimandrite Sophrony’s Saint Silouan the Athonite, and I continue with that today. This, on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit along with remarkable insight on the role time plays:

The history of the Church together with personal contact with many ascetics has led me to the conclusion that the experience of grace in those who have been granted visitations and visions is only assimilated deeply after years of ascetic endeavor; grace then taking the form of spiritual knowledge that I should prefer to define as ‘dogmatic consciousness’ (but not in the academic sense of the term).

The historical experience of the Church, in which I include the Apostles and the holy Fathers both ancient and modern, makes it possible to calculate this period of assimilation as lasting at least fifteen years. Thus St. Paul’s first Epistle (to the Thessalonians) was written some fifteen years after the Lord had appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Often the period lasts twenty, twenty-five, even thirty or more years. The Evangelists and other Apostles wrote their testimonies and epistles long after the Lord’s Ascension. Most of the holy Fathers acquainted the world with their visions and experiences only when their ascetic course was nearing its close. More than thirty years elapsed before the Staretz set down in writing, with final and mature dogmatic consciousness, his own experience. The assimilation of grace is a lengthy process.

Tomorrow I will offer more reflection on this “dogmatic consciousness.”

Hidden Saints

It is surely the case that most saints are hidden. St. Paul says that “our true life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).  I believe that it is for our own sakes that these things are hidden. We’re told that the Theotokos “pondered these things in her heart” (Luke 2:19) which is a world away from walking around asking everybody, “What do you think about this?”

There is much about our life with God that remains hidden and should remain hidden (except, perhaps in confession). We live in a voyeuristic culture that reveals what should never be revealed and finds itself morbidly fascinated by hidden things. The hiddenness of the heart is part of modesty and humility and is a hallmark of authentic Orthodox spirituality.

There is much about modern American spiritual life that runs counter to this. Some segments of Protestantism are almost as voyeuristic as the popular culture itself. The same can be a temptation present to Orthodox within our culture. Some of this varies from Orthodox culture to Orthodox culture - but, in Russia, for instance, the cross is always worn “next to the skin,” and is not worn like a badge. In other Orthodox cultures this is not so.

In America it is easy for a cross to become little more than jewelry. At such a point, it probably needs to become “next to the skin,” in my opinion (take it for what it is).

By the same token any number of things associated with the Orthodox life, even icons, can be used in a way that has more to do with American “show” than with any particular act of devotion. We Americans have a sort of “clubishness” about ourselves and we tend to want to fly the colors of our groups (hence all the sports paraphernalia sold). But the saints and their icons are persons, or personal representations, given to us as “windows to heaven.” Some restraint should be shown in how we use their images as well. There are many things like this for us to give consideration. Do I pay more attention to my outward self and the signs of my allegiance, or do I concern myself with the hidden things of the heart? Forgive me if anything I’ve said gives offense. If it leads you to think on the hiddenness of the heart, then my purpose was served. I intended nothing more.

Some final thoughts on the hiddenness of saints. This is from Archimandrite Sophrony’s Saint Silouan the Athonite:

For the superficial observer, the Staretz continued to the end of his days to be an ‘ordinary’ man. He lived like all good monks in general, fulfilling his tasks of obedience, abstinent, observing the monastery rules and traditions, taking communion twice a week - three times during Lent and other fasts. His work in the store-house was not difficult - for a man of his physical strength it was even easy, requiring comparatively little time although it did demand his presence during the daylight hours. To the end he continued tranquil and good-tempered. There were never any outbursts, no ugliness, external or internal. Like a really experienced ascetic he showed nothing outwardly, standing before the Father in secret, as the Lord commanded. To the end he stayed remote from mundane interests and indifferent to the things of this world. But deep in his heart the fire of Christ-like love burned without cease.

We’re All In This Together

Some further thoughts on our connectedness, particularly in the Spiritual Life:

The ontological unity of humanity is such that every separate individual overcoming evil in himself inflicts such a defeat on cosmic evil that its consequences have a beneficial effect on the destinies of the whole world. On the other hand, the nature of cosmic evil is such that, vanquished in certain human hypostases [persons] it suffers a defeat the significance and extent of which are quite disproportionate to the number of individuals concerned.

A single saint is an extraordinarily precious phenomenon for all mankind. By the mere fact of their existence - unknown, maybe, to the world but known to God - the saints draw down on the the world, on all humanity, a great benediction from God. The Staretz writes:

Because of these people, I believe the Lord preserves the world, for they are precious in His sight, and God always listens to His humble servants and we are all of us all right because of their prayers.

Quote taken from Archimandrite Sophrony’s Saint Silouan the Athonite.

 My own thoughts: In your prayers, remember, the life you are saving (or asking to be saved) may be far more than your own! The Righteous Abraham prayed even for Sodom and Gomorrah. Had just ten souls been found they would still be on the map. Even so, God in His mercy heard him and spared the eight righteous souls that were there. By the mercies of God, the prayers of the saints sustain the world.

Orthodoxy and the Family

One of the topics not discussed much (even among the Orthodox) is the phenomenon of “mixed families.” I’m not sure if that is the right term, but it’s one I’m using. Among converts to Orthodoxy, many are the only Orthodox in their extended family. Occasionally a husband or wife enters the Church without the other, even though this is discouraged to some extent. Harder still, parents convert while children having already reached adulthood choose not to follow. They have their own lives to live and are working out their own salvation. Holidays make these strains all the more apparent and difficult.

It is not just a convert phenomenon. Many Orthodox families have had children marry outside the faith, or convert to another Church, again leaving the phenomenon of “mixed families.” And, of course, it’s never simple. This is family and the question to love and accept (on some level) is not and cannot be a question.

It is a stronger issue in Orthodoxy (and in Catholicism, I’m sure) since communion is not open outside the Church. Among Protestants, that a sister married a Methodist may be bothersome (depending on what kind of Protestant you are), but not an issue to complicate communion. In the modern ecumenical world, one Protestantism is about the same as another (at least when it comes to sacraments).

In my own family, our journey to Orthodoxy was accompanied by four children, two of them teenagers at the time, two younger. The teenagers could clearly have chosen to do other than they did. That prospect was a frightening thought. Admittedly we sent our children to Orthodox retreats and took them to Orthodox parishes to visit as often as possible for almost four years before we converted. As it turned out (going as slowly as we were), my wife’s younger brother and family converted before we did. Our children entered the Church with us and have made their own home here. Two daughters are married to priests.

I had the privilege of Chrismating my parents at age 80 and take great comfort in the pastoral care they have received in their parish and the Orthodox life they have taken up with due diligence.

I was once told a proverb by a Greek priest, “A monk saves his family for seven generations.” I have no idea what that means. When I first heard it I wondered, “In which direction,” meaning, “For seven generations past or to come?” Of course proverbs are interesting, but are only proverbs.

But hidden in heart of this one is the fact that family is far deeper than the modern world would like us to think. Your mother is not just the owner of the womb you dwelt in for 9 months or so. I shudder when I hear a father referred to as a “sperm donor.” Our culture is not only crude but profoundly deluded.

Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, refers not just to Adam and Eve, and married couples thereafter, it most certainly refers to the family, who are indeed, “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” We are connected to one another in ways far deeper than we usually contemplate in our lonely, mobile culture.

In Serbian Orthodoxy, individuals do not so much celebrate their own nameday, but their family’s name day, their “Slava.” It marks the day (with a patron saint) of the family’s acceptance of the Orthodox faith. It is probably hard for even other Orthodox to understand how strongly this family tie is among the Serbs.

But there is a tie that transcends flesh and bone, or at least includes it and goes beyond it. As Fr. Thomas Hopko has noted on several occasions (that I have heard), saints have a way of “clustering.” It takes little more than a cursory glance at the lives of saints to find examples of such clusters. St. Basil the Great - both of his parents are saints, as well as sisters and brothers - they were simply a holy family. Those who are unfamiliar with the Tradition that surrounds Holy Scripture remain unaware of just how “clustered” was the holiness of Christ’s own family. Joachim and Anne (parents of the Virgin Mary), Joseph, his “brothers” - but these are known to most. But with a bit of research you find familial relationships running even to some of the twelve.

I am not certain about the effect of a monk, but it is sufficient to say that a single Savior, can save his family (the human family) to all generations.

But I am also well aware of how connected we remain to one another. My exposure to Church (both the Baptist Church of my childhood and the Anglican Church of my teenage and adult years) were the result of my older brother. He remains an Episcopalian, but ever a close spiritual friend.

What I am personally convinced of, is that I bear my family within me in some sense (not that I can quite explain it). I know that when I enter the altar and pray, I pray for them, remember them, and bear them with me. I could not stand where I stand as if I had been created there on the spot. I have a history and offer it up to God with all that I am. If there is saving grace in such an act, God knows, but it cannot be that prayer is ever without benefit.

For the same reason I pray for my family in generations past. God alone knows how I am marked and shaped by choices they themselves made. We do not stand alone.

This imagery could easily be extended beyond flesh and blood or simply brought back to our remembrance that we are all of one blood. We live in times in which family grows easily complicated. It cannot be uncomplicated by being less united to God. For only confusion lies outside our union with God. But we do well to remember the whole of our family and that of others. We make pilgrimage to God and there are others we would have with us. May God hear our prayers as we carry them in our hearts and bring us all to His heavenly Kingdom.  And may I never forget that I need the prayers of my family probably far more than they need mine.

Can the Middle Class be Saved?

One of the hallmarks of Christ’s earthly ministry was the fact that harlots, publicans, “sinners” of various sorts, seemed to “get” his message a more easily than did the “righteous”: pharisees, sadducees, kings, scribes, etc.

Indeed it is obvious that St. Paul, good rabbinical student that he was, had no idea that he was a sinner when Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus. “Concerning the law, I was blameless,” he would later say.

In Christ’s time of earthly ministry, it was said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

I want to change the position of the bar. Rich men were rare in those days so it might have even been but a small concern. More to the point, I want to ask, “Is it possible for the Middle Class to the saved?” There are an awful lot of us, and what we now define as rich is pretty well off the chart in the standards of human history. I can buy fruit any season of the year from almost anywhere in the world and at a price that seems cheap to me. That’s pretty rich by historical standards.

What do the Middle Class think they need salvation from? I believe that the slow drain of Churches in Europe is connected with the slow rise of the Middle Class. Recent trends in Ireland would bear this out. An island that once was famous for its incredible poverty, was also famous for its outstanding Church attendance, and the abundance of the priests it produced. Today, with membership in the EU, the standard of living has risen precipitously, Church attendance has fallen precipitously, and priests are no longer the great item of export they once were. Today, it’s Africa producing the bumper crop of priests. Not much Middle Class there.

What is so bad about being Middle Class? Nothing more than being rich in the first century. The problem then and now is the same. Mammon has a way of blinding us to any possible need for a Savior. We might “need” Jesus as our Savior, but frequently in a very thin sense. Nothing of the existential crisis that describes the life of the poor, the blind, the prisoner, the prostitute, etc. They got it because they lived on the edge of hell if not actually in it most of the time. They could recognize a Savior when they saw one.

St. Paul had to learn that though he was “blameless concerning the law,” he was nevertheless “unrighteous” and in need of a Savior. That’s a very hard lesson. A man cannot be saved if he has no need for a savior.

And there lies the problem of our successful rise to the Middle Class. We’re doing alright, thank you.

In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, there is a description of the Last Judgment, from the lips of a despicable drunk, Marmeladov. But it says some things that the Middle Class would do well to hear.

…”And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek…And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us, ‘You too come forth,’ He will say, ‘Come forth, ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!’ And we shall all come forth without shame and shall stand before Him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made in the image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, ‘O Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?’ And He will say,’This is why I receive them, O ye wise, this is why I receive them, O ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before Him…and we shall weep…and we shall understand all thing! Then we shall understand all!…and all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even…she will understand…Lord, Thy kingdom come!” And he sank down on the bench exhausted and helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression; there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard again.

My Thanks

I made the trip to SC and back today, spending about half the day with family at hospital. My father’s pelvis seems to be fractured rather than broken, but will require him to be in a rehab situation for some weeks. My mother will move down to be with my older brother (who is truly a Godsend in everyway). Their priest came to see them, their Orthodox sponsors (who are old friends from my earliest years as an Episcopal priest) came by. My parents were chrismated at age 80, one of the greater joys in my life. To know how their faith sustains them in this is a joy to my heart no matter the grief I feel at seeing come to this stage in life. But it is a path most of us will know in one way or another. May it be a path to God.

Thank you for your prayers. Please continue them. I will doubtless be making quite a few jaunts to SC in the weeks to come.

I will do my best to keep something worth reading here for us all.

Possible Hiatus

My father, James, fell and fractured his pelvis on Thursday. The long and short of it is the breakup of my parents’ household and moving them to other facilities, probably about 100 miles away from their home so they can be with my older brother and his family.

I will be away, at least today, if not several days. Pray for Jim and Nancy and their journey (they are Orthodox). Pray for Stan and Sally, my brother and his wife. And remember me an unworthy priest.

And God’s grace in everything!

I will be back at the blog ASAP.

In the meantime, discuss among yourselves - (to quote one of my favorite SNL characters)!

More on the Problem with God

I thought I would add some reflections to my earlier thoughts on “the Problem with God.” Generally I noted there that “God is a problem,” because He is not me, He is free, and He is Lord. That’s more than having a bull loose in a china shop, that’s a God who is free in the universe.

I am convinced through the revelation of God in Christ, that this God loves me, but that doesn’t mean that I have a ready-made definition of love. Indeed, I would say that Jesus Himself is the definition of love. I also believe that when I give my life to God for my salvation, I have no idea what the consequences of that may mean on a daily basis, only that on a daily basis everything works for my salvation.

On a deeply personal level, my wife and I buried a child some 12 or more years back, a child we lost in about the 5th month of pregnancy. It was a hard time, bitterly hard for my wife and for me. But I remember at the time, through a lot of anger and tears, coming to a deep sense of the presence of God in the event. I’m not very good at cause and effect - I think it reduces things to much. Thus I did not look to God as the “cause” of my son’s death. But I did not look at my sons’s death as though it occurred outside the love of God.

I think I was crazy and more than a little angry for about a year. I know that I stopped preaching sermons “extemporaneously” for about a year. I could not get my emotions and thoughts sorted out enough to trust myself to stand in front of a congregation for that length of time without saying something that would be less than helpful. Thus I disciplined myself and wrote sermons for a while.

That has been some time ago. I have deeply appreciated my life as an Orthodox Christian. As an Anglican I felt free to pray for my son (that’s done by the Anglicans as well). But I have appreciated perhaps the “fullness” with which this is done in Orthodoxy. I like being able to light candles. I like to be able to remember his name at the Proskomedie (the service when I am preparing the bread and wine for the Eucharist). I like including his name when we pray for the departed at a Panikhida. Orthodoxy doesn’t just pray for the departed, we pray a lot for the departed.

I had an image that occurred during the funeral of my son. I had asked the funeral director to have the dirt placed next to the grave with shovels because we were going to fill in the grave ourselves. He said fine, but then he forgot. At the beginning of this fairly private event, he apologized to me and told me the dirt was up in the bulldozer about 50 yards away. I said, “Well, when we finish our prayers, have them bring the dirt down here in the bulldozer.” All of that seemed fine, though unusual to me. But I forgot to tell the dozen or so others gathered that day what I had just arranged.

So after the prayers, this bulldozer starts up and begins to head for the grave. Closer and closer it came. My other son, who was six at the time, watched in fascination, then in horror as the bulldozer was pulling right up to the grave. Just before it stopped, he screamed. He thought we were going to be run over.

We finished the funeral without further incident.

Later that week, the cemetery owner apologized to me. “What for?” I asked.

Apparently she had received a very nasty note from someone who attended the small service, whose business the funeral was not. I remember being frustrated that now I was going to comfort this funeral person, when I felt like I was the one who wanted comfort.

“The bulldozer made me think of God,” I told her to a look of utter bewilderment.

“Everything in that child’s short existence on earth was marked by events as unpredictable and seemingly out of control as that bulldozer, including his death. I thought at the funeral that the bulldozer was a clear a reminder of God as anything I could imagine.”

Now all of that his highly personal, and I apologize if I have offended anyone in sharing such a story. But it was the beginning of a revelation for me. We worship a God who is truly God and that’s not something (rather Someone) that we can control. God is free and that is a fearful thing.

But I remember what was said of Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, “He’s not exactly a tame lion.” But it was added at least once in that fine story, “But He’s good.”

And this is what I know of God. God is a problem because of my sin, and in my sin I fear the freedom of God. But I also know that He is good (though that goodness may remain a mystery at times). I do not want a life that has no bulldozers nor do I want a life that has no fear (in the proper sense). I certainly do not want a life without God.

Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15)

Beginning to Pray

 

I have always found the little classic Beginning to Pray, by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, to be one of the best introductions to prayer. I first discovered the book in college and used it in a small study group. It has never ceased to be relevant to my situation in life. His opening paragraphs are worth a short read (and more).

As we start learning to pray, I would like to make it clear that what I mean by ‘learning to pray’ is not an attempt to justify or explain this in a speculative way. Rather, I would like to point out what one should be aware of, and what one can do if one wishes to pray. As I am a beginner myself, I will assume that you are also beginners, and we will try to begin together. I am not speaking to anyone who aims at mystical prayer or higher states of perfection, because these things will teach themselves. When God breaks through to us or when we break through to God, in certain exceptional circumstances, either because things suddenly disclose themselves with a depth we have never before perceived or when or when we suddenly discover in ourselves a depth where prayer abides and out of which it can gush forth, there is no problem of prayer. When we are aware of God, we stand before Him, worship Him, speak to Him.

At the outset there is, then, one very important problem: the situation of one for whom God seems to be absent. This is what I would like to speak about now. Obviously I am not speaking of a real absence - God is never really absent - but of the sense of absence which we have. We stand before God and we shout into an empty sky, out of which there is no reply. We turn in all directions and He is not to be found. What ought we to think of this situation?

First of all, it is very important to remember that prayer is an encounter and a relationship, a relationship which is deep, and this relationship cannot be forced either on us or on God. The fact that God can make Himself present or can leave us with the sense of His absence is part of this live and real relationship. If we could mechanically draw Him into an encounter, force Him to meet us, simply because we have chosen this moment to meet Him, there would be no relationship and no encounter. We can do that with an image, with the imagination, or with the various idols we can put in front of us instead of God; we can do nothing of the sort with the living God, any more than we can do it with a living person. A relationship must begin and develop in mutual freedom. If you look at the relationship in terms of mutual relationship, you will see that God could complain about us a great deal more than we about Him. We complain that He does not make Himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for Him, but what about the twenty-three and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer ‘I am busy, I am sorry’ or when we do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at the door of our heart, of our minds, of our conscience, of our life. So there is a situation in which we have no right to complain of the absence of God, because we are a great deal more absent than He ever is.

My love of these opening paragraphs is the honesty with which our lives and God are approached. The rest of the book continues with this same honesty; as a result it is truly a classic on the life of prayer.