The Grace of Just Showing Up

There has been a tendency in much teaching about the notion of salvation by grace to ground the image in a legal or forensic metaphor. Thus, we are saved by grace in the sense that someone else’s goodwill and kindness (God’s) has now freed us from the consequences of our actions. Thus we speak of grace as the “free gift” of God.

There is no denying that grace is a free gift and that it is the true means of our salvation. But what if our problem is not to be primarily understood in legal terms? What if that which needs saving about us is not our guilt before the law of God, but the ravages worked within our heart and life from the presence of sin and death? This is probably the point where many discussions about salvation fall apart. If one person has in mind primarily a forensic salvation (I go to heaven, I don’t go to hell), while the other is thinking primarily in terms of an ontological change (I am corrupted and dying and were I to go to heaven I’d still be corrupted and dying). The debate comes down to a question of whether we need a change of status (forensic) or a change within our very heart. Of course, there are varying shades within this debate and I have surely not done justice to the full understanding of either point.

Orthodox theology, has largely been nurtured in the understanding of salvation as a healing of our heart and a transformation of the whole of our life. Others have sometimes referred to these elements as belonging to “sanctification,” but there has never been a distinction between sanctification and justification or salvation within the Eastern Tradition.

It is from within that understanding that my comments on grace are shaped. It is difficult for Christians of any sort in our modern world to grasp what it means to be saved by grace, if grace is indeed the very life of God given to us to transform and transfigure us – to change us into conformity with the image of Christ (Roman 8:29). The difficulty with this understanding is that, unlike a change in status, a transformation is slow work. We do not live in a culture that is particularly patient about anything. The political world thrives on repeated campaigns for “change,” though change is always a relatively slow thing (except in revolutions when it is usually not a change for the better).

There is a saying from the desert fathers: “Stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” It is a recognition thatstability is an inherent virtue in the spiritual life, and in the constancy and patience of our prayers and labors with God, grace has its perfect work.

In the modern parish setting, particularly with my catechumens, I have translated the desert saying into a more modern statement: “Ninety percent of Orthodoxy is just showing up.” We do not live in cells nor is our stability marked by sitting quiety through the day reciting the Jesus Prayer. There certainly should be times of the day set aside for prayer – but one of the primary locations of our life of grace – as Christians living in the world – is to be found within the life of the parish Church – particularly within its life of sacraments, prayers, and patience (there is equally as much patience to be practiced in the parish as in any monastery). One mark of our struggle for stability is “just showing up.”

The life of grace is central to our existence as Christians and must not become secularized. In a secular understanding, the Church has a role to play in a larger scheme of things (the secular world). Thus the Church becomes useful to me and at the same time takes on a diminished role in my life and in the culture of my life. Secularism is the dominant form of American culture. It is not hostile to Church attendance – but sees it as having a diminished importance. Church becomes just one of many programs in which we may be involved. In some families, choices are made between a child’s participation in a Sunday soccer league and a child’s participation in Church. Adults make similar choices for themselves. But the transformation that is occurring in such choices is the transformation of the Church and the gift of God’s life (grace) into a secular program which exists to meet my religious needs or interests. Such an approach is a contradiction of the life of grace.

Our submission to the salvation of Christ is a submission of our life to the life of grace – a recognition that there is no salvation apart from Christ and the life of grace. In cultural terms, it means a renunciation of the secular life – a life defined by my needs as a consumer within the modern experience – and an acceptance of my life as defined by the Cross of Christ. If the Cross is to be taken up with integrity – it must be taken up daily and more often still than that.

The life of grace means that I have given myself to Christ and to the means He has provided for my salvation. I will confess my sins and embrace the life of repentance. I will approach the Cup of His Body and Blood with faith and with trust in His promise of Life. I will be patient as I await His coming to me – as forgiveness – as healing – as transformation from the death of Adam into the Life of Christ. All of which requires that we “show up” – not in the casual sense of the term – but in the sense that we truly struggle to make ourselves available to God.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? (Hebrews 2:3)

Whose Feast Is It?

Some years back I had opportunity to celebrate the feast of Our Lord’s Presentation in the Temple with His Eminence, Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas (retired). Afterwards, several of us were sitting around and Vladyka asked, “Whose feast are we celebrating? Is this a “feast of the Lord” or a “feast of the Theotokos?” This is a relatively technical question within Orthodox liturgics. None of us present were liturgical scholars and thus he received a range of answers – answers that made for good meditation on the feast itself.

The feasts surrounding our Lord’s Incarnation are remembered not only in a small collection of celebrations that depend upon Christmas for their date, but also in the birth of a child and the rites and prayers surrounding that event as well. My parish has had a fair number of births in the past few months (including one this week) and my mind has been living these “connections” repeatedly. They, too, make for rich meditation.

Everyone is familiar with the great feast of Christ Nativity, in which we celebrate His birth. When a child is born to an Orthodox family, prayers of thanksgiving are said in the hospital for their protection and safety.

Less familiar is the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision, known in the Catholic Church as the Feast of the Holy Name. It occurs 8 days after Christmas (January 1). The Law of God in the Old Testament commands that a male child should be circumcised on the eighth day and given his name. In Orthodoxy, circumcision is not part of Church practice (as is clearly discussed in the writings of St. Paul). However, the custom remains that the child is named on the eighth day (boys and girls). The pattern for our children, is the pattern of the child Christ.

The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, comes 40 days after Christmas, and fulfills the commandment of the law that a sacrifice should be offered on the 40th day for “every first-born male child.” The mother also was blessed and received her “purification.” In the Church, a similar pattern is maintained. The mother comes to Church on the 40th day for her “Churching.” She makes confession and is blessed as she returns to the fullness of her life in the Church. Traditionally, the child is Baptized on the 40th day (and is also “churched,” brought and presented before God.

Thus the pattern is maintained. But the Archbishop’s question always rings in my ear: “Whose feast is this?” Is it a feast of Mary or a feast of Christ?

The answer I have come to be most comfortable with seems obvious now: it is a feast of both. This becomes clear when I reflect on my pastoral work with families at the birth of their children.

The birth of a child is a wonderful thing. I was present at the birth of each of my children (four living and a fifth who died in the womb). Each birth, even the one marked by tragedy, was a miracle in itself. But in no case was the birth of the child somehow distinct from its mother. Rather than a distinct event – the birth of a child is the continuation of a bond perhaps deeper than any other known to human beings (under normal circumstances).

In none of the events marked by the Church’s pastoral care (birth, naming, churching, baptism) is the mother excluded or forgotten.

The same is true in the life of Christ. Fr. Thomas Hopko likes to remind his listeners: “You cannot know God…but you have to know Him to know that.” The God who cannot be known, made Himself known to us in the Incarnation of Christ. We do not know God apart from the Incarnation. “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” Christ tells us.

It is also true (though forgotten by many modern Christians) that we do not know the Incarnate God apart from his mother Mary. She is there at the Nativity. She is surely there at His circumcision and naming. She is there as He is presented in the Temple at 40 days. Indeed, it is at that occasion that the haunting words of the Elder Simeon to Mary are heard:

Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:34-35).

And so it is that we find Mary standing by her Son at the Cross, a “sword” piercing her own soul. Thus we do not even know the Crucified Christ apart from his mother.

None of this detracts from Christ – it bears full witness to His humanity. But it also bears witness to the share of His life borne by His mother.

Whose feast is it? Ask your mother.

Formed in the Tradition

Thinking of raising Christian children (in the light of St. Silouan’s family experience), I offer these few thoughts. The Nativity season offers many opportunities for families to be guided by Holy Tradition – just as we are also swamped by the distorting demands of commercial culture. May God guard our children and keep us all by His grace.

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Sometime back, I watched a group of linguistic-psychologists (of varying sorts) in a panel discussion (CSPAN). All of them were involved in advising political campaigns. What they know about the science of language and how people actually make decisions versus how we would like to think we make decisions was staggering. Among the most staggering of agreed pieces of data was that 98% of the process of so-called rational decisions are actually unconscious. That is to say, that most of what goes into a rational decision is something that is far deeper than rationality (rationality turns out to be only the tip of the iceberg and not a very big tip at that.)

Thus, it would seem when it comes to reading Scripture, it is likely the case that most of what we think of as “interpretation” is also beneath the surface of rationality (and thus beneath the surface of “literalism” or the “plain sense”). All of this knowledge has a frightening aspect when considering politics – but a confirming aspect when considering our religious world. It argues all the more strongly for the role of Tradition, Liturgy, the many things that we engage in that are not strictly “Scripture interpretation.” It is not until the heart itself is reformed (that place where some very large percentage of our thoughts and decisions are made) that our reading will actually be changed. If the heart is not being rather consciously (on the part of the Church) formed by the pracatices we have been given (prayer, fasting, almsgiving, veneration of icons, crossing oneself, etc.) then it is likely being formed by something else. It seems that we will either be formed by the Tradition of the Christian Church or by the traditions of modern mammon. Thus I will gladly entrust myself to the Church.

Apparently Romans 12:1-2 does not have any middle ground.

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Another Story of St. Silouan and his Father

This is another wonderful story told by St. Silouan of Mt. Athos about his peasant father.  His father was clearly a man of great faith. St. Silouan thought his father to be wiser than many so-called spiritual fathers. The following story is an interesting account of how a father dealt with anger in correcting his son.

This excerpt is from the Elder Sophrony’s St. Silouan the Athonite.

Young, strong, handsome, and by this time prosperous, too, Simeon [later to become the monk Silouan] revelled in life. He was popular in the village, being good-natured, peaceable and jolly, and the village girls looked on him as a man they would like to marry. He himself was attracted to one of them and, before the question of marriage had been put, what so often happens befell late one summer evening.

Next morning, as they were working together, his father said to him quietly,

‘Where were you last night, son? My heart was troubled for you?’

The mild words sank into Simeon’s soul, and in later life when he recalled his father the Staretz [elder] would say,

‘I have never reached my father’s stature. He was absolutely illiterate – he even used to make mistakes in the Lord’s Prayer which he had learned by listening in church; but he was a man who was gentle and wise.’

They were a large family – father, mother, five sons and two daughters – all living in affection together. The elder boys worked with their father. One Friday they were out harvesting and it was Simeon’s turn to cook the midday meal. Forgetting that it was Friday, he prepared a dish of pork for their lunch, and they all ate of it. Six months later, on a feast-day in winter, Simeon’s father turned to him with a gentle smile and said,

‘Son, do you remember how you gave us pork to eat that day in the fields? It was a Friday. I ate it but, you know, it tasted like carrion.’

‘Whyever didn’t you tell me at the time?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you, son.’

Recalling such incidents from his life at home, the Staretz would add,

‘That is the sort of staretz I would like to have. He never got angry, was always even-tempered and humble. Just think – he waited six months for the right moment to correct me without upsetting me!’

Raising a Saint

Most of us would be satisfied to raise children who remain faithful believers. It is not always an easy thing and every parent who has such a child should rejoice constantly. There is no method to raise a child to be a saint, for God alone gives the grace that results in the mystery of such wonderful lives. However that may be, I am often struck in reading the writings of St. Silouan by his stories about his father. It would seem that the most fundamental spiritual lessons are not ones he gained from an Elder, but from the simple peasant that was his father – but a simple peasant with the faith of a saint. A small example:

Let us not be distressed over the loss of worldly goods, such losses are a small matter. My own father taught me this early in life. When some misfortune happened at home, he would remain serene. When our house caught fire and the neighbors said, ‘Ivan Petrovich, your house is burnt down!’ he replied, ‘With God’s help I’ll build it up again.’ Once we were walking along the side of our field, and I said, ‘Look, they’re stealing our sheaves!’ ‘Aye, son,’ he answered me, ‘the Lord has given us corn and to spare, so if anyone steals it, it means he’s in want.’ Another day I said to him, ‘You give a lot away to charity, while some who are better off than we are give far less.’ To which he replied, ‘Aye, son, the Lord will provide.’ And the Lord did not confound his hope.

From St. Silouan of Mount Athos

There is no better way to teach a child Christianity than to actually live it – truly and from the heart. You cannot teach what you do not live. The deepest things are revealed in the simplest things.

What Do You Say When You Turn Out the Light?

From my childhood, I have had a habit of prayer at bedtime – whether formal or informal. There were nights as a child that I prayed with great fervency in fear of what was taking place around me. There were times as a teenager that I prayed with no confidence that anyone was listening. As an adult and parent, some of my most fervent prayers at such times of day have been for the healing and protection of a child, or for the good death of a friend and fellow pilgrim.

My son, at age four, wrote this simple prayer:

Dear, St. Michael, guard my room!
Don’t let anything eat me or kill me!
Kill it with your sword.
Kill it with your sword.
Amen.

I still like his prayer. It seemed to have been inspired by a small statue he had in his room at the time. I am particularly struck by the petition, “Don’t let anything eat me.” How innocent!

A couple of years back, I wrote a short post on the children’s bedtime prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” offering a longer version with which I have become acquainted. Interestingly, it is the most read article ever posted on this blog, daily ranked in the top ten. Very soon it will surpass 20,000 views (not bad for a single article). It seemed that such a milestone deserved a mention.

The comments have been a place of interest, as visitors to the site have added insights and versions unknown to me. There is even a comment from the descendant of Mother Goose’s sister (that may be the most amazing thing on this entire Blog!).

Bedtime prayers remain a staple in my life. Though today I pray for children (and a grandchild) who are scattered across the U.S. I remember a parent and a still-born child who stretch my prayers before the throne of God. As I child I probably prayed to allay my fears as much as anything (the darkness holds many unknowns for a child). As a man in his mid-50’s, I have more thoughts in the darkness about my sins than about “things that go bump in the night.”

For that reason, I think my favorite prayer at bedtime remains a traditional Orthodox prayer of confession. I would be surprised to see this change:

To the Holy Spirit:

O Lord, the Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth: have compassion and mercy on me, Thy sinful servant! Absolve me, who am unworthy. Forgive all the sins I have committed this day both in my humanity and my inhumanity, behaving worse than beasts in sins voluntary and involuntary, known and unknown, from my youth,from evil suggestions, haste and despondency. If I have sworn by Thy name or blasphemed it in thought; if I have reproached anyone or become angered by something; or slandered or saddened anyone in my anger; or have lied, or slept unnecessarily; or a beggar has come to me and I have despised him; or have saddened my brother or quarreled with him; or have judged someone; or have allowed myself to become haughty, proud or angry; or, when standing in prayer, my mind has been shaken by the wickedness of this world; or have entertained depraved thoughts; or have over-eaten, over-drunk or laughed mindlessly; or have had evil thoughts or seen the beauty of someone and been wounded by it in my heart; or have spoken inappropriately; or have laughed at my brother’s sins when my own transgressions are countless; or have been indifferent to prayer; or have done any other evil that I can not remember – for I have done all this and more: have mercy, O Master, my Creator, on me, Thy despondent and unworthy servant! Absolve, remit and forgive me, in Thy goodness and love for mankind that I, who am prodigal, sinful and wretched, may lie down in peace and find sleep and rest. May I worship, hymn and praise Thy most honorable name, with the Father and His only-begotten Son, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Raising a Saint – St. Silouan on his Father

Most of us would be satisfied to raise children who remain faithful believers. It is not always an easy thing and every parent who has such a child should rejoice constantly. There is no method to raise a child to be a saint, for God alone gives the grace that results in the mystery of such wonderful lives. However that may be, I am often struck in reading the writings of St. Silouan by his stories about his father. It would seem that the most fundamental spiritual lessons are not ones he gained from an Elder, but from the simple peasant that was his father – but a simple peasant with the faith of a saint. A small example:

Let us not be distressed over the loss of worldly goods, such losses are a small matter. My own father taught me this early in life. When some misfortune happened at home, he would remain serene. When our house caught fire and the neighbors said, ‘Ivan Petrovich, your house is burnt down!’ he replied, ‘With God’s help I’ll build it up again.’ Once we were walking along the side of our field, and I said, ‘Look, they’re stealing our sheaves!’ ‘Aye, son,’ he answered me, ‘the Lord has given us corn and to spare, so if anyone steals it, it means he’s in want.’ Another day I said to him, ‘You give a lot away to charity, while some who are better off than we are give far less.’ To which he replied, ‘Aye, son, the Lord will provide.’ And the Lord did not confound his hope.

From St. Silouan of Mount Athos

There is no better way to teach a child Christianity than to actually live it – truly and from the heart. You cannot teach what you do not live.