A Meditation on Almsgiving

by Fr. Thomas Hopko

Christ commanded his disciples to give alms. To “give alms” means literally “to do” or “to make merciful deeds” or “acts of mercy.” According to the Scriptures, the Lord is compassionated and merciful, longsuffering, full of mercy, faithful and true. He is the one who does merciful deeds (see Psalm 103). Acts of mercy are an “imitation of God” who ceaselessly executes mercy for all, without exception, condition or qualification. He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

Mercy is a sign of Love. God is love. A deed of merciful love is the most Godlike act a human being can do. “Being perfect” in Matthew’s Gospel corresponds to “being merciful” in Luke’s Gospel. “Perfection” and “being merciful” are the same thing.

To love as Christ loves, with the love of the God who is love, is the chief commandment for human beings according to Christianity. It can only be accomplished by God’s grace, by faith. It is not humanly possible. It is done by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Acts of mercy must be concrete, physical actions. They cannot be “in word and speech [only] but in deed and truth [also]” (see 1John and James).

Acts of mercy are acts done to Christ himself who was hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, in prison and sick in the form of being wounded for our transgressions on the cross, taking up our wounds, and dying our death.

Christian acts of mercy must be sacrificial. By this we understand that we must not simply give to others what is left over. We have to be sharing our possessions with others in ways that limit ourselves in some way (for example, the widow’s mite). And, acts of mercy should be done without qualification or condition to everyone, no matter who, what or how the are (the Good Samaritan is our example).

Adapted from a flyer produced by International Orthodox Christian Charities: www.iocc.org Icon from St. Isaac the Syrian SketeGod

And the Darkness Does Not Overcome It

Last night I got back from my visit with Monk Anthony. Monk Anthony is a prisoner in the Super MAX federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. He is sentenced to life in solitary confinement. Although his only presenting crime (the crime for which he was originally arrested) was to forge his step-father’s signature on a $150. check, several foolish actions after he was incarcerated--actions of a confused and angry young man--have added up to life in solitary confinement in America’s most secure penitentiary.

After ten years in prison, Rodney was baptized under the ministry of an Orthodox priest who has devoted his life to visiting and corresponding with prisoners. Almost immediately he began painting icons in his cell--using his hair to make brushes and mustard, coffee grounds, ketchup, etc. from his food tray as pigment. A priest in the Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry asked Bonnie, my wife, to correspond with him to teach him the techniques of iconography. Along the way, Rodney was tonsured (in prison) “Monk Anthony” by Metropolitan Isaiah of Dallas. Today, Monk Anthony paints beautiful icons using pastels and children’s paints (the only “craft” supplies he is allowed).

Monk Anthony’s solitary life has set him on a path of spiritual trajectory that I, as a married priest in the world, have no direct experience in. So in God’s providence and love I have been able to meet a hermit monk and through letters introduce him to Monk Anthony. Fr. Gregory was so moved by the simplicity of Monk Anthony’s love for God as evidenced in his letters and icons, particularly considering the dry and oppressive context in which this flower of God’s garden grows, that he submitted to the long and invasive process required by the U.S. Department of Prisons to become Monk Anthony’s “minister of record” just so that he could visit him once a year. This process now complete, I took Fr. Gregory from his hermitage in the mountains of British Columbia to meet Monk Anthony in the Super MAX prison in the Rocky Mountains in southern Colorado.

Bonnie and I had visited about a year and a half ago--having corresponded regularly for over ten years, we qualified as “friends” and were able to become “approved visitors”; so I knew how to get there and could walk with Fr. Gregory through the procedure of entering the prison, coaching him on what is and is not to be said and done. After about a half hour of checking and double checking our identifications with their computer records, stamping our hands, taking our pictures and passing through various gates, steel doors that open and shut automatically and a very sensitive metal detector, we descended a long flight of stairs underground into the visiting room: a series of painted cinderblock stalls (if you put your hands on your hips, your elbows touched both sides) with two telephones attached to the wall on either side of a large plexiglass window. And there stood Monk Anthony in a white prison jumper, all smiles, on the other side of the plexiglass.

St. Paul said that where sin abounds, there does Grace much more abound. Here Grace was abounding. For six hours I saw the Light shining in the darkness. Just driving onto the prison grounds, you could feel the oppression. No one smiled: the guards, the administrators, the lawyers, the little pack of FBI agents who were “touring” the place. And yet, Monk Anthony smiled. He smiled the smile of a man who is at peace with himself, who wanted to be instructed, who was eager to hear from another human being what God had already spoken to his heart.

For most of six hours I watched. I could hear only Fr. Gregory’s side of the conversation, but I saw Monk Anthony’s face and gestures. And as time went on I was struck with what seemed to be a glow coming from Monk Anthony—“glow” really is the only word for it, for his facial expressions and gestures caused me to feel a peaceful, intimate, holy Presence, as though we were having the same conversation in the sitting area of the hermitage, not in a vault surrounded by cinder block through a telephone behind plexiglass under the U.S. Super MAX prison.

And then the guard said that our time was up. Our six hours of sweet communion were over. We put our hands on the plexiglass and pushed against Monk Anthony’s hand pushing from the other side. We blessed, we waved, we watched until the guard closed the door behind us. But it was not over. Even now Monk Anthony is in my heart and the peace of his presence--the peace of a very bright light in a very dark place--is still shining in my heart.

Planting and Harvesting

We have all heard the old saying, “You reap what you sow.” This principle has more influence in our lives than we often think. In simple ways, we can see this principle at work: generally, if you work hard, you experience a good benefit; and if you’re lazy, you don’t. But we have to preface this principle by “generally.” If fact, many of us might argue that “generally” is not really the right word. Many of us have experienced situations in which no matter how hard you work, you can’t get much benefit. And we have all known people who seem to have all sorts of advantages in life, so they don’t have to work very hard to receive lots of benefits.

The fact is that life is complicated. What I harvest depends a great deal on what I plant, but it also depends a great deal on what my parents and grand parents have planted. We all spend a great deal of our adult lives pulling the weeds from the garden of our life, weeds that were planted (knowingly or unknowingly) by our parent, grand parents and even by many generations of ancestors. And if we are wise, we realize that we ourselves have passed on weeds of various sorts to our children and grandchildren--calling for a certain amount of humility and compassion when our children and grandchildren don’t always turn out exactly as we had hoped.

And matters get even more complicated. Seeds are sown in the garden of our life by our friends, teachers, and enemies (see Matt. 13:25), by the movies we see, books we read and music we listen to. Some of the seeds sprout quickly. Some wait for years until just the right combination of circumstances come along and suddenly anger, lust, cynicism, fear, or rebellion spring up seemingly out of nowhere. Seeds are powerful and don’t just go away by themselves.

And while we cannot control all of the seeds sown in the garden of our life--you don’t get to choose your family and are often trapped in a circle of friendships and work related relationships that cannot be easily changed--nevertheless, we are not powerless. Seeds are ideas, thoughts that spring up in the garden of our mind. We can decide to pull them out or let them grow. We can get help from the Church, from counselors, from wise friends. To a large extent we can still manage the garden of our lives, even if we cannot control everything that springs up. We can water and care for what we want to grow, and we can do our best not to water but to pull out of our lives those things that we do not want to grow.

One more thing. Our garden (our life) is not just about us as individuals. What we let grow will produce fruit and seeds in the gardens of those around us, in the gardens of our children and grand children. If I nurture plants (thoughts, actions, disciplines, practices) that produce peace, kindness, gentleness, self control, etc, then the seeds of such virtues will be planted in lives of the people around me and in those who follow after me. It’s not just about me. Spiritual life and spiritual disciplines are not merely a matter of “my” relationship with God. They are about loving my neighbor. The work I do to cultivate my inner life today will bear fruit not only in my life, but more importantly, in the lives of those who are near me--my neighbors, my family, my colleagues, my friends.

Left and Right and Poison

One of the metaphors commonly employed by the Holy Fathers and Mothers of the Church has to do with erring to the left or to the right. Jesus has called us to walk the narrow way, to pass through the narrow (strait) gate. We err when we do not walk in the narrow path, which means to live according to His commandments. However, we can also err by tending too far to the left or right in walking this narrow way. Consistently for the Fathers of the Church, the left has represented leniency while the right has represented strictness.

However, there is also another way we err in walking the narrow path. We err when we judge others who seem to be either too strict or too lenient, too far to the right or too far to the letf as they attempt to walk the narrow way.

It seems to me that one of the reasons why we judge one another in this way is that we are insecure. We feel that if the level of strictness in our lives were appropriate, then others would be as strict (or lenient) as we think ourselves to be. It is as if “love your neighbor” could be clearly and consistently applied if only we could all agree on the definition of the terms—“But who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asked Jesus. But the narrow way is not lived by agreeing on narrow definitions.

Human beings are persons in the image of God. We share a common humanity and yet differ each in his or her callings, gifts and abilities—and perhaps even more importantly—in our wounds and weaknesses, for these are what are healed in following Christ’s commandments. A wise spiritual father knows this. He or she [for my first Orthodox spiritual father was a mother] is like a doctor who prescribes medicine and therapy based on a patient’s particular diseases and particular constitution; however, the medicine that would heal one can kill another, the physical therapy that can restore one would break the bones of another.

As we walk together this narrow way of Christ’s commandments, let us each trust the advice of our own spiritual father; and let us each trust the other to the care of their spiritual father. Let us assume that the one who seems too strict or lenient is merely following the advice of his or her confessor. Let us assume that this difference is because the other is better, higher, healthier, than we are. By taking the lower seat, we save ourselves from the poison of judging others.

Springtime

“Let there be banished hence dejection born of passions, and thoughts that rise like tempests. In this wise shall the springtime of faith sprout up and blossom forth.” (Matins Aposticha, Thursday of Thomas week)

Here we are in the springtime. Everything is blooming--the time of budding has already past. And yet we can miss it: not merely the season of the year, but the season of the Church. Thoughts besiege us. Dejection is always near. The passions don’t go away. But where we put our focus makes all the difference.

I can sit here all day looking at the glowing screen before me and never walk outside to smell the blossoms and see the new life pushing out of everything living (the first malard ducklings of the season are scurrying around the pond now). And even if I see it, if my mind pays too much attention to the mental tempests, I will not see it.

Every living thing is a revelation, a disclosing of the mind of God, of the Word of God. In that God spoke everything into existence, everything--especially every living thing--reveals the Word of God: the life-creating Grace, Energy, Life of God. If only we would pay attention, we would “read” the Word of God everywhere.

But paying attention is not easy. What’s easy is to allow ourselves to be captivated by passions, by “thoughts that rise like tempests,” by the dejection we so easily slip into when we realize that the day was spent running very fast and getting nowhere.

But the Church reminds us today to banish such things, not to allow them to remain in the kingdom of our heart. They will appear, they will try to stay, but we have the power (and the responsibility) to banish them. They are the thorny brambles that choke out life.

And if we will do this, if we will banish dejection and the tempest of confusing and conflicting thoughts, then the promise is that “the springtime of faith [shall] sprout up and blossom forth.” I could use a little springtime in my soul. I bet you could too.

What's Going On

Dear Blog Friends,

I'm writing this on my new i-Mac. There's a story here--get a cup of coffee.

I got a call last week from John Maddex, CEO of Conciliar Media Ministries asking me to edit a new on-line magazine along the lines of AGAIN and Handmaiden. However, this new on-line magazine is not just a print magazine that is read on-line, rather it is a completely interactive experience compatible with several different platforms: computers, phones, i-Pad, Kindle, etc. Needless to say, I've got a huge learning curve in front of me. Through the generosity of several friends I have been able to purchase an I-Mac (almost all publishing and design is done on Macs) to replace my six-year old PC and the necessary software to create and publish magazines.

All of this took place Wednesday through Friday last week. Sunday afternoon, I was off to Holy Transfiguration Hermitage for a few days of quiet. It was a blessed three days. Please pray for Fr. Gregory, his stomach is a mess. He can eat very little (one cup of rice, a (very) few stewed vegetables and a little bit of pealed apple once a day--that's it, and even this immediately causes him to have diarrhoea). He is in constant pain. And in spite of this, as usual, Fr. Gregory was full of joy and words of life and encouragement. And as usual, he both encouraged me, challenged me and made me feel loved, valuable and safe in God's care. None of the problems went away. I am no more confident nor certain about anything (except God's great love and care for his wandering creatures).

We spoke quite a bit about guardian angels. Fr. Gregory is particularly close to and aware of his guardian angel. He said that at baptism, everyone is given a guardian angel. Then he said that those who have not received the Grace and Seal of Holy Baptism and Chrismation have two guardian angels. They need them more, and because of God's great love, he grants them. May God grant me to love all mankind so as to give more to those who need more.

I came back from the retreat Wednesday and quickly got caught up again in the Conciliar Media project. Right now I am on the Mac learning curve. I start the Adobe Photoshop learning curve this afternoon. Then I've got to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator before Wednesday night of Bright week (April 7) when I begin the Adobe InDesign course at UFV. Lord Have Mercy!

Bonnie says she hasn't seen me happier in a long time. It's funny. I'm happy when I have to learn stuff.

Of course the down side of this is my inner life does not get much attention. Actually, Fr. Gregory talked to me a little about this too. He gently rebuked me for separating myself into spiritual and other parts. I must take Christ in my heart into Adobe software training. My mind must stay in my heart--full of peace--even while my mind is solving problems and learning, memorizing and exploring new worlds. I still get up early (not too early) and say my prayers, but then I get to work, bringing my prayers with me.

On another front, we have taken the house off the market. Bonnie is rejoicing exceedingly. The garden is in and peas are growing, tomatoes are started in the house, and we are already eating lettuce. The ducks love her and follow her around the yard. This year we have a mating pair of Northern Shovel Nose ducks along with a mating pair of Call ducks that we picked up from our neighbour's green house (they use call ducks in greenhouses to eat slugs and miscellaneous bugs). This is in addition to a pair of Canadian Geese (which the dogs are trained to chase off the lawn--but not the ducks [smart dogs, eh?]), and about four other species of water fowl not counting the ever present Mallards.

This Lent has been a tough one for me. I haven't blogged much mostly because I have had nothing to say. It seems like I have gone through a season in which my heart has been full, but my head empty (some may ask, only a season?). Holy Nativity has to be out of the Barn by the end of April. We may have things set up to move into the old St. Nicholas Church building, but it is by no means a done deal. Much of my energy over the past couple of month has been caught up in trying to figure out where we are going to move and, more importantly, how to keep my mind in my heart even when I have no idea where Holy Nativity will worship on May 2.

O yes (O Canada!), I forgot to mention, Bonnie and I became Canadian citizens two weeks ago. We do not lose our U.S. citizenship, but we are Canadians now too. We love our new home and our new country and we hope to spend the rest of our lives at Holy Nativity. I want to send one of our altar boys to seminary and have him come back and take over the parish with me as the old emeritus priest sitting on the side. That's my dream.

Wow, when you look at it all, there has been quite a bit going on (lots of other little stuff too that I haven't mentioned like helping out some friends with writing projects, plumbing, painting, and loving and leading the blessed faithful of Holy Nativity.

I thank God that He has given me such a life. By your prayers, I may just make it to the end in one piece (and in one peace).

Fr. Michael

The Feeling of Prayer

The scripture tells us that the blood of Able cried out to God from the ground. St. Paul in Hebrews 12:24 tells us that the Blood of Jesus speaks better than the blood of Able. Following this same line, St. Gregroy Palamas says that when we fast the members of our body suffer and this very suffering is prayer: prayer that is added to our prayer. That is, fasting increases our prayer because our weak and suffering body is also crying out to God with our mind.

So when you hear the tummy growl or feel a little pinch of hunger, understand that it is the feeling of your body praying. Your body is praying with you, adding to your prayers, like the blood of Able crying out to God.

St. Gregory Palamas on the Cross

Such is the word of the cross. It was and is, therefore, a great and truly divine mystery.... On the face of it, anyone who lowers and humbles himself in all respects seems to be bringing dishonour on himself, anyone who flees carnal pleasures appears to be causing himself toil and grief, and anyone who gives away his possessions looks as though he is making himself poor. But by the power of God this poverty, grief and dishonour give birth to inexhaustible riches, inexpressible delight and eternal glory, both in this world and in the world to come. Paul ranks those who do not believe this, and [who] prove by their actions [that they don’t believe this], with the lost, or with the Greeks. “We preach,” he says, “Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block,” because they do not believe in the saving passion, “and unto the Greeks foolishness,” as they value transitory things above all else because of their complete disbelief in God’s promises, “but unto them that are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:23). St. Gregory Palamas (+1359) On the Precious and Life-Giving Cross

Salvation is of the Body: The Intercession of the Saints

It is very difficult for many converts to Holy Orthodoxy to pray to the saints. For them, it seems, it is a matter of efficiency. They often think: “Why go through an intermediary when you can go straight to the top?” I call this sort of thinking a corporate model of heaven. In a corporation, intermediaries are often seen as obstacles keeping us from the decision makers at the top of the corporate structure. A salesman is always thinking of ways to get past the secretary to the boss. A worker on the assembly line knows from experience that a complaint will die if it must pass through all of the “proper” channels before it reaches the manager, and so he waits outside the washroom to have a word directly with the manager as she walks back to her office. But the Kingdom of Heaven is not a corporation.

The Kingdom of heaven is a family, a family that functions as one body. The hand cannot say to the foot, “I have no need of you” (c.f. 1 Corinthians 12:21). This is because the foot relies on the hand just as much as the hand relies on the foot. Without hands, it is pretty hard to put on socks and shoes, and without feet it is pretty hard to get from one place to another. The feet do not say to the hands, “No thank you, I have asked the head to put on my socks today.” This is ridiculous because it is the head that energizes and enables the hands to do its work. It is through the hands that the head puts the socks on the feet.

Now the Church, according to St. Paul, is a many membered body. That is, the one body of the Church is made up of many persons (members). One of those persons is Christ, who is the head. The rest of the body of the Church is made up of billions of other people who, like a hand and a foot, depend on each other. It is the head that decides which parts will administer its care to the rest of the body. The care, nourishment, and very life that come from the head flows through some parts of the body to others. Moreover, because in the Kingdom of Heaven these “parts” are human persons, each “part” participates in and actually influences what the Head is distributing to the body.

Here’s a simple illustration. Suppose I (a foot) needed ten dollars. God might prompt you (a hand) to give me ten dollars. But this raises a question, who gave me the ten dollars? You? God? Yes! The grace of God flowed through you, but not as through a tube; for you also expressed compassion and generosity. Again back to the image of a body. Can the hand give without the instruction of the head or the head without the cooperation of the hand? Let’s take this illustration a step further. Suppose I needed ten dollars and I have prayed and asked God to meet my need. I have also asked a few of my friends who might have ten dollars they can spare. Does asking my friends negate my prayer to God? Or, perhaps, in asking my friends, I recognize that God has distributed his gifts among the body and that the way God normally grants his gifts is through the gracious, god-like actions of the members of his body. This is God’s dispensation, God’s economy. Grace-filled action is neither all God’s doing nor all the doing of the particular human person through whom the Grace-filled action comes. It is a synergy.

The experience of the Church over the ages has taught us that petition is not merely a matter of asking God for what we need, but also a matter of asking one another. But not just asking anyone. Gifts and graces differ. Moreover, and this is huge, Christian maturity and growth in divine Grace differs tremendously. Just because people have ten dollars to spare, doesn’t mean that they have grown in compassion and generosity to the point that they recognize that their money is not their own, but a trust given to them by God to be distributed as the body needs it. A person who has the spiritual gift of showing mercy, for example, may be so caught up in the pains and cares of her own heart that she just can’t hear the cries of another. A pastor may have many years of training yet to go before he is ready to give anyone advice.

This is part of the reason why the Church recognizes saints. In a sense, every Christian is a saint. “Saint” means “holy one.” So, in as much as every Christian participates in the holiness of Christ, all Christians are saints. However, not every Christian actualizes this holiness. The Church calls saints those whose lives and/or teachings have manifested a high degree of actualized holiness. These, the church calls saints not only so that their lives may be emulated and their teachings respected. These are called saints so that we may pray to them, that we may ask them to help us, that we may look to them for the Grace of God which God in his economy has distributed to the body for the body.

Some Orthodox Christians like to make a distinction between “praying to God” and “asking the saints to pray to God for us.” I think this is a false distinction, for one of the definitions of “pray” is “ask.” However, a distinction that I find a little more useful is that of “ask” as opposed to “intercede.” So we might say that we ask/pray for the saints to intercede for us. But even this can create a problem if, instead of seeing the Kingdom of Heaven as a family that functions as one body, we see it as a business, as a corporation. The saints don’t just send our prayer up the chain of command for us, only to have God at the top grant or not grant our request. Rather, the saints intercede for us both in the sense that they carry with us our petitions to God, and also in the sense that they participate in distributing the gifts of God’s Grace. For example, God often performs miracles through the intercession of saints, so that it is possible to say, “St. Nektarios healed me,” which is the same thing as saying, “God healed me.” It’s a body, it’s a family. St. Nektarios is doing what God is doing.