November 3, 2024 • 23 mins
Episode 11: “By Way of Conclusion”
Unit 15: “John of the Ladder: Principles of the Christian Life”, by Prof. Christopher Veniamin
Series: “Mystical Theology"
“By Way of Conclusion”, Episode 11 in our series, "John of the Ladder”, consists of concluding remarks regarding our brief overview of Steps 4 and 5 of the famous Ladder of Divine Ascent by the great John Climacus. Presented by Dr. Christopher Veniamin, themes from this episode are listed in the Timestamps below.
Q&As available in The Professor’s Blog: https://mountthabor.com/blogs/the-professors-blog
Recommended background reading: The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Holy Transfiguration Monastery); Saint Silouan the Athonite, by St. Sophrony the Athonite (https://mountthabor.com/products/st-silouan-the-athonite); and The Enlargement of the Heart, by Archimandrite Zacharias (https://mountthabor.com/products/the-enlargement-of-the-heart-2nd-ed)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we have to approach theology, and
especially Orthodox theology,with the question of what is the
practical relevance of what wehave learned for our lives?
Because you will give to othersout of the abundance of what
you have.
That's normal.
(00:21):
So I would ask that question.
I think I'm here to help you tomake a connection with the
tradition of the church, meaningwith the saints of the church,
because in God's unfathomablemercy, in God's unfathomable
(00:50):
mercy, I have grown up near oneof the great spiritual
personalities of our times.
That, I think, is what the Lordwants me to share with you most
.
And so it's not even on thelevel of studying this or that,
examining this or that question,but it's more of a communion,
(01:11):
because it's not that StarrettSofroni is the only saint, he's
the one that I knew best.
And what great spiritualfigures do for us, whether it's
St Gregory Palamas, whether it'sSt John of the Ladder, a
(01:31):
Porphyrios, a Silouan, they giveyou that connection with the
whole, they give you a way in,because no one father can be the
tradition it's a contradictionin terms but they are able to
(01:53):
bring you into contact with thewhole, and that's the wonderful
thing about the communion thatis seen and experienced through
the saints of the Church.
So in a sense, we've usedreferences to philosophy,
references to other disciplines,tried to present a patristic
(02:17):
vision of things inspired bythis relationship, by this
relationship and that, in amystical way I've come to
realize, makes you, if you wantto, you can always reject
anything that God offers, but itmakes you, if you want to be
(02:40):
part of that tradition, be anorganic part of that tradition.
And one thing I've learnedwhich has humbled me in certain
ways, significant ways, is thattime and space is certainly not
(03:00):
a mitigating factor.
You can become more a discipleof, or a communicant of the
spirit of a Porphyrios, aPaisios, a Sophrony and so on,
than those who are physicallyand historically closest to them
, because the spiritualtranscends all of those
(03:24):
limitations, because thespiritual transcends all of
those limitations.
And it's very important for us,I think, to be in that
communion, feeding off thatcommunion, if we're going to
survive as Christians in theworld today, where it's becoming
increasingly difficult Not thatit was ever easy, but the noose
(03:45):
is distracted even more andmore by the technological means
we have at our disposal.
I've noticed that theconcentration span is less.
It's how society has evolved.
And to listen, and to listen ina concentrated way for
(04:08):
sustained periods of time.
It's not easy.
It requires energy, greateffort and I myself, to focus on
a lecture, let's say a highintellectual level lecture, for
an hour is not as easy as itused to be.
(04:29):
I was practiced in that andthat's something that I used to
do quite comfortably, but it'sno longer as easy.
And so, if that's the caseremembering, if you recall, I
told you once that FatherSofroni used to make a kind of
ratio to help people understandthe difference between the
(04:53):
energy needed for manual labor,the energy needed for
intellectual work, and theenergy needed for intense prayer
.
I say intense because that'swhat he means when he says
prayer.
He divided it up into seven isto three is to one.
So one hour of prayer is equalto three hours of intense,
(05:19):
really concentrated intellectualwork, which is equal to seven
hours of physical labor, hardphysical labor, because that's
the energy you need to infuseinto those different kinds of
work.
But what I would say is readwhat you have to read peacefully
(05:43):
and closely, and try to captureand this will happen naturally
If you read in a prayerful waytry to capture what the deeper
meaning really is.
What I want is for you to growin your understanding of an
(06:05):
ethos, the patristic mindset,the phronema, the biblical and
patristic tradition of thechurch.
What is that really about?
Again, what's the practicalrelevance of this for me?
So as, when we read the Bible,just let it flow into you,
(06:37):
absorb it.
By the grace of God, you willbe inspired by Holy Week, pascha
, which opens up the heart,opens up the mind, gives us the
amazing privilege of relivingthe saving work of Christ, and
so the light of the resurrectionwill no doubt inspire you.
You know, I remember my mother.
God rest her soul.
(06:58):
While I was watching TV, she wasreading the Bible.
I think she read the OldTestament and the New Testament
together three times.
She had a Bible that had acommentary.
It was a Bible that wasproduced by Trembelas.
He wrote a commentary.
(07:19):
Trembelas is probably known toyou for some negative reasons,
but he was a phenomenal scholar.
Actually, his specializationwas liturgics.
So she read the commentaries,and then she had a collection of
about 200 booklets, each aboutthe life of a saint, about the
(07:40):
life of a saint, and she hadread all of them.
So much so that when we were inGreece once, speaking to an
experienced monk.
Somebody asked do you knowanything, father?
Can you tell us anything aboutthe life of so-and-so?
And he said that he couldn't.
(08:01):
My mum happened to have readthe little booklet, so she knew.
You know, you have to be awareof a wider context and not just
think academically ornon-liturgically.
And beyond all of that, ourparents and especially I don't
(08:24):
know our mothers, grandmothersthey were very prayerful people.
You know, father JohnRomanides' mother used to get up
at three o'clock in the morningto say her prayers before she
went to work.
When they were living in theBronx, when they were living in
the Bronx and Synaxarion, a lotof people had the Synaxaristis
(08:50):
in their homes Traditionally.
I don't know if everybody couldafford one.
Anyway, I think it shouldn't bepressed too far.
Why not look at it from theother perspective?
Why not look at it from theperspective of now?
We have this privilege.
It's been given to us surelyfor a reason.
Why not look at itprovidentially and say, perhaps
(09:15):
God has given us these booksbecause, as my wife said, when I
said, isn't it remarkable thatthe saints that we've been
blessed with in our own timestruly stand out?
And she said, because we needthem.
So why not look at it in thatsense?
Because we need them?
(09:36):
Is that a reason to say, oh, wedon't need to read the Fathers
because they never used to readthem as much, in the days when,
it's true, perhaps it wasn'teasy to get hold of a manuscript
, but when they did, theytreasured it and they used it
(09:57):
and they learned things by heart.
Learned things by heart.
Why not take a more positiveapproach and say we need the
support and inspiration of ourfathers now more than ever, and
that's what God is giving us.
And was this not also the caseonce upon a time with the Bible,
(10:19):
the Holy Scriptures and theBible?
The problem, I feel, is that Idon't know why.
To tell you the truth, I'venever been able to understand it
.
Do we want the freedom to saywhatever just comes to our minds
?
Is that what it's all about?
We just want to say I am somekind of sage that if you listen
(10:45):
to me, you're going to receivesome word of wisdom that you
can't even find in the Fathers.
I'm going to free myself fromthe Fathers.
I'm going to disconnect myselffrom the Scriptures.
So we have a post-patristictheology and we have what?
A post-biblical theology,post-liturgical theology.
(11:08):
What we're going to do?
Throw the liturgical books outof the wind as well, because,
hey, once upon a time we didn'thave those either.
You know, the difficulty is thatthis person here prevents me
from saying whatever I want.
And you know why.
Because he knows what he'stalking about.
Whatever I want, and you knowwhy?
(11:29):
Because he knows what he'stalking about.
That's why he's lived it, he'sdone it and he knows from
experience.
And if I have the rightattitude, I will humble my mind
and learn from such people sothat I may follow in his
footsteps in some way.
But if I want to say whatever Ifeel like saying, yeah, take
(11:54):
the book away.
That's why people don't like StGregory Palamas.
You know, the West, the West isall speculation, so, so they
think they've gone beyond thefathers.
Let's see where that leads to.
The Libri Carolini, huh, theamazing thing is that, st
(12:16):
Gregory Palmas, you know, theHesychasts were so original.
There is an originality, a real, a genuine originality, in the
way that they presented Orthodoxtheology.
But their originality came fromwithin the tradition.
They expressed the Orthodoxtradition and pushed theological
(12:43):
expression to its very limits.
That was true originality.
The originality that the otherswant is outside of God, outside
of the tradition and, in churchlanguage, that's heresy,
because that originality doesn'tlead to the goal.
(13:03):
It's like giving the wrongmedicine.
This is the medicine.
You don't like the medicine.
That's the goal.
It's like giving the wrongmedicine.
This is the medicine.
You don't like the medicine.
That's the medicine.
You don't like every medicinethat the doctor gives you the
steroids I'm on now.
They're bitter, they'rehorrible, but you take it
because it's the right medicinethat brings therapy, healing and
(13:24):
the other stuff.
You know it may taste betterinitially, but what does it
bring?
Whether you call it psychologyor something else, what you're
really talking about is whetheryou approach the challenges of
life in a human way, on a humanlevel, or whether you approach
(13:46):
them in a divine way, on thedivine level.
And the divine way is the waythat Christ taught us through
his commandments and by hisexample.
And that's the choice we alwayshave human or divine.
(14:06):
And you feel.
You feel that you know that,because the long-term solution
cannot be the human World.
History has shown us that.
So, if you take the divine way,all the things that God has
given us in this world areblessed.
So it's not that we're tryingto abolish psychology or
(14:32):
medicine or whatever the humanknowledge may be.
It's blessed, it's given to usby God, but you use it and you
approach it in a different way.
Everything takes on a differentcolor and, I would say, is
bathed in the light of Christ,then things are seen in their
(14:59):
proper perspective, and that iswhat the Fathers sometimes refer
to as natural contemplationContemplation of the world
through the eyes of the HolySpirit.
In other words, to see theworld as God sees the world,
because we were not created fora human life.
(15:21):
We were created for His life.
And if we learn that before wedie, that means we learn to live
before we die, which is a greatachievement.
It's a great blessing that wemay learn how to live so that
(15:41):
our death is not a death buttransports us from death to life
.
Again, we sense that we knowthere's something deeply, deeply
wrong with death Whenever weencounter it in any shape or
form.
We know it's not right, andit's correct to feel that it's
(16:01):
not right, because we were notcreated for death.
Because we were not created fordeath.
We were created for lifeeternal and divine, uncreated
life.
This is our calling, this isthe purpose of the Lord's
creation of man, and we see thatin a concrete way Many, many
(16:22):
instances.
One of them is thetransfiguration of Christ,
graphic representation of whatwe have been called to become.
This vision will enable you toinspire others.
If you have it, you will beable to inspire others by
lifting them up and helping themto see something of the great,
(16:52):
astounding that God loves andrespects each and every one of
us to the degree that he does,and his providence is with us
every breath we take.
What do we know?
We don't know anything.
(17:12):
Don't know anything, yeah, sothank God, thank God for all
(17:34):
things.
Well, maybe it's time to wrapthings up.
Thank you for your, yourprofessors, and support the
Mount Tabor Academy, thank you.
We've said before that theworship of the church is very
powerful and if we're carefuland we're attentive, it's a very
(17:55):
powerful tool for conversionand spreading Christianity.
I think it's fair to say mostpeople are attracted to the
Orthodox Church first throughworship.
There are those who have takena more intellectual road to the
Orthodox faith, but it's theworship of the Church that
really is the most powerfulthing that we have.
(18:15):
Of the church, that really isthe most powerful thing that we
have the divine liturgy.
We've also said before.
You know, the church createsculture, but herself is not
culture.
Herself is above and beyondculture.
So the church has given usgreat cultures which have become
intertwined with Christianity,orthodox Christianity, and
(18:39):
that's a wonderful, blessed gift.
But the Church points us in thedirection of things eternal, so
that we learn to prefer thingseternal to things temporal and
understand that whatever may bethe case where we live in the
world today, that will pass andeach one of us will be faced
(19:06):
with the question of eternity,no matter who he is.
You know we have here nocontinuing city.
That's why it's futile and evensad.
When you hear about churchpolitics May have the word
church in front of it, but it'spolitics.
(19:26):
You know, there was a lady whohad cancer and she was
hospitalized and the cancer grewand grew and grew so much she
continued to live.
She was skin and bones.
But the cancer in her this areabecame so big that you would
(19:49):
think there was a basketballinside her.
That's how big the tumor washer.
That's how big the tumor was.
And when the priest went to herand said, are you still able to
pray?
She was on morphine and shetried very hard to keep prayer
and it was good For a long timeshe was able to do that and she
(20:15):
said to the priest Father, it'svery difficult for me to keep
the prayer now.
And the priest said to her ifyou can say the name Jesus as
often as you can, that would begood.
How are you managing?
(20:36):
He asked her.
And instead of saying you know,I'm in such pain, I don't know
how something like that, shesaid.
She said am I worthy?
Am I worthy to suffer this?
She was marveling that God hadmade her worthy to suffer such
(21:01):
an illness, such a monstrosity.
You know in a good way.
She was wondering and amazedthat God had counted her worthy
to endure this suffering andhave this end.
And the priest said that whenshe died he happened to be
(21:27):
celebrating the divine liturgyat the time and, without being
told although it was confirmed abit later he heard in his heart
as he was celebrating thedivine liturgy she is saved, she
is saved.
And at the end of the divineliturgy he was told that this
(21:51):
person had died.
Our professor of liturgics,professor John Fundulis, used to
say to us why do we wish oneanother many years?
Whether we live or whether wedie, we are the lords.
So why many years?
What's the benefit of manyyears?
(22:11):
More years to repent absolutely.
Fundulis used to say more yearsto repent absolutely.
Fondoulis used to say moreyears to be privileged, to go
through the liturgical cycle andeach time to experience the
saving works of Christ just alittle more deeply.
Each time we're blessed toexperience the liturgical cycle,
(22:35):
it enriches us.
This is our treasure.
We become deeper human beings,enriched, enlarged.
Our heart is enlarged, ourheart is enabled to receive more
grace.
That's why we wish one anothermany blessed years.
Please subscribe to our channeland share with your friends why
(22:59):
we wish one another manyblessed years.
So we have to approach theology, and
especially Orthodox theology,with the question of what is the
practical relevance of what wehave learned for our lives?
Because you will give to othersout of the abundance of what
you have.
That's normal.
(00:21):
So I would ask that question.
I think I'm here to help you tomake a connection with the
tradition of the church, meaningwith the saints of the church,
because in God's unfathomablemercy, in God's unfathomable
(00:50):
mercy, I have grown up near oneof the great spiritual
personalities of our times.
That, I think, is what the Lordwants me to share with you most
.
And so it's not even on thelevel of studying this or that,
examining this or that question,but it's more of a communion,
(01:11):
because it's not that StarrettSofroni is the only saint, he's
the one that I knew best.
And what great spiritualfigures do for us, whether it's
St Gregory Palamas, whether it'sSt John of the Ladder, a
(01:31):
Porphyrios, a Silouan, they giveyou that connection with the
whole, they give you a way in,because no one father can be the
tradition it's a contradictionin terms but they are able to
(01:53):
bring you into contact with thewhole, and that's the wonderful
thing about the communion thatis seen and experienced through
the saints of the Church.
So in a sense, we've usedreferences to philosophy,
references to other disciplines,tried to present a patristic
(02:17):
vision of things inspired bythis relationship, by this
relationship and that, in amystical way I've come to
realize, makes you, if you wantto, you can always reject
anything that God offers, but itmakes you, if you want to be
(02:40):
part of that tradition, be anorganic part of that tradition.
And one thing I've learnedwhich has humbled me in certain
ways, significant ways, is thattime and space is certainly not
(03:00):
a mitigating factor.
You can become more a discipleof, or a communicant of the
spirit of a Porphyrios, aPaisios, a Sophrony and so on,
than those who are physicallyand historically closest to them
, because the spiritualtranscends all of those
(03:24):
limitations, because thespiritual transcends all of
those limitations.
And it's very important for us,I think, to be in that
communion, feeding off thatcommunion, if we're going to
survive as Christians in theworld today, where it's becoming
increasingly difficult Not thatit was ever easy, but the noose
(03:45):
is distracted even more andmore by the technological means
we have at our disposal.
I've noticed that theconcentration span is less.
It's how society has evolved.
And to listen, and to listen ina concentrated way for
(04:08):
sustained periods of time.
It's not easy.
It requires energy, greateffort and I myself, to focus on
a lecture, let's say a highintellectual level lecture, for
an hour is not as easy as itused to be.
(04:29):
I was practiced in that andthat's something that I used to
do quite comfortably, but it'sno longer as easy.
And so, if that's the caseremembering, if you recall, I
told you once that FatherSofroni used to make a kind of
ratio to help people understandthe difference between the
(04:53):
energy needed for manual labor,the energy needed for
intellectual work, and theenergy needed for intense prayer
.
I say intense because that'swhat he means when he says
prayer.
He divided it up into seven isto three is to one.
So one hour of prayer is equalto three hours of intense,
(05:19):
really concentrated intellectualwork, which is equal to seven
hours of physical labor, hardphysical labor, because that's
the energy you need to infuseinto those different kinds of
work.
But what I would say is readwhat you have to read peacefully
(05:43):
and closely, and try to captureand this will happen naturally
If you read in a prayerful waytry to capture what the deeper
meaning really is.
What I want is for you to growin your understanding of an
(06:05):
ethos, the patristic mindset,the phronema, the biblical and
patristic tradition of thechurch.
What is that really about?
Again, what's the practicalrelevance of this for me?
So as, when we read the Bible,just let it flow into you,
(06:37):
absorb it.
By the grace of God, you willbe inspired by Holy Week, pascha
, which opens up the heart,opens up the mind, gives us the
amazing privilege of relivingthe saving work of Christ, and
so the light of the resurrectionwill no doubt inspire you.
You know, I remember my mother.
God rest her soul.
(06:58):
While I was watching TV, she wasreading the Bible.
I think she read the OldTestament and the New Testament
together three times.
She had a Bible that had acommentary.
It was a Bible that wasproduced by Trembelas.
He wrote a commentary.
(07:19):
Trembelas is probably known toyou for some negative reasons,
but he was a phenomenal scholar.
Actually, his specializationwas liturgics.
So she read the commentaries,and then she had a collection of
about 200 booklets, each aboutthe life of a saint, about the
(07:40):
life of a saint, and she hadread all of them.
So much so that when we were inGreece once, speaking to an
experienced monk.
Somebody asked do you knowanything, father?
Can you tell us anything aboutthe life of so-and-so?
And he said that he couldn't.
(08:01):
My mum happened to have readthe little booklet, so she knew.
You know, you have to be awareof a wider context and not just
think academically ornon-liturgically.
And beyond all of that, ourparents and especially I don't
(08:24):
know our mothers, grandmothersthey were very prayerful people.
You know, father JohnRomanides' mother used to get up
at three o'clock in the morningto say her prayers before she
went to work.
When they were living in theBronx, when they were living in
the Bronx and Synaxarion, a lotof people had the Synaxaristis
(08:50):
in their homes Traditionally.
I don't know if everybody couldafford one.
Anyway, I think it shouldn't bepressed too far.
Why not look at it from theother perspective?
Why not look at it from theperspective of now?
We have this privilege.
It's been given to us surelyfor a reason.
Why not look at itprovidentially and say, perhaps
(09:15):
God has given us these booksbecause, as my wife said, when I
said, isn't it remarkable thatthe saints that we've been
blessed with in our own timestruly stand out?
And she said, because we needthem.
So why not look at it in thatsense?
Because we need them?
(09:36):
Is that a reason to say, oh, wedon't need to read the Fathers
because they never used to readthem as much, in the days when,
it's true, perhaps it wasn'teasy to get hold of a manuscript
, but when they did, theytreasured it and they used it
(09:57):
and they learned things by heart.
Learned things by heart.
Why not take a more positiveapproach and say we need the
support and inspiration of ourfathers now more than ever, and
that's what God is giving us.
And was this not also the caseonce upon a time with the Bible,
(10:19):
the Holy Scriptures and theBible?
The problem, I feel, is that Idon't know why.
To tell you the truth, I'venever been able to understand it
.
Do we want the freedom to saywhatever just comes to our minds
?
Is that what it's all about?
We just want to say I am somekind of sage that if you listen
(10:45):
to me, you're going to receivesome word of wisdom that you
can't even find in the Fathers.
I'm going to free myself fromthe Fathers.
I'm going to disconnect myselffrom the Scriptures.
So we have a post-patristictheology and we have what?
A post-biblical theology,post-liturgical theology.
(11:08):
What we're going to do?
Throw the liturgical books outof the wind as well, because,
hey, once upon a time we didn'thave those either.
You know, the difficulty is thatthis person here prevents me
from saying whatever I want.
And you know why.
Because he knows what he'stalking about.
Whatever I want, and you knowwhy?
(11:29):
Because he knows what he'stalking about.
That's why he's lived it, he'sdone it and he knows from
experience.
And if I have the rightattitude, I will humble my mind
and learn from such people sothat I may follow in his
footsteps in some way.
But if I want to say whatever Ifeel like saying, yeah, take
(11:54):
the book away.
That's why people don't like StGregory Palamas.
You know, the West, the West isall speculation, so, so they
think they've gone beyond thefathers.
Let's see where that leads to.
The Libri Carolini, huh, theamazing thing is that, st
(12:16):
Gregory Palmas, you know, theHesychasts were so original.
There is an originality, a real, a genuine originality, in the
way that they presented Orthodoxtheology.
But their originality came fromwithin the tradition.
They expressed the Orthodoxtradition and pushed theological
(12:43):
expression to its very limits.
That was true originality.
The originality that the otherswant is outside of God, outside
of the tradition and, in churchlanguage, that's heresy,
because that originality doesn'tlead to the goal.
(13:03):
It's like giving the wrongmedicine.
This is the medicine.
You don't like the medicine.
That's the goal.
It's like giving the wrongmedicine.
This is the medicine.
You don't like the medicine.
That's the medicine.
You don't like every medicinethat the doctor gives you the
steroids I'm on now.
They're bitter, they'rehorrible, but you take it
because it's the right medicinethat brings therapy, healing and
(13:24):
the other stuff.
You know it may taste betterinitially, but what does it
bring?
Whether you call it psychologyor something else, what you're
really talking about is whetheryou approach the challenges of
life in a human way, on a humanlevel, or whether you approach
(13:46):
them in a divine way, on thedivine level.
And the divine way is the waythat Christ taught us through
his commandments and by hisexample.
And that's the choice we alwayshave human or divine.
(14:06):
And you feel.
You feel that you know that,because the long-term solution
cannot be the human World.
History has shown us that.
So, if you take the divine way,all the things that God has
given us in this world areblessed.
So it's not that we're tryingto abolish psychology or
(14:32):
medicine or whatever the humanknowledge may be.
It's blessed, it's given to usby God, but you use it and you
approach it in a different way.
Everything takes on a differentcolor and, I would say, is
bathed in the light of Christ,then things are seen in their
(14:59):
proper perspective, and that iswhat the Fathers sometimes refer
to as natural contemplationContemplation of the world
through the eyes of the HolySpirit.
In other words, to see theworld as God sees the world,
because we were not created fora human life.
(15:21):
We were created for His life.
And if we learn that before wedie, that means we learn to live
before we die, which is a greatachievement.
It's a great blessing that wemay learn how to live so that
(15:41):
our death is not a death buttransports us from death to life
.
Again, we sense that we knowthere's something deeply, deeply
wrong with death Whenever weencounter it in any shape or
form.
We know it's not right, andit's correct to feel that it's
(16:01):
not right, because we were notcreated for death.
Because we were not created fordeath.
We were created for lifeeternal and divine, uncreated
life.
This is our calling, this isthe purpose of the Lord's
creation of man, and we see thatin a concrete way Many, many
(16:22):
instances.
One of them is thetransfiguration of Christ,
graphic representation of whatwe have been called to become.
This vision will enable you toinspire others.
If you have it, you will beable to inspire others by
lifting them up and helping themto see something of the great,
(16:52):
astounding that God loves andrespects each and every one of
us to the degree that he does,and his providence is with us
every breath we take.
What do we know?
We don't know anything.
(17:12):
Don't know anything, yeah, sothank God, thank God for all
(17:34):
things.
Well, maybe it's time to wrapthings up.
Thank you for your, yourprofessors, and support the
Mount Tabor Academy, thank you.
We've said before that theworship of the church is very
powerful and if we're carefuland we're attentive, it's a very
(17:55):
powerful tool for conversionand spreading Christianity.
I think it's fair to say mostpeople are attracted to the
Orthodox Church first throughworship.
There are those who have takena more intellectual road to the
Orthodox faith, but it's theworship of the Church that
really is the most powerfulthing that we have.
(18:15):
Of the church, that really isthe most powerful thing that we
have the divine liturgy.
We've also said before.
You know, the church createsculture, but herself is not
culture.
Herself is above and beyondculture.
So the church has given usgreat cultures which have become
intertwined with Christianity,orthodox Christianity, and
(18:39):
that's a wonderful, blessed gift.
But the Church points us in thedirection of things eternal, so
that we learn to prefer thingseternal to things temporal and
understand that whatever may bethe case where we live in the
world today, that will pass andeach one of us will be faced
(19:06):
with the question of eternity,no matter who he is.
You know we have here nocontinuing city.
That's why it's futile and evensad.
When you hear about churchpolitics May have the word
church in front of it, but it'spolitics.
(19:26):
You know, there was a lady whohad cancer and she was
hospitalized and the cancer grewand grew and grew so much she
continued to live.
She was skin and bones.
But the cancer in her this areabecame so big that you would
(19:49):
think there was a basketballinside her.
That's how big the tumor washer.
That's how big the tumor was.
And when the priest went to herand said, are you still able to
pray?
She was on morphine and shetried very hard to keep prayer
and it was good For a long timeshe was able to do that and she
(20:15):
said to the priest Father, it'svery difficult for me to keep
the prayer now.
And the priest said to her ifyou can say the name Jesus as
often as you can, that would begood.
How are you managing?
(20:36):
He asked her.
And instead of saying you know,I'm in such pain, I don't know
how something like that, shesaid.
She said am I worthy?
Am I worthy to suffer this?
She was marveling that God hadmade her worthy to suffer such
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an illness, such a monstrosity.
You know in a good way.
She was wondering and amazedthat God had counted her worthy
to endure this suffering andhave this end.
And the priest said that whenshe died he happened to be
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celebrating the divine liturgyat the time and, without being
told although it was confirmed abit later he heard in his heart
as he was celebrating thedivine liturgy she is saved, she
is saved.
And at the end of the divineliturgy he was told that this
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person had died.
Our professor of liturgics,professor John Fundulis, used to
say to us why do we wish oneanother many years?
Whether we live or whether wedie, we are the lords.
So why many years?
What's the benefit of manyyears?
(22:11):
More years to repent absolutely.
Fundulis used to say more yearsto repent absolutely.
Fondoulis used to say moreyears to be privileged, to go
through the liturgical cycle andeach time to experience the
saving works of Christ just alittle more deeply.
Each time we're blessed toexperience the liturgical cycle,
(22:35):
it enriches us.
This is our treasure.
We become deeper human beings,enriched, enlarged.
Our heart is enlarged, ourheart is enabled to receive more
grace.
That's why we wish one anothermany blessed years.
Please subscribe to our channeland share with your friends why
(22:59):
we wish one another manyblessed years.
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