Selections from Seminary

Ukraine's top Church leader, Metropolitan Onufriy, not only called on his people to pray, but gave them a prayer rule. It is short and simple, and he asked them to pray it at least once a day. Pray Psalm 90 (91) with twelve prostrations or bows.  "He who dwells in the help of the most high shall abide in the shelter of heaven's God."... Bishop Daniel of Santa Rosa (California), who spoke to one of the Ukrainian bishops in the past few days, suggested we all join them in their prayer rule, as well as fasting for them. All these events are happening just on the verge of Great Lent, and with such a disruption of daily life, Ukrainians will not be able to fast as they normally would. So, this is an opportunity to take up our brother's burden and carry it for him. And if you want to pray more specifically for the situation in Ukraine, you could either add some of the psalms below or occasionally  use them instead of Psalm 90, above. Below, you will see the "Peace ...

Secured away, beyond all danger of community, Ostracized, a cast off, broken piece of pottery. Loneliness is just a word but does not start to reach Into this suffocation and defilement of the soul. Take life away, and answer that I merely should impeach All memory of normalcy; the person masked, my toll, Requried to sign this contract with our friends and family. Ye weak and weary, fear not, just trade health for life, and see.

It was the first use of Benedict Sheehan's new musical setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in the context of Divine Liturgy itself. I was asked to come and man a video camera during the liturgy, so I was mostly in photo-work mode. I knew there would be beautiful music surrounding me, but I was primarily focused on my job and was not thinking too much about the music. I remember the moment it happened; it is deeply imprinted in my mind. I was moving from one side of the altar to the other, I think, in an effort to get a different angle. I was close to the High Place, when, WHAM! The music knocked me backwards. The strength...the sharpness...the spear piercing my heart as it pierced the Lamb on the Holy Altar. I literally stumbled backwards. The pain from this musical spear immediately brought forth tears. I was certainly not looking for some emotional musical experience, but Benedict Sheehan's Liturgy pierced through my protective layers, my distraction, my here-and-no...

Another unarmed black man dies at the hands of police. This throws me back into an old struggle of mine, a series of thoughts that makes me question my own motivations, my own assumptions, my own safely-white existence, and above all, the question of why the Church, the very Church established by the Apostles, the Church which has collectively retained the unadulterated truth of the Gospel, the Church which obviously is for all mankind, the Church which prays "that all would be saved"...why is that Church mostly white? ...well, why is it mostly white in this country ? In a way, I feel powerless to say anything, because I am white. Who wants to hear another white guy defending his conscience? Well, I am not going to say I am not racist. That is too easy. These ways of operating are often among the involuntary sins for which we ask forgiveness, the habitual sins that we commit without even knowing it, sins that are only revealed to us through years of Confession and guidan...

Today, here in Wayne County, the home of St. Tikhon's Seminary, we are officially moving to the "yellow phase" of reopening after the two months of quarantine and being restricted from going to church. Not that the quarantine was comfortable, but at least my head had begun to become acquainted with it. Now that some degree of reopening is on the horizon and there is potential to return to church and the Holy Eucharist, the temptation is to try to move back to "business as usual" and not keep a hold of the lessons I have learned during my isolation from church. One phrase that has continually come to mind these past two months is something that a friend of mine "quoted" on social media. He admitted that this is probably just a mis-quote from some or other ancient desert father, but regardless, there is a kernel of truth with a ready lesson: "Go to your cell and pray. If you can't find God in your cell, you won't find him anywhere." ...

I stumbled across a beautiful quote that really struck me in these days of being deprived of the Holy Eucharist. "How can one be capable of enjoying and finding delight in the presence of things for which one had not longing when they were absent?" These are the words of St. Nicholas Cabasilas in The Life in Christ , and he is primarily speaking of our salvation and of life eternal, and I am taking it somewhat out of context...but not totally. Our life in Christ, our union with him, is the beginning of eternal life. We commune with him here and now, that is, we are daily coming into union with him, through our efforts and through his grace. With that in mind, here is a little more context to St. Nicholas's quote: "The kingdom and vision of God and union with Christ are privileges which depend on willingness . They are thus possible only for those who have been willing to receive them and have loved them and longed for them. … How can one be capable of enjoying an...

They shall be scattered to search for food, if they are not satisfied they grumble. But I will sing of thy power, proclaiming thy mercy each morning, for thou hast become my helper, my refuge in the day of my affliction.  Ps 58(59) Pascha has passed over us. What now? When we had barely learned how to live quarantined away from church, we were faced with missing the most memorable services of the Church year: Holy Week and Pascha. Our desire to turn on a live-streamed service under those circumstances is understandable. Now it is time to throw off everything that hinders and to fulfill the call of the quarantine. This current situation has called to question how we see church. It has challenged our personal spirituality. It has exposed an unhealthy dependence we have had on our churches. In the words of the psalmist above, are we scattered away from our churches, left to fend for our daily bread in whatever way we can find it, grumbling that the church doors are closed? Or, ...

Fresco in Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, Constantinople Holy Saturday Late morning or early afternoon:   Holy Saturday Reader's Vespers Between the Epistle and Gospel reading (during "Arise, O God, and judge the earth..."), we change the church's colors from dark to bright, because Vespers liturgically transitions us into the next day...Pascha. At home, this is a great time to add white or bright decoration to the icon corner and to put up an icon of Pascha, if you have such. For those who have taken on the struggle of the strict fast on Holy Friday till Vespers on Holy Saturday, the faithful partake of a little bread and wine after Vespers, along with some figs or dates (which could translate to dried fruit and nuts today). Reading the Acts of the Apostles: Following Vespers (which normally would have been a Vesperal Liturgy), the faithful would remain in church listening to the reading of the book of the Acts of the Apostles till time for the Paschal s...

This is an incredible opportunity to keep Holy Week even more full of prayer and the reading of the Holy Scriptures. As for the "tone" or manner in which we go through this week, Elder Vitaly of Tbilisi "taught that one should go to church during the whole of Holy Week and to not get involved with vain things. He would only allow food preparation. He would say that the days of Holy Week sanctified all the days of the year. Holy Monday sanctified all the Mondays of the year, Holy Tuesday the Tuesday of the year, and so on." This echoes the Book of Exodus, and its guidelines for keeping the Passover: "No servile work shall be done on them; and whatever must be done by each soul, this only shall be done by you" (12:16). But don't forget to prepare for the Pascha Feast!  I will mention this again at the end of this post, but the Artefact Institute is providing a free download of a wonderful way to celebrate the feast at home with food, ...

Bishop Alexis can feel the pain in our hearts. How are we to go through Holy Week without going to church? It is unimaginable for most of us...but there are some holy examples that may help calm our fears and even give us hope for a once in a lifetime opportunity to commune with our God like never before. Following Live-Streaming and Finding the Steams of Living Water Thirty years ago when I was a young novice at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, I recall being moved while reading an account of the Athonite Elder Callinicus the Hesychast (1853–1930) who went to the austere community of Father Daniel, a community in the Athonite desert always lacking milk, cheese, and eggs. Father Daniel explained to the young Callinicus , “ At Pascha, we have no red eggs to eat . One that is preserved from year to year is brought out that we may see it and remember the Feast.” (Archimandrite Cherubim, Contemporary Ascetics of Mount Athos , 180). This same Elder Callinicus later chose to lock himself up i...

As we were ending class today with Archbishop Michael, he obviously had Holy Week on his mind and this scattered flock of seminarians arranged in a grid on his computer screen, and like a good shepherd, he could not help but share a word of love and encouragement as we prepare to pass into the most important week of the year and attempt to celebrate all in our own little isolated homes. "No one saw the resurrection of the Lord. It was in the tomb...Look at the apostles who were not there: one denied Christ, one ran away, one doubted... Without all the aids of the Church. It's hard. I suffer with you. For 47 years, I have never missed any of these services. It is just not the same. "But soul work is hard work. Christ did the hardest of that work for us. Unite yourself with him, in spite of the obstacles, see yourself in the persecution of the Church, and rise above it. Love, know, and serve as best you can, that Lord. May he bless you and your family, this Pascha, and ...

In the Preface to the Orthodox Christian Prayers prayer book, there is a wonderful little paragraph that echoes many of the responses I have heard to our COVID-19 quarantine. I have noticed that many responses, from Met. Tikhon to Bishop Alexis , from Abbot Sergius to Archimandrite Zacharias , have emphasized that this quarantine is a time to turn to God in prayer. I would warn against counting out their opinion because they are monastics and unlike us in the world, but the common monastic response is no accident: these are men whose spiritual life is not dependent on going to church services, but rather on the foundation of prayer and communion with Christ in the "secrecy of their room". The prayer book has this encouraging word for us: "As disciples of Christ and his imitators, Orthodox Christians pray together at church, offering the services of Vespers, Matins, the Hours, and above all the Divine Liturgy. We may also pray in small groups outside of church, with...

I have a bit of a hidden jewel to share. Right at the very beginning of widespread quarantining, Metropolitan Tikhon of the OCA shared a comforting word about the difficulty of being separated from church . I remember this particular statement, but when I tried to share it with someone, it took me a while to find it, because it was buried in a document that necessarily had to carry quite a lot of other text pertaining to the practical details of the OCA's response to the CoronaVirus. So, because it is such a good word, and because it is now completely buried in the millions of words written about the CoronaVirus, I would like to share it again: "My beloved children in the Lord, none of the measures adopted by any part of the Church should cause scandal or anxiety. They should also not be used as the subject for mockery, vile jokes, sarcasm, or—God forbid! —division or disunity. They have been taken as our Christian response to protect our brothers and sisters. Our Lord tells ...

There is a growing number of voices sharing faithful reactions to our plight in these days of the CoronaVirus. Fr. John Parsells shared this beautiful image of joining Christ's sufferings "outside the camp", as St. Paul relates in the epistle to the Hebrews: "Therefore let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore" (13:13). Fr. John connects this idea of joining in Christ's separation, intentionally sharing in his sufferings, with our current separation from the Holy Mysteries. Yes, it is a suffering, but we reap no spiritual benefit from it if we rebel against it. Last week, our hierarchs delivered us a hard word: we will not be able to celebrate Great and Holy Pascha at church. In this situation, we remain in isolation, out of obedience to our hierarchs and in love to our brothers and sisters, as Fr. John states: "By instructing us through our hierarchs to temporarily and selflessly stay outside the church for the benefit of othe...

This is an excellent reflection from Bishop Alexis, a spiritual reaction to being separated from church and isolated in our homes...at least, this could  be our reaction. I have emphasized some of the main points, but this is the full text of Bishop Alexis's spiritual reflection as posted on the OCA website. The Sign of the Prophet Jonah in our days Bishop Alexis, 3 April 2020 “For those with eyes to see and ears to hear,” these days of being in the belly of the whale, physically separated not only from one another, but also from our beloved Churches and places of prayer, we have a rare opportunity for spiritual growth. In this crisis that has overcome the entire inhabited world, we are given the sign of Jonah that calls forth a response from us all. Saint Ephraim the Syrian writes, “the sign of Jonah served the Ninevites in two ways. If they would have rejected it, they would have gone down to Sheol alive like Jonah, but they were raised from the dead like him because the...

I just listened to an interview with Archimandrite Sergius, the abbot of St. Tikhon's Monastery. I highly recommend going and listening to the full interview with Fr. Sergius . Right off the bat, Fr. Sergius says...and when I say "says", I really mean emphatically repeats, "The inner life is just as real as the outer life." He encourages us to pay attention to our heart...and no, that is not some warm-and-fuzzy saying; he is literally suggesting that the heart is both a physical place and a spiritual place. The spiritual place of the heart is "the door to the world to come". And "it is a shared space...Christ is there, too". We will have to work to uncover that Kingdom within, and when we do, "it is only in that stillness of the heart that we will be able to experience God." But that is only how Fr. Sergius starts off in the interview. He has recently posted a couple of videos in response to our being cut off from being able to ...

I am thankful for reading a recent article by Fr. Lawrence Farley, and particularly for the additional perspective he has added to my thinking about what "going to church" means in the wake of these worldwide quarantining measures to fight the spread of this virus. He wrote at length about the importance of the gathering of Christians as being central to the purpose of the Eucharist, and thus to the meaning of  "the Church". That "gathering" aspect is not something I had dwelled on much. I would like to add another layer to what he said. He said, " The Eucharist is what Christians do on Sunday when they gather together in the Lord’s Name, and the celebration of the Eucharist presupposes a previous gathering." That is true. Otherwise, a priest would be allowed to celebrate by himself. The Church is the "ekklesia" (Greek ἐκκλησία, 'gathering'), the community of believers, which is seen in beautiful perfection when we partake of...

I have never used Typica so much as I am now, that is, now that we are quarantined away from church due to the CoronaVirus. The Typica service, in the same way as Small Compline is more appropriate for use at home than Vespers , is not a Liturgy replacement. It developed as its own service to be celebrated by those who are distant from clergy, without a choir, and without any additional resources to do a service. Not only it is the appropriate service to serve when you cannot go to Liturgy, it is perfect for our self-quarantined, isolated situation. So, if you would have normally gone to Liturgy on a Sunday morning or a feast, but are not able (like if you were quarantined at home due to a pandemic or something), this is what is usually used. It is formatted so that you can print it out, two-sided, and fold it into your own Typica booklet. If you want to take it a step further, you could staple it (but only if you have a really long stapler) or sew/tie it together. I sewed it. ...

This is the full reflection from His Grace Bishop Alexis, recently posted on the OCA website. Just like with Father Zacharias's word of consolation , I will post the full text with highlights of the major points. My hope is to whet your appetite enough to read the full text. Some Thoughts on the Crisis and the Call of the Corona Virus: A Reflection by His Grace Bishop Alexis of Bethesda The Bishops of the Holy Orthodox Church love their flocks and ever strive to lead them to well-watered and rich pastures. They care for them, body and soul. In so doing, they are following their Master Christ who not only “cast out unclean spirits,” but also healed “all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” (Matthew 10:1). In the Gospels, we see that Christ sometimes treated the soul first and the body second; at other times, the body first and the soul second. In the presence of the highly contagious and potentially lethal corona virus, the Bishops’ concern is for...