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 ...

“Hypocrite”, Jesus says. That’s a hard word. It is so easy, when reading the gospels, to see that hard word spoken to others, and so hard to hear it as a word to us. We, too, are hypocrites. The hypocrites in this lesson (Luke 13:10-17) followed all the rules, but missed spirit of the Law. We, in the midst of the fast, focus on the fasting rules. Maybe we follow them and maybe we don’t, but, still, our focus during the fast is on the rules. So easily, we lose sight of why we are fasting. Fasting is exercise. Like the athlete who disciplines himself, who diligently shows up everyday, who pushes himself: in the same way, we show up. We exercise. And better than that, these are more than random rules the Church has passed down to us; this training regimen is time-tested and proven. Do this...and you will find eternal life. Fasting is exercise. Fasting also... acquires the Holy Spirit . St. Seraphim of Sarov explains this when he says, "Prayer, fasting, vigil, and all other Christian ...

There is something fascinating to me about the moments that Jesus prays. It really challenges me to reevaluate what I think prayer is. What runs through my head is this simple question: Jesus is God...what is he praying about? We see one of these passages in Matthew 14.  At the first of this chapter Jesus finds out that Herod has killed John the Baptist. Jesus's reaction is to go out to the desert places to pray, but as often happens, the multitudes follow him. He doesn't send them away so he can pray, but rather, he has compassion on them he sees their needs, that they have been following him for three days with no food, and he feeds all 5,000 of them.  Then, he sends away the disciples, he sends away the multitude, and finally, he prays. So, what or how does God pray to God? A quote about prayer on this year's St. Tikhon Monastery wall calendar seems to help explain this a little. Two or three months back, it had a quote from St. John Climacus: "prayer is converse an...

For those of us coming from a Protestant background, especially from the "Evangelical" realm, we might be tempted to think of "saved" as 'made it into heaven', and thus accidentally read into St. Seraphim's saying a meaning something to the effect of, '...and thousands of people around you will accept Christ and become Christians as a result'. Though that meaning might be included in what St. Seraphim meant, it certainly is not the primary meaning, because that is not a traditionally Christian understanding of the word "saved". Without delving into the deep end of trying to fully understand "saved" in a more Orthodox manner, I will try to hone in on the one important aspect I see at work, to help us understand this quote. Think of the many places in the New Testament which speak of those "being saved"...well, that is not totally fair, because our translations do not always make that so clear in English. Search aroun...

St. Seraphim’s guidance in the spiritual life was focused on acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit, and, as you will see, his use of the word “acquire”, a money and business term, is no accident: "Prayer, fasting, vigil, and all other Christian practices, however good they may be in themselves, do not constitute the aim of our Christian life, although they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this end. The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God." "'Acquiring is the same as obtaining,' he replied to me. 'You understand, of course, what acquiring money means. Acquiring the Spirit of God is exactly the same. You know well what it means in a worldly sense, your godliness, to acquire. The aim of life of ordinary worldly people is to acquire or make money, and for the nobility it is in addition to receive honors, distinctions, and other rewards for their services to the government. The acquisition of God's ...

As mentioned in the first of these posts about St. Seraphim, this may feel like a rabbit trail, but after establishing the authenticity of St. Seraphim's message and its connection to the fathers of old (in this post), then moving on to his primary teaching about the spiritual life (in the next post), we will finally be able to accept the understanding of his most famous quote for what it is: a condensed version of everything he lived and taught. The Little Russian Philokalia, in covering the life and teachings of St. Seraphim of Sarov, reminds us that “there is nothing whatever that is new in the spiritual face of St. Seraphim; all is from the Holy Fathers, of whom he is a most faithful disciple, appearing in the latter times like some great desert father of antiquity, like a new St. Macarius the Great.” The author goes on to say: "His spiritual instructions like his celebrated conversation with Motovilov on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit contain no new teaching, but sim...

These different variations of St. Seraphim's famous quote can carry slightly different emphases, but there seems to be another issue with this quote and how it challenges our understanding of salvation and “missions” in the Orthodox Church. There seems to be a thread of anti-monastic sentiment among Orthodox Christians today, as if the monastic life is something different than “normal” Christian life, and especially seeing monastics as anti-evangelical. This is theologically problematic, to be sure, but here, I will focus only on the desired re-interpretation of St. Seraphim’s quote. One respected source of Orthodox missions thinking today, a statement I heard with my own ears, suggested that Frederica Mathewes-Green was right in suggesting we have a misunderstanding of this quote, that is, the monk going out in the “desert” does not “save” anybody. I could not confirm any place that Frederica Mathewes-Green suggested this. Instead, she writes: "Being a saint is not a private ...

One of the most common patron saints American converts choose is St. Seraphim of Sarov. He has an obvious appeal. He, somehow, sums up Americans’ desire for conservative and traditional Christianity, while living out a beautifully “wild” and zealous life. He personifies the depths of spiritual life that so many of us yearn to possess. What more could we say about St. Seraphim than what our own enlightened, clairvoyant, and wonderworking San Franciscan saint, John Maximovitch, said of him in a homily, when he was still Hieromonk John, a seminary teacher in Serbia: "Thus, despite the changes that have taken place in the world, the memory of St. Seraphim not only does not fade, but it remains a lamp that shines ever brighter to humanity. … He was wholly occupied with the acquisition of 'the one thing needful'. ...The Lord gave us to see Himself in those like unto Him, in His saints. And so, one of these likenesses was St. Seraphim. In him we see restored human nature, freed ...

Not too many years ago a book, Heaven Is for Real, came out about a three-year-old boy dying, going to heaven, and coming back to life. It certainly generated quite a lot of interest and has been widely read (and viewed, after being adapted into a movie). The story, retold by the boy’s father from what he gathered in conversations with his son, has received mixed reception. From my own perspective, it seems most folks are ready to receive it as a genuine experience, especially with some excellent proofs, like the boy seeing his mother and father in separate hospital rooms as he was dying on the surgical table, talking to a miscarried sister that his parents had never told him about, and recognizing a mid-life photo of his grandfather. (The soul looking on the situation of its own body immediately after death, is a very common thread...even in the story of a friend of my own.) A few folks, however, are quite vocal about their denouncements of the boy’s experience in heaven, mainly based...

Now...finally...we make it to one of the best examples to help bring clarity to our questions about what happens after we die. I have shared several warnings: warnings about those who were not dead for long and have limited knowledge of life after death, warnings that our preconceptions can cloud our reasoning in these matters, and warnings that we should not try to over-simplify such matters. All of those warnings still apply. We must be careful not to over-analyze any of these experiences. With that said, the experience related in the Life of Venerable Theodora of Constantinople is particularly useful to us. For one, she died (and stayed dead), her soul left her body, she traversed everything between here and place of her soul’s repose till the last day. The obvious question is how we know this story: she appeared to another spiritual child of her own spiritual father, who recorded it for our benefit. The second reason her particular experience is so useful, and why the Lord would ...

"Once Elder Nektary of Optina was asked: Should an elder take upon himself the sufferings and sins of those who come to him? He answered, 'You can't help them any other way.'" This is from a wonderful book on the life of Elder Vitaly of Tbilisi . Elder Vitaly would often fulfill the penance of others. This was especially true when the penance for a particular sin would have been too much for the repentant. But it was not just others' penance that he would take upon himself, but also, as that quote said, "their sufferings"... "When he would find out from the 'Nightly News' that a disaster had occurred somewhere, or that an accident had taken away human lives, he would write down the number of the dead and light candles for the repose of these people he didn't even know. He made a full prostration for each person." Communion with Christ is necessarily a step away from the individual and toward the communal. This is a beautiful e...

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, ...

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 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 ...

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...