SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2008
The Peripatetic Pilgrimage
The Fourth in a series of
Catechetical Talks"Beware of practicing your
"Beware
of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no
reward from your Father who is in heaven. "Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet
before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be
praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give
alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may
be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And when you pray,
you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and
at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have
received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to
your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that
they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what
you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:
Our
Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven our debtors;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For
if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if
you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
"And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their
faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their
reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not
be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret
will reward you. "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and
rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
--Matthew
6:1-21
Prayer is
powerless unless it is based on fasting, and fasting is fruitless unless prayer is built
upon it.
--St.
Ignatius Brianchaninov
St.
Anthony the Great tells us, "He who has himself as a spiritual guide has chosen a
fool and a blind man." How many of us have tried to devolp a spiritual path or
discipline without any direction or accountability? How successful has that been? I would
venture to guess that it has not. There are two ways that one can travel: one can blaze a
trail where no one has gone before, or one can travel by an established path. We already
know that not one of us can blaze a trail to the Kingdom of God. The whole of our human
predicament of death, corruption and sin has stalled us from moving any closer than our
first parents, Adam & Eve. One can even say that we have moved even farther away
than they had.
But
there is One who has blazed a trail and led the way. There is One who sent His holy
Apostles to wear it down and mark its shoulders. There is One who has sent countless
others to travel that very same path so that we might be with Him where He is. Of course,
I am speaking of Jesus Christ.
The
peripatetic pilgrimage is a journey. Peripateo is the Greek work for
"walking about" just as any pilgrim might do in search of a deeper experience of
God. For the Orthodox catechumen, in particular, this is the movement we talked of
earlier: the movement "from action to contemplation." This phrase,
"from action to contemplation" I have taken from the stikhera (verses) at the
vigil for one of the the feasts of Saint John Chrysostom:
The
Church, enriched by your radiant teachings,
cries out to you, O Chrysostom,
I am nourished by your golden pastures;
I feed at the sweet streams of your words,
by your example, I am led from action to contemplation.
I am united to Christ my bridegroom and reign with Him.
Now we, assembled in your memory, cry out to you,
cease not to pray that our souls may be saved.
In
the beginning of our discussion we talked about the order for catechizing the neophytes.
Before any instruction took place they were commended to action by taking upon themselves
the life of the Christian, to walk in the paths of those who had come before. To
this end I will set forth a progression for the journey.
Seek
out a spiritual father as a guide in the journey of faith. The spritual father
may be a priest or monastic elder. For the neophyte, this is the person with whom you will
likely make your first confession. One can go outside the confines of the local
parish for such a guide, but make sure you first obtain the parish priest's blessing.
Enter
into the daily cycle of prayer with the Church. One can certainly pray as one
sees fit or is able, but when we pray with the Church we are given the assurance that we
are never alone. We have the condfidence that we are praying with believers from every
time and place, and that when we falter in our prayers that there are others praying for
us. Taking up the "Jesus Prayer" ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have
mercy on me a sinner") is a means of developing a time-tested habit of ceasless
and interior prayer that Theophan the Recluse says, "Should become like
breathing." In this we understand what Paul means when he says "pray
constantly" (1Thessalonians 5:17) and we see that such a state is possible.
Read
the Scriptures daily with the Church. When we join the Church in reading the
Scriptures together we soon find that the liturgical cycle of the Church becomes the cycle
of our life. In this we find that what the Scriptures say soon becomes a part of our daily
experience. Before reading the Scriptures you may wish to pray this prayer from Matins and
the Divine Liturgy:
Ilumine our
hearts, O Master who loves mankind, with the pure light of Your divine knowledge. Open the
eyes of our mind to the understanding of Your Gospel teachings. Implant also in us the
fear of Your blessed commandments, that tramlping down all carnal desires we may enter
upon a spiritual manner of living both thinking and doing such things as are well-pleasing
to You: for You are the illumination of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, and to You
we ascribe glory, together with Your Father who is from everlasting, and Your all-holy,
good, and life-giving Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
As you can see,
the "spiritual manner of living" is precisely what we have been talkinng about
and the very life God wants for us and which we should always ask of Him the grace live
it. An Athonite elder once said: "A monk does
not just study dogmas; he lives by them. When he reads the Holy Scripture or the
patristic writings, he is not doing it to gain knowledge but to learn a language of
ineffable words with which God speaks through one's prayer.
Take
up the weekly and seasonal fasts of the Church. God has made us " a kingdom
of priests." Priests make offer sacrifices and intercede for the people. Fasting can
be described as a priestly offering and more. It is a laying aside of our earthly passions
or obstacles in our desire for God. The best analogy is being in love. When one is in love
that person will drop everything to be present with the object of their love. Often a
person in love will forget even to eat; so important is the relationship to the other.
Thus fasting is first a priestly offering, a sacrifice of the self. Second it is an act of
love which recognizes its fulfillment comes not in the food which one eats today and dies
tomorrow but in the Bread of Life. But we must be on our guard: fasting is means and not
an end in itself. If we make it a means of being recognized for our piety, to gain some
spiritual power, or somehow use it under the delusion we are currying favor with God, we
have defiled our fasting and made it an idol. Similarly, do not be surprised if
fasting will be a struggle. Our corruptible nature is threatened by such exercises and the
devil will seize the opportunity to tempt us. Remember that even though the times set
forth for fasting have been determined by the tradition of the Church, the practice itself
is not an option. As our Lord said, "When you fast" and
not if you fast! Still, for our fasting to be pure--even while we
may struggle with it--it must be offered in love and with humility. Even the desert
father, Abba Isidore, reminds us, "It is
better for a man to eat meat than to be inflated with pride and to glorify himself."
Perform
acts of charity anonymously. Charity is not solely the province of institutions
or agencies, it is also the obligation of disciples and followers of Christ. That we have
abdicated this priestly work (among others) is the scandal of both the children of Israel
and the Church. To care for the poor, the widow and the orphan is an act so close to the
heart of God that it dominates the preaching of the prophets, much of the themes of the
Psalms, and throughout the Gospels and the New Testament. It one of the most tangible
means offering our love to God. Like fasting, however, it must be pure, that is offered
completely in secret to God without hope of either recognition or gain. But unlike
fasting, regardless of our pure or corrupt motives and desires we should be charitible. It
is not better to refrain from charity with humility than to be charitible with boasting.
In fasting, such an exercise chastens the individual, but in charity it denies the poor
their needs in ther name of piety.
Regardless
of whether we are new to the faith or new in the faith or have been in the Church for
years, this is the pattern we ought to be formed in as believers in and followers of
Christ. These things we do, are not done to demonstrate our piety, but rather to begin the
process of entering fully into our humanity: to fulfill the expectations of the life God
intends for us. The path set forth above is a means not an ends. We don't check off the
boxes upon completion. Just as the noetic life is not a phase but a constant reality, so
these disciplines should be undertaken daily and constantly and when we fail--and we
will--they should be taken up again with determination. Saint Anthony also reminds us that
the Christian life is this: "We fall down, we get up, we fall down, we get
up..."
Here
also is a warning: if we seek the attention of others and get it, Jesus reminds us that we
already have our reward and our efforts are to no avail. And if we make the
disciplines ends in themselves we may actually harm ourselves and create a stumbling block
for others in their pursuit of God.
Next:
The Ascetic Passion
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