Sunday of the Last Judgment
++
third time this year, unprecedented, they closed the cathedral to
services. I couldn't have gotten there anyway as there was no
transportation and the roads near me went unplowed in our 3 feet of
snow. Still, when you can't make it to church, it is nice to dream of
others being there praying.
Sunday of Meatfare of the Last Judgment
Commemorated on February 7
Today's Gospel reading is Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the Last
Judgment. It reminds us that while trusting in Christ's love and
mercy, we must not forget His righteous judgment when He comes again
in glory. If our hearts remain hardened and unrepentant, we should not
expect the Lord to overlook our transgressions simply because He is a
good and loving God. Although He does not desire the death of a
sinner, He also expects us to turn from our wickedness and live (Ezek.
33:11). This same idea is expressed in the prayer read by the priest
after the penitent has confessed his or her sins (Slavic practice).
The time for repentance and forgiveness is now, in the present life.
At the Second Coming, Christ will appear as the righteous Judge, Who
will render to every man according to his deeds" (Rom. 2:6). Then the
time for entreating God's mercy and forgiveness will have passed.
As Father Alexander Schmemann reminds us in his book GREAT LENT (Ch.
1:4), sin is the absence of love, it is separation and isolation. When
Christ comes to judge the world, His criterion for judgment will be
love. Christian love entails seeing Christ in other people, our
family, our friends, and everyone else we may encounter in our lives.
We shall be judged on whether we have loved, or not loved, our
neighbor. We show Christian love when we feed the hungry, give drink
to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit those who are sick or in
prison. If we did such things for the least of Christ's brethren, then
we also did them for Christ (Mt.25:40). If we did not do such things
for the least of the brethren, neither did we do them for Christ (Mt.
25:45).
Today is the last day for eating meat and meat products until Pascha,
though eggs and dairy products are permitted every day during the
coming week. This limited fasting prepares us gradually for the more
intense fasting of Great Lent.
Venerable Luke of Macedonia
Commemorated on February 7
Saint Luke of Macedonia was a native of the village of Kostur /
Kastoria. The son of poor farmers, the saint from childhood had
toiled much, working in the fields and shepherding the sheep. He was
very obedient to his parents and very temperate in eating. He often
gave his own food and clothing to the poor, for which he suffered
reproach from his parents. He once gave away almost all the seed which
was needed for planting in the fields. The Lord rewarded him for his
charity, and the harvest gathered was greater than ever before.
As a child, he prayed fervently and often. His mother saw him more
than once standing not on the ground, but in the air while he prayed.
After the death of his father, he left his mother and went to Athens,
where he entered a monastery. But through the prayers of his mother,
who was very concerned about him, the Lord returned him to his
parental home in a miraculous manner. He spent four months there, then
with his mother's blessing he went to a solitary place on a mountain
called Ioannou / Ioannitsa. Here there was a church dedicated to the
holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian, where he lived an ascetical life
in constant prayer and fasting. He was tonsured there by some Elders
who were on pilgrimage. After this, St Luke redoubled his ascetic
efforts, for which the Lord granted him the gift of foresight.
After a seven years on Ioannou / Ioannitsa, the saint moved to Corinth
because of an invasion of the Bulgarian armies. Hearing about the
exploits of a certain stylite at Patras, he went to see him, and
remained for ten years to serve the ascetic with humility and
obedience. Afterwards, the saint returned again to his native land and
again began to pursue asceticism on Mount Ioannou / Ioannitsa.
The throngs of people flocking there disturbed his quietude, so with
the blessing of his Elder Theophylactus, St Luke went with his
disciple to a still more remote place at Kalamion. After three years,
he settled on the desolate and arid island of Ampelon because of an
invasion of the Turks. Steiris was another place of his ascetic
efforts. Here brethren gathered to the monk, and a small monastery
grew up, the church of which was dedicated to the Great Martyr
Barbara. Dwelling in the monastery, the saint performed many miracles,
healing sicknesses of soul and of body.
Foreseeing his end, the saint confined himself in a cell and for three
months prepared for his departure. When asked where he was to be
buried, the monk replied, "Throw my body into a ravine to be eaten by
wild beasts." When the brethren begged him to change these
instructions, he commanded them to bury his body on the spot where he
lay. Raising his eyes to heaven, he said, "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I
commend my spirit!"
St Luke fell asleep in the Lord on February 7, 946. Later, a church
was built over his tomb. Myrrh flowed from his holy relics, and many
healings occurred.
RVG
> Today's Gospel reading is Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the Last
> Judgment. It reminds us that while trusting in Christ's love and
> mercy, we must not forget His righteous judgment when He comes again
> in glory.
1/ Christ didn't/doesn't come to judge but to save/to liberate, ie to
make our "I" pass over from the natural ego (atomos) to the stable "I
am" (hypostasis) detached from all phenomenality.
2/ His second coming is as the new Paraclete, the holy Spirit of the
Father within the heart. The realization of the Holy Spirit *is* the
final judgement: either we've turned our mind into the heart (metanoia,
realized through the practice of the hesychast tradition under the
guidance of an Elder) and we're now "sitting" on the divine throne of
the divine Presence in a state of impassibility, or we're still "lost"
in the dualities of the natural existence and we fail into all the
passions and temptations.
--
Jazz up your life!
Jazzez-vous la vie!
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"La premi�re arme de la R�sistance c'est l'information." Lucie Aubrac
Alexander Arnakis
<not....@themoment.org.invalid> wrote:
>++ a ?crit :
>
>> Today's Gospel reading is Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the Last
>> Judgment. It reminds us that while trusting in Christ's love and
>> mercy, we must not forget His righteous judgment when He comes again
>> in glory.
>
>1/ Christ didn't/doesn't come to judge but to save/to liberate, ie to
>make our "I" pass over from the natural ego (atomos) to the stable "I
>am" (hypostasis) detached from all phenomenality.
>
What you're saying is that God's mercy trumps God's justice. I agree,
but realize that this makes us Universalists -- a position that's
considered heretical in traditional Christianity. But even the
Catholic Pope has said that he would *like* to be a Universalist --
there must be room in the theological scheme for the salvation of all.
RVG
> On Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:06:02 +0100, RVG
> <not....@themoment.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>> ++ a ?crit :
>>
>>> Today's Gospel reading is Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the Last
>>> Judgment. It reminds us that while trusting in Christ's love and
>>> mercy, we must not forget His righteous judgment when He comes again
>>> in glory.
>>
>> 1/ Christ didn't/doesn't come to judge but to save/to liberate, ie to
>> make our "I" pass over from the natural ego (atomos) to the stable "I
>> am" (hypostasis) detached from all phenomenality.
>>
> What you're saying is that God's mercy trumps God's justice. I agree,
> but realize that this makes us Universalists -- a position that's
> considered heretical in traditional Christianity. But even the
> Catholic Pope has said that he would *like* to be a Universalist --
> there must be room in the theological scheme for the salvation of all.
>
Reality is one and eternal, and the same for all. Either you start the
path with Jesus-Christ and on the way you meet the other forms of wisdom
in the world, or you start on another path of wisdom and you meet
Jesus-Christ within your heart.
If you don't, on either path, then you're just an externalist fanatic
with no wisdom and no grace.
As Pascal said (Pens�es 807), quoting from St Augustine:
"Always either men have spoken of the true God, or the true God has
spoken to men."
"Toujours ou les hommes ont parl� du vrai Dieu, ou le vrai Dieu a parl�
aux hommes."
>> 2/ His second coming is as the new Paraclete, the holy Spirit of the
>> Father within the heart. The realization of the Holy Spirit *is* the
>> final judgement: either we've turned our mind into the heart (metanoia,
>> realized through the practice of the hesychast tradition under the
>> guidance of an Elder) and we're now "sitting" on the divine throne of
>> the divine Presence in a state of impassibility, or we're still "lost"
>> in the dualities of the natural existence and we fail into all the
>> passions and temptations.
>
Alexander Arnakis
<not....@themoment.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>As Pascal said (Pens?es 807), quoting from St Augustine:
>"Always either men have spoken of the true God, or the true God has
>spoken to men."
>
>aux hommes."
>
That's demonstrably false. Men have often spoken of false gods, and
false gods (demons) have spoken to them. Christ even warned of such
things. The only way we can be sure of "truth" is through results. If
something helps us live healthier, happier, and more self-assured
lives, it must be "true." Conversely, if something makes us sicker,
unhappier, and less sure of our wholeness (and I include most
organized religion in this), then it must be untrue.
RVG
> On Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:20:10 +0100, RVG
> <not....@themoment.org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> As Pascal said (Pens?es 807), quoting from St Augustine:
>> "Always either men have spoken of the true God, or the true God has
>> spoken to men."
>>
>> "Toujours ou les hommes ont parl? du vrai Dieu, ou le vrai Dieu a parl?
>> aux hommes."
>>
> That's demonstrably false. Men have often spoken of false gods, and
> false gods (demons) have spoken to them. Christ even warned of such
> things. The only way we can be sure of "truth" is through results.
As of today, the results of Orthodoxy are:
- multiple genocides and war crimes in former Yugoslavia
- war crimes in Chechnya and other places in Caucasus.
- Russian-Georgian war. For the first time in history an orthodox
country has been at war against another one.
- The complete economical failure of Greece endagering the rest of the EU.
> If
> something helps us live healthier, happier, and more self-assured
> lives, it must be "true."
No, the God of the Bible calls for sacrifice and paradox. Read Job.
"Then it was the Crucifixion
Now it's the Holocaust."
Leonard Cohen
> Conversely, if something makes us sicker,
> unhappier, and less sure of our wholeness (and I include most
> organized religion in this), then it must be untrue.
>
I think the most honest path in problematic philosophy and I'll stick to
it. If there's a God he'll survive the questioning until the end.
Otherwise he's not worth being worshipped.
So far, the God of the Bible is just a sort of super-me (transcendantal
idealism). He can be gotten rid of by the practice of Advaita meditation
(Upanishads, Shankaracharya etc.). That's the God Nietzsche said he was
dead.
WW1, the Gulag and the Shoah proved him right. No God came to save
millions of Jews and Christians in the trenches of Verdun, the nazi
deathcamps and the soviet gulag.
Elder Sophrony's last words have been: "May my pain serve somebody."
Truth may be the opposite of my comfort and my happiness. It may start
in the belief in the other, ie that my neighbour actually exists. This
is something unnatural to the mind that, like Descartes, may think that
the world is just a veil of illusions - when actually this veil is the
mind itself, the root of all murder as fratricide.
But then again believing in the other means believing in the monster,
like my perscutor. It's quite comfortable (relatively speaking) to see
one's tortioner as a product of the mind. And it has helped many people
save their life (but not their sanity) in terrible situations.
But believing that my neighbour (ie Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot) is actually
another me, an alter-ego, is much more dangerous and painful. Yet it may
well be the truth.
In other words: given the circumstances, *I* could be Hitler, Stalin, etc.
There's no need to resort to mythology and imaginery causes (angels and
demons) to try to solve the problem.
It is the main theme of Orwell's 1984. And it is the reality of today's
world.
Alexander Arnakis
<not....@themoment.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>- The complete economical failure of Greece endangering the rest of the EU.
>
Greece's whole economic and political system is based on familial
dynasties and institutional dishonesty. It never belonged in the EU,
but successive Greek governments managed to hoodwink the EU, first
into letting Greece join, and then in "cooking the books" to show that
the government deficits were far lower than what they actually were.
Greece's two great mistakes in the last ten years were (a) adopting
the euro currency, and (b) sponsoring the 2004 Olympic games (which
the country couldn't really afford). The country's policy toward
Europe should have been a sort of half-way status, like that of
Norway, so that, for example, it could have signed the Schengen
agreement on the free movement of people. The euro means that Greece's
economy is at the mercy of the European Central Bank, and traditional
tools such as currency devaluations are no longer independently
available to it.
I predict that either Greece will revert to the drachma (along with
Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc. reverting to their former currencies),
or the euro in general will fall to rough parity with the dollar
(which is to say, it will find its real relative purchasing power). An
artificially high euro cannot be propped up without expelling the
fringe economies.
There are those who say that Germany and France desperately *want* a
weaker euro, to boost their exports, but they want to lay the blame
for such a de facto devaluation on the southern EU members.
But none of this has anything to do with the Orthodox religion.