Last month Fr. Matthew in Beaverton wrote a wonderful reflection for the St. John's newsletter that I have been reflecting upon over the month. I thought I would share it with all of you as things in our world intensify and the world throws around love and freedom in ways that sometime differ from our Christian understanding of them. I pray that the reflection below helps us maintain the essential interdependence of love and freedom.

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Dear Beloved in Christ,

Each liturgical year begins and ends with a feast of the Theotokos. Last month we celebrated her falling asleep (August 15). This month - as we begin the new year on September 1 - we celebrate her nativity (September 8). The entire story of our salvation through Jesus Christ is told within the lifespan of the Theotokos.

On the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel came to Mary and announced the good news of God's desire to save humanity through His Incarnation. Mary's final words to the angel were, "Let it be to me according to your word." (Luke 1:38) With these words, she united humanity with divinity. She became the Theotokos, and God became her Son by receiving human flesh from her.

The Panagia's assent restored humanity, which had been estranged from God through the choice of Adam and Eve. Thus she became the New Eve, the one who kept her will in union with God's will.

At the very core of our Faith is this same freedom and choice that each of us face: Do we unite ourselves with God's will, or do we choose to depart from Him? It is a choice that is made each and every day, many times throughout the day. If we love God and choose to be in harmony with the divine will, then we move toward life and immortality; if we do not and we choose the opposite, then the natural outcome is death and corruption.

We have complete freedom - a freedom is given to us by God, who does not compel or impose or demand. Orthodox Christianity has no requirements. All of the commandments of God, the teaching of Jesus, the canons of the Church, the writings of the Holy Fathers, the practices of the Faith, are not requirements. They are invitations. If we desire communion with the All-Good God, then we follow these; and the more that we follow them (in the right spirit), the more that we participate in divine grace, becoming sanctified. However we are free to reject the invitations. Jesus said, "He who would come after me, let him deny himself..." not "You must come after Me and you better deny yourself!"

God has given us absolute freedom because He desires our love - and love can only exist where there is freedom. Love cannot be coerced, demanded, or taken, or it ceases to be love. Anything that is called "love" but is imposed or is filled with expectations and demands is not love.

Imagine a church where the priest says, "Did you give your 10 percent?" or asks at the chalice, "When was your last confession and did you complete your communion prayers?" or demands to know exactly how each parishioner follows the fast. (We may know of denominations or religions like this...) You can see how essential freedom is, so that love can exist.

In our society today, we have many things that are called "love." People demand that we love them through this action or that allegiance. They tell us, "If you love me, then you will..." Yet the opposite is always implied: "You do not have love unless you do this," or "If you don't do this, then I will resent or hate you."
 
As Christians, we are to have no expectation of love from others. Regardless of whether others love us or not, we express our love outward toward others, with no expectation of reciprocity. It is foreign to our Faith that we would expect or demand actions from others for the sake of their "love" for us, or as a condition of our love for them. Our Lord has no expectations of love. He ceaselessly gives of Himself out of His love for us, irrespective of what we do or don't do for Him. He has no demands and He never coerces.

Love is a voluntary movement outward, and it can only exist where there is freedom - the freedom of a person to reject or accept the love. If it is love, it will bear the rejection or embrace the acceptance.

We cannot have expectations of others. When we do, we move out of the realm of love and into the realm of judgment or of coercion: Others don't do what we expect or demand, then we judge them or we try to make them change. Thus division is borne out of our own expectations. This is the way of the world, and it must be rejected. Let nothing come between the love that we have for one another! "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2).

We live in a time when our Christianity is put to the test, when the limits of our love are put to the test - even by our own brothers and sisters in Christ. We must ask ourselves: Do I love as Christ loves? Or do I judge, putting myself above others? "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35).

The only path of the Christian is the path of Christ: self-sacrificial love that makes no demands and does not require love in return. Just as Christ loves us whether we hate Him or love Him, so likewise we must love others irrespective of how they feel about us or what they do to us.

May our parish community continue to emulate Christ in His self-sacrificial love, in a spirit of freedom rather than coercion. May we "judge not, lest we be judged and condemn not, lest we be condemned." (Luke 6:37) May we bear with one another in love, "endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:1-3) having no expectations or demands of others.

In this community of love and of freedom we shall be sanctified!
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In Christ,
Fr. Steve

A New Church Year, A Fresh StartOur Church, like our daily lives, is full of calendars and cycles. Just like our annual calendar has a distinctive start to the new year each January 1st, our ecclesiastical new year starts on September 1st each year. Historically, this was the time of harvest, preparations for the coming winter and the following year. It was a time of thankfulness for God's provisions for the previous year, seeing His sovereignty to enable us to complete another year, and entreat Him to bless this coming year.

As we look back at the past year, we may have a hard time finding our Lord with so many challenges and sufferings we, and our world, have experienced. Some of us have been thoroughly beat down by real hardships and illnesses, confused by information overload, or feeling like failures or guilty telling ourselves we should have done more. We may have stepped back from coming to church regularly to try to just survive.

As a priest of almost one year now, I share more in the struggles that all of you face and I lament with what you in your sorrows and trials. Yet despite all of pain and anguish we have all faced, here we stand, as a community of faithful Christians seeking Christ's will and His mercy. Through our small community and fellowship with one another we have been able to stay sane and be able to see glimpses of Christ through the darkness around us. Through the Divine Liturgy, we have been nourished by the True Life of Christ to experience something beyond this shadowy world. Through confession we have been able to pour out our sins, struggles, and fears to receive guidance and forgiveness.

With the coming of the new Church year, the Church offers us another blessing, a fresh start. A fresh start to reconnect with Christ, with one another and return to His Church regardless of what happened last year. Not to fulfil some religious obligation, not because the priest is telling you to, and not because it will magically make all our problems go away but because it is the one place where we can find Truth and Life. Amidst the shifting sands of our life and the chaos in the world, it is the only rock to cling to for stability. It is the place that welcomes all of us, no matter where we are, becoming a hospital for our torn souls. 

May we all take this blessed opportunity of a fresh start to come to the Lord with our fears and the tragedy in of lives. To put on the armor of light to stand with the Lord to face the new year in the ark of salvation, His Church; with each other, with the saints and Angels, and with our Holy Mother, the Theotokos.

In Christ,
Fr. Steve

In August each year we enter into a unique, 2 week period of fasting (8/1-8/14) and preparation to celebrate the dormition (the falling asleep) of Christ's mother, the holy Theotokos (8/15). The small Paraklesis service to the Theotokos is offered frequently during this 2 week period to supplicate the Theotokos for her prayers just as we would ask anyone else to pray for us. For some of who are newer to Orthodoxy, this is a feast that may seem unfamiliar to us and we may not be sure how to approach this beautiful and grace filled feast.

To help all of us learn and deepen our understanding of this beautiful feast day, I would like to invite everyone to come to a special presentation about this feast day and the tomb of the Theotokos. In 2018 I was blessed to be able to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and one of the holy sites we visited was the tomb of the Theotokos. I will be offering brief perspectives from historical, biblical, patristic, and liturgical viewpoints on this incredible feast along with walking you through pictures of the tomb of the Theotokos so you can get a glimpse into this incredible holy site.

The presentation will be offered on Wednesday, August 11th at ~6pm, after Paraklesis (the service starts at 5pm).

I hope everyone is able to attend so we can all learn and grow together!

In Christ,
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Fr. Steve

​How do we participate in the Divine Liturgy? This liturgy, the work of the people, is so rich many books are written about its depth of meaning and history. It has developed over the centuries into what we do today but with the same sense of otherworldliness. By God’s grace we ascend into the heavens. There is an action happening that we should become more and more aware of to aid us in our level of participation in it. In answering the question about how to participate in it, the first two steps might be attending the services as often as possible and paying attention, the latter sometimes being a challenge because of the “dirt” of the world we have on us when we enter.

If you were to attend a hockey match, your appreciation of the contest would depend on the degree to which you understand the rules and strategy of the game. Likewise, as we understand the action of the Diving Liturgy, we will enhance our participation and come to understand that the nave (the inside of the church where the laity stand) is not filled with observers only. The laity do not simply watch with their spiritual eyes the priest rise to the heavens with the angels accompanying him; no, they go with him to be with the Lord Who is serving the Liturgy as the Great High Priest.

This is key, but it is not the end of the story. There are specific things the laity does to take part in the Liturgy, the first being preparation. One should speak with one’s priest about how to prepare before receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. This is not a matter of reading a book about the Liturgy but includes some kind of prayerful preparation. If we fail on this aspect, we will be playing catch-up during the service and, similar to being at the hockey match, might miss the scoring of a goal.

During the Liturgy, there are various actions the laity can take part in. There are times when we cross ourselves out of reverence, to perhaps increase our attentiveness and promote inner sobriety. We thus place ourselves in a position of humility before the Almighty God Who has made this liturgical provision for us out of love and mercy. We can offer prayers for loved ones far or near. There are times to make a low bow if one is able out of humility. We should sing the responses with the choir; this should be done with reverence and listening, so as to follow the leader, so to speak, and not try to impress others near us with our beautiful voice or disrupt the beautiful flow of the service.

We can gradually learn the hymns by listening to the choir, singing softly with them so they can teach us. We recite certain parts of the Liturgy, such as the Trisagion Prayers, the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. We read the pre-Communion Prayers with the chanter. Some use a prayer rope as a reminder to pay attention. The icons around the nave can also aid us in the same way.

Let us arrive on time, and hopefully for Orthros, out of respect for our Lord and Savior, Who at the perfect time allowed Himself to be crucified for us. Familiarity is very helpful. So regular attendance during all liturgical seasons should be our regimen. Reading the day’s Scripture readings, learning the hymns, and reciting the spoken parts as a community can be very enriching to our soul.

As we take part in the Diving Liturgy, we do just that. Each time, we move one Liturgy closer to eternity and take a nano-step toward becoming, by God’s grace, a restored image of the Creator.

In Christ,

Fr. Steve

Christ is Risen!

As we enter into this beautiful, bright, and joyful season of the Resurrection I think it is appropriate for us to stop and truly reflect on the reality of the Resurrection. It is tempting and easy to go back to 'normal' life after Holy Week and Pascha or to possibly have the 'Pascha blues' since we miss the intense spiritual struggle of Great Lent, Holy Week, and Pascha.

The reality of the Resurrection however doesn't mean that we 'backslide' in our spiritual life but that the Resurrection, and it's potency, becomes the new reality in which we live. We take courage in the Eternal Conqueror who has marked permanent victory over all evil, sin, death, and the devil, as well as whatever challenges are before us. We continue to press on in our faith knowing that the worst tragedies that we struggle with have ultimately been swallowed up by the Resurrection. This of course doesn't mean that we do not experience the sufferings and sorrows of life but that their reach is temporary. That despite the darkness and pain we experience here and now will end when we meet our Resurrected Lord.

To finish my reflection upon the reality of the Resurrection, I would like to share a beautiful except from one of my favorite little books which can be an ever present remembrance for us whenever we look at the icon of our parish, the icon of the Holy Resurrection: 

"The icon which depicts the Descent into Hades shows Christ already in glory as he voluntarily descends into the place of greatest darkness, into the place of the greatest separation. It is not called "the descent into hades", but "The Resurrection".

But what does all this mean today when the descent into Hades is an ever-present reality? It means, I believe, that God is now absent nowhere, in no situation. Even when men wish to exclude Him, God is still present. He is present crucified in all the evil of the world. This is the only answer to the mystery of evil.

What is God doing? He is crucified in all the horror of the world and yet, at the same time, he Resurrects us, offering us the power of the Resurrection, that powerful hand held out lays hold of us, not by the hand, because one can give or not give one's hand, but by the wrist. Christ's hand seizes Adam by the wrist, seizes Eve by the wrist in that extraordinary meeting of the two Adams, the first and the last.

That hand is always there, in the darkest of shadows. We must understand that the Christian God, the God to whom I wish to bear witness, is not some sort of celestial potentate who crushes us. As St. Paul says in the epistle to the Philippians, God has 'emptied Himself'. He has destroyed Himself out of love for us. He has emptied Himself, has poured Himself out unto death, even the death of the cross. That God should open Himself in order to make us enter into Him, that is the mystery of the Descent into Hades.

…He descends into the lowest place imaginable, into the deepest darkness in existence in order to destroy the power of darkness and the abode of demonic forces."

From the book 'No Matter How Deep the Darkness, He Descends Deeper Still' by Fr. Anthony Coniaris