What should we think when we first realize that Great Lent is approaching? A famous Greek, Aeschylus, said, “Anticipation is the better part of pleasure.” So what should we anticipate?

First, perhaps we should consider what the Lenten period is for. Does it have a purpose? Historically, Lent was time for the catechumens to prepare for their entry into the Church. Over time this evolved to the six-week fasting period during which we practice some self-examination, go to more church services and fast from our most-favored foods.
 
Self-examination, according to Einstein, resurrects life from the wasteland. Jesus poses some difficult questions for us to consider on a personal level, such as what we do with our time and resources. The saints fleshed out these issues for us even more and thus we have Orthodox ascesis. One way to view self-examination is to equate it with being an athlete. How does one prepare for an undertaking? The athlete works out, develops muscle, eats correctly, and develops fine-tuned skills that allow him to perform physical feats. Our life in Christ takes physical expression but is primarily spiritual. We too should exercise, work out, eat correctly and develop some fine-tuned skills in order to prepare our heart to receive God. How?
 
It is helpful to make use of the weekly fasting schedule the Church gives us as a way to prepare for Lent. Our way of "working out" is to keep a prayer rule, keep the prescribed fast as best we can, do some spiritual reading and give alms. These practices (ascetical exercises) aid our body and soul in conquering our passions, as well as establish habits that follow us, not only through the Lenten fast but throughout the year. As we do, we find that the longer fasting periods are not such a shock to our system. We also find greater spiritual benefit as well.
 
So what should we anticipate? The obvious answer is Great and Glorious Pascha. It seems the more we “exercise,” the greater the joy when Pascha arrives. That is the short term gain. Lent is just a season, but its greater benefit is to call us back to Eden. That is the hidden and deeper benefit of the fast. It is greater than doing without food; the demons fast. Our effort should be to inculcate into our habits and our schedule greater emphasis on the condition of our soul. During Lent, not only should we prepare ourselves for Pascha but to meet Christ face-to-face on Judgment Day.
 
Our life in Christ should be just that—IN CHRIST. This coming Lenten season is the time to ask ourselves what do we truly want. In that process, we are challenged to examine motives and longings. What is our first thought after sleep? What do we do with our excess resources? Do we treat the stranger as did Christ? In the spirit of 1 John 1:9, are we continuing to confess our sins with a heart bent toward conquering our worst inclinations? Here is a big question for us: What are we going to replace our self-orientations with? The Christ-life is replete with otherness. Whom should we love more? How do we lay our life down for another? What can I give without expecting anything in return?
 
To the self-examining Christian, the answers to these kinds of questions reveal how he is living like Christ and the degree to which he deserves to be counted among the elect. Lent is a wonderful gift the Church gives us to reflect, get recharged, become more focused, and capture the vision for the ascetical life that makes people saints.

In Christ,

Fr. Ed

As we all continue to sail through the journey of life we can find ourselves amidst calm waters at times, and at others, holding on for dear life to not drown in the tsunamis crashing against us. As we continue to ride the ups and downs of the pandemic, financial markets, job stability, family life, and our own personal life, we can feel worn out and overwhelmed. We use all our energy to be responsible, fight against our passions, do the right thing, help others, clean the shower (again...), make dinner, go to various appointments, keep up on the news, pray, attend services, get everything done at work, and on and on. It's no joke that our current modern lives have constant waves pressing against us as we battle to not go under. Sometimes we feel like our strength is failing us or we just feel like giving up; we are tempted to just fall over and let the tide pull us out to sea.

The Orthodox Church has been called 'the Ark of Salvation'; a holy place set aside from the torrents of the world, a peaceful place that we can escape the relenting waves of life, and a place of support and community rather than trying to battle the chaotic sea on our own. Fr. Stephen Freeman has a recent blog post similar to what I'm talking about and below are two excepts that are very insightful:

It is in this wash of culture and its flood that it’s worth thinking about the Church (Orthodox) as an ark of salvation and safety. It is an ancient image of the Church, a place where God gathers those who are being rescued. The ark is not an instrument of flood management, however. It is a raft. Modernity imagines itself as the manager of the world and its historical processes. It [modern life] is an idea that is itself part of the destructive flood of our time.

From onboard the ark, we view things a bit differently. First, we trust that God is the Lord of the tsunami just as surely as He is Lord of the sparrow and the lillies in the field. The mystery of how He works all things for our salvation is summarized in His crucifixion. Most of that mystery is simply opaque. It is a confession of faith that the Cross represents the interpretation of all things.

As we continue to push on staying afloat day in day out, let us realize that the Ark of Salvation is always before us. Maybe we have jumped off the Ark because the ocean was calm and didn't think we needed the Ark, only to realize that the storms of life are back and we are starting to sink. Maybe we accidently fell overboard due to being distracted with life, falling into a sinful habit, or doing something harmful to another and now we don't want to call to people on board to throw us a life line.

Whatever the case is, the Ark of Salvation is still weathering the storm that each age presents and is always a place for you to find shelter. Be it coming to a service to find respite from the crushing cares of life, reconnecting with a priest or a church friend to get help or recommitting yourself to get in the boat to reach The Island (aka the Heavenly Kingdom), all are welcome aboard this ship. No one is ever too long gone, too burned out, too jaded, or too exhausted to not be brought on board.

May we all stay together, with Christ, within the Ark of Salvation while the storms rage and seas foam all around us.

In Christ,
Fr. Steve

As I reflect upon the new year, I was contemplating the question: what is most needed for this new year? 

As we enter another year under the black sky of the pandemic it can be disorienting to know what is truly needed most amidst so much fear, uncertainty, and division. Yet, when we look to the feasts of Christmas and Theophany we see the underlying virtue of humility stand out from our Lord. True, Godly humility seems to be what is needed for 2022. Humility is truly putting our will aside and trying to see Christ's truth in each moment.

Sometimes humility requires us to bite our tongue and be gracious to those around us, repeating Christ's own words "forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). Sometimes humility requires us to stand up for the Truth in a firm, loving, and respectful way. Sometimes humility requires us to resist doing something we want to do for our own gain or satisfaction, sacrificing something so can grow more Christ-like.

I recently read this article by Fr. Lawrence Farley which gives us a perspective on Christ's humility shown in the great feast of the Theophany.

Theophany is the feast of God’s humility.  Humility is not something normally associated with power. Powerful people and rich people and important people aren’t usually humble, because they don’t have to be.  It is the poor and powerless who have to be humble. The powerful can dictate, and rage, and give orders, not caring whether or not they are liked, for they are answerable to few or none. The poor man, the one who works for a boss at minimum wage and needs every penny and dare not lose his job, must keep a civil tongue in his head.  If the boss yells at him unjustly, he can only smile and make entreaties. It is as Solomon says, “The poor man uses entreaties; the rich answer roughly” (Proverbs 18:23). This makes our human situation all the stranger: on this planet, it is sinners and mortal men who are proud, who live with swollen wills, and who rage when that will is crossed. It is God, the Mighty One, who is humble.

We see this divine humility throughout the entire life of Christ. In the way that He entered this life and in the way that He left it, He manifested the divine humility and showed where true glory lay hidden. Though He was the Mighty King, worshipped by angels and archangels and by all the vast company of heaven, He entered His world as a child born not to a princess, but to a simple peasant girl of Galilee. His legal father and guardian was not a king or even a servant of kings, but a carpenter, an artisan who had to earn his living by the sweat of his brow. His parents were of such modest means that when the time came for His mother to offer the sacrifice in the Temple for her purification, she offered not the usual sacrifice of a lamb and a pigeon, but the sacrifice of the poor, two pigeons (Leviticus 12:6-8, Luke 2:24). At the time of His birth, earth had no place for Him, so that He was born in a cavern, and laid in a manger—i.e. a feeding trough for animals. (Calling it a “manger” sounds so much more romantic.) It was the same when He left this world, for not only did He die the shameful death of a slave by being crucified, and numbered with criminals, He did not even have a tomb of His own to be buried in. Rather, He had to borrow the tomb of another. Evidently there were no depths of humility and humiliation to which God was not ready to sink for our sakes.

The center-piece of this divine humility is our feast of Theophany. Christ was baptized to set His seal upon the controversial ministry of John. There were only two views regarding John—some considered him a true prophet, sent by God after the silence of centuries, while others considered him a crack-pot, propelled not by God’s Spirit but by his own demented ego. Those who considered John to be a true prophet came to be baptized, and so Jesus came to join them, setting His seal on John’s work. He came to the waters of baptism in solidarity with sinners, surrounded by tax-collectors and former prostitutes and others whose consciences smote them and filled their hearts with shame. Even as He would later hang on the Cross among thieves, so He waded into the water among sinners, for the steps leading down to the Jordan were the first steps on the long road to Golgotha. As He once laid aside the form of God to take on the form of a slave (Philippians 2:6-7), so now once again He laid aside His clothes to enter the cold waters of this life and stood in the Jordan River before an amazed John.

This divine humility sets the pattern for our life as well. If our God has shown such humility, we must ourselves lay aside the vestments of pride and walk more lightly upon the earth. Too often we strut, stepping heavily as if we were kings. When our will is thwarted, we rage as if we were the center of the universe—even if the thwarting of our will consisted of nothing more than too much traffic in the road in front of us. If Christ our God, the high king of heaven, lived such a life of shining humility on earth, we must follow after Him. When our will is thwarted, let us not rage, but quietly intone the prayer, “Teach me to treat whatever may happen to me throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all”. This is true humility, and this is our true glory. For the feast of Theophany reveals the glory of God walking among men, and the only path to peace.

May we all embody this divine humility in the new year!

In Christ,
Fr. Steve

We celebrated St. Prophyrious's feast day just a few days ago (December 2nd) and as we conclude another year, and a challenging year at that, I thought I would share some refreshing words from this wonderful saint.

'Take delight in all things that surround us. All things teach us and lead us to God. All things around us are droplets of the love of God — both things animate and inanimate, the plants and the animals, the birds and the mountains, the sea and the sunset and the starry sky. They are little loves through which we attain to the great Love that is Christ. Flowers, for example, have their own grace: they teach us with their fragrance and with their magnificence. They speak to us of the love of God. They scatter their fragrance and their beauty on sinners and on the righteous.

For a person to become a Christian he must have a poetic soul. He must become a poet. Christ does not wish insensitive souls in His company. A Christian, albeit only when he loves, is a poet and lives amid poetry. Poetic hearts embrace love and sense it deeply.

Make the most of beautiful moments. Beautiful moments predispose the soul to prayer; they make it refined, noble and poetic. Wake up in the morning to see the sun rising from out of the sea as a king robed in regal purple. When a lovely landscape, a picturesque chapel, or something beautiful inspires you, don’t leave things at that, but go beyond this to give glory for all beautiful things so that you experience Him who alone is comely in beauty. All things are holy — the sea, swimming and eating. Take delight in them all. All things enrich us, all lead us to the great Love, all lead us to Christ.'

May our loving Lord truly give us spiritual eyes to see Him in all things and give Him glory at all times.

In Christ,
Fr. Steve

Kοινωνία [koinonia / koy-nohn-ee'-ah] and oἰκονόμος [economos] are the two Greek words for communion and steward. As with many Greek words, it is easy to reduce these words down to narrowly thinking they have a simple singular meaning. However, the reality is that these words have been used for thousands of years in conversations throughout the ages and across countless texts. To reduce both words down to only a simplistic definition is to limit the ability to see how they are closely related to each other and how central they are to our lives as Christians.

We typically don't think of stewardship and communion being related to one another as we may think of stewardship being something we do (e.g. giving money as a steward or managing our affairs) and communion as something we experience (e.g. communing through the Eucharist or having fellowship at fellowship hour). Yet if we look deeper, we can start to see how these two relate to each other.

First, we see that our stewardship enables communion. Practically speaking, if we weren't stewards of our local parish there wouldn't be a parish to come in contact with each other. Communion cannot occur without some sort of stewardship first, some form of offering of time, talent and treasure. If we didn't want to offer our time to make the effort to come to church, then we would remain islands, isolated from one another alone and estranged. If we didn't use our God given talents to cultivate ministries to be the hands and feet of Christ, then our community would have no life and leave the door of communion with each other shut. If we didn't offer a portion of our treasure to the church, we wouldn't have all the means to facilitate an environment to grow in love and communion with one another. Although obvious, it is a simple fact that without stewardship, communion is just not possible.

Pressing into this concept more deeply, we see that when God created the material world in Genesis, he gave a ministry to mankind to be stewards over all creation. This ministry of stewardship St. Peter talks about in his 1st epistle - 'But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people' (1st Peter 2:9). If we are all part of this royal priesthood, called to be stewards over all creation, we should ask ourselves what is the end goal of this vocation? Is it just to have more fish in the sea, to be able to have dogs do tricks, and to make sure that we have food each day from our crops? No, our stewardship exercised in the royal priesthood is to bring the creation into communion with each other and with the Trinitarian God. We are called to 'make of one's life a liturgy, a prayer, a doxology, to make of it a sacrament of perpetual communion' (Paul Evdokimov 'The Struggle with God'). Thus God has ordained all of humanity with this priestly role to be stewards in every aspect of our lives to usher into communion and union with Him.

As we reflect upon both the practical and theological connections between stewardship and communion, let us personally consider how we live our stewardship as a conduit of communion with one another. Let us consider St. Paul's words that 'God loves cheerful givers' because joy is the root of both stewardship and communion. When we practically live out our stewardship we are filled with joy because we see the fruit of communion that opens up. When we enter into the joy of communion, be it through the Eucharist or fellowship, it inspires us to stewardship, to build up the Church and help those in need, to expand joy beyond just ourselves.

May our loving Lord help us all to be faithful oἰκονόμος of our lives to bring the joyful fruit of kοινωνία into our lives, the lives of those around us, and to all the world.

In Christ,
​
Fr. Steve

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.

*********************
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!
*********************
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,
​
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