True Repentance: A Simple Message for us on the Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican

Today we see the Pharisee standing in the court of the Temple, praying “O God, I thank you that you have not made me as other men.” The Pharisee perhaps believed that the words of the Scriptures concerning the righteous man applied to himself.  For example, he may well have thought of the words of the First Psalm: “Blessed is the man, who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked.” When the Pharisee read these words, he believed that the psalm was referring to him. 

     Every week, at the first service of the observance of the Lord’s Day, the office of Vespers on Saturday evening, we recite the words of this same psalm, but we know in the light of the Gospel, that those words do not refer to us. No, there is only one to whom that description applies.  The Prophet David wrote those words in a spirit of prophecy foretelling Christ. “Blessed is the Man, who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked.” We ourselves, apart from Christ, can not lay claim to that blessing, on account of the fact that many times and in many ways, again and again, and even daily, we have walked in the counsel of the wicked. We have followed the counsels of the Evil One. We have surrendered to his temptations, and thus we have made resentment a part of our lives, have disdained communion and friendship with God, and have abandoned the path of peace and inner stillness. 

     Yet, we long for that blessing, which we see in Christ (Blessed is the Man). Our path as Christians is often presented as a path of emulation or imitation.  There are spiritual books, which teach us to imitate Christ in the ways of His earthly life.  But our path to communion with God is actually a matter of participation.  There is only one way for us to inherit the blessing of God uttered in the 1^st Psalm: to become one with Christ.  But how may we accomplish this? The Church’s services teach us how.

     We must remember that our path to Christ will not be easy, but the services gives us mystical knowledge of that path, and reveal our passage to God to be the great adventure of our lives.  So often in the Byzantine Rite, we, and especially the clergy, hear comments from people, who have attended our churches to the effect that there is too much ritual; the tradition is like a weight too heavy to bear. But the people who respond in this way to the rites of the Church seldom understand the meaning of the signs contained in the services; seldom do they understand the purpose of the symbols to elevate our minds from simple things that are seen to the unseen and imperishable realities, which they represent. These realities, these mysteries, can not be represented in words, for all the forests in the world could not produce enough paper upon which to write a summation of even one of them, for the things of God are far superior to human thought.  They can only be conveyed by means of symbolic representation, because by means of this language of signs, our hearts can be lifted up into heaven to be taught by God Himself.  Ten centuries ago, St. Volodymyr sent emissaries to capital of the Roman Empire, Constantinople, in order to inquire about the Romans culture, civilization, and especially religion.  Later, these emissaries told St. Volodymyr, “the Greeks took us to their temple where they worship their God… and we did not know whether we were in Heaven or on Earth, but of this we are sure, that there God dwells among men.” In just the same way, we come Sunday after Sunday, and feast day after feast day, in order to be elevated up to Heaven, to enter into the Kingdom of God, and to be ennobled by God’s gracious plan for us.  Our ascent to the heavenly places here in God’s holy temple can be accomplished only if we have “laid aside all anxious cares of life,” or “laid aside all earthly cares” as another translation has it.  Then the meaning of the things of God will become clear to us. 

     First of all, we believe that the world in which we live is divided into two different “worlds.” There is the material world, which is accessible to us by means of our minds and our reason. Then, there is the spiritual world, whose vastness far surpasses the material world.  This world is accessible only to our hearts, the deepest reality of our souls. The spiritual world is the Holy of Holies, the place where God resides, and although it is different from this material creation in which we find ourselves, nevertheless there is constant communication across its subtle membrane from one side to the other. This fundamental division in all of creation is the meaning of the iconostas. 

     What the words of the psalm reveal to us is that there are two kinds of men: there are the men, who are rooted in this material world, held down by the chains of covetousness, pride and resentment, and then there is the Man Who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked, in other words, the Man who has His heart, the whole attention of His whole Being focused on the Holy of Holies, the spiritual world. We are invited in the Liturgy to share His Life, just as the priest says: “Let us lift up our hearts.” When we respond, “We lift them up to the Lord,” we affirm that we desire to conform ourselves to Him, that we want to be Christ, the Man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked. The only way is to have our hearts where His is, for the Lord tells us: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” True repentance is precisely this desire, to conform our hearts to Christ. 

Reflections on this society's perception of the Catholic clergy as pedophiles and sexual deviants-- What have we to do with the world?

Reading the comments on virtually any news site, as long as the story has to do with the Pope of Rome's resignation, or church governance, or religion in general, is sufficient to convince anyone that the world views the Catholic clergy as something altogether odious.  To Protestants, secularists and even many Catholic laymen the Catholic clergy are pedophiles (more colloquially "baby-rapers"), criminals and/or sexual deviants on account of their celibate life-style.  There is no doubt that this is what they truly think of us.  At the same time, however, the question is, "Should we care?"

The answer to that question has to be "no," and not for any reasons of bitterness or hatred, but because caring about what the world thinks is going to make the problem worse, not better.  The Prophet David was certainly right when he calls out: "Let the nations rage-- those who boast of their worthless gods." Secularists want something completely different out of life and existence than we do.  Their desires appear to us as vanity.  We have warned them that their values are vacuous, but they regard us as discredited and ridiculous.  We have warned them, but they have not heard us.  It is time to let them go their way, and follow the example of the Lord Jesus. "When He was insulted, He returned no insult.  When He was made to suffer, He did not counter with threats, but gave Himself up to the one who judged Him unjustly."  This is a fascinating verse, since in some versions it ends with "He gave Himself up to the One Who judged Him justly." The latter reading is referring to the Father, while the former is referring to the Sanhedrin, the High Priest Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.  Whatever version you like, the truth remains the same.  In order to give yourself up the One Who will judge you justly (God), you have to give yourself up to the one who judges you unjustly (the Pilates of your life).  So, let them think what they like.  It is, after all, they who hate.  We hate no one.

But here is a further nagging question: How can we be effective witnesses to truth, if we are perceived as sexual deviants, discredited, and evil? The only possible answer to that question is: We can't.  We can't effectively witness to truth.  The best thing to do is to admit it, accept it and get on with the task at hand. If we try to continue to preach the truth to the secular society, we will only bring ridicule on the truth itself.  I remember well the touching story of the Clown of God, an Italian folktale that was retold and illustrated by Tomie da Paola some years ago.  The clown grows to great fame on account of his ability to juggle, eventually building an act in which he juggles many different things, drawing large crowds all over the country.  But he grows old and people become tired of his displays, and, eventually, he even begins to drop things.  In the end, he is ridiculed, hated and even forcibly driven from town after town.  In his old age, he is penniless.  In the end, he is attracted to a church where the feast of the Nativity of the Lord is being celebrated.  He enters the church and witnesses the glory of the festive celebration.  After the service is ended, he conceives a great desire in his heart to offer something to the newborn Lord.  He wishes he had something to give.  He decides to juggle one last time before the altar.  He gives his whole heart to the performance for the Lord, and during the high point of the act, he suddenly dies, collapsing before the altar.  Some Franciscan friars find him there, and, to their astonishment, they find the statue of the Lord Jesus over the altar holding the golden ball that was centerpiece of the clown's act.  Faced with the ultimate failure of his life, the clown found success in prayer.  In the same way, we have to change our priorities, put all our energy into interiority, and become people of prayer.  Similarly in the time of Noah, the world heard Noah's warnings and denunciations, but at a certain point, Noah had to enter the ark and seal it.

When we really think about it, this is not a big change.  We are no longer going to be esteemed in this society.  Quite the opposite, we are going to be despised as sexual deviants.  But our ancestors were thought by secular society to be sexual deviants, too.  The early Christian community was widely labeled as miscreants because of their supposed practice of incest and cannibalism.  Many centuries later, the Catholic clergy here in the United States were despised again for similar reasons, when falsehoods were printed and widely disseminated in such publications as The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk in the Hotel-Dieu de Montreal and its sequels.  Ultimately, the libelous books were proven to be lies, but a generation of non-Catholics believed them. We are no longer going to be esteemed in this society, but that gives us an opportunity to be further conformed to Christ: "Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, no appearance that would attract us to him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom men turn away, and we held him in no esteem."

We have to become intent on prayer.  Our Christianity by necessity must be less preachy and more prayerful.  Our Year of Faith, which was proclaimed by Benedict XVI, the Pope of Rome, is a perfect opportunity for us to do accomplish this.