Reactivation and Sisoes

My European adventure ended last week, and I apologize for having left this blog dormant without notice for so long. Don’t have much to say these days but perhaps soon I’ll post a little piece I’m submitting for a newsletter.

For today, since it is the feast of one of my favorite Desert Fathers, St. Sisoes the Great, I’ll share this word:

Abba Sisoes expressed himself freely one day, saying, ‘Have confidence: for thirty years I have not prayed to God about my faults, but I have made this prayer to him: “Lord Jesus, save me from my tongue,” and until now every day, I fall because of it, and commit sin.’ (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG, Sisoes §4)

And lastly, a picture I took one evening in Bad Dürkheim, where my aunt and her family generously hosted me for a total of 6 weeks:

From Athens

Sitting in the Athens airport, waiting for my flight to Berlin that’s been delayed. I’ve spent the last week in Greece (Nafplio, Delphi, Athens—in that order), seen dozens of Byzantine churches and kissed even more icons. If I had stayed here for a year it would change me for life, I’m quite sure.

I’ve been struck with a surprised sense of relief from being in an Orthodox country where the faith doesn’t have that anxious quality which it did in the United States. The earthiness of Orthodox faith and practice is tangible here, especially in the jam-packed church of Agioi Isidoroi. Fr. Paul (a frequent commenter here and my host in Athens) and I attended Hierarchical Vespers there after a semi-arduous hike up the hill on which was the small cave-church. As I watched people mill about kissing icons and lighting candles by the bunches—well-dressed old ladies and sloppily-clothed teenagers—, as I squeezed my way through the frenzied crowd for blessed bread, as I rubbed my myrrh-doused hands onto my face, it occurred to me that Orthodoxy here is something like an old, lived-in Malaysian house—warm, homey and poorly-lit rather than bright, tidy and sanitized.

I think Germany will be, let’s say, “different”.

Apostles old and new

Today, my long-awaited visit to the Basilica of St. John Lateran. (Seven years ago, I happened upon this church while looking for a restroom in the streets of Rome!) Before the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul I asked for the reconciliation between the Churches that has so long evaded us. I thought also about how Peter has become like a rag doll caught in an ecclesial tug-of-war—everybody wants a piece of him to legitimize power. But he is not the only victim of this un-Christian struggle. Rome wants Peter, Constantinople wants Andrew, India wants Thomas… Will the whole Church ever be able to see themselves as heirs to “the faith that comes to us from the Apostles”?

After that, the Church of San Clemente with its gorgeous apse mosaic and underground frescoes with so many stories. At the tomb of St. Cyril I wondered what it was like for St. Methodius to have lost his brother and missionary partner there. Did they know that they were saints? I prayed for my friends at Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Denver, for perseverance in their daunting task of bridging East and West. There were moments when the tension could’ve torn one in half.

Lunch was at a small restaurant across the street from San Clemente. My first real dining out experience on this trip, and though the food was very good the 30-euro bill stung. (I’d forgotten to ask for the price of the daily special, silly me.)

This evening I am off to Vespers and dinner with the Apostles of the Interior Life, a Catholic religious community to whom I owe much of my spiritual formation. Many old friends there. You can find pictures here.

Rome

Christ is risen!

Holy Week, Bright Week, the Easter season… These past few weeks have been so full of light, I’ve felt myself quite unable to write or say much about them. Maybe some days are meant for only for living and not for telling.

It’s been almost a week since I arrived in Rome on a cold, grey day and was welcomed with hot breakfast at Ben and Heather’s small apartment here in the Eternal City. On my way into the city on the train from Fiumicino I sensed the incredible age of this place. It has witnessed so much:  classical antiquity, the rise of Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance. Layer upon layer, the ground rises.

Today for the first time ever I attended a High Mass of the old (”extraordinary”, if you prefer) Roman Rite at Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini and was moved by the tangible verticality of the liturgy. To say it another way, I felt pushed (taken?) upward. I also felt a sense of connectedness to the common tradition that once held East and West together, and simultaneously a blunt sadness for all that was loss in the so-called liturgical reform.

This evening, Ben and I went to Vespers at Trinita dei Monte of the Community of Jerusalem. I didn’t understand a word of the French, but that is not necessary for one to apprehend that this worship was directed at One who is Mystery. On the way back to the apartment I wished that more could see and experience what I had seen and experienced in that little church on top of the Spanish steps. I could not help but feel that its serene power was something that flowed beyond the doors of the church onto the unsuspecting crowd gathered on the steps—some to sing, some to chat, some just to enjoy quietly the setting sun and the spring flowers—but all somehow affected mystically by the psalms and hymns ascending from Trinita dei Monte.

I’ll try my best to keep writing on this trip. These days seem ineffable.

“Like a strong man who shakes off his wine”

When the Hero slept on the cross and trampled on death, after three days His sleep departed and He rose strengthened; while He rested for three days His burden was lightened and He was awakened after His labour without corruption from His wounds.

David His father saw Him when He came forth and ran before Him and touched the strings of his lyre and began to sing in prophecy: The Lord has awakened like a strong man who shakes off his wine and has struck His enemies and delivered His friends who were mourning.

The Bo’ootho of St. Jacob, taken from Saphro (Morning Prayer) of the Sunday of the Resurrection