Lent: Recollections

On Ash Wednesday, hundreds of students crammed into the otherwise-spacious St. John’s Catholic Chapel on the campus of the University of Illnois, forcing a group of us frustrated (and unabashedly self-righteous) “regular” weekday Mass-goers into the vestibule. Then the clear simplicity of the Gospel: “When you give alms…when you pray…when you fast…,” followed by the austere reminder of mortality, “Remember that you are dust.”

At the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, the deacon on Good Friday lifting up the cross and chanting, “Behold the wood of the cross….” Somber, pulsating Gregorian chant (…quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum!) kept in-pitch by a restrained pipe organ (which wasn’t usually so restrained!). Soup and bread at Sarah’s afterwards. My first time riding in a BMW!

Helping the servers change all the linens mid-service at the Vespers of Forgiveness. The church becoming suddenly dark—purple cloths, the haunting Lenten melodies. Prostrations that made my thighs sore the next day.

A dim-lit church at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Beeswax candles and incense like burning roses. Psalm 103 and the stichera about St. Theodore the Recruit and the meat. “Why are we singing about meat when we just gave it up?” Sweet-bean-filled sesame pastries for the meal after.

My whole body shuddering at, “Now the Powers of Heaven do serve, invisibly with us do serve…,” preceding what is, till this day, my only memory of a silent moment in Byzantine services: the solemn procession of the Presanctified Gifts, with its blanket of quiet interrupted only by the soft clinking of the chains of the censer. Fr. Chrysostom muttering the cue, “Let us with faith and love draw near,” and then everyone jubilantly, “Let us with faith and love draw near and become communicants of life eternal!”

The “perfect wife” reading from Proverbs 31—not so much the reading itself, but our matushka and choir director, looking over to the choir, pointing to herself with a wry smile.

The wretched smell in church after John accidentally set his sister’s hair on fire (quickly put out after a spurt of panic from their mom)—the hazard of giving kids their own candles at the Panakhida. Keith insisting at choir practice that Father remember “Johnny” (Cash) during the service. The hope-filled mournfulness of Alleluia in the Eighth Tone.

My “novice” kolyva made from cracked wheat, decorated with almonds in the shape of a slightly-crooked Byzantine cross (Father’s doing) and…wait for it…shredded coconut (inculturation or adulteration?).

A four-hour long choir practice at the Franks on Great and Holy Wednesday, punctuated by a scrumptious lunch which Marica insisted “only took a few minutes” to make. “Is it wrong to eat delicious fasting foods during Lent?” Joel’s hearty laugh and Han’s erudition.

Soy milk. Lots of it.

Fasting: Three from the Fathers

Just as you conceal your sins from  men, conceal from them also your efforts!

Evagrius, Ad Eulogium 14

*****

Someone asked an elder, “How do I find God?” And he said, “By fasting, by watching, by labors, by mercy, and, above all these, by discernment. For I say to you, many have tormented their flesh without discernment and have gone away empty, without getting anything for it. Our mouth has an evil smell from fasting, we know the Scriptures by heart, we have recited all of David—and yet what God is seeking we do not have: love and humility.”

Apophthegmata Patrum

*****

A famished stomach enables one to watch in prayer,
whereas a full stomach brings about plentiful sleep.

Evagrius, De Octo Spiritibus Malitiae, I, 12

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The quotations above are taken from Gabriel Bunge, OSB, Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius, 2002), pp. 89 and 93-94.

The Wedding Feast of Cana: Notes on John 2.1-11

In the West Syriac tradition, this past Sunday, the first Sunday of Great Lent, was dedicated to the first of Jesus’ “signs”: his changing of water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana-in-Galilee (John 2.1-11). In keeping with the idea of this blog as a “notebook”, I thought to post expanded notes from the margins of my Bible rather than a detailed reflection on this passage. (Much sounder and more edifying reflections, I’m sure, can be found elsewhere on the Internet, but my Bible marginalia can only be found here!)

Please feel free comment on this text, as well as share any marginal notes from your Bible!

*****

Expanded marginalia on John 2.1-11

2.1 On the third day. Ex 19.16

I think the specification of “the third day” is significant and serves several functions. The first is to count off the number of days since “the beginning” (John 1.1) of this Gospel:

“In the beginning…” (1.1) — Day 1
“The next day…” (1.29) — Day 2
“The next day…” (1.35) — Day 3
“The next day…” (1.43) — Day 4
“The third day…” (2.1) — Day 7

As such, this places the wedding feast (already used by the prophets as a symbol of God’s return to Israel) and Jesus’ first sign on the seventh day (i.e. sabbath) of the New Creation.

Also, “the third day” is perhaps intended to evoke the revelation of God’s glory at Sinai (Exodus 19.16), thus casting this first “sign” as a theophany of at least equal measure. Jesus “manifested his glory” (John 2.11) as did God at Mt. Sinai.

2.3 wine…wine. [words boxed] — Symbol of eschatological abundance (Amos 9.13; Hos 2.22; Joel 2.24; Isa 25.6; Jer 31.12)

Jesus thus inaugurates the long-awaited “age to come” by bringing into the present of its key features according to the Prophets—lots and lots of wine! 6 stone jars with 20-30 gallons of wine in each = 120-180 gallons of wine. And good wine at that!

2.4 My hour has not yet come. Glorification (John 7.39; 12.23)

I.e. His passion, crucifixion and resurrection. His “hour” comes when He, like the grain of wheat, falls into the earth and dies (John 12.23).

2.9 …called the bridegroom. John 3.29 [Jesus]

2.10 Every man serves the good wine first…but you have kept the good wine until now. [verse bracketed] Double meaning. Best saved for last—like the last sign [i.e. Resurrection]

The “signs” in John’s Gospel progressively lead to the greatest of them all: Jesus’ resurrection—the “sign” demanded by the Jews at the Temple, which Jesus said He would  give (John 2.18-21)

2.11 signs. [word circled, line drawn to 1.51, which has the note, "points to signs"]

Jesus’ earlier promise to Nathaniel creates a narrative expectation of some kind of marvelous revelation (heavens opened, angels descending and ascending), which I think prepares us to “see” these signs.

2.11 believed. [word boxed] goal of signs

Stoopids (being the closest thing to a retraction)

What’s worse: thinking, “I know better” or thinking, “I used to think that I knew better, but I actually do now”? Or are both the same?

I’ve been reading some online stuff by other converts to Orthodoxy, and the tone is always the same: “I’ve read such-and-such books and I’m quite well-informed about whatever it is that I’m now writing about, and although I’m a young convert I have faith in the Church, live as a monk in the city and start all my spiritual conversations with, ‘My spiritual father told me…’ or, ‘The Fathers say….’”  That, when they’re not gushing about how old icons are, how long (“holier?”) our services are, or how uncompromising the Church has been on moral issues. All of it irritated me very much.

One of the most sobering rebukes ever given me was, “You hate most the faults that you find in yourself.”

Zing.

Several years ago, I gave a talk on the Eucharist, relating it to how and why I became Catholic, delivering it with the kind of hubris of which only a sophomore is capable. Most Catholics, I said, don’t know how central the Eucharist is or what a great gift it is blah blah blah. After that, a good (and honest) friend who had been raised Catholic came up to me and said, “But who are you to tell these people who’ve been Catholic all their lives what they should or shouldn’t do?” It shook me up a bit, because I was more used to praise along the lines of, “Isn’t it great that you’re a convert and can show us poor cradle Catholics the treasures of our own faith?”

But you know, the suspicion that she was somehow right has never left me. These past few days I’ve been slowly sinking into the realization that the very things that bother me about my fellow converts to Orthodoxy are my own flaws. It’s akin to spitting on an image that one later realizes is one’s own reflection in the mirror. In the short time that I’ve been Orthodox, I’ve repeated most, if not all, of the significant mistakes I made as a Catholic convert of 12 years, both on this blog and elsewhere.

At first I thought about deleting all the posts and comments that bear witness to my rashness (like the ones on Christology, the papacy, etc.)—maybe even the whole blog—, since in blogdom it is actually possible to recant nearly all that one has said without publishing a book of retractions. Erase that past (or at least most of it) and move on.

But then I thought, “Maybe that’s not what this is supposed to be about. Maybe it’s about leaving your faults to be seen by the public but actually apologizing for them.” I decided to listen to that voice, which I hope is not that of the Devil himself.

So, the bottom line is this. Readers, forgive me. I have written far more than my real knowledge warrants, and I have only myself to blame for my misguided zeal.

As for my posts, both after and before my reception into the Orthodox Church, they will remain here for all to read as monuments of my weakness as a Christian. I hope that whoever reads this blog will always be able to take whatever resembles wheat and leave the chaff behind.

I remember a story told by Fr. Benedict Groeschel (not my spiritual father—get it?), in which an event he had been planning turned out to be a complete failure.

He told Mother Teresa of Calcutta afterwards, “I feel so humiliated.”

“That’s not so bad,” she told him, “humiliation usually comes before humility.”

I hope she’s right on that one.

That said, I resume, and hopefully by a different way.

“Boredom is the kingdom of the Devil”

“The curse of labor.” But many people, if not the majority, are wallowing in furious activity because they are afraid of remaining face-to-face with life, with themselves, with death. They are bored, and boredom is the kingdom of the Devil. Bored and afraid, they deafen themselves with action, with ideas and ideologies. The key to our culture is an optimistic activity with traces of fear and boredom. Without God, all is possible, but this “all” is endlessly frightening and boring. It seems to me that the first duty of the Church is to refuse any part in the logic and the keys of this world. One cannot enlighten the world without first wholly rejecting it. What is needed in contemporary Christianity is courage and spiritual freedom….

The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973-1983, Entry for October 19, 1973.