The New and the Old

There has always been an attitude that has plagued me at the completion of Great Lent and throughout the Paschal Season. Growing up in a Roman Catholic household my mother made sure that we didn't just "give something up" for Lent, but that we examine ourselves and make a change in our lives that we wanted to be permanent. In my case I always struggled with wasting time and was typically lacking in obedience. I would determine through Lent that I would give up the little distractions that kept me from doing the things my parents asked of me. I would give up television, limit my time playing music, focus more readily on my farm chores, etc., etc., etc. I have also always been a big fan of food, so I would limit my portions and any snack times.

This was all well and good, but what happened after Lent? In the joy of the Resurrection I would relax the good things I had been focusing on during the fast. Gradually I would slip back into my old habits and it wasn't long before my parents were disciplining me for my lack of obedience, or exhorting me to stop wasting time and get my chores done.

I noticed as well that I wasn't the only one with this problem. Folks who had given up soda or coffee delved back into their habits with renewed gusto. I watched with sadness as others who had more serious habits and addictions returned to those habits as if to an old friend. What is the point of fasting, I asked myself, if after the fast we simply return to those things that were keeping us from Christ?

Sometimes God gives answers immediately; at other times the answers come after a great deal of time. These questions bothered me throughout my childhood and during my early teens. I practically forgot about them during my high-school years. But today, as I was reading St. Theophon the Recluse's letters to a young lay woman in the book The Spiritual Life and how to be Attuned to It, the saint addressed those very questions.

He had been encouraging her in her ascetical practices and inner examinations all through the fast. Never have I read more beautiful, practical, and sound advice. It seems providential that I should pick up and read this book in the midst of the Fast and immediately following. After giving her a couple of rules to employ while working towards inner peace, he then proceeded to give her two precautions.

In the first precaution he simply warns her not to think that she has already arrived at her spiritual destination just because she has succeeded in doing something good. Throughout our spiritual life we may hit milestones, receive some consolation, find that a fault within us has been destroyed after long struggle, experience long times of inner peace, etc. Never during any of this ought we to think that we have reached our goal in the spiritual life. St. Theophan tells us that it is only after years of struggle that we reach this goal. I would add that we never fully reach our goal in this life because this life prepares us for the ultimate goal in the life to come.

The second warning he gives, however, is not to relax one's inner attentiveness after one has completed a period of fasting and intense inner struggle. He says the two most likely times that we relax our interior efforts are during the Paschal Season and springtime. We decide to give ourselves a little break. After all, it is the time of Resurrection. I worked hard and struggled hard throughout Great Lent, I deserve a little break, right? Be careful, the saint warns us. If we relax our watchfulness then it is likely that whatever demon we struggled with throughout the fast will return with some friends to plague us all the more.

But, this is supposed to be a time of joy. Are not Pascha and springtime moments of grace and new life in our year (whether we're speaking of the secular year or the liturgical year)? Are we not to be rejoicing in the new life that Christ as given us? Of course! We must thank God for His gift of new life, and rejoice in that new life. But the whole point of Great Lent is to put to death the old man, the old life, in order that we might rejoice in the new! How can we rejoice in the new life if, after the Fast, we simply return to the old? Ought we not to guard the new life with all the more intensity so as to avoid a relapse into our old ways? In the Resurrection we have been given the freedom of the Sons of God. We have been given freedom from the slavery of sin. Great Lent reveals to us in a very real way just how enslaved we are. Our struggle against our various habits and vices reveal to us how attached we become to our sins. But when we come to the victory of Christ crucified and resurrected, do we really rejoice in that victory (and in our victory in and with Him) by returning to the "old man?"

So I suppose St. Theophan's advice to us today is, rejoice in the Feast of Feasts and Festival of Festivals. Rejoice in the new life of Pascha and springtime. Thank God for the great gifts He has given us. But thank God by keeping on the mind of Christ, by continuing to become more and more the man born anew in Christ, not by indulging the old man.

Spring Rain

This morning, as I was keeping my regular prayer rule, I sat in awe as a great thunderstorm raged outside. The lightning was bright and streaks of it flashed close to my apartment window. The thunder didn't rumble, it crashed with startling volume. Before one bout of thunder had the chance fade off, rumbling in the distance, there would be three more flashes of lightning and more crashing thunder.

I laughed to myself as I remembered a song often sung among Charismatic groups, "Mercy is falling like the sweet spring rain." Whoever wrote that song, I thought to myself, must not have looked out the window very often during a springtime thunderstorm. There was nothing sweet or gentle about what was going on outside this morning. Had I not been indoors, I would've been terrified, running all helter-skelter trying to find some sort of protection from such severe elements.

As I thought about this, however, I realized that there is a great truth here. God's mercy does fall like the spring rain. Sometimes, however, we may experience that mercy as a dreadful mercy. Who among us cannot relate a time where we went through some horrifying difficulty, only to have our true selves revealed to us during that difficulty? Who among us, during our walk through life, hasn't felt the chaos of life's storm swirling around us.

Even for those of us who strive to live a truly spiritual life, there are moments when we see clearly the darkness that remains within. We walk through the hazy morning of our inner life and don't realize just how much we do not see. Suddenly there is a great flash of lighting and all is revealed. The flash is so bright that every shadow is illumined. Everything is laid bare before our eyes. We even feel our own vulnerability. We feel naked before the great Unknown; unprotected from the great Lightning that flashes within. Flash after flash we see ourselves the way we are, with all of our weaknesses and vices.

Then come the winds and the torrential downpours. The lofty thoughts we have of ourselves are blown over, revealing the shallowness of their roots. The flood waters rise, destroying all that we have given birth to in our hearts. The old man within must die. The staleness, the rot, the decay of the winter months must be washed away in the flood waters. The flood carries it all away. Where it goes, we do not know. Where it goes doesn't really matter. What matters is that it is gone.

As the storm rages, the winds blow, and the waters swirl around us, we feel the chaos with great intensity. We can't see beyond the storm. I don't know if there will be anything left after the storm. We only have a vague memory of life before the storm. All that we know now is the chaos around us. In the midst of this chaos there is only one thing that we can do. "Lord, save me lest I perish!"

At first it may not seem as if the Lord is listening. The storm still rages around us. But over time we notice it starting to taper off. The wind is slowly dying down. The flood waters are slowly subsiding. The torrential downpours taper off. It is then that the sweet gentle spring rain begins.

Suddenly we notice new life around us. Have you ever gone for a walk outside shortly after a storm while there is still a gentle rain but you can see the sun coming out from behind the clouds? All of nature seems to rejoice at the fact that it survived such brutality. The leaves on the trees seem to open wider. The grass looks greener. Colors in general seem more vibrant. And the light from the sun breaking through the clouds seems to shine brighter. Resurrection! I believe this is what the soul experiences when we are given reprieve from the turmoils of life. Resurrection!

Perhaps this is just idle wandering on my part. But I know that this is what I've experienced throughout the struggles of my life. There have been times when I've felt abandoned and alone. I've been in the midst of the struggle and turmoil. I've seen what the lightning has revealed within me and watched as that dreadful mercy washed away what once was. I've stood vulnerable to the elements within and been changed by what was taking place. You come out the other side of that storm and you are changed forever. Hopefully that change is for the better. It seems to me that if one is honestly seeking to live a spiritual life, then that change will be for the better. We may have to endure the storm several more times before we are made perfect, but with each passing storm we are slowly perfected by grace.

Yes, mercy falls like the spring rain. Sometimes that mercy is severe. At other times it is gentle and sweet. We must simply stay focused on the Lord, crying out, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." With His presence within us, we can truly endure any storm so long as we are close to Him. May heaven consume us.

Welcome the Springtime!

As we in the Catholic Church - Eastern, Oriental, and Western - conclude the Lenten season and enter into Great and Holy Week, I'd like to reflect for a moment on a central theme of this time of year: repentance. This theme has been weighing on me thanks to some recent conversations I've had, as well as some reading I've been doing and lectures I've been listening to.

"Repentance." For me that word, wrongly, evokes a number of negative connotations: guilt, depression, despair, shame, worthlessness, etc., etc., etc. Judging from recent conversations that I've had with other Catholics, it seems that I am not alone in the evocations that I experience whenever I hear that word. The difference? I understand that the emotional reaction that I have to that word reflects an improper understanding of the word itself. Sadly, however, there are many people who simply have no understanding of what "repentance" actually means. To them it means simply feeling of guilty, inadequate, and shame over their sins. But, as we know, this is not the true meaning of repentance.

But let me take a step back for a moment. In the Gospels both Jesus and St. John the Baptist tell us to repent. They call us to repentance because, as they say, the kingdom of God is in our midst. Some translations have it as the kingdom of God is "within" us. I think a good balance of both translations is in order. As a worshipping community, whether Catholic or Orthodox, the kingdom of God is certainly in our midst, particularly when we celebrate the Eucharist, but certainly in all of our actions as a community. However, as the great mystics of the East and West all point out, the kingdom is also within us, because Christ dwells in us. If you are seeking the kingdom of God, therefore, it is necessary to turn both to the worshipping community and within oneself. It is not possible to be a "solo-Christian." We need our brothers and sisters in Christ, because it is with them that we encounter God's kingdom in a very real way. But similarly we also need to enter within.

The problem of entering within, similar to entering a community, is that we encounter more than Christ there. We also encounter our own fallenness. Just as when we enter any community it become quickly apparent that we are a fallen people, so also when one enters one's own heart it becomes soon apparent that I am a fallen person. We seek Christ within. We seek His kingdom within. We seek His light within. But what we encounter is our personal demons and the kingdom of darkness. St. Teresa of Avila divides the "inner mansion" into rooms, some of those rooms are filled with snakes and reptiles, others with angels. St. Makarius of Egypt (or is it Evagrius of Pontus???) also speaks of the reptiles one encounters within one's heart. And so we have light blending with darkness. Even though we see the light within, so often we are overcome by the shadows within. It's as if one wakes up on a misty or foggy morning. We can see the light, but the density of the fog prevents us from seeing clearly.

As a Christian people we know that we have a certain goal in life. The old Baltimore Catechism sums it up something like this: "The goal of the Christian life is to love and serve God in this life that we might enjoy Him in the life to come." While this is certainly a good enough summary, for me personally it seems rather cold. I prefer St. Seraphim of Sarov's wording of our common goal: "The aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit." Later in the conversation in which St. Seraphim made that definition, he provides an example of what the goal looks like: he is transformed into fire and light! The aim of the Christian life, therefore, is to live in the light, to rejoice in and reflect that light in this world, and to rest in that light in the world to come!

Encountering the darkness within us, therefore, can be discouraging. We long for the Light. We love the Light. We want nothing more than to bathe in the Light of Life, to be fully alive in Christ. And yet, when we enter within - whether within a community or within ourselves - we find shadows mingled with the Light. Here is where we encounter that sense of sorrow and perhaps even guilt and shame over our own sinfulness.

But that is not the end of the story. The darkness we encounter is not permanent, unless we allow it to be. And now enters the true meaning of repentance. Repentance, according to St. John Climacus, is not the mother of despair, but the daughter of hope! Why do we repent of the darkness within? We repent because in Christ we have hope that the light of Christ, the fire and light of the Holy Spirit, will prevail over the darkness. Through His Resurrection Christ raises us to new life; through His Ascension He introduces us into the Kingdom; and through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost fire and light descend in our midst and within us to cast out all shadows and to inflame us with new life!

This winter was a particularly hard winter in many areas of the U.S. Places that don't normally see any snow saw huge amounts of it. Arctic cold descended upon us time after time after time. It seemed as though the winter would never end. Darkness seemed to reign over our world because there were always clouds and heavy snow blocking the light of the Sun. I am one who loves winter. I love snow. I love cold weather. I love cloudy days (my poor Irish skin cannot handle sunlight for too long). But even I was happy to see this winter go. I was happy to welcome warmer weather and more sunlight. I was happy to welcome the new life that is now budding forth as I write this post.

In the Byzantine tradition Great Lent is referred to as a "springtime." Why? Because spring means new life bursting forth. It means more daylight. It means warmer weather. It means the joyfulness of the birds singing. It means color bursting forth in the budding trees and blooming flowers. It means movement and freedom after the frozen rigidity of the winter. This is what repentance is supposed to be. We are called to turn from ("repentance" comes from the Greek word "metanoia" which means to "change direction" or to "turn around") the darkness and coldness of our fallen humanity, of our sinfulness, and to turn toward the warmth and light offered us in Christ. This is why the Pascal season culminates in Pentecost! The warmth and light of the Holy Spirit descend upon us. Repentance, therefore, isn't gloom over our sinfulness. Rather, repentance is joy. It is embracing this new Springtime. It means movement, light, dancing, color, music. To repent is to turn from death and embrace life!

So as we enter into the Great and Holy Week, we should redouble our efforts of repentance. The winter  of our sinfulness is casting one last storm, but the joy of the Resurrection follows. Let's weather the storm keep our eyes fixed on the Resurrection. May heaven consume us!

Hope

Sometimes it seems that maintaining hope in the face of my own sinfulness is impossible. With each fall it is easy to become discouraged. And fall after fall the discouragement grows. "How can God pardon so many offenses?" we might often ask ourselves. I know I ask this very frequently. But, as always, the saints have nothing but words of hope for us.

Now, you'll have to forgive me, but I don't know where or who originated the following quotes, but nonetheless they provide a great source of hope. I remember reading or hearing a quote from one Eastern saint that was along the lines of "God desires to give us mercy more than we desire to receive it." Think of that. No matter how much we may desire God's mercy, He desires to give it to us even more! He stands ready to forgive us, even before we are ready to be forgiven.

I believe I've heard once as well that there is more mercy in God than there are sins in us. No matter how much we sin, there is always more mercy awaiting us. We simply have to ask for it, and we have to be willing to receive it; this implies that we must always be willing to change our lives where our lives need changing. The mercy is there, but we have to be willing to cooperate with God's mercy.

One last quote that has impacted me strongly lately comes from a Western saint, St. Alphonsus Liguori. It was the writings of St. Alphonsus that originally got me into reading the writings of the saints. His words are always so simple and to the point, and yet they are always so profound. In meditating on the reasons for our hope, St. Alphonsus has this to say: 

"God willed that we should be so inseparably united to Jesus Christ that He cannot be loved except that we  be loved with Him; nor can we be hated except that He be hated with us. But now Jesus cannot be hated (by the Father); therefore, we shall be loved as long as we remain united to Him by love."

Have you ever considered this; that the Father has tied his love for us so closely to His love for His Son that He cannot love the Son without also loving us! Nor can he hate us without also hating the Son! Talk about a personal "catch 22." But the Father would have it no other way.

So don't let personal sinfulness get in the way of your hope in God. God has bound His love for us with His love for His Son. And just as He raised His Son from physical death, He will raise us too from the spiritual death of our sinfulness. May heaven consume us!

Great Lent!!!

Please forgive my absence. I've been struggling through a spiritual dry-spell lately. I've had little to no inspiration; all spiritual reading and prayer have given little consolation; and I feel as though all zeal has been sucked from my soul. Just struggling to live day-to-day and to maintain something of a spiritual life has require a great deal of effort from me. I'm sure you all know how that goes.

However, as I woke up this morning it dawned on me; today is Ash Wednesday in the Roman tradition. Monday marked the beginning of the Great Fast for Catholics of the Byzantine and Maronite (and I presume the other Oriental Catholic) traditions. Great and Holy Lent is upon us! I don't know how I missed this. This great and holy season just sort of snuck up on me.

I've always loved Lent. For me it has always been a time to refocus my heart, mind, and energies on what matters most; i.e. my relationship with God the Trinity. So often I see folks get caught up in the rules of fasting and abstinence. I remember a Greek Orthodox friend of mine making a somewhat snarky comment about the ease of the fasting rules for Roman Catholics. I've seen other Catholics bemoan the relaxing of the fasting rules for their traditions (Roman, Maronite, whatever). I've often also gotten the feeling that friends of mine were looking critically over my shoulder to ensure that I was maintaining the fast. To me this all seems to miss the point of the season.

Fasting is important, don't get me wrong. We should definitely follow the rules for fasting according to our particular tradition to the best of our abilities. That last bit is the most important part; to the best of our abilities. Not everyone has the strength to pull off great feats of fasting. One wise move that the Melkites made several years ago was to establish norms for "beginner," "intermediate," and "advanced" fasting (although I don't believe they used that language). Essentially they established minimum norms while at the same time affirming their traditional fast and holding that up as a goal to work toward. Basically they said, "Here's what our norms are. Do what you can. Push yourself, but don't injure yourself."

But the whole point of fasting is not that we are not permitted to eat certain foods, or until a certain time of day, or what have you. The point of fasting is that we take our minds off of even some of our most basic physical necessities in order to refocus on the more important spiritual necessities, the "one thing needful" so to speak. Food is good (VERY good in my opinion), but it cannot be allowed to dominate our lives. We need to be reminded that God is our heavenly Father and that He does and will provide for even the most basic and mundane needs of our bodies while at the same time supplying the needs of our souls, our innermost person. The Great Fast, Lent, is a time to refocus on our relationship with God by reaffirming our complete and utter dependence upon Him. In a sense Lent is about humbling ourselves enough to admit our poverty without Him. We have nothing apart from God.

That is actually one of the reasons why repentance is meant to be a joyful event, not a guilt-trip. This morning, as I was reading one of the writings of St. Theophan the Recluse, I was reminded that repentance is meant to be joyful. Why? Because of what precedes repentance. Before we repent, we recognize that something is disordered within us and around us. We recognize that we have done wrong. We have injured ourselves and our neighbors. We recognize that we deserve punishment. But where do we turn? What hope do we have? If you watch the people of the world it is interesting and sad to see where they go: drugs, alcohol, sex, cutting, food, etc. Even a disordered focus on building a utopia here and now is a result of the recognition that something is not right. But we know from experience that any attempt for man to build utopia of his own power and will fails.

Repentance is about the recognition that something is wrong, but then seeing that God, through the incarnation, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and glorification of His Son, has offered us shelter from the evil around us. We just need to embrace Him. We need to come under the shadow of His wings, a shadow cast by the Cross, a Cross that gives us hope.

That's what repentance is all about. So whether your Church has strict fasting laws, relaxed fasting laws, or provides norms for both doesn't really matter. What matters primarily is the interior disposition as we follow the rules for the Great Fast. Are we looking over our shoulders to see what others are doing? Or are we looking within in order to untangle ourselves with the help of God's grace from the snares of the world, the flesh and the devil? Are we looking ahead to the open arms of our almighty Father in order to run into His embrace? May heaven consume us!

Will It

As I was driving out to the administration office of the company I'm working with, I was reminded of a conversation between St. Thomas Aquinas and an anonymous person. It seems the person, curious about what it took to lead a holy life, went up to St. Thomas and asked him, "What must I do to become a saint?" St. Thomas wisely answered, "You must will it."

This conversation has weighed on my mind since I was very young. "You must will it." If you want to be a saint you must will it. As I was driving it suddenly dawned on me how few of us actually will to become saints, not because we don't earnestly desire sainthood, but because we don't believe we can actually achieve it.

It never ceases to amaze me how God can communicate great spiritual insight to us even when we're not exactly seeking it. This insight came to me through some motivational reading that I've been doing lately. In his book, Think & Grow Rich, author Napoleon Hill is very clear in demonstrating that an act of the will is not merely an act that is limited to the cognitive arena. An act of the will doesn't simply take place in our head. We don't will something by thinking it. An act of the will involves the entire person; their spirit, soul, mind, heart, emotion, and body. An act of the will starts as a desire, and, through faith, moves on to planning in order to accomplish one's goal. After planning a definite decision is made to attain the goal no matter the cost, and then we persist in our efforts to accomplish that goal in spite of any/all opposition.

I know for me personally there is certainly the strong desire to become a saint. But that desire is stopped short in its tracks because I've been told over and over that there are few people who actually become saints! We are not told that it is, indeed, possible for us to become saints. We are told, almost with the hint that we shouldn't bother trying, that there are few people who actually attain sainthood. How sad that we are told this, because after awhile we start telling ourselves that same thing. "Oh, I'll never be a saint. So I'll just do the best I can and hope I make it into heaven." Our will-to-sainthood is stopped short in its tracks. But the saints tell us the complete opposite!

The saints tell us that it is, indeed, possible for us to become saints; so long as we are willing to pay the price for sanctity. We must, first, desire sainthood. Then we must have faith that we can attain sainthood. We must look at our goal and make the necessary plans to achieve that goal. We must then make the definite decision to attain that goal no matter the cost, and we must persist in our efforts even in the face of opposition and ridicule.

Can you think of a single saint who didn't put these steps into action? Every saint I've ever read about was so focused on their goal (i.e. Christ) that nothing else mattered to them but living for Christ. Every saint endured ridicule, opposition, persecution, and many even death to attain that goal. What are you willing to endure? What am I willing to endure.

Now, I don't mean to sound as if we can become saints of our own efforts. This is most certain not true. But the fact of the matter is that God the Trinity has given us all the tools necessary to become saints. It is up to us to use those tools. It is up to us to live our lives consistent with the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. It is up to us to frequent the Sacraments (especially Confession and Communion). It is up to us to pray daily. And it is up to us to learn from the host of saints that have gone before us, and from those saints that we encounter around us. God has given us all the tools, do we make use of them?

Another thing that I think we need to start doing is changing our thoughts on the matter. We need to start telling ourselves that we can become saints. We can because God has made it possible through Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me that to deny our ability to become saints is all but tantamount to denying the saving action of God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is amazing how repeating this positive thought helps one to focus and put in the necessary effort to achieve one's goal. You can do it. Imagine a father stretching out his arms to his baby as that baby takes its first steps, out of the arms of its mother and to the arms of its father. All the while the father repeats, over and over, "You can do it! You can do it! You can do it!" What a fitting image as we strive from the arms of our loving Mother, the Church, and into the arms of our heavenly Father. Our Father doesn't tell us, "You're going to fall. You'll never get this. Why bother trying." No! As we strain to take those first steps in sanctity, all the while our Father is there telling us, "You can do it!" He has, after all, given us everything we need.

This, I believe, is why repetitious prayer, both in our prayer time and at the Liturgy, is so important. The repetition helps to change our pattern of thinking and adopt the way God thinks. In particular, when we pray the Jesus Prayer, our focus is not on our sinfulness, but on God's mercy and our need for that mercy. It is because of that mercy that sanctity has been made possible for us. Repeating the Jesus Prayer over and over drills into our minds the wonders of God's mercy towards us. Where would we be without that mercy? But that mercy also calls us to action; to determined efforts to live our lives according to the mercy and grace that has been bestowed upon us. When we live our lives completely focused on Christ as our ultimate goal, then we truly receive the gift of sanctity. May heaven consume us.

Greed or Generosity?

Here in the U.S. we experience an odd phenomenon every year. The day after Thanksgiving retail stores offer some hefty discounts on items, and folks rush to those stores in the wee hours of the morning to get all their Christmas shopping done at once. The rush can be so intense that some folks are injured and others have been killed, just so that we can save a few bucks on a gift that will most likely be set aside in a matter of a few hours.

Many Christians sit by and shake their heads, condemning the greed that they see; and rightly so. No material thing is worth putting another person's life at risk to obtain. But it has become almost stylish to condemn the "materialism" of Christmas. Today, however, I would like to propose an alternative to both the "materialistic" attitude towards Christmas, and to those who silently (or not so silently) condemn such an attitude.

I would like to put forward to you that Christmas, and particularly our giving at Christmas, is about God's generosity towards us. In His deep love for us, He gave us everything. And after giving us everything, He poured Himself out for us "emptying Himself and taking on the form of a servant." You see, we often get so caught up in giving at Christmas that we forget why we give and Who we are imitating.

This was first brought to my attention while reading one of the books by Archbishop Joseph Raya. I can't remember if it was his book on Christmas or his book on the Incarnation, but in the book Sayedna Raya encourages us to continue to give generously at Christmas, and not to cease giving, because our giving is a reflection of the Gift that God has given us on this Holiday. Our giving is a reflection of God's generosity towards us. Since we are made in God's image and likeness, our very nature demands that we reflect God's generosity. And so this time of year more than any other, we feel the urge to pour ourselves out to those we love through gifts in imitation of the One in Whose image we are created.

I'm not, of course, encouraging anyone to abandon themselves to reckless materialism during this time of year. We can take things too far and we must respect one another. But what we need to do is stand back and reflect on why we are giving (and why we are receiving as well). From the second prayer of Safro this morning we read:

"O Christ,
from your rich treasure you have enriched our poverty."

And we continue to pray that Christ enrich us by filling our hearts with veneration and respect; our souls with faith and love; our minds with spiritual thoughts; our lips with praise and glory; and our lives with good works. Enrichment, filling, abundance, these are the words the speak to us of God's generosity and humility in willing "to submit Himself to the law of human nature," as we pray in the third prayer of Safro this morning.

I think that very often we ignore or forget this great outpouring of God, His magnificent generosity. We think of this outpouring more in terms of His having created us. We think also of His death on the Cross, but I believe we often ignore the immense outpouring of the Incarnation - an outpouring without which the Cross is both impossible and meaningless. But our Liturgies are full of references to this outpouring.

The Proemion of Ramsho says:

"The cherubim fear Him when they bear Him on the fiery chariot
but in His love He concealed Himself within the pure womb of Mary."

And the Sedro of Ramsho reads:

"You are the King of kings who crowns princes and saves His people.
You raised our human nature to the throne of your glory
when you descended from that throne,
took the condition of a slave and truly became man."

And from Safro the Proemion says:

"Praise, glory and honor to the true God
whose Spirit one cannot fathom and upon whose face one cannot gaze."

And yet have we ever stopped to think that through the Incarnation we have been given the great gift to gaze upon the face of God! That is one of the reasons that we can paint icons of Christ. God has taken on flesh and we have seen His face. That is also one of the reasons that the Shroud of Turin is such an amazing gift to mankind. The face of Christ is preserved there! Do we dare to gaze into the very Face of generosity and self-gift?

The Sedro of Safro reads:

"You, Who dwell in the heights and are served by Seraphim and glorified by the Cherubim,
descended from your heavens and came to us.

And finally we pray in the Mazmooro of Saphro:

"The One Whom the Seraphim serve and dare not gaze upon the splendor of His face,
descended into the womb of the pure Virgin
and entered the house of His Forerunner."

Have we stopped to contemplate this generosity? Have we sought to imitate it? Do we embrace this self-emptying attitude towards our giving at Christmas in imitation of the Divine Gift that is being given to us (not has been, but is being  given because this Gift is eternal)? Or do we simply sit there and sneer at those "materialistic" folks who simply use Christmas as an excuse to go on shopping sprees? Are we a light to the world as Christ is our Light, or do we hide that light while sitting at home content with our own self-righteousness?

"From on high our Savior came, the Rising Sun who shone from the East, to visit us in His great mercy, we who sat in darkness and gloom. But now we see the Light of Truth, for the Lord Jesus is born of a pure Virgin Mother." (Exapostilarion of the Nativity [Byzantine])

I don't want to make this out as though giving gifts is the only, or even primary, form of generosity that we are to practice particular during this time of year. Christ is "Emmanuel," God-With-Us! Similarly this time of year we gather to be with our families and loved ones. To show them that even when we are physically absent from them, they are in our hearts and we are with them in spirit.

So as we continue to prepare ourselves for the feast of the Nativity of Christ, I think it is important that we keep all of this in mind. We are celebrating God's generosity towards us. The all-powerful One, Whom the Seraphim dare not gaze upon and Who is borne aloft by the Cherubim, emptied Himself and poured His richness upon us. He has allowed us to gaze on His face, to look into His eyes. By taking on our nature He has seated us, the lowest of His creatures, on His very throne. In celebrating God's generosity, we seek to imitate that generosity; to pour ourselves out for our loved ones and to elevate them above ourselves. To set aside our cares, desires and needs for the moment and place those of others before us. Enjoy the giving. Enjoy the receiving. Do all in love for and imitation of Christ. May heaven consume us!