A Life of Responding to God
Communion with God is the very heartbeat of our creation and, thus, is the very core of our salvation. In this communion, God faithfully and lovingly reveals Himself and His ways to us. Mankind responds to what has been shared. In this series, Fr. James uses the writings of Fr. Zacharias, a monastic at St. John the Baptist Monastery in the United Kingdom, to help us delve more deeply into how our hearts may be opened to this precious communion and how our lives may most appropriately respond to the God Who has shared Himself with us.
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Orthodox Christians are asked many questions by those outside of the Orthodox Faith. It is important for us to be able to know how to answers grounded in truth and humility to the questions they ask us. This series has two purposes. One is to equip the faithful in the Orthodox Church to be able to express truth in answering these questions. But this series also is designed to help us take on the mind of Christ regarding our Faith so that we grow deeper with the most clear sight of our Lord and all that He has given us to encounter Him for our salvation.
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In this series, we will look at Christ's ministry from the moment He gave up His spirit and descended into Hades to His glorious Ascension. We will begin with and in-depth look at His profound work of salvation known as the "Harrowing of Hades" and then make our way through Christ's post-Resurrection ministry. We will find along the way that what Christ accomplished in Hades, He continues to do in and for each and every beloved soul He has brought into Himself.
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St. Paul has described Christian discipleship as being akin to the rigors of military life, athletic discipline, and compulsory servanthood. He has also made it clear to us that our contention in the Christian life, that for which we prepare and train ourselves, is against what the Church calls “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” According to Tradition, the real contention is against the temptations of the devil, who uses the world and the flesh to bait us to abandon our Christian discipleship.
An aspect of our “training” in the Christian life is discerning the devil’s machinations and learning how to respond to them. The Roman Catholic theologian and professor, Peter Kreeft, has written an excellent book, The Snakebite Letters, as a means to reveal how the devil conspires to tempt us, how we are apt to succumb to such temptations, and, by implication, how we should respond.
Using The Snakebite Letters as a sort of guide through these muddy waters of the spiritual life, we will look at what Kreeft (and the demonic) describes as the peculiar temptations of American Christians, how the devil tempts Christians in general, and what we are to do about it.
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Spiritual despondency, simply stated, is the spiritual slumber of the soul that disconnects us from the beautiful and eternal value of the experience of God in the precious moments of our lives. When we are in a state of spiritual slumber, we can never recognize for ourselves just how asleep we really are or why we are in that spiritual slumber. We need the illumination of Christ to both reveal our spiritual slumber as well as to wake us up again so that we can truly live. It is time to regain the gift of moments with God in the little time we have.
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Examining the functions and responsibilities of the ancient Jewish priesthood, as well as the life and instruction of St. John of Kronstadt, patron saint of priests, we will attempt to glean the details of our roles as priests of creation, as mentioned in 1 Peter 2:5. We have all, by our Baptism, been ordained to be a Kingdom of Priests. This series will help us understand our role in this Holy Priesthood.
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As we pray the Orthodox Prayer to the Holy Spirit, this truth is communicated to us, "O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth Who art in all places and fillest all things." As Christians, do we live in the truth that God is in all places and fills all things; that He permeates everything in in every aspect of our lives? Or, do we live a life that somehow compartmentalizes God; a life that believes in the experience of God when we are doing the "Christian things" such as prayer, worship, or ministry; but not so much at other times in the most mundane moments of our lives? The Incarnation brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth for the experience of mankind unto the salvation of our souls. God is never distant and there is never a moment of our lives when we cannot fellowship and experience God and all of the benefits of His Kingdom now manifest in the earth. The purpose of this series is to assist us in living the true Christian life where the Kingdom of God is near to us.
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When our Lord Jesus Christ took bread and wine and blessed it, He told His disciples that whenever they were to gather together they were to "do this in remembrance of me." It was no mere intellectual or mental exercise that He was asking them to do. Rather, He was saying that when you do this and every time you do this I will be there in your midst.
When God's people gather together for Eucharist, there Christ and His Kingdom are made manifest for all to experience. In this series we start with this idea regarding Christian worship, but we must also look further. It is our Lord's desire that we take Christ and the Kingdom made manifest living our lives in such a way in this life that in all we do and everywhere we go, the King and His Kingdom are made manifest for the salvation of the world as He lives through us, His Church.
