Friday, December 14, 2012

Orthodox Monastery Vandalized in Jerusalem

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=295596

Price-tag vandals hit J'lem church, Palestinian town

By MELANIE LIDMAN
12/12/2012 09:50

Extremists puncture tires in 2 separate incidents, spray-paint "The Maccabis will succeed" on wall near J'lem monastery.

Father Claudio near spray-painted carPHOTO: MELANIE LIDMAN
“Price-tag” vandals targeted sites in Jerusalem and near Ramallah overnight Tuesday, spraying extremist graffiti and puncturing car tires.
The words “tag mahir” – “price tag” – have become affiliated with the extreme fringe of the settlement and right-wing movements.
For the second time in less than a year, vandals targeted the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park.
This time, the vandals wrote: “Happy Hanukka, the Maccabees will succeed” on a stone wall surrounding the structure. They also spraypainted graffiti on a car with the words “Jesus is a bastard,” “price-tag,” and “Happy Hanukka.”
They vandals slashed the tires of three cars.
In the second incident, which took place in Shukba, 18 km. northwest of Ramallah, unidentified persons set a car on fire and spray-painted the words “price-tag” nearby, Judea and Samaria Police reported on Wednesday morning.
Police opened an investigation, but have yet to make any arrests.
Father Claudio, the superior of the monastery, said he discovered the graffiti on Wednesday morning after morning prayers. “I forgave them the first time, I will forgive them the second time. I will forgive them the seventh, and 75th times, the 77th time I forgive,” he said.
“This person needs to write outside. Okay. But he needs to come inside the Monastery. Sit with me, drink one coffee, and I will explain to him why I believe in Jesus and why that is my freedom [to believe],” Father Claudio said. “He needs to come face to face. And I will tell him, ‘Welcome.’ Or with me, or with another priest. Let’s sit, and speak. This is the heart of the religions... I say to these people, ‘Hanukka Sameach’ [‘Happy Hanukka’].”
Father Claudio added that he understands that 99 percent of Israelis support his church, and only 1 percent is responsible for the extremism and hatred.
“This is terrorism. It is terror against Christians,” said Maroun Reem, who lives in the monastery. The tires of her car were slashed, the same car that had graffiti spray-painted in the previous price-tag attack on February 7. Then, the vandals wrote: “Jesus, drop dead,” “Death to Christians” and “Kahane was right.” They called themselves “The Maccabees of Migron [an outpost in the Binyamin region]” and also left the words “price tag.”
“They did it because I have a cross in my car,” she said.
“This does a lot of damage to the country.”
This is the fifth price-tag attack against a Christian site this year, including the previous vandalism at the Valley of the Cross Monastery, and at the Latrun Monastery, the Baptist Church in west Jerusalem, and the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion.
Police have arrested six people – three adults and three minors – in connection with price tag incidents over the past three months. Only two of the suspects were arrested in connection with an attack against Christian holy sites, in connection with the vandalism at the Dormition Abbey’s Franciscan Convent in October.
National Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said officers were alerted to the incident at the Monastery of the Cross early on Wednesday morning.
They had no leads but the investigation was continuing, and may be transferred to a special unit established last year that looks into price-tag attacks, he said.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the two price-tag attacks “revolting.”
“The Jewish values according to which we were raised and according to which we raise our children reject outright such behavior. Freedom of worship for all religions will be upheld in Israel and we will bring to justice these contemptible beings who perpetrated this crime,” Netanyahu said.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat also condemned the vandalism.
“We cannot accept this disgusting and extremist phenomenon, whose only goal is to damage the coexistence in Jerusalem. We must tear this up from the roots,” Barkat said.
In response to the price-tag attacks, activists from the Bright Tag anti-racism coalition held a candle-lighting ceremony in the Valley of the Cross, near the monastery, for the fifth night of Hanukka with local rabbis and Greek monks.
“Law enforcement agencies in Israel do not take sufficient action to end these violent acts, thus encouraging the Jewish terrorism,” Bright Tag founder Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu said ahead of the candle-lighting.
He blamed extreme-right rabbis, websites, and politicians, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, for encouraging acts of violence against Arab and Christian sites.
The Monastery of the Cross is an Orthodox Christian monastery built around the 11th century on the spot where Christians believes the tree grew that was used to make Jesus’s cross. The monastery has roots in Georgian and Greek Orthodoxy and flies a Greek flag above the fortress-like building, which could be one of the reasons it was targeted. During Hanukka, Jews commemorate a secondcentury BCE victory over Syrian- Greek oppressors.
Ben Hartman and Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.


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Saturday, December 8, 2012

"Woman, You Are Loosed": Homily for St. Anna's Conception of the Theotokos



Epistle to the Galatians 4:22-27
Gospel According to St. Luke 13:10-17
            None of us likes to be sick.  It’s very frustrating to want to get up and do what you want to do and not to be able to do so.  Illness separates us from our usual activities and relationships, and even from our selves.  When our lives revolve around our own pain and disability, we aren’t really ourselves anymore.  And that’s just a miserable way to be. 
            When Jesus Christ was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, he saw a woman who was bent over and could not stand up straight.  She had been that way for eighteen years.  Just think of how she felt, how limiting and frustrating that illness had to be.  The Lord said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”  Then He laid hands on her and she was healed, was able to stand up straight again, and she glorified God.
            But there were those standing around just waiting to criticize the Lord, for He healed her on the Sabbath day, when no work was to be done.  Christ answered these critics by pointing out that everyone takes care of his donkey and ox on the Sabbath.  “So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”  The truth of His teaching was so clear that those adversaries were put to shame and the people rejoiced.
            In these weeks of the Nativity Fast, of Advent, we are preparing to celebrate the wonderful news of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of our Lord’s birth at Christmas.  And we see in this gospel text a beautiful image of what Jesus Christ has done for us by becoming a human being.  For every one of us is like that poor woman bound with an infirmity for eighteen years, unable to straighten herself up.
             For we live in a world of corruption, of illness, pain, and death.  We don’t like to think about it, but there are harsh, impersonal realities from which we can’t isolate ourselves. The horrors of war, crime, and terrorism; the ecological effects of pollution; cycles of violence, abuse, and brokenness in families and in society; and the inevitability of the grave: We don’t have to look far to find ways in which we are held captive.
            We all have diseases of soul, of personality, of behavior, and of relationships that cripple us, that keep us from acting, thinking, and speaking as the children of God.  For we have all fallen short of God’s purposes for us, as has every generation since Adam and Eve.  And we are all bent over and crippled in profound ways in relation to the Lord, our neighbors, and even ourselves.   
            Joachim and Anna knew all about long-term struggles and disabilities, for like Abraham and Sarah they were childless into their old age.  But God heard their prayer and gave them Mary, who would in turn give birth to the Savior who came to liberate us all from sin and death.  Today is the feast of St. Anna’s conception of the Theotokos which we celebrate as a foreshadowing of the coming of the Lord to loose us from the infirmities that hold us captive and hinder our participation even now in the life of the Kingdom.
            The story of the Old Testament unfolded through the family of Abraham, who was told by God that he would be the father of a large, blessed family.   Many Jews continue to think of life after death as being accomplished through ongoing generations of children and grandchildren, not by victory over death itself.  But if God’s blessings extend no further than the grave, then we will never be loosed from bondage to the wages of sin, which is death.  
            The history of the Hebrews was preparatory for the coming of the Christ, the Messiah in whom God’s promises are fulfilled and extended to all who have faith in the Savior, regardless of their family heritage.  Christ did not come to privilege one nation over another, but to fulfill our original calling to be in the image and likeness of God; and, yes, that means to share in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity as distinct, unique persons.          God breaks the laws of nature in order to do so, enabling elderly women to conceive and bear children and a young virgin to become the mother of His Son Who Himself rises from the dead.  Yes, this is a story of liberation, of breaking bonds, and of transcending the brokenness and limitations of life in the world in the world as know it.   
            Fortunately, the Lord did not treat the woman in today’s reading according to her physical condition as simply a bundle of disease, even as St. Anna’s fate was not to be defined by barrenness.  Instead, He gave her back her true identity as a beloved person, a daughter of Abraham.  And on that particular Sabbath day, that’s what Jesus Christ did.  He treated her as a unique, cherished child of God who was not created for a corrupt, impersonal existence of pain, disease, and despair, but for blessing, health, and joy.  She glorified God for this deliverance, as did those who saw the miracle.
            The good news of Christmas is that the Lord is born to do the same for us and for the whole world, to set us free from the slavery to decay, corruption, and weakness that distort and weaken us all.  He comes so that we are no longer defined by our infirmities and can leave behind our bondage and enter into the joyous freedom of the children of God.  He comes to restore us as living icons who manifest Christ’s glory and salvation in unique, personal ways.  Have you ever noticed that icons portray people as distinctive persons, that the personality and character of the Theotokos or St. John the Baptist or St. Luke shines through their icons?
            The same should be true of us.  We become not less ourselves, but more truly ourselves, when we open our lives to Christ’s holiness and healing.  In contrast, sin and corruption are pretty boring.  No matter how creative we try to be, there are only so many ways to hate, lie, cheat, and steal.  You can only say so much about murder and adultery.  Holiness, on the other hand, is infinitely beautiful and fascinating.  For the more we share in the life of the Holy Trinity, the more we see that the process of our fulfillment in God is eternal, that there is no end to it or to Him.  And since our fundamental calling as human beings is to grow in the likeness of God, we become more truly ourselves—as distinct, unique persons-- whenever we turn away from slavery to sin and passion in order to embrace more fully the new life that Christ has brought to the world.
            Unfortunately, people in our culture usually do not view Advent and Christmas as opportunities to be loosed from our bondage to sin and death.  Too often, we turn them into occasions for strengthening our addiction to money and possessions, to excessive food and drink, and unhealthy relationships with others.  Of course, that’s really a way of saying that self-centered indulgence is nothing but bondage to ourselves, which ends up leaving us hollow and miserable.  And that’s not surprising because we weren’t created to find eternal fulfillment and peace in the things of the world, even in one another.  That’s why we must resist the cultural temptation to be so busy with shopping and planning and partying this time of year that we ignore the glory and gravity of our Lord’s Incarnation.  For He comes to make us all the sons and daughters of God, to extend to us all the blessing and joy of the heavenly kingdom, to loose us from our weakness and infirmity, and to conquer sin and death in us.   
            So let us not remain stooped over, bound, and barren this Advent.     Instead, let us use the remaining weeks of this holy season to prepare to receive the Christ who heals us, who sets us free, and who makes us the unique, distinctive children of God we were created to be in the first place.  Let us embrace our spiritual disciplines with joy, fighting our passions and serving Christ in our neighbors, especially those who are lonely and in need.  For we, too, have become the daughters and sons of Abraham in Christ Jesus; we too are have been loosed and are to glorify God by living as those who have found new life in the Second Adam, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the One who comes to us at Christmas.  Now is the time to get ready for Him.  


   
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Memory Eternal!: His Beatitude Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch and All the East

MEMORY ETERNAL! 
Home » News » Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch Has Reposed after Suffering Stroke

Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch Has Reposed after Suffering Stroke

   Dec 5th, 2012 // Comments (0)
Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazim of Antioch and all the East passed away on Wednesday after suffering from a stroke.He was admitted to Saint Georges Hospital after suffering from a stroke on Tuesday.
Born in 1921 in Mhardeh in Syria’s Hama province, he pursued his studies at the American University of Beirut and soon entered the service of the local Orthodox diocese.
He was one of the founders of the Orthodox Youth Movement in 1942.
He was appointed as bishop in 1961 and was elected as the Metropolitan of the Latakia province in Syria in 1970.
He was elected as patriarch of the Antioch and all the East in 1979.
Source: Naharnet
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://www.pravmir.com/patriarch-ignatius-of-antioch-has-reposed-after-suffering-stroke/
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Monday, December 3, 2012

The Blind Beggar Receives His Sight: Homily for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost in the Orthodox Church


St. Luke 18: 35-43
Ephesians 5: 8-19
We have probably all had moments in our lives when we couldn’t see very well.  Maybe the power went out at night at home, our eyes took a while to adjust after walking out of movie theater, we lost our glasses, or we were headed east or west at just the right time to be blinded by the light of the sun.   Unfortunately, we have also had moments when we have been blind in other ways when our actions, words, and thoughts went against God’s purposes for our lives.   In fact, it’s an ongoing struggle to have a clear take on how what we do each day impacts our souls, as well as our neighbors in whom we encounter the Lord.
St. Paul reminded the Ephesians that they had come out of the darkness of paganism and immorality by putting on Christ in baptism and the life of His body, the Church.  Instead of returning to the shadowy ways of the world, he called them to turn on the lights, see the truth about themselves, and live accordingly.  “Awake from sleep, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light,” he tells them.  It’s not a time to be in a drunken stupor or to be lulled into complacency in any other way, but instead to be alert and focused so that we won’t be lulled back into the darkness.  
Our Savior, in His earthly ministry, certainly healed many blind people.  We read in today’s gospel text of a blind beggar who was so eager to see that he would not stop yelling out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” as the Lord passed by.  Even though others told the man to be quiet and not to cause a scene, he continued to plead for healing.  He succeeded in getting Christ’s attention, and He asked the man a simple question:  “What do you want me to do for you?”  The blind man responded, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.”  Christ said, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”  Immediately he could see again and began to follow the Lord and to glorify God.
Unlike the Gentiles we mentioned earlier, this fellow was Jewish and waiting for a Messiah to fulfill God’s promises to Israel.  But he was not able to see the Savior as He passed by.  His eyes were shut to the Lord and to all the beauty of the creation.  He lived in darkness.  He was poor and wretched, a beggar, who could do nothing but call out for help from the Son of David, a common name for “the anointed one” whom the Jews expected.  And the man’s sufferings had made quite clear to him what he wanted:  to be able to see, for he was tired of living in darkness.  When the blind man had his chance, he took it—refusing to shut up when he heard that Christ was passing his way.
Of course, the man knew a portion of the truth.  He knew that Jesus was the Son of David, the Messiah, Who could miraculously restore his sight.  He had enough faith, enough trust in Christ, to ask for that.  His plea for mercy sounds like an early version of the Jesus Prayer.  But the man did not know that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God.  Like the rest of the Jews, he was probably waiting for a Messiah who would be a great political and religious leader, not a Savior Who is both God and man.  Fortunately for him and the rest of us, Christ is not a stern master who has mercy only on those with perfect understanding.  He heard the man’s humble plea and restored his sight; then the man gave thanks to God and began to follow the Lord. 
Jesus Christ came to bring us all into the light of His life, regardless of whether we are Gentiles or Jews and no matter how we have lived or what we have done.  Just as a blind person could only beg and pray for a miracle in that time and place, we cannot force or earn our way into the blessed life of the Kingdom.  We all need His mercy.  But like both the blind man and the Ephesians, we have to do our part to become receptive to the light of Christ in our lives.
A person who keeps his eyes closed will never see the day or the beauty of the world.  Likewise, it is impossible for those who insist on filling their lives with darkness to receive the light of Christ.  If we are asleep, we are not awake.  If we insist on living in the shadows, we will never see clearly.
The good news is that we have already open our eyes to the light, for we have put on Christ in the waters of baptism, been sealed with the Holy Spirit in chrismation, and nourished with the Body and Blood of the Lord in the Eucharist.  Our eyes have been opened to behold the glory of the Lord.  We have entered into His house, the Church, and confessed Him in the words of the Creed and in our hearts.   Indeed, we know that we are able at any moment of the day to show the humble faith of the blind beggar through the words of the Jesus Prayer.
Nonetheless, our spiritual vision is still obscured by a measure of darkness.  We still look at other people with self-righteous judgment, envy, lust, and other bad attitudes.  We make hateful, profane, and other unedifying comments that make faithfulness harder for ourselves and other people.   We drift off to spiritual sleep thinking that we will find fulfillment in pleasure, possessions, and the praise of others.  We are lured powerfully back to the darkness in many ways.    So we continue to need therapy to help us keep our eyes open to the brilliant light of Christ, to the salvation that He has brought to the world.
That’s why it’s good that we have seasons like Advent to wake us up from our slumbers, to switch on the lights and tell us it’s time to wake up.  In these weeks of preparation for Christmas, all of us need to gain strength in resisting our self-centered desires by fasting or some other form of self-denial.  All of us need to place greater focus on prayer.   All of us need to confess our sins and turn away from them through repentance.  All of us need to give alms and become more generous to the needy with our time and resources.  All of us need to love and forgive our enemies.  In these ways, we all need to open our lives more fully to the light of Christ.    
At the same time, we also need to do everything that we can to shut out the darkness that so easily overtakes us.  Most of us probably do not have to look very closely at our lives to identify habits, weaknesses, relationships, or social settings that can dim the spiritual light pretty quickly.  We have to be prudent and persistent in discerning how to respond to those temptations, but it’s not our intelligence or will power that is our hope.  It’s the mercy of the Lord, the same One who responded to the plea of that blind beggar.  So when we are tempted to wallow in the darkness, we need to follow his example of calling out to Christ persistently with humility, asking for His forgiveness and healing.  That fellow would not shut up even when his pleas disturbed others, and we must learn not to abandon our spiritual disciplines, mindfulness, and prayers even when our thoughts, feelings, and friends want to lead us away from the light.    
Sometimes we feel like it will kill us to resist certain temptations.  Of course, that’s not true, but it is often how we feel.  We all need to cultivate the faith that Christ comes to heal and strengthen us, not to frustrate and destroy us.  The disciplines of Advent are not about legalism or causing inconvenience.  Instead, they are tools for our healing, ways for us to turn away from the darkness and to walk in the light, into a life where we are not the slaves of sin but embrace joyfully the glorious freedom of the children of God.   
No matter where we are in our journey to the Kingdom, we can all welcome the light of Christ more fully into our lives in the coming weeks.   No matter our measure of spiritual health or disease, we can open ourselves more fully to the mercy and healing of the Lord.  He made a blind beggar see and turned idol-worshipping pagans into saints.  And He will do the same for us, if we will only stay focused on Him and turn away from the many distractions that blind us to His truth.  As we prepare for Christmas, let’s do everything that we can to walk in the light of the Lord.     

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

After the Campaigns: Back to the Real Work of the Orthodox Christian Political Witness



            Since politics has received no small amount of attention in recent months, I thought that it would be good to remind ourselves that the primary political action of Orthodox Christians is not found in voting, carrying signs, spouting slogans, or putting bumper stickers on our cars.  Instead, our most fundamental political witness is to participate in the Divine Liturgy. No, that does not mean that the Christian life boils down simply to showing up at church, for to participate fully in the worship of God means that we live out our communion with the Holy Trinity every day of the week in all aspects of our lives.  The calling of the Christian life is to sanctify the world by offering every bit of the creation—including ourselves—to the Lord for fulfillment and transformation, for the holiness and peace of a Kingdom that radically transcends the broken and imperfect kingdoms of this world.     
            Granted, that may sound so mystical that it is hard to connect with something as practical as American politics. But perhaps that is precisely the point.  Christians are to be salt and light wherever they find themselves, not just another interest group worshiping at the altar of worldly glory and power.   How sad, then, that what passes for a spiritually informed political agenda often amounts to little more than politics as usual in our corrupt world.   Contrary to the hopes of religiously inspired voters of whatever ideological stripe, we will look in vain for substantive conversation about moral issues in the recently completed campaigns.
For example, discourse about society’s responsibility to unborn children and their distressed mothers was replaced by ham-fisted comments about rape, contraception, and an alleged “war against women.”  The glory of the union of man and woman, which alone brings forth new life as an image of the Holy Trinity from generation to generation, was obscured by our societal obsession about the rights of individuals to do as they please.  Economic theories—largely driven by the self-interest of various partisan groups-- took precedence over serious consideration of the common good in debates about poverty, health care, and environmental stewardship.   In other words, we endured well over a year’s worth of unedifying and interminable arguments that barely scratched the surface of an Orthodox vision of God’s purposes for the collective life of human beings.
            Well, big surprise.  Despite what politicians and their chaplains on the right and left proclaim, American elections are about little more than the competing interests of partisan groups for power.    Some of their spokespersons have been remarkably effective at times in convincing various segments of the Christian population that their agendas are virtually synonymous with the Kingdom of God.  But it doesn’t take much discernment to see that they all fall well short of such a high designation.  For example, women in difficult circumstances do not choose to have abortions in isolation from a whole set of social, economic, and moral circumstances which politicians seem to have no real interest in addressing seriously.  It’s much easier to cast a vote and denounce the opposition than to get to the heart of why our culture has formed so many people in such poor ways both morally and spiritually.      
Those who cheered for abortion rights as though they were applauding job creation displayed an appalling lack of moral sensitivity, even as they excluded the most vulnerable human beings from legal protection in the name of individual liberty.  How strange that those who support government regulation to protect the weak in so many other areas of social concern change their tune so radically on this issue.  Their sudden burst of libertarianism functions to obliterate any compassion for life in the womb, recognition of the legitimate stake of husbands and fathers in the fate of their offspring, and acknowledgement that the moral tragedy of abortion simply cannot fit within the happy narrative of freedom.     
When it comes to marriage and sexuality, mainstream American culture has lost virtually any sense of a sexual ethic more profound than the consent of individuals to do as they please with a nod toward public health.  In this context, chastity becomes a nonsensical notion even as the public square refuses to acknowledge that the union of man and woman holds a uniquely privileged place in all known human civilization.  In a society that is blind to the marital nature of intercourse, it would be shocking to have a substantive moral consensus about the meaning of marriage. In the absence of such convictions, we quickly revert to the default position of American politics:  individual liberty. If marriage is nothing more than a freely chosen romantic union of two individuals, no wonder that the obvious intersections of marriage, sex, and parenthood are so hard for many to see.      
That may be the politics of the world in which we live, but it’s not the social order of God’s reign.     We will not be salt and light in our darkened world by pretending that the spokespersons of the corrupt ways of living and thinking that got us into these messes will somehow magically become our saviors.  Instead, the primary political witness of Orthodox Christians is to become living icons of our Lord’s salvation on even the most difficult matters involving sex, money, and power.  Our witness—yes, how we live each day-- must stand in stark contrast to the ways of the world as a sign of the blessed life for which human beings are created.  Holiness in our parishes, our families, and all our relationships is our politics and the basis of how we offer the world, and ourselves, to God.  Now that the distractions of the campaign are behind us, let’s get busy with the real challenges of the Christian life.         
                 
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