Fr. Michael shares reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held last month at Antiochian Village. This is Part 5.

Fr. Michael concludes his reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held last month at Antiochian Village. This is Part 6. Here is a link to the written text of his presentation: holynativity.blogspot.com/2014/11/st-isaacs-three-degrees-of-knowledge.html.

Fr. Michael shares his reflections from Abbess Thaisia: An Autobiography. Visit his blog.

Fr. Michael shares from St. Isaac the Syrian, "How one speaks of spiritual things is perhaps more important than the very spiritual matters themselves."

Fr. Michael shares his concerns with the familiar "Poop in the Brownies" story and offers some positive alternatives to talking about purity with children.

Fr. Michael reflects on the life and death, and continuing life, of Annie, the grandmother of one of his parishioners.

Fr. Michael shares his thoughts about how Christians can respond to violence in our world. "One cannot help being deeply troubled by the latest wave of persecution against Christians perpetrated by the ISIS movement. It is a terrible situation that demands from Christians everywhere some sort of response. To do nothing seems intolerable. We feel we must respond, but how?"

"In Homily 27, St. Isaac the Syrian speaks of two kinds of confidence. The first kind of confidence is what we generally mean when we say someone is confident. That is, the person is sure about what he or she is doing or saying. St. Isaac tells us that this kind of confidence is spiritually dangerous. It is dangerous because we live in an age of changeability, or 'ununiformity' as it is translated in the Holy Transfiguration edition of St. Isaac’s text. This ununiformity refers to the mutability or inconstancy we experience in this world. Things and people don't stay the same."

Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery, in the first half of a transcribed (and then translated) speech called “The Progression of the Soul” speaks of stages to the beginning of the spiritual journey. Archimandrite Aimilianos tells us that strength really is about standing naked before God and before ourselves. Faithful application of strength and the power of the will is to deny our self-justifying delusions and unlike our forefathers and foremothers to step naked out of the bushes and to present ourselves to God without excuse, without prettying ourselves up first, embracing all of our weakness, all of our shadows, all of our inability and insignificance.

It is difficult for some of us who were raised on a theology of substitutionary atonement, those of us Protestant converts to holy Orthodoxy, it is difficult for us to accept that our final judgement will involve anything more than the forgiveness of sins. But the Church teaches us otherwise. Parables such as the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Separation of the Sheep and the Goats play a huge role in the hymnology of the Orthodox Church and in its understanding of what our judgement before God will look like. That is, judgement before God is not merely about forgiveness of sin. But rather, the judgement of the Age to Come is also about comfort and torment; or as Christ puts it in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Father Abraham speaking to the Rich Man who is in torment), “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.”

Many people hit a roadblock in their relationship with God when the weight of their sins catches up to them, when they realize they are trapped in a cycle of sin or habit of ungodly behaviour that they cannot control.

If we want to see God, where do we begin? Archimandrite Aimilianos says that we must begin with what we can do. We can seek; we can come to God with longing. In other words, if you want to see God, you have to want to see God. I’m not being redundant. There is wanting, and then there is wanting. I can want to become a doctor, for example; but if I don’t want to become a doctor more than I want to play video games, more than I want to hang out with my friends and more than just about anything else, I will never become a doctor. There is wanting, and then there is really wanting: wanting so much that it is pretty much all I want. And so we might say that if you want to see God, you have to want to see God more than just about anything else.

This morning my wife and I took one of our occasional half-day vacations. It’s a warmish 19 degree day (68 Fahrenheit) with the sun poking through the clouds. We walked a mile or so up a trail in the hills and then afterward stopped by a country tea and scone place for a bite and a chat and just some quite time together, Bonnie working on her knitting project and I reading a book (what else would I be doing?). Bonnie asked me what I was reading, so I read her a little quote from from Archimandrite Aimilianos. What does it mean to be dispassionate? It means turning exclusively to God, with all your strength, energy, power, and love. There is no turning aside to anything else whatsoever….

Fr. Michael reflects on this quote from St. Isaac the Syrian (Homily 36), "A small affliction borne for God’s sake is better before God than a great work performed without tribulation; for affliction willingly borne brings to light the proof of love…."

We don’t clean ourselves up before we pray—then we would never pray (or we would only pray the prayers of the Pharisees). We come to God in prayer bringing all of our weaknesses with us, even, perhaps glorying in our weaknesses. We glory in our weaknesses because we know that any deliverance we experience, any good that comes from our lives will only be evidence of God’s great love and power to save even the most screwed up, even the chief of sinners. We glory in our weakness because we know that our weakness is only another opportunity for God to reveal His greatness.

I had a conversation recently in which I couldn’t explain very clearly a comment I made several times, and as a result there was a certain amount of misunderstanding. I realize that perhaps many people have this same misunderstanding, and since it has to do with the Kingdom of Heaven, and how it “comes” or how we actually enter and live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven while we are still on earth, I thought that discussing this misunderstanding and how to overcome might be a good way to begin our discussion of “Let Your Kingdom come (as in heaven, so also on earth).”

What is the Kingdom that we are to pray come? In one sense, you can say that the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew’s gospel, is the government of God: the fact that God is ruler over all, and the Kingdom of heaven is how God rules all. When we think of the Kingdom of Heaven as the government of God, then one wonders, “What’s to come? Doesn’t God already rule over all? Don’t the scriptures teach us this?” Well, yes and no.

Repentance is a process by which we allow our minds to be changed and illumined which results in a change in our whole being: our transfiguration.

Fr. Michael reflects on a sermon by St. Gregory Palamas about barbarian invasions and sexual sins.

Fr. Michael shares from Homily 47 of St. Isaac the Syrian. "Knowledge is not something to be held in contrast to love; but rather, knowledge is the beginning of a process or journey that leads to love. Knowledge is the infancy of love. And just as a July apple is hard and green and bitter, so knowledge when its growth into love has been hindered, only makes us proud (pride being the spiritual equivalent of the upset tummy that comes from eating green apples). But when knowledge has matured, St. Isaac tells us, it ‘surmounts’ even what is natural to attain to love."

As we make our way through the ‘Great Arena of the Fast,’ let’s be careful how we suggest or inform one another about the ascetical practices and traditions that are provided for us in the Orthodox Church. The goal is holiness, not conformity. Let’s not forget Jesus’ warning to the Jewish lawyers when He said of them that they load people down with burdens hard to bear but do not lift a finger to help them.

I feel a little crazy sometimes, like an idiot—not a godly, holy idiot, just a plain, old-fashioned idiot: the kind that boasts of humility and speaks about the virtue of silence.

Deciding to follow Christ or repenting from a besetting sin is only the first step in a very long journey. St. Isaac the Syrian likens this walk with Christ to a soft drop that hallows out a hard rock. It is not the gush of water caused by a sudden cloudburst of enthusiasm that actually changes us (although it often sets a direction). It is not the dramatic move that forms us into the image of our Master. Rather, it is the “small but always persistent discipline” that carves away the hard stone of our sinful passions and smooths our rough edges and undermines the foundation of our delusions about ourselves, about the world and about God. This is why St. Isaac tells us that patience, actually, is the evidence of God’s consolation received secretly, or in a hidden way, in our souls.

Concern over God’s judgement has nothing to do with striving to be better. Concern over God’s judgement is to continually strive to enter God’s rest, to humble ourselves and feel sadness over our wretchedness, and to offer that wretchedness to God as prayer. This is what concern for God’s judgement looks like according to St. Isaac the Syrian.

Many holy fathers and mothers of the Church have pointed out that spiritual words are like powerful medicine. If taken inappropriately, what was designed to heal ends up causing harm.

Fr. Michael Gillis reminds us that our salvation lies in living humbly within our measure, pushing a little during lent, perhaps, but always judging ourselves unworthy of a higher or stricter measure. This kind of fasting will be to our spiritual benefit.

When we celebrate the Cross, we are not so much remembering the Crucifixion of Christ, as much as we are remembering the salvation that Christ’s Crucifixion has brought us and all the ways that we too are crucified with Christ. You see Christ did not suffer so that we would not have to suffer. Rather, Christ suffered on the Cross to be with us in our suffering, to lead us to the Resurrection through our suffering.

It seems whenever there is a crisis, people begin to see possible predictions and warnings about such times in the scripture. And certainly Christ does warn us to be prepared for the End, and to recognize that various tribulations and “wars and rumours of wars” would be the ongoing signs that the End is near. However, the scriptures themselves also tell us that we are already in the Last Days. That is, from the time of the Apostles we have been in the “last hour,” and already “many antichrists have come” (1John 2: 18). For just as the Kingdom of Heaven is near (at hand) at all times, so too, the End is always near.

Even as we strive to please God by disciplining ourselves and obeying His commands, we know that God loves us. We know that God will accept our striving for righteousness, even if we don’t do it very well, even if we fail. God is able to fix our mistakes. Therefore, like children striving to please a parent whom we know loves us completely, we offer what we have, what we can do, in a carefree way, knowing that 100% will never be enough to succeed completely all of the time, but it is enough to please God.

Last night I attended a prayer service in the street in front of the Coptic Orthodox Church that was burned down early Monday morning. Although some evidence points toward arson, arson has not been proven and no motive has yet been identified. However, there has been a recent spike in violence against churches (vandalism, arson and threats), some sources report over 200 significant incidents in Canada since June. Many of us may be wondering what we should do. Well, I think we should do what our Coptic Orthodox brothers and sisters are doing. We should pray and love.

Isn’t it strange how much easier it is to thank God when you have almost nothing, than it is when you have much more than you need? I have noticed this in myself. I am very thankful to God when I have a little bread (when I might not have any), but when I have bread going mouldy because I have so many other things to eat, I forget to give thanks. When we have abundance, we have to force ourselves give thanks, otherwise we won’t.

Fear and anger, however, seem to trump common sense and faith in God. Fear and anger open in us a floodgate of animal passions making it seem appropriate to demonize (or de-humanize) those we disagree with. Fear and anger release our inner muskox ready to trample those who are less clear thinking than we are, less concerned for liberty or the common good than we are, less eager to create a just and safe society than we are—or at least that’s how it appears to us. And we don’t have time to listen, truly listen, to one another. Fear and anger create urgency so that we don’t have time to listen, we don’t have time to care, we don’t have time to be Christians.

Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation to "take heed that you do not despise the little ones."

The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives always takes place on two levels, both on the level of what is outside us or what comes to us, and on the level of what is within us or how we receive what comes to us.

Fr. Stephen begins his verse by verse study in the Gospel according to St. Luke. This first episode give an introduction to the book. (Please note that the first 2 episodes will not have the same high quality audio as all of the subsequent ones.)

Fr. Stephen begins his study of the Gospel of Luke with chapter 1, verse 1.

Fr. Stephen continues the study of Luke, at chapter 1, verse 39.

Fr. Stephen concludes Luke, Chapter 1, and begins Chapter 2.

Fr. Stephen continues through Luke 2.

Fr. Stephen wraps up the discussion of Luke 2.

Fr. Stephen begins the study of Luke 3.

Fr. Stephen wraps up the discussion of Luke 3.

Fr. Stephen begins the study of Luke, Chapter 4.

Fr. Stephen concludes the study of Luke, Chapter 4.

Fr. Stephen begins the study of Luke 5.

Fr. Stephen wraps up the discussion of Luke 5.

Fr. Stephen begins the study of Luke 6.

Fr. Stephen wraps up the discussion of Luke 6.

Fr. Stephen begins the discussion of Luke 7.

Fr. Stephen continues the study of Luke 7.