A family affair

I think most of us would agree that Christmas is a family affair whether we are religious or not. We get together, exchange presents and enjoy Christmas fare and cheer. In our parish we are still in the advent fast and still have two more Sundays before we celebrate the Nativity. What amazes me every year is that Christmas is a family affair not only for us on earth but it is a family affair celebrated by God. God takes on human flesh and is born of a human Mother. How close can you get to God than to be his earthly mother, to bear the uncontainable in a human womb? Every birth is a great mystery but even more so that of Our Lord and Saviour. It saddens me that some Christians ignore the motherhood of Mary, regarding it as a byproduct of the Divine Incarnation. I can understand the protestant reaction to the Mariology of the Roman Catholic Church but nevertheless she is at the center of our salvation for she is the person who allowed this miracle to take place. In this respect she is the Mother of all Christians. Her purity, piety and obedience to the Divine, places her closest to the Lord than anyone else born on earth. A truly family affair - everyone in the story of Christmas seems to be related. Elizabeth is Mary's cousin and spiritually the key players are family too. Joseph, the shepherds, even the pagan Magi are part of the holy family in that they were close to God. And we too if we have humility and a pure heart are part of this holy event.

How drug dependent are we?

How drug dependent are we?
Some people drink coffee and energy drinks to wake up each morning. They take Ritalin and Adderall to help them focus in school or at work. At the end of the day they use alcohol to help them unwind. If they have a stressful job they take anxiety medication to calm their nerves and sleeping pills to help them overcome the effects of all the stimulants they have taken during the day. Fortunately more people are beginning to realize that chemical stimulants, drugs and alcohol are clumsy, unhealthy and dangerous tools for helping us get through the day. The answer is prayer.

I remember reading in the 'Way of the Pilgrim' how the narrator had to look after an unruly boy. This boy had 'ants in his pants', what they like to call ADD and ADHD. Well this boy could not sit still. The narrator made him sit on a chair, threatening him with a whip if he got off. This did not work. The boy seemed immuned to physical punishment. Suddenly the man had an idea. He gave the boy a prayer rope and told him to say 100 Jesus prayers. The boy began and after the hundred could not stop. In fact he calmed down and stayed on the stool for most of the morning in prayer. The story ends with the boy becoming facile in saying the prayer and able to concentrate and stay calm.

The grace of suffering

I would like to share this story with you.

Vera Feodorovna lost the use of her right kidney. A stone had moved from this kidney into the urethra and had blocked it. The pain was unimaginable. She lay in great suffering. An X-ray showed that there was a stone causing the blockage. Doctors gave instructions to the hospital to carry out an operation immediately in order to save her life. Vera asked her brother to ask Matushka Alypia for a blessing for the operation. Matushka prayed for a long time before the icons but did not give an answer. Vera asked her brother to go again to get a blessing for the operation. This time Matushka replied: "No! Don't do it. They will butcher you and they will take away the grace - and don't worry you will not be crippled but able to walk normally."

The pain was so bad that she did not know what to do with herself. She was convinced that she would be crippled and not able to walk. After two to three days, she realized that she could walk quite normally although the pain remained. She spoke with Matushka about the pain and Matushka prayed. The pain lessened but did not go away. To this day Vera can still feel the stone. A scan confirmed the presence of the stone in the urethra. However it had been assimilated into the tissue. Vera realized that although earthly doctors might be able to help her, it was more important to place her life in the hands of the Heavenly Physician so that she would not lose grace.

God is nearer to us when we suffer without complaining. Whether that suffering is physical, psychological or spiritual, or a combination of all three. The moment we despair we lose the grace that comes with suffering. Many of us are sick at the moment and I ask you to pray not only for a speedy recovery but that those who suffer may not lose the grace that God gives to His children in need. Please pray for me - I have gout in both feet and am unable to stand, for Alla, Lena, Seraphim, Nina and Inna and any others that need our prayers.

A young man went to Matushka Alypia to ask for a cure for his migraine. When he arrived he found Matushka lying on her couch with a towel wrapped around her head. She was suffering from intense migraine. The young man was scandalized believing that Matushka was a healer and could not understand how she could help him when she herself was suffering in the same way. He turned to leave and suddenly discovered that his migraine had gone.

Let us wonder at the spiritual feats (podvigi) of Blessed Alypia who was able to bear the suffering of others while we can hardly bear our own.

In His image

What kind of image do we have of God? For Philip Pullman, the atheist author of the Golden Compass trilogy, God is an old man who eventually gets killed and according to the author, deservedly so. For Pullman, God is a Big Daddy with a stick who metes out punishment to sinners in the flames of Hell.

Hell is one place you don’t want to end up in. This view of Hell as a place of punishment, is an objective and external view – a place imposed on the sinner by God. However there is another view, namely that of the early Christians who saw Hell (or Hades as they called it) as something internal or subjective, that is a condition rather than a place imposed on the sinner by his or her own moral shortcomings. They saw man as the image of God and yet a distorted image through the sickness of sin. God did not take His grace away from Adam but rather Adam lost it through his disobedience. For the early church, and for Eastern Christians today, Hell is an existential experience. It is the inability of a person to respond to his own potential Divinity– created in His image and likeness –an inability to respond to God’s love. It is not simply our moral shortcomings that deprive us of Heaven but the failure to realize our potential and thereby to alienate ourselves from His presence. Sin is a spiritual illness, which transforms the presence of Heaven into Hell.

In today's world there is much mental illness. I believe that much of this is the burden of sin, of being unable to be Christ like. Prozac is not a substitute for prayer.

When we die, we will all stand before the presence of God. For those who have the love of Christ it will be Heaven, but for those who hate the light and are unable to love, it will be Hell, a place where sinners will be scourged by the whip of God’s love.