Making Sure

The judge denied Terri Schiavo's parents the right to reinsert the feeding/hydration tube, then the judicial system refused to become involved in the ehtical delima of whether or not to become involved. To be quite honest, this came as a huge surprise, nay, a shock to me. Judges are supposed to make certain the rights of individuals are not infringed upon and their human rights are upheld and protected. Aren't they? Or do they simply not want to get involved in this particular set of ethics?

I don't blame them really, if you look at it. I mean, we as humans ourselves should have the common decency to keep one of our own alive. If you truly look at this case was not a "right to die" case because this woman wasn’t dying. She was alive. She responded to loved ones as best as she could. Withholding sustenance from her was an act of murder. If she was on a respirator/ventilator and her brain was damaged to the point to where she was brain dead and could not breathe on her own, then I can accept the hard decision of "pulling the plug" and letting her body release her soul. What is happened with Terri Schiavo then?

The entire ordeal seemed to be hinged on her condition "improving" it appears. Her condition was not going to improve. She is one of those unfortunate individuals who has had her life forever changed, but she still had a chance at living the best life she could with some medical assistance of a feeding tube. She responded to loved ones, just as my father did, and this speaks volume's for her as a living human being.

Killing her speaks volumes as well. It says we, as a race of intelligent creatures, created in the likeness of God, don't care and should not care about someone who has fallen from a healthy individual. What should come next then? If a child is found to have Down's Syndrome they should be exterminated because they are not perfect? And what of individuals such as myself who must rely upon my husband to have a good quality of life, to sometimes help me dress, to put my socks on me because I can't, am I in line for being murdered because I require assistance? And what of Superman Reeves? Should he have just been permitted to suffocate because he could not breathe on his own? Immediately the argument can be made that he could speak and say for himself. But, if you look at it deeply, there isn't a difference. He had a guardian in his wife. What if his wife had decided in a moment of his unconsciousness it was time to kill him, to withhold the air he needed to live? Would that have been considered putting him out of his misery by other human beings or as murder?

For myself, as a disabled individual, I am going to file documents, very carefully I must add, as to who should make decisions for me if I become incapacitated. I want to make certain someone who loves me, and loves me dearly, will come and check me out to help decide what should or should not be done. It will not only be my husband, but it will also be someone else so the burden is not totally upon his shoulders. This decision with Terri Schiavo has so decreased my belief that human beings, as a race are intelligent and kind. In fact, it is quite opposite - they are, on the whole, cruel and rather quick to judge someone a problem and desire to get rid of them.

In fact, I urge everyone to make your decisions and make a claim for your own safety before they start bumping people off quickly. Don't laugh. Really. Should something happen to you the doctors, the world, will not give you a chance at life. A life God should have say over and not humanity. After all, humanity's track record with good decisions has not been that great. Look to yourselves people, look to your loved ones, protect yourself and them.

Life and Death

Everyone knows who Terri Schiavo is now, and like it or not, her case has impacted the United States, if not the world. Being a disabled individual myself, I have been paying very close attention to the case because "there, except for the grace of God, am I." It is a very sobering thought. As a Christian I find Terri Schiavo's husband's actions deplorable and inhumane. I do not judge him, because I do not know him, but the action of permitting someone to starve to death is beyond callous in so many ways. What would Christ say in such a matter as this?

The Jesus Prayer

O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

The Penitential Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to your servant.
(kneel and bow)

Yes, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother, for You are blessed from all ages to ages. Amen.

(said three times with prostrations)




This prayer should be prayed DAILY throughout Great Lent.

Looking Ahead, Looking Back

Some people have said, “You shouldn’t really look back too often, because you run the risk of living in the past instead of looking forward to the future.” I don’t know about this. If you constantly are looking back so much that you keep yourself from moving forward, yes, I agree, this is a bad thing, but if you are looking back to see where you have come from, it usually gives you a better idea of where you’re going, or can go. This is ultimately true of being a Christian, especially an Eastern Orthodox Christian.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition we look back at what the Saints have done and try to emulate them. We look at the history of Christ and the Church here on earth and keep our faith going. In order to keep our faith going, to hold fast to the traditions we have been taught and are constantly learning all the days of our lives, we do not change to bring in more people. We hold fast to our beliefs and traditions set down by Christ and His Apostles. We are constantly looking back to see where we have been in order to look forward and see where we are going as the Church as well as individuals.

Holding fast to one’s beliefs and the doctrines of a faith are actually quite difficult in today’s modern society. In this blossoming 21st Century we are constantly bombarded with the idea of “change” and “keeping up” with the rest of the world. Sometimes “keeping up with the rest of the world” goes exactly opposite with what we really should do as Christians. We are called to “live in the world, but not be part of the world.”

For the longest time this phrase drove me nuts! What did it really mean? You have to live in the world if you’re going to succeed – you know, have the good job, a house, retirement, a family. You simply can’t just shut down. Then again, you could always go to a monastery and REALLY be separated from the world, but not all of us are called for that and are given that particular gift. I do not have this particular gift. So, where did this leave me and others like me? What did this really mean?

As I progressed in the faith and in the teachings of Christ’s Church, I slowly began to realize the answer was quite a simple one, yet complex as most simple answers are. Living in the world but not being a part of the world meant taking responsibility for my actions. It means looking at my life and deciding if I am going to live to suit the world or to suit God. It means raising my children and teaching them, not just letting them grow and “be their own person.” It means teaching them what I value even if it goes against what they want to do. It means paying attention to my husband, my friends, those children under my charge and what they are going through and doing the best I can to help them as Christ would want me to do. It means accepting a place in a church community and in life and advancing job wise without losing my morals. It means making choices, and not just hectic choices such as what to eat for lunch during Fast, but choices concerning whether or not the advancement at my place of employment will further my career or will it further my career in going against my faith? (I.e. Will I agree to advertise for an abortion clinic if I am against abortion just for the paycheck?) And, the choices are not always easy to make.

So, it all comes back down to whom I am going to really please - Myself and the world for that nice big paycheck, or God and have hope for my soul when I go to my rest?

This, of course, is hypothetical about the paycheck, but I hope you get what I am trying to say. Sometimes we have to take a stand for what we believe and in being an Eastern Orthodox Christian I have had to take more stands than what I was prepared for, but they were stands I made because of what I believed and not what I was “told” I believe. And, before I make any serious choices or decisions, I talk it over with my priest, because he really does have good advice. And, sometimes, he says, “This is something you are going to have to decide.”

It is very strange to have the knowledge of responsibility for my actions, for my life. Not only is there responsibility, but there is a God out there loving me and encouraging me to do well and still make my way toward Him.

I admit it, I don’t like making the tough choices, but I do like going before God with as much of a clear conscience as possible.

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 8:8-9:2
Gospel: St. Matthew 25:31-46

The Uncalculating Heart: St. Matthew 25:31-46, especiallyvss. 37-39: “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?” It is a blessed day of discovery, a day of dread recognition, when one looks within and admits, “I am starving, emaciated, mad withthirst, naked, unclothed, shame-ridden, spiritually sick,and imprisoned.”

The Lord teaches all who come to Him about this blessed state of destitution (Mt. 5:3-12), so that like Mary ofEgypt, one’s soul learns the pain of alienation from Life but is unable to return to the world. All is empty for the“poor in spirit.” They can only cry, “Lord, Jesus Christ,Son of God, have mercy upon me, the sinner.” In that instant, the blessed discover the hand of the Lover ofMankind. They inch toward Him, and He points toward the perilous, narrow trail of repentance. He steadies with His gracious hand. He gives the Bread of Life, slakes the parching thirst. He becomes clothing, healing, and freedom - the true Friend Who embraces.

Imagine what the pitiful poor-in-spirit will do if he meets a fellow sufferer along the way. Naturally, he will share whatever he has. His heart, now stained indelibly with love, gives simply because there is a need. He does not calculate, but simply responds. As he cannot turn back from his true Friend, so, likewise, he can only continue steadily toward others, always remembering to feed and to forgive. Yes, he will share whatever he has.

We have the wonderful example of this in the Roman soldier, Martin. He served in the army solely because his father wished it, but Martin was blessed to discover Christian faith. He became a catechumen. One winter day, while onduty, as he came into a city, he was stopped by a beggar: “Would he give alms?” Martin had no money. He did see that the beggar was blue with cold and shivering. He took off the cloak of his uniform, cut it in half with his saber, gave one part to the beggar, and went on into the city. We know that blessed soldier as Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours.

Blessed Theophylact bids us look at the disposition of such saints: “...they deny, with befitting modesty, that they have cared for Him.” Why? Very simply - they do not calculate. They are preoccupied with gratitude, delight, and joy in the Lord.

Yesterday, we considered the Lord’s “great glory” when He comes again upon the Cloud of Divine Majesty. An inescapable element of that glory will be the final judgmentof all mankind. What will the Lord look for in each of us?

He will look for gratitude, delight, and love. He will not review our giving to charity, nor our work in prison ministry, nor our struggle to relieve world hunger. It is dangerous to take assurance from any efforts we have invested in such activities. St. Paul warns us about this sort of thinking: “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3). In today’s passage the Lord Jesus sets forward His basis for judgment are: His light and His love planted and flowering in ourhearts? Do we calculate, or do we love?

St. John of Kronstadt teaches that “The purer the heart becomes, the larger it becomes; consequently it is able to find room for more and more loved ones.” How easy it is to forget the poor, the neglected, the homeless, the destitute, the old, the sick, and the broken hearted. Were the Lord not to heal our hearts, there would be no ability at all in us to love. God help us!

I have no life, no light, no joy or wisdom; no strength except in Thee, O God. Enable me at all times to speak andact to Thy glory, with a pure spirit, with humility, patience, love, gentleness, peace, courage, and wisdom.

What Will the Lord Look For?

Reprinted by permission from Adynamis

The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
Kellia: St. Matthew 20:1-16
6th Hour: Joel 2:12-26
2nd Vespers: Joel 3:12-21

Fasting III ~ Judgment: St. Matthew 20:1-16, especially vs.15: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my ownthings? Or is your eye evil because I am good?” If we willclosely examine this parable of the Lord Jesus concerning alandowner paying his workers’ wages in the evening, it canbrightly illumine the relationship between fasting andDivine Judgment for us. However, St. John Chrysostom isquite right in pressing us to inquire fundamentally, “Whatthen does the parable mean?” his point being that “it isnecessary first to make [this point] clear” before applyingits message. St. Theophylact of Bulgaria states the meaningof the parable quite succinctly for us: “Christ...went outfrom the bosom of the Father and hired....each one to laborin the vineyard which is his own soul.” The task, then, ofthe laborers requires those, “who by the grace of Christhave been made righteous through baptism, [to] receive powerto conquer our opponent who has already been cast down andslain by Christ.” What is the name we give to this workwithin our souls of conquering our enemy but askesis - thestruggle by various methods “to fight the passions and evilhabits, to overcome temptation”?

Of course, one of the principal methods for fighting thepassions is fasting, coupled with the study of Scripture,prayer, the cultivation of the virtues - the practice ofpiety in general. By all of these methods we labor in thevineyard of our souls. In the matter of Divine Judgment,one of the Holy Fathers rightly asks us, “and just as thehired hand is ashamed to enter the house and ask forbread on a day when he has not worked, how will you not beashamed to enter church and stand before God’s gaze when youhave done nothing good in God’s sight?” God has set fastingand all the ascetic practices before us as the labor forwhich He has called us. So God’s judgment on ourdiscipleship is involved when we come to receive our wagesin the evening, whether the evening of each day or at thefinal sunset of our life.

St. Gregory the Great rightly cautions us that at the timesof Divine Judgment “no one should boast of his work or ofhis time, when after saying this [parable] Truth cries out”‘So the last will be first and the first last.’ We knowwhat good things we have done and how many they are; we donot know with what exactitude our Judge on high willinvestigate them.” However, the parable does provide lightfor considering God’s judgment on our fasting and all ouraskesis. For it shows us that God sets His standards forour askesis (vs. 7); further, that we have no claim beforeHim on our part that obligates His judging (vss. 11-15);and, thankfully, that Christ our God Who called us to thisgracious labor, is not capricious but good and compassionate(vs. 15).

Our Master and our Benefactor “agreed with the laborers fora denarius a day” (vs. 2), whether they were called early orlate (vss. 4,5,7). When we “commend our ourselves [ourbodies, souls, and spirits]...and all our life unto Christour God,” do we not declare that our souls are His vineyard,that the labor His, and that the salvation we are to receiveis His to give?

It is obviously our Lord Who sets the standards for our
askesis. In the Sermon on the Mount, it is He Who defineshow we are to conduct our prayer, fasting, almsgiving, andall our askesis. In the present parable, He stoutly refusesthe claim of those who hold up “the burden and the heat ofthe day” (vss. 11-14) as constituting any claim for somebetter or higher salvation.

The good news for us who are not always as rigorous in ourlabors as God intends is that the Owner of our souls is goodand compassionate (vs. 15), not capricious. He “is notunjust to forget your work and labor of love which you haveshown toward His Name” (Heb. 6:10).

Awaken us from the sleep-walking of daily life by an activeaskesis to clear away the silt in the depth our souls, sothat the spring of living waters may quench the thirst ofour hearts.