The Choir, the Chanters and the Deacon -- the Four of Us

Tonsuring by His Grace, Bishop Nicholas, of Reader John Childs,
Reader John (Franklin) Tait, and Reader Joseph Schmitt (reading the Epistle),
pictured with Father Andrew Moore, August 19, 2018

It has been a while since we all served together at the same time.  When I became Orthodox, Joseph was already at the chanter stand, but not yet a tonsured reader.  He taught me most of what I know about how to put a service together.  He also sponsored me for my chrismation.  For whatever reason, likely mere necessity, Father Andrew asked me to be tonsured first.  On November 11, 2012, I was.  It took another six years for Joseph to be tonsured, almost exactly.  He, our friend Franklin and our friend John, were all tonsured together on August 19, 2018.  As an interesting aside, at the time all of us were "Reader John," except "Reader Joseph."  Franklin, John and I all shared a patron saint.  John and I still do, but the rest of that story is coming below.

Even before they were tonsured, we had all served together pretty regularly.  Joseph, Franklin and I served together at the chanter stand from very shortly after I was tonsured.  Franklin and I also served in the choir together, with that service preceding his arrival at the chanter stand.  John came along around 2014, and almost immediately began serving in the choir, and eventually at the chanter stand.  He was the choir director by the time he was tonsured, or at least very shortly after that.  The time runs together after this many years.  

The day of my own tonsure, November 11, 2012,
by His Grace Bishop Antoun (also pictured at the altar)

Later on, Franklin was ordained a deacon and is now Deacon Stephen.  Shortly prior to that he began serving at the altar rather than the chanter stand and choir.  That became sort of a "new normal."  His ordination to the diaconate was in December of 2021, the day after the Nativity.

About a year after his ordination some things happened, some of which I've touched on before, we all eventually got scattered from one another, and we no longer served together very much.  John and I continued to serve together once the Mission Effort was formed many months later, but for various reasons my service alongside John was more as a choir helper than as an actual reader for much of that time.  Joseph stayed on at our old parish about another year and then ended up attending a local Greek parish where he doesn't serve at all.  Deacon Stephen also stayed about another year, but ended up in flux because the Archdiocese he served delayed his request for a canonical release.  I won't go into the reasons for all of that, but I will say the Metropolitan of that Archdiocese was kind to grant him a leave of absence to serve at the same parish where John served in the choir and as a reader.  So he and John also got to serve together, albeit in different roles.  Eventually Deacon Stephen began attending the Mission, which by then had become a Mission Station, but like me, more in a "choir helper" capacity.  He was not blessed to serve as a deacon there until much later.

Ordination of Deacon Stephen Tait, December 26, 2021, 
pictured with Father Andrew Moore, His Grace, Bishop Nicholas,
Father Jacob Andoun, and Deacon Ray Ralston

Time continued to pass, and eventually this little Mission Station began serving Sunday services.  That was, as noted in a previous post, about a month ago.  Deacon Stephen had finally received his release, and once informed by Metropolitan Tikhon that his reception was formalized, was blessed by Father Gabe to serve at the Mission as well.  Joseph had also began visiting the Mission along the way, and he and I served together a few times when John was out of town.  It had been a long time since it was just me and him at the chanter stand.  But even with the four of us attending and serving disparately, all four of us did not have a chance to serve together, all at the same time.

Until yesterday.

Father Tom, the priest who serves our little mission, was unable to hold liturgy yesterday due to prior commitments.  Father Tom is a retired priest, and in addition to being kind enough to serve us every other week, he also provides coverage for other local priests when they are out of town or sick or otherwise unable to serve their parishes.  He had prior commitments before we decided to begin holding Sunday services, and so we have to serve Typicas for a few Sundays until he can return.  That left Deacon Stephen to lead the services, and John, Joseph and I to serve as readers.  It felt like the old days.  Even though Deacon Stephen was serving as a deacon and not as a reader or choir member, the intimacy of a small space with fewer people, combined with the fact that it was Deacon Stephen who coordinated the service with us, gave the entire service a closeness we had not really had in a long time.  Even though we are in a Slavic liturgical tradition now, we are an American church.  As such, we are encouraged to use the full depth and breadth of Orthodox liturgical music.  So we even did a few things we had all chanted together for well over a decade, like the Evlogitaria in Byzantine Tone 5, and some of the canon, which we did from memory in Byzantine Tone 4.  

It was the four of us again.  And while we all have continued to serve faithfully in our respective roles since the days when we shared a chanter stand, it felt like home.  For the first time in a very long time.  

The Church does not cater to our feelings of nostalgia or familiarity.  We have all learned that hard lesson over the past three years or so.  We should have known before then.  I was tonsured under a different bishop than the other three, and under a different Metropolitan.  Now, we are all serving under yet another bishop and Metropolitan, and different priests.  The Church doesn't stop to wait for our feelings.  The Church doesn't care if we feel comfortable.  We serve where we are called, and we are thankful for that calling.  Back when I was tonsured in 2012, I was the only reader in the parish, and I was ill equipped to do the basic functions of the office.  Comfort is not something God often provides to those He calls to serve His Church.  Service is often a chore, and a thankless one at times.

But it can be a joy as well, and ideally it should be.  Because that lonely service in 2012 was made less so by Joseph's patient help and teaching, and our priest's granddaughter, our friend Ruthie, who taught me literally everything I knew about Orthodox music up until the time she left for college.  Eventually I had to teach the the others how to properly do Byzantine chant, as Ruthie had so patiently taught me, and Joseph was still teaching me and began teaching them how the Typikon works, how the services are put together, and how to fulfill our service to the Church.  So it wasn't like the four of us all started together.  In a very real sense, we grew up together, simply expanding the family as more members were added.

The four of us, and Ruthie, August 19, 2018
(Joseph is wearing my cassock because his had not yet arrived)

We did so in the simplest of ways.  We loved and respected one another.  I was patient, using the lessons I learned from Ruthie and Joseph to help John and Franklin along.  Before long, they were teaching me things I didn't know, each of us using our gifts to improve the whole.  We deferred to one another, and we still do. Joseph still knows more about the Typicon than the rest of us.  He knows the rules and the parts of the service and what goes where as well as anyone I've ever met.  John knows music better than the rest of us.  We each know our part.  John knows everyone's part.  Deacon Stephen doesn't get to sing with us as much as we'd all like anymore, but we do a reader's Vespers and a reader's Matins when the priest isn't there, so there are times he gets to step in and provide us with a tenor part.  These days, the interaction is more broad, liturgically speaking.  He leads the service, so he is singing with us, but he is also the one leading us.  There is still a lot of deference, but more of it goes from us to him.

The Church is conciliar.  So, too, should our service be.  In the OCA, and in the Russian tradition generally, the choir is more the centerpiece of the service.  Readers are typically appointed to intone the Epistle or any portions of the prayer offices that need to be "read" instead of "sung."  But they are not chanting the tones.  So there is, appropriately, less conciliarity than there was when we all served as readers together.  John is our choir director, and in a choir, there can be only one head.  It is appropriate, and comforting, that he is our head.  

But a Mission Station is often chaotic.  We start services a little before 9:00 to ensure Matins is done before time for Typica or Liturgy.  Sometimes everyone isn't there.  I started Matins yesterday because John had some things to do.  Joseph and I kept the service moving while John handled the business of getting the nave and sanctuary ready for the service.  Then he came to the chanter stand and there was no need for discussion.  He stepped in and it was his to lead.  Deference and conciliarity require that those who are not the head always recognize and cede control to the one who is.  As our head, John established what he expected when we got to the Canon, and we rotated between one of us chanting the verses and the other chanting the refrain. When he needed something done differently, he let us know.  We followed his lead, and did the appropriate parts as he directed.  We didn't have to do much pointing or directing ourselves -- Joseph and I knew what to do.  Over a decade of conciliar deference had taught us that.  So too did the fact that John leads from the front, demonstrating how he wants things done rather than simply telling us. The comfort and familiarity in that was borne of many years of deferring to one another.  

As noted above, that comfort and familiarity is not a requirement for service in the Orthodox Church. If things are uncomfortable, or even hostile, it is still the Church.  I have been blessed to serve in choirs that ran very differently, but were all a great joy to serve in.  The choir director at our former parish, Matushka Gabrielle, taught me a great deal about liturgical chant and how the services go together in the OCA's tradition.  It was a joy to serve in her choir, and to learn from her. John served most recently under Matushka Rebecca, who taught him a great deal about organizing a service.  I have only served in her choir on one occasion, specifically to learn a particular set of litanies we planned to use at the Mission, but it was also a great blessing and I know John learned a lot from her.  We both served in the same choir together, sometimes with Ruthie as the head, sometimes John, and sometimes me.  Even just the three of us have very different leadership styles, but it always managed to work. Love goes a long way to ensure peace in a choir setting.  

We've learned lessons along the way.  John is very intentional about the music he selects.  As a very small Mission Station, we have a lot of people who would like to sing, but not as many who are already received into the Church.  We have some chrismations yet before we can actually have a full choir.  So a lot of the music he chooses is set for two parts.  Eventually that will change as we add people who can sing the other two parts.  We've all had to learn the intricacies of the Slavic Typikon, which in many ways is fuller than what we used before, and certainly different in some of the particulars.  But Sunday, we were together again.  It was a blessing, and it brought back a lot of very fond memories.  It won't be the last time, and for that I am thankful.

Missions and Stuff

The photo to the left is our "maiden voyage" at St. Patrick Orthodox Mission of Carrollton. Most of the people depicted are from our parent church, St. John the Wonderworker in Atlanta. The priest, Fr. Tom, is retired from and still attached to St. John. The deacon, Deacon Stephen, is blessed by St. John's rector, Fr. Gabe, to serve at St. Patrick, but he is also formally attached to St. John. The subdeacon, Subdeacon Matthew, serves at St. John. Even the adorable little communicant with her mother is visiting from St. John.

You can see half of the head of Reader John Childs just to the right of mom's headcovering.  He's all ours.

This was hardly our first service.  We've had probably close to a hundred or more of those.  But it was our first Divine Liturgy, and our first service as a mission that now serves liturgies on Sundays, and thus it was a big day for us. Interestingly, the picture doesn't really tell the story.  We are still a very young mission.  In terms of core Orthodox membership, there are three main families, some folks who visit a lot, and our core catechumens.  Only one catechuman has yet been received, but we hope that number will increase soon.  In fact, when we first started visitors outweighed "core" people who were brought up by the mission or joined after it was formed by a substantial margin.  Today, that isn't really the case.  In addition to the family shown here, we had a few other visitors, but most of our communicants were "our people."  Most of our non-communicant visitors were as well.

Little things matter when missions are young.  My wife and I took the weekend off for an anniversary trip.  That left a lot of "to do" stuff in the hands of folks who are more than competent to do it, but used to having extra hands around.  Others in our core leadership will do the same as time goes on.  Many hands make light work.  You learn to incorporate new people into that labor to divide the workload.  You observe who among your people is inclined to pitch in without being asked.  You learn to ask even if you think it is uncomfortable to do so in other settings. Responsibilities are organized and re-organized. It sometimes feels like everything is in flux, but the path to solidity is often unpaved.

Other little things matter too.  When you're a small mission started by people who have never done this before, "learning things as you go" can sometimes be more difficult.  We have been pleased at the support we have received from our leadership, especially Fr. Gabe, but also our Dean and Chancellor and, by extension, our Archbishop. A lot of grace is given to allow us to be successful. 

We've been a little surprised at the lack of updated written guidelines. There are guidelines, but they are not easily accessible on the diocesan or Archdiocesan websites. That is not a criticism of the diocese or Archdiocese by any means -- somehow it still manages to work out because the people in charge of new missions are very good at what they do. But it would have sure saved us a lot of early confusion and grief if more publicly available guidance were present.  Even if it were only a list of names to call if you would like to start a mission. We were fortunate the Chancellor of the Diocese of the South was visiting St. John the Wonderworker when two of our founders were there, and they struck up a conversation with him about starting a mission in Carrollton. But what if we were not so fortunate?  What if their priest wasn't retiring and the Chancellor had no reason to be there? But missions teach you, and they teach you that wishcasting doesn't bake any bread.  So inspired by the "DIY" spirit that permeates any young mission, it has occurred to us that we might ask a blessing to help revise and update the diocesan and Archdiocesan guidelines to assist future missions in their efforts. Don't talk about it.  Be about it.

There are challenges for sure. But there is something about being at the beginning of what we pray will be a long and enduring presence in a town that did not have an Orthodox presence before. It might tempt one to pride if it were not so humbling. Measures of our individual and collective unworthiness abound. We persist not because we wish to be seen by men, but because we know God is at work despite our failings. We have seen the fruit of His labor among us. Whatever our failings, He is using us and those He places in our path to effect His will.

I'm sure I'll have more to say as time goes on. For now, it is enough to say that we are blessed and thankful.

Outrage Pornography

 

Tim Kreider coined the phrase "outrage pornography" over 15 years ago now. Then and now, it encapsulates so much of what social media has wrought on our society.

The concept is simple.  So much of what we read, watch, and listen to in society is designed to stir up our emotions.  Not because it is a moral good, but because it increases engagement, and engagement is the lifeblood of the vampires in charge of our media and social discourse these days.

Over the past several years, I have stopped posting much about politics at all.  It isn't because I don't have opinions.  It isn't because I think those opinions aren't valid or that I'm not fit to discuss those matters publicly.  It's because somewhere around the last election, I began to realize that our political discussion tends to be warped.  People actually identify as being on a political side more than they identify with other vocations they may have.  As if it is politics that defines them.  And that ends in a reductionist worldview where if I am "this," then people who aren't "this" (or worse, people who are "that") aren't like me.

But I'm more than a set of political opinions.  I'm a musician.  I'm a Christian.  I'm a lawyer.  I'm a father, and a son, and a husband.  I'm a hunter.  I am an occasional fisherman.  I like good bourbon and good cigars. I like baseball, football and basketball.  So I figured -- rightly so it turns out -- that if I posted more about that stuff, I'd have less conflict with people who share those things in common with me, and more camaraderie.  Meaning, I'd find my neighbor again, because I'm neither putting them off by assuming their political views should match mine, nor being put off by them because their political views do not always match mine.

A lot of my friends did not do as I did.  I see political posts left and right.  I see other types of posts that aren't overtly political, but which are provocative, modern "edginess" being substituted for thoughtful discourse.  As one might expect, the more outraged one is, the higher the volume of such posts.  I don't fault my friends for this -- my choice is mine, and I don't expect others to necessarily do what I did.  But I do observe, and as I observe, I have a question:  Is this healthy? 

I tend to think it is not.  If all you ever post about is politics, I tend to tune you out.  That's not a partisan issue -- I don't like overtly political posts from people I agree with either.  But neither is it simply distaste on my part.  I actually think it's bad for the person doing the posting. Outrage is no basis for change.  Outrage is not inspiring.  Literally nobody cares about your anger, except those who are already angry alongside you.  So what may feel to you like a call to action ends up being a performative fiction, one reason the rise of the phrase "virtue signaling" came alongside the phrase "outrage pornography."  Again, this is not a partisan issue.  Everybody is mad about something these days.  The thing is, I have changed my mind on a lot of political and social issues over the years.  But I've never done it because someone I know was very, very angry that I didn't agree with them.

Two of my former priests told me, at different times, that if you want to change the world, you should be working to acquire holiness.  I cannot say that was the catalyst for me posting less about political issues on social media.  I had already begun doing that before the first one told me that.  But I can say that this encouragement strengthened my resolve to post less about that stuff.  Why?  As Father Paul put it, we should come to the Church to receive the gifts of God, and then go out into the world having received those gifts, and stay out of the way so the light of Christ can shine through us.  I tend to think, based on observation, that one way we stand in front of the light is when we place our politics and our opinions over our neighbor.  If we define our neighbor by how much or how little they agree with us, then we make ourselves and our opinions to be idols.  Instead of seeing Christ in our neighbor, we see someone opposed to Christ, because we have identified ourselves as the God-figure in this scenario, and someone else's disagreement with our politics is now apostasy instead of simply a different perspective.  

This is of greater concern as I view the Church today.  We have quite a lot of people seeking the Orthodox Church.  Some of them are seeking refuge from theological rigorism and quasi-fundamentalism.  Most are seeking refuge from relativism and antinomianism.  In either case, the Church has an answer, and a good one, but only if you seek the Church on her terms, not your own.  The Orthodox Church is not a Republican institution.  It is not a Democratic institution.  It certainly is not identified with one of the micro-parties in America, and it isn't identified with any party of any other country either.  The Orthodox Church claims allegiance to a Kingdom which is not of this world. Trying to cram your own political whims into that Kingdom is an exercise in folly.  But if you can let go of that and let the Church teach you, you will find that politics doesn't seem all that important anymore.  You will learn the meaning of "put not your trust in princes."  And you will begin, ever so slowly, to realize that government, like any other human institution, can be good or bad from a Christian perspective, but it is never overtly Christian, even when (perhaps especially when) it pretends to be.

The other danger is people who think in binary political terms tend to use their opinions as a litmus test.  I cannot say how many times I've had a conversation with someone and they interject their political opinions as if I should naturally agree with them.  And if I don't, the conversation takes an uncomfortable turn.  Which is to say, people who tend to stay outraged over politics and bond with others over sharing that outrage also tend to think that everyone else should share their outrage.  It's not enough to just not want to talk about it.  Silence is violence or some such nonsense.

We can do better.  We should do better.  My non-Christian friends can get a pass on this, even though I think they would be happier if they took the approach I suggest.  But I hope to encourage my Christian friends to consider whether overt, biased and partisan political views are consistent with what my former priests encouraged.  Is this holiness?  Or is it something else?  If it is something else, perhaps it is to be tempered instead of amplified.  We are more than our opinions.  And we ought not submit to the temptation to be outraged.  And if the culture refuses to go along with us, then perhaps we will learn what it means to be Christians.  The Church should bend the culture, not bend to it.

The Stuff

 "Beware of limiting the good of fasting to mere abstinence from meats. Real fasting is
alienation from evil. ‘Loose the bands of wickedness.’ Forgive your neighbour the mischief he has done you. Forgive him his trespasses against you. Do not ‘fast for strife and debate.’ You do not devour flesh, but you devour your brother. You abstain from wine, but you indulge in outrages. You wait for evening before you take food, but you spend the day in the law courts. Woe to those who are ‘drunken, but not with wine.’ Anger is the intoxication of the soul, and makes it out of its wits like wine."


-- St. Basil, in his homilies on the Holy Spirit


The Orthodox faith is not the acceptance of a set of beliefs, or adherence to a set of rules.

Let me say that again. The Orthodox faith is NOT the acceptance of a set of beliefs, or adherence to a set of rules.

Why do I bring this up? Because in the circle of friends and acquaintances I have, I see too much equating of Orthodoxy with rulekeeping. What I call "doing the stuff."

The explanation of what I mean by this is simple. Keep your prayer rule. Do the fasts. Go to the services. Kiss the right stuff in the right order. Wear the appropriate clothing. Use the correct words.

As I've said before, there is absolutely nothing at all wrong with this. "The stuff" is part of our Tradition for a reason. But I was speaking to a friend recently who was given very strict instructions for keeping the Lenten fast. My friend said "I did it, but I have never felt farther away from God."

That makes sense to anyone who truly lives an Orthodox life. "Doing the stuff" isn't magic. "Doing the stuff" doesn't make you holy. "Doing the stuff" is not what brings you closer to God. As St. Basil says above, fasting is done to train the body and soul. But it must be done out of love. It must never be done out of obligation or compulsion. Why? Because obligation and compulsion are foreign to love. They, in fact, destroy love. If you don't believe this, try telling your wife or husband they are required to do something because you say so. Report back your findings in the comment section. We may require stricter obligation from our children to protect them while they are young, but eventually we cut those apron strings too. Love is reciprocal, not impositional.

Father Paul once told me "Reader John, if I tell you that you must do something, then you will only do so much as is required to please me and no more. But if I show you the value in doing something, you will choose to do it as diligently as you can." I have found this to be true. The topic wasn't fasting, but his point still stands. Orthodoxy is not about compulsion to "do the stuff." Orthodoxy is about entering into union with God. "The stuff" is great, to the extent it draws you into union with God. And it will, if you will let it. But "the stuff" never takes the place of the virtues such as love, forgiveness, meekness, kindness, charity, humility. Rather, "the stuff" teaches us to practice those virtues by denying ourselves. And the only way it works is if you enter into it freely and not out of compulsion or perceived obligation. We do "the stuff" because we love Christ and His Church. If those within the Church attempt to bind us to "the stuff," then "the stuff" becomes an idol. Instead of deepening our union with Christ, it binds us instead to the rule and the person imposing it. Which, as my friend noted, makes us feel farther from God, not closer, because we are putting "the stuff" in between ourselves and God.

This is not a statement against fasting. We fast in my family, and we try to do so diligently, and we fail, and then we try some more. When we fail, we confess (I have been told by more than one priest "that is not a sin" when I confess I haven't kept the fast well, for what it's worth). And then we get up and put one foot in front of the other and continue striving.

Why? Certainly not because God needs us to fast. Certainly not because some priest told us we have to. No, we fast because fasting is good for us. We pray for the same reason. We attend services for the same reason. We crave the Sacraments for the same reason. We do these things because we love Christ and His Church. If we do them for any other reason, then we fall into the trap of self-justification, which ultimately is pride. So sure -- do the stuff. Do all of it, and do it as diligently as you can. But please, dear Christians, do not get wrapped around the axle worrying about how well you do them. If your priest doesn't understand this, then pray for him. But do not let him rob you of the joy of fasting, or praying, or doing any of the other stuff. The stuff is good. Pride is the enemy.

Kindness, Appearances, Judgment, Absolution, Prayer

 

It is a basic truth that "you can't judge a book by its cover."  There is a post making the rounds on Facebook since last evening that encapsulates a proper Christian attitude toward this truism:

"One Sunday Metropolitan Anthony Bloom gave a sermon as follows:

'Last night a woman with a child came to this church. She was in trousers and with no headscarf. Someone scolded her. She left. I do not know who did that, but I am commanding that person to pray for her and her child to the end of his days to God for their salvation. Because of you she may never go to church again.'

He turned around, head down, and entered the Altar. That was the entire sermon."

Wow!  "To the end of his days....."   Such a harsh judgment.  

But is it?

Our first response might be triumphalistic: "The Metropolitan has put this person to work, punishing him with dutiful daily prayer for this person and her child."  That was certainly my first instinct.  I told a friend who re-posted the story above, "repentance is hard, being nice is easy."  What I meant at the time was "that's a lot of work, that'll teach him!"

Having slept on it, I'm convinced this is the wrong approach.  Rather than punishing the offender, the Metropolitan is teaching him by showing him the path to humility, and reminding him that Christ loves this woman just as much as Christ loves the man who scolded her.  He is placing the man in service to the woman and her child, making her salvation and her child's salvation his business.  

And why should it not be?  We think of it as punishment because it is a command, a duty he now owes.  We consider it a burden because he does not know her, or her child, and yet he is now bound to them, for the rest of his life, for a moment of poor judgment.  And yet, isn't it a joy to pray for the salvation of others?  And wasn't it his decision to enter into her world and make her and her child his business in the first place?  Doesn't Christ put people into our lives that we might remember them and pray for them?  Why is it a burden to pray for someone you offended (or who offended you), but not for, say, someone whose entrance into the Church you sponsored?  We count the latter as joy and the former as work.  But the truth is, both are joy!

His prayer for her and her child does not undo the hurt he caused.  As I've said many times, you can say "I'm sorry," but you cannot undo emotional hurt any more than you can unbreak a bone.  The absolution is not in the act, or even in God's forgiveness.  God forgives, always, and we should too.  Instead, the absolution is in the untying of you to your act of sin, and tying you instead to an act of mercy.  

The word "absolve" does not roughly equate to "get out of jail free."  Rather, it means to release or set free.  It comes from a French root that means to loosen, divide, or cut apart.  Absolution is not a matter of being declared not guilty, or even making good what you did wrong.  Sometimes you are guilty and sometimes you cannot undo what you did wrong.  Absolution is cutting you loose from the damage you have done, and lashing you instead to Christ and His mercy, and His love for the one you injured.  And that is enough.

I'm sure the Metropolitan was at least a little perturbed at the mistreatment of this woman and, by extension, her child.  Yet, our cultural conditioning that views the Christian life and service to God in terms of reward and punishment distorts the reality of what is happening here.  The offending man should be happy, even excited, to pray for this woman and her child.  He should, for sure, mourn the damage he did.  But rather than self-flagellating by being forced to ....... pray for her? (it seems silly when you just say what is happening), this man is being bound to a person whom he decided to berate, not to punish him, but to teach him to love her and her child as Christ loves him and them. Learning to love is not punishment.  It is a gift.

I can tell you from long experience that grudges are easy to hold and hard to let go of.  Praying for the one against whom you hold the grudge is usually the best medicine.  It should be no different when you think you have offended someone.  Pray for them.  Pray for their salvation.  Pray that you not be the stumbling block that keeps them from the Kingdom.  

And do so joyfully. It is not a punishment.  St. Stephen welcomed his own murderer into heaven with open arms.  The least we can do is pray for those upon whose toes we step.

Returning to Catechesis and Reception

The road to Orthodoxy is usually the subject of blogs, including this one (which started as a "journey" type blog).  The road through Orthodoxy has become a more common theme here, but is rarely discussed as much.

One of the things that has typified our journey to and through Orthodoxy is this -- nothing ever stays the same.  Things change.  People change.  Parishes change.  We lose bishops, even Metropolitan bishops. Even Patriarchs. We change priests. The Church adapts to the new hierarchs and pastors and continues on.  Sometimes we ride those waves out with a smile, sometimes with a tear.  But the Church is ever onward, and so are we.

I was asked last week to sponsor a young man for reception into the Orthodox Church.  I was, of course, happy to do it.  He attends a small Orthodox mission we're involved with, and was being received at the parent church of my home church.  He is also the very first member of St. Patrick Orthodox Mission who was not already Orthodox when the mission was founded.  It was unmitigated joy to help him enter the Orthodox faith.

 

As part of that, though, there was an added benefit of being reminded of why we're here.  Due to some issues we've dealt with, it's been several years since I've sponsored anyone.  It's easy to forget what a blessing it is, even though I've witnessed numerous receptions at my home parish in those years.  It's more intense when you're standing there with the soon-to-be-illumined.  You hear the prayers, the admonitions, the exhortations, the beckoning of the Church.  You remember the brush crossing your eyes, your ears, your forehead, your lips.  You remember the first time you received communion within the Church, and the overwhelming feeling that you were finally home.  There is always joy in a reception.  You are just closer to it as a sponsor.

I am blessed that I will see another round of these this coming Saturday at my own parish.  I will not be a sponsor, but I will see them with a renewed zeal.  I will witness them with a refreshed perspective.  There is something about Holy Week that is a relief, even though you are turning up the volume of services and the length of them as well.  It is a lot of work, and little rest.  And it is worth it if only to be reminded of why we are here -- soon, we will shout "Christ is risen!"

One thing I appreciate about the Orthodox Church and her rituals is this -- the ceremonies, the rites, the services, they all catechize.  They teach us.  Going back and reviewing the basics is good.  Remembering our own baptism is good.  Remembering when we entered into the Church is good. Looking below this to the prior post, where my own reception and that of my family is memorialized in photographic form, is a reminder that we, too, once stood at the doorstep of the Church, begging entrance. Glory to God for the reminder of that joy, and many years to His newly illumined servant, Alfred.  God is good, always.