The purpose of the Church is not to create healthy civilizations, nor does the Church exist to be yet one more outlet of good feelings and neuroses. The Church is that place where God is being reconciled to man, and man to God... It is the ecclesia, the Divine Community of the Body of Christ, in which we may be made whole...I need to "show up" - to be healed, to become what He wants me to be, for Him and for my family, immediate and extended, and the whole world.
Ninety percent of Orthodoxy is “just showing up.” I meant then and repeat now that the slow work of transformation requires our presence within and to the ecclesia, the Church gathered.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
missing
Since Pascha, I haven't been to a single liturgy. I miss being there, miss the communion with my extended family, and of course I miss the Holy Communion (not that these two should be separated) and become a spiritual wreckage, even more than usual. But my dear wife stays home all week with 3 kids and is constantly very tired since our 3rd was born; so on Sunday mornings - when I am with the baby, letting my wife to catch up on the sleep a bit - I feel it is unfair to her to just wake her up and leave her with the baby again while I go where I want to go. Yet, even though I think what I do is right, I do realize I may also be manipulated by the tempter and it's probably getting out of balance. And here's what I read at Fr. Stephen's blog today:
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Very true, but the temple service and our showing up goes deeper than just entering the building and packing it to the doors.
ReplyDeleteJesus says, 'Believe me, the hour is coming when worship will not be offered either on this mountain [Gerizim] or in Jerusalem... A time is coming, and in fact has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.'
And from our Jewish tradition, the fathers teach us, 'Now that the Temple is no more, the temple service is replaced by acts of mercy and lovingkindness.'
When you stay home on a Lord's Day, to give rest and relief to your dear wife, brother, it is counted in heaven as though you were present at the Mercy Seat, and the Lord Himself who moves invisibly escorted by the myriads of angels and saints, comes into your house making it His, and dines with you at your table, and offers Himself to you in your self-offering to your wife and children.
Glory to God, who has sanctified even the soles of our feet, when we run after His Son in the performance of the commandment, 'You shall love... and your neighbor as yourself.'
Thank you, brother! I realized that, although maybe not to such extent. Still, I sometimes question my thoughts and acts - just in case I've changed direction by taking turn - or by going straight where there was a turn to take.
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