Tag: Christianity

From 2015 to 2017, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 17% — about one in six — of children ages 3-17 were diagnosed with a developmental disability, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability.

It’s a figure accentuating a distinct disconnect with another set of statistics, cited by the National Catholic Partnership on Disability: Almost one-third of parents polled in a 2010 study of 400 families who have children with disabilities said they left at least one church because their child was not included or welcomed. A 2013 study found more than half of surveyed parents of children with disabilities reported their child with a disability had been excluded at church.

The urgent need for Catholic parishes to welcome young and old with disabilities — and their families — was prominent among presentation threads at a Feb. 17 conference held virtually by the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, “From Inclusion to Belonging: Creating Communities that Foster Mental Health for All.”

“A conference like this allows us the opportunity to acknowledge, what are the needs? What are we hearing; what are we seeing?” Arlington Bishop Michael F. Burbidge, who is both chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities and the episcopal moderator for the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, told OSV News. “To see where we have been somewhat effective in responding to those needs, and maybe sharing best practices with one another.”

“But also — with great humility — to acknowledge where there are gaps; where we can continue to improve,” Bishop Burbidge added. Such an obligation, he emphasized, isn’t optional. “This is the mandate of the Gospel,” he said. “It’s something we all must embrace.”

Indeed, the USCCB — in its 2017 document “Guidelines for the Celebration of the Sacraments with Persons with Disabilities” — flatly states: “It is essential that all forms of the liturgy be completely accessible to persons with disabilities.”

Listening sessions in the Diocese of Arlington — which is located just outside Washington — reinforced the necessity for action.

“With every listening session — every single one, without exception — we heard from people who said, ‘Could we do more to respond to the pastoral and spiritual needs of those with intellectual, developmental and other disabilities?’” Bishop Burbidge said. “And so obviously, that became part of our strategic plan.”

Awareness, Bishop Burbidge emphasized, is critical.

“Sometimes we can — as a parish or pastoral council — say, ‘We just don’t have anyone with intellectual disabilities or any certain needs in our parish.’ Well, the truth is that you do. Everyone does,” he said. “But we have to be willing to ask.”

Conference keynote speaker Mark Bradford — the Venerable Jerome Lejeune fellow at Word on Fire Ministries, and parent of a 22-year-old son with Down syndrome — told listeners, “Almost everyone — 90% by polls — agrees that we are in a mental health crisis in this country, and that it’s affecting us in various ways and various levels of severity.”

That crisis is even more threatening for those with disabilities, Bradford explained.

“There’s always a more substantial impact — anything that happens in the culture — on a more vulnerable population,” he said.

Bradford noted there is a 38% prevalence of mental health issues among people with disabilities — a fact that can be worsened by the exclusion often experienced in a parish setting.

“There’s the transcendent dimension of the human person that has to be satisfied to be healthy,” observed Bradford. “If there is not a response and a provision for that aspect of the human person — the transcendent dimension of the human person — once again, our physical health as well as our mental health are compromised.”

“So the question for us,” Bradford continued, “is how do we facilitate this conversation between intellectually disabled individuals and Christ?”

According to a 2004 study by Erik W. Carter — the Cornelius Vanderbilt professor of special education at Vanderbilt University — fewer than half of children and young people with autism and other disabilities attended religious services in any given year.

“This is a situation that we know exists, and that we need to work together to try to find solutions for. We have to get people to church,” Bradford said. “We have to ask ourselves why they’re not there. And we have to find ways within our parishes to find them, and bring them back so that they can be with us, worship within the body of Christ with us — and experience the recovery, and the solidity, and the confidence to lessen the vulnerability, reduce the stress, and allow people to heal and to become mentally well.”

Some individuals are, Bradford explained, uncomfortable with people who have disabilities; some are afraid of saying the wrong thing or giving offense.

“Through exposure, through relationship, through coming to better understand and see the humanity in individuals with disabilities, we can come to accept them,” said Bradford, “and welcome them more fully.”

The approach, emphasized Bradford, must be personal — not institutional.

“Individuals with disabilities are starving for relationships,” Bradford said, and parishes should include them “not because we’re doing them a favor, by welcoming them in, but they’re doing us a favor. Not so we can do acts of charity to make ourselves feel good; that’s insincere. … We’re embracing them as Christ asks us to embrace them.”

Kelly Mantoan, founder and executive director of Accepting the Gift, a ministry for parents who have children with disabilities, offered conference participants an opportunity to learn what the church can do to include — not isolate — individuals experiencing mental illness and other disabilities.

“My journey kind of started as a Catholic mommy blogger in 2012,” Mantoan said by way of a greeting, explaining that her two youngest sons — ages 13 and 15 — have a degenerative neuromuscular disorder, spinal muscular atrophy, that requires using power wheelchairs.

“As I started sharing more of my family’s life online — especially about what it was like to be a parent to my youngest two sons — I started getting a lot of emails from other parents whose children had a wide variety of diagnoses,” Mantoan said. “And they were reaching out to me — just this random blogger — because I was the only other Catholic special needs parent that they knew. They didn’t see any other children like their children in their parishes, and they didn’t know any other parents that were going through the struggles that they had.”

Their struggles were depressingly similar, she noted, and easily discouraging.

“When you get there,” Mantoan said, painting a verbal picture of a parish, “and there’s physical barriers — if I can’t get my boy’s wheelchairs anywhere in the building easily — if you get rude comments; or if you’re excluded or told to take your child outside because they’re being too loud — that could very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

Relationships are essential, Mantoan stressed.

“The most basic thing that I recommend for any family that has a child with disabilities, just start working on building a relationship with your religious education department: the DRE, the teachers and your parish priest,” she said. “Get to know them.”

For parents who may already be stretched thin, proactivity is yet another item on their to-do list. Advocacy, however, will not only benefit them.

“As you’re starting this process, look around your parish — find the members that have disabilities and their families, and start a dialogue with them,” Mantoan recommended. “This will be your first step. If you look around and you do not see people with disabilities, that is a huge red flag. It means that something is keeping them from coming — and you need to find out what it is.”

“If we don’t put in the work, we’re literally losing souls,” Mantoan emphasized. “We are saving souls. There are eternal consequences here.”

That is, Mantoan said, something parishes must wake up to.

“Taking action is not about doing things to make people feel special — but to make it possible for them to do what everyone else takes for granted,” Mantoan said. “You think about the man who had to be lowered through the ceiling to get to Jesus (Lk. 5:17-39). Everybody else could just walk in the door. … It shouldn’t be up to us as the parents to keep breaking in the ceiling.”

Prayer is the Meeting of Two MysteriesToday we’re going to talk about a deep existential question that is of vital importance and has many dimensions in our lives.

“>Part 1

Feelings That Aren’t Expressed Become SicknessesIn order to encounter God, we must be sincere in prayer.

“>Part 2

    

On acquiring hesychasm, or silence

Of course, it’s very difficult for people to concentrate. We’ve already spoken about an important aspect of prayer today. Prayer has many dimensions, and one of them is the problem you’re talking about: How to gather your thoughts to truly pray.

Indeed, it’s very difficult to bring the mind into concentration. The Holy Fathers of the Church often talk about this, considering it a consequence of the Fall, that is, a sickness of the mind.

The first thing to do when we begin living according to the teachings of Christ and we have a lot of thoughts is not to worry about it. That is, when some thought comes to me during prayer and I’m tormented by the question of why this thought came to me or why this is happening, then the problem increases. Saint Porphyrios, Wonderworker of KavsokalivaAt the age of twelve he left for the Holy Mountain in secret, desiring to emulate Saint John the Hut Burner, whom he loved very much, after he had read his Life.

“>St. Porphyrios says: “When you pray, don’t do so with anxiety and panic, because if you pray about something in this state, it increases your anxiety and worry.” The same thing happens with thoughts. You have to understand that this is something unnatural—that’s how our mind works. An unhealed mind can’t remain calm; it concentrates on one thing and then moves on to something else; it creates scenes, terrible scenes. For example, your child is held up at school, he comes home late, and your mind starts “writing” scenes—he’s going to come home all beat up; he got in a fight with a classmate and they took him to the police, and so on. Or we have other thoughts, about slander, jealousy, envy… We should be calm about it and say to ourselves in such situations:

“It’s okay. Everything’s fine. Calm down. Relax. Keep praying.”

One elder told us that when you’re in church and your mind starts wandering somewhere, then you start thinking about extraneous things. You start thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch, what you’re going to do today. Or you start thinking about your husband, children, and everything else that torments and worries you. Don’t worry about anything, gather your thoughts, and “return” to church again. If your mind gets lost somewhere, bring it back to church, but do it gently, kindly, calmly, not with worry, anxiety, or a feeling of guilt and obsession—because that increases the anxiety, and anxiety increases evil thoughts.

How should we confess our thoughts to a priest? We go to the priest and tell him:

“Father, I get thoughts like this and this and this.”

I don’t analyze thoughts; I don’t need to do that, because it doesn’t always help. Say, I have lustful, angry thoughts, and so on. When you reveal your thoughts, they lose their power. It’s healing. It’s like experiencing some kind of grief, telling your friend about it, and feeling sudden relief. How much greater is the relief on a spiritual level—you share your suffering with the priest and you immediately feel relief.

    

Another important thing is that we have to try to commune more often. Without Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, our mind, according to the Holy Fathers, becomes either darkened or demonic. We have to receive Holy Communion more often. We have to do all this with God’s grace, and gradually, because it’s not just a human work—we need God’s help and God’s grace. In this way, thoughts will gradually decrease. And you’ll see that those who practice prayer gradually, by the grace of God, begin to more easily enter into a state where they won’t be too distracted, will be gathered in their thoughts; while for others it takes longer, and perhaps they can’t concentrate during prayer at all.

Let’s not make a big mistake: When prayer stops, the mind wanders, we yawn, it weighs us down, and we say:

“What did I just do? I didn’t do anything.”

Or:

“Father, did this prayer do me any good?”

This is the wrong way of thinking. Even the simplest prayer is useful for both beginners and those who are advanced in prayer, because the Lord looks at our disposition. He looks not only at the words, but also at your heart, that you have a good disposition towards prayer. The Lord will help you because of this, and therefore the thoughts gradually decrease and there comes a moment when they are kept to a minimum. And as for those thoughts that remain, you can easily control them. Of course, you also have to have attention. Once the number of thoughts is reduced, you shouldn’t go see your neighbor to gossip with her over a cup of coffee, because then the thoughts will be activated again. If you condemn, if you gossip, if you interfere in someone else’s life, this stirs up the thoughts. One stimulates the other.

I think that a man who believes and labors ascetically will go through all the stages of prayer. And through prayer that isn’t a prayer, but a request; that is, he’ll ask God for something; he’ll feel anxiety, pain, confusion, and he’ll express to God his need for help and his desire to deliver himself from troubles. That’s why the Church doesn’t reject people’s petitions—the litanies have many petitions, for well-being, for those sailing and traveling, for a kind answer, and so on. There’s nothing bad about this.

    

But petitions should be an encounter, a relationship with God; they should be the result of a living relationship. It’s one thing (and you can see it in life) to say:

“I love you. I care about you. I want to see you and talk with you.”

In a word, through this relationship we want something from the other person. You want to keep me company, go with me to the doctor because I’m scared, go on a trip with me to cheer me up a little, or help me financially. You have some requests, but they’re part of our relationship. ‘

It’s quite another thing to not be interested in the other person at all, to not talk or communicate with them, but then after barely noticing them, to ask:

“Can you lend me fifty bucks?”

This says you want to receive something from the other person but without having a relationship with them. This very often happens in the religious world, though not so much in the Church, because a Church person is something else. A Church person is someone who feels like a part of the Body of Christ, who participates in Holy Communion, in the Sacraments of the Church, and wants Christ to become the center of his life. A simply “religious man” fulfills some religious duties, goes to church on Pascha, Christmas, and when he communes on these great feasts, he says:

    

“God grant us good health next year! If we’re healthy, we’ll commune again next year.”

Since Christ isn’t the center of such a man’s life, he’s interested in receiving the Holy Mysteries to fulfill one of his religious obligations. Obviously a man in the Church must grow. Our goal is not to remain in an unchanging state where we only entreat God, but to enter into praise and thanksgiving, which are the highest states of prayer. As Elder Paisios says, there’s nobility in praising God, not constantly asking Him for something, but thanking Him for good and bad things, for the wonderful and difficult moments of our lives, for what we understand and what we don’t understand.

On expressing feelings

A man has an emotional world; he has feelings, he has emotions like sorrow, joy, anger, and love. They should be expressed, and we have to find ways to express them, whether it’s in words or art. What is art? The need to express your inner world. This is the highest form of healing and expression, because you take one amorphous and chaotic feeling and shape it, turn it into a poem, prose, sculpture.

    

Elder Sophrony and Others Who Were Perfect in Christ. Questions and AnswersMetropolitan Athanasios of Limassol shares his memories of meeting the elder Sophrony (Sakharov) and the saint’s admonitions on the issues of the confession, humility, and neglect of one’s thoughts

“>Elder Sophrony says that the highest art form is prayer, because, according to him, you take this world of contradictory, chaotic, dark feelings, and turn them into a word or prayer. We have to bring them out and manifest them, because if we don’t express them, then they take on flesh. As Fr. Ananias Koustenis says, if these “great desires” of the human soul aren’t fulfilled, they take on a bodily form and become a headache. Usually soft tissues are affected, so you get migraines, you can’t swallow, you get bloated, and you can’t calm down.

You have to express yourself, express your feelings. Here there’s another problem, and we could have a whole conversation about how to express our feelings so they don’t hurt someone else. Some people go to extremes and say, “I’m going to say what I’m feeling!” and thereby hurt other people. Here you need art— that is, the ability to say what you’re feeling without offending or disappointing the other person with your words. You need spiritual discernment.

On prayer for children

It’s easier for a child to pray because he’s sincere, he doesn’t wear masks; although today we easily corrupt our children, because from an early age we teach them to be deceptive. You can tell a child, “Deceive your grandmother! Deceive your mother! Lie to your teacher!”

But he won’t stop being sincere. Children don’t stop being sincere, and that’s why sometimes we become a laughing stock—we go somewhere with them and they say everything and put us in an awkward position. It’s easier for children to have a genuine and sincere relationship with God. Why?

To be imbued with prayer, children need a living example, because they can’t analyze—they don’t have an analytical mind, but a synthesizing mind. They take note of people’s states and create associations. When mama prays, she’s joyful, and therefore, prayer is something good. Do you understand? Mama goes to church and comes back calm. This priest is kind, but that person is evil—children connect situations with each other. That’s why it was very good in the past when our mothers told us: “This is what you’re going to wear when you go to the Divine Liturgy. You’ll wear dress shoes when you go to church.”

    

Or my yiayia would say: “It’s Saturday today, and we don’t work in the village.”

Now, everything’s different. Then we burned incense, lit the lampada, took a bath, and in the morning, we went to church. These things, inasmuch as they are particular symbols, begin to act on a child, creating associations for him: The Sunday meal is joy; church is joy, Resurrection, and light. And the opposite is also true.

Therefore, if we want our children to be attached to prayer, we have to pray and show them an example of prayer. The Path to HappinessSearch your hearts and be watchful of its spiritual state.

“>St. Nektarios of Aegina thanked his grandmother all the days of his life. Elder Sophrony (Sakharov) was indebted to his teacher for teaching him how to pray. She showed him the sanctity of prayer.

There’s a very good cleric on Crete, Fr. Stavros, who has a piece of the Precious Cross. Since his mother was poor, he was raised by his aunt. He told a story about his mother, that when someone got sick, she would say:

“The Cross will help us! The Cross of Christ will heal us!”

Thus, the child understood that every blessing and goodness, even in the hour of suffering and trial, comes from the Cross.

Once, as a young child, Fr. Stavros was playing on the roof when he slipped, fell off the roof, and died. They rang the bell and carried him into the house. In despair, mourning for her child, his mother remembered the piece of the Holy Cross. She took the particle, placed it on her child, and felt that her son was still warm. She began to shout:

“He’s alive! My son is alive!”

Of course, everyone thought she was going crazy, but she insisted, and the child really did come back to life. This was Fr. Stavros, who was thus baptized with this name.¹

All of Crete knows about this, because it was a very famous incident at the time. Fr. Stavros is an adult now. He guards the piece of the Holy Cross; he greatly reveres it; he doesn’t sell it or advertise it. He’s a man of few words; he’s a humble and serious man. The papers only wrote about it once. He took the piece of the Precious Cross, took it to Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, and told him:

“Geronda, this piece of the Precious Cross has one peculiarity.”

“What is it?”

“When you cross someone with it, it sticks to the painful spot and it’s difficult to peel it off.”

Why does this happen? After many days of prayer, Elder Ephraim discovered that this piece of the Precious Cross has a special blessing, because it contains dried drops of Christ’s Blood. That’s why it has received this special blessing.

    

I told you about this to show how important it is that children have examples of prayer, of the Church atmosphere, and all the rest. This is how we help them find a sincere and living relationship with God. It’s enough for them to see joy in our eyes and on our face, that they see their parents joyful. It’s enough for children to see that their parents love Christ, are in the Church, and aren’t full of grumbling, aren’t sullen, angry, withdrawn, always murmuring and saying that everything’s a sin, everything’s evil, and that sinners, the devil, 666, satanists are to blame for everything. It’s important for children to see that their parents rejoice in Christ, the light of Christ, the saints, the Divine Liturgy, prayer, that they have faith, the desire for life, and see the good sides of all people. Such is a man of God, and according to the words of Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra, “if a man doesn’t have joy, he doesn’t have God.”

On Seeing God Inside Yourself and RepentanceA genuine meeting with God should transform us so that we can become different, if we have really found Him.

“>Part 1

    

The first word of your father-confessor is the will of God

Relations with your father-confessor should be natural. We cannot force our father-confessors to think for us. I have seen people who resorted to several father-confessors simultaneously in the hope that at least one of them would give them an answer that suited them. The saints used to say that the right answer comes with the first word of the father-confessor, whether you like it or not. And then you shouldn’t try to bargain or think what would be good anymore. It is said that the will of God is revealed in the first answer of our father-confessor.

And yet it is quite hard to speak about the will of God, even in the case of our father-confessor’s answers. in the Old Testament you can read a story about Prophet Elias, where he raises a Shunammite woman’s son from the dead. After her son had died, this widow returned to Prophet Elias with a broken heart. And St. Elias said, For her soul is vexed within her: and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me (4 Kings 4:27). We see that sometimes the will of God is not revealed even to saints. We should not demand that our father-confessors be clairvoyant, nor should we run around in search of clairvoyant father-confessors. The main thing you should look for is that your father-confessor is the personality who will change you.

And it is not a legal bargain that will be the final word. “I committed such-and-such a thing, received a penance, and left.” This formal and legalistic aspect is not the final word in obedience. It is love, love in spiritual guidance that has the final word. That’s how Moses prayed: Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written (Exod. 32:32). That’s how he prayed!

It was related about Abba Longinus that when his disciple Abraham fell into a certain passion, Abba Longinus stood up so that God could see him, and said to Him:

“Whether you like it or not, he must be forgiven.”

He must be forgiven! And this order to God stems from love. This boldness towards God stems from the love of the father-confessor for God and from his love for the disciple. After all, love has the last word!

The Holy Fathers focused not so much on the personality of the father-confessor as on this aspect, on the awareness of repentance. Why? Because the father-confessor is just a witness. This formula, which has existed in our country since about 1600, emphasizes that God Himself is the Absolver of sins.¹ It is God Who absolves you of your sins.

There is a difference between confessing your thoughts to a monk who does not have the grace of the priesthood, and the Sacrament of Confession, during which we confess our sins before a priest-confessor. In our Romanian language there is one term for all clergy: “father” (“parintele”). In the Slavonic language, as you see, there is an “elder” (starets), and there is an “abbot” (igumen) who governs a monastery. An “elder” is a spiritual person. The Greeks also have a “geronda”.²

However, a whole theology has been compiled around thoughts, and a lot has been said about the power of thoughts. It has been said that “sin knocks at the door of the heart through the gate of thought.” Sin begins with thoughts, and once sins are confessed, and once they are exposed to the spiritual father, they no longer have their former power. Fr. Teofil used to say: “Even what is straight is twisted in a crooked mind.” Sin begins precisely with thought.

Yes, there is a difference between the past and modern practice of confession of thoughts. In those days, as St. John Climacus says, a monk would have a tablet on which he wrote down all the thoughts he had during the day and then went to confess them before his spiritual father. We could also do this, writing down our thoughts, and not necessarily on clay tablets, but on the “tablets” of our hearts, and confess them in the evening before going to sleep, when we say to God in the evening prayers: “Is this bed to be my coffin? Or wilt Thou enlighten my wretched soul with another day?” You see, how wonderful it is! It’s as if our blanket, with which we cover ourselves, may turn out to be the last inch of the earth for us. This is an assessment of our thoughts for the day, which we could do before going to bed.

Obedience should bind you to Christ, not to your father-confessor

Obedience must be realized; “military obedience”, blind obedience, is out of the question whether in the world or in the monastery.

Obedience must be seen… Because there is the will of the old man, there is the last bastion in the heart of the old man. And from the moment he enters the monastery gate and crucifies himself (you see that monastic life is crucifixion, too), he must obey. Look at how the monastic tonsure is performed, how a candidate lies as if crucified with his arms outstretched in front of the holy doors and makes vows before God that he will live in chastity, in obedience, and in poverty. And the priest asks him:

“Dost thou see whom thou art making vows to?”

Because he is making vows, he is free to become a monk or not. You see? We’re talking about freedom! And what’s more, he tells him:

“When the monastic cross takes place, perhaps people won’t understand you, they’ll ridicule, insult and persecute you. When all this happens, rejoice!”³

This is so that you will rejoice when you bear such a cross!

There is a story I like in the Patericon, in which the devil came to a monk and tried to tempt him by saying meaningless things. The Devil asked him:

“What are you doing here in the cell? What are you doing here within four walls?”

The monk was almost broken. But an angel of God came and told him:

“When the evil spirit comes to ask you again, tell him: ‘I am holding up the walls for Christ’s sake.’”

And I realized that both in the world and in the monastery, we sometimes hold up the walls for Christ’s sake. We are holding up the walls of the family so that it can be preserved to the end; the walls of society, which are shaken; the walls of the world, which no longer knows the beauty of Orthodoxy; and we, each one in our place, uphold the walls of decency.

Yes, a monk sacrifices himself. But if he understands that this self-sacrifice is nothing other than the crucifixion of the will of the old man inside him (after all, man fell by his own will; all the evil of man comes through following his will, through following his egoism: “I know”, “I do”—through the worship of your own self. Elder Paisios said that obedience is no longer bondage, but a key that opens the heart to the air and the Kingdom of Christ. Through obedience, we can heal our soul from our passionate will and attachment to ourselves.

And in the world, they say, we are not necessarily called to obey as monastics do. Because many people in the world would like to have father-confessors who would indulge their whims. They look for father-confessors who would do their will, whereas a father-confessor should be a mirror—just as you look at yourself in the mirror to see if you are dressed beautifully, you should look at your soul in the mirror of your father-confessor and not demand that he says what you like.

It is also important not to have an unhealthy attachment here. Although confession is therapy, there is more to it than that. It should bind you to Christ, not to a father-confessor. Because sometimes we feel at ease, thinking: “I do a certain thing, and I have the blessing of my father-confessor.” And we get “the blessing of our father-confessors” for all the little things of life. But in fact, we should first of all make our souls transparent, acquiring wisdom so that we can choose for ourselves, standing firmly on our own feet; because at the Last Judgment Christ will ask us about what we ourselves have done.

And so, your father-confessor’s greatest gift to you should not necessarily bind you to him. The greatest gift is the gift of freedom—freedom that is not used chaotically, but is directed towards Christ. And a good father-confessor does not necessarily bind you to himself by obedience; he gives you spirit, spiritual air—something that changes your life.

Some people say, “I don’t need to go a father-confessor, because I go to a psychotherapist”. But there is a big difference here. I think we are not the first and not the last to pose this question. Even St. Basil the Great in the fourth century (can you imagine that?) posed this problem to himself and said: “Let us give the doctor what is of the body and give the priest and the Church what is of the soul.”

Each of them does his job. We cannot blame either of them when they think that they act for the benefit of man by their own specific means, and that they bring specific fruits. The fruits are obvious! But a father-confessor, a disciple, and Someone else are present at confession and in spiritual guidance! “Behold, I am just a witness to what you will tell me.” You confess precisely before Christ, and He covers the father-confessor’s inexperience and the shame and fear of the one who comes to confession.

As for the question of whether obedience today is the same as it was before. Formerly there was real obedience. In the Patericon, we read that an Abba planted a dry tree trunk and watered it for three years. He would go in the morning to water it, then return and water it again, and soon the evening would fall. After three years, the dry trunk burst into blossom. But we cannot demand this from a disciple! In the Patericon, there are tests of obedience, of the holiness of disciples, and of the holiness of father-confessors.

To be continued…

Writing in Catholic media means that I get a lot of unsolicited emails and Facebook notifications about Catholic media. Most of them are the variety of podcasts and opinion videos I have written enough about already. But then I received an invitation to sign up for a free Catholic streaming service called Wild Goose TV. 

They had me first at “free,” and when I watched the six-part episode “My Father’s Father,” they just plain had me. The host of the program is Father Dave Pivonka, a Franciscan friar of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis (TOR). Pivonka is also the president of the University of Steubenville.

He seems to be the driving force not only as the host of “My Father’s Father” but of Wild Goose TV. How fitting, as this is a streaming service that embodies what the founder of his order was all about. He is “rebuilding a Church” in need of repair. St. Francis used brick, stones, and mortar while Pivonka uses the tools at his disposal: 21st century technology capable of reaching around the globe.

But as “global” as his reach may be, the intimacy of the series and its profound focus on the Fatherhood of God (sometimes an overlooked element of the Trinity), is right out of St. Francis of Assisi’s playbook. When I first began watching the series,  I immediately thought this content should be mandatory viewing for every confirmation class across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. But as I’ve gotten deeper, I am even more convinced this content would benefit any marriage preparation class, anyone discerning the priesthood, or any person looking for a deeper connection to his or her father, both earthly and heavenly.

Each episode speaks to any Catholic man, woman, and child, in whatever stage of life they find themselves. Pivonka interweaves his personal story about his dad and how important he was to his formation as a Catholic and as a priest. 

His story is certainly unique to him, but it has elements that apply to so many of us. His father was not perfect, but he was a man of strong faith and committed to the love of his wife and children. Pivonka’s dad is an inspiration to any father who either wants to be better at his job or repair some of the damage he may have caused.

Every segment has something that will cause the viewer to reflect on their own life’s journey with their dad. Pivonka interviews a theologian on the importance of earthly fathers, and when the interview subject mentioned how critical it is that fathers let their children know how thoroughly wanted they were from the moment of their conception, it took me right back to my own childhood. When strangers would be aghast at the number of kids my parents had and wonder aloud why on earth they would have so many, my mom and dad had a pat response that they always wanted 10 kids. When you are No. 10, that kind of reassurance hits the mark.

The series is not all roses and violins. There are problematic dads and sandpaper-rough relationships examined between sons, daughters, and fathers. But it is through the incompleteness of these dads that the fullness of God the Father’s love becomes so powerfully present. 

The series is shot on location in places that were special to Pivonka and his father. The Grand Canyon and other national park locations provide the backdrop for memories of his dad about simple things like fishing, and not-so-simple things about God’s wondrous creation and a father’s love for a son. It was yet another personal touchpoint for me, as I’m sure it will be for many others.

The series is not all Pivanko’s reminisces about life with his dad. There are other people we meet along the way with more complex father/son and father/daughter relationships. But all these arcs lead to the same conclusion — how even the imperfections of an earthly father can turn someone toward the love and fidelity of a wondrous heavenly Father.  

In a digital world full of vitriol and white noise, Wild Goose TV is just what the doctor, and in this case, even the doctors of the Church, ordered.

Nha Trang, Khánh Hòa Province, Vietnam, March 4, 2024

Photo: phvieparchy.org     

As of late last month, there are four parish communities under the Russian Orthodox Church in Vietnam.

On February 28, His Eminence Metropolitan Pavel of Manila and Hanoi, administrator of the Philippine-Vietnamese Diocese, visited the Russian faithful living in Nha Trang who had requested the formal establishment of a parish, the diocese reports.

Nha Trang is the capital of the Khánh Hòa Province on the south-central coast of Vietnam, with a population of 422,600.

Photo: phvieparchy.org     

During the meeting with the faithful, the Nha Trang parish was established in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The diocese already included the Parish of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Vũng Tàu, the Parish of St. Ksenia of St. Petersburg in Hanoi, and the Parish of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in Ho Chi Minh.

A 15-member parish council was elected for the new parish, as were the members of an audit commission.

At the end of the parish meeting, Bishop Pavel answered the parishioners’ questions.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

St. Casimir Jagiellon was born in 1458. He was the third child of King Casimir IV of Poland and his wife Elizabeth of Austria, and has 12 siblings. He and several of his brothers studied with John Dlugosz, a priest and historian who inspired Casimir through his deep piety and his political knowledge.

Casimir did not like the luxurious court life, and chose to live a life of asceticism and devotion. He wore plain clothes and a hair shirt, slept on the ground often, and spent many nights in prayer and meditation on Christ’s suffering and death. These exercises of devotion helped Casimir show his love for God. He also gave many of his possessions to the poor.

When he was 13, the Hungarians asked Casimir IV to give them his son as their new king. Casimir went to be crowned, to help the Hungarians defend themselves against the Turks. He was unsuccessful, and had to return to Poland, where he resumed studying with Dlugosz. He began learning politics from his father.

In 1479, King Casimir left Poland to attend to state business, leaving his son in charge for two years. Although his father and royal advisors tried convincing Casimir to marry, he remained single, dedicated to serving God and his people.

Casimir developed tuberculosis, and foresaw his death. He prepared for it by deepening his devotion to God. On March 4, 1484, he died on the way to Lithuania, and was buried with a copy of a Marian hymn he recited often.

Pope Adrian VI canonized St. Casimir in 1522.

St. Katharine Drexel was born on November 26, 1858. Her family was wealthy and well-connected, and they used their status to provide for the less fortunate. 

Three times a week, Katharine’s mother opened their home to the poor, and her father spent much time in prayer. They encouraged their daughters to think of wealth as a gift from God to be used for others. In the summer, Katharine and her sisters taught catechism classes to the children of the workers on their summer estate. 

When she and her family traveled through the western United States, Katharine saw the poor living conditions of the Native Americans. And during a later visit to Rome, she was granted an audience with Pope Leo XIII, which inspired her future work. Katharine had been considering a vocation to cloistered contemplative life as a nun. But when she asked the pope to send missionaries to Wyoming, he told her she should take on the work herself. 

In February 1891, Katharine made her first vows in religious life. She formally renounced her inheritance and her personal freedom, and dedicated herself to the social and spiritual development of black and American Indian communities. 

Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and began living and working in the poor communities of blacks and Native Americans, helping them acquire education and faith formation. Between 1891 and 1935, she founded almost 60 schools and missions in the West and Southwest, including New Orleans’ Xavier University, the only historically black Catholic college in the U.S. 

In the last 20 years of her life, Katharine was forced into retirement after suffering a severe heart attack. Although she could not lead her order, she left her sisters with a deep concern and love for their mission. 

Katharine died on March 3, 1955. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000.

During the years of Communist rule in Romania, monastics were expelled from monasteries, monasteries were closed and turned into warehouses, hostels, prisons and anything else as long as they ceased to be houses of God and hearths of holiness. The expelled monastics fled in great numbers to the mountains and hid there in the impenetrable forests. There were secret ascetics in the wild forests of Bucovina, for example, near the village of Botuș, where cattle grazed in the mountains in summer, and in winter the cattle yard was empty. There was a whole convent in it, invisible to anyone, without water, food, light, or heating. Services were celebrated in the attic of a cowshed. The abbess was cooped up there. The father-confessor lived in a pigsty. The nuns slept in a sheep shed.

Thirty-five years ago the godless regime fell, and little by little a wooden skete in honor of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul appeared in this place, named according to Romanian custom the “Botuș Monastery”. Today’s monks of this prayer-soaked place try to be worthy successors of their heroic predecessors, the nuns. An atmosphere of prayer and asceticism reigns in the skete, as evidenced by its second name, the “Little Romanian Athos”. We offer our readers a talk by the abbot of Botuș Monastery, Fr. Galaction, who was tonsured by Bishop Chesarie (Paunescu), a confessor of the faith.

​Protosinghel Galaction (Dominte)     

What is repentance?

True, God loves us unconditionally. Moreover, when we read the Gospel, it seems that God loves sinners more than others, and St. Matthew says this plainly, calling the Savior a friend of publicans and sinners (Mt. 11:19). He even said to Judas, Friend, wherefore art thou come? (Mt. 26:50). He called Lazarus a friend as well: Our friend Lazarus sleepeth (Jn. 11:11).

But it is also true that we want to be told all the time that God loves us. Not because we forget about it, but because we like to be reminded all the time that there is someone who loves us, especially since it is God Himself.

And what do we do with this love? We cannot even imagine how much God loves us, because if we understood how much love God pours on us and how much love He has for us, our hearts would melt. We can’t even contain His love. But when you receive something, you must give something back. In the prayer called the Liturgical Anaphora it is said of God the Father: “Who hast so loved Thy world as to give Thine only-begotten Son”, and of the Savior Christ it is said, “In the night in which He was given up—or rather gave Himself up for the life of the world”. You see, the Love That gives Itself up! What you keep for yourself makes you poorer—you must give out love. And what do you give, sacrificing from your comfort, laziness, and complacency? What do you give to God? This love automatically encourages us to give.

We see God, but we see Him disciplining us depending on the extent of our “Repentance is the Way of Life for a Monk”Confession and the revelation of thoughts are essential for spiritual prosperity. There is no progress without it. On the other hand, there’s a measure for everything.

“>repentance. Not our false idea of repentance (how we often understand it). Not mere regret: “Oh, how sinful I am! Oh, how weak I am! Oh, how much I have sinned — God will not forgive me! It’s just regret. To repent means to feel the heart of God in your heart, to realize how much God loves us, to purify your feelings and see Christ. And we see Christ to the extent that we purify ourselves. This is how we see God.

We feel uncomfortable because God loves us, but we don’t do anything in return and can’t reciprocate. This way, we don’t grow at all. Genuine love, which transforms you from a mere individual into a personality, prompts you to respond to Him somehow—not because God needs our love and not because God coaxes something out of us. True love means freedom. God does not want us to tell Him that we love Him if we do not feel it. The Apostle Peter said after the Resurrection of Christ, when the Savior asked him: Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? And he replied: Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee (Jm. 21:17).

God does not need us to answer out just to be polite. God knows what’s in our hearts. And if we were sincere with ourselves, I think our answer would be like this: “Lord, You know that I want to love You, but there are other loves in my heart too!” If we were frank with ourselves… But sometimes we feel comfortable doing nothing and saying that “God is love”, and that “God accepts us as we are”, and we hunt out all sorts of formulas to persuade ourselves to come to terms with ourselves. However, the true knowledge of yourself, which is so much preached about, is when you see God inside yourself. And the God inside you loves the One in another person, and the God inside you cries out to God in Heaven. Otherwise, we deceive ourselves. After all, God is reflected only in the pure water of our being, and not in the rotten swamps of various philosophies of this world.

We see God purifying us as we repent. And repentance means a change of mind; it means, as we said, that first of all we must come to know God, understand that we have a borrowed life and that we are not autonomous (as the thinkers of our age wrote: the “autonomous man”, or the “new man”, who does not have a deep connection with God), and realize that we owe our lives to God.

Now it is fashionable (and I have seen it) to always tell yourself that “God loves us as we are, and we must love ourselves first of all.” But know that love for yourself can be different! There is good love for ourselves, stemming from the awareness that God has put into us, because we know that we are children of the Kingdom, that we are children of God, that we were created for eternity and are not content with this world. And there is bad love for ourselves when we allow ourselves anything, when we think and do whatever we like…

I liked an incident that a lady dentist told me about. It clearly shows how today’s society makes use of this second self-love and tries to indulge our ego. She said that once she saw a sunblock (in our days the sun is scorching mercilessly), produced by a company (heaven knows what company it was) that promised everyone endless happiness and life without death. It read: “Because you deserve it!”, and she bought it. But maybe she kept it improperly, or they had advertised it in vain, or it had past its expiration date, but when she started using it, she began to have skin problems—eczema. Then her husband joked with her, saying: “After all, you deserve it.”

Thus, we sometimes deserve to be deceived. Modern society and people promise us a lot of good things, but I don’t know if they really wish us well. Only God wishes us well, and only God loves us, because He knows what He has put into our hearts.

No one knows this particle of God—only God knows it and keeps it in His treasuries, because He knows that we are priceless and that there is this spark of Divinity even in the worst criminal, in which God must be reflected.

And repentance is the purification of the water of our being so that God can be reflected in it. And we are not necessarily talking about Confession. God Is HereRepentance destroys hell in the penitent’s soul and transfers him to Paradise.

“>Confession here, because sometimes we resort to a father-confessor only for a blessing, only for psychological comfort, and go to church only for Sunday rest, adhering to a certain regimen. But if there is no God in it, all of this has no value. This is a magical faith in which we do not pin all our hopes on God. Thy bridal chamber I see adorned, O my Savior, and I have no wedding garment that I may enter.” This is the opposite of our state; we must enter the bridal chamber of God dressed in clean garments. We can ask God, “Lord, love me as I am!”. Yes, God loves you, but we need to change our clothes if we want Him to take us in His arms.

A particle of God

I was pondering whether there is any trace of God in the worst people. And there is a verse in Psalm 32 that says: He layeth up the depth in storehouses (Ps. 32:7). What is it that is so valuable, that God keeps it in His storehouses? A particle of God, a spark of Divinity, which can be also seen in the soul of the worst criminal. And God will look into this spark, into this particle of God in the next world, in His Kingdom, at the moment of the Last Judgment to see if He is in us. And do we find God?

We find God in the world around us, we find God in prayer… I remember Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, who also had this search for God. And he said that he first looked for Him in his fellow villagers, in ideas, in books—and realized that he could find Him in prayer. And when he began to pray, he secretly heard the voice of God telling him: “Go right ahead and believe—you see how beautiful it is that I, God, love you, man!” God loves such a creature as man, with all his weaknesses and falls!…

We find God everywhere, including in this society, which seems unfair and corrupt to us, in which there are lies and so many imperfections. Some even wonder, “Is God really here too?” But is it God’s fault that we pass by Him and leave Him with His hand outstretched, unwilling to accept His gifts? Is it God’s fault that churches in Europe are closed and some of them have been turned into bars, restaurants, and hotels? Is it God’s fault that our schools and families no longer speak about Christ our Lord?

We find God everywhere, but I think that the very fact that we want to look for Him, whether going to a monastery or to a parish church, is God’s call as well. “He wants me to desire Him, and becomes a desire in me,” says St. Simeon the New Theologian. The question is, what do you do when you find Him? Desire is what drives you and calls you to come to God, but you don’t come looking anyway. Love changes you. Love makes you look like the one you love.

But I think there might be a big problem here. It’s not enough just to find Him. A genuine meeting with God should transform us so that we can become different, if we have really found Him. And we can find Him wherever there are seeds of Divinity: in the world around us, in people, in ideas, and first of all the most living meeting is in the Holy Chalice, regardless of whether it is in a monastery or in a parish church.

We cannot be content with what the world offers us. The world cannot quench our thirst and desire for God. The world feeds us on bad food, chemical food.

God alone knows what He has put into a person, and God alone truly calls us. But we cannot lay our hands on God in the sense of saying rationally: “Behold, I have found God, I have discovered God.” Before you wanted to lay your hand on God, He had gently touched your heart. So, we cannot say that we can discover God only with our mind. With what? To find God within yourself using your reasoning?

But there are such moments in life—and I have seen this both in those who entered the monastery and in those with whom I spoke; God has certain moments when He calls us to Himself. We only need to have sensitive hearing to hear this true call in our souls (because there are many screams, howls, and desires in them). And there are such special moments in life. Some hear it in sickness, others hear it in suffering… St. Paisios used to say: “Illness and suffering helped me more than any monastic labors.” Illness helps too, if only we are attuned to see Christ.

To be continued…

Photo: icon-art.info Christ is in our midst, my dear readers!

In the church we heard the prophetic epistle of the apostle Peter (2 Peter 3:1–18), in which it says that just as the antediluvian world was destroyed by water, so the present world will be destroyed by fire. The heaven and earth of today are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. The Lord takes His time in fulfilling this promise. He does not destroy our world for now, despite all the evil that is done it in, because He is waiting for people’s repentance. But that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up is already predetermined in God’s Providence.

If everything that has been and will be created by people in the material, scientific, and cultural sense is condemned to destruction, then what is the point of man’s life at all? It is in one thing alone: to life this life in such a way that we might receive the right to become citizens of the New Heaven and New Earth, where righteousness will abide.

Mankind has lost the battle. Neither its culture, nor philosophy, nor even natural morality have been able to restrain the spread of evil on earth. Never mind in love, but not even in truth and justice have people learned to live together. Falsehood and hypocrisy are becoming the customary masters on our planet. Love and truth are being trampled underfoot, faith in Christ and the Church are becoming hindrances to the spread of the reign of darkness on earth. The godless are becoming even more depraved, and the righteous are ever more sanctified.

Apostle Peter teaches us that we should consider God’s tarrying as our salvation. Every day is a gift from above that brings a person closer to God, or it can further separate him from Him. The birth of a New Heaven and New Earth will be like a fiery meltdown in which everything that bears evil will be burned and destroyed. Therefore, the apostle writes, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. Only such people will be able to obtain residence permits in the new, eternal world.