Lent 2012

 

Woe, to you, O my darkened soul!

Your life is stained by depravity and laziness;

your folly makes you shun all thought of death.

How complacent you remain!

How can you flee the awesome thought of Judgment Day?

When will you change your way of life?

On that day your sins will rise against you.

What will your answer be then?

Your acts will condemn you; your deeds will expose you.

The time is at hand, O my soul.

Turn to the good and loving Savior!

Beg Him to forgive your malice and weakness, as you cry in faith:

“I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned against You,

but I know Your love for all mankind.

O good Shepherd, call me to enjoy Your lasting presence on Your right

hand!”

(Apostikha, sung at Great Vespers for Sunday of the Last Judgment)

Who can read these words and not tremble as they confront us with the reality of the Last Judgment—the final judgment that each and every human being must face at the end of his or her days?

It is all too common in our time to assume that God will accept us “just the way we are” and that heaven is value free. Yet, there is nothing in the gospels, nothing in the Church Tradition, nothing anywhere in Scripture that would give us any reason to think that way. We are told, emphatically, time and time again that we will be judged. In the Orthodox funeral service we hear of the “Judge who shows no partiality” and “knows no favorites”:

 I am on my way to the Judge, with whom there is no respect of persons; for slave and master stand alike before him, king and soldier, rich and poor, with the same rank; for each will be glorified or shamed in accordance with their own deeds. (Funeral Service, Archimandrite Ephrem’s translation)

In times past our own people—even those who lived badly—believed in the reality of the final judgment of our bodies and souls. They did not presume that everyone got an automatic pass into the Kingdom. And, when we think about it, their reasoning makes sense and is deeply Scriptural. They understood that darkness and evil could not be mixed with the Pure Light and Perfect Goodness of God’s Kingdom any more than one could mix water from a sewer with the water one drinks or read in a pitch black room. Purity is corrupted by impurity and darkness simply cannot coexist with light. It was just plain common sense to our ancestors. And it was terrifying.

Perhaps because the idea of the Last Judgment really is terrifying and fraught with anxiety for anyone who bothers to contemplate it, our over-protective and overly therapeutic culture of denial simply cannot (or will not) accept it. We cast it off as a morbid and ignorant relic of the past, when human beings were less intelligent and compassionate than we are today. And in so doing we place ourselves in a spiritual situation akin to a person who ignores a “Danger, High Voltage” sign because he refuses to accept that touching a live wire can kill you! The sheer foolishness of such a person is hard to imagine, and yet the much greater foolishness of ignoring the reality of the judgment of our souls doesn’t strike us as being all that serious. If one touches a live wire, one will die from an electric shock, but if we ignore the warnings about the final judgment of our souls we jeopardize them for all eternity. How strange that so many of us today cannot understand something so simple! “Danger: Eternity at Stake!”

Yet, for all the very real spiritual anxiety we ought to feel when we contemplate our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, we are also given reason to hope. While nothing, ever, excuses us for the wrongs we commit and the good we fail to do, on the Sunday of the Last Judgment we are shown the way out of our predicament. And that way is grounded in Love.

“And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” (I Peter 4:8, Proverbs 10:12)

In the quote above, taken from St. Peter’s first letter, we are not told that love excuses sin, but that love covers or overcomes a multitude of sins. Of course, our love must be true and not mere legalism. But, if we truly love our neighbor and our hearts are moved by their need, then God, who is always compassionate, will cover our sins. The gospel reading for the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25: 31-46) is exceedingly explicit about this. Our entrance into heaven will, in the end, be measured entirely by how much we love God and our love for God will be measured entirely by how much we have loved our neighbor. Our neighbor, of course, is anyone and everyone who crosses our path. Jesus made that much clear in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). Our salvation has been purchased for us, not by any good works we can ever do, but by the death and resurrection of Christ. However, that salvation can only be made effective in us when we acknowledge Him by loving Him and by loving His image and likeness in every single human being we encounter. And, yes, there is a way to prove our love; it is shown in how we act, in what we actually do to help one another. But it must come from the heart—God knows the difference between actions grounded in self interest and cold calculation from those that are done from real and pure love. God knows the difference between the criminal who donates money to the church to make up for his evil actions (while still committing them) from the selflessness of a Mother Theresa. That must be clear to us if we seek to cover our sins with love. Love is never selfish; it is always sacrificial (I Corinthians 13, St. Paul’s famous hymn to love), it always puts the other first.

When we act toward others as if they were Christ Himself, we have accomplished that perfect love that covers all sin because we have emulated His love.

“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: ‘for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in;’I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? ’When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? ’Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’  And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ (Matthew 24: 34-40)

On the Last and Terrible Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment, Doom’s Day, every one of us will stand before our Master and answer the same question, “Do you love Me?” (John 21:14-16) and the evidence of our answer will be found in how we treated our brother, our sister, every human being we have encountered through our lives. Their witness of our love will bury our sins.

Knowing the commandments of the Lord,

let us conduct our lives in this way:

let us nourish the hungry, let us give drink to the thirsty;

let us clothe the naked, let us welcome the strangers;

let us visit the sick, the infirm, and those in prison,

so that He Who is coming to judge the whole earth, may say to us:

“Come, O blessed ones of My Father,

inherit the Kingdom which has been prepared for you!” (Vespers, Last Judgment)

Perhaps the most frightening question we have to consider is this: Who will bear witness for us on that terrible day? Who will come forward to bury the multitude of our sins with the evidence of our love?

As we enter into Holy Lent, recall this: On the final day you will not be asked to recite the Creed, nor will you be asked to define the Orthodox understanding of the Procession of the Holy Spirit, nor the Church’s teaching about original sin, the role of bishops, and our differences with others on all these things, as important as they may be. You will simply be asked, “Do you love Me?” and the on the strength of the witness of others you will enter your eternity.

THE “REAL WORLD”

Sometimes in the Church we hear talk of the “real world”–meaning the world outside the Church, I suppose. This is a most unfortunate term because it gives a false impression of the Church’s teachings about reality–the one we live in currently and the one that will be ours for all eternity.

If the “real world” is all about what people do when they are not in church then what is done in church is by definition, “unreal”, and thus, unimportant. At best it is a feel good game that may be alright for me but utterly unimportant for someone else. This is, basically, the attitude of most people in the Euro-American “West” today–including many who call themselves devout Christians. It is, for believers, an absolutely disastrous mentality.

Why?

The answer is painfully obvious. It puts the life in Christ on the same level as soccer, yoga, going out to dinner, or having a drink with friends. It is a trite and banal attitude about the meaning of existence—one fit for a consumer society, and you can’t get more banal than that!

The “real world” for the Orthodox believer is, first and foremost, the life we live in Christ which is most clearly and beautifully portrayed in the life we experience in the Church. All of the events we have participated in during the services of this Great and Holy Week, and especially of the events we shall enter into in the Resurrection liturgy tonight, have brought us in touch with “REALITY” as it is on the deepest level.

This is not a matter of opinion—fine for me, but maybe not for someone else; it is a matter of FACT. Otherwise, it is of no matter—no consequence—at all. We have not, over the course of Holy Week, merely joined in playing our parts in a well beloved play, or watched a sentimental seasonal movie in order to get an emotional “high”. Rather, we have entered into reality—true reality, which is as far removed from the pseudo-real world of individualism and consumerism as heaven is from hell. In fact, the events of this week have made it clear to us that the so called ‘real world’ out there is very much hell bent. It is in love with promises that can never be fulfilled—whether those of politicians or, of the merchants of things or, the purveyors of “spirituality” without God. The politicians promise us a brighter future, if only we follow their plan, the salesmen promise us joy through accumulating their ‘stuff’, and the purveyors of “spirituality” promise us cheap salvation without effort. In short, they all promise unreality in the guise of what is real, they promise paradise and deliver an insatiable hell of striving without ever achieving.

The experience of Holy Week and Pascha shows us another way—one that does not make saccharine promises of easy accomplishment and self satisfaction. The Way of the Cross—which anyone who wishes to experience the Resurrection must follow—is a way of sorrow in terms of the pseudo ‘real’ world, but it is ultimately the way to true joy. By following in this way we find that, ultimately, this is the world of ghosts and vapors, constantly dissolving into nothingness, while the really ‘real’ world that is coming is solid and clear and beautiful. It is the Risen Christ who passes through walls and locked doors as if they were so much fog; it is the resurrected world that we Christians long for, a world purchased through earthly struggle and grief but, once won, imperishable and eternal.

Does this mean that we can have no experience of real joy in this world—that it is only about dragging along our cross without any remission from our grief? Of course, not! Through the cross, we are taught, joy comes into the world—this world! So, no, it is not all about tears and sorrow. Holy Friday turns into Pascha; the fast into feasting, tears into laughter. It is because we know that we have become inheritors of a Kingdom that is real in a way that nothing in the creation we now experience can ever be real that we can rejoice. The grief of life in this world, the insatiable urges of our mortal nature, are swallowed up in a joy that cannot die. We can embrace the Lord’s Pascha for the gift it is—not the promise of a politician, as salesman, or a cheap guru—but one that transcends, even as it embraces, the pain of the loss of health, strength, loved ones, and life itself. The unfading light of the Resurrection shines into this ghostly and transient world and promises that someday we shall, indeed, become real and solid and that the very flesh we bear—so fragile and ephemeral—will itself become solid and eternally beautiful in a way we can’t even comprehend until the Day itself dawns on us.

Do not ever speak of the “world” outside the Church as if it were the real thing. It should be our greatest heartbreak that so much of our time is spent under the power of its illusions and delusions. It is the chimera of that world we need to leave behind in order to receive the gift that never ages—the gift of Pascha, the Unending Dawn of the Real World that is even now upon us if we have but “eyes to see”.

Comprehending the Incomprehensible

 

Today he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon a Tree, He who is King of the Angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heaven in clouds is wrapped in mocking purple.He who freed Adam in the Jordan receives a blow on the face.The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails.The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a lance,We worship your Sufferings, O Christ Show us also your glorious Resurrection.

(Antiphon XV, Tone 6, The Matins of Holy Friday, served on the night of Holy Thursday—“the 12 Gospels”)

 The paradoxes displayed in the hymnody of the final days of Holy Week are a tribute to the brilliance and sobriety of Byzantine Church poetry. Indeed, the hymns of the Church are both poetry and theology bound together—given to us in melodies that are engrained into our hearts and minds for a whole lifetime and over many generations. Whether we know the Byzantine or Slavic melodies—and hopefully we learn both—these settings become an ongoing catechesis about what it means to be an Orthodox Christian believer.

In truth, we don’t need “Church School” or well bound catechisms to know what we believe, to understand what our faith teaches. We can simply learn the poetry of our hymns and services and inscribe their words into our hearts. It is precisely the ability to learn the faith by singing it  that made it possible for regular Orthodox people to survive the most brutal persecutions of the last twenty centuries (some of which continue to this day). The songs and theological paradoxes of our faith have been woven into the very fabric of the Orthodox Christian consciousness and they cannot be taken away by any earthly power. This is especially important for us to remember as we enter into the mystery of Holy Week, into those awesome days when we are confronted with the incomprehensible humility and majesty of God in the Flesh—crucified and risen.  

How do we comprehend the incomprehensible? How do we make sense of the events that we commemorate during Holy Week? We don’t certainly don’t do it by means of long theological commentaries or brilliant demonstrations of “scientific” logic. The mystery we encounter in the Passion of God in Christ can only be “understood” by means of paradox. And that paradox is best delivered when it is sung.

A paradox is not a contradiction; it is not the placing of mutually exclusive terms in opposition—rather, it is the reconciliation of things normally thought to be exclusive of one another. Thus we are confronted with the Immortal One who created the world (“he who hung the earth upon the waters”) dying on the cross (“hung on a Tree”). How can He who is, by definition, eternal and uncontainable, be made subject to death and to the limits of the grave? Our mind cannot contain what appears to be a total contradiction. And, in fact, it is utterly impossible to describe this event in logical terms. It can only be resolved in paradox—that the God who made heaven and earth, Who created the ordered universe and initiated all things in beauty also came to experience rejection, hatred, and scorn by those for whom He made it. We are confronted with the heart-rending juxtaposition of Love answered by hatred, of Beauty defiled by ugliness, of Goodness opposed by wretched evil, of Life being consumed by death. And in the paradox of paradoxes, we will discover Love overwhelming hatred, of Beauty transfiguring ugliness, of Goodness overcoming evil, of Life destroying death.

The supreme paradox of this universe is found in the incarnation, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God-with-us as one of us in the flesh. By taking on our limited existence, He has given us unlimited life. By accepting our hatred, He has enabled us to love. By accepting the ugly, death-dealing sorrow of the cross, He has transformed it into the beautiful, life-giving source of salvation. One cannot speak of these things using the narrow categories of philosophy and science; to embrace such mysteries we need to sing with tears of sorrow, repentance, hope, and joy.

Recently, I watched and listened to a recording of the late Archbishop Job, of blessed memory, singing Antiphon XV. The somber beauty of the words, sung in the Byzantine melody, cut right to the heart. It was made even more beautiful because I knew the man who sang it; he brought my family into the Orthodox Church and ordained me to the diaconate and priesthood. He sang, with profound compunction, a hymn of great reverence and love. Perhaps this reveals something the mystery of the paradox, too—that the voices who sing, our friends, our parents, our mentors, the whole Orthodox community around us, incarnate the paradox of mere human beings being touched by Divinity. We, who once struck the Lord of life in the face,  who spat on Him and hung him on a cross to die, are now embraced by His love. Our spitting is turned into kisses of adoration; our striking is turned into prostrations of worship, our hatred is transformed into deep love. We cannot speak of it, we can only sing it.

Link to our parish website

http://www.stnicholasma.org/

Most of you probably already are connected to the parish site, but if not here is a way to connect with St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Southbridge, Massachusetts

A Beautiful Rendition of the 15th Antiphon of Holy Friday by Archbishop Job of eternal memory

Days of Awe

As Palm Sunday’s festival gold fades to the deep purple (in some places, to black!) liturgical color of Holy Week, we are reminded of the fickleness of human nature. Many of the same voices that shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” would shout, “Crucify Him!” just a few days later.

Why?

The answer is simple enough; Jesus failed to meet the expectations of the mob. He was not a king of the type of David. In other words, he was not a political Messiah. He did not come to remove the hated Roman occupiers. And for those who wanted a political savior the disappointment was so extreme that they were willing to see Him hung on a Roman cross (a perverse and ironic sort of revenge if there ever was one!).

For those who were looking for a religious savior along the lines of Moses or Elijah, Jesus was an even greater shock. Unlike the great prophets, He dared to claim to be the Son of God, Himself–Divinity Incarnate (to say, “before Abraham was I AM”, was to utter the very words that Moses heard from the burning bush). This could only be blasphemy and blasphemers deserved to die. Again, the irony that it should be at the hands of foreigners–but hadn’t He made Himself an outcast by making such outrageous claims?

And what of the Romans? Pontius Pilate was a vicious man who hated the Jews and the Samaritans of Palestine with something approaching a passion. The opportunity to squeeze the chief priests into a situation where they had to beg his help to be rid of a troublesome prophet who was also a seditious rabble rouser from the perspective of the Imperial authorities was just too good to be true. No man could claim to be a king without Caesar’s approval–but to be able to attach the notice: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew above the condemned man’s head– what a unique gift! How rare a chance to humiliate the Jewish leaders while currying favor with his own superiors!

Thus, the conspiracy unfolds, while behind and beneath them all, the age old enemy of the human race plots and maneuvers. Satan cares neither for Rome nor for the warring Pharisees and Sadducees; to the powers of hell they are all pawns in the ancient battle against God’s Kingdom.

Yet they are all–the local Judean authorities, Pilate, and the ancient Adversary–blinded by appearances. They are tricked by what they can see and are deceived by what they cannot perceive. They rightly see the frail and mortal nature of a man and judge that they will be able to ‘solve the problem’ of His inconvenient message by killing Him. After all, this has proven to be a remarkably effective method in the past.

It will prove to be a disastrous mistake in this particular case. For beneath, within, concealed by the very real human nature of this mortal man truly is the Divine Person of the Immortal Son of God, the Word of the Father, the Second Person of the Trinity.

Of course, they cannot know it. Of course, they do not believe even when He speaks plainly. Even when He tells them the truth. How can they believe? They are, by nature cynics and doubters–professional politicians. And as for truth, how can those who live by lies recognize the truth when He looks them straight in the eyes?

These are the Days of Awe. And the encounters between Jesus and the crowds, between Jesus and the Judean authorities, between Jesus and Judas, between Jesus and Pilate, and finally between Christ the Almighty Conqueror and Satan in hell are also encounters which involve us.

It is important in these days not to look on the events as stories from two millennia ago, but as events which remain ever new since they involve human emotions, human motivations, human desires both for good and ill which are timeless. WE WERE THERE. WE ARE THERE IN THAT CROWD–SOMETIMES WEEPING AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS AND SOMETIMES SCREAMING “CRUCIFY HIM!”

How is this possible?

Quite simple. It’s all a matter of the disposition of the heart: What sort of Messiah are we looking for? What sort of King? What sort of Kingdom? One of this world who will fulfill our own selfish agenda, or another kind of Kingdom which is too big to fit into anyone’s agenda–so big, so great, that it will burst hell and death itself and topple hatred and fear by the power of Life and Grace and Love!

Make it your business to be in Church during the coming days of Great and Holy Week. Check out the Service Times and enter into the Days of Awe.

On Confession

“Learning to know spirituality helps us to realize the relativity of time. The path to eternity “where there will be no more time” begins in spirituality. In the experience of spirituality the partitions and walls that separate our present from our past will be taken down. Spirituality reunites us. We are reunited with our departed loved ones and our life with them, with our childhood and with treasures long lost.

“Then something else, something new becomes possible, changing one’s past, changing one’s own past self, as if one were washing away the dirty traces of our falls and betrayals. We are told “All is possible to those who believe”. I remember how Father Seraphim Batiugov used to say, “A time will come, in your inner life, when you will begin to heal your past.””

Fudel, Sergei. Light in the Darkness. Crestwood New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989., pp. 45-46

I’ve been asked by a few people to post my sermon (on Confession) from last Sunday (March 20, 2011). Since I don’t write them out, I will try my best. I took Sergei Fudel’s interesting concept of the relativity of time in relationship to repentance and applied it directly to the great healing sacrament of Confession.

We have a lot of hokey psycho-babble out today that talks about inner healing and healing the past, so it is always risky to use this kind of language. Moreover, what we find in the “new-age-y” world of therapy—even when it speaks of healing the past—never addresses the issue of repentance. The world of modern therapy wants to provide healing without having a true diagnosis of the disease. Thus, it is usually only partially successful, at best.

Orthodoxy addresses suffering through the lens of sin. Pain, suffering, death itself has come into the world because of the warping effects of sin—that primal alienation from God that leaves all things twisted from their original intent. Healing can only come once that reality is acknowledged. Indeed, the healing of the universe, accomplished only in Jesus Christ, has been made possible because “one man died for all” that all might live in Him, (see 2 Corinthians 5:14ff). This faith in the healing power of Christ’s death and resurrection—His triumph over the power of sin and death can only be meaningful if it is acknowledged and personalized in our own lives. This is where confession comes in.

We are often tempted to see confession as a mere enumeration of offenses. We approach the mystery of forgiveness with a laundry list! This, all too common, attitude breeds a sense of dread in us—not about the  overall corrosive power of sin in our lives, but about the details and particulars of individual acts. We fail to see the forest not only for the trees, but for the individual leaves! And in so doing, the power of confession to heal us gets lost in the minutiae of the details. We need to take a new approach.

When one goes to the doctor for a potentially life threatening disease, it is important to trace out the development of symptoms, yet no one would ever expect us to recall the exact moment we first noticed them according to the clock. Nor would the extreme details about what the first boil, or sore, or swelling, or pain looked and felt like be necessary. In fact, such detail might well get in the way of a good diagnosis. There is such a thing as too much information!

In diagnosing a disease, knowledge of the symptoms is vital, but, in the end the most important thing is the treatment. This always involves the cooperation of the patient. If we refuse to take the medicine, or show up for the treatment, we will only get sicker. The analogy to illness and healing of the body with illness and healing of the spirit is virtually complete.

When we come to the priest for confession, we first have to remember that it is not he who heals us, but God. The priest merely prescribes the medicine, which is almost always prayer, faithful attendance at Church Services, receiving Holy Communion, and rigorous self-reflection. Sin, as a disease, has many symptoms, but it always leads in the same direction—toward spiritual alienation and, if untreated, spiritual death. Describing the list of details about what we have done is far less important than identifying the underlying illness. For instance, most people shudder at the idea of confessing sexual misdeeds. Covering them up with outright denial, of course, would be ludicrous and only make things worse. But, there is no need to describe in detail the acts committed. It is enough to say that one has succumbed to lust in most cases, or, to admit to having looked at images that provoked lustful thoughts and actions. The precise details of what one saw or did are not necessary. The symptom has been revealed, but the actual illness may be quite different from what we first imagine. Lust, like most other appetites (gluttony, for example), often emerges from misplaced passion—from a form of idolatry! Our focus turns from the real source of life and joy (the Kingdom of God, which fills everything, if only we have eyes to perceive it in our midst) toward things which cannot fulfill us. Lust, gluttony, and other forms of greed arise when we attempt to fill ourselves with something other than Christ. They are the moth eaten “treasures of this world” that pass away, but leave their ugly marks on us in the meantime. When we confess them, we are acknowledging particular ways in which our lives have gone awry, but the solution, the prescription we are given for healing, will always be practical. We will be asked to replace those idols with what is true and lasting and we will be given specific methods to help us—prayer, fasting, faithful attendance at Church, receiving Holy Communion, and, of course, the avoidance of the things that tempt us. We will be told that in so doing we will not only be freed from their power in the present, but mysteriously freed from their power over our past.

How can this be?

The past, like the present, is a matter of perception. While there are real, concrete, events that mark specific moments in history (our own personal history along with the broader scope of history), it is the interpretation of those events that is always problematic. First, we often get the “facts” themselves wrong. (Think about how often we have had a fight with our spouse or a friend over the plain details of “what happened”). Then, there is the meaning or motivation behind events. This is far more difficult to get at than the events themselves. One of the symptoms of sin, however, is the “blame game”.  Whether or not we have the “facts” right, we blame someone else or some extraneous condition to justify our wrongdoing (or failure to do what is right) and re-interpret the situation to remove the fault from us. Using medical analogies again, this is misreporting the symptom, and it is very dangerous. It is only when we recall our own fault in the matter at hand that the consequences can be clearly examined and healed.  Once again, we need to understand our own role, the disposition of our own heart, in any occasion for sin and not the role of others. We must reach the point where we understand that, though there may be “reasons” for what we did (or failed to do), they are not excuses. We must come to the place where we no longer want to hide behind excuses. We must simply want to be made well and are willing to take the spiritual medicine necessary to accomplish this.

Here we are speaking of the human heart; the place where all sin and all healing begin. The true medicine of repentance and confession must be effective here, in the heart, if it is to effect a change in our lives. Once we have described the symptoms of our spiritual illness (our sins—in word, deed, thought, “things done and left undone”) we can come to understand their causes and in understanding them, begin to change them.

Why did I do such and such, say such and such, think such and such,(or fail to do such and such)? What was the disposition of my heart in all this? Was I filled with lust, greed, gluttony, pride, envy, etc.? Why was I like this? What can be done to avoid this in the future?

It is at this point where the past can actually be changed. When we understand who we were and why we were the way we were in our sinning, we can mysteriously change and transform—not just now, but then. This is a mystery that surpasses our normal, worldly, understanding. It is a mystery that allows us to delve into the seemingly immutable past and, by the power of Christ’s death and resurrection, to be healed. The trajectory of sin and alienation that began “then” is disrupted, undone, washed away, healed. But all this requires very hard word and very strict honesty. And it is only very rarely accomplished all at once.

The healing process generally takes time and great effort. Just as one would not normally expect one chemotherapy session, or one radiation treatment to cure a cancer, one cannot expect one confession to cure a condition of habitual sin (the repeated behaviors, states of mind, etc.) that we find most troubling. The rare singular action that requires confession and is never repeated is just that—rare! Most of us suffer from repeated patterns of behavior, thought, words, etc., which will need to be repented of and confessed over and over, until they grow weaker and weaker and ultimately fade away. In Great Lent we hear the story of St. Mary of Egypt, who struggled day and night for almost twenty years with her overwhelming passions—and this was in the desert, far away from any chance of fulfilling them! Likewise, we will continue to struggle with ours in whatever “desert” we have to inhabit to overcome them.

Why is this?

It usually takes a while to get sick, and it takes a while to get well. After repenting and confessing we may feel marvelously free from the power of the sins that trouble us, but then we fall back—as if pulled by some terrible gravity toward the very thing we are seeking to escape. It is only when we come to anticipate this that we can also come up with a plan to resist. And this anticipation, itself, is a sign of healing. Once we become vigilant in recognizing the signs of our spiritual illness returning, we can be quick to seek help—through prayer, confession, and the conscious reception of Holy Communion (the medicine of Eternal Life).

Can you see a pattern here, one which unites past, present, and future?

Vigilance in the present reduces the power of sin in the future and is based on an honest understanding of our past. Once we get this, real healing is possible. Of course, we cannot do it alone. One of the greatest of all sins is pride—the idea that we can somehow make ourselves well without any external help. The hyper-individualism of our culture contributes mightily to this. We expect that once we learn a “skill” we ought to be able to use it without further instruction or improvement. The fact is that in the so-called, “real world”, as well as in the truly real world of the spirit, this attitude is just plain stupid. In the spiritual life it is exceedingly dangerous and opens us to all sorts of trouble. Any real skill is only honed with practice and constant striving to improve. Almost always it requires some kind of coaching and instruction. The very best know that they can get better and are constantly looking for guides who can help them. We must do likewise if we intend to improve our spiritual lives—which are directly concerned not with skills pertaining only to the here and now, but to eternity.

The Church, through the grace of God in Christ, gives us confession as the means of expressing our repentance, of acknowledging the symptoms of spiritual sickness and for moving on toward real healing—of the past, the present, and the future. We are given guides in our spiritual literature, the gospels first and foremost along with the rest of Holy Scripture. Our priests are trained to give spiritual guidance in confession, and sometimes are given a deeper grace of wisdom to help even further. While a true spiritual “father” or “director” is relatively rare (and these can include women, too, often elder nuns in well-established communities), even our regular parish priests may act as “doctors” of souls and can provide the medicine of spiritual healing. If this is truly there for our taking, why would we not avail ourselves of such a great gift?