Category Archives: church

A Bee and Rain

church, poetry, quotes,

Today in the Orthodox Church we remember among others St. Ephraim (or Ephrem) the Syrian, born in the early 4th century, a theologian and prolific writer of hymns. His prayer we pray daily during Lent.

A book of hymns and meditations by St. Ephraim was collected by St. Theophan the Recluse into A Spiritual Psalter. I would like to spend some time in this book, especially after reading today’s entry in The Prologue of Ohrid, where there is a hymn to Ephraim by St. Nikolai opening with the words,

Ephraim’s heart burns
With love for Christ,
And Ephraim’s tongue speaks
Of the pure wisdom of the Gospel.
Ephraim, the honey-bearing bee;
Ephraim, the fruit-bearing rain!

Just as God sends the bees and the rain to work for our joy and profit, so He sends people like this man. I’d like to keep that image of a buzzing and busy bee in my mind a while; let me drink holy nectar and refresh others the way God uses His creatures and creation to constantly renew my spirit.

And for today, one morsel of honey from this holy bee:

The chutzpah of our love is pleasing to you, O Lord,
just as it pleased you that we should steal from your bounty.

Sunshine Bounty

agriculture, church, food and cooking, friends, winter

Our neighbor Elizabeth stopped Mr. Glad and me as we were walking past her house and gave us these lemons that she had just picked.

Citrus fruits are like a long-term investment that God makes on our behalf, pouring light and heat into the fruits over several months, then rain for another while, as we work and play through Spring and Summer and Fall.

Then comes the time of year when light is weak and slant. We need extra vitamin C in our diets, and some color in our field of vision. Well, aren’t we lucky. The activity in the account we probably weren’t thinking about bears a dividend of sunshine.

Theophany Worship and Doctrine

church, feasts, quotes, Theophany, water

Today the Orthodox Church celebrates Theophany, about which I have posted a time or two in the past. This year I found a blog by a young woman in Greece who has posted a rich mix of photos, videos and accounts describing the celebration of this feast around the world, and its meaning for us.

It all well illustrates the message of this short quote from the newsletter of my parish:

WORSHIP AND DOCTRINE:

“In the Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, doctrine and worship are inseparable. Worship is, in a certain sense, doctrinal testimony, reference to the events of Revelation. Thus, ‘dogmas are not abstract ideas in and for themselves but revealed and saving truths and realities intended to bring mankind into communion with God.’ One could say without hesitation that, according to Orthodox understanding, the fullness of theological thought is found in the worship of the Church.

This is why the term Orthodoxy is understood by many not as ‘right opinion,’ but as ‘right doxology,’ [that is,] ‘right worship.’”

—Archimandrite Zacharias, Ecclesial Being, pg. 88.

Those movies of people diving into icy waters make me consider in a more bracing way the scriptural exhortation to “present your bodies a living sacrifice….”

Some friends of ours celebrated Theophany at our Northern California beach last year, where the current brings chilly water from Alaska, giving the children who dove for that cross a bit of the experience of their fellow Orthodox in colder climates.

To all who celebrate in worship and truth, a most blessed feast!

Mosaic from Ss. Constantine and Helen Orthodox Church
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Saint Seraphim of Sarov

church, quotes, saints,
January 2nd is the feast of St. Seraphim of Sarov, the patron saint of my parish. It is the day he reposed (died) in the Lord in 1833. It’s lovely how our celebration of his bright life comes right in the middle between Nativity and Theophany festivities, and in the dead of winter. Some pictures of Father Seraphim show him in a snowy forest, and many sayings of and about him talk about the warmth of prayer and of the Holy Spirit.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere we need all the heat we can get right about now. Most of us have been extra elated and/or exhausted by our holidays, leaving us vulnerable to emotional ups and downs. I know that in the last couple of years, the doldrums of January got a hold on me, but this year I intend to fortify myself and resist the downward pull by various means. When the earth is dark and cold it’s clear how earthly, not heavenly, is my own self. But the Light of the World has come, and with some effort I hope to rest more constantly in the sphere of His brilliance.

I’ve been hunting around the Internet for more quotes from St. Seraphim to add to my treasures, and found on this blog a list of “Ten Counsels of St. Seraphim,” of which the quotes on Despondency seem to the point:

Just as the Lord cares for our salvation, so the devil, the killer of men, strives to lead man to despondency.

When despondency seizes us, let us not give in to it. Rather, fortified and protected by the light of faith, let us with great courage say to the spirit of evil: “What are you to us, you who are cut off from God, a fugitive from Heaven, and a slave of evil? You dare not do anything to us: Christ, the Son of God, has dominion over us and over all. Leave us, you thing of bane. We are made steadfast by the uprightness of His Cross. Serpent, we trample on your head.”

Father Seraphim spent many years alone in the forest, learning to pray and acquiring the Holy Spirit, after which he returned to the monastery where he spent many more years counseling and healing the crowds who lined up to see him every day. He “gave them the Lord” as I’ve heard people put it.
Communion bread

One meeting and conversation that Father Seraphim had with his friend N.A. Motovilov tells us quite a bit about him and is quoted at length here. Father Seraphim talked much about our need to “acquire the Holy Spirit Who acts within us and establishes in us the Kingdom of God.”

That is certainly what I need. Even now, after much excitement and little sleep just in the last few days, I feel that earthy heaviness mocking my faith. But with God’s help, and by the prayers of Saint Seraphim and all the saints, I hope to get the blood moving in my lazy soul, trample more often on that ugly head, and keep putting one foot in front of the other until I reach Springtime.