Tag Archives: Fr. Stephen Freeman

Armies cried out as an echo.

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When the Holy Trinity said, “Let there be heaven and earth,” Thou, O Christ, didst serve as a Thought and a Tongue of the divine Trinity. Choirs of angels formed themselves on Thy voice, receiving their form from the multi-colored light; thereupon many armies, as multi-colored clouds, cried out as an echo of the divine glory and divine blessedness, and stood in ranks around Thee, their Leader, singing the triumphal hymn: Alleluia.

The long poem, Akathist to Jesus Conqueror of Death, by St. Nikolai Velimirovich, contains songs of the nine ranks of angels, of which that above is titled, “The Choir of Angels.” Today in the Orthodox Church we commemorate the Archangel Michael and All Angels, so I will share the second of those songs as well, “The Choir of Archangels”:

Thou hast made us Thy vessels and filled us completely with Thy might and Thy wisdom; of ourselves we are nothing, but in Thy mercy Thou hast made us Thy friends. Lucifer fell from our archangelic rank and dragged all mankind into perdition, but Thou, so as to remove that disgrace from our countenance, hast allowed us to share in Thy victory, the victory over Lucifer, by sending the Archangel Gabriel as herald of Thy descent into battle and Thy victory; thus in gratitude we praise and glorify Thee, singing: Alleluia.

Last year at this time I was trying to learn a prayer song to the Archangel Michael, to teach the little children at church. I had forgotten about the most traditional and easy one that they might already have been introduced to in the past, and spent a long time in finding a hymn (text below) that was really a bit much for the class. But it is my own favorite so far, and I think this is where I learned it:

Father Stephen has written about the legitimacy of praying to angels. About the scripture that says, “There is only one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus,” he explains:

“…that sense of mediation is a meaning of the word that Christ alone could perform. No angel, no other creature can unite me to God. Only God become man is able to unite man to God.

“But we’re talking about prayer, not union, per se. Can someone else pray for me? I hope so …. Can angels pray for me? (yes they can and they do). Is it wrong to ask them to do so or thank them for it (certainly not)….

“God is the ‘Lord of Hosts.’ He is always surrounded by such a cloud of Angels, saints, etc. He cannot be approached ‘alone.’ This great company of witnesses, as the book of Hebrews calls them, bears witness to my prayers before God, and hopefully improves greatly upon them. They see so much more clearly than what I see. I see and know so little. Thank God someone is praying who knows. God knows, but it is His delight, in the utter humility of His nature, to share that knowledge and to invite us to pray.”

St. Michael the Archangel,
Defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness
and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who roam throughout the world,
seeking the ruin of souls.

St. Michael bust relief by Jonathan Pageau

Our days are not filled with things we like.

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Today, I just want to share excerpts from Fr. Stephen Freeman’s article, Thanksgiving as Mystical Communion:

“In one form or another, we divide the world into light and dark. It might take the form, ‘I like this. I do not like that.’ What we find easy are the things we see as good and the things we like. If a day is filled with such things, we are likely to be happy…. Of course, our days are not filled with good things that we like.”

“The modern myth is bound up with the ‘better world,’ the notion that through proper management and applications of science and technology (and all of the so-called ‘sciences’), we can make the world a better place – meaning that we will be able to eliminate the negative and maximize our pleasure. Pleasure is equated with the good, while suffering is seen as inherently bad. Modernity seeks to turn the world into a candy store (without diabetes).”

“My continuing critique of modernity has nothing to do with technology, medicine, science, etc. None of those things are ‘modern’ in and of themselves. Modernity is a set of ideas, not a time in history. One of its most subtle bits of propaganda is to pass itself off as a historical period, and, even, as the inevitable outcome of everything that has gone before…. Modernity is propaganda parading as history.

“It is also ungrateful.”

“No doubt, Christians will continue in doing good. However, in spite of every modern mythology, the world will not be a ‘better’ place. Evil things will continue to happen (many of them done in the name of a better world). Modernity, however, cannot bear suffering, which is truly tragic in that suffering is an inevitable part of every life. The modern world’s absence of a meaningful narrative with regard to suffering – other than to eradicate it – perpetuates and cultivates a heart that is frequently unable to be grateful.”

“In every thing give thanks:
for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
-I Thessalonians 5:18

“Giving Thanks” by Horace Pippin

Seeing below the surface.

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Repentance is not self-flagellation;
it is an opening flower.

-Met. Kallistos Ware

In the last weeks I’ve been more aware than ever of the truth that What We Need is Not More Information  – all the while collecting more books and reading, reading, reading. When I read Neil Postman in Technopoly say (in 1992) that our society’s glut of the stuff makes information into so much garbage, I was primed so that the word and image brought me great clarity.

“From millions of sources all over the globe, through every possible channel and medium—light waves, airwaves, ticker tapes, computer banks, telephone wires, television cables, satellites, printing presses—information pours in…. The milieu in which Technopoly flourishes is one in which the tie between information and human purpose has been severed, i.e., information appears indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume and at high speeds, and disconnected from theory, meaning, or purpose.” -Neil Postman in Technopoly

Even more recently Fr. Stephen Freeman re-posted this little meditation on simplicity, When Belief is Complicated, which, though it wasn’t particularly Lenten in focus, brought to mind Metropolitan Kallistos’s quote at top. Now I have two images in my mind, garbage overwhelming and weighing me down, and my soul as a tender flower struggling to open to God’s love and grace, but nearly crushed by the weight of a myriad of non-essentials. And Fr. Stephen introduces another metaphor:

“Kierkegaard wrote that ‘purity of heart is to will one thing.’ But we don’t will one thing. We will everything, regardless of the contradictions.

“Faith is not a matter of ‘belief,’ an act of intellectual willing. Faith is a perception of things that do not necessarily appear obvious. In the language of Scripture – ‘faith is the evidence of things not seen.’ But the perception of faith is similar to the perception of objects beneath the surface of a lake. If the surface is disturbed, the objects disappear. The objects do not go away – but we can no longer perceive them.

“In a world of manifold complication – the surface of the water is rarely still.

“The journey of faith thus becomes a movement away from complication.”

For those of us who feel that life is too complicated; that we ourselves are difficult to understand; and that trust and faith are impossible, Father Stephen has suggestions. My favorites:

  • Quit caring so much. The world does not depend on you getting the right answer to life’s questions. Answers often come when we learn to wait patiently for them.
  • Quit thinking so much. If thinking would solve the problem and make things less complicated, you’d be through by now.
  • Look for beauty. Beauty doesn’t make us think so much as it makes the heart a better listener.
  • Take some time off – from as much as you can.
  • Get some sleep.
  • Give away money. At least someone will benefit by this discipline.
  • Sing (beautiful things). The part of your brain that sings is much more closely wired to your heart than the part that thinks.

To put my hopes in terms of these evocative images: I am encouraged in the work of throwing off the garbage, opening like a flower, and peering down through the limpid water of a quiet lake, to glimpse the beautiful realities that my heart craves.

The most cruel master of all.

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“A spiritual life without canon, without custom, without tradition, without rules, is the ultimate democratic freedom. But it unleashes the tyranny of the individual imagination. For with no mediating tradition, the modern believer is subject only to his own whim. The effect is to have no Lord but the God of his own imagination. Even his appeal to Scripture is without effect – for it is his own interpretation that has mastery over the word of God. If we will have no hierarchy, we will not have Christ as Lord. We cannot invent our own model of the universe and demand that God conform.

“It is a great spiritual accomplishment to not be ‘conformed to this world.’ The ideas and assumptions of modern consumer democracies permeate almost every aspect of our culture. They become an unavoidable part of our inner landscape. Only by examining such assumptions in the light of the larger Christian tradition can we hope to remain faithful to Christ in the truth. Those who insist on the absence of spiritual authority, or demand that nothing mediate grace will discover that their lives serve the most cruel master of all – the spirit of the age.”

-Father Stephen Freeman, in this article.