reflection on the Trinity

I had to share this new insight I just read about the Trinity that resonated with me. The Father is God apart from us, the Son is God with us, and the Holy Spirit is God in us. The other thing I read went something like this: in any living thing, we can view it in a Trinitarian way. For example, consider a bird. The existence of the bird is made possible by the Father, who is the Creator. It's design and purpose is made possible by the Son, who is the Word of God. And the vitality, dynamism and growth of the bird is made possible by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life. Imagine comprehending the whole world through the eyes of the Trinity!

How Are People Called Out?

This is a section from one of St. Cyprian's letters that gave me pause. He is writing about the tradition of how people are claimed for ministry. Instead of a person saying, "I think I have a call to ministry" and going to their pastor about it, perhaps the congregation should say to a person, "We think you have a call to ministry." Looking for comments. It does seem logical that people who are truly called to ministry and would be effective clergy would be limited to those who are called out by the people, and not those who present themselves on their own. Thoughts?

From Cyprian, letter 67, to the clergy and people living in Spain:
Which very thing, too, we observe to come from divine authority, that the priest should be chosen in the presence of the people under the eyes of all, and should be approved worthy and suitable by public judgment and testimony; as in the book of Numbers the Lord commanded Moses, saying, "Take Aaron thy brother, and Eleazar his son; and let Aaron die there, and be added to his people." (Num. 20:25,26) God commands a priest to be appointed in the presence of all the assembly; that is, He instructs and shows that the ordination of priests ought not to be solemnized except with the knowledge of the people standing near, that in the presence of the people either the crimes of the wicked may be disclosed, or the merits of the good may be declared, and the ordination, which shall have been examined by the suffrage and judgment of all, may be just and legitimate. And this is subsequently observed, according to divine instruction, in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter speaks to the people of ordaining an apostle in the place of Judas. "Peter," it says, "stood up in the midst of the disciples, and the multitude were in one place." (Acts 1:15) Neither do we observe that this was regarded by the apostles only in the ordinations of bishops and priests, but also in those of deacons, of which matter itself also it is written in their Acts: "And they twelve called together," it says, "the whole congregation of the disciples, and said to them;" (Acts 4:2) which was done so diligently and carefully, with the calling together of the whole of the people, surely for this reason, that no unworthy person might creep into the ministry of the altar, or to the office of a priest. (italics mine) For that unworthy persons are sometimes ordained, not according to the will of God, but according to human presumption, (italics mine) and that those things which do not come of a legitimate and righteous ordination are displeasing to God, God Himself manifests by Hosea the prophet, saying, "They have set up for themselves a king, but not by me." (Hos. 8:4)

On Working

A great nugget from John Chrysostom, from his commentary on the Book of the Acts.

What can be less pleasant than the condition of a man who has nothing to do; what more wretched and miserable? Is it not worse than all the fetters in the world, to be always gaping and yawning, as one sits in the market-place, looking at the passers by? For the soul, as its nature is to be always on the move, cannot endure to be at rest. God has made it a creature of action: to work is of its very nature; to be idle is against its nature. For let us not judge of these things from those who are diseased, but let us put the thing itself to the proof of fact. Nothing is more hurtful than leisure, and having nothing to do: indeed therefore has God laid on us a necessity of working: for idleness hurts everything. Even to the members of the body, inaction is a mischief. Both eye, if it perform not its work, and mouth, and belly, and every member that one could mention, falls into the worst state of disease: but none so much as the soul. But as inaction is an evil, so is activity in things that ought to be let alone. For just as it is with the teeth, if one eats not, one received hurt to them, and if one eats things unfitting, it jars them, and sets them on edge: so it is here; both if the soul be inactive, and if inactive in wrong things, it loses its proper force. Then let us eschew both alike; both inaction, and the activity which is worse than inaction. And what may that be? Covetousness, anger, envyings, and the other passions. As regards these, let us make it our object to be inactive, in order that we may obain the good things promised to us, through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honor, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Beginning to Pray Part V

"Very often we do not find sufficient intensity in our prayer, sufficient conviction, sufficient faith, because our despair is not deep enough. We want God in addition to so many other things we have, we want His help, but simultaneously we are trying to get help wherever we can, and we keep God in store for our last push. We address ourselves to the princes and the sons of men, and we say, 'O God, give them strength to do it for me.' Very seldom do we turn away from the princes and sons of men and say, 'I will not ask anyone for help, I would rather have Your help.' If our despair comes from sufficient depth, if what we ask for, cry for, is so essential that it sums up all the needs of our life, then we find words of prayer and we will be able to reach the core of the prayer, the meeting with God."

This is my last post in this series. As I read further in Anthony Bloom's book on prayer, I may be moved to post some more selections. Ancient Faith radio also has a new series of podcasts on this book. Go to http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/eastwest

Beginning to Pray Part IV

"This is the point at which we can begin to knock at a door which is still closed, but beyond which there is hope, that hope which Bartimaeus, the blind man at the gates of Jericho, felt, out of his utmost despair, when Christ was passing.

We know from the Gospels that Bartimaeus found himself landed by the side of the road, hopelessly blind, having lost all faith and all hope in human help, and reduced to beg for his living, to hope not really on charity (the word meaning 'cherishing'), but on the kind of charity which consists in throwing coins to someone without ever having seen him. And one day this man, who had now given up hope, who was installed in the dust in his present blindness, heard about the man, a new prophet, who was now working miracles throughout the Holy Land. Had he had his eyes he would probably have got up and run throughout the country to find him, but he couldn't possibly keep pace with this itinerant wonder-maker. And so he stayed where he was, and the presence of one who might possibly have cured him must have made his despair even greater, even more poignant. And one day he heard a crowd that passed by, a crowd which did not sound like any other crowd. Probably, as the blind do, he had developed the sense of hearing and a sensitiveness greater than ours, because he asked 'Who is it that passes by?' and he was told 'Jesus of Nazareth.' And then he stood at the point of utmost despair and of utmost hope. Utmost hope because Christ was passing within reach, but at the background the looming despair because a few paces would have brought Him level with Bartimaeus, a few more paces and He had gone and would probably never pass by him again. And out of this desperate hope he began to cry and shout 'Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.' It was a perfect profession of faith. And at that moment it was because his despair was so deep that he could summon such daring hope in order to be healed, saved, made whole. And Christ heard him.

There is a degree of despair that is linked with total, perfect hope. This is the point at which, having gone inward, we will be able to pray; and then 'Lord, have mercy' is quite enough. We do not need to make any of the elaborate discourses we find in manuals of prayer. It is enough simply to shout out of despair 'Help!' and you will be heard.

Beginning to Pray Part III

"Theophon the Recluse says, 'Most people are like a shaving of wood which is curled round its central emptiness.' If we are really honest, we must admit that this is a very apt description of the state of practically all of us.
Then we must be able to fight this anguish and to say, 'No, I will stick it through, and I will come to the point where the anguish itself will prompt me to do what good will is incapable of doing.' Indeed, a moment comes, a moment of despair and anguish and terror, which makes us turn even deeper inward and cry, 'Lord, have mercy! I am perishing. Lord, save me!' We discover that there is nothing in us that can give us life, or rather is life; that all we called life, imagined life to be, was outside and inside there was nothing.
Then we look into the abyss of nonentity and we feel that the deeper we go into it the less there will be left of us. This is a dangerous moment, this is the moment we must hesitate.
At this point we have reached the first layer of depth where we begin to be able to knock at a door. For on the layer where we were just resting from our neighbour before we felt bored, on the layer where we are simply bored and feel offended that we should be, on the layer on which we begin to fidget and worry, then feel slightly anguished, we have as yet no reason to cry and shout with a despair that fills all our mind, all our heart, all our will and all our body with a sense that unless God comes I am lost, there is no hope, because I know that if I emerge out of this depth I will simply be back in the realm of delusion, of reflected life, but not real life.

Beginning to Pray Part II

"So first of all, you must learn to sit with yourself and to face boredom, drawing all the possible conclusions.
After a while this becomes worse than boredom, bcause we are not simply bored in a way that allows us to say 'I am an active person and am of use to my neighbour. I always do good, and for me to be in the state of suspense where I am not doing anything for anyone else is a severe trial.' We begin to discover something else. We are bored when we try to get out of this boredom by turning inward to see if there is anything in ourselves that will put an end to it. Quite soon we discover that there is nothing, since all we have to think about we have already thought about dozens of times. All the range of emotions which we have in store are there like a piano which we have closed because we are not used to the piano playing itself. We must have someone else playing on the keys. We are not in the habit of doing nothing, and so it becomes worrying and can lead us to the point of anguish. If you read the Desert Fathers, who had good experience of this, or the monks who spent their lives in monasteries, you will see that there are moments when they simply ran out of their cells shouting for help, trying to meet something or someone, whatever they could find. The devil himself would have been better than this emptiness of self-contemplation. One of the spiritual writers, Theophan the Recluse, says 'Most people are like a shaving of wood which is curled round its central emptiness.' If we are really honest, we must admit that this is a very apt description of the state of practically all of us."