The Great Canon

Luke Mihaly  February 16 2010 10:59:53 AM

The Great Canon of St. Andrew which is read during the First week of Lent is a conversation that St. Andrew has between himself and his soul.  It is an opportunity for us to also begin the inner journey of Lent by delving into the inner most part of ourselves with the great spiritual guide, St. Andrew of Crete.   In the second Ode of the Canon we hear these words from St.  Andrew:

I looked at the beauty of the tree, and my mind was
seduced; and now I lie naked, and I am ashamed. (Genesis 3:7)

Here St. Andrew makes the connection between the sin of Adam and Eve and our own sinful life.  We see the connection of our first parents with ourselves; the weakness and temptation that Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden, is the same weakness and temptation that we experience when we are confronted with sinful choices.  But looking further we see that Andrew uses the word seduced in connection with sin.  Adam and Eve looked at the external beauty of the tree and disregarded or forgot, even if only for a moment, the warning from God that if they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Life they would surely die.  They allowed their mind to be seduced, like a sugar coated poison pill, they tasted the juicy flesh of the fruit of the tree but soon found death awaited them inside.  And once having tasted of the fruit for the wrong reasons, they recognized their nakedness, having lost the glory of God that had covered them before.  How they were ashamed of their nakedness and had to use fig leaves to cover themselves.

How many times have we been seduced by our passions?  How many times have we not thought through the possible consequences of our impulsive actions or seductive desires?  Were we not like Adam and Eve once we did something wrong?  Did we not know deep down inside that we did something wrong by our words, our thoughts or our deeds?  What lengths did we go through to blame someone else or to point the blame in some other direction beside ourselves?  Is this not what Adam did when he blamed the woman whom God had made?  Is this not what Eve did when she blamed the serpent?    

As we continue our journey through Great Lent, let us not be too quick or impulsive in our words or actions.  Let us think through to the consequences of what we do, say or think.  Let us not only think about the possible good things or pleasures that we might enjoy for only a brief moment, but let us ponder on the years of possible misery that we would reap.  May this be enough to prevent us from doing something we would later regret.  

St. Andrew has put before us the poor example of Adam and Eve before us.  Let us learn from their mistakes so that we may avoid the consequences of our sins, and enter into an ever deeper relationship with our Lord.

• Comments [0]

Marriage

Luke Mihaly  September 7 2009 12:09:07 AM

So many of us make our life in Christ so much more difficult and complicated than it has to be.   Our Lord gave us one commandment that  is to Love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12).  If we do this, we fulfill all of the Law and all of the Canons of the Church.  This is our simple Christian Faith.  

In the relationship of marriage this Christian Love is best expressed during the service in the wearing of the marriage crowns which symbolize the crown of thorns our Lord wore during His Passion.  Husband and wife are to die to each other so that the other may have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).  Just as Christ died for us so that we might have life and have it more abundantly, so we, husbands and wives, die to each other so that the other may have life and have it more abundantly.  

But love exists only if it is freely given and freely received.  Christ freely surrendered Himself to death to save us because He loves us.  So the fundamental under-pinning of every loving relationship is freedom.  Marriage is a sacrificial love that is offered in freedom.  However, not only must one offer that sacrificial love in freedom, that love must also be allowed to be accepted freely.  Christ freely died for us because He loves us, but He does not force us to love Him.  With Christ as our example, husband and wife need to love and be loved freely.  

Many problems in marriage come about because of a lack of freedom in the relationship.  Love is demanded and/or expected by spouses.  When these demands and/or expectations are not met, there develops anger, disappointment, disdain.   Without freedom, relationships become mechanical, robotic and stale.  Where there is freedom there is creativity, vitality, newness of life.  

Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for another and this is the love that is asked of us in sacrament of marriage.

• Comments [0]

Proper Behavior in Church

Luke Mihaly  May 25 2009 12:00:14 AM

 When Christ began His public ministry His message was simple: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This simple message is also what should guide our behavior in church.  Repentance should be the background upon which we paint our every liturgical and spiritual experience with God.  Repentance means more than just being sorry for our sins.   It is more than just a recognition of what is wrong in our lvies, it more than just being sorry for what we have done.Repentance means even more than a trying to avoid evil in our lives like some debris that lies in the road ahead of us.  Repentance means a recognition that the road upon which we are traveling is heading away from God.  Repentance is the act of actually exiting the road and turning our lives back in God's direction.    Repentance implies recognition, sorrow and movement away from sin and back towards God.

Fr. Stephanos K. Anagnostopoulos in his book, "Experiences During the Divine Liturgy" (Pirraeus, 2008) says "First and foremost, we need to have repentance, sorrow and awareness of our sinfulness." (pg. 27)  Repentance is an internal disposition that allows us to see the obstacles that we have placed in our lives which keep us from drawing close to God.  These obstacles prevent us from hearing God and learning to recognize His voice amidst the cacophony of noise that surrounds us everyday.  Repentance allows us to properly identify our sins so that with God's grace we can direct our lives back towards God.  It is not a matter of simply removing the obstacle, but a humble admission that we are traveling in the wrong direction.  Repentance allows us to to admit we are going in the wrong direction.  Without repentance, at best we replace one obstacle with another one; at worst, we end up stacking more and more things into our lives until we have built a strong barricade between us and God.  

Repentance also has the affect of turning our attention inward towards ourselves rather than on the people and things around us.  Repentance forces us to see our responsibility in our relationship with God.  If we are truly repentant, we see our culpability rather than looking outside ourselves for blame.  Fr. Anagnostopoulos writes, "Thus, we shall not pay attention to the person standing next to us, in terms of what they are wearing, how they are behaving, not even if they are crying, sighing, kneeling, making the sign of the Cross ten or fifty times.  We shall only pay attention to what we are doing." (pg. 27).  It is this focus on the consequences of our sinfulness that turns our attention away from what others are doing, or wearing or saying.  Inattentiveness to our interior state is a symptom of a lack of repetnance.    

Proper Church behavior begins first of all with us, not the person next to us.  And once there, we must begin to delve inside ourselves with a true spirit of repentance.  It is a conscious recognition of our sins and the spiritual descent into our heart to reorient our life back towards God and not merely the plucking out of those things that are in our way. We have to first be sure we are on the right Way.  It is a recognition of our unworthiness before God and an acceptance of God's unconditional love for us as we strive to cooperate with God's grace on the road to salvation.  We need to be more interested and concerned about the interior disposition of our heart; clergy and laity alike.   This spirit of repentance must permeate our presence in church so that it can begin to affect our daily lives.  

• Comments [1]