“It is needful also to make use of Tradition, for not everything can be gotten from sacred Scripture. The holy apostles handed down some things in the Scriptures, other things in Tradition” Saint Epiphanius of Salamis [Panacea Against All Heresies 61:6 (c. A.D. 375)].
Prayer is always a movement, a murmuring of the Holy Spirit in the heart. According to the teachings of the spiritual Fathers and Mothers of the Church, the mere intention to pray is already prayer.
In the letters of Saint Paul, two passages — which resemble each other and complete one another — describe the mysterious action of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. “What you received was not the Spirit of slavery; you received the spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Rom 8:15). “God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of the Son crying, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Gal 4:6).
So closely akin are prayer in the Spirit and prayer of the Spirit in us, that in reality, it is hard to differentiate between the two. There is no tangible boundary, formal or rational. The two blend, but without a fusion, of being with the Holy Spirit.
In a magazine interview from 1989, Sister Joan was asked: "Why do some people in the peace movement seem to lack inner peace and become more oppressor than peacemaker? Has this been your experience—maybe even in yourself?" She answered:
“Oh, always in myself. The more I pray, the more I realize that it’s in myself that the demon lives most comfortably. But that’s the mystery of the Christian life. People will always be challenged where they’re most committed. I think it’s the same in marriage: here you have this sacramental relationship, and you’re chagrined that the relationship often looks like it’s in shards. It’s hard to accept, but sometimes the thing you do least well is love the person you say you love the best.
Instead of looking at it as an opportunity for conversion, however, there’s the temptation to throw in the towel and say, “Look at me, I’m such a hypocrite.” But it should be, “No. Look at me, I’m a struggling Christian. Look at me, I know where the sin of the world begins.” I think that is why the Agnus Dei is such a beautiful prayer: “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.” Have mercy on us, because we know where the sins of the world are coming from.
But I also think—and I want to emphasize this—that when a person goes into something with that kind of total Christian commitment, they’ve got to contend with the demonic. The demonic is precisely where I do not expect to find it. It’s in me or the parish or the church; it exists in the thing that means most to me, and it exists there in order to obstruct me. The reality of the demonic can lead to disillusionment, despair and defection.
To counter that I’ve learned to love it, accept it, expect it. I say to myself, “Hey, I’m still on the road to being a better Christian.” Moreover, the church is still on the road, the parish is still on the road, we’re all still on the road.”
*Excerpted from Vision & Viewpoint by Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister
“Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him. One does not help a person by discerning what is wrong, what is ugly, what is distorted. Christ looked at everyone he met, at the prostitute or the thief, and saw the beauty hidden there. Perhaps it was distorted, perhaps damaged, but it was beauty none the less, and what he did was to call out this beauty” – Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh of Blessed Memory.
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8, New International Version).
May 7, 2015
This evening’s commemoration is a solemn occasion. We are gathered with our sisters and brothers in the Armenian Orthodox Church and the wider Armenian community to give witness to the Armenian Genocide. We are also gathered with them to acknowledge their faith and resilience in the face of such adversity. And so, we gather together to remember, to mourn, to find inspiration, and yes, even to celebrate.
We remember that the Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century, and that it marked the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the bloodiest, most violent century in all of human history. During the horrific period beginning in 1915 and continuing until 1923, more than 1 million Armenians (and others) were killed, and hundreds of thousands more were displaced. The dead were buried in the land where they had lived for generations. The refugees were dispersed throughout the world, and some to the United States, where their future generations have now become the friends and neighbors with whom we stand today.
We mourn the dead. We stand tonight among the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who were killed. We listen to the language of the Armenian people, and of their great and proud heritage. We pray the prayers of their ancient Church, asking for God’s mercy upon the people and the nation that was first in history to become Christian. Tonight, in solidarity, their forebears become our forebears, their language becomes our language, and their prayers become our prayers.
We find inspiration in the call of the Armenian people to stand against the evil of genocide wherever and whenever it is committed. And in the last century, genocide has been committed all too often, and in too many places: in Europe (the Holocaust) in the 1930s and 1940s; in Cambodia in the late 1970s; in Rwanda in 1994; in Bosnia in the mid-1990s; and in Darfur in the early 2000s. In addition, mass atrocities and crimes against humanity continue to be perpetrated today in many parts of the world, especially in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In the face of such evil, standing among our Armenian brothers and sisters we affirm that our work to end genocide is not finished.
Finally, we celebrate the resurrection of the Armenian people. The Christian faith is all about hope, and all about the victory of life over death. Like Jesus Christ, who rose from the tomb to give life to the world (John 8:12), the Armenian people rose from the ashes of genocide to become again a vibrant people among all the peoples of the world. They are a powerful witness to faith in the resurrection, and a profound testimony to God’s promise to remember those who take refuge in him (Psalm 18:30). And to this, we say, “Amen.”
++++++++++++++
In his five-volume masterpiece on the famed novelist, Joseph Frank commented: “Dostoevsky was to say…that the problem of the existence of God had tormented him all his life; but this only confirms that it was always emotionally impossible for him ever to accept a world that had no relation to a God of any kind” – Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal 1850-1859 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 43.
The following are several of my favorite quotes excerpted from Dostoevsky’s novels:
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars; the deeper the grief, the closer is God!” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
“Dostoevsky was a passionate man and had many falls and mistakes. But he is remembered as one who, being a thoroughly ‘modern’ man who had come to see the ‘one thing needful’ in life, offered a sincere struggle against his passions and helped us all to see more clearly the nature of the workings of passion and sin in fallen humanity.”
“Elder Ambrose of Optina said of Dostoevsky, after he visited the monastery, that he was ‘one who is repenting.’ Thus he is closer to today’s Orthodox converts than many more perfect men, such as the great Russian ascetics of the 19th century, and can help to open up to them the way to the saving truth of Orthodoxy. Above all, his compassionate portraits of the suffering and downtrodden, and even of those possessed by passions, can help Orthodox converts to develop the basic Christian concern and compassion which are so often lost sight of in our overly intellectual times” – Orthodox America (1981).
