20081116 Healing on the Way

20081116 Healing on the Way

www.stmichaeluoc.org
www.orthoanalytika.org

Galatians 6: 11-18
St. Luke 8: 41- 56

Today we have a foretaste and proof of something that you must always keep in your mind. Something that will bring comfort to you in sorrow and strength when you are weak: that Christ is coming to resurrect all the dead, that He comes to restore everyone to complete health of soul and body, and, at the same time, to restore us to perfect health in community with one another. Just look at today’s Gospel: the pious man Jarius’ daughter was ill; Jarius petitions Christ to heal her; she then dies; but Christ restores her spirit to her body, and her to her parents’ love. Christ revived her and brought her back into loving union with her family. This is what God promises to all of us: as He Himself said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even through he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (St. John 11:25)

And the coming resurrection is more than just a restoration of spirit to body, it is a perfecting recreation. The moments of physical vitality and mutual love that we treasure so dearly are just hints and shadows of the vitality and love that await us. St. Paul shares this Good News in his letter to the Romans:

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory”. (Romans 15: 51-54)

This is the road that Christ travels, and that we travel through Him. But what is it that happens on the way? Today’s Gospel describes two things that happen on the road to the restoration of Jarius’ daughter. They can help us as we walk this same road toward the General Resurrection.
First, there is the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. She had been suffering from this infirmity for twelve years. She was destitute from her search for a cure. She was suffering. So she sought out Christ. She found Christ on the road, as He was on his way to Jarius’ house. She reached out to Him, and the combination of His physical presence and her faith healed her. He saw her, blessed her, and gave her peace. What a beautiful encounter! Wouldn’t you like to see such a thing? Last week, Archbishop Antony reminded us that we are to be the Gospel; that we may be the only Christ that people see and hear. The woman received healing because she was able to find Christ.

This area is full of people in need of healing. Full of people who have spent their fortunes on false cures. People who are looking for an authentic cure. Seeking out the real Christ. Would they find Him in us? Would they recognize Christ in us? What kind of Gospel do we share? I don’t mean the one that stands on the center of the our altar, or the one that sits in your prayer corner, but rather the one that we really share; the one we share with how we live our lives, with how we treat one another, with how we treat strangers. Christ is self-sacrifice and love: are we? Christ is the “New Adam”, the one that exhibits and shares every “fruit of the spirit” (e.g. love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – Galatians 5: 22).

Are we like that, or do we still walk in the flesh as did the old Adam (with adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like – Galatians 5:19). If we want to witness Christ, both as individuals and as a Church, then, as St. Paul says “let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5: 26) If we gossip about one another, if we provoke one another, if we refuse to forgive one another, if we bring anything but love and longsuffering to our relationships with one another, then we are not the real Gospel, but an abomination.

Christ brings healing to all He encounters on the road to the Resurrection. Abomination brings pain and suffering to all he encounters on the road to damnation. St. Michael’s is called to be Christ to the world: this requires our mutual love and sacrifice. Otherwise we are like all the other charlatans that the woman met in her twelve years of suffering.

The Second thing that happened on the road was that Jarius’ daughter died. Jarius was a faithful man. He expected Christ to heal his daughter from her illness – what else would a loving God do? But instead, she died from her illness. This is a vital lesson: Christ brings the one thing needful, but it isn’t always what you think it should be. Later in the Gospel lesson, Jarius understands. He understands when he holds his living daughter in his arms. You have the fullness of the faith at your disposal, so you should already understand.

Let me paint the picture of this at its most dire; at its most difficult: this week we have been commemorating the 75th year since the tragedy of the Holodomor, a time when one out of every four Ukrainians was purposely starved to death, when those who survived watched helplessly as one out of every three of their children died a slow and agonizing death. When abomination, under the guise of progress, did its best to destroy the love and test the longsuffering of Christian people. How can sanity endure such a thing? How can faith possibly persevere?

There is only one true answer to the havoc that abomination wreaks in this world: that through the suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ; “The body is sown in corruption, [but] it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, [but] it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, [but] it is raised in power.” (1 Corinthians 15: 42-58). We preserve our sanity in the midst of suffering through faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And through living in His love, we like Him; we AS HIM; will bring healing, comfort, and peace to those we meet along the road.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Some thoughts on this past week - and on the Holodomor

It was another busy week here at St. Michael’s. Here are some highlights:

Monday
While I spent most of Monday on administrivia, the highlight came in the evening with the opening of the Holodomor exhibit at the Rhode Island Community College (Knight Campus) Art Gallery. As part of the commemoration, Professor Cheryl Madden (who teaches history at CCRI and was recently awarded the “Order of Princess Olha” by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko) gave a talk on the tragedy, and a local playwright (David Eliet) discussed and shared his short film on the subject. Afterwards, we toured the exhibition compiled from the work of various local artists and groups (to include one from our parish - you can see it on the bottom left of the flyer linked above).

Wednesday
On Wednesday we usually pray the Moleban intercessory prayer service and then move into our Adult Education class. Instead of a Moleban, this week we continued our commemoration of the Holodomor with a Panakhida prayer service for the more than ten million souls who were starved to death in 1932-1933. It was an incredibly moving service [an aside: to save money on oil this winter, we are holding weekday classes and services in the rectory office. I learned this week that even a little incense will create enough of a cloud to make it impossible for all but the most hardy to stay. Thankfully, I learned this early enough before the service to allow things to clear out a bit!]. After the prayer service, we watched a short film on the Holodomor and then discussed it for a while.

After that, we had a parish board meeting where we conducted an AAR (after action review) of the bishop’s visit (it went very well), the patronal feast (some would prefer that we went out to celebrate, others prefer to keep it in the hall), and the possible incorporation of another Orthodox cemetery (St. John’s - a Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Providence that closed many years ago).

Friday
At 2:30 AM, my oldest son (Nicholas, 13) and I headed down to our seminary/consistory in S. Bound Brook, New Jersey. We got there at about 6:30 AM (it was an easy drive - we didn’t even have to slow down much to cross the George Washington Bridge!), just in time to prepare to celebrate Divine Liturgy in the seminary chapel with Bishop Daniel and our full-time seminarians. What a blessing! Then I headed across to the Consistory to check-in with Archbishop Antony and all my friends there. There, Fr. Bazyl (the rector of our seminary) asked if I was available to teach a class on “Kyivan Spirituality” for our weekend seminarians next semester. Of course I enthusiastically agreed. This will mean spending one Friday a month there (and a whole lot of time in preparation). On the way home, we stopped at Chipotle (Nick’s favorite restaurant and in my top five) and to see Fr. Taras in Cartaret (he gave us some new Divine Liturgy books for the pews). We got home at about 6 PM. Not everyone understands why I like to make that trip, but it really is a treat for me.

Saturday
I slept in a bit on Saturday morning, then helped out the Ladies’ Sodality do some last minute preparations for our “Ukrainian Kitchen”, which ran from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The Kitchen went VERY well - not only did the Ladies raise some money, we got to meet lots of people in the local community (I like to play the role of greeter). The Ladies make incredibly good varenyky (cabbage and potato dumplings), perohy (stuffed rolls), holobtsi (cabbage rolls), fried cabbage, soup, etc. But even more amazing is their dedication to the Church. You would not believe the amount of time and energy they put into their efforts.

At 3PM, we had our weekly chanting class. At 4PM we celebrated Vespers. Then at 5PM we celebrated a crowning service for a couple who wanted to “renew their vows” within the Orthodox Church. I cannot describe the joy shared there. It was a beautiful thing. The couple invited us to the reception, which was everything a reception should be (good fellowship, food, etc.).

Sunday
Sunday was my “one morning of work” as a priest, and I followed my usual routine in preparing and the like. The service was beautiful, despite the fact that there were only about 45 folks there to enjoy it. After a coffee hour and a short nap, my family took me out to a local Mexican restaurant for my birthday. It was really nice. We finished up the day with swimming and ice cream. Happy times.

The coming week looks to be no less busy than last, with the biggest additions being a new weekly service on Wednesday afternoon (daily Vespers), a presentation on immigration at the “Faith and Order Commission”, and a new graduate-level class I am teaching down at the Naval War College in Newport. Daily Vespers and the immigration thing should be a snap, but I am a bit stressed out about the new class. [One more thing: I have a dear friend and mentor undergoing surgery on Friday (please pray for Ihumen Gregory).]

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What was the Holodomor?
Holod: from the word for hunger; Mor: from the word for plague/murder

It occurs to me that not everyone who reads this may be familiar with the Holodomor. Here is the basic context: Stalin was trying to centralize control over all industry and agriculture. He was also trying to Sovietize the various nations under his rule. The Ukrainians resisted both of these efforts, so Stalin used starvation to force them into submission. The main mechanism that he used was the enforcement of impossible grain quotas. How does this work? Central planning runs on quotas: the government determines how many of every commodity should be produced, the price that will be offered for them, and the price that they will be sold for. In the case of Ukraine, Stalin demanded ALL of the grain (and other foodstuffs) produced and offered nothing in return (at least to those who refused to join the oppressive collective farm system).

Recognizing the danger to their very lives, some Ukrainians hid grain to feed their family, so Stalin sent in forces (both “professional” soldiers and deputized mobs) to look into every nook and cranny. He then put more forces at the borders of Ukraine to keep people from leaving and goods from coming in, and then he watched as over ten million Ukrainians slowly starved to death. This was about one in every four Ukrainians, and one out of every three Ukrainian children. The official party line was that there was no famine (artificial or otherwise), but that there may have been isolated suffering due to poor harvests. This was a lie that has now been publicly and clearly outed (despite the early efforts of the New York Times). To this very day, there are government officials in Russia who deny that the Holodomor ever occurred and to commemorate those who perished in it (I will never understand why anyone would feel the need to ignore or defend Soviet attrocities).

Some folks wonder how it is that such a thing could happen to such a large and civilized country in this day and age. Most assume that it could not happen today; that it could not happen here. I am not so sure. As I wrote last week, all it takes is a large government supported by people who value “progress” (or any other ideal) more than human lives. The Communists in Russia and Ukraine (and the Nazis in Germany) were not martians - they were sinners with the same temptations we have. It was easy for them to believe that the people dying were less important that what was being achieved; that the victims stood in the way of a brighter and more just future. I would argue that not only could it happen here, it is happening here; but instead of sacrificing peasants and farming families to the God of progress, we sacrifice babies to the God of comfort and sinful self-indulgence. You cannot tell me that anyone with a moral bone in their body doesn’t look at the slaughter of the unborn through abortion with the same abhoration and disgust as we do when we study the atrocities of the Nazi Holocaust or the Soviet Holodomor.

Yes, it can happen here. It is happening here. And like before, the apologists for our sin (such as the New York Times and every pro-abortion politician and activist) propagandandize to convince us that there is “nothing to see here”, that “everything is okay.”

But everything is not okay. People are being slaughtered. And just as the covering lies damaged the souls of the Soviet survivers, so to do our own lies kill our souls.

May God grant Memory Eternal to all the souls who departed this life during the Holodomor, and may God grant mercy to the souls of those who perpetuated and supported it.