Knowledge and faith

Knowledge enjoins all those who journey in its path to investigate, according to its laws, the end of anything before making a beginning, and thus to commence; lest the end of the thing prove unachievable by the limit of human ability, and labor be spent in vain, and lest the thing prove difficult and impossible to realize.
But what says faith? ‘All things are possible to him that believeth,’ for to God nothing is impossible. O unspeakable wealth, O ocean rich in its billows and its marvellous treasures and mighty floods of the power of faith! How filled with boldness, how replete with sweetness and hope is the journey accompanied by faith! How light are faith’s burdens, how sweet its labors!

St Isaac of Syria, Homily 52

A little housekeeping

Fast(ing) Food Department: For a while I maintained a separate blog called Fast(ing) Food. As part of my housekeeping in getting this blog active again, I’ve deleted Fast(ing) Food and moved all of its posts over here.
 If you browse through older posts here and see one about Lenten cooking, chances are that it’s been imported from the old Fast(ing) Food blog.
 Thanks.

Desert Spirituality, but with toppings…

Peperonata (Stock photo, not mine)

Fast(ing) Food department: During the Fast, it’s good not only to keep the letter but to simplify and reduce our diet a bit.
 A typical meal for the Desert Fathers might be a bowl of lentils, with salt if they had some. I’m not ready for that, but it’s true that a simple bowl of rice and/or legumes makes a fine Lenten meal once we’ve bowed to our carnal nature and added some flavor.
 I’ve been making a habit of keeping some of this peperonata around. it’s really tasty and can be used as a topping on rice, beans or pasta.

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• Heat up some oil in a big skillet.
• Add 1 onion, chopped, and 3 bell peppers, chopped. Add salt, maybe 1 teaspoon. You can use green peppers, but the whole thing is much nicer to look at if you use red and yellow peppers. If you want to make it spicier, add black pepper, a big pinch of red pepper flakes, and/or a squirt of Sriracha sauce. Simmer over medium heat, stirring often, until the onion and peppers are softened.
• Add 1 (14.5 ounce) can of diced tomatoes. Throw in some of your favorite herbs, whatever they are.  Simmer, stirring from time to time, until a lot of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture is thick. Toward the end of cooking, stir in 2 or 3 chopped garlic cloves. (Garlic keeps its flavor much better if you don’t cook it for long.)

This is simplified from Martha Rose Shulman’s The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking.

Do not call God just

Do not hate the sinner, for we are all laden with guilt. If for the sake of God you are moved to oppose him, weep over him. Why do you hate him? Hate his sins and pray for him, that you may imitate Christ Who was not wroth with sinners, but interceded for them. Do you not see how He wept over Jerusalem? …
 Why, O man, do you hate the sinner? Could it be because he is not so righteous as you? But where is your righteousness when you have no love?…
 Be a herald of God’s goodness, for God rules over you, unworthy though you are. Although your debt to Him is so very great, He is not seen exacting payment from you; and from the small works you do, He bestows great rewards on you.
 Do not call God just, for His justice is not manifest in the things concerning you.

– Saint Isaac of Syria, Ascetical Homily #51

An anniversary

Today is the 15th anniversary of the end of NATO’s bombing of Serbia/Yugoslavia in 1999. (It was also the end of NATO’s status as an organization dedicated to the defense of its member nations, none of whom were threatened.) The bombing continued around the clock for 78 days beginning March 24.

I won’t go into the military, political or humanitarian arguments for this campaign, but wanted to note one thing.

In spite of the combined appeals of virtually every Orthodox hierarch in the world, NATO refused to suspend its bombing of Serbia for one day on Pascha of that year, so that the Orthodox people of Serbia might have one day to worship Christ’s holy Resurrection in peace.

God notices these things, though they may not seem significant by the world’s measures. When we look at political events, we don’t often think of God’s blessing nations, or of His withdrawing His blessing from them.

But if you think that things have not been going well for our country in the years since 1999, this might be something to remember.

Let my prayer arise

We may liken fasting to a burning coal and prayer to frankincense.
Neither has value without the other,
but together, the sweet savor of their incense fills the air.

— Abba Matta El-Meskeen (Matthew the Poor) in Orthodox Prayer Life

A fruitful Lent to all

If a man takes refuge from the tempest in this harbor,
will he not be saved?
If in his agony he kneels before this house of healing,
will he not be cured?
O Maker of all and Physician of the sick,
before I perish utterly,
save me, O Lord.

— Penitential sticheron for Lenten Sunday Vespers, Tone 4

A Lenten Challenge

This was first written with my own parish in mind, but I post it here with the thought that it might apply more widely.

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A Lenten Challenge
¶ During the Great Fast, the Church invites us to struggle harder and to pray more fervently for our salvation and spiritual growth. As part of its invitation, the Church offers us a wealth of services every week of the Fast to help us draw closer to our Lord. As anyone who attends these services can tell you, not all of us take advantage of them: attendance is often quite poor.
¶ May I offer a challenge for this Lenten season? Come to at least one Lenten service every week of the Great Fast. (The Sunday Divine Liturgy isn’t really a Lenten service and doesn’t count!). Many, but not nearly all, of our faithful already do more than this. God will surely bless them for their faithfulness.
¶ Anyone who can get to church has the ability to meet this very modest challenge. Do we tell ourselves that we’re “too busy” to fit in even one weekday service? Perhaps we have filled our lives with other activities, but in doing so we have said about each activity: “This is more important than church.” This is a delusion.
¶ Here is a bonus challenge:

“The right to be unlimited”

A recent commercial for Sprint’s digital data services is remarkable in a few ways — it includes the line “I need to upload all of me” — but I thought one line stood out as a kind of manifesto for the techno-humanist spirit of our age:

I need, no, I have the right to be unlimited.

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The image is Marc Chagall’s The Fall of Icarus.

Weapon of peace

The Kontakion to the Cross hails it as “Weapon of peace and unconquerable standard of victory.” These seemingly paradoxical words came to my mind as I read this remarkable story by Archimandrite Ambrose Pogodin from the current Orthodox Life (January-February 2013). ¶ Even though the story is long for a blog post, I give it here in full with the kind permission of the publisher, Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville NY. Do your soul a favor and subscribe to this edifying journal. (Subscribe here. $22 annually in the US.)

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One of my parishioners told me the story of his cross. Here it is in his own words.
  I was born in the USSR. My father was the chairman of a kolhoz and my mother was a schoolteacher. My father was a Communist Party member, while my mother was a leader in the komsomol. I was raised in the spirit of materialism. My grandmother was the only religious one. When no one was at home, as we huddled together on the stove, she taught me to pray; and, to tell the truth, what she told me was much closer to my heart and understanding than that which I heard from my parents. My grandmother — who, as I later found out, baptized me without my parents’ knowledge — died when I was still quite young. Yet those few prayers that she had taught me remained etched in my memory for a long time, as among the few beautiful things that I chanced to experience in my younger years. Yes, perhaps these were the only beautiful things in my life.