The Prayer for the Naming

of a Child on the 8th Day

In the Tradition of the Orthodox Church, a child — male or female — is named formally on the eighth day after birth, following the example of our Lord. Many American Orthodox know nothing about the beautiful service in which this is done, let alone seen it offered. Soon-to-be parents may want to discuss it with their parish priest, as part of their preparation for welcoming a new son or daughter into God’s world.
This short service begins with “Blessed is our God…,”

Let Israel fight like Philistines and stand like men

We often take criticism when we’re honest about the full experience of the Fast, especially when we say openly (not only admit but laud this) that we are intentionally weakening the body. Such a thing is unthinkable among those who regard the body almost as a thing of worship, and see giving the body whatever it wants as a law of nature.

But they deny what we assert, namely that Death is not natural, but has infected our nature, and so the demands of the body are not natural ones, quite often – what appears to be normal is excess – is actually the hegemony of the body over the person – an enslavement.

Those who criticize the weakness we impose on the body have themselves imposed a greater weakness on their bodies, for what we impose on our bodies is discipline. We weaken the body through abstinence, that we might strengthen it with discipline. The critics weaken their bodies with regard to discipline, that they might give it whatever it demands for existence, though its demands far exceed existence; indeed it demands hegemony.

The rulership of the material world over the subject persons, and their willing to fall down before its demands, shows that it is slaves that criticize us, while we are making ourselves free. No one who gives the body whatever it wants is free, but instead they are a servant of the body. Just as if you give a child or an animal whatever it wants, you are a servant of the child or of the animal. But the body sings a sweet song of sleep and contentment, so that its dominance is not realized. It lulls the child (for that is what its children are – perpetual children, in fact), and such a child cannot understand why we would ever seek rulership over ourselves as true freedom, for they find the body gives them all they think they need, until their short lives end in Death.

As one father has said, the conquest of self is the greatest enterprise of our warfare.

Fear of Judgment is Wisdom’s Beginning

You know, in America, we’re all born into a culture of “once saved, always saved”. A Protestant-evangelical culture so strongly influenced by this tenet of Baptist religion, that even we Orthodox tend to think of ourselves as “in”, as somehow saved by affiliation, and somehow being of the Faith is reduced from a continual pattern of behavior to merely belonging to the right group.

It’s important to belong to the right group, but that doesn’t keep me from being a tare, a goat, and kindling for the fire. It doesn’t ensure that my lamp is trimmed and full of oil when the Bridegroom comes. It does not mean that I have visited Christ in prison, or given him a place when he was a stranger. And it won’t keep me from going into the Great Apostasy which is comprised not of heterodox, but of Orthodox Christians. In short, being Orthodox, if that’s a static affiliation or mere attendance at liturgy, or even being admitted to Holy Communion – won’t save me. Being Orthodox will save me, surely, but that’s because being Orthodox is so much more than that. The struggle is not to be called Orthodox, not to be regarded as Orthodox, not even to regard myself as Orthodox, but rather it is to actually continually BE Orthodox. There is no “saved”; there is only “being saved”. Often that phrase is used in the “I’m an unfinished work” manner, as an excuse, but there’s no excuse for lack of progress, for indolence, or for at any time being un-Christlike. There can be no excuse, since we are given what we need.

This leads us, with the fathers, to say “God knows his sheep; I am one of the goats.” and “All will be saved, while I alone am condemned.” and “Murderers will be saved before me.”

It is not really our business to apply these sayings to others – only to ourselves.

Whitewashed Faith

It’s an amazing thing. I live near two Orthodox mega-churches. They’re even on the same side of town as the other mega-churches. And they actually work the same way. There are a gazillion programs for people 20-40, for teens, for feminists… you name it, there’ a committee or a program for it. I think they have well over 2 dozen committees alone. But matins, served once a week, draws 3 people, 2 of whom are the reader and most junior priest. At the 20-40 group meetings, they eat and have cocktails, but there is no prayer, none at all. And if anyone tries to talk about Faith, they either get nowhere or are greeted with such misunderstanding of the doctrines and attitudes of the Church, that it’s almost better not to bring it up. Vespers, and other such services are similarly unattended. On Sunday, everyone sits in pews and watches the service. The choir sings invisibly from the sides, but most people don’t pray with them, or realize that’s a tradition – they seem to think it would be interrupting, or that they would miss the singing if they prayed. There are no icons except on the iconostasis. Even in the gigantic eating hall, there was only recently a single icon installed. The interior is whitewashed – whitewashed of the Saints. There are numerous windows, but far fewer Windows to Heaven.

During the substantial meals/buffets served after sunday morning liturgy, an aged junior priest has to run over and quickly say a blessing, so that it can be done before most people have started eating, but no one pays him any mind. There’s a general sense of the absence of God as a daily reality in our lives. There’s little prayer. There’s every manner of religious or atheistic theory from the culture, from heterodoxy, but very little understanding of Orthodox thinking. Enquirers classes for prospective converts focus mainly on the externals of how one gets received (Chrismation, etc. Almost never baptism.). What holds it together is the activities and groups, which provide social interaction for the members, but certainly not the services and vigils of the Church. There’s no sense of the basics going on; one may easily be invited out for steak dinners during Lent, etc. Eventually, tho, despite continual well-attended inquirers classes, chrismations, and new members, they reach an apex of their maximum size, because likewise there’s a steady stream of people that can’t figure out why they’re there, and attend less and less, and eventually drop off. Somehow, it doesn’t sustain them. So despite the huge influx that their size, programs, and marketing creates, their size remains fairly constant. You can determine size, incidentally, either by attending, by reading the headcount figures, or by the number of cars in the parking lot being ushered in or out by security guards on Sunday.

Now typically, if someone were to say all the above,

Accusation

Whatever name you call yourself in your own mind – simpleton, weakling… – never dare to do so without adding, “God loves simpletons.” or “God loves weaklings.” etc. The accusation of the Enemy and self-accusation differ in this regard.

Welcome is not a Slip of Paper

Welcome is Prayer.

The other night I went to hear a speaker at a local church, and they had me fill out a “visitor’s slip” for their database, and they expressed welcome both personally and corporately. They served an excellent meal. They had a renowned speaker. The priest introduced himself and took an interest. They seemed to go out of their way to make me feel welcome. But I didn’t feel welcome.

I felt like an outsider – somehow fundamentally outside the community. I felt like an outsider when prior to the lecture, they introduced the speaker, but there was no prayer. How does one share in listening, perhaps learning, without invoking the One it’s all for, and without whom it’s all vain? The speaker finished, and we were invited to eat, but there was no blessing of the food. Again, I felt outside – an outsider who had to say his prayers privately, as I do when I’m among the heterodox. Indeed, it felt a little like either I was heterodox, or they were. What had I done? Then the Q&A session began, again without prayer, so that we’re into a third hour without ever asking God’s help, his protection against passions, his guidance for our minds and ears, his strength against pride. And it quickly became an occasion for very uncomfortable comments that certainly were not fitting the piety of Holy Orthodoxy.

One can only hope that it ended with prayer;

Why I like the Diocese of the South

(In one image. Click to enlarge.)

To His Eminence Archbishop DMITRI, many years!