Easter 2013

It is March 31, 2013. It is a day that many Christians are celebrating 'Easter', the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior; Jesus the Christ.

Many are celebrating from their prison cell. Some are possibly even being tortured today as a special day of celebration for the jailers.

I ask you, do not be complacent, pray for all on this day, neglect none, prayer can change the world. Pray for unity in the church so that the church prays with one voice, one Spirit. Pray!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, through the Most Holy Name of Jesus the Christ.

Amen!
Rev. Fr. Michael

Origen on Prayer Chapter Four

Origen on Prayer Origen
CHAPTER IV

ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS: MAN’S FREEWILL AND GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE

Of objects that move, some have the cause of motion outside them. Such are objects which are
lifeless and in passive motion simply by force of condition, and those which are moved by force
of nature and of life in the same manner and not like things which move occasionally, for stones
and stocks that have been quarried or cut off from growth, being in passive motion simply by force
of condition, have the cause of motion outside them.

Such too are dead bodies of animals and movable parts of plants, which change position under
compulsion and not as animals and plants themselves change their position but in the same manner
as stones and stocks cut off from growth—although even these may be said to move in respect that,
all bodies in decay being in flux, they possess the motion inherently attendant upon decay. Besides
these a second class of moving objects are those which move by force of their internal nature or
life, which are said by those who use terms in their stricter sense to move of themselves.

A third kind of movement is that in animals, which is termed spontaneous movement, whereas, in
my opinion, the movement of rational beings is independent movement. If we withdraw from an
animal spontaneous movement, it cannot be any longer conceived as even an animal; it will be like
either a plant moving by mere force of nature or a stone borne along by some force external to it:
Whenever an object follows its own peculiar movement, since that is what we have termed
independent movement, it must needs be rational. Thinkers therefore who will have it that nothing
is in our power, will necessarily assent to a most foolish statement, firstly that we are not animals,
and secondly that neither are we rational beings, but that, what we are believed to do, we may be
said to do by force as it were of some external cause of motion and in no sense moving ourselves.

Let anyone, moreover, with special regard to his own feelings, see whether without shame he can
deny that it is himself that wills, eats, walks, gives assent to and accepts certain opinions, dissents
from others as false. There are certain opinions to which a man cannot possibly assent though he
puts them with innumerable refinements of argument and with plausible reasoning: and similarly
it is impossible to assent to any view of human affairs in which our free will is in no sense preserved.
Who assents to the view that nothing is comprehensible, or lives as in complete suspense of
judgement: Who that has received a sense perception of a domestic misdeed, forebears to reprove
the servant? And who is there that does not censure a son who fails to pay the duty owed to parents,
or does not blame and find fault with an adulteress as having committed a shameful act? Truth
forces and compels us, in spite of innumerable refinements, to impulsive praise and blame, on the
basis of our retention of free will with the responsibility in which it involves us.

If our free will is in truth preserved with innumerable inclinations towards virtue or vice, towards
either duty or its opposite, its future must like other things have been known by God, before coming
to pass, from the world’s creation and foundation; and in all things prearranged by God in accordance
with what He has seen of each act of our free wills. He has with due regard to each movement of
our free wills prearranged what also is at once to occur in His providence and to take place according
to the train of future events. God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of all future events including
those that are to have their efficient cause in our freewill guided by impulse.
Even though we should suppose God ignorant of the future, we shall not on that account be
incapacitated for effecting this and willing that. Rather it ensues from His foreknowledge that our
individual free wills receive adjustment to suit the universal arrangement needful for the constitution
of the world. If, therefore, our individual free wills have been known by Him, and if in His
providence He has on that account been careful to make due arrangement for each one, it is
reasonable to believe that He has also pre-comprehended what a particular man is to pray in that
faith, what his disposition, and what his desire.

That being so, in His arrangement it will accordingly have been ordained somewhat after this wise:
This man I will hear for the sake of the prayer that he will pray, because he will pray wisely: but
that man I will not hear, either because he will be unworthy of being heard, or because his prayer
will be for things neither profitable for the suppliant to receive nor becoming me to bestow: and in
the case of this prayer, of some particular person, let us say, I will not hear him, but in the case of
that I will.

Should the fact of God’s unerring foreknowledge of the future disquiet anyone by suggesting that
things have been necessarily determined, we must tell him that it is a real part of God’s fixed
knowledge that a particular man will not with any fixed certainty choose the better or so desire the
worse as to become incapable of a change for his good. And again I will do this for this man when
he prays, as becomes me seeing that he will pray without reproach and will not be negligent in
prayer: upon that man who will pray for a certain amount, I will bestow this abundantly in excess
of his asking or thinking, for it becomes me to surpass him in well doing and to furnish more than
he has been capable of asking.

To this other man of a particular character I will send this angel as minister, to cooperate from a
certain time in his salvation and to be with him for a certain period: to that other, who will be a
better man than he, that angel of higher rank than his. From this man who, after having devoted
himself to the higher views will gradually relax and fall back upon the more material, I will withdraw
this superior cooperator, upon whose withdrawal that duly inferior power, having found an
opportunity to get at his slackness, will set upon him and when he has given himself up in readiness
to sin, will incite him to these particular sins. So we may imagine the Prearranger of All saying:
Amos will beget Josiah, who will not emulate his father’s faults but will find his way leading on
to virtue, and will by aid of these companions be noble and good, so that he will tear down the
evilly erected altar of Jeroboam. I also know that Judas, in the sojourn of my son among the race
of men, will at the first be noble and good but later turn aside and fall away to human sins so that
he will rightly suffer thus for them.

This foreknowledge, it may be in regard to all things, certainly
in regard to Judas and other mysteries, exists in the Son of God also, who in His discernment of
the evolution of the future has seen Judas and the sins to be committed by him, so that, even before
Judas came into existence, He in His comprehension has said through David the words beginning
“O God, keep you not silence at my praise.”—Knowing as I do the future and what an influence
 Paul will have in the cause of religion, ere yet I set me to begin creation and found the world I will
make choice of him: I will commit him from the moment of his birth to these powers that cooperate
in men’s salvation.

I will set him apart from his mother’s womb. I will permit him at the first to fall in youth into an
ignorant zeal and in the avowed cause of religion to persecute believers in my Christ and to keep
the garments of them that stone my servant and witness Stephen, so that later at the close of his
youthful wilfulness he may be given a fresh start and change for the best and yet not boast before
me but may say: “I am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,.”
and realizing the kindness that he will receive from me after his faults committed in youth in the
avowed cause of religion may declare “It is by God’s grace that I am what I am”; and, being
restrained by conscience by reason of the deeds he wrought while still young against Christ, he
will not be excessively elated by the exceeding abundance of the revelations which in kindness I
shall show him.

To the objection in reference to prayer for the rising of the Sun we may reply as follows. The Sun
also possesses a certain free will, since he with the moon joins in praising God, for “Praise Him,
Sun and Moon” it says: as also manifestly the moon and all the stars conformably, for it says “Praise
Him all the stars and light.” As, therefore, we have said that God has employed the free will of
individual beings on earth for the service of beings on earth in arranging them aright, so we may
suppose that He has employed the free will, fixed and certain and steadfast and wise as it is, of sun,
moon and stars in arranging the whole world of heaven with the course and movement of the stars
in harmony with the whole.

If I do not pray in vain for what concerns any other freewill, much more shall I pray for what
concerns the freewill of the stars which tread in heaven their world-conserving measures. It may
indeed be said of beings on earth that certain appearances in our surroundings call out now our
instability, now our better inclination to act or speak in certain ways: but in the case of beings in
heaven what appearances can interpose to oust and remove from the course that benefit the world
beings which have each a life so adjusted by Reason independently of them, and which enjoy so
ethereal and supremely pure a frame?
See the Book 'Spiritual Christianity for Today! by Rev. Fr. Michael here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZCIF4M

Origen on Prayer Chapter Three

Origen on Prayer Origen

CHAPTER III

OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER

If then I must next, as you have urged, set forth in the first place the arguments of those who told
that nothing is accomplished as a result of prayers and therefore allege that prayer is superfluous,
I shall not hesitate to do that also according to my ability—the term prayer being now used in its
more common and general sense. In such disrepute indeed is the view and to such a degree has it
failed to obtain champions of distinction that, among those who admit a Providence and set a God
over the universe, not a soul can be found who does not believe in prayer.

The opinion (sentiment) belongs either to utter atheists who deny the existence of God, or assume
a God, as far as the name goes, but deprive Him of providence. Already, it must be said, the adverse
inworking, with intent to wrap the most impious of opinions around the name of Christ and around
the teaching of the Son of God, has made some converts on the needlessness of prayer—a sentiment
which find champions in those who by every means do away with outward forms, eschewing
baptism and eucharist alike, misrepresenting the Scriptures as not actually meaning this that we
call prayer but as teaching something quite different from it.

Those who reject prayers, while, that is to say, setting a God over the universe and affirming
Providence—for it is not my present task to consider the statements of those who by every means
do away with a God or Providence—might reason as follows: God knows all things before they
come to be. There is nothing that upon its entrance into existence is then first known by Him as
previously unknown. What need to send up prayer to One who, even before we pray, knows what
things we have need of? For the heavenly Father knows what things we have need of before we
ask Him.

It is reasonable to believe that as Father and Artificer of the universe who loves all things that are
and abhors nothing that He has made, quite apart from prayer He safely manages the affairs of each
like a father who champions his infant children without awaiting their entreaty when they are either
utterly incapable of asking or through ignorance often desirous of getting the opposite of what is
to their profit and advantage. We men come further short of God even than the merest children of
the intelligence of their parents. And in all likelihood the things that are to be are not only foreknown
but prearranged by God, and nothing takes place contrary to His prearrangement. Were anyone to
pray for sunrise he would be thought a simpleton for entreating through prayer for the occurrence
of what was to take place quite apart from his prayer: In like manner a man would be a fool to
believe that his prayer was responsible for the occurrence of what was to take place in any case
even had he never prayed.

And again, as it is the height of madness to imagine that, because one suffers discomfort and fever
under the sun at Summer Solstice, the Sun is through prayer to be transferred to the Springtime
Zodiac, in order that one may have the benefit of temperate air, so it would be the height of
infatuation to imagine that by reason of prayer one would not experience the misfortunes that meet
the race of men by necessity. Moreover, if it be true that sinners are estranged from birth and the
righteous man has been set apart from his mother’s womb, and if, while as yet they are unborn and
have done neither good nor evil, it is said the elder shall serve the younger, that the elective purpose
of God may stand based not on works but on the Caller, it is in vain that we entreat for forgiveness
of sins or to receive a spirit of strength to the end that, Christ empowering us, we may have strength
for all things.

If we are sinners, we are estranged from birth: if on the other hand we were set apart from our
mother’s womb, the best of things will come our way even though we do not pray. It is prophesied
before his birth that Jacob shall be over Esau and that his brother shall serve him: what has prayer
to do with that? Of what impiety is Esau guilty that he is hated before his birth? To what purpose
does Moses pray, as is found in the ninetieth psalm, if God is his refuge since before the mountains
were settled and the earth and world were formed. Besides, of all that are to be saved, it is recorded
in the Epistle to Ephesians that the Father elected them in Him, in Christ, before the world’s
foundation, that they should be holy and blameless before Him, preordaining them unto adoption
as His sons through Christ.

Either, therefore, a man is elect, of the number of those who are so since before the world’s
foundation, and can by no means fall from his election in which case he has therefore no need of
prayer; or he is not elect nor yet preordained, in which case he prays in vain, since, though he should
pray ten thousand times, he will not be listened to. For whom God foreknew, them He also
preordained to conformity with the image of His Son’s glory; and whom He preordained, them He
also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also
glorified.

Why is Josiah distressed, or why has he anxiety as to whether or not he will be listened to in prayer,
when, many generations before, he was prophesied by name and his future action not only foreknown
but foretold in the hearing of many. To what purpose, too, does Judas pray with the result that even
his prayer turned to sin, when from David’s times it is pre-announced that he will lose his
overseership, another receiving it in his stead.

It is self-evidently absurd, God being unchangeable and having pre-comprehended all things and
adhering to His prearrangements, to pray in the belief that through prayer one will change His
purpose, or, as though He had not already prearranged but awaited each individual’s prayer, to
make intercession that He may arrange what suits the supplicant by reason of his prayer, there and
then appointing what He approves as reasonable though He has previously not contemplated it. At
this point the propositions you formulated in your letter to me may be set down word for word thus:
Firstly, if God is foreknower of the future and it must come to pass, prayer is vain. Secondly, if all
things come to pass by virtue of God’s will, and His decrees are fixed, and nothing that He wills
can be changed, prayer is vain. Towards a solution of the difficulties which benumb the instinct of
prayer, the following, as I believe, helpful considerations may be advanced.

See the book 'Spiritual Christianity for Today! by Rev. Fr. Michael here:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZCIF4M

Origen on Prayer Chapter Two

Origen on Prayer Origen

CHAPTER II

SCRIPTURAL USES OF THE GENERAL WORDS FOR PRAYER

So far as I have observed, the first instance of the term prayer that I find is when Jacob, a fugitive
from his brother Esau’s wrath, was on his way to Mesopotamia at the suggestion of Isaac and
Rebecca. The passage runs: And Jacob vowed a vow (prayed a prayer), saying—If the Lord God
will be with me, and guard me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and raiment
to put on, and bring me back in safety to my father’s house, then shall the Lord be my God and this
stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be for me God’s house, and of all that you will give me
I will give you tithe.

It should also to be remarked that the term prayer is in many places is different from prayer as we
speak of it—as when applied in the case of one who professes that he will do certain things in
exchange for obtaining certain other things from God. The expression prayer is, however, employed
in our usual sense [in early texts]. Thus in Exodus after the scourge of frogs, the second in order
of the ten, “Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said to them: Pray unto the Lord for me that
He withdraw the frogs from me and from my people; and I will send the people forth that they may
sacrifice to the Lord.”

And if, because Pharaoh’s word is aw-thar’ anyone should be sceptical as to aw-thar’ meaning here
prayer as well as vow, he should observe what follows: “Moses said to Pharaoh, ‘Kindly tell me
when I am to pray (aw-thar’) for you and for your officials and for your people, that the frogs may
be removed from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.’” In the case of the fleas, the
third scourge, I have observed that neither does Pharaoh entreat that prayer be made nor does Moses
pray. In the case of the flies, the fourth, he says: Pray therefore unto the Lord for me.
Then Moses also said: I will go out from you and pray unto God and the flies shall go away from
Pharaoh and his servants and his people tomorrow. And shortly after: So Moses went out from
Pharaoh and prayed unto God. Again in the case of the fifth and the sixth scourge neither did
Pharaoh entreat that prayer should be made nor did Moses pray, but in the case of the seventh
Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said to them: I have sinned this time; the Lord
is righteous, I and my people are impious. Therefore pray unto the Lord that there be an end of
thunder and hail and fire. And shortly after: Moses went out from Pharaoh outside the city, and
stretched forth his hands unto the Lord and there was an end to the thunder. Why is it not as in the
foregoing cases?

And he prayed, but he stretched forth his hands unto the Lord. That is a question to be considered
more conveniently elsewhere. In the case of the eighth scourge, however, Pharaoh says . . . and
pray (aw-thar’) to the LORD your God that at the least he remove this deadly thing from me.” So
Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed (aw-thar’) unto God. We said that the term prayer
(aw-thar’) is, as in Jacob’s case, in many places employed in a sense other than the customary. In
Leviticus for instance: The Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the children of Israel; and you
shall say unto them:

Whoever vows (naw-dar’) a vow (neh’-der), setting a price upon his soul to the Lord, his price, if
a male from twenty to sixty years, shall be fifty didrachims of silver, sanctuary standard. And in
Numbers: And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the Children of Israel; and you shall say
unto them: Man or woman, whoever vows (naw-dar’) a great vow of consecration to the Lord, shall
be consecrate from wine and strong drink—and so on of the so-called Nazarite; then, shortly after:
and shall hallow his head in that day in which he was hallowed to the Lord for the days of the vow.
And again shortly after: This is the law for him that has vowed when he shall have fulfilled the
days of his vow . . . ; and again shortly after: And after that, he that has vowed will drink wine.
This is the law for him that has vowed, whoever has vowed his votive gift to the Lord, apart from
what his hand may find by virtue of his vow which he has vowed according to the law of
consecration. And towards the end of Numbers: And Moses spoke to the rulers of the tribes of the
Children of Israel saying, This is the thing which the Lord has decreed: A man who has vowed a
vow to the Lord or sworn an oath or entered a bond, on his soul shall not desecrate his word: all
that has gone out of his mouth shall he do.

And if a woman has vowed a vow to the Lord or entered a bond in the house of her father in her
youth, and her father has heard her vows and her bonds that she entered into against her soul, and
her father has let them pass in silence, all her vows shall stand, and her bonds that she entered into
against her soul shall remain: after which he lays down sundry other laws for such a woman. In
this sense it is written in Proverbs: [I have a peace offering: today I pay my vows; and a foolish
son is a father’s shame: unhallowed are vows from a harlot’s hire; and] it is a snare to a man to
hallow hastily anything of his own: for after vowing comes repenting.
And in Ecclesiastes: Better not vow than vow without paying; and in the Acts of the Apostles:
There are among us four men of their own accord under a vow. I thought it not out of place first to
distinguish the meaning of prayer (aw-thar’) in its two senses, and similarly of prayer (neh’-der),
for the latter turn in addition to its common and customary general usage, is also employed, in the
sense which we are accustomed to attach to vow in what is told of Hannah in the first book of
Samuel: Now Eli the priest was sitting on a seat at the doorway of the temple of the Lord.
And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed (paw-lal’) unto the Lord and wept sore. And she
vowed (naw-dar’) a vow (neh’-der) and said: O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the
humiliation of your bondwoman and remember me and forget not your bondwoman and will give
to your bondwoman male seed, then will I give him in gift to the Lord all the days of his life, and
no razor shall come upon his head. And yet in this instance, one may, not without plausibility, with
special regard to the words “she prayed (paw-lal’) unto the Lord,.” “and she vowed a vow,.” Ask
whether, as she has done both of two things, that is “prayed unto the Lord” “and vowed a vow,.”
the word prayed ( paw-lal’) on the one hand is not employed in our customary signification of
prayer (aw-thar’), and “vowed a vow” on the other hand in the sense in which it is employed in
Leviticus and Numbers.

For “I will give him in gift to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his
head” is strictly not a prayer but such a vow as Jephthah also vowed in the passage; and Jephthah
vowed a vow to the Lord and said: If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand,
then it shall be that whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me on my return in peace
from the Children of Ammon shall be the Lord’s and I will offer him up as a burnt offering.

See the book 'Spiritual Christianity for Today! by Rev. Fr. Michael here:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZCIF4M

Origen on Prayer, Chapter One Introduction

Origen on Prayer Origen  CHAPTER ONE  INTRODUCTION
Things in themselves so supremely great, so far above man, so utterly above our perishable nature, as to be impossible for the race of rational mortals to grasp, as the will of God became possible in the immeasurable abundance of the Divine grace which streams forth from God upon men, through Jesus Christ the minister of His unsurpassable grace toward us, and through the cooperant Spirit.
Thus, though it is a standing impossibility for human nature to acquire Wisdom, by which all things have been established—for all things, according to David, God made in wisdom—from being impossible it becomes possible through our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. For what or who is man that he shall know the counsel of God, or who shall conceive what that Lord willeth? Since the thoughts of mortals are weakling and our purposes are prone to fail; for the body that is corruptible weighs down soul, and mind with its store of thought is burdened by it’s earthly tabernacle; and things on earth we forecast with difficulty, but things in heaven whoever
yet traced out? Who would not say that it is impossible for man to trace out things in heaven?

Yet this impossible thing, by the surpassing grace of God, becomes possible; for he who was caught up unto a third heaven traced out things in the three heavens through having heard unutterable utterances which it was not permitted for man to speak. Who can say that it is possible for the mind
of the Lord to be known by man? But this, too, God graciously gives through Christ who said to His disciples: “No longer do I call you servants, because the servant knows not what his lord’s will is, but I have called you friends, because all the things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you; so that through Christ there is made known to them the will of one who, when He teaches them the will of the Lord, has no desire to be their lord any longer but instead becomes a friend to those whose lord he was before.” Moreover, as no one knows the things of man save the Spirit of man that is in him, so also no one knows the things of God save the Spirit of God.

Now if no one knows the things of God save the Spirit of God, it is impossible that a man should know the things of God. But mark how this too becomes possible: but we, he says, have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is from God, that we may know the things graciously given to us by God, and these also we speak not in words taught of human wisdom but in those taught of the Spirit. But I think, right pious and industrious Ambrosius, and right discreet and manful Tatiana, from whom I avow that womanly weakness has disappeared as truly as it had from Sarah of old, you are wondering to what purpose all this has been said in preface about things impossible for man becoming possible by the grace of God, when the subject prescribed for our discourse is prayer.

The fact is, I believe it to be itself one of those things which, judged by our weakness, are impossible, clearly to set forth with accuracy and reverence a complete account of prayer, and in particular of how prayer ought to be offered, what ought to be said to God in prayer, which seasons are more, which less, suitable for prayer . . . The very apostle who by reason of the abundance of the revelations is anxious that no one should account to him more than he sees or hears from him, confesses that he knows not how to pray as he ought, for what we ought to pray, he says, we know not how to as we ought. It is necessary not merely to pray but also to pray as we ought and to pray what we ought.
For even though we are enabled to understand what we ought to pray, that is not adequate if we do not add to it the right manner also. On the other hand what is the use of the right manner to us if we do not know to pray for what we
ought? Of these two things the one, I mean the ‘what we ought’ of prayer, is the language of the prayer, while the ‘as we ought’ is the disposition of him who prays. Thus the former is illustrated by “Ask for the great things and the little shall be added unto you,.” and “Ask for the heavenly things and the earthly shall be added unto you,.” and “Pray for them that abuse you,.” and “Entreat therefore the Lord of the harvest that He send out workers unto his harvest,.” and “Pray that you enter not into temptation,.” and “Pray that your flight be not in winter or on a Sabbath,.” and “In praying babble not” and the like passages: the latter by “I desire therefore that men pray in ever place lifting up holy hands without anger and questioning, and in like manner that women array themselves decently in simplicity, with modesty and discretion, not in or gold or pearls or costly raiments, but, as becomes women of pious profession, through good works.

Instructive too, for prayer ‘as we ought’ is the passage: “If then you art offering your gift at the altar and there think you that your brother hath aught against you, leave there your gift before the altar, and go back—first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift;” for what greater gift can be sent up to God from a rational creature than fragrant words of prayer that is offered from a conscience devoid of taint from Sin? Similarly instructive is “Deprive not one another, save by agreement for a season that you may give yourselves to prayer and may be together at another time again, in order that Satan may not have occasion to
exalt over you by reason of your incontinence.

For prayer ‘as we ought’ is restrained unless the marriage mysteries which claim our silence be consummated with more of solemnity and deliberation and less of passion, the ‘agreement’ referred to in the passage obliterating the discord of passion, and destroying incontinence, and preventing
Satan’s malicious exultation. Yet again instructive for prayer ‘as we ought’ is the passage: “If you are standing at prayer, forgive aught that you have against any man;” and also the passage in Paul “Any man who prays or preaches with covered head dishonours his head, and any woman who prays or preaches with unveiled head dishonors her head” is descriptive of the right manner of prayer.

Paul knows all these sayings, and could cite, with subtle statement in each case, manifold more from law and prophets and gospel fulfillment, but in the moderation, yes, and in the truthfulness of his nature, and because he sees how much, after all of them, is lacking to knowledge of the right way to pray what he ought, he says “but what we ought to pray we know not how to as we ought,.” and adds thereto the source from which a man’s deficiency is made up if though ignorant he has
rendered himself worthy to have the deficiency made up within him: 

“The Spirit himself more than intercedes with God in sighs unspeakable and He that searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because His intercession on behalf of saints is according to God.” Thus the Spirit who cries “Abba Father” in the hearts of the blessed, knowing with solicitude that their sighing in this tabernacle can but weigh down the already fallen or transgressors, “more than intercedes with God in sighs unspeakable,.” for the great love and sympathy He feels for men taking our sighs upon himself; and, by virtue of the wisdom that resides in Him, beholding our Soul humbled ‘unto dust’ and shut within the body ‘of humiliation,’ He employs no common sighs when He more than intercedes with God but unspeakable ones akin to the unutterable words which a man
may not speak.

Not content to intercede with God, this Spirit intensifies His intercession, “more than intercedes,.” for those who more than conquer, as I believe such as Paul was, who says “Nay in all these we more than conquer.” He simply “intercedes,.” I think, not for those who more than conquer, nor again for those who are conquered, but for those who conquer. Akin to the saying “what we ought to pray we know not how to as we ought, but the Spirit more than intercedes with God in sighs unspeakable,.” is the passage “I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit; and I will sing with the understanding also.”

For even our understanding is unable to pray unless the spirit leads it in prayer within hearing of it as it were, anymore than it can sing or hymn, with rhythmic cadence and in unison, with true measure and in harmony, the Father in Christ, unless the Spirit who searches all things even the depth of God first praise and hymn Him whose depth He has searched and, as He had the power, comprehended. I think it must have been the awakened consciousness of human weakness falling short of prayer in the right way, above all realized as he listened to great words of intimate knowledge falling from the Savior’s lips in prayer to the Father, that moved one of the disciples of Jesus to say to the Lord when He ceased praying, “Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples.” The whole train of language is as follows:

“And it came to pass, as He was at prayer in a certain place, that one of His disciples said to Him when He ceased “Lord, teach us to pray even as John also taught his disciples.”
For is it conceivable that a man who had been brought up under instruction in the law and hearing of the words of the prophets and was no stranger to the synagogue had no knowledge whatsoever of prayer until he saw the Lord praying in a certain place? It is absurd to pretend that he was one
who did pray after the Jewish practice but saw that he needed fuller knowledge as to the place in reference to prayer. What was it, too, in reference to prayer that John used to teach the disciples who came to him for baptism from Jerusalem and all Judea and the country round about, but certain things of which, as one who was greater than a prophet, he had vision in reference to prayer, which I believe he would not deliver to all who were baptized but privately to those who were disciples
with a view to baptism?

Such are the prayers, which are really spiritual because the spirit was praying in the heart of the saints, recorded in scripture, and they are full of unutterably wonderful declarations. In the first book of Kings there is the prayer of Hannah, partially, because the whole of it was not committed
to writing since she was ‘speaking in her heart’ when she perservered in prayer before the Lord; and in Psalms, the seventeenth psalm is entitled “A prayer of David,.” and the ninetieth “A prayer of Moses, man of God,.” and the hundred and second “A prayer of a poor man at a time he is weary
and pours forth his supplication before the Lord.”

These are prayers which, because truly prayers made and spoken with the spirit, are also full of the declarations of the wisdom of God, so that one may say of the truths they proclaim “Who is wise that he shall understand them? And understanding, then he shall fully know them.” Since therefore
it is so great an undertaking to write about prayer, in order to think and speak worthily of so great a subject, we need the special illumination of the Father, and the teaching of the first born Word himself, and the inward working of the Spirit, I pray as a man—for I by no means attribute to myself any capacity for prayer—that I may obtain the Spirit of prayer before I discourse upon it, and I entreat that a discourse full and spiritual may be granted to us and that the prayers recorded in the Gospels may be elucidated.

So let us now begin our discourse on Prayer.

See the book Spiritual Christianity for Today by Rev. Fr. Michael here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZCIF4M

Being One with Jesus the Christ

Being one with Jesus the Christ

March 10, 2013

Rev. Fr. Michael

My friends, how truly blessed we are to have been called by Jesus the Christ to become one with Him and in turn one with Almighty God through Him. This of course does not mean that we will be God in any way but one as in being spiritually connected to Jesus and living eternally in the Light and energies of Almighty God.

But we must stop and reflect on how we are to achieve this oneness with Jesus Christ and in turn make this our life’s passion.  Many are already aware of how to achieve this but for one reason or another each of us continues to fall short. We can be so easily distracted by life itself in this world and forget who it is we represent at any given moment. Quite often we blame the world itself with its many pleasures and distractions but consider this; “A brother did wrong one time at Scetis and when a council was called about it, they sent for Abba Moses, but he refused to come. So the priest sent someone to him, saying, ‘Come, the community is waiting for you.’  He got up and went and, picking up a large basket with a hole in the bottom, filled it with sand and carried it with him. When he arrived at the meeting, those who came out to meet him said to him, ‘what’s this, father?’ The old man said, ‘My sins trickle out behind me and I do not see them and yet I have come today to judge someone else’s sins.’
When they heard this, they did not say anything to condemn the brother but forgave him.”

Abba Moses lived in the Egyptian desert, a monk in the fourth century, where were the worldly distractions and pleasures which would have made him sin? He had none of these things. Sadly we just simply sin whether it be in thought, word, or deed; we just simply sin. We know that sin separates us from the love of God; we know that we have a mediator between us and God and that is Jesus the Christ but what does this mean? Can we just simply sin, knowing that Jesus intercedes for us? Heaven forbid that this thought even enters into our mind. So if we sin what are we to do, how can we be one with Jesus the Christ when even daily we sin? We all know the answers to this question but yet we all neglect the very things that are necessary for us to do on a daily basis somehow at one time or another. We can sin in doing, speaking, or thinking wrong and/or we sin when we neglect to do something that we should do.

How is it that we become one with Jesus Christ? For one, what did Jesus say? If you love me, keep my commandments, how is it that we can keep the commandments when we sin daily? Being one with Jesus would mean that we are full of the love of God, having the fullness of God’s love in us is the ecstasy of life, in the Psalms we read; Thou annointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over; when we are anointed by God and begin to be filled with the Spirit, the love of God begins to fill us, we could be so filled with God’s love that it would be overflowing. It would not be possible for the flesh to take on the fullness of the love of God because the flesh as it stands currently could never contain it, we would be physically overwhelmed and yet we could contain more than we do now if we would only be complete in other things but again in the flesh we are restricted. In seeking the love of God we must become ever more humble; the greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God. This is a great key to receiving grace and the love of God, humbleness and yet in being humble we find even more difficulty, humbleness has an enemy and that enemy is pride. This is what we must seek out and purge from our heart, pride is the most subtle of sin and it lurks deep in the heart of all of us. Pride is at the root of many sins; because of pride we become angry when someone insults us and we may well carry out some other sin because of our anger, we work to control our anger but never look beyond it to see the pride. We are proud of our knowledge whether it is secular or religious and will mock those who somehow lack our knowledge whether it is in person or private conversation with another; pride in our knowledge also hinders this knowledge from sinking into our heart.

 Pride in our accomplishments causes envy when we see others who have accomplished more which also leads to lust. We know to control envy and lust but we do not look beyond that to the pride. Pride runs to the very depths of our heart, pride prevents the love of God from filling us to the fullness because pride will not allow us to reach the depths of humbleness.

From  pride we find arrogance, strife, and gossip; even if they are only fleeting thoughts because we have learned to control them, their very existence prevents complete humbleness and the complete infilling of the Most Holy Spirit. It is on our knees in humble prayer before God that we can overcome. This can be explained in this way; Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is the lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. What spiritual meaning can we find in this scripture?

And he spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint, saying: There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man.  And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: Although I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me.

And in another place; And when he heard the multitude passing by, he asked what this meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And they that went before, rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried out much more: Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus standing, commanded him to be brought unto him. And when he was come near, he asked him,

Saying: What wilt thou that I do to thee? But he said: Lord that I may see. And Jesus said to him: Receive thy sight: thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he saw, and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

So what have these to do with one another? We ought always to pray and not faint as the widow finally received her hearing before the judge, as the blind man who refused to cease calling on the Son of David who also received his answer. We are to never stop calling on Almighty God, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened, this is to be done without ceasing, this is the violence spoken of that will bear heaven away, the unceasing cry unto Almighty God in complete humbleness in accordance with God’s will and yet there is another obstacle in the way of humbleness; confession and repentance.

Without confession and repentance we will never rid ourselves of the pride that stands in the way of humbleness which is necessary in order to be filled with the Most Holy Spirit, the love of Almighty God will never be able to infill us without confession and repentance which will lead us to the humbleness which in turn will allow us to be filled, there is no other way.

I pray in tears that in the days that we are facing ahead, these things will become the life of everyone who calls on the name of Jesus the Christ. May all who call on His Most Holy Name be blessed.

May Almighty God have mercy on us all.

In Christ,

Rev. Fr. Michael