It is sadly all too common a situation.

In the Enlightenment period, (roughly 1500-1800AD) it is apparent in the writings and the lives of most of the great thinkers. And today, one meets it regularly both inside and outside the Church.

I am talking about the disillusionment with ‘institutionalised’ Christianity.

Honest hearts, struggling with their own weaknesses and faults, look to the Church hoping to find a solid rock of Truth, a firm foundation of Hope on which to model their lives. It is to our shame that such hearts sometimes find nothing more in the Church than an organisation, an institution, a structure. The vision is missing and the original principles of Christ are, shamefully, relegated to a lower priority than principles invented by humans.

This is the great danger of becoming an institution. I hope you don’t misunderstand what I am saying; we benefit greatly from belonging to such an institution; but only if it is done right. If it is done wrong, we can suffer equally greatly.

Here are some of the more common signs of institutionalisation gone wrong:

- acceptance of using the strategies of the ‘world’, whether within the Church, or in dealing with those outside it;

- divisions based on loyalty to a personality rather than to Christ Himself;

- acceptance of the principle, “The goal justifies the means”;

- emphasis on achieving things rather than on being a good person;

- dry ritualism rather than using the rites as personally-moving prayers.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the WWJD question – What Would Jesus Do? It finds an application here. If our Lord were to come to Church this Sunday, I wonder what He would think of it all? It was He who said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”, and His Apostle said, “For the letter of the law kills, but the spirit gives life”. If Christianity teaches anything, it is that how you live your life, who you are, deep inside, is what really matters. The outer appearance is secondary, and should naturally flow from what is real inside the heart of the person.

Is it too dangerous for the Church to be an institution? Many in Western Churches have taken that view, and starting from Martin Luther back in the 16th century have gone outside the institutional Church to try to recreate the Church in a more natural setting. But I think this runs an even greater risk. Human beings are who they are, and in the absence of having “The Church” as their foundation, they will seek other foundations, and not always in the right place. Thus we see Churches that care far more about the personalities of the leaders or about being rebellious, or about being ‘hip’, or about one tiny little aspect of Christianity or… or…

The Truth of the Gospels remain untainted by the faults of those who follow the Gospels. If you have a bad experience with a surgeon, it would be irrational for you to condemn all surgery as harmful. Back in my medical days I was privileged to assist a wide variety of surgeons as an intern and resident. At one end of the spectrum was a gentleman whose operation style was anxious and jumpy. One never felt he was really quite sure of what he was doing, despite his many years of experience. At the other end of the spectrum was a quiet, elderly man whose deft, pinpoint accurate touch made every motion of his hands enchanting. I would leave his operations with the feeling that I had not witnessed an operation, but a work of art, like finely performed symphony orchestra concert. It was truly a poetry written with scalpels and stitches.

We should strive to make our institutional Church like that. Our history and our heritage are ingredients of the highest quality, and more than capable of producing works of beauty. We walk in the footsteps of Christ, and in the footsteps of those who walked in His footsteps – St Anthony of the Desert, that noble spirit who blazed the path of quiet contemplation; Pope Peter the Seal of Martyrs, the scholar, the profound philosopher who was martyred with his people; St Athanasius the undaunted spirit who could not accept that evil should dominate the Church … the list goes on.

In these examples and the many thousands more whom history has not recorded lived the spirit of the true follower of Christ. For them, the institution of the Church was the arena for living out the teachings of Christ, each in their own way, and sharing that way of life with others.

The Proverb says, “It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness”. The Church will be, for you, whatever you make of it. If the Church is the little seed that grew into a towering tree, seek then for the sweet sap of the Love and Truth of Christ within its heart, rather than being content to gnaw upon the dry outer bark of human institutionalism.

Fr Ant
www.stbishoy.org.au

“God is able to make children of Abraham out of these stones”
Matthew 3:9

Like a master stonemason, God carves saints out of many different kinds of stone. Just as the beautiful pearly lustre of white marble differs fromt he sullen, brooding roughness of a dark granite, the Master Craftsman uses the natural properties of each type to bring out their beauty and achieve the desired effect.

Stones are hard, and so are some people’s hearts. That God is capable of producing hearts of soft flesh from these stones is nothing short of a miracle. Consider these three hard-hearted stones He had to work with:

St Moses the Black

The giant of slave could not be tamed. That he would escape to live a lawless life was inevitable, for his spirit was as fierce and fiery as his face. Everyone who met him feared him – and he knew it. He did deprive himself of anything he desired, much to the loss and suffering of many others, for he did not attain them as other people do, through hard work and effort. No, a man like him simply took what he wanted, whether food or riches or women, and woe to the man or woman who tried to stand in his way!

Yet there was one desire he could not satisfy so easily. Homes and shops and travelling caravans he could loot with ease, but the sun was out of his reach. The sun – the greatest thing in all the universe, the giver of life to the world – surely the sun was the god of the universe? Yet he could not be sure. He could not find an answer. His uneducated and violently physcial mind could find no way to answer this question.
Having no other way, he would cry out with his voice in supplication to the sun, yet the sun never answered him, never seemed even to look towards him, there, the little speck on the ground.

And when finally he recieved a response to his cries, it was one he had never suspected; “Go to the monastery, and there you will find the God your heart desires.” The mighty man of action, seeking help from those softly spoken cowards who hide behind their thick walls in the desert? But his desire to find the real God was greater than his pride, and amazingly, that violent and selfish heart humbled itself to submit to gentle spiritual moulding at the hands of the abbot Daniel. The years to come would show that of all the monks of the desert, there was none so compassionate, none so gentle, none so unselfish and humble as the former superthief, Moses the Black.

St Mary the Egyptian

It has always been true that a beautiful woman, if she lacked an overactive conscience, could use her beauty to attain riches, power, and influence. The deader the conscience, the greater the gain.

By that measure, Mary of Egypt was very beautiful, very successful, and had very little conscience. Why would God care about this heart hardened to the hardness of diamonds by continual sin? Perhaps it is because He saw also the potential beauty of this diamond in the rough. Not the beauty she daily abused to achieve her selfish ends, but the beauty of a simple and upright spirit that had fallen into a coma underneath the mound of filth and sin that had become her life. How to dig it out and revive it?

She seeks clients and customers – let her follow the crowds, then. But these crowds are leading her, unknowingly, to Jerusalem. She sees the crowds milling to enter through a great door – let the natural curiosity that first led her to sin lead her now to the turning point of her life. She seeks to enter through the door, but is prevented by some unseen force while others pass through easily. Why can she not pass? What is this place? Why is she alone barred from its pleasures?

She discovers the truth: it is the Church, the place she had long ago abandoned, perhaps after a brief friendship with it in the innocence of childhood. And now, suddenly, her eyes are opened. She sees herself as she has never seen herself before. Not as the wily, worldly-wise manipulator of men and events, but as the evil temptress, the selfish fool, the lost little girl who sold everything that mattered for a few worthless coins … suddenly she sees herself through the eyes of God.

NO, NO!!! Is this what I have become, so rejected by God that He will not even allow me to enter His House while all these people go in and rejoice to dwell with Him? Tears … despair … pain … and then, decision. If He will but give me a sign that He accepts me, I will give Him all that I have, everything. She takes the step one more time, and this time, she too passes, passes through the door with tears, now of joy, not sorrow.

And many more steps does she take, far, far away from the cities of men, out into the desert, where the sun burns her soft skin and bleaches her long hair, where cold and hunger and loneliness make her resemble a skeleton more than a siren. She loses everything, but finds the Lord of Everything, and with Him lives in a peace and joy she had never dreamed of before. A simple door achieves what thousands of words of criticism and blame could never have achieved. The Master Sculptor plies His craft again.

St Augustine

Having a loving and pious mother and a father who did every thing possible to give him a good start in the world did little to soften the heart of young Augustine. As a young teenager he would fight with his desires. But he had already chosen which side he wanted to win: “Give me purity,” he would pray, “but do not give it to me yet!”
He proceeded to live a life of liberty and sin as only a young, talented and wealthy bachelor can. What did he lack in life? His career proceeded successfully, he had more than enough female company to suit his needs, friends to share his life with … and yet …

In the midst of this heart hardened towards the True God by being engorged with the world, there was a small, niggling unrest. As a young boy, he had read the Roman philosopher Virgil and been inspired to seek Truth above all else. But this life he lived did nothing to satisfy this hunger for Truth. Moved by this restless hunger, he explored every philosophy and religion he could find. Soon a pattern developed. He would run to a new movement with enthusiasm and hope. He would ask his questions of the leaders of that movement with anticipation. He would be disappointed by their answers, and leave them heart-broken, saddened that his hope of finding Truth had again been forlorn.

Yet every disappointment was a stroke of the chisel struck by the Master Sculptor. After twenty years of disappointment, his much battered and crumbling heart finally found what it longed for; in the sermons of St Ambrose of Milan, Augustine finally found a Truth he could depend upon, could build his whole life around.
He would convert to Christianity and become one of the most learned, saintly and eloquent teachers of the Gospel in history. His worldly ambitions turned to heavenly ones, and instead winning debates and court cases, he turned to winning souls for Christ.

Three very different hearts. The first hard through ignorance. The second, hardened by continual sin. The third, hardened through pride and self. Yet all of them softened and moulded lovingly by the hand of the Master Sculptor, who fashioned them indeed into true sons and daughters of Abraham the righteous.

Fr Ant
www.stbishoy.org.au

“He just drives me crazy! When is he going to wake up to himself?!”

Unfortunately, priests hear words like these on an all too regular basis. There is a lovely little story His Holiness Pope Shenouda tells of a man who came to him to confess (before he was Pope). The man launches in to a lecture about So-and-so and all the horrible things he has done, how he is a very bad person, and how frustrated and angry he has made him. HH listens patiently, and at the end, the confessor asks HH to pray the absolution for him. “Sorry,” HH replies, “I can’t do that. You haven’t confessed any of your sins for me to absolve. But if you would like to bring So-and-so, I will happily pray the absolution for him, since you have confessed all his sins for him!”

I always wonder how it is that people maintain such an optimistic hope that they will be able to change other people. Why else would you waste your time or your breath complaining? Wives believe, day after day, that if only they continue to complain about the messy sink, one day, their husbands will suddenly stop in their tracks and say, “Gosh, you’re right! How thoughtless of me! I’ll just turn this dial here in my side to the NEAT setting, and from now on I will always immediately wash up after myself.” And the wife will reply, “Thank you dear. I knew that nagging for thirty-five years would do the job.”

It just doesn’t work that way.

Here’s the deal: there is only one person that can change an annoying, frustrating, difficult person for the better: Himself or herself.

I can’t say it with 100% certainty, but I am pretty sure on this point. I have seen hundreds of people try to change their loved ones, with a pretty solid failure rate. Just think about it from the other side of the equation – has anyone managed to change you simply by complaining about you? What’s your first reaction when someone points out your failings? Is it “Oh gee, I am so glad you pointed that out to me! What a silly duffer I’ve been.”? Or is it more like, “Oh yeah, well what about you, hey? You do this that and the other. How dare you criticise me?!”

No, for most of the human race, we do not react well to criticism. What is needed is insight, liberally sprinkled with good old fashioned humilityand topped with a hearty dose of grace.

The insight is the ability to honestly recognise when we have been a pain to others. Some people are over sensitive in this area. They will read even the slightest little facial expression as implying displeasure and respond with copious apologies and offers to make it up again. But then there are others who have hides like a rhinocerus – they don’t get it even if you shout it in their faces.

Having recognised and understood the problem, one finds it extremely difficult to actually do something about it. We behave the way we do often because that is how we are comfortable. To change one’s behaviour, to alter a habit, is no easy task. It requires oodles of humility just to admit that change is needed, and to put the needs of others before one’s own needs. Yes, my family’s need to live in their own home without wearing gas masks should come before my own need not to walk three meters to the washing basket to dispose of my smelly socks. It takes humility to think that way.

And having decided to make the change, one sometimes meets with an impenetrable barrier of inertia. It is so hard to change!

I feel like giving up.
I’ve tried everything without success.
His standards are just too high.
Why can’t she accept me the way I am?
I feel there is no hope.
I am getting so tired of this.

Sound familiar? These are the words of one who tries to change all on their own. It usually fails. This is where the grace of God comes in. He is able to do that which we cannot…

“My grace is sufficient for you,
For My strength is made perfect in weakness” – 2Corinthians 12:9

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” – Phillipians 4:13

“Do not rejoice over me, my enemy,
For when I fall, I shall surely rise,
When I sit in darkness,
The Lord shall be a light to me.” Micah 7:8

Change is never easy. In CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he has the detestable Edmund transform into a dragon because of his selfishness and greed. Eventually, the Christ figure, Aslan the Lion, meets him by a pool and asks him if he would like to be a human again. Of course, by this stage, Edmund is so lonely and miserable that he has finally understood what a monster he’d been to his friends, so he agrees. All he has to do, he is told, is to take off his dragon skin. Happily, he peels it off, much like a snake shedding an old skin, only to find another dragon skin underneath. This too he sheds, and another, and another of the seemingly endless layers of dragon that enfold him. Finally, Aslan asks if he would like some help, which he accepts. But much to his consternation, the Lion digs His claws deep, deep into Edmund’s flesh and rips… In agony, Edmund cries out, but it is soon over, and he looks down upon himself to find himself wonderfully human once more.

God is more than willing to help me with the difficult changes in myself that I need to carry out. But first, I have to recognise and humbly acknowledge the trouble I cause to others. It is only then, when I come before Him in genuine humility, seeking His grace, and willing to accept the consequences, that I can truly change.

The choice is mine … no one else’s.

Fr Ant

One of the hardest sins to defeat is pride. One of the hardest virtues to acquire is humility. Yet humility is an essential virtue, for without it, all that we do is worthless.

The devil’s first sin is said to have been pride:

Isaiah 14:12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer , son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart: `I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ 15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.

I cannot pretend to understand what might go on in the mind of luminous angelic creature, but I can certainly see a reflection of it going on inside myself, a spirit tied to a physical and limited body. If anything, it is even more laughable for a human being to be “proud”. No wonder the devil despises us.

Humility, as I have often said, is Truth: no more, no less. The old philosopher’s adage, “Know thyself” is a thumbnail sketch of the road to true humility. If we lived in absolute truth, never once deceiving ourselves or allowing ourselves to be deceived by others, then we would live in absolute humility.

If you are anything like me, you won’t have to look very far to find humbling things about yourself. I have a comprehensive ensemble of weaknesses, faults, character flaws and a prodigious list of sins committed over the years. If anything, an honest look at myself is more likely to make me puke than proud. If that were the end of the story, I’d be pretty miserable about myself and about life. But thankfully it is not the end of the story.

There is another side to each of us that we also need to be brutally honest about. There is the good side. Each and every one of us was made by God, and as the old saying goes, “God doesn’t make junk”. That means that underneath my corrupt and sinful nature, there is the seed of a heavenly being, an eternal spirit that is capable of seeing God. This beautiful creature lives inside even the most evil of sinners in this world, struggling constantly to break free and shine. Occasionally, I let mine out, and those are my best moments, moments of compassion, or unselfishness, or self-sacrificing honesty.

There is no pride in this beautiful creature within – how can I be proud about something I had nothing to do with? St Paul explains this logically;

“For who makes you differ from another?
And what do you have that you did not receive?
Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Follow his argument, and you see how much sense it makes. If I am better than others in some way, then it is because of the gifts I was born with, gifts given to me by Another. So who deserves the praise for those gifts in me? Why should I pretend that I am the maker of the gifts and hog all the praise, when that is clearly not the case?

In fact, there is a profound peace to be found in acknowledging this very basic truth. One of the Desert Fathers described his spiritual state thus:

“When I have succeeded, I lay my past sins before my eyes and remind myself of how easily I fall without the help of God, and thus I avoid foolish pride.
And when I have failed and feel down, I say to myself; Yet God still loves me, and His love lifts me up again from my fall.”

This is the tightrope we walk every day of our lives: foolish pride to the one side, miserable despair to the other. But for those who manage to keep their balance, the feeling is exhilirating! Tightrope walkers use a long pole held horizontally in their hands to help them keep their balance. My pole has one word engraved on it in strong, gold letters …

“Truth.”

Fr Ant

Sometimes things get lost in the translation. For example, below are a few of the commonest phrases used in the Arabic language, translated literally into English. See if you can guess their original meaning…

“A Jasmine dawn”

“Every year and you are kind”

“From under to under”

When we read the Bible in a translated language (like English), a lot of the more subtle nuances and meanings are also lost. Often the only way to find them is to read a good commentary (or perhaps go the whole way and learn Hebrew and Greek!) Here is one example…

SPLAGCHNA

Please don’t ask me how to pronounce it! It’s a Greek word that literally means ‘bowels’. It is often used in the New Testament, both as a noun and a verb (’to bowel’). How? Here are a few verses with the word ’splagchna’ translated literally…

“Through the bowels of mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78,79)

“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on bowels of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering” (Colossians 3:12)

“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his bowels from him, how does the love of God abide in him? ” (I John 3:17)

It turns out that in the Greek mind of the time, the word ‘bowels’ was used to describe all the organs of the chest and abdomen, especially the ‘nobler’ ones like the heart, the lungs and the liver. It represented the deepest feelings, feelings that stir an almost physical tingle inside you. While Greek poets tended to use it as a metaphor for the more violent passions such as anger, in the east it came to represent more tender affections like kindness, compassion and pity.

The use of the word in Greek strongly relays the sense of a very deep feeling, a feeling that involves the whole person rather than a superficial one. Anyone who has suffered colic or constipation or, God forbid, a twisted bowel will know exactly what I am talking about! It is a feeling you cannot ignore, a feeling that commands your total and complete attention.

So the New Testament authors who use this word are telling us that mercy, pity, compassion and kindness should not be some sort of superficial coat we put on for the public and put in the closet when we go home. They should come from the very depths of our being. Concern for others should cut deeply into the soft tissue of our inward parts, our ‘bowels’. They should be an inseperable part of us, of who we are. They should be ‘gut reactions’ that flow naturally from our Christ-filled nature.

That is how God loves us, in so far as we can describe God in human terms at least (He has no real bowels):

“Through the bowels of mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78,79)

That is how we should deal with each other – not superficially, not artificially:

“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on bowels of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering” (Colossians 3:12)

And that is what should naturally flow into our actions, automatically:

“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his bowels from him, how does the love of God abide in him? ” (I John 3:17)

Which is a very apt description of “Compassion Constipation” – the state where a person’s ‘bowels’ are no longer ‘moved’ by care for others. He becomes obsessed with his own inner feelings and pain and can no longer give to others.

What this person needs is something to clear him out – to unblock the obstacle – to free the ‘bowels’. There is no better ’spiritual laxative’ than love. Love melts the hardened heart and fills the suffocating lungs with fresh clean air. Love takes away our colic and replaces it with a sense of comfort and inner peace. Blessed indeed is the person who is loved.

And we are all loved. Not only by those whom God has given us in our lives to be our family and friends, but especially by God Himself. His love is apparent in His daily care for us, His support and comfort in hard times, and on the Cross, that eternal symbol of His ‘bowel-felt’ compassion for His children. The gut-wrenching agony of the Crucifixion is the greatest image of what love really means.

You are loved.

Let that knowledge move you in the inner parts of your being.

Fr Ant

NAHUM 1:15

Behold, on the mountains
The feet of him who brings good tidings,
Who proclaims peace!

Often amidst the Books of the Prophets in the Old Testament one finds little sparkling gems in the middle of passages that are otherwise hard to draw a relelvant meaning from. This little excerpt from the Book of Nahum seems to be a prophecy about Christ. The imagery is beautiful. Set your imagination free … picture in your mind a Palestinian mountain, low by international standards, and largely arid and rocky. A desolate place where the wind plays through boulders and the rubble and the few sparse bushes that survive here. A lonely place. A quiet place. A place where one can think or pray without distractions, where the mind and the spirit can find serenity…

This is the setting Jesus chose for a significant part of His ministry. I had no idea how significant until I did a quick Bible Search of the Gospels:

Matthew:

4:8 Temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:4)
5:2 Sermon on the Mount
14:8 Praying by Himself (Mark 6:46; Luke 6:12; John 6:15)
15:29 Healing multitudes and feeding 4,000
17:1 Transfiguration (Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28)
24:3 Outlining the End of the World (Mark 13:5)
26:30 Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:26; Luke 22:39)
28:16 The Great Commission after Resurrection.

Mark:

3:13 Appoints His Disciples
5:11 Exorcism at Gadarenes (Luke 8:32)

Luke:

19:37 Palm Sunday Triumphal Entry
21:37 Resting at the Mount of Olives (John 8:1)

John:

4:19 The Samaritan Woman
6:3 Feeding the 5,000

Acts:

1:12 Ascension

That’s 15 events in the life of Jesus about which the Evangelists saw fit to record that they occurred on a mountain. Clearly, Jesus was quite at home in the mountains, as He was of course at home in the heights of spirituality. That’s not counting the many references to Bethany, the place of His rest, which was on a mountain, or Golgotha, the Hill of the Skull.

Why a mountain? From a mountain, you get the big picture. You feel that you are above the petty events of the plain that look so small and insignificant. The dangers of the plain are far beneath you and you do not need to worry about them. You have the sense of ascending, of striving for a pinnacle … all these are quite conducive to our own spiritual journey and our attitude upon that journey, as we strive to scale the mountain to reach the pinnacle of His Presence, as He awaits us, there … at the top of the mountain.

Fr Ant

Reading the second chapter of Zephaniah, I found it interesting to see how the overthrow of the evil nations is often portrayed in the Old Testament as a victory for nature. The plants and the animals resume their domination of lands that once were ruled by mighty kings.

It implies that man is, after all, pretty weak. Even his greatest constructions fall to the gentle ravages of time and nature combined – the empire created by God, nature, always wins out in the end. The fragile pelican shall sit as king upon the great pillars, and the mournful cry of the bittern shall replace the trumpets of the King. These inhabitants at least, shall praise the true God, unlike their human predecessors.

It is also a metaphor for getting back to basics, for simplicity, for ‘meekness and humility’. The simple life in touch with the land and the seasons and the beasts somehow instils in us a mode of connection that we miss when we are surrounded by our own creations in the city. Perhaps it is because we can no longer clearly see God’s creation? Perhaps it is because our own urban creations make for an incredibly unbalanced life, one of rush and anxiety and unfocussed vision that leads us to look too much to things that don’t matter? In the city, where is the wonder of the Milky Way at night, bisecting a sky dazzled with uncountable stars? Where is the gentle serenity of a silent walk in the fields with nothing but cows and dandelions for company? Where is the profound meditation that comes from these experiences, building up day after day to a well of wisdom?

It reminds me of a story I once read about an American father who takes his son to an impoverished third world country to teach him about poverty. The child comes home and thanks his father for showing him just how poor he really is. For the child, the simple life of the impoverished citizens, with time to spare, surrounded by people who love you with a love undiluted by material cares and the beauty of nature for your roof, walls and floor is a life of untold wealth. His own life comes a very poor second!

Simplicity.

A topic worth coming back to…

GBU

Fr Ant