When I became a Christian I voluntarily crucified my mind, and all the crosses that I bear have been only a source of joy for me. I have lost nothing and gained everything.
--Father Seraphim Rose (Cathy Scott, Seraphim Rose: The True Story and Private Letters, p. 191)
Orthodoxy is life. If we don't live Orthodoxy, we simply are not Orthodox, no matter what formal beliefs we hold.
--Father Seraphim Rose (Cathy Scott, Seraphim Rose: The True Story and Private Letters, p. 231)
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ . . . (2 Cor. 10:3-5 ESV)
What an interesting juxtaposition of events today.
First, I've been reading from the book, Letters from Father Seraphim, edited by Hieromonk Ambrose (formerly Fr. Alexey Young). He makes these remarks regarding St. Seraphim's understanding of suffering and the faith:
[H]e believed that when suffering comes as a result of our own immaturity and mistakes, it has value only if we learn from that suffering. To embrace the sorrows and difficulties that result from our own fallen human nature, or those which are sent to us from "outside" by persecution and misunuderstanding, must not entail self-pity, but should soften our hearts hardened by sin and refine our spiritual nature, making us depend more and more on God alone. One must accept these sufferings without complaining or they have no spiritual value. Often Fr. Seraphim spoke of the need to "suffer through" some particular problem or difficulty. By this he meant that one should endure, again without complaining--which is one of the best tools for spiritual growth. (p. 163)
And about a person who had come to the monastery for guidance, Fr. Seraphim writes to Hieromonk Ambrose:
He accepted everything I said, including the necessity to put off his habit of self-justification . . . .
My general impression is this: his habit of self-pampering and self-justification is so deep that humanly his case is almost hopeless. But there is God. We should continue to help and support him--and firmly insist that he change, persistently working on himself. . . .
I think this whole thing is given you by God to give you insight into how deep is sin in man, and how stubborn is human self-will and resistance to amendment of life, even in sincere converts. (p. 194)
Then, because I have no permission to share details I will have to be vague, in a series of email exchanges on a particular group to which I subscribe, I found myself in the position of responding to allegations as to my honesty and integrity. Admittedly, I now see how diametrically opposed are some of my theological beliefs with those of most of the ones in the group. But I little suspected that I would be made to look like some cyber troll or agent provocateur. I'm used to defending my beliefs. I'm not so used to having my motives impugned and maligned. How does one respond to allegations that one has bad motives? I did it the only way I could, by highlighting how my actions demonstrated my integrity.
I doubt it swayed those who were suspicious to begin with.
But all this got me to thinking. Dare I take on the Lenten discipline of not justifying myself in anyway for anything for 40 days during Great Lent? (Gulp.)
What an interesting juxtaposition of events today.
First, I've been reading from the book, Letters from Father Seraphim, edited by Hieromonk Ambrose (formerly Fr. Alexey Young). He makes these remarks regarding St. Seraphim's understanding of suffering and the faith:
[H]e believed that when suffering comes as a result of our own immaturity and mistakes, it has value only if we learn from that suffering. To embrace the sorrows and difficulties that result from our own fallen human nature, or those which are sent to us from "outside" by persecution and misunuderstanding, must not entail self-pity, but should soften our hearts hardened by sin and refine our spiritual nature, making us depend more and more on God alone. One must accept these sufferings without complaining or they have no spiritual value. Often Fr. Seraphim spoke of the need to "suffer through" some particular problem or difficulty. By this he meant that one should endure, again without complaining--which is one of the best tools for spiritual growth. (p. 163)
And about a person who had come to the monastery for guidance, Fr. Seraphim writes to Hieromonk Ambrose:
He accepted everything I said, including the necessity to put off his habit of self-justification . . . .
My general impression is this: his habit of self-pampering and self-justification is so deep that humanly his case is almost hopeless. But there is God. We should continue to help and support him--and firmly insist that he change, persistently working on himself. . . .
I think this whole thing is given you by God to give you insight into how deep is sin in man, and how stubborn is human self-will and resistance to amendment of life, even in sincere converts. (p. 194)
Then, because I have no permission to share details I will have to be vague, in a series of email exchanges on a particular group to which I subscribe, I found myself in the position of responding to allegations as to my honesty and integrity. Admittedly, I now see how diametrically opposed are some of my theological beliefs with those of most of the ones in the group. But I little suspected that I would be made to look like some cyber troll or agent provocateur. I'm used to defending my beliefs. I'm not so used to having my motives impugned and maligned. How does one respond to allegations that one has bad motives? I did it the only way I could, by highlighting how my actions demonstrated my integrity.
I doubt it swayed those who were suspicious to begin with.
But all this got me to thinking. Dare I take on the Lenten discipline of not justifying myself in anyway for anything for 40 days during Great Lent? (Gulp.)
[Eugene, the future Father Seraphim, briefly commented later in life on his attending his first Orthodox worship service: ] ". . . [W]hen I entered an Orthodox church for the first time (a Russian church in San Francisco) something happened to me that I had not experienced in any Buddhist or other Eastern temple; something in my heart said that this was 'home,' that all my search was over. I didn't really know what this meant, because the service was quite strange to me, and in a foreign language. I began to attend Orthodox services more frequently, gradually learning its language and customs." . . .
After his first experience of an Orthodox service, Eugene attended services in a number of Orthodox churches. Above all he was attracted to the Russian tradition. In San Francisco, three overlapping "jurisdictions" of the Russian Orthodox Church were represented: the Russian Church Abroad, the American Metropolia [N. B.: Later to become the Orthodox Church of America (OCA)], and the Moscow Patriarchate. Eugene went to services in the church of all three.
In 1957 Eugene was profoundly moved while attend the Holy Week and Pascha (Easter) services in the various Russian churches in San Francisco, espeically in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the American Metropolia. At that time the Metropolia's ruling hierarch in San Francisco was Bishop John Shahovsky. A highly regarded and influential church figure, Bishop John had grown up as a prince in pre-Revolutionary Russia. He was tonsured a monk on Mount Athos, Greece, in 1926, and served as the dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary in New York before being appointed Bishop of San Francisco and Western American in 1950. . . .
Eugene's experience in the Russian Cathedrals--both of Archbishop Tikhon and Bishop John--did not bring about an immediate change in him. A seed had been planted, one that would grow inside of him and later transform him into a new being. Almost three years would pass between his first entrance into an Orthodox Cathedral and the time when he would come to know Him Who was depicted in the Cathedral's icon.
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, pp. 83-84, 86
At Jon's recommendation, Eugene [N.B.: the future Father Seraphim] went first to the Cathedral of the Russion Orthodox Church Abroad in the heart of San Francisco, dedicated to the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow." Having formerly been an Episcopal church, the Cathedral had tall stained glass windows in front and along the walls. Its vaulted ceiling had been made from boards taken from old sailing vessels; and indeed, standing beneath its arches one felt as if one were inside some great ark.
Eugene arrived at the Cathedral in time for the Vespers service. Red oil lamps flickered before a gold iconostasis, illumining holy images of Christ and His Mother. From the left side of the Cathedral and from the choir loft came beautiful antiphonal singing in a language foreign to Eugene's ear. On a small platform in the middle of the nave stood a crippled, bent-over old man with a white beard and purple vestments. This was Archbishop Tikohn Troitsky. Totally immersed in the service, he kept his eyes closed in a state of utmost attention. Whenever he would open them, they would be stern and command complete alertness from those who served with him.
The small figure of Archbishop Tikhon made a tremendous impression on Eugene. Perhaps Eugene saw even then that he was not just performing according to a carefully choreographed ritual, but was in a state of deep prayer. What Eugene did not know then was that Archbishop Tikhon had been a man of prayer all his life, having received his spiritual training from the God-illumined Elder Gabriel of Kazan and Pskov in Russia. In his small quarters attached to the Cathedral, Archbishop Tikhon spent more time in prayer than anything else, and would keep vigil whole nights through.
In the Cathedral, the intensity of all that was happening around him touched the soul of Eugene--this seemingly incidental visitor. He witnessed the beauty of the traditional art and music, but, even more, he sensed the fulfillment of his longing to leave this world--since what he beheld was otherwordly.--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, pp. 81, 82
[Note: On 24 September 2003, I received the revised biography of Father Seraphim Rose, one of my patron saints. I am currently reading slowly through the massive, 1100-plus-page volume. I will from time to time post excerpts here that I find relevant, moving or convicting.]
Long before the word "hippie" entered our lexicon, the progressive intellectuals of San Francisco had turned away from the American dream, with its ideals of family and Judeo-Christian religion. They were delving into anything that was different, drawing above all from Eastern religions. In rejecting Western morality and taking only what they wanted from the East, they were free to explore forms of debauchery, degradation, and perversion with what Eugene [N.B.: the future Father Seraphim] would later refer to as "the spirit of lawlessness." . . .
Eugene, too, would follow this philosophy to its logical conclusion. Together with many of his young contemporaries, he entered upon a life of hedonism and sexual immorality. . . .
Compared with what went on in San Francisco bohemian subculture, the acts of nonconformity among Eugene's friends at Pomona [where Eugene earned his undergraduate degree] were quite tame. In some letters to his Pomona friends, Eugene took on the flippant, devil-may-care attitude of a twenty-two-year-old youth experimenting in what before had been barred to him; but this seems to have been just bravado. As he stated in later years, this was the darkest, most miserable period of his life. Forbidden deeds, he said, had disgusted him even at the time he was committing them. They would precipitate long periods of depression afterward. . . .
Many years later, describing the end of his exploration and experimentation outside the will of God, he could only say, "I was in hell. I know what hell is." . . .
This was a hell that Eugene wished on no one. In later life he said that certain sinful realities, which he had known while being in that hell, are best left unmentioned so that they will not be put into the air. . . . [N. B.: It is now known that Eugene was referring, in part, to his homosexual activities and to his alcohol abuse.]
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, pp. 55, 57, 59, 61