seek Christ in faith and fear!

In honor of today’s feast of the Conception of St John the Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist of the Lord, I recorded a hymn from our beautiful Ruthenian tradition that really packs a theological punch with its densely biblical poetry:

Here's the hymntext:

O blessed John, the Master's friend,
The Forerunner of Christ,
At Jordan's stream, you touched the head
Beyond all nature's price.
By your sincere and constant pray'r,
Raise my soul to the Lord,
Put out the flames of passion's fire
That Christ be e'er adored.

You spring from parents' barren loins,
The Master's garden chaste,
The Baptist of the Christ, our Lord,
And glory of our race.
We praise you, great Forerunner John,
O guardian of our life:
Repel the Serpent's fierce attacks
Defend us in all strife.

First came the lamp, and then the Light;
First voice, and then the Word.
The Bridegroom's friend, and then the Groom;
His endless cry is heard:
Repent, O people, change your ways,
The Bridegroom will appear!
Cast sin aside, and safely bide,
Seek Christ in faith and fear!

One of the things I so love about the Byzantine tradition is its endless resourcefulness as a treasure trove of hidden Christian gems like this hymn. There are various threads in the text from which one could contemplate the implications of biblical truth, but here I'll just select one to meditate on.

The faithful request St John in the first stanza to, through his prayers, "Put out the flames of passion's fire." This is probably a reference to the ascetical tradition of the ancient Jewish Essenes, a sect which many believe John the Baptist belonged to. They lived in the wilderness in order to set themselves apart from the world and practice renunciation of fleshly desires to better set their desire on God alone. Even the few but graphic details the New Testament give of the Baptist's life illustrate this type of lifestyle, whether or not St John was truly an Essene.

In fact, to this day, St John the Baptist is looked to as a model of such a lifestyle, called "ascetical" by our language and practiced by millions of monks, nuns, and other Christians the world over and across denominations. Thus, St John is invoked to aid the believer in his struggle against fleshly desire, as a model of having struggled well.

But this all sounds very abstract. What in the world do monks and nuns and Essenes have to do with the ordinary 21st century man or woman, anyway?

In a word, everything.

You see, the heart of asceticism, which is self-denial for the sake of Christ (and in imitation of His loving sacrifice), is the antidote to our world's problems. One of the most widespread and devastating realities of our day is sexual misbehavior, especially sexual abuse and its relative, pornography use. Countless children, even before their teenage years, are getting caught up in a culture of sexting, where a young girl's calling card in the dating game is a naked selfie, sent to potential significant others so they may evaluate, in comparison to other young girls, of course, whether she is a viable girlfriend.

From these young children even to many among the elderly, sexual selfishness is the norm. Dating and marriage are about fulfilling my "needs." From a young age, we are led to believe that everyone carries around with them irrepressible "needs" for sexual satiation on demand, according to their tastes, whatever they may be--as long as it's not pedophiliac in nature, of course, but who's to say how long that arbitrary restriction will last?

This is what our culture has become, and it's destroying everyone. The rate of rape and other sexually forceful crimes is increasing beyond imagination, and the rate of pornography addiction is vastly larger still, and its newest viewers are younger by the day.

As a Christian, I believe the answer to all this, of course, is Jesus.

But Jesus how?

Jesus in his saints, that's how. In St Zechariah and St Elizabeth's chaste and faithful union with one another. In their son John's and their cousin Mary's virginal chastity, and in the millions of celibate and married Christians who have dedicated their lives to God and their families exclusively.

The Sexual Revolution shunned sexual exclusivity, yet the Church continued to embrace consecrated celibacy.

Western culture has exported sexual promiscuity to all the corners of the globe, while the Church has championed the reservation of the sexual act only to a marriage between one man and one woman, open to children.

The world is reaping the consequences of its decision, with sex-slavery and other forms of sexual exploitation at an all-time high.

But there are Christians still remaining faithful to their spouses and their Lord, and raising children to do the same. They are the happy ones.

You see, beauty and goodness still spring from only self-sacrificial love, from a Roman cross, and they bloom and create joy and peace in the lives of those who love and serve and imitate the Messiah who died thereon.

It's not easy; we've all been warped by the culture surrounding us. But, we have the power of God and the prayer of the Church on our side, we are growing in holiness by Christ's grace, and victory will be ours in the end.

So we continue to pray to St John the Baptist, and invite the world to join us:

"Put out the flames of passion's fire That Christ be e'er adored!"

The Holy Cross

Coming from a fundamentalist-evangelical Christian background, I find lots of the things I do now as a Byzantine Catholic Christian pretty weird.

Like today, for example, in the Byzantine East as well as the Latin West, we commemorated this weird event from 1700 years ago that is shrouded in legend. It’s the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the day the universal Church remembers when St Helena (died AD 330), the mother of the Emperor St Constantine, unearthed three crosses in Jerusalem, one of which was miraculously revealed to be the very Cross on which Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh, died. Apparently, at this event, jubilant veneration of this immeasurably precious relic, and worship, of course, of the God Who died thereon, followed, and has never ceased to this day, with pieces of the True Cross venerated in houses of worship throughout the Christian world, Orthodox and Catholic.

“Why all this fuss about such an obscure happening?” my former Protestant self protests. “Isn’t the simple fact that Jesus died on the Cross enough for Christian contemplation? Why have a major feast day (which is also a major holiday in many historically Christian countries) to celebrate this obviously secondary event?”

The simple answer is that the singularity of Jesus’ death on the Cross really is enough for Christian contemplation. It is so infinitely and overabundantly enough (!) that the Church is thrilled to have her children turn their thoughts and hearts toward it on another day of the year, besides Good Friday.

You see, the Catholic Church sees endless value in the image of the Christian at prayer before the fact of Jesus’ death. St Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) said, “When you are alone in your room, take your crucifix, kiss its five wounds reverently, tell it to preach to you a little sermon, and then listen to the words of eternal life that it speaks to your heart; listen to the pleading of the thorns, the nails, the precious Blood. Oh, what an eloquent sermon!”

But the Church also, in her wisdom as a good mother, realizes that the average believer isn’t gonna just sit there and think about the Cross endlessly, no matter how much he or she sees the idea of doing that as a good thing. Most people are just too busy with kids and jobs to hold Christ’s life-giving sacrifice constantly before their minds.

Yet that is exactly what we need to do. Even in the midst of our daily activities, we need to remain at prayer before the God on the Cross, the God who picks up the shattered pieces of our lives and makes them whole again, more beautiful than before. We need his love and healing to radiate to us from those pierced hands, that side rent open for us, from His sorrowful and loving eyes that, even in the midst of greatest agony, radiate supernatural mercy and compassion. For Christ is risen, and the empty tomb proves that His Cross is the moment of ultimate victory! It is the place of triumph where “steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other” (Psalm 85:10), where our broken hearts are made new.

And so, the Church places around her children a hedge of sorts, a liturgical milieu of feasts and fasts, icons and smells, hymns and prayers that call us constantly to the amazing, incredible, unimaginably wonderful fact of our salvation in Christ Jesus. That is why we remember St Helena’s discovery today. It’s another occasion to shout for joy to the God of our salvation, the God who died on a Cross to save us, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

So, even if it is weird to me, I guess it’s not a weird thing to do at all. In fact, like all things Catholic, it is a rather wonderful way to draw ever nearer to the heart of Christ.

Let us celebrate today, with all the angels and saints, the holy, precious, life-giving wood of the Cross!

+peace to all+

a poem

Drop, droop, fall
My heart at the sight of my love.
Yes, I falter: my soul sags at the sight of her downtrodden face.
How many moments of pain are gathered in those cutting, clear eyes?

How many are my fault?

Dip, drop, soar!
My stomach thrills for my love.
I see her shining face,
My soul sings
Nor would I stop it singing.

Forgiven me,
Has the Rose,
For every crushed petal,
For my footprint on her stem.

"Don't leave me, love!"
 I cried, in desperation.
Immediately, she shushed me:

"I never will, my love."

The grace of God shining throug a frail and beaten flower,
A precious and wounded soul.

Father in heaven,

Keep me alert and yearning
For this wonder, this child, this woman you gave me.
Dazzle me with her remote and extravagant otherness.
Bind our bodies and hearts.
May I learn to worship you by loving her.
May Christ love her through me.
Rescue me from the desire to harness, bridle, and control her.
Keep me celebrating that I can never fully grasp the mystery that she is.
May she dance and suffer,
Falter and worship,
Only under your wings
Of mercy.

Make us one.
May our love ever grow More and more extravagant

Even through our selfish moments
And all the devil's snares.

I'm holding you to it, God. I'm praying:
Do what you have promised.

"Then one of the seraphs [burning ones] flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin purged.'"
Isaiah 6:6-7

café

Mind if I reminisce?

I fondly remember the first time I went to a coffee shop.

I don’t remember what year it was or exactly who I was with, only that I had an Ernest Hemingway (if I remember correctly, it was strikingly similar to ipsento’s sandwich by the same name: salmon, egg, cheese, and capers on a croissant) and loved it.

I’m sitting here at ipsento in Chicago, a great deal of time, experience, and coffee-shop perusing later…remembering that first time.

I was in Washington, D.C., on a school trip. I and some friends were walking around downtown and decided to stop for breakfast.

We walked into this smallish bookstore after its corner café caught our eye, deciding to take advantage of the big city.

Wonderfully downtown, wonderfully expensive, and wonderfully the first coffee shop I had ever been to.

I didn’t even have coffee. Just a really tasty fish sandwich named after the guy who wrote The Old Man and the Sea and the fun of being with friends.

It was a moment of the pleasantness of innocent youth, seemingly unmarred by the brokenness that so pervades the human experience.

Why can’t all of our memories be so…happy?

The simple answer?

We would be terrible people. God loves us, and doesn’t want us to be that selfish, so He matures us through suffering. He gives us contentment, peace, even joy in the midst of the suffering. He brings us out on the other side more loving, more thankful, even more joyful. Don’t believe me?

Ask God about it, then. He’s always available to talk to. There’s no special formula or phrase or belief system by which alone you can access Him. He is there, now, loving you. Ask Him about it.

I strongly suggest that anyone read the letter in the Bible called
1 Peter.

And guess what? Sitting here at ipsento, enjoying a hot chocolate and writing…I appreciate it far more than I did the experience in D.C.

Perhaps it’s because the bits of suffering I’ve been through since then have made me a little less selfish and ungrateful.

Perhaps the good God who loves everything He created has used suffering to make me just that little bit more joyful.

Love God. Learn through suffering.

Savor life.

a blog and its title

I really didn’t hesitate when picking the title for this blog. I was deeply touched by the words of a friend of mine in an anonymous piece of art he drew/wrote/prayed at a gathering when I first arrived in Chicago. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it went something like this:

“Daddy, what would it be like to be truly and wholly dedicated to you? I would be fluid change…”

and he went on. This simple phrase, “I would be fluid change,” profoundly challenged my thinking about myself. Do individuals really have that much room to improve, that an unbroken connection with God would cause unceasing change?
And the answer came, “Of course, Jordan.” The simple fact is that the blackness of the human heart is vast, and that life, for those of us who have been awakened to the reality of absolute Truth’s personal identity, is a struggle to relinquish our selfish sinfulness to He Who is Love, namely, Jesus of Nazareth.
And that’s really the point, isn’t it? God is Love! There is no logical reason for any human to ravenously strive for his own independence, because simply giving ourselves up wholly to the One who infinitely loves us will bring the most complete joy and peace to our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering, the joy and peace that come from becoming like Jesus.
Therefore, the title for this blog, fluid change, is a reminder for me and for anyone who reads it that the ideal life is one lived in love, joy, peace, patience (longsuffering), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It my personal catalyst for endeavoring to let myself go and give myself up to the only perfect Being and Lover. It is the unachievable and noble goal of my existence on this planet. I live to love like Jesus, that many may be helped as I reflect that perfect, unconditional love to the world and am progressively refined into an ever purer reflection.
Friends, enemies, and all others: I love you. Forgive me when I mess up. No matter what I do, the Messiah (the Christ) remains perfect. Know that without Him I would not care as I do about you, nor would the world even exist. You have been given this day as a gift from Him, and that gift is immeasurable. Use it well, for many are suffering.