The Question Answered

The Gospel for the Third Sunday in Advent

St. Matthew xi. 2.

NOW when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 

Early 19th Century Icon enthroned at St. Simeon Skete, Taylorsville, Kentucky 

As we prepare for Christmas, today’s Gospel seems out of place - seeing that John is in prison and Jesus is an adult.  John is waiting to be executed.  He is in pain, suffering.  He is  the man who recognized his savior from the womb. Later as John Baptized Jesus, the Heavens open up,  he heard God exclaim his pleasure in His Son and he witnessed the Holy Spirit descending, leading into the desert.  And yet, he now sends his disciples to ask “Are you the one?”  Our troubles touch us, sometimes pain is so great it leads us to questions for which only Jesus is the answer.    A great answer doesn’t necessarily get you out of the question, the journey, or the pain but sends you back into it all to find Jesus to be that answer.  We must stay in the pain long enough to answer the questions that the pain is asking.  Make sure the answer is NOT a way of getting out of the pain (running away, denying, buying new shoes or taking a happy pill) but a real answer.  I can always tell more about a person by the questions they ask rather than the answers they give.  John was asking good questions that demanded only one answer: Jesus.    

Much of our religion these days leads us to living a prophylactic existence; preventing us from ever becoming pregnant with life and infected with what it brings - sorrows and difficulties.  They are a part of life.   Our purity must not be the result of NOT being touched by our troubles.  “In the world you will have troubles”.  That’s the truth.  Yet we hear so much from the world that uses belief in God as a shield from difficulty.  They hold that being with God means no loneliness, no hassles, no suffering.   I remember a lady years ago storming off after a sermon in which we were lead to examine ourselves.  The woman shouted as she left, “I don’t come to church to be instructed or made to critique my life.  I come to church to feel good, be happy and be comforted.”  Before you can be comforted you first have to be confronted.  John suffered, Jesus suffered, they had troubles and so do we.  I remember seeing the hand-written sign in a hermitage “Pain is the Kiss of Christ”.    God is in our pain with us, therefore, you might say our sorrows are a sign of the presence of God.   We are not alone.  

John sits confined in prison, alone, waiting to be executed.  His question really has three parts. 

1. Are you the one?  (see also NHA Blog "Are you the one?")
2. Is it real? 
3. Is it enough? 
   
   

And Jesus answers  “Yes, Yes, Yes”  He is the one, He is real and He is enough. 

Preparing to prepare...

Like the fallen Autumn Leaves, one month blows by after another.  One Season after the next. 

The Year 2015 is drawing to an end.  

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Thanksgiving Day 2015 has come and gone and here we are on the second Sunday of Advent.   For many, Thanksgiving Day ignites the beginning of the Holiday Shopping Season.  Frenzied and determined crowds have hit the stores on Black Friday at the crack of dawn (or earlier) in order to find that perfect gift at the perfect price.   Stampedes and suffocation headline the news as the day unfolds. 

At St. Simeon Skete, we prepare for Christmas by making the preparations for Advent.  

Click on this link: Previous blog post on Advent Wreath

We’ve dug out the Advent Candles, found our carefully stored away bells to pin up our sleeve 

http://blog.nazarethhouseap.org/2011/12/donkey-bells-and-soft-bed-for-jesus.html

 and cut up some yellow yarn.  

On Advent Sunday an empty creche & yarn (straw) is placed on table

Advent Sunday was last week, November 29.  It began a penitential time to prepare our souls - making room in the “Inn” of our hearts for Christ, the One who is the Perfect Gift that paid the Perfect price for us.   

At St. Simeon Skete, we follow The Nativity Fast, a period of abstinence and penance in preparation for the Nativity of Christ (December 25).  The fast is similar to the Western Advent, except that it runs for 40 days instead of four weeks and is observed from November 15th until December 24, inclusively. 

We live in a fast paced world in which our wants and goals are best defined by the words:  "bigger and better".  Small things are overlooked as we strive for super size, super stars, super heroes.  Little things don't seem to have much potential but, in fact, it is those "small things", "small beginnings"  and "impossible situations" that God uses to do His best work.  (Zechariah 4:10). 

At Nazareth House Apostolate we are daily reminded of God doing big with little.  

When we look back over the years of NHA in Sierra Leone we find one man with a prayer as its beginning.  

A decade and a half  later, we have a school with 300 students, a compound, a farm and are reaching more and more in the villages.  

Our accomplishments in Sierra Leone stand up along side many NGO's that have far more resources than us.  Never underestimate the potential in small things, especially when they depend entirely on God.  

Secretly,  a strand of straw (yarn) is placed in the creche representing a good deed

God could have chosen better people to do the great things of the Old  and New Testament; but he didn't.  He chose souls like Abraham - afraid to believe in the promise, Jacob, the cheat who struggles with everyone, Moses- an impatient murderer, unable to wait for God.  David, an adulterer, abusing position, perk, and power.  There was Hezekiah, the reforming king who could not quite go far enough, Peter who denied Christ - all these guys messed up - they were real, like us - bungled and botched, impossible situations... but God saw fit to use them.... and then there was a very young, unassuming, unnoticed Jewish girl from a small village that didn't do anything wrong ....    God did what He did in them and He can do it in us. 

by Christmas Morning, our good deeds will have lined the creche for the Christ Child 

So when you find yourself tempted to buy that expensive gift you really can't afford, or you find yourself adding more decorations because your neighbor's yard looks better than yours, or you just knocked someone out of the way so you'd be the one of the first ten in line to get that "hot item" ... think about the capacity in small,

 think about what we are really celebrating ... think about Love. 

First We Must Love

It was a Thursday a few weeks ago,  and I rushed over to attend the weekly Stations of the Cross thinking it was Friday.  It wasn't Friday.  I don't need to rush time, weeks go by so fast on their own.  We celebrate Eucharist on Sunday,  wake up on Monday and next thing we know it's Saturday and we are preparing for the Sunday Eucharist again.  Where does the time go?

Our days are full here at St. Simeon Skete beginning with vigils at 4:30 AM, followed by Lauds and the daily Eucharist at 7 AM.

St. Simeon Skete.   Feb. 2015

 The Eleven Prayer Offices hold our day as the day's activities enter into that ongoing prayer.

There is so much going on right now - in Sierra Leone, at the skete and I hear, pray tell, that Christmas is just around the corner, with a brand New Year nipping right at our heels.   Christmas is a high holy day for us here at the Skete, of course, yet every day is holy in the Lord.  We are constantly reminded that every moment is special because God is in it - as Seraphim says "that's why He is the IAM, not the I WAS or the I WILL BE ... but the now, the present moment and if we try to escape what the moment holds we are escaping God in that moment."

Seraphim just fixed me some afternoon tea... I am sitting at my desk, ready to start back at the administrative work.  Seraphim is up in his prayer loft above me, there is a cd playing of Coptic chanting.  As I open the spreadsheet on the computer I begin...

"Be still and know that I AM God"

"Be still and know that I AM..."

"Be still and know..."

"Be still..."

"Be..." 

Psalm 46:10

Sunrising in Morning Fog cast over the Knock Shrine

Its important that we realize that what we do, whatever it is, can be a prayer.   Sweeping the floor can be a very holy thing.  With Kadijah, in Sierra Leone, every sweep of the broom is a rhythmic moment of prayer, like the fingering of beads, one prayer after the other.  When we had a cherry tree, I used to say the the Jesus Prayer with every cherry I pitted.  For many of us, our computer keyboard can be a time of prayer if our heart and focus is in it.    

The pilots affiliated with the Skete use their time in the air to broadcast prayer as they fly over the cities.  Praying the Name, which contains all things and therefore gathering all who are in the cities beneath them into The Name.   With James in Sierra Leone, every snap of the camera is a prayer.

People say, "its impossible! you can't 'pray without ceasing', especially not at your work"   But it is possible and its not as hard as you may think.  Its a matter of discipline and desire.  “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ― Mother Teresa

At the grocery store, when you place your bags of groceries in your car - be sure to put the cart up, don't leave it out in the parking lot.  As you place it in the corral pray for the person who will use it next.  Likewise, when you arrive and take your grocery cart - pray for the person who had the cart before you.   Notice the piece of paper in the parking lot and pick it up - doing little things well for the love of Him - St. Therese.   There are so many opportunities to keep the prayer ongoing.

 "Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God." -Brother Lawrence

The ISIS and Boko Haram terrorism is horrific -evil personified.  It is gutwrenchingly heartbreaking.  It revives in my heart the pain and anguish of the people of Sierra Leone, especially the children.  Hundreds of children lost their limbs to machete wielding madmen (RUF),  their eyes plucked out with knives, many forced to join the rebels were drugged and made to kill themselves.  These children survived and are still in the recovery process.   Hundreds of others were murdered.

Whenever I talked with these children from the war, they were quick to tell the stories of the war but they didn't focus on the horror instead they spoke of the hero that did this or the heroine the did that.  They talked of the doctor that stopped the bleeding or the person who hid them away.  They found the good in the midst of turmoil - and they focused on it.   And they were able to make life happen, they were able to go on, and they were able to smile (“Peace begins with a smile..” ― Mother Teresa).

Fred Rogers says it best:

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world." 

It is important that we do the same.  The news media will concentrate on the evil, promote it,  and keep it festering.  They will highlight the phrases and thoughts that bring rise to heated arguments initiating blame on laws or no laws, security or no security and distract you from the fact that there is evil within the human heart.   Look for the helpers, even within the media - in the background - you will see the helpers, the good that still remains.  Search it out.

And before we go bashing one over another about fault, blame and evil itself, we must first look within our own hearts.  "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye".  Matthew 7:5 KJV (Cambridge) 

“Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another.” ― Thomas Merton

and

“Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at all. It is active and purposeful collaboration in evil that brings the Christian into direct and intimate contact with the same source of evil and hatred which inspires the acts of his enemy. It leads in practice to a denial of Christ and to the service of hatred rather than love.” 
― Thomas Merton, Passion for Peace; Reflections on War and Nonviolence

Seraphim on Retreat in Thomas Merton's Hermitage, Jan. 2001

In all things, first we must love:

“Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.” 

― Thérèse de Lisieux

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As we have been with our families for Thanksgiving, “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” ― Mother Teresa

Litany of Non-Violence

God, aware of my own brokenness,
I ask the gift of courage to identify how and where I am
in need of conversion in order to live
in solidarity with all people.

Deliver me from the violence of superiority and disdain.
Grant me the desire, and the humility,
to listen with special care to those whose experiences
and attitudes are different from my own.

Deliver me from the violence of greed and privilege.
Grant me the desire, and the will, to live simply
so others may have their just share of Earth’s resources.

Deliver me from the silence that gives
consent to abuse, war and evil.
Grant me the desire, and the courage, to risk
speaking and acting for the common good.

Deliver me from the violence of irreverence,
exploitation and control.
Grant me the desire, and the strength, to act
responsibly within the cycle of creation.

God of love, mercy and justice,
acknowledging my complicity in those attitudes,
action and words which perpetuate violence,
I beg the grace of a non-violent heart. Amen.

The Wait of Advent

Here we are, well into the Advent Season.  A time of preparation of our hearts, a purging of our habitual transgressions.  A time of expectation of His arrival, Our Saviour.

This anticipation, this Advent, is intensified in Sierra Leone.  As people of faith, we know we can do nothing on our own, it is our Creator that guides us through.  The villagers of Sierra Leone see this in reality in their everyday life and they have no doubt that their existence is sustained by the Almighty. Day after day, I see from those Sierra Leoneans (who are able to find an internet connection) posts on Facebook of thanksgiving to God for seeing them through the night and enabling them to see the sunrise another day.  In the midst of the current 'plague', I see  and hear from them, far more prayers of thanksgiving than petitions.  This has been going on before Ebola was a word in their vocabulary or a reality in their life and it will continue long after the disease disappears.  The villagers for the most part live off the land, they know the origin of what they receive to provide them sustenance.  So when their needs require hospital beds, medicine and supplies they have no choice but to wait for its arrival.

So as we contemplate the Season of Advent, Christmas and the New Year; as we wait in anticipation of the celebration of the meaning of Christmastide; lets bear witness to the waiting and anticipation of those in the Ebola Hotspots of West Africa who must wait and hope for that which saves them.

To give towards the NHA Shipment of Hospital Beds and Equipment desperately needed in Kabala, please CLICK HERE.  And while you are at it, won't you consider making a recurring monthly donation through this link as well?

Our NHA School in Kabala has been forced closed by the Ebola Outbreak.  All schools in Sierra Leone have been ordered closed by the Government.

Last week, James noticed some of our boy students playing along the road, getting into mischief - a very normal activity for little boys.

So James took them to the local Automobile Mechanics in the town and had them provide a little "vocational" studies.  The students loved it.

NHA has been hiring locals for odd jobs to stimulate the work force in the area.  So many shops and companies have had to shut down due to ebola.

We've suffered an outbreak of snakes taking refuge in the rocks around the school and compound.  James hired some laborers to remove the rocks in order to keep the area safe.  These husbands and sons worked very hard for us. We are very thankful for their help and they are happy to receive good pay to provide for their families.

Donkey Bells and a soft bed for Jesus

Denny and Joanie's donkey

Another tradition that Nazareth House Apostolate continues during Advent is that of pinning a tiny silver bell (one that actually rings) in the sleeve of the left arm of our clothing (the left arm because it is closer to the heart).  

Vicki's Advent Bell pinned in her sleeve

The bell represents the bell on the donkey that Mary rode into Bethlehem, ringing with every step the donkey takes.   

Joanie and Denny's donkey

With the bell hidden in the sleeve, every time we move our arm we hear it’s tiny tinkling ring.  Every ring reminds us that this is Advent and Jesus is coming.  The bell has a very gentle non-offensive sound and can be worn all day, wherever you are. 

There are other traditions from around the world. Catherine Doherty is well known for reviving many holy Christian Traditions.   Nazareth House Apostolate recommends her book:  “Donkey Bells” 

In Seraphim’s family, an empty creche was placed in the living room.  A box filled with 2 inch strands of golden yarn sat next to it.  


Every time a family member performed a good deed during Advent, they took a strand of yarn (representing hay) and placed it into the manager creating a soft bed for the Child Jesus to lie in.  In other words, the place that Christ comes to rest in is our good deeds.


They were encouraged that the good deed and the placing of the yarn (hay) into the creche should be done in secret. “That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”- Matthew 6:4

THE ADVENT WREATH

In Sierra Leone, James and family are making their way back to Kabala after spending a week in Freetown, 

braving the busyness of the city to seek medical attention for Roo, 

receive packages from the post and stock up on supplies.  They are excited to return to the peacefulness of Kabala, especially as they prepare their hearts during this penitential season of Advent. 

As I type this post, the rain is falling hard and Seraphim is outside rebuilding and repairing the newly developed ditches in the gravel road at the skete.  He is drenched. 

In order to prepare for the cold Winter, we are filling the gas tanks for the buildings in use at the Skete. 


Preventative measures and preparedness are imperative to maintain our buildings, our properties and daily life.  Advent calls to attention the fact that as we give attention to the physical preparations - things that are temporary, it is even more important that we prepare our hearts and souls which are eternal.  

Nazareth House Apostolate began the Advent Season as we begin everything - in prayer.  

As the first Advent candle was lit in The Chapel of the Presentation, the Liturgy began.  It is the custom of NHA at St. Simeon Skete to place the Nativity Scene in the chapel on the first Sunday of Advent, highlighting the empty creche - signifying the Season’s reason for preparation and expectation -  the coming of Christ.  

The Wisemen are placed far to the East in the Chapel ... journeying closer each Sunday of Advent, finally making their way to the site of our Lord’s Nativity after Christmas.  

After the Liturgy on this first Sunday in Advent, 

we had a wonderful time of fellowship 

at Anna House, 

a sharing and celebration as we begin the fasting and penitential observations the next day.  

The materialistic “Santa Season” serves to distract us from having a meaningful, preparatory Advent.   Consumerism, Self indulgence, Keeping up with the ‘Jones’ (people haven’t realized that the “Jones”  aren’t happy, but they still want to be like them), mammon illness - all these things take away from having a real Christmas.   There are many traditions and customs that help us to ignore these distractions and put them in proper perspective.  

One tradition, the Advent Wreath, serves to keep us focused on The Important. Each night at the dinner table one candle for each week of Advent is lit, ending with all four candles lit by the week leading into Christmas.  Usually the youngest child of the family lights the first candle.   There are many prayers that can be found on the internet search engines to be said at the lighting of the candle, but it can be more personal and meaningful (especially to the children) to incorporate your own prayers. 

The first candle is the candle of Hope (expectation). This points attention to the anticipation of the coming of Christ.  As God’s people were exploited by power hungry kings, led astray by self-centered prophets, and assuaged into apathy by half-hearted religious leaders, people began to crave a new king who would teach them how to be people of God and not of the world. They longed for the return of God in their midst. 

So, God revealed to some of the prophets that He would not leave His flock without a true Shepherd. While they expected a new earthly king, their expectations fell far short of God’s revelation of Himself in Christ. The world continues to be lead by dominative powers.  We remain in expectation, with hope, for the coming of Christ.  Our hope starts with the birthing of Christ in our own hearts.  

The sequence of lighting the candles for the remaining Sundays of Advent are that of Love, Joy, and Peace.