St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge
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Lenten Transformation: Part 4
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Continued from Part 3...
Which leads us finally to prayer. We know that without prayer, our ascetical efforts will be short-lived. Prayer under-girds Lent from beginning to end. We know this--that’s why there are so many services. They provide us with the strength to make it through the Lenten journey, just as it’s prayer that will get us through life. It is prayer that places all things before God, and prayer that transforms us and our world. Looking at what we’ve discussed so far, it’s prayer that helps sustain and give reason to our fasting. Also, if we are going to discern how to give alms properly, we need to pray. Too often Christian agencies seeking to serve the poor lose any power they once had because they foolishly allowed prayer to become an accessory, rather than the foundation. When that happens, burnout is not far behind, along with ineffectiveness, and loss of Christian witness. CS Lewis once said that the Christians who did the most for this world were those who never lost sight of the next. When Christians lose sight of the Kingdom their irrelevance is almost guaranteed.
Start from Part 1 (Lenten Transformation)
Justice as Asceticism: Part 3by Maria Gwyn McDowell |
Continued from Part 2...
It may surprise us to hear that for St. John Chrysostom, fasting is not the highest virtue. Rather, it is:
“almsgiving, our excellent counselor, the queen of virtues, who quickly raises human beings to the heavenly vaults”
Chrysostom, in a series of sermons on repentance and almsgiving, points his listeners down the many roads to repentance. A sinner may confess, mourn the sin, practice humility, pray, and give alms, but the greatest of these roads is clearly almsgiving. Almsgiving is so great a virtue that it surpasses virginity! The five virgins who neglected to fill their lamps with oil, which John interprets as their desire for money over the poor, fail to enter the wedding banquet.
Read Part 1 (Justice as Asceticism)
The View of Sin in the Early ChurchFather Antony Hughes, pastor of St. Mary's Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA examines the view of sin in the early Church in his academic paper titled: “Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy”. |
In this paper he explores the differences between the doctrine of Ancestral Sin--as understood in the church of the first two centuries and the present-day Orthodox Church--and the doctrine of Original Sin--developed by Augustine and his heirs in the Western Christian traditions--is explored. He also investigates the impact of these two differencing views of sin on pastoral practice.
Click here to read the paper: Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy