The Orthodox Christian Faith - Lesson 2
Catechism
DISCLAIMER
The catechism lessons series is prepared by me (Qai) of Orthodox Shahada. I am not ordained clergy. However, I have the explicit blessing of my spiritual father (who has been a priest in the ROCOR jurisdiction for 40+ years) to conduct catechism classes. The lessons are delivered in person at the parish level and are now being made available online in the hope that they will benefit others.
In the previous lesson, we learned that the purposes of catechesis are:
To educate people what we believe as Orthodox Christians;
To educate people on the phronema (mindset) we ought to exhibit as Orthodox Christians; and
To integrate people into the communal life of the Church.
All this culminates into orienting people on the path towards deified union with Christ, or Theosis. We stressed the importance of living a Mystical life within the Church, and that this entails battling the demons in a lifelong struggle. If a person is not struggling, then they are spiritually sick.
We also discussed how Christ Incarnates in order to redeem us from sin and unite us unto Himself. Christ’s Incarnation is an act of Divine Love, being the realization of Divine Will. We are to ‘cut off’ our own will in order to do God’s Will. This act of ‘cutting off’ is an act of martyrdom.
The Christian life is one that is first and foremost lived, not one that is merely apprehended by the intellect. And this life is not an easy one as we are to pick up and carry the Cross up until our dying breath.
With that brief summary concluded, we now move onto the next lesson.
Scripture teaches us that Christ did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it:
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”
Matthew 5:17-18
What Christ teaches us is that we are to keep the Law spiritually. The Law as found in the Old Testament is still in effect. What has changed is the way it is realized.
It is common even for Orthodox Christians to mistakenly think of the Mystery of Confession to be the telos, or end goal, for the forgiveness of sins. For those of the Protestant persuasion, forgiveness is reckoned as a kind of disposition God has towards a person, very similar to what we find in Islam: a person’s sins are forgiven because God deems it so. Protestants and Muslims do not see sin as separation from God necessitating reconciliation, meaning union unto God, i.e., Theosis. Rather, they see sin as disobedience that is punishable, and forgiveness as God not enacting that punishment. For Protestants and Muslims, confession is merely acknowledgment of the sin with no expectation of Theosis.
While the wages of sin is death, the state of being in sin is separation from God. It is when we are cleansed of sin that we can then accept God’s gift, namely, the Holy Eucharist, that we may have eternal life in Christ:
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”
John 6:53
Forgiveness culminates in partaking of the Holy Eucharist following Confession. In the Old Testament, the killing of the sacrificial animal was the first step, just as how Confession is the first step. By having your sins absolved at Confession, the barrier for uniting unto Christ is removed. In the Old Testament, the body of the sacrificial animal was then to be consumed by fire with the smoke ascending to the heavens, journeying towards God. In the New Testament, this is the partaking of the Holy Eucharist. After slaying your sins at Confession, you ascend the steps before the Royal Doors, just as how the priests of the Old Testament would ascend to the Altar at the Temple, and approach the Holy Chalice in order to unite to Christ. In the Old Testament, the sacrifice was to inhibit Divine punishment, but in the New Testament, Christ being the fulfillment not only inhibits Divine punishment, but also reconciles us to God.
Moreover, just as how the sacrificial animal was completely consumed, the Holy Eucharist completely consumes your sins. This is why we pray before partaking of the Holy Chalice that we not be burned:
“When thou, O man, art about to eat the Master’s body, draw nigh with fear, lest thou be seared; It is fire.”
“Behold, I approach Divine Communion;
O Maker, burn me not as I partake,
For Fire art Thou which burneth the unworthy.
But purify Thou me of every stain.”
“Tremble, O man, as thou beholdest the deifying Blood, for It is a burning coal consuming the unworthy.”
“I tremble as I receive the Fire, lest I should be burned as wax and as grass.”
“With Thine immaterial fire consume my sins...”
“May Thy most precious Body and Blood be to me as fire and light, O my Saviour, consuming the substance of sin and burning the thorns of my passions, and enlightening the whole of me to worship Thy Divinity.”
“Trusting, then, in the abundance of Thy benefactions towards us, with rejoicing, yet with trembling, I partake now of the Fire.”
Then, upon partaking of the Holy Eucharist, we pray:
“Behold, This hath touched thy lips, and will take away thine iniquities, and will purge thy sins.”
You have to remember that sin separates you from God. The point of forgiveness is to remove the impediment for union unto God. Forgiveness is not a kind of disposition God has towards someone. Forgiveness is uniting unto Christ specifically because of having fallen as a result of sin.
What Confession does is remove the barrier for union unto Christ and prevent getting burned upon partaking of the Holy Eucharist, which purges the sin. Forgiveness has its completion in the Holy Eucharist as sin is consumed by the purifying fire of Christ's Body and Blood.
If you do not unite yourself unto Christ, then forgiveness serves no purpose. In that case, what is left is your rotting carcass.
It is within the Mystical life of the Church that the Old Testament has its fulfillment. This is what Christ means when He says that He has not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it.
But there is one overarching condition that Christ imposes on us before we can unite unto Him, one condition that is necessary for living the Mystical life: that we unconditionally forgive anyone who has harmed us.
“Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
Matthew 5:23-24
After Christ ascended, His Apostles travelled the world spreading the Gospel to all by word, cooperating in peaceful brotherly love in support of one another.
What made the Apostles successful? The Divine Mystery that is the Holy Eucharist. It was customary in the era of the Apostles to partake of the Holy Eucharist on a daily basis, or at least on a very regular basis — to continually unite oneself unto Christ, to have Christ’s Body and Blood literally become a part of oneself.
In order to preserve the Holiness and Sanctity of Christ’s Body and Blood, all conflict between believers was avoided — the Apostles dared not strike each other in conflict in any way so that the Blood of Christ would not be spilled, which flowed in the bodies of their fellow brothers. And before one was allowed to partake of the Holy Eucharist, one had to forgive all who wronged him and be reconciled unto all.
When we live in peace and forgiveness with our fellow brothers in Christ, then Christ bestows His gift on us: union unto Him by the partaking of the Holy Eucharist, and that Communion with Christ unites all believers to be in Communion with each other.
In this way, we as Christians work together in the Holy Spirit for common cause to proclaim the Gospel unto all so that all may come to live in Christ with us.
However, though as Christians we have common cause, it is not belief or attitudinal disposition that unites us together in Communion, but rather it is in the Mystical life within the Orthodox Church where we are to find our unity of purpose as Christians, united in a real way, both bodily and spiritually.
Historically, to be considered a “Christian” according to the Church, one must be living the Mystical life within the Church, in Communion with all believers. Though one may profess belief in Christ, as even heretics do, the appellation “Christian” was denied if the person was not permitted participation in the Mystical life within the Church. It is not sufficient to merely profess “Christ”. A person must be in good standing within the Orthodox Church.
Now, we all know what it is like for someone to have wronged us. What is difficult to understand is what Christian forgiveness entails. What we normally understand as forgiveness, even the heathens understand. Christian forgiveness is altogether unique.
From Ilias the Presbyter, as found in the Philokalia:
“A truly merciful person is not one that deliberately gives away superfluous things, but one that forgives those who deprive him of what he needs.”
A Gnomic Anthology, Part I
At first glance, it may seem obvious what Ilias the Presbyter is saying. But pause for a moment and think: Someone (who is wealthy) deprives you (who is in poverty) of something you need, which is another way of saying that you experience an injustice, yet you forgive them, and this act of forgiveness is you showing mercy.
What does that mean? How are you, the person forgiving, the one showing mercy?
The worldly response, and the one understood by even the heathens, is that you do not take by force that which you have been deprived, nor do you provoke hostilities with the person over the matter. In this context, mercy is shown by not punishing the offending party.
The spiritual response, the Christian response, is something altogether different. Consider what is perhaps the one thing most difficult for a person to do when they have been wronged: Pray for the offending party.
“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:44-45
You pray God forgive the offender as you have forgiven him, and since you do not harbour judgement against the offender, neither should God. You show mercy in that you do not want God to deny the offender the Kingdom of Heaven on your account. Despite that we offend God, He so loves us that He sent us His only-begotten Son that we should not perish but have everlasting life. Having been created in the Image of God, we likewise love those who offend us and want them not to perish but have everlasting life.
You have not shown forgiveness if you are not merciful. For you to be merciful is to not allow an injustice perpetrated against you to stand in judgement against the offender thereby preventing them the Kingdom of Heaven. It is through your prayers that you demonstrate forgiveness and through which you are merciful:
“For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
James 2:13
It is only when you show Christian mercy that you are then permitted to approach the Holy Altar in order to bring your offering. It is only then that you may partake of the Holy Eucharist.
God has instilled within us the means, or mechanisms, by which we can cultivate the virtues in order to reconcile and unite ourselves to Him. This is not to say that being virtuous is what saves us. Rather, cultivating the virtues while living a Mystical life within the Church is to make oneself a vessel for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit and union unto Christ.
St Gregory of Nyssa teaches us that the early Church practiced public Confession, just as how sacrifices at the Tabernacle and Temple were public. Though public Confession has its parallel with the public nature of Old Testament worship, the public practice within the Church was to instill in the sinner a sense of modesty and shame, which then acts as a deterrent against sinning in the future:
“There is implanted in our nature by God ‘a great and powerful weapon for avoiding sin’, the sense of modesty [αἰδώς] and of shame [αἰσχύνη]. These two emotions, Gregory says, are closely related, but ‘shame is modesty intensified, and modesty ... is shame moderated’. Modesty is often better than fear in turning a person away from sin; and shame, the stronger emotion, ‘which follows criticisms of a fault is enough by itself to correct the sinner’. Confession of sin (ἐξομολόγησις), defined as ‘public acknowledgment’ (ἐξαγόρευσις), produces the emotion of shame. The public acknowledgment of wrongdoing, then is a means of correction, because of the sense of shame inherent in our nature. ‘The person who has branded himself by confessing his secret sins will be given lessons by the memory of his feeling of shame for the rest of his life’.
The Early Church at Work and Worship — Volume 3: Worship, Eucharist, Music, and Gregory of Nyssa, Everett Ferguson, Cascade Books, 2017, p.290.
In addition to cultivating the virtues, we have within us a powerful indicator that helps us realize the consequence of sin: The grief we experience at the death of a loved one. We grieve because we have now been separated from those we love, separated from an Image of God. And this is precisely what sin is: Separation from God.
Grief is an expression of separation, but it is also a mechanism that should ultimately bring us closer to God. Every time we sin, we should grieve as if losing a loved one to death, for when we sin we separate ourselves from God and die. Grief over our sins make us cognizant of separation from God and prompt us to return to Him.
Consider what St Philotheos of Sinai writes, as found in the Philokalia:
“He who really redeems his life, always dwelling on the thought and remembrance of death, and wisely withholding the intellect from the passions, is in a far better position to discern the continual presence of demonic provocations than the man who chooses to live without being mindful of death. The latter, by purifying the heart through spiritual knowledge alone, but not keeping in mind any thought of grief, may sometimes appear to control all the destructive passions by his skill; yet he is unwittingly fettered by one of them, the worst of all - pride, into which, abandoned by God, he sometimes falls. Such a person must be very vigilant lest, deluded by conceit, he becomes deranged. For, as St Paul says (cf. 1 Cor. 4:6,18,19 ; 8:1), souls that gather knowledge from here and there tend to become haughty and disdainful towards their inferiors, as they regard them; they lack the spark of the love which builds up. But he who all the day long is mindful of death discerns the assaults of the demons more keenly; and he counter-attacks and repels them.”
Though bodily death is inevitable, it is not natural. Grief is our expression of this unnatural state. And though we grieve over bodily death, we also rejoice that Christ has conquered death and those who die in Him have everlasting life. Scripture does not teach us not to grieve; Scripture teaches us not to grieve as the heathens grieve. For Christians, grief is not a torment as it is for others:
“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
While Christ has indeed conquered death and granted us salvation, nevertheless we can still sin and separate ourselves from that salvation. Grief, then, reminds us of our faults.
If we do not grieve at our sins, then we are not mindful of our sinfulness, which leads us to pride and eternal damnation, as St Philotheos of Sinai teaches us.
In the process of reconciling and uniting ourselves to God, we begin by confessing our sins to Him within the Church.
We must first clean the dirt from within in order to purify ourselves to be vessels for the Holy Spirit to dwell therein.
Your cadence when writing is a great benefit to someone reading. It feels as though I’m being actively taught instead of reading a text book. 👍🏾