pride – The Tao of Holy Orthodoxy

November 6, 2017February 9, 2021

32. The Eight Parables

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Living the Way of Christ means possessing a good, healthful disposition of heart that produces good, virtuous action. Read these five parables carefully, learn their meaning for your life, and strive to put them into practice:

1) The Parable of the Publican and Pharisee (Luke 18.9-14)

What does this parable teach you about pride and judgment as well as humility and repentance? What does it teach you about God, prayer, and mercy?

2) The Parable of the Sower (Luke 8.4-15)

Are you eagerly receptive to the Truth and humbly teachable or hard-hearted and unteachable, unable to grow to maturity? You choose the kind of soil your heart shall be. Which kind of soil describes the disposition of your heart? What does this parable teach you with regard to how the condition of your heart affects both the health of your soul inwardly and also your outward actions?

3) The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15.11-32)

What does this story teach you about God and His love for us? (The Father did not love the son only when he returned, but the Father always loved the son.) What does the story teach you about sin and the effects of your sin? (Who created the distance between the Father and his son?) What does this teach you about the steps of repentance toward restoration? How does the reaction of the other brother also offer you a lesson?

4) Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

What does this teach you about true love? Why must you love God first and best above all others? (If you do not love God wholly and above all, you cannot love all others fully.) Remember that this parable is also an image of the Church. What does this teach you about the benefit of the Church for you and everyone else?

5) The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders (Matthew 7.21-27)

What does this teach you about the the necessity of obedience?

6) The Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21.28-32)

What does this teach you about repentance with regard to obedience and disobedience?

(7 & 8) The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearls (Matthew 13.44-46)

Where does this teach you place of the Way of Christ in your life, considering all your competing priorities and distractions?

October 30, 2017

26. You are in Good Company

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The Holy Orthodox Church is a Mystery, whole, pure, and perfect. She is the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, and the living Temple of God on Earth, indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Individual members of the Church, however, are only personally whole, pure, and perfect to the extent that they have immersed themselves into the Mystery of the Church, the Fountain of Divine Grace, and have been healed and perfected, becoming like Christ.

The Orthodox Church is a Hospital whose patients demonstrate various degrees of sickness and health. Some have achieved tremendous improvement as model patients and others progress slowly in the Intensive Care Unit.

The disease of death in our hearts affects our rational minds and behaviors. Members of the Church are not only patients in the Hospital, but we are all psychiatric patients. (The root of the word psychiatric actually refers to the soul.) Pride makes us delusional, causing us to think we are better than other people. We do not see others as our neighbors. Even though we know that that our lives should be oriented entirely toward God at every moment, we are often irrationally distracted by the passions and temporary things in the world. We know what we should do, but we do the opposite of what is right, good, and nurturing for the soul.

Since the Orthodox Church is the Hospital, do not be surprised to find its floors full of sick people. Where else should sick people go? Although we are affected by death, too, we may be tempted to judge others as unspiritual hypocrites. If someone does suffer from hypocrisy, the Church is where he should be! Perhaps in the past, this person possessed far worse symptoms, but, through the therapeutic life of the Church, he has made tremendous progress. If he is aware of his sickness, he may be improving. If he is not yet aware, be patient with him and pray for him.

A cancer patient in a hospital should not complain that the hospital is full of cancer patients, nor judge others for being sick and week. Since we all suffer from the effects of death, we are in good company among other sick people. Be understanding, compassionate, and lenient with other people. Regarding yourself, be attentive to carefully follow the physician’s instructions. Even though the Physician and Hospital are perfect and lacking nothing, you will not heal if you refuse treatment or fail to follow the therapy prescribed for you. Keep your eyes on your own sins and symptoms and let other patients worry about their own personal failings. You have enough problems of your own to keep you occupied. Keep in mind how much patience and love God has for you so that you remember to extend the same to others.

The Mystery of the Church is where we find spiritual sanity and a clear spiritual vision of the world. It is also where we find the Way to attain sanity and clarity. Attend to your healing so that you may be in good company with the Saints, the members of the Church who have already been healed and perfected. As you work toward your salvation, they offer their help by the examples they showed us while living on Earth and by their present prayers beyond the earthly life near the throne of God.

October 16, 2017October 16, 2017

18. The Crucifixion of Christ

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At the appointed time, Jesus Christ entered the city of Jerusalem to submit to suffering and death. Soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and placed it on His head. They nailed his hands and feet to a wooden Cross and raised up his body for all to see. A sign above his head mocked him as a false king. Christ’s enemies did not realize that He had entered into the world for the purpose of ascending the Cross for the salvation of our human race.

In His human nature, Christ suffered and died on the Cross, but in His divine nature as God, suffering and death cannot touch Him. The Cross killed a man, but with this Cross, the King of All crushed the power of death. We speak poetically of the Mystery of the Cross: Although Hades (the place of the dead) took a body, it came face to face with the infinite God. Hades swallowed up a body it has seen, but it was destroyed by the uncontainable God it had not seen.

Through the Cross, death was changed to life. The old Adam had died by death because He had rebelliously eaten from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but the New Adam trampled down death by death through obedience. Christ transformed the Cross bearing His body into the Tree of Life, planted on the earth for the healing of all who would share in its Life-Giving Fruit.

On the Cross, Christ again showed us an image of what a healed human person looks like. The perfected human being is victorious through humility, transforming that which is meant to crush and destroy into something beneficial and healthful. A healed person, united with God, is moved by self-denying love.

Jesus Christ is both our Divine Physician and our only saving Antidote. He alone is capable of saving us from death.

Read: John 19; Philippians 2.1-11

September 30, 2017October 16, 2018

13. Our Summary Diagnosis

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The disease of death shows itself through a variety of interconnected illnesses. Holy Scripture summarizes the effects of death on our human race by describing the how the various consequences affect humanity. These consequences include the darkening of the heart, pride and delusion, misuse of a rational mind disconnected from the heart, forgetfulness of God, the influence of chaotic passions that lead us toward suffering and death, and the struggle to choose good instead of evil.

Near the beginning of his Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul summarizes the disastrous effects of sin and death on our ancestors in the past. Since we have inherited death, we still experience these affects today. This particular passage (Romans 1.18-32) explains that when our ancestors lost knowledge of the true God, they forgot what it means to be true human beings, made according to the image of God with potential to become like Him. Relationships between the Creator and His creatures, relationships among human beings, the relationships between males and females descended into chaos.

When reading Holy Scripture, understand that the sacred writings sometimes attribute human characteristics, including emotion, to God. The language of God’s wrath in this passage, for example, provides an image humans can understand to describe a Mystery that is beyond understanding. God does not really have anger or wrath, which are human passions, as we do. God is passionless. Besides, the “wrath” of God mentioned is not turned against human beings. The divine wrath is turned against the unnatural sin and death afflicting humankind, which prevents us from receiving the Love and Grace of God and keeps us from following the Way toward our healing, purpose, and potential. Holy Scripture says that God gave us over to do evil, which means that God allowed human beings to turn away from Him and His Way. (God created us with the freedom to choose.) Men and women wanted to follow their own desires, so God permitted them to do so. God is Love. The human being decided to forsake God in order to pursue his own opinions and follow the passions, which lead toward chaos, suffering, and death. (Throughout history, God sent his prophets to remind people that He loved them and desired for them to return from the path of destruction so that they might enjoy goodness and life in relationship with Him.)

If you want to be healed, you need the One Physician who knows your diagnosis perfectly and possesses the Power to cure you from death in both soul and body entirely.

Read: Romans 1.18-32

September 23, 2017October 11, 2017

8. Pride and Delusion

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Because our hearts are darkened, pride (egotism) hardens the heart. We see ourselves and others with blurry vision, not clearly or soberly. We overestimate our own greatness and spiritual maturity while we undervalue others, judging them to be worse in comparison. Through pride, we can even deceive ourselves into thinking we are humble when we are far from it. Pride brings forth egotistical Self-love, which is opposed to true self-denying love aimed at benefiting the other. In our warped perspective, we confuse what is right and good with what is wrong and bad, yet we render ourselves deaf to correction. We refuse to listen to those who possess clearer vision, more perfect perception, greater knowledge, and wiser discernment.

Remember Narcissus from the old Greek myths. Peering into a perfectly clear pool, he found the most beautiful creature he had ever seen looking back at him from beneath the water. When he tried to kiss his beloved, touching his lips to the pool’s still surface, the one beneath disappeared, fleeing with the ripples at the disturbance of the water. This happened over and over, every time he tried. Narcissus stayed by the pool, gazing in, until he wasted away and died. He could not bear to leave such beauty. Unknowingly, Narcissus had fallen in love with his own reflection. His prideful delusion led to his destruction.

Similarly, we can be like Don Quixote, who, charging bravely on his horse, attacked a vicious giant, but the giant was really only a windmill. The windmill proved innocent, but because of his delusion, Don Quixote was a danger to the windmill and, more importantly, a danger to himself.

The more dark pride covers, seeps in, and hardens our hearts, the more we cut ourselves off from the nurturing streams of Divine Grace, the less clearly we see reality, and the farther we drift from the route that leads toward our potential and purpose.