Posted on 04/16/2005 5:40:36 AM PDT by Kolokotronis
The concept of communion is above all anchored in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the reason why we still today in the language of the Church rightly designate the reception of this sacrament simply as “to communicate”. In this way, the very practical social significance of this sacramental event also immediately becomes evident, and this in a radical way that cannot be achieved in exclusively horizontal perspectives. Here we are told that by means of the sacrament we enter in a certain way into a communion with the blood of Jesus Christ, where blood according to the Hebrew perspective stands for “life”. Thus, what is being affirmed is a commingling of Christ’s life with our own.
“Blood” in the context of the Eucharist clearly stands also for “gift”, for an existence that pours itself out, gives itself for us and to us. Thus the communion of blood is also insertion into the dynamic of this life, into this “blood poured out”. Our existence is “dynamized” in such a way that each of us can become a being for others, as we see obviously happening in the open Heart of Christ.
From a certain point of view, the words over the bread are even more stunning. They tell of a “communion” with the body of Christ which Paul compares to the union of a man and a woman (cf. I Cor 6,17ff; Eph 5,26-32). Paul also expresses this from another perspective when he says: it is one and the same bread, which all of us now receive. This is true in a startling way: the “bread” — the new manna, which God gives to us — is for all the one and the same Christ.
It is truly the one, identical Lord, whom we receive in the Eucharist, or better, the Lord who receives us and assumes us into himself. St Augustine expressed this in a short passage which he perceived as a sort of vision: eat the bread of the strong; you will not transform me into yourself, but I will transform you into me. In other words, when we consume bodily nourishment, it is assimilated by the body, becoming itself a part of ourselves. But this bread is of another type. It is greater and higher than we are. It is not we who assimilate it, but it assimilates us to itself, so that we become in a certain way “conformed to Christ”, as Paul says, members of his body, one in him.
We all “eat” the same person, not only the same thing; we all are in this way taken out of our closed individual persons and placed inside another, greater one. We all are assimilated into Christ and so by means of communion with Christ, united among ourselves, rendered the same, one sole thing in him, members of one another.
To communicate with Christ is essentially also to communicate with one another. We are no longer each alone, each separate from the other; we are now each part of the other; each of those who receive communion is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gn 2,23).
A true spirituality of communion seen in its Christological profundity, therefore, necessarily has a social character, as Henri de Lubac brilliantly described more than a half century ago in his book, Catholicism.
For this reason, in my prayer at communion, I must look totally toward Christ, allowing myself to be transformed by him, even to be burned by his enveloping fire. But, precisely for this reason, I must always keep clearly in mind that in this way he unites me organically with every other person receiving him — with the one next to me, whom I may not like very much; but also with those who are far away, in Asia, Africa, America or in any other place.
Becoming one with them, I must learn to open myself toward them and to involve myself in their situations. This is the proof of the authenticity of my love for Christ. If I am united with Christ, I am together with my neighbour, and this unity is not limited to the moment of communion, but only begins here. It becomes life, becomes flesh and blood, in the everyday experience of sharing life with my neighbour. Thus, the individual realities of my communicating and being part of the life of the Church are inseparably linked to one another.
The Church is not born as a simple federation of communities. Her birth begins with the one bread, with the one Lord and from him from the beginning and everywhere, the one body which derives from the one bread. She becomes one not through a centralized government but through a common centre open to all, because it constantly draws its origin from a single Lord, who forms her by means of the one bread into one body. Because of this, her unity has a greater depth than that which any other human union could ever achieve. Precisely when the Eucharist is understood in the intimacy of the union of each person with the Lord, it becomes also a social sacrament to the highest degree.
Joseph Ratzinger
That was short. And exceedingly sweet in its truth.
Having said that, I will also say that our ultimate goal is to fulfill the Commandments -- to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and our neighbor as ourselves. That means God comes first and foremost, before all else, before earthly possessions, before wife, children, anyone and anything, and we completely surrender to that "Thy will be done" in peace and readiness and joy, unattached to anything earthly and material. None of us is there yet!
Placing God as the sole source of our attachment, by definition, excludes everything esle, so the path towards God is not a communal effort, but a personal journey on a narrow path and "few shall find it."
No, we are not meant to be alone -- but who is alone with God? God is everywhere and all the time? Feeling alone means we have shut Him out of our lives and need material distractions and pleasures and company. And then we complain that "God is distant"(?).
Becoming God-centered and developing disinterest in worldly things is an anathema to the people who enjoy "lateral salvation" approach. The church, not God, become the center of their spiritual life, friends, entertainment, and so on. In some western communities, the church becomes something you shop for. And, it is my understanding, this "personal" approach is not so foreign to American Orthodoxy either.
I am sorry if I come across as someone who is disinterested and unimpressed with communal life -- I do go to church when I can, in order to receive the Mysteries because that's where they are given. Where else can I go? I don't go to church to meet friends and find entertainment. The church is not my social life -- I don't confuse my earthly relationships with my spiritual life. And I don't particularly care about the "rite" either -- the manner in which we worship God in a church. Rather, it's very much something so well illustarted in the Three Hermits. Rites and rituals are human inventions and I like some more than others, but I attach no specific "sanctity" to human art, which all worship is to a large degree. In fact, I don't really know all the hymns by number or name. Maybe one day a good bishop will teach me how to serve God too.
And when I repent and ask for forgiveness for my weakness and lack of stronger faith, and I do dozens of times every single day of my life, and when I clumsily confess before God and a venerable father, and receive his blessings, and then receive the Eucharist, all I can say is "Thank You" and feel tears in my eyes. Oh no, the Eucharist does not transform me into anything Christ-like. I am sure of that, contrary to +Ratzinger and all my faithful friends here. But if it transforms you, I am happy for you. You are much more deserving of it than I am.
Our salvation, our theosis, can only be exclusive and personal. Our salvation does not depend on how sociable or popular or "good" we are, but how repentful we are. In the end, our salvation will not be "earned" but granted.
Placing God in the focus and center of our lives does not mean becoming antisocial. To the contrary. You see other people as beings with souls, even if you hate their sins, and you pray that perhaps one day their souls, rather than their corrupt nature will prevail. Loving your enemy because he or she is also a being with a soul that can be transformed, and earnestly praying for them, is the ultimate expression of faith. As Christ said, loving those who love you, what effort is that?
Consumed by God, we can only do good. Neither one of us will sin, nor wish evil on anyone, nor hurt anyone's feelings, nor keep a grudge, nor seek revenge. But neither will we be become attached to, or selfish of anything of this world. In the end it all goes back to God.
To reach that stage, one cannot decide one day to be "good." One cannot say "I will pray for my enemies" and mean it. It has to come from within. And it comes from within when we have been transformed and internalized that here and now is only a moment. When we think of some of the friends or crushes we had in high school, as consuming and important as they appeared at the time, and how utterly meaningless and perhaps even pathetic they seem now, can we appreciate that no one is as good as we think, and that nothing that will pass even comes close to God; no person, no possession, nothing. It will all vanish sooner or later. Let's just hope that when it happens to us (for we die alone even if we die as a group), we have not left out God by a minimalist approach of "lateral salvation".
"The journey can be very lonely even within a group. I think that is part of the process. God wants us to rely solely on Him instead of human resources."
Your comment puts me in mind of a couple of things. First, in Orthodoxy we speak of the communion of saints. When we pray at the Divine Liturgy we are conscious, even physically conscious of the presence of the saints there with us singing our hymn of praise and thanksgiving. This consciousness is quite real and therefore when we chant before the "Sanctus" that we are joing in the Victory Hymn of the angels, six winged and many eyed we quite literally mean it. That is the community of Orthodoxy. Finally, I remember a number of years ago attending a Vespers at the nuns' monastery outside the village in Greece. My oldest son and I were there with an uncle who had some legal business with the abbess. It was getting close to 6:00 when a cousin of mine, a nun, came into the Arxondariki (a room where vistitors are received and entertained)and asked if my son and I would like to attend Vespers with the nuns. We did. In a catholikon about 1000 years old, lit only by candles, my the 13 year old son and I chanted with the nuns. The icons painted on the walls, faded with the years and candle smoke were ghost like yet powerful at the same time. The nuns stood on one side of the catholikon, my boy, a workman and I on the other. At one of the high points of the chanting, my son whispered to me "Dad, this must be what heaven is like!"
A monastic community is a spiritually powerful place to be, Deborah.
I remember reading the Ratzinger Report many years ago. Or rather, I don't remember the specifics of what he said, but I do remember thinking at that time that Ratzinger was someone that the Catholics could benefit from having more of. Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to see if I was right.
The Ladder is not difficult reading -- it is actually deceptively simple, but it nonetheless is a fairly advanced book. I've been reading it this Great Lent for the first time, after 15 years of being Orthodox, and have found it to be a challenge. I do think that you would get a picture of some of the differences in approach by reading it, though.
There are points that seem similar, but from my personal (and admittedly superficial) observations, the stages that the Orthodox put very late in the path of spiritual development (if at all) -- after many years of intense spiritual effort living and worshipping in community, being absorbed in the prayers of the Church, and being under the close guidance of a spiritual director -- the Catholic mystical tradition tends to put quite early in the process, often starting with some sort of mystical experience or vision at the very beginning. There seems to be a very strong emphasis on personal mytical experience in the Catholic tradition.
Orthodox spirituality is intensely personal, but it is non-mystical -- it is built around close personal observation of our own actions and thoughts, and constant comparison of these with the teachings of the Gospel in light of practical Orthodox spiritual writings.
I get the impression from what you seem to be trying to say that the Catholic mystical tradition, as you understand it, has a central role of being alone with God quite early in the spiritual journey?
She disagreed vehemently, of course, with my eventual decision to become Orthodox, and we had little else to talk about from that point, but I remain grateful to her for her kindness.
You are right that the "we are the Eucharist" thing is very prevalent. I am particularly struck by all of the "I am God" songs in the pew missals of the Catholic churches I visit (my kids often have recitals and concerts held in local Catholic churches). We Orthodox occasionally sing things that are personifications of Christ and his words -- but it is clear that we are quoting or paraphrasing what Christ says about himself. It just feels very, very different.
We will certainly guard what we have!
Collegiality only works when, as you say, bishops are solid Christians -- and more importantly when the milieu is one where it is simply unacceptable for a bishop to go against tradition, certainly on his own. As I have said before, the "peer pressure" in Orthodoxy is incalculable -- bishops on each other, priests on bishops, laity on clergy. A bishop really only has real, functional authority to the extent that he speaks with the voice of the Church. And when he does -- it send shivers down one's spine.
I remember reading a brief bio of him which stated that for one of his graduate degrees he laid out a case for the justification of Catholicism using the philosophy of a Catholic German philosopher, who taught that successful evangelization of diverse groups of people was most likely to occur and be successful through the use of sentiment. That is, customs, habits and the like which define a culture or people.
The Holy Father's desire to allow cultural variations of the celebration of the Mass was predicated on that, and the events that took place at Assisi, took place for the same reasons, I believe.
Walter Kasper is one of the Rhine men, who is viewed as the dark horse Papal candidate. His book, Jesus The Christ, left me not knowing what he really believed about Christ's Divinity or if he believed the Gospels to be fact or allegory. It was impossible for me to ascertain whether he was speaking heresy or whether he was just uncertain.
I'm not implying it is not. My point is that the journey is an interior one whether one lives in community or as a solitary.
I'm interested in your comment in post 73 that theosis is a "lonely" journey. I'd never have thought of that word as a description for theosis in the world, in a monastic community or as a hermit.
I disagree. A new soul or a new convert needs the structure and the community. Most people will never get to the advanced state of mystical union, primarily due to a lack of application. St. John of the Cross addresses the spiritual process itself, allegedly for beginners as well as proficients, but personally I found his work too intense for newbies or the lukewarm. I read Dark Night of the Soul in small segments off and on over a two year period. Every bit needs to be absorbed on a deeper level. Everyone's experience of mystical union is different. Some have powerful experiences while others experience a more subdued spiritual maturity.
My traditional priest tells me that all we can do is save our own souls. Hopefully we help others on the way but ultimately each person is responsible for him or herself.
As an outsider looking in, Orthodoxy has always struck me as mystical. I guess I'm wrong?
I think we are not exactly speaking of the same thing. You are looking at exteriors while I am speaking about the interior. It does not matter whether a person is in a community or a solitary when the process itself is activated. God acts on the individual soul making it an experience shared only between those two. The loneliness I refer to occurs as the old, fallen self is stripped away. Once a person reaches theosis of course there is no loneliness. And again, not everyone would experience the purging of the self as loneliness. Experiences and descriptions vary. I use the term as part of the experience of fallen man. Some call it a stripping away or a death to the self.
I'm going to post St. John's outline of the Ascent of Mt. Carmel. It explains what I am unsuccessfully trying to say.
Give me a second to get it posted.
St. John created a diagram of the Ascent with this explanation. He explains the process in greater depth in the text. It is not psychological, but rather guidance on the mystical path from a spiritual director perspective. Again, I am talking about a more advanced spiritual process, not that of the beginner (although it is claimed a beginner can benefit from the direction).
--
To reach satisfaction in all
desire satisfaction in nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to possess all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.
To come to enjoy what you have not
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.
When you delay in something
you cease to rush toward the all.
To go from the all to the all
you must deny yourself of all in all.
And when you come to the possession of the all
you must possess it without wanting anything.
In this nakedness the spirit
finds its quietude and rest, for in
coveting nothing, nothing tires it
by pulling it up, and nothing oppresses it
by pushing it down, because it is in
the center of its humility.
---
Further points in the diagram -
The ways of the imperfect spirit desire goods of heaven, glory, goods of earth, possessions, joy, knowledge, consolation and rest. "Now that I no longer desire them, I have them all without desire." Neither glory nor suffering matter. "Only the honor and glory of God dwells on this mount."
St. John's Ascent is about teaching beginners and proficients alike to "unburden themselves of all earthly things, avoid spiritual obstacles, and live in that complete nakedness and freedom of spirit necessary for divine union."
Your thoughts?
Once you are transofrmed your physical begins to crumble, and the spirit triumphs. That is the liberation of slavation. One does not become Christ-like after the Eucharist; one only gets fed spiritual food that sustains us, so that one can continue that vertical climb of theosis.
Thank you for posting this.
I think that's true. I think that replacing self love with the total love of Christ is very lonely. How could it not be? At the end of the periods of lonliness though, Spiritual growth results. You are able to forgive a little easier, to gladly do what you might have dreaded doing before.
M.(?) Scott Peck wrote that he believes the more people really live in accordance with God, the less likely they are to have a lot of friends. I think there is truth to that.
Orthodoxy is mystical or spiritual. God, the center of our existence, is a Mystery. The catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church says:
Faith is a personal encounter with God.
The Church teaches that salvation is to be achieved only through faith -- our personal relationship with God. There is no lateral salvation. We are a community only in as much as we share the same Eucharist, the same spiritual food, and are therefore in communion with Him and through Him with of all of us -- in spirit. We are related, through spirit: a gongregation of the faithful, united around Christ; the Church. That congregation deos not have a physicial place, nor is it limited in time. The Lord's Supper is transcendental -- it is not "repeated" in the spiritual sense but "ongoing." The community of the faithful, likewise, is not a physicial congregation in one place and with certain individuals only. Our community is common unity in spirit and faith in our Lord for all times.
He is right. What could possibly be better than God?
At the end of the periods of lonliness though, Spiritual growth results. You are able to forgive a little easier, to gladly do what you might have dreaded doing before
You are on the right track -- when you begin to realize these things and then see profound changes in yourself you begin to understand that you are being transformed. Things that used to shine begin to lose their lustre and contemplation becomes a daily habit with increasing frequency and duration.
I've read a lot of traditional Orthodox spiritual writings, and this just doesn't ring a bell with me. The Orthodox spiritual life is one that is filled with love -- God for us, us for each other, the saints for us and us for them. How is there loneliness in the midst of such love? Just the act of standing alone in front of one's icons brings one into the presence of the saints. One sees their faces, and the deep love in them. Even in our parish life and in monastic life, there is the unpleasantness of people rubbing each other the wrong way -- but even in those situations, the experience is not of loneliness.
The writings of Orthodox spiritual fathers for their children is palpable. I'm reading through the multi-volume set of the lives of the Optina Fathers. This is again just filled with love.
What the fathers do talk about is despondency and "accidie" -- it is an expected part of the spiritual life, but it is not something good or from God. It is a temptation and an affliction -- something to be overcome. When we feel lonely, it is because the sin in our hearts and the brokeness of our lives makes us unable to receive the love not only of God, but of the saints and of our fellow Christians.
It is by no means the case that our love for each other is what saves us -- God saves us. The love of the community is the product of growing closer to God, and I think Kosta said something to this effect. But I think that my point of discomfort or questioning is that I don't see a phase of the spiritual journey where loneliness would be an intrinsic and necessary part of the process. But I'm still thinking this through.
The term loneliness was my term. Don't make too much out of it. It is not a rule of Catholic mysticism and I did not associate it with God. I only referred to it as part of the purging process on a person's personal path. Another person may use a different term.
Again, you are comparing exterior experiences to my discussion of interior changes. We are not talking about the same thing. kosta understands my intent. I don't know how to phrase this any other way.
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