1. Bible: Saturday Gospel – John 6:14-27
At that time, when the people saw the sign which Jesus had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!”
Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.
When evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, entered a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea rose because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. They were frightened, but He said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they were glad to take Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.
On the next day the people who remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone away alone. However, boats from Tiberias came near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves entered the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.
When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life which the Son of man will give to you; for on Him has God the Father set his seal.”
2. Fathers: Question 51 by St Maximos the Confessor
One of the most important patristic works on the interpretation of Scripture was composed by St Maximus the Confessor around A.D. 633/634 as a response to various questions about difficult biblical passages. Here is the fifty-first question presented to Maximus by the presbyter and abbot Thalassios:
“And many brought offerings to Jerusalem for the Lord, and gifts to Hezekiah the king of Judah; and he was exalted in the eyes of all the nations” (2 Chr. 32:23). What are these offerings, and what are these gifts? And why does God receive “offerings” while the king receives “gifts”? And what does it mean that “he was exalted in the eyes of all the nations”?
Here is part of Maximus’s initial answer:
When, like the great king Hezekiah, every intellect naturally crowned with virtue and knowledge attains to rule over Jerusalem (cf. 4 Kgs. 18:1-2), that is, over the state in which one beholds only peace, which is a condition free of every passion—for Jerusalem means “vision of peace”—such an intellect, I say, has all creation at its command, by means of all the species of which it is comprised. Through the mediation of the intellect, creation brings to God, like offerings, the spiritual principles of knowledge. To the intellect, creation brings, like gifts, modes for the realization of virtue, which exist within creation, according to the natural law. Through both [i.e., the offerings and the gifts], creation welcomes and receives the one who is able mightily to esteem both. I mean the philosophical mind perfected in the principle of contemplation and in a life of practice. Thus the word of Scripture establishes a distinction when it says that whereas “offerings” are brought to the Lord, “gifts” are brought to the king. According to the experts on these matters, this is because “offerings” are distinctively said to be things brought to those who have no need of them, while “gifts” are given to those in need. And this is perhaps also why it is the general custom that things brought to kings are called “offerings,” with the idea that they do not stand in need of anything.
And here’s a later formulation of Maximus’s answer:
We can also understand the “offerings” in another way. Insofar as an “offering” is also something given to those who have previously brought forward nothing, the intellect engaged with knowledge receives “offerings” from the contemplation of beings, and brings them to the Lord. These offerings, which the intellect both receives and gives, are the sustaining principles of faith beyond rational demonstration; a faith to which no one has ever brought anything, insofar as a person naturally beholds his own Creator, proclaimed to him by creation, without any of the technical contrivances of various arguments—for what could one possibly bring forward that would be equal to faith, as if his faith were due to his own efforts, and not an offering to him from God?
Read the first fifteen paragraphs of this fifty-first question on
Difficulties in Sacred Scripture here. And visit
Eighth Day Books to purchase a copy of Fr. Maximos Constas's recent translation of this important work.
3. Books & Culture: Dumitru Staniloae's
The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Reviewed by Fr. Andrew Louth and Staniloae's
Orthodox Spirituality reviewed by Fr. Calinic Berger
Earlier this week I was sorely disappointed to learn that almost all of Fr. Staniloae’s English translated works are currently out of print, including his masterful book on
Orthodox Spirituality and his six-volume (in English; three volumes in Romanian)
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. The sole exception is volume three on
The Person of Jesus Christ as God and Savior…Eighth Day Books has twelve copies on their way to the store. There are also a few used copies of volume two available but you’ll have to fork over more than $800 to obtain a copy! There is also an important collection of essays available at Eighth Day Books titled
Theology and the Church, as well as a slender but dense book titled The Holy Trinity: In the Beginning There Was Love, plus three small but significant booklets:
Prayer and Holiness,
Time and Eternity, and
The Victory of the Cross (see number seven below for an excerpt from this booklet). Although his major works are out of print in English, you can nevertheless learn a great deal about Staniloae from Fr. Andrew Louth in this review of The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology and from Fr. Calinic Berger in this review of Orthodox Spirituality.
4. Liturgy: Sunday of St John Climacus
In addition to his feast day on March 30, St. John Climacus (c. 579 – 649 A.D.)—also known as St John of the Ladder—is also commemorated on the fourth Sunday of Great Lent. His classic work
The Ladder of Divine Ascent is read annually by Orthodox monks during Lent. For the first time in my life, I successfully made it through the entire work this past Lent (thanks to this lectionary). Here are two small samples from Climacus which capture the spirit of Great Lent (and boy are they countercultural):
Let us pay close attention to ourselves so that we are not deceived into thinking that we are following the strait and narrow way, when in actual fact we are keeping to the wide and broad way. The following will show you what the narrow way means: mortification of the stomach, all-night standing, water in moderation, short rations of bread, the purifying draught of dishonor, sneers, derision, insults, the cutting out of one’s own will, patience in annoyances, unmurmuring endurance of scorn, disregard of insults, and the habit, when wronged, of bearing it sturdily; when slandered, of not being indignant; when humiliated, not to be angry; when condemned, to be humble Blessed are they who follow the way we have just described, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. (Ladder of Divine Ascent, 2.8)
Repentance is the renewal of baptism. Repentance is a contract with God for a second life. A penitent is a buyer of humility. Repentance is constant distrust of bodily comfort. Repentance is self-condemning reflection, and carefree self-care. Repentance is the daughter of hope and the renunciation of despair. A penitent is an undisgraced convict. Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord by the practice of good deeds contrary to the sins. Repentance is purification of conscience. Repentance is the voluntary endurance of all afflictions. A penitent is the inflicter of his own punishments. Repentance is a mighty persecution of the stomach, and a striking of the soul into vigorous awareness. (Ladder of Divine Ascent, 5.1)
Apolytikion of Sunday of St John Climacus, Plagal of the Fourth Tone: With the rivers of your tears, you have made the barren desert fertile. Through sighs of sorrow from deep within you, your labors have borne fruit a hundred-fold. By your miracles you have become a light, shining upon the world. O John, our Holy Father, pray to Christ our God, to save our souls.
Kontakion of Sun. of St. John Climacus, Fourth Tone: Truly the Lord has set you in the sky of abstinence, as a fixed star giving light to the ends of the world, O John, our teacher and Father.
5. Poetry: “Iambic Verses on the Divine Ladder”
While reading St John Climacus’s
Ladder of Divine Ascent I discovered an article that included a translation of four ancient poems on the concept of St John's Ladder. They are found in a fourteenth-century manuscript and have been translated by Renaat Jos John Meesters. Here is the fourth poem:
If you want to arrive at the heavenly height
and to behold, O man, the delights of heaven,
the choirs of saints, of hierarchs, of martyrs,
the assembly of prophets, of fathers, of apostles,
the immaterial ranks of angels, of archangels,
and if you want to participate in the pleasures of that place,
then vigorously ascend this ladder,
with the cross as a leader and a guide
You can read all four poems here.
If you are familiar with Greek, you can read the four poems in English and Greek here.
And if you want to dig deeper, you can click here to read Meester’s article “Ascending the Ladder: Editio Princeps of Four Poems on the Ladder of John Klimakos (Bodleian Baroccianus 141).
6. Essays et al: “Natural Revelation” by Fr Dumitru Staniloae
Hopefully you have now been introduced to Fr. Dumitru by reading the reviews found above by Fr. Andrew and Fr. Calinic. Now you can experience Staniloae himself by reading the opening chapter of the first volume of the currently out-of-print English translation of Staniloae's
Dogmatic Theology. Here is an excerpt from the middle of that chapter:
In a conscious fashion, man pursues his own meaning and, in the last analysis, he pursues an ultimate meaning which is the maintaining and perfecting of himself forever. He is a goal in himself for eternity. He is created for eternity and has in himself a kind of absolute character, that is, a permanent value which never ceases to grow richer. Man is open to meanings higher than the world, and through him, the world, too, is open to these meanings. Through understanding, through freedom, through action, and aspiration, man is open to an order superior to that of nature, although he makes use of nature in order to be able to achieve his own meaning as a being which is called to eternal perfection. Life on earth is only a preparation for that eternal order. Our being is an existence accommodated to that order and to the possibility of a continual spiritual perfection not subjected to nature and to repetition. That order is not produced by nature, for nature merely repeats itself, but rather it organizes the entire cosmos so as to render service to man as he works in view of his own purpose which transcends the earth.
Read the whole chapter here and then patiently await a reprint!
7. Essays et al: “The Cross Imprinted on the Gift of the World” by Dumitru Staniloae
Over the years SLG Press of the Convent of the Incarnation (in Oxford, England) has published some really great booklets, including several by Fr. Dumitru Staniloae. Here is the opening paragraph from their publication of his work
The Victory of the Cross:
The world is a gift of God, but the destiny of this gift is to unite man with God who has given it. The intention of the gift is that in itself it should be continually transcended. When we receive a gift from somebody we should look primarily towards the person who has given it and not keep our eyes fixed on the gift. But often the person who receives a gift becomes so attached to the gift that he forgets who has given it to him. But God demands an unconditional love from us for He is infinitely greater than any of the gifts which He gives us; just as at the human level the person who gives us a gift is incomparably more important than the gift which he has given and should be loved for himself and not only on account of his gift. In this way every gift requires a certain cross, and this cross is meant to show us that all these gifts are not the last and final reality. This cross consists in an alteration in the gift, and sometimes even in its entire loss
Read the rest of the opening section of The Victory of the Cross here. And then purchase a copy of the entire booklet from
Eighth Day Books.
8. Essays et al: “On the Filioque: The Son as Origin as Place of Repose?” by Fr. Joshua Burnett
The folks at Holy Cross Orthodox Church in Linthicum Heights, MD are deeply blessed. I know that because Fr. Joshua Burnett and his wife Kh. Meredith served here in Wichita at my local parish (St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral) before moving on to Holy Cross. While they were in Wichita, Fr. Joshua penned a short but, in my estimation, important essay on the
filioque (Latin for “and the Son,” i.e., “the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father,” according to the original Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed, or with the clause added in the late sixth century, “the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son [filioque]”). Here are the opening two paragraph’s of Fr. Joshua’s essay:
Fr. Dumitru Staniloae’s 1981 essay for the World Council of Churches is just as dense and tangled as its title: “The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis of Our Deification and Adoption.” Nevertheless, it rewards the relentless bushwhacker. The essay is one of a handful of WCC papers collected into the book
Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy. Ostensibly, Staniloae is responding to the papers of a Catholic (Fr. Jean-Miguel Garrigues) and a Protestant (Jürgen Moltmann). But in reality, the figure that provokes the most substantial response from Staniloae is Karl Barth. Although Barth is never named in the essay, Staniloae cannot avoid addressing the substance of Barth’s critique of those who would do away with the
filioque. (That critique can be found in the final section of Church Dogmatics I/1.)
Barth is not the first to criticize those of us who refuse to add the phrase “and the Son” to the Nicaean Creed’s declaration that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Indeed, at various times Eastern Christians themselves have recognized that dismissing the
filioque invites legitimate questions regarding the eternal relationship between the Spirit and the Son. The relation between the Son and the Father is clear (the Father begets the Son), and the relation between the Spirit and the Father is clear (the Spirit proceeds from the Father), but what is the relation between the Spirit and the Son? The most conclusive answer to this question in the East was composed by Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus in the 13th century, and Staniloae resuscitates his argument for our benefit. (Short answer: The Spirit both “reposes” in the Son and “shines out” from Him.)
You can read the whole essay here. I hope you will!
Bonus: A Mini-Library of Articles by and about Fr. Dumitru Staniloae
Primary by Staniloae
“Jesus Christ, Incarnate Logos of God, Source of Freedom and Unity”
“The Faces of Our Fellow Human Beings”
“The Orthodox Concept of Tradition and the Development of Doctrine”
“Unity and Diversity in Orthodox Tradition”
Secondary about Staniloae
Berger, Fr. Calinic, “Florovsky’s ‘Mind of the Fathers’ and the Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Dumitru Staniloae”
Costache, Doru, “A Theology of the World: Dumitru Staniloae, the Traditional Worldview, and Contemporary Cosmology”
Juhász, István, “Dumitru Staniloae’s Ecumenical Studies as an Aspect of the Orthodox-Protestant Dialogue”
Visit your "Premium Patron+ Content" page here, enter the code "DL88" (case sensitive), and click on the Digital Library to access the new Hall of Men page which includes the three most recent presentations in video format (Samuel Johnson by Jeff Reimer, Fr. John Romanides by Kevin Mortimer, and Fr. Dumitru Staniloae by Fr. Calinic Berger), plus one from 2019 (John Climacus by Brandon Buerge).
