The Nativity & The Hearafter

If you are New Calendar, tomorrow is the Nativity (Or most likely will start at 11pm tonight and conclude with a Midnight Liturgy). If you are Old Calendar, January 7th, 2008.

I suppose should explain Old & New Calendar.. but not sure I'm adequate to the task so I'll direct you here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Old_Calendarists for a place to get started.

Anyway, most Christians will somewhere somehow celebrate The Feast of the Nativity i.e. the Birth or Christ, "Christmas" in the next week or so.

It started me wondering. How do they celebrate the Feast in Heaven?

It's hard to believe that I lost Fr. George (Eternal Memory 11/21/2006) a little over a year ago last November.



I wonder, how will he be Celebrating the Feast? And I wonder, as we commemorate the birth of Our Saviour, how do we remember those who are now with Him? With Him due to His Glorious Incarnation.

Soon we will cry "Christ is Born! Glorify Him"

Merry Christmas where ever you are as you keep the Feast.

Seraphim

East vs. West

At first we were confused. The East thought that we were West, while the West
considered us to be East. Some of us misunderstood our place in the clash of
currents, so they cried that we belong to neither side, and others that we
belong exclusively to one side or the other. But I tell you, Ireneus, we are
doomed by fate to be the East in the West and the West in the East, to
acknowledge only heavenly Jerusalem beyond us, and here on earth–no one.

- St. Sava to Ireneus, 13th century

Tradition

In the com-boxes responding to a Rod Dreher blog (a question about books), "Sarah in Maryland" muses about the disadvantage we have in our very "anti-tradition" culture:

I agonize over what to have for dinner. If I were part of a traditional culture,
that would be figured out for me. I wouldn't waste my time reading diet book
after diet book, pouring over recipes. For my wedding, there were so many
choices that I wanted to explode! I wanted to have all those decisions made for
me. If we had more of a wedding tradition, I would have fewer decisions to make
and more time to enjoy the person I was going to marry. Tradition would have
picked out the type of flowers, the ceremony, the vows and the type of food we'd
have. Can you imagine how much mental energy this would save us?

This is a very good point. Even though we are anti-traditional in our culture, we still benefit from tradition even when we don't recognize it. Extended families usually don't quabble about the holidays once they have established a family tradition. Christmas Eve at Grandma's, Christmas Day at cousin Suzie's, the Sunday after Christmas at Aunt Margaret's, New years Day w/ Uncle Bud. We always have a roast. We always eat at 5.

Thats just a minor issue. We Modern Western Christians have thrown away the recieved Tradition, and wonder why we can't stop arguing.

How the Grinch stole BACK Christmas

How the Grinch Stole Back Christmas

‘Tis a tale often told, and every Who knows,
How the Grinch first descended from Mount Crumpet snows
And stole away Christmas (its trappings, at least)
Then had his heart changed, and came back for roast beast.
Not everyone knows what has happened since then;
How the Grinch came to think he must steal it again –

For Grinches are grinchy, and grinch-genes will tell
–And in some ways, he wasn’t adjusting too well.
Though his heart grew three sizes, his brain had not shrunk
And he tired of buying up masses of junk
And dealing with hassles and hustles barbaric
For “holidays” swiftly becoming generic.

The customs traditional, which the Grinch loved
Were watered-down, fluffed-up, or “new and improved”
.Why, at one Christmas feast, by one misguided Who,
The roast beast itself was a glob of tofu!
And the songs which reformed him with simple Who joys
Were increasingly drowned out by “noise, noise, noise, noise.”

And deep in his heart, underneath his green fur,
The Grinch knew that things weren’t right as they were.
His ponderer once more was sore as could be
In the checkout line near the HDTV’s,
When the half-hearted clerk with a faraway gaze
Blandly muttered to him, “Happy Holidays”.

Well, the Grinch’s lips curled in a most Grinchy smile
(More grinchy, perhaps, than he’d been in a while!)
He remembered his heritage, cunning and sly,
He thought, “I was made this way – p’raps this is why!”
Then he fixed his eyes on the unfortunate knave,
And regarded him mildly, and told him, “How brave!”

“Brave?”, asked the clerk, “Why, what did I say?”
“My good man, you have wished me a fine Holy Day!“
I thank, good sir, and return it sincerely;
“For you wished for me, sir, not a merry day merely,
“But a day blessed with favor from our Lord divine –
“I return it; may your Holy Day, too, be fine!”

“No! I just said ‘holiday’,” stammered the clerk,
“For that is the policy here where I work…”
“Delightful!,” the Grinch interjected with glee.
“Such corporate boldness – it overwhelms me!
“A spiritual awakening – that’s what it means!
“Now, sir, sell me some cards with nativity scenes.”

There were no such cards, for he’d sold his last few
But he did have a Santa. The Grinch said, “He’ll do,“
That old Bishop Nicholas, merry and stout.
“He once punched the heretic Arius out!”
And the clerk looked about – and no bosses he saw -
“Merry Christmas!,” he whispered, and shook a grinch paw.

The Grinch strode from the store and out into the street,
“Merry Christmas!”, he said to each Who whom he’d meet,
And he said to himself, “Why, this really is nice!
“A good deed which has gained all the thrill of a vice!
“This holiday season need not make me blue;
“For with each ‘Merry Christmas’, I break a taboo!”

Some heartily answer, returning his greeting;
And others more shyly, ere swiftly retreating –
Some say “Happy Hannukah” back with a grin,
Which the old Grinch returns, and calls that a win/win.
Some never quite notice; too stressed and engrossed.
But some look offended – and these he likes most.

“Now, don’t kid a kidder,” he tells such a one –
“I stole Christmas once, and I know how it’s done.
“But I stole it with style; I stole it with flare.
“You aren’t that clever, or else wouldn’t dare;
“To my exploits, your Christmas theft can’t hold a candle –
“You’re not even a thief – just a wannabe vandal.”

For a Grinch is a Grinch, at the end of the day
(And as he observed, Someone made him that way)
As wise as a serpent (and almost as green)
And not really worried if folks think he’s mean.
He stole Christmas once, but he made his amends –
Now he’ll steal Christmas back, for his more timid friends.

So when you’ve the chance (if, that is, you’ve the guts)
Please join me and the Grinch, driving PC-folks nuts.
Reclaiming the Holy Days, joyous and rightful,
From the purely commercial or pettily spiteful.
Co-conspire in this bold holiday counter-crime –
Committed one “Merry Christmas” at a time.

— Joe Long
(Posted at MereComments)

How to Avoid Cancer

THE TIMES
(London, England)
December 6, 2007

A foolproof anti-cancer diet... with just one or two drawbacks

If you want to avoid cancer, live like a monk. That is the inescapable conclusion from research into one of the world’s most renowned monastic communities. The austere regime of the 1,500 monks on Mount Athos, in northern Greece, begins with an hour’s pre-dawn prayers and is designed to protect their souls. Their low-stress existence and simple diet (no meat, occasional fish, home-grown vegetables and fruit) may, however, also protect them from more worldly troubles.

The monks, who inhabit a peninsula from which women are banned, enjoy astonishingly low rates of cancer. Since 1994, the monks have been regularly tested, and only 11 have developed prostate cancer, a rate less than one quarter of the international average. In one study, their rate of lung and bladder cancer was found to be zero. Haris Aidonopoulos, a urologist at the University of Thessaloniki, said that the monks’ diet, which calls on them to avoid olive oil, dairy products and wine on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, helped to explain the statistics. “What seems to be the key is a diet that alternates between olive oil and nonolive oil days, and plenty of plant proteins,” he said. “It’s not only what we call the Mediterranean diet, but also eating the old-fashioned way."

Small simple meals at regular intervals are very important. Meals on the peninsula, which the Prince of Wales has visited regularly and which can only be reached by boat, are ascetic and repetitive affairs that have changed little over the centuries, although there are variations between the 20 monasteries. The monks sit in silence while, from a pulpit, passages from the Bible are read in Greek. They eat at speed – as soon as the Bible passage is over, the meal is officially completed.

The staples are fruit and vegetables, pasta, rice and soya dishes, and bread and olives. They grow much of what they eat themselves. Agioritiko red wine is made locally from mountain grapes. Dairy products are rare – female animals are banned from the autonomous semi-state.

Life on Athos has changed little over the past 1,043 years. Breakfast is hard bread and tea. Much of the day is taken up with chores – cleaning, cooking, tending to crops – followed by a supper, typically of lentils, fruit and salad, and evening prayers. Some of the seaside monasteries specialise in catching octopus, a delicacy that is softened up by bashing on the rock. Fish also feeds the Athos cats, protected by the monks for their mouse-catching prowess. Of all domestic animals, only cats are exempt from the ban on females.

Some of the monks live in hillside huts or cliff-side caves perched above the sea as satellites of the main establishments, perhaps the closest that modern Christianity gets to medieval hermits. They depend for their sustenance on handouts of bread and olives.

On holidays and feast days such as Christmas and Easter, when other Greeks are feasting on roast meat, the monks prefer fish, their only culinary luxury. Father Moses of the Koutloumousi monastery, one of the 20 organised cloisters scattered over the Athos peninsula, said: “We never eat meat. We produce most of the vegetables and fruit we consume. And we never forget that all year round, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we don’t use olive oil on our food.”

The olive-oil routine, which also applies to wine and dairy products, appears to have no religious significance, but is a way of eking out their supplies. All the monks stick to the rigorous fasting periods of the Orthodox Church, in which a strict vegan diet is prescribed for weeks at a stretch. Michalis Hourdakis, a dietician associated with Athens University, said: "This limited consumption of calories has been found to lengthen life. Meat has been associated with intestinal cancer, while fruit and vegetables help ward off prostate cancer."

The lack of air pollution on Mount Athos as well as the monks's hard work in the fields also played their part, the researchers said. There was no mention, however, of whether the absence of women had any effect on the monk's renowned spiritual calm.

Salad days Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday
Breakfast Hard bread, tea
Lunch Pasta or rice,vegetables, olive oil
Dinner Lentils, fruit and salad, olive oil. Red wine

Monday, Wednesday and Friday no olive oil

Holidays and feast days Fish and seafood

Wonders of Athos — Most of the monasteries on Athos run on “Byzantine time”, with the clock resetting at sunset — Vatopedhiou, Prince Charles’ favoured retreat, claims to have saints’ bones, the whip used to scourge Christ, St Stephen’s ear, fragments of the True Cross, and the Virgin Mary’s girdle

Source: Friends of Mount Athos, Times research

Artificial Living

A cross post from bonovox.squarespace.com

It seems to me that I have bought into a life that is contrary to nature and reality:

• Instead of working at home in the proximity of, and with my family...........I "commute" to a remote location to work with strangers


• 
  Instead of eating healthy whole foods, grown myself our by a neighbor.......I eat "fast food." Even when I am home, I eat from a box.....ala "stouffers" and "TV dinners."


• 
  Instead of talking to the person next to me............................I talk to someone else, 1 mile or 100 or more miles away


• 
  Instead of raising my children.........................I give them to someone else to do it for me.


• 
  Instead of visiting family on vacation or discovering Europe with our kids...............we go to Disney World and pretend we are in France at Epcot Center.


• 
  Instead of working by the sweat of my brow (in raising my food)...........I pay to go sweat in a gym.


• 
  Instead of worshipping in unison with the natural cycles God has placed in the world and within myself............I worship according to whatever suits me at the moment.


• 
  Instead of the "way of the cross"......................I seek the way of the "Easy Chair."


• 
  Instead of feeling the wind in my face, and hearing the crunch of leaves under my feet.......I watch television.


• 
  Instead of trusting the wisdom of my family going back to Adam..........I really feel myself superior to them, and feel I can do a better job making it up as I go along.


• 
  Instead of living in community.......................I live in isolation


• 
  Instead of being helped by community, in return for my willingness also to help when I am able......I pay a stranger to help me.


• 
  Instead of trusting God.........I trust technology.


• 
  Instead of governing myself........I allow myself to be governed by the powerful.


• 
  Instead of living "holistically"............I live fragmented. (work, family, religion, sex, play....)


• 
  Instead of being thankful for, I have nothing that was not given to me..........I am a deluded proud "self made man."


• 
  Instead of caring for my children and their children, by caring for the world I will hand down to them......I care only for the benefit that this world can give me.


• 
  Instead of caring for my soul.............I care for my comfort and pleasure

I am sure there are more ways that I live "artificially."

It Was a Great Day

Today I went to liturgy. Weekday liturgies can be small. God has blessed our parish greatly with faithful people and usually we have a good crowd, but today it was sparse. There were 2 adults and one teen in the choir, Matushka and her 4 kids, one other mother and her 3 kids and Father serving the liturgy. There were no acolytes or alter servers. No reader really, it was managed by the choir. As sometimes happens a few children got bored and butt scooted around the floor, without pews can be hard to corral.

It was a great day.

As I helped serve the blessed bread to those who had just taken communion, I could see out of the corner of my eye the Icon on the stand that usually sits on a table in the corner of my den. It was in need for today’s service, our parish does not have one.

It was a great day.

There was no sermon, Father had to bring out the bread and wine for the service table himself without help. The reading and music didn’t flow as well as normal, although it was still beautiful. Those who were short handed in the choir were still talented.

It was a great day.

My wife and only child not in school today came close to the end, right before communion was served (no they are not Cradles).

It was a great day.

At the close of the service my all too gracious Spiritual Father chose to sing “Many Years” to someone in honor of it being the name day of their chosen saint, Saint Demetrius. See it was gracious because this person will not be even Christmated till Christmas Day. He is still a catechumen.

I was a great day…

…because I was that Catechumen. If you have a moment today, please ask Saint Demetrius to act as an intercessor for my family and I as many struggles lay ahead.