Pastor’s Report 2009
St Herman’s Orthodox Church
5355 38th Ave So, Minneapolis, MN 55417
Annual Parish Meeting, February 1
Very Reverend Fr. K. Paul Wesche
Using the pastor’s report as an occasion to set forth a “New Year’s Resolution” for the parish of St Herman’s, I hope in what follows to inspire us to a deeper love of the Gospel and to awaken thereby a desire for deeper repentance, taking up the spiritual work of absorbing our baptismal vow, which is to unite ourselves to Christ, into our everyday lives on a deeper level so that the life of the Church – the life of Christ’s Holy Resurrection – is becoming less and less a part of our lives, and more and more our very life.
The New Year sets before us the fact of the passing of time. Let’s reflect on the Gospel from the perspective of the passing of time.
The Shape of Ancient Thought. In ancient thought, the shape of space-time was a circle. Time moves in a circle so that it is always coming back to where it began. You could say that life is just a spinning of our wheels. We’re never getting anywhere except closer to death, which only takes us back to birth, which leads again to death which leads to rebirth and to death and so on and on and on. Different schemes of salvation sought escape from this circle of life by distinguishing the immortal part of the soul from its mortal parts and from the body, and so also from ‘history’, so that the soul at death could break away from the circle of space-time and soar into the “eighth sphere”, into a timeless eternity where it dissolved back into the One whence it came in the “bliss” of an undifferentiated unity.
The Shape of the Gospel. Theology, from the Greek theos (God) and logos (word), is not talk about God; it is an understanding of God and an engagement of space-time from the perspective of God the Word, who is Christ Jesus, the Son of God through whom all things were made who became flesh and dwelt among us. Christian theology, then, is grounded in the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, which teach us that the shape of space-time is not an endless circle but more like a line, with a definite beginning when the world was brought from non-existence into being and a definite end when the world will be in God, man will fulfill his having been made in the image and likeness of God and become a partaker of the divine nature, and God will be all in all.
That end, actually, has already been accomplished in Christ. In the mystery of his Incarnation, he has united man to God, and God to man. He has united man not just in his soul but also in his body to God, and God to man not only in soul but also in body; and he has united God to man not in an undifferentiated unity where the many are dissolved into the one, but in the love of the Holy Trinity which is not an undifferentiated unity but a differentiated unity of communion.
In Christ, salvation is not escape from space-time but the healing of space-time. Christ healed space-time when, on the Sixth Day of the Week (Holy Friday) he finished his creation by destroying death, so that even death now is united to God, and Christ is all in all. In the salvation of space-time accomplished by Christ on his Cross, time is revealed to be moving in meaning. History has meaning. And so, we pass from year to year not as in an endless, meaningless cycle from which we seek escape but as from Egypt to the Land of Promise, from darkness to light, from non-existence to being and from being to well-being, and from well-being to eternal being (St Maximus the Confessor), from the narthex in the West to the baptismal font and to the Holy Chalice in the East, from having been created in the image and likeness of God to becoming partakers of the divine nature, communicants of life eternal, children of light, living eternally in God in the pure joy of the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Spirit.
This is the theological revelation of the true essence of love. It is not an undifferentiated unity, as the ancients saw it from the perspective of their own wisdom. In such a unity, the beloved dissolves into the lover and disappears; and so love disappears. This, if you will, is what proves the error of philosophy: it cannot support or explain what we know of love. It betrays our own intuitive experience of love.
Theology reveals love to be a mystery of communion in the love, the life and the light of the Holy Trinity, Three in One, One in Three, where the Three do not dissolve into the One but are even so absolutely One, not according to the mystical character of Number but according to the mystery of Love. For, God is Love because he is Three in One. In the Holy Trinity, Lover and Beloved, Receiver and Received, Offerer and Offered never dissolve into each other, even as they are eternally one in each other in a mystery of personal, loving communion. In God, love never disappears, because the Beloved never dissolves into the Lover even as they are eternally and wholly one in and with each other.
The Meaning of Life According to the Gospel. The theological vision of the Church reveals that the meaning of life is to unite ourselves to Christ. In Him we realize the principle of our nature, which is our having been made in the image of God. We become one with God as partakers of the divine nature, communicants of life eternal. Theology, then, reveals to us the path our life should be following. Each year should find us farther along the path of divine love, loving God with our heart, soul, strength and mind more than we did last year.
We are like seeds that have been sown in the field of the world by the Holy Spirit, the Seed of God. And, like God the Holy Spirit, we are free to move about, to “blow” where we will. That is to say, we are free to choose in whom we will place our trust: in princes and sons of men, or in God. But we are created in the image of God, which is Christ. The root of our being is in Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit. Our natural purpose is to “blow” toward the East, where the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God, has risen from the dead, trampling down death by death. Our dogmatic Tradition teaches us that we are not truly free until we are in Christ, “blowing” toward the East. To attain to the freedom that is ours by nature in God, we should be moving along the narrow path that leads to the rising Sun, that we may grow into a tree of life, bringing forth the fruit of life, which is Christ.
The Iconography of Baptism. In a word, the purpose of life is to become one with God in love. In our baptism, our bodies were made wet with the blessed waters and made clean. Then, we were clothed with the Robe of Light and led to the Holy Chalice where we received into our bodies the precious and all-holy body and blood of Our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We were incorporated bodily into Christ’s body and his body was incorporated bodily into our body. We were rooted again in Christ; the roots of our being were translated from the soil of death to the soil of life, from darkness to light, from earth to heaven.
The ascetic disciplines of the Church include unceasing prayer, fasting from the soul-destroying passions of the flesh, regular confession of our sins, practicing the holy commandments of God, training our minds on the study of God’s Word in Holy Scripture, the teachings of the Holy Fathers, training our ears on the preaching of the Church (the body of Christ and so the continuing incarnation of Christ on earth) as it is proclaimed in her holy dogmas and in the prayers and hymns of her liturgical, sacramental worship, and constant repentance (mindfully and in constant vigilance turning our secret heart’s desire away from the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life and toward the Light of Christ on Mt Tabor). Through the Church’s ascetic disciplines, we make our inward being wet with the living waters of the Holy Spirit and we clothe our inward being with the Fire of the Holy Spirit as with the Robe of Light.
We must wear that Robe of Fire unceasingly. We must strive never to take it off. That’s why ascetic discipline is so vital. It is the way by which we keep our inward being wet with the living waters of the Holy Spirit and clothed in the Robe of Fire. As we do so, the watery fire of the Holy Spirit warms our inward being down to the marrow of our soul and makes it moist with the spiritual seed of divine life. Slowly but surely, it breaks up the ground of a hardened heart and makes it soft until by and by, that heart begins to glow from within with the fire of God’s Holy Spirit, the fire of love for God; and, in that love for God, the heart is created anew. The bride opens her chamber to the Heavenly Bridegroom and the two become one in the ineffable mystery of what the Church has called the Spiritual Marriage, the Marriage of Christ and his Church.
Why the World Needs the Church. This meaning of life is realized in Christ’s holy Church, not in the world. In Christ’s holy Church, the world is not discarded; moments as they pass away into the past are not discarded and lost. Rather, in the Church, the world is cleansed and sanctified. Moments as they pass away into the past are not discarded and lost because they have been united to Christ. In his holy Incarnation, he stretched out his arms on the Cross and embraced the whole of space-time. He brought the past and the future into the eternal Today of his Holy Resurrection. This is the Day into which we “pass over” in the Church’s liturgical and sacramental worship. In the Church, Christ is always present “in our midst”! And, in the Church, the whole of space-time is always present in Christ. In Christ, nothing is lost except sin and evil. All that is good is saved.
The deepest need of mankind is the healing of the soul wounded by the devastating effects of sin. The source of the world’s woes is to be found in the hidden depths of the human spirit, in the heart, which is the ontological center of our being. There, we are all connected to one another. There, we open onto God. And there, we have each one chosen to go our own way. There, the choices we make send ripples throughout the waters of human nature affecting it for good or evil. There, into the bridal chamber of the heart, having become a tomb because of our sin, Christ descended and by his death and resurrection he rolled away the stone to the tomb and opened the human heart to God. In his Holy Resurrection, he blazed a path from earth to heaven, and in Holy Pentecost, he flooded the human soul with the uncreated fire of his all good and life-creating Spirit.
The faithful cultivate unceasing prayer in unflagging repentance for the purpose of descending into the heart in order to step into the healing touch of Christ’s Holy Spirit, to be bathed in the living waters of his Spiritual love, and to rise out onto the other side of the tomb as a new creature, a child born from above, in the Holy Resurrection of Christ. In the love of Christ, we unite ourselves to all of mankind in the interior depths of our heart, and there, in the sanctuary of our heart, we offer ourselves in Christ to the Father on behalf of all and for all in the fervent prayer that all may be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth, which is Christ Jesus, the Wisdom of God and the Love of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The acquisition of God’s love for the world, which the Christian begins to feel in his heart, expresses itself in loving deeds of service but above all in the loving deed of intercessory prayer for the world. It sends ripples of divine healing throughout the waters of human nature that reach down to the marrow of the soul, to the personal center of the heart. This is why it so important for the faithful to lay hold with zeal the effort of repentance to attain to the dignity of their high calling in Christ, and to the stature and the fullness of Christ.
Renewing Our Resolve. It was a joy to go around, invited or not, and bless all the homes of the St Herman’s faithful. I was heartened by the joy with which you, the faithful, welcomed me. You were sincerely glad to receive me, like Zaccheus welcoming the Lord into his home. Bringing the waters of the Jordan from the Church into each home is an icon of how we are all united together in the holy joy and the uncreated light of Christ that shines forth in the glorious Feast of Theophany.
Our homes have now been touched by the blessed waters of Theophany. The love of the Holy Trinity has quite literally been sprinkled on the walls of our homes. Let us resolve to open our hearts to the joy of that divine love. Let us take up our cross so that the old man in us begins to wither away and the New Man begins to rise, so that the life we live at home is less and less the life of the world and more and more the divine Life of the Holy Spirit in the joy of Christ’s Holy Resurrection – so that the life of the Church is less and less a part of our life and more and more our very life; so that what is shaping our life and the lives of our children is not the values of worldly wisdom but the theological mysteries of the Church’s Holy Wisdom.
We move into the New Year and set our sights again on the blessed seasons of Great Lent and Pascha. Inspired by the beauty and glory of the Church’s theological vision, let’s renew our baptismal resolution to unite ourselves to Christ. Let’s resolve to make full participation in the life of the Church’s worship our priority so that the Spirit of Christ is what shapes us within and without, and not the spirit of the world. Let us resolve to center our daily life on the worship of the Church, to come together on the corner of 38th and 54th as often as our circumstances allow in the Eucharistic Joy of the Cross to render incarnate and to make manifest the mystery of Christ’s body that is “in our midst” here and now in the world. Let us resolve to come to the Light of the Church’s worship that we might become Light and so bear witness to the healing Light of divine love by walking in the Light of Christ’s holy commandments as he is in the Light.
Pausing to Give Thanks. In the light of Theophany, where nothing good slips away into the darkness of the past, but even the past is made light in its union with the ever present Today of the Savior’s Holy Resurrection, we look back over the past year as though over a field of time bathed with the light of Eucharistic joy. What joy it was to receive Darren and Jessica into the Church on the Sunday of the Cross; and then Joe, Jonathan, Robert, Matthew and Becca and Phyllis on Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, and finally Rachel only a few weeks later. The baptism of an infant is an especially beautiful manifestation of God’s love and grace, and we were blessed to baptize Veronika Zoe Gauvain this last year, and then a few months later, Zoe Geneva Ford. It was sad but we were at the same time very proud to send Zoe Geneva and her brother, Aidan, and their parents, Joshua and Malene, off to St Vladimir’s Seminary in New York where Joshua began his studies in the Masters of Divinity Program.
Only a few weeks after her Chrismation, Phyllis then gave us the gift of a wedding at St Herman’s: her own. And then I suppose we gave Phyllis as a gift to her new husband, Paul Twedt, and he received the gift with love and moved out to Tacoma, WA with her. We need to remember Paul and Phyllis in our prayers as they must suffer the sight of Mt Raineer rising high into the sky just outside their window every day. My family and I had a chance to visit the newlyweds, Paul and Phyllis, when we took our vacation this summer on the Olympic Penninsula. We can report that Paul and Phyllis are putting up with the Pacific Northwest and Mt Raineer well enough that they won’t be returning to the Midwest anytime soon. They have been attending the OCA mission parish in Tacoma.
Shortly after his Chrismation, which was itself just before his college graduation, Jonathan left us for a time to work for the Peace Corps in some unpronounceable country of the Near East, that only the French can spell, one of those whose last names is “Stan”. We sent him off with our love and pride, and we are so very glad to receive him back again safe and sound. He returned home around Christmas time.
Because of her work schedule, Linda Marks, who was newly chrismated just a couple of short years ago, wasn’t able to be with us in worship as she would have liked; and so many of our newcomers didn’t get to know this sweet woman. Her work schedule finally changed. Unfortunately, it changed because she retired and then she fulfilled a dream years in the making and moved up to the UP. She stays in touch through e-mail and promises that we will see her again from time to time whenever she returns to the Twin Cities for a visit.
Turning around from our vantage point here in the light of Theophany, we cast our eyes forward to see what blessings God might have in store for us in the months to come. Another infant baptism is coming up! Congratulations to Matthew and Becca on the birth of Aidric Daniel on Wednesday, January 21. By the grace of God, we plan to baptize Aidric Daniel during the Divine Liturgy either on Meatfare Sunday, March 1 or on Orthodoxy Sunday, March 8.
We also see two more weddings coming up. Wait a minute! They’re our kids! Nancy and I are pleased to announce that Christina found her man and will be marrying eMANuel Olimpiu Sas on Memorial Day Sunday, May 24th. eMANuel is the brother of one of Fr Paul’s dear friends, Fr Tim Sas, who serves the Greek Orthodox Church in Duluth, and their parents are Fr Aurel and Lidia Sas who serve the Romanian Orthodox Church in Las Vegas. Look for an overload of priests in their white paschal cassocks standing beside a couple of weeping presbyteras on that Sunday of May 24. And then there’s our oldest, Sean, who set his eyes on Rachel Johnson when he first saw her, and never took them off. They are planning a wedding on Sunday, July 26th. Rachel is Emily’s sister. They are the daughters of parents who were missionaries to Papua New Guinea, whereas Sean is the great grandson of the Rev Kenneth Plank and Pearl Wesche, who were missionaries to China in the 1930’s and ‘40’s. You have watched Sean and Rachel’s romance blossom before your eyes, right here in our parish, and no doubt are not at all surprised at the flower it is about to produce.
And so time passes on. But in the Church, time doesn’t so much pass on as it “passes over”. As each moment dies away, it dies in Christ, and it passes over into his Holy Resurrection; and in Christ’s Holy Resurrection the momentous moments and the ordinary moments of our life are each one filled with meaning and purpose. We see our children growing and getting married – just like we did; we see our loved ones dying and passing away – just like we will one day. Apart from the light of the Gospel, it all seems to be a spinning, meaningless round in which the present moment is always slipping away to become nothing but a memory in an empty past that no longer exists. But in the vision of the Gospel, each moment is illumined in the light of God’s love for the world manifested in the mystery of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ; and, in Christ, each moment is meaningful because it is filled with love, the love of Christ who is All in all. The love of Christ illumines all. The love of Christ heals all. The love of Christ unites all. The love of Christ fills all with hope and meaning. Let us resolve to take off the rags of this worldly life that is dead in its trespasses and put on the Robe of Light of divine Love and from this day, from this hour, from this moment, let us walk in the light of Christ as he is in the light, and so we shall ever be with the Lord. Amen.
Orthodoxy in America
