January 22, 2012

The Measure of Success in the Church.

Many parishes throughout the country ended 2011 in a deficit. We did, too; although, our deficit wasn’t as large as we anticipated because of the generosity of several. Thank you!  Our year-end deficit gives us a chance to reflect on what it means to exist and to function as Christ’s Holy Church in the world. In other words, what is success in the Church?

The Church is in the world, but she is not of the world. When we measure our success against our balance sheet, we become the world that the Church is not of. The success of our parish is not measured against our balance sheet but by the mystery of the Divine Liturgy. Our success as parishioners is measured by the faith and love of our heart. Regardless of the color of our final numbers, we are always able to do the work of faith. This is to crucify the old man in us in our baptismal union with Christ, and, in the joy of Christ’s Resurrection, to partake in Holy Eucharist of the divine nature at every Divine Liturgy. The work of faith and the grace of the Holy Spirit come together to enkindle in our heart the divine fire of God’s love that transforms the heart. A successful Orthodox Christian parish is where this gracious transformation of the human heart is happening. This evangelical success of the Church is altogether independent of our balance sheet.

Such success is achieved by following God’s will, not ours. We suffer a year-end deficit in faithfulness to the Gospel. We enjoy a year-end surplus in faithfulness to the Gospel. In either case, we do not consider worldly strategies – bingo, for example, or a “casino night” or any other gambit that profits off the ignoble inclinations of man’s fallen nature and so betrays the evangelical success of the Church – to address a deficit or pad a surplus.

To this point, Archimandrite Vasilieos (whom I met on the Holy Mountain last May) says in Hymn of Entry:

“What is important is not that we should achieve the project we have set ourselves to achieve, but that the Holy Spirit should do with us and within us what He wishes, when He wishes, regardless of whether this seems or is disastrous for our projects and our good resolutions.” (p. 110)

Working to Succeed at St Herman’s.

I intend with the remarks above to set forth the vision that guides us as a parish. Now, let me describe our work as a parish that proceeds from this vision. This is what we are funding with our offerings and donations. I divide this work into areas of descending priority to guide the management of our revenues in times of scarcity or plenty in a way that serves the evangelical success of our parish.

1.      Our work (our liturgy) as an Orthodox Christian parish begins with each one of us taking up our cross through the ascetic disciplines of the Church (fasting, prayer, obedience to the commandments of Christ, reading of Scripture, lives of the saints, regular confession, faithful participation in the divine services of the Church) in order to “enlarge” our heart (2 Cor 6:11-13) in the joy of Christ’s Resurrection with love for Christ and one’s neighbor.

2.      We need to maintain the beauty of our building and grounds because the temple is an icon of the Kingdom of Heaven. Its appearance, moreover, can attract or repel seekers. We want our building and grounds to be inviting.

3.      Love of neighbor is the natural expression of the heart “enlarged” with love for Christ. Let’s not allow the year-end deficit to be a reason for withdrawing into ourselves. Let’s accept our year-end deficit as a test of our faith and commitment to the Gospel. Let’s challenge ourselves as a parish in 2012 to give something, in spite of our deficit, and even if it’s a token amount, to charity. Because our resources are limited, we need to be judicious in our choice of charities to support. We have adopted five charities: FOCUS (Fellowship of Orthodox Christians United to Serve), IOCC (International Orthodox Christian Charities), OCMC (Orthodox Christian Missionary Center), seminarians, and Holy Dormition Monastery. I would like to add a sixth: deanery missions.

a.      FOCUS. Did you know we have a separate fund for FOCUS? We draw from that fund to cover the cost of a meal when it is our turn to provide the meal. Even if you are unable to donate to our fund monetarily, you can volunteer yourself by lending a hand in the many jobs FOCUS needs done, such as sorting of clothes, distributing food from the food shelf, and serving the meals.

b.      IOCC and OCMC. I propose that we contribute $100 to each of these two charities in the year 2012. At this annual meeting, let’s discuss this amount I’ve proposed and the means for collecting it; i.e., should we make this a line item in our general budget, or should we raise this amount outside of our budget with special collections?

c.       Seminarians. One of our own is a seminarian in his second full year at St Tikhon’s seminary. Are there 10 of us who would pledge $10 a month during the remainder of his studies, so that as a parish we can give $100 a month to him and his family?

                                               i.      Please remember the Deanery Seminarian Fund-raising Dinner at Jax Café in Northeast Mpls on Sunday, Feb 19. It will be about $60 a plate, over half of which goes to a diocesan fund earmarked for our diocesan seminarians.

d.      Holy Dormition Monastery. Mother Abbess Gabriella has sent out an appeal for donations of items needed for the interior of the monastery’s new church. Can we as a parish raise money to donate one of those items? I believe we can. Which item shall it be? The list of items, with pictures, is on the bulletin board downstairs. Take a look before the annual meeting and let’s decide.

e.       Deanery Missions. Fr Christopher was ordained to the priesthood two years ago, Jan 30 (Feast of the Three Hierarchs), with the charge to establish a mission in Northfield. While he works on that charge, he is attached to the altar of St Herman’s. Currently, a portion of diocesan assessments is given to a diocesan mission fund. That is the only church source of monetary support for missions. None comes from parishes in whose deanery the mission is being established and nurtured, except through the assessments each parish gives to Chicago. Finding effective means to encourage and support mission work in each deanery deserves more study on the part of the bishop and the diocesan mission council. And, in our deanery, we do have currently other ongoing mission endeavors that would benefit from more active support from the deanery parishes and the diocese. In the meantime, how might we as a parish support Fr Christopher’s work in Northfield? I have nothing specific to suggest – nor does Fr Christopher. With this bullet, I intend only to introduce the principle of actively supporting deanery missions into our parish consciousness, using Fr Christopher’s work in Northfield as a platform, so that we can begin to think about it.

4.      Website. An effective website enhances our accessibility to seekers. As follow-up to the discussion of last year’s annual meeting on making improvements to the website, let’s put together a website team. We’ll launch it with a meeting following a brief coffee hour next Sunday (Jan 29). Come to the meeting next Sunday if you’d like to be on this team.

5.      Raising Revenue. If we have entered a stretch wherein we are unable amongst ourselves to meet the monetary needs of our parish, then we are not unlike a monastery, such as Holy Dormition. And so, we can look to the monastery as a model for raising needed revenue in evangelical ways. Let’s put together a fund-raising team with the charge to organize and oversee evangelical ways to generate revenue to help us meet our monetary needs. Is there someone who’d volunteer to lead this team?

6.      Handicap Access. Let’s make our worship accessible to those unable to negotiate stairs. We have someone in our parish who has offered to donate the materials for a ramp. Do we have individuals in the parish with the skills and desire to build the ramp, and so save us labor costs? Step forward! After we get the ramp built, we can look next at making our basement accessible beyond our current state-of-the-art HAB (Handicap Accessibility Brigade, consisting of three to four strong backs).

Wot Hoppen’d at St Herman’s this year?

We received Graham on Lazarus Saturday, then Sonia on July 24 into the Church through the sacraments of confession and chrismation. A week later, we saw them joined here at St Herman’s in the sacrament of marriage. We are delighted that Providence has put them in the Twin Cities so that they can continue their membership at St Herman’s.

Our son, Mark, was wedded to his sweetie, Nadia, at St Mary’s Cathedral, Nadia’s home parish, on December 30. They have set up in Denver, where Nadia is in medical school and where Mark has launched the Denver branch of his “On the Mark Handyman” business.

Over the summer, Jonathan and Mary engaged themselves in more than conversation. They plan a June 23 wedding at the Greek Orthodox Church in Sioux Falls, SD, near Mary’s family farm.

We had three baptisms this year. We performed a double baptism on June 5, which happened to be the 35^th wedding anniversary of Fr Paul and Presbytera. We baptized Caleb Axvig and Henry Chrysostom Wesche. Caleb is the second son of Matthew and Becca, born just a couple of weeks before Pascha. A week after the baptism, the Axvigs moved to San Francisco because of Becca’s job; but, we’re holding them to their promise to return to the Twin Cities and St Herman’s this summer. Henry is the son of Sean and Rachel. He is Fr Paul and Presbytera’s first grandchild. That makes Fr Paul a grand dad, even though he’s not. Henry was born on Holy Saturday. On October 3, Svetlena and Richard Jones gave Illiana her second grandchild, and – whew! – gave him a name that grandma approved: Elliot Alexander. He was baptized on Nov 13.

Sadly (and with a lot of nerve, I’d say), a number of our faithful moved to other parts of the country because of jobs or school or disgust with Minnesota winters. We miss them. But we are delighted to welcome Myron, Igor and Yulia and Constantine, Peter, and Sonia and her children into our parish family. Sonia says she’s just passing through on her way to Alaska. I believe that’s near Tipperari, since both are “a long way.”

Donald Patterson passed away on December 10, after living the last four or five years on the Alzheimer’s unit at Mt Olivet Careview Home. A Navy veteran, he was buried from St Herman’s at Fort Snelling with military honors. May his memory be eternal!

Didja know?

Did you know that St Herman’s has expanded into Bemidji? Bemidji residents, Dr John and Suzie, are working with the deanery to explore the possibility of establishing a mission there. For now, they are considered, somewhat informally, a “chapel”; and, as a chapel, they need to be attached to a parish. They are therefore attached to our parish (because ours is the Dean’s parish). Practically, this means we’ll want to contact our insurance agent to learn if there are any liability issues for us because of our association with the Bemidji chapel.

And, did you know that St Herman’s can actually boast a clergy staff? We know that Fr Christopher is attached to our altar. You also should have known that Fr Vladimir Lecko, priest-in-charge of the mission in Minocqua, WI, and Fr Oliver Herbel, priest-in-charge of the mission in Fargo, ND are attached to St Herman’s altar. So also now is the recently ordained Fr Dunstan Lyon. He is currently “on loan” to Twelve Apostles Greek Orthodox Church in Duluth (pastored by our sympatico, Fr Tim Sas, so-called because he is the brother of our daughter’s husband), but he is officially attached by His Grace, Bp Matthias, to the altar of St Herman’s.

Final Thoughts.

There are no dues required to be a member of St Herman’s. What is required is not our money but our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the desire to obey His command to take up our cross and follow Him. To be a member of St Herman’s, you must, of course, be a baptized, chrismated Orthodox Christian. You must receive the sacrament of confession at least once a year; you must participate in the divine services of the Church regularly and faithfully; and you must be making a sincere effort to live the life of your baptism 24/7.

Even so, you see that our parish does need money to exist and to function in the world as a visible witness to the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. On this point, I call two notices to your attention:

1.      Our parish is not an entity unto itself. We are in the communion of the Orthodox Church throughout the world. Members specifically of the Orthodox Church in America, we join all the other parishes of the OCA in funding the ministries of the OCA on the diocesan and national levels. For every member of our parish, we give about $200 a year to our diocesan chancery in Chicago, out of which the diocese then forwards a portion to the national chancery in New York to fund the ministries of the national church. This means that about $200 of whatever we give to St Herman’s goes each year to Chicago. We need to remember that as we consider what we can give to meet the earthly needs and to serve the evangelical vision of our parish.

2.      The Gospel does not require those who are called to live in the world to live in poverty. Indeed, the Gospel calls those living in the world to provide for their needs and the needs of those entrusted to their care (cf. I Tim 5:8). But, the Gospel, not the world, is our life. The world is our death. In this world, we live for God, not for the world. In faith, we offer our worldly life to God that He may transform our heart and raise us from death to life in His Heavenly Kingdom. Our money is part of our worldly life that we offer to God as an expression of our love for the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother. And so, out of our abundance, we should remember first the Church, her earthly needs and her evangelical work; and then, we should remember that we are called through faith to be co-workers in the evangelical work of the Church, which is the salvation of the world. Let our giving, then, be an offering of joy and love for Christ and His Holy Church. Let us each one seek first the Kingdom of God and trust Him to provide for our needs, believing that He knows what we need even before we ask (Mt 6:8).

Concluding Postscript.

Members of St. Herman’s Orthodox Parish,

It has been a privilege and honor to serve as the Parish Council President at St. Herman’s during the past year.  As we all look forward to a new and exciting year ahead of us, I wanted to share some of my reflections for a moment on the past 12 months with you.

To varying degrees we were all aware of (and affected by) the tremendous economic and social changes that played out in 2011.  I am both happy and proud to say that throughout the year members of St. Herman’s successfully worked together to create a faith based community that actively lived the tenets of the bible.  The leadership provided by Fr. Paul, Fr. Christopher, Presbytera Nancy and Presbytera Gretchen set a clear example for all of us and was critical to our growth and development.  Our services are special not only because of the rich Orthodox history and tradition we follow, but also because of the effort and talent each and every one us brings to Church.  Great job, Everyone!

Our Parish is a combination of many components, not the least of which is the physical building itself.  This past year, due to the selfless sacrifice of many parishioners, we have been blessed with the ability to worship in a beautiful, clean and welcoming church.  Most, if not all of this work is done in relative anonymity.  To mention just a few projects: we have finally addressed and corrected the source of water leaking into Fr. Paul’s office and have renovated the office so that it is now a room in which we can proudly host visiting clergy or for Fr. Paul to meet with parishioners/visitors.  St. Herman’s now has a beautiful bookstore in our basement that adds an elegant touch to our lower level and provides us and visitors the convenient opportunity to purchase icons, crosses, books on Orthodoxy and many other relevant materials.  Some of you will notice there is no longer a cold draft coming through the south side entrance door thanks to a recent door replacement.  I could go but I think the message is clear.  We have much to be proud of and thankful for.

In Fr. Paul’s Pastor’s Report, he touched upon a theme that I had been thinking of for a number of months.  To borrow a phrase from a Disney movie, our community experienced firsthand the earthly “Circle of Life”.  Birth, baptism, marriage and death all took place within our small community last year.  Each of these events provided us with a wonderful and powerful way to share the mysteries and wonders God has provided us.  One very personal request that I ask of each  member of St. Herman’s is to remember in your daily prayers one of our own, John Faas, who gave his life in August of 2011 protecting our freedoms, not the least of which is our ability to practice our Orthodox faith.

Our Treasurer’s report will touch upon the financial results of 2011, but allow me again to share a few thoughts.  When we met last year for our Annual Meeting, we collectively committed to set our goals high.  In some respects we fell short of those goals, but in the process we became a better and stronger parish.  We stayed true to our commitment to take our faith outside the confines of our church.  We honored all of our financial commitments in the face of a brutal economy and we were able to provide a beautiful gift to Fr. Paul on the occasion of his being awarded the Jeweled Cross by the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America.  Most important, we did all this with a positive and warm attitude.  Once again, great job everyone.

Looking forward to 2012, I see many opportunities for all of us to grow not only as individuals in our Orthodox faith, but as a community.  Our spiritual guidance will come from Fr. Paul and Fr. Christopher.  Could we ask for two better Priests?  On the more worldly matters of maintaining and growing our parish, we have a solid foundation, good leadership, willing contributors and an unbreakable spirit.  Our finances are tight, but manageable.  We need each and every member to participate to the best of their ability towards the achievement of our financial objectives.  In addition to our individual monetary contributions, we MUST establish and grow some other revenue streams.  The Middle European Dinner held in October has proven to be a St. Herman’s signature event and will be continued.  We are establishing a small steering committee to explore and analyze other service-based revenue generating events and ask that everyone give some serious thoughts on appropriate ideas that may a good fit for our Parish.

Not only do we need to continue meeting our “regular” expenses, but we must look at those who are less fortunate and do what we can to give them a “hand up” in their lives.  Time, talent, treasure and prayer are all effective tools we have at our disposal to treat people with the love, kindness and respect our faith teaches us to exercise.   We also must continue maintaining and repairing our church building.  We are blessed with having such a beautiful church and with that blessing comes the responsibility of taking care of it.

I have gone on much longer than anticipated so I will end here.  Thank you for your kindness and consideration in reading this report.  Thank you also for all that YOU do in making St. Herman’s a truly exceptional community.  May God bless you.

Respectfully,

Joseph F. Slater-Parish Council  President

St Herman’s Treasurer’s Report for 2011

Brothers and Sisters,

The Past

Christ is born! We ended 2011 on a good note!

The total amount of contributions in 2011 was: $70,214.00 (The amount we budgeted for was: $79,400.00)

The total amount we spent was:  $73,544.00

This left us with a net operating loss of:  -$3,330.00

The past summer was not good for our parish so we need to make sure to remember Father Paul’s exhortation that “we take vacations, our bills do not!”.

The Present

Our current bank balance is: $10,835.03

Our Cemetery investment fund as of December 31^st, 2011 sits with a balance of $95,503.50

So how do we currently show a bank balance? Because our books do not reflect the fact that 2011 began with approximately $10,000.00 in the account AND we also took $5,000.00 from the investment fund.

For 2011, our contributions did not meet what we had budgeted.  Thus in 2012, we hope to increase our revenue in a number of ways:  more events (like the Mittel Dinner),  better communication with the parish on the finances of the church and a better understanding of how each parishioner can give of time and money.

The Future

We start 2012 with 38 members. As you consider the budget that will be presented, please consider carefully how you plan to contribute to insure that this year’s budget is realistic. The 2012 budget is based off the premise that each member will continue to contribute at least at the levels they gave in 2011. We have broken the numbers down to reflect the monthly amount that our parish needs to insure that our budget is met: $6,183.12. When you vote on the budget, please consider how your contributions would impact this amount.  The goal for 2012 is not to have to use our Cemetery investment fund to operational expenses.

Thank you for letting me be your treasurer!

God Bless you!

Rob Morse

Unless you vote otherwise today, I expect this will be my last report to you as president of the parish council, at least for some time. It has been my honor to serve you these past four years, and I hope I haven’t served you too badly. I know there is more I could have done. But thanks to all of you, we’ve gotten some things done.

In 2010, the most notable achievements (in my mind) were finally repairing the bell tower and fixing the north undercroft leaking. We should be in good shape there for some time. (We've sprung a few new leaks since then, but we're working on 'em.)

But in this report, I’d rather focus on what you have done this year. However imperfect my leadership, St. Herman’s thrives because of all of us—because of the love each of us bears for the parish.The members of the council, as always, have all worked hard this past year. They’ve debated wisely, given excellent counsel, and have kept the Parish’s health always forefront in their minds. Many, many thanks to Mary Kaye, Rob, Joe, and Fr. Paul for all the time they’ve taken, and for all their love, work, and vision.

And thanks to all of you for all you do. Many of us, perhaps most of us, don’t know all of what each of us gives the parish in terms of time and work. I suspect that’s the way each of us prefers that our gifts be looked upon—not done for recognition, but for the joy we receive in giving them. As president, I may know a little more than most of all that’s done behind the scenes, so to speak.

But I’m sure I know far from everything. Even so, it would make for a very, very long report were I to list what I do know. And still my gratitude—our gratitude—would be insufficient. We all keep St. Herman’s going.

And of course, at the risk of embarrassing my fellow German-American (I’m only part German by ancestry, actually), may I offer Fr. Paul a large verbal bouquet of love and gratitude for his leadership, both practical and spiritual? I may, and will.

Thanks be to God. For this parish. For all of you.

Gene Rebeck

Parish Council President

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 38^th and 54^th 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 24^th. 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 26^th. 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.