Bishop Jonathan Baker: Good Friday Homily

Today's homily from Pope Francis: John the Baptist - a Model for the Church

Naming of the Baptist, a Fresco by Giusto de’Menabuoi (c. 1320–1391) 

in the Cathedral Baptistery, Padua, Italy. 

Here is the report of the homily Pope Francis gave at this morning’s Mass, taken from the website of VATICAN RADIO:

The church exists for courageously proclaiming -until martyrdom- Christ, to serve and “take nothing for herself”. In his homily at morning Mass on Monday, Pope Francis pointed to St. John the Baptist as model for Church: he didn’t claim the Truth, the Word as his own; he diminished himself so Christ could shine.

June 24th is the Solemnity of the Birth of the Saint, whom the Gospels indicate as the forerunner or precursor of Jesus. Dedicating his homily to him Pope Francis said the Church is called to proclaim the Word of God, even to martyrdom.

Pope Francis began his homily by addressing best wishes to all who bear the name John. The figure of John the Baptist, the Pope said, is not always easy to understand. “When we think of his life - he observed – we think of a prophet,” a “man who was great and then ends up as a poor man.” Who is John? The Pope said john himself explains: “I am a voice, a voice in the wilderness,” but “it is a voice without the Word, because the Word is not him, it is an Other.” Here then is the mystery of John: “He never takes over the Word,” John “is the one who indicates, who marks”. The “meaning of John’s life - he added - is to indicate another.” Pope Francis then spoke of being struck by the fact that the “Church chooses to mark John’s feast day” at a time when the days are at their longest in the year, when they “have more light.” And John really “was the man of light, he brought light, but it was not his own light, it was a reflected light.” John is “like a moon” and when Jesus began to preach, the light of John “began to decline, to set”. “Voice not Word - the Pope said - light, but not his own”

“John seems to be nothing. That is John’s vocation: he negates himself. And when we contemplate the life of this man, so great, so powerful - all believed that he was the Messiah - when we contemplate this life, how it is nullified to the point of the darkness of a prison, we behold a great mystery. We do not know what John’s last days were like. We do not know. We only know that he was killed, his head was put on a platter, as a great gift from a dancer to an adulteress. I don’t think you can lower yourself much more than this, negate yourself much more. That was the end that John met”.

Pope Francis noted that in prison John experienced doubts, anguish and he called on his disciples to go to Jesus and ask him, “Are you You, or should we expect someone else?”. His life is one of “pain and darkness”. John “was not even spared this”, said the Pope, who added: “the figure of John makes me think so much about the Church”:

“The Church exists to proclaim, to be the voice of a Word, her husband, who is the Word. The Church exists to proclaim this Word until martyrdom. Martyrdom precisely in the hands of the proud, the proudest of the Earth. John could have made himself important, he could have said something about himself. ‘But I never think’, only this: he indicated, he felt himself to be the voice, not the Word. This is John’s secret. Why is John holy and without sin? Because he never, never took a truth as his own. He would not be an ideologue. The man who negated himself so that the Word could come to the fore. And we, as a Church, we can now ask for the grace not to become an ideological Church ... “

The Church, he added, must hear the Word of Jesus and raise her voice, proclaim it boldly. “That - he said - is the Church without ideologies, without a life of its own: the Church which is the mysterium lunae which has light from her Bridegroom and diminish herself so that He may grow”

“This is the model that John offers us today, for us and for the Church. A Church that is always at the service of the Word. A Church that never takes anything for herself. Today in prayer we asked for the grace of joy, we asked the Lord to cheer this Church in her service to the Word, to be the voice of this Word, preach this Word. We ask for the grace, the dignity of John, with no ideas of their own, without a Gospel taken as property, only one Church that indicates the Word, and this even to martyrdom. So be it!“

The words of a priest at the funeral of his son

To outlive one's own child - whatever the circumstances - is a terrible thing, however strong or deep we think our faith might be. A month ago American friends asked for prayer to be offered for Fr Al Kimel and his wife and family following the suicide of son, Aaron. A few days later someone pointed me to the funeral homily on Scribd, but I thought better of sharing it on this blog at that time out of respect for the Kimels. However, it is such a helpful piece, and has since been posted in various parts of the Internet, that I have decided to share it with you today. Read it carefully and prayerfully, and keep Aaron and his family in your prayers. 

FUNERAL HOMILY FOR AARON EDWARD KIMEL 

delivered by Father Alvin F. Kimel, Jr. 22 June 2012 

+ In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

INTRODUCTION 

Not once have I ever entertained the possibility that I would ever find myself in this moment, preaching at the funeral of one of my children. 

I stand here today not to offer a eulogy for my son Aaron. There will be other opportunities for such eulogies, as we each seek to find healing for our loss and to understand the tragic decision of Aaron to end his life. 

My purpose, rather, is to offer an argument. Aaron was brilliant. He loved a good argument, and he usually won. Aaron and I did not often speak about God. At some point in high school he moved into a scientific materialism from which he would not be moved. He was not a militant atheist, as he acknowledged that it was possible, however unlikely, that God might exist; but he simply could not, would not, embrace a Christian worldview. Yet for the sake of family, he always said grace with us at dinnertime. 

I am not a philosopher. There is no argument I can offer that Aaron could not demolish in five seconds flat. I stand before you as a priest of the Church for over thirty years. But most importantly I stand before you as a bereaved father, who has been utterly devastated by the death of his beloved son.

Aaron’s death has been a traumatic - and clarifying - event for me. I see reality more clearly than I have ever seen it before. I stand before you, therefore, either as a madman … or a prophet of God Almighty. I cannot judge. You must be my judge. God will most certainly be my judge. 

NIHILISM 

Aaron did not believe in God. He did not believe in transcendent reality. He did not believe in a life beyond the grave. Life has no ultimate meaning or significance. After death there is only nothing. 

In Aaron’s room I found my old copy of the short stories of Ernest Hemingway. I do not know when he borrowed it. Perhaps he read the story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” In this story we read the prayer of nihilism: 

Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy 

will be nada in nada as it is in nada. 

Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada 

as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but 

deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of 

nothing, nothing is with thee. 

It is a relentlessly bleak, hopeless view. Despair is its only conclusion. 

Aaron was a man who lived in profound interior pain. He had come to the conclusion that nothing in this world, neither medicine nor psychiatry nor career nor even the love of his family could deliver him from the despair and futility that had possessed and paralyzed him. And so he made what seemed, to him, to be the logical choice. 

A logical choice … if, and only if, Aaron’s worldview is true. If Aaron is right, then he has indeed found relief from his suffering, relief in nothingness, relief in nada, nada, nada. We who have been left behind must now suffer the repercussions of Aaron’s decision, but he at least he is at peace … if Aaron is right … 

THE CHRISTIAN ALTERNATIVE 

But there is an alternative. Consider the possibility that there really is a divine Creator, a transcendent deity of infinite love who has brought the world into being from out of nothing. Consider the possibility that this Creator has made human beings in his image in such a way that we can only find our supreme happiness in communion with him. Consider the possibility that this God has actually entered into his creation, taking upon himself the limitations of humanity, including even suffering and death, precisely to restore us to himself and incorporate us into his divine life. Consider the possibility that for us this God died a cruel and horrific death on Calvary and rose to indestructible life on Easter morning, destroying the power of death once and for all and opening history to the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, a future where “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” 

God is Love, for he is eternally the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The world springs from love and will be consummated in love. In the words of St Isaac the Syrian: 

“In love did God bring the world into existence; in love does he guide it during its temporal existence; in love is he going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of him who has performed all these things.” 

It may all sound too good to be true. It may all sound like a an old wives’ tale. But it meets Aaron’s objections head on. Life is not nothingness. Life is not absurd. God is good and wills only our good. God is love and his love will triumph. There is thus genuine hope for liberation, healing, transformation, rebirth, both in this world and in the coming kingdom. 

This is the Christian faith in which Aaron was raised yet which he eventually found to be unpersuasive. The empiricist worldview which dominates our culture increasingly renders the Christian worldview implausible, and the whole world consequently suffers from the despair of nihilism. 

I cannot, will not acquiesce to Aaron’s agnosticism and its resignation to despair. I know something of the darkness that bound Aaron’s heart; but this tragedy has quickened my faith, and I pray that it will do so for you also. 

One of my favorite books in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia is the Silver Chair. The children, along with the marsh-wiggle Puddleglum are captured by the Green Lady and taken into her underworld domain. She casts a spell upon them and attempts to persuade them that this dreary underworld is the real world, that everything that they remember about Narnia and the true world is but a dream. But Puddleglum stands fast; he refuses to disbelieve: 

“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.” 

The Christian vision of reality is so much more real, more beautiful, more enchanting, and profoundly more true than any vision of reality offered by modern culture and the scientific worldview. 

And so here is my first response to my son: 

“Aaron, I do not know if you had retained your faith in Christ whether your pain would have been more bearable, but it might have given you grounds for hope, for a supernatural hope that the world cannot give.” 

AARON'S HOPE 

But what hope does my son now have? He is dead. He died an unbeliever. He died a suicide. This is the hard, terrible truth. Aaron would not want us to minimize the harshness of any of this. He knew Christine and I would find this very, very hard. In the old days, some preachers would have declared him damned. He certainly would not have been granted a church burial. Today we know more about depression and mental illness. We know how depression constrains and limits our existential freedom. Aaron did not kill himself with blasphemies on his lips. His suicide was not the culmination of a wicked life. It was an escape from a world that could not heal the sickness of his mind and bring relief from intolerable suffering. Aaron jumped to his death because he had lost all hope, because despair had possessed his being. This I believe to be true. And so I know that God will be merciful. 

But even so, I wish to say something more. Not only will the eternal Father be merciful to my Aaron; but he will most assuredly heal his heart, deliver him from the bonds of darkness, and raise him into glorified life with Jesus Christ the eternal Son, with the Blessed Virgin Mary and with all the saints. Aaron will know the joy and bliss of the kingdom of God. 

* * * * * * * * * *

Fr Kimel was a priest in the Episcopal (i.e. USA Anglican) Church for twenty-five years. A loved pastor and distinguished theologian, articles of his have been published in the Anglican Theological Review, Sewanee Theological Review, Interpretation, Scottish Journal of Theology, Worship, Faith & Philosophy, Pro Ecclesia, and First Things. He has also edited two books: Speaking the Christian God and This is My Name Forever. He began his Pontifications Blog in March 2004 as a way to reflect on the meaning of the Church and to invite others to share in these reflections. (This blog, though no longer active, continues to be a valuable resource of essays and comments.) In June 2005 Fr Kimel entered into full communion with the (Roman) Catholic Church, becoming a priest the following year. On Pentecost Sunday, 2011, he was ordained into the Orthodox Church on Pentecost Sunday 2011 by Bishop Jerome of the Russian Church Abroad, for the Western Rite.

Fr Cantalamessa on St Gregory of Nazianzen

Here is the second of Fr Raniero Cantalamessa’s 2012 Lenten homilies, preached before the Papal Household last Friday. 

Not too many years ago, there were theological proposals that, despite the profound differences between them, had a common scheme as background, sometimes clear, sometimes implicit. The scheme is extremely simple because it is reductive. The two greatest mysteries of our faith are the Trinity and the Incarnation: God is One and Triune; Jesus Christ is God and man. In the proposals I referred to, this nucleus was articulated thus: God is one, and Jesus Christ is man: the divinity of Christ collapses and with it, the Trinity. 

The result of this process is that one ends by accepting tacitly and hypocritically the existence of two faiths, and two different Christianities, which have nothing in common except the name: the Christianity of the Creed of the Church, of joint ecumenical declarations in which, with the words of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol, one continues to profess faith in the Trinity and in the full divinity of Christ, and the Christianity of a wide strata of culture, also exegetic and theological, in which these same truths are ignored or interpreted in a wholly different way. 

In such a climate, how opportune it is to revisit the Fathers of the Church, not only to know the content of the dogma in its nascent state, but even more so to rediscover the vital unity between professed faith and lived faith, between the “thing” and its “enunciation.” For the Fathers, the Trinity and the unity of God, the duality of the natures and the unity of the person of Christ were not truths to be decided at table or discussed in books in dialogue with other books; they were vital realities. Paraphrasing a phrase that circulates in sports environments, we can say that such truths were not questions of life or death for them, they were much more! 

1. Gregory of Nazianzen, Singer of the Trinity 

The giant on whose shoulders we wish to climb today is Saint Gregory of Nazianzen; the horizon we wish to scrutinize with him is the Trinity. His is the grandiose picture that shows the unfolding of the revelation of the Trinity in the history and the pedagogy of God who reveals itself in it. The Old Testament, he writes, proclaims openly the existence of the Father and begins to proclaim, in a veiled manner, that of the Son. The New Testament proclaims the Son openly and begins to reveal the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Now, in the Church, the Spirit grants us distinctly his manifestation and the glory of the Blessed Trinity is confessed. God has measured out his manifestation, adapting it to the times and the receptive capacity of men. 

This threefold division has nothing to do with the thesis, known under the name of Gioacchino da Fiore, of the three different periods: that of the Father, in the Old Testament, that of the Son in the New and that of the Spirit in the Church. Saint Gregory’s distinction refers to the order of the manifestation, not of the being or acting of the Three Persons, who are present and act together throughout the span of time. 

In the Tradition, Saint Gregory of Nazianzen has received the appellative “the Theologian” (ho Theologos), precisely because of his contribution to the clarification of the Trinitarian dogma. His merit is to have given Trinitarian orthodoxy its perfect formulation, with phrases destined to become common patrimony of theology. The pseudo-Athanasian symbol “Quicumque,” composed about a century later, owes not a little to Gregory of Nazianzen. Here are some of his crystalline formulas: “He was, and was, and was: but was only one.

"He was light and light and light: but only one light.    Continue reading . . .

Archbishop of Canterbury's homily at the basilica of San Gregorio al Celio

Your Holiness,
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

It is a privilege to stand here, where my predecessors stood in 1989 and 1996, and to offer once again, as we did most recently in Westminster [and Assisi], the sacrifice of praise that we owe to the One Lord in whose name we are baptized; the One Lord who by his Spirit, brings to recognisability in each member of his sacramental Body, the image and abundant life of Christ his Son, through the temptations and struggles of our baptismal calling. 

St Gregory the Great had much to say about the peculiar temptations and struggles of those called to office in the Church of God. To be called to this service is to be called to several different kinds of suffering – the torment of compassion, as he puts it (Moralia 30.25.74), the daily awareness of urgent human needs, bodily and spiritual, and the torment of praise, flattery and status (ib. 26.34.62). This latter is a torment because those called to this ministry know so clearly their own inner weakness and instability. But that knowledge is a saving knowledge, which among other things helps us minister effectively to others in trouble; and it reminds us that we find stability, soliditas, only in the life of the Body of Christ, not in our own achievement (Homilies on Ezekiel 2.5.22) … Continue reading …

The high altar of the basilica of San Gregorio al Celio. 

Pope Benedict's homily at the basilica of San Gregorio al Celio

Refer back to last week's story HERE. This is the homily Pope Benedict preached at Vespers at San Gregorio al Celio on Saturday. 

Your Grace, 

Dear Brother Bishops and Priests, 

Dear Monks and Nuns of Camaldoli, 

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

 It gives me great joy to be here today in this Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio for Solemn Vespers on the liturgical commemoration of the death of Saint Gregory the Great. With you, dear Brothers and Sisters of the Camaldolese family, I thank God for the thousand years that have passed since the foundation of the Sacred Hermitage of Camaldoli by Saint Romuald. I am delighted to be joined on this occasion by His Grace Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. To you, my dear Brother in Christ, and to each one of you, dear monks and nuns, and to everyone present, I extend cordial greetings. 

We have listened to two passages from Saint Paul. The first, taken from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, is particularly appropriate … Continue reading …

Athanasius & the Divinity of Christ … Fr Cantalamessa's 1st Lenten homily

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of the Papal Household Preacher and Capuchin Priest, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, who models a truly authentic blending of Catholic Faith, Biblical teaching, Patristic scholarship, evangelical preaching and pentecostal experience. He was appointed "Preacher to the Papal Household" in 1980 by Pope John Paul II. His remit was renewed in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. Fr Cantalamessa is frequently invited to speak at international and ecumenical conferences and rallies. He is a member of the Catholic Delegation for the Dialogue with the Pentecostal Churches, and currently hosts a weekly program on Radiotelevisione Italiana. 

Here is the first of his homilies for Lent 2012, preached last Friday. 

In preparation for the Year of Faith proclaimed by the Holy Father Benedict XVI (Oct. 12, 2012-Nov. 24, 2013), the four homilies of Lent are intended to give impetus and give back freshness to our belief through a renewed contact with the "giants of the faith" of the past. Hence the title, taken from the Letter to the Hebrews, given to the whole series: "Remember your leaders. Imitate their faith" (Hebrews13:7).

We will put ourselves each time in the school of one of the four great Doctors of the Eastern Church - Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa - to see what each one of them says to us today, in regard to the dogma of which he was champion, that is, respectively, the divinity of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, knowledge of God. At another time, God willing, we will do the same for the great Doctors of the Western Church: Augustine, Ambrose and Leo the Great. 

What we wish to learn from the Fathers is not so much how to proclaim the faith to the world, namely, evangelization, or how to defend the faith against errors, namely, orthodoxy; but, rather, how to deepen our faith, to rediscover, behind them, the richness, beauty and happiness of believing, to pass, as Paul says, "through faith for faith" (Romans 1:17), from a believed faith to a lived faith. It will spell, in fact, growth in the "volume" of faith within the Church, which will then constitute the major strength of its proclamation to the world and the best defense of its orthodoxy. 

Father de Lubac affirmed that there was never a renewal of the Church in history which was not also a return to the Fathers. Vatican II, whose 50th anniversary we are about to celebrate, is no exception. It is interwoven with quotations from the Fathers; many of its protagonists were Patristic scholars. After Scripture, the Fathers constitute the second layer of soil on which theology, liturgy, biblical exegesis and the whole spirituality of the Church rest and draw their lymph. 

Continue reading . . .

My yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:30)

The Antiochian Orthodox parish of St Botolph's London, founded by the late Father Michael Harper, has a great website on which can be found various sermons and other interesting bits 'n pieces. The parish priest, Fr. Alexander Tefft, is a Canadian. As a child, he attended the Orthodox Church but was not baptised until his twenties. Thus, he speaks to both 'cradle' and 'convert'. Fr. Alexander has taught the Orthodox faith for twenty years. Graduating from St. Tikhon's Seminary in Pennsylvania, he was ordained a deacon in the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). Going to England to pursue doctoral research, he was appointed a tutor and later chaplain of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge. Upon transfer from the OCA to the Antiochian Church, he was ordained to the priesthood by Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware). His sermons are challenging and thought provoking, always about some aspect of the Good News of Jesus. The website is HERE. Fr. Alexander preached this sermon on 5th December, 2010.

Luke 13:10-17; Matthew 11:27-30

When a Breton fisherman sets sail from a port along the rocky coast of Brittany, tradition states that he prays: ‘Protègez moi, mon Seigneur, ma barque est si petite, et votre mer est si grande’ – ‘Protect me, O Lord, my boat is so small, and your sea is so great’. All that we need to know about life is here. And prayer. About life. And the Lord of life. ‘My boat is so small, and your sea is so great’. The sea is so vast and powerful; and I am so small. Look out on its endless expanse. Who would not feel pity for a little wooden boat, journeying out on the waves? Swept by the foam, battered by the storms that sweep the surface and carry whole villages away. Beneath the surface are animals that are larger and more terrifying than anything on dry land. The sea never forgets that you are small. Your boat is small. No one but a lunatic expects your little boat to master the sea. No one – least of all … God. God watches you set sail. God blesses you. God directs your little boat, over the waves. And God knows when the storms toss you, this way and that, and sometimes, carry you away. God knows, and understands.

A priest of God who is worthy of the name never expects more of you than God himself. He helps you into a tiny boat, he points the way – by means of the true worship: incense and candles, vestments and prayer; processions with the Gospel, and with the holy gifts of bread and wine. He teaches you true doctrine, to direct your little boat over the waves that tempt you to despair; the foam made up of lies and deceit that hide the face of God. A true priest blesses you, again and again, and points your boat toward the land beyond the Jordan, promised by God. But a true priest of God also knows when the storms toss you, this way and that. The white lie that you told. The angry thoughts, the angry words about your husband or wife or co-worker. The piece of meat that you ate during the fast. A true priest knows when the storms sometimes carry you away. The bottle of cider that you drank and forgot all the bottles that went before. The warm body that you clung to in the night, when a friend became a little more than a friend. A true priest, a priest of God, knows, and understands. Your boat is so small. Sometimes, it cannot reach its destined port. Sometimes, it crashes on rocks or sinks below the waves. Sin is no crime. It is the sickness, the infirmity, that comes upon you and others; and a true priest is not there to judge you, but to heal. He is not there to bind you, but to set you free.

A false priest is stiff and proud. Around your neck, he binds a hard yoke of guilt, in order to harness you to some distant tyrant that he calls ‘God’. Upon your shoulders, he lays a burden of ‘right conduct’, rewards and punishments, so heavy that it weighs you down – until you cannot stand up straight, but grovel at his feet. He loads your little boat with his chains until it sinks from the unbearable weight. Have you ever known a priest like that? A priest who never lets God stand in the way of the law.

God, who lifts the burden, breaks the yoke – and recognises him who laid them on you.

For eighteen years, Satan has bound a woman with a spirit of infirmity. She is bent over and cannot stand up straight. The sickness is in her spine, where worries and fears and, above all, guilt, weigh down a body and pull it down under the waves. She comes to the synagogue to hear Jesus teach. He sees her, there in the crowd. He calls out: ‘Woman, you are free. I set you free from the sickness that bends you down in fear. I set free from the tyranny that weighs upon you’. As soon as he lays his hands on her, she does not fall to his feet. She stands and praises God. But the pious leader – let us call him, a ‘false priest’ – hates to see her standing straight. He is angry that Jesus has violated the law. ‘Come here some other day’, he yells at those present, ‘but not the Sabbath’. Jesus does not spare these righteous folk. ‘Hypocrites! Would you keep this woman bound up in sickness, just to obey your laws? Why not keep your own animals tied up, hungry and thirsty, just to obey your laws to the letter? You are of your father, the devil. He sees the little boat tossed on the waves and loads it down with heavy chains. I break the chains – I smash them – here and now, on the Sabbath day, set aside for the glory of God’.

Why else was the Sabbath created if not to set you free? Why Sunday, the glorious Day of Resurrection, if not to free you from death? Why teach true doctrine, if not to free you from every lie? Why obey the commandment of love, if not to free you from yourselves? A false priest delights in seeing you bowed down. Unable to stand. Bound with the chain that he mistakes for the law of God. But in truth, it is he who is chained by the chain that he forged in life; and someday, he will awaken to find himself chained … forever. A true priest of God does not chain you: you, or your little boat. He waits, as long as it takes for you to remember, then gently guides your little boat on its voyage home.

Beloved in Christ: Saint Sabas – Mar Saba, as his disciples called him – was just such a priest. Wise beyond his years. His name Savá in Hebrew meant ‘old man’; and this child elder, as they called him, saw how the storms of life toss you up and down, this way and that, and all too easily carry you away. Rather than abandon men to the storms, he set up a community in the Kedron Valley near Jerusalem: the Great Lávra, dedicated to the perpetual prayers of the monks. Rather than draw up a rigid rule of conduct, he gave us the Týpikon, the guidelines for the true worship still used in the Orthodox Church – for the word ‘Orthodox’ does not mean ‘right conduct’ but true worship. Most importantly, Saint Sabas opposed the false priests – those who depicted Christ as some distant tyrant, who bends and breaks you to his will. Christ, our true God, is no less human than we. He sees that our boat is small and the sea is great. He knows how weak and frightened we are. God knows, and understands.

Our God is not stiff and proud; he is gentle and lowly. He commands us, not to grovel at his feet but to stand upright. To cast off the crippling burden of fear and the yoke of guilt. To remember, each time that we hear the word ‘mercy’, that all the sins ever committed by mankind are only a handful of dust cast into the infinite sea of God’s love. He lays on us no yoke, except the true Orthodox worship of Christ our God: the yoke, not of fear but of love.

For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.