PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

April 19, 2014:  Holy Saturday, that year, on which the Pascal Vigil, the Orthodox Church's most glorious, most festal Liturgy, would begin shortly before midnight; and at about 11am, I, along with several others, was chrismated and received as a communicant member of the Orthodox Church.  

   My great folly, a month or so later, was to allow a misunderstanding to convince me that I had made an error, and I returned to the fundamentalist faith practiced by the family into which I had married.

    But God had no intention of letting me make this a permanent change, so that in January of 2021, having sought the forgiveness of the Priest who had chrismated me, I made a full confession and returned to the Orthodox fold, from which I do not intend to stray again.  I face, at home, tremendous opposition:  my extensive collection of icons has been placed in storage beyond my ability to reach, and I am permitted three or four table icons of which my "icon corner" must now consist.  Although I had an "emergency kit" prepared in a small wallet handwoven with Orthodox motifs---my prayer rope, a travelling icon, and some small crosses---I forgot to bring it along when I went to the ER.  After being hospitalized, I requested my spouse bring it, and she took it upon herself to remove the prayer rope and the icons, because, in her mind, they are "too cath'lick."  She has relented to release the prayer rope to me, and although I have pleaded for some icons to be brought to my hospital table, she has managed to avoid doing that.  As of yet.  Jesus Christ said that a believer's enemies would be those of his or her own household.

     Orthodox theology and liturgy teaches us that God loves humanity (as the fundamentalists should learn from their repetitious lip service to John 3:16); God knows that we are flawed and frail; and sin is treated as a spiritual illness, not a juridical crime.  Jesus' death on the cross was intended to trample down Death.  Western Christianity has chosen to emphasize the wrath of God and the judgemental aspect of the Cross.  Eastern Christianity emphazies the victory and joy of Pascha, Easter, and the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom, which is the usual Sunday worship, emphasizes the majesty of Christ, and the Kingdom of God the Father, So, and Holy Spirit.

      One of my favorite poets, Denis Devlin, wrote in his long and triumphant poem, The Passion Of Christ, that

". . . neither life nor death adorns us / Like adoration of our Lord, the Christ, / No buildings, no culture of roses, no bridges / like the majesty of Christ."  A professional diplomat; an Irish poet who did all of his prep; by faith, a Christian of the Roman Catholic denomination, this great but very humble Christian )whom I am counting on meeting when I repose in Christ and enter Heaven) provided to me, through the poem cited supra, the most poetic definition of Orthodox Faith, Liturgy, and Theology that I have ever read.

Starward . . . by Christ's merciful grace, eight years an Orthodox Christian