The good news today draws on the heavy topic of paralysis.  Not just the regrettable bodily variety, but also the all too familiar and yet very tragic soul crushing type that we as humans are accustomed to. 

Paralysis, the inability to move and sometimes even to feel, is often in scripture an example for the loss of one’s freedom, resulting from personal trauma caused by sin. This loss of ability removes fundamental freedoms, such as one’s personal agency to act and live as one pleases. 

It is as though one were put under a new rule of obedience, a rule which runs counter to our innate desire to be free and fully alive. Such a rule is less like that of the monastic fathers such as those of Sts. Benedict or Pachomius which aimed for saintliness.   Rather the rule of paralysis caused by sin, is terror. 

We see this spiritual paralysis everywhere. The inability and frustration witnessed each day of what should be a very easy thing is, sadly, too common in human existence. In the words of St. Paul, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” 

From the great to the small things, we are often unable or unwilling to leave systems of personal destruction behind. We cleave to them because as numb as they make us feel, it is a familiar numbness, unlike the uncharted waters of a life fully alive in God. There is safety after all in the predictable and boring stream of living our lives lying down on our backs, isn’t there?


Sin Is Effortless

We stand for nothing, oppose nothing, nobody asks much from us.  And -- most of all -- we convince ourselves that everything we are not able to accomplish is too hard and not worth the effort anyway. Paralysis from sin is a boon for all the evil plans and machinations of this world, because after all, evil thrives on the inactivity and numbness of supposedly good people. 

Despite what we may think, sin takes no effort at all, and that is why sin is inherently terrible.  Sin is the great No to life.  Or rather the great No to the one who is life. 

From jurisdictional divisionism and infighting within the Church of Christ; to the neglect of the needs of others especially the most vulnerable; to the very personal and real torment of those empty wells we return to each day to numb the difficulties of life.  We see the problem, but we also complicate the solution. 

Like the Scribes in today’s gospel, we seek to justify our lack of participation in what is right and worthy, by justifying our disinterest in praising what is right. Rather than marvel and give God praise for raising a paralyzed man to his feet, the scribes remain stiff themselves without words, and likely without any movement at all. As stiff and as delicate as their prim robes and vestiture. 

So stiff, that it must have looked as though their very robes would shatter if anyone were to even gently touch them. 

While the world rejoiced as this invitation to life was granted to this faithful paralyzed man, there they remained -- living as though paralyzed.  Because they did not want to share in the joy of Jesus’ ministry.  Not then and likely not ever.  Locked out of life, but not by some higher authority, no -- sadder still -- by their own hardness of hearts. 

Raise the Paralyzed

Woe to us when we become so deadened by the sins visited upon us that we give in and allow ourselves to be destroyed. Woe to us when we remain indolent and slow to dispel the darkness, when we ourselves can at the very least kneel and pray. Woe to us when we would sooner choose to push away the mercies of God, than to be visited by them. 

Let us not give in to the spirit of indifference, and despondency. The good work which God has begun in us is not yet complete. God desires to only to raise the paralyzed from their beds, He more daringly calls even the dead, back to life!

As you may know, recently a member of our parish, underwent a successful organ transplantation.

And so today he embodies the message of this Gospel reading. As one raised up to new life in Christ he chooses to remain free and fully alive.  As the Lord said, “Arise, take up your bed and go…”. 

Today he continues the journey of theosis, to live with all the possibilities union with God affords - not needing to be under the yoke of any conclusion or idea which does not give life. 

Now that you have been raised up, do not live just for yourself, but as Christ speaks today of having authority, discipline yourself to imitate that very same authority. Christ’s authority is not one of power or personal gain, but of sacrificial servitude:  even the servitude of the cross. 

Glory be to God forever. 

--Fr. Paul Tadros

So many of us have or will encounter a near universal crisis of faith.  

Why is it that God doesn't seem to answer my prayers? 

This can be both a feeling of deafening silence, and of many requests that go unfilled.   Doesn’t the bible say that with faith of a mustard seed you will move mountains?   Yet so many of us continue waiting on that request from 10 years ago or tormented by the loved one that died despite the prayers.   
This gospel is a beautiful account of the encounter of man with God and just may be a message of hope to this prayer crisis. 

We have a story of a Centurion, a leader of 100 soldiers and supporting units (although the title was sometimes used generically for more senior officers of the Roman legions) who comes to ask Jesus to heal his servant.  
The Centurion loves this particular servant so deeply that he risks humiliation by begging publicly for his life.  He, a Roman soldier, the occupier in the streets of Caperneaum, comes before a bunch of Jews who at best will tolerate him, and more likely hate him, to beg for help from a traveling rabbi. 

This is scandalous.

What could possibly motivate this?  

We don't know much about this Centurion.   Was he a believer in God, an atheist, or somewhere in between?  Did he call God “Jupiter,” or “Mithra,” or the “One God?”  Did he even have a name for God?  
How many people had he wounded, sent to prison, or killed?  What was his upbringing?  Good family? Orphan?  
We don’t know anything at all about him except that he was a man capable of a deep and utterly selfless act of love and compassion.   

Stop talking and ask for the right things
The Centurion does something that we ourselves so rarely do.  He has become self-emptying. Or rather he has cast aside the worries of this life and to take a profound risk. The motivation of compassion overwhelms any barrier of social propriety and he comes to Jesus purely for the need of another. 

The image of God shines brightly in the Centurion.  The Lord, being the perfect image of the Father, looks at this soldier and sees himself.  

The deep calls out to the deep and Christ is moved to compassion.  

The Centurion shows us that in order to be heard by God we need to be asking for the right things.  The Centurion wants not riches or fame, but the welfare of another.  
And the Centurion, has done the rare act of turning from the talk track of his life and is focusing on Jesus and his servant.   There is nothing but willingness to submit, to encounter, to take whatever is given.  

Sometimes we need to stop talking.  Most of our prayer life can be a one sided argument.  Perhaps, God is waiting for us to finally finish and say “you done?” 

But too often, our prayers are twisted ego-fuelled talk tracks.  Compassion can be the key that can release us from our inward muddle.  

Healing 
In the life of St. Porphyrios, someone asks, how can I get the gift of healing? And St Porphyrios replies that one has to be willing to take the sickness of another in order to ask God for a miracle.  “If you will heal them, I will take their place….”

In this Centurion's actions, we witness a profound faith.  A faith demonstrated by a Gentile and not one of God’s chosen people, a recurrent theme of the stories of Jesus.  

The Centurion gets who the Lord is.  He doesn't put him into a box. He doesn't see the Lord as just a good moral rabbi, or someone who can help with this small area of his life.  Instead he bears witness to Christ as the Cosmocrator, as the one who has supreme and divine authority.   

Note the Centurion says he is under authority.  The Centurion’s authority comes via a Preator from the emperor.  
Through his entreaties for his servant,  the Centurion is acknowledging that Jesus has power over everything.  He knows that if Jesus wills it, healing will come. So all you have to do is speak it – to be Jesus' role as the Word – and it will come to pass.  It doesn't matter where Jesus is, just that God can do all things. The Centurion says with the humility of a pure request, that it is up to God to do what we need.  

In this request, there is a pure trust.    This leads Jesus to proclaim that he hasn't seen faith like this in Israel.   You see it's not the belief that God will do an act – the so-called “name and claim” pushed by certain TV preachers – it's not a magic incantation.  

Rather it's the belief that God can do this, has the power to do this, “If it is Your will… Thy will be done.”  
​
Take courage and approach
Finally we see humility.  As I mentioned earlier, this is a man of considerable status, but one that sees Jesus and knows that he isn’t worthy.  He simply asks.  

The Centurion is asking without expectation. He accepts that if Jesus is to grant healing, it's not because the Centurion did something or is something.  But because God just chooses to act in love.    He knows if God will act it’s not because of what or who he is, but because of God’s mercy.   

So we have a roadmap of true prayer in this episode of the life of Jesus and the Centurion.  We have self emptying love motivated by compassion for others.  The Centurion is asking the right thing, grounded in complete faith in God's willingness to do it; but motivated by the compassion to accept that God is in control.  God has complete power, and it is up to Him.   

In the end we must come to God, broken and knowing there is no reason to receive.  

One of the great communion prayers that our church gives us as we approach Christ bears the same words as the humble Centurion: ‘I know, O Lord my God, that I am not worthy that you should enter under the roof of the house of my soul.” But recognizing the Lord and His goodness we say, “but since You in Your love desire to dwell in me I take courage and approach.” Let us then take courage and approach and taste and see that the Lord is good!  

May God give us that true heart, and that we may continue to be conformed to His likeness.

Subdeacon Michael
​

In this season of lent, in the midst of seclusion and suffering imposed by a virus, I believe God has gifted us an opportunity.  An opportunity to relearn the importance of the home church.

Don't squander this time.  This time of fasting from the commonness of the Eucharist.  Join us, yes, in our services streamed and shared online.  But also, light a candle, burn incense, and -- in front of even just one small icon -- dedicate time to prayer at home.  Take hold of your royal priesthood and let your prayer life be incarnational.  To help you, our diocese has published a wonderful resource for living  “Holy Week From Home” (READ MORE)

This is a fasting season.  Each of us, like St Zosima has been tasked with spending Great Lent apart and in the wilderness of an uncertain and arduous desert.  But we will return together at that eventual Pascha.  And that absence from Holy Communion, our liturgical worship, and each other will cause our hearts to grow fonder for our community.

This is a miraculous opportunity to relearn what is essential - seize it!  Keep watch and pray as individuals and as families and nurture that experience.  Do the typika service.  Sing or read the akathist service (what joy is punctuated there).  Seize this hour of prayer for yourself.  
See the gift God presents in these times of trouble - we are never left alone.  Learn that first hand through the cultivation of a domestic prayer life.

Beloved brothers and sisters, we must continue to find ways to be prayerful, authentic and communal.  Fortify your home parish, as we collectively fortify our community online.

Finally dearest brothers and sisters, it is now more than ever vital that we become the eucharistic presence in our world. Christianity does not just stop no matter the calamity. What we have received in our hearts and our being since the moment of our baptism, Christ Himself - He through our hands, sweat, and even blood must be distributed creatively to the many for the life of the world. Take care of those around you - and continue to move away from yourself until you are in the service of those who live solely by the grace of God.

I hope and pray that each of you are well physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I love you all.  And know that when I am serving in our now empty church, I carry each and every one of you before the altar.  - Fr Paul

In obedience to our Bishop , the health authorities and to the weakest among us we must suspend public services for the time being.  

These are Holy times - this is the daily bread God has allowed us to have, and to be satisfied. Take it, and find sustenance in it.  While the Eucharist is and will remain the center of our community this forced situation is  very similar of Lenten custom practiced by the monastics that St. Zosimas describes in the Life of St. Mary of Egypt: "After crossing the Jordan, they all scattered far and wide in different directions. And this was the rule of life they had, and which they all observed — neither to talk to one another, nor to know how each one lived and fasted. If they did happen to catch sight of one another, they went to another part of the country, living alone and always singing to God, and at a definite time eating a very small quantity of food. In this way they spent the whole of the Great Fast and used to return to the monastery a week before the Resurrection of Christ, on the eve of Palm Sunday. Each one returned having his own conscience as the witness of his labor,and no one asked another how he had spent his time in the desert. Such were the rules of the monastery.”     

God has given us the opportunity to relearn the importance of the home church - and dare I say, to even fast from the commonness of the Eucharist. St Mary only had it a few times in her entire life.   Don't squander this time watching liturgies on your computer to supplement the loss of our liturgical worship . Rather go, light a candle, burn incense, and in front of even just one small icon, dedicate time to prayer (specifically those prayers we sent out yesterday). Take hold of your royal priesthood - let your prayer life be incarnational. Further, this is a fasting season, each of us, like St Zosima has been tasked with spending Great Lent apart and in the wilderness of an uncertain and arduous desert - but we will return together at that eventual Pascha, and that absence from Holy Communion, our liturgical worship, and each other will cause our hearts to grow fonder. This is a miraculous opportunity to relearn what is essential - seize it! In the meantime, keep watch and pray as individuals and as families, nurture that experience.

​Do the Typika service, sing or read the Akathist service (what joy is punctuated there). For those who would still prefer a live stream of the services, we are working on that as well - but again, seize this hour of prayer for yourself. See the gift God presents in these times of trouble - we are never left alone, learn that first hand through the cultivation of a domestic prayer life.

Just then, a man came up to Jesus and inquired, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to obtain eternal life?”
"Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”
(‎Luke 18:18)

This Gospel is one that we’ve probably heard many times before and maybe it just passes over us.  We tend to focus on the part about the rich man’s chances of getting into heaven being compared to a camel passing through the eye of a needle.  We dismiss it because we say to ourselves, “Me rich?  I’m not rich” or as a moral message that’s a bit tired:  “Riches = bad…   I get it.”

But in this message we find grace and, through the power of the incarnation and cross, not just a tired moral message but a bit of hope for this world and for all of us. 

Let’s look at how this Gospel starts:

 Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good?  No one is good but One, that is, God.
What is meant here by “ruler?” 

The original word “archon” can have two meanings relevant to this passage:  of royalty or it can also mean the ruler of the synagogue, i.e. a Rabbi, or a Pharisee.

And what about the use of the word “Good” here.

“Good teacher” is a common title for well-known and respected Rabbis.  Christ’s response isn’t contradicting the use of the title.  He’s just pointing out that the man only sees him in earthly terms.

We have to remember that Jesus despite his condemnations of the Rabbinic establishment’s hypocrisies was a Rabbi.   Indeed this was an institution developed by the Pharasitic reformers.  Pharasites were actually preaching the prophets’ message of internal repentance over outer temple worship which largely matches up with what Christ taught.

Eye of a Needle:  Camels, elephants and us.
Then there is an examination of the ruler, how he has kept the law all his life but still feels lacking, then  goes away sad as he is unwilling to give up his riches and follow Christ.  What follows is Jesus’ famous commentary
“For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Some claimed that there was a gate in Jerusalem that was called “the eye of a needle,” and Jesus here was referring to it.  But scholars now agree that there is little evidence for this. 

That metaphor of the challenge of getting something large through small opening is a pretty common Semitic turn of phrase. It crops up in the Talmud and other ancient sources, with some versions mentioning elephants instead of camels.  Jesus’ audience probably would have recognized this image signaling the absurd.

Is being rich the problem? Does that make salvation absurdly impossible?

Throughout the scriptures wealth itself is not demonized.  Wealth becomes a problem when it is not recognized as God’s to begin with; when wealth is not recognized as a gift from God.  Wealth is a gift for the community, not just the individual and therefore inherently imbued with social responsibility.   Manna and the Israelites in the desert is just one of many Old Testament examples of this. 

So Jesus isn’t introducing something new here -- this has been a consistent message of all the prophets:

Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread; they never call on the LORD.  (Psalm 14:4)

Because there is something about having that makes it hard for us to relinquish.  We lose our trust in God that he will provide for us and our family and instead buildup storehouses.  It keeps us from risking and doing what he has called us to. 

We all know the struggle that greed and riches provide. Whether we’re in the so-called top 1% or the bottom 10% we are all the rich man.  We all have that thing we can’t give up, whether relationships, jobs, desire for fame, comfortableness, even fear, anger and hate.  Whatever it is that keeps us from trusting, from giving to that stranger beside us that also keeps us from making the leap and following Christ totally.

Even if we realize in our heart of hearts that we do lack, that we could do so much if we just made that leap.

So who then can be saved?

 Today, right now, in Toronto where we are so obviously blessed with so many gifts? Is salvation possible or are we all camels or elephants trying to make it through the needle’s eye?  Is there no hope for us here in Toronto, today?
What is Possible“and  Jesus replied, "What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
This phrase “possible with God” is echoed two other times in Luke:

• In the Annunciation, when Mary asks the angel “how is this possible?” 
• In garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, If it is Possible, May this Cup be ...”

 
These two other places show us where the hope comes in.

From today’s epistle Ephesians 2:15:
 “For he himself has…  broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two (Jews and Gentiles), thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.”

We are preparing to be a new temple with “Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,”

God works the impossible.  He takes the broken and weak and confounds the wise. He makes the blind see, and the barren give birth.  This is who he is, this is what he does.  So no matter how difficult, real change in ourselves (I know I don’t find it easy to change) is actually possible.  

But this isn’t an excuse to sit back and pat ourselves on the back knowing that we’ll all be saved in the end.   What is possible is the ability to repent.   St Gregory of Nyssa interpreted this as even the rich man can learn repentance.   God can turn my heart of ashes into flesh and transform me to real change.  God respects our will.   The young man turns away but I have a choice do I say yes or no. 

Him who strengthens me

So in the end, this all about grace, by bearing our nature to the depth of the Cross there is a chance we can be saved. 

Because of human sin, we are all losers; we’re all caught up in sin together. But in Christ we are all victorious; we are all winners. And it’s possible to win. It’s possible to endure anything.

Read how St. Paul describes what he had to endure, but all that was possible because…  “(with God) all things are possible”.  
That’s exactly how Paul says it: “I can do everything through him who strengthens me.”  So it is possible for human beings to be saints. In other words, it is possible for God’s plan to work.

It is possible that God’s Incarnation of a virgin and his death on the cross can really serve for the salvation, the sanctification, the illumination, the glorification, and the deification of human beings. This is all possible because, with God, all good, true, and right things, according to nature, are possible. And the human nature is such a nature that it is possible for a human being to live a divine life by faith and grace. That is possible, because with God all things are possible.

With God, God has done everything possible to save us, and with God, we can be saved. We can be glorified. We can be what God created us to be from the beginning, and we can be what he saved us to be.  In Him and through Him. 

Glory to God for this great mercy. 

Subdeacon Michael