"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.
All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
(1 Corinthians 6, 12)
The need for faith to well discern
the work of God in our lives and the Church
September 1st
At the beginning of the ecclesiastical new year the Church invite us to pray "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence" (1 Timothy 2, 2). The beginning of the Church year is a renewed occasion in which to remember the good order of our personal life but also of the public life. One without another does not really exist. Without a personal life in good order we cannot have a community, a society, living peacefully and having a life in good order because we cannot establish friendships or stable and sound personal relationships. But also, a well -ordered social life can help a troublesome person to take note and to correct the improper things in her life by seeing the examples and order of others.
The basis of this good personal and social, community order is the result of faith. St. Paul says: "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all (...)" (1 Timothy 2, 5-6). The good order of someone’s life has its source in a clear and transparent faith from which the values that will be reflected in daily life in society springs.
There is first for the Christian a sure, transcendent reality, - God. There have been other times and other systems of faith, but what is specific to the Christian faith is the uniqueness of God. God is one and this means a unity of vision and thinking as people.
Harmony and coherence as persons and society involves a unique foundation, which means faith in one God. Faith in God was also one of the essential elements by which the Christian faith was convincing in the face of pagan polytheism. From this faith in the unity and uniqueness of the Christian God, the unmeasurable value of man and the world created by Him also springs. Man is the only one created in the image and resemblance of God, 'an absolute immanent' that reflects over time the absolute infinity of the intemporal and transcendent God. Our stature, the one with which we are born and grow in the Church, is a human one transfigured by grace. Our duty of Christians is to transfigure our lives through the force of God's grace.
In concrete way it comes through the direct work of our mediator to God who is Jesus Christ. Through His perfect sacrifice He offer Himself to the Father in order to renew us. That is why our way of working our renewal and transfiguration cannot be done otherwise than according to the model and the grace of the work of Christ.
St. Paul says that all are allowed to man but not all are useful. All is possible to man, but it does not need everything. For everything that is not based on the faith in the One God and the unique mediating work of Christ is not useful. The benefit is viewed in Christian understanding as the actions a person takes to grow spiritually and morally in alignment with God's plan. True usefulness is found in activities and endeavors that are rooted in this spiritual foundation.
The temptation is the ease of selfish choice and the illusory fascination of self-divinisation, the belief that we can replace God with our own limited understanding, thinking and deed. It is the temptation in which the first man fell: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3, 5).
That is why the Church at the beginning of the year invites us all to address prayers to God because this reminds us who we are and lays our lives on the true and eternal foundation - that is, the Word of God. This is our right identity, that of creature of God meant to reflect its Creator.
Each beginning of the ecclesiastical year, every moment of prayer, every Holy Liturgy or every Holy Sacrament, each demand addressed to God, is an exercise in humility that reminds us and possibly brings us back to the true living in God. This should be the target of everything we do - life in God. From this we understand what is useful to us and what is not.
We see in our contemporary world much violence, wickedness and lie. Let us grow and overcome everything evil with the help of the grace of God by kindness, love, faith, hope and harmony. Let us become a single body of Christ to work on the acquisition of the eternal kingdom and the salvation of all. Let us not be overcome by wickedness and chaos. Let the light, the joy and the blessing of God protect us and penetrate us to the depths of our deepest being in order to feel the synergic work of God that will be in our personal and social life.
Let us not remain silent in the face of injustices, ideologies of modern times, lie, persecutions of any kind, of any kind of teaching that leads to the spiritual and human impoverishment of the person. The work of Christ and the Church is that of transfiguring the human nature through divine grace and glory.
Christ urges us: " But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (...) Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5; 44-45, 48).
Let us embrace everybody with love and unlimited divine embracing. Let us fill our souls and life with sacrificial, redeeming, and boundless love of Christ in order to be able to resemble to Him more and more. That's how the older or the newer saints have done. Let's follow their way and life, words and deeds. Let us be disciples worthy of the example they offered.
At this beginning of the ecclesiastical New Year I wish everyone - clergy and believers - grace, joy and blessing from God and from us humble prayer.
+Ioan Casian
Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada
