Reunification is coming! The Time Is Now!

[MariaRegina]

So you say.

What do you say about Holy Communion being a symbol of unity. I'm not attacking - and I apologize if it was taken that way.

Don't you miss Holy Communion?

If you say the Church is united, where is everyone?

Christ is the Head of our Church, but where are the members? Why are we so scattered?

 

[Matrona]

Don't you miss Holy Communion?

I don't know about our Reformed Baptist friend, but every time a school break rolls around, I have to go the whole time without being able to go to church, and therefore without the Sacraments.

It's like having my heart cut out, honestly. I've never been allowed to go to services for Ascension, Pentecost, Transfiguration, or the Nativity of Our Lord. And someone can just walk away from that willingly? There weren't any dragging-me-away-kicking-and-screaming or death threats involved?

I just really can't see how someone could leave the Sacraments behind permanently. I mean, it's just inconceivable to me, that someone could walk away from the actual Body and Blood of Christ. Earlier tonight I realized that I'd rather sit for a thousand History finals than go home for Christmas, and I'm sitting here with my eyes red from crying because of how honestly pathetic that is!

 

[MariaRegina]

I don't know about our Reformed Baptist friend, but every time a school break rolls around, I have to go the whole time without being able to go to church, and therefore without the Sacraments.

It's like having my heart cut out, honestly. I've never been allowed to go to services for Ascension, Pentecost, Transfiguration, or the Nativity of Our Lord. And someone can just walk away from that willingly? There weren't any dragging-me-away-kicking-and-screaming or death threats involved?

I just really can't see how someone could leave the Sacraments behind permanently. I mean, it's just inconceivable to me, that someone could walk away from the actual Body and Blood of Christ. Earlier tonight I realized that I'd rather sit for a thousand History finals than go home for Christmas, and I'm sitting here with my eyes red from crying because of how honestly pathetic that is!

Sorry I just woke up and pushed all the wrong buttons. Today another final in English historical changes. Fun and games!

Here in America we have an Orthodox Missions group that goes into an area and searches the phone book for other people of Greek, Arabic, Romanian, Russian, etc descent. Then they mail out letters to them inviting them to a meeting. Also they have an Orthodoxy night with flyers posted at all the major businesses, etc. With the handful of people, they have reader services, vespers services and an occasional Divine Liturgy if the priest can get into town occasionally. That's an option for you. Perhaps if your country doesn't have an Evangelism and Missions Board you could request American aid from Primate Saliba through your local priest -- or ask our SCOBA mission group located in Florida - OCMC, because they start new missions all over the world.
Perhaps that is a way for an American Priest to get a brief foreign vacation.

Go for it!

 

[Polycarp1]

Mo' Nachos

Gee, Oblio, wouldn't that make you a Mo'nachist?

To get a bit more serious, I'd be interested in where you Orthodx see us Anglicans in the efforts at reunion.

Certainly we do a lot of things far differently than the Orthodox, and use a lot of Western formularies -- but our theology is moving much closer to what Orthodoxy has taught all along.

I'd be particularly interested in what Jeff the Finn has to say, as an ex Anglican now Orthodox.

 

[Matrona]

Dear chanter,

I guess I wasn't very clear before, I'm sorry. I live in the US; the reason I don't get to go to church when I'm with my parents is because they don't want me to. They don't like me going to church. There are three Orthodox churches in my hometown and I've never seen any of them. I was baptized in the city where I attend university, and that's where my home church is.

 

[MariaRegina]

Dear chanter,

I guess I wasn't very clear before, I'm sorry. I live in the US; the reason I don't get to go to church when I'm with my parents is because they don't want me to. They don't like me going to church. There are three Orthodox churches in my hometown and I've never seen any of them. I was baptized in the city where I attend university, and that's where my home church is.

Dear Matrona,

I will pray for your parents. Are they members of any church?

 

[Matrona]

Dear Matrona,

I will pray for your parents. Are they members of any church?

Dear Chanter, my parents do not attend church. They took my sister and I to a non-denominational church sometimes when we were little, but that's it. Now we don't even go on Christmas or Easter. Anyway, my family never talks about God... we didn't even when we went to church. I'm sorry if I'm turning into a chronic complainer... it's just going to be so depressing being with my folks when they're so... of the world, to borrow an expression.

Please continue to pray for my parents... today was the last time I'll be able to receive Holy Communion for three weeks, until after the new year. Possibly after Theophany, even. I just wish they would understand... even if they think that they do not need God... I'm not under their delusion!

 

[MariaRegina]

Dear Chanter, my parents do not attend church. They took my sister and I to a non-denominational church sometimes when we were little, but that's it. Now we don't even go on Christmas or Easter. Anyway, my family never talks about God... we didn't even when we went to church. I'm sorry if I'm turning into a chronic complainer... it's just going to be so depressing being with my folks when they're so... of the world, to borrow an expression.

Please continue to pray for my parents... today was the last time I'll be able to receive Holy Communion for three weeks, until after the new year. Possibly after Theophany, even. I just wish they would understand... even if they think that they do not need God... I'm not under their delusion!

Dear Matrona:

Do you have any friends who could go with you to church? Do you have use of a car? I either walked or drove myself to church when my parents didn't want to go. I always wore a skirt, so my parents didn't know if I was going shopping or to the Church. (You can put a skirt in your bag and change later.) If they'd ask me later if I did go to Church, I would say yes, that I had met a friend there. However, they rarely asked. My parents were happy that I would meet friends at church rather than at a bar or disco!

You can say, "I'm going over to visit one of my best friends, then I'm going to do some shopping. Do you want anything at the store?" If I said that, my parents would gladly give me a shopping list and some money to spend. Do some shopping right after Divine Liturgy. Christ is more than a best friend, so you're not lying. Legally, you are an adult.

Pascha is hard because most of the Holy Week and Pascha Services are at nighttime, but for the Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, most churches have a morning service.

If you call the church, there may be someone there that lives close by and could pick you up. If you don't want them to come to your house, you could always meet them at a corner away from your house. Once you meet a nice young fellow, they'd probably be tickled pink, even if he is from the Church.

Know that I will pray for you.


Lovingly in Christ,

Elizabeth

P.S. Remember to pray the Trisagion. Sometimes I would just walk around outside and sing it. I always feel close to God at those moments.

 

[MariaRegina]

Matrona, I wish I lived in your neck of the woods so that I could take you to church.

 

[Matrona]

Do you have any friends who could go with you to church? Do you have use of a car? I either walked or drove myself to church when my parents didn't want to go.

If I could drive, that's exactly what I would do, but I don't have a license. (Actually I'm hoping I can get my learners permit over break.) If I were to go to church I'd have to get my parents to go.

Pascha is hard because most of the Holy Week and Pascha Services are at nighttime, but for the Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, most churches have a morning service.

I'm hoping to somehow guilt-trip my parents into going to church for Christmas, at least. They have just enough of an affinity for Christianity in general that they might go for it. Any church would do... although I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope I can get us to go to the Antiochian one that's not far from my parents' house. They have a beeeeeeeautiful platytera icon there behind the altar, and I would so love to get my parents to love the Orthodox Church as much as I do. As it is, I feel like I live a double life. One life in which I can embrace my faith openly, and in the other I have to keep it under wraps and not mention it directly.

Once you meet a nice young fellow, they'd probably be tickled pink, even if he is from the Church.

I did meet a nice young fellow, but unfortunately he's already spoken for. Oh well, he'll be off to seminary pretty soon anyway. Recently our bishop was here, and seeing that my friend is attached and I'm not, the bishop told my friend that he should try to find a nice seminarian for me. (I hope my friend knows I'm gonna hold him to that... ) I responded by saying that if I wasn't married by the time I'm 30, my contingency plan is to move next door to a seminary anyway!

P.S. Remember to pray the Trisagion. Sometimes I would just walk around outside and sing it. I always feel close to God at those moments.

I love the Trisagion. I always repeat it silently to myself whenever I get scared or don't know what else to pray. It's such a comfort to me.

 

[Orthodox Andrew]

I can really relate to what you're going through with your family, Matrona. Although our situations are not exactly the same with our families, I still have similar issues that I have to deal with. For example, I live in a house with all "Greeks", however the mention of Orthodoxy or almost of anything to do with God, is usually met with people screaming that I'm crazy. However, I have learned that Orthodoxy is the path I choose, and I have really lost interest in them liking it or not. That's not to say that I never pray for them to fully embrace Christianity. Yet I have learned just to become happy in my life in Christ.

Just hang in there.

 

[Matrona]

Oh poor Andreas... I know just how you feel. Just concentrate on working out your own salvation and pray that they will recognize and perhaps even follow your example.

What I find funny is that my parents sort of have a preference for Christians, you know, they each had a typical Southern upbringing of occasional church but never really took it seriously. So since my sister moved in with her boyfriend, they've strongly disapproved... but they refuse to say anything bad to her, like, "We really wish you didn't do this" or anything. So, if you ask them, it's okay if I want to shack up with a boyfriend like a total prostitute, but if I embrace my spirituality and follow the faith that I find to be the absolute fulfillment of Christianity on earth... that's suddenly BAD?! It's all right if I want to have promiscuous premarital sex, but a capital offense if I want to spend a weekend in a monastery?!

I know it's mean to say it, but sometimes I feel like my parents are total freaks of nature!

 

[MariaRegina]

Matrona,

Have you ever read The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos Markides?

It seems like most parents have this fear of monasticism. They want grandchildren not a monastic child of theirs.

Anyway read the book as it may give you some ideas on how to deal with your parents. Fr. Maximos almost got killed by some angry parents who felt that he had stolen their children, but somehow he was able to turn them around. It's amazing what faith and prayer can do. I think he fasted a lot for them also.

 

[Reader Nilus]

It's all right if I want to have promiscuous premarital sex, but a capital offense if I want to spend a weekend in a monastery?!
I know it's mean to say it, but sometimes I feel like my parents are total freaks of nature!

I do not think that is so freakish, my parents were the same way, when I began to take the faith seriously. It may mean that it is easier to handle that one wants to live below the standard they set, even if they do not approve, than to live above the standard they set, which makes them guilty. Human nature is strange in that way.
Jeff the Finn

 

[Reformed Baptist]

Let's face it, the Latin church has wondered far from the path Orthodoxy has been walking for 2000 years. Rome will not give up it's papal throne and to allow it would be sinnful.

 

[Matrona]

Matrona,

Have you ever read The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos Markides?

It seems like most parents have this fear of monasticism. They want grandchildren not a monastic child of theirs.

Actually I was thinking about getting that for myself for Christmas! (I hardly ever have time to read Orthodox books: either I'm at home with the book police, or else I'm at school with my nose to the grindstone. I'm actually trying to dig into The Apostolic Fathers right now but it's going slow because of a last extra credit paper I'm trying to wrap up.) Maybe I can ask one of my friends if he has it.

Anyway read the book as it may give you some ideas on how to deal with your parents. Fr. Maximos almost got killed by some angry parents who felt that he had stolen their children, but somehow he was able to turn them around. It's amazing what faith and prayer can do. I think he fasted a lot for them also.

Whoa, Nelly!

I remember visiting a Trappist monastery in high school. The monks there would talk about how sometimes their parents flew off the handle or otherwise reacted oddly. One of them recalled how he'd told his parents he wanted to become a monk and his mother asked, "Well, what does that mean?" and his father said, "That means we'll never see him again."

This reminds me of the story of my patron saint. She was the daughter of wealthy people on an island in Greece. Her parents wanted her to marry but she ran away to live the monastic life in solitude. Her parents found her and forced her to come back home. She came back but still refused to marry, and seeing she was dead-set on being a nun, they allowed her to go back to her hermitage, provided she let one of her sisters bring food to her so that she wouldn't starve.

I try to keep the fast when I'm at home. I can't really help breaking it at dinner when we all eat together but I try to eat only fast-friendly things whenever I can prepare a meal for myself. Before I became Orthodox I was pretty well known for going through vegetarian phases so my parents don't think it's too unusual to see me eating a tofurkey and vegan-mayonnaise sandwich.

 

[Orthodox Andrew]

Oh poor Andreas... I know just how you feel. Just concentrate on working out your own salvation and pray that they will recognize and perhaps even follow your example.

Thanks. I sure hope they do.


God Bless.

 

[MariaRegina]

http://www.oca.org/pages/events/2003/10.October/1028MiamiFL-Protection/index.html

Is anyone near this oca monastery in Florida?

 

[nyj]

Perhaps the East will convert the West!

Save your converting efforts for those who need it. We most certainly don't need it, nor want it.

 

[Orthodox Andrew]

Save your converting efforts for those who need it. We most certainly don't need it, nor want it.

LOL