Enjoy the Master's hospitality!

Click on the photo to read our Christmas Letter!  Our letter shares a reflection on God's hospitality and also announces some exciting news!

If you would like to make a year-end tax-deductible donation to the monastery, please click here for instructions.  We are so grateful for your love, prayers and support!

May God bless you and your loved ones as we prepare for the beautiful feast of His Nativity!

"Through the Spirit, the prophet called out: This is our God and the Way.  There shall not be another but Him.  From Him you will discover the way of all knowledge.  He will take on our likeness by clothing Himself in the flesh of the virgin Handmaid of God.  He is coming to be born; He who is unapproachable by nature, is approachable to me" (Stichera from Vespers, Dec. 21).

Entering into the Love of the Trinity: Sr. Cecilia’s Reflection on the General Assembly

This is our second reflection on the Eparchy of Parma's General Assembly.  See our October 15th post for Sr. Gabriella's reflection.

After a powerful experience of the Mystery of Holy Repentance (confession) on Friday and as I sat down in the church, I felt strongly that there was something I needed to totally give over to God.  TOTALLY—to be able to say, “You can take this out of my life if You want to; I surrender it.” I panicked.  I was terrified to give this over TOTALLY.  But I immediately heard Jesus speak to my heart, almost in a sad tone of voice: “Do you think I won’t give it back to you?”  My stubborn heart was melted.  How could I refuse to surrender this gift to the One who loves me TOTALLY?  He was even telling me that He would give it back to me!  In the very instant I heard these words, I also understood that this statement didn’t mean that the thing I needed to give over would be given back to me in exactly the same way as I have it now, but I knew that it would come in the form that is exactly as I need it.

During the Assembly, God was speaking to my heart in a very personal way, yet this personal experience was not separate from my experience of being part of the Church.  In fact, it seemed to me that God was speaking the same things to the Church as He was speaking to my heart.  This makes so much sense.  Deacon Michael Lee explained that we are made to live in the context of the Church, and “without communion is despair.”

Here are a few other quotes that struck me during the Assembly (there were also many others!):

Fr. David Petras:
“We are in love with the Divine Liturgy…because this is God who gives Himself to us.”
“It is God who takes initiative.”

Deacon Michael Lee:
“The cross reveals God’s love;…we see an inkling of the love of the Trinity.”
“Look at what He did [giving Himself on the cross]…WHY DO WE DOUBT HIM?”

God loves us!  We are loved by infinite love!  And yet, Deacon Michael reminded us, as he spoke about the love of the Trinity revealed through the cross: “We are supposed to have that kind of love for each other.”  “We find ourselves only in the sincere gift of self,” he said.  We were created for no less than to enter into the love of the Trinity—to enter into a continual life-giving cycle of self-emptying and receiving!  Our Church, founded by Christ, was made for no less than this!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “God’s very being is love.  By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange” (221).

When we look at our relationships with God and others in terms of this “eternal exchange of love”—this cycle of self-emptying and receiving—we understand what it means to be Church and what it means to be human.  And when we discern that God is asking something particular of us, we will be able to see how His request fits into this life-giving cycle (or at least trust that it does!).  We will know that whatever He asks us to let go of, He will give back in greater measure!

Sharing in God's Serenity: Sr. Gabriella's Reflection on the General Assembly

Our previous post included the witness videos from our eparchy's General Assembly which took place last month.  The Assembly was a powerful experience for each of us and for the eparchy; therefore we would like to reflect on it, especially during this time when the parishes are holding follow-up sessions.  We hope that our reflections will also benefit those outside the Eparchy of Parma!

In his book Courage to Pray, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom writes:

“Often we are in tumult… That is why our prayer is trembling and hesitant, a prayer of tumult, uncertainty and incoherence.  Isn’t this the story of the storm on the lake of Galilee?  The Lord and his disciples are on the lake.  A tempest comes up when they are out to sea.  Death threatens them, the waves are huge, the winds beat against them.  They fight for their lives as hard as they can, and all this while the Lord is asleep on a cushion at the prow.  He looks comfortable to them.  They can’t bear him looking so comfortable, his indifference.  In their wretchedness they turn to him, wake him up, try to force him to realize what is happening.  ‘Lord, do you not see that we perish?’  But what are they doing by asking this question?  Are they appealing to the Lord to control the storm?  Yes and no.  First of all they want him to share their suffering.  They want him to be as anxious as they are.  They think he will not help them unless he shares their anxiety.  The Lord gets up, he refuses to share their panic.  He keeps his own serenity.  First he turns to them, ‘How long must I be with you, men of little faith?’  And then he turns towards the storm, and casts his own serenity onto it.  He orders the waves to be still and the wind to be silent, and his own peace to come down on everything about him.  The storm is still and the disciples fall at his feet.  Who is he?  They are still doubtful.  We often make the same mistake.  Instead of seeking to share God’s serenity, we ask God to share our tumult.  Of course he does share it, but with his own serenity.”

While reflecting on the Assembly, I read this excerpt from Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s book, Courage to Pray, and I saw a few things that made a lot of sense to me.  First of all, I saw myself – in my own sinfulness, restless in the tumult of my own life, seeking Christ to calm the storm – instead of curling up with Him in the helm and realizing the God who I love can conquer all and has all under control.  I am the problem.  How often I am the small child yelling for my Father to “Fix it!” instead of the trusting child, curled up in His lap, assured that He is in control.

Next I saw our Byzantine Church, scared about what is coming next: “How will everything turn out, how will we keep this or that church open, where are the young people?!”  I saw our Church rushing to Jesus asleep in the boat, shaking Him, demanding Him to share in our anxiety – seeing only our fears of the future, not His insurmountable wisdom and power at work – the work that needs both death and resurrection in order to be complete.

Then I looked at myself and our Church in light of the Assembly and I felt a sense of peace.  Serenity.  Trust.  Openness.  After experiencing such a weekend of prayer, opportunities for forgiveness, times of personal and communal reflection, talks on Jesus, Mary and prayer, witnesses of Christ working in the lives of people – my heart is moved.  I felt on a personal level what I would venture to say everyone present on group level experienced, which is a true revival of faith, hope and trust in God and in prayer and a greater appreciation for our shepherd and father, Bishop John, who valiantly led all of us through the experience.

What a weekend it was!  I dare to say we and future generations will look back at this Assembly and see it as a decisive moment in the history of the Eparchy of Parma.  Now it’s up to each one of us – clergy, monastics, and laity – to embody the fervor, to enflesh the zeal, to incarnate the Gospel of Jesus Christ we received at the Assembly or that we will receive through the subsequent meetings.  We need to see the Church in a new light – one of hope, one of trust, one of expectation.  We need to act now not as one dead but as one truly alive.  As St. Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.”  Let us make St. Paul’s words to the Galatians our own:  “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (2:19-20).

"Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses..."

We promised to post a longer article about our girls' camp, and although we are a bit behind, we still wanted to share with you about this fruitful weekend that took place here earlier this summer!  This is the article that appeared in the most recent issue of our eparchial newspaper, Horizons.  To view our photos, click here!

“We are witnesses” was the theme for the fifth annual Life in Christ Girls’ Sleepover Weekend (“Girls’ Camp”) June 27-30, 2013.  Fifteen teen girls from Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin, along with seven young adult facilitators, camped out at Christ the Bridegroom Monastery in Burton, Ohio, for a weekend of prayer, talks, discussion and fun.

Stephanie Packard, 18, of St. Mary parish in Cleveland, said, “It helped me to grow closer to Christ and to return back to Him.”  Another participant commented, “I realized how much I don’t talk to God.  I found my vocation and healed over a past experience during the talks and confession.”

The four-day camp is sponsored by the Eparchy of Parma’s Office of Vocations.  The participants heard from speakers representing each of the vocations in the Church, who spoke about their call to holiness within their vocations and about their favorite saints and the importance of praying to the saints.  This gave the girls an important opportunity to reflect on the way that God is leading them during this time of their life.  One participant said, “I had said ‘yes’ to Christ countless times, but this weekend I shouted ‘yes’ with my whole heart.”

The weekend began on Thursday evening with a documentary on the life of St. Maria Goretti, followed by discussion.  The girls were surprised by the patience of St. Maria in her everyday life, her example of purity and her forgiveness of her murderer.  On Friday morning, Sr. Cecilia and Sr. Gabriella, of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, spoke about the call of each person to be a saint.  A saint, they said, is someone who is holy, and “holy” means to be “set apart.” Therefore, holiness is not first a matter of “doing” but of “being”; it is a gift from God.  They shared the ways in which we open ourselves to the gift of holiness: through prayer and the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments).  The Sisters then talked about the examples the Church gives to us in the canonized saints.

Leah VanDine, 15, of St. Mary in Cleveland, said, “My favorite part of the weekend was the entire moral of the weekend, ‘We are Witnesses,’ because it helped me come to see the holiness in myself and in others and our spiritual need to be saintly.”

Young adult facilitator Stephanie Bullock spoke about the single life, particularly the temporary state of singleness as a special time of grace and growing in holiness while discerning one’s ultimate vocation.  Young adult couple Art and Maggie Klatt spoke about the vocation to marriage and the challenges and joys of seeking holiness through setting aside self out of love for God, spouse and family.  Mother Theodora, of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, spoke about the vocation to the monastic life and shared her journey of discernment.

The camp also included plenty of fun and prayer.  One participant said, “It is the most amazing experience to be with so many girls from all over the country and truly come together.”

On Saturday evening, young adult Rob Fetsko of Holy Transfiguration parish in Mentor, Ohio, gave a moving talk to the girls about their inherent dignity as daughters of God.  “You are beautiful just as you are,” he said.  He explained that when young women understand their dignity and live in a way that demonstrates that, it helps young men to be who they are called to be.   The girls then participated in the Mystery of Holy Repentance (Confession) and spent the evening in personal prayer in the gentle glow of candle-lit icons.  Emily Clark, 15, of St. Francis de Sales parish in Akron, Ohio, said, “My favorite part of the weekend was the confessions because it was awesome and freeing.”

The weekend culminated with a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch, across the street from the monastery.  The girls and their families joined the Boys’ Camp participants and their families for this moving, youth-cantored liturgy with Bishop John, followed by lunch and an awards program.

Megan Tucholski, 16, of Holy Spirit parish in Parma, Ohio, said of the weekend, “It strengthened my relationship [with Jesus Christ] because I got time to find Him and also to find myself.”  To young women considering next year’s camp, Mae Martin, 16, of St. Stephen parish in Allen Park, Mich., advises, “It’s so fun and peaceful and awesome!  You have to come.”

Pope Francis, St. Andrew of Crete, St. Mary of Egypt...

We were blessed to have the opportunity to watch the announcement of the new pope live on the internet (we don't have television).  We delayed the start of our Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (the Lenten evening Liturgy celebrated on Wednesdays and Fridays) to watch, and then began the Liturgy...so it was probably one of the first liturgies to commemorate Pope Francis!  We are thrilled to welcome and pray for our new Holy Father!

Check out this article: Pope Francis is very familiar with the Byzantine Catholic Divine Liturgy!

On Thursday we led the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Parma, Ohio, joined by about 30 others who came to pray with us.  The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, prayed in the Eastern Church on Thursday of the 5th Week of the Great Fast (Lent), takes us on a journey through the entire Bible, placing us in the shoes of all the penitents of the Old and New Testaments and teaching us from their examples.  The hundreds of prostrations unite our body and soul as we repent of our sins and experience God's mercy.  It was truly a moving experience for us, not only because of the beauty and intensity of the service, but also because of the unity we felt with those who came to pray with us.    Their deep prayer and perseverance lifted us up off the ground after each prostration and filled us with great energy!  Thank you!

This short video is a small look into this beautiful three-hour long service:

Happy Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt!  (Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast)  We are praying for you as we complete the Fast and enter into Great and Holy Week!

"Once filled with all kinds of evil, now through repentence she appears as a bride of Christ.  Leading an angelic life, she crushes the devils with the help of the Cross.  Therefore, the venerable Mary has become a bride of the the kingdom." (Kontakion of St. Mary of Egypt)

The story of St. Mary of Egypt--a great read if you have time!

“This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

(This article was written as a reflection for the Byzantine Catholic Vocations Facebook Page - be sure to check out this great endeavor for our metropolitan church!)

On this fourth Sunday of Lent, we commemorate St. John Climacus, a seventh century monk known most popularly for his work, ‘The Ladder of Divine Ascent,’ which is a treatise on the importance of asceticism as a means of attaining spiritual perfection.  The two main ascetical efforts undertaken by the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Byzantine Church during the Great Fast are prayer and fasting.  But why?  Why prayer and fasting?

Prayer is our relationship with God, our connection to the Divine.  It moves our hearts and minds outside of our earthly home, and allows us to lift our “eyes to the hills” because our “help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” (Ps 121:1-2)  Often times though, we have trouble praying because we are very attached to this world.  To things, people, food – you name it, we grasp for it.  Fasting attempts to break the hold of these temporal or transitory goods on us in a tangible way so that we may remember that the good things God gives us are just that – gifts provided by God and are not God in and of themselves.  It allows us to take a step back from these essential goods in our life and remind ourselves that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4), that is Jesus Christ.  In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, fasting combined with prayer “allow [Christ] to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.”

There are also times in our life (or rather in our hearts) when we experience demons that can only be cast out through prayer and fasting.  We hear in the gospel today about a faith-filled father who approaches Christ on behalf of his demon-possessed son.    Because of the father’s great act of faith, Jesus is able to heal his son – but this healing causes a stir among the disciples.  “Why could we not cast him out?”  Jesus responds, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”  When we encounter such demons, or even harder, the inner reality of our own sinful heart, we realize that prayer and fasting become not just an ascetical effort but a way of life, a necessity to our salvation and a pathway by which we purge our hearts, minds and bodies of the demons or sins that possess us.

According to our Typikon or rule of life, “Fasting is one of the pillars of monastic life and an important tool in attaining detachment, freedom and self-discipline.”  In the tradition of our Holy Fathers, such as St. John Climacus who we commemorate today, monastics participate in the traditional ‘black fast’ for the 40 days of the Great Fast and Holy Week, which means we fast from meat, dairy, wine and oil.  (Yes, there are in fact still some food groups available outside of these categories!)

For monastics, fasting becomes our way of life.  We first learn to fast from food but that external fasting reminds and leads us to the internal reality that I mentioned before – God alone satisfies our hunger.  But we are human – and sometimes are very forgetful. (Perhaps I just speak for myself!)  For this reason, the Church in her Wisdom combines prayer with our fasting.  Again from our Typikon, “However, fasting is not an end in itself….Fasting must always be joined with prayer. Therefore the periods of fasting in the monastery coincide with the liturgical cycle of the Church. In this way, fasting also creates a spirit of expectation and joy as the monastery looks forward to the coming feast.”  By living out our fasting in conjunction with the Church’s liturgical cycle, we are constantly reminded of why we fast  through the prayers we pray and our prayer directs our attention back towards God, the One we desire to fill us.  Just remember, fasting without prayer is simply dieting!  Our fasting must serve a purpose; otherwise we become “a resounding gong or a clashing symbol.” (1 Cor 13:1)

Remember, it is never too late to participate in the Great Fast!  If you haven’t kept your Lenten promises to yourself or you never got around to coming up with any, ‘plug in’ to the wisdom of the Church and pick one of the items of the traditional fast to give up! (Or all of them!)  Find a Lenten prayer service to attend at your church (or at a monastery!) or try praying the Prayer of St. Ephrem.  Offer up these sacrifices for the intention of finding your vocation!  Allow these final weeks of the Great Fast to engage your mind and heart in a new way through the prayer and fasting tradition of the Church, so that when we reach Pascha, you will truly know Christ is RISEN, body and soul!

Bright Sadness

This post is especially for you if:

A: You are saying to yourself, "I really don't have time to read this right now," or

B: You are known to complain (in your head or otherwise) about the length of church services!

In this second week of the Great Fast, we would like to share with you one of our favorite chapters from the book "Great Lent" by Fr. Alexander Schmemann.  This book is our current dinner reading, and we recommend it to you (especially Byzantine Catholics, Orthodox and those who would like to better understand our Eastern tradition).

Chapter Two: The Lenten Worship
Part 1: "Bright Sadness"

For many, if not for the majority of Orthodox Christians [and Catholics too (our note)], Lent consists of a limited number of formal, predominantly negative, rule and prescriptions: abstention from certain food, dancing, perhaps movies.  Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is "something else"in Lent--something without which all these prescriptions lose much of their meaning.  This "something else"can best be described as an "atmosphere," a "climate" into which one enters, as first of all a state of mind, soul, and spirit which for seven weeks permeates our entire life.  Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to "soften"our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden "thirst and hunger" for communion with God.

This lenten "atmosphere," this unique "state of mind," is brought about mainly by means of worship, by the various changes introduced during that season into the liturgical life.  Considered separately, these changes may appear as incomprehensible "rubrics," as formal prescriptions to be formally adhered to; but understood as a whole, they reveal and communicate the spirit of Lent, they make us see, feel, and experience that bright sadness which is the true message and gift of Lent  One can say without exaggeration that the spiritual fathers and the sacred writers who composed the hymns of the Lenten Triodion, who little by little organized the general structures of the lenten services, who adorned the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts with that special beauty which is proper to it, had a unique understanding of the human soul.  They truly knew the art of repentance, and every year during Lent they make this art accessible to everyone who has ears to hear and eyes to see.

The general impression, I said, is that of "bright sadness."  Even a man having only a limited knowledge of worship who enters a church during a lenten service would understand almost immediately, I am sure, what is meant by this somewhat contradictory expression.  On the one hand, a certain quiet sadness permeates the service: vestments are dark, the services are longer than usual and more monotonous, there is almost no movement.  Readings and chants alternate yet nothing seems to "happen." At regular intervals the priest comes out of the sanctuary and reads always the same short prayer, and the whole congregation punctuates every petition of that prayer with prostrations.  Thus, for a long time we stand in this monotony--in this quiet sadness.

But then we begin to realize that this very length and monotony are needed if we are to experience the secret and at first unnoticeable "action" of the service in us.  Little by little we begin to understand, or rather to feel, that this sadness is indeed "bright," that a mysterious transformation is about to take place in us.  It is as if we were reaching a place to which the noises and the fuss of life, of the street, of all that which usually fills our days and even nights, have no access--a place where they have no power.  All that which seemed so tremendously important to us as to fill our mind, that state of anxiety which has virtually become our second nature, disappear somewhere and we begin to feel free, light and happy.  It is not the noisy and superficial happiness which comes and goes twenty times a day and is so fragile and fugitive; it is a deep happiness which comes not from a single and particular reason but from our soul having, in the words of Dostoevsky, touched "another world."  And that which it has touched is made up of light and peace and joy, of an inexpressible trust.  We understand then why the services had to be long and seemingly monotonous.  We understand that it is simply impossible to pass from our normal state of mind made up almost entirely of fuss, rush, and care, into this new one without first "quieting down," without restoring in ourselves a measure of inner stability.  This is why those who think of church services only in terms of "obligations," who always inquire about the required minimum ("How often must we got to church?" "How often must we pray?") can never understand the true nature of worship which is to take us into a different world--that of God's Presence!--but to to take us there slowly because our fallen nature has lost the ability to accede there naturally.

Thus, as we experience this mysterious liberation, as we become "light and peaceful," the monotony and the sadness of the service acquire a new significance, they are transfigured.  An inner beauty illumines them like an early ray of the sun which, while it is still dark in the valley, begins to lighten up the top of the mountain.  This light and secret joy come from the long alleluias, from the entire "tonality" of lenten worship.  What at first appeared as monotony now is revealed as peace; what sounded like sadness is now experienced as the very first movements of the soul recovering its lost depth.  This is what the first verse of the lenten alleluia proclaims every morning: "My soul has desired Thee in the night, O God, before dawn, for Thy judgments are a light upon the earth!"

"Sad brightness": the sadness of my exile, of the waste I have made of my life; the brightness of God's presence and forgiveness, the joy of the recovered desire for God, the peace of the recovered home.  Such is the climate of lenten worship; such is its first and general impact on my soul.

"The waters beheld You and they trembled"

Blessing our pond!

Happy Feast of the Theophany!

Packed with profound imagery, all of the lengthy prayers from the Great Blessing of Water teach us so much about our faith.  How could we pick just one part?  Well, I guess we have to narrow it down, since this is a blog, after all.  But if you've never experienced the Great Blessing and would like to read it, you can check it out at this link.  Here is one of my favorite sections of one of the prayers of the priest:

"The waters beheld You, O Lord; the waters beheld You and they trembled.  The river Jordan turns back on its course as it beholds the fire of the Godhead coming down upon it and entering it in the flesh.  The river Jordan turns back in its course as it beholds the Holy Spirit descending in the likeness of a dove, and hovering over you.  The river Jordan turns back in its course as it beholds the Invisible made visible, the Creator existing in the flesh, and the Master in the likeness of a servant. The river Jordan turns back in its course, and the mountains leap for joy as they behold God in the flesh.  And the clouds give voice and are filled with awe by the One who is coming, Light of Light, true God of true God; the One who, in the river Jordan, has drowned to death sin, the thorn of error, and the bonds of hell, and granted the baptism of salvation to the world"  (From the Great Blessing of Water).

Mother blesses each person on the forehead with honey

A group of young adults joined us to celebrate the Vigil of Theophany (the Baptism of Our Lord) this weekend.  The highlight of the weekend was the three-hour service on Saturday afternoon that included vespers, the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, the Great Blessing of Water and the blessing of our monastery and our pond.  It was a marathon of prayer!  (But it really didn't feel like three hours!)  Earlier in the day, two of the young adults went out and made a hole in the ice on the pond so that the priest could drop the cross in the water, as is tradition!  (It is also tradition that someone dives in and retrieves the cross...we didn't participate in that part of the tradition!)  After the service, we enjoyed the traditional Velija (Vigil) Supper which is similar to the supper on Christmas Eve.  It was fun to share the traditions (and delicious food) of this supper with our guests, several of whom have never experienced it.

Please enjoy this photo album from the Feast!  And remember to "like" our page on Facebook so that you can view more photos and quotes as we post them!