Speaking "the wonderful works of God"

Happy Feast of Pentecost! Below is a reflection from Sister Natalia.

In preparation for Pentecost and for a letter I was writing to my home parish, I was praying with the Vespers and Divine Liturgy readings for the feast. My gaze kept coming back to the last line of the reading from Acts, so I took some time to reflect on it: “We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” Through this verse, our Bridegroom gently convicted me of a couple things that I’d like to share with you.

First of all, I realized I had never really thought about what the disciples said at Pentecost. I’ve just thought the miracle of each hearing their own language was pretty rad. So, for the first time I noticed what it was the disciples shared: “The wonderful works of God.” I thought about how often, especially recently, I can share my negative experiences, frustrations, complaints, with my sisters and friends much more readily and/or in-depth than the positive experiences, the joys, the good fruits. I thought about the last time pre-Pentecost we know people spoke in a common language, which of course was prior to the “Tower of Babel” shenanigans. But that was a language of pride and self-reliance, of people trying to make gods of themselves. This common language at Pentecost was one of love, of people desiring to glorify God. We are all called to be Christ’s disciples, to accept the gift of the Holy Spirit, and to speak this latter language. We are blessed in our modern society to either speak the same verbal language as most of the people around us, or at least have pretty easy access to Google Translate. But do we take advantage of this gift, and speak of the “wonderful works of God,” or do we abuse the gift and instead have conversations that are anything but uplifting and edifying?

Secondly, I thought about my struggles sometimes in conversing with certain friends or family members. I love them very much but can feel at a loss for words because we just don’t seem to have anything in common anymore. But is that really true? Even beyond the superficial commonalities of sharing a family and memories, aren’t there deeper connections that maybe I’m just not open to seeing? I think all humans struggle, to some extent, with the same wounds. Sure, when I doubt that I’m loved it can cause insecurity in my relationships, whereas when this or that family member doubts that he or she is loved it can cause them to wear a mask of arrogance. But is it not really the same wound of doubting we are loved? I think sometimes the Lord is calling me to speak to that wound (among many others) with people, to be healed together, and together to speak of “the wonderful works of God.” Yet I often am hesitant to “go there,” because it feels awkward or too intense. 


I encourage you this day, friends, to take a couple things to prayer. First, ask the Lord to help you be more aware of what ways your conversations and interactions glorify Him and in what ways you need to purify those conversations. And when He shows you the latter, don’t be ashamed or despairing, simply ask Him to help you grow. Also, ask Him if there are people in your life to whom He desires you to reach out, and make an effort to find common ground. I know it’s not always easy to put forth that effort, but when it causes you and others to become more intimate with Christ, I promise it’s worth it. Please pray for me that I may do the same!

The Anointing of Love

Today on the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing women I am reflecting back on a grace the Lord worked in my heart a few years ago – a grace which still affects me deeply to this day. I had been sick in bed during Holy Week and feeling frustrated that I was missing all the services and “missing” all my prayer times. At last on Holy Saturday I was well enough to go, at least, to my icon corner in my room, for some quiet, upright prayer (those of you who are sick, know how cherished these upright moments are). But my hands were unsteady, and as I poured oil into my hanging lamp, I accidentally spilled oil all over my icon corner. Instead of having the prayer time that I so desired, I had to spend the next hour trying to clean up the mess. What a waste, I thought.

The next day, after all the Paschal services, my spiritual father unexpectedly stopped by. In an attempt to be funny, I asked him, “I know what Jesus says about the wise virgins who have oil in their lamps and about the unwise virgins who run out, but what about the ones who spill their oil all over their icon corners?” Instead of laughing, he looked at me very seriously and said, “You are the woman who poured her oil over Jesus.” My heart was immediately stirred.

Later the Lord would show me that just as the oil poured over Jesus was not a waste, so too our love is poured out but never wasted. I could see now how often I had been afraid to “waste” my love because I thought it would not be received. Or worse yet, I feared giving my love to those who didn’t “deserve” it. But I was seeing more clearly than ever that I was most called to pour my love out over the seemingly “undeserving,” and that my love would never be wasted. I did not need to worry about controlling the outcomes of this pouring out, but to unite it to Him who would use it in any way that He wished. I realized that as I poured oil over the “least of these” my brethren (see Mt 25:40), I was pouring it over the wounds of Jesus. This love was a consolation to His wounded heart. I had felt so frustrated and inconvenienced by the oil spill because I thought it had taken away my prayer time, not realizing that this oil spill was extremely valuable prayer time.

As this reflection began to permeate and settle into the pores of my heart, my eyes were opened to deeper levels of understanding. The Myrrh-bearing women planned to anoint part of the dead body of Jesus, but their mission failed. They were sent instead to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen. They were called, in other words, not to anoint part of the dead body of Jesus, but the whole living body of Jesus, the Church. We are, each one of us, called to anoint every member of His body, from the weakest to the strongest. We are called to love. We are called to give what we have received from Him.

Sister Iliana

Lazarus: A witness to glory

Today we celebrate Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. While we were in the Holy Land last year, we were able to visit the tomb of Lazarus in Bethany, and it was a powerful moment of prayer for me, because Lazarus has taught me so much the past couple years. My favorite aspect of the story of Lazarus is the reminder that we are all called to witness to God’s glory, to allow others access to Christ in us, though we can frequently feel shy about it.

One of the Gospel readings tomorrow (the one for Palm Sunday, not the Annunciation) says, “Then a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead” (Jn 12:9). The Jews wanted to, in some way, see this miracle of Jesus with their own eyes. They wanted to see Lazarus for no reason except because Jesus had done profound things in his life. And is this not now a responsibility of Lazarus – to witness to God’s glory? I remember being embarrassed after sending my home parish a letter which included a beautiful meditation God had gifted me, which transformed me. But who am I to hold back from sharing with others the miracles our Bridegroom has worked in my life?

Last year, as I prayed with the icon of Palm Sunday, I was struck by something similar. The children are throwing the clothes under the feet of the donkey. Of course, I know the story, but in the icon, something hit me for the first time – Christ’s feet are not on the ground. He is not at risk of getting dirty. They are putting their clothes out for the donkey to step on. Did that donkey do anything to deserve such treatment? Only being a vessel for the Bridegroom’s glory.

I find these two incidents very related because…what did Lazarus “do” to allow others to see God’s glory? Well…not much. He died. He didn’t raise himself from the dead. All the power was God’s. What did the donkey “do” to deserve special treatment? Again…not much. He just let Jesus do His thing. Sometimes I struggle to share with others the work Christ has done in my own life, but Lazarus reminds me of part of a homily I recently heard: when God gives us a gift, be it a particular strength or a consolation…that gift is not ours to keep for ourselves, to grasp with a tight grip. We must let Him use that same gift for others, through us. This takes discernment, to be sure. There are parts of our heart and parts of our prayer life that are meant to be between only us and our Spouse. However, when you feel that tug on your heart that is Jesus asking you to let others see the parts of your life He has resurrected, to let Him use you as a vessel of His glory, I encourage you to say “yes” to that, recognizing with all humility that you are showing not your own power, but the power of our all-loving, all-merciful Savior.

Sister Natalia

A story of hope for the desert

Today, the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, is dedicated to the memory of our holy mother St. Mary of Egypt.  Oh, we need her by this point in the Fast!  I need her every day I live in the monastic desert…  I first encountered St. Mary of Egypt during the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete last Lent (2017), at which we read aloud the story of her life recorded by St. Sophronius.  This saint, one of the great treasures of the Christian East, was entirely unknown to me, coming as I do from the Christian West.  Listening to her story, I was moved to tears, and as I read the ending aloud, I had to keep pausing between sentences to swallow my emotion and take deep breaths lest the sobs welling up from my heart burst forth.  She is a beacon of hope for us sinners!  I began praying, in a personal way, to St. Mary of Egypt when we went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land last summer.  I was aware that my motives for pilgrimage were not entirely pure, a mixture of worldly curiosity, a natural desire for adventure, and spiritual desire.  I thought, who knows more about pilgrimaging with impure motives than this harlot who went aboard a boat of pilgrims sailing from Egypt to Jerusalem, intending to pay her way by seducing the men on board?!  But while this woman lived a life of flagrant sin, her heart was not hardened, but remained receptive to the grace of conversion.  Arriving in Jerusalem, she approached the Church of the Resurrection (The Holy Sepulchre) to join the pilgrims who were streaming in to venerate the relics of the True Cross.  Three times she tried to enter, and three times her entrance into the holy place was halted by invisible forces.  Though people entered around her, she simply could not cross the threshold!  Then, grace broke through:  "The word of salvation gently touched the eyes of my heart and revealed to me that it was my unclean life which barred the entrance to me.  I began to weep and lament...and to sigh from the depths of my heart."  Welling up in the heart of this sinful woman was a desire for salvation, a sigh that led, not to self-pity, but to repentance!

Mary turned in prayer to the Theotokos, the Mother of God, confiding herself to her maternal intercession and guidance:  "I have heard that God Who was born of you became a man on purpose to call sinners to repentance.  Then help me, for I have no other help... Be my faithful witness before your Son... I will renounce the world and its temptations and will go wherever you lead me."  Then, she was able to approach the Cross and to bow before the wood on which Christ's Blood poured out to cleanse her of her sins.  Giving thanks to the Theotokos for her help, she committed her life to Christ, asking His Mother to guide her.  The Theotokos told Mary, "If you cross the Jordan, you will find rest."  Immediately, she went to St. John the Baptist Monastery on the banks of the Jordan River, where she received the sacraments, and then she crossed the Jordan and wandered into the wilderness where she did battle with demons, with wild beasts, and with her own sinful nature.  She related to St. Zosimos that, "after the violent storm [of seventeen years!], lasting calm descended," and she lived in the desert until her death 30 years later (for a total of 47 years in the desert--she died in her mid-sixties).

Mary was present to me on our pilgrimage:  I saw her icon on the walls of the Orthodox Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, of the Melkite Emmanuel Monastery in Bethlehem, of St. Peter Gallicantu in Jerusalem.  We found the ancient icon, cracked with age, before which Mary pled for the prayers of the Theotokos.  Our guide directed us up steps, through a chapel, and to a roof courtyard up in the Coptic section of the Holy Sepulchre where we found to the arched doorway (now closed up) that Mary had been unable to enter all those centuries ago.  I set a small icon of her on the stones of the wall, and we sang her tropar with awe and gratitude for this saintly friend.

But it was in the months after the Holy Land, as Jesus led me deep into a spiritual desert in which I encountered very deeply the poverty and emptiness of my yearning heart, that I knew Mary close to me, interceding for me, teaching me as the Desert Mother that she is.  She teaches us to live and to love in the desert.  From the world's perspective, it is as much madness to enter the monastic life (or to embark on the difficult path of Christian discipleship) as it is to go into the desert, seeking God by prayer, silence, and a life given wholly over to God for the sake of the world.  But Mary knows that Love led her into the desert so that she could be all His.  And, belonging totally to the Holy Trinity, in the mystery of the Communion of Saints, she belongs also to us, the faithful who still trudge along desert roads under the burning sun.  Mary lived the words of Hosea the Prophet: "I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her... I will espouse you in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.  I will espouse you in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord” (2:16, 19-20).  The Church sings of this saint, "By the Cross, you annihilated the horde of demons; for this you are a bride now in the Kingdom of Heaven" (kontakion for her feast, April 1).  May she also pray for us, that we would wield well the weapon of the Cross against the hordes of hell until we, too, are admitted to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

Sister Petra

Tonsure photos, and Sr. Petra shares about St. Peter

Sr. Petra was tonsured as a rasophore nun on Feb. 1. Enjoy these photos from her tonsure.

Before a dokimos is tonsured, she asks the Lord to place in her heart three names that she will submit to the Hegumena (superior of the monastery). The Hegumena then asks the Holy Spirit for guidance and clarity in choosing one of these names (or another) which the dokimos will receive at her tonsure as a sign of her new life consecrated to Christ the Bridegroom. In our monastery, the dokimos submits to the Hegumena not only the three names, but also a written explanation about each of them. Below are the thoughts that Sr. Petra submitted about St. Peter.  

During the past few months, St. Peter has been very present with me in prayer, teaching me Christ's faithfulness in the face of my human weaknesses and failures.  As I've touched my own poverty more deeply, I could easily recoil at my unworthiness, could be tempted to flee the One Whom I love so poorly.  But Peter gives me courage to remain under the merciful gaze of Jesus, confident of His love for me in the midst of my fear and failure.

I understand Peter's fear of the Cross, his initial rejection of the Lord's revelation of the cost of obedience to the will of the Father.  When Jesus revealed to His Apostles that He must suffer and die in Jerusalem (Mt. 16), Peter burst out, "God forbid, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!"  He wanted to make Jesus avoid suffering, to escape the Cross!  How logical this seems.  Yet Jesus rebuked Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!  You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men."  In other words, the urge to escape suffering is not of God.  The Christian life is not about avoiding suffering; rather, it is about the reality that Love transforms suffering so that it becomes both redemptive and a  means of union.  Thus, Jesus continued, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.  For whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."  On a natural level, I respond to suffering, to the Cross, the same way as Peter.  Yet something—perhaps witnessing the Resurrection of Jesus, perhaps being embraced by His gaze of love after his denial and abandonment of Him, perhaps receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (or, likely, all of the above)—converted Peter's heart so that he would later have the courage to climb up on his own cross and pour out his blood, in imitation of His Beloved.  Here, in between the experience of my own fear and weakness, and my desire to respond to Jesus' love in kind, Peter comes alongside me and intercedes that my heart, too, would be changed, infused with supernatural love and trust.

After the Resurrection, after he had denied and abandoned his Friend and Master, Jesus met His disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and called Peter apart, asking him three times if he loved Him.  Keenly aware of his unfaithful denial, Peter neither tried to defensively excuse himself, nor did he count himself out of Christ's merciful Love in a spirit of self-condemnation (as had Judas).  Rather, he referred his love to Jesus' knowledge, laying open his poor heart to Christ's omniscient gaze:  "Lord,  You know everything—You know  I love You."  He also knows everything about me:  He knows my sins, my past, my secret selfishness, the shabbiness of my love, my weakness, my wandering heart that is always looking for a resting place among mere creatures.  He knows my fear, my reluctance to suffer, the ways I've tried to avoid His Cross.  And yet, He also knows that I love Him, so He continually renews His call on my life to follow Him.  "I know whom I have chosen," Jesus said at the Last Supper, fully cognizant of what would follow (Jn 13:18).  Jesus knows me, too, the woman He has chosen.  I can trust that I can't disillusion Him so that He removes His love from me.  He knows me, loves me, calls me—calls me by name!

Peter's faith in the Resurrection taught him to embrace suffering, especially the suffering of violence and persecution, even unto martyrdom.  The man who ran from the Cross would later run to the Cross!  He writes of this hope in his first epistle:  "We have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials...For one is approved if, mindful of God, he endures pain while suffering unjustly...For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps...By His wounds you have been healed...Do not return evil for evil."

This fisherman from Galilee was chosen to be the chief shepherd of Christ's Church on earth; his successors continue to guard the Faith built on the rock of Peter.  He is a tremendous intercessor for the unity of the Body of Christ, having heard Jesus' high priestly prayer "that they may be one, even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You" (Jn 17:21). 

Allow Jesus to "lay down" in your weakness

A reflection by Mother Cecilia, originally published in Horizons, the newspaper of the Eparchy of Parma.

Through the sponsorship of a benefactor, the nuns of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, organized by the Melkite Eparchy of Newton, this past July. It was the first time in the Holy Land for most of the nuns of the monastery.

On the first full day of our pilgrimage, my amazement grew as each new site increased in importance. I was in awe when we visited the place where some of the prophets are buried. Then we visited the place where the greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist, was born. As we approached the place of the birth of the Messiah — of God on earth — I simply didn’t know what to think.

In Bethlehem, we went first to Shepherd’s Field, where the angels announced the Good News of Christ’s birth to the herdsmen. We walked through the ruins of a monastery that existed during the Byzantine period.

After lunch, we arrived at the Church of the Nativity. It is one of the oldest churches still in existence. The doorway is very low, so that visitors must bow in order to enter.

Underneath the church is the Grotto of the Nativity, where the place of Jesus’ birth is marked with a metal star on the floor. Nearby, in the same chapel, is the place where Jesus was laid in the manger. We listened to the chanting of the Gospel and then venerated the place of the Nativity as we sang the Troparion of the Nativity.

I was overwhelmed and nervous to venerate this holy spot, especially as we were being urged to move quickly. As I kneeled down and leaned over to kiss the star on the floor, my metal water bottle fell out of the side pouch of my backpack and crashed loudly on the marble floor near the star. Someone picked it up for me. I tried to touch my chotki to the star, but because it was attached to my belt I couldn’t reach it there. I awkwardly got up. I quickly understood that Jesus was allowing me to be humbled in the very place where he humbled himself by becoming man.

Then I walked a few steps over to the place where Jesus was laid in the manger. It was slightly less chaotic there. I stood there quietly for a few moments and said in my heart to Jesus, “I don’t know how to pray here. I don’t know what to think about in this place where you have lain.”

Immediately, an image came to my mind: I saw myself receiving the Eucharist. Then I understood, and exclaimed to Jesus, “Oh, I’ve experienced this before! You lay in me every time I receive Communion!”

At that moment I began to relax. The places I visited in the Holy Land were not actually foreign to me. I had already experienced these mysteries interiorly, in the liturgy, and in the mysteries of the church.

As I look back on the experience of our pilgrimage, I realize that I didn’t need to figure out how to think or how to pray. God was giving himself to me, and my job was to open to receive him. This is what he continues to do in every moment of our lives.

During this Feast of the Nativity, may we humbly accept our weaknesses, allowing them to be places where Jesus lays down in us so that we can give him to the world.

To descend to be raised up

Today we celebrate the feast of the Dormition (falling asleep) of the Mother of God. Now that I have been at the tomb of the Mother of God in the Garden of Gethsemane during our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I was struck in a new way as we celebrated the feast.

I was especially moved by the phrase in bold in this first stichera at Vespers:

"O what a wonder! The Source of Life Itself is placed in a tomb; the grave becomes a ladder to heaven. Rejoice, Gethsemane, holy chamber of the Theotokos. As for us, O faithful, let us cry out with Gabriel, the prince of angels: Rejoice, O woman full of grace, the Lord is with you!--the Lord, who because of you bestows great mercy on our souls."

Why did it strike me? Take a look at the second photo to the right. These are the many steps descending into the church which contains the tomb of the Mother of God. (The people in the photo are only about half-way down the steps.) This, to me, is an image of Mary's humility. "For He has looked with favor upon the lowliness of His handmaiden..." (Lk 1:48a). In life, and in death, Mary embraces the littleness and poverty of her humanity, and God raises her up. "From this day forward, all generations will call me blessed" (Lk 1:48b).

Mary is an example to us of the daily dying to self which "becomes a ladder to heaven." When we descend the many steps down into the poverty within us and surrender our lives into the hands of God, He then raises us up to a new life of joy and freedom, ultimately in heaven, but even now in the Kingdom that has already begun.

Mother Cecilia