Archive for the ‘Psalter’ Category

Moments of clarity.

Monday, January 12th, 2009








The mindless man and the witless shall perish together, and they shall leave their riches to others. And their graves shall be their houses unto eternity, their dwelling places unto generation and generation, thought they have called their lands after their own names. (Psalm48:10-11 Boston)

 

It is wonderful to read the Psalter daily. Just about every time I read it, there is something that “jumps out” – a truth that I already knew, but feel with special power at a particular moment. It is times like these that the poetry illuminates the soul and we apprehend, and believe, and desire with great desire – absolute truth. It is a pity that these moments subside rapidly.

 

How many such moments do we need to be saved? Is it ten, a hundred, a hundred thousand? If I truly believed with all of my being what I read, I would not have discrete moments of clarity and zeal, but my entire life would be a moment in the Spirit.

 

It is an occupational hazard of a pastor that everything he reads makes him think of his beloved flock. Since I am merely a sinner tasked by God to help others not to sin, and share the same human condition, when moments of clarity come, it is always my fervent desire that my flock have such moments also. 

 

During many such moments, there is a peculiar phenomenon in which I think of many things at the same time, each with great clarity, and none of the thoughts interfering with each other. 

 

One of these thoughts is usually a sense of melancholy that I must hear holy things so many times, and yet I still do not live completely in accordance with them. With this melancholy comes a practical idea – I must read as often as I can, pray more regularly, really listen at the services. I do not know how much more time I have, and the days remaining for each in my flock are unknown to me.

 


To my beloved flock, I ask, how much do you need to pray to be saved? How many services should you attend? How many times will you need to hear about love to truly love? I do not know the answers to these things. 

 

Time is short, and precious. Resolve today to apply yourself more sincerely to the living of the Christian life. Although the Psalter tells us that “all men are liars”, let us attempt to make our lies to be truth! Let us pursue holy moments of clarity when we “make our vows”, and let the shear volume of our promises compel us to change! 

 

These “moments of clarity” occur in times of prayer, the reading of the scriptures, and during long vigils, and other times, since the Spirit “bloweth where it listeth”. (John 3:8) That is why I continually stress such things over and over. We cannot have enough of them, we will never have too many of them, until we die, and then comes the judgment. 

 

This particular verse struck me today, and as I thought of its profound meaning, I thought also of my flock and desired to share my thoughts. 

 

How foolish we are! We do temporal things as if they were eternal things. The foolish man names lands after himself, and then he perishes. The very dirt on the land he has named will someday pass away, and his name will not even be a memory long before that. Everything goes away, except what we become. How many “lands” do we pursue in order to name? Why do we not live like we really believe this?

 

Posted in Miscellaneous Pastoral Thoughts, Psalter | 2 Comments »

>“Blessed shall he be who shall seize and dash thine infants against the rock.”

Saturday, March 8th, 2008
This is the last line of “By the Waters of Babylon”, Psalm 136, which is sung only three times a year, in matins for the three Sundays immediately preceding Great Lent.
Why do we sing this psalm then? The key to the answer is in the last line. The purpose of Great Lent is to change. Psalm 136 perfectly describes the demeanor we should have, but lamentation and longing for blessedness will not in themselves make us change. This psalm gives PRACTICAL advice about how to change.

“Blessed shall he be who shall seize and dash thine infants against the rock.” (Psalm 136:8)

“Infants” are thoughts – just as we are becoming aware of them. All sin starts with thought, and most sin is only thought! When dealing with our thoughts, we must be swift and violent. As a thought forms in our mind, before it gets too large, we must kill it immediately by dashing it against the rock, which is Christ. The same idea is present in the promise of the psalmist:

I will early destroy all the wicked of the land; that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the LORD. (Psa 100:8 Sept)

Here the “wicked” are thoughts, which if destroyed “early” would still be small infants. Like the psalmist, we must cry out for help, because we are too weak to battle on our own:

” Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” (Psa 19:13)

“Presumptuous sins” are thoughts (infants), and if the Lord helps us, they will not have “dominion” over us, which will, in the short term, lead us to committing the “great transgression” (the sin that the thought was leading us to), and in the longer term, cause us to be inclined towards sin because of bad habits.

Let us understand clearly that as soon as we have any attachment to a bad thought (or “presumptuous sin”), we have already committed a sin , but that all is not lost if we can somehow battle this sin so that it does not lead us further along and cause us to commit the “great transgression” - to act on our thought. This “great transgression” may be a physical act, or it may be when we completely give in to a thought, and wallow in it like a glutton.

One “presumptuous sin” we must especially guard against is that our secret thoughts cannot harm us, or are “not as bad” as actually acting on the thought. If we do not dash the infant though against the rock as soon as possible, it will grow too big for us to control, and we will be thrown headlong into further sin. We must also remember that to the Lord, attachment to a sin is as the sin itself:

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: (28) But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Mat 5:27-28 KJV)

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For a detailed exposition of Psalm 136, Listen to the catechetical talk on “By the Waters of Babylon”

This talk may also be found with other talks at http://www.orthodox.net/catechism

Posted in Homilies, Psalter | No Comments »