"Healing Our Diseases: The Church as a Spiritual Hospital" With the V. Rev. Dr. Josiah Trenham

in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God on them thank you probably good to us father Michael for the invitation to be here I bring you greetings all the way from California and from Archbishop Joseph our beloved hierarch not in the West and from even some members of my parish who hail from Ottawa including one of my dearest parishioners Jorge Yunus whom some of you know Jorge gave me a thorough preparation for coming here to st. Elias Cathedral wrote me a very long detailed email about all the wonderful people here and how he's never been able to get this Cathedral out of his heart since he left and I think he was a very young man when when his family moved away anyway it's nice to meet you all and know that you have some cousins in Southern California when you come for your California vacations I've been asked to speak in this first session on the church as a spiritual hospital that's the theme and I should tell you just upfront that I'm used to speaking on this subject in detail in fact I gave in my own parish a ten lecture series on this subject which I'm going to condense I'm going to take this portions of that and condense it down into this one morning session we have two hours together I think I'll go for about 45 minutes and then maybe have some questions and then we could take a short maybe five-minute break and then I will come back what I really would like to communicate to you are just three things three things I want to communicate to you the role of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ as a healer of the body and the soul I want to communicate to you the concept that sin is a disease of the soul and then third that the church functions as a hospital where the divine physician and his servants who are who are the doctors priests and spiritual fathers of the church administer the the medicine of the sacraments the mysteries of the church in order to affect cure and healing in the hospital okay these are the three main subjects I'm hoping to communicate to you this morning I want you also to know even though I'm in this most magnificent pulpit you can interrupt me at any time if you'd like me to stop and expound on something just put your hand up and off stop oh I'm a distant pale shadow father compared to him Jesus Christ is our healer he's really everything that we need as human beings he is the answer to our every desire the fulfillment of our every pious wish the descriptions of our Lord's magnificence like the measure of his own love for us and for the world is without limit it's beyond human telling he is according to the Scriptures given many many titles that describe what he does for us he's called the savior of the world the Christ the Son of God the Lord the great existing one or the I am the hon the Great God the wonderful counselor the Prince of Peace the word or the logos of the Father he's the Immaculate icon of God he's the wisdom of God the power of God the righteous one he's our righteousness he's the man or the true human being he's the last Adam he's the teacher and the prophet par excellence he's the great high priest he's the King of Kings the Good Shepherd the Lamb of God the servant of the Lord the suffering servant of God he's the light of the world the judge of all men he's the way the truth the life the Sun of righteousness the bread of life the resurrection the door the true vine our peace our comforter the Redeemer the firstborn the bright limit take a breath and the glass of water here I hope you're getting the picture here he's the Alpha and the Omega the true and faithful witness the older brother the ultimate friend the beginning and the end the Holy Temple the one mediator between God and man the intercessor the Pioneer and perfecter of our faith and more those are all titles from the New Testament and some from the prophetic writings of the old and that's not even as a complete exhaustive list a retreat like this could be given on every single one of those titles this is what he is there's no plumbing the depths of who our Savior is and what he's done for us but now I just want to take one concept and that is Jesus as the healer or as we know him in our liturgical tradition the heavenly physician the doctor of our souls and bodies it's obvious really in any simple reading of the Gospels that the evangelists under the inspiration of the holy spirit set forth our Savior throughout all the pages of the sacred text as the divine healer and I want to take one passage in the Gospel of st. Matthew and kind of walk you through how Matthew reveals the image of Jesus as a healer of the body and soul okay so we're in the Gospel of Matthew here this holy gospel opens with the genealogy of our Lord and describes his miraculous birth in Bethlehem then his flight into Egypt his upbringing in Nazareth and then it jumps to his appearance on the banks of the Jordan and his baptism at the hands of the forerunner his contest with the devil in the desert as I'm saying these things I spent 20 minutes walking around your ship you have all of these depicted on your walls in your sacred iconography his contest with the devil in the desert and the beginning of his public ministry of preaching and healing once John the Baptist was arrested Saint Matthew summarizes the dual foci of Jesus's ministry in chapter 4 verse 23 with these words this is his summary of Jesus's ministry Jesus was going about all Galilee teaching in the synagogue's proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people this is how he summarized Jesus's ministry teaching preaching and healing those are the headings and having done so at the end of the chapter four he then goes on to record our saviors most famous preaching and teaching which is the Sermon on the Mount this is in chapters 5 through 7 of Matthew okay you understand what he's doing Matthew summarizes Jesus's whole ministry of teaching and preaching and healing then he immediately goes to the most important preaching and teaching he ever did which is the Sermon on the Mount chapters 5 through 7 and then in chapters 8 & 9 he's going to unfold multiple accounts of Jesus as healing so immediately after summarizing Jesus is his ministry as teaching and healing he then gives you the most potent examples of his teaching and of a sealing this is the literary genius of saint matthew in the portion of chapters 8 & 9 in which he reveals Jesus is healing he starts that chapter with these words and behold a leper came to him this is chapter 8 verse 2 and then Jesus commenced his healing he heals the leper by a touch and then the dying servant of the Centurion from a distance then he heals Peters mother-in-law from her fever by touching her hand then he heals a multitude of the demon-possessed and ill and Bethsaida then the gathering demoniac giving him his sanity back then he heals the paralytic in Capernaum then he raises gyruss as twelve-year-old daughter from the dead then he gives sight to two blind men and then he heals a man who is both dumb and mute who was demon-possessed and then st. matthew at the end of describing all of these healings says something almost identical to what he wrote in the end of chapter for having documented our Lord's Sermon on the Mount and then his numerous healing cases he writes these words and Jesus was going about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness do you see what he's doing just before he launches into the Sermon on the Mount he says those exact words he's setting you up to understand jesus's ministry in two ways teaching and healing then he gives you his best teaching then he gives you these outrageous accounts of healing and then he says the same thing so he summarizes it all by using that same phrase at the beginning in the end this is the summary again by Matthew of our Lord saving ministry he teaches and preaches to illumine the soul of any heals the body Jesus the healer is fundamental to his identity and his saving work Jephthah of Jesus the teacher is fundamental to his identity and saving work and right in the midst of this portion of Saint Matthew's Gospel right in the midst is a very interesting account of his mighty works it's just five verses long if chapter 9 verses 9 through 13 and it's an amazing interaction between Jesus and a man that provides a prism for the readers like us to understand our Lord's ministry and how connected his teaching and his healing are this interaction recorded by st. Matthew is actually an interaction between Jesus and Matthew the author of the gospel himself listen to these words if Jesus passed on from there he saw a man called Matthew sitting in the tax office and he said to him follow me and he rose and he followed him and it happened that as he was reclining at the table in the house behold many tax gatherers and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples and when the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples why is your teacher eating with tax gatherers and sinners but when he heard this he said it's not those who are healthy who need a physician but those who are sick go and learn what this means I desire compassion and not sacrifice for I did not come to call the righteous but sinners that's the sum total of the interaction that Jesus had with Matthew as recorded by Matthew himself the sinful tax collector is at a meal with the Lord in his own house and he's invited other sinful tax collectors to his own home this is a really amazing text first it's amazing because Matthew records it and he calls himself by the name he was known by Levi which shows a lot of humility he wants everyone to know that even though he was writing the gospel and was a holy apostle he hadn't always been one he used to be a really messed-up person who was deeply wounded and involved up to his neck in the sin of oppressing God's people and extorting money as a tax collector the very humble of Matthew 2 right this second in the text itself it combines both the paradigms of teaching and healing for us to understand Jesus's ministry into one simple account Matthew was called to discipleship by our Savior Jesus says to him Matthew follow me Matthew responds he lives leaves his sinful way of life he then gathers his friends at a table to meet the one who have changed his life the Pharisees complained of Jesus's mingling with sinners they don't like it at all it's offensive to their religious sensibilities and they say to Jesus's followers why is your teacher eating with sinners so here's the emphasis on Jesus teaching Jesus answers for himself by saying it's not those who are healthy who need a physician but those who are sick here the teacher describes himself as a yacht throws as a physician as a doctor he describes sin as sickness and teaching and discipleship the process of healing and all of this right smack in the middle of Matthew's chapters revealing Jesus as a teacher in a physician as a teacher in a healer so it says though Matthew he's laying out this these two great means of Jesus is functioning his minus-- and he takes them both and he applies them to his own life his own conversion experience he's like if you want to know what it means can be have Jesus as your teacher and healer look at my life listen to this account of when I met with him and I invited him to my house with my other friends I had the teacher with me and he taught us that those who are sick need a physician so we can make a distinction for sure between Jesus the teacher and Jesus the healer but we ought not press it too far Jesus's teaching is designed to heal the whole person and Jesus's healings are divine designed to teach their very inter-related the ministry of teaching and healing he performs is designed to save the whole man his body and soul because his name is Jesus and Matthew tells us his name is Jesus because he's come to save us from our sins this salvation that Jesus accomplishes for us comes from his compassion from his mercy according to this account in Matthew he descended from heaven or in the words of Christ in this passage he says I have come because compassion has moved me to the great condescension of the Incarnation he couldn't bear to see us sick and wounded and under the tyranny of the evil one this is why our Lord left heaven it's why in his great humility he bowed so low to kiss the earth and to assume our human nature to live with us and to heal us because he could not bear to see us in the condition of darkness under the grip of passions without hope in the world looking at death and being terrorized by the thought of death this is why he came this route precious reality is beautifully articulated in our baptism service and the first great prayer that the priest reads in every baptism what I'm saying is very beautifully recorded I want to read the words great art Thou O Lord marvelous are thy works and there is no word which is sufficient to him thy wonders for thou of thine own goodwill has brought into being all things which before were not and by thy might thou up holdest all creation and by thy Providence thou orderest the war for thou who art God inexpressible and ever laughing dis descend upon earth and did take on the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men for because of the tender compassion of thy mercy master thou couldst not endure to behold mankind oppressed by the devil but that is common did save us we confess thy grace we proclaimed thy mercy we concealed not my gracious acts this is the first thing that they said the priest says in prayer in the baptismal service he's explaining the whole origin of baptism this mystical font in which a person is actually going to be joined to Jesus Christ and saved from the power of death and the power of evil and the power of the evil one why does it exist because God could not endure to have us under the tyranny of the evil one so he came for us he's come to heal our spiritual sicknesses and to deliver us from our mortal enemies sin the Devils and death itself because He loves us and he doesn't want us ruined he doesn't want us perpetually miserable and disgraced he simply could not bear it in his love for us and the theme of compassion mentioned in the account of the call of Matthew and the dinner with the tax collectors and sinners is picked up again at the end of the ninth chapter of Saint Matthew's Gospel where st. Matthew writes these words he says seeing the multitudes Jesus felt compassion for them because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd and then he said to his disciples the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest this symbolic gaze of our Savior over the multitudes of the sick and the needy is an open window really to the heart of God it shows us how he views the world and sickness how does God perceive us and the whole world of human beings in our contortions in our misery and our sicknesses and sins he's moved to compassion and he has sent his son to heal us for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life and from the matthean text that we just read we can go on and say for God so loved the world that he called his disciples to pray for workers and then he sent out his apostles as agents and messengers of his saving power because the very next verse reads in Matthew's Gospel having summoned his twelve disciples he gave them authority over the unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness so here's the unfolding of God's mystery to heal the world move to compassion the father sends the son and he gives him all authority to heal the human race by his words by his life and ultimately by his precious cross his death and resurrection moved to compassion the son sends his apostles and their successors the bishops and priests of the church and gives them all authority to propagate and apply his saving act to human beings throughout the entire world the healing ministry of Jesus is applied in the church which is the hospital for Souls and sick people by those given the authority and grace to heal who are the spiritual fathers and we might have a little bit of time to talk about the role of the pastor of the spiritual father as a physician if we have time at the very end so I use this text from Matthew simply to show you how important this prison this understanding of Jesus's ministry as healer is in the scriptures it's profound and it's interconnected to his teaching he teaches to heal he heals to teach now I want to pose and answer the question exactly how does he do it how does Jesus looking upon us moved by compaction actually bring us from sickness to health okay you still with me all right so we focused on Saint Matthew's Gospel to understand how Jesus is the healer of soul and body and how the Lord uses the paradigm of his being a physician the sinners being sick and the ill the decimated in need of healing to understand his ministry all four of the holy Gospels are literally replete overflowing with signs of the Lord and demonstrations of his mighty powers to heal man our Savior like his Heavenly Father is constantly working for the good of men he's performing miracles all the time mostly unnoticed and unrecognized by men because we have become obsessed with the material and fixated on the things of the earth that often we don't even see the invisible workings of God all the time by the way this is a betrayal of our own human anatomy have you ever thought about why you were created with as a biped why humans have stand on two feet do you ever think of why God put your eyes in your head at the top of your body he didn't put your eyes in your knees can you imagine having your eyeballs in your knees looking at people from your knees or in the back of your hips or something you know looking no he did it the Holy Fathers of the Church say he put it our eyes here so that as we walk on the earth we can have our thoughts in heaven the human being is a connector between the heaven and earth he has an invisible soul and he has a body and as such he serves as the connector between the seen and the unseen world sometimes though we only think of the of the earth and when we do we miss the many miracles that God is constantly working in and around us these miracles of healing throughout the Gospels leave us dumbfounded and in awe and they're actually in the scriptures not called miracles in fact Saint John and his profound theological gospel the fourth gospel he calls them Samiha which means signs and he lists seven mighty signs that Jesus accomplished in the Gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke our saviors great miracles are called the nominees or powers and what sick men and women need is power what they need is the medicinal power of God the effective antibiotic against our own sins and organic deliverance from the power of disordered passions habitual sins the tyranny of evil spirits over us and the frightening death grip literally of corruption this divine medicine this all-powerful antibiotic or drug to cure us is called in the scriptures grace that's what grace is the acquisition of the grace of God is the whole purpose of the Christian life it's the core of church or ecclesial life it's the reason that we come to church and live in the church and participate in the sacraments it's why we keep the commandments of the Lord it's why we live in the care of a pastor and in the keeno Nia or the true Fellowship of the church grace is the presence of the Holy Spirit the uncreated and divine energy of God and it's exactly what we see this is very important to know that grace is the reason for our Christian life Christian life is not about ideology of course the confession of the true faith is powerful to salvation but we ought not confuse confessing the Orthodox faith with a simple intellectual assent to doctrinal ideas or propositions as though ascending and speaking the truth simply makes one an Orthodox Christian it's not true our Christian life is not about becoming moral it's not about becoming a basically good person who hasn't killed anyone that is not the goal of the Christian life the Christian life is about personal transformation what's called in the scriptures metamorphosis transformation by the acquisition of the healing grace of God and this grace of God which is God's own radiant energy is how we are healed I want to return to Matthew chapter 9 for another example of how we're healed by the power or the energy of God remember these are the chapters 8 and 9 which followed the Sermon on the Mount which are so replete with account after account of how jesus heals people and you're about to hear how he healed a woman by grace by divine power listen to this as Jesus was walking with the synagogue official to raise up his daughter who had died a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage she had internal bleeding for 12 years came up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched the fringe of his clothing for she was saying to herself if I only touch His garment I shall get well but Jesus turning and seeing her said daughter take courage your faith has made you well st. Mark's record of the same incredible healing provides even more details including the fact that this poor woman had thoroughly exhausted every means of medical care available she had spent her entire livelihood in vain on the cost of physicians and not only had she not improved by their help she had actually grown worse what a tragedy what a tragedy st. mark also gives us greater details about the very moment of healing st. mark records that Jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth did you hear that Jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth turned and aft in the midst of the crowd who touched me this is a glance of how our Savior coursed through the multitudes of people during his earthly ministry he was according to this text literally radiating with the power of God shining in his uncreated divine energy like a brilliant Sun he literally used grace and he shared it with those who had faith and saw beyond the veil of his humble flesh which cloaked this divine power on one occasion on the top of Mount Tabor our Lord was transfigured before his holy disciples Peter John and James and he pulled back the veil of the flesh you remember this account huh he took the three up with him to the top of the mountain he took them unto the top of the mountain and there even though the Sun was up at at noonday he revealed his brightness it's as though he pulled back the veil of his flesh that they could see his divine nature and the radiance of his energies and it blinded them it was so much brighter than anything in creation and it caused them what you see they're completely undone I love the one on the right just ah this is this is the reaction of we who are mixed people who aren't used to such radiance or reaction but that revelation was not Jesus becoming that it was Jesus revealing what he always is do you understand what I'm saying that is how Jesus was constantly he was losing the grace of God he pulled back the veil of his flesh and he enabled his disciples to see him as he is and the vision was too much it revealed not that a unique state of our Savior but the constant and abiding reality of his glory hidden beneath his humble flesh during his earthly life and this is how he lives now and will forever be at the right hand of his father in heaven it's this uncreated energy this light that the hemorrhaging woman accessed by her faith and it's this grace this light that we see when we heed the Lord's command to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness by the way this is why we come to church this is why we listen to the holy gospel it's why we pay attention to preaching it's why we receive the Holy Eucharist in the liturgy and having received the Holy Eucharist in the liturgy what do we sing at the end of the service we have seen of the true light that and sometimes if you're humble and you have faith you can see it I'll bet you there are parishioners in this Cathedral who see it usually those who are worthy to see it never talk about it which is one of the proofs of their worthiness to see it in the first place so before we conclude our initial reflections on Jesus as the healer healing through grace I want to simply point out the goal the fundamental goal of our Savior in his healing what is he trying to accomplish in us as our healer to this very day I remind you that all the healings he did in his earthly ministry and all that he's done for the last two thousand years they're all provisional healings this means that those who are healed physically will again get sick and die even Lazarus whom he raised from the dead lived a number of decades more it had a beautiful ministry in and around Cyprus but then he died again there are too many beautiful reasons to enumerate that lie behind the healings in the Gospels but all are designed to carry the persons involved past their immediate need and to the ultimate definitive healing that our Lord would accomplish and make available to believers through his own incarnation through his own obedient life through his cross through his resurrection God has become man and the chasm between the two has been bridged and the mediation needed has been affected righteousness has been perfected and modeled on the earth and the life of our Savior death has been slain the devil has been defeated sin has been atoned for the curse has been annulled Hades has been destroyed and plundered Christ has been resurrected the thanthe riposte the god man has ascended to heaven bringing flesh to paradise heaven has been opened human flesh has been enthroned there the throne of David occupied the kingdom of God established the demons trampled man dignified this is what we mean when we say God is with us understand all you nations and submit yourselves this is what the Lord has accomplished for us he's healed us and he's defeated our real enemies who are real threats and the goal is complete complete health from the inside out you know the best I think the best story that shows the goal of our Savior in healing comes from the Gospel reading in the second week of Lent which is the story of the healing of the paralytic of the paralyzed man you might remember that beautiful account the paralyzed man experienced in himself the complete re-establishment of his integrity as a person his most obvious and the illness that his friends thought was the most serious impediment in his life of course was inability to move he couldn't move so his friends put him on a mat remember and they brought him to Jesus but there were so many people around him they could not get him near Jesus and then they proved themselves magnificent and true friends by making his illness and his trials of their own this is how they thought they were healthy but their friend wasn't and therefore they weren't and they put him on their shoulders and they climbed up on the roof how do you do this I don't know they tore it open and they let Jesus down in the roof and then that they let the man down through the roof to see Jesus they wanted to get near that was their goal they knew that health only takes place when you're near Jesus you have to get there strikingly when the man finally is dropped through the roof into the presence of our Savior Jesus looks at him and does not address his physical condition at all the whole reason they brought him was his physical paralysis and Jesus completely ignores it this is very illustrative he doesn't say to the man walk he says instead my son your sins are forgiven you huh you can imagine how his friends felt what are you talking about we didn't bring him here to have his sins forgiven it was only later upon perceiving the error in the hearts of those who were watching that our Savior turned his attention to the man's physical condition and did heal his body according to our saviours testimony he performed this miraculous act of physical healing in order to convince the audience that he had the much greater authority to forgive the much greater illness of sin can you imagine at the very moment when our Savior uttered his gracious words the paralytic became like Jesus he became sinless my son your sins are forgiven you at that moment he and Christ were the same the paralyzed man is brought before Christ and our Savior immediately addresses the real illness the man's own sin and guilt which had produced death and corruption in his own body our saviors great concern is to heal us from the inside to heal our souls if we find healing for our souls then eventually our entire entire persons will be healed body and soul and will participate in the resurrection the important thing is that from the inside our souls are resurrected that will lead to the resurrection of the body I want to end this this first point Jesus has the healer with a quote from a fantastic theologian and father John Roman II these 20th century theologian who taught some time here in America but mostly in the nation of Greece he wrote a law about what I'm talking about a lot about the need for grace in the Christian life now he wrote a book called Jesus Christ the life of the world in which he describes the the role of the the church as therapeutic in nature listen to this he says having faith in Christ without undergoing healing in Christ is not faith here is the same contradiction that we find when a sick person who has great confidence in his doctor never carries out the treatment that the doctor recommends can you imagine you you have a great doctor and you're very sick you go to the doctor because you trust him so much because he's so magnificent and he can diagnose and prescribe healings so he goes there and he tells you this is what you've got this is what you have to do to be healed you go home and you don't do that are you really attached to that doctor are you really following in a patient no you're not you can't say you have faith if you're not applying the treatment he continues he says if Judaism and its successor and fulfillment Christianity had appeared in the 20th century for the first time they would most likely have been characterized by others not as religions but as a medical science related to psychiatry they would have had a wine influence on society owing to the considerable success in healing the ills of the partially functioning personality in no way can prophetic Christianity be construed as a religion that uses various magical methods and beliefs to promise escape from a supposed of matter and evil or hypocrisy into a supposed spiritual world of security and success unquote you hear what he's saying he's saying Christianity is not about empty rituals and not about simple mental affirmation of course God is exists and Jesus as his son and he is the savior of the world that makes me an Orthodox Christian it's not the case what makes you an Orthodox Christian is that you actually are engaged with the physician you're in the process of healing in the church you're seeking His grace and he out of his great compassion is doing for you what he did for Matthew and his friends he's coming to those who are sick that's all of us and he's giving grace the same way he gave it to Matthew and his friends the same way he gave it to that woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years the energy that course is out of him he gives to us with the purpose of healing us completely so this is the first thing I want to say is that Jesus is our healer and it's not a small part of his ministry it's the core it's the heart of his ministry and I'd like to just stop just for a couple minutes to see if you have questions about that before I go on to the second major affirmation which is that I want you to understand sin primarily as a disease I'm gonna explain that a little bit I'll stop now and see if there's questions from this first part oh you know it's such a beautiful question what you said the question I'll repeat is when the man when the paralyzed man was healed by Jesus and became sinless and I affirmed that at that moment he became just like Christ which is exactly what happens to us when we get baptized our problem of course is that we don't stay baptized of course we're always baptized we don't repeat baptisms but the beautiful garment that he gives us we often don't preserve that shining beautiful radiance we start throwing mud cloths on you know on our then we have to confess and get it off the question is did the man have faith and there is no affirmation in this text at all that they had this healing had anything to do with the man's faith in fact there's affirmations that the healing had to do with his friends faith his friends came and believed for him I I don't want to push that too far and suggest that you know someone can be an unbeliever and they're believing friend is going to get them into heaven that's not what I'm saying but the emphasis here was very much upon the if the power of true Christian friendship true believing friendship and how sometimes that will bring us to healing we can live off others faith and even learn to believe by those that we love who are good believers this is why in your own Cathedral your own Cathedral parish you love to be near people who are strong in faith because their life influences yours it helps you greatly to be a believing person when you're around people of solid belief themselves this man benefited from his friends please brother and oh there's a lot to say there the question is can I explain the connection between confession and the acquisition of Grace unworthiness and worthiness and how all of that relates to the reception of Holy Communion that's us those three disciples this is the picture of us especially when we're near God we're very aware when you come near the light you become very aware of unworthiness I have a lot of kids and for which I'm very thankful but one of the one of the consequences of that is for having a child in my arms for 25 years straight is that I don't have a single cassock or clergy suit that doesn't have evidence on the shoulders of running noses you know anyway I'm a mess what can I say even right now I'm just I'm really glad I wear black because it hides a lot of it but when you get into the bright light if you put a bright light wow you would see it all this is exactly what happens to us when we grow one of the evidences that you're growing as a Christian is that you have a growing sense of being unworthy the reason is because not that you're getting more objectively sinful you're getting less objectively sinful but you're getting closer and closer to the radiant light you're getting up the mountain and the closer you get wow the more you know you have absolutely no business being there this is why st. Paul was not lying when he said this is a trustworthy statement and worthy to be accepted by everyone that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief he wrote that near the end of his life this is in his first epistle to Timothy his son spiritual son we take that language and we put it in the pre communion prayer right I believe oh Lord I confess that thou art truly the Christ the Son of Living God who came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief okay so we take st. Paul's word at me apply it to ourselves I always ask myself how could st. Paul have possibly said that this was a man who laid his life down for Christ who three times was beaten by the Jews to this close of death who suffered shipwreck who traveled confidently sleepless nights living working with his own hands in earth do not to be a burden to the church constantly concerned for the poor in Jerusalem raising money for them constantly how could he honestly say he's the worst sinner he must be exaggerating some people think he's saying hyperbole not so Saint Paul had been taken three times up into the third heaven he saw things he said that that no human eye can see he heard things that he could not put into human speech he came back and said I can't even talk about what I saw he wrote to the Corinthians he said I have not seen and ear has not heard the things that God has prepared for those who love him remember that how rich you are what a future you have as a Christian person this is what's coming Paul was so close to the light that for him the imperfections that remained in him he saw them so quickly produced immense humility authentic humility and this is the quality of all of our saints they all really considered themselves to be living alone by the grace of God they considered that that without the grace of God they were nothing and they weren't making it up they weren't just talking pie-in-the-sky they really believed it because they were near God so in that sense as we become worthy we find out we have a deep sense of being unworthy and it's that very unworthiness that qualifies us to receive Holy Communion you know someone can come to Holy Communion every Sunday their whole life and not be saved this is possible this is possible how that's totally not God's intention God's intention is to save and heal us through Holy Communion but the grace that's offered us in the body and the blood of Lord have to be received and the only way that it's received and possessed by a person is if they have humility if they've made a place for Christ in them he'll come and stay but if not if they come with pride and they're just doing an empty ritual and they're not engaged in the process of trying to be healed as a person then it's as though water hitting the top of a dock and just goes down and back poof and right off absolutely no grace stays the communion is ineffective in fact this even counterproductive st. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 that because some people were coming to Holy Communion really sinfully meaning that they were in alienation from their brothers and sisters they were in deep conflict and they still dared to come to Holy Communion he said for that reason a number among you are sick and some have even fallen asleep here Holy Communion affected the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do Holy Communion is designed to heal and save in this case it caused illness and death because those who were receiving were not serious and had no humility and they brought their sins and they joined presumptuously in boldly before the Lord this is why it's so good to really mean that prayer before you come to communion really mean that prayer and if you really mean that prayer that means also you have to be able to know your sins get rid of them confess them be serious about them we shouldn't say when when the priest asks us if we have any sins to confess we shouldn't say well the gist in general I'm a sinner that's not good enough that's not good enough if you're engaged in the process of being near God you're gonna know what your sins are everybody should know what their sins are what person goes to the doctor expecting serious treatment when he says what's wrong with you say oh I don't know I'm just do I need any healing I'm okay yeah it's not good enough the physicians gonna he's gonna touch you and where are you where does it hurt where does it going to tell him right there it's a perfect segue for me to say a few words before our break about sin as a disease can I do that can I do that okay so in our first word we've discussed Jesus as the healer we've examined his ministry as a mighting healing power over every kind of disease and illness of body and soul and we know that he heals by divine grace by his disease destroying life giving an uncreated energy by his immeasurable power we know that this grace this power this light radiant radiates from his very being it was disclosed to his disciples on the path top of Mount Tabor is communicated to us in the holy liturgy itself and by this grace he heals us with the end goal of making us free from the ravages of sin and death people with true integrity to us of body and soul like you did for the paralytic but we have to know ourselves to be infected with a terminal disease that we call sin I know how afraid a lot of our people are of cancer some of our people are so afraid of cancer they won't even mention the word but whether or not we have cancer we should all know that we have something much much worse called sin which is the cause of diseases in the first place and it's a terminal disease I promise you it is a terminal disease you will die you will die one of our great Saints is the same name Theodore st. Theodore the student he lived in the monastery of studium in Constantinople this is the ninth century there's an incredible mug and an incredible theologian very close to the Emperor and two saints like Saint fotios the great patriarch of Constantinople in his monastery there the remains by the way of his monastery are still in Constantinople much of the building instructions are still there in his monastery he had a typic on that required at the ninth hour about three o'clock in the afternoon a certain appointed monk would walk through the entire monastery he would go into the kitchen where they were cooking he would go into the fields where they were working into the wine production into the where they were making investments into the church where they were cleaning he sent this month to go every place where the brothers were working and he went and all he did was take up his position and say one thing we are dying we are dying we are dying remember the heavenly kingdom and then he turned and he'd leave every day at 3 o'clock in the afternoon why because this is the most important thing to remember a key to the spiritual life is to remember each and every day that we are dying that we are deeply diseased and that we need Jesus each and every moment to come to us as a physician and to heal us we know that the more that we believe this the more stock that we have in our Savior because he said he didn't come for the righteous the healthy don't need a physician he came for the sick we were not of course created ill and nor were our first parents afflicted with sins and corruption and disordered passions in paradise in fact we were created immune from these things it was by a very very bad choice that our first parents Adam and Eve fell into sickness and death and then they were cast out of the garden which we remember as we approached Lent we have a service a Sunday dedicated to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise and that Sunday is full the hem that is full of lamentation we get into the psyche of Adam and Eve which is different than us of course we all know what it's like that to have sorrows about really sad things really sad things I've been really crying this week feeling so horrible because one of my priest friend's son committed suicide this last week I just even right now I'm just on the edge of tears I feel so horrible I feel so horrible and have no idea what to do and only can ask God to have mercy we know we know sorrow but brothers and sisters we do not know sorrow like Adam and Eve knew sir this is all we've ever known fall in life that's not the truth for them the difference between Adam and even asked the difference that their mourning and their psychological suffering was so terrible and so much worse is they actually knew it was unnecessary and that they had thought they had caused it and that is a sorrow of a far higher level we know that we are not now as God created and intended us to be he didn't create us for death didn't create us for sin and misery and sorrow these were things that are the fruits of our own choices to be away from him in the great fall of men and inheriting now fallen nature we lost all of our radiant beauty you know when God created us we were clothed with the Holy Spirit we had incredible intelligence we could see the whole purpose of creation all the elements were in response to us you know Elias your patron saint by his prayers after a life of asceticism was able to control the elements he could pray no rain he could pray again rain three years and six months he controlled it that's how Adam and Eve were they could move the Sun you know Joshua the righteous the successor of Moses was able by his prayer took off his son to stay for a whole extra day in its movement we look at that and we go wow Jesus could say to the waves hush be still they were still we look at that and we go he's God but I think it's just as valid to look at that and say he's a true man that is the original condition of human beings as the Lord of all creation we've lost that that's just one of the many things we've lost in the fall as we've entered into this life of of sorrow and the thing we lost that was most precious was our intimate friendship with God our face-to-face communion that he had with Adam and Eve when he walked in the garden with him we lost this and we've lived in this misery this is the background of sin in fact there's a passage in the third chapter of Romans st. Paul's epistle to the Romans where st. Paul describes the condition of our fallen existence people he describes it only using verses from the Psalms and he paints a picture I want to read these to you he says both Jews and Greeks are all under sin as it is written there is none righteous not even one there's none who understands there's none who seeks for God all have turned aside and together they have become useless there is no one who does good there is not even one their throat is an open grave with their tongues they keep deceiving and the poison of ASPs of venomous snakes under their lips their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness and their feet are Swift to shed blood destruction and misery are in their paths and the path of peace they have not known there is no fear of God before their eyes for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God oof this is Paul's summary of our terribly diseased condition of what he calls being under sin he says we're diseased in the mind no one understands we're diseased in the will no one seeks for God all have turned aside and none does good were deceived in the throat which he says has become an open grave were diseased in the mouth our tongues deceive and sometimes our mouths are full of cursing and bitterness God forgive us he says we're diseased in the lips because the poison of serpents is them sometimes we use these actually to poison people we're diseased in the eyes because there's no fear of God there and then in case anyone thought that our pathologies were simply kind of upper respiratory problems he says that disease goes not just from our head but all the way down to the feet our feet sometimes are Swift to shed blood do you get the picture from the top of our head to the bottom of our feet were diseased this is what st. Paul saying I was really taught to think this way by one of my professors in seminary oh I got to tell you this about this man when I was in seminary and I was in my early 20s a very accomplished theologian retired his name was dr. Roger nickel he was at that time in his late 70s he died only a few years ago at 106 he donated his personal library to the seminary and the seminary had to build a whole wing to accommodate his books 70,000 of them 70,000 it took to 18 wheel trucks from the front to the back to the top of books that's that's how his books came one time I caught him in the library organizing them which took two years I said to him I said dr. Niccole have you read all these books and he just looked at me he said some twice anyone he was from the french-speaking part of Switzerland and one time we were he used to give and not even ran in retirement he would give night lectures for three hours at night and we would have a break yet narcolepsy sometimes he would be lecturing and then just and then when he woke up we never knew what language he would start speaking sometimes he would wake up and he was just start speaking in a language and we wait for a minute or two and then we'd raised our hands and we'd say dr. Niccole forgive but you know we mostly speak English oh yes oh excuse me excuse me they would go back and do it in English one time I was passing him on a break in the hallway and he had his glasses on and we said you know to each other he said to me yes how are you brother he had a strong accent and I said oh I'm good dr. Niccole and he thought he went like this his glasses on his nose and look down at men he said no no brother goodness is a moral quality we must lead God to judge you are well Wow since that time for I mean 26 years or something I can never say good to anyone matter of fact it really affected me his words just penetrated me because I remembered that teaching of our Savior one time someone came to Jesus and they said good teachers said why do you call me good there's only one who was good he was in heaven we are too quick to use that word and to think those thoughts instead there's there's one good and we need his goodness instead I've I've learned over the years to say different things like from the Psalms from the six Psalms of orthros there's some really great phrases that we can use one is I'm desperately in trouble from my youth that's more accurate for my life how are you desperately in trouble from my youth how are you oh my gosh anyway that's far more accurate and helpful and I've taught that I've taught the the kids of my parish for the last 16 years I told them I said I told them this story of course maybe ten thousand times and I told him if you say you're good still after all this teaching that your pastor has done for you if you say you're good I will immediately make a full prostration in front of you and I will call the iconographer and ask that your icon be painted right away we'll put it on the wall to prove it I have made many prostrations must study blushing an embarrassment of my kids in the church there's no one who's good brothers and sisters and it's very important for us to be convinced deeply convinced that we're sick you all come to service on holy and great Wednesday night right for the holy unction service I'm sure the church is packed all over the world on holy Wednesday night our churches are packed do you come up and get anointed you do huh that's the whole reason you come if for those beautiful prayers of healing and then you want the holy unction on your head you want to be healed by the Lord well why do you come you don't come just because you know your knees hurt or because you have some disease of course there are plenty of our people who have serious diseases and they come and get anointed but we don't just anoint them do we we anoint every person that sacrament is a witness to what I'm saying you might be perfectly healthy in your body but you still go to get anointed on great Wednesday because you know your body might be perfectly healthy but you are still deeply disoriented deeply diseased and disordered in your soul you have sins that will certainly kill you if the grace of God does not heal you and that's why you go because you want you want the healing grace of God to take care of you so that as a whole person you can be well and filled forever which is your destiny this is what's coming and believe me brothers and sisters this is a thinking that I'm telling you we are not a culture any more sensitive to spiritual disease and pathology we're very sensitive to bodily diseases most of us have in our house a little book mine's called doctor coops a medical diagnosis book you get it you flip it met doctor koop used to be a surgeon general United States under Ronald Reagan you look up you know I have this feeling you look it up in the book and you figure out how to treat yourself most people have those things we pass on information about disease and how to treat it to each other in our churches and our families constantly and as soon as we get you know usually as soon as we get some pain wow we're talking about it and we're thinking about how to get rid of it aren't we sometimes we even go to the doctors real quick are we as sensitive to diagnosing learning about and treating spiritual disease disease of the soul shouldn't we be absolutely we should be even more because it's far more dangerous think of the consequences of neglect if you take care of your soul carefully which means you understand the diseases of the soul when you see things going on you figure out how to treat them there's a diagnosis and a treatment plan for every passion for every disease we're the ones our hope to know that by the way god help us um there's a diagnosis and a treatment plan for every disease if you take care of your soul and let's say you you do it so much that you even neglect your body what's the ultimate consequence of that not much you might die a year early maybe five years early but you're gonna go to Paradise and then you're gonna participate in the resurrection of the just and those who have done good in our saviors language in John 5 a resurrection of those who have done good to life and then your body's going to get fixed reverse the scenario let's say you take care of your body and you're very sensitive to your own diseases and you know you know how to what doc the best doctors and you follow their instructions but you do it so much but you don't take care of your soul you don't really search your heart you don't practice confession you aren't careful about preparing for Holy Communion what's the consequence of neglect there terrible terrible you might there's plenty of people who have healthy bodies but unhealthy Souls and if they don't take care of them I promise you they're not only not going to enjoy the resurrection they're if their body's gonna lose health nobody keeps the health of their body nobody even the rich who are trying to like freeze their bodies and hope for some you know miracle drug to wake them back up so that it can live to forever and believe me there's a lot of science pursuing that there's a lot of science I read a book a couple years ago maybe two three years ago by a Cambridge educated scientist a biologist who specializes in cellular degeneration who wants to find a way to the the process of cellular corruption so that we can live long he thinks in his book this is a Harvard ph.d guy guys there's no small guy Aubrey de Grey is his name he thinks that within one generation we'll be able to live to eight hundred years but he's after the book at the end in an interview he's after why do you care so much you know a Christian physician would say because we're seeking life we're trying to work against the consequences of sin and we're cooperating with God and the healing of the nation's that's a beautiful vision for medicine but not you know what his answer was it tells you a lot about our culture today his answer was so many women so little time why did he want to live long so that he could slake his lusts with woman after woman after woman for 800 years that sounds like hell to me oh poor guy but that's actually what he that's what he was living for brothers and sisters there's those are all fantasies fantasies promise you doesn't matter how much money you have or how great a scientist you are death only has one solution and it's called the resurrection of Jesus Christ and everyone who's attached to our Savior everyone who by faith joins him or herself to him will share in his victory over death and we do that by really being serious about curing ourselves this is what sin is sin is a terrible disease that we must take seriously we have to learn a lot about it this is this is the number one subject in the scriptures and the writings of the church fathers is to talk about the spiritual life the interior life let it be something that you're really important you really care I know I'm preaching to the choir because you're showing that you care by coming to a retreat on Saturday that's why you're here is because you want to hear this and I commend you for it I'm just supporting you I'm pushing you to let it be a really sustained serious part of your life know more about how to love God and how to purify your soul and how to avoid the sin to learn no more about that than you do about physical disease some of you no doubt suffer from anger you should know that there's a treatment plan for anger one of the principles for treating our sins is that every sin every passion is healed by its opposite so if you're an angry person the way you treat that is first by silence and then by kindness this is the medicine this is the powerful antidote one of our recent Saints he died in 1959 his name is joseph joseph the hesychast he was a monk on Mount Athos he was a barber he was a barber for four years that then he went to Mount Athos and he lived in a little cave for years and around him gathered to twelve young men who wanted to learn the spiritual life after decades of him living in those twelve ended up becoming Abbot's of some of the major monasteries of Mount Athos and have presided over the revival of that mountain but he said in his one of his letters he was describing how to cure anger he says when you feel anger this is just an example he says when you feel anger usually you feel it first because you get heat you feel on the inside you're getting hot and then you feel like movement in your stomach eventually of course that leads to the terrible thing of opening your mouth and that's when the destruction comes okay with anger so what he says is when you feel that when you start when you feel the heat know right away what's happening that you are on the edge of a serious temptation and when you feel that movement in your stomach you says imagine there's a sleeping serpent there and the movement you feel is him waking up the last thing you want to do is to let him out by opening your mouth and he will come out and strike and do what James says in his epistle right that the tongue is a you know a snake and it communicates deadly poison he said the thing to do to beat your anger is when you feel that heat in that movement don't let him get any oxygen don't open your mouth and you will calm him down and slow him back to sleep by oxygen deprivation put the serpent back to sleep and then practice the opposite of what you were intending to do the person who has offended you the person who has who has provoked you whatever it is don't respond with anger on keeping your mouth shut and then once you're a little bit calmer defeat the disease by the practice of kindness our Savior calls it loving your enemies loving your enemies and doing good to those who abuse you it means living like Christ right so when someone comes to you and they offend you tell yourself it's all from the Lord because he loves me they the Lord sent this to me so that I can exercise patience and have a chance to become like Jesus you do know that if everyone's nice to you in your life you will go to hell you do know that do not want everyone to be nice to you in your life then you are actually wishing for a life that is not like Christ's how can you bear a cross if the if the Lord doesn't allow in his good measure his own arrangement conflicts and difficulties that you have to exercise patience and show true authentic Christian love if everybody was loving you and you were loving the back how would you know if you Christian love at all Christian love is shown chiefly by an unconditional expression and especially the love of enemies so that's just a little taste of our of our last our last word here which is how do we actually treat it in the church how do we treat specific diseases so is it okay father if we stop now and have just a short five-minute break okay let's do that let's have a five-minute break if you have any questions we'll start the last session on the church is the spiritual hospital with whatever your questions and then we'll have our last one the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit so thank you brothers and sisters for your attention so far for having open hearts to what I'm saying we have a half hour left and in that half hour I'd like to do two things I'd like to say a little bit more about the last encouragement I gave you at the end of the last lecture which was to pay more attention to your spiritual health and to your physical health I want to I want to comment upon what that I think means with regards to physical health like what is a proper orientation to that I'm gonna take my words directly from Saint Basil the Great who in his very famous book the long rules ask the question and then answers it what's a Christian attitude towards medicine so I want to speak a little bit about what a Christian attitude towards medicine is before I do that also one of our participants mentioned something to me at the break which is very very important and that is the importance of the role of our consciences and to listen to our conscience because our conscience provides us as it is a divine gift to provide us a guide especially st. Paul says the conscience praises us for good and censures us for evil and we should learn to listen to the conscience which can only take place with a level of quietness this is why we have a hard time being attuned to our conscience because we live in a very busy not just busy but really obsessive culture I find this in myself that a lot of times when I first sit down to be quiet my hand reaches for my iPhone whether my iPhone is there or not it just does it is because I've done it so many millions of times it just happens we have to just get through that and say okay calm down and and just sit in order to listen to our conscience and to hear what God has to say we also should develop our conscience because conscience exists in us in different conditions some people have very well formed consciences and others have conscience --is that have become in st. paul's words seared as with a branding iron means they become insensitive so that they have scar tissue because we haven't listened to them or perhaps we've even infused ourselves with false knowledge and so our consciences become malformed by doing what you're doing today by listening to the wisdom of the church it informs our conscience and then that conscience helps us it helps us by giving us guidance that we can listen to and follow it's never a good idea to violate your conscience so let me start this last 30-minute session by talking a little bit about how physical illness and a Christian approach to medicine can actually lead to spiritual health according to Saint Basil the Great and the question is that that basil posits is whether recourse to the medical art to the physicians is in keeping with piety and I'm gonna summary summarize his answer in twelve short paragraphs these are his got his guidance on how we should relate to medicine and to our own physical diseases one medicine he says like all the legitimate arts such as agriculture weaving building its construction etc is a gift from God to man designed to remedy the deficiencies of our own nature because our pain ridden flesh is doomed to destruction because of because it's subjugation to disease the Lord gave to us the medical art to give us a measure of relief competent physicians and honorable medicine is to be viewed as an expression of God's compassion for man and I would just note that in the Old Testament in the book of Sirach sometimes it's called ecclesiasticus there's a whole chapter given to what the proper honor to a physician should be how to give proper honor to a physician so that's number one it's from God it's an art from God to help us and to give us a compassionate relief number two healing herbs and drugs are a gift from God God caused herbs to grow out of the earth which are designed for our own need there's natural virtue in roots and flowers leaves fruits and juices in metals and products of the sea that are conducive to restoring health and should be viewed by us in the same way as the procurement of food and drink note that he's emphasizing healing herbs and drugs he's not talking about recreational drug use smoking pot for fun number three medicine should be utilized in moderation this is a very important point medicine should be utilized in moderation whatever requires an undue amount of thought or trouble or involves a large expenditure of effort and causes our whole life to revolve as it were around solicitude for the flesh must be avoided by Christians this means that when you start to get sick or you're getting old don't do the doctor dance sometimes when we get old we allow ourselves to be less involved in the church in the family and in serving our community than we should be and we fill our calendars with visits to the doctors and when we see each other we talk about it oh I went to this doctor and I went to that doctor this is very common when you when you get old and you're getting near death and your body's falling apart don't do it it's a degradation to human dignity it's not using medicine in moderation don't let it be the definition of why you're alive and the stuff you talk about you have to go to the doctors that's understandable but nobody's interested in that forgive me talk about the kids talk about human people talk about what's what love and good things that are really important to us number four remember that the cure of the body is a model for the cure of the soul which is the supreme gage of all legitimate human activity and the chief concern of Christians should we be healed we do not make the medicine or the doctor accountable we don't say praise the doctor or praise the medicine but we praise the Lord God and conversely if we remain in sickness without healing we remember that sometimes our Lord healed by clay sometimes by anointing sometimes by a mere word and sometimes he allowed persons to remain in their sickness in order to render them even more worthy of reward by enduring trials there's a good reason behind whatever we get or don't get when we pray for healing number five physical cures happen through many means and sources but God is the author of all health and healing sometimes he cures us secretly without visible means when he judges this mode of treatment beneficial to our souls and again He wills that we use material remedies for our ills either to instill in us by the prolonged nature of the Cure and inviting remembrance so sometimes he lets us be cured by medicine over a year we have to do it for a year and that way he implants in us a memory of his working with us to heal us that we'll never forget this is the one of the reasons he does it and sometimes he uses it as an example of how to cure the soul through sustained work number six we have to endure asceticism spiritual effort and struggle of the body and the soul an eel in order to be healed of the body in the soul in using the medical art we submit to terrible things basil says st. basil cutting burning the taking of bitter medicines for the cure of the body so also in caring for our souls we must heal them by accepting the cut of a reproachful word the bitter men medicine of repentance and penalties and penances sometimes the medical art is no small aid to teaching us continence e to helping us ignore sensual indulgence it supposed to saturation to sanity to gluttony it forbids an elaborate and inexpedient diet and it teaches us that self-control is the mother of health these are all lessons moral lessons that we can learn through the doctor who teaches us how to take care of our health the same way can you imagine just think of yourself or others you know who have had serious diseases and they've reoriented their whole life their diet their sleeping patterns they've submitted themselves to very painful surgeries and painful regimens of treatment why to cure the body and then when Lent comes they say oh I can't fast what they're really saying is I care a lot more about the health of my body than I do about the health of my soul and this is one of the things that medicine teaches us if we're willing to do that for the body how much more shall be we be willing to make it whole alteration in our life to improve spiritually for instance if I told you something that's John Chrysostom st. John Chrysostom once told to his parishioners I wonder if he's still like he told them once that he wanted them to get up at midnight to disturb their their sleep and to get up at midnight and to save prayers for five minutes and then go back to sleep through back to sleep he actually said this to a big congregation bigger than this with lots of kids he even said if you have little kids wake them up to they don't have to stay up with you you could just wake them up bring them down bless them and put them right back in bed he goes but you'll be doing them a favor you will teach them that prayer is more important than just the fallen routines of life sleeping getting up sleeping getting up that there's something really important even to disturb that pattern we're willing to do a lot of things to get our physical health but are we always ready to do some spiritual effort which has a much better reward 7 chronic illnesses this is a good word - chronic illnesses that persist over a long period of time and despite varied and painful remedies are a sign to our souls that we should amend the sins of our soul by a situa repentance and a severe disciplinary treatment which reason advises us as adequate for the cure of our sins this means that sometimes we have diseases that we can only endure and seek to cure over a period of years and that teaches us the spirit we should have as Christians which is a deep spirit of engagement spiritually of repentance developing a humble spirit where we're constantly working warring in Saint Paul's words warring against evil we have to keep our souls tight and serious and remember that we have a living enemy and that we've been given tools and weapons by God and if you put those weapons down don't think the devil is gonna put his weapons down if you put the weapons down what that means is you're gonna get shot that's what it means so if you take your ease in this life certainly you will be attacked and laid low the time for rest in war is when the war is over and the war is over for you when you die don't rest before then number 8 we should not abandon the proper use of medicine because some people abuse medicine because undisciplined pleasure seekers have used the art of cooking or baking or clothing cloth-making does not mean that we ourselves should not eat or wear clothes and just because some people abuse medicine and make it make the doctor responsible in their minds for their cure doesn't mean that we shouldn't go to doctors and use it rightly by the way this is very important for the use of alcohol too because there are alcoholic who doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy wine that gladdens the heart of man in moderation it's very important to learn how to use god's gifts in a way that pleases the giver and doesn't insult him same with medicine 9 in suffering a loss of physical health we ought to ask God for understanding of the reason that he allowed this affliction to come upon us and then deliverance of our pains our patient endurance of them to the end so that God may be able to strengthen us to bear it so try to seek out when you get sick try to seek out from God wisdom why am I sick and I'll tell you sometimes we could know sometimes we can but in my own life I remember very vividly a time when I was really mean I was really mean I don't know what it was could've been a million things in my life but the good curry came to me and said something and I said I was shamefully rude he she walked away went back to the kitchen immediately I got a pain in my stomach and it got worse and worse oh my gosh I said oh lord I am so sorry and I went to the restroom and I vomited I got sick so sick that I vomited and I just sat there the toilet became the altar of my repentance i sat there and i just said lord that was totally inexcusable my patient wife did not deserve to receive my impatient harsh response and I just walked into the kitchen once I was better I said sweetheart please forgive me please forgive me I have been dealt with by the Lord anyway I didn't even have to pray and ask why it happened to me I knew exactly that he loved me so much that he said son that's enough Wow right on my rear but pray and ask the Lord why are you saying I'm not saying that you're gonna be sick because you sinned but sometimes you will be sick because you say sometimes you're gonna be sick because you're doing really well and the Lord wants you to be strong strengthened by the endurance of tribulation there's a thousand reasons why and it's good to ask st. basil says number 10 we should reject the idea that every kind of suffering requires medical relief sometimes it's better not to go to the doctor you have to discern that like in my case in that particular incidence number 11 sometimes sickness comes upon us as a work of the evil one we see this in the case of the much suffering profit job who also had owns the Dorn's your dome and what God is asking us is to endure with patience and to remember that other people to suffer because of the evil wanted to have compassion and lastly number 12 he says the passing of the body from illness to health when you get healed is an encouragement that also you can pass from a state of spiritual sickness to health so all of the times when you've been sick and you've gotten better Saint Basil says this is a sign to you that the Lord God also can help you overcome the sin of anger or whatever your sin is whatever you might have a disposition to you also can get better it's an encouragement so this is from st. basil now let me take the last few minutes that we have I think I have 15 minutes good I want to take the last 15 minutes and give you a shot a shot of encouragement about what the church is and how valuable it is what how rich you are as Orthodox Christians to belong to the church I started this whole session by telling you all of those descriptions of Jesus I give you like 50 titles and I said we could do a letter retreat on every one of those titles and then we came to the healer and we expanded from there I want to start this part by doing the same thing for the church because in fact since the church is the body of Christ she shares the qualities of her head and everything we say about Christ in fact has an application and describing the church the New Testament has so many beautiful descriptions of the church I want to read some of them to you the names are many and the metaphors are glorious the word church itself ecclesia means the Assembly of God's people the church is called the family of God the Father it's called the family of Jesus his very mother brothers and sisters the church is the wife of the Lamb this is revelation 19 she's called the Bride of Christ as Ephesians 5 the temple of the Holy Spirit the branches of the vine God's olive tree God's field and his harvest God's building the net that gathers the fish of the nations the tree of the nations of the earth the great sheet in which all the peoples of the earth are gathered the spiritual house and the royal priesthood the household and temple of God the City of God the New Jerusalem the Assembly of the firstborn the mother of us all the pillar and support of the truth the sheep and flock of Christ the body of Christ and the fullness this is the description I think is most mystical the fullness of Christ who fills all in all do you know what that saying Saint Agustin of Hippo comments on that he says where is Jesus he asked his audience his students he says where is Jesus and they all answered him he's at the right hand of the Father and he said that's true is that the whole Christ and they said yes he said you're wrong if you want quote the full of him who fills all in all you have to take Jesus at the right hand of the Father and all of us because we're his body that's how intimately connected Jesus in the church are there's no dichotomy between Jesus in the church there's forms of Western Christianity brothers and sisters this is especially true in forms of president of angelical ISM there's forms that think that Jesus somehow is this floating decapitated head the head of the church but somehow he's separated for the body he's floating around in the air and you can just reach out and grab him without ever going through the church that is a completely false concept Jesus is not dichotomous with the church if you want Jesus you go to the church you know st. Paul learned this when he was a persecutor many of you no doubt have visited our beautiful church on the road to Damascus built right where Saint Paul was knocked off his heart horse he was in st. Paul then he was solved and he was going with letters from the Jewish high priest to Damascus to get Christians and to put them in prison and to kill some of them and on the way he thought that he had that experience in cept he was even a worse condition than Peter James and John and he fell down blind and he heard Jesus say something to him even though it had been years since Jesus ascended to heaven and even though Paul didn't know Jesus on the earth Jesus said to Paul Saul Saul why are you persecuting my people is that what he said no that is not what Saul what Jesus said to Saul jesus said to Saul Saul Saul why are you persecuting me what persecuting you I don't even know you I don't haven't even seen you do you understand what Jesus is saying you touch my people you touch me they are me that is my body organically linked there's no separation or division Paul learned a big lesson what you do for the flock you do for Christ Jesus applied it the same way to them Peter after the resurrection he met Peter on the beach and he said to Peter Peter do you love me Peter said yes I love you Lord the Lord allowed him three times to say I love you in order to offset his three deny his thrice denial and Jesus each time he said if you love me take care of my sheep if you love me feed my lambs if you love me ten my flock every priest in pasture knows the measure of his love for Jesus Christ is determined by how he takes care of people if we love the flock it means that we love Christ there's no separation between the two that is an incredible description so with that said think brothers and sisters about what the church is right all of the stuff we've been talking about so far as Jesus as the healer where does he affect the healing here in his body where he lives this is where the miracles take place this is most beautifully shown in the New Testament by the parable of the Good Samaritan you know this incredible text Jesus was asked by a certain lawyer when he the lawyer said what's the greatest commandment and Jesus said love God and love your neighbor as yourself and he said wanting to justify himself he said well who's my neighbor and Jesus told him the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to that he said a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves which stripped him of his raiment wounded him and departed leaving him half dead and by chance there came a certain priest that way and when he saw him he passed by the other side and likewise a Levite when he was at the place came and looked at the man half-dead and passed on the other side but a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him he had compassion on him and he went to him and he bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him and on the morrow when he departed he took out two pence and he gave them to the host and he said take care of him and whatsoever thou spendest more when I come again I will repay thee now which of these three was neighbor to the man who fell among thieves and he said the one who showed mercy on him and Jesus said go and do the same this is Luke 10 what a magnificent parable and it reveals to us exactly what our theme has spin and on this retreat morning first the person of the healer the Good Samaritan our Lord Jesus next the nature of the disease and third the means of healing in the place of therapy the man who fell among the thieves is the prototypical fallen human being this is us the man who was beaten up we have suffered the greatest mugging known to human history we had stolen from us our own glory and dignity and health when we were deceived by the crafty serpent the robbers are the demons and our fall to their trickery has left us half dead and apart from the life-giving grace of Christ were like walking corpses st. Paul says were dead even while we live when we're away from Christ the priest and the Levite that passed by the wounded man represent the insufficiency of the old Jewish covenant to cure any disease and to atone for sin the blood of goats and bulls in st. Paul's words to the Hebrews cannot take away sin or make the conscience full and clean the Good Samaritan is our Lord Jesus Christ himself it said that when the Samaritan saw the man lying half-dead he saw him and had compassion on him hearken back to the first thing we said in our first lecture all of this is from all of Jesus's saving acts flow from his compassionate because he can't stand to see us half dead the Good Samaritan Christ came to us deeply injured and wounded and spiritually diseased he bound up our wounds and he treated us as a physician does and his medicine was according to this account oil and wine this reference to oil and wine according to the church fathers as a reference to the holy mysteries of the church to baptism and chrismation Eucharist and unction and is through these mysteries that the human person is healed that his wounds are treated and that health is restored the end where the Good Samaritan took him on his Beast and dupatta deposited the six men for recuperation and therapy is the Holy Church and the innkeeper's responsible for taking care of him and healing him and who will be rewarded by the Good Samaritan when he returns the clergy of the church the spiritual fathers who have care for Souls here we have a depiction of the church as the spiritual hospital and we see the process of spiritual therapy and healing this is the church brothers and sisters and if you want the glory of Christ the healer and if you want a place where you can actually have those wounds inflicted on you by the robbers cured this is it this is it this is what we have to offer the world it's what Christ offers us true spiritual healing stop do we have a few minutes for questions okay by the way if you're interested in this subject more I hope you are but if you're interested in in specifics when I gave this retreat in my parish I told you I give it in 10 10 lectures there was a lecture on Christ the healer a lecture on sin as the disease a lecture on the church as a spiritual hospital the fourth lecture is on the pastor or the spiritual father as a physician and the importance of studying that this is what the the the training of the priesthood is all about is to understand the movements of the soul and how to heal and then the last six were taking major diseases like love avarice the love of money anger pride and diagnosing them like what is the nature of these sins and how to cure them and these are all honor recordings that you can get if you could our website you can actually download these lectures and if you're interested in finding a particular sin that's bothering you and hearing a few suggestions at least about how you can feel better you can find it on the website know their audio the recordings yeah you'd have to put download them to your computer or to your iPhone though the website you can get to the website through our church's website but I'll just give you the website address it's www patristic nectar that means us we teach use of the father's patristic nectar dot org and if you go there it has a bunch of tabs about different things writings from the father's and interviews and bubble up but click on lectures and then you'll find the church at the spiritual hospital

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Length: 96min 44sec (5804 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2018