If people in our congregations are ever going to get along, the leaders of those churches must remind us of how important it is. Jesus' dying prayer was that we would be one. Why? So the world would know that the Father had sent him. Unity is not important, it is essential; not just as a theory or theology, but as a daily practice among the people who claim Jesus as Lord.
Day 13 of the Blessed Coptic Month of Bashans, may God make it always received, year after year, with reassurance and tranquility, while our sins after forgiven by the tender mercies of our God my fathers and brothers.
Amen.
The Thirteenth Day of the Blessed Month of Bashans
Departure of St.Arsanius, the Tutor of the Emperor's Children
On this day, of the year 445 A.D., the ascetic, fighter, and wise father St. Arsanius departed. He was born in Rome from a very rich Christian parents. They taught him church subjects and ordained him a deacon. He was highly knowledgeable in the Greek culture and endowed with great Christian values. When Emperor Theodosius the Great sought for a good and wise man to teach his sons Honorius and Arcadius, he could not find a better person than Arsanius. He brought him to his palace and entrusted the teaching of his sons to him. St. Arsanius taught them and admonished them, as was fitting. Since he devoted much exertion and toil in teaching them, he inflicted them once with painful beatings. When Emperor Theodosius their father died, Honorius reigned over Rome and Arcadius reigned over Constantinople. The Saint remembered that he once beat them, and that Honorius desired to do him harm. While he was thinking of this, a voice came from the Lord saying: "O Arsani, get out from this world and you shall be saved." Once he heard this voice, he did not tarry, changed his clothing, and came to the city Alexandria. Then he went to the wilderness of St. Macarius (Sheahat - Scete), where he fought a great fight with fasting, prayer and long vigils. At the beginning of his monastic life, he reviewed his thoughts to a simple monk for advice. The monks were surprised and said to him: "Does someone like Arsanius who is very well versed in Greek and Roman culture, need the advice of this simple monk?" He told them that the Coptic Alpha Beta of this monk had not been mastered by Arsanius. He meant by this the virtues of that monk. A messenger came from Rome carrying a will of one of St. Arsanius' relatives who had departed, granting all his possessions to the Saint. The Saint asked: "When did this man die?" The messenger answered: "One year ago." The Saint said: "I have died eleven years ago, and those who died to the world can not inherit others who died."
One of the noble women of Rome came to visit him because she heard of his righteousness. After she visited with him for a short while, she asked him to remember her in his prayer. He said to her: "May God erase all your memory from my mind." She returned sorrowful and complained to the Pope in objection to this statement. Pope Theophylus clarified to her what he meant, that he was afraid, that the devil might use her memory to tempt him. When Arsanius started his monastic life, he used to select for himself the white beans for his food. When the Abbot of the monastery noticed, he gently struck the monk, who was sitting beside Arsanius saying: "It is not right that you distinguish yourself from your brethren by selecting the white beans." Arsanius said: "This stroke is directed to you, O Arsanius!" Arsanius mastered the virtue of silence. When he was asked about that, he said: "Many times I regretted that I have spoken, but I have never regretted on being silent." He was a very humble and modest man, who lived from selling the works of his hands by pleating palm leaves, and giving the rest to the poor. He put down many useful sayings and teachings. Whenever he entered the church, he hid behind a pillar of the church so no one would see him. His appearance was good, his face was bright and very cheerful. He was tall in stature, but he became bowed because of his age. He visited Jerusalem when he was seventy years old, to be blessed by the holy places, and then he returned to Sheahat. When he departed, he was ninety-five years old: He spent forty years in Rome, forty years in the wilderness of St. Macarius, ten years in Mount Torah, three years in the monasteries of Alexandria, then he returned to Mount Torah and lived there for two years.
He had commanded his disciples to throw his body on a certain mountain, so that wild beasts and vultures would eat him. However, fear gripped him, just before his soul departed from his body and his disciples said to him: "Is someone like Arsanius fearing death?" He replied: "Since I had become a monk, I dreaded this hour." He became calm, his soul was comforted, and a peaceful look covered his face as if he was saying: " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me" (Psalms 23:4). He departed in peace in the year 445 A.D. When Theodosius II, the son of Arcadius, knew of his death, he brought his body to Constantinople. He built a monastery on the same place where he departed, which was known in history as the monastery of El-Kosair.
From his sayings:
An old monk was sitting in his cell, heard a voice saying to him: "Go out so I might show you the deeds of people." When he went out, he saw a man cutting wood. When he tried to carry it, he could not, and instead of reducing his load, he increased it, and tried to carry it again, but failed, and did this again and again. Then he walked away and saw another man getting water from a well and pouring it in a pot with a hole in it, and the man could not fill it. Then he saw two men riding on two horses, carrying a pole from each side. When they came to the door, their pride prevented that one would stay behind in order to get the pole in, and therefore they remained outside.
St. Arsanius explained this vision to them, saying: "The wood cutter was a man with a multitude of sins. Instead of repenting, he added more and more to his sins. The man who wanted to fill the pot with water was a charitable man who gave alms from what he earned unjustly, and his reward was lost. The two men carrying the pole were carrying the burden of our Lord Christ, but with great pride, and therefore they both stayed outside the kingdom.
May his prayers be with us and glory be to God forever. Amen.
The all-powerful truth of the Trinity is the Father, who created us and keeps us within him. The deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in whom we all are enfolded. The exalted goodness of the Trinity is our beloved Lord: we are held in him and he is held in us. We are enclosed in the Father, we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed in the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are enclosed in us. All Power. All Goodness. All Wisdom. One God. One Love. —Julian of Norwich [1]
Over the next few days I’ll share other writers’ perspectives on Trinity which have helped form and clarify my own thinking. Catherine Mowry LaCugna’s (1952–1997) book, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, has helped to make the Trinity once again practical and participative more than mere abstract theology. LaCugna wrote:
The doctrine of the Trinity is ultimately a practical doctrine with radical consequences for Christian life. . . . The doctrine of the Trinity, which is the specifically Christian way of speaking about God, summarizes what it means to participate in the life of God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit. The mystery of God is revealed in Christ and the Spirit as the mystery of love, the mystery of persons in communion who embrace death, sin, and all forms of alienation for the sake of life. Jesus Christ, the visible icon of the invisible God, discloses what it means to be fully personal, divine as well as human. The Spirit of God, poured into our hearts as love (Romans 5:5), gathers us together in the body of Christ, transforming us so that “we become by grace what God is by nature,” namely, persons in full communion with God and with every creature. . . .
Christians believe that God bestows the fullness of divine life in the person of Jesus Christ, and that through the person of Christ and the action of the Holy Spirit we are made intimate partakers of the living God (theosis, divinization). . . .
God is not self-contained, egotistical and self-absorbed but overflowing love, outreaching desire for union with all that God has made. The communion of divine life is God’s communion with us in Christ and as Spirit. . . .
God moves toward us so that we may move toward each other and thereby toward God. The way God comes to us is also our way to God and to each other: through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is our faith, confessed in creed and celebrated in the sacraments.
Confessing faith is incomplete unless it becomes a form of life. Living faith in the God of Jesus Christ means being formed and transformed by the life of grace of God’s economy: becoming persons fully in communion with all; becoming Christ to one another; becoming by the power of the Holy Spirit what God is: love unbounded, glory uncontained.
References:
[1] Julian of Norwich, Fourteenth Revelation, chapter 54, See The Showings of Julian of Norwich, trans. Mirabai Starr (Hampton Roads: 2013), 149-150.
Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (HarperSanFrancisco: 1991), 1, 3, 15, 377.