Melkite Office of Educational Services

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1 Melkite Office of Educational Services JUNE 2013 CATECHIST NEWSLETTER Celebrating our past, shaping our future Dear Catechists, After prayerful reflection and consultation with Bishop Nicholas, I will be leaving my position as director of religious education for the Melkite eparchy. I prayerfully look forward to continuing my ministry in whatever capacity God directs me. Religious Education has been the focus of my life in the Eastern Catholic Church for over 60 years and I believe now God is calling me to be a living icon as you all are and saddened as I am, I ask for your prayers as I will remember you in mine. I remember the joyful anticipation I experienced when I a Melkite Catholic mother and Sunday School teacher, gathered my three children, skipped our summer vacation to allow the time and pay the tuition, so that I could study at Fordham university s John XIII Institute of Eastern Christians Studies. There, I discovered the depth, beauty and magnificence of my religious heritage and through the encouragement and endorsement of my inspired professors, among them the great theologians of our time, Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ. Archbishop Joseph Raya, Rev George Maloney SJ, Fr. John Meyendorf and Dr George Bebis, I was eager to pass on what I had learned. I would be remiss if I did not give tribute here to our Melkite Bishop Emeritus Most RevJohn Elya who had the vision and courage to appoint a woman to be the Director of Religious Education. I leave my legacy, especially, to women who have a vital contribution to make to the Eastern Catholic Church if given the chance. I would like you also to remember my tenure as a Religious Education Director committed to catechesis as the quintessential path to evangelization and Christ s mandate to spread the good news. Evangelization without catechesis and apologetics to defend our faith will remain futile rhetoric, unless we know what we are talking about. We cannot fulfill our mandate without understanding, witnessing and defending.. The good news we have been called by Christ to spread is not Disneyland. The catalytic fruit of evangelization are the words see how they lave one another. My wish for you is the exhilaration I experienced in teaching the treasures of our rich tradition It has been the greatest blessing of my life to have worked to infuse the rich treasures of our Eastern Christian faith to those whom I have had the privilege of serving as a Church school teacher. Nothing can compares to the joy I have had in helping my students understand that they

2 have inherited a divine spark, (spermatic logos), the word of God, the medium by which God disseminates his will and issues his commandments. We are called to follow the promptings, the voice of this divine spark, and in so doing, we live the law of God in Christ, the law of love. How exciting it was as a catechist to guide my students into expanding their consciousness that Christ lives in them and is transforming them to be God like If we want our tradition to survive in a society, influenced by the materialism of European culture, I urge you to strive to be the best catechists you can be. Hopefully, we can put into practice what the Saints, the Fathers of the Church, and the Apostles have passed down to us. We have inherited a tradition directly from the hands of the apostles and to this day the apostolic succession continues in tact. Tradition is not dead. Robert Taft S.J. defines tradition as not the past; it is the Church self-consciousness now of that which has been handed on to her not as an inert treasure but as a dynamic inner life (Taft, p. 14 Beyond East and West) I look forward to working with my grandchildren, my children and all those whose lives I have touched with a fire for their faith. In closing, please remember me in your prayers in this very sad time in my life that I may continue my ministry as you will always be in mine, I believe that nothing happens outside the providence of God. With All my love and Best Wishes, Your Sister Catechist in Christ God Trinity, Frances Nejmeh Colie START YOUR STUDENTS ON A PATH TO SPIRITUALITY The wind of the All-Holy Spirit has dispelled the effects of technology and dehumanizing rationalism. And as the Psalmist says, mountains of rocks have been transformed into fountains of living waters. What a pity that in a recent survey of people who claimed to believe in God, 62 percent did not believe that God intervenes in their lives. On the optimistic side, the interest in spirituality has generated what might be called a springtime in the Church. In this continued movement of hungry people looking for a deeper relationship with God, it is a likely moment that we

3 as Eastern Christians are impelled to return to our roots and rediscover the tradition of our Early Fathers. Our mystical practices allow us to overcome our frenetic state of anxiety dealing with the world around us and encourage descent into our hearts from this disordered state. This explains the revival of the Jesus Prayer among those searching for the experience of God. The first characteristic of our faith is the important truth for spirituality that God is Trinity. The spiritual relevant meaning and implications of this fact is that reality is ultimately and inescapably interpersonal communion. The experience of God presupposes a continuous and progressive series of changes in our created nature and a more and more intimate communion of the human person with the Holy Trinity. Our personhood as human beings ranges widely over space and time and into eternity. Our human vocation is theosis divinization. As St. Basil the Great says the human being is a creature that is called to become God. God for us is Trinity. - and as we are made in the image of God we are in the Image of the Triune God. The key to understanding personhood according to the Trinitarian image is not isolated self awareness but relationship in mutual love. In the words of the theologian Dimitrios Staniloe Insofar as I am not love, I am unintelligible to myself. HELP YOUR STUDENTS DISCOVER THEMSELVES1 So we see that the limits of our personhood are very far ranging and the answer to the question Who am I? is not at all obvious. Each of us is a mystery. We are God s living icons. Each of us is a created expression of God s infinite Self expression. This means it is impossible to understand ourselves apart from God. Humans cut off from God are no longer authentically human. If we lose our sense of the divine we equally lose our sense of the human.

4 The novelty emerging fads, (Mind Control,Reiki, etc.) couched in spiritual language, do not have the potential to deliver spiritual growth that is borne of a relationship with God. Although these programs borrow physical and mental practices from exotic mystical traditions, they are unable culminate in the mysticism of the Triune God. If we learn and practice these techniques without a true faith in God Trinity, we will never experience God, the essence of spirituality. Our spirituality is about relationship with God that leads to mystical union and our transformation into the likeness of God. On the shelves in most Religious book stores today we can find a variety of books on the practice of the Jesus Prayer written by authors of many Christian denominations. T h e J e s u s Prayer is an ancient form of prayer used in the Eastern Churches, based on the repeated invocation of the name of Jesus. It has many different forms. The most traditional one Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. All of them have the same theological basis and meaning: to let us enter into the divine mystery and to experience the presence of Jesus in our everyday life. Can a simple turning within our heart and repeating the name of Jesus synchronized with our breathing really be an effective prayer for us today? This is the technique common to all transcendental forms of meditation; a fixation on a mantra (the name of Jesus) while slowing down one s breathing and sinking into a state of relaxation. It behooves us also at this time to rediscover our own Eastern Mystical tradition. Let us use the simple but powerful spiritual techniques that are being practiced by all seekers of enlightenment. Inasmuch as we are all temples of the Holy Spirit, The Spirit lives and breathes in us. When we turn within to listen to that breath breathing in us we become true temples of prayer.

5 For the mystics, prayer is a state of existence, rather than an action. The mystic is simply a person like all of us, who meets God in an ever deepening openness to the Living Mystery within him. The mystic is the one who consciously lets the Breath of God breathe in him. He is, as St. Irenaeus says, The glory of God a man living to the fullest. The mystic is the person always becoming more human as the Holy Sprit divinizes the powers placed in man when God made him according to the Image and Likeness of God. A fully realized human being has to be a mystic in the truest sense. The Fathers of the Sinai taught that when we combine the name of Jesus with the regular flow of breath we find that our attention is more easily kept on the One to whom we are praying. These fathers came to be associated with the form of spirituality called hesychasm which developed in the monasteries of Egypt around the fourth and fifth century. the inner tranquility of spirit needed for any deep communion with God. Hesychasm refers to From about the sixth century, this practice called the Jesus Prayer was followed by the monks who lived this hesychastic way of life attempting to achieve inner rest and stillness by laying aside all earthly cares, by quieting the cravings of our fallen nature which get in the way of a deeper relationship with the Lord. This coordination of the Prayer with the bodily activity of breathing became an important part of hesychast spirituality in the Middle East. Hesychasts would spend great amounts of time practicing the Prayer so that it would move from being a conscious, vocal activity to a subconscious one. They wanted the Prayer to be literally unceasing (Paul1 Thess.5:17) This is not something that happens over night, but rather in stages.

6 In the first state, we pray with words on our lips. In the Jesus Prayer, we say the prayer over and over again. In the Second stage, the prayer moves from the lips to the mind. The prayer starts to become a part of us. We become conscious of saying the prayer when we aren t thinking about it. We don t will it. It just happens. This may be frightening because we are so accustomed to being in control, and now we hand over control to God in order to move on to the In the third stage, the rhythm of the prayer is the rhythm of the heart In the heart we find the peace, joy and fulfillment of living in the overwhelming love of God. More learning takes place by doing than by hearing. We best learn to pray by praying. We should not think of the prayer as too difficult or not intended for children. That is the beauty of the Jesus prayer, It is for all to experience the Jesus Prayer as a Christian mystical experience. The following are suggestions to begin to pray the Jesus Prayer. Create an atmosphere that contributes to the experience by providing an environmental enhancement for stillness and relaxation as a psychological preparation for inward prayer. The quiet, structured environment removes exterior distractions. The use of the traditional icon corner builds on the Byzantine understanding of the use of icons in prayer. We pray before an icon because the icon manifests graphically the presence of God and serves as a window to heaven.

7 Sit in a comfortable position, and try not to move so as not to be distracted or to expend unnecessary energy. To feel that you are going down deep within yourself, you may use any of the commonly accepted countdown exercises Feel yourself as totally relaxed as you continue to go deeper and deeper into yourself. Breathe deeply inhale and push out with your diaphragm (repeat this several times. Feel yourself breathing in God s life. Repeat these words to yourself Jesus Christ, come into my life As we exhale, let us ask God to have mercy on us. We are going to breathe in Jesus life and exhale our sinfulness. Breathe in Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God...exhale, and say to yourself, Have mercy on me a sinner ; breathe in repeat this and silently close out all distractions. Continue to pray in your mind...feel Him in your heart...breathe in God s breathe...push out that which keeps you from God. If you feel yourself surfacing, breathe deeply and start over again. Continue to breathe deeply and sit quietly allow God to speak in your heart. The eastern mystic, St. Gregory of Sinai (14 th century) describes Christian transcendental meditation as man standing before God in prayer, with concentration by the grace of faith in the indwelling Trinity and he forces his mind into his heart. Man in prayer seeks to move beyond images and words to reach an inner stillness (apatheia) or tranquility where he is freed by grace to experience God at the depths of his being. The goal of such spirituality is not to reach a religious high or to have an ecstatic experience. It is to fulfill the injunction of the New Testament to pray always. It is to be re-created into the fullness of matured sons and daughters of God. It is

8 to let go of our creaturely hold on our lives in order to enter into a conscious relationship with God as Creator but above all as a loving Father, and to live each moment in the light of that relationship. NOTE; Try it with all student levels. Use your creativity in using silencing, countdown, and listening techniques in preparation for the repetition of the prayer. E.g. play appropriate music, yoga positions and deep breathing exercises) HAVE A WONDERFUL, WELL DESERVED SUMMER Fran colie