Our
Father, Who art in the heavens…
Though the tendency of our fallen nature is to
desire the new and exciting, in spiritual
life we usually find that "going back to the basics" is
the best way to calm ourselves, find happiness, and renew our relationship
with God. And, in this respect, it is hard to think of a more basic part
of our Christian life than our daily and
frequent recitation of the Our Father,
the prayer which Christ Himself taught His disciples. Let us consider just
a tiny part of the meaning of this prayer:
The
very first words of this truly divine prayer assert
the most fundamental Truth of our Faith: That God
is, and that He is our Father, both by nature
(for He created us) and by grace (for He adopted us as His children through
our union
with Christ in Baptism). A Christian need never have an "identity crisis":
we know our identity, and it is the most beautiful and lofty imaginable,
to be God's children. This also implies duties, however, for as a child should
seek
out and follow the will of his parents, so we must diligently seek out and
follow the will of God.
Later
in the prayer, we ask for our "daily bread".
The word in Greek, epiousion, which can be translated "super-
essential," has
rich meaning: 1. It means "basic" or "substantial," i.e.,
the bread (food, sustenance, living) we need just to live day to day (thus
the translation "daily.") In other words, we ask God for what
we really need today, not just what we want or what we fear we will need
in
the future;
and we trust Him to provide for us. 2. It means the Word of God as we hear
it in Holy Scripture and the prayers and teachings of the Church. And,
finally,
3. It means the truly super-essential bread, Our Lord's Body and Blood
in Holy Communion, which is the Food which we need the most.
It
is significant that the Our Father is said at the
Divine Liturgy immediately before Holy Communion.
For, as said above, in the Lord's Prayer we are
asking for that super-essential Bread which is the Body of Christ. Also,
we are
making the most important preparation for eating that Bread: "And forgive us our
debts as we forgive our debtors." Without forgiveness, Holy Communion
is not for our salvation, but rather the opposite. Before we receive
Communion,
we must be reconciled to those with whom we are at enmity. We do this
both by Confession, to be reconciled to God and the Church, and through
personal forgiveness,
to be reconciled to our neighbor. One benefit of frequent Communion is
that it forces us to ask and give forgiveness often, and not let enmity
and estrangement
grow for months and years.
Let
us daily recite the prayer which Christ taught
us, as frequently as possible, and struggling for
attention to the words, so that they
may become
truly
a part of our souls and transform us into true children of our Father,
Who is
in heaven.
True
Children and Servants
According
to our being, that is, according to our formation
and creation, God
is and is called the Father of all men, both of believers and of unbelievers.
We, then, are obligated to love all men, since they are honored and fashioned
by the hands of God. Only evil and impiety should we hate, and not anything
fashioned by God. And according to well-being,
namely, according to the re-formation of
Baptism, we Orthodox Christians must love one another even more, because we
are doubly united, according to nature and according
to grace.
All
men are divided into three groups: genuine servants,
illegitimate servants, and evil servants who are
enemies of and opposed to God. Genuine servants
are
those who believe correctly and do the will of God with fear and joy. Illegitimate
servants are those who believe in Christ and have received Holy Baptism,
but do not do His commandments. The others, however,
who are also servants (being
creations of God), are evil, enemies of and opposed to God, even if they
are very weak and cannot do anything against Him.
…
And if we force ourselves daily as the Lord says - "The kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force" (Mt. 11:12) - that
is, the kingdom of heaven is the return for ascetical force, and as many as force
themselves, will gain it with the help of God - we will keep the image of God
in us whole and pure.
-
from Concerning Frequent Communion, by St. Nikodimos
Agioritis