Isolation and the Christian Life
In an age when families no longer eat dinner together, children watch TV, play computer games, and text message their friends from their bedrooms. When adults can be seen walking in our cities talking on cell phones. At a time in our history when people can be sitting in a cafe with friends, all the while talking to someone else on a mobile phone, we have become a people living together in isolation.
I remember from my youth visiting my elderly grandmother, always finding her radio and TV blasting away. You’d walk into her kitchen and hear a radio, while in the living room you’d find her TV on, even though she rarely was listening to either. I knew this was a sign that she was lonely and the noise kept her company. Yet, when she did have someone there to visit, all the other sounds would be shut off.
On many occasions I’ve had to ask people if they wouldn’t turn off their TV’s when I’d arrive for a pastoral call. People don’t often notice the distractions that they’ve allow to intrude into their homes, having become so accustomed to these foreign invaders. Many husbands are shocked when their wives file for divorce, having been so consumed with outside entertainment, they failed to notice the line of communication between themselves and their spouses had been lost years earlier.
Children are no longer supervised with their homework because their parents are uninvolved, partly because the technology has left them in the dark. They therefore trust their children are working on their homework. The truth is often the case that their children are watching music videos on utube, while text messaging their friends (I once taught both in a high school and a college, so I know this to be true).
Even in our spiritual lives we tend to be living in isolation. Many reserve their prayers to issues revolving around finances, or prayers offered regarding their health, or that of a family member. Yet these people rarely think of the importance of corporate prayer with family and friends apart from the Sunday Liturgy. Prayer is a private matter, rarely shared with others. The fact that public prayer outside one’s parish is now frowned upon by the government, has further eroded our sense of corporate prayer as being something we, as a nation, value.
Entertainment has also taken on a central role in our lives, becoming so important as to have replaced visiting neighbors or friends. I’m old enough to remember the day when neighborhoods were filled with homes sporting large front porches. On those hot summer nights families would be sitting on their porches, sipping lemonade and waving at passing neighbors who were actually out for a stroll. Now we all have air conditioners, and front porches have been replaced with private back patios, where no one can see us. Gone are the days of neighborliness.
Isolation rules!
The Church is the Body of Christ and by Her very nature is anything but an institution wherein one can be isolated from others. We only let it be so if we fail to involve ourselves as the people of God, with one another. The greeting given by Orthodox Christians, passing on the holy kiss when we meet one another, or kissing the hand of our priest, are ways we avoid the isolation that dominates the society in which we live. Staying for the coffee hour, or the agape meal following the Sunday Liturgy, are ways in which we can do battle against the isolation that dominates the rest of our world. Attending midweek services is another way to stave off isolation.
Our youth need to learn from us the importance of communicating directly with their friends and family. Taking children out for a Sunday afternoon drive, exploring the country side, radio off, is a wonderful way families can reconnect. Taking grandmother on a family picnic to a local park, avoiding the back yard, is a wonderful, old fashioned way of introducing community to children. Letting them play with cousins in a park, as the extended family gathers for a picnic, can build families bonds that will last a lifetime.
When was the last time you sat around with a senior member of your family and asked them to share the memories of their youth? What a wonderful way to reconnect an aging grandfather to his own youth and showing him that you value his life experiences and the memories of his own parents and grandparents. What an invaluable legacy you impart to your own children, letting them know they were not born in a vacuum, but are a part of a long line of real people.
Isolation is a terrible threat to our way of life. Young people no longer have the communication skills that past generations learned from older family members. I am astounded when I think of how much of my grandparents are a real part of who I’ve become. It is not just genetics that they passed on to me, but memories of family history that was long gone when I was born. Even parts of my personality were gleaned from my great grandfather. My study, filled as it is with photographs, icons and collectibles, is a style that became my own, having loved the same clutter and warmth of my grandparents home.
Isolation does not have to be a part of our world. It just takes commitment on our part to build family and community. When people visit the monastery I routinely ask that they turn off their cell phones, so we can all leave isolation behind and connect as family, the children of the Most High. What a wonderful thing it would be if each family had two hours each night when the house phone, cell phones, the TV, and all other outside intrusions were banned. How about an evening of playing Uno, as a family, or putting a puzzle together? Then, end the evening with the whole family standing before the icon corner, doing the evening prayers!
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Sunday December 10, 2017 / November 27, 2017
27th Sunday after Pentecost. Tone two.
Nativity (St. Philip’s Fast). Fish Allowed
Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos named “Znamenie”.
Commemoration of the miracle of the Weeping Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Of the Sign” at Novgorod in 1170.
Great-martyr James the Persian (421).
Venerable Palladius of Thessalonica (6th-7th c.).
St. James, bishop and wonderworker of Rostov (1392).
Uncovering of the relics (1192) of St. Vsevolod (Gabriel), prince and wonderworker of Pskov (1138).
Blessed Andrew of Symbirsk (1841).
New Hieromartyrs Nicholas archbishop of Vladimir, Basil, Boris, Theodore, Nicholas, Alexis, John, Sergius, John, Sergius, Nicholas, Demetrius, Vladimir, John priests, New Hieromartyrs Ioasaf, Cronides, Nicholas, Xenophon, Alexis, Appolos, Seraphim, Nicholas and Martyr John (1937).
17 Monk-martyrs in India (4th c.).
Venerable Romanus the Wonderworker of Cilicia (5th c.).
Znamenie-Sign Icons of the Mother of God: “Kursk-Root” (1295), “Abalatsk” (1637), “Tsarskotsel’sk” and “Seraphimo-Ponetaevsk”(1879), Verkhnetagilsk (1753) and named “Korchemnaia” (18 c.).
Venerable Pinuphrius of Egypt (4th c.).
Venerable Nathaniel of Nitria (6th c.).
Venerable Diodorus of George Hill (Solovki) (1633).
St. Maximus of Riez (460).
Venerable Theodosius of Trnovo (1363).
St. Virgil, bishop of Salzburg (748).
St. Congar, bishop of Somerset.
St. Fergus, bishop of Glamis.
The Scripture Readings
Luke 24:12-35
12 But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened.
The Road to Emmaus
13 Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened. 15 So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.
17 And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?”
18 Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?”
19 And He said to them, “What things?”
So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. 21 But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. 22 Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. 23 When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. 24 And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see.”
25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
The Disciples’ Eyes Opened
28 Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. 29 But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them.
30 Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.
32 And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” 33 So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.
Ephesians 6:10-17
The Whole Armor of God
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
Luke 13:10-17
A Spirit of Infirmity
10 Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. 12 But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” 13 And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
14 But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.”
15 The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite![a] Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? 16 So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” 17 And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.