Over the years, you may have noticed that sometimes in our Christmas newsletters I have lamented the secularization of this season as well as other aspects of the darkness of our present time. If anything, the situation today is darker still, but I do not wish to repeat what you already know and experience in your daily struggles with "this present darkness" (Eph. 6:12). Instead, I would like to speak of hope—not the sham hope that politicians crow about, but the hope that "does not disappoint, for the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit…" (Rom. 5:5).

Hope is, in a sense, the bedrock of the theological virtues, and perhaps the most tenacious, even though it seems to be the virtue least attended to or reflected upon. When our faith is shaken or fragmented, and when our love is wavering or deteriorating, it may very well be that we can still retain sufficient hope to keep us moving through the darkness and toward the Light. Even a shred of hope may be all it takes to keep us out of the jaws of despair and to keep us doggedly persevering when in all other ways we seem to have lost our bearings or our contact with God. The hope that is at the heart of the mystery of Christmas ought to help us get back on track and renew our faith and love as we continue our pilgrimage into the Heart of God.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote extensively of hope in his encyclical letter Spe Salvi ("Saved by Hope"), and I'd like to refer here to a few things he said, even though he wasn't writing specifically on the mystery of the Incarnation we celebrate at Christmas. He begins with a focus on our redemption, which is why the Son of God came into the world as a man. "According to the Christian faith, 'redemption'—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads toward a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey."

We already know and experience the fact that the present life is arduous. Now we have to focus on the goal that justifies our efforts toward it. Our certainty of this goal is rooted in hope. "At this point a question arises," the Pope continues: "in what does this hope consist which, as hope, is 'redemption'? … To come to know God—the true God—means to receive hope. We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God." Our celebration of Christmas, then, must be a true encounter with God if we are able to live now in the grace of our redemption and to have an unshakable hope in its ultimate fulfillment in the Kingdom of Heaven.

If we have become accustomed to a concept of God that has lost its original brilliance and appeal, and thus give Him insufficient attention or a reduced priority in our lives, perhaps this indicates that our hearts have grown cold, like a winter night in Bethlehem. Perhaps we need a little fire from Heaven to enkindle our hope, to reinvigorate our love. The shepherds in the field encountered the glory of God through the ministry of angels and then saw Him face to face in the manger—though veiled by the human nature the Lord had assumed. Yet even if they could not fully grasp the depth and the import of the mystery they had witnessed, they went away "glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen" (Lk. 2:20). They had encountered God and it filled them with joy and hope. For a Savior was born unto them, as the shimmering Angel had said, and He was the Messiah, the Lord.

We are not in the same situation as were the shepherds and the other anawim of the Gospel. If we ever were waiting for some great divine intervention in our lives, we have probably ceased by now, worn out by the disappointments and burdens of our weary existence. We acknowledge that Christ came 2000 years ago, and we may take some cold comfort in that, but the ceaseless demands of our lives hurry us past the manger and back into the "real world" of our responsibilities and our frustrated attempts to secure a little happiness. It may be that Christmas is experienced only as a kind of ritual or sentimental looking back to an idealized "magical" or God-suffused world wherein miracles were the order of the day. Or maybe it's just a bit of pleasant (or perhaps bittersweet) nostalgia that may bring back memories of times less uncertain or worrisome than our own.

What we may have failed to consider is that Christmas should cause us to look not back but ahead. For the Incarnation of the Son of God is the foundation of our hope, and our hope is for something that is not yet definitively manifested or realized. Our redemption is fulfilled in Heaven, and the celebration of the coming of Christ in the flesh sets this goal before us, the goal that "is great enough to justify the effort of the journey." There ought to be something about the mystery of Christmas that lights a fire in our hearts that spurs us on "toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." The Apostle continues: "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me" (Phil. 3:12-14). It can only be the encounter with God that the Pope mentioned which can kindle our hearts and keep us moving forward, pressing on in hope toward the goal.

Our vision of Christmas should not be that of a "still life," a static tableau of Virgin and Child, especially if we consciously or unconsciously reduce it to a greeting-card image that comes to our attention but once a year. The grace of Christmas should be a heaven-rending flash of the glory of God that sets us surely on our return to Paradise, guiding us like an extraordinary star in the night. Perhaps the flight to Egypt and the return to the Holy Land, more than the crèche itself, give us an appropriate image of the arduous journey toward our heavenly goal that Christmas sets in motion, and that we embrace in hope. A treadmill should not be part of the equipment for our spiritual exercises; in this life we are not merely marking time but rather moving toward something. Even though we have annual cycles of liturgical Feasts and Offices, we should not see this as a mere circle that we go round and round, but rather as an ascending spiral, atop which shines the Heavenly Jerusalem.

There's an old saying to the effect that the birth of a new baby is God's assurance to us that He has not given up on the world, and hence that there is still hope. Perhaps that saying is rooted in the hope that was given the whole world when the Baby was born who would save us from our sins and be a Light of revelation to the nations. "A Child is born, a Son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests… Of the increase of his dominion and of peace there will be no end… with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore" (Isaiah 9:6-7).

We have not seen universal peace and justice and righteousness in the last 2000 years, but as St Paul said, we don't hope for what we can already see. The wheels of history turn slowly and painfully, more often than not mired in the ruts of the arrogance, lusts, and endless aggressions of man. Still we trust that God is working all things for the good and that little by little, one soul at a time (for He will not violate our freedom), He is preparing his Kingdom, which will be manifested fully only at the end of time. But the seeds of hope for this glorious realization of all the promises of God are already planted and even sprouting. Those who live in faith and love will become more and more aware of the secret workings of the Spirit in creation and in souls as the divine design takes full shape and scope, piece by piece, like a magnificent mosaic that will radiate its ineffable perfection when its dazzling splendor is at last unveiled.

Pope Benedict concludes his encyclical with a reflection upon the Mother of God, and we would do well also to reflect on her role in this mystery, for it is a central one. There cannot be the birth of a son without a mother, and it was she alone, by the grace of God, who gave to the world its Hope in human form. The Pope writes: "Human life is a journey. Toward what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope… Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her 'yes' she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us (cf. Jn. 1:14). So we cry to her: Holy Mary… your life was thoroughly imbued with the sacred scriptures of Israel which spoke of hope, of the promise made to Abraham and his descendants (cf. Lk. 1:55). In this way we can appreciate the holy fear that overcame you when the angel of the Lord appeared to you and told you that you would give birth to the One who was the hope of Israel, the One awaited by the world. Through you, through your 'yes', the hope of the ages became reality, entering this world and its history. You bowed low before the greatness of this task and gave your consent: 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word' (Lk. 1:38)."

We don't have to inform the Lord in our prayers about the darkness of the present times, about the threats to faith and morality and even to the very fabric of civilized society. He knows all that and sees through the darkness. But He requires our trust in Him, our "let it be done according to your word," as well as our efforts to do his will in whatever ways our individual vocations make clear. The great weapons of the devil are fear and despair, in all their forms and levels of intensity. Hope conquers these by focusing our minds and hearts on the Light instead of on the darkness. "We have our hope set on the living God, the Savior…" (1Tim. 4:10), and therefore we are urged to "set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1Peter 1:13).

The first revelation of Jesus Christ is what we celebrate at Christmas, and this revelation is the foundation of our hope for the final revelation of Jesus Christ, when He comes in the Father's glory with the holy angels. So let us sing to the Father in the words of those same angels: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests!" God's favor rests on those who hope in Him, through his Son Jesus Christ who was born into this world to save it, to bring it back to the Father, purified and redeemed, "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Rev. 21:2).

Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

—Abbot Joseph

In our last issue, I reflected upon the riches of God's grace expressed in the first three chapters of St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. For this issue, I will examine the next three chapters, which will conclude the epistle. In a sense, the first three were all "gravy"—the lavish gifts of God's grace and all that He has done for us in Christ before we were even born and could make a choice one way or another. Now we have to get to work. The second half of this epistle is focused on our necessary response to God's grace and gifts, because a gift will be useless to us if we do not willingly receive it and make use of it according to its intended purpose. (There's a lot of material here, so I can only focus on a few main points.)

Therefore the Apostle immediately begins chapter four by saying we must lead a life worthy of our calling—the calling that he explained in detail in the first half of the epistle. What we need to live our calling worthily (for starters, anyway) are "lowliness and meekness, with patience." This is so we can "forbear one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." What does it mean to "forbear" one another? Mr. Webster says it means "to control oneself when provoked." We see at once that this is an essential virtue for anyone who lives with or spends considerable time with anyone else. Most of us are easily provoked, that is, annoyed, irritated, or otherwise have the worst in us brought out by the words, actions, or idiosyncrasies of others. One can probably force oneself to forbear merely to avoid angry outbursts one might later regret, but Christians are called to forbear in love, which means we have better reasons for doing so. We do so because Christ is forbearing with us, and He calls us to love others as He has loved us.

Unity and peace are also reasons St Paul gives, and he immediately gives us the basis for the unity we are supposed to have with one another. We are to be united because "there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all." That should make us all feel ashamed at the scandalous lack of unity among those who profess to follow Christ. The Catholic Church, along with acknowledging the one God and Father, makes it clear also that there is one baptism, something that not all other churches do. We accept as valid the baptism of any Christian denomination, as long as it is done in faith with water and the invocation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity—for there is but one baptism.

Other churches seem to think that if there is one baptism it belongs only to their particular group. This is made evident when they "re-baptize" Christians of other Churches or denominations if these Christians convert to their own. So they implicitly deny the Apostle's assertion that there is one baptism for those who believe in Christ. I've heard people say strange things like: "When I was a child I was baptized Catholic, but later I was baptized Christian." I also read an article some years ago about a Catholic priest who converted to some traditionalist Orthodox group and submitted to re-baptism—as if his whole Christian life and even his priesthood was nothing but a fake, some phony imitation of Christianity! Such approaches violate the truth of the Scriptures.

Let us pause for a moment (though we could pause for all eternity) to reflect on God as being "above all and through all and in all." In a few words this expresses both the transcendence ("above all") and the immanence ("through all and in all") of God. Without fully accepting both of these we cannot have the true faith. If you hold only to the transcendence of God, you are like Deists or others who conceive of God as so distant and unengaged with his creation as to have no real influence upon it and hence no loving care for it. Therefore they cannot believe in the Incarnation and all its implications. On the other hand, if you hold only to divine immanence, you end up in the camp of pantheists and others who blur or obliterate the distinction between Creator and creation, and who think that everything has the same essence that God does. Thus God can't really save us, being fundamentally indistinct from us, and there's no point in talking about salvation anyway, since you and I and everyone are divine, and so, presumably, are your dog and the potted plants on your porch.

But the truth of God is that He is simultaneously Wholly Other and, through the mystery of the Incarnation and all this has accomplished, is personally united with us in the depths of our souls, "nearer to us than we are to ourselves," as the patristic saying goes. Transcendent, He is "separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens" (Heb. 7:26), so He can deliver us from our sins and raise us to a level of life and glory far beyond anything we could accomplish or even imagine. Immanent, his face is reflected in all the wondrous things He has made, and He can share in all human sorrows, joys and sufferings, so his solidarity with us in love is complete. He is not only a God who dwells above the stars, but "in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

The Apostle goes on to discuss the gifts of grace that are given to Christians according to God's will. Not everyone receives the same gifts or the same vocation, but whatever gifts are given are "for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ." This in turn is to result in true Christian maturity for all the members of the Church. If we are immature in faith and spiritual life, we will be "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles." It is imperative in the present day that we know our faith well and stand firmly in the Tradition of the Church, because cunning, crafty and deceitful people abound, and many even try to speak in the name of the Church, spreading the foul wind of their false doctrines and leading many astray. This is especially true on the level of Christian morality, but even the most essential truths of our faith are today subject to public denial or distortion.

So St Paul declares that we have to be "speaking the truth in love" if we wish to counteract the evil and to build of the Body in the love of Christ. In order to understand this pithy phrase of Paul, I'll reproduce something here I wrote a few years ago:

More than once in these chapters, the Apostle tells us how not to be and then how to be (he does that in most of his other letters as well). Those who follow the cunning deceivers he mentioned are living in the dark, like the pagans: "They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart." (Notice that ignorance does not get them off the hook, because their ignorance is a result of hardness of heart. You can't plead ignorance if you have hardened your heart against the truth!) They are also callous, licentious, and "greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness." Here comes the transition: "That is not how you learned Christ!" Now he's going to tell us how to be, first by laying the foundation of a general principle (which is a fundamental, inner spiritual change) and then giving concrete examples of how to put it into practice.

Here's the foundation: "Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Now there's a packed sentence! The putting off of the old and putting on of the new is a common theme in early Christian writings, and it likely has a reference to baptism. This is symbolized by the stripping of one's ordinary garments before descending into the baptismal font, and then putting on a white garment when emerging therefrom. What is effected in baptism—the ontological transformation of incorporation into the Body of Christ—must be expressed in one's way of life if one is not to live a lie and then bring that lie ultimately to the judgment seat of Christ. So even though it is likely that those to whom Paul was writing were already baptized, the putting off and putting on still have to be realized in daily life.

Writing mostly to converted pagans, the Apostle declares that what they have to "put off" is their "former manner of life." Many pagans had little concern for sexual morality, so that is probably why the only corrupting element Paul mentions here is "deceitful lusts." We ought to pause for a moment at that phrase. Since lust is never good or a means to good, and is always evil and a means to more evil, we should get it clear that it is always a deception. The regret or disgust that follows any lustful indulgence is often accompanied by a sense that one has been cheated or deceived. Adam and Eve didn't at first see anything wrong with taking the forbidden fruit, but after they had sinned, "their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked"—they felt shame due to sin. They realized that the serpent had deceived them, which is precisely the defense Eve used, but it was to no avail. The devil works with deceit and illusion, making evil look good so that we will choose it. He's quite clever with endless variations on the same basic themes, and we seem to be quite stupid because we keep falling for the same old deceptions, in one form or another. But all this corrupts our souls and is part of what we have to "put off," if we are to live in Christ.

Driving the point home that sin is a deception and hence not of the truth, Paul continues: "Therefore, putting away falsehood…" and he goes on to list a number of sins which belong to their former manner of life. Let us not think this doesn't apply to us, since maybe we were "cradle Catholics" and didn't have any former pagan life of idolatry and debauchery. Passing over the sad fact that many lifelong Christians do have a lot of debauchery in their pasts, let us realize that the virtues Paul enjoins are something that everyone needs to work on, some more than others. "Do not let the sun go down on your anger." Have you ever been angry with someone for more than a day before reconciling? That, says the Apostle, gives an opportunity for the devil to work. "Let no evil talk come out of your mouths." You may say that you do not use profane or obscene language, but the Apostle then fine-tunes his instruction: our words should "impart grace to those who hear." Can we honestly say that all our words are a means of grace for others? One by one he takes them down: bitterness, wrath, slander, malice—the effect of all these evils is to "grieve the Holy Spirit." Remember Jesus said that to sin against the Holy Spirit is worse even than to sin against Jesus!

What we have to do instead goes beyond the forbearance Paul mentioned at the beginning of the chapter: "be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." If we had our own sins before our eyes, and the mercy that the Lord has granted us, it would be easier to forgive the sins of others. It's one of those harmful quirks of our fallen nature that as soon as we see faults in someone else, we immediately forget the long record of our own!

As we begin chapter five, Paul sums it all up: "Walk [that is, live] in love, as Christ loved us." Perhaps at this point Paul remembered that he left out a bunch of sins, and so he goes at it again, not resting until his charges are fully purified from the evils of an unchristian way of life. So, immorality and impurity and covetousness must be banished. These must have been ingrained in the society of those to whom he was writing (as they are in ours), so he goes after them like a pit bull and doesn't let go: "Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." A strong and categorical statement, that! But then that sly purveyor of deceitful lusts will come in and speak through sophisticated teachers, of which there is no shortage today: "Well, what really is immorality and what is impurity? Isn't the true meaning of immorality not to use one's free will for one's self-fulfillment and happiness? And why insist on marriage when there are significant economic or psychological factors to consider? If you love each other, that is enough. You can love whomever you wish, man or woman—or both—as long as it is consensual and no one is hurt. Aren't you tired of someone else making rules for you? What is impure, anyway, about expressing your affection through the sexual powers with which God has blessed you?"

The Apostle immediately thunders: "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience! Therefore, do not associate with them…" Is there anything worse before God than to be known as a son or daughter of disobedience? Disobedience was the primordial sin, and every fallen soul is therefore inclined to it and hence must make efforts to uproot it, if eternal banishment from Paradise is to be avoided. Again Paul reminds them of their past and their present: "Once you were darkness but now you are light in the Lord" and he offers the theme for this whole section of the epistle: "Walk as children of light."

What does he mean by "light"? It is that which produces "all that is good and right and true" and "what is pleasing to the Lord." So, the whole package of immaturity, falsehood, corruption, hard-heartedness, deceitful lust, etc, which belongs to the old nature and the former manner of life is "darkness," while all that is good, holy, virtuous, pure, and ennobling is "light." The Apostle not only warns us not to take part in "the unfruitful works of darkness," he tells us to expose them, presumably so that others will not be deceived into practicing them. Therefore exposing the darkness for the sake of others' protection and salvation is part of "truthing in love."

The days are evil, he reminds us, so we have to walk carefully, wisely, using our time well, always seeking to discern the will of the Lord. He contrasts debauchery (getting "drunk with wine") and being filled with the Holy Spirit, which brings us to what some of the fathers call "sober inebriation," the pure and virtuous exhilaration of being infused with the grace and love of God.

Since I want to say a few things about chapter six, I'll just summarize the rest of chapter five—which gives me an excuse for not getting too entangled in what is, for some, a controversial teaching on marriage. But I won't dodge it altogether, for it is in fact the word of God and we must try to understand it.

As soon as St Paul says that wives ought to be submissive to their husbands, all kinds of red flags, shouts, boos and hisses go up. Yet this teaching is not as one-sided as some make it out to be. Aside from the fact that the previous verse commands believers to be "subject to one another out of reverence for Christ," we see that the wives' submission to their husbands is contingent upon their husbands' sacrificial love for them. In several ways, Paul says that they mystery of marriage is the mystery of Christ and the Church. If Christ hadn't sacrificed his life out of love for us, our obligations to Him would have been mitigated (but He has, so they aren't; see John 15:22-24). If a husband doesn't love his wife to the point of sacrificing himself for her sake, then she does not have to be subject to him. The sword of the word cuts both ways. If a husband would love his wife as Christ loves the Church, his wife would then be happy to let him be the head of the house, and there would be mutual service and harmony. Those who see this text as a piece of some outdated patriarchal misogyny do so because they want to see it that way, and in rejecting it they feel more free to reject other "outdated" parts of the word of God.

I'll pass lightly over the first part of chapter six on slaves and masters, though I will at least note that Paul is already beginning a revolution in the long-established social institution of slavery. While he does tell the slaves to offer their labors not merely as a service to human masters, but with good will as an offering to the Lord, he turns the table on the masters. He tells them not to so much as threaten their slaves, "knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him." To say that slaves and masters are equal before God was unheard of before the advent of the Gospel. And it was because of the Gospel that slavery gradually disappeared as an acceptable element of civilized society.

Now it is time to go to war. "Blessed be the Lord, my refuge, who makes these hands strong for battle" (Ps 143/144). The whole midsection of chapter six is about spiritual warfare which, while not the most comforting aspect of Christian life, is nevertheless necessary, and it is ignored only at our peril. While formal exorcisms are delegated only to trained and competent priests, the battle with evil is fought by every Christian in the circumstances of his or her own life.

The defeat of Satan is not limited to his primordial casting out from heaven, as related in the Apocalypse (12:7-9). The devil falls every time a Christian stands against him in the name of the Lord, every time we choose good over evil. It is often assumed that Jesus was referring to the original fall of the devil when He said He saw him fall from heaven like lightning after the disciples returned from a mission in which they were astounded to see the demons subject to them in Jesus' name (Lk. 10:17-18). But most translations are inaccurate at this point. Jesus was most likely referring to Satan's contemporary fall as a direct result of the disciples' spiritual warfare. The verb in the original Greek of the Gospel is in the imperfect tense, and so it should be translated: "I was watching Satan fall like lightning," which, coming immediately upon the disciples' telling him of their victory over demons, evidently means that Jesus was watching the devil fall as they were casting him out. (It wouldn't make much sense for Him to be reflecting at that moment upon something that happened many millennia ago, which had nothing to do with his disciples.) From this we can take courage. The defeat of our spiritual enemies is not something accomplished by archangels in the far-distant past. It is something we have a role in accomplishing today.

St Paul then tells us who our enemies are and who they are not. "We are not contending against flesh and blood," he says, which means our real enemies are not our fellow human beings. Rather, we are actually contending "against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places." Now these spiritual enemies are invisible to us, so the Apostle doesn't tell us that we have somehow to confront the devil face to face, as it were, or to explicitly provoke him into some kind of contest of strength. Rather, we are to "stand against the wiles of the devil," for in these subtle and insidious attacks we are most likely to fall.

For this we need to "be strong in the Lord," and the way to do this is to "put on the whole armor of God." St Paul uses various military metaphors to describe the virtues needed to stand firm against the devil's tactics. We need truth to avoid being hit below the belt; we need righteousness as a breastplate, the Gospel itself as shoes to propel us forward, and above all, faith as a shield "with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one." The hope of salvation protects us like a helmet, and we have one more weapon which, unlike the previous ones, is an offensive as well as a defensive one: "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." The power of the word of God, and especially the living and eternal Word of God and Son of the Father, not only protects us from demonic attacks but actually casts out the demons and cuts them down as with a sword.

Finally, the Apostle gives us the secret and indispensable weapon: prayer. Our "armor" won't do us much good if we are devoid of all spiritual energy and of the will to persevere. Prayer is the fuel for the fire of grace within us, and it is only when we are united to God in prayer that we can make effective use of the armor of God and be confident of victory. So the Apostle exhorts us to pray at all times, with perseverance, making supplication for all believers who are in the same battle.

It is not necessary for us constantly to use military metaphors for the spiritual life, but for some aspects of it they seem appropriate. When it comes to dealing with the devil, I for one would like to see him vanquished as thoroughly as possible, so there's no need for gentle metaphors there. Let the demons be routed, bound and gagged, cut down and crushed, whatever, but let them be gone and never return! If we merely toy with evil by considering it some unexplored level of our sub-conscious minds that simply has to be brought into awareness and conscious control, then we've thereby stripped ourselves of our armor and have surrendered to the enemy. Let us take St Paul's words seriously. He knew what he was talking about, as did the other saints down through the ages who have engaged in battle with our ancient foe, the enemy of our salvation.

Having armed ourselves with virtue, with the true faith, with the hope of Heaven and the power of prayer, we are then equipped not only to unmask the devil and overcome his wiles, but also and especially "to proclaim the mystery of the gospel." For our focus is not supposed to be on the dark powers. They actually thrive on our attention, even negative attention. We just have to get them out of the way so we can proclaim and live the Good News of our salvation, which was won for us by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. To paraphrase what the Apostle said in the previous chapter of this epistle, once we were subject to the powers of darkness, but now we have entered into the Light of the Lord. So now it's time for us to walk as children of Light.

Between the article in our last issue and this one, I've written over 9000 words on the Epistle to the Ephesians, but this is still only scratching the surface. This letter of St Paul is rich with theology and cogent reasons for putting it into practice. It's kind of a microcosm of the Faith: an outline of everything that God has done for us in Christ, and an encouragement and exhortation to live it to the full, for the glory of God and our everlasting happiness. The riches of God's grace stand waiting to be granted to all those who would be children of Light.

—Abbot Joseph

When Johnny was transferred to a desert region, and Christmas came, there were no Christmas Trees. There were no trees at all. Johnny—with a few co-workers who were interested in Christmas—made an imaginary Christmas tree, complete with tinsel and ornaments and every manner of decoration they could agree on. For the gifts, they used both real and imaginary ones, and had a grand time of it, and a delicious Christmas dinner as well—a real one!

Johnny's family heard of this. They read in his letters how excited he had been, and how much fun it had been. They tried it themselves, the next year, and also enjoyed it.

Then Johnny's uncle sent him a book. It was The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, by Jonathan D. Spence. Johnny enjoyed reading about the missionary's adventure in China. He especially enjoyed the description of the imaginary palaces one could build, and how to use them in order remember lots of things, for this reminded him of the imaginary Christmas tree that he and his friends had made.

When Johnny heard about how harshly the Church is persecuted in some lands, he stopped and thought. He pondered. The most precious things in his own life were of the Church: his beliefs, the moral guidance, the calendar of feasts and fasts, and many prayers and customs. Johnny thought that some day, it might happen that he would not have them so easily available. He decided he'd rather be ready for this, than unprepared. When he wrote his uncle to thank him for the book, he mentioned all of this, his concern.

His uncle understood him. His uncle decided he had a good idea, and that he was serious about it. And so his uncle sent Johnny another book—The Art of Memory, by Frances A. Yates—which told how the way of using Places to hold Memories began, how it developed, and how it was used.

And so Johnny began to build his own memory palaces: little ones, at first, and then big ones—in fact, he built all kinds of them. Some were palaces; others were museums. Some were amusement parks, and still others were schools and department stores. One was even an ice cream shop. Johnny practised a good deal, and then he began storing in his imaginary memory palaces all the most precious things he would like to remember, in case he could no longer find them anywhere else. And it was a Very Good Thing that he did so.

For Johnny was transferred again. This time he moved to a foreign land. When Christmas came, Johnny again found that there were no Christmas Trees. In fact, there was no Christmas. There were no Bibles. There were no Churches—and there were very few Christians, and few that were there, were all in hiding, for in that land, Christians were always in great danger.

Johnny, however, was ready, already! He carefully found a very few people whom he could safely trust, and they prepared a real Christmas, using imaginary resources. They gathered only a very few at a time, and didn't meet for very long. The few bibles were left in safe places, and not brought to their meetings. From his memory palaces, Johnny gradually shared the Christian Faith and Morals he had carefully saved up. He shared everything else, too. He also shared everything he had learned about Memory Palaces, so that they, too, could store many precious memories for a very long time. And at Christmas, they had a lovely imaginary Christmas tree, with imaginary Christmas gifts, and they quietly took turns telling the whole Christmas story—which by now they all knew by heart, having placed it, piece by piece, into special memory palaces.

In fact, they met with utmost precautions for the rest of the year, and celebrated other feasts in a similar way, reviving their sense of faith and morals, their sense of Church unity and mutual love. They encouraged one another in their Faith.

When Johnny was transferred again, it was to his family's region. There, the Churches were open; the Bibles were common. But people were neglecting their faith. Johnny began gathering, a few at a time, those Christians who yearned for the fullness of their Christian culture. He taught them, too, the use of Memory Palaces, and told them of his adventures in using it. It made people happy to cherish their Faith in this way. They were better able to share it, to ponder it, to meditate it, and to live it, when it had a safe home in the memory palaces of their hearts.

—Br Seraphim

HOME
OUR LIFE
THE ABBOT'S PAGE
VOCATIONS
RETREATS
PREVIOUS ISSUE
PRAYER REQUESTS
HISTORY