Asceticism and the Replacement Talk

And what’s now [?], theologically, really is that we’re living like animals. We’re simply according to our own lusts, were living according to our desires, we’re living according to, simply according to the flesh. And what does that do? It reinforces in a vicious cycle egocentrism, so that we become more and more and more and more completely focused on ourself, our own desire, our own lust, our own pleasure, our own…  And that is the very definition of depersonalization, because to be a person is to be someone living in communion. We define ourselves by our communion, by our communion and love with God and our communion and love with the other. And when all we’re reduced to is self-love, philautia in the words of St. Maximus, which isn’t exactly “love of self” but rather an inordinate focus on oneself, we’re simply an autonomous individual , not moving according to that life of communion with one another, to which we are called and for which we were created, but in the delusion of our own autonomy.  How clear is it to all of us who are pastors that delusion of autonomy which manifests itself in what Mother Theresa calls the “greatest poverty of the developed world: loneliness.” Isn’t our culture tormented by loneliness, by the despair of loneliness?

We have that. We have the answer to that. That’s the answer to the things that get to us. That’s the answer that we are called to bear witness to in this world. And if it means standing up in the public square and saying that worship is [  ?], if it means standing up in the public square and saying that homosexual activity is sinful. And having to suffer for it, so we can, because we are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ, and to obey  the [life?] which he has taught to us. And it’s only through bearing witness to this new life, life not according to our own passions and lusts, as autonomous individuals who care only about ourselves and the gratification of our own desires, but rather that our life is about communion with God, in a living relationship of obedience and self-sacrificial offering of love to all [men?]. In a spirit of repentance, then we will be able to heal our society. And we can. We can. If we are willing to bear witness. It might cost us everything. How many, I don’t know how many of you are necessarily aware that there were 20 million martyrs for Jesus Christ in Russia in the last century. 20 million people who died for Jesus Christ at the hands of the Communists, in just one country. And another 40 million who suffered after bearing witness in the gulag. Are we willing to do that?

Are we willing to accept that Cross? Because truly if we are going to be Christians, if we are going to be people of faith, it will be a cross. We can’t wear the cross of Jesus Christ and expect that we’re not going to get crucified on it. It’s not just Jesus on the Cross, it has to be us too. And that’s the only thing, ultimately, that we can bear witness, to that new life which shines forth from his empty tomb, and will overcome the brokenness of the world that is gone made in running after its own lusts. To call our culture, to call our country, to call our people, to repentance, so that the bitterness of their despair, and the anguish of their loneliness can be transformed to joy. That they and we might be healed. And that all that we strive for, all the work that we seek to do will be an offering of love, whether people accept it as such or not, but a joyful self-offering expressed through our generosity, our kindness, and our unconditional love of each person that we encounter, in a non-judgmental way. That is the medicine that will heal our culture. So, God bless you. [Applause.]

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