Asceticism and the Replacement Talk

I want to be politically correct. I like to say that we live in the rule of the Holy Trinity. The reality for us  who have entered into this experience of Faith, this living communion with God, is that we live in this three-dimensional world, and we know that it’s the truth. And yet we have a society that’s dominated by those of the flat earth society that want to tell us that “oh, you can believe that if you want to …that religion is a private thing, we have to keep it out of the public sector, we have to keep it quiet, and you can believe whatever you want, just don’t offend anybody, and on and on and on and on.”

But as people of faith, we know that that’s a lie. We know that it’s a false view of reality. That it’s a false reality. And, the reality to which God has exposed us, in which he has revealed to us, is something entirely different. It’s permeated with his grace, it’s permeated with his life. One of the great points St. Isaac makes, and all of the great fathers (Eastern, Western, and further East), is that at the highest levels of spiritual awareness, you can look at creation and see all of creation shimmering with its presence. And it’s this intuitive vision of reality that is creation, that is radiant with the presence of God. And not just the beauty of nature, and all of these things, but each and every person, radiant, and exquisitely beautiful.  Each one reflecting the image of God. Each one of ultimate value. Each one beautiful. It’s this that [?] that is [part?] of the sacramental vision, which is our [?] of how we see the creation filled with God, and everyone and everything being a means of deeper and deeper communion. The bread and wine of the Eucharist is not just bread and wine, but it is radiant with the uncreated light of the presence of Christ. The oil of Chrismation is filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. That the water of Baptism becomes the very presence of God in whom we are immersed. And our neighbor is the presence of God to us. And how we treat our neighbor is the criterion of how we love God. Somebody said once, that the criterion of how much we love God is how much we love the person we hate the most.

So as we move out of a two-dimensional universe and let that grace of God inform and inspire every aspect of our consciousness, of our awareness, of how we understand and how we treat people, and how we deal with our work, and how we overcome the secularization which is the compartmentalization of every aspect of our life. We see that there is nothing in our life that is not sacred, that is not holy, that is not a means of communion, or that can’t be a means of communion. And so what is this consumerism? What is this addictive pattern in which we use material goods, but a means of trying to console ourselves for the despair that comes from God the Source.  Secularism leads to despair. Our culture is in despair. And no matter how much we make or how many things we try to buy or to sell, our desire is never enough. It’s what an addictive pattern is. All addictive patterns, whether it be using material goods, or whether it’s using alcohol or drugs, whether it’s using sex, whether it’s using relationships, no matter what it is, our attempts to distract ourselves from the pain of despair, from the pain of having been abused, from the pain of having been rejected, from the pain of having regarded ourselves as failures. And it’s to this society, which is engulfed in that pain, that we come as Christians. That we come as people of faith. To call all those around us to repentance. That joyful repentance which leads to healing, which leads to salvation, which leads to life, because it’s a repentance that means turning towards God.

Our consumerist society is to a great extent oblivious to God. Parts of it are more militant in their atheism, but part of it is also dysfunctional atheisms. How often are we functional atheists? This is another question that my friend Fr Freeman raises in his book about the two-story universe. Where God living outside, and where we try so often to disregard God’s presence. But it’s precisely the overcoming of this barrier between us and God, and the nurturing of the constant awareness of God’s presence that is the ultimate solution for our spiritual life. And the very essence of our spiritual task.

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