Troparion Tone 4
Leaders of the Apostles and teachers of the world,/ pray to the Master of all to grant peace to the world/ and great mercy to our souls.

Kontakion Tone 2
Thou hast taken the firm and divinely inspired Preachers, O Lord,/ the leading Apostles, for the enjoyment of Thy blessings and for repose./ For Thou hast accepted their labours and death/ as above every burnt offering,/ O Thou Who alone knowest the secrets of our hearts.

From the OCA website:

Sermon of Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo

Today the Holy Church piously remembers the sufferings of the Holy Glorious and All-Praised Apostles Peter and Paul.

St. Peter, the fervent follower of Jesus Christ, for the profound confession of His Divinity: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” was deemed worthy by the Savior to hear in answer, “Blessed art thou, Simon … I tell thee, that thou art Peter [Petrus], and on this stone [petra] I build My Church” (Mt.16:16-18). On “this stone” [petra], is on that which thou sayest: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God” it is on this thy confession I build My Church. Wherefore the “thou art Peter”: it is from the “stone” [petra] that Peter [Petrus] is, and not from Peter [Petrus] that the “stone” [petra] is, just as the Christian is from Christ, and not Christ from the Christian. Do you want to know, from what sort of “rock” [petra] the Apostle Peter [Petrus] was named? Hear the Apostle Paul: “Brethren, I do not want ye to be ignorant,” says the Apostle of Christ, “how all our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor.10: 1-4). Here is the from whence the “Rock” is Peter.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the final days of His earthly life, in the days of His mission to the race of man, chose from among the disciples His twelve Apostles to preach the Word of God. Among them, the Apostle Peter for his fiery ardor was vouchsafed to occupy the first place (Mt.10:2) and to be as it were the representative person for all the Church. Therefore it is said to him, preferentially, after the confession: “I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in the heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth: shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt.16: 19). Therefore it was not one man, but rather the One Universal Church, that received these “keys” and the right “to bind and loosen.” And that it was actually the Church that received this right, and not exclusively a single person, turn your attention to another place of the Scriptures, where the same Lord says to all His Apostles, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit” and further after this, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: and whose soever sins ye retain, are retained” (John 20: 22-23); or: “whatsoever ye bind upon the earth, shall be bound in Heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosened in heaven” (Mt.18:18). Thus, it is the Church that binds, the Church that loosens; the Church, built upon the foundational cornerstone, Jesus Christ Himself (Eph 2:20), doth bind and loosen. Let both the binding and the loosening be feared: the loosening, in order not to fall under this again; the binding, in order not to remain forever in this condition. Therefore “Iniquities ensnare a man, and everyone is bound in the chains of his own sins,” says Wisdom (Prov 5:22); and except for Holy Church nowhere is it possible to receive the loosening.

After His Resurrection the Lord entrusted the Apostle Peter to shepherd His spiritual flock not because, that among the disciples only Peter alone was pre-deserved to shepherd the flock of Christ, but Christ addresses Himself chiefly to Peter because, that Peter was first among the Apostles and as such the representative of the Church; besides which, having turned in this instance to Peter alone, as to the top Apostle, Christ by this confirms the unity of the Church. “Simon of John” — says the Lord to Peter — “lovest thou Me?” — and the Apostle answered: “Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee”; and a second time it was thus asked, and a second time he thus answered; being asked a third time, seeing that as it were not believed, he was saddened. But how is it possible for him not to believe That One, Who knew his heart? And wherefore then Peter answered: “Lord, Thou knowest all; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” “And sayeth Jesus to him” all three times “Feed My sheep” (John 20:15-17).

Besides this, the triple appealing of the Savior to Peter and the triple confession of Peter before the Lord had a particular beneficial purpose for the Apostle. That one, to whom was given “the keys of the kingdom” and the right “to bind and to loose,” bound himself thrice by fear and cowardice (Mt.26:69-75), and the Lord thrice loosens him by His appeal and in turn by his confession of strong love. And to shepherd literally the flock of Christ was acquired by all the Apostles and their successors. “Take heed, therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock,” the Apostle Paul urges church presbyters, “over which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of the God, which He hath purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28); and the Apostle Peter to the elders: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof not by constraint, but willingly: not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind: neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when is appeared the Prince of pastors, ye will receive unfading crowns of glory” (1 Pet. 5:2-4).

It is remarkable that Christ, having said to Peter: “Feed My sheep,” did not say: “Feed thy sheep,” but rather to feed, good servant, the sheep of the Lord. “Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor.1:13). “Feed My sheep”. Wherefore “wolfish robbers, wolfish oppressors, deceitful teachers and mercenaries, not being concerned about the flock” (Mt.7:15; Acts 20:29; 2 Pet 2:1; John 10:12), having plundered a strange flock and making of the spoils as though it be of their own particular gain, they think that they feed their flock. Such are not good pastors, as pastors of the Lord. “The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11), entrusted to Him by the chief Shepherd Himself (1 Pet 5:4). And the Apostle Peter, true to his calling, gave his soul for the very flock of Christ, having sealed his apostleship by a martyr’s death, is now glorified throughout all the world.

The Apostle Paul, formerly Saul, was changed from a robbing wolf into a meek lamb. Formerly he was an enemy of the Church, then is manifest as an Apostle. Formerly he stalked it, then preached it. Having received from the high priests the authority at large to throw all Christians in chains for execution, he was already on the way, he breathed out “threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), he thirsted for blood, but “He that dwells in the Heavens shall laugh him to scorn” (Ps 2:4). When he, “having persecuted and vexed” in such manner “the Church of God” (1Cor.15:9; Acts 8:5), he came near Damascus, and the Lord from Heaven called to him: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” and I am here, and I am there, I am everywhere: here is My head; there is My body. There becomes nothing of a surprise in this; we ourselves are members of the Body of Christ. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me; it is hard for thee to kick against the goad” (Acts 9:4-5). Saul, however, “trembling and frightened”, cried out: “Who art Thou, Lord?” The Lord answered him, “I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest.”

And Saul suddenly undergoes a change: “What wantest Thou me to do?” — he cries out. And suddenly for him there is the Voice: “Arise, and go to the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do” (Acts 9:6). Here the Lord sends Ananias: “Arise and go into the street” to a man, “by the name of Saul,” and baptize him, “for this one is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9: 11, 15, 18). This vessel must be filled with My Grace. “Ananias, however, answered: Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he hath done to Thy saints in Jerusalem: and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Thy Name” (Acts 9:13-14). But the Lord urgently commands Ananias: “Search for and fetch him, for this vessel is chosen by Me: for I shall show him what great things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:11, 15-16).

And actually the Lord did show the Apostle Paul what things he had to suffer for His Name. He instructed him the deeds; He did not stop at the chains, the fetters, the prisons and shipwrecks; He Himself felt for him in his sufferings, He Himself guided him towards this day. On a single day the memory of the sufferings of both these Apostles is celebrated, though they suffered on separate days, but by the spirit and the closeness of their suffering they constitute one. Peter went first, and Paul followed soon after him. Formerly called Saul, and then Paul, having transformed his pride into humility. His very name (Paulus), meaning “small, little, less,” demonstrates this. What is the Apostle Paul after this? Ask him, and he himself gives answer to this: “I am,” says he, “the least of the Apostles… but I have labored more abundantly than all of them: yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me” (1 Cor.15:9-10).

And so, brethren, celebrating now the memory of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, remembering their venerable sufferings, we esteem their true faith and holy life, we esteem the innocence of their sufferings and pure confession. Loving in them the sublime quality and imitating them by great exploits, “in which to be likened to them” (2 Thess 3: 5-9), and we shall attain to that eternal bliss which is prepared for all the saints. The path of our life before was more grievous, thornier, harder, but “we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12: 1), having passed by along it, made now for us easier, and lighter, and more readily passable. First there passed along it “the author and finisher of our faith,” our Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Heb 12: 2); His daring Apostles followed after Him; then the martyrs, children, women, virgins and a great multitude of witnesses. Who acted in them and helped them on this path? He Who said, “Without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15: 5).

From the Prolog:

Troparion Tone 4
Today, like the eternal sun, / Your Icon appears in the sky, O Theotokos. / With rays of mercy it enlightens the world. / This land accepts the heavenly gift from above, / Honoring You as the Mother of God. / We praise Christ our Lord who was born of You. / Pray to Him, O Queen and sovereign virgin / That all Christian cities and lands be guarded in safety, And that He save those who kneel to His divine, and Your holy image, O unwedded bride.

Kontakion Tone 8
O people, let us come to the Virgin Queen and Mother, giving thanks to Christ God. / Let us fall before her miraculous image, and let us cry: / O sovereign Mary, your glorious image now inhabits this land. / Save all the Christians of this world, showing us the heavenly life. / To You we faithfully cry: Rejoice, O Virgin, the salvation of the world!

From the OCA website:

According to ancient tradition, the wonderworking icon of Tikhvin is one of several painted by St Luke the Evangelist. The icon was taken from Jerusalem to Constantinople in the fifth century, where it was enshrined in the Church of Blachernae, which was built especially for this purpose.

In 1383, seventy years before the fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Turks, fishermen on Lake Ladoga in the principality of Novgorod the Great witnessed the icon miraculously hovering over the lake’s waters amidst a radiant light. According to an early sixteenth century Russian manuscript, “The Tale of Miracles of the Icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God,” the Theotokos herself decided that her image should leave Constantinople, perhaps in anticipation of the impending fall of the Byzantine Empire.

Shortly after its miraculous appearance, the icon was discovered in several neighboring towns, including the village of Motchenitsy on the bank of the Tikhvinka River, before it finally appeared near the town of Tikhvin. A wooden church dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos was built on the site of the icon’s final resting place. Miraculously, the icon survived a number of fires.

In the early sixteenth century, through the zeal of Great Prince Basil Ivanovich, a stone church was built to replace the original wooden structure. In 1560, by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, a men’s monastery was established near the church and enclosed with a stone wall.

In 1613-1614, the Swedish army, having seized Novgorod, made several attempts to destroy the monastery. The countless prayers offered to the Theotokos before the icon were heard, and the monastery was spared. On one occasion, after monks had been alerted to the approaching Swedish army, they decided to flee and to take the icon with them. But the monks soon discovered that they could not remove the icon from its shrine. Seeing this as a sign of the Theotokos’ protection, the monks decided not to abandon the monastery, begging the Theotokos to spare them and their beloved spiritual home. To their amazement, a large Muscovite army appeared to defend the monastery.

When the Swedes encountered the army, they retreated immediately. Word of this miracle spread rapidly, and imperial emissaries soon visited the monastery. Accompanied by a copy of the wonderworking icon, they set off for the village of Stolbovo, 33 miles from Tikhvin, where they concluded a peace treaty with the Swedes on February 10, 1617. Afterwards, the copy of the icon was taken to Moscow and enshrined in the Kremlin’s Dormition Cathedral. Later, the same icon was placed in the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) cathedral in Novgorod at the request of the city’s faithful, who also found themselves under attack by the Swedes. Once again, through the intercession of the Theotokos, the city was spared.

Over the centuries, the icon’s fame spread far and wide. Copies of the wonderworking icon began to adorn churches throughout the land. Some of these copies also proved to be sources of miracles, and it was not uncommon to find the faithful praying before the icon to seek healing for children who were ill.

No fewer than 24 processions with the icon were celebrated each year at the Tikhvin Monastery, where the icon was enshrined. A decorative cover, or “riza,” adorned the icon, exposing only the faces and hands of the Holy Virgin and Christ child. Numerous precious stones studded the riza, and many of the faithful, desiring to express thanksgiving for prayers answered through the Theotokos’ intercession, affixed precious jewelry to the riza.

Most miraculous is the fact that the icon was preserved from destruction or sale after the Russian Revolution, which ushered in a 74-year persecution of the Church. During the 1920s, the communist government demanded that the Russian Orthodox Church turn over countless icons and other precious liturgical items, which through the nationalization of private property were considered the property of “the people.” Many of these sacred items were sold, allegedly to raise money to feed the Russian and Ukrainian population which was afflicted by famine.

During the World War II German occupation, the Nazis removed the icon from the Tikhvin Monastery, from where it was taken to Pskov and subsequently to Riga, Latvia. When the city was evacuated, Bishop John [Garklavs] of Riga, in whose care the icon was placed, took the icon to Bavaria, where it was venerated by Orthodox faithful who had been displaced because of the war. While Soviet agents had spotted the icon, Bishop John was permitted to take the icon to the United States in 1949, under the pretext that the icon in his care was a reproduction, the work of a simple monk, and that it was of little historic or monetary value. Shortly after his arrival in the United States, Bishop John, who was later elevated to the rank of Archbishop, was elected to oversee the Diocese of Chicago, and the icon was regularly displayed and venerated in Chicago’s Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Bishop John frequently took the icon on pilgrimage to various places throughout the United States and Canada. After his retirement in the late 1970s and death on Palm Sunday in 1982, Archpriest Sergei Garklavs, Bishop John’s adopted son, became the caretaker of the icon. In 2003, over a decade after the fall of communism and the resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church, the decision was made to return the precious icon to its original home.

The icon began its year-long journey to Russia at the 99th annual Pilgrimage to St Tikhon Monastery, South Canaan, Pennsylvania, May 23-26, 2003. His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, together with members of the Holy Synod of Bishops and guest hierarchs, greeted the icon, which was available for veneration by the faithful.

The icon follows the “Hodigitria” model and is similar in style to the ancient Iveron icon of Our Lady. It differs in that the Christ child’s legs are crossed, while the sole of His foot is turned to the viewer. Several historic sources note that several other Hodigitria icons of the Theotokos had been brought to Russia in the 1380s, during the rule of the saintly prince Demetrius Donskoy.

– Archpriest John Matusiak

Troparion of the Forerunner Tone 4
O Prophet and Forerunner of the coming of Christ,/ we honour thee lovingly but cannot extol thee worthily;/ for by thy birth/ thy mother’s barrenness and thy father’s dumbness were unloosed;/ and the Incarnation of the Son of God is proclaimed to the world.

Kontakion of St John the Baptist Tone 3
The formerly barren one today gives birth to the Forerunner of Christ/ Who is the fulfillment of prophecy./ For the Prophet, Herald and Forerunner of the Word/ submitted to Him Whom the prophets foretold/ by laying his hand on Him in the Jordan.

Luke 1:24-25, 57-68, 76, 80

And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men. Now Elisabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son. And her neighbours and her cousins heard how the Lord had shewed great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her. And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father. And his mother answered and said, Not so; but he shall be called John. And they said unto her, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they marvelled all. And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God. And fear came on all that dwelt round about them: and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judaea. And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this be! And the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.

From the homily on the Sunday of the Blind Man, Father Pat preaches about children and the Gospel.

Return to Barbarism (Acts 16:16-34)

Troparion in Tone VIII
As a beautiful fruit of the sowing of Thy salvation, the lands of America doth offer to Thee, O Lord, all the Saints that have shone in her. By their prayers keep the Church and the world in profound peace, through the Theotokos, O Most-merciful One.

Kontaktion in Tone III
Today the choir of the saints who pleased God in the lands of America doth stand before us in church and invisibly doth pray for us to God. With them the angels glorify Him, and all the saints of the Church of Christ keep festival with them; and they all pray together for us to the eternal God.

The saints depicted in the icon (l to r) and their feast dates:
St. Herman of Alaska 9 August (glorification) and 12 December
St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco 2 July
St. Innocent of Alaska 31 March
St. Juvenaly 25 December (Synaxis of the First Martyrs of the American Land)
St. Patriarch Tikhon 18 October
St. Peter the Aleut 25 December (Synaxis of the First Martyrs of the American Land)

Biographies of the Saints of North America

[H/T: Fr Andrew on FB]

I regret to say that I’ve wasted about ten minutes I’ll never get back skimming over a few posts of converts to Orthodoxy opining on what is and isn’t real Orthodoxy in the United States (most of them reacting to what are taken to be “Protestant” techniques and forms imported/infused into “real” Orthodox essences–or something like that). Forgive me, but there’s something that smells slightly of an upwardly-tilted proboscis, and maybe a little former-Prot self-loathing, in the phrases “dumbed-down,” “Ortho-lite,” “the Faith made easy,” and so forth.

Sigh.

Now, full disclosure here: the parish to which I belong, and perhaps certain of its clergy, will get tagged as “not fully Orthodox” because of this or that perceived tendency, association (to *that* magazine) or practice. We do happen to observe two feasts of All Saints each year, after all–though the “western” one is not served with a Divine Liturgy, so maybe we’re square on that, after all.

It’s the third day of the Fast, so perhaps this is why I find myself with so very little patience about these matters. And my first instinct is to remind the critics that if they’d spent the time with the Jesus Prayer that they’d spent in their criticism, they might themselves have come closer to the Orthodoxy of which they claim the objects of their criticism lack a certain measure.

Yes, the canons and a properly served Liturgy, and an apostolically ordained clergy, and so forth are important for the life of any parish. Yes, one ought be thoughtful about the forms one uses. And, heaven help us all, yes, yes, yes, we must do everything in our power to every day acquire that true philosophia that is the way of the Life of the Church, Christ himself.

But forgive me, it is not that complicated, and we need waste not a single instant on eyeballing what’s on someone else’s plate. It is really very simple. We pray morning, noon and evening. We fast with the Church. We do acts of mercy to all around us. We strive hard, some days in an unbearable struggle, to forgive all and every. And we constantly plead God’s mercy, for ourselves and for all around us. If every moment is one of simple, heart-over-head, outstretched hands of trust in Christ; if we can say with simple tears, Panagia’ mou, then we are far likely to be more Orthodox than those who read the footnotes in the Lenten Triodion. I do not of course myself live these things as I should, so this is as much a criticism of myself, and a reminder, as it is an expression of exasperation.

But of course, if we are *doing* these things, our minds will not often wander to the trough of comparison, unless only to compare ourselves with ourselves. We will hopefully embody the nobler heart in that parable of the two men who went up to the temple to pray, that parable with which we prepare for Great and Holy Lent.

excrescence: n., growth, protuberence, tumor

We are currently undergoing yet another glut of religious publishing detailing the latest new trend, fad, social development, working of the Holy Spirit, or what have you.  The fictitious social commentator and cleric, Fr. Felix Tempus, has remarked, with his usual wit and wisdom: “Every ten years, the body develops and then sheds one or another growth, protuberance, or wart.”  But Fr. Tempus’ comment is also filled with his usual acerbic wisdom, and so we may use his metaphor as a helpful heuristic device by which to examine and to explain this phenomenon we are calling the Great Excrescence.

Of course, this begs the question as to what we mean by the “Great Excrescence.”  What is it?  How did it come to be?  And more importantly, how big is it going to get?  Describing it is not difficult; it’s a growth, after all.  Discovering all it’s antecedent causes would take too much time, but we can at least enumerate the larger causes for the protuberance.  But as to the third question, one really cannot predict the future, and it’s size will be determined almost precisely to the extent that its obnoxiousness becomes unbearable to its host.

First of all, we need to understand that The Great Emergence is, like all books, essentially an authorial construct.  Devotees of the Emergence will, of course, find this objectionable, but if they will allow themselves to view the Emergence from a wider perspective—by perhaps reading something deeper than pop history, philosophy and theology dated post A.D. 1990—they may be able to at least get a sense of how their excrescence is part of a larger hole, er, whole.  This is not to say, of course, that there is no publisher requiring a profit on the sale of the book, nor that the publisher had no input in the shape and marketing of the book.  But we really must simply acknowledge that the author constructed this book to support the consensual imagination of a group—a consensual imagination required to support conventions, conferences, other books published by other authors, innumerable blogs, music, tee-shirts and other “gear,” and so on.

But what is the Great Excrescence?  This will become clearer when we discover how it got here, but in sum, the Great Excrescence is the polyvalent confluence of multiple strands of popular culture sacralized in technicojive (a particular discourse constructed with a sort of logicophallic semi-opacity whose ironic irenism is meant to deconstruct the hegemonic tribalism of previous excrescences), subversive in form, and meant to replace the previous pop-religio-musico-multicult publishing/conference/marketing phenomenon.  It is a movement, of course, because one does not have as much success in conference, book, and techno sales if one’s product is static.  And as a movement, it demands the near-total allegiance of its adherents.  That is, until it is replaced by the next publishing phenomenon.

So how did we get here?  Well, roughly about five centuries ago, it was decided that authority was dynamic construct primarily wielded by those who held various forms of sociopolitical power.  Fueled by sola scriptura, this irrevocably placed ultimate authority within the particular individual and as many people as he could convince, sometimes by threat of eternal damnation, should go along with him.  Then, about six or seven or eight decades ago, pop evangelicalism began combining religious meetings (called “revivals”) with publishing (such as Billy Graham’s Peace with God).  As the years unfolded, the potent combination of witnessing tracts, friendship evangelism, contemporary Christian music, VBS, church growth, cell groups, house churches, open churches, non churches, discipling, no-liturgy liturgies, skits and plays, overhead projectors, PowerPoint® slides, mega churches, seeker services, the men’s movement, Jung and Joseph Campbell, bowdlerized Derrida and Nietsche, some Quentin Tarantino, and quite truthfully God only knows what else, all converged in the pre-Great Emergence Convergence semi-Conference (in 1990 according to some sources).  This was the watershed meeting at which it was determined that Christian guidance was not to be had by way of biblical interpretation, but, rather, by contemporaneous analysis of present day movements as thinly-disguised movements of the Holy Spirit.  This, of course, was a moving target (because the Holy Spirit moves), and therefore required that what was to become the Great Excrescence was to be a movement.

Unfortunately it was not to be an alimentary movement.  Rather, all of the ingredients, rather then being fully digested and excess waste eliminated, were only partially consumed, then, sort of minimally regurgitated with a new name, and re-consumed again.  From time to time, new ingredients would be added to the mix as contemporary culture became the divine voice by which the particular individual, and all those whom s/he could convince usually by threats of irrelevance to go along with him/her, determined the will of a socially constructed deity, an heavenly patersaccharum, if you will, which they could almost always use to bless various contemporaneous sociopolitical phenomena.  All of this consumption minus elimination resulted in a distention we now know as the Great Excrescence.

The great irony, of course, is that all of this is held forth with such dogmatic certainty, as though contemporaneous interpretation of sociopolitical events is much different than examining chicken entrails.  But since the name of the Holy Spirit is invoked, then it surely must be the case that all this cultural analysis has some coherence.  After all, if so many people are saying the same things, it’s got to be true, right?

Well, at least true within their constructs.  My construct has an amazing veranda by which I have a wide panoramic view. But I digress.

However, while we can describe it and see whence it comes, it is somewhat harder to determine how big it’s going to get.  What is required is a holy emetic.  Or at least a blessed case of godly flatulence.  Something to relieve the buildup.  Ultimately, what may be demanded is a rather uncomfortable surgical removal.  Something like a pruning.

That assumes a metanarrative, of course, and that’s something like blasphemy, so best let it be.  After all, after de-Hellenization comes un-de-Enlightenment-ization.  Thankfully, the Great Excrescence has thrown off that nasty ol’ Plato and his ilk.  As well as that putrid Kant.  (Hegel of course simply cannot be jettisoned.  We need him for the utopianism which the Great Excrescence needs to be a movement.)  We’ll invoke our Derrida and Rorty while they help us get what we want, and then regurgi-consume them under some other honorific.

Thank God, however, that while everything else is a religious construct, our movement is not.  It’s true.  At least for us.  At this time.  Until we change our minds.

*I have dear friends who take seriously this social and religious phenomenon call “emergent church” or “emergent Christianity,” and my intent here is not to disparage them personally or their commitments, all no doubt well-intentioned and prayerful.  And, admittedly I paint with broad strokes here, making intuitive connections and enthymemic leaps.  But I hope behind the irony a solid analysis can be seen.  I welcome comments and criticism.

. . . may I recommend one of my priest’s Pastoral Ponderings:

The Twelve Apostles
(mp3 file)

As well as an Akathist one might pray in the next couple of weeks:

Akathist to Saints Peter and Paul

(I might add that Bp Basil of Wichita has asked that the Akathist to the Holy Apostles be prayed not only during the entire fast but especially the first couple of days of the Fast during the meeting of the Holy Synod of Antioch.)

I love free mp3 audio of the Classics!

LibriVox » Xenophons Anabasis.