ST. THOMAS VOICE

SPIRITUAL JOY

Ability to SEE, Ability to BE, Ability to GIVE.

When morning sun wakes me up, I look out through my open window to a field covered in green pasture. The sound of birds chirping and the fragrance of fresh air always consistently makes the beginning of the day a beautiful one. But through the day that vision just fades away leaving me with a glance of my other needs and wants. I had this thought “if I had to pay a price for all the beauty I see ie the blue sky, the rivers, the mountains, the seasons and the butterflies.. what would that price tag be? 1000s? no, it has to be in millions or maybe even billions!

I inherited all that for free because of my God as my Father, Saviour and redeemer to make me call Him Abba Father.
This realisation instills immense gratitude in us and thanking God becomes all the more meaningful. In my prayers, I kept asking to give more abundantly so that I could become happy. In reality, all I needed was the ability to SEE what I already had and the ability to look inside of me and discover the immense possibilities he vested in me.

I discovered our happiness but rides on lot more other things than just the ability to SEE the gifts we have. Ability to BE is the other necessary step.

While you can achieve the first in solidarity, the second is accomplished only through your model existence in a society. Your ability to BE rides on your ability to GIVE to others. E.g. You can’t BE a teacher unless you teach someone. You can’t BE a singer unless you can sing to others, or a scientist unless you solve for others problems. Our Gifts and blessings define what we are capable of ‘being’ to this society. When the disparity between ‘what we are capable of being’ and ‘what we really be’ is low, then we know we have served our role well. Spiritual joy cannot be found without this service mindedness.

Often many we know back out from serving because they dislike to be judged or critiqued. But model existence in a society has very little in common with everyone in the society accepting you and having the best opinions about you. Other people’s judgements are just a showcase of how they see things that you do, that too based on what you chose to show them or hide about yourself. It’s never complete enough or true enough and therefore irrelevant!

As a Christian we should have a better way to validate our services than just relying on others opinions about us. Our Faith gives us life PRINCIPLES TO LIVE BY. When we are challenged or critiqued or in doubt, validate our action against these principles, correct where necessary. If we find ourselves righteous against those principles, we need not fear the opinions of the tens and thousands against us. Such validation will allow us to stand up for truth even when crowd prefers silence, strike for justice to set an example, remain honest even when no one is watching, offer to service even in rejection, remain persistent even when failing, forgive even in ailment, kind even in shortage.

One man inspires the other to do right, not to be celebrated, but to be able to stand tall in their own eyes and kingdom of God will strive. It will lift you and everyone you know to be beholders of spiritual joy. So let our desire to be joyful translate in to prayers to be able to SEE, to BE and to GIVE.

Writer: Rekha Peter

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbour — such is my idea of happiness.”
- Leo Tolstoy

Significance of Liturgy and the Syrian Orthodox Church

In the Syrian Orthodox Church or our liturgical tradition, liturgy is the source and expression of the entire spiritual experience. In prayers, the Church experiences it’s vision of God, the destiny of humanity and the entire creation. This article is an attempt to elucidate the role of liturgy in the Church in expressing and experiencing God in an appropriate way. The topic will be elaborated over multiple episodes and extended to future newsletters.

Episode 1

What is Liturgy?

Liturgy is the representation and actualization of the whole mystery of God’s economy of salvation accomplished by the Father in Jesus Christ with the work of the Holy Spirit in time. (New Catholic encyclopaedia.) In the modern time, theology is being looked at as a mere philosophy. Theology has lost its relationship with church and liturgy. The middle age was considered as the captivity years of liturgy because theology was never being connected to church life and liturgy. Liturgy was deemed to be understood as certain rituals and celebrations. Bible and liturgy are the expressions of the faith of the worshiping community. It is intrinsically related and influences each other. What is Liturgy? Or was there a time neither liturgy nor bible existed?

Liturgy is the expression of faith. It existed either in oral form or written form. Before the canonization of the New Testament, it was through the liturgy and oral traditions that the faith was transmitted and preserved in the Church. Later on, these creedal statements became part of the New Testament. Therefore, the N.T. has to be understood as a creedal statement and liturgy. It is believed that Ephesian, Colossians, 1 Peter, St. James etc. were written to prepare the catechumens for baptism. Lucian Deiss, one of the liturgical Theologians say, “Jewish liturgy was the womb from which the Christian liturgy was born”. His statement unfolds the fact that the early Christian church was highly influenced by the Jewish liturgy and used synagogues as their place of worship. There was a time extemporary prayer was used as the form of liturgy. Eg.Didache: A short early Christian Manuel/ morals / church practices contained in16 brief chapters on

• Instructions on baptism,
• Fasting prayer,
• The Eucharist and
• How to treat prophets, bishops, and deacons.

The Apostolic Tradition of Hyppolytus of Rome summarizes the attitude of the early Church towards written formulas and improvised prayers. “Let the bishop gives thanks in the manner we indicate earlier. It is not necessary, however, that he repeats the same words we provided, as though, he had to try to say them from his memory in his thanks giving to God. Let each one pray according to his ability. If he can pray at length and offering a solemn prayer, well and good, but if he prays differently and pronounces a shorter and simple prayer, he is not to be prevented, provided his prayer be sound and orthodox”.
This reinstates Bible and liturgy is the expressions of the faith of the worshiping community.

Vicar: Rev. Fr. Eldo Varkey Valiaparampil