IF YOU HAVE NOT AS OF YET SENT IN YOUR 2017 STEWARDSHIP PLEASE DO THAT TODAY!
I HAVE BEEN ASKED BY HIS EMINENCE ARCHBISHOP DEMETRIOS TO REACH OUT TO OUR PARISHIONERS IN HOPES OF RAISING AN OFFERING FOR THE REBUILDING OF ST. NICHOLAS. PLEASE BE AS GENEROUS AS YOU CAN IN YOUR OFFERING FOR THIS VERY IMPORTANT REBUILDING EFFORT OF OUR GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE AND OUR FAITH.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS FOR THE REBUILDING OF ST. NICHOLAS . WE HAVE COLLECTED OVER $7,000 SO FAR. OUR GOAL IS $ 10,000.
WE HAVE SENT OUT THE 2017 CALENDARS, AND HOPE THAT YOU CAN BE AS GENEROUS AS ALWAYS DURING THIS CHRISTMAS AN DNEW YEAR'S SEASON IN ORDER TO HELP OUR EFFORTS TO KEEP ST. JOHN'S A THRIVING COMMUNITY. I THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART.
THE CROSS!
In 1957 there was a television show called “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” hosted by Art Linkletter. Mr. Linkletter would ask kids questions about their family life, where they live, or other kinds of benign questions. However, the kids would give hilarious answers. The Show was very popular and was later picked up years later by Bill Cosby. When I was teaching religion at the Cathedral School in Manhattan, New York, I also learned a huge amount from the students I taught. This may seem strange since I was their teacher and priest, but “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” One such case involved a girl I will call Irene for this message.
It was during the Fall Semester of the Third Grade that I experienced the children starting to think a little deeper into the many aspects of the Bible and our Orthodox Faith. The class was filled with mostly Orthodox children from all jurisdictions, but there was a small contingent of many other faiths that attended the Cathedral School.
Religion for them was something very abstract and not really tangible except for the rituals and services that they participated in. Many questions arose from the reading of the Old Testament, and many times I had to give answers that they could not completely comprehend about the text.
Moreover, as we read the Creation Story in Genesis the children saw everything as black and white, along with the love that God had for His beloved humanity. However, when it came to the “Fall,” a discussion started about Adam and Eve’s disloyalty to God and not following His directions. This is when it started to get interesting. Each child thought about his relationship with his/her parents. In other words, do they listen and obey their parents, or do they go against their parent’s wishes and revolt?
Each child gave its own idea about Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s request. The whole idea of disobedience to God’s will was really troublesome for many. Why? Because Adam and Eve did not clearly understand what the result and outcome would be if they disobeyed God’s request. How could they know what death is if they never experienced dead beforehand? It was during my explanation of the “Fall” and our need for Salvation that the most unexpected little hand went up. Irene was not a child to ask many questions since she was shy, but her question through me for a loop.
Father Vasilios she said, “I understand that Adam and Eve did not listen to God, so they were thrown out of Paradise. Because of them we need help to back with God, which Jesus did for us. My question is, if Adam and Eve did listen to God, would Jesus still have to come and save us, and from what?” WOW, I thought to myself! This is coming from a third grader, who would have thunk it!
The Cross is for our salvation, and Jesus offered Himself so that we can once again be made whole as Adam and Eve were before the Fall. This is a wondrous gift, and to realize that He has done this for us is amazing. But what about her question I thought? I remembered years ago I read many writings from our Church Fathers. One of them in particular was St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662) who in the 7th. Century speculated on this same subject, but now it is a third grader who raised the question, Amazing!
I told her and the class that one of our great saints and theologians had the same thought. The entire class was impressed with Irene’s question. You really have to understand the depth of her question and her thought process that helped her to think about pre-lapsarian humanity. My response encompassed the saint’s speculation about Adam and Eve, and God’s grace given to them at Creation. They were not perfect, but they had the ability to become perfect if they wanted to. Unperfected-Perfection is the struggle we all face, and they did not succeed.
Furthermore, I continued, the Cross is redemption from the Fall for all humanity, by which it restored our original created nature. So Jesus brought humanity back, and elevated it to another level above the Fallen Nature. This is the link that we have to understand between the relationship of pre-lapsarian and post-lapsarian humanity. What Jesus did, and would do, was to elevated humanity in both cases. So if Adam and Eve did not Fall, Jesus would still come to assist humanity to another higher lever of being and be closer God. This is of course speculation, not by me but the saint, and it made sense to the class.
Finally, its strange how children can see through difficult theologies and come to such a very simple understanding of life and our relationship with God. I will never forget the shy third grader who was very quiet in class, but demonstrated an amazing ability to think through such a complex and complicated idea about our Creation and Fall. God bless her and the class who she helped go beyond what was stated in the text. May we have the same investigated initiative to think out of the box as she did and search for more answers. “Kids (do) Say the Darndest Things.” AMEN!
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