www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall My students

Dear Friends,

We had a solid three-hour session on Saturday last with my religion students!

We discussed the topic of sin and confession - there were students who came at me during the break with questions about the necessity of confession, what does it really "give us" etc.

We also reviewed the negative aspects of using a ouija board, hauntings etc. and a whole range of assorted subjects. I go with the flow, as some of you might say!

Later on, they noticed me constantly fingering my prayer rope and they want me to devote some time in future to discuss how to use the prayer rope, and specifically, how to say the rosary . . .

That really threw me for a lark!

Anyway, does anyone know where one could get cord rosaries or prayer ropes REAL cheap?

I would need about 80 . . .

I am willing to absorb the cost myself. Normally, I would get the school to pay for it, but after reading about the selflessness of the Administrator in funding this forum, I want to follow suit!

Alex

Tsk Alex - your memory is slipping

Not that long ago DavidinVA posted on the Prayer beads thread in Faith and Worship Prayer beads

and in and among everything was a link to the Rosary Army who would provide a free Rosary Rosary Army Offer [rosaryarmy.com]

Well for the numbers you need they would obviously like a donation - but there you go -ask and ye shall receive

Anhelyna

Alex,

I was thinking - ok I know that is a supprise - anyway...

Unless you want the rope specifically, you could use that as a learning opportuniy. Help them to make a chotki with beads using the prayers to make one. That would further inhance their having it. Just a thought.

Pani Rose

Alex,

would you please expand on the confession issu instead of just saying that your students asked you about it - PLEASE

in the Holy Land you can get Rosaries for as little as 3$ (i dont know if that is cheep or not) - maybe i can help you with this

Guys hold on - i will post pictures from Jerusalem soon

Dear Friends,

Yes, I may see if I can get them to make their own prayer ropes/rosaries, but I await word from a couple of sources that offer them for $2 a pair.

Eli, they asked me why we need to go to confession, what is the point, why we need a priest to hear our confession, why can't we just confess our sins directly to God in private etc.

One thing I've learned so far is not to be shocked by any questions they may ask. One cannot assume anything in terms of expectations of previous religious education etc.

If my Church is into religious education, and I understand it is, then someone is doing a really lousy job of it!

Alex

I understand what you are saying dear Alex,

It is the same in the Holy Land,
all private schools here are Christian ones, however the minoroty of the pupils are Christians.
My school (Orthodox Christian - whome are seen as the "Hard Core Byzantine Church") had 75% muslims and only 25% Christians - out of the 25% Christians 10% were true Christians where as the rest were "Biologicaly born to a Christian family" ...

Another example is my Church in Haifa - 11,000 Melkites of which we have a very hard time to gather 100 young men and women to make a youth movement!

Moreover the protestant churches are converting many of our christians, others are converting to islam ... what is worse i do not know!

Dear Eli,

Yes, your experience there is like what we have here.

It is important for Orthodox Christians of all stripes to promote a "Biblical culture" of personal prayer and scriptural reading, as well as better knowledge of our faith in total, in order to prevent ourselves from being drawn toward these same elements in the Protestant churches.

What is attractive to us in the Protestant churches is already something we have, but don't make use of.

Also, our liturigical life and daily horologion tradition is something that can keep our people from seeking the same kind of "spiritual way of daily life" in other religions, like Islam.

My thoughts, anyway.

Alex

Alex,
Did any of your students raise questions about the relationship between our free will and God being All Knowing(can never remember how to spell the 'omni' word or which to use). I have been fighting with our now seventeen year old daughter since her first confession about this one and still haven't found an answer to satisfy her. She will not go to confession at all, for reasons I think have nothing really to do with the questions she asks, but sometimes we go round and round with trying to explain how the choices we make are really our own, even though God knows all things and knows what we will choose. The arguement usually ends after a few hours with me accusing her of being a closet Calvinist and her getting huffy and stalking off. I'd been interested in seeing if other kids ever have questions about this and how others have answered it.

Vie

Dear Vie I may not have students but I have spent many long hours arguing over burgers and chicken wings with my peers about this question. Personally, I have never had a problem with God knowing everything. God wills me to make free choices and I make them, yes he knows what I choose before I make those choices but ultimately I am the one making the choices. So the responsibility does not lay with God but with me. I choose to sin, God does not make me choose to sin, He simply knows I will and gives me the freedom to do so. Sounds like you are of the same school of thought Vie although your daughter seems to have the problem many of my friends have.

From what you've said your daughter seems to believe God's knowledge is causal. Things happen because God knows they will. In other words she wont go to confession because she believes she could not have done anything other than sin, since God knew she would sin? If that is the case this is indeed Calvinism and I will add her to my prayers because this sort of fatalism can destroy a soul and moreover develop a dark view of Our all loving God.

You need to explain to your daughter that God's knowledge is not causal. The content of God's knowledge would change if individual human choices changed. God knows things because we choose them we dont choose things because He knows them. God's all-knowledge is simply a predicate of His being. He knows all things because He is timeless. Being outside of time God sees all of time as a 'never passing instant' to quote Boethius. There is no past, future or even present (really) for God.

This goes back to the debate St Augustine of Hippo had with the Manichaeans. They tried to make the Christian conception of God look stupid by asking what God was doing before time began? St Augustine answered them by saying that this question was completely redundant because God has no experience of such things. The universe is by its nature in time, it began at a certain point and is moving towards its end. Thats just scientific. Consequently changeable beings like us who also have a start and end can memorise the past, live the present and anticipate the future. God however is unchangeable and does not exist in time. He created time and space and has never thus been within its boundaries. God then does not experience time as we do. He does not look into the past nor have a present nor anticipate the future. God is unchangeable and there is no time for Him to change in. He 'sees' the entire stream of history simultaneously, if you will, from start to finish. The beggining to God is known in the same instant as the end and all thats in between. As He says Himself 'my thoughts are not your thoughts'

As a consequence we can say God knows everything that has happened and will happen because of His vantage point. Its because of where God is and how He is looking at time that God knows everything. A very, very inadequate anaology would be like a man taking a reel of film and stretching it out infront of his eyes so that all of it is in view at once thus He can see the start and the end in the same field of view. He might not have written the movie but in this way He can see all that happens within it.

God has potentially far greater control. Indeed, God could intervene, could make people do things He willed, God could take human freedom away and simply control the force by His will. However, since neither Scripture or Tradition testifies to this view of God it would be wrong to view Him as akin to a puppet master.

God knows all because God is timeless and sees all things from a timeless perspective, without past or future but all at once. He has willed man to be free and His knowledge does not make us do things. The only reason we see God as having foreknowledge is because we are changeable creatures who exist in time, however such statements are completley relative to the changeable creatures like ourselves and the angels. For God Himself such a statement is not appropriate because God knows what happens because they happen (to us before they happen) because of where God is 'viewing' events from.

I hope that was not too much of a messy explanation. I have problems with structure >_<

Dear Vie,

First of all, I strongly recommend you NOT share Myles' post above with your daughter!

Also, the issue of confession is, in my bit of experience, a hard nut to crack in those who are dead set against it.

But it isn't impossible.

The worst thing one can do is to "huff" about it in an argument - that won't help matters at all. It is always better to be all "smiles and sweetness" even when the other person isn't or is being obstinate in spiritual matters etc.

I find that my students try my patience with direct and hard thrusts at the Church and the sacraments etc. But they've yet to unnerve me (or in such a way that I'm willing to show them publicly) .

These things take some time.

And students love stories - very much like the effect of the parables of the New Testament.

I tell them stories of my experiences with confession.

I told them about a priest whom I found to be absolutely "useless" and offensive (and why, which I won't divulge here).

To the students I said, "You are well within your rights not to go to such a priest - find one that you are comfortable with, whom you can trust."

During the break, a student came to me and continued on about confession - a response I had not anticipated. Our conversation was a simply wonderful spiritual affair and we ended as great friends, seemingly able to understand one another.

Also, it seemed that a lot of the students weren't comfortable about the image they had about confession as a "spiritual laundry."

We discussed how we will always sin and are inclined to sinfulness, even after confession.

I told them not to think that they are somehow sinless now and that the spectre of confession makes them feel guilty in a way they wouldn't have, if they hadn't considered confession.

We came back to the Publican in the temple, standing beside the Pharisee, praying the Publican's prayer.

Somehow, they seemed to relax after that.

Next time, I want to try and simulate a confession in class.

In other words, I will be the one going to confession, publicly recounting sins, to a designated cleric and show them what kind of things can be said and how.

It is risky and it will be uncomfortable, but I think it will be a worthwhile enterprise.

Alex

Well I guess thats how you know Alex is a teacher and I'm a student

Alex, BINGO!!! (did you have I-15, by the way)...

We have this absolute treasury of treasuries with the Horologion and liturgical cycle of our Church. With these we have a living life of prayer in our domestic church which is a direct extension and intimate connection with the parish church.

Through the services, The Word is intimately woven into and an inseperable part of "tradition", the real and living propagation of Christ and His disciples. It's part and parcel of life, involves the entire body, senses, etc.

Heavenly becomes earthly, even with a handcenser and a taper in the prayer corner before the family icons praying the Little Hours.

Our Eastern Christian prayer, which is part of our identity, life and existence, is an experiential part of life that doesn't need esoteric emotionalism, spiritualism, etc. that many who join those sects say was "missing" in their lives.

It's there, in every service, and as you say, Eastern Christians who start realizing that typically don't have any problems with yearning for other sects.

Thank you Myles, Alex and Diak...

Too late Alex, I already tried Myles' explanation in several different forms at several different times , sorry Myles, but it didn't work.

Vie

Alex, have you tried with your students the explanation that the priest is there because Christ was clear to His disciples (Matt. 16:19 that He was giving them (and their successors) the authority to tell people that their sins are forgiven? The priest is there as a witness both to the penatent's sincerity and to relay the forgiveness of Christ to the penitant. Tell them to think of how they feel after confession, all light, clean, and assured of God's forgiveness. Then ask them if they feel the same way sitting in their chairs saying "Sorry, God". Nearly all of them will acknowledge that the sacramental absolution brings with it the spiritual peace that saying, however sincerely, "Sorry, God" does not. Point out that in exceptional cases such as the spiritual conversions of those who are powerfully moved by witnessing, say, the martyrdom of our saints (an example being the 40th Martyr at Sebaste) God's grace is given to those who have NOT confessed to a priest, but that they cannot count of such exceptional circumstances in their own lives. It helps also to point out to teens that frequent confession is a good thing, as it teaches us to be aware of our sins that NEED confessing, as they have not piled up over the months or years, so that we forget them. With frequent confession, we have (ideally) less to remember, and so can confess more fully. And another point is that a priest, with greater spiritual discernment, can usually point out to the person who frequently confesses to him that certain repeat sins may have the same root cause, and it may be a cause that a teen does not realize, or recognize. For instance, certain sins, such as that teenage herd mentality where they say "I said such and such to so and so because everyone else was doing it" may be not only the sin of insulting another, but of not trusting enough to God to protect them from repercussions were they to stand up to the crowd. This can open up new layers of spiritual self discovery and consequently, maturity, that someone saying "God, I didn't mean to call someone that" is not going to get on their own.

Gaudior, with some random thoughts

Dear Myles,

I was just kidding - I could be wrong, but the fact is you are not here to go with me to class on Saturday to try your approach out!

Who knows? It could be just the thing for them!

Alex