A
Antonius_Lupus
Guest
Peace to all! I wished to post these thoughts of mine. It is long, but I sometimes think that my struggle is a common one, and perhaps my battle and struggles in discernment may help others. I also hope to get some sound advice from some of my brothers and sisters. 
I am 20 year old Catholic revert. Since beginning my journey home three years ago, I had thoughts of the possibility of being a priest (I have wanted to be a minister even as a Baptist child). I was not thrilled by the thought (mainly because of celibacy). This changed in time however, and I am now actively trying to discern whether God might be calling me to the holy priesthood. So, there’s a little about me.
Anyway, the other day I opted to read the Deuterocanon. I began with the Book of Tobit.
I was almost brought to tears with yearning-pains in my soul when I read Tobit 6. In this chapter, St. Raphael urges Tobias to take Sarah of Raguel as his wife. He is but a young lad at this time (late teens to young adulthood). Refering to the mystically hidden archangel as “Azariah” (YHWH Helps) he says that he had heard that a demon kills all who try to have the marital act with Sarah. I found this compelling because the demon behind this is the archdemon of lust: Asmodeus (i.e. The Destroyer). I believe I have, and still do, engage in battle with Asmodeus often.
Anywho St. Rafael responds to Tobias’ fear of Asmodeus:
“Do you not remember your father’s orders? He commanded you to marry a woman from your own family. So now listen to me, brother; do not give another thought to this demon, but marry Sarah. I know that tonight you shall have her for your wife!..[H]e [Asmodeus] will flee and never again show himself near her. Then when you are about to have intercourse with her, both of you first rise up to pray. Beg the Lord of heaven to show you mercy and grant you deliverance. But do not be afraid, for she was set apart for you before the world existed. You will save her, and she will go with you…When Tobiah heard Raphael say that she was his kinswoman, of his own family’s lineage, he fell deeply in love with her, and his heart became set on her.”
(Tobit 6:16-18, my compilation and additions).
That really hit me hard! In this passage I saw but a glimpse of the beauty of marriage. It reminds me of another time I saw a glimpse of beauty. Indeed, it is almost exactly like that!
It was the first time I worshipped with the Byzantine Catholics (Melkites in this case). I was let into the church through a side door by one of the deacons, and I was told to enter into the nave through a back door. As I passed through, I saw a glimpse of the the Holy of Holies. There was wooden lattice work separating me from the Holy Place, but I saw the Holy Altar, the Proskomedia (roughly a credence table), the synthronoi (chairs), and the thurible…if only barely.
I didn’t think much of it at the time, as I had yet to visit a Greek church. Yet when I sat down in the pew, I became aware of the Ikonostasis which separates the nave and the Holy of Holies. The curtains above the Holy Doors were closed, and when Fr. Damian Higgings (blessed is he!) began to prepare for the Sacred Liturgy, he stopped at those doors and began to bow over and over saying: “God be propitious to me, a sinner!” Only after three bows did he pass into the Holy Place. In the Liturgy proper, it is only during the most sacred and glorious moments, when the curtain is drawn back and the Holy of Holies is visible to the congregation. After the Liturgy is completed, the curtains again veil the Holy Place.
I began to realize after the Liturgy the gravity of what I had seen: I had glimpsed something which is the privilege only of the Bride of Christ! Before the litany (I think…) which marks the change from the Liturgy of the Word to the Eucharist, the deacon will cry out to the back of the church: “The doors! The doors!” He does this to ensure that no infidel or catechumen can see the mysteries about to take place.
There is great symbolism in this.
The Liturgy is the “marriage supper of the Lamb.” There we are mystically “wed” to Christ, and through Holy Communion, we consummate our union with Him, as husband and wife consummate their union with each other in the mystery of the marital act. A Byzantine Catholic once told me that in Jewish culture, the biggest part of the marriage night (tellingly called: “The Night of Revealing”) wasn’t the marital act per se…it was the full revealing of the bride. Unlike our society in which women wear scantily clad clothes, or go bare headed into church, the ancient Jews covered their women extensively.
At the marriage ceremony itself, the Jewish groom can only see the bride’s face, and even then the lifting of her veil is a solemn and momentous occassion. Only at the final moment, when husband and wife were all alone, did the wife totally unveil herself to her husband. Everything was exposed, it was a final act symbolizing (and making real) the total self-giving of husband to wife, and wife to husband.
This practice has carried over into Catholic theology, East and West. However, in the Greek tradition, it is emphasized more so by the ikonostasis. It is at the highest points of the Liturgy that we see beyond the veil and see clearly the Holy of Holies.
Like that day when I glimpsed the Holy of Holies at God’s Holy Temple of St. Ignatios, I believe I have seen in the Book of Tobit the glimpse and beauty of Holy Matrimony.
And I find myself enthralled by its beauty!
For Holy Matrimony began before time. God had already known those whom would be destined for one another…to become “one flesh.” And through His Providence He brings these people together, they fall in love and set their hearts on one another, get married, engage in the mystical marital act, and then co-create a new human being with God Himself.
Tobias actually says before going to bed with Sarah something to the effect of: “Lord, I do not take my sister/kinswoman out of lust, rather I do so because my heart is set upon her.”
Here! Here is where I catch a glimpse of the beauty of the marital act.
TO BE CONTINUED…
I am 20 year old Catholic revert. Since beginning my journey home three years ago, I had thoughts of the possibility of being a priest (I have wanted to be a minister even as a Baptist child). I was not thrilled by the thought (mainly because of celibacy). This changed in time however, and I am now actively trying to discern whether God might be calling me to the holy priesthood. So, there’s a little about me.
Anyway, the other day I opted to read the Deuterocanon. I began with the Book of Tobit.
I was almost brought to tears with yearning-pains in my soul when I read Tobit 6. In this chapter, St. Raphael urges Tobias to take Sarah of Raguel as his wife. He is but a young lad at this time (late teens to young adulthood). Refering to the mystically hidden archangel as “Azariah” (YHWH Helps) he says that he had heard that a demon kills all who try to have the marital act with Sarah. I found this compelling because the demon behind this is the archdemon of lust: Asmodeus (i.e. The Destroyer). I believe I have, and still do, engage in battle with Asmodeus often.
Anywho St. Rafael responds to Tobias’ fear of Asmodeus:
“Do you not remember your father’s orders? He commanded you to marry a woman from your own family. So now listen to me, brother; do not give another thought to this demon, but marry Sarah. I know that tonight you shall have her for your wife!..[H]e [Asmodeus] will flee and never again show himself near her. Then when you are about to have intercourse with her, both of you first rise up to pray. Beg the Lord of heaven to show you mercy and grant you deliverance. But do not be afraid, for she was set apart for you before the world existed. You will save her, and she will go with you…When Tobiah heard Raphael say that she was his kinswoman, of his own family’s lineage, he fell deeply in love with her, and his heart became set on her.”
(Tobit 6:16-18, my compilation and additions).
That really hit me hard! In this passage I saw but a glimpse of the beauty of marriage. It reminds me of another time I saw a glimpse of beauty. Indeed, it is almost exactly like that!
It was the first time I worshipped with the Byzantine Catholics (Melkites in this case). I was let into the church through a side door by one of the deacons, and I was told to enter into the nave through a back door. As I passed through, I saw a glimpse of the the Holy of Holies. There was wooden lattice work separating me from the Holy Place, but I saw the Holy Altar, the Proskomedia (roughly a credence table), the synthronoi (chairs), and the thurible…if only barely.
I didn’t think much of it at the time, as I had yet to visit a Greek church. Yet when I sat down in the pew, I became aware of the Ikonostasis which separates the nave and the Holy of Holies. The curtains above the Holy Doors were closed, and when Fr. Damian Higgings (blessed is he!) began to prepare for the Sacred Liturgy, he stopped at those doors and began to bow over and over saying: “God be propitious to me, a sinner!” Only after three bows did he pass into the Holy Place. In the Liturgy proper, it is only during the most sacred and glorious moments, when the curtain is drawn back and the Holy of Holies is visible to the congregation. After the Liturgy is completed, the curtains again veil the Holy Place.
I began to realize after the Liturgy the gravity of what I had seen: I had glimpsed something which is the privilege only of the Bride of Christ! Before the litany (I think…) which marks the change from the Liturgy of the Word to the Eucharist, the deacon will cry out to the back of the church: “The doors! The doors!” He does this to ensure that no infidel or catechumen can see the mysteries about to take place.
There is great symbolism in this.
The Liturgy is the “marriage supper of the Lamb.” There we are mystically “wed” to Christ, and through Holy Communion, we consummate our union with Him, as husband and wife consummate their union with each other in the mystery of the marital act. A Byzantine Catholic once told me that in Jewish culture, the biggest part of the marriage night (tellingly called: “The Night of Revealing”) wasn’t the marital act per se…it was the full revealing of the bride. Unlike our society in which women wear scantily clad clothes, or go bare headed into church, the ancient Jews covered their women extensively.
At the marriage ceremony itself, the Jewish groom can only see the bride’s face, and even then the lifting of her veil is a solemn and momentous occassion. Only at the final moment, when husband and wife were all alone, did the wife totally unveil herself to her husband. Everything was exposed, it was a final act symbolizing (and making real) the total self-giving of husband to wife, and wife to husband.
This practice has carried over into Catholic theology, East and West. However, in the Greek tradition, it is emphasized more so by the ikonostasis. It is at the highest points of the Liturgy that we see beyond the veil and see clearly the Holy of Holies.
Like that day when I glimpsed the Holy of Holies at God’s Holy Temple of St. Ignatios, I believe I have seen in the Book of Tobit the glimpse and beauty of Holy Matrimony.
And I find myself enthralled by its beauty!
For Holy Matrimony began before time. God had already known those whom would be destined for one another…to become “one flesh.” And through His Providence He brings these people together, they fall in love and set their hearts on one another, get married, engage in the mystical marital act, and then co-create a new human being with God Himself.
Tobias actually says before going to bed with Sarah something to the effect of: “Lord, I do not take my sister/kinswoman out of lust, rather I do so because my heart is set upon her.”
Here! Here is where I catch a glimpse of the beauty of the marital act.
TO BE CONTINUED…