Amazing. Just amazing. And prophetic. This is a national religious leader who is right for the time. Listen to it here by clicking on the "Vision for the Future" audio link. Excerpts (forgive any transcribing errors, please):
He talks about the need for Orthodox Christians to engage the world in service:
"Where are the Orthodox hospitals? Where are the Orthodox schools? Where are the Orthodox charitable institutions? It's a beautiful thing to build a medical clinic in a remote village in Ethiopia. But it's also a beautiful thing to build a medical clinic in a remote village in Kansas."
More:
"The fundamental institutions of our culture are falling apart. ... [Traditional Episcopalians, for example] are crying out in pain. They see their church as having abandoned Christianity, and surely it has. If it endorses gay marriage. If it endorses homosexuality. If it endorses abortion. If it endorses euthanasia -- this is an abandonment of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. No wonder those people are so hurting. ... We need to open not only our doors but also our hearts.
He goes on to say that Orthodox college groups are especially important to him. They are not places where nice ethnic boys meet nice ethnic girls to get married. They should be about forming Christian souls.
"There are so many kids living on university campuses in Animal House. Sex, drugs alcohol -- and despair. It's all from despair, and it's bitter. We, by reaching out to them, can give them hope. And that only hope is Jesus Christ and the Gospel."
He says he wants to see an Orthodox housing facility on every major university campus in this country, with a campus minister who is an Orthodox priest. Says winning young people to Jesus in the Orthodox church will fill our seminaries and monasteries.
"This is not some kind of thing where we need to put another bureaucracy in Syosset, and establish some kind of development program." Says get busy where you are, working locally, to "build something beautiful for God." (Hat tip: Mother Teresa!)
Now that's a man with a plan. And he's young -- 49 years old. God willing, he'll be with us for a very long time. The Orthodox Church in America's best days are surely ahead of it with this kind of Christian servant in leadership.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Finally had time to listen to +JONAH's first address as Metropolitan. Probably my favorite part came near the end: (I'm paraphrasing) "Writing checks is great. Write checks to IOCC and OCMC, they're wonderful organizations.
But how about buying someone a sandwich, and handing it to him?"
Bowtie MaxDaddy, don't you blow your top. Everything's under control. . . . ; )
Frankly, I love Zappa.
Tony D.: (quoting Met. Jonah) But how about buying someone a sandwich, and handing it to him?
That struck me as well, Tony. I recall an episode when I lived in New York, where I offered to buy a particularly well-spoken "bum" a lunch. He preferred a direct infusion of capital. When I asked him what he was going to use it for, he replied (quite candidly), "booze".
"What kind of booze", I asked.
"Wine", replied the penurious gourmand.
"Ah! well, which vintage?", I enquire, attempting to descry his preferential palate pleaser. I think he replied, "Thunderbird".
Now, I don't know whether you know French, but I, having an insurmountable proclivity to translate everything into French, immediately thought that "oiseau de foudre", which is what my Gallic instinct discerned from his slurred parlance, must be either a Côte de Beaune unfamiliar to me or else a recondite classical metaphor that would have had Ovid suffering asthma attacks chasing down in the dust of some Roman bibliotheca.
We had been discussing Plato (whom he was able to quote in Greek) and I later learned that his accustomed libation is rock gut poison. Being an excellent humanitarian and humanist as well as a dévoué of the philosophes, I went to a liquor store and bought a bottle of French Burgundy and returned to the haunt of my erstwhile vagabond acquaintance. I opened the bottle and we both shared a draught and I left him with by far the greater part of the bottle to assuage his troubled soul.
It was my one Christian Act of Charity, but performed in homage to a Stoic who surpassed me in learning, virtue, and human understanding. I hope he died well.
Roland, I don't know if you're going to see this, but your story evoked a vision. I see you consigned to the flames (for bad puns in several languages, disrespect of Jesuits, or other sins best known to yourself) and reluctantly dragging your heels through the vestibule of Hell. But hold--an angel descends, waving away the stench and smoke with one elegant hand, like Dante's heavenly messenger. In the other hand, he bears a pair of wine glasses and a corkscrew. "Release this man," he orders the awestruck fiends. "He is called for above. One of the Blessed needs him to help drink up a bottle of oiseau de foudre." ; )
I just saw it now, Sig. LOL! May your apocalypse be true and may you be that one among the Blessed! (I'll use any get-out-of-hell free card in the game of eschatological monopoly.)
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.