BCP: Sabbatical year – information (Part 1)
Part 1: Sabbatical year, information
Part 2: Sabbatical year and prayer
Part 3: Sabbatical year and koinonia
Part 1: Sabbatical year, information
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The Lord gave His laws and commandments to the chosen people through Moses. They were to be applied to the life in general, not only to the religious life, but also to the social life. Many of these laws are incomprehensible to us and some were figures, such as animal sacrifices for the sins of the people. This foreshadowed Christ’s redeeming sacrifice on the cross for our sins. God, through Moses, commands to celebrate feasts every year. Some of these feasts were preserved but assumed an entirely new meaning. For example, Easter puts Christ’s redeeming death and glorious resurrection into the center, Pentecost – descent of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification of the seventh day moved from Saturday to Sunday. Thus, we are asking: how should we implement a sabbatical year in accordance with God’s will?
Spiritual renewal, especially that of priests and consequently also of God’s people, is currently an urgent need. Ideally, priests in a diocese should form seven groups. Each group would celebrate a different year as a sabbatical year. During this year, the priest should go into the spiritual desert, figuratively speaking. A group of priests could use half-empty monasteries or other unused religious buildings for this purpose. Each diocese should allocate at least one sabbatical house, where the groups of priests could take turns after a year. But to start with, a group of 4-7 priests can ask the bishop about this possibility of spending a sabbatical year. He will probably require that they celebrate Mass on Sundays for the faithful. They need to begin and therefore even such a compromise should be accepted. The Church is in a deep crisis, but despite it, many bishops care deeply about the interior revival of the Church.
What would be the primary means of the renewal applied in a sabbatical year? We can imitate the practice of the first Church: 1) prayer, 2) koinonia, 3) Word of God, 4) liturgy (comp. Acts 2:42).
During this year, the priests should make effort to practice interior prayer. Under no circumstances oriental meditation should be introduced since there is a spirit of paganism behind it. The interior prayer is a prayer in Spirit and truth, during which the Holy Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans (Rom 8:26). The interior prayer focuses on the Cross of Christ and the mystery of the holy baptism, in which we have been buried with Christ into death and at the same time, we have been given a new life of Christ (Rom 6:4).
A true prayer goes hand in hand with a deeper knowledge of the root of evil in us. Therefore, it is a path of purification, but also one of illumination and union.
A true brotherly community is the best means of a deep cleansing from a spiritual darkness and slavery to one’s own ego. It helps uncover deep-rooted faults and bad habits that have gradually become part of our ego. Through this painful self-knowledge starts the process of repentance – metanoia. There is no forgiveness of sins without a genuine repentance and the process of deliverance from the power of lies and evil cannot begin. The person that undergoes the process of purification will more deeply experience the presence of Jesus in themselves and consequently, they can say along with the Apostle: “Christ lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)
The priest who is preacher should therefore honestly enter the process of metanoia – transformation of thinking.
However, if a priest avoids fulfilling the requirements of God’s law, the believers will follow him.
If he himself is not a man of prayer, he cannot model a habit to pray to the people.
If he himself does not fully rely upon God, he will not teach the believers to do so either.
If he himself is a lover of money and comfort, he will show a bad example to the believers as well as to the unbelievers.
If he himself has not left behind the spirit of superstitions and sympathy towards paganism, his listeners will also remain in the darkness of present-day paganism.
If a preacher does not have the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Truth, but he has a spirit of the world, the souls that have been entrusted to him will have the same spirit.
If a preacher is not willing to preach and defend the basic truths of faith leading to salvation, the believers entrusted to him will not defend them either.
If a priest belongs to a fraternity, but he considers it only a formal issue and he is not able to accept admonition for his fault or a vice and keeps being offended, he will never hand over the principles of life according to the Gospel.
If a preacher never talks about death, judgment, and eternity, it is an indication that he himself does not care about these truths, lives under an illusion and he transfers this frivolity to the souls entrusted to him.
If a preacher does not live by faith, which is a prerequisite of righteousness (comp. Rom 1:17), neither his listeners will live by faith.
If a priest considers a prayer to be a waste of time, his believers will not pray either.
If a priest does not in faith resist a demonic power, both in prayer and in temptation, his sheep will not resist it either.
If a shepherd is not willing to suffer persecution, ridicule, and defamation, or even a death as a martyr for Christ’s sake, his sheep will not be willing to do so either.
If a preacher respects, or even approves of abortion and euthanasia, the souls that have been entrusted to him will approve of it as well.
If a preacher does not emphasize faithfulness in marriage and a duty of this commitment before God, he can cause a fall of many families.
If a preacher does not clearly condemn sodomy and sexual perversity, then those who listen to him and are under the pressure of the world will approve of sodomy.
If a preacher wastes his time by daily searching for useless information on internet or makes unfruitful phone calls, the believers will do the same.
Sabbatical year in the Word of God
Lv 25:3-4 “For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops… But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest… Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.”
In a spiritual sense, this word refers to God’s field and God’s vineyard and to God’s workers. They should work in God’s vineyard for six years by preaching repentance and plow a furrow on the mission field. They should prune God’s vineyard to yield, meaning to preach the Word of God, instruct, admonish, encourage (2Tim 4:2). This is a hard work. However, in the seventh year God’s worker should stop working in a vineyard and in God’s field and he should spend all his time in prayer and in the Word of God (Acts 6:4).
Why? Because if preachers don’t have an internal connection with God, they will not be able to lead their listeners to it either: “If they had stood before Me and listened to Me and had delivered My words to My people, then they would have turned them back from their evil way, from their evil deeds.” (Jer 23:22) If a preacher does not have an intimate communion with God (i.e. does not stand before God and listen to Him), the power of the Holy Spirit cannot flow through him. A preacher receives God’s power precisely in prayer.
If a preacher dedicates his time also to a prayer during the six years of his pastoral work and gives God a tithe of time, which is 2.5 hours per day, his soul, his ground, still needs to rest from the external activities so he can dedicate all his time to God.
Dt 15:1-3 “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.”
This quote should be seen especially in the light of the Gospel, namely in relation to the forgiveness of transgression. Jesus says: “For if you do not forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will not forgive you either.” (Mt 6:15) You will forgive easily if you realize your own transgression – sins – against God.
Dt 31:10-13 “At the end of every seven years … when all (the people) come to appear before the Lord your God … you shall read (God’s) law before them … so that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and carefully observe to do all the words of this law…”
The Israelites were obligated to do the following in the seventh year:
1) appear before the Lord – spend time in prayer;
2) listen to God’s law, to know it
3) to be full of a holy fear of God and carefully observe all the words of God’s law.
Before the Lord, a priest can truly recognize his sins as well as a poisoned root of evil in himself and forms a habit of repentance and truthfulness. It was important for the Israelites to listen to the Law of God and it is also important for us to know and practice Christ’s commandments, which are listed especially in the Gospel according to Matthew in chapters 5 to 7. The ignorance of the Scripture is ignorance of Christ.
The purpose of the sabbatical year is not only to spend time in interior prayer and Word of God. It is also necessary to be involved in fellowship – koinonia. That is how everyone can undergo a genuine and profound purification from their ego and get rid of the spiritual blindness.
+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
+ Methodius OSBMr + Timothy OSBMr
Secretary Bishops
July 14, 2022
Download: Sabbatical year – information (Part 1) (14/7/2022)