an interview with fr hapko

7/28/2019 An Interview With Fr Hapko

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A Timely Death

Father Alexanders death has been called "untimely," and in a human sense it was. As

Archbishop lakovos said on the CBS television tribute, "He was taken from us much earlier

than we thought." Yet he was taken from us by God, and in this sense his death was certainly

"timely." With God there are no accidents, and every moment is the right one for everything,

including ones death. It was Gods will, which always works with our human freedom which

we can use for good and for ill, that Father Alexander should leave us when he did. The Lord

does not want His creatures to die. We die because of our sins. But when and how we die is

still in Gods hands, to be accomplished according to His will. As we search for the meaning of

Fathers parting from us, edified and strengthened by the beautiful way in which he was

enabled to transform his death into a victory of life, we can find it in the simple conviction

that he finished what he was given to do upon this earth and is now called to work among us

from heaven.

A Word of God

In reading the book of Archimandrite Vasileios, the abbot of Stavronikita monastery on Mouth

Athos, called Hymn of Entry(SVS Press, 1984), a quotation of Saint Ignatius of Antioch struck

me as the perfect "word" to give meaning to Father Alexanders passing. The holy bishop was

on his way from Antioch to Rome where he was to face execution for being a Christian. He

writes a letter to his friends in the city asking them not to interfere with his approaching

No Longer Merely an Echo By FATHER THOMAS HOPKO

OM ALL PARTS of the Church, from all parts of the world, we have heard the same lament

the last ten months: How powerfully we experience the absence of Father Alexander! How

ongly we sense the great void in our lives! How deeply we feel ourselves lonely,

protected and exposed! When Father was alive we often went to him for encouragement

d advice. Sometimes we went for no particular reason, but just to see him and talk, and to

ceive some reaction or reassurance about something or another. And sometimes we didnt

en call or go because it was enough for us to know that he was there and could be reached

en things got too bad, or to unbearable, or too far out of hand. But now he is gone. And

ough we sense his spiritual presence everywhere and in everything, particularly at the altar

and most particularly in the seminary chapel with the marvelous new fresco of the

charist which so magnificently expresses Fathers faith and vision of Christ and the Church

we mourn his physical absence, and the comforting strength and support which he always

surely and powerfully provided. How appropriate are Christs words about John the Baptist

en we try to express our feelings about Father Alexander. "He was a burning and shining

ht, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light" (Jn 5:35).


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death, for he desires to give his life for the Lord. In this letter to the Romans he writes:

For if you hear my voice no more; I shall become a Word of God; but if you are in love with my

bodily existence, I shall be merely an echo (Rom 2:1).

Father Alexander did not die a martyrs death in the strict sense of the word as Saint Ignatius

did, but his life and his death were those of a martyrin the original sense of the term whichliterally means witness. Father Alexander was a witness to the presence and power of God in

the life of the Church and in the life of Gods people. He was a witness to the Kingdom of God

defined by Saint Paul, in what was surely Fathers favorite and most quoted scriptural

passage, as "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 14:17).

Father bore witness to Christ and the Kingdom of God. And like every Christian witness, his

testimony was finalized in his death. However holy a person may be, however eloquent in

speech and articulate in expression, however powerful in action and fruitful in deeds, while he

remains alive in this world, on this side of eternity, he is "merely an echo" of God, a voice

crying in the wilderness of the fallen world about the beauty and glory of the kingdom to

come. But when such a person dies and departs to be with Christ, he is not "unclothed," as

the apostle Paul has told us, but is "further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed

up by life," it becomes "a Word of God."

No Longer An Echo

In his dying, Father Alexander has become a Word of God for us. He has become finally andforever his real and true self. He has become who he eternally is, and was called by God to be

from before the foundation of the world. If we are in love with Fathers temporal being, if we

love his bodily existence, if we lament his passing and long for his earthly voice however

beautiful and comforting, strong and encouraging, instructive and inspiring it has been in

preaching and teaching, in liturgical prayer and personal conversation we remain in love

with "merely an echo." But if we hear Fathers voice no more and learn to commune with him

as he now is in his eternal condition of glory with Christ in God, then we will come to know

him as a Word of God given to us by the Lord not merely to be heard and obeyed, but to be

personally encountered in the Spirit as "living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,

piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts

and intentions of the heart" (Heb 4:12).

We receive a new relationship with Father Alexander in his death, and deeper and fuller and

richer communion. We are given now to know him as a completed person, a perfected image

of God purged of all of the faults and frailties, which were his in the days of his flesh. We are

now blessed to know him alive in eternal life, fully graced with the glory of God, wholly

enlightened with the light of the Day without evening of the kingdom of heaven, which Light is

the Lord Christ Himself.

How sad it would be for us now to long for the echo when we have finally been given the


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Word.

The Orthodox Church, Vol. 20, No. 12, December 1984, p. 3guaranteed absolutely!

Prayer Primer by Father Thomas Hopko

Prayer is a specific activity that must be a part of a person's life. It is, as the catechism says,

"a lifting of the mind and heart to God." It is a talking with God, and a listening to Him. It is

communion with God in the most direct, experiential way. way.

Christians must pray. We cannot substitute anything in the place of prayer. We cannot think

that prayer is "anything good that we do" in the sense of replacing the actual act of prayer

about which Christ spoke when He said: "When you pray, go into your room and close the

door, and pray in secret" Although everything good done by man glorifies God, the specific

activity of prayer must be retained and perfected. "If you are not successful in your prayer, donot expect success in anything. Prayer is the root of all." (Bishop Theophan)

When we Christians pray, we must be consciously aware of the fact that our prayer goes on

"within God"; that in prayer we are already somehow "inside of God". We are not lonely,

isolated creatures attempting by our prayer to call out in solitude across and unpassable

abyss to a God "way out there". We are in God. The Holy Spirit is in us, making us Children of

God in Christ, enabling us to call the Transcendent, All-Holy God, "our Father".

"For you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you for all who are led by the

Spirit are sons of God when we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is the Spirit Himself bearing witness

with our spirit that we are children of God for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but

the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8).

Prayer is not merely the recitation of words. Prayer may begin by reading or saying the words

of prayers. But a mere reading or saying of words, without feeling or attention, is not prayer.

It is not even poor prayer. It is not prayer at all.

Prayer is learned only by praying. No one can teach another to pray. But a good way to begin

to pray is to use the prayers of the prayer book. This is so because, since "we do not know

how to pray", the Holy Spirit reveals in the prayers of [the Son and] the saints the proper form

and content of prayer. In the prayers of the books - especially the Lord's Prayer - we not

only pray truly by putting ourselves into the words of the prayers, but we also learn what we

must pray.

The catechism classifies prayer in three types: asking [for ourselves inpetition and for others

in intercession], thanking, andpraising. A fourth category can [also] be added: the prayer of

questioning or complaining to God. To learn to come to God in every situation, and with each

of the four categories operating all the time, is a very important achievement: the

achievement of a prayerful life.


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What may we ask for in prayer? For everything good; and nothing good is too small. For what

should we thank [Him]? For everything. For what should we praise [Him]? For everything.

About what may we question? About all things not understood. About what may we lament

and complain? About all that is frustrating, confusing, and tragic in our lives. But in all things:

thanksgiving and praise, for this is the essence of faith. And in all things: "Thy will be done."

Prayer must be private, personal, and secret. It cannot be limited just to the liturgy ["commonwork' or services] of the Church. Strictly speaking, the liturgy of the Church is not merely a

form of personal prayer, a form done corporately and openly, together with others. Liturgy is

more than a prayer. It is gathering, being together, singing, celebrating, processing,

announcing, teaching, listening, interceding, remembering, offering, receiving, having

communion with God and each other, being sent into the world with an experience of

something to be witnessed to Its efficacy depends upon our personal prayer done alone in

secret. the liturgy cannot be our only prayer. If it is, we should seriously question its meaning

and power for us.

How can we begin to pray? Just by beginning. But how to begin, with what sort of methods?

Everyone's way will be different, but the saints give two absolute rules: be brief, and be

regular. These are the pillars of prayer. Brevityto ensure humility, to discourage despair, and

to enable us to do what can reasonable be done. And regularityto build the rhythm of prayer

into the rhythm of life as an unchanging element of our existence. It is a million times more

effective and pleasing to God to have a short rule of prayer rigidly kept at regular times than

to "do a lot" just any old time, whenever we happen to do it.

Suppose we cannot - or will not - be regular in prayer, not even with the shortest of rules? Is

everything lost? Not at all. In this case we are told by our saints to take a small prayer or just

a few words (like theJesus Prayer, or "Lord, have mercy", or a line from a Psalm) and to say

it as often as we can, whenever or wherever we happen to be. Anyone can do this, as it

requires nothing but to do it, and it can lead us to union with God.

"Remembrance of God" is the purpose of prayer - to "walk in His presence", to "stand before

His Face", to be conscious of His Spirit in us making us His children. Remembrance of God isthe way to keeping His commandments, and doing His commandments is our salvation and

life.

What about sweet feelings, consolations, comforts, visions, images, sentiments, emotions,

graces of special sort? Forget them all! They are not the purpose of prayer, not the purpose

of Christian faith. If God wants to give them to us, we will get them. But we must not seek

them or look for them. We must reject and doubt them if we think that we have them. This is

the doctrine of the Orthodox saints. For faithful prayer has one singular goal: to allow us to

accomplish God's will.

Prayer is in no way separated from good works and social action. When prayer is perfect and

we see the Face of God in communion with Him in the depths of the Trinity, He shows us two


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things: He shows us Christ's Cross and our brother. True prayer teaches us, as the Elder

Silouan of Mount Athos has said, that "our brother is our life." There is no touching God, no

genuine prayer, which does not directly result for the one who prays in the sufferings of Christ

for the love of creation.

If we are not willing to do the commandments of Christ and to take radical decisions and

actions toward God, ourselves, others, and the very world we live in, then we had better noteven begin to pray. For in prayer, God will push us to do things, things our natural man might

not want to do. To dare pray (as one Church father put it) and not to do what prayer will

demand of us is to court insanity. If we are not ready to "put up" in out life, we had better

"shut up" in our prayer. "It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews

10:31).

"Young man, do not forget to say your prayers. If your prayer is sincere, there will be every

time you pray a new feeling containing an idea in it, an idea that you did not know before,

which will give you courage. Then you will understand that prayer is an education"

(Dostoevsky). Prayer is a teacher. By praying, we are taught of God by God Himself. And one

of the things that we learn is itself how to pray.

"O Lord, teach me to pray: pray Thou Thyself in me" (Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow).

"Prayer Primer" is reprinted with permission from The Orthodox Educator, Spring 1982, pp.22-

24. This article was originally titled, "15 Notes on Prayer".

an interview with fr hapko

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