OF RESPECT AND IMPUDENCE

[Monomakhos 1849]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

OF RESPECT AND IMPUDENCE

 

Scribed by

FR. SERAPHIM OF LEORA

 

GODFREY’S TRIUMPH

1773

 

An icon depicting the Ex. Prophet Horen and the righteous Lady St. Julia.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

O Lord, Theós, our God, existing before all ages and remaining unto the ages of ages; whose ineffable mercy hath gifted us salvation in Your Kingdom. Teach us not to err in disrespect, to entreat humility unto ourselves and praise you in all things, through the love you fortify us with and the peace you gift us. Instill in us your fear and your love that your holy name may also be glorified in us. Upon you alone we look, for you alone we have placed our hopes, to you we send glory, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

 

“Imagine thyself as the servant to all, and treat each one as if they were God in person.” (Maxims 6:10)

 

To speak candidly does away with reverence and respect.

 

For a man to speak in such a way betrays this feeling of impudence; that drives from us the fear of the Lord, for it in itself is a way of pride. But how are we as simple men to avoid this in our daily lives? It is quite a simple matter, and simplicity asks for a simplistic solution. This solution is humility; to feel that you yourself are below all others, and certainly you are - for is that not the nature of a sinner? And we are all sick with it, there is no doubt about it. Being candid, or perhaps blunt and overloud to be more precise is the enemy of all good Canonists, because it drives piety away from the soul. This manner of speaking and carrying oneself is in a way a means of rebellion, and opens the doors to a callous feeling of indifference towards those around you, and so do we fool ourselves into thinking that this is natural. And many people do not see this, and how could they, when their spiritual ‘spectacles’ are covered in filth; they cannot see that this anxiety within is because they are audacious. To be reserved in one’s words is the greatest simplicity, and simplicity is piety, whereas bluntness is audacity. But it is not enough to be reserved with your tongue; so too should you be reserved with your heart. To have the fear of the Lord, for that fear is what brings gladness to the heart and warms the soul. We should be alike to children in that sense. Think of a young child who, out of respect for his parents, will not so much as look them in the eyes, or when they go to ask for something, a toy or some other foolish thing, they stumble over themselves and grow flustered. This is the respect you wish for in a youth. But then on the other hand you might have one who thinks to themselves, “Oh, they are only my parents,” and then they behave with that same audacity I speak of. And when they, as the other child, wish for something they do not entreat it with courtesy or perhaps even fear and reluctance but with flailing arms and anger screaming and shouting until they get what they want. In the ideal family, what we’ve known throughout the ages yet has become so wilted with these modern ideals of freedom (what invites audacity), a child will respect their parents, and they will act with freedom, yet not to an overabundance of it. They shouldn’t be afraid to speak their minds, to ask of things and so on.

 

“Cultivate in thyself love, wisdom and fear: so that if mean and base men shall cut thee into a thousand pieces, each and every one of them shall love thy butcher.” (Maxims 1:23)

 

There should be a presence of love between parent and child, and love dismisses all fear and shame for it is so full of courage. The child without this love, they will be reserved perhaps, but their hesitation is out of fear. And the other with it, they are truly reserved, for they with this abundance of love are not fearful, yet still they show respect. It is important that we are able to discern the differences between what is good simplicity, which does not involve this audacity, or impudence, and the simplicity where there is no respect. This takes the shape of such audacious and bold behaviors. This boldness then becomes a simplicity of life, yet not a good one. Think that a girl might speak to her father with disrespect, because of boldness and this lack of love. They might then ask themselves, why should I fear my husband, when I needn’t fear my father? They fail to realize that this is a fear born out of respect, what respect comes from love. It is easy to forget that. When I respect something, it is because I have love for it. When I praise and worship God, it is because I love God. And that love is embodied in respect. And so too should a woman have this same sort of love for her husband; a love that is respect and a respect that is fear. And so too should a man love his wife. Without this love, there can be no respect, and what is it without? A gateway to impudence.

 

“If husband and wife do not sacrifice for one another, they will not grow in love. Love thy spouse more than thou lovest thyself.” (Maxims 6:14)

 

Disrespect shows itself outside of these relationships, however; and let us touch upon the greatest example of it - the relationship between the new generation and the old. Let us say that a young man is in the company of his grandparents, or any elder for that matter, we cannot differentiate. They are going on and in their talks something is brought up which the young man disagrees with; say, for example, they disagree with some modern state of affairs or philosophy that has come into fashion today. And this boils the young man’s blood so. They go and pipe up because they are certain that they are in the right, they voice their opinion loudly and tell these elders that they are wrong. Some might even have the audacity to say they are wrong because they have the wisdom of age! This is to be blunt, audacious, impudent and disrespectful all in the same breath. No matter what, respect must be shown to your elders, by the Grace of God. This respect is owed, and it simply isn’t the younger man’s place to so vocally enforce his ideals. That is not to say that a person should abide by untruths simply because they are junior to another, but they should pose their opinions with respect and humility. But if it is a simple matter of conflicting opinions, then, if there is respect in a man’s heart, they should realize it would be impertinent to speak of it, because they do not have the authority. This, in turn, is how we treat God. We look upon the holy scriptures of the Scrolls and we see these are the words of God. Do we then, because we might have some difference of opinion say, “No, this is wrong! My way is the better way!”. No, never! It is blasphemy! And we should have the same opinion when we speak of our elders and their wisdoms; we blaspheme them if we are to go and say that because we are entitled to our opinions they must make them better than theirs. And if we show this courtesy, if we entreat ourselves to humility and respect, then it will become no issue for the elderly man should, if he is righteous, show the same respect to the youth - be it for his own respect, that he is shown it for his age.

 

“Seeing a Novice help an old lady cross the street: Such is the kingdom of God on earth!“ (Maxims 7:23)

 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Despise not the old; distrust not the young. For God is the author of old and young age alike!” (Maxims 7:14)

 

In this day and age it is a popular belief that respect is old-fashioned, and especially so the elderly. Many believe respect should be earned, that it is not owed, so that you should only respect a man in political office or some other manner of service. But that is simply false. How can you say this, when it is clear, that respect has already been earned by the wisdom of age? Such a wealth of experience that people might so easily disregard. This is simply impudence. And they disillusion themselves in thinking that this manner of thinking makes them strong-willed and independent; that they are free as the so-called Rights of Man proclaimed them to be! We must take care not to embrace such a spirit, for it goes against all that the Lord has commanded. Respect has gone and went out the door, and without that respect, what is to stop someone from passing judgement even upon the Lord himself, for how mighty their opinions are. This ‘Imperial Spirit’, as I have so labeled it in my other writings, becomes so pervasive in spreading this ideal of impudence and the ‘right way’, as they call it, to not only judge the laymen, the politicians, the lords and ladies and all the bureaucrats but to attack the church leaders and even the saints themselves in their ‘opinions’. As with the Josephites seeking to dismantle any presence of what they call ‘the evil and backwards religious establishment that is a mantle to keep them in the dark ages’ - more or less the contents of the writings Arthur Callahan penned to touch upon the ‘poison’ he so believes to be the Church.

 

“God has fashioned us two ears and two eyes, but only one mouth: let us therefore hear twice as much as we shout.” (Maxims 3:11)

 

This is what has become the norm of today. What shall he do next? Call upon God to enforce his sacrosanct rights and refashion the scriptures to suit such a need? Impudence entreats impudence and all it does is become a cycle of disrespect that is never-ending. Evil manifests itself in this ‘Imperial’ Spirit - this newfound ideal of secularism, and it slowly warps into blasphemy. This glorification of rationale and human logic erodes trust in God to a point where, if we allow it to go on, then one day not a single young person will have any trust in Him. This manner of conduct, what places the person before God, impudence before respect, becomes an obstacle in the path to salvation. These secular beliefs of liberty drive away respect and common courtesy. And when they do, the Grace of God becomes more and more distant from us. If a person cannot refrain from speaking with egoism and impudence, so that God’s Grace departs from them, they cast away their protections and their shelter. They invite the Evil One into the house that is the heart and they cast the Lord out. Yet when there is such reverence for Him, the same respect that one shows his elders and all those who hold authority over him by right, that Grace wreathes them in divine light and they are made whole again. Yet when we constantly speak without respect, when we do not give what is owed and demand our opinions to be held higher, they make of themselves a rebel. This is what the Evil One wanted also, to place himself above the throne of God. And if we abandon this respect for impudence, even if it is worldly respect and instead exalt ourselves, how then can we make room for God; how can we respect and love Him when we have none of these things but for ourselves? The answer is simple, you cannot.

 

“Beware of those who use ‘love’ as an excuse to tear down the law of God - as if they, in their pride, had a better idea of Love than our God, who is Charity itself. (Deus Caritas Est.)” (Maxims 7:13)

 

Light of Lights, Holy of Holies, and Blessed God, grant us the gift of discernment that you might free us from our delusions and speak in all things respect, obedience and submission. For we are but Slaves to you and thus do we honor you. Grant us all a long life so we may repent from any wicked actions we have taken or thoughts persisting in our minds. Let us know peace through your holy and life-giving way.

 

Through the intercessions of our holy Exalted prophets, our holy and righteous Mother, Lady St. Julia, Ex. Prophet Horen who humbled himself before the Lord, and all the saints, we pray to you most glorious Master to lead us once again into being your humble servants that we may spend our lives with you unto ages of ages. Amen.

 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[VIROS 2915]

The High Pontiff reviews the thesis favorably to his Curia, “Per usual, Father Seraphim offers a sophisticated interpretation of the Maxims and the Holy Scrolls. Take particular note of his criticism of the ‘Imperial’ spirit, which is separate from the Imperial spirit. Whereas the former foolishly inquires into the Emperor’s ideological purity, the latter acknowledges the Empire as our temporal axis mundi—the appointed defender of God on earth. One need not couch the Emperor’s authority in such modernist language of liberties and rationalism. Respect for his God-ordained authority is more than enough!”