One of the contacts, “ladybird”, gives the instructions on how to add the effect beside her name in order to “show the world Chinese unity.” Other people have also been forwarding the same message.

Another contact - not shown here, the lovehearts go on for a very long way - exhorts people to boycott Carrefour, McDonalds, KFC, and UPS among other foreign companies in order to support the Beijing Olympics; which is odd of course because at least two of the companies mentioned are official sponsors of the Olympic Games. But then when things like this start to grow, slogans and rhetoric get blandly trotted out without thinking.

How else could another work colleague of mine be happily discussing work with me on MSN while carrying, under their name, the phrase:

师夷长技以制夷

Which is a play on words that translates as: “Learn from foreigners to defeat foreigners”

At the top of the screen, one user - Sophie - also Han Chinese and resident in Beijing doesn’t go along with the rest. Instead, she has a message reading:

“Be careful! Patriotism —> Nationalism”

With Nationalism carrying negative connotations in Chinese, being mixed up with racial purity rather than racial harmony. This girl happens to be a Christian.

As summer descends on Beijing, we approach the June feast of the Chinese Martyrs - 222 Orthodox Christians who were murdered by the Nationalist Boxers simply for following a “foreign” religion. Lord save us from ideology, in whatever form it may come in.

Holy Chinese martyrs, pray for us

“How captive are we, we fallen children, to the pleasures and passions that rule our lives. How we treasure the chains which imprison us, bestowing upon them garlands and wreathes, adorning them as friends. We sit bound by our desires, a lamentable state, yet we rejoice, for our eyes are shut fast; and as in a dream we see our confinement as freedom, our chains as wings.”
-Anonymous

Today (Jan 16th ) is the feast day for the Venerable Chains of the Holy Apostle St. Peter (Acts 12:1-12). It is taught that after this miraculous event, the chains that had held the Apostle Peter were taken away by pious Christians and venerated, being a source of healing to many.

This is Orthodoxy, and the Orthodox teaching of God’s work in the world. The chains that bound Peter, chains that are a symbol of oppression and captivity are – by the power of God – transformed into objects of healing and sources of grace. God transforms the world by using the world, slowly drawing all of His creation back towards Him.

While we “garland” our own chains, pretending they’re something else, God actually changes, transforms, and transfigures all manner of things. The chains that were a source of veneration for hundreds of years after Peter’s martyrdom never stopped being the chains that imprisoned Peter in Judea. Yet through the power and grace of God, they became more than just shackles; they became something that is remembered even to this day, 1966 years later.

The gap between this post and the last on this blog might indicate that I’ve been busy worshipping the chains that bind me over the past couple of months. It shouldn’t, because this blog is surely nothing more than a vanity project and not bothering with it might be a good thing for my own soul. But unfortunately it is true that the demons that surround me have been rather bored of late through lack of anything to do. So, in that respect, my return here is probably a good thing.

Prayer for the feast:
Without leaving Rome, thou didst come to us by the precious chains which thou didst wear. O foremost of the Apostles. And worshipping them with faith, we pray: By thine intercessions with God, grant us great mercy.

主耶稣基督，上帝之子，因着你至尊的圣母；你的无形众天使；你的先知，前驱，施洗者；受天启者诸圣宗徒，光辉凯旋的众殉道者；可敬而心怀上帝的诸圣教父；以及所有圣者的祈祷，求你解救我脱离魔鬼频繁的攻击。诚然，主，我的创造者，你不愿意罪人灭亡，却希望他悔改而得以生存，求赐我──卑微不堪之人，得以忏悔改过。求你从致命毒蛇的口中抢救我，因它时刻试图吞噬我，并拉我堕入永燃的地狱。诚然，我主，我的慰藉，你曾为了我的卑微而披戴凡躯；而今求你救我脱离苦恼，并赐安慰于我可怜的灵魂。请善导我的心灵，使我能满全你的诫命，弃绝我的恶行并领受你的福泽。主啊，求你拯救我，因我寄望于你。

阿们。

How long does it take to say fourteen words?

Iubite-voi Domme,virtutea mea. Domnul este intarirea mea si scaparea mea si izbavitorul meu.

This is the Romanian for the opening of Psalm 18, sung just before the Nicene Creed during the Divine Lirturgy:

I love You, Lord, my strength; the Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer.

The video is two minutes long, and not one syllable is rushed over, nor frittered away. Some things are worth saying right.

Every action, every word we utter, leaves an indelible mark upon the universe. A man’s words leave his mouth and hang in the air for just a short time. Yet it cannot be said that those words cease to exist once the air stops resonating with their weight. The words can be remembered by those who hear them, retained and passed on, or even distorted completely. But still those words were given to the world by the man and remain there forever. Even if no one hears the man, his words are heard by himself, his thoughts have been given life. Even if both listener and speaker forget those words, they will have had their effect for a short time, and the consequences of them could be felt forever, the source forgotten. But what if the words are erased from the collective consciousness of humanity, having not moved a single person? Does that not mean the words were never said? Looking back upon the history of the entire universe, would those words of utterance – or even just one word – never be found? Of course they would still be there. We are not infants anymore. If we put our hands over our eyes the world doesn’t really disappear. If we forget our words, if everyone forgets our words, they still exist in the universe.

And this is only someone’s words I am speaking of. What then, of our actions? How must the universe contort itself to accommodate the consequences of our deeds? On the afternoon of the 25th of December, 1999, I placed flowers on the grave of my departed grandfather, just as my family did every Christmas day. Those flowers are long gone, returned to the earth to bring forth new flowers, or weeds. My grandfather’s grave still remains and so do I. But the time will come when I will stop placing flowers on my grandfather’s grave, and perhaps the time when my own children or grandchildren place flowers on my own. Will my grandfather’s grave be forgotten? In time, it will, as will mine. In hundreds of years my grave will be left untended, if the gravestone even remains. In thousands of year’s time my grandfather’s grave will no longer remain, and his body will be by this time a million pieces of everything else. In millions of year’s time the sun will finally have grown so huge that it will have engulfed the earth within its diameter. With the earth incinerated within a star that is itself dieing what then is the point of anything? It is this: that on the 25th of December, 1999, I placed flowers upon the grave of Gerald Hendry (1943 – 1992). It has happened. It will have always happened. And each and every one of us has left millions of such impressions upon the universe, forever.

Everything we do is an eternal act.

Continued later…

This is what the Church has received from ancient times from the tradition of the Fathers.

When the time approached that our Savior was well-pleased to take His Mother to Himself, He declared to her through an Angel that three days hence, He would translate her from this temporal life to eternity and bliss. On hearing this, she went up with haste to the Mount of Olives, where she prayed continuously. Giving thanks to God, she returned to her house and prepared whatever was necessary for her burial. While these things were taking place, the Apostles were called from the ends of the earth, where each one happened to be preaching, and brought themselves at once to the house of the Mother of God, who informed them of the cause of their sudden gathering.

As a mother, she consoled them in their affliction, and then raised her hands to Heaven and prayed for the peace of the world. She blessed the Apostles, and, reclining upon her bed with seemliness, gave up her all-holy spirit into the hands of her Son and God.

With reverence and many lights, and chanting burial hymns, the Apostles took up that God-receiving body and brought it to the sepulchre, while the Angels from Heaven chanted with them, and sent forth her who is higher than the Cherubim. But one Jew, moved by malice, stretched his hand upon the bed and immediately received from divine judgment the wages of his audacity. Those covetous hands were severed by an invisible blow. However when he repented and asked forgiveness, his hands were restored.

When they all had reached the place called Gethsemane, they buried there with honour the all-immaculate body of the Theotokos, which was the source of Life. But on the third day after the burial, when they were eating together, and raised up the artos (bread) in Jesus’ Name, in Holy Communion, the Theotokos appeared in the air, saying "Rejoice" to them.

This is how they learned of the bodily assumption of the Theotokos into the Heavens.