The Heavenly Part

The phrase capital punishment falls on our ears as a harsh sound. It literally means "removal of the head." For the words capital and decapitation share the same root: from the Greek κεπηαλή / kephalé through the Latin caput. The phrase tries to convey the most humane way to take a human life. In Medieval and Renaissance England, beheading was reserved for the aristocracy and nobility — the Queens of Henry VIII; the paramour of Elizabeth I, the 2nd Earl of Essex; Sir Thomas More, Cardinal John Fisher. Sir Walter Raleigh tipped his executioner to ensure that the blade be razor-sharp. Centuries later in France, the advent of the guillotine extended this swift, uncomplicated, and painless death to all social classes.

Why then should this graphic act so profoundly disturb us? Far from being comforted, we are traumatized at the thought of decapitation. And this is right. For in which other form of execution do we see our Heavenly part separated from our animal bodies?

The Greeks, following Aristotle, believed that man's upright posture revealed his essential divinity. The head is the highest, most noble part. The eyes are the windows to the soul, a premise obviously attested in Jesus' teaching,

When we think of ourselves as bearing the image of God, do we think of our feet or our legs or our arms or our hands? No, of course not. We instantly surmise that the head possesses this noble, even Divine, bearing. As the Scriptures record (Exod 34:35) and experience teaches, it is the radiant face which evinces the indwelling of God.

Beheading, therefore, signifies a complete domination of the victim. A faint echo of this is heard in our phrase losing face meaning complete humiliation. When David removes the head of Goliath and holds it aloft, the effect is electric: a mere boy, of modest stature, has completely dominated the fearsome giant .... indeed has dominated the whole nation of the Philistines:

To take the head is to supplant headship. In this act the body quickly devolves into the weak animal it is. Which other amputation is fatal or yields the same effect of grotesquery?

Ironically, scientific explanations emphasize the humanity of decapitation, point out that other methods of execution — being broken on a wheel, being drawn and quartered, being burned at the stake — were protracted and unbearably painful. Ironic, I say, for no other form of execution de-humanizes more than decapitation, removing the stamp of God set upon the human creature. There is an important scientific point to be made here, though. These other methods of execution (tortures really) were intended to extract words, to make people talk. Beheading silences them. Today, we celebrate the vain attempt to silence the voice of God spoken by His most holy voice and prophet.

St. John the Baptist was the man come from Eden, whose fragrant purity was redolent of the morning of the earth, who was dressed only in natural attire, who fed on manna, who had nothing of the city about him. Surely, this was the one who might lead us back to original purity.

This is the stage carefully set for a study in oppositions: the man fragrant of Paradise set against the stench of a drunken orgy; the man of gracious words set against reckless living and rash oaths; the man of purity set against filthy desire; the peerless friend of God set against the murderers of God's Son.

We watch these oppositions set into motion through beguiling music, through a stupefying flood of wine, in a room hazy with incense, and displayed before all, the sinuous body of a girl swirling before the trance of polluted desire. Here is a rich tableau depicting the ancient war between body and soul, between the body's brutish inclination and the head which aspires to Heaven. All is laid bare in a strange ritual of writhing carnality, which attempts to exalt the sensual body in a rebellion against the the seat of reason and conscience.

John the Baptist is to be silenced. But God cannot be silenced. No. Indeed, in this attempt, God speaks with greater force still, revealing a sovereignty which cannot be resisted, much less silenced. Initially, John had condemned Herod Antipas for marrying his living brother's wife who was also his niece. But now the crime is redoubled as Herod lusts for his niece's daughter who is also the granddaughter of his brother. That is, the more we seek to elude God, the more we find ourselves trapped in a web of myriad affronts against Heaven, one shading into a another. "God help the man so lost in error's endless train," wrote Spenser in The Faerie Queene.

For the complex of crimes committed by Herod's royal household against Heaven manage to combine the sins of Noah's family — father drunkenness and mother incest — with those of Lot — father drunkenness and daughter incest. They have covered themselves with historic sins, indeed, the very sins that tainted God's gift of new creation. .... in the case of Noah .... in the case of Lot. Meantime, the one that was faithful, who helped to usher in God's new age, is never heard more clearly than against this most foul backdrop. Thus does the one whom Herodias would silence have the last word.

By the grace of God Herod was brought to a crossroads. God sent a most holy figure to bring the Tetrarch to his senses. Herod rightly discerned John's Divine pedigree. We see this in the Gospel this morning. He brought John before him. He listened to John carefully. He revered John. Herod stood at a crossroads. On one side lay a fatal trance of fantasy and carnal desire. On the other, the true emissary of God to fulfill Herod's Divine appointment. Nothing stands in the way for his salvation. In the presence of highly honored guests, he might make the salutary and commendable choice: to throw off the filthy bondage of adultery, incest, and fantasies for young girls. But he does not. In one despicable act, in a confusion of drunkenness, ego, and perversion, he leaps into the pit of Hell.

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I tell you on this island, it has become a crisis. Small wonder people do not work when they are able to. They do not wish to come to the workplace and humiliate themselves. Meantime, our stores, the post office, the bank are barely able to function. It is a crisis.

Meantime, having so much time on one's hands, the deprecated brain and amplified bodily senses through drugs become entranced before Salome's dance in the form of pornography and casual sex without relationship. Does America not feed from the tables of Herod's feast every day? And is not the dismissal of God the great subject of our time?

Whoever surrenders himself to sensual life will rapidly succeed in silencing the Heavenly part. Success will be swift as he finds himself carried along on a powerful current of demonic energy. Soon he will have no part in it as the inexorable transformation (known as possession) takes its iron hold.

The symptoms are everywhere to be seen: the radiance that once shone from our faces is quenched; the lamp of our eyes is dimmed; the sensual body burns itself out without hope of revival, much less new life. For this is the promise of Hell: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

And who would debate that a preoccupation with fantasy and carnal desire has not overtaken our culture? Our entertainments, our social interactions carried out with avatars, even who we claim to be on the Web .... all of this is soaked through with fantasy and animal desire. Our eroticized culture has become an international byword. Recently, the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, have demanded that Netflix remove its homosexual propaganda from its catalogue .... and especially content aimed at brainwashing children.

This has been a longstanding East-West tension. It is the reason why the U.S. has been called "the Great Satan" in many Eastern countries. Most the pornography the world consumes is made here in America. The subcontinent of India holds similar views. Only recently did I come to realize that the related culture wars, simmering for the past half-century, are not fought merely along geographical lines. They are fought along religious lines. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Orthodox Christianity — that's about 5 billion of the world's nearly 8 billion people — reject U.S. culture and especially its homosexual and transsexual crusades.

The reason for the present war in Ukraine .... I say, civil war as Ukraine was for a thousand years part of Russia as well as being its ancestral homeland .... is fought for precisely these reasons — with the partisans of God seeking to push out Western values and the atheists rushing to embrace it.

Do you question this? A few months ago, discussing these same issues the New York Times identified Taiwan as being the only "strong liberal democracy" in Asia (March 20, 2022). How did this most influential newspaper define "strong liberal democracy"? It offered only one metric: homosexuality. Taiwan, the Times said, is the only Asian democracy that permits same-sex marriage. Apparently, all the other democracies in Asia are phonies.

How far are we willing to go in to order to advance the so-called homosexual agenda? Would we go to war with China? Will we push Eastern Europe to the brink of nuclear war .... if we have not done so alreadly.

We have torn apart our own society and lifeworld over this single issue. Who could debate that this is not the master subject of our age? Will we now set our sights on the whole world? Truly, this is a devilish bargain and without question a demonic mania.

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Today, we observe the solemnity of "The Beheading of the Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John." Surely, it is a feast celebrating our God who cannot be silenced, much less dismissed .... as I pray that every faithful priest cannot be silenced or dismissed. But today's solemnity is celebrated as a fast (one of the few Sunday's of the year observed in sack cloth and ashes). For today, we "sit upon the ground. And tell sad stories of the death of kings" (Richard II, III.2) For the head is our royal part, the luminous dome of the Holy Spirit's temple, which is the body (1 Cor 6:19). Its overthrow is a sad, sad tale and the story of our times.

Yes, God has prepared a place for those who love Him. And we give thanks for that. But today, let us grieve the plight of those who will not see this place, who are lost, and who show few signs of life. Of those who seek treatment and carry through with it, 85% will return to their drug habit in one year. Ultimately, only seven percent will ever return to healthy life. Among pornography addicts, only 1 in 100,000 will experience a spontaneous remission (No longer interested in that.) Only 5% of those who enter therapy will be cured. Truly, here is the lost land of our nieces and grandnieces, children and grandchildren, and and the mothers and fathers who mourn them.

Today, on this day of fasting, let us open our eyes and hearts to the degradation and suffering we see increasing on every side. As we are able, we must reach out to these young people. We must provide a wholesome example of life. We must show them the gentle character of pure love .... real love, not lust. They will remember. They will recognize sanctified life when they see it, which is the world they once knew. For no one is able to forget God, not finally.

We must place our hope in our good desires. St. Paisios wrote,

Today, the prophet of whom none was greater speaks. Still he speaks. He speaks powerfully into our time and place. For in spiritual things — our scientific advances and dazzling technologies notwithstanding — we have advanced not at all. Indeed, we have fallen beneath the standard of spirituality in the first century A.D. For a general awareness of God has mostly become lost to us.

Yes, on this fast day, let us mourn. And let us remember our Heavenly part. Let us recall St. John the Baptist's cry in the wilderness, summoning us to original purity. For he boldly advances against the enemies of God declaring truths which no one might contradict. He speaks to us now: Awaken from your carnal trance! Be washed clean! Lift up your eyes! You bear upon you the Holy Image of God!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.