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| "Do not lament me, O Mother". 20th century. |
Dr.
Daniel:
There are many different ways of thinking about silence,
especially when one considers silence in the relationship between creature and
creator. There is a thread within the early fathers, in the writings of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, that speaks about the
Holy Trinity in a very interesting way. It says that the incarnation of Christ,
God the Father spoke the Word from silence.
God in some very deep way, in the Apophatic tradition of the church, is
beyond our understanding, and beyond our comprehension, therefore we encounter
God in Silence. For example, in the Anaphora prayers where we speak of Christ, or
God, being incomprehensible, inconceivable, beyond our knowing and that God is
so utterly other from us, hence we are unable to know directly, the Father the
very essence of the Divinity. But God breaks His silence, and speaks His Word,
the incarnate Son of God Jesus Christ, a bridge to bring us back to God.
So we still have God the Father, who in some very deep sense
is silence, and if you think about todays’ Gospel the Prodigal Son, and all of
us are in some sense prodigals, We feel abandoned by God, but often we are the
ones who abandon God, we turn away from Him.
The
dual meaning of the Greek word (Pathos - πάθος)
means suffering but it also refers to the passions. When we
suffer we experience the effects of the passions, and if we submit which is our
fallen condition, we tend to submit to the passions. We go into the far country
with the prodigal son. We don’t have to travel to go into the far country. And
the passions travel with us in this life, and they make our suffering worse.
They are the seasoning of our suffering and they act as a wall, a barrier, in
preventing us from hearing the God who speaks in silence.
Nevertheless,
God, like the father in the prodigal son story, is constantly waiting,
watching, He is ready at any moment to run towards us. But we are not trained
to hear Him in the silence. I think the silence is more than just a metaphor,
but it does I think also speaks to humility, and therefore it is humility that
breaks the barrier down, breaks the wall down and allows us to hear God in ways
that we don’t expect to hear Him in our suffering. The extraordinary event
about the two thieves who were crucified with Christ, as far as we know Christ
said nothing to the good thief, however the good thief in his intense suffering was able to see and to hear the silent God in the person of
Christ crucified. This deep communication transcended words or usual verbal
expression, and it was only for our benefit that the witnesses heard Christ say to the thief : “today you will be
with me in Paradise.” Hence, if a person sees God clearly, and especially in
the crucified Christ, he is already there, he is already in paradise, he is in
paradise on the cross. And I think this is the extraordinary challenge for each
of us, and I say about my self, very “little christians” as that in the
suffering that we experience. We sometimes feel deeply abandoned by God and yet
we have these profound examples even the Lord Himself showing us that God is
infinitely closer to us in this moment of abandonment or apparent abandonment.
We too often, especially for those of us who grew up in the west, spend much of
our lives even when we try to practice the faith, struggling to learn more
about God. But the sad irony is that we will never ever come as close to
knowing so much about God as the devil himself knows. But how is it we develop
a relationship with the real living and sometimes very silent God? so that by
God’s mercy and our repentance He can say over us, like to the wise virgins: “
come enter my kingdom…” and not like the foolish virgins “I never knew
you". The frightening aspect of that parable for me is that it implies
that all ten virgins were practicing the virtues in some sense, but only half
of them knew God, and were known by God as God’s friends. So I think the
challenge of the issue of addressing hope in illness is that when we are at the
bed side of someone who is suffering, we have to let the passions dissipate by
God’s mercy, by begging for His mercy; and be, to the best we can, icons of
God’s love to that person. We are called to be “little Christs”, so when people
are suffering or they feel abandoned, they feel that God is silent. God is
calling us in love to break His silence in loving the other.
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From left to right: Dr.Jane, Mother Mariam,
Father Thomas, Dr.Daniel.
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Jane and I had an extraordinary
experience while we were here this time in Lebanon. Every year we visit the
Monastery of Saint Jacob the Persian. There is a nun in the monastery who is
over 90 years old. She is one of the founding nuns, and unfortunately she has a
very advanced dementia. A year ago we met her and she was in bed with minimal
response. I was struck at the time as a Doctor thinking: “ it is hard to
imagine how this nun could be alive the next time we come to Lebanon in a
year.” But God every day, through the intense love and care of two nuns who
look after this older nun, continually breaks His silence. When we met her this
time she was sitting up in a chair looking healthier than she did a year ago.
It is a small miracle, but it is God’s love acting.
Love
is stronger than death as we know as Christians. An abbot in a monastery in Romania that we visit
frequently made this really important
comment to us that I think it links to this advocacy we have in the Mother of
God, which is “never give up, never stop praying for that person, even if they
are on the other side of death, we continue to pray for them”. He also said
that they are only lost when we stop praying for them. And somehow that prayer
is embraced in the silence. I think it is Saint Isaac of Syria who mentions
that silence is the language of paradise. He doesn’t mean that God isn’t
weeping with us in His silence.
Question: Can we find joy
or peace amidst suffering?.
D.
Daniel:
Can we find joy or peace in the world without suffering?.
The issue is that we can’t escape the cross. We don’t know
when each of our own crosses will come, I mean we do carry crosses in this life
after all.
One of the Dilemmas when I think about these kinds of
questions is that I go back and review the History of the last 100 years. I ask
why all these people had to die in WWII? Why this massive persecutions of
Christians?. There are more Martyrs in the 20th century for the Christian faith
than any prior time. Most of them are unknown, their names are only known to
God, and yet in the early centuries of the Church such death was cherished by
the people. It was not to be sought after but only if it came to you.
Father Hopko, the former Dean of our seminary in New York,
used to say that when people would ask why isn’t God answering my prayers to be
cured of a disease, he would answer: “Well, beware, if God cures this illness
He is going to offer you an even heavier cross.”
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| Aiud's special reliquery. |
D.Daniel: There is a new
monastery in Romania that has an amazing structure built there. It is a
reliquary and it was a town where they had imprisoned many Christians during
the communist times in a place called Aiud. They found a common grave where
there are myrrh-gushing bones of saints. When they built the reliquary, the
architect did something very unusual, unprecedented, but very powerful!. There
is a cross being carried by many smaller crosses. So my answer to this question
is that we can’t bear our sufferings by ourselves!. We need the help of others
to accept our suffering. This is why the church has given us these two ways.
The first is the communal life of the monastics, where you support each other
in your struggle, and of course you support those of us who are not monastics
as well. We have a symbiotic relationship spiritually. The second is marriage,
that is a mutual effort to work together to fight for salvation for both the
man and the woman, and they have to suffer together, not alone. One of the
great lies of our modern era, is that we can do everything by ourselves and it
is absurd!. And yet everything is based on that premise!.
I think we all have experienced watching another person we
love intensely who is suffering and say: “This is so much harder if I was
bearing it myself, having to see this loved one suffering”. This is a subject
that is near and dear to my heart because we do have a son who is disabled and
has suffered greatly and it has pierced my heart as the Theotokos was told the
sword would pierce your heart. But we know that, we as mothers, as people, who
love others and as people who suffer ourselves, have not only Christ who has
suffered before us and continues to nurture us but He left us His Mother. And
she, I believe, is the way, for those of us who in this life suffer as mothers
can say: “I am just a feeble person I can not do this please help me
Theotokos.” So ultimately we do have healing of our afflictions and illnesses,
because Christ and the Theotokos are there with us and they will help us
through. We may not be cured in this life but we will be healed and be in the
kingdom of the Lord.!!!. Amen.
Sunday
of the Prodigal Son, 24 February 2019, Monastery of Saint John the Baptist,
Douma, Lebanon.