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| Saint Sophrony Sakharov. |
Christ's commandment is the projection of heavenly
love on the earthly plane. Realised in its true content, it makes the life of
mankind similar to the life of the Triune God. The dawn of an understanding of
this mystery comes with prayer for the whole world as for oneself. In this
prayer one lives the consubstantiality of the human race. It is vital to
proceed from abstract notions to existential-that is, ontological categories.
Within the life of the Trinity each Hypostasis is the
Bearer of all the plenitude of Divine Being, and therefore dynamically equal to
the Trinity as a whole. To achieve the fullness of god-man is to become
dynamically equal to humanity in the aggregate. Herein lies the true meaning of
the second commandment, which is, indeed, “like unto the first”(Matt22: 39).
The integrality of the elevation given to us is
inexhaustible. As created beings we are not able to know finally, completely,
the uncreated First Being, in the way that God knows Himself. St Paul, however,
looks forward in hope. “For now we see through a glass, darkly… now I know in
part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”(1Cor13: 12).
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| Through the Holy Spirit the Son, too, is made known with the Father. |
In the history of the Christian world we observe two
theological tendencies: one, lasting for centuries, would accommodate the
revelations concerning the Triune God to our manner of thinking; the other
summons us to repentance, to a radical transformation of our whole being
through life lived according to the Gospel. The former is laudable, even
historically essential, but if separated from life it is doomed to failure.
'Jesus said ... If a man loves me, he will keep my words: and my Father will
love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him (John 14.23).
This is our Christian way to perfect gnosis. The abiding in us of the Father
and the Son, and inseparable from Them the Holy Spirit, will give us true
knowledge of God.
St Simeon the New Theologian (AD 949-1022) in his Hymn
17 cites the blind and unbelieving who do not accept the teaching of the Church
that the Invisible, Incorruptible Creator came down to earth and united in
Himself the two natures (the Divine and the created one of man), declaring that
nobody of his own experience has known or lived this, or beheld it clearly. But
in other hymns St Simeon repeats with the utmost conviction that such
experience had been given to him again and again. When the imperishable Divine
Light is imparted to man, man himself effectually becomes, as it were, light.
The union of the two-of God and man-is accomplished by the Creator's will and
in the consciousness of both. If this were to pass unrecognized, then, as St
Simeon says, the union would be of the dead, not of the living. And how could eternal
Life enter into man unperceived by him? How would it be possible, he continues,
for Divine Light, like lightning in the night or a great sun, to shine in the
heart and mind of man, and for man not to be aware of so sublime an event?
Uniting with His likeness, God grants true knowledge of Himself as He is.
Through the Holy Spirit the Son, too, is made known with the Father. And man
beholds them in so far as he is able.
For us Christians, Jesus Christ is the measure of all
things, divine and human. “In Him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead”(Col2:
9) and of mankind. He is our most perfect ideal. In Him we find the answer to
all our problems, which without Him would be insoluble. He is in truth the
mystical axis of the universe. If Christ were not the Son of God, then
salvation through the adoption of man by God the Father would be totally
incomprehensible. With Christ man steps forward into divine eternity.
O Father, Son,
and Spirit;
Triune
Godhead, One Being in three Persons;
Light
unapproachable, Mystery most secret:
Lift our
minds to contemplation of Thine unfathomable judgments
And fill our
hearts with the light of Thy Divine love,
That we may
serve Thee in spirit and truth
Even to our
last breath.
We pray Thee,
hear and have mercy. Amen.
Reference:
His Life Is Mine. Saint Sophrony The Athonite.
(1977).