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| Saint Sophrony the Athonite. |
Yesterday,
in this small church of St. Silouan, we lived a foretaste of heavenly life. It
was, if you like, a triumph of our faith. And perhaps for this reason
precisely, we must remember today that, according to the word of Christ, our
way is to carry our cross and follow Him to Golgotha.
In the mind and heart of many
people there is a thirst for justice and truth. I opened thus, by chance a
booklet with the title Hope, which circulated in the form of a pamphlet
during the persecution in Russia. A certain Abbess writes there about those who
follow a single aim, that if they were to see justice practiced on earth, they
would never come to know what Divine justice is.
You will hear this translated from
Russian: "The man who does not seek anything but righteous judgment or
human justice will soon find the end of his way; whereas the widening of the
soul in order to grasp and to know the justice of God has no end; just as the
Lord, Who is the aim of this lifting of the soul, has no end. If man acts
according to human justice, it means that he does not recognize heavenly
justice, because there is a difference between them. On earth, Divine justice
is nailed on the cross."[1]...
... In
the past, when the level of education was not very high, the people were
quenched by faith and lived through faith. Nowadays when studies have become a
general case and what is being taught is considered as the expression of truth,
as the only truth, those who follow them become unable, in the majority, to
understand the way of Christ. The way of Christ is totally opposite to
that of the world. Christ, Who is God Himself, the Creator of the world and
of the human being, took on the form of our existence and spoke our language,
but from an "inverse perspective".
On the Holy Mountain, half a century
ago, I met ascetic monks to whom was given to experience Divine justice. They
said: "If we hope to be accepted in the Heavenly Kingdom of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit, we shall suffer upon the earth. This is the
"sign" of the righteous way." The persecutions which we
lived at the end of this century are completely natural. The sorrows which
accompanied the persecutions do not have a different effect on our minds, our
souls, from the corresponding ones which we undergo when we accept
injustice. Our deep wish to practice only good to others seems strange to the
people of the world. They scorn whoever walks in this way, they persecute
him, they hate him. Thus this man is
subjected to the negative consequences of such a stance; because, whoever
follows the example of Christ's love, the eternal love, is treated as an enemy,
is crucified, scorned, is deprived of his rights on earth.
How can we understand this? As far as
I am concerned, having heard these ascetic monks, I can confirm that I lived
the same thing as them and I know it through experience. Even if I had all the
possible good fortune on this earth, I cannot dare hope that I will have a
triumphal entry into the Kingdom of God... It is strange, but only through
sorrows, through kenosis (self-emptying), through the world's scorning do we
receive the courage, the boldness to rise towards the eternal Kingdom.
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| Μonks are crucified next to the crucified Christ. |
What is strange about this? When
our mind and heart are plunged in the theoria (contemplation) of eternal
realities, about which Christ spoke to us, we are found, through grace, in the
state in which we are not aware of suffering. Reading the accounts of the
torments of the martyrs, very often we see that they did not feel the tortures
to which they were subjected. For us it is essential to always be
"nailed" to the Lord. In this way, we shall not be aware of the
tragic character of life in Christ.
In comparison with what that Abbess
wrote- that Divine justice came and that its fate was to be killed and
crucified-, all that we find in the history of mankind, in the great poets,
in the tragedies, becomes faded and tasteless. About only forty years ago*, a Russian theologian speaking about
the life of Silouan said the following: "Sanctity is found beyond human
tragedy; however, one cannot use the term "tragedy" speaking about
the life of Christ. Tragedy is linked with human justice, the justice of the
earth, and not with Divine justice".
I heard today the story of a Russian
priest, who was tortured by the TCHEKA and the VETCHEKA**.
I too fell into their hands for a month.
Just as with Maxim the Confessor, they laid him on the ground and were kicking
him. He however was praying for those who were kicking him and did not feel any
pain.
I am speaking to you in a disorderly
way, but what I am saying to you is very serious. If we receive the yearning
for God, a deep yearning which possesses our entire being, our life becomes a
festival, to the point that we can say, as the Apostle, "Rejoice in the
Lord always"[2].
The fact that the world does not understand us, does not mean that we are
outside of the truth. In the contrary, he who believes in Christ sees that
the others are being deceived. Those who do not know Divine justice, are
those who cause all types of sorrows to the faithful.
Speaking then today about what is
admirable in Christian life, let us recall to mind the prayer which Silouan
gave us:
"O
Merciful Lord, I pray Thee,
grant
all the world, all the peoples, every man,
to
come to know Thee in the Holy Spirit".
He
was inspired with this prayer through a double revelation: those who do not
know Christ through the Holy Spirit cannot follow Him; Ignorance is what
renders the world at enmity towards our monastic life...
*******
Reference:
BUILDING
THE TEMPLE OF GOD WITHIN US AND IN OUR BRETHREN by Archimandrite SOPHRONY (Sakharov), Vol. 1-3, Translation from Russian to Greek by Archimandrite
Zachariah, St. John the Baptist Monastery, Essex, England, Third Edition, 2014.
Translation
of the extracts of the above HOMILY 39 from Greek to English by Holy Trinity Family, Douma, Lebanon.
[1] Abbess Arsenia (1833-1905), "Memoires", in
Nadiejda, Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt, No.6 (1981), p.133.
* It was after the first edition of the book The Elder Silouan.
** Names of the Stalin secret police.
[2] Phil. 4,4.