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| The Resurrection of Lazarus. Fresco in the Church of the Holy Trinity. Monastery of Saint John the Baptist. Lebanon. |
At the end of the Creed, our Fathers in
their wisdom set the following words: "I await the resurrection of the
dead and life of the age to come. Amen." If we "await the
resurrection of the dead", it is certainly the resurrection for eternity.
But eternity gives rise within us to consideration on what cannot be shaken, as
also the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to Hebrews speaks about "a kingdom
which cannot be shaken"[1].
If you probe deeply into the awaiting of the resurrection of the dead, I hope
that each one of us will perceive that we are awaiting the resurrection of the
dead, because for us reality is the authentic reality of the eternal Being. If
then we possess this awaiting, its energy will without doubt resurrect us.
If we really try every day to enrich our understanding and our perception of the
in Christ our God life, then every day something will be added. Thus then, when
we pronounce "I await the resurrection of the dead", we say it
precisely as we say "I await the meal": the meal is coming, it is being
prepared. Thus for us, the resurrection is a reality which truly exists to
eternity.
Sometimes however we experience in our
life a very sad event: When Easter Day comes, our capacities are only such that
we taste the joy of the Resurrection for a very short while. You see,
now we continue Great Lent, which encompasses also the Week of the Passion. And
this for us is a natural state. We endure fasting fifty and three hundred days
per year, but the joy of the Resurrection we are only able to live for a few
hours. Why? Because from the time which we received the Gospel of Christ as
the Word of Him Who created the entire world, we await the absolutely unshakable
of His Kingdom, whilst our life flows within constant changes. Nothing
remains stable. In a certain way our experience of this life comes into opposition
with our idea of the unshakable Being. Nevertheless, He exists...
Yesterday I was read a letter from
Saint Petersburg, in which we were informed that the holy relics of St.
Seraphim of Sarov, who reposed in 1833, were found. Now then as his holy relics
were found, the people chanted in celebration a megalynarion (hymn of praise)
to him as if he were alive and present and afterwards began to chant the
Easter hymns. Therefore, the hope lives in us of the eternal Easter, the
eternal Resurrection.
But how should
we live on a daily basis?
We go to our
spiritual fathers, and they say one thing today and another tomorrow. What
shall we do with them?!
The spiritual
father behaves with each one who comes to him as is appropriate to him, and not
in general, according to some theory. When however, we ourselves, coming to
the spiritual fathers, are wavering in doubts, they are moved by the Spirit of
God to pronounce only a word of support. Thus, their word depends on our
disposition, as well as also on the more general life circumstances. If the
man, coming to the spiritual father is constantly wavering, he will not be able
to find a word for him which would dispel decisively whatever doubt. The
spiritual father says what may help the man at that particular time.
Following then a certain experience
with spiritual fathers, we begin to assimilate within us the principles, on
which is based the Kingdom which we await.
And all at once this knowledge becomes in reality attainable and familiar
through what the spiritual father tells us.
ON MONASTIC LIFE
- THE CROSS OF OBEDIENCE AND ACCEPTANCE
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| Saint Sophrony with his spiritual son Father Seraphim of Valaam. |
...When you ask the spiritual father
and he tells you a certain word, and you then do what he tells you, you should
never and nowhere say that I did this so, because the spiritual father told me.
Why? Because the spiritual father is for us as a ministering angel for our
salvation. We turn to him in order to find out the will of God. Afterwards
however only we hold the entire responsibility and not the spiritual father. We
should not say: "But the spiritual father told me so!" No! I do so
and hold the entire responsibility.
The Apostle Paul speaks about the
"Kingdom which cannot be shaken", about the kingdom, where there are
no alterations or changes. How then can we find the true way to the eternal?
This way is in monastic life. When we go to the spiritual father, we leave him
to solve the problem through his prayer to God. We accept then his word
as coming from God, even if it refers to a completely insignificant matter
of daily life. Thus, for example, the Abbot orders the cook to prepare fried
potatoes. It would seem a completely insignificant request. Doing however what
the Abbot ordered, he keeps the principle itself of monastic life, according
to which nothing is done according to our own will.
Thus then is strengthened within us
the deep understanding of the words: "Thy will be done". Because
every obedience, even if small, has a great effect on us. We are eternally on
the cross. But what does it mean to be on the cross? It means that both
your hands and your feet are fixed with nails and you cannot move; you cannot
do anything. And when man is thus on the cross, then "being" is
raised in front of him in the form of the Cross, which expresses both our
absolute and our transient relativity. If God gives you to live in
this way, you will see quick progress in spiritual life. If however you
don't have this experience, you can spend forty years, and still will quarrel
over trivial matters. Once the Elder saw two hieromonks, who had lived more
than forty years at the monastery, arguing
about where each should stand. For Silouan it was terrible after forty
years of such ascetic life for there to be a quarrel about a place!...
... Because people have lost the
true perception of the in Christ salvation, they do not accept everything which
is attached to the path following Christ: "Whatever exceeds my situation,
is too heavy for me".
I will mention a case from scientific
life. When Einstein was addressing a large congregation of mathematicians in
Germany about his theory, out of the two hundred in the audience - all
distinguished intellectuals and professors -, only two or three understood what
he said. Subsequently however this theory became a common inheritance for many.
Thus also with spiritual life. Personally, I recommend that you keep the line,
on which God "pushed" me when I was with the Elder Silouan: If I
didn't understand something, I did not contradict him, I did not reject his
word and I did not judge him. I left it to the Providence of God, which would
later help me to penetrate the real meaning of his word. It is impossible
for someone to reach the state where Silouan dwelt, without the grace of the presence
of God and of His great strength in man. Thus when this strength is not in us,
then the word becomes too heavy for us. If however you have chosen the
monastic life, then I, according to my position, consider it essential to
tell you: "Accept everything"!
Accept something else also! The
difficult and celebratory week of the Passion of Christ is drawing near, which
we call the "Holy Week". However after the sufferings suddenly joy
comes, "Christ is Risen!", then later again this joy "fades".
Accept all things! Everything, that makes us fall and repels from us the
commandment of Christ, does not belong to the absolute Divine Being. We however
want precisely to attain to this in Christ and through Christ.
I will make now a brief summary: If
we await the resurrection of the dead, it means that within us already exists
the energy of the resurrection, not yet however in an overwhelming way, not
yet as something absolutely unshaken. Prepare yourselves for resurrection,
and may be blessed every step you make which renders our endeavour such that our life really leads us
"there where the Lord is": "I wish, that my servant be there,
where I am".[2]
We could still remain speaking for
hours. The word on God never ends, like the light of the sun which warms the
earth transmitting to it its infinitively great energy. Thus it is with Christ,
Who is the Sun of Righteousness. We shall grasp His beams on our earth, in
order later to cross over the boundaries of the curtain towards eternal life.
I wish you a blessed Easter. May your
experience in Christ be deepened and may it constantly take on an even grander dimension.
*******
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 above Extracts of HOMILY 64 from Greek to English by
Holy Trinity Family, Douma, Lebanon.
[1]
See Heb. 12,28.
[2]
See Jn. 12,26.