The Reality of the IncarnationArchimandrite Touma (Bitar)

Archimandrite Touma (Bitar)

    Today, humanity has arrived at its desire. The Lord God created man, in the beginning, to bring him to this hour. Today, God becomes a man, all while of course remaining God. Thus, He is God incarnate, God and man together. Why did God do this? God was capable, in all simplicity, of saving man from sin and death without becoming incarnate. But He became incarnate. Thus, the issue transcends the issue of sin and death.

    God became man because He loved man with perfect love. And because He is love, He wanted to cleave to man completely. Love doesn't give something from itself. Love gives itself. God gave Himself to man completely. This is man's inheritance. What do these words mean? It means that the Lord God wanted man to become god. There is absolutely no necessity for the incarnation, inasmuch as its purpose is for the Lord God to divinize man, to make him god. Therefore, He embraced him into Himself. He took on his humanity completely! He became man in every sense of the word! He made Himself the new Adam. Humanity came from the first Adam in the body. But humanity comes from the new Adam in spirit and body! By "spirit", I mean the uncreated Spirit of God. The expression that our fathers saw fit to use is that God wanted to become man in order to permit man to come to be in Him-- that is, in the Lord Jesus Christ-- god. Thus, today is the feast of feasts and the festival of festivals, because that which was in the mind of God since the beginning is realized today. When I say "today", I don't mean "today" according to the hour and I don't mean next Sunday or last Sunday, but rather I mean the fullness of time that humanity has reached, when the Lord God was pleased to be born in the Holy Spirit of a woman, the Virgin Mary, who became by this dispensation the Mother of God.

    God and man, in Jesus Christ, are one. He Himself is God and man. But even if we stand before the Lord Jesus Christ as a single being, a single person, the Lord Jesus' divinity remains distinct from his humanity, not mixed with it but also not separate from it. There is no confusion between the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ and His humanity. We cannot ever imagine that the Lord Jesus resembles a drop of water mixed with another drop of water. There is a unity that took place between the divinity and humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, which surpasses anything that man can imagine. There is no unity on earth analogous to or even resembling the unity of divinity and humanity in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we are before a reality that surpasses human perception. But this is precisely what happened. God became man! After God became man, everything changed in the world. Of course, it didn't change outwardly. It changed, however, at the level of a new reality that was achieved in the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot treat this reality like we treat a chair or a table or like we treat anything in our world. This reality was given to us to treat with faith, which is a great mystery.

    What is faith? Faith is, in reality, a new sort of relationship between man and God. If we wanted to summarize it in a word, then at the level of man, faith is the trust that we need in order to have a relationship with the world, with people, with everything. Man needs to have trust in others. Otherwise, he cannot interact with them. Everything in our life is something we need to have trust in; otherwise, we cannot deal with it. For example, the seat that we sit on, if we do not have trust that there is nothing on it that would hurt us, then we would not sit on it. There is an implicit trust that every person has, without which he could not deal with anything at all. When someone wants to go outside to take his car and go back home, if he has the slightest feeling that there is something wrong with his car, he won't use it until he makes sure that what he thought might harm him isn't there or is something that he can fix. Otherwise, if he acts without trust, if he doesn't fall here he'll fall there. So trust, in human terms, is necessary for there to be a relationship between man and the world he is in. We come to faith in the Lord Jesus. There is no doubt that man, on his part as man, needs to have trust, as I said, in that with which he interacts or in that which interacts with him. But there is faith in the Lord Jesus, there is faith in God. If we have human trust and find ourselves in a place that makes us able to deal with the world, then we cannot, in reality, deal with God with this kind of trust. Human trust is not enough! We need a special grace that the Lord God gives us. In other words, we need faith that the Lord God gives us in order for our faith to be made perfect, and our trust in those we deal with. So we need God's grace in order to enter into a relationship with God. If one is skeptical, then God's grace is not active in him, is not given to him. But if one is prepared and wants to believe, but cannot believe in God because he is incapable, as a human, of reaching God, then God sees the desire of his heart, sees his good preparedness, sees the uprightness of his soul, sees his being open, "Lord Jesus, come", "Let it be for me according to Your word", "Help my unbelief" and then the Lord God touches him, gives him grace, and he believes in God!

    So there is faith from man and faith from God. This is very much in accordance with the new reality that was made manifest in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which I mean the reality of the incarnation. That is, divine-human coalescence. In terms of faith, our human faith coalesces with our divine faith. Then, we become capable, by God's grace and by the good will of our heart, of entering into this new reality that was achieved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the reality of the incarnation. Faith is a new language, without which we cannot approach God. If I don't know the alphabet, how can I look at a book in the language of this alphabet? So likewise I absolutely cannot read the book of God, read this divine reality made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ if I do not acquire the alphabet of divine-human faith. Faith, then, enters me into a new state of being, a new reality, a new manifestation. It enters me into a new life! Therefore, God is only pleased with faith. Not one of us has a way to approach God except by faith. Theoretical faith is empty talk. For someone to say that he believes without following the divine commandments is also empty talk, because one who believes believes in spirit and in truth. When one of us believes in spirit and in truth, then his entire life changes, he enters into a new world! If one of us travels to a country that he doesn't know, he doesn't hesitate to learn that country's language, customs, laws, and the systems prevailing there... becoming as though he were from that country. Thus, when we enter into the reality of the divine incarnation that took place in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called to become new. We treat things according to what is demanded by this new discovery, this new world, this new reality, this incarnation. If I am not prepared to enter into the reality of the incarnation, to deal with the incarnation, to become myself incarnational, then I remain on the outside. But in order to become incarnational, in order to enter behind the veil, into God's heart, into the reality that the Lord God wants me to enter into-- if I want to enter in every sense of the word-- I must walk in everything that is new that is required by this new reality. The Lord Jesus said clearly, "He who loves Me will keep My word." He who does not love Him, does not keep His word and so does not belong to that new thing that has come to be in Him. The Lord Jesus calls us to follow in His footsteps. "He who wants to follow me must take up his cross every day and follow me." Therefore, when we enter into the reality of the incarnation, we always walk steadily, regularly, completely, in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ who said, "Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart." From him, then, we learn the fundamentals of the new citizenship, citizenship in the kingdom, citizenship in the incarnation. Therefore, absolutely no one can enter into the new reality unless he has completely become incarnational. What does this mean?

    When one becomes incarnational, he must treat everyone and everything divinely and humanly at the same time. After the Lord Jesus Christ, we have come to treat everything in a divine and human manner. For example, it is time to eat and we come to the table. We don't go there only to eat. This is something purely human. We go to the table to treat the table in a divine-human way. For this reason, we pray. We stand next to the table, we remember God, we ask Him to bless what He gives us, and we bear in mind that we are not just concerned with filling our bellies with food: our fundamental concern is that this food that we see before us is blessed for the heavenly table that we desire and we work so that it will be granted to us to sit with Jesus there. The Lord Jesus said clearly that we must ask for heavenly bread at all times. "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." When man eats of the bread that is in this age, he hungers again. The important thing is to ask for heavenly bread at all times. We carry all this within ourselves when we stand before the table that we go to to eat of its good things and thank God for them. All this happens in one's mind, in one's heart. Otherwise, if we were satisfied with formalities in prayers, or even with merely blessing, if we only do what is necessary and then sit at the table to enjoy it, we miss the reality of dealing with the table-- and, in fact, everything-- in an incarnational manner. We treat everything divinely and humanly at once! At the table, in reality, we stand before God and we ask, first and last, for the Lord God to grace us with His Holy Spirit. Man is not sated with food. What sates man is heavenly manna. This is what the Lord God gave us and gives us: "Take, eat, this is My body that was broken for your sake. Drink of it all of you, this is My blood." In this way with regard to everything else.

    When one enters into the reality of the incarnation, everything becomes sacramental for him. We treat the whole universe, we treat all people, sacramentally, in the sense that we deal with what is outwardly apparent and at the same time, through what is outwardly apparent, that which is not outwardly apparent. Through human things, we deal with divine things, we scrutinize divine things, we bring down divine things, we ask God to give us Himself, His grace, His blessing, His Spirit, through everything that comes from us, through everything that we treat with our hands, our body, our soul, our mind. Our concern, first and last, is to be filled with God's presence, with His love! Therefore, the incarnation overturned the criteria. Man found himself before a new world that the Lord God opened wide to man. Come, receive light from the light that does not fade, and glorify God risen from the dead! Christ, in everything, has become a sign that is marked upon everything in our world, in our souls, in our mind. Our exclusive concern must be with being filled with Jesus: "If we live, we live for the Lord and if we die, we die for the Lord." "Life for me is Christ and to die is gain." One who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, who stumbles toward this new reality, sees only Jesus in everything. Therefore, the feast today is the feast of feasts, the season of seasons, Today, we have been entered into God's heart, we have been entered into the Lord's Spirit, we have been entered into a new life, after which it is not fitting for us to treat things as though they were dust. We treat dust as having been filled with divine light, we treat dust as dust and as light at the same time: "We have this treasure in jars of clay." Therefore, let us rejoice in the fullness of time, let us rejoice at this feast for which we are preparing ourselves, then let us extend our joy with it for days. In fact, let us extend it all the days of our life, since after Jesus entered our world as God incarnate, everything has changed. The important thing is that the change which occurred be matched by a change that happens in the heart of each one of us, that Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

   

     Reference:

     Notes on Arab Orthodoxy - https://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/

Everything is new.St. Sophrony the Athonite

 

"An exquisite flower unfolds within us: the hypostasis-person"

What is the essence of Christian contemplation? How does it arise and where does it lead? Who or what is contemplated, and in what manner?

As I was taught, true contemplation begins the moment we become aware of sin in us. The Old Testament understood sin as the breach of the moral and religious precepts of the Law of Moses. The New Testament transferred the concept of sin to the inward man. To apprehend sin in oneself is a spiritual act, impossible without grace, without the drawing near to us of Divine Light. The initial effect of the approach of this mysterious Light is that we see where we stand ‘spiritually’ at the particular moment. The first manifestations of this Uncreated Light do not allow us to experience it as light. It shines in a secret way, illuminating the black darkness of our inner world to disclose a spectacle that is far from joyous for us in our normal state of fallen being. We feel a burning sensation. This is the beginning of real contemplation- which has nothing in common with intellectual or philosophical contemplation. We become accurately conscious of sin as a sundering from the ontological source of our being. Our spirit is eternal but now we see ourselves as prisoners of death. With death waiting at the end, another thousand years of life would seem but a deceptive flash.

Sin is not the infringement of the ethical standards of human society or of any legal injunction. Sin cuts us off from the God of Love made manifest to us as Light in Whom there is no darkness at all (cf. 1 John 1.5). To behold one’s pitiful reality is a heavenly gift, one of the greatest. It means that we have already to a certain extent penetrated into the divine sphere, and have begun to contemplate- existentially, not philosophically- man as he is in God’s idea of him before the creation of the world.

 The horror of seeing oneself as one is acts as a consuming fire. The more thoroughly the fire performs its purifying work, the more agonising our spiritual pain. Yet, inexplicably, the unseen Light gives us a sense of divine presence within us: a strange secret presence that draws us to itself, to a state of contemplation which we know is genuine because our heart begins to throb day and night with prayer. It cannot be too often repeated that divine action has a twofold movement: one, which seems to us the first, plunges us into darkness and suffering. The other lifts us into the lofty spheres of the divine world. The range of our inner being expands and grows. But when the downward movement prevails, the cry is forced from us: ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God’ (Heb. 10.31).

To begin with, we do not understand what is happening. Everything is new. We only later, and gradually, come to comprehend God’s gift to us. Christ said to Peter: ‘What I do thou knowest not now; but shalt know hereafter’ (John 13.7). Impressed by the world revealed to her, which the heart did not yet know, the soul is both attracted and afraid. How can we describe the dread of losing God Who has so unexpectedly entered and enriched our life? Dismay at the thought of returning to the dark pit in which we existed until God’s coming to us stimulates a desire to cleanse ourselves from all that could hinder the Spirit of God from taking up His abode in us for all eternity. This dismay is so immense that it brings total repentance.

Repentance does not come readily to carnal man; and none of us fathoms the problem of sin which is only disclosed to us through Christ and the Holy Spirit. The coming of the Holy Spirit is an event of supreme importance. Fallen man meets with God all-Holy. The notion of sin is possible only where God is regarded as Absolute Hypostasis. And, likewise, repentance for sin is possible and appropriate only where there is a personal relationship. Encounter with a Personal God- that is what the event signifies. The sinful man experiences at one and the same time fear and exultation. It is new birth from on High. An exquisite flower unfolds within us: the hypostasis-person. Like the Kingdom of God the person ‘cometh not with observation’ (Luke 17.20). The process whereby the human spirit enters into the domain of divine eternity differs with each one of us.

The soul comes to know herself first and foremost face to Face with God. And the fact that such prayer is the gift of God praying in us shows that the person is born from on High and so is not subject to the laws of Nature. The person transcends earthly bounds and moves in other spheres. It cannot be accounted for. It is singular and unique.

Absolute Being is Hypostatic; and man, the image of the Absolute, is hypostatic. God is Spirit, and man-hypostasis is spirit; yet spirit which is not unconnected, abstract, but given concrete expression by the corporal body. Just as the Divine Logos took on Himself human flesh and thereby showed that God is not a fantasy of man’s imagination, born of ignorant fear of unknown phenomena, but actual reality. So, too, the human hypostasis is actually real. The Divine Spirit embraces all that exists. Man as hypostasis is a principle uniting the plurality of cosmic being; capable of containing the fulness of divine and human life.

The person does not determine himself by opposition. His is an attitude of love. Love is the most profound content of his being, the noblest expression of his essence. In this love lies likeness to God, Who is Love. Per se the person is excellence surpassing all other cosmic values. Rejoicing in the freedom that he has discovered, man contemplates the divine world.

Scientific and philosophical knowledge may be formulated but the person is beyond definition and therefore incognisable from without, unless he himself reveals himself. Since God is a Secret God, so man has secret depths. He is neither the author of existence nor the end. God, not man, is the Alpha and Omega. Man’s godlike quality lies in the mode of his being. Likeness in being is the likeness of which the Scriptures tell.

O Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit;

Most High God, King and Creator of all eternity,

Who hast honoured us with Thy Divine image

and didst describe in the visible form of our nature

the likeness of Thine invisible Being:

Enable us to find mercy and grace in Thy sight

that we may glorify Thee in the undying day of Thy
kingdom,

with all Thy Saints throughout the ages.

 

Saint Sophrony the Athonite.

When our spirit contemplates in itself the ‘image and likeness’ of God, it is confronted with the infinite grandeur of man, and not a few of us- the majority, perhaps- are filled with dread at our audacity.

In the Divine Being the Hypostasis constitutes the innermost esoteric principle of Being. Similarly, in the human being the hypostasis is the most intrinsic fundamental. Person is ‘the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible…which is in the sight of God of great price’ (1 Peter 3.4) - the most precious kernel of man’s whole being, manifested in his capacity for self-knowledge and self-determination; in his possession of creative energy; in his talent for cognition not only of the created world but also of the Divine world. Consumed with love, man feels himself joined with his beloved God. Through this union he knows God, and thus love and cognition merge into a single act.

God reveals Himself, mainly through the heart, as Love and Light. In this light man contemplates the Gospel precepts as the reflection on earth of celestial Eternity, and the Glory of Christ as of the only-begotten of the Father- the glory the disciples saw on Mount Tabor. The personal revelation makes the general revelation of the New Testament spiritually familiar.

This personal revelation may be granted suddenly. But though suddenly received man can only assimilate it by degrees, after long ascetic struggle. From the first instant the vital content of the revelation is clear and the soul feels no impulse to explain in rational concepts the grace experienced. But as a matter of course she aspires to ever deeper knowledge.

The divine nature of this personal vision is startlingly authentic, though words may fail to convey it. Yet the knowledge it offers has an objective sui generis character which we repeatedly observe down the centuries in the lives of many individuals largely identical in their experience and self-determining. ‘Where two or three are gathered together’ (Matt. 18.20)- there we have objectivity. ‘There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved’ (Acts 4.12), Peter declared categorically to the Sanhedrin. John spoke of ‘that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life’ (1 John 1.1). And Paul who said that at present we know only ‘in part’ (1 Cor. 13.12), nevertheless decrees that ‘if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed’ even though he be ‘an angel from heaven’ (Gal. 1.8,9).

As love, the hypostasis requires other hypostases. We see this from the revelation of the Holy Trinity. It is the same in the case of man. Having created Adam, ‘the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone’ (Gen. 2.18). But can created being meet with the Creator? When the human person stands before Him Who named Himself ‘I AM THAT I AM’ (Exos. 3.14), his spirit, his whole being not only glories but agonises over his own littleness, his ignorance, his wrong-doing. Suffering in his lot from the moment of his spiritual birth. Conscious that the process of transforming our whole earthly being is still far from complete, the spirit wearies.

Christian faith is the result of the presence within us of the Holy Spirit, and the soul knows Him. The Holy Spirit convinces the soul that she will not die; that death will not possess her. But the body, as the material instrument of the soul, is subject to decay.

Only sin can stifle the Divine breath within us. God Who is Holy does not blend with the darkness of sin. When we seek to justify a sinful action we ipso facto sever our alliance with God. God does not constrain us but neither can He be coerced. He retires, leaving us bereft of His luminous presence. Of course, man cannot altogether avoid sinning; but he can avoid the consequences of sin- separation from God- through repentance. With repentance and the consequent increase of grace within us, the reality of the Divine World preponderates over the visible cosmos. We contemplate the FIRST REALITY.

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 judgements

and fill our hearts with the light of Thy Divine love,

that we may serve Thee in spirit and truth

even unto our last breath.

We pray Thee, hear and have mercy.

 


Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov (2001) (2nd ed.) His Life is Mine. New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

 

The Word of the Father.St. Sophrony the Athonite

 

Saint Sophrony the Athonite.

        “He that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father” (john 14:9). “He that hateth the Son hateth the Father also” (cf John 15:23). “He that believeth on the Son hath ever­lasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (john 3:36).

Through the Holy Spirit, “Which proceedeth from the Father” and reposes in the Son, we know the Son in His Divinity and in the nature of man that He assumed. It is in the Holy Spirit that we live the Father.

Être «chrétien». Saint Sophrony l'Athonite.

 

29 mars 1968.

 

Saint Sophrony l'Athonite.

Chers, très chers Père et Matouchka, Micha et Kolia et tous les autres, ceux qui sont à la maison et ceux qui viendront du sud, c'est-à-dire Véra et toute sa famille!

Que la paix et la bénédiction d'en haut demeurent avec vous, tous les jours de votre vie. Merci beaucoup pour votre lettre. Vous savoir en vie, ce simple fait me console ...

Merci pour vos vœux affectueux, pour la fidélité de votre amour. Je l'apprécie profondément! Parce que sur terre il y a finalement si peu de gens fidèles à leur parole, à leur amitié, et même dans le mariage! Encore plus rares sont ceux dont l'amitié et la fraternité ne sont pas fondées sur un profit maté­riel, mais sur la foi en une autre réalité.

Love is the road to perfection.St. Sophrony the Athonite

 

Saint Sophrony the Athonite.

    In order to depict our Christian path more clearly, let us adopt the method of the Fathers and make an analogy. When we look at an ancient tree reaching high up to the clouds, we know that its roots, deep in the ground, must be correspond­ingly powerful. If the roots did not stretch down into the dark depths of the earth, as deep, perhaps, as the tree is high; if the mass and strength of the roots did not parallel the size and weight of the visible part of the tree, they could not nourish the tree or keep it upright - the lightest breeze would blow it down. So it is in man's spiritual life.

The Person :Divine and HumanHieromonk Nikolai Sakharov.

 

Saint Sophrony with Father
"Nikolai"(left) and "Seraphim".

    “What does it mean to be a person?”—this question lies at the heart of Fr Sophrony’s theology. It comes to the forefront of his theological attention particularly in his later years—so much so, that the notion of person became the axis of his last book, We Shall See Him as He Is .

Les mystères célestes. Saint Sophrony l'Athonite.

Saint Sophrony l' Athonite.

Dieu révèle les mystères du salut

Malgré toute la différence et toute la distance qu’il y a entre Dieu et nous, le Seigneur a trouvé le moyen de nous sauver de notre état misérable. Comment pouvons-nous nous préparer à être avec un Dieu aussi grandiose, aussi absolu ? Pendant la Liturgie de Saint Basile, durant la Grande entrée nous disons cette prière :

« Ô Toi qui Es,

Ô Dieu le Père, Maître et Seigneur,

Qui nous as créés et nous as introduits dans cette vie,

Qui nous as montré la Voie du salut,

Qui nous as donné la révélation des Mystères célestes… »

C’est de ces mystères célestes que nous parlerons.

The unconquerable victory.St. Sophrony the Athonite

 

Saint Sophrony the Athonite.

          Several people have begun to wonder whether peace can be possible on earth when every day millions of animals are slain so as to satisfy the bellies of millions of people. Food with blood stirs up the passions, clouds one's thinking powers, makes the heart insensitive, brutal. And if you add to this the hundreds of thousands, or rather millions, of innocent people who are suffering over the whole face of the earth from the senseless violation of the human conscience- how can you expect blessed peace to descend upon such an earth? Millennia of experience throughout history have shown with irrefutable evidence that all violence lasts only for a certain time before revenge gathers force. Al­ready so many empires have been toppled which considered their position unassailable. It is a true saying: 'All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword', and even more, that all the blood shed upon the earth shall be avenged. So the ancient commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' remains unkept throughout the course of the centuries. And now we are seeing the retribution for this.

'Without me ye can do nothing.'!" And when people cease to pay attention to these words, all their efforts are di­rected towards creating what seems to them a better life; but the result of their creation is banal and tedious to the point of deadliness. Man's spirit cannot be confined within such com­pressed limits; we will have to 'smash plates' to realise that we are after all humans and not puppets. Now we see that everywhere 'plates are being smashed' senselessly and just because of this senselessness the understanding is born that if this absurdity lies at the foundation of being, then this ex­istence would be simply impossible. The way is created for the comprehension of absolute truth, for the perception of the deepest meaning of life; confidence in the final victory of Love is established within us.

With me it happened like this: from the vision of what was taking place in the world my soul was brought to a fear­ful, mortal, state of doubt. The ground was taken from under my feet; my whole being was sick with grief. And when what I saw as the absurdity of all human activity reached the limit, in my soul- in a strange fashion - the certitude was born that the eternal victory of reason and truth was inevitable.

Notice: all the great religions arose in the East, where so­cieties live at an unbearably low level. The contemplation of such a fallen state of man gave rise to repentance in the depths of the spirit, and beyond expectation a supernatural power touched the heart, and the heart contemplated the transfigu­ration of the world. So, so many times have I noticed a change in a person's face from the touch of this Heavenly Light. There is great wonder at this: he or she was so dreadfully de­formed, and now - from whence is this beauty?

This is a weighty matter. It is not for speaking about in letters. My prayer for you and for all those with you is: 'May the Lord reveal to your deep heart His Mysteries, His Wisdom hidden from all ages! May the Holy Spirit teach you the knowledge of these Mysteries through Love, which He puts into the heart!'

And when the heart is touched by this eternal Spirit, the only natural feeling of the heart is an indescribable pity for all creation. Then love for one's enemies becomes normal. And this is the sign that man has passed from death to eternal Life. And this is the way to peace, this is unconquerable vic­tory. And this is what the soul prays for at all times. May the mercy of the God of Love be always present with you. And may you share what God sends you with other people, who are ready, and even thirsty, to receive salvation.

 

 

Reference:

Letters to his family. Archimandrite Sophrony(Sakharov).2015.

The World Does Not Need a Political Church.St. Sophrony the Athonite

    

Saint Sophrony the Athonite.

    Every international or class war is associated with violence: "Strike the enemies." But Christ commands: "Love your enemies" (Matt. 5:44). The latter does not deteriorate at all the Gospel at the level of the fratricidal division of material goods. When bishops, theologians and faithful Christians in general enter the ranks of militants, they consider those who avoid participation in these kinds of activities as petty and cowardly. The more dangerous the clash with the oppressors, the more this humanitarian mission is considered as "martyrdom" for Christ.

Our evasion is dictated by the consciousness that any change of status in social relations with a revolutionary, namely blackmailed, manner will ultimately prove to replace one violence with another. The historical experience demonstrates this in many cases. Already we have seen during our life how the idea of justice inspired people to war against despotism and exploitation, for freedom and full rights for all. However, the revolutions ended or converted into terrorist regimes with the suppression of huge masses of populations, depriving them of the most basic rights and the like. As agitated as we are for the injustices of a certain system, its change must be associated with long procedural processes of the moral standards of people in general. We have no right to carry out acts of blackmail - even towards extortioners - in the name of Christ. However, to rebuke injustice, in a lively and intense way, to guard justice for all, we can do, when we see the benefits from our reason.

The celebration of the Liturgy itself, which is a sacrifice for the salvation of all people, is the highest of all participations in the difficult ministry to humanity.

We are not allowed to deviate from our aim of remaining in the light of the Lord's commandments.

If we become one of the dark forces fighting for predominance over our brethren, we will overshadow the light which God brought to earth. This crime is more damaging to us than any other.

The world does not need a "political Church". The deprived character of the Church of Christ in the last centuries led to the departure of a large number of faithful from it. We can only recover the great brilliance of the Church with the extreme effort to live as Christians, evangelically, without turning our attention towards how our contemporaries will behave towards us. If Christians do not acquire the genuine spiritual gifts, and primarily holiness, preaching with words will remain as "a clanging symbol".

The complete turn towards the earth will not allow people to see the Church in its authentic essence, as the Kingdom of Paternal Love, as the place where the Holy Spirit shines, as the path where we assimilate with the All-Merciful God-man Jesus Christ.

We must not fear the temporary distancing of people from the Church. May the example of Christ, who was completely abandoned on the day of His Golgotha, help strengthen us to walk in His footsteps. He stood alone condemned by the Roman State of justice, by the Lawful Sanhedrin, and even by the mob of people. Therefore, if everyone abandons us, even then it would not be worth overstepping the true dimensions of the New Testament revelation given to us with the Passion of Christ at the level of "morals", the level of "atheistic humanism", the level of "every manner and type of entertainment". The distance may even take larger dimensions. None of us are excluded from standing firm in faith, to be ready to resist the whole world.

 

 

Reference:

 

Elder Sophrony: "The World Does Not Need a Political Church" | ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY THEN AND NOW (johnsanidopoulos.com)

Le travail de la vie.Mère Mariam Zacca.

             

À l'aube de l'année 33 au monastère.!!.

Mère Mariam avec Saint Sophrony et Père Touma prenant
sa bénédiction pour commencer leur communauté monastique 
au Liban. 1990.

Dieu resta debout derrière la porte de chacune de nos maison, debout dans l’obscurité de la nuit, dans la chaleur du jour, dans la gelée blanche des soirées et à l’aube, disant : “Mon fils donne-moi ton cœur”(Proverbes23, 26).

Le Seigneur demande le cœur de l’homme, racine de la vie, afin de le laver par sa tendresse, de le nettoyer par son amour, d’éclairer ses ténèbres par sa lumière et de le purifier par le feu de son amour. Il demande le cœur de l’homme afin qu’il lui enseigne l’amour divin perdu lors de la chute, et Il dit : “Apprenez de moi, Je suis doux et humble de cœur”.(Matthieu11, 29), car “le cœur contrit et brisé, Tu ne le méprises jamais”.(Psaume50, 17).

The Jesus Prayer: Not a Christian Yoga.St. Sophrony the Athonite

   

Saint Sophrony the Athonite.

 Knowledge of Personal God
      The true Creator disclosed Himself to us as a Personal Absolute. The whole of our Christian life is based on knowledge of God, the First and the Last, Whose Name is I AM. Our prayer must always be personal, face to Face. He created us to be joined in His Divine Being, without destroying our personal character. It is this form of immortality that was promised to us by Christ. Like St Paul we would not ‘be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life’. For this did God create us and ‘hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit’ (2 Cor. 5.4,5).

Personal immortality is achieved through victory over the world – a mighty task. The Lord said, ‘Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (John 10. 3 3), and we know that the victory was not an easy one. ‘Beware of false prophets … Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’ (Matt. 7.13-115).

Wherein lies destruction? In that people depart from the Living God.

 To believe in Christ one must have either the simplicity of little children – ‘Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 18.3)-or else, like St Paul, be fools for Christ’s sake. ‘We are fools for Christ’s sake … we are weak … we are despised … we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day’ (1 Cor. 4. 10, 13). However, ‘other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 3 .11). ʻWherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me’ (1 Cor. 4. 16). In the Christian experience cosmic consciousness comes from prayer like Christ’s Gethsemane prayer, not as the result of abstract philosophical cogitations.

When the Very God reveals Himself in a vision of Uncreated Light, man naturally loses every desire to merge into a transpersonal Absolute. Knowledge which is imbued with life (as opposed to abstract knowledge) can in no wise be confined to the intellect: there must be a real union with the act of Being. This is achieved through love: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart … and with all thy mind’ (Matt. 22.37). The commandment bids us love. Therefore love is not something given to us: it must be acquired by an effort made of our own free will. The injunction is addressed first to the heart as the spiritual centre of the individual. Mind is only one of the energies of the human. Love begins in the heart, and the mind is confronted with a new interior event and contemplates Being in the Light of Divine love.

A Difficult Task

There is no ascetic feat more difficult, more painful, than the effort to draw close to God, Who is Love (cf. i John 4.8, 16). Our inner climate varies almost from day to day: now we are troubled because we do not understand what is happening about us; now inspired by a new flash of knowledge. The Name Jesus speaks to us of the extreme manifestation of the Father’s love for us (cf.John 3.16). In proportion as the image of Christ becomes ever more sacred to us, and His word is perceived as creative energy, so a marvelous peace floods the soul while a luminous aura envelops heart and head.  Our attention may hold steady. Sometimes we continue thus, as if it were a perfectly normal state to be in, not recognizing that it is a gift from on High. For the most part we only realize this union of mind with heart when it is interrupted.

In the Man Christ Jesus ‘dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily’ (Col. 2.9). in Him there is not only God but the whole human race. When we pronounce the Name Jesus Christ we place ourselves before the plenitude both of Divine Being and created being. We long to make His life our life; to have Him take His abode in us. In this lies the meaning of deification. But Adam’s natural longing for deification at the very outset took a wrong turning which led to a terrible deviation. His spiritual vision was insufficiently established in Truth.

Our life can become holy in all respects only when true knowledge of its metaphysical basis is coupled with perfect love towards God and our fellow-men. When we firmly believe that we are the creation of God the Primordial Being, it will be obvious that there is no possible deification for us outside the Trinity. If we recognize that in its ontology all human nature is one, then for the sake of the unity of this nature we shall strive to make love for our neighbor part of our being.

Our most dire enemy is pride. Its power is immense. Pride saps our every aspiration, vitiates our every endeavor. Most of us fall prey to its insinuations. The proud man wants to dominate, to impose his own will on others; and so conflict arises between brethren. The pyramid of inequality is contrary to revelation concerning the Holy Trinity in Whom there is no greater, no lesser; where each Person possesses absolute plenitude of Divine Being.

The Kingdom of Christ is founded on the principle that whosoever would be first should be the servant of all (cf. Mark 9.3 5). The man who humbles himself shall be raised up, and vice versa: he who exalts himself shall be brought low. In our struggle for prayer we shall cleanse our minds and hearts from any urge to prevail over our brother. Lust for power is death to the soul. People are lured by the grandeur of power but they forget that ‘that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God’ (Matt. 16.15). Pride incites us to criticize, even scorn our weaker brethren; but the Lord warned us to ‘take heed that we despise not one of these little ones’ (cf. Matt. i8.io). If we give in to pride all our practice of the Jesus Prayer will be but profanation of His Name. ‘He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk, even as He walked’ (1John2.6). He who verily loves Christ will devote his whole strength to obeying His word. I stress this because it is our actual method for learning to pray. This, and not any psychosomatic technics, is the right way.

Not a Christian Yoga

I have lingered on the dogmatic justification for the Jesus Prayer largely because in the last decade or so the practice of this prayer has been distorted into a so-called ‘Christian yoga’ and mistaken for ‘transcendental meditation’. Every culture, not only every religious culture, is concerned with ascetic exercises. If a certain similarity either in their practice or their outward manifestations, or even their mystical formulation, can be discerned, that does not at all imply that they are alike fundamentally. Outwardly similar situations can be vastly different in inner content.

When we contemplate Divine wisdom in the beauty of the created world, we are at the same time attracted still more strongly by the imperishable beauty of Divine Being as revealed to us by Christ. The Gospel for us is Divine Self-Revelation. In our yearning to make the Gospel word the substance of our whole being we free ourselves by the power of God from the domination of passions. Jesus is the one and only Savior in the true sense of the word. Christian prayer is effected by the constant invocation of His Name: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us and upon Thy world.

Though prayer in the Name of Jesus in its ultimate realization unites man with Christ fully, the human hypostasis is not obliterated, is not lost in Divine Being like a drop of water in the ocean. ‘I am the light of the world … I am the truth and the life’ (John 8.12; 14.6). For the Christian-Being, Truth, Life are not ‘what’ but ‘who’. Where there is no personal form of being, there is no living form either. Where in general there is no life, neither is there good or evil; light or darkness. ‘Without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life’ (John 1:3).

When contemplation of Uncreated Light is allied to invocation of the Name of Christ, the significance of this Name as ‘the kingdom of God come with power’ (Mark 9.1) is made particularly clear, and the spirit of man hears the voice of the Father: ‘This is my beloved Son’ (Mark 9.7). Christ in Himself showed us the Father: ‘he that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9). Now we know the Father in the same measure as we have known the Son. ‘I and my Father are one’ (John 10.30). And the Father bears witness to His Son. We therefore pray, 90 Son of God, save us and Thy world.’

To acquire prayer is to acquire eternity. When the body lies dying, the cry ‘Jesus Christ’ becomes the garment of the soul; when the brain no longer functions and other prayers are difficult to remember, in the light of the divine knowledge that proceeds from the Name our spirit will rise into life incorruptible.”

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

His Life is Mine by Archimandrite Sophrony, trans. Rosemary Edmonds, St. Valdimir Seminary Press, pp112-120