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Saint Sophrony the Athonite.
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.
Every
word spoken by Christ is truth beyond human judgment. Everywhere we are shown
that the Son, the Word of the Father, is unique, unparalleled. And He Himself
emphasises this, categorically: “All that ever came before me are thieves and
robbers” (john 10:8). And concerning those who had appeared and were to appear
after the coming of Christ, He warned, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For
many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ ; and shall deceive many ..
Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it
not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew
great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive
the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say
unto you, Behold he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret
chambers; believe it "ot. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and
shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be”
[Matt. 24:4-5: 2J-27]. There can be no doubting that the Lord stands aloof from
all other so-called “teachers of mankind”: “One is your Master, even Christ;
and all ye are brethren” [Matt. 23:8].
History
tells of many an attempt in the past to relegate Christ to the ranks of other
teachers, prophets and founders of religions. This happens even more so in our
day and we must expect the same in the future. They all have the one thing in
common - refusal to accept the Divinity of Christ; that is, to recognise His
absolute authority (as did the First Ecumenical Council in A.D.325).
The
unoriginate Light is communicated to us through the incarnation of the Word of
the Father. When this “great mystery of godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16) is rejected
one should not expect to receive knowledge of Truth. In Christianity we have
the maximum concreteness together with the ultimate inscrutability of God. We
eat the Body of the incarnate God and drink His Blood. Our bodies become “members
of His Body” (cf. Eph. 5:30). In the communion of His Word our human mind
merges with the eternal Mind of God (cf 1 John 1: 1-2]. Nevertheless, “no man hath
seen God at any time” (1 John 4:12]. “The King of kings, and Lord of lords . ,
. dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen,
nor can see” [1 Tim. 6:15-16].
God,
Who in His essence is far beyond all understanding, all naming, all portraying,
the Church of Christ knows in her age old experience. And our Fathers, through
the ultimate experience possible to man, became partakers of this knowledge,
which they bequeathed to us as a precious, imprescriptible inheritance. Our
humble God does not despise our nothingness and did not refuse us the
blessedness of knowing Him, in so far as is possible for mortal man (cf. Matt.
11:27).
Our
way to knowledge of God lies not through books but through faith in Christ's
word. This faith brings our mind down into the heart, consumed by the flame of
love for Christ. We descend into the bottomless ocean which is the heart of
man. We know the arduousness of this immersion, the weight of suffering that it
entails. There in the depths the Divine arms embrace us tenderly and lift us to
heaven. (A propos, ascent even to heaven is possible if we have the energy of
the pain of love.)
I frequently speak of 'pain' and am often
worried that not everyone will rightly understand this ascetic term. The pain I
write of is the leitmotiv of my life in God. I cannot ignore it. It is not at
all like physical or mental pain, although it often includes these inferior
forms. It is the pain of the love of God which detaches the one who is praying
from this world to transport him into another. The fiercer the spiritual pain,
the more vigorous the attraction to God. The more dynamic our plunge into the
depths of the shoreless ocean of suffering, the surer our spirit's ascent into
heaven. When the spirit is introduced into the radiant sphere of the heavens
pain is transformed into the equally unbearable joy of love victorious. Again,
in essence we have the same thing: extreme suffering coupled with utmost joy.
This is exactly what happens to the man who repents: the Holy Spirit transports
him to unforeseen frontiers, where he experiences a foretaste of divine
universality. Consider Christ - how He lived on earth after the fall of Adam.
In Him Divine power was combined with the weakness of the flesh. Something
similar happens with us: “I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me” [Phil. 4:13]. What the Lord is by His essential Divinity, men
have through grace. And he who is like unto Christ in his earthly
manifestations is naturally like unto Him on the Divine plane, too.
Reference:
We shall see Him as He Is. Archimandrite Sophrony(Sakharov), 1988.