Saturday 10 October 2020
Friday 4 September 2020
Tuesday 21 July 2020
Saturday 13 June 2020
Sunday of All Saints
‘We went through the fire and water; but Thou broughtest us out into a place of refreshment.’[1]
Pentecost completes the cycle of the great feasts of the Dispensation of the Lord. The Holy Spirit came to seal the salvation of mankind wrought by the Lord Jesus. On this day, the Sunday of All Saints, the Church teaches us that the Saints are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the Heavenly Father shed the gifts of the Holy Spirit like rain. Wherever these gifts found good earth, they bore the fruit of holy life. Thus, Pentecost is not just the birthday of the Church, but also of all her Saints. The Saints are the fruit of the Spirit of holiness, the foremost light-bearing children of the Church, whose work it is to produce images and likenesses of Christ. For the Church of the Old Testament this work was impossible. It adhered to the letter of the law, unable to conceive within its bowels the Spirit which ‘bloweth where it listeth’.[2] Thus it failed to bring forth the fruit of holiness and was discountenanced by the Lord.[3]
‘The judgement of God must begin at the house of God.’[4] ‘The house of God’ is Christ above all. The ‘judgement of God’ means the judgement that annuls death and reveals divine love ‘unto the end’. This judgement is made manifest in the unjust death of the Lord Jesus for the sake of the world’s salvation.
Each man who follows the Lord Jesus[5] is the ‘House of God’ and thus the judgement of God has to be repeated in his life. Holy Scripture bears witness that this judgement acts throughout history and perpetuates the grace of salvation for every generation because our God, is the God of our Fathers. The Lord has formed Fathers and children, and the children in their turn become Fathers. Christ is ‘the Father of the age to come’,[6] He is the Author of a new humanity, regenerated through the grace of the Holy Spirit, without any preceding sin. Through His death and Resurrection, Christ gave the grace of rebirth to those who participate in His paternity. ‘But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’[7]
God does not command a natural life, but a life beyond nature. Desiring to give His chosen equal honour with Christ, he subjects them to the chastening unto which He also delivered His Only-begotten and beloved Son. The Lord often leads His chosen to the threshold of death, so as to slay every desire within them, not only their passions, but even the desire for life in this world. Only then is the miracle of spiritual rebirth made possible.[8]
As we can discern in the lives of the Saints, the chastening of the Lord is oftentimes harrowing. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God’.[9] God allows afflictions, sufferings and trials to come upon His faithful servants, so that the souls of the Saints, already in this life, may abide in the depths of hell. However, within this immense darkness, they encounter the Lord Jesus, Who, in His descent to hell and His ascent above the heavens has ‘filled all things with Himself’.[10] Thus, His faithful servants can unite with Him no matter what the conditions, a fact which abolishes all impasses and gives a new perspective to suffering and tragedy. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’[11]
The grace of meeting the Lord leaves ineffaceable marks upon us. Henceforth, the soul lives in the assurance that nothing can separate her from the love of Christ, neither ‘tribulation, or distress, or persecution… nor death nor life …nor any other creature.’[12] Returning to everyday life, man is dead to every attraction and temptation of the world, because he has known something indescribably greater, indescribably more glorious.
When the Saints passed through periods of trial and chastening so as to enter into the glorious place of God’s presence, they learnt many mysteries of the spiritual life. Perhaps the greatest mystery is that which Saint Silouan referred to as the ‘Great Science’. This science teaches man how to humble his spirit, so as to remain out of reach of the enemy’s attacks and free his heart to love God.
The Saints, the images of Christ, follow the ‘Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’,[13] Who hastens to suffer for man’s salvation. The perspective of the Gospel inverts every aspect of the established order: ‘That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.’[14] Whosoever embraces the inverted perspective of the Gospel, inevitably crucifies his mind and reason. This crucifixion attracts grace, which works self-hatred in the soul for the ‘abomination of desolation’ hidden within her bosom. This energy, vehement by nature, cuts man from everything created and joins him to the Person of Christ, so that he attains to perfect likeness unto Him.
Following the footsteps of Christ, the Saints of all ages, the Apostles, the martyrs, and the ascetics tasted a voluntary death according to the commandments of God, so as to overcome in their corruptible flesh the involuntary death to which mankind is condemned due to preceding sin. Through perfect obedience and surrendering to the holy will of God, they put to death every trace of self-love. They continually experienced the passage from death to life, and lived only for their Redeemer and Saviour Jesus.
The life of the Saints was crowned with martyrdom either external or internal, that is, ‘in secret’. The ascetics poured out tears striving unto blood to cleanse their heart from the passions, to render it comely and give all its space to God to ‘walk and dwell therein’.[15] Throughout their lives they were as those appointed to death, battling against the spirit of pride, because experience taught them the inviolable truth of the revelation of the Lord, that ‘He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’.[16] They knew that when they humbled their spirit and set themselves below every creature, they received grace, which works the great miracle of the passage from darkness to light and preserves the unbreakable union of man’s heart with the Spirit of God.
Salvation is nothing other than man’s entrance into the communion of the Saints. Certainly, very few from each generation inherit the grace of the Saints, but when man receives their word with trust and follows it faithfully, even if he has not comprehended its depth, he receives a portion of grace, which becomes the key to entering into their sublime assembly. In this way the poor and humble are enriched by the glorious and entirely sanctified members of this communion. Participation in the Mysteries of the Church, and above all in the Divine Liturgy, opens the gate of Paradise, where the faithful enjoy divine bliss in communion with God, the Angels and the Saints and treasure up the grace of salvation.
‘Many are your names and greater are your gifts.’ Despite the general degeneration of the latter days, the Church has not yet lost its ability to produce images of Christ. This is a perceptible grace that cannot be found in any other confession. Even if these ‘images of Christ’ may not work miracles in a manifest way, they work the greatest miracle day by day in their lives, according to Saint Silouan: ‘They love the sinner in his fall.’[17] Wrought by the grace of the Church, this fact alone disperses every doubt and disbelief which would impede man from surrendering with trust to all the teachings of Christ and His Saints. ‘God is wonderful in His Saints.’[18]
The Saints in this world are ‘a sweet spiritual fragrance’. They are the brightest stars in the noetic firmament of the Church who attest to ‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever’[19] and ‘with us alway, even unto the end of the world’.[20] They give a pattern and an example. Through their voluntary death they prove themselves conquerors of involuntary death. Just as the Jews before their exodus from slavery to the Egyptians ate the Passover ‘in haste’, thus also the saved walk upon the earth and live in this world hastening towards the unshakeable and eternal. Their converse is with heaven; they steadfastly direct the eyes of their soul there, whence they will receive their Saviour and Redeemer. Sometimes they cast a glance to the earth, only to discern the misery and poverty of this transient life, and then they turn with greater longing to the plenitude of Heaven, the only thing that can fill the chasms within the heart. This was already the culture of the Saints during the first Christian centuries, when they all shared the recognition that they were strangers and sojourners in this world. As they had lived the passage ‘from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God’,[21] they knew God not only as Judge and avenger, but as a Father ‘the closest and dearest of fathers’.[22]
‘The soul that has come to know God through the Holy Spirit strains up to Him; the memory of God powerfully raptures her mind, and the world is forgotten. And when the soul remembers the world, her ardent desire is for all men to receive the same grace, and she prays for the whole world. The Holy Spirit Himself moves her to pray that all men may repent and know God, how merciful He is.’[23]
[1]. Ps. 65:12.
[2]. John 3:8.
[3]. Cf. Matt. 21:18-19; Mark 11:12-4 and 20-21.
[4]. 1 Pet. 4:17.
[5]. See Heb. 3:6.
[6]. Cf. Isa. 8:18.
[7]. John 1:12-13.
[8]. Cf. John 3:3.
[9]. Heb. 10:31.
[10]. Cf. Eph. 4:10; Anaphora, Liturgy of Saint Basil.
[11]. Ps. 22:4.
[12]. See Rom. 8:35-39.
[13]. See Rev. 13:8.
[14]. Luke 16:15.
[15]. See Levit. 26:12; 2 Cor. 6:16.
[16]. See Proverbs 3:34; James 4:6.
[17]. See Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Saint Silouan the Athonite, trans. Rosemary Edmonds, (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1991), p. 346.
[18]. Ps. 67:36.
[19]. Heb. 13:8.
[20]. Matt. 28:20.
[21]. Rom. 8:21.
[22]. Saint Silouan, p. 372.
[23] See Saint Silouan, p. 331
Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou
‘We went through the fire and water; but Thou broughtest us out into a place of refreshment.’[1]
Pentecost completes the cycle of the great feasts of the Dispensation of the Lord. The Holy Spirit came to seal the salvation of mankind wrought by the Lord Jesus. On this day, the Sunday of All Saints, the Church teaches us that the Saints are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the Heavenly Father shed the gifts of the Holy Spirit like rain. Wherever these gifts found good earth, they bore the fruit of holy life. Thus, Pentecost is not just the birthday of the Church, but also of all her Saints. The Saints are the fruit of the Spirit of holiness, the foremost light-bearing children of the Church, whose work it is to produce images and likenesses of Christ. For the Church of the Old Testament this work was impossible. It adhered to the letter of the law, unable to conceive within its bowels the Spirit which ‘bloweth where it listeth’.[2] Thus it failed to bring forth the fruit of holiness and was discountenanced by the Lord.[3]
‘The judgement of God must begin at the house of God.’[4] ‘The house of God’ is Christ above all. The ‘judgement of God’ means the judgement that annuls death and reveals divine love ‘unto the end’. This judgement is made manifest in the unjust death of the Lord Jesus for the sake of the world’s salvation.
Each man who follows the Lord Jesus[5] is the ‘House of God’ and thus the judgement of God has to be repeated in his life. Holy Scripture bears witness that this judgement acts throughout history and perpetuates the grace of salvation for every generation because our God, is the God of our Fathers. The Lord has formed Fathers and children, and the children in their turn become Fathers. Christ is ‘the Father of the age to come’,[6] He is the Author of a new humanity, regenerated through the grace of the Holy Spirit, without any preceding sin. Through His death and Resurrection, Christ gave the grace of rebirth to those who participate in His paternity. ‘But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’[7]
God does not command a natural life, but a life beyond nature. Desiring to give His chosen equal honour with Christ, he subjects them to the chastening unto which He also delivered His Only-begotten and beloved Son. The Lord often leads His chosen to the threshold of death, so as to slay every desire within them, not only their passions, but even the desire for life in this world. Only then is the miracle of spiritual rebirth made possible.[8]
As we can discern in the lives of the Saints, the chastening of the Lord is oftentimes harrowing. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God’.[9] God allows afflictions, sufferings and trials to come upon His faithful servants, so that the souls of the Saints, already in this life, may abide in the depths of hell. However, within this immense darkness, they encounter the Lord Jesus, Who, in His descent to hell and His ascent above the heavens has ‘filled all things with Himself’.[10] Thus, His faithful servants can unite with Him no matter what the conditions, a fact which abolishes all impasses and gives a new perspective to suffering and tragedy. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’[11]
The grace of meeting the Lord leaves ineffaceable marks upon us. Henceforth, the soul lives in the assurance that nothing can separate her from the love of Christ, neither ‘tribulation, or distress, or persecution… nor death nor life …nor any other creature.’[12] Returning to everyday life, man is dead to every attraction and temptation of the world, because he has known something indescribably greater, indescribably more glorious.
When the Saints passed through periods of trial and chastening so as to enter into the glorious place of God’s presence, they learnt many mysteries of the spiritual life. Perhaps the greatest mystery is that which Saint Silouan referred to as the ‘Great Science’. This science teaches man how to humble his spirit, so as to remain out of reach of the enemy’s attacks and free his heart to love God.
The Saints, the images of Christ, follow the ‘Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’,[13] Who hastens to suffer for man’s salvation. The perspective of the Gospel inverts every aspect of the established order: ‘That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.’[14] Whosoever embraces the inverted perspective of the Gospel, inevitably crucifies his mind and reason. This crucifixion attracts grace, which works self-hatred in the soul for the ‘abomination of desolation’ hidden within her bosom. This energy, vehement by nature, cuts man from everything created and joins him to the Person of Christ, so that he attains to perfect likeness unto Him.
Following the footsteps of Christ, the Saints of all ages, the Apostles, the martyrs, and the ascetics tasted a voluntary death according to the commandments of God, so as to overcome in their corruptible flesh the involuntary death to which mankind is condemned due to preceding sin. Through perfect obedience and surrendering to the holy will of God, they put to death every trace of self-love. They continually experienced the passage from death to life, and lived only for their Redeemer and Saviour Jesus.
The life of the Saints was crowned with martyrdom either external or internal, that is, ‘in secret’. The ascetics poured out tears striving unto blood to cleanse their heart from the passions, to render it comely and give all its space to God to ‘walk and dwell therein’.[15] Throughout their lives they were as those appointed to death, battling against the spirit of pride, because experience taught them the inviolable truth of the revelation of the Lord, that ‘He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’.[16] They knew that when they humbled their spirit and set themselves below every creature, they received grace, which works the great miracle of the passage from darkness to light and preserves the unbreakable union of man’s heart with the Spirit of God.
Salvation is nothing other than man’s entrance into the communion of the Saints. Certainly, very few from each generation inherit the grace of the Saints, but when man receives their word with trust and follows it faithfully, even if he has not comprehended its depth, he receives a portion of grace, which becomes the key to entering into their sublime assembly. In this way the poor and humble are enriched by the glorious and entirely sanctified members of this communion. Participation in the Mysteries of the Church, and above all in the Divine Liturgy, opens the gate of Paradise, where the faithful enjoy divine bliss in communion with God, the Angels and the Saints and treasure up the grace of salvation.
‘Many are your names and greater are your gifts.’ Despite the general degeneration of the latter days, the Church has not yet lost its ability to produce images of Christ. This is a perceptible grace that cannot be found in any other confession. Even if these ‘images of Christ’ may not work miracles in a manifest way, they work the greatest miracle day by day in their lives, according to Saint Silouan: ‘They love the sinner in his fall.’[17] Wrought by the grace of the Church, this fact alone disperses every doubt and disbelief which would impede man from surrendering with trust to all the teachings of Christ and His Saints. ‘God is wonderful in His Saints.’[18]
The Saints in this world are ‘a sweet spiritual fragrance’. They are the brightest stars in the noetic firmament of the Church who attest to ‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever’[19] and ‘with us alway, even unto the end of the world’.[20] They give a pattern and an example. Through their voluntary death they prove themselves conquerors of involuntary death. Just as the Jews before their exodus from slavery to the Egyptians ate the Passover ‘in haste’, thus also the saved walk upon the earth and live in this world hastening towards the unshakeable and eternal. Their converse is with heaven; they steadfastly direct the eyes of their soul there, whence they will receive their Saviour and Redeemer. Sometimes they cast a glance to the earth, only to discern the misery and poverty of this transient life, and then they turn with greater longing to the plenitude of Heaven, the only thing that can fill the chasms within the heart. This was already the culture of the Saints during the first Christian centuries, when they all shared the recognition that they were strangers and sojourners in this world. As they had lived the passage ‘from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God’,[21] they knew God not only as Judge and avenger, but as a Father ‘the closest and dearest of fathers’.[22]
‘The soul that has come to know God through the Holy Spirit strains up to Him; the memory of God powerfully raptures her mind, and the world is forgotten. And when the soul remembers the world, her ardent desire is for all men to receive the same grace, and she prays for the whole world. The Holy Spirit Himself moves her to pray that all men may repent and know God, how merciful He is.’[23]
[1]. Ps. 65:12.
[2]. John 3:8.
[3]. Cf. Matt. 21:18-19; Mark 11:12-4 and 20-21.
[4]. 1 Pet. 4:17.
[5]. See Heb. 3:6.
[6]. Cf. Isa. 8:18.
[7]. John 1:12-13.
[8]. Cf. John 3:3.
[9]. Heb. 10:31.
[10]. Cf. Eph. 4:10; Anaphora, Liturgy of Saint Basil.
[11]. Ps. 22:4.
[12]. See Rom. 8:35-39.
[13]. See Rev. 13:8.
[14]. Luke 16:15.
[15]. See Levit. 26:12; 2 Cor. 6:16.
[16]. See Proverbs 3:34; James 4:6.
[17]. See Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Saint Silouan the Athonite, trans. Rosemary Edmonds, (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1991), p. 346.
[18]. Ps. 67:36.
[19]. Heb. 13:8.
[20]. Matt. 28:20.
[21]. Rom. 8:21.
[22]. Saint Silouan, p. 372.
[23] See Saint Silouan, p. 331
Sunday of All Saints (part 2)
21 June 2020Today, one week after Pentecost, again we celebrate a feast, commemorating all the Saints that were well pleasing to the Lord in this life and partook of His imperishable life. Last Sunday we celebrated the coming of the Comforter and the immaculate Church, in her wisdom, has instituted this feast to commemorate all the Saints, the renowned fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Saints of every age provide palpable evidence of the truth of God and the wondrous Tabernacle built on earth with the coming of the Holy Spirit. They bear witness to the integrity of the Church who bears in her bosom these earth-bound Angels, these Heavenly men.
The secret Person, the Holy Spirit, the hidden friend, is revealed outright in His gifts to the Saints. The image of Christ is painted in the heart of the faithful by the Spirit of Truth, the Person of the Holy Spirit, and is marked upon the Saints of the Church in each age. The Holy Spirit gives an eschatological orientation to man’s life because He quickens, now in the present moment, Christ’s awaited coming, His burning presence, that will consume and destroy the lawless,[1] while stirring up a furnace of desire in the hearts of ‘those who loved His appearing’,[2] enabling them to ‘lay aside all earthly care’.
The hypostatic principle, as set forth by Saint Sophrony, is realised by all the Saints in their very being. The mystery of Pentecost is active in their lives at all times, as they attract the grace of the Holy Spirit and spread it out over the world, on behalf of which they untiringly intercede. ‘They were chosen of the Holy Spirit to pray for the whole world, and the Holy Spirit gave them a well-spring of tears.’[3] ‘The Lord bestowed the Holy Spirit upon the Saints and in the Holy Spirit they love us… The Holy Spirit gives His chosen such a wealth of love that their souls burn as it were with a flame, in their desire that all men should be saved and behold the glory of the Lord.’[4]
There are three levels of life: the unnatural, the natural and the Divine. The unnatural is the demonic life of eternal oblivion and hatred for God and man.[5] The natural is expressed in man’s love for ‘those who love him‘,[6] which is not censurable, but it is not enough for salvation. The supernatural life led by the Saints aims to recompense the Lord the tender love that we owe Him according to His commandment. The precepts of the Lord do not refer to the given fact of natural life, but to a supernatural life. They were imparted to man to detach him from the transient and shakeable, lifting him onto the transcendent level of divine love. The Holy Spirit heals ‘every wound hidden within us’, it cures the pestilence of forgetfulness of God, renews the soul and leads first to what is natural and then to what is beyond nature, as is attested by the Saints of all generations.
The man who tastes the gift of the Holy Spirit, irrevocably directs himself towards what is higher, because every separation from his Creator, albeit brief, creates an acute pain in his heart and he experiences an awesome darkness, all the terrors of hell, the corruption of death. In the eyes of the world this state appears to be madness. However, according to the Apostle Paul, it is ‘wiser than the wisdom of men’,[7] because God saved man through the madness and weakness of His love. As Saint Silouan writes: ‘The soul from love of the Lord has lost her wits as it were. She sits in silence, with no wish to speak, and looks upon the world with crazed eyes, having no desire for it and seeing it not.’[8]
Today’s Gospel reading,[9] a synthesis of verses from two different chapters of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, speaks about two elements that characterise the lives of the Saints: good confession and taking up the cross. In His incomprehensible condescension and goodness, the Lord granted the works of his hands parity with Himself, concluding a covenant with man on equal terms. If any man confesses Him, Christ will confess him as his own before the Heavenly Father. If any man forgives the small and relative sins of his fellow men, then God will forgive the great sins and evils that have affronted Him since before all ages.[10] Man’s confession belongs to the level of the temporary, the kingdom of transience. The confession of God takes place where ‘time is no longer’[11] and leads mortal earth-bound men into eternity.
Confession ‘in Christ‘is an inner confession of life in the Spirit. It is an imitation of the ethos of the Lamb of God ‘brought as a sheep to the slaughter’.[12] It is a life of holiness within the world of sin and passions. The true witness does not make portentous proclamations, but bears the living sensation of God in his heart. He speaks, walks, breathes as like unto the Son of God.
The Lord also witnesses in the Spirit to salvation within the heart of man, through the incorruptible consolation flooding him, through the ‘unique gift’ that makes him acceptable before the Heavenly Father and a member of the communion of the ‘spirits of the Saints made perfect’. This witness is possible when there is living communion with the Lord, a ‘bond of love’[13] and faith forged with Christ and all the members of His Body, because only together with all the Saints can anyone comprehend ‘what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and know the love of Christ that passeth all knowledge’.[14]
Whoever is engrafted within the Body of Christ seals a covenant with the Lord. Already in this life, he tastes the first fruits of a dynamic relationship with Him that is always changing from fulness to fulness and will be perfected in eternity. The spirit that inspires this relationship differs fundamentally from the spirit of this world and inevitably splits the believer away from its values, so he makes ‘foes from his own household’.[15]
The Holy Spirit enlarges the heart to lead man ‘into all truth’, into all the fulness of divine love that enfolds ‘Heaven and earth and the nethermost parts of the earth’[16] with its Light. The epode of the Akathist for the Saints ends with the verse: ‘Rejoice thou, universal Fathers’. Some of these Saints never left the holes in the earth where they laboured in asceticism within the desert, but the content of their heart was all Adam, ‘from one end of the earth to the other, from the beginning of Creation till the end of times’ and they presented the whole world before the throne of God in their prayer of intercession.
As Saint Sophrony bears witness: ‘Wherever man may betake himself, whatever desert he may retire to, if he treads the path of real life in God he will live the tragedy of the world, and live it even more intensely and profoundly than those actually in the world, because the latter do not know what they are missing. Men suffer many privations but with the rare exception they are not conscious of their main lack. When they are deprived of their worldly goods and realise what they are missing, they suffer and lament; but what would the weeping and wailing be like if they realised their chief deprivation! With what ardour would they seek ‘the one thing needful’.[17]
According to the Apostle Paul, some people sow corruption through sinful actions, but others sow eternity through good works.[18] The fiery prayers of the Saints for their personal salvation and the salvation of the world are preserved by the angels until the Second Coming as precious incense in golden vials.[19] The Day of the Lord will be a surprise, not only because no one will know ‘the times or the seasons’,[20] but because all ‘the secret things of man’s heart’[21] will be made manifest. The genuine and faithful servants of God do not reveal the power of the Spirit and the love that they bear within them. Often the taking up of the cross is the hidden work of a man who battles again sin in the depths of his being, who seeks the Light of humility and strives not to trample upon the covenant that he has concluded with the Lord. He takes up the cross because he yearns not to be confined any longer within the suffocating frame of his own self, but to live for the Lord, Who bought him with His precious blood.
God promises divine equality, desiring to say to man, ‘all that I have is thine’,[22] but first he puts his true children to the test to see if they will respond with gratitude and philotimo to His promises and not answer, ’Have me excused, I cannot come.’[23] The judgement of the Lord’s unjust death is repeated in each of His Saints. He allows suffering and temptations in their life that try their heart like gold in a furnace.[24] ‘As gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering.’[25] He permits that they may descend even into hell, not that they might perish, but so they might have the honour of knowing the path of the Lord Jesus unto the end. In this way, they may share in the victory of His Cross and Resurrection, becoming brethren of the ‘Firstborn’[26] and Beloved Son of love.
[1]. See 2 Thess. 2:8.
[2]. See 2 Tim. 4:8.
[3]. Saint Silouan, p. 396.
[4]. Ibid. p. 395-6.
[5]. See John 8:44.
[6]. See Matt. 5:46-47.
[7]. See 1 Cor. 1:25.
[8]. Saint Silouan, p. 504.
[9]. Matt. 10:32-33, 37-38 and 19:27-30.
[10]. See Matt. 6 :12.
[11]. Rev. 10:6.
[12]. See Isa. 53:7.
[13]. See Col. 3 :14.
[14]. Eph. 3:18-19.
[15]. See Matt. 10:36.
[16]. See Canon of the Resurrection, Ode 3.
[17] Saint Silouan, p. 227.
[18]. Cf. Gal. 6:8.
[19]. Rev. 5:8.
[20]. See Acts 1:7.
[21]. 1 Cor. 14:25.
[22]. Luke 15:31.
[23]. See Luke 14:16-20.
[24]. See Proverbs 17:3.
[25]. Wisdom of Solomon 3:6-7.
[26]. See Rom. 8:29.
Wednesday 10 June 2020
Monday 8 June 2020
Now is the Judgement of this World
Now is the Judgement of this World[1]
In the last chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Lord Himself warns us in the most intense and frightening way about the catastrophes which will precede His Coming. He foretells that that evil will be uncontrollable[2] and people’s afflictions will be so unbearable that they will ask the mountains to cover them,[3] so that they may not see the terrible day of the Lord’s coming: ‘There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword,’[4] ‘men’s hearts shall fail them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth’.[5] Even the affliction of God’s elect will be extreme and the pain will be insufferable for the surrounding world. Nevertheless, in spite of the tragic character of these words, the Almighty Jesus says suddenly: ‘And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.’[6] The Apostle Paul also reassures us that God will not allow us to be tempted above our strength, but that together with the temptation He will grant a way to escape.[7]
The Book of Revelation, which provokes fear in many, speaks in essence about the final victory of the Lamb Christ and of His elect, who ‘loved not their lives unto death’[8] ‘and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’.[9] Terrible signs and apocalyptic afflictions had already become a fact from the moment of Christ’s crucifixion: the sun was darkened, the earth was shaken, the dead came to life and so forth. This prophetic event has repeated itself throughout the current of history. From early Christianity until our times, the fury ‘of the murderer of men’[10] has tried again and again to exterminate with inconceivable cruelty every trace of the seed of Christ. How many times have torturers, devils in human bodies, subjected the faithful to unprecedented torments? And how many holy ascetics throughout the centuries, like the contemporary example of our Fathers Silouan and Sophrony, have condemned themselves to be thrust there where Satan is so as to be burnt in the outer fire? Nevertheless, Christ’s blood on the Cross, the blood of the Martyrs and the endless tears of the holy ascetics became the power of triumph in the Church.
When we are threatened by death from all sides, the power of our faith diminishes because love has grown cold and because our expectation of salvation has grown weak. However, if we still stand steadfast and say with courage to the Lord, ‘Amen, come Lord Jesus’ for our deliverance, then God will give us that faith which overcomes not only the world but even death. Thus we will understand the true meaning of the words of the great Apostle Paul: ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’[11] This does not mean that sin is blessed, but that when evil will multiply above measure, the faithful will wage war against it with greater tension. The crisis and the adversity of those days will force some to turn to Him Who alone is ‘able to save them from death’,[12] and in this struggle they will surely be given the gift of the great grace. Those who have recourse to human means will either become themselves criminals or will fall into dark despair. All things will be polarised and the pain will be a two-edged sword, for it can become either a privilege for those who follow the way of the Lamb or a plunge in despair and wickedness for those who spare their own life. ‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.’[13]
The calamities and general panic will be followed by the coming of the Beloved Lord, bringing all His grace, eternal life, the life that we all wait for and that is ‘hidden with Christ in God’.[14] His Coming will grant joy that ‘no man taketh from us’.[15] Seeing the end approaching, whether it is the general or our personal end, we turn our spiritual gaze towards God saying: ‘Who is sufficient for these things?[16] Do Thou Thyself help us to be ready for anything Thy providence will allow. We can only be saved through Thy power and grace. We can do nothing good upon earth. Come quickly, O Lord.’
Elder Sophrony spoke about the end of times in a positive way, being inspired by the living experience of the Saviour God. He never spoke about the sign of the antichrist. His mind was on the sign of Christ, the circumcision of the heart, caused by His spotless love. He did not wish to frighten people with the imminent end, the coming afflictions, the rage of the enemy against those who follow the meek and lowly Christ, ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’.[17] On the contrary, he derived inspiration from his strong hope in the coming of the Author of our faith, so that with our head high we may hasten to meet the Lord Jesus, Who is coming again just as He ascended to heaven, ‘while blessing’,[18] calling His own to be ‘with Him unto all ages’,[19] with the words: ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father.’[20]
The crisis of our time is nothing other than a privilege and a challenge for us, which hides within it the great gift of faith. It is a unique opportunity to prove our faith and to give the Almighty Lord the possibility to manifest His power in our weakness and poverty.
As Saint Sophrony writes, Christ, our example, ‘does not have a tragic character and neither does His saving Passion… The tragedy is not in Him but in us.’[21] Moreover, through the Gospel, we discover that two diametrically opposed states coexist harmoniously in the Person of the Lord: the tragic nature of His work for our salvation and the triumph of His imminent victory. In the final moments of the life of the Lord, we hear from His holy mouth His most momentous words:
- As He was going up to Golgotha, He turned towards the women who were following Him, saying: ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.’[22]
- ‘My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’[23] and at the same time, He said to the thief, ‘Verily, verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise’.[24]
- ‘His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground,’[25] and a little later, He prayed, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’[26]
- ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death’,[27] and further on ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.’[28]
The Lord was hastening towards His voluntary Passion and shameful death, so as to take upon Himself the tragedy, the shame and pain of the whole Adam. His irrevocable purpose was to open Heaven for us and lead us to the banquet of His love. Thus, deadlock and tragedy cease to afflict us, and there is no room for despair. ‘The Lord gives the faithful a foretaste of the vision of His eternal victory; the tragedy of the fall, the dark abyss of death, are overcome by Christ, Who does not reject us, but receives us in His bosom.’[29]
A little while before the Passion, the Lord offered peace to His disciples. Elder Sophrony explains: ‘The essence of Christ’s peace is perfect knowledge of the Father. So it is with us – if we know the Eternal Truth lying at the root of all being, then all our anxieties affect merely the periphery of our existence, while within us reigns the peace of Christ.’[30]
In a similar way, in our own epoch, when the ‘power of darkness’[31] is roaring, the Lord cries and thunders with His voice, ‘Lift up your heads’[32] for grace is drawing nigh and do not be terrified by the hardness of heart of those all around. Seeing the injustice in the world which is in accordance with the prophecy of the Lord: ‘The world hateth you’,[33] and seeing sinners prosper, the Christian is consumed by zeal for righteousness. His inspiration would fade away if he did not have the assurance of the Book of Revelation: ‘Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.’[34] The man of faith lives with the expectation of the coming of the Lord, because without expectation there is no hope, without hope there is no salvation, for ‘by hope we are saved’,[35] and without salvation there is no Christianity. True Christianity is the expectation of the coming of the Lord; deprived of it, man can only surrender to complete despondency, as expressed by the Apostle, ‘Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.’[36]
In the beginning of the history of Christianity, the whole Church lived with the daily expectation of the Second Coming. The early Christians had a very highly developed eschatological hope. They had their face turned steadfastly to the east. The hope of Christ’s coming kept them in great tension, and imparted to them such grace that it rendered them fit for the sacrifice of martyrdom. The prayer that they bore on their lips and in their heart was ‘Let Thy grace come, and let this world pass away’. It is not that they did not love creation, but having tasted heaven in their heart, they knew that they were not made for that which is unstable and transitory. Their spirit, created for eternity, longed for boundlessness. As they lived continually in the presence of God, His grace brought the ends of the world upon them. They prayed that the end of man’s tragic history might come, yet gloriously, by entrance into the searchless infinity of God.
Until the Almighty Saviour comes again into this world, the tares shall grow together with the wheat of God. From the moment the enemy sowed them through sin, no victory, nothing good could be achieved without toil and combat, oftentimes even unto blood, following the Lord, Who courageously foresaw at the end of His path the resurrection and salvation of the world. When the trumpet shall sound the end of the world, then ‘the Lord shall consume (Satan) with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy (the sinner) with the brightness of His Presence.’[37]
As the Lord forewarned His disciples about the end of the world which would take place in His Person, so as to deter their stumbling when it should come, thus also now we must know that all things related to the Last Judgement have been prophesied and we ought to await them with courage. ‘Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.’[38] The evil servant says, ‘My Lord delayeth his coming,’[39] and the foolish virgins, while the Βridegroom tarried, ‘all slumbered and slept’ without taking ‘oil in their vessels’.[40] However, the crown belongs ‘unto all them who love His appearing’[41] and unto those who endure ‘as seeing him who is invisible’.[42] The Master does not tarry: ‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’[43] During a time of crisis and despair among the nations, when iniquity abounds, the gift of faith and expectation gestates within the faithful. Blessed is the servant who will say with trust, ‘Amen, come Lord Jesus.’
Our era is often considered to be post-Christian, but this is only because this world, in its arrogance and self-justification, has never known authentic Christianity or the true spirit of holiness. This spirit makes man a ‘new creation’ in the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity, and imparts to him a ‘royal priesthood’ wherein he presents to God every creature through his prayer of intercession.
When people are confronted with the signs of the end times, many in the world who do not know Christ are paralysed with confusion. It is a fact that in our days the dynamics of the fall have intensified to an extreme degree in the whole world. The current of Cain’s fratricide seeks to eradicate the spirit of humility and evangelical love that has the power to save the world. The passions of dishonour have developed into an art which contends to devastate even the life of God’s elect. The world goes through ‘a famine of hearing the words of the Lord’,[44] not because the word of God disappeared, but because people no longer turn to it in order to find peace. They prefer to smother the insurmountable problems of their times by ‘bread and circuses’.
The crisis that the world is currently going through has one magnificent aspect. It constitutes a true privilege and a great challenge for the Church in its work for the evangelisation and spiritual regeneration of man. The tribulations which are coming will force many souls to seek a Saviour from heaven and to find the path of salvation. This crisis is a challenge especially for us, priests, in our holy ministry to the world. The Lord speaks through the mouth of His Prophet Isaiah saying: ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.’[45]
How can we, as priests, offer to our fellow men the incorruptible consolation of the New Israel, which is none other than Christ Himself?
The Apostle Paul writes in the Epistle to the Romans that the ‘casting away’ of the Jews for their lack of faith became the cause of the ‘reconciling’ of the world.[46] Could perhaps, now also, the devastating image of the world’s turning away from God become a cause for its regeneration in faith? If this has already taken place in a few individuals and groups, could it not then be generalised and bring about the reconfiguration of the whole world? The power for this belongs to the Lord but it requires the co-operation of our humility.
In our age, which is a period of suffering, poverty, despair and great travail, people are in need of comfort. As we have said, Christ is the incorruptible consolation and salvation of the world. Christians and, more especially, the priests of God, are His humble instruments which offer this comfort to the world. Christ relates easily to them that are sick, to them that are sore broken. In His very nature He is the God of mercy and of every consolation. We need to teach the faithful to approach Him with a humble spirit and a contrite heart, and then of a surety they will be able to find contact with Him and the repose which is bestowed by the grace of His salvation.
The Church has imparted to its clergy very strong means by which we can console the people of God:
Firstly, we can encourage them to pray in His Name, because there is none other Name under heaven given to men through revelation, whereby they may be saved.[47] Through the invocation of the Name of the Lord we enter into His Presence, because His Name is inseparable from His Person, and then the power of His Presence renews us. The Name of the Lord becomes a source of comfort and regeneration. Particularly nowadays, when Christians cannot find sanctuary in the services of the Church, the Name transforms the heart into a temple not made by the hands of man, wherein Christ imparts power and peace.
Secondly, we can encourage the faithful to study the word of God. Thus, they will learn the language of God, which He used to speak to us, and they will speak to Him with the same words inspired by the Holy Spirit. In this way, the Spirit will pray within them. As through the word of the Lord all things came into being, so now, through the power of His word, the faithful are regenerated. Moreover, the word of God was not given in order to frighten man, but to instill courage within him and restore his soul. To whomever approaches it with faith, it imparts ineffable consolation and peace, as well as the strong conviction that ‘the Lord has overcome the world’[48] and is ‘with us always even unto the end of the world’.[49] His word will never pass away. Thus, He addresses to us the word that He delivered to His chosen people: ‘Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. Fear thou not; for I am with thee…for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.’[50]
Finally, under normal circumstances, we also comfort the people of God by offering them the Holy Liturgy. It is vital that in our parishes or in whichever place we serve, we draw together a nucleus of people who understand the power of the great Mystery of the Divine Eucharist. New people will continually be attracted to this core and the number of faithful will increase. We should encourage people to come to the Liturgy prepared and with a positive disposition, offering their whole life to God together with the precious gifts. When the Lord responds to the offering of His people, saying, ‘The Holy things unto the holy’, they receive in return the very Life of the Risen Lord. They have the opportunity to exchange their corruptible and desolate life with the incorruptible and blessed life of God. This exchange is indeed unequal and fearful, but also the most lovingkind at the same time. Afterwards, the faithful sing a triumphal hymn of thanksgiving and spiritual victory: ‘We have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly spirit; we have found the true faith. We worship the undivided Trinity for the same has saved us.’ This is the ever new song of the children of God who become like ‘them that dream’[51] in the Liturgy. And when it is not possible to attend the Liturgy, we accept it and strive to make the cry of our prayer reach His throne as a ‘bloodless, reasonable and acceptable’ sacrifice before Him. As Saint Silouan said: ‘We are given churches to pray in, and in church the holy offices are performed according to books. But we cannot take a church away with us, and books are not always to hand, but interior prayer is always and everywhere possible… the soul is the finest of God’ s churches, and the man who prays in his heart has the whole world for a church.’[52] When circumstances do not allow us to attend the Liturgy, God is not unjust, but grants His abundant grace to those who thirst for communion with Him and devote all their strength to finding ways of contact with him. However, if the possibility is open for us to participate in the Holy Liturgy, it would be a great delusion to consider that our own personal prayer can make up for the rich communion of gifts of God’s elect in heaven and on earth.
As priests, we are able to comfort the people who approach us by all the means through which we ourselves obtain divine consolation and peace in our heart every time we enter into the living presence of the Redeemer. As Saint Paul writes: ‘Blessed be God…Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.’[53]
However, if we desire the pastoral ministry wherewith the Church has entrusted us to be well-pleasing to the Lord and fruitful, imparting inspiration and life to the suffering people of our times, then we must be mindful to fulfil one necessary prerequisite: our every priestly work ought to be in accordance with the word of the Lord: ‘He that serveth is greater than he that sits at meat.’[54] That is to say, our ministry will have a prophetic character and we shall minister blamelessly ‘being clothed with the grace of priesthood’, when we follow in the footsteps of Him Who said: ‘I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.’[55] We as priests ought always to humble ourselves and to place ourselves lower than the people that we serve, who come to us for help, so that they may feel honoured and open their hearts to the word of grace.[56] The most perfect example of imparting the Gospel to the rejected is given by the Lord in his meeting with the Samaritan woman, a heretic who led a dissolute life. Honouring her through His humble love, He proved her to be equal to an Apostle of His word. We should never behave as those who have power, but on the contrary, as those who comfort, surrendered to the work of God, and to the humble sacrifice of love. In this way, we will justify the title ‘Father’ with which Christians address us and we will impart hope to our brethren who are in need and adversity, reviving the gift of faith in their life.
Just to support one another and preserve our faith under the apocalyptic circumstances that threaten us, is in itself a precious gift of the Holy Spirit. This is confirmed in one of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers:
‘The holy Fathers were making predictions about the last generation. They said, “What have we ourselves done?” One of them, the great Abba Ischyrion replied, “We ourselves have fulfilled the commandments of God.” The others replied, “And those who come after us, what will they do?” He said “They will struggle to achieve half our works.” They said, “And to those who come after them, what will happen?” He said, “The men of that generation will not accomplish any works at all and temptation will come upon them; and those who will be approved in that day will be greater than either us or our fathers.”[57]
As a final consideration on our subject, we will refer to the word of Saint Silouan the Athonite, ‘Keep thy mind in hell and despair not.’ Crushed by despair and the hell of demonic attacks, Silouan heard this word in his heart, which ordinarily should have crushed him even further and led him into utter despair. Nevertheless, the counterweight of faith strengthened him and opened unto him the perspective of the Gospel which is: death – resurrection, the despair of hell – the Kingdom of Light. He says with simplicity, ‘I started to do what the Lord advised me and my mind was cleansed and the Spirit witnessed in my heart to salvation.’[58]
For someone to reach the light, it is essential first to go willingly through darkness with confidence in the word of Christ. In order to enter life we must pass through death following Christ and through this life as ‘living from the dead’,[59] because only close to Christ are we able to lose our life and find it again.
Whoever voluntarily and continually judges himself in the light of Christ’s commandments, becomes stronger than any other judgment. If we confront the crisis of contemporary life with the wisdom of the Gospel, it can be transformed into a springboard for a rich entrance into eternity.
Consequently, if we encourage the faithful to turn to God with pain of heart in those days, they will be convinced that the grace of the Holy Spirit is abundant, plentiful and palpable in the life of the world, because eternity is opening up wide before us. Precisely for this event we are prepared by the word of the Lord, ‘Lift up your heads…’ ‘The time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.’[60] The great and last trial comes upon earth, but also the greatest grace which accompanies the coming of the Lord and which will bring strength for the living to be transformed and for the departed to be resurrected, in order to receive altogether the promised perfection of the Almighty Jesus in the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.