THE WITNESS TO A LIVING GOD Part IV

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

THE WITNESS TO A LIVING GOD [Part IV]

‘When the monk possesses the grace of repentance,
he knows the true God, and not some idea of God.’

The God of the Gospels is Immanuel; "God with us." He is with us and we are capable of experiencing Him. Ours is not unapproachable God of the philosophers. He is not the "absolute being" of Western scholasticism. Rather, He is God Who, while abiding unapproachable in His secret essence, yet comes forth out of Himself by His active will and infinite love, to meet and unite Himself with man. The distinction between God’s hidden being and His active presence has always been maintained by the Orthodox Church. However, while it appears in the works of many Holy Fathers of the Church, it was the Athonite Saint, Gregory Palamas, who first taught it systematically in the 14th century, in order to defend the reality of the Saints’ experience of God as light. Saint Gregory’s teaching was quickly and formally accepted by the Church, who recognized in his writings its own faith. We feel it is no exaggeration to say this Saint’s teaching is a great blessing for the world. Why? Because IT INSISTS THAT THE BELIEVER, ONCE HAVING BECOME CLEANSED OF THE PASSIONS AND HAVING BECOME A PARTICIPANT IN THE HOLY MYSTERIES (SACRAMENTS), IS CAPABLE OF RECEIVING A DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF GOD, OF SEEING THE UNCREATED LIGHT OF THE HOLY TRINITY — THE SAME LIGHT WHICH THE HOLY APOSTLES BEHELD AT THE LORD’S TRANSFIGURATION ON MOUNT TABOR (Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36).
God ENTERS THE WORLD THROUGH HIS UNCREATED ENERGIES. He thus endows it with existence, preserves and directs it. HE IS PRESENT IN HIS CREATION.

If, however, God were essence, or being alone, without His Divine energies, if grace were a created thing–as Western (Roman Catholic)Scholastics tell us — then man would be incapable of knowing Him directly, of seeing Him, of becoming a God himself, for a created thing (grace) cannot deify the creature (man). Neither could God Himself be present within creation, nor could He be personally at work within it. Just as the relentless laws of nature must replace an uncreated joy not present in nature, even so the absence of uncreated grace from the life of the Church and of Christians creates a need for an ethical and legal system whose head is the Pope.

• A God Who does not deify man; such a God can have no interest for us, whether He exists or not. I believe that this goes far to explain the wave of atheism in the West, as well as the building of science and philosophy on an atheistic foundation. It is surely a sorry thing that we Orthodox also, influenced by Western Europe, are ignorant of and indeed sometimes even condemn Saint Gregory Palamas and other Holy Fathers of the Church. This results in our substituting ethical conduct and a rationalistic idealist theology for the ascetical and pastoral Orthodox teaching of theosis (deification. The former approach leads directly to an ‘accidental Christianity’ and finally TO ATHEISM.

Many of our young people, weary of both MATERIALISM and IDEOLOGY, are seeking MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE EITHER IN THE TEACHINGS OF ORIENTAL RELIGIONS OR IN THE ARTIFICIAL PARADISE OF DRUGS. Why this drift? Because they think that Orthodoxy is exclusively a matter of ceremonial and public declarations. They are ignorant of the mystical and sober tradition of the Philokalia, of the prayer of the heart which affords believers entry into the experience of the Divine: "BLESSED ARE THE PURE OF HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD."

Yet this way of prayer is still taught on Athos today. We know it as the way of revelation within the heart, within the center of each person’s being. It is A CLEANSING OF PASSIONS, A TURNING OF THE MIND INWARD INTO THE HEART, THE UNION OF HEART AND MIND WITH CHRIST BY WHICH THE UNION WITH GOD MAY AFTERWARD FOLLOW THE WITNESS OF A WAY OF LIFE CENTERED ON THE GOD-man. CHRIST.

REPENTANCE and KNOWLEDGE of the Living God permit the Christian, and particularly the monk of Athos, to direct his freedom toward the actual CENTER and SOURCE OF LIFE, the TRIUNE GOD. If one would live not anthropocentrically, HE MUST CENTER HIS LIFE ON CHRIST. When someone lives centered on God he lives "EUCHARISTICALLY." That is to say; HE RECEIVES OTHER PEOPLE AND THE THINGS OF LIFE AS GOD’S GIFTS TO HIS LIFE. He GIVES BOTH TO THE LORD WITH THANKSGIVING, IN RETURN OFFERING HIS OWN SELF TO GOD, AND TO GOD’S CHILDREN. The bread and wine SUMMARIZE WHAT WE ARE, AND WHAT WE LIVE BY: "THINE OWN OF THINE OWN WE OFFER TO THEE, THROUGH ALL AND FOR ALL" [Divine Liturgy].

The Lord receives gifts and offers us in return His own Body and Blood, i.e., His Life. Thus the life of God BECOMES OUR LIFE. As communcants of the Divine Life, we are enabled TO LIVE AUTHENTICALLY … TRULY SPIRITUALLY.

God in Christ, Who is SACRIFICED and OFFERED for us, gladdens the Christian as he partakes of the Holy Eucharist, and so he helps him to attain the Divine "LIKENESS" — WHICH IS THE SHARING IN CHRIST’S SACRIFICE OF LOVE OFFERED TO HIS BRETHREN. Therefore, to say that: "I LIVE THEOCENTRICALLY", ECCLESIASTICALLY, SACRIFICIALLY. [Resources: The Eros of Repentance]

(To be continued)

________________
"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George