Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Christ's miracles
20 July 1980
----
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
We constantly read about Christ's miracles in the Holy Gospels, and we
ask ourselves, "why is it that such things were possible in those
days, and yet we see so few miracles in our own day?" I think there
are three possible answers.
The first is that we do not see the miracles that surround us, we take
everything for granted, as completely natural. We receive all the good
things from the hand of God as though they were normal, and we no
longer see that life is a wonderful, joyful miracle, that God wanted
to create us, that He called us from non-being into being, laid open
before us the whole miracle of existence. Nor did He confine Himself
to this. He called us to be His friends for ever, everlastingly to
live the eternal, divine life. He revealed Himself to us; we know that
He is, we know Him in Christ as the God whose love did not falter even
in the face of His own death which was to save those He loves. And
what about those miracles that are even less obvious to us, like
health, like peace, like friendship, like love? They are all pure
miracles — you cannot buy them, you cannot force anyone to give you
his heart; and yet all around us there are so many hearts open to each
other, so much friendship, so much love. And our physical existence
which we consider so natural — is not that a miracle?
That is the first point that I wanted to make: that the whole of life
is a miracle. I know, of course, that there is much, very much pain
and horror in it, but at the same time such a quiet yet unwavering
light shines in the darkness: if only we could believe in the light,
and so become children of light, as Christ says, the bearers of light?
There are two more remarks I should like to make. Today we read that
the people were in need, that the apostles noticed this need and spoke
to the Lord about it. And the Lord said: "It is up to you to relieve
this need, to feed these hungry people". "How?" they said, "we have
only two fishes and five loaves, can that possibly be enough for such
a crowd?" And Christ blessed those fish and those loaves and it was
enough for the crowd.
So what is expected of us in order that God can freely, by His
sovereign power, perform heavenly miracles on earth? First, that we
should notice someone else's need. So often we pass by it and do not
open the door to God to allow Him to enter and do that which it is
impossible for us to do. Let us open our eyes in order to see the
needs of the people around us — material, psychological, spiritual;
the loneliness and longing and countless other needs.
And another thing that the Lord urges upon His disciples is, "give
everything that you have, and we shall be able to feed them all." The
disciples did not leave aside some fish and some bread for themselves,
they gave it all to the Lord. And because they gave everything, the
Kingdom of God, the kingdom of love, the kingdom where God can act
freely and untrammelled, was established and all were satisfied. This
call is addressed to us also: when we see want, let us give all, and
all will be well.
Now a final remark: when the paralytic about whom we read a few weeks
ago was brought to Christ He saw the people's faith and cured the sick
man. We can supply the faith that is lacking in those around us, we
can carry them on our faith as on a stretcher. But faith is not
enough; in the case of the paralytic there was not only the faith that
the Lord could heal him, but there was caring love for the sick man.
If only there were such love amongst us the beginning of the Kingdom
of God would already be established in our midst, and God could act
freely.
Let us consider this, for every one of God's miracles was introduced,
and so to speak conditioned, by the participation of man. It depends
on us that the Kingdom which we pray and long for should be
established on earth, that Kingdom which we are called on to build
together with God and in His name. Amen.
----
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
---
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Library
http://www.mitras.ru/eng/
Показаны сообщения с ярлыком Fr. Anthony. Показать все сообщения
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пятница, 5 августа 2011 г.
суббота, 9 июля 2011 г.
Шуваловское кладбище - последние новости. Олег Куликов:
Закончился сегодняшний сбор подписей. Завтра вновь у храма он продолжится с 8 утра и позже. В настоящее время мы можем подтвердить наличие 496 подписей. Но поскольку подписи собираются не в одном лишь месте, а и различными энтузиастами, распечатавшими наши подписные листы, и в библиотеках и магазинах, то я думаю их как минимум на 150-200 больше.
Благодарим всех-всех-всех, откликнувшихся от всей души на нашу беду. Вместе - мы сила. Наша задача честна и благородна: с точки зрения совести мы исполняем наш долг перед усопшими и долг сохранения исторической памяти для потомков, с точки зрения общества мы стоим на страже исполнеия закона, перед которым все равны, и никто не имеет права нарушать его безнаказанно.
Во время сбора подписей только четверо заявили своё настойчивое несогласие с нашей позицией и один из них был сам застройщик, с которым у нас состоялась конструктивная беседа, из которой мы ещё сделаем определённые выводы. Но скрывать две подробности не буду: во-первых, он обвинил нас в том, что в нашем письмо 80% - ложь (что он имел в виду - непонятно), во -вторых он заявил, что разрешение на стройку он всё равно получит. То есть, признался в том, что вновь готов нарушить закон и получить разрешение на строительство задним числом. Интересно, кто из чиновников дерзнёт дать такое разрешение, ведь закон явно уже нарушен при строительстве.
Несколько десятков человек отказались подписаться, но большинство нас от всего сердца поддержало. Была и одна очень-очень важная встреча, дающая нам значительные надежды, но о ней нам придётся пока умолчать по определённым причинам.
ПРИХОДИТЕ ВСЕ НА СХОД 11 ИЮЛЯ В 20 ЧАСОВ К ШУВАЛОВСКОМУ КЛАДБИЩУ. БУДУТ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛИ ВЛАСТИ И СМИ!!!
Благодарим всех-всех-всех, откликнувшихся от всей души на нашу беду. Вместе - мы сила. Наша задача честна и благородна: с точки зрения совести мы исполняем наш долг перед усопшими и долг сохранения исторической памяти для потомков, с точки зрения общества мы стоим на страже исполнеия закона, перед которым все равны, и никто не имеет права нарушать его безнаказанно.
Во время сбора подписей только четверо заявили своё настойчивое несогласие с нашей позицией и один из них был сам застройщик, с которым у нас состоялась конструктивная беседа, из которой мы ещё сделаем определённые выводы. Но скрывать две подробности не буду: во-первых, он обвинил нас в том, что в нашем письмо 80% - ложь (что он имел в виду - непонятно), во -вторых он заявил, что разрешение на стройку он всё равно получит. То есть, признался в том, что вновь готов нарушить закон и получить разрешение на строительство задним числом. Интересно, кто из чиновников дерзнёт дать такое разрешение, ведь закон явно уже нарушен при строительстве.
Несколько десятков человек отказались подписаться, но большинство нас от всего сердца поддержало. Была и одна очень-очень важная встреча, дающая нам значительные надежды, но о ней нам придётся пока умолчать по определённым причинам.
ПРИХОДИТЕ ВСЕ НА СХОД 11 ИЮЛЯ В 20 ЧАСОВ К ШУВАЛОВСКОМУ КЛАДБИЩУ. БУДУТ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛИ ВЛАСТИ И СМИ!!!
СБОР ПОДПИСЕЙ ПРОДОЛЖАЕТСЯ
Centurion.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Centurion
(Matt. VIII, 5-13)
1974, 30 June
----
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
The Gospel story of the centurion tells us about a men whose faith
exceeded that of the Jewish people, although he himself was a pagan. A
person dear to him was ill and he came to Christ, asking for a
miracle, asking that the Lord should have mercy on him. Christ
answered the man saying, "I will come, I will heal him."
This is where the amazing centurion’s faith was manifested. So often
when we pray, we ask the Lord insistently to come close to us, to make
His presence felt, so that we may clearly feel His power. This man
acted with great simplicity, saying to Christ, "No don't trouble
yourself to come. I am a sinful man and not worthy that you should
enter under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be
healed. One word from God - that was what the man asked for, not the
joy of contact which we all long. We ask the Lord that He should
fulfil our requests and, in addition to that, grant us the miraculous
joy of His presence. The centurion appreciated in his heart how holy
the Lord was, how great, and was ready to forgo this joy if only his
friend, his servant would recover.
Often we could turn to God and say, "Help me, Lord. I do not need to
know what is happening, nor to feel Your action; only do Your will,
silently, as it were from a distance, unnoticed by me." If only we
were able to turn to God with such faith, with such a feeling of His
holiness, how close the Lord would be. He is always close, He is
always approaching us, but we can sense Him only with a loving and
humble heart. A spark of love we sometimes have, but there is not much
humility. So if we were to turn to God and say, "Lord, let the good,
the holiness that my soul longs for be fulfilled for my dear ones, and
me you can leave out. Pass me by on your way to them”, how the Lord
would rejoice at the love which is ready to lay down its life, its
joy, for others. Amen.
Centurion
(Matt. VIII, 5-13)
1974, 30 June
----
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
The Gospel story of the centurion tells us about a men whose faith
exceeded that of the Jewish people, although he himself was a pagan. A
person dear to him was ill and he came to Christ, asking for a
miracle, asking that the Lord should have mercy on him. Christ
answered the man saying, "I will come, I will heal him."
This is where the amazing centurion’s faith was manifested. So often
when we pray, we ask the Lord insistently to come close to us, to make
His presence felt, so that we may clearly feel His power. This man
acted with great simplicity, saying to Christ, "No don't trouble
yourself to come. I am a sinful man and not worthy that you should
enter under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be
healed. One word from God - that was what the man asked for, not the
joy of contact which we all long. We ask the Lord that He should
fulfil our requests and, in addition to that, grant us the miraculous
joy of His presence. The centurion appreciated in his heart how holy
the Lord was, how great, and was ready to forgo this joy if only his
friend, his servant would recover.
Often we could turn to God and say, "Help me, Lord. I do not need to
know what is happening, nor to feel Your action; only do Your will,
silently, as it were from a distance, unnoticed by me." If only we
were able to turn to God with such faith, with such a feeling of His
holiness, how close the Lord would be. He is always close, He is
always approaching us, but we can sense Him only with a loving and
humble heart. A spark of love we sometimes have, but there is not much
humility. So if we were to turn to God and say, "Lord, let the good,
the holiness that my soul longs for be fulfilled for my dear ones, and
me you can leave out. Pass me by on your way to them”, how the Lord
would rejoice at the love which is ready to lay down its life, its
joy, for others. Amen.
суббота, 14 мая 2011 г.
Who of us is prepared to step aside...
Who of us is prepared to step aside, to become inconspicuous, or rather to help another to step
forward instead of us when we know that we will be the loosers in a
way, - in a way only because if we do this, we will have lost what is
thought we coveted but we will have become disciples of Christ who
gave His life that others may live.
Let us reflect on the story. ...
Let us become what Christ was - the One that
sets free in the name of truth and of life. Amen.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Sunday of Paralytic
7 May 1989
----
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
We have heard today in the Gospel of a man who for thirty eight years
had laid paralysed. The only thing that separated him from healing was
the possibility to reach the waters, which the angel brought into
motion once a year. Thirty eight years had he attempted to move
towards healing but someone else has been quicker than he and stolen
healing from him. How many are there now in the world, how many have
been and will be in this world of ours who need healing, who are
paralysed by fear, paralysed by all that prevents us from moving with
boldness and purpose towards fullness of life? How many? And who are
those who will take them and help them to receive healing instead of
seeking it for themselves? Let us look at ourselves, not at each other
but ourselves. What have we learnt from the Gospel?
Christ says that no-one has true love who is not prepared to give his
life for his neighbour, and the neighbour, as it is quite clear also
from the Gospel, is not the one whom we like, whom we love, who is
close to us, it is whoever needs us. Ask yourself this question. There
are number of people around you who would believe, who would gladly
start a new life, who would bless you and God for giving them courage
to move not physical but spiritual limbs that are tied. And let us ask
ourselves, what do we do, what have we done, what are we capable of
doing to help them? The waters of Siloam are an image of God, of His
healing power. When God comes close, when we become aware that He is
there, near, do we look around to see who needs Him more than we do?
No. We rush forward, we want to be those who will sit at His feet, we
are those who wish to touch the hem of His garment and be healed, we
are those - and this is even worse, - we are those who wish to be seen
as His disciples and companions so that people may look at us and
wonder, admire us, at times almost worship us, the companions of
Jesus, the friends of God become man. Who of us is prepared to step
aside, to become inconspicuous, or rather to help another to step
forward instead of us when we know that we will be the loosers in a
way, - in a way only because if we do this, we will have lost what is
thought we coveted but we will have become disciples of Christ who
gave His life that others may live.
Let us reflect on the story. It is not simply an old story about
things that happened about two thousand years ago, it is something
that is happening every day and we are those who rush forward and
prevent others from merging themselves into the healing waters of
Siloam. Let us listen to St. John the Divine, the teacher of true
love, let us be ready to sacrifice all we long for, all we desire for
someone else to have it, to be given it by God, let us be prepared to
pay the price of other people’s finding freedom, life on all levels,
even on the simplest level of food and shelter and the warmth of an
attentive gaze or a loving, sober word. Let us become free of selves,
and then how many will be saved, saved from hunger, from homelessness,
saved from the dominion of others, saved from all that is fetters and
imprisonment of life. Let us become what Christ was - the One that
sets free in the name of truth and of life. Amen.
----
CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
forward instead of us when we know that we will be the loosers in a
way, - in a way only because if we do this, we will have lost what is
thought we coveted but we will have become disciples of Christ who
gave His life that others may live.
Let us reflect on the story. ...
Let us become what Christ was - the One that
sets free in the name of truth and of life. Amen.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Sunday of Paralytic
7 May 1989
----
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
We have heard today in the Gospel of a man who for thirty eight years
had laid paralysed. The only thing that separated him from healing was
the possibility to reach the waters, which the angel brought into
motion once a year. Thirty eight years had he attempted to move
towards healing but someone else has been quicker than he and stolen
healing from him. How many are there now in the world, how many have
been and will be in this world of ours who need healing, who are
paralysed by fear, paralysed by all that prevents us from moving with
boldness and purpose towards fullness of life? How many? And who are
those who will take them and help them to receive healing instead of
seeking it for themselves? Let us look at ourselves, not at each other
but ourselves. What have we learnt from the Gospel?
Christ says that no-one has true love who is not prepared to give his
life for his neighbour, and the neighbour, as it is quite clear also
from the Gospel, is not the one whom we like, whom we love, who is
close to us, it is whoever needs us. Ask yourself this question. There
are number of people around you who would believe, who would gladly
start a new life, who would bless you and God for giving them courage
to move not physical but spiritual limbs that are tied. And let us ask
ourselves, what do we do, what have we done, what are we capable of
doing to help them? The waters of Siloam are an image of God, of His
healing power. When God comes close, when we become aware that He is
there, near, do we look around to see who needs Him more than we do?
No. We rush forward, we want to be those who will sit at His feet, we
are those who wish to touch the hem of His garment and be healed, we
are those - and this is even worse, - we are those who wish to be seen
as His disciples and companions so that people may look at us and
wonder, admire us, at times almost worship us, the companions of
Jesus, the friends of God become man. Who of us is prepared to step
aside, to become inconspicuous, or rather to help another to step
forward instead of us when we know that we will be the loosers in a
way, - in a way only because if we do this, we will have lost what is
thought we coveted but we will have become disciples of Christ who
gave His life that others may live.
Let us reflect on the story. It is not simply an old story about
things that happened about two thousand years ago, it is something
that is happening every day and we are those who rush forward and
prevent others from merging themselves into the healing waters of
Siloam. Let us listen to St. John the Divine, the teacher of true
love, let us be ready to sacrifice all we long for, all we desire for
someone else to have it, to be given it by God, let us be prepared to
pay the price of other people’s finding freedom, life on all levels,
even on the simplest level of food and shelter and the warmth of an
attentive gaze or a loving, sober word. Let us become free of selves,
and then how many will be saved, saved from hunger, from homelessness,
saved from the dominion of others, saved from all that is fetters and
imprisonment of life. Let us become what Christ was - the One that
sets free in the name of truth and of life. Amen.
----
CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
суббота, 16 октября 2010 г.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. +
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
1972
----
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
I should like to begin with a short reading from the book of
Revelation, chapters 21 and 22: «I heard a great voice from the throne
saying, 'Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with
them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them;
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no
more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain any more,
for the former things have passed away.' And He who sat upon the
throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' Also He said, 'Write
this, for these words are truthworthy and true... He who conquers
shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my
son...' 'I, Jesus, have sent my angel to you with this testimony for
the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright
morning star.' The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come'. And let him who
hears say 'Come'. And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires
take the water of life without price. ... He who testifies to these
things says, 'Surely, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The
grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen».
This is the great expectation, but this is not only expectation. The
Kingdom of God which is to come has also come with power. He has come
in many places, into many hearts, into many families, in an almost
unnoticeable way, surreptitiously, like a thief at the dead of night.
The Kingdom has come into human relationships with a new recognition
of men, with a new dimension of love, the sacrificial love of the
living God. So the Kingdom is within us, and the Kingdom is in our
midst. All things are on their way into our hearts, into our minds,
into our lives, into our will, conquering everything in us. So
embodied God is at work. He conquers, and He shall conquer.
But if we are His own people, if we are the people of God, we are
called not only to be the objects of salvation, not only to be the
recipients of grace, not only to be conquered, but we have the
privilege of being the elect of God, the chosen of God who may serve
His purpose. We are the people of God whom He can trust because we
know Him, because we worship Him in reverence and in faithfulness, to
whom He can say «Go» and who shall go; «Die», and who shall die;
«Live», and who shall live.
And at the heart of this mission of ours there are words which we have
heard twice in the course of this week at two eucharistic
celebrations: «Do this in remembrance of me». And doing this in the
context of our Sacred Liturgies, in the dividedness of the historical
Christendom, we have been painfully aware of separation while we were
amazingly aware of closeness. Is there a point where within these very
words, «Do this in remembrance of me», we can be even closer than we
imagine, even if we do not break the bread together nor share the same
cup? May I venture to say that I believe we are a great deal closer
than we imagine.
When we apply these words to the bread broken and to the cup shared,
we think in liturgical terms; and we forget that at the Last Supper
these words and this gesture stood for more than an act of fellowship,
more than for a ritual. The bread broken was an image of the Body of
Christ broken for the salvation of the world. The cup shared was an
image of the Blood of Christ spent for the life of the world. Both
stood for divine love that has become incarnate in order to
participate in all the tragedy of mankind in an act of perfect and
crucifying solidarity that mankind may be saved. And this means all
men, beginning with the faithful, as St. Paul says.
Beyond the boundaries of the liturgical action there is the
existential doing, all the things for which the breaking of bread and
the sharing of the cup stand. They stand for the act of Incarnation in
which God unites Himself to man, and indeed to the whole cosmos,
taking upon Himself all the destiny of mankind, identifying Himself
not only with His creature but with His fallen creature, and all the
conditions of man, not only to the point of life and preaching and
ministering, not only to the point of physical death but to the point
of sharing with men the only basic tragedy of mankind: the loss of God
- «My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?» - that loss of God
which is the beginning of mortality, that loss of God that kills and
that killed. The Son of God became the Son of Man in His humanity.
They stand for that solidarity of God with us which is expressed in
the anguish of the Garden of Gethsemane when Christ was facing death -
a death which had nothing to do with Him because He was life, a death
which could not be inflicted on Him because He says Himself that the
prince of this world will find nothing in Him that belongs to him, a
death which was a free gift of His life, a death which is all death
accepted and shared by Him who could not die. They stand for the
Crucifixion, the physical experience of the immortal sharing the death
of His creature, of Him who was the Son of God, in an act of
incredible solidarity, losing the sense of His oneness with the Father
and dying of it. That is what this breaking of the bread and this
sharing of the cup stand for.
This, indeed, we can do in remembrance of Him together, without any
separateness, in the historical Christian body. This we can do; we can
be incarnate, take on the flesh of this tragic world upon us, and
carry its sin as a cross. We can identify with the death of the dying
and the suffering of the sufferer, as Christ on the Mount of Olives
facing an alien death in His own flesh in an act of compassion in the
strongest sense of the word, of solidarity that goes to the point of
identification and substitution. We can face together living and dying
- dying physically, dying in health but also dying in that act of love
which is a final, total, ultimate renunciation to all that is for the
sake of the other.
And we hear the word addressed to us: «Do this in remembrance of me.»
Even if we cannot share liturgically the bread and the wine, we can
share fully and completely what it stands for and be inseparable in
the mystery of faith. The Lamb of God is broken and distributed, which
though ever broken, never is divided, says the Orthodox liturgy. This
we can achieve beyond all separations through such union, oneness with
Christ, in one body broken, in one blood shed for the salvation of the
world.
How wonderful it is to discover this! And this is truly and actually a
liturgical action because the priest is defined by the offering he
brings, and all universal priesthood is defined by the offering we
bring of our souls and our bodies, of ourselves and our lives, of
those whom we love - to be an act comparable and identifiable, indeed,
with this act of divine incarnation, of divine life, of divine
sacrifice. Sacrifice means both shedding of blood and becoming wholly
God's own, sharing His life because we will have shared His death in
our hearts, in our bodies.
So let us both grieve at the fact that our unity cannot be expressed
to the full because we are not yet mature in love, we are not mature
in understanding. But let us rejoice and thank God that we cannot be
separated either from Him or from one another in the mystery which is
defined by these wholly tragic and victorious conquering liturgical
words, «Do this in remembrance of me».
Let us pray.
Oh Christ, who didst bind Thy Apostles in a union of love, unite us
likewise, Thy sinful but trusting servants, and bind us forever to
thee and to one another. Give us bearing and strength to fulfil Thy
commandments and truly to love one another. Oh Christ, our God,
through the Father and the Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest, one
God, world without end. Amen.
----
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Library
http://www.mitras.ru/eng/
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
1972
----
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
I should like to begin with a short reading from the book of
Revelation, chapters 21 and 22: «I heard a great voice from the throne
saying, 'Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with
them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them;
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no
more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain any more,
for the former things have passed away.' And He who sat upon the
throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' Also He said, 'Write
this, for these words are truthworthy and true... He who conquers
shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my
son...' 'I, Jesus, have sent my angel to you with this testimony for
the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright
morning star.' The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come'. And let him who
hears say 'Come'. And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires
take the water of life without price. ... He who testifies to these
things says, 'Surely, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The
grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen».
This is the great expectation, but this is not only expectation. The
Kingdom of God which is to come has also come with power. He has come
in many places, into many hearts, into many families, in an almost
unnoticeable way, surreptitiously, like a thief at the dead of night.
The Kingdom has come into human relationships with a new recognition
of men, with a new dimension of love, the sacrificial love of the
living God. So the Kingdom is within us, and the Kingdom is in our
midst. All things are on their way into our hearts, into our minds,
into our lives, into our will, conquering everything in us. So
embodied God is at work. He conquers, and He shall conquer.
But if we are His own people, if we are the people of God, we are
called not only to be the objects of salvation, not only to be the
recipients of grace, not only to be conquered, but we have the
privilege of being the elect of God, the chosen of God who may serve
His purpose. We are the people of God whom He can trust because we
know Him, because we worship Him in reverence and in faithfulness, to
whom He can say «Go» and who shall go; «Die», and who shall die;
«Live», and who shall live.
And at the heart of this mission of ours there are words which we have
heard twice in the course of this week at two eucharistic
celebrations: «Do this in remembrance of me». And doing this in the
context of our Sacred Liturgies, in the dividedness of the historical
Christendom, we have been painfully aware of separation while we were
amazingly aware of closeness. Is there a point where within these very
words, «Do this in remembrance of me», we can be even closer than we
imagine, even if we do not break the bread together nor share the same
cup? May I venture to say that I believe we are a great deal closer
than we imagine.
When we apply these words to the bread broken and to the cup shared,
we think in liturgical terms; and we forget that at the Last Supper
these words and this gesture stood for more than an act of fellowship,
more than for a ritual. The bread broken was an image of the Body of
Christ broken for the salvation of the world. The cup shared was an
image of the Blood of Christ spent for the life of the world. Both
stood for divine love that has become incarnate in order to
participate in all the tragedy of mankind in an act of perfect and
crucifying solidarity that mankind may be saved. And this means all
men, beginning with the faithful, as St. Paul says.
Beyond the boundaries of the liturgical action there is the
existential doing, all the things for which the breaking of bread and
the sharing of the cup stand. They stand for the act of Incarnation in
which God unites Himself to man, and indeed to the whole cosmos,
taking upon Himself all the destiny of mankind, identifying Himself
not only with His creature but with His fallen creature, and all the
conditions of man, not only to the point of life and preaching and
ministering, not only to the point of physical death but to the point
of sharing with men the only basic tragedy of mankind: the loss of God
- «My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?» - that loss of God
which is the beginning of mortality, that loss of God that kills and
that killed. The Son of God became the Son of Man in His humanity.
They stand for that solidarity of God with us which is expressed in
the anguish of the Garden of Gethsemane when Christ was facing death -
a death which had nothing to do with Him because He was life, a death
which could not be inflicted on Him because He says Himself that the
prince of this world will find nothing in Him that belongs to him, a
death which was a free gift of His life, a death which is all death
accepted and shared by Him who could not die. They stand for the
Crucifixion, the physical experience of the immortal sharing the death
of His creature, of Him who was the Son of God, in an act of
incredible solidarity, losing the sense of His oneness with the Father
and dying of it. That is what this breaking of the bread and this
sharing of the cup stand for.
This, indeed, we can do in remembrance of Him together, without any
separateness, in the historical Christian body. This we can do; we can
be incarnate, take on the flesh of this tragic world upon us, and
carry its sin as a cross. We can identify with the death of the dying
and the suffering of the sufferer, as Christ on the Mount of Olives
facing an alien death in His own flesh in an act of compassion in the
strongest sense of the word, of solidarity that goes to the point of
identification and substitution. We can face together living and dying
- dying physically, dying in health but also dying in that act of love
which is a final, total, ultimate renunciation to all that is for the
sake of the other.
And we hear the word addressed to us: «Do this in remembrance of me.»
Even if we cannot share liturgically the bread and the wine, we can
share fully and completely what it stands for and be inseparable in
the mystery of faith. The Lamb of God is broken and distributed, which
though ever broken, never is divided, says the Orthodox liturgy. This
we can achieve beyond all separations through such union, oneness with
Christ, in one body broken, in one blood shed for the salvation of the
world.
How wonderful it is to discover this! And this is truly and actually a
liturgical action because the priest is defined by the offering he
brings, and all universal priesthood is defined by the offering we
bring of our souls and our bodies, of ourselves and our lives, of
those whom we love - to be an act comparable and identifiable, indeed,
with this act of divine incarnation, of divine life, of divine
sacrifice. Sacrifice means both shedding of blood and becoming wholly
God's own, sharing His life because we will have shared His death in
our hearts, in our bodies.
So let us both grieve at the fact that our unity cannot be expressed
to the full because we are not yet mature in love, we are not mature
in understanding. But let us rejoice and thank God that we cannot be
separated either from Him or from one another in the mystery which is
defined by these wholly tragic and victorious conquering liturgical
words, «Do this in remembrance of me».
Let us pray.
Oh Christ, who didst bind Thy Apostles in a union of love, unite us
likewise, Thy sinful but trusting servants, and bind us forever to
thee and to one another. Give us bearing and strength to fulfil Thy
commandments and truly to love one another. Oh Christ, our God,
through the Father and the Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest, one
God, world without end. Amen.
----
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Library
http://www.mitras.ru/eng/
суббота, 2 октября 2010 г.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. THE GOSPEL
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
THE GOSPEL
1 March 1989
----
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
It is of the Gospel that I wish to say a few words to you. In
countries that are nominally Christian or allegedly Christian it is
very difficult for one to recapture the true meaning of the word and
of the event of the Gospel. What is the Good News? What is new in it?
What is good in it? Those of us who discovered the Gospel as a new
life may perhaps feel that more intensely whether we are people of the
East or people of the West. What is news? O, something very wonderful
and very simple - it is life but only those who were ill can know what
it means to be whole, only those who were dead can appreciate what it
means to be alive.
In one of his broadcasts in 1943 C.S.Lewis said, “What should happen
to those who meet a Christian, a believer? They should stop arrested
by what they see and exclaim, “Lo, a statue has come to life!” That
is, something that was nothing but stone, beautiful or not, but inert,
insensitive, which could not hear or speak, of a sudden has become a
living being. Can you imagine what would happen to people if all of us
who call ourselves by the name of Christ were such that people
encountering us should say, “Look, this is a living being and because
I have met him or her I understand now that I don’t know yet what it
means to be alive. I am a corpse, I am half dead, there is no life in
me, and in these people there is life.”
I would like to single out a few elements of newness also in what one
may discover in the Gospel and to do this, I am afraid, I will be a
little too personal for the taste of Britain. I was baptised an
Orthodox when I was a child but then the first World War came, the
revolution came, the bitter and hungry and painful years of
emigration. And there was no time for me to receive any kind of
religious education so that God did not exist for me. I was not an
atheist by conviction (one is not an atheist at the age of 7 and 10,
and 12, and 15) but I was an atheist in the truer sense of the word -
there was no God in my experience, no God in my life. And therefore
there was no ultimate meaning in my life, all the meaning of life
could be summed up in the necessity of survival. There was no common
roof for my parents and me, there was food when it happened to be
there and there was a great deal of violence and hardship around. So
that all my vision of life was that of a struggle and all my
understanding of people around me was that of a jungle peopled by
prospective enemies.
And then one day I happened to read the Gospel. It happened by the act
of God as it were because it happened in order for me to discard it. I
heard a priest speak to us, boys, in a youth organisation and what he
said shocked me, revolted me so much that I decided to check whether
what he had said could possibly be true. We were teenagers, preparing
to re-conquer Russia sword in hand and here was a man who spoke of
Christ and spoke of nothing but meekness, humility, forbearance,
turning one cheek when one was hit on the other, giving us an image of
what was no manly. I came home determined to make sure and to finish
with the Gospel if that was the Gospel and that was Christ. I counted
the chapters of the Gospels because as I expected no good from the
reading I thought that the shortest would be the best and so I was
landed with St. Mark’s Gospel, a Gospel written for young ruffians
like me, the youth of pre-Christian Rome.
And then something happened to me which you may interpret either as a
hallucination or as a gift of God - between the beginning of the first
and the end of the second chapter of his Gospel, of St. Mark’s Gospel,
I suddenly became aware with total, absolute certainty that on the
other side of the desk the Lord Jesus Christ was standing alive. There
was no hallucination of the senses - I heard nothing, saw nothing,
smelt nothing, I looked and my certainty remained as total and as
totally convincing. And then I thought that if Christ is alive, if I
am in his presence, then the man who died on Calvary was truly what is
purported him to be, the man who died on Calvary was God come to us as
a Savour.
And then I began to read the Gospel with new eyes in a different way.
I turned pages simply to read other passages than the one I had read
about the beginnings and I landed on a passage that said in St.
Matthew’s Gospel that God shines his light upon the good and the evil.
And I sat back and I thought, “All my life I’ve been surrounded by
people whom I considered as enemies, who to me were like beasts of
prey, people of whom I was terrified and whom I wanted to fight,
people who had taught me that the only way of survival was to become
as hard as nails - and God loves them all. And if I want to be with
God I must learn to love them whatever they may do to me because if I
reject them I will not be with God, I will not be with Christ who on
being crucified said, “Father, forgive, they don’t know what they are
doing.” Who said to Judas who had come to betray him, “Friend, why
thou hast come hither?” I did not know these examples but that is what
I perceived.
And I remember coming out into the street the next morning, going to
the suburban train that will bring me to my school and crowds of
people to their work and I looked round at all these people moving
towards the station that had been so alien, that were to me
prospective danger, tormentors, enemies, whom I wanted to ignore and
fight if necessary, I looked at them and thought, “God loves them all!
O, the wonder! - we are in a world of love. Whatever they may feel
about me I know what they may not know themselves”. This was my first
experience, this was a moment when I suddenly felt that I was alive
and that I had been dead. I had been a corpse among corpses, now I was
alive among people who, who knows, perhaps were as alive as I, or,
horror of horrors, were corpses that needed come to life. And with the
foolishness of a boy of 14-15, pressed in these carriages of the
suburban train I turned to my neighbour and said, “Have you ever read
the Gospel?” He looked at me condescendly, smiled and said, ‘Now, why
should I?” And then I told him what I had just discovered. He probably
thought I was mad. And I was and I am still and I hope that this
madness will never leave me because from that moment onward I felt
there was no point in life except in whatever way of life, in whatever
walk of life you are to proclaim the Gospel, to proclaim this miracle
that the Gospel is a power of life, that Christ can give us life. And
by contrast that as long as we are not possessed of the life which
Christ can give we are dead whatever we imagine.
And then I discovered other things. I discovered the parable of the
prodigal son and that was such a wonderful experience because that
corroborated what I have felt within myself. Twice does the father
say, “My son, your brother was dead and he is now alive.” He says that
to the servants, he says that to the older son, he knew what it meant
to be alive, and he knew what it meant to be dead. The prodigal son
knew also what it meant to die and to resurrect. He was partaker after
a fashion in the experience of Lazarus who had come to life after
having, tasted death. The older son did not know that, in his
imagination his younger brother had gone into the far country, enjoyed
life seeing things which he, faithful servant, slave, hireling of his
father, had never seen. Perhaps was he jealous of him but he certainly
did not feel that he missed or had lost anything. And so what was
there to be rejoiced at when he came back? And why was it that the
father was so happy to see him back instead of saying, “No, you have
squandered all my goods, go and earn your living.” He did not know
what it meant to be dead because he had never been alive.
And then I discovered something more. I discovered an answer (o, that
didn’t come immediately) to a question that puzzled me - how could it
be that God could know what it means to be a creature? How could the
Immortal One know what it means to be dead? What could the Eternal One
know how one can lose even the transitory, ephemeral life which is
ours? And then I realised that God in his Incarnation had become one
with our creatureliness, he had not only a human body and a human
soul, he had inherited this body and soul from generations back, he
was the heir of centuries and centuries of humanity, of real, concrete
people. He was true man, the only true man because to be a true man
means to be a man in perfect oneness with God, partaker of divine
nature, as Peter the Apostle puts it in his Epistle. The union of
divinity and humanity had made his humanity not less human but more
truly human. He knew what it meant to be a human being, he knew what
it meant to be alive. Did he know what it meant to be dead?
Later I discovered the Cross. On the same evening, turning pages (the
way I put it now of course could not have been the thing I perceived
and put it when I was a boy in my middle teens) what I discovered was
this - that Christ had chosen as it were simultaneously to be totally
solid with God and totally solid with man, at one with God, at one
with man. And that had two tragic consequences - because he stood
before man in God’s name, in total solidarity with him, without any
compromise, he had become inacceptable to all those who were not
prepared to accept God on his terms, on God’s own terms, to be God’s
own people in a real full, sacrificial, heroic sense. And because he
has chosen to remain in total, ultimate solidarity with man before the
face of God he had to share with mankind all the predicament of being
a creature, of living in fallen world, of being a man who had brought
through sin mortality and death. And so he had to be rejected by
mankind, he had to die outside of the city of men as the Anglican hymn
has it “on the little hill without the walls,” not within Jerusalem,
not within the company of men, outside, like the scrape-goat who was
loaded with the sins of Israel and cast out to die in the wilderness.
On the other hand he could not die because in his very humanity
inseparably, perfectly united to his divinity there was no space for
dying and yet, he chose to share with us the only ultimately tragic
predicament of mankind - He chose mortality and death and this he did
on the Cross, something happened that he became unaware of his unity
with the Father and having lost God he had to die, he could die and he
could go down into the pit, into the Hades, into sheol of the Old
Testament, the place of the irremediable and ultimate separation from
God. He came down into it as a man and he filled it with the glory of
his divine presence, harrowing hell, making an end to it. He had
united God and man in his person, he called every human being to unite
himself to him and through him to become the son or the daughter of
God. What a marvel, what a wonder!
That is what the Gospel meant to me when I began to discover it. And I
ask you to look at it with the eyes of one who was alien to the
Gospel, who knew nothing about it and to ask yourself, “What is there
in the Gospel which is new to you, not yet ever experienced, never
known and what is in the Gospel which is so good that one can turn...
----
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Library
http://www.mitras.ru/eng/
THE GOSPEL
1 March 1989
----
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
It is of the Gospel that I wish to say a few words to you. In
countries that are nominally Christian or allegedly Christian it is
very difficult for one to recapture the true meaning of the word and
of the event of the Gospel. What is the Good News? What is new in it?
What is good in it? Those of us who discovered the Gospel as a new
life may perhaps feel that more intensely whether we are people of the
East or people of the West. What is news? O, something very wonderful
and very simple - it is life but only those who were ill can know what
it means to be whole, only those who were dead can appreciate what it
means to be alive.
In one of his broadcasts in 1943 C.S.Lewis said, “What should happen
to those who meet a Christian, a believer? They should stop arrested
by what they see and exclaim, “Lo, a statue has come to life!” That
is, something that was nothing but stone, beautiful or not, but inert,
insensitive, which could not hear or speak, of a sudden has become a
living being. Can you imagine what would happen to people if all of us
who call ourselves by the name of Christ were such that people
encountering us should say, “Look, this is a living being and because
I have met him or her I understand now that I don’t know yet what it
means to be alive. I am a corpse, I am half dead, there is no life in
me, and in these people there is life.”
I would like to single out a few elements of newness also in what one
may discover in the Gospel and to do this, I am afraid, I will be a
little too personal for the taste of Britain. I was baptised an
Orthodox when I was a child but then the first World War came, the
revolution came, the bitter and hungry and painful years of
emigration. And there was no time for me to receive any kind of
religious education so that God did not exist for me. I was not an
atheist by conviction (one is not an atheist at the age of 7 and 10,
and 12, and 15) but I was an atheist in the truer sense of the word -
there was no God in my experience, no God in my life. And therefore
there was no ultimate meaning in my life, all the meaning of life
could be summed up in the necessity of survival. There was no common
roof for my parents and me, there was food when it happened to be
there and there was a great deal of violence and hardship around. So
that all my vision of life was that of a struggle and all my
understanding of people around me was that of a jungle peopled by
prospective enemies.
And then one day I happened to read the Gospel. It happened by the act
of God as it were because it happened in order for me to discard it. I
heard a priest speak to us, boys, in a youth organisation and what he
said shocked me, revolted me so much that I decided to check whether
what he had said could possibly be true. We were teenagers, preparing
to re-conquer Russia sword in hand and here was a man who spoke of
Christ and spoke of nothing but meekness, humility, forbearance,
turning one cheek when one was hit on the other, giving us an image of
what was no manly. I came home determined to make sure and to finish
with the Gospel if that was the Gospel and that was Christ. I counted
the chapters of the Gospels because as I expected no good from the
reading I thought that the shortest would be the best and so I was
landed with St. Mark’s Gospel, a Gospel written for young ruffians
like me, the youth of pre-Christian Rome.
And then something happened to me which you may interpret either as a
hallucination or as a gift of God - between the beginning of the first
and the end of the second chapter of his Gospel, of St. Mark’s Gospel,
I suddenly became aware with total, absolute certainty that on the
other side of the desk the Lord Jesus Christ was standing alive. There
was no hallucination of the senses - I heard nothing, saw nothing,
smelt nothing, I looked and my certainty remained as total and as
totally convincing. And then I thought that if Christ is alive, if I
am in his presence, then the man who died on Calvary was truly what is
purported him to be, the man who died on Calvary was God come to us as
a Savour.
And then I began to read the Gospel with new eyes in a different way.
I turned pages simply to read other passages than the one I had read
about the beginnings and I landed on a passage that said in St.
Matthew’s Gospel that God shines his light upon the good and the evil.
And I sat back and I thought, “All my life I’ve been surrounded by
people whom I considered as enemies, who to me were like beasts of
prey, people of whom I was terrified and whom I wanted to fight,
people who had taught me that the only way of survival was to become
as hard as nails - and God loves them all. And if I want to be with
God I must learn to love them whatever they may do to me because if I
reject them I will not be with God, I will not be with Christ who on
being crucified said, “Father, forgive, they don’t know what they are
doing.” Who said to Judas who had come to betray him, “Friend, why
thou hast come hither?” I did not know these examples but that is what
I perceived.
And I remember coming out into the street the next morning, going to
the suburban train that will bring me to my school and crowds of
people to their work and I looked round at all these people moving
towards the station that had been so alien, that were to me
prospective danger, tormentors, enemies, whom I wanted to ignore and
fight if necessary, I looked at them and thought, “God loves them all!
O, the wonder! - we are in a world of love. Whatever they may feel
about me I know what they may not know themselves”. This was my first
experience, this was a moment when I suddenly felt that I was alive
and that I had been dead. I had been a corpse among corpses, now I was
alive among people who, who knows, perhaps were as alive as I, or,
horror of horrors, were corpses that needed come to life. And with the
foolishness of a boy of 14-15, pressed in these carriages of the
suburban train I turned to my neighbour and said, “Have you ever read
the Gospel?” He looked at me condescendly, smiled and said, ‘Now, why
should I?” And then I told him what I had just discovered. He probably
thought I was mad. And I was and I am still and I hope that this
madness will never leave me because from that moment onward I felt
there was no point in life except in whatever way of life, in whatever
walk of life you are to proclaim the Gospel, to proclaim this miracle
that the Gospel is a power of life, that Christ can give us life. And
by contrast that as long as we are not possessed of the life which
Christ can give we are dead whatever we imagine.
And then I discovered other things. I discovered the parable of the
prodigal son and that was such a wonderful experience because that
corroborated what I have felt within myself. Twice does the father
say, “My son, your brother was dead and he is now alive.” He says that
to the servants, he says that to the older son, he knew what it meant
to be alive, and he knew what it meant to be dead. The prodigal son
knew also what it meant to die and to resurrect. He was partaker after
a fashion in the experience of Lazarus who had come to life after
having, tasted death. The older son did not know that, in his
imagination his younger brother had gone into the far country, enjoyed
life seeing things which he, faithful servant, slave, hireling of his
father, had never seen. Perhaps was he jealous of him but he certainly
did not feel that he missed or had lost anything. And so what was
there to be rejoiced at when he came back? And why was it that the
father was so happy to see him back instead of saying, “No, you have
squandered all my goods, go and earn your living.” He did not know
what it meant to be dead because he had never been alive.
And then I discovered something more. I discovered an answer (o, that
didn’t come immediately) to a question that puzzled me - how could it
be that God could know what it means to be a creature? How could the
Immortal One know what it means to be dead? What could the Eternal One
know how one can lose even the transitory, ephemeral life which is
ours? And then I realised that God in his Incarnation had become one
with our creatureliness, he had not only a human body and a human
soul, he had inherited this body and soul from generations back, he
was the heir of centuries and centuries of humanity, of real, concrete
people. He was true man, the only true man because to be a true man
means to be a man in perfect oneness with God, partaker of divine
nature, as Peter the Apostle puts it in his Epistle. The union of
divinity and humanity had made his humanity not less human but more
truly human. He knew what it meant to be a human being, he knew what
it meant to be alive. Did he know what it meant to be dead?
Later I discovered the Cross. On the same evening, turning pages (the
way I put it now of course could not have been the thing I perceived
and put it when I was a boy in my middle teens) what I discovered was
this - that Christ had chosen as it were simultaneously to be totally
solid with God and totally solid with man, at one with God, at one
with man. And that had two tragic consequences - because he stood
before man in God’s name, in total solidarity with him, without any
compromise, he had become inacceptable to all those who were not
prepared to accept God on his terms, on God’s own terms, to be God’s
own people in a real full, sacrificial, heroic sense. And because he
has chosen to remain in total, ultimate solidarity with man before the
face of God he had to share with mankind all the predicament of being
a creature, of living in fallen world, of being a man who had brought
through sin mortality and death. And so he had to be rejected by
mankind, he had to die outside of the city of men as the Anglican hymn
has it “on the little hill without the walls,” not within Jerusalem,
not within the company of men, outside, like the scrape-goat who was
loaded with the sins of Israel and cast out to die in the wilderness.
On the other hand he could not die because in his very humanity
inseparably, perfectly united to his divinity there was no space for
dying and yet, he chose to share with us the only ultimately tragic
predicament of mankind - He chose mortality and death and this he did
on the Cross, something happened that he became unaware of his unity
with the Father and having lost God he had to die, he could die and he
could go down into the pit, into the Hades, into sheol of the Old
Testament, the place of the irremediable and ultimate separation from
God. He came down into it as a man and he filled it with the glory of
his divine presence, harrowing hell, making an end to it. He had
united God and man in his person, he called every human being to unite
himself to him and through him to become the son or the daughter of
God. What a marvel, what a wonder!
That is what the Gospel meant to me when I began to discover it. And I
ask you to look at it with the eyes of one who was alien to the
Gospel, who knew nothing about it and to ask yourself, “What is there
in the Gospel which is new to you, not yet ever experienced, never
known and what is in the Gospel which is so good that one can turn...
----
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Library
http://www.mitras.ru/eng/
среда, 15 сентября 2010 г.
ON COMMUNION AND LIFE
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
ON COMMUNION AND LIFE
August 1971
----
In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
We hear week after week the Lord saying, ‘Do this in remembrance of
Me’, and we always apply these words, and rightly so, to the
celebration of the Last Supper, to the breaking of the bread, to the
sharing of the cup, to the holy meal which Christ had with His
disciples.
And we are right to do so because it was the prefiguration of the
Banquet of the Lamb, of the great feast of eternity, because all of us
we have been created by God in order to be His companions for
eternity; and a companion is one who breaks the bread with us, who is
received at the host's table, who is made an equal to his host by this
law of hospitality and of love.
And the Last Supper was this; Christ broke the bread and shared the
cup, He made His disciples unto His companions and, as this bread and
wine were Him, He united His companions to Himself in an unspeakable
way to be one body and one life.
But the words which Christ told, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me’ do not
apply only to the last Supper, to the holy and divine Liturgy which we
celebrate. What He was doing in the Upper Room was also an image of
what His life and death were. The breaking of the bread was the
breaking of His body, the sharing of the cup was the shading of His
blood, and what was signified in the last Supper was the Garden of
Gethsemane with the anguish and the horror of the coming death upon
Him Who was free of evil and yet chose to share with us our destiny of
dereliction and mortality, and of Calvary, the actual dying for the
salvation of others, — more than this: the dying of their death so
that they should share and possess His life.
And if we are to take in earnest what we do here, week after week,
feast after feast, celebrating the Last Supper of the Lord, breaking
the bread together and sharing the cup, we must remember that this act
makes us one with each other, because we become so one with Christ,
but also that all that is true of the life and the sacrificial death
of Christ must become true for us and in us. We must so live as Christ
lived for others, we must so die as Christ died, that others may live.
We must so ascend from life into this sacrificial generous life-giving
death as Christ did, and this lays upon us a heavy, a stern and
glorious responsibility.
Let us take it earnestly, because otherwise our celebration is empty
of meaning. We cannot come day after day and ask Christ to let us
become partaker of what happens in the Upper Room if we accept to be
estranged, to be alien to what it stood for His life, His incarnation,
His teaching, His facing the coming death, His dying our death that we
may live.
Let us think about it and reconsider all our relationships with
others, rethink all our attitude to those who are around us. Do we
live for their sake? Is our life an offering? Are we like the Apostles
of whom Paul spoke in today's Epistle, like men sent in the last times
to bring a witness of love and pay the cost for it, so that life
should be theirs, should belong to those who surround us whether they
love or hate us, and death should be ours, the death of Christ,
sacrificial, holy, an offering of love, brought not only to God, but
to each person who needs it. Amen.
ON COMMUNION AND LIFE
August 1971
----
In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
We hear week after week the Lord saying, ‘Do this in remembrance of
Me’, and we always apply these words, and rightly so, to the
celebration of the Last Supper, to the breaking of the bread, to the
sharing of the cup, to the holy meal which Christ had with His
disciples.
And we are right to do so because it was the prefiguration of the
Banquet of the Lamb, of the great feast of eternity, because all of us
we have been created by God in order to be His companions for
eternity; and a companion is one who breaks the bread with us, who is
received at the host's table, who is made an equal to his host by this
law of hospitality and of love.
And the Last Supper was this; Christ broke the bread and shared the
cup, He made His disciples unto His companions and, as this bread and
wine were Him, He united His companions to Himself in an unspeakable
way to be one body and one life.
But the words which Christ told, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me’ do not
apply only to the last Supper, to the holy and divine Liturgy which we
celebrate. What He was doing in the Upper Room was also an image of
what His life and death were. The breaking of the bread was the
breaking of His body, the sharing of the cup was the shading of His
blood, and what was signified in the last Supper was the Garden of
Gethsemane with the anguish and the horror of the coming death upon
Him Who was free of evil and yet chose to share with us our destiny of
dereliction and mortality, and of Calvary, the actual dying for the
salvation of others, — more than this: the dying of their death so
that they should share and possess His life.
And if we are to take in earnest what we do here, week after week,
feast after feast, celebrating the Last Supper of the Lord, breaking
the bread together and sharing the cup, we must remember that this act
makes us one with each other, because we become so one with Christ,
but also that all that is true of the life and the sacrificial death
of Christ must become true for us and in us. We must so live as Christ
lived for others, we must so die as Christ died, that others may live.
We must so ascend from life into this sacrificial generous life-giving
death as Christ did, and this lays upon us a heavy, a stern and
glorious responsibility.
Let us take it earnestly, because otherwise our celebration is empty
of meaning. We cannot come day after day and ask Christ to let us
become partaker of what happens in the Upper Room if we accept to be
estranged, to be alien to what it stood for His life, His incarnation,
His teaching, His facing the coming death, His dying our death that we
may live.
Let us think about it and reconsider all our relationships with
others, rethink all our attitude to those who are around us. Do we
live for their sake? Is our life an offering? Are we like the Apostles
of whom Paul spoke in today's Epistle, like men sent in the last times
to bring a witness of love and pay the cost for it, so that life
should be theirs, should belong to those who surround us whether they
love or hate us, and death should be ours, the death of Christ,
sacrificial, holy, an offering of love, brought not only to God, but
to each person who needs it. Amen.
суббота, 4 сентября 2010 г.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
WHO CAN BE SAVED?
10 October 1967
May God grant us to overgrow our weakness and our illusory strength,
to unlearn the false creativeness that has made the world in which we
live so frightening, and to learn that alert, vigilant suppleness and
frailty through which God can work freely and build the Kingdom of
God, beginning and within the city of man.
WHO CAN BE SAVED?
10 October 1967
May God grant us to overgrow our weakness and our illusory strength,
to unlearn the false creativeness that has made the world in which we
live so frightening, and to learn that alert, vigilant suppleness and
frailty through which God can work freely and build the Kingdom of
God, beginning and within the city of man.
вторник, 23 марта 2010 г.
How can I deal with my sinful condition?
In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
So often we ask ourselves and one another a very tormenting question:
How can I deal with my sinful condition? What can I do? I cannot avoid
committing sins, Christ alone is sinless. I cannot, for lack of
determination, or courage, or ability truly repent when I do commit a
sin, or in general, of my sinful condition. What is left to me? I am
tormented, I fight like one drowning, and I see no solution.
And there is a word which was spoken once by a Russian staretz, one of
the last elders of Optina. He said to a visitor of his: No one can
live without sin, few know how to repent in such a way that their sins
are washed as white as fleece. But there is one thing which we all can
do: when we can neither avoid sin, nor repent truly, we can then bear
the burden of sin, bear it patiently, bear it with pain, bear it
without doing anything to avoid the pain and the agony of it, bear it
as one would bear a cross, ≈ not Christ's cross, not the cross of true
discipleship, but the cross of the thief who was crucified next to
Him. Didn't the thief say to his companion who was blaspheming the
Lord: We are enduring because we have committed crimes; He endures
sinlessly... And it is to him, because he had accepted the punishment,
the pain, the agony, the consequences indeed of evil he had committed,
of being the man he was, that Christ said, ▒Thou shalt be with Me
today in Paradise.▓
I remember the life of one of the divines, the story of one who had
come to him and have said that he had led all his life a life that was
evil, impure, unworthy both of God and of himself; and then he had
repented, he has rejected all evil he had done; and yet, he was in the
power of the same evil. And the divine said to him: There was a time
when you lapped up all this filth with delight; now you perceive it as
filth and you feel that you are drowning in it with horror, with
disgust. Take this to be your reward for your past, and endure.
This is something which all of us can do: to endure the consequences,
to endure the enslavement which is our patiently, humbly, with a
broken heart; not with indifference, not with a sense that as we are
abandoned to it by God, then, why not sin? But taking it as a healing
perception of what sin is, of what it does to us, of the horror of it.
And if we patiently endure, a day will come when our inner rejection
of sin will bear fruit, and when freedom will be given us.
So, if we can, in all the ways we can, let us avoid sin in all its
forms, even those sins which seem to be so unimportant, because the
slightest crack in a dam sooner or later leads to its bursting. If we
can ≈ let us truly repent, that is turn away from our past in a
heroic, determined act; but if we can do neither of them ≈ let us
carry humbly and patiently all the pain and all the consequences. And
this will also be accounted one day by the Lord Who in a folkloric
life of Moses, in response to His angels saying, ▒How long shall you
endure their sins▓ ≈ the sins of the Jews in the wilderness, answered:
▒I will reject them when the measure of their sins will exceed the
measure of their suffering▓.
Let us therefore accept the pain as a redeeming pain, even if we
cannot offer it as pain pure of stain. Amen.
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Library
http://www.mitras.ru/eng/
----
So often we ask ourselves and one another a very tormenting question:
How can I deal with my sinful condition? What can I do? I cannot avoid
committing sins, Christ alone is sinless. I cannot, for lack of
determination, or courage, or ability truly repent when I do commit a
sin, or in general, of my sinful condition. What is left to me? I am
tormented, I fight like one drowning, and I see no solution.
And there is a word which was spoken once by a Russian staretz, one of
the last elders of Optina. He said to a visitor of his: No one can
live without sin, few know how to repent in such a way that their sins
are washed as white as fleece. But there is one thing which we all can
do: when we can neither avoid sin, nor repent truly, we can then bear
the burden of sin, bear it patiently, bear it with pain, bear it
without doing anything to avoid the pain and the agony of it, bear it
as one would bear a cross, ≈ not Christ's cross, not the cross of true
discipleship, but the cross of the thief who was crucified next to
Him. Didn't the thief say to his companion who was blaspheming the
Lord: We are enduring because we have committed crimes; He endures
sinlessly... And it is to him, because he had accepted the punishment,
the pain, the agony, the consequences indeed of evil he had committed,
of being the man he was, that Christ said, ▒Thou shalt be with Me
today in Paradise.▓
I remember the life of one of the divines, the story of one who had
come to him and have said that he had led all his life a life that was
evil, impure, unworthy both of God and of himself; and then he had
repented, he has rejected all evil he had done; and yet, he was in the
power of the same evil. And the divine said to him: There was a time
when you lapped up all this filth with delight; now you perceive it as
filth and you feel that you are drowning in it with horror, with
disgust. Take this to be your reward for your past, and endure.
This is something which all of us can do: to endure the consequences,
to endure the enslavement which is our patiently, humbly, with a
broken heart; not with indifference, not with a sense that as we are
abandoned to it by God, then, why not sin? But taking it as a healing
perception of what sin is, of what it does to us, of the horror of it.
And if we patiently endure, a day will come when our inner rejection
of sin will bear fruit, and when freedom will be given us.
So, if we can, in all the ways we can, let us avoid sin in all its
forms, even those sins which seem to be so unimportant, because the
slightest crack in a dam sooner or later leads to its bursting. If we
can ≈ let us truly repent, that is turn away from our past in a
heroic, determined act; but if we can do neither of them ≈ let us
carry humbly and patiently all the pain and all the consequences. And
this will also be accounted one day by the Lord Who in a folkloric
life of Moses, in response to His angels saying, ▒How long shall you
endure their sins▓ ≈ the sins of the Jews in the wilderness, answered:
▒I will reject them when the measure of their sins will exceed the
measure of their suffering▓.
Let us therefore accept the pain as a redeeming pain, even if we
cannot offer it as pain pure of stain. Amen.
* All texts are copyright: Estate of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Library
http://www.mitras.ru/eng/
----
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