Nikolai Velimirovich: God the Holy Spirit Caresses Us in the Heart of Our Very Being Sunday, May 19 2013

“The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16).

He who has the Spirit of God in himself – only he has the witness that he is the child of God.

Without the Spirit of God there is no such witness. Not even the entire universe can give this witness.

The universe, alone, without the Spirit of God – what else does it witness to us other than that we are its slaves, its victims, which it unmercifully swallows?

In essence, the pagans thought that also. The opponents of God today, do they not think likewise? They do think so.

For indeed, it is difficult to take that thought away from man who did not recognize the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Witness of Heaven.

The same apostle says: “For you have not received the spirit of bondage” (Romans 8:15). What is this spirit of bondage? It is every other spirit except the Spirit of God, Who Christ the Lord sends to those who love Him.

The spirit of bondage is the spirit of materialism, the spirit of fortune-telling, the spirit of naturalism, the spirit of pessimism, the spirit of despair, the spirit of vice.

Only the Spirit of God is the All Holy Spirit of adoption and freedom.

O what happiness, O what peace, O what joy when the Spirit of God cuddles in the cleansed heart of man as a sparrow does in its nest!

Then our hope opens hundreds of doors in the prison of the universe and our embrace, wider than the universe, stretches out to the One Who is greater and more merciful than the universe.

To Whom? To the Father! And then we cry out: “Abba, Father!” (Romans 8:15).

The witness of God, which comes through the eyes, can even lead us to doubt that we are the children of God.

But, the witness which comes to us from the heart, from the Spirit of God, does not leave even the slightest doubt.

God witnesses about God. What kind of doubt can there be? God the Holy Spirit caresses us in the heart of our very being.

Can there be any kind of doubt there? No; for then we know and feel completely confident that God is the Father and we, the children of God. No one’s servants, no one’s slaves, rather the children of God.

O Lord God, Holy Spirit come abide in us and remain with us as a Witness of the Trinity and the Kingdom, as a Witness of the immortal Paradise.

Nikolai Velimirovich (1880-1956; Orthodox Church): Prologue from Ohrid, May 21st.

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Benedict XVI: We Enter Heaven when We Draw Close to Jesus and Enter into Communion with Him Wednesday, May 8 2013

“As they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).

This is the mystery of the Ascension that we are celebrating today. But what do the Bible and the Liturgy wish to tell us by saying that Jesus “was lifted up”?

We cannot understand the meaning of these words from a single text or from a single book of the New Testament but rather by listening attentively to the whole of Sacred Scripture.

In fact the verb “to lift up” was originally used in the Old Testament and refers to royal enthronement. Thus Christ’s Ascension means in the first place the enthronement of the Crucified and Risen Son of Man, the manifestation of God’s kingship over the world.

However, there is an even deeper meaning that is not immediately perceptible. In the passage from the Acts of the Apostles it is said first that Jesus was “lifted up” (v. 9) and then it says “taken up” (v. 11).

The event is not described as a journey to on high but rather as an action of the power of God who introduces Jesus into the space of closeness to the Divine.

The presence of the cloud that “took him out of their sight” (v. 9), recalls a very ancient image of Old Testament theology and integrates the account of the Ascension into the history of God with Israel, from the cloud of Sinai and above the tent of the Covenant in the desert, to the luminous cloud on the mountain of the Transfiguration.

To present the Lord wrapped in clouds calls to mind once and for all the same mystery expressed in the symbolism of the phrase, “seated at the right hand of God”.

In Christ ascended into Heaven, the human being has entered into intimacy with God in a new and unheard-of way; man henceforth finds room in God for ever.

“Heaven”: this word Heaven does not indicate a place above the stars but something far more daring and sublime: it indicates Christ himself, the divine Person who welcomes humanity fully and for ever, the One in whom God and man are inseparably united for ever.

Man’s being in God, this is Heaven. And we draw close to Heaven, indeed, we enter Heaven to the extent that we draw close to Jesus and enter into communion with him.

For this reason today’s Solemnity of the Ascension invites us to be in profound communion with the dead and Risen Jesus, invisibly present in the life of each one of us.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): Homily on the Solemnity of the Ascension, 2009.

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Nikolai Velimirovich: Being “in Adam” and “in Christ” Tuesday, Apr 30 2013

“For just as in Adam all die, so too, in Christ, shall all be brought to life” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Following Adam’s example, life is sown in shame, and following Christ’s example, life is raised in glory.

Sin is from Adam and justice is from Christ. Weakness and death come from Adam and strength and life come from Christ.

Accordingly, in Adam we all die. Accordingly, in Christ, we shall all be brought to life.

That one is the earthly man [Adam], this one is the heavenly man [Christ]. That is the bodily man [Adam] and this is the spiritual man [Christ].

Christ did not resurrect for His sake but for our sake – just as He did not die for His sake but for our sake.

If His resurrection does not signify our resurrection, then His resurrection is bitterness and not sweetness.

Where, then, would the love of God be? Where, then, would the meaning of our miserable earthy experience be? What, then, would be the purpose of Christ’s coming to earth?

There, where Adam ends, Christ begins. Adam ends up in the grave and Christ begins with the resurrection from the grave.

Adam’s generation, i.e., the seed underground that rots and decays, does not see the sun, does not believe that it can emerge from beneath the earth to blossom into a green plant with leaves, flowers and fruit.

Christ’s generation is a green field upon which wheat grows, turns green, becomes covered with leaves, blossoms and bears much fruit.

“In Adam” does not only mean that we will die one day, rather it means that we are already dead; dead to the last one.

“In Christ” does not only mean that we will revive one day, but rather that we are already alive, i.e., that the seed in the ground has already begun to germinate and to break through to the light of the sun.

The complete expression of death is in the grave, but the complete expression of eternal life is in the kingdom of God.

The mind of the sons of Adam are in accordance with death, reconciled with being decayed and sink even deeper into the ground.

The mind of the sons of Christ rebel against death and decay and exert all the more, to burgeon a man toward the light, which the Grace of God helps.

O resurrected Lord, sober the minds of all the sons of man that they would flee from darkness and destruction and reach out toward the light and life eternal which is in You.

Nikolai Velimirovich (1880-1956; Orthodox Church): Prologue from Ohrid, April 11th.

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Benedict XVI: “He is the Image of the Invisible God” Friday, Apr 26 2013

(On Colossians 1:15-20)

The Greek term eikon, “icon”, is dear to the Apostle: in his Letters he uses it nine times, applying it both to Christ, the perfect icon of God (cf. II Cor 4:4), and to man, the image and glory of God (cf. I Cor 11:7).

However, by sin, men and women “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images representing mortal man” (Rom 1: 23), choosing to worship idols and become like them.

We must therefore continuously model our being and life on the image of that of the Son of God (cf. II Cor 3:18), so that we may be “delivered…from the dominion of darkness” and “transferred… to the Kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1: 13).

This is a first imperative in this hymn: to model our life on the image of the Son of God, entering into his sentiments, his will and his thoughts.

Christ is then proclaimed the “firstborn” of “all creation” (v. 15). Christ is before all things (cf. v. 17) because he has been begotten since eternity, for “all things were created through him and for him” (v. 16). The ancient Jewish tradition also says that “the whole world was created in view of the Messiah” (Sanhedrin, 98b).

For the Apostle, Christ is the principle of coherence (“in him all things hold together”), the mediator (“through him”) and the final destination toward which the whole of creation converges.

He is the “firstborn of many brothers” (Rom 8: 29), that is, the Son par excellence in the great family of God’s children, into which we are incorporated by Baptism.

At this point, our gaze turns from the world of creation to that of history. Christ is “the Head of the Body, the Church” (Col 1: 18); he already became this through his Incarnation.

Indeed, he entered the human community to support it and make it into a “body”, that is, in harmonious and fruitful unity. Christ is the root, the vital pivot and “the beginning” of the coherence and growth of humanity.

Precisely with this primacy Christ can become the principle of the resurrection of all, the “firstborn from the dead”, so that “in Christ all will come to life again”: first Christ, the first fruits; then, at his coming, all those who belong to Christ (cf. I Cor 15:22-23).

The Canticle draws to a close celebrating the “fullness”, in Greek pleroma, which Christ possesses in himself as a gift of love of the Father. It is the fullness of divinity that shines out, both in the universe and in humanity, becoming a source of peace, unity and perfect harmony (Col 1: 19-20).

[...] By pouring out his Blood and giving himself, Christ has spread peace, which in biblical language is a synthesis of the Messianic goods and saving fullness extended to the whole of created reality.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): Commentary on the Psalms and Canticles of Vespers (General Audience, 7th September 2005).

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Hilarion Troitsky: My Sinful Illness is Curable—the Resurrection of Christ Convinces Me of This Friday, Apr 26 2013

Together with Christ, our human nature has passed through the mysterious gates of death. Death reigns, but not forever!

Death was terrible to the human race before Christ’s death, but after Christ’s resurrection, man became terrible to death, for One of us has conquered death; He did not remain in the tomb, and did not see corruption.

Passover was the freeing of Israel from Egypt. One of us has conquered death; He did not remain in the tomb, and did not see corruption.

Passover was the freeing of Israel from Egypt. Passover was the freeing of Israel from Egypt. Our Pascha frees us from the slavery of death and corruption.

Christ is risen! I now know that my salvation is truly wrought. I know that God truly appeared on earth…. Who has passed through the doors of death? It can only be God.

This means that God was truly incarnate on earth, truly brought the healing cure against the corruption that corrodes and torments me. Incarnation and resurrection are united into one.

The incarnation gave meaning to the resurrection, and the resurrection irrefutably convinces us of its truth and reality as something that is not a phantom or a dream. Now I am no longer frightened by death, for I have seen the victory over corruption.

I also see a different law other than the law of life working in me—I see the law of death and corruption. I see how sin reigns over me at times. But I know that this reign has been shaken, that my situation is not hopeless.

I can now hope for victory, I can hope to overcome sin, I can hope for freedom from slavery to corruption. Now I can look with joy upon the podvig of struggle with sin and passions, for the enemy has been conquered many times by ascetical strugglers.

The saints of God shine in the heavens of the Church like stars—those who lived on the earth, conquered sin, attained purity and chastity, which is incorruption, and therefore departed rejoicing upon the way of all the earthly.

Incorruption, that is, purity and chastity, gives joy. [...] My sinful illness is curable—the resurrection of Christ convinces me of this. To me is opened the blessedness of paradise.

Let no one lament his poverty when entering the Kingdom of all! Joy has come to all, because hope for incorruption, for redemption from sinful corruption, has also come.

Christ God has brought us out of death into life. Egypt is left behind, Pharaoh has perished, and the Promised Land and incorrupt Kingdom lay ahead—where there are many abodes, and where the rejoicing is endless! Pascha of incorruption! Salvation of the world!

Hilarion Troitsky (1886-1929; Russian Orthodox): From his three-volume work, published by Sretensky Monastery [in Russian]Translated by Nun Cornelia (Rees) @ Pravoslavie.

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Leo the Great: “The Sufferings of the Present Time are not Worthy to be Compared with the Future Glory which shall be Revealed in Us” Sunday, Feb 24 2013

(Following on from here…)

And in this Transfiguration the foremost object was to remove the offence of the cross from the disciple’s heart, and to prevent their faith being disturbed by the humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them the excellence of His hidden dignity.

But with no less foresight, the foundation was laid of the Holy Church’s hope, that the whole body of Christ might realize the character of the change which it would have to receive, and that the members might promise themselves a share in that honour which had already shone forth in their Head.

About this the Lord had Himself said, when He spoke of the majesty of His coming, “Then shall the righteous shine as the sun in their Father’s Kingdom.”

And the blessed Apostle Paul bears witness to the self-same thing, and says:  “for I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us;”

and again, “for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  For when Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”

[...] Moses and Elias, that is the Law and the Prophets, appeared talking with the Lord.

[...] St John says, “the law was given through Moses:  but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ,” in Whom is fulfilled both the promise of prophetic figures and the purpose of the legal ordinances.

For He both teaches the truth of prophecy by His presence, and renders the commands possible through grace.

The Apostle Peter…, being excited by the revelation of these mysteries, despising things mundane and scorning things earthly, was seized with a sort of frenzied craving for the things eternal.

Filled with rapture at the whole vision, he desired to make his abode with Jesus in the place where he had been blessed with the manifestation of His glory.

Whence also he says, “Lord, it is good for us to be here:  if thou wilt let us make three tabernacles, one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.”

But to this proposal the Lord made no answer, signifying that what he wanted was not indeed wicked, but contrary to the Divine order.

For the world could not be saved, except by Christ’s death, and by the Lord’s example the faithful were called upon to believe that, although there ought not to be any doubt about the promises of happiness, yet we should understand that amidst the trials of this life we must ask for the power of endurance rather than the glory, because the joyousness of reigning cannot precede the times of suffering.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 51, 3-5.

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Clement of Alexandria: Christ Deifies Man by Heavenly Teaching, Writing His Laws on Our Hearts Friday, Feb 1 2013

Hail, O light!

For in us, buried in darkness, shut up in the shadow of death, light has shone forth from heaven, purer than the sun, sweeter than life here below.

That light is eternal life; and whatever partakes of it lives.

[...] For “the Sun of Righteousness”… has changed sunset into sunrise, and through the Cross brought death to life.

And having wrenched man from destruction, He has raised him to the skies, transplanting mortality into immortality, and translating earth to heaven….

He has bestowed on us the truly great, divine, and inalienable inheritance of the Father, deifying man by heavenly teaching, putting His laws into our minds, and writing them on our hearts.

What laws does He inscribe? “That all shall know God, from small to great;” and, “I will be merciful to them,” says God, “and will not remember their sins.”

Let us receive the laws of life, let us comply with God’s expostulations; let us become acquainted with Him, that He may be gracious.

And though God needs nothing let us render to Him the grateful recompense of a thankful heart and of piety, as a kind of house-rent for our dwelling here below.

[...] Will you not allow the heavenly Word, the Saviour, to be bound on to you as an amulet, and, by trusting in God’s own charm, be delivered from passions which are the diseases of the mind, and rescued from sin?—for sin is eternal death.

[...] But it is truth which cries, “The light shall shine forth from the darkness.” Let the light then shine in the hidden part of man, that is, the heart.

And let the beams of knowledge arise to reveal and irradiate the hidden inner man, the disciple of the Light, the familiar friend and fellow-heir of Christ.

[...] I urge you to be saved. This Christ desires. In one word, He freely bestows life on you. And who is He? …

The Word of truth, the Word of incorruption, that regenerates man by bringing him back to the truth—the goad that urges to salvation—He who expels destruction and pursues death—He who builds up the temple of God in men, that He may cause God to take up His abode in men.

Cleanse the temple; and pleasures and amusements abandon to the winds and the fire, as a fading flower; but wisely cultivate the fruits of self-command, and present yourself to God as an offering of first-fruits, that there may be not the work alone, but also the grace of God.

And both are requisite, that the friend of Christ may be rendered worthy of the kingdom, and be counted worthy of the kingdom.

Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215): Exhortation to the Heathen, 11. 

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Hippolytus of Rome: The Fountain of Life that Gushes with Healing Saturday, Jan 12 2013

Continued from here…

Give me now your best attention…, for I wish to go back to the fountain of life, and to view the fountain that gushes with healing.

The Father of immortality sent the immortal Son and Word into the world, who came to man in order to wash him with water and the Spirit.

And He, begetting us again to incorruption of soul and body, breathed into us the breath (spirit) of life, and endued us with an incorruptible panoply.

If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God. And if he is made God by water and the Holy Spirit after the regeneration of the laver he is found to be also joint-heir with Christ after the resurrection from the dead.

Wherefore I preach to this effect…: Come into liberty from slavery, into a kingdom from tyranny, into incorruption from corruption.

And how…shall we come? How? By water and the Holy Ghost.

This is the water in conjunction with the Spirit, by which paradise is watered, by which the earth is enriched…, by which man is begotten again and endued with life, in which also Christ was baptized, and in which the Spirit descended in the form of a dove.

This is the Spirit that at the beginning “moved upon the face of the waters;” by whom the world moves; by whom creation consists, and all things have life; who also wrought mightily in the prophets, and descended in flight upon Christ.

This is the Spirit that was given to the apostles in the form of fiery tongues. This is the Spirit that David sought when he said, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Of this Spirit Gabriel also spoke to the Virgin, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.”

By this Spirit Peter spoke that blessed word, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

By this Spirit the rock of the Church was stablished. This is the Spirit, the Comforter, that is sent because of thee, that He may show thee to be the Son of God.

Come then, be begotten again, O man, into the adoption of God.

[...] He who comes down in faith to the laver of regeneration, and renounces the devil, and joins himself to Christ; who denies the enemy, and makes the confession that Christ is God; who puts off the bondage, and puts on the adoption,

—he comes up from the baptism brilliant as the sun, flashing forth the beams of righteousness, and, which is indeed the chief thing, he returns a son of God and joint-heir with Christ.

Hippolytus of Rome (c.170-c.236): Discourse on the Theophany, 8-10.

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Seraphim of Sarov: The Holy Spirit Acts Within Us and Establishes in Us the Kingdom of God Wednesday, Jan 2 2013

If we were never to sin after our baptism, we should remain forever saints of God, holy, blameless, and free from all impurity of body and spirit.

But the trouble is that we increase in stature, but do not increase in grace and in the knowledge of God as our Lord Jesus Christ increased.

On the contrary, we gradually become more and more depraved and lose the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and become sinful in various degrees, and very sinful people.

But if a man is stirred by the wisdom of God, which seeks our salvation and embraces everything, and if he is resolved for its sake to devote the early hours of the day to God and to watch in order to find His eternal salvation, then, in obedience to its voice, he must hasten to offer true repentance for all his sins and must practice the virtues which are opposite to the sins committed.

Then through the virtues practiced for Christ’s sake, he will acquire the Holy Spirit Who acts within us and establishes in us the Kingdom of God.

The word of God does not say in vain: “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), and it “suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matt. 11:12)….

People who – in spite of the bonds of sin which fetter them and which by their violence and by inciting them to new sins prevent them from coming to…our Savior – …force themselves to break their bonds, despising all the strength of the fetters of sin…at last actually appear before the face of God made whiter than snow by His grace.

“Come, says the Lord: Though your sins be as purple, I will make you white as snow” (Is. 1:18).

Such people were once seen by the holy Seer John the Divine clothed in white robes (that is, in robes of justification) and with palms in their hands (as a sign of victory), and they were singing to God a wonderful song: Alleluia.

And no one could imitate the beauty of their song. Of them an Angel of God said: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9-14).

They were washed with their sufferings and made white in the communion of the immaculate and life-giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the most pure and spotless Lamb – Christ – Who was slain before all ages by His own will for the salvation of the world (Rev..13:8), and Who is continually being slain and divided until now, but is never exhausted (in the Sacrament of Communion).

Seraphim of Sarov (Orthodox Church; 1759-1833): On the Acquisition of the Holy Spirit.

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Gregory of Sinai: The Kingdom of Heaven as the Liturgy of the Deified Thursday, Dec 20 2012

The kingdom of heaven is like the tabernacle which was built by God, and which He disclosed to Moses as a pattern (cf. Exodus 25:40); for it too has an outer and an inner sanctuary.

Into the first will enter all who are priests of grace. But into the second – which is noetic [of the illuminated intellect] – will enter only those who in this life have attained the divine darkness of theological wisdom and there as true hierarchs have celebrated the triadic liturgy, entering into the tabernacle that Jesus Himself has set up, where He acts as their consecrator and chief Hierarch before the Trinity, and illumines them ever more richly with His own splendour.

By “many dwelling-places” (John 14:2) the Saviour meant the differing stages of spiritual ascent and states of development in the other world; for although the kingdom of heaven is one, there are many different levels within it.

That is to say, there is place for both heavenly and earthy men (cf. 1 Cor. 15:48) according to their virtue, their knowledge and the degree of deification that they have attained. “For there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41); and yet all of them shine in a single divine firmament.

You partake of angelic life and attain an incorruptible and hence almost bodiless state when you have cleansed your intellect through tears, have through the power of the Spirit resurrected your soul even in this life, and with the help of the Logos [i.e. Christ the Word] have made your flesh – your natural human form of clay – a resplendent and fiery image of divine beauty.

[...] The land of the gentle (Ps. 37: 11) is the kingdom of heaven. Or else it is the theandric [fully divine and fully human] state of the Son, which we have attained or are in the process of attaining, having through grace been reborn as sons of God into the new life of the resurrection.

Or again, the holy land is our human nature when it has been divinized or…the land granted as an inheritance (cf. Numbers 34:13) to those who are truly saints, the untroubled and divine serenity and the peace that transcends the intellect (cf. Phil. 4:7) – the land wherein the righteous dwell quietly and unmolested.

The promised land is dispassion, from which spiritual joy flows like milk and honey (cf. Exod. 13:5). The saints in heaven hold inner converse together, communicating mystically through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Gregory of Sinai (1260s–1346): On Commandments and Doctrines, chs 43-45, 47-49, Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4 (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979ff), pp. 220-221.

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