At the Monastery of Saint Savvas the Sanctified, Judean Desert
December 2017
A new day begins. I didn't know what was to come, just as I don't know now as I write. At exactly 8 o'clock, Father C. came, as he had told me, and knocked on my door – this double iron door of my cell, short and blue, with bars on the outside. Once closed, inside you find peace. Like in a womb, like in the belly of the whale, from where I should be conceived in Christ, to resurrect and be born. It is a physical, concrete peace, but also one of thoughts, because, having no electricity or GSM signal, I am not burdened by the intrusive presence of the phone. I caught myself casting my enslaved gaze upon it, a reflex acquired in the world, and it mocked me: 'What do you want, huh? Why are you looking at me? You're looking in vain. I have no life. I have nothing to give you. I can't help you with anything'.
I am firmly convinced that, in order to gain a minimal experience of prayer, of banishing thoughts and directing the mind towards the One God, I need, at least from time to time, to spend a few days in retreat, somewhere at a metochion forgotten by the world, without ties to it. I know well that this metochion can also be my heart, but external conditions are also necessary, such as the phone being turned off, and the possibility of having discussions with people not existing. Ties with the world must be physically severed so that we can open ties with the world of eternity that we await, with the Kingdom of Heaven. I am sinful and unworthy of it, but I ask as a gift from the Lord at least this retreat from time to time, at an appointed time. I merely ask for it, I don't take it upon myself, for now.
Here, in the land of Israel, you gain much insight concerning many words. From now on, every word in the Gospel will have a different meaning, I will experience every word differently, on three planes, because I will link the physical places to the deep meanings of the Gospel, but also to my own experiences I've had here, to this love that liberates me, even if only a little, as much as I, the insensitive one, feel it. So, first of all, I will be able to link the evangelical word to a physical space of the event in which it was spoken, a space that has a specific atmosphere that you can only imagine from home. From now on, I will see the holy places on the map of my mind, that I will be in Bethlehem, at the Pool of Bethesda, on Golgotha, in the Small Tomb... and so on, all of them, but I will also see the 'human land' upon which the Lord's words fell, these unparalleled peoples, I will see the Pharisee and scribal Jews with their hardened hearts (woe is me, how much I resemble them, what a hidden scribe and Pharisee I have become!), but also the Arabs with their cries, with their warm blood, with their golden gods. Here the word and the stone are linked, the word-stone that the builders placed as the cornerstone or the stone upon which one will fall and be shattered[1], because here everything is only stone. These stone mountains are like hills, and from here Christ uttered His saving word, like a stone falling upon my stony heart.
Then I learned again what is the mountain with the dense shade[2], what is a garden like Gethsemane, what a cave means, a tomb. We understand differently when we say 'cave' – caves are rare for us, cold and damp, and tombs are in the ground. Here the cave is a cool shelter, a ready-built house. Here everything is stone, everything is a tomb, everything is a cave. The Cave of the Nativity can be a tomb at any time. I also understood the significance of the word water in this place where water (the substance without which you cannot live, cannot wash yourself) is so scarce and precious. How precious then will be a womb from which will issue forth springs of living water[3]?... This chasm between thirst and water, you see it differently. A terrible thirst for God quenched by springs of living water. Everything is experienced at other levels: another thirst, other springs. There is no place for the lukewarm.
This very place, Jerusalem, inspires me to seek You with hunger, with longing and thirst, without giving rest to my eyelids. Lord, the parables have a different power after you see these wonderful and terrifying places!
Mircea Stanciu
Excerpt from "The Journal of Healing," a book forthcoming from Bonifaciu Publishing House
In the photo: Mircea in Sinai (December 2017)
[1] Cf. Matthew 21:42,44.
[2] Reference to the Fourth Ode from the Katavasias of the Nativity of the Lord: „A rod from the root of Jesse and a flower from it, O Christ, from the Virgin You have sprung forth, the praised One from the densely shaded mountain...”.
[3] See John 7:38: „He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly”.