Today at the Divine Liturgy, I re-realized a few things.
The Church is alive, active, a true mother on earth, the space where the Lord works more deeply and truly than in the world or anywhere else. I'm not writing metaphorically now, but as practically as possible. Practically. That spiritual practice. The Church, a place of many kinds of graces, a place that nourishes the soul, the inner man, healing him, strengthening him. The idea of I have faith in my soul. It's a utopia. You have it, losing it without realizing. We are weak and become easy prey when we don't even realize it, like that, gradually…
Sufferings weaken us, lead us astray, some worldly spirit entices us – and so, gently and slowly, we slip away.
The Church remains steadfast, strong, the Holy Spirit works in the holy words of the Gospel and the entire Liturgy! Not to mention the Holy and Divine Communion!
I effectively felt how fragments upon fragments of soul, of mind, of meanings were being restored within my entire being. I felt a speaking power within, active in many ways and very, very personal and personalized, addressed to me. But also to each of the other faithful, similarly imparted in a personal way, I am absolutely convinced. It was the hand of Christ the Savior who caught the Peter within me, as he was drowning in his own waters, and pulled him out. Out towards light and new, salvific meanings. His hand, which forever draws me from abysses and darkness, from waters and shifting sands, towards the ever-abiding Truth! Which also is.
Then I also realized how only a week has passed and it's already too long to stay away from the work of the Church. How these unseen threads entangle minds and soul, enveloping it with cunning, like a python… how a worldly, desacralized spirit installs itself in the inner atmosphere and, if it weren't for the Grace of the Church to awaken us, to fill us in an active way with the true energy of the Holy Spirit, we would quickly go astray. And when I say „worldly spirit,” I'm not thinking of convenience, ease, and comfort of any kind. But of a certain way of looking at the surrounding realities or the Highest ones, of relating to suffering, to people, to the condition of our lives and those around us.
The other day, at my son's request, I was watching a film. Absolutely all social categories had a place there. All religions, beliefs, affiliations, concepts… including, and necessarily, the “innocent” LGBDQ, who not long ago were poor, wronged people, and now you don't have the right to do anything without integrating them with great decency. Only about God, no. God was not allowed here.
No. No God. Short, firm, the answer of man concerning the Lord. The essentialization of humanity, a micro-humanity was here. And this was its deliberation. And I was thinking: Lord, why? Many say it seems like a fairy tale (it doesn't matter that those involved don't delve deep, don't penetrate the absolutely perfect meanings of Divinity, the way the world is structured, the work, the synergy − all that for a true believer is an astonishment, a daily revelation!). But many stumble at the idea of suffering. Why do people suffer? Here too, it doesn't matter that we define our freedom as we believe, and then we don't want to assume responsibility for it, it doesn't matter that we are constituted as a whole and it's natural to suffer together. It only matters that God is either to blame for everything, or He doesn't exist. He cannot possibly exist and allow so many atrocities. This is motto of the world.
And it's so traumatizing to feel alone in the cosmos... What good is a passing life, no matter how well conceived by man, if God does not exist?! Anguish lurks from the shadow of non-being. A cold shiver, an atmosphere of nihil envelops mind, heart, psyche. A particular state haunts you inside, outside, a state that freezes your spine. It's the new spirit of the world. And then, I thought like this (maybe I was wrong, I don't know): in the world of these people, God probably truly no longer exists. Because, yes, as I was saying, in this equation, it's about Spirit. The worldly spirit versus The Spirit of God. How can the humble Spirit, respecting so much man's freedom, his choice, insistently dwell in the place from which it is cast out? You cannot serve both God and mammon. And the iniquities that the people of the world salivate over today cannot coexist with the Spirit of holiness, submission, and purity. They have no place.
Through a condescension of love, the Spirit of God, the Giver of Life, sustains the world. Yet, His communion through Grace, the feeling that assures man of His things, has withdrawn, as it was once written in the word of Scripture: „My Spirit will not remain in these people forever, for they are only flesh” (Genesis 6:3). Behold, this fatality can happen…
And we, Christians, who wish to opt for the Incarnate, Crucified, and Resurrected Truth, would do well to strengthen our bastion of faith. So as not to be steeped in this secularized and desacralized spirit that has replaced the Lord with the religion of man, with we can manage without Him. For spirits, being unseen, make the struggle unclear, and you don't know when, while man sleeps, they creep through the keyhole and mislead the inattentive, the one who flirts with this or that of the world, even considering himself a victim.
Suffering has a different face in Orthodoxy than the one promoted by the worldly spirit. It does not reduce you to an wronged and frustrated victim. In Orthodoxy, suffering lifts your forehead, crowns you, ennobles you. Blessed are those who mourn! For they will be comforted. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness! For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! My God, what can be more perfect than this?...
Suffering plays the role of catharsis - through suffering we resurrect, we do not end in non-existence! It makes us victorious and saints! We have a Lord over us, Who, without impeding man's freedom, takes the sorrowful one, defeated by the sickness of death that worldliness has brought into the world, into His paternal, divine, and eternal arms. I told myself that I must renew my Christian consciousness again and again, my relationship with the hidden Church, beyond or within walls, which is the Body of Christ through the ages. To meticulously direct my life in the Spirit of God and, through His dictionary, to translate my "happenings." There is a great need for us to also animate humanity with the Spirit of God, so that we may not be overwhelmed by the worldly spirit.
I also clearly understood today how our composition, so complex, is called to function together. Being a predominantly emotional nature, I have a tendency to experience reality more through feeling. I once wondered if I should choose between seeing the Lord and experiencing Him, what I would choose. And, yes, experiencing Him is the answer. Of course, only if I had to choose one of the two, for the fullness of encountering Him presupposes a participation of all the powers with which man has been endowed.
Today, however, I understood again how we should use all our resources to validly experience the truths of existence. From discussions with my teenage sons, I always told them that you cannot understand reality only rationally. It's a false impression to believe that understanding is determined only by reason. True understanding follows paradox, the breadth of the absurd, it follows intuition, which presupposes that inner satellite that can capture rationally inexplicable waves. We are a unitary whole, and therefore a truth that you try to explain only rationally remains invalid. Because we think of it as invalid.
Therefore, the same thing can be imputed to me if I try to live reality only through the lens of feeling exclusively in the heart. The experience of truth is where the mind (nous) unites with the feeling of the heart, through grace. And I, too, ought to be careful to use both my mind and my heart to be able to live Orthodox truth of my condition, of ours, of what the Lord sets before me. To be able to choose. To be able to rise. Here, reason is needed to say yes or no. Sometimes, the suffering as a mother overwhelms me. Because never, absolutely never, does a mother reserve immunity from her son. Her heart receives him entirely, without a spare key. And if he hurts, as only children know how, without knowing what they are doing, the mother is an unreserved prey to that suffering. In such moments, I must necessarily use my reason, to seek and choose those thoughts, those actions that reformulate me, that place me before the face of God.
Ultimately, this is what we are left with. Not with what we were born into our genetic inheritance, not with what we accumulated, not with what happened to us, but, yes, with what we chose in the name of the Lord.
We are the product of what we have chosen. We become what we choose. And, with all my powers, be they most often in the negative, with the widow's mite, I choose You, Lord of Life, of Mercy, with whom You ever draw me like Adam from the lowest hell.
Maria Tudor
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