Is There Spiritual Life and Sanctity Today?
The V. Revd. Archimandrite Kyrillos, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Essex
Your
All-Holiness, Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Fellow Ministers,
brothers and sisters in Christ I wish first of all to thank
His All-Holiness for his invitation to participate in this
Conference, and for the opportunity to speak on the theme: Is there
spiritual life and sanctity today?
My immediate answer to both
parts of this question is a very affirmative "Yes". God
does not change. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and
forever. And the nature of human beings has not changed either. Since
Adam, humans are dignified with such a power over their own destiny
that they can to a great degree turn their backs on God, on spiritual
life, on the quest for holiness. But until the end of the world,
there will always be people who, even if they are in the minority,
will call down God's grace upon the earth and their fellow
humans. That the world continues is proof that there is holiness
today. Saint Silouan said, "I tell you that when there are no
more men of prayer on earth, the world will come Wan end."
In other words, spiritual life, and holiness, which is its fruit, do
not exist only in the past. We can see holiness in our predecessors
and learn from them, but we are not examining spiritual life like an
exhibit in a historical museum. It is a living reality to which we
are all called. Every human being has a spiritual dimension. God is
not partial: He calls each one into existence with personal love, and
endows each human with the potential to share His own life. St Peter
using the terminology of his time said that we are called to "become
partakers of the divine nature" [2 Peter 1:4]. And that is what
holiness is: "Be holy, for I am Holy, and I will that you have
all that I have, unreservedly." This is God's invitation
to us all, whatever our place in society, or our rank in the Church:
the rank of the laity, or that of the clergy. St Silouan writes:
"Everyone in this world has his task to perform, be he king or
patriarch, cook, blacksmith or teacher, but the Lord Whose love
extends to everyone of us will give greater reward to the man whose
love for God is greater." And again: "Not everyone can be
an emperor or a prince; not everyone can be a patriarch or an abbot,
or a leader; but in every walk of life we can love God and be
pleasing to Him, and only this is important."
Spiritual life
is life which takes into account the spiritual dimension of human
beings. Working at our relationship with God is not like a hobby for
a certain category of person. As people say, "He or she is the
religious type". It is not an optional extra. It is what makes
our life really human. Biology and psychology, when they exclude the
divine input into the human make-up, give an incomplete picture.
Secular man is merely a superior animal, and actually subhuman.
Without spiritual effort we will not cultivate our spirit. It cannot
be obliterated, but it can be stifled and atrophied, ignored or
denied. Only if we live a life which is spiritual will we ever be
fully ourselves, fully reintegrated as persons. Spiritual life
includes our psychological and our physical aspects. What I think and
do on every level of existence affects my soul. And when my soul is
touched by God's grace, my thinking, my feeling and my body are
also blessed.
Especially in Western countries, many people
have abandoned Christianity. An English author (G.K. Chesterton)
wisely said that where people stop believing in the truth, they do
not start to believe in nothing, they start to believe in anything.
Thus although belief in God may remain when Christ is abandoned, in
every country nowadays one can meet all kinds of spiritualities. This
is not surprising, because "man cannot live on bread alone",
and spiritual hunger exists even where ideas about the Absolute Being
are confused.
Furthermore, many differing spiritual paths have
features in common. There is, for example, a core of ethical teaching
common to the major faiths. The radical differences between religions
do not always show at the beginning of the path: only when people go
further do the divergences become clear. Some of our contemporaries
teach that the further you go in any religion, the closer the paths
converge: but actually the opposite is true. So those who are seeking
must seek for truth, and find the path which is based, on right
theology, on a true vision of God as He Himself has revealed Himself
to us. Then our deepest intuition will confirm that indeed Jesus
Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The fullness of life in
God is only accessible in the God-man, that is, in the One who shares
our human nature as well as having Divine Nature, as One of the Holy
Trinity. The Orthodox Church gives us a true Prototype: we can see,
and hear, and touch, and taste, the Absolute Being; we can experience
the fragrance of God's actual Being. Thus we can go to the end
of the Church's path with confidence. No other path, however
noble its practices, its morals, and its aspirations, goes safely to
the very end. Though nobody is totally bereft of grace, fullness of
sanctity presupposes orthodox doctrine. Our teaching is unsurpassed;
it is not out of date. It has borne fruit in many different ages and
circumstances and cultures. Orthodoxy is for everyone; we can
understand why Tertullian said that "every soul is innately
Christian".
Thus spiritual life could be defined as
"life in Christ". Let us dwell on this for a moment. This
phrase has been used as the title of a book by St. Nicholas Cabasilas
about the Sacraments. Echoing him, the great wonderworker, St. John
of Kronstadt, who was a married priest living in Russia and who
reposed in 1905, gave a similar title to his "spiritual
diary" when he was asked to publish it. An almost contemporary
author called one of the books where he shared his spiritual insights
His that is, Christ's Life is Mine. To be "in
Christ" means to be incorporated into His actual Body, and to
be anointed with His Spirit Christ means "the Anointed
One" and adopted as a child of His Heavenly Father.
Christian faith is not only saying "yes" to the Creed. It
means "putting on Christ" [Gal. 3:27]. How? By Baptism,
which, precisely, is preceded by a confession of faith. We easily
take this great gift for granted, but those who are converted in the
mission field or as adults can tell us from their experience that it
is a passage from darkness to light, from death to life. We sometimes
forget that at Baptism the priest said over us, "Thou art
washed, thou art sanctified, thou art justified, in the Name of the
Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." These magnificent
words, borrowed from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, can
seem like a mere ritual formula if we neglect to actualize the divine
gift of Grace in our life. The seed of spiritual life has been sown
in us. We "are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints"
[1 Cor. 1:2]. That is our task.
If we are certain that we "have
found the true faith", we have nothing to fear from the
plethora of spiritual paths around us, even though it seems
confusing. "For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of
power, and of love, and of a sound mind" [2 Tim. 1:7]. If we
remain faithful, and continually enrich our experience and knowledge
of the Church's life and teaching, we will be all the better
fitted to help our contemporaries.
The basic question is always: What
do you think of Christ? St John reminded his correspondents that, "By
this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that
does not confess that Jesus Christ is [the divine Lord] come in the
flesh is not of God" [1 John 4:2]. Of course, our exposition of what
we think of the Lord will be humble, not arrogant with
self-assurance; it will be full of love and gratitude. Saint Silouan
says. "God is love, and therefore the preaching of His word
must always proceed from love. Then both preacher and listener will
profit. But if you do nothing but condemn, the soul of the people will
not heed you, and no good will come of it.
Certainly, not
everyone is called to be a full-time preacher, but whoever witnesses
to Christ will be speaking of One who has made it possible for all
humans to become true persons.
Spiritual life is, according to
Orthodox doctrine, a collaboration between our free will and the will
of God. The best ambassadors of Christ will be those whose spiritual
life in Him has prepared them to speak prayerfully, so that others
will want them to explain their belief. "Sanctify the Lord God
in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man
that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and
fear". [1 Pet. 3:15] If we conform to the path on which
alone we can acquire what St Paul daringly calls the mind of Christ,
it does not mean that our individuality gets lost.
Our God is One in
Nature and Three in Persons. Our Fathers teach us that we do not
divide the Nature or confuse the Persons. And so it is to be when
humanity is one as God is one. If the world lived in Christ, His
commandments would be the first goal of each person: love for God and
for each other. Therefore each person would be, not dissolved, but
affirmed and fulfilled in loving relationships.
It is very
instructive to read about holy people, canonised saints and others,
such as the twentieth-century holy elders, Iakovos, Porphyrios, and
many more. I mention those from the last century because it is almost
"today", and a century of great suffering. I have in mind
recognised holy men and women, because saints do not wear a
self-advertising label: "Look at me! I"m a saint!" The
path of Christ is one of humility, and some were honoured as holy
while on earth, while some were not.
Our Church wisely does not bestow
official recognition on someone until they have passed through the
gates of death, and even then usually not quickly. So it is too soon
to speak of twenty-first century saints. But if we only look at the twentieth
century, there is such a variety of personalities, educational
levels, degrees of piety in youth, religious backgrounds, and so on.
Then there are many different life paths that led to holiness. Mount
Athos has given the world many great saints such as Silouan, who
reposed in 1938; but not all the twentieth-century saints were in
monasteries. There are the millions of martyrs and confessors
men, women and children from the Soviet Union; there is a
parish priest such as St. Nicholas Planas, and the new Parisian
saints, Maria [Skobtsova] and Dimitri [Klepinin]. There is St.
Nectarios, whose astounding miracles show that our God is a living God,
and is at work until now. There are many who bore suffering with
faith, and even if they are not famous, they are now reaping their
reward and praying for the world.
All of these holy people went to
the same services and accepted the same Creed. Yet they vary like a
garden with many kinds of flowers. They present us with proof that
God is with us and accessible to us all here and now.
Those with a
scientific training know that proofs come mainly through experiment.
The best way for us all to answer the question posed by His
All-Holiness to us today is to experience for ourselves that "if
you live after the flesh, you shall die, but if through the Spirit
you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." "The flesh",
and "the deeds of the body", mean here the sinful
energies such as hatred, pride, lust and other passions, which cause
disintegration and close the door against the Spirit of God.
Spiritual life will involve some "mortification" for all
of us. One example of this is the fasts that we undertake together at
certain periods of the Church year, precisely to help us to pray and
to cleanse our heart of sinful passions. St. Paul goes on to say that,
"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear;
but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, 'Abba,
Father'." "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that
we are the children of God" [Rom. 8: 13-16]. When "the Spirit of
glory and of God rests upon us" [I Pet. 4:14], then it will be
evident that there is spiritual life and sanctity today.
This was a talk given at the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople Second Orthodox Youth Conference, July 11-16, 2007.
Posted with permission on 11/12/2007.
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