At the Doors of Holy Lent E-Book

Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou)

• Herausgeber: Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

During the period before the Triodion and the Sundays which mark its beginning, the Church sets forth before our eyes various lessons through the Gospel readings: the grateful Leper, the Blind Man of Jericho, Zacchaeus, the good and faithful Servant of the ‘Talents’, the Canaanite woman, the Publican, the Prodigal Son and the Righteous on Judgment Day. Through some word, or deed, or attitude, these people all attracted God’s gaze upon them. They became the target of His visitation and traversed centuries in an instant. These suffering souls, who had withered away either because of sin or because of not knowing the true God, came into the presence of the Lord and ‘a spiritual sun, the name of which is persona’, began to rise in them.
Their attitude and their words are concrete examples of a right presentation before the Holy of Holies. In this way, the Church guides us, knowing the struggle which we are encouraged to undertake in order to find our deep heart, so that we may also become persons in the sight of our Creator and Judge, and targets of His visitation. Yet, the Church also knows our desire not to fail to enter into the presence of the Risen Lord. The path is trodden. The constant principles are laid out with clarity, and we must keep them in our conscience as our polar star, as pearls of great price. We must embrace them so that they may render our labours fruitful not only during Great Lent, but also throughout our lives.

Leseprobe

 

AT THE DOORS OF HOLY LENT

 

ARCHIM. ZACHARIAS ZACHAROU

AT THE DOORS OF HOLY LENT

STAVROPEGIC MONASTERY OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST ESSEX, ENGLAND

 

Digital Creation-Design

website: www.presence.gr

email: [email protected]

 

AT THE DOORS OF HOLY LENT

© 2021 The Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex, UK

ISBN 978-1-909649-63-7, Hardback edition eBook Edition

https://presence.gr/ebook/at-the-doors-of-holy-lent

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Printed in Greece by Lyhnia A.E.

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CONTENTS

Introductory note

PREPARING FOR THE TRIODION

‘Behold, O Lord, I come before Thee’

THE SUNDAY OF THE TEN LEPERS

Multiplying the Gifts of God through Thanksgiving

THE SUNDAY OF THE BLIND MAN OF JERICHO

Thirst for the True Light

THE SUNDAY OF ZACCHAEUS

Bearing Shame for Our Sin as Thanksgiving to God

THE SUNDAY OF THE TALENTS

Honouring the Gifts of God

THE SUNDAY OF THE CANAANITE WOMAN

The Merciful Chastening of Christ

THE ANTECHAMBER OF HOLY LENT

Utterly humbled by our spiritual poverty, we come to ourselves in order to ascend to God

THE SUNDAY OF THE PUBLICAN AND THE PHARISEE

The Genuine Power and Truth of Humility

THE SUNDAY OF THE PRODIGAL SON

The Ineffable Goodness of the Father

The Return to the House of the Father

The Theology of the Body

THE SUNDAY OF THE LAST JUDGMENT

The Judgment of Love

The Surprise of Joy and the Dismay of Just Recompense

THE SUNDAY OF FORGIVENESS

The Freedom of Forgiveness

The Enlargement of Forgiveness

CONSTANT PRINCIPLES FOR OUR SPIRITUAL WARFARE

‘Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer’ (Rom.12:11-12)

From the Reproachable Passions to the Godly Passion of Divine Love

‘And the Violent Take It by Force’

Knowing Christ and Him Crucified

‘I was dead and, behold, I am alive for evermore’

The Prayer of Saint Ephraim

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

 

Introductory note

During the period before the Triodion and the Sundays which mark its beginning, the Church sets forth before our eyes various lessons through the Gospel readings: the grateful Leper, the Blind Man of Jericho, Zacchaeus, the good and faithful Servant of the ‘Talents’, the Canaanite woman, the Publican, the Prodigal Son and the Righteous on Judgment Day. Through some word, or deed, or attitude, these people all attracted God’s gaze upon them. They became the target of His visitation and traversed centuries in an instant. These suffering souls, who had withered away either because of sin or because of not knowing the true God, came into the presence of the Lord and ‘a spiritual sun, the name of which is persona’, began to rise in them.

Their attitude and their words are concrete examples of a right presentation before the Holy of Holies. In this way, the Church guides us, knowing the struggle which we are encouraged to undertake in order to find our deep heart, so that we may also become persons in the sight of our Creator and Judge, and targets of His visitation. Yet, the Church also knows our desire not to fail to enter into the presence of the Risen Lord. The path is trodden. The constant principles are laid out with clarity, and we must keep them in our conscience as our polar star, as pearls of great price. We must embrace them so that they may render our labours fruitful not only during Great Lent, but also throughout our lives.

 

PREPARING FOR THE TRIODION

‘Behold, O Lord, I come before Thee’

 

THE SUNDAY OF THE TEN LEPERS

Glory be to Thee, O Lord Jesus my God, glory be to Thee. I thank Thee, O Lord, for all the benefits that Thou hast wrought and dost ever work for my sake the wretched one, and for all men.

I thank Thee for Thy gifts to Thy saints, and especially for the great things that Thou hast done for Thy Most Pure Mother.

I thank Thee for that Thou art as Thou art, all-good, loving, humble and saving, and that there is none other like unto Thee, and Thy mercy is great and better than life.

Forgive me my sins and suffer not that I be eternally separated from Thee, vile as I am.

On that great and fearsome Day which will take us all unawares, when Thou shalt come as a ‘thief in the night’, I beseech Thee that it may not be for me, Thy useless servant, unto destruction and eternal perdition, but the visitation of Thy mercy unto salvation.

 

Multiplying the Gifts of God through Thanksgiving

Luke 17:12-19

From the Sunday of the Ten Lepers we begin to see signs which herald the coming of Great Lent. Today’s Gospel reading initiates us into the mystery of the person that emerges through thanksgiving to God. The Lord healed ten lepers, who were united by their common pain: nine of them belonged to the chosen people of Israel and one was a foreigner and a heretic, a Samaritan, of a people abominable to the Jews. The presence of Christ separated them as by a sword.1 When the Samaritan realised that he was healed, he was overwhelmed by gratitude towards his Benefactor and returned to give thanks, thus earning the Lord’s praise for his faith. The other nine, the Israelites, ‘of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came’,2 went away, grieving the Lord once more with the hardness of their heart.

‘And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’ According to Leviticus, those who suffered from the contagious disease of leprosy were forced to separate themselves from every inhabited area and were forbidden to seek contact with people. It was the task of the priests to diagnose them and decide whether to evict them from the community, but also to reintegrate them if they were healed, which was very rare. In reality, being a leper meant exile, deprivation of all human consolation, and death.

As Jesus was going towards Jerusalem, the ten lepers ‘stood afar off ’, keeping the required distance from the Lord, yet they let out a desperate cry. Having their death sentence before their eyes, they sought neither effusive prayers nor eloquent words but, feeling as though they were hanging above the gaping void, they only cried: ‘Jesus, have mercy on us.’ Their illness and pain had humbled them and they had lost every trace of audacity. Nevertheless, according to Saint John Climacus, he that prays humbly and without audacity, will acquire true boldness and proximity with God.3

‘And when He saw them, He said unto them, go shew yourselves unto the priests.’ The Lord noticed them immediately but did not heed them right away. He first gave them a little commandment. Before His Cross and Resurrection, the Lord still acknowledged the old law. He respected and kept it until He abolished it through His own sacrifice, through the grace which sprang forth from the new Passover for the whole human race.

Moreover, the Lord wanted to try their faith through this commandment, as in the Old Testament Prophet Elisha tried Naaman, the Syrian captain, who was tormented by the pestilence of leprosy and sought to be miraculously healed by him. When instead of healing him, the prophet ordered him to go and wash himself seven times in the Jordan, Naaman left in anger with a painful heart. Yet his servants approached him saying: ‘If the prophet had asked you some great thing, would you not have done it? Why not fulfil this little commandment that he has given you now?’ Then Naaman obeyed, and when he came out the seventh time from the Jordan, his flesh was clean as that of a little child.4

This phenomenon is repeated in spiritual life. We often approach our spiritual fathers with conceit, expecting them to teach us a strict ascetic way of life, fasting, vigils and prolonged prayers. When they spare our weakness and give us a little rule of prayer, we are offended. However, if we do not follow the humble way of obedience, keeping the little commandment we were given, then very soon, weakened by the destructive spirit of pride, we shall not be able to fulfil even that small measure. God does not ask for spectacular ascetic labours in order to impart His grace to us, but only humility which is expressed above all in the practice of obedience, when we deny our own will and our own mind by following a command that may even go against our reason and psychology.

‘And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.’ The ten lepers obeyed, and their obedience brought the miracle in their lives. The Lord healed them in a discreet and self-effacing way. In fact, they were cleansed from leprosy as they were walking away from Him, because He did not want to burden them with the heavy feeling of gratitude. Gratitude is indeed so heavy that people often avoid expressing it, fearing that which follows gratitude, that is, humility.

God always acts in this way, in secret, keeping His own commandment which says: ‘Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.’5 He gives us life, He rescues us from death, He benefits, heals, comforts and saves; yet His hand remains invisible. ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.’6 Everything works with such mathematical precision in the universe that people think that the world obeys the so-called ‘natural laws’. They ignore the fact that the good providence of God is behind all things and such ‘laws’ do not really exist. We owe the fact that the sun has risen again today despite our repulsive sins, to the intercession of a saint or to a Liturgy being celebrated on this day.

‘And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God.’ The healing must have occurred before they had gotten too far from the place where Jesus was, because one of the healed lepers returned ‘with a loud voice’, a voice of gratitude, raising ‘a new song’ of glorification to God. He had not yet come to know Christ as God, but he perceived that He was a ‘mediator between God and men’,7 perhaps one of the prophets, a man of divine authority. ‘He fell down on his face’, as a token of his great and deep veneration for His Lord and Benefactor. In order to reveal the ingratitude of the nine, Scripture emphasises the fact that the grateful leper was a Samaritan, a foreigner and a heretic, who was nevertheless able to discern within himself the inner voice of his conscience, which led him to do that which was well-pleasing before God.

‘And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.’ Here Christ expressed His deep grief for the ingratitude and arrogance of the Jews. However, His word is prophetic at the same time, as it foretells, in a way, that the Gospel of the glory of God will be accepted by the Gentiles. While He lived amongst us, the Lord shed His benefits on us impartially and without reserve. The crowds were pressing upon Him ‘for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all’.8 Yet those who responded and surrendered with gratitude to Him were only a minority, as we understand from today’s Gospel reading, perhaps only one out of ten.

Just as God’s visitation in our poverty urges us to cry with great surprise, ‘Whence is this to me?’,9 ‘When have I done anything good upon earth?’,10 so also our disposition of gratitude provokes a surprise in the Lord. In today’s narration from the Gospel, Christ was amazed because the person who returned to render thanksgiving for his healing was the Samaritan, that is to say, the one who was considered ‘alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world’.11 In other words, the more distant our ‘country’ is from God, the greater is the surprise that we shall give to the Lord, if from the dark pit of perdition we find the strength to render thanksgiving and glory to His Name, as it is meet and as He deserves. Then, the grace He will shed upon us will ‘much more abound’.12 For this reason, the Lord warned us that ‘the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before us’.13

‘And He said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.’ All the ten lepers were cleansed from their infirmity. However, the true miracle, the healing of the soul, occurred only in the one who offered thanksgiving. He received the heavenly Spirit. He found the true faith and the voice of the Lord sealed the event of his salvation. If our faith is to be true, it must contribute to our personal contact with the Personal God, with Him Who called us ‘from non-being into being’ and redeemed us with a great price, through His divine Blood. True faith is inspired by trust in ‘Him Who alone is able to save us from death’.14 God is ‘greater than our heart’15 and His salvation is so great that we cannot achieve it with our poor strength. We are ‘dust and ashes’,16 and ‘without Him we can do nothing’.17 If we desire ‘to be saved, in spite of all the evil habits that still fetter us’,18 only He that worked salvation, Christ, can grant it to us, for ‘the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.’19

The ten sick men could not approach the Lord because of their leprosy and so ‘they stood afar off ’. The divine energy of Christ reached out to touch and heal them all. Yet for the nine, the event of the healing did not become an opportunity to draw nigh to the Lord and receive the gift of faith. Rather, as they went their way, they distanced themselves even more from Him. Whereas the Samaritan, compelled by the zeal of his gratitude, fell ‘on his face’ at the feet of the Lord, and obtained a personal relationship with Christ through faith.

The nine Jews, who missed the time of their visitation, reveal the pattern followed by the majority of people, who receive great benefits but have no understanding. Especially in our times, the tragedy of contemporary man lies in the fact that, when he makes a new discovery, as for example in new methods of healing, new sources of energy or more advanced technology, he forgets that the strong but loving hand of God is behind all doctors and scientists. Instead of glorifying the Lord Who enabled him to invent something useful, the modern man chases Him away from that field to reign on his own; and thus, instead of leading him to salvation, the gift becomes a fatal flaw.

If we study the Gospel, we realise that Christ rarely showed feelings of joy. As it was foretold by the prophets, He was the man of sorrows, ‘stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted’.20 He came to suffer for Adam, whom He bore within Himself and who was slowly dying from the wound of his fall. Yet, the Lord ‘rejoiced in spirit’ when He remembered the wondrous kindness of the Heavenly Father, Who hid His awesome mysteries from the wise and prudent of this world, and revealed them unto uneducated fishermen, unto His infant-like disciples.21

In our struggle to find living contact with God, we move between entreaty and thanksgiving. The Lord Jesus, the true Hypostasis, the Person par excellence, ‘Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth’,22 was a pure thanksgiving to God the Father. When He offered entreaty, He did it in our place, interceding for us. Entreaty is more appropriate to us, who are persons still in the making, whereas thanksgiving gradually fashions and completes the person and is more appropriate to Him. In our fallen state, repentance appears more suitable to our nature. As Saint Sophrony said, we endure the labour of Great Lent for fifty days, but, although we may live the joy of Easter as an explosion that shakes our whole being, it remains a question if we are able to keep it for a few days, even for a few hours.23

The greatest act in our life is the Liturgy, during which we offer the Only-begotten Son of the Father as a pure thanksgiving to God. This sacrifice, the most well-pleasing to the Lord, works the greatest miracle in our existence, the union of God and man24 in the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. Saint Sophrony writes:

‘O Israel, happy are we: for things that are pleasing to God are made known unto us. Be of good cheer, my people.’ And we Christians are endowed by God vastly more than were all the prophets and righteous men before Jesus’ coming on earth. When we realise this, we lift our voices and exclaim aloud: ‘Blessed are we, the new Israel, hallowed Christians, for the Lord Himself hath desired so to be united with us that He and we are become ONE.25

According to Saint Sophrony, the Liturgy ‘expresses in full measure that which we define as hypostatic prayer, that is, prayer similar to that of Christ Himself in Gethsemane’,26 prayer proper to the image of God, prayer of agonising intercession which embraces the whole Adam in the full compass of all centuries. ‘The Liturgy is called “Eucharist”,’27 for ‘it kindles in our blood the fire of gratitude for His innumerable gifts’.28

During the Liturgy, the fact that we make petitions to God ‘again and again’ may give the impression that the name ‘Divine Eucharist’ is not appropriate. However, in the heart of the Liturgy, in the holy Anaphora, all the attention is concentrated precisely on the act of thanksgiving. ‘We hymn, we bless, we give thanks’ unto the Lord ‘for all whereof we know and whereof we know not; for benefits both manifest and hid which Thou hast wrought upon us’,29 and then we pray to the Father to send His Holy Spirit ‘upon us and upon these gifts here set forth’. God ‘has rendered to us all things’,30 life, knowledge of His Name, the gift of His Holy Spirit, the grace of adoption, salvation and the unshakeable hope to become His in the Uncreated Light for all eternity. The only thing left for Him to give us is our incorruptible bodies that we await at the final resurrection of the dead. Standing with awe before His fearful gifts, poor and wretched as we are, we address this prayer to Him: ‘Our God, God of salvation, do Thou instruct us how we may worthily give thanks unto Thee.’31

The Liturgy depicts the portrait of our Benefactor God. In His goodness, He gave us a commandment to celebrate the Divine Liturgy ‘in remembrance of Him’,32 so that the gifts of our Redeemer may remain active and may become our own possession even more through thanksgiving. For, as Saint Maximus writes, God measures His gifts to us according to our gratitude towards Him.33 In today’s Gospel, ten lepers received the health of the body, but only the one who gave thanks received the healing of his soul.

We have nothing that we did not receive,34 but only the gifts for which we offer thanksgiving to God become truly ours. We have received even our life on loan from the Lord. Thanksgiving for this gift not only justifies it, but also moves God’s ‘bowels of mercy’ to render us eternity instead of this transitory life. We are unprofitable servants, and our works are deficient and imperfect. Whatever good there is in our life is a gift from above which we have received unexpectedly. We cannot put our confidence in ourselves and in our works, but we await salvation as the miracle of His mercy.

Thanksgiving goes hand in hand with humility, and for this reason it is a cross, yet it joins us to Christ, makes our burden light and leads us to the light of the Resurrection. He who gives thanks, acknowledges his poverty and dependence on the other; and the first Other is God, the Giver of all good. Therefore, thanksgiving becomes a vehicle of divine mercy, for it attracts the grace of the Holy Spirit Who performs and preserves the miracle of God in man’s life. Therefore, Saint Barsanuphius gives us a word of great consolation, assuring us that unceasing thanksgiving intercedes before God for our weakness.35 Consequently, let us not lose heart even if the depth of our uselessness separates us from the Lord: for it is enough to find the strength to give thanks to Him, Whose ‘judgments are a great deep’.36

In his Epistle to the Corinthians, Saint Paul sheds a great light on this subject saying: ‘Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.’37 There are two spirits. One is the spirit of the world, the spirit of pride, arrogance and ingratitude. Whoever possesses this spirit also inherits the corruptible and fleeting things that belong to the prince of this world. Yet the mind of the man who has received the humble Spirit of the Lord, opens wide and is illumined to discern more and more clearly the gifts of God, and possess them through gratitude. In this way, the Lord Himself becomes the portion of his inheritance.38 God has no need of our gratitude. He needs nothing. He is self-sufficient in the abundance of His eternity and in the blessedness of love amidst the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Yet He nevertheless rejoices in our thanksgiving, for He is well-pleased to grant us His gifts, impart to us all that is His and make it ours by grace.

As our Holy Fathers Silouan and Sophrony teach us, the person is made manifest through the prayer of intercession for the whole world as for oneself.39 Another way in which the person can be made manifest is through the act of thanksgiving. The work of salvation and the gifts of God for the whole world, and especially for those who accept Him as a Saviour and Redeemer, are all so great that no one can worthily give thanks for them. ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’40 Suffocating in his narrow heart that fails to give thanks to God as he would wish to and as God deserves, man cries to the Lord: ‘Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy Name.’41

This is the beginning of repentance which knows no end on earth, repentance no longer for specific transgressions, but for our inability to thank such a God. When the Apostle Paul was miraculously saved from a sure death in Asia, he was aware of his inability to worthily express his gratitude to God for His wondrous works wherewith He ceaselessly benefits His servants, and he asked the Corinthians to give thanks on his behalf, ‘that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many’.42

At the heart of the Liturgy, we give thanks to the Lord for His gifts to all His saints and more especially for the great wonders that He performed for His Most Holy Mother. When this attitude of thanksgiving remains with us and we stand alone before the Lord, then we also perform the Divine Liturgy in our ‘inner chamber’. The heart is gradually cleansed and opens up wide as we give thanks for the gifts of our brethren. In this fashion, the inhuman passion of envy finds no room in us, whereas at the same time we become spiritually richer and richer. We are given new sight and inner strength to prevent our mind from staying on the weaknesses and mistakes of others, giving thanks instead to God for sustaining our brethren with His grace.

Saint Silouan said that ‘our brother is our life.’43 If we give thanks to God for the gift He granted him, we also become partakers in this gift in a mystical, but very real way. For example, Saint John Chrysostom composed the Divine Liturgy, but this does not mean that it belongs exclusively to him. The gift was initially bestowed upon him, but this was so he might serve the whole world. Through thanksgiving, the Divine Liturgy becomes the gift of every Christian, with which he worships God and finds His incorruptible consolation.

Consequently, thanksgiving creates the bond of unity and the communion of love that we live in the greatest measure every time we take part in the Divine Liturgy. Every Christian comes to the service bringing his particular gift, his private prayer, his repentance and desire. He brings them selflessly to the assembly, and the priest offers these gifts to God on behalf of all the congregation, saying, ‘Thine own, of Thine own, we offer unto Thee in all and for all.’ Our insignificant offering becomes the means to partake in the gifts of all the other members of the Church, those of the elect members of the congregation on earth, but also those of the glorified souls in Heaven, those of the saints, for wherever the King is – Christ, Who performs the Divine Liturgy – there ‘the order of the heavenly hosts’ is present.44

Man was created in order to become a partaker of the glory of his Creator and to reflect it unto all creation. If Adam in Paradise had given thanks ‘in every thing’,45 he would have preserved humility through the awareness of his createdness and would have not fallen into sin. When we become people of thanksgiving,46 from ‘foreigners’ and ‘strangers from the promises of God’, we ‘who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ’.47 We put our confidence not in the works of the flesh, but in the good spirit of thanksgiving, which quickens us and makes us akin to the Lord. Then we fulfil the purpose of our coming into this world and our presentation resembles that of the angelic powers, who glorify the Lord with ‘unstilled songs of praise’.

1 Matt. 10:34-36.

2 Rom. 9:5.

3 Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, (Boston, Massachusetts: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2012), Step 28:12, p. 235. ‘Do not be bold, even though you may have attained purity; but rather approach with great humility, and you will receive still more boldness.’

4 2 Kgs. 5:1-14.

5 Matt. 6:3.

6 John 5:17.

7 1 Tim. 2:5.

8 Luke 6:19.

9 Luke 1:43.

10 See Anaphora of the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great. See Matt. 25:37-39.

11 Cf. Eph. 2:12.

12 Rom. 5:20.

13 Cf. Matt. 21:31.

14 Cf. Heb. 5:7.

15 1 John 3:20.

16 Gen. 18:27; Sir. 17:32.

17 Cf. John 15:5.

18 Cf. Saint Symeon the New Theologian, The Practical and Theological Chapters and the Three Theological Discourses, trans. Paul McGuckin, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1982), 1:60, p. 48.

19 Cf. Matt. 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27.

20 Isa. 53:4.

21 Cf. Luke 10:21.

22 1 Pet. 2:22.

23 ‘Every year we have the possibility to live the following paradox: we are able to endure Lent with all its labours of spiritual mourning, repentance, vigils and all the rest for fifty days. As for Easter, however, we can only experience the joy of Resurrection for a short time, and then we no longer have strength for joy. The contrary would seem more natural. That is to say, Lent brings contrition and is followed by the great joy of Resurrection that quickens man.’ See Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Οἰκοδομώντας τὸν ναὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ μέσα μας καὶ στοὺς ἀδελφούς μας, (Building the Temple of God within Us and Our Fellows), vol. 2, Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Τιμίου Προδρόμου, Ἔσσεξ Ἀγγλίας, 2013, p. 223.

24 ‘This event is mightier far than every other happening in the annals of the fallen world – God united in one with man.’ Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), On Prayer, trans. Rosemary Edmonds, (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1996), p. 103. See also ibid., p. 135.

25 Baruch 4:4-5; cf. John 17:21-23; Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 65.

26 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Ὀψόμεθα τὸν Θεὸν καθώς ἐστι(We Shall See Him as He Is), Ἱ. Μ. Τιμίου Προδρόμου, Ἔσσεξ Ἀγγλίας, 72016, p. 345.

27 Ibid., p. 347.

28 Cf. ibid., p. 347.

29 Cf. the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom.

30 Cf. the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great.

31 Prayer before ‘Our Father’ in the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great.

32 Cf. Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24-25.

33 ‘All the achievements of the saints were clearly gifts of grace from God. None of the saints had the least thing other than the goodness granted to him by the Lord God according to the measure of his gratitude and love. And what he acquired he acquired only insofar as he surrendered himself to the Lord who bestowed it.’ Saint Maximus the Confessor, ‘Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice’ in The Philokalia, trans. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware, vol. 2 (London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1991), Third Century, 29, p. 216.

34 Cor. 4:7.

35 ‘In all circumstances give thanks to God; for thanksgiving intercedes with God for our weakness.’ Barsanuphius and John, Letters, vol. 1, coll. The Fathers of the Church vol.113, trans. John Chryssavgis (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), Letter 214, p. 222.

36 Ps. 36:6. See also Ps. 42:7.

37 1 Cor. 2:12.

38 Cf. Ps. 16:5.

39 ‘The attitude of love is natural for the persona made in the image of the God of love… Love is the most intrinsic content of his essence. Embracing the whole world in prayerful love, the persona achieves ad intra the unity of all that exists. In the creative act of his becoming, he aspires to universal unity ad extra also. In love lies his likeness to God Who is love [cf. 1 John 4:16].’ We Shall See Him as He Is, pp. 196-197.

40 2 Cor. 2:16.

41 Ps. 142:7.

42 2 Cor. 1:11.

43 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Saint Silouan the Athonite, trans. Rosemary Edmonds, (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1991), p. 371.

44 Cf. Doxastikon of the Lity, Theophany.

45 1 Thess. 5:18.

46 Col. 3:15.

47 Cf. Eph. 2:13.