Sermon on Holy Spirit

Anthony Bloom (Metropolitan of Sourozh (1914- 2003))

The Church of God is not an institution, it is a miracle and it is a mystery. It is a miracle because how could we expect that closeness of God which is revealed to us in the Church. And it is also a mystery in the original sense of the world, something which cannot be either explained or conveyed in words, something that can be known only through a spellbound communion with God. The English word “God” comes from a Germanic root that means “him, before whom one prostrates in adoration”. This is where our knowledge of God begins – the sense of the divine presence that forces us down to our knees, spellbound, silent, not with an empty silence that is ours at times but with a silence which is nothing but intent worshipful listening, listening to the presence, listening to that presence which is at the core of the silence. And he who speak to us within this silence is the Holy Spirit, who unveils before our minds and hearts what the words spoken by God, revealed to us in the Gospel truly convey. It is only under the guidance of the Holy Spirit that we can both believe and understand what Christ spoke because words in themselves are always equivocal, they may be clear or obscure, they may be made to mean what they never meant. And this is the role of the Holy Spirit - to make us understand God’s word as it was born in the divine silence and unfolded before us in words which we could understand. But these words are not a prison, they are an open door as Christ is the door leading to the Father and leading to eternal life. It is the Holy Spirit who according to the promise of our Lord unveils for us the meaning of the Scriptures, it is not scholarship, it is worship and a worship that allows us to commune with the mind of God and the heart of God. The Spirit of truth, but also Him whom the Scripture calls the Paraclete, a complex word as so many of the words of ancient languages. It means “the Comforter”, Him who gives consolation. It means ‘Comforter’ in the sense that He gives us strength, it means also “Him, who brings joy”. And these three meanings are important but He can be to us the Comforter in these various ways only if we are in need of His comfort.

What kind of consolation do we need? Most of us feel perfectly comfortable in our lives and indeed in our worship and our spiritual life, and who of us is in a position to say with all the intensity and depth with which St. Paul spoke these words, “For me life is Christ, death would be a gain because as long as I live in the body, I am separated from Christ”? Can we honestly say that for us life is Christ, that all that He stands for is life-giving, all that is contrary to Him, to us is death? Can we say that we have died with Christ to everything which is alien to God? Can we say that we are alive only when the things of God come our way - prayer, deep meditation, the kind of understanding which the Spirit of God reveals to us? And so we must ask ourselves very sternly a first question: is Christ my life or not? Would it be enough for me to feel that life is fulfilled, complete to be at one with Christ in all things or do I feel that there are so many things which I love and which I am not prepared to let go off even to be with Christ?

And again, Christ is in the midst of us invisibly, mysteriously. Yes, but He is not with us in the way in which He was with the Apostles. We cannot say with St. John that we speak of what we have seen, what we have heard, what our hands have touched. We know Christ in the spirit, no longer in the flesh, and yet Christ rose in the flesh, Christ ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father in His body glorified. Paul longed to be with Him in this companionship full of veneration, of reverence, of love. He wanted to be at one with Him without anything separating from Him. “Who shall make me free of this body of corruption?” - of this body against which my thoughts and my prayers and my best inclinations, and my most passionate impulses for good break down? Can we say that? Is death what we expect longingly because it will unite us to Christ? Or are we still pagan at heart and do we wish to flee from death? And instead of saying, “Lord, Jesus, come and come soon!” aren’t we prepared to say, “Tarry, o Lord, tarry, give me time,” in the way in which Augustine prayed to the Lord after his conversion, “Lord, give me chastity but not just now.” Isn’t it that our condition - not concerning chastity alone but everything in life: not just now, o Lord, the time will come when all my energies will be spent, when age will have come and made life much less attractive or unpalatable - then take me. No, this is not it. And so when we think of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter, as one who consoles us from the absence of Christ by making us to commune with the essence of things, where do we stand? Is He our Comforter while we need no comfort?

And again, in our ministry how often do we feel that we are totally, ultimately helpless, that what we are called to do is simply beyond human possibilities? In the beginning of the Eucharistic celebration in the Orthodox Church, when the priest is vested, when he has prepared the Holy Gifts, when he is about to give the first liturgical exclamation, when in his naivety he may think, “Now I will perform miracles on earth,” the deacon turns to him and says, “And now, father, it is for God to act.” All you could do, you have done, you have prayed and prepared yourself, made yourself open to God, you have vested yourself and become an image – but only an image, not the thing. You have prepared the bread and the wine and now what is expected of you is something which you cannot do, you cannot by any power including apostolic succession make this bread into the Body of Christ, this wine into the Blood of Christ, you have no power over God and you have no power over the created world. It is only Christ who is the only celebrant because He is the High Priest of all creation who sending the Holy Spirit can break through into time, open it up so that eternity can flow, indeed, make eruption into it and within this eschatological situation in which eternity fills time make possible the impossible, make bread into the Body of Christ crucified and risen, the wine into the Blood of Christ crucified and risen.

Triumph of Orthodoxy Sunday

4 March 1990

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Week after week in the period of preparation for Lent, we have been confronted with parables in which our own condition is so clearly, so sharply, so accusingly depicted; and also with stern warnings that there is no middle way between the way of life and the way of death, that we can live on earth in a twilight of unconsciousness, but a moment will come when the full light will shine before us, and then it will become clear whether we, ourselves, have been children of light or prisoners of darkness. And the culminating point of this process is the reading of the Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete in which both sin and repentance are so powerfully depicted.

But now we enter into a new phase of our preparation for Easter; we enter into Lent which is an old word that means 'spring', the beginning of life; a period when we will no longer be confronted with our twilight or the darkness which still has power over us, but with the light of God, the light that dispels darkness, the light that makes all things to shine and to be light itself according to the word of Christ.

And today we remember the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the day when the Church recognised in its last Ecumenical Council, in the 9th century, that all that was essential to the Christian faith had been proclaimed. And what had been proclaimed was our hope, our absolute, unshakeable hope, because what it proclaimed was that God had become Man; that God had chosen, in an act of love for us, of solidarity with us, however sinful, however fallen, however darkened we were, had chosen to become a man in our midst, taking responsibility yes, responsibility! for His act of creation performed without our ascent, and the freedom He gave us that is the absolute condition for our being able to love and to chose life rather than death, but at the same time which is the frightening condition of our fall.

And today we have read the Gospel, in which St. John proclaims, in the words of Nathaniel, that Christ is the Son of God, the King of Israel, that Salvation has come, that God is in our midst, that all things are possible if we only, if we only believe.

We have read or heard today in the Epistle how before us millions of people have believed in the unbelievable: that God can love us in such a way, that God can love each of us and all of us with His life and His death, that God can love us however unlovable we feel within ourselves and seem to others. We are called to believe the unbelievable, to be sure that God has a heart deep and wide enough to contain us; or, if you prefer, that His love is sacrificial; that He not only became a man to share with us all our condition, including the horror of having lost God: My God, My God, why hath Thou forsaken Me? but He is prepared day in day out to seek us out, to take us upon His shoulders as the shepherd takes the lost sheep, or if necessary, to take us upon His shoulder the way He, in Holy Week, took up His cross to walk, to fall under it, to be crucified upon it, and because in His free gift of Himself He could obtain the power to forgive: Forgive them, Father: They don't know what they are doing.

And we are looking now towards the vision of Holy Week, step after step; but this Holy Week is not a Week of horror: we know that this Holy Week is suffused with the glory of the risen Christ, that the Holy Week is a week when we are confronted, each of us, all of us together and singly, with love Divine, with the extent, the depth of Divine Love, a personal love, a love addressed to each of us.

And we will see in the course of these weeks two things: today, that God has come in our midst, He, the Light is in the midst of the twilight of history, or in the darkness of the darkest soul and the most sinisterly dark situation!

If that is true, then all things are possible! Then indeed we can believe the unbelievable! And more than this: we will be shown week after week what God can do. Next week, on the day of St. Gregory of Palamas, we will hear proclaimed by him the fact that God does not only cherish us as it were, from the outside, not but He gives us His grace which like fire pervades us, making us gradually, if we only accept it, to be like the Burning Bush in the desert that burnt without been consumed, because God does not consume, does not destroy, unless we turn against Him. Yes, He is the consuming fire until and unless we accept Him. But accepted, He makes us partakers of His Divine nature, He fills us with His own life, He is life itself in us, and we in Him.

These are the two messages that come now; and then we will see that St. John of the Ladder teaches us how to move Godwards, how to overcome the twilight or the darkness which is in us. And we can see the result of this struggle, of this cry of the soul, of this hunger for life and for light in the person of St. Mary of Egypt and of other sinners who received Christ and were transformed, transfigured, saved.

This is the way that leads us step by step to meet Holy Week, a Weak so holy when the love of God has been expressed not in words, not in blessings, not in tenderness, but in the vision of the cost of love to God Himself, the cost of our falling away from Him to the Son of God become the Son of Man.

How can we respond to it? What is then the message of this period? In the first period which I have mentioned we were confronted with evil in us, been challenged by it: This is what you are! And this is what is bound to happen. But now we are confronted with this vision of unutterable beauty and hope: how can we respond to it?

By gratitude! Gratitude is the next stop; gratitude is what must carry us through all this week: gratitude, a sense of wonder: how can God be as He is? How can He love me as I know myself, and indeed, horror of horrors, as others know me!

And if that is understood by us, then the only answer we can give to God is gratitude. To express our gratitude, is to say, 'Lord, however weak I am, however imperfect, however sinful, however unworthy from the depth of my gratitude for Who You are and what You do, I will do all within my power, however frail my will, however weak my power, I will do all I can to show you that I have understood the message of love, the message of the cross, the message of mercy, that I have understood with all my being and that I want to prove it by living in such a way that would be a proof of my understanding, live in such a way that I should be a joy to You, a joy to God, a consolation to God!

O God! To think that we can do this! Aren’t we going to do it? Let us enter into these weeks of Lent really as one begins to live in spring! Enter into newness of life, and throughout, throughout these weeks, in gratitude, to give joy to God. And then we will be able to face Holy Week not as the ultimate horror that condemns the ungrateful, the murderer of Christ no: as a Week that is a full and perfect revelation of a love understood, received, and insofar as we can enacted by us.

O, let us gather all our strength, and when our strength will not suffieth, let us remember the promise of Christ: My strength deploys itself in weakness; all things are possible to me as Paul puts it in the power of Christ that sustains me And the words of Christ: What is impossible to men is possible to God. Let us surrender to God to give Him joy! And all will be of God, and all will be well. Amen.

METROPOLITAN ANTHONY OF SOUROZH

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh was born in Lausanne in 1914. He spent his early childhood in Russia and Persia, his father being a member of the Russian Imperial Diplomatic Corps. His mother was the sister of Alexander Scriabin, the composer. During the Russian Revolution the family had to leave Persia, and in 1923 settled in Paris where the future Metropolitan was educated, graduating in physics, chemistry and biology, and taking his doctorate in medicine, at the University of Paris.

In 1939, before leaving for the front as a surgeon in the French army, he secretly professed monastic vows. He was tonsured and received the name of Anthony in 1943. During the occupation of France by the Germans he worked as a doctor and took part in the Anti-Fascist movement of the Resistance. After the war he continued practising as a physician until 1948, when he was ordained to the priesthood and sent to England to serve as Orthodox Chaplain of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius. He was appointed vicar of the Russian patriarchal parish in London in 1950, consecrated as Bishop in 1957 and Archbishop in 1962, in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1963 he was appointed Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe, and in 1966 was raised to the rank of Metropolitan. At his own request he was released in 1974 from the function of Exarch, in order to devote himself more fully to the pastoral needs of the growing flock of his Diocese and all who come to him seeking advice and help.

Metropolitan Anthony is Honoris Causa Divinity Doctor: of Aberdeen University 'for preaching the Word of God and renewing the spiritual life of this country'; of the Moscow Theological Academy for his theological, pastoral and preaching work; of Cambridge University; and of the Kiev Theological Academy. His first books on prayer and the spiritual life (Living Prayer, Meditations on a Theme and God and Man) were published in England, and his texts are now widely published in Russia, both as books and in periodicals.

His Eminence, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, died peacefully 4th August, 2003, at the age of 89

You can read sermons and talks of Metropolitan Anthony following this link:

http://www.metropolit-anthony.orc.ru/eng/eng_serm.htm

St Thomas Sunday

To-day we are keeping the day of St Thomas the Apostle. Too often we remember him only as a doubter; indeed he is the one who questioned the message which the other Apostles brought to him when they said: Christ is risen! We have seen Him alive!

But he is not one who doubted throughout his life or who remained unfaithful to the fullness of the divine revelation of Christ. We must remember that when the Apostles and the Lord heard of the illness of Lazarus, Christ said to them: Let us return to Jerusalem. To which the others said: But the Jews wanted to kill you there. Why should we return? Only Thomas the Apostle answered: Let us go with Him and die with Him. He was prepared not only to be His disciple in words, not only to follow Him as one follows a teacher, but to die with Him as one dies with a friend and, if necessary, for a friend. So, let us remember his greatness, his faithfulness, his wholeness.

But what happened then when after the Resurrection of Christ, the Apostles said to the one who had not seen Christ risen, that they had actually seen the risen Christ? Why did he not accept their message? Why did he doubt? Why did he say that he must have proofs, material proofs? Because when he looked at them, he saw them rejoicing in what they had seen, rejoicing that Christ was not dead, rejoicing that Christ was alive, rejoicing that victory had been won. Yet, when he looked at them he saw no difference in them.. These were the same men, only full of joy instead of fear. And Thomas said: Unless I see, unless I probe the Resurrection, I cannot believe you.

Is it not the same thing that anyone can say to us who meets us?

We proclaimed the Resurrection of Christ, passionately, sincerely, truthfully, a few days ago. We believe in it with all our being; and yet, when people meet us in our homes, in the street, in our place of work, anywhere, do they look at us and say: Who are these people? What has happened to them?

The Apostles had seen Christ risen, but the Resurrection had not become part of their own experience. They had not come out of death into eternal life. So it is also with us; except with the saints, when they see them, they know that their message is true.

What is it in our message that is not heard? Because we speak, but are not. We should be so different from people who have no experience of the living Christ, risen, who has shared His life with us, who sent the Holy Spirit to us as, in the words of C.S. Lewis, a living person is different from a statue. A statue may be beautiful, magnificent, glorious, but it is stone. A human being can be much less moving in his outer presence, yet he is alive, he is a testimony of life.

So let us examine ourselves. Let us ask ourselves where we are. Why is it that people who meet us never notice that we are limbs of the risen Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit? Why?

Each of us has got to give his own reply to this question. Let us, each of us, examine ourselves and be ready to answer before our own conscience and do what is necessary to change our lives in such away that people meeting us may look at us and say: Such people we have never seen. There is something about them that we have never seen in anyone. What is it? And we could answer: It is the life of Christ abroad in us. We are His limbs. This is the life of the Spirit in us. We are His temple. Amen.

April 30,1995

Word of Metropolitan Anthony on Forgiveness Sunday, March 2000

Sermon on ordination of a priest.Anthony of Sourozh