| To talk about Saints in a day and time when the world is going through the painful fits, struggles, and disruptions of a global pandemic; when domestic tension brought about by racism’s scourge and the institutionalized violence that scars our common compact – talk of Saints seems futile, distant from our experience, the stuff of the “warm fuzzies” of religion – but little more. We hear ourselves ask the question in the back of our minds: “Is there a truly good person left in the world?” As Orthodox Christians, despite the encroaching clouds and no idea when all will be in order once again, with hope and tenacity in our hearts, we say Yes! Yes, there are good people. Yes, there are God-fearing people. Yes, there are in fact Saints among us, living and reposed, doing what they do best – pointing out to confused man the clear way to intimacy with God. We must, however, be clear about just what a Saint is.
The spiritual writer and pastor Jamie Arpin-Ricci, zeros in on the core of what it means to be a Saint: “There is more hope in honest brokenness than in the pretense of false wholeness.” Saints are those who were/are honestly broken, genuinely imperfect. They do not affect pretense, or false piety, or attempt to deny their own distance from God. They do not walk among their neighbors as if “all together.” Most importantly for us and for our understanding, Saints are aware that authentic holiness is not identical to moral perfection. Too often we equate the two. In order to reach sanctity, we feel compelled to be morally perfect, keep every one of the 10 commandments rigorously, observe every precept of the Church, foster a chronic sense of guilt or shame – fearing that if the tally God has in his “book” (no such thing exists!) when we stand before His awesome judgment seat, is weighed in favor of our mistakes, flaws, stumbles, failures and sins – there is no chance that we approach Him as “Saint.”
It was the philosopher and father of existentialism, as well as a fervent Christian believer, Soren Kierkegaard, who countered that unyielding moral mindset when he wrote: “God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.” God makes Saints out of sinners. In a form of Divine soul-craft, God reaches into our hearts and souls, most times unawares, to remake, re-orient, and transform us. To be sure, we still carry the burden of Adam’s sin in us, still we stumble and grow weak, but in his unending love and mercy, God lifts us up and quietly walks behind us, knowing there will be yet another fall. He is there ready to lift again! The difference between holiness and moral perfection is illustrated by the Church Fathers in a single word: theosis (or deification).
Our holy father St. Athanasius simply defined these terms as “…becoming by grace what God is by nature.” This is the vocation of the Saint. In living an ascetic life, in living a simplified life, and in going through the stages of spiritual growth, the human person does not primarily become morally good – in the first place he/she becomes healed, cured, made whole again.
Metropolitan +Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and St. Vlassios, expresses it this way: “The meaning of sanctity is not humanistic or moralistic but theological. Saints are those who have been spiritually cured. Their hearts have been purified and they have reached illumination of the nous (mind) and glorification. They are the real — the active — members of the Body of Christ.” Anyone who has been cured is a saint. A saint in the patristic tradition simply means someone who is cured. It means someone who has gone through purification (penance for sin and passions) and reached illumination, (enlightenment by God) and from illumination has gone on to glorification – the ultimate state of living in God’s presence. He has been cured and, consequently, he is a saint.
Moral perfection has to do with a juridical understanding of spirituality. “You keep the rules and the rules will keep you!” Holiness, in the Patristic sense, has to do with therapeutic healing – the illness and cure of the soul. This becomes our number one priority – the healing of our spiritual illness rather than miring ourselves in sin-produced guilt. We are sick. We are not defective. We are inherently graced, we are not corrupt.
Our holy Father, St. Jerome, brings up another important point regarding Sainthood, when he wrote: “What Saint has ever won his crown without first fighting for it?” God gifts us with holiness (healing) and it is our task, out of our human freedom, to cooperate with Him, to actively participate with Him, to identify our illness and to seek out the cure. Metropolitan +Hierotheos recalls the advice of his mother: “My mother used to say to me, ‘Son,’ she said, in Cappadocian, ‘Son, you can’t force someone to be a saint.’ Of course a human being cannot become a saint by force. Everyone has to choose the path of therapeutic asceticism.” You and I must choose to be Saints. It’s not magic. It’s not automatic. It’s not wrapped in complex ideas and impressions. It is not reachable by “a bridge to far.” Simply put: it is the active, daily search for spiritual healing.
As the eminent theologian, Fr. John Romanides, of Blessed Memory, explains it: “We must seek to clean out our heart and soul from all that would stop it from closeness to God (purification). We must seek the spiritual knowledge and insight from God’s Holy Word to guide our spiritual work (illumination), and we must combat our spiritual illness with a deep burning craving, not only to say God is before all – but to live it.”
In today’s Holy Gospel from Matthew 10, Jesus actually provides some of the ascetical work you and I must do to advance our spiritual healing – and to come closer to sanctity. Firstly, we must confess Christ before all people. (Matt. 10:32-33) This is witnessing our faith, a form of “martyrdom.” It means ignoring the cynicism of the world and its outright dismissal of religious belief. It means using the spiritual tools given us by the Church to secure our healing of soul – prayer, Bible reading daily, reception of the Holy Mysteries (when we can!), and doing good, mercy and compassion for others. These are healing instruments and the Lord tells us boldly (v.33) that He will not acknowledge us before the Father if we do not acknowledge Him before the world!
Secondly, we need to place Christ and the love Christ before anyone or anything else that we love. (v.37) Spiritual healing means subjecting our egos to the love of Christ. It means living for the Other rather than for ourselves. He is the first priority, not a casual afterthought. It is a hard saying to hear that we must love Christ more than our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, and husbands! That is Christ’s word. The monk Lev (Gillet) expresses it this way: “Is it not eminently just that I should give myself entirely and without reserve to Him Who drew me out of nothing, and Who at every moment of my life maintains the existence He has given me; from Whom I have received all and from Whom I expect all, and without Whom I can never ever be happy (read also: healed)?”
Lastly, the work of our spiritual healing, the soul-craft of holiness in us, is always done in the shadow of the Cross. In other words, it is tough, it is demanding, and it is not without pain. It is difficult to change old ideas and behaviors. It causes discomfort. We fight against adopting a new way. We may even prefer to stay in the world of moral perfection, guilt and shame, rather than advance to a life-giving spiritual healing. The old ways give us comfort (so we think). The way of healing ultimately opens the dawn of holiness in our life. I am reminded of T.S. Eliot’s theatrical presentation Murder in the Cathedral, when Becket muses to himself before he is slaughtered at the Altar: “A Christian martyrdom is never an accident, for Saints are not made by accident.” Saints, Holy Ones, are never made by accident. They are made according to the size and generosity of their heart. How much are they willing to endure the pain of God’s Suffering Servant?
As we honor all the Saints of God today, let us keep in mind that their call to holiness (healing) is ours as well. In 1977, Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos visited Australia. While there, he made the following comment: “Many problems exist here in Australia, because this land has not as yet brought forth a saint”. He also said, “I believe though, that even Australia, in the future, will bring forth Saints, from within so many faithful who fight the good fight here, and then things will change…” God heard the prayers of His pious servant. Australia now has Saints who have been lifted up to the Altars for veneration. The pious elder Paisios himself was Glorified as a Saint on 13 January, 2015. It is not beyond the ways of God that someday, one of you may have an icon of yourself adorning the holy walls of our Church! May it be so!
I pray that all the Saints of Heaven intercede for you and your families before the face of God!
Faithfully in the Lord,
Fr. Dimitrios |
