Episode 4 - Transcript for Episode 4: “Discovering the Will of God”
So, let's begin reading from page 75, which is the introduction to The Staretz’ Doctrinal Teaching, written by Fr. Sophrony. And I want to tell you two things very briefly. The first is that Fr. Sophrony had a very good friend when he was in Paris as a young, very successful painter, artist, and his name was Vladimir Lossky, and they, as it happened, were fellow students when Saint-Serge Seminary, or Institute, first began. So, in the very first class that started in Paris at the Saint-Serge Institute were the two figures of Vladimir Lossky, with all of his history—his father was a famous professor in Russia, and so on—and Fr. Sophrony, who came from a well-to-do middle-class family, an artist by training. He had studied at the Moscow School of Fine Arts and was very successful already. As a young man in Paris he had exhibited paintings at the Galerie des Tuileries, anyway, very, very successful. But he had abandoned all of that, after a revelation that was given to him by the grace of God, and he realized that by being tempted to venture into the world of transcendental meditation and Oriental religious traditions that were enchanting people at that time, he was rejecting the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, who revealed himself to Moses as the great I Am. He realized that all these other religions were leading towards non-being, when the Supreme Being is in fact being itself: I Am, and personal.
The reason why I mention that is because when Fr, Sophrony went back to Paris, because of health reasons and because he wanted to take that opportunity to publish St. Silouan–because he knew that he had a great treasure in his hands and that it was not just for himself, he had to share this with the world. So, he first gave a copy of the writings of St. Silouan to his friend, Vladimir Lossky, for his opinion and, to Fr. Sophrony's surprise, Lossky, God rest his soul, gave the manuscript back to Fr. Sophrony saying that this was very nice, they were the writings of a deeply pious man who speaks of the Holy Spirit, repentance, humility, love for enemies, but it's not theology. When Fr. Sophrony heard that from his friend, he thought well, if Vladimir thinks like this, I'm going to have to do something to help people to appreciate that this is not just the utterances of a very pious soul. And so he wrote this introduction, which turned out to be, what, half the book.
Now about this book. The second point that I wanted to make by way of introduction is that there is a certain academic theologian who, by the grace of God, became Orthodox. And I met him just as he had become Orthodox. He had written on Cardinal John Henry Newman. He had just become Orthodox and was beginning to see the deception in all of that. And as we were talking, once upon a time at the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex, he said to me, “I want to show you something”. He'd only just met me, he didn't know who I was and how long my association had been with the Monastery, but out of enthusiasm he took me to the bookstore of the Monastery and said, “You see all these books here”, because there were lots of theological books there, as well as books written by the Fathers, and some about the Saints of the Church, and so on. And he took St. Silouan off the shelf, and he said, “You see this book, this book? In order to learn what is in this book you would have to read all of these books, a whole library of books”. That was the inspired word of this modern theologian who had studied John Henry Newman very successfully by academic standards. And that's what he had to say.
So, we're reading what Fr. Sophrony felt he had to write in order to at least give people a little bit of an initiation into the depths of Silouan's writings. And we're reading something which, as St. Justin Popovich said, and the modern scholar friend had also pointed out, it's something very rare to find.
So, reading from Fr. Sophrony's chapter 5, The Staretz’ Doctrinal Teaching, page 75:
“In addition to what has already been related, the Staretz’ own writings tell of other events in his life, so let us now study his teaching–although, in fact, he never set out to teach. My idea at this point is to try and sum up what I learned during my years with him. It is impossible to explain how and why I came to believe in the Staretz but perhaps it will not be out of place to say something of my approach to him.
“Our talks very often arose out of my needs, my turning to him. Much of what we discussed does not appear in his writings. When I turned to him with questions, or simply listened to him, I recognized that he spoke out of experience granted from on high, and I looked upon his words to a certain extent as the Christian world looks upon the Holy Scriptures which impart truths as acknowledged and sure facts. What the Staretz said was not the fruit of the workings of his own brain—it expressed actual experience and the knowledge of experience, and was therefore a positive testimony to the realities of spiritual being. Searching for logical truths was alien and superfluous in his eyes, as irrelevant as for the Scriptures. Like St. John the Divine, he would say, ‘We know’. Take the following from his writings:
“’We know that the greater the love, the greater the sufferings of the soul. The fuller the love, the fuller the knowledge of God. The more ardent the love, the more fervent the prayer. The more perfect the love, the holier the life.’
“Each of these four propositions could have been the precious culmination of complex philosophical, psychological, and theological research, but the Staretz had no need of such arguments and did not descend to them.
“I have already said that contact with the Staretz was of an absolutely exceptional character. It seemed to me that in his conversations, simple as was their form, Father Silouan was able, by the strength of his prayer, to transport his interlocutor into an especial world. The most important thing about this was that the one talking with him was introduced into that world not theoretically but actually, through an inner experience transmitted to him. True, so far as I know, hardly anybody was afterwards able to retain and live out in his own life the state which had been made known to him in conversation with the Staretz. Of course, this was an endless source of grief to them for the rest of their lives, for the soul cannot but sorrow when light once seen is lost. Still, it would be yet more tragic, more desperate, not to have known the light at all, and even—which is often to be observed—have no inkling of its existence. From what I have heard of Father Stratonicos from ascetics who knew him on the Holy Mountain, we may suppose that it was for this reason that he was at one and the same time grateful to the Staretz for the revelation he received, and sorrowful because he recognized his own inability to preserve what he had experienced. I do know that many who had run eagerly to the Staretz for guidance afterwards fell away because they found themselves unable to live in accordance with what he said. His counsel was simple, quiet, and kind; but to follow it one has to be as unsparing of oneself as was the Staretz. That firmness of purpose is required which the Lord demands from his followers–a resolution amounting to self-hatred.”
Obviously, St. Silouan knew, and Fr. Sophrony used to teach us, that anything that is done by coercion or some kind of imposition of the will of another cannot have eternal significance. Only that which is done freely, voluntarily, can have eternal significance. And so, if we are to grow into the likeness of Christ, as images of God - God is free - God is absolute freedom, and we cannot grow into that freedom unless we do that freely. But there is an irony because, as you can see from those last couple of sentences, God's love for us and the love of His saints–through the saints we experience God's love for us–is unconditional. God loves us as we are, sinners. No matter how sinful, no matter how deprived of anything good. God loves us and His love is unconditional. But that free and unconditional love is the most powerful force for us to change. In other words, we realize, when we are in the presence of God and the people of God, His saints, that unless we become like them, we cannot remain with them. In fact, ultimately, we cannot bear them. If you refuse to change, and you are forced to be with them, it’s hell.
I have a story to tell you: Once upon a time, I had the very sort of disturbing reaction whenever I would see Fr. Sophrony. I didn't want to see him. When I would see him coming, I would try to find some excuse to go away. I didn't want to be near him, I didn't want to see him. It was an uncomfortable feeling, quote-unquote. Eventually, you know, my first and my earliest sort of memories of discussing theology or anything to do with the Church were with one of Fr. Sophrony's disciples called Fr. Raphael Noica. Fr. Raphael Noica now is a very well-known staretz in Romania where he’s lived for the last 20 years or so. And it was with Fr. Raphael that the kids who would go to the Monastery–and didn't really want to be there, but they would be dragged along by their parents–and, whenever we found Fr. Raphael, he was fun because he was always smiling and he was approachable and you could ask him any question. You knew that he had time for you; you knew that, for whatever reason, he liked you. And so we would ask questions freely and we–in that way, we were introduced to the life of the Church, the teachings of the Church.
Well, this was—I was already a student of theology at Thessalonica University and was talking with Fr. Raphael one day and I said, ‘You know what, Fr. Raphael, I have to tell you something’. Because it had been troubling me for a while, and I explained to him that I had this reaction whenever I saw Fr. Sophrony. Fr. Raphael listened to me patiently and he smiled and he said to me, ‘Why don't you tell him?’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Well, why don't you tell him what you're experiencing?’ I said, ‘Father, you want me to go up to Fr. Sophrony and say Fr. Sophrony, whenever I see you, I want to run away?’ And he said, ‘Yes. Go and tell him’. You see–but Fr. Raphael knew from his own experience what was going on, so he was encouraging me to confess this to Fr. Sophrony.
Long story short, I found an opportunity to be with Fr. Sophrony–which wasn't easy because there was always people around him–and suddenly all these people, all these busy bees, disappeared, and I was standing, in the old kitchen of the Old Rectory actually, alone with Fr. Sophrony. And I said, ‘Fr. Sophrony, may I tell you something please?’ And he said to me, ‘Yes’. I said, ‘Please forgive me, Father, but whenever I see you, I want to run away’. And he nodded his head and he said, ‘Have I done anything to offend you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, Father’. I was embarrassed by that question. I said, ‘No, no, Father’. ‘Have I said anything to offend you?’ ‘No, no, no, Father, not at all, not at all.’ And he said, ‘Hmm, it seems that it's not from God’. So I embarrassingly nodded, and he said, ‘Go with my blessing’. And from that moment on it went away, the embarrassment disappeared, because I had confessed that, you see, and it was revealed as something which was not from God.
But later on, as the years went by, you see, to put it in very simple terms, in myself, I was not in a state of repentance. When I would see Fr. Sophrony, his presence brought that to light: I was not repenting, I was not changing, I was not on the road to becoming increasingly like Christ. That's the Christian life, right? To be on that unending road towards the perfection, the sanctification which is in Christ. And when you refuse that, you're refusing the gift of God, you are refusing the life that God is offering. And encountering God, or the people of God, the saints of God, is a painful thing, and as such, it is a taste of, a taste of hell. And anybody who has experienced, let's call it metaphysical pain, is aware that it's far greater than physical pain. Metaphysical pain, the pain or torment of the soul is, yes, it's greater than physical pain. So, on this point, you see, to follow the counsel, the example, of St. Silouan means that you have to be as unsparing of yourself as he was. And one of the Abbas in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Sisoes, says, ‘Who can bear the thought of Antony?’ Who can bear the thought of Antony? And Sisoes replies, ‘But I know someone who can’: Speaking in the third person of himself. This is beginning, beginning to introduce us to that great saying which everybody knows, but very few people understand, of course:Keep thy mind in hell and despair not. More about that, with God's help, later. But in a word, what Fr. Sophrony says here, is already beginning to unpack that for us.
Why is it a blessing to meet a holy man or a holy woman and receive their blessing? Why do people go? You could say you have your father confessor, or your spiritual father, and I've heard people say I don't need to waste that person's time. And yet it is the tradition of the Church that when there are such people known, people flock to them for a second to get their blessing, if permitted, to say what concerns them and to ask for a word, and so on and so forth. When you encounter such people, they bring you into their spiritual world. You have a taste of their life. You have a taste of the Kingdom of Heaven. It's no less than that. So that's a blessing that strengthens you, that gives you the fortitude and the surety, the confirmation that God is with us, that we are not alone, that everything that happens has a meaning and that if God allows it, it's for the best. It's for the best. Even when our limited human minds cannot see that.
When Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou in Cyprus first went to see St. Iakovos of Evia—he was sent to him by St. Porphyrios who said to him, ‘I'm not going to be your spiritual father, Iakovos is going to be your spiritual father’. He went to him and in their first meeting—Metropolitan Neophytos’ name was Omiros, Homer; he is very tall, and he was a first year student of law in the University of Athens—and St. Iakovos, when he sat with him, he said, ‘I see in your heart, I see anger, I see that you are very upset with Christ and I see bitterness. Where does this come from?’ And Metropolitan Neophytos—Omiros—said, ‘Father, if you had lost your father at the age of eight, if you had become a refugee, and all your possessions and all your wealth had been taken away and you were reduced to poverty. And if, on top of that, you lost your elder brother, who was the protector of your family, wouldn't you be bitter?’ So he said to St. Iakovos, ‘Why, why did God do this to us?’ And St. Iakovos said to him, ‘Let me pray about this, and I'll get back to you’.
Well, the young Omiros went back to Athens and continued his studies and at some point, not long afterwards, there were two students, friends of his, who said we have just come back from St. Iakovos, and we have a message for you from him. So he said, ‘Yes?’ ‘He has something to tell you about your brother.’ So eventually, I mean as soon as he could, he went to Evia, to Osios David, the monastery—at that time there were only three monks at the monastery–and he met with Fr. Iakovos. And Fr. Iakovos sat down and he said to him, ‘Your brother was in love with a Jewish girl, wasn't he?’ And Omiros said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘You know, his plan was to marry that girl and to go and live in Tel Aviv and to take you and your mother with him. If you had gone together, you and your mother would be Jews now.' That's how they say it in Greek—you would be Jewish now. 'You would have embraced the Jewish faith. You would have abandoned Christianity. You know her father is the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, like the Archbishop of Tel Aviv you know. And God took him.'
His brother Petros, at the age of 25, had fought against the Turks when the Turks invaded Cyprus in ‘74. And he didn't die in the war. A few days after the war he died in a car accident. He had made up his mind. St. Iakovos said that he's going to marry that girl and he's going to go to Tel Aviv and live there. But now your brother is well and your mother will live to a ripe old age and she will become a holy woman and you will become a dignitary in the Church and you will serve the Church.
Well, yes, receiving the blessing of a holy person and being drawn into his or her spiritual world, and the many blessings that we receive as a result of contact with the saints. Don't forget that St Paul says where sin abounded, grace did the more abound. Right? And we are living in very, very difficult times now, and it's not a coincidence that God is giving us such saints. You can trace a lineage that goes back to St Nectarius and it goes into Russian saints, it goes into Serbian saints, all over the Orthodox world, and there, somehow, they're all interconnected, and the graces, their wonder workings, are being revealed more and more to us, because we need that now. Because only those people who are connected with the saints will be able to survive the temptations of this world, which are becoming more militant. So we need that connection to remind us that God is with us. We need to experience the grace of God, the love of God through his saints. That's what we experience, when we're with the saints, we know that God loves us and on every level of our being, He fills us with His love and comfort in a world that is tormented, a world that is in despair. So we know where to turn and who to turn to in times of trouble. Because we all need to recharge our batteries. But we need to be in touch with the source, with inspiration, with enthusiasm, enthusiasmos, in God, so that we can withstand the trials and the tribulations, the many temptations where it doesn't take a genius to see that everything is under threat today. The very fabric of society is under threat. Such is the providence of God that in every generation He gives us saints to show us in a concrete way that He is with us. And those saints make His love for us more concrete. Those saints give us an in to the tradition of the Church. We are in communion with them, we are in communion with Christ and all the saints. And the saints of times past become present to us, because we see that what was written about the martyrs, what was written about the great hierarchs, what was written about the ascetics are no exaggeration. What we know from history, what we know from tradition, is living, and so they give us a personal relationship with Christ and his saints, all of his saints. And we know that the stronger members of the Church help the weaker members. And we've said it before, when one member is glorified, all the members rejoice. It's the mystery of the communion in and through Christ, the body of Christ, the Church of the saints. We all benefit when there is one saint.
The graces and the gifts of the saints are shared in the communion of the life of the Church, in Christ's grace. The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God, the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit is given to all of us is shared. We all benefit, and that, as I said, confirms that God is with us. The providence of God, the care of God, that none of us is alone, even in the darkest times. We must know, because we meditate on the things of old, we remember the great things that God has done for us. As the children of Israel, as the new Israel, we remember the things that God has done for us, and so we know we're not alone. We know that if God seems to have departed from us, abandoned us, it's because something needs to be corrected in me. God is trying to teach me something that I need to learn before I go down into the grave.
So we were talking about how difficult it is, though we desire it, to be with God and to be with His saints. It's where we belong. But we have to be exercised. That's askesis, you know, that's podvig. We have to be trained so that our heart is enlarged in order to contain the things of God, to contain God, and all the things that God wills to give us as His hiers and as joint heirs with Christ; as adopted sons. So, as we shall see when we read the Ladder of Divine Ascent, no one can climb up the ladder in one go. There are many steps, for a reason, and the one leads to another, and they are interconnected, and so on and so forth. But what is required of us? A correct disposition, a correct spiritual disposition, so that we are open to the change, the transformation that God wills to effect in us, the enlargening of our heart, as Father Zacharias says, ‘the engraving of Christ in our hearts’. So that we are no longer divided, so that we are no longer tempted by the enchantments of this world, and we learn to despise sin and to prefer things eternal to things temporal. Let's just take 10 minutes to read Discovering the Will of God, which is actually the section before Obedience.
So, reading from page 77, Discovering the Will of God: “The Staretz used to repeat, ‘It is good at all times and in all things to ask God for understanding of what to do or say, and in what manner.’ In other words, on every occasion without exception we should seek to discover God's will and the way to perform it.
“The quest to know God's will is the most important thing in a man's life, since when he happens on the path of the will of God he becomes incorporate with divine, eternal life.”
What Fr. Sophrony used to teach was precisely this. He says in one of his prayers, ‘Teach me what to say and how to speak.’ And he applies that to what to do and how to do it, and even what to think and how to think. Metropolitan Hierotheos said once, in a conversation with me, referring to Fr. Sophrony, that you could think of it this way, that we are to become like factories that produce positive thoughts, good thoughts. So, very briefly, we can talk more about this later. But how do we, on every occasion without exception, seek to discover God's will Before you do anything, before you say anything, before you even think anything, Fr. Raphael used to say Fr. Sophrony would teach his monastics to turn one's heart and one's mind, even in a wordless way, towards God. It's an impulse of the heart. Whatever you may be doing, before you say anything, if you turn your heart towards God, you will learn, gradually but surely, that when you make that movement, that movement of the heart, God blesses what you say and somehow, even beyond your expectations, the result is better. I mean, you have your knowledge and you have your experience and you can give an answer to a question or respond to a situation according to what you already know. But when you set that aside and you turn your heart first to God, that offering, that's a, you know, that's an anaphora, that's a referral to God, that's the shape of life that the Liturgy teaches us–to first offer to God and then to receive the gifts blessed–that, you learn very soon, yields better results than would otherwise be the case.
And so you begin to develop a habit, habit–hexis. That's where the word ethos comes comes from, hexis. You develop a good habit. What is that good habit? Your mind turns to God and thereby becomes aware, increasingly, of the presence of God in one's life, that God is very near, in fact, and that when we seek to do this, especially in service of the Church, God is well pleased to bless us, even when we are not worthy. But when are we worthy to be blessed? Are we ever worthy?
Every Byzantine liturgy has the prayer of St. Gregory the Theologian: none is worthy, oudeis axio, no one is worthy. “Oudeis axios tōn syndedemenōn tais sarkikais hedonais”. None is worthy who is bound by fleshly pleasures. But because God wills to save his people, he gives what is necessary at that moment, if we humble ourselves. It's an act of humility too, because I could say, you know, I have my training, I've been to the best schools and I can tell you what I think and impress you, you know. No, we don't want a human wisdom, we want the foolishness of God, which is wiser than the wisdom of this world. And so we develop that second nature, it becomes second nature to us to have that constant referral.
And I think it's worth pointing that out, because Fr. Sophrony is going to talk about the various ways of acquiring knowledge of God's will. But that's one way that he used to make it simple for us to understand how do you do this? How do you do it?
So, continuing our reading from page 77 (in my edition): “There are various ways of acquiring this knowledge of God's will. One is through the Word of God—through the commandments of Christ. But the Gospel commandments for all their perfection—for rather, by virtue of their perfection—express the will of God in its overall, ultimate sense, whereas man in his everyday life is confronted with an endless complexity of situations, and very often does not see what to do to comply with God's will.
“For our actions, our deeds, to end well, it is not enough just to have a general idea of the divine will as expressed in the commandments—‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.' We still need God to show us how to give effect to these commandments in our life. Even more—strength from on high is vital.
"The man who has love of God in his heart, prompted by this love, acts in accordance with dictates which approximate to the will of God. But they only approximate—they are not perfect. The unattainableness of perfection obliges us all continually to turn to God in prayer for understanding and help.
"Not only perfect love, but complete knowledge is beyond our reach. An act performed, it would seem, with the very best intention often has undesirable and even evil consequences, because the means employed were bad, or simply mistaken. We often hear people justifying themselves by saying that their intentions were good, but good intentions are not enough. Life abounds in mistakes of this kind. That is why the man who loves God never ceases to beseech him for understanding, and keeps a constant ear for the sound of his voice in him.
"In practice, the process is as follows: every Christian, and in particular every bishop or priest, when faced with the necessity of finding a solution consonant with the will of God, makes an inner rejection of all his own knowledge, his preconceived ideas, desires, plans. Freed of everything 'of his own,' he then turns his heart to God in prayer and attention, and the first thought born in his soul after such prayer he accepts as a sign from on high.
"Such search for the knowledge of God's will through direct invocation in prayer, leads man, especially in need and distress, 'to hear God answering him in his heart,' as the Staretz used to say, 'and he learns to interpret God's guidance.' Thus must we all of us learn to discern the divine will. And if we fail, we shall never find the way.
"This process in its more perfected form is preceded by the practice of constant prayer in which the mind is stayed in the heart. But in order to hear the divine voice more surely in himself, man must cast off his own will and be prepared for every sacrifice, like Abraham—even like Christ himself, who, in the words of St. Paul 'became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.'
"The man who adopts this course will succeed only after he has learned by experience how the grace of the Holy Spirit operates; and when fierce self-denial has taken root in his heart—that is, if he has resolutely determined to deny his own petty individual will in order to acquire and fulfill the holy divine will. Then the real significance of Staretz Silouan’s query to Father Stratonicos, ‘How do the perfect speak?’ will be disclosed to him. The words of the apostles and holy fathers, ‘It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us’, will sound natural. He will better understand the passages in the Old and New Testaments which tell of similar direct conversations between the soul and God, and he will have a truer conception of the manner in which the apostles and prophets spoke."
"Thus must we all of us learn to discern the divine will. And if we fail, we shall never find the way.”
Okay, let's continue, God willing, next time.