Empty to be filled with gifts

Ask God to send you blessed humility. Not the type of humility that says, “I am least of all, I am worthless.” [That] is satanic humility. Blessed humility is a gift of God. Do you hear me? It is a gift. It is a gift from God. It does not come from our own efforts. Prepare yourself and seek this Holy Gift from God. Don’t say that “I have this fault and I offer it to God.” You are to say nothing. You should struggle and put yourself down, and all the other things are from God. Struggle beginning here so that we can enter the uncreated church of God.
–The Divine Flame Elder Porphyrios Lit in My Heart, Monk Agapios, p. 101 (edited slightly for readability)

Humility is a gift from God because Christ on the Cross is true humility and true love. And in an unfathomable mystery of divine love, He pours forth this love for all eternity upon us and invites us to receive the gift of His death-destroying love.

In the previous post I quoted Elder Porphyrios as follows: “God gives [humility] when He finds pristine preparation. Then He looks upon [you] with pleasure and draws this soul towards Himself.” So we must prepare ourselves with the repentance that the Prodigal Son had, by the grace of Jesus Christ and the tools of His Church: Scriptures, Sacraments, Services, and Saints*. Scriptures compiled by the Church to reveal the Father to us, to guide us to Christ, to open ourselves to the Spirit, and to shield us from wrong understandings and relationships with God and one another. Sacraments through which Christ transforms our very being, and by which we touch Christ and His Kingdom. Services and hymnology to nurture our soul with the beauty of divine knowledge, instructing us and defending us against sin. Saints whose lives glorify God, proving to us the eternal victory of Christ over death and calling each one of us to be transformed by His grace. If we prepare ourselves with these tools, then He will not only run out to meet us, but pull us towards Him!

I look at my icon and written in the Gospel that Christ holds is this: “Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for I am meek and lowly [humble] in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The yoke of Christ can be heavy at times, but it is not as heavy as the yokes we burden ourselves with in the fallen world. We are spiritual athletes running a lifelong race, says St Paul. Of course we will experience struggle. Yet this struggle should be easy and light, for Christ has born our sins and infirmities and accomplished all things for us. We just have to take up His yoke in holy humility, trusting in Him with patient endurance, that our afflictions and crosses will lead us to Him. For when we choose to be crucified with Christ, then we are raised with Him instantly, even in this life.

Once we take up the Cross, God will give the growth. Remember St Paul: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor 3: 6,7). With humility we are nothing, which then allows God to give the growth. And then we have all grace to become like Him.

So while we may appear to be laboring very greatly, “afflicted in every way, but not crushed” as the Apostles were (2 Cor 4:8), everything becomes joyful. We can heed St Paul’s commandment: “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks” (1 Thess 5:16-18). And we can heed Christ’s commandment: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). How do we become perfect? Christ says right before… through holy humility:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (Mt 5:43-47)

God pours forth love upon all. If we are truly His children, we will do the same. We will endure as He endures, covering other’s sins as He covers ours. This is the gift of humble love: love that pours forth from God in us and through us. So when Christ calls us to be perfect, He invites us to share in His perfection, in His glory, in His death-destroying love, if we make the conscious decision to live like Him and labor with the yoke of the Cross. Although we can choose other yokes if we so desire.

Remember our Lord: “…I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). And remember always: “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). So do not think of all this in the negative, that without Christ we are yoked to death, that we are miserable and hopeless. It is true that we do not deserve that which is given to us, but let us not fall to despair and the “satanic humility” that the Blessed Elder warns us against. The very fact that God promises us this and allows us to share in His life, although we sin, reveals His inexpressible love for us. Thus while recognizing our sin, let us be filled with thanksgiving and joy as we behold the gift given to us: with Christ we not only have life, we have it in unfathomable abundance! Let us not refuse this gift. Indeed, behold what God gives to those who take up the light and easy yoke of humble love towards Him and all:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
–Rev 3:20-21

God offers us all. True communion with Him through true communion with one another (oh, how I don’t want that with most people!) By emptying ourselves in humility we become like Him, just as He emptied Himself (Philippians 2:7) and became incarnate in true humility and love. Let us strive for this gift together, “so that we can enter the uncreated church of God.” Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Pray for me, a sinner.

(*note: The Four S’s of Scriptures, Sacraments, Services, and Saints accompany the Three C’s: Christ, Commandments, and Cross. This is from a sermon Fr Thomas Hopko gave at the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, PA on New Years Eve. I love him! Pray for him and thank God for him.)

The Quarrelsome Brother

I once told him [Elder Porphyrios], “Elder, I can’t work together with this brother… he is a complainer.”
“You fool, you are an egoist. Do you know that? Because of this you suffer in many ways.”
“I know it Elder. I have been like this from my youth. Pray that God will give me a humble heart.” [The rest of this is Elder Porphyrios speaking:]
“When the heart has God-given humility it sees everything clearly. It already lives in the earthly Uncreated Church of God. I am referring to humility that is not said with words, neither is it that which we feel we have acquired. Holy humility is a gift of God to the soul. God gives it when He finds pristine preparation. Then He looks upon it with pleasure and draws this soul towards Himself. You should not say that your brother is obstinate, that he is jealous or that he gets angry, etc. Don’t say that I can’t get along with him. I can’t ever do things with him. This is not the way to act. This is not Orthodox. It is not Christian. This is not at all living in the love of God. This is the way to separate yourself from the Grace of God, because you separate Him from your brothers.
“On the contrary, you will overlook their weaknesses and without imitating them, you will become one with them in cooperation. You will accept whatever they want and the way they want it. Do they want it this way? So be it. Do they want it another way? May it be the other way. In this way, the walls that separate us from our brothers are destroyed. It is in this way that we are united with Christ.
“The more you are daily associated with your brothers, the more you mystically enter into the Love of Christ. ‘Stand in freedom’ says St. Paul.
“When I was young and I was secretly planning my departure for the Holy Mountain, I sat and thought of ways I would find olive oil to light the lantern, to acquire books and other things that are necessary for the ascetic way of life. And when I went there all these worries were resolved. Everything was taken care of.”
From The Divine Flame Elder Porphyrios Lit in My Heart, Monk Agapios, pp. 60-62

If I may dare to comment upon the words of the Elder with my limited understanding… the key lies in, “This is the way to separate yourself from the Grace of God, because you separate Him from your brothers.” When we see our brothers outside of Christ, we place ourselves out of Christ. Certainly we must see sin and strive to overcome it. But we must remember the Incarnation: that the Living God took on flesh and endured suffering, crucifixion, and death for the sake of every human being who is infinitely precious to him. He did not destroy us… rather the Lord of all became the servant of all in holy humility out of ineffable love for us. If we place ourselves in this abundance of God’s love, then we will not be constrained by the poverty of sin.

This is why we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If we ourselves do not enter fully into Christ’s life of inexhaustible forgiveness, we will instead always be constrained by the consequences of sin. If we do not forgive others then we cannot receive forgiveness ourselves, because we will be living a life which I guess popular religion would call “karmic“: one bound and constrained by inescapable causality, not one liberated by the forgiveness and love of the Crucified One. We will have chosen not to receive forgiveness, because we will not know the forgiveness of love: we will only know an economic forgiveness, the fallen life of “I forgive you for this purpose” or “I forgive you for this gain.” But what can we give God-crucified-for-all? Nothing! Yet he gives us everything!

If we enter into forgiveness, if we make excuses for our brother and cover his sin as Christ covers ours, then we will be one with the limitless joy of the Creator, which will enter into us effortlessly and pour forth ineffably upon all around us, transfiguring creation into the New Kingdom. Glory be to Jesus Christ, who offers humanity this incomprehensible life! Enter this life, and “all these worries” will be resolved. “Everything will be taken care of.” We will be in the fullness of God who lacks nothing and empties himself and pours himself out for us, loving Him and all perfectly. If we live in this way, although we will see our own sin clearly and deeply — indeed, more than any other person will we know ourselves a sinner — we will know the forgiveness and love of our Father who has done all for us, and we will be given all grace to overcome sin and adversity and grow in the glory of his likeness. What greater thing is there?

Welcome

Welcome to Gladsome Light, a blog focusing on Orthodox Christianity. I have a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, concentrating on Japanese Buddhism, specifically Zen and Shin. Yet beginning in my last semester of college, events occurred that led me to Christ and the Orthodox Church. This story is documented in Reflections on Conversion.

In addition to writing new articles, I have some content from my older blogs that I will be reposting here, which will hopefully be their final home. I very much enjoy WordPress and plan on using some of the generous 3GB of free space provided by them to document my recent trip to the Holy Mountain in Greece.

I pray that you find something edifying here. If I get out of line, if I lose my joy and humility, please let me know — strongly if need be! Pray for me, a sinner.

PS: This blog is named after one of the earliest Christian hymns, Phos Hilaron. St. Basil the Great in the 4th century already cited it as being a cherished tradition of the Church, so its composition may go back even earlier.