We
have mentioned before how in the West after the Great Schism of 1054 the nous
was forgotten and man was reduced to a mind-body duality; and that because of
this change in manlore (anthropology) man’s relationship to God became one of
external knowledge based on various forms of scholastic study (philosophy with
the Roman Catholics, analyzing the Bible alone with the Protestants). Mr Abraham Hamilton, III, gave a good illustration
of this on Wednesday, 13 Nov., with his analysis of Romans
12:1-2 at the start of The Hamilton Corner:
[1] I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service.
[2] And
be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
The
‘mind’ Mr Hamilton spoke of is not the ‘mind’ St Paul is speaking of. Mr Hamilton is thinking of the rational
understanding, the discursive reason.
This ‘mind’ is denoted by the Greek word ‘dianoia’. But the Greek word for ‘mind’ St Paul is
using here in Romans 12:2 is ‘nous’, which is the faculty of the soul that
allows us to have a union with God that transcends the logical, reasoning mind (and
thus to acquire a higher knowledge of God than that which the dianoia can provide).
With
this difference in mind, what, then, does it mean to ‘renew the nous’ rather
than to ‘renew the dianoia’? The priest-monk,
and now Abbot of the St Herman Monastery in Platina, Cal., Father Damascene tells
us in an address he gave in 2005:
The theme
of this Conference—"Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewal of your mind"—is a rather daunting theme to talk about,
because it is so vast and all-encompassing. It touches on the whole purpose of
our lives as Orthodox Christians. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: I have
chosen you out of the world (John 15:19). We have been called out of
this world in order to become citizens of another world: the Kingdom of God.
That Kingdom begins now, in this life, continues after we leave this world, and
will reach its consummation at the Second Coming of our Savior. In order to
dwell in that Kingdom, to be its citizens, we must be transformed.
Be not
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind (Rom.
12:2). These words from the Epistle of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Romans help
to introduce a Divinely inspired teaching on spiritual transformation. In this
talk, I will speak first about the theological meaning of transformation in the
Orthodox Church. Then I will provide a commentary from the Holy Fathers
concerning St. Paul's teaching on transformation. Next, I will offer some
practical suggestions concerning the way to transformation,
with an emphasis on watchfulness and prayer. Finally, I will speak of authentic
love as the primary mark of genuine spiritual transformation.
As I
said, the theme of transformation points to the purpose of our life. That
purpose is unending union with God—deification, theosis. But
deification is not a static condition: it is a never-ending growth, a process,
an ascent toward God. We do not reach the end in this life, nor even in the
life to come. St. Symeon the New Theologian, who attained what might be called
the highest possible degree of union with God in this life, said: "Over
the ages the progress will be endless, for a cessation of this growing toward
the end without ending would be nothing but a grasping at the
ungraspable." [1]
Our union
with God is a continual transformation into the likeness of
God, which is the likeness of Christ.
I, like
many of you, have come to the Orthodox Church from a Protestant background.
Every once in a while, a Protestant will ask me the question: "Are you
saved?" It is difficult to answer this question in a way that a Protestant
would understand, because the Protestant conception of salvation is so
different from our Orthodox understanding. Recently I read Clark Carlton's
book The Life. He is a former Protestant himself, and well
understands the Protestant mind. He makes the insightful point that, in Protestantism,
salvation means simply changing God's attitude toward you, so that you can go
to heaven. According to this understanding, it literally only takes a few
minutes to be "saved." [2]
In
Orthodoxy, on the other hand, salvation is viewed in maximal rather
than minimal terms. In his book Orthodox Spiritual Life according to
St. Silouan the Athonite, Harry Boosalis of St. Tikhon's Seminary
writes: "For the Orthodox Church, salvation is more than the pardon of
sins and transgressions. It is more than being justified or acquitted for
offenses committed against God. According to Orthodox teaching, salvation
certainly includes forgiveness and justification, but is by no means limited to
them. For the Fathers of the Church, salvation is the acquisition of the Grace
of the Holy Spirit. To be saved is to be sanctified and to participate in the
life of God—indeed to become partakers of the Divine Nature (2
Peter 1:4)." [3]
In
Orthodoxy, salvation means not simply changing God's attitude, but changing
ourselves and being changed by God. Salvation ultimately means deification; and
deification, as we have seen, entails transformation. It is being united with
God ever more fully through His Grace, His Uncreated Energy, in which He is
fully present. As we participate ever more fully in God's life through His
Grace, we become ever more deified, ever more in the likeness of Christ. Then,
at the time of our departure from this life, we can dwell forever with Christ
in His Kingdom because we "look like Him" spiritually, because we are
shining with the Grace of God.
Many
years ago, in 1982, I took a trip to the Holy Land. I was still a catechumen
then, and was planning to be baptized back in California only a month or so
after I returned from the trip. I remember one day when I was in Jerusalem, in
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, standing on Golgotha, at the place where
Christ was crucified. I was crossing myself. An elderly lady who was standing
next to me asked me where I was from. I believe she was Greek. When I told her I
was from America, she said, "You're from America, and you're Orthodox?"
I said I wasn't, but that I was soon to be, God willing. Then she looked at me
piercingly, and emphatically said, "When you are Orthodox, you can become
holy."
That was
an affirmation for me concerning the life's path I was about to embark on. I
heard those words right there on Calvary, where Christ died for my salvation so
that I could become holy, so that I could have
the Grace of God within me at Baptism, so that I could continue
to acquire the Grace of the Holy Spirit, so that I could become
deified.
With his
Incarnation, death and Resurrection, Christ redeemed human nature, opening the
path to deification and even to the redemption of the body that will occur at
the General Resurrection. That is the objective dimension of
our salvation. But while our nature has already been saved, we
have to personally appropriate that salvation. That is
the subjective dimension of our salvation. Christ has already
come to us; it is up to us to come to Him and be united with Him.
When we
read Orthodox teachings on transformation, holiness, and deification—and even
more when we read of people who have reached a high degree of holiness—all of
it can seem far beyond us. In one sense, it should seem beyond
us; that is, we should feel we have a long way to go, because we do. However,
we should not feel that holiness and deification are ultimately out of our
reach. Each one of us is called to it. When I think back on what that lady told
me on Golgotha twenty-three years ago, I think about what I have
not done to become holy, to be transformed into the likeness of
Christ, to be "saved" in the maximal Orthodox sense of the word. I am
sure that each one of us here can think of what we have not done, how we could
have done more in all the time we have been Orthodox Christians. But that
should not lead us to despair. Rather, it should lead us to repentance, to a
desire to rededicate our lives to Christ, to the thought of what we can do
to be saved, to be deified, from this moment forward.
. . .
4. The Renewal of the Mind
Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. What does St. Paul mean by
renewing the mind? According to St. John Chrysostom, he means repentance. We are told to be
transformed, but, as we look at ourselves, we see that we sin every day. This
could lead us to despair, to the thought, "I'm not transformed, and I
never will be." That is why St. Paul adds the words "by the renewal
of your mind": so that we will not despair.
St. John Chrysostom writes: "Since it is likely that, being men, they
would sin every day, St. Paul consoles his hearers by saying 'renew yourselves'
from day to day. This is what we do with houses: we keep constantly repairing
them as they wear old. You should do the same thing to yourself. Have you
sinned today? Have you made your soul old? Do not despair, do not despond, but
renew your soul by repentance, and tears, and Confession, and by doing good
things. And never cease doing this." [11]
From the theological
point of view, it is important to point out that the "renewal of the
mind" that St. Paul speaks about is actually the "renewal of
the nous."
In the original Greek, the word for mind here is nous. In Orthodox theology,
the nous is
the highest faculty or power of the human soul. It is the faculty that knows
God directly; it is the seat of our personhood, which experiences the Person of
God in a communion of love. St. Gregory Palamas and other Holy Fathers say that
it most precisely defines what is the "image of God" in us. [12]
At the Fall of man,
the nous was
darkened and became sick. The Uncreated Energy, Light or Grace of God became
foreign to it. As I mentioned earlier, through Christ's work of redemption man
receives the Grace of God within him once again in Holy Baptism. But every time
a baptized Christian commits sin, he soils his baptismal garment, as it were.
He dampens the Light of Grace inside of him; he once again darkens or sickens
his nous.
Instead of turning to and uniting with God, his nous turns aside to the
passions, to self-love and love of sensual pleasure. By turning to the
passions, the nous repels
the Grace of God; it prevents the Christian from continuing on the path to
deification in Christ.
The sickness of
the nous leads
to spiritual death. The darkness of the nous leads
to spiritual darkness, in which we cannot see things clearly and soberly. We
cannot see things as God sees them; instead, we see them through the filter of
our passions. Thus we grope about blindly in life, hurting ourselves and
hurting others, either wittingly or unwittingly. We stray far from our purpose
in life, which is union with God. Although we might think we have lots of
important things to do, we wander aimlessly through life; and all our busyness
only serves to distract us from our diseased spiritual state, from the fact
that we are not fulfilling
our life's true purpose. Our nous is
sick because we have separated ourselves from God, because we have sought after
our passions rather than Him.
5. Watchfulness and Prayer
The healing of our sick nous begins
with what we have just been discussing: the sacrifice of our "old
man," the cutting off of the passions, repentance. In speaking of the
healing of the nous,
the Holy Fathers place much emphasis on the practice of watchfulness. We must at all
times watch over our thoughts so as to reject—to cut off—sinful and impassioned
thoughts. When a sinful thought comes to us and we cut if off at once, it is
not a sin. But when we entertain a
sinful thought, when we cherish it and develop it because we are attracted to
it, then it becomes sin, then it separates us from God. When we entertain
impassioned thoughts, our nous becomes
darkened, deprived of the Light of Divine Grace. These thoughts lead to
impassioned feelings, and the feelings fuel more thoughts. Soon we are caught
in a passion, and the passion becomes habitual. That is why we must cut off the
sickness where it starts, in our thoughts.
To cut off sinful
thoughts, we first must recognize such thoughts as our enemy. We must realize
that they can separate us from God. For example, when we have a resentful or
judgmental thought against our neighbor, we must recognize that entertaining
this thought will put us at enmity with God. So we refuse to entertain it. We
just let it go. And if it comes back again an hour later, or even (as often
happens) a few minutes later, we again cut if off.
In the Orthodox
Church, we have a special means of cutting off thoughts: the Jesus Prayer. The
effects of this Prayer are twofold. In the first place the Prayer helps us to
cut off and turn away from impassioned thoughts. And in the second place the
Prayer helps us to turn and keep turning to Christ our Savior at all times.
When we practice
watchfulness with the help of the Jesus Prayer, we make our soul open to
receive the Grace of the Holy Spirit, which transforms us and deifies us. We
are no longer repelling Grace, but attracting it. We are calling upon Christ to
have mercy on our darkened souls, to dwell within us more fully, to fill us
with His unending Life, with the Light of the Holy Spirit Whom He has sent from
the Father (cf. John 15:26). Thus our darkened nous is illumined by the Light of the
Uncreated Grace of God. "Only the Holy Spirit can purify the nous," writes St.
Diadochos of Photiki in The
Philokalia. "In every way, therefore, and especially through
peace of soul, we must make ourselves a dwelling-place for the Holy Spirit.
Then we shall have the lamp of spiritual knowledge burning always within
us." [13]
In addition to
saying the Jesus Prayer, we should cultivate the habit of calling out to God in
our own words. This should be done throughout the day. The Fathers counsel us
against trying to make long, eloquent speeches to God; rather, we should pray
simply, from the heart. We can call out to Him either verbally or mentally,
depending on the situation. Of course, we should call out to Him when temptations
assail us, but we should by no means wait for such moments before we speak to
Him. Archimandrite Sophrony, the disciple of St. Silouan of Mount Athos, had
the practice of praying to God each time he was about to see and speak to
someone. He prayed that God would bless the encounter that was about to take
place, so that God's Grace would be upon it. If we were to follow this very
simple practice, just think how our daily encounters with people would be transformed, and how our lives
would be different.
Also, together with
praying throughout the day as we go about our daily tasks, it is important to
devote certain times of the day to prayer, that is, to a rule of prayer. The
content of this prayer rule varies with each person, and sometimes it changes.
It is good to have the blessing of one's priest or spiritual father on one's
prayer rule. The rule may consist of prayers from the Orthodox Prayer Book, or
the Jesus Prayer, or a combination thereof, together with prayer in one's own
words and the reading of the daily Gospel and Epistle verses. St. Theophan the
Recluse notes that, while we are reading prayers from a prayer book or saying
the Jesus Prayer, there may come times when we are moved to just stand silently
before God with heartfelt yearning. He recommends that we stop reading or
reciting prayers at such times, and then resume a little later.
[14] "It is better to perform a small number of prayers properly than
to hurry through a large number of prayers," he writes. "After you
have recited each prayer, make prostrations, as many as you like, accompanied
by a prayer for any necessity you feel, or by a usual short prayer.' You may
limit the entire prayer rule just to prostrations with short prayers and prayer
in your own words. Stand and make prostrations, saying, 'Lord have mercy,' or
some other prayer, expressing your need or giving praise and thanks to God. You
should establish either a number
of prayers, or a length
of time for prayer, so that you do not become lazy.' You
should pray a little longer on your own especially at the end of your prayers,
asking forgiveness for unintentional straying of the mind, and placing yourself
in God's hands for the entire day." [15]
Setting aside time
for daily prayer is an indispensable part of spiritual life. In families there
should be daily common prayer before the family icon corner. Even if only a
little time is set aside for this, it can make a huge difference in the life of
a family. But in order for it to make a difference, it should be regular, not sporadic.
The key to prayer
rules is constancy.
If we skip our prayer rule, our Scripture readings and our spiritual readings
for one day, we will find that already the world will start to invade us: the
world of the passions, the world of distractions. If we skip our prayers for
two days, we will be invaded even more, and so on. As time goes on, we will
have less of the mind of Christ and more of the mind of the world. We will find
ourselves more and more "conformed to this world." [16]
In order to grow in
the Orthodox spiritual life and bear fruit, we need to put down roots, as in
Christ's parable of the sower. And in order to put down roots, we need to
have constancy,
consistency, in our daily prayer and spiritual reading. In
this practice, too, we can "renew ourselves from day to day," as St.
John Chrysostom puts it.
The daily, continual
practice of watchfulness and prayer, of course, cannot take the place of the
Sacraments of the Church. But this practice can prepare us for receiving
the Sacraments, and can deepen our experience of them. St. Symeon the New
Theologian says that receiving Holy Communion is in itself a kind of
deification—because we are receiving the deified Body and Blood of our Savior.
Our practice of watchfulness and prayer, together with our repentance, can help
us to partake of that deification more fully.
. . .
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
