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Words from our Elder
On Repentance
Once a tower fell, and thirteen people were killed. And they went to Christ and asked Him: "When that tower fell, were those who were killed more sinful than we are?" And Christ told them: "In all the things that happen, and whatever punishments, you cannot give the final grade and make the judgement, because, even if punishments don’t take place today, and immediately, on the spot, each one doesn’t receive the fruits of his works, then when the judgement comes, it will be worse".
The words of today’s Gospel reading, taken from the mouth of Christ, in connection with the tower that fell, what do they give us?
In all the preaching and in our conscience we hear and feel the rich man to be condemned. But look how, in His wisdom, God can make light in the midst of darkness, give birth to life in the midst of death, find hope in the midst of despair. Christ, when he was saying these words, had not yet been crucified, had not yet died, had not yet gone to Hell, had not yet resurrected.
This rich man, who no longer had a lot in the sun, because he had spent all God’s checks, hadn’t had a glance for the poor Lazarus; just like we, the center of the world, busy with ourselves, don’t even take pity on our own souls, which are our nearest neighbors, nor on our own selves, nor on the persons around us, nor on the whole world. And Abraham says to him clearly: "You enjoyed your good things, nothing remains for you. And apart from that, it’s not my business, nor yours: between us is chaos, an unbridgeable chasm".
For this, false communism didn’t solve the problems, as supposedly we would all be equal, nor does there exist the possibility for love with the devil. He has made his position clear; therefore, there exists a problem. Given this problem, if this problem is taken into account, then we can clarify things and persons.
And after nothing exists for the rich man, look how, without letting on either to the rich man, either to Abraham, either to His angels, God entered into the soul of the rich man, there in hell where he was, where even a drop of refreshment was barred from his burning lips, with the request: "I beg you, send Lazarus" - him whose sores the dogs were licking, who had no hope for salves, nor even food or drink, him - "send him to my brothers, in order to tell them, lest they also come here".
And instead of bowels of mercies being opened in Abraham, a thunderbolt falls. But the rich man continues and says to Abraham, "in case, seeing a dead man, Lazarus, resurrected, they will believe". Without knowing it the rich man was speaking about Christ, Who would die, and would be resurrected. While Abraham very dynamically clarifies things in the Holy Spirit, telling him, "If they don’t believe Moses and the Prophets and all those things given from tradition, even seeing a dead man resurrected, they won’t believe".
As indeed happened. The Pharisees, and the forever Pharisees, don’t accept the Resurrection of Christ, because they themselves are judged by this.
But, isn’t it a hope, within the soul of the suffering rich man, his query, in Hell and in torment, if they see a dead person resurrected, "if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent"?
Would that he himself believed, and when Christ met him in Hell resurrected, would that He took him with Him.
Let our hearts be melted by the love of God, my dears, because in the insecurable and unbridgeable chaos He is searching to find hope for us. If He doesn’t find it, because we precluded it from Him, let us grant it to Him now.
Homily given on 3 November, 1996 on St. Luke 16:19-31 from the Collected Homilies of Fr. Dionyssios
This is the main thing, that, we need in our lives a meeting through which we shall come out new persons, through which will come a new reality, a new existence. Otherwise, we are like the seed, which Christ says stays alone and dies under the ground without giving fruits.
Jerusalem, 1996
And through this apophatic way, by refusing ourselves, by not trusting ourselves, by being disappointed in ourselves - not from what we are doing, it's enough what we are, and how we were born, and what we can do each moment, only sin - we discover that our only enemy is ourselves. And when we discover, that our only enemy is ourselves, more than the devil and the world, then and only then, we can start to pray. We can start to be related to the Lord and to the others. Only then we can love, when we stop seeing as though the problem comes from outside.
Jerusalem, 1996
...here, in the heart, out of which come all the terrible sins and things which Christ named, one after another (Mat. 15:19), in this heart we can enter, and meet there, our Lord.
Jerusalem, 1996
Really, how can we stay with Abraham in Paradise, when we did not succeed in giving ourselves and whatever we have, as he did? So the problem is not that someone is in the door to stop us from entering Paradise. We stop ourselves from entering, whenever we don't do the same and much more than all the Saints did in their lives.
Jerusalem, 1996
On Humility
When the two Greeks went to see Jesus, not to talk with Him, not to ask Him something, not to discover, not to touch, like Thomas (John 21:25), not to see miracles, like Peter, who asked to walk on the sea (Mat. 14:28), but just to see Him, because they were so disappointed in themselves, in Athens, in the pluralism of gods and goddesses, in the philosophy, in their glorious history, they left everything, and they came here, where they had rights, through the Greek spirit, through Alexander the Great, through Hellenism. Already, though it was not yet the Byzantine Empire, everywhere the Greek language was known (Philis, Loukas. The Language of the New Testament, Athens, 1984, p. 211), and the Greek spirit was around. But they came, and they were waiting, without pressing any situation, without being in a hurry. And they were waiting for when Phillip will go to Andrew, and Andrew will introduce them to Jesus. They wanted just to see Jesus. And He said, that moment, those famous, unforgettable, established words, "The hour has come, that the Son of God should be glorified" (John 12:20-23). What humility in Him. They came humbly, and they found the ocean of humility. The ocean without depth. You cannot find any depth, because you go inside, and you lose yourself, to discover the Lord.
Jerusalem, 1996
There are "words of which the voice is not heard" (Psalm 18:3, Septuagint). For this, we have to keep silence, and then, to enjoy the voice of the Lord in our hearts, as He gave His words as His last breath as a human being, in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, 1996
On Prayer
As Sinai was without glory, before Moses ascended and before God descended there, as Tabor was without radiance, before the Lord was transfigured there, so also Athos was accurst, before the Virgin chose it, before the Holy Fathers established it a Holy Mountain. A contemporary saint of Patmos, very characteristically summing up the spirit of his fathers, writes, "By prayer you sanctify the place where you stay and the work you do." Thus, the Holy Mountain is holy because of its saints, who labored and brought forth a prophetic spirit, a spirit of salvation.
Vienna, 1981
Philokalia
We asked the Elder, "what is the best translation of 'Philokalia'?",
and straightaway received this spontaneous answer:
"Philokalia: Unbridled eros for the lightning flashes and energies of the divine beauty, which adorns the microcosm and the macrocosm with a cohesive and comprehensive harmony and washes the innermost bowels of the human psychosomatic hypostasis and heart in its light, its virginal, inconceivable beauty and its utterly melodious, roaring silence, in order that the person (anthropos) may reign as a divine person (theanthropos, god-man), in the image and likeness of Him who formed him, the Triune God.
And again, Philokalia is also the collection of the texts of the neptic fathers, who are, namely, kings, prophets and priests of the Holy Spirit; texts that are mystical and poetic initiations, in essence, reductive elaborations of the Song of Songs, capable of liberating and resolving,
healing and transforming, the passions and the dead-ends of human nature into the new creation of the Kingdom of God the Father in Jesus Christ our Lord, through the Holy, presiding and life-generating Spirit."
January 30, 2000
Holy Cross Monastery, Thebes
EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS MONASTERY
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