Holy Prophet Elijah – Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
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“And He said to them: ‘Each of you will certainly object to Me: Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard happened in Capernaum, do also here, in Your native land.’ Then He said to them: ‘Assuredly, I say to you: no prophet is accepted in his own country'” (Luke 4, 22-30).
It is typical for the one who has no faith nor personal experience of repentance, the one who clings tightly to this world – being afraid of death, not to believe even in the repentance of his neighbour. Mainly because of the unbelief of his compatriots, the God-Man Jesus Christ did not perform many miracles in His native land.
What does a personal experience of repentance, conditionally, mean in the Church? We say conditionally because, first, repentance has no end for us in this world and in this age; and because, secondly, I want to emphasize that there is a special goal of repentance at each of the stages of spiritual development.
Which is to say that; the personal experience of repentance at the first stage of the spiritual development is considered to be, the completed process of purification of the heart from passions. Repentance at the first stage is completed with the opening of the heart, with the discovery of the place of the heart, with the gift of the prayer of the mind in the heart, with the ascetic union of the energy and the essence of the mind, and thus with the beginning of the process of enlightenment of the mind.
All that is said in the preceding paragraph is covered and implied in the phrase; “change-of-mind.” The original word μετάνοια, which we translate as repentance, actually, literally means change-of-mind. And there is no more beautiful word with which we can encompass and describe the process in which we turn our mind from proud, unfocused and darkened, through the struggle of obedience, and with the help of God’s grace, into a humble, prayerfully collected in the heart and enlightened.
It is very important that we underscore the first fruits of the experience of repentance, of orthodox spiritual life, and that this further motivates us in the struggle.
For example, if we notice the fruits of the first view of the uncreated light, that is, of the purification of the energy of the mind, then we can sense what the fruits of the purification of the essence of the mind will be.
Or, for example, if we experience a sense of well-being during the period when we receive the first grace, after which becomes hidden from us, then how much constant comfort and light will we have from the grace of enlightenment, which relatively, constantly resides with those who received it as a gift.
Experience is a great support and encouragement for every ascetic, both when grace openly helps him and when it is hidden. So, once we have a spiritual father who is vigilantly following our struggle (endeavour), and, as soon as we have knowledge that comes from experience, we can move with more confidence in the direction of conquering new inner spiritual spaces that are revealed to us through the eyes of faith. But as I said, he who has no personal experience of repentance will hardly believe in the repentance of his neighbour.
Let us now leave those who do not believe and turn our attention to those who say they believe and yet have no personal experience of repentance. The problems in the Church arise from those people.
The one who has no personal experience, although he might call himself a Christian, in actual fact does not recognise the fruits of repentance, nor the way to attain them. The self-chosen and undefined spiritual life which corresponds to our great idea of ourselves, of our pride and vanity, is especially characteristic of the world in which we live. An undefined, hazy and nebulous concept of the spiritual life is an excellent atmosphere in which our individual spiritual poverty can be hidden or concealed; and that is suitable for many people who call themselves Christians.
And not only can it be hidden, but with the help of special clothes or priestly ranks or by observing some external church regulations or with their intelligence and various titles, spiritually blind people even manage to promote themselves as virtuous and exemplary.
Few are those who walk the narrow path. Following Christ and bearing witness to Christ in this world requires a great deal of self-sacrifice and a great deal of self-denial. Therefore, there are few only who want to check their spiritual life according to the description of the stages of spiritual development from the Holy Fathers – a description that we have now collected and systematized – because they will have to change their former life.
Everyone, on the other hand, who practices spiritual asceticism correctly and wants to remain in that struggle (asceticism), constantly examines himself in the light of the tradition of the Holy Fathers. And conversely, those who want, consciously or unconsciously, only to improvise and imitate a spiritual life, and at the same time remain trapped by the passions, neither check themselves nor want to know that there is some order and harmony in spiritual development; because the Light of the Tradition about the three stages of spiritual development (purification, enlightenment and deification) exposes such people – either as great ignoramuses or as opponents of the Tradition.
And they even bring themselves to the point of hating the light: “The Light has come into the world, but the people loved the darkness more than the Light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light, so that his deeds are not condemned, because they are wicked. But the one who does the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been completed by God” (John 3, 19-21).
Therefore, many do not recognise the fruits of repentance nor they know the way to them, because they are constantly indulge themselves with the false spiritual-life and delusion in which they find themselves.
He who has no personal experience of repentance not only does not recognise repentance in his neighbour, but, to put it mildly, bothers him, if his neighbour has such an experience. It bothers him because always – let me go straight to the point – in one instance, the example of the Holy Fathers reveals how one should live devoutly in the Church, and in the other instance it is revealed how it should not be done.
There may not be a critical mass of people that can consciously recognise that, but there is always a critical mass that can feel it: “Behold, the world has gone after Him!” (John 12, 19).
Vanity, again, due to a worthless desire for human glory, among those who consider themselves to be spiritual authorities, is the greatest. Their vanity is either satisfied by the acquired human glory or wounded by the loss of it.
Now do you understand why we easily accept and praise the repentance of the saints read in their hagiographies from a distant time, and not the repentance of our neighbour in this contemporaneous time? Or why do we accept and praise the spiritual greatness of those who live a great distance from us (Russia, Serbia, Mount Athos), but the spiritual greatness of our neighbour who lives with us – is not recognised? For the same reasons, no prophet is recognised in his native land. Or maybe someone thinks that the Holy Spirit, the Lord and His gifts have disappeared from the Church?
We are all victims of vanity, more or less. On the one hand, we think we know people: “Is this not the son of Joseph?” – and we can easily judge them. On the other hand, we forget that the sin we “recognise” in our neighbour, according to the Holy Fathers, also exists in us. That is why Christ also says: “With what judgment you judge, you will be judged” (Matthew 7, 2).
We even judge our neighbour according to what we think is a sin: “Why does He eat and drink with publicans and sinners?” (Mark 2, 16).
We tend to evaluate and judge a man by the presumed or actual sin more than we value him by the repentance. If such a judgment of any man is final for us, it is a sure sign that we have no experience of repentance.
We live our lives as if we can hardly wait for one of those who trouble our excessive vanity to do something wrong, according to God’s law or according to our criteria. We even want to believe in his alleged sins and downfalls, and we consider the one who conveys or invents such false information intended for flattery and self-promotion, as our friend.
The active sociopath has a need, even an addiction, to openly and publicly clash with a prophet, or with someone greater – whether it be a Metropolitan, Synod, Primate, etc., in order for self-promotion amongst the “high society”, in which he could never realistically belong to, and in which he “lives” only with the help of his imagination. On the other hand, it is characteristic of passive sociopaths that, although they, themselves do not attack, they still publicly approve of the behaviour of the active sociopath. All of this mainly occurs in the virtual world of social networks, where people react to some news – about which they have no information, and which reveals only their painful state of mind. Accordingly, we recognise both types of sociopathy, i.e. personality disorder.
The prophet cannot be our enemy, but only our friend. The real enemy of our soul is the false witnesses. He will darken our soul and our mind through evil thoughts against the prophet every time we would believe him; and he will keep trying to lie to us, until he achieves his goal (or until he repents).
But if, and when, the prophet is to be killed, does not depend on false witnesses and those who want him gone, but on God: “So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff. Then, passing through the midst of them, He went His way.” (Luke 4, 28-29). The holy prophet Elijah, for example, was not killed by his contemporaries; on the contrary…
Whenever we act according to the commandment of love, we will justify our neighbour, and we will find the fault in ourselves. When we do not act according to the commandment of love, we will always justify ourselves, and we will find the fault in our neighbour.
We should ask ourselves, whether our neighbour – everyone we meet in our everyday life – is not a prophet sent by God for us, who predicts our future depending on our attitude towards him. At the very least, according to this (if we have not understood the aforementioned), the prophet is much closer to us than we suppose.
The true prophet of God, whatever he does, will probably not open the vain hearts of the self-styled spiritual greats to mercy: “For John the Baptist came, who neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say: ‘He has demon.’ The Son of Man has come, Who eats and drinks, and you say: ‘Look, He is a man who eats and drinks a lot, a friend of publicans and sinners!'” (Luke 7, 33-34).
Today’s Gospel reading is a beautiful lesson and reminder not to rely too much on our Christian or Monastic name, but to try to show Christian or Monastic deeds, because: “There were many widows in Israel, in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was closed three years and six months and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent, except to the widow in Zarephath , in the region of Sidon; and many lepers were in Israel, in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, except Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4, 25-27). And because: ” For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and true circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose ]praise is not from men but from God.” (see: Rom. 2, 28-29).
Holy Prophet Elijah, pray to God for us, until you come!
Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
08/01/2022 15:58
