God has given mankind to
participate in communion with Him out of His rich mercy and grace,
without which it would be impossible. Through Christ's taking to
Himself our very human nature, without sin, and deifying it, we may
now participate and abide in the grace of God. Man's nature is
redeemed and deified, he may now choose God, and thus may
participate in grace. Through participation and synergy, man's own
freewill is honored. As man in the beginning freely chose sin and
death, now man must freely choose grace and life. By accepting and
abiding in grace, we begin the abundant “life from above” (cf.
John 3). Through grace the Christian believer no longer exists simply
on a biological level; he is plugged into the divine life while still
abiding in his mortal body. By grace the believer is called to have
the Spirit penetrating every aspect of his existence, as in the
beginning the breath of God permeated every fiber of Adam's being,
endowing him with spiritual life.
The whole point of the
Christian life consists of this: that we would be partakers of the
divine life which is energized within the believer by the grace of
the Holy Spirit. The Christian believer being transformed by the
Spirit partakes of, and is moved by, the very energy and life of the
Holy Spirit. St. Macarius the Great speaking of this mystery says:
If,
then, anyone loves God, God also shares His love with him. Once a man
believes in Him, God bestows on such a one a heavenly faith and so he
becomes twofold. As you offer to God any part of yourself, He Himself
shares with your soul similar aspects of His own being, so that all
you do, you may do sincerely and purely, loving and praying in this
same way.
The believer who is bearing
within himself the Spirit of God is guided by the grace of God and
his inner man is adorned with the beauty of Christ. St. Seraphim of
Sarov teaches,
“The
Holy Spirit Himself comes to dwell in our souls, and we are granted
this very presence of the Almighty, this abiding attendance of the
Triune God in our souls only if we earnestly strive to acquire the
Holy Spirit, preparing a place for His omnipotent in our souls and
bodies according to His pure promise 'I will dwell in them and walk
among them. I will be their God and they shall be My people'.”
In the Holy Spirit our fleshly
existence begins its transformation into heavenly; by Him we are united to
Christ and through Him to the whole of redeemed creation: “The
Maker Himself of heaven and earth and all created things gives us to
know Him by the Holy Spirit. In this same Holy Spirit we know the
Mother of God, the Angels and the Saints, and our spirit burns with
love for them” (St. Silouan the Athonite). By the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit the believer enters upon transfigureration, becoming a living member of
the Body of Christ. Through participation in Christ we become one
with Him; the life we live we live for Him and through Him. “Wit
h
the fullness of our being we coinhere fully in the fullness of God,
becoming everything God is save for essence” (St. Maximos the
Confessor). If we are alive in Christ (and thereby in the Spirit)
then we partake of Him in a living manner, conscious and aware; only
the dead have no consciousness, as St. Symeon the New Theologian
says.
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St. John Maximovich |
Experience and participation in
Christ is the promise and call of all true Christians. It is to this
one single goal that every believer is called to be focused on,
directing his whole life, indeed his whole person, in pursuit of the
grace of the Spirit and the transformation which ensues. Thus the Lord through His Saints calls the believer to be watchful, guarding his life and heart
in purity, focusing all energy on life in Him:
Be
watchful as you travel each day the narrow but joyous and
exhilarating road of the mind, keeping your attention humbly in your
heart, reproaching yourself ready to rebut your enemies, thinking of your death and invoking Jesus Christ. You will then
attain a vision of the Holy of holies and be illumined by Christ …
in the presence of Christ you will feel the Holy Spirit spring up
within your soul. It is the Spirit who initiates man's intellect
(nous), so that it can see with 'unveiled face' (2 Cro. 3: 18). For
'no one can say “Lord Jesus” except in the Holy Spirit' (1 Cor.
12: 3). In other words, it is the Spirit who mystically confirms
Christ's presence in us. (St.
Hesychios the Priest)
The grace of the Holy Spirit
must be guarded and sought at all times. There is never a
point when a believer should feel spiritually comfortable. There is no one time instantaneous moment from nothing to everything. A Christian is called to spend his life being filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
It should be pointed out that the
believer's personal experience of grace is never to be set in
contrast to, or against, the experience of the Body of Christ. Indeed
the two are in reality one. Every true personal experience is
strengthened and confirmed in the life of the Church. The believer's experience
of grace is a personalized expression of the corporate experience. On
the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit energized in the Church the
fullness of faith, and through Him She is given to fathom the
mysteries of God. This full experience of faith is manifest in the
over two thousand year life of the Church in the Holy Spirit. The
believer partakes of this fullness of life in his person in as much as
he is united to the Body of Christ.