"The Divine Liturgy is a betrothal to Christ"

The Divine Liturgy is a betrothal to Christ, it is a wedding. It places us in His Kingdom.

Later, we will go out again, we will go back to our house with our passions, with our sins, and with our miseries.

It doesn't matter. Again we will go to Liturgy, and again we will seize Christ, He will deify us again. And thus, with continuous struggle, with a continuous path, with the Priest before us and we behind, we will reach the Kingdom of Heaven.

Do we go to the Liturgy with this desire? We obtain the Kingdom of the Heavens.

-Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

Source: http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com.au/

My soul has thirsted for You

 O God, my God, to You I rise early at dawn.

My soul has thirsted for You;

how often my flesh has longed for You,

in a desert land, parched and impenetrable.

(Psalm 63:1)

David calls out to God twice, adding in the second instance the possessive pronoun «my». His heart is wholly consumed by the love of God; he can find no rest. He seeks to satisfy his desire by invoking the divine name over and over. Expressing the depth of his relationship with God, he says «O God, my God» with the same love and devotion that a small child might say «Mamma, my Mamma». Psalm 63 is a love song, a canticle of desire for God. For the singer of such a song, God is an utterly concrete and compelling reality. And so David speaks to Him, cries to Him, and at the same time searches after Him, as if he were crying out: Have you seen Him Whom my heart loves? (cf. Song 3:3). Where is God? Where has He gone? The psalmist is deeply troubled. God had been his friend; he knew Him well and encountered Him often. His only desire was to live with Him always. That’s why he cries out to Him, why he calls upon Him so simply and so directly, saying my God, my God.

To You I rise early at dawn. «Early in the morning I address myself to You; I pray to You». What does it mean to rise early at dawn? In the first place, «dawn» (ὄρθρος) was the name given to the second-to-last shift of the night watch kept by the ancient Israelites. This means that David is speaking to God very late at night, just before the break of day, before the rising of the sun. But David is a king, burdened with the cares of office: shouldn’t he be sleeping at such an hour? Of course he should, for sleep is sweet. But is there anything sweeter than prayer, which is an encounter with God? The Hebrew text lends an additional element to this, since the phrase, to You I rise early at dawn, also means, «even though it is still night, I search for you with warmth and ardor». Sleeplessly, therefore, the psalmist seeks God. He can find no rest. He searches for God in the small hours of the night, in the early hours of the morning. And where is David at this time? Is he safe in his palace, attending to the affairs of state, meditating on God throughout the day, and now searching for Him at night? No. He is in the desert, pursued by Absalom, his son. He is being hunted like an animal by a band of conspirators and rebels (cf. 2 Sam 15:1-23).5 He is hungry, thirsty, stripped of his royal garments, and in peril from desert storms and violent men. And yet he asks neither for deliverance from this desperate situation nor for the punishment of his enemies. He seeks only God.

- Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Psalms and the Life of Faith

http://www.orthodoxbookstore.org.au/products/psalmsandthelifeoffaith



Communion with God

A Sermon given by Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra at the Church of St Andrew, Athens, 1975.

The man who was brought before the Lord in today's Gospel lesson, my beloved children, is a compelling figure indeed! He was both deaf and dumb, and although he longed to communicate, he could neither hear the words of others, nor give voice to his own thoughts. Above all, he could not communicate with the Lord, to Whom he had been brought.

Faced with the great misfortune of a soul unable to speak to its Redeemer, the Saviour sighed deeply (Mk 7:34), just has He did at the tomb of Lazarus, who had been dead for four days (cf. Jn 11:38). On both occasions our Saviour sighed, because a man who is dead and buried is no different from a man who is incapable of speaking to the Lord or hearing the voice of God.

This is why the Lord addressed only one word to him: Ephphatha - Open! (Mk 7:34). Open ears and hear! Open, mouth and speak! At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak (Mk 7:35). His mouth was opened, the bonds were broken, and his ears began to hear the words addressed to him by God, Who was standing before him in the flesh.

You may think that this event, which took place long ago, has little to do with us. But it seems to me - and I have always been moved by the thought - that all of us are deaf and mute with respect to God. How many of us can say that we've spoken to God, and that God has heard us? How many of us can say that we've heard the words of God; that we've received within ourselves the deep impressions of the divine voice? On the contrary, we are deaf mutes, forever silent and unhearing though standing in the presence of God.

Let us consider, my beloved, the meaning of the word "Ephphatha" - "Open!" Let us consider how God addresses this word to us; let us see how our bonds can be broken, and how we can enter into communion with God.

When we stand before God, we know that, in order to hear and be heard, we must enter into a personal dialogue with Him, and this can only take place by means of the intellect. God is spirit (cf. Jn 4:24), and He communicates Himself to man spiritually, addressing Himself to man's highest spiritual faculty: the intellect. When we open our mouths and cry out to God, God hears us, because He receives the waves of the mind which pulsate outward like sounds from the mouth.

It follows, then, that for my intellect to speak to God, it must first of all turn towards Him. Such a turn is necessary because the intellect is in constant motion, it is forever being side-tracked, thrown off its course, endlessly shifting its focus upwards and downwards, this way and that.

As a result, communication with God requires a movement towards God. It presupposes a passage of the intellect to the creator of the intellect, an exhalation of the mind to the source of inspiration (cf. Gen 2.7); a movement to Him from Whom the intellect came forth, and to Whom it naturally returns.

My beloved, communicating with God requires that the intellect be kept in a certain tension, as if I were about to release it from a sling, and send it flying to God directly, without any deviation from its path. It requires, in other words, an exclusively dedicated movement of the intellect, in which the intellect is free from all thoughts, feelings, concepts, images, and indeed from anything whatsoever that might absorb it, attract its attention, and make it go astray.

 

The Divine Liturgy: Reflections of Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

 

Excerpt from 'The Church at Prayer: The Mystical Liturgy of the Heart' by Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra:

 

The subject which concerns us today is the spiritual life, a life which is inspired, guided, directed, and imbued by the Holy Spirit. It is a journey to Heaven. The one who undertakes such a journey rises up to heaven, even though he still walks upon the earth. Going about his ordinary tasks, he celebrates a feast in Heaven. He travels on the wings of the Holy Spirit, and his aim, his desire, his vibrancy, and daily concern is heaven.

But how often do we even think of heaven, living as we do amidst so many pleasures, and absorbed by so many trivial things? Our various preoccupations, like magnets, pull on our hearts, and make heaven appear too lofty for us to reach; something beyond our grasp and unattainable by any means. And if a person is lacking in spiritual experiences, if he has not turned his heart to Heaven, if he has not visited there from time to time, or cast so much as a glance in that direction, then the danger is even greater. If we could even turn our gaze towards heaven, even for a moment, and catch a glimpse of its breadth, its beauty, its joy, and its grandeur! It would certainly be very difficult for our soul to forget such a thing. But how can we see heaven?

If only we could open a window into heaven, and gaze upon it, and – if we found it pleasing – leap forward and enter in it to see what might be there, to make it ours, to conquer it!

If you want to look upon some superb prospect situated on the other side of a mountain, what would you do? You’d climb up to some fine summit, and from there you’d let your eye range over all the beautiful places you were longing to see. That’s what we’ll do today. We’ve all come to Church, to the temple of God, precisely to the place, that is, from where we can easily behold heaven, a region which is made radiant, beautiful, and adorned by the unfading light of the Godhead which shines with a threefold brightness.

The Church takes us and raises us up and presents us to God Himself. But is this what we feel? Is that our experience? When we come to Church, does our soul have the means of perception necessary to sense and grasp these realities? What sort of people have we become? We know all the breeds of dogs and horses, we know the species of plants, the makes of motor cars and radios, but we often fail to know those things which have a direct bearing on our life.

At the conclusion of every Divine Liturgy, you should feel what St John Climacas once said: “Now you have ravished my soul, and I cannot contain your flame, so having sung a hymn to you, I go on my way”. O my God, he says, I have felt you, I have listened to you, I’ve seen you alongside me; I have felt you pierce my heart with your arrows, set fire to my soul, light a flame which I cannot bear. And so I sing a hymn to you, and continue on my way, taking you with me. You will teach us the truth in all its fullness.

How does the Liturgy begin? “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Why does the priest begin the Liturgy with these words? What do they mean? With these words, Christ unveils for us a marvellous sight. He presents us with a heavenly vision. Before our very eyes He opens up His Kingdom. It’s like going to a shop, and the shopkeeper unfolds a bolt of fabric, and you look at it, you feel it, you test its strength, you see its beauty, and you say. “I’ll buy that.” This is what Christ does at the beginning of the Liturgy. Before our very eyes He opens up His Kingdom for us to see it, for us to feel it, for us to be satisfied, and to say: “This is what I choose for my life.” This is what our soul should feel at the beginning of every Liturgy.

 



Elder Aimilianos celebrating the Divine Liturgy