“How is this joy of God born within the heart of a person?” Michael asked.
“According to the teaching of the elders, it starts when a person begins to strive spiritually and tirelessly to implement the commandments of God. He will encounter fatigue and many difficulties along the way. But there will also be a gradual emergence in his heart of the first rays of God’s joy, which will offer him further inducement to continue on this path.”
“How?”
“As a person makes the effort to spiritually unite with God, there emerges in his heart further desire and energy for spiritual awakening.”
“I suppose the vision of God can help one to transcend his human limitations,” I added.
“Right. This reminds me of an old hermit who used to regularly pass by our monastery carrying provisions on his back for other hermits and monks. He was very poor, lived in a shack, and was always hungry. I would ask him, ‘How are you today, Father?’ His reply was always ‘Hungry!’ I was in charge of the kitchen during that time, and I would give him food to eat. His task was to carry provisions for the other monks by walking hours on end. I asked him why he didn’t let others do the rounds instead of taking up their heavy load for himself. His answer was ‘Oh, since I’m going to Karyes [the administrative center of Mt. Athos, where there is a grocery store], I don’t mind bringing some provisions to the others. They have work to do, whereas I am just taking a walk.’ In fact, the reason he was doing those regular rounds, walking for hours, summer and winter, was for the sake of others. Old as he was, he always carried a heavy load on his back. Yet he was always joyous, radiating with happiness. You could see it on his face. He never complained. When asked how he was doing, he would reply Doxasi O Theos [Glory be to God]. He was never angry and was always smiling. When he died, we noticed that his feet were in terrible condition, skinned to the bare bone.”
“Somebody unfamiliar with the culture of Mt. Athos might think he was psychologically unbalanced,” I suggested. “Nonsense. He was neither a fool nor mentally handicapped. He simply radiated the Grace of God. The paradox of the Gospel is this: through the suffering of the cross there emerges life and joy. Through hard and tiring labor there comes rest. Through a relentless and tiring spiritual labor, by dying daily so to speak, a person finally finds true joy.”
I pointed out that what Fr. Maximos was describing was a general axiom about the nature of pleasure and joy. You cannot experience pleasure without experiencing pain first. You cannot enjoy food until you are hungry. You cannot enjoy water without thirst. You cannot experience joy without first going through suffering.
“We live in a world of polarity,” I said, “of plus and minus, hot and cold, pleasure and pain, angels and demons. Good and evil seem to be equally balanced in this fallen world.”
“And that is the meaning of the cross,” Fr. Maximos added. “It prepares the way for the Resurrection, for true joy. It means that I go through life carrying my cross with joy.”
“The cross by itself is a symbol of torture, fit for criminals in that Roman period,” someone painted out.
“Yes, but Christ sanctified that symbol,” Fr. Maximos added. “Christ transforms the cross into joy. Our pains, trials, difficulties, and tribulations of all sorts are not good in themselves. But these problems can be transmuted so that they yield rich spiritual fruits. It is Christ who transforms what is bitter into what is sweet, darkness into light.”
Fr. Maximos concluded by repeating that human beings are created for joy, not pain and suffering. It is our fallen state that subtracted joy from our hearts, plunging us into pain, sorrow, insecurity, fear, and angst about our impending death. It is illusory, Fr. Maximos would argue, to try to overcome these problems by focusing exclusively on pursuits that are ephemeral. These pursuits cannot give real rest to the human soul.
“The only path to real joy,” he concluded, “is through the reestablishment of our absolute relationship with God, with a direct experiential connection with the Divine, the presence of God in our hearts. Our hearts then become receptive chalices that accept the fruits of the Holy Spirit, this absolute and inexpressible joy that springs from within us as we strive to abide by God’s commandments, that is, to love God and, by extension, every other human being. It is our very nature which dictates that we cannot attain real ontological joy outside of God.”
~Adapted from Kyriacos C. Markides, Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality
