Committed to living as the presence of Christ
By Abbot Tryphon, January 17, 2020
According to Saint Ephraim the Syrian (306 – 373), “The Church is not the assembly of saints, it is the mass of sinners who repent, who, sinners though they are, have turned towards God and are oriented towards Him.” As a people whose focus is on God, we are sinners who are committed to living as the presence of Christ in the world, and our holiness cannot be separated from the holiness of God at work in this world.
Our sin is a pervading sickness or failure to achieve the goal of being truly human. We are called to fulfill our Divine design and function as the created image of God. Our sin, therefore, does not merely imply guilt for violating God’s commandments, but must be the impetus for become something other than what we are in our fallen state. Because each of us has an experience that is unique, conquering our personal sinful habits requires all our attention and correction.
The ultimate goal of this salvific process is to become deified, which is simply to reflect the Divine likeness. By becoming Christ-like in our behavior and in our thinking, we cooperate with God in this healing process, and are returned to God’s likeness.
It is from this perspective that we recognize our vocation as being Christ in the midst of this fallen world. For this world, just as are we, is called into the process of divinization, and we, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov tells us, can cause the salvation of a thousand around us, by acquiring inner peace. As we acquire a humble and contrite heart, we reveal Christ to the world, and promote the transformation of the whole of the Cosmos into the image and likeness of our Creator God.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
~Abbot Tryphon, The Morning Offering, https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/morningoffering/2020/01/a-mass-of-sinners-2/.
Poustinia
The importance of silence to the inner life
Abbot Tryphon, January 8, 2020
The Russian word “Poustinia”, which means “desert”, is so important to the inner life, that it cannot be dismissed. If we are to hear the voice of God speaking to us, we must enter into silence. If we are to learn to hear His voice, we must learn to be silent. Without recollection and silence, the inner life is impossible, and we will not make spiritual progress.
The desert must be a part of our daily living, for without entering into the desert of the heart, nothing can be gained. With the noise of the Internet, and the world of computers, iPods, laptops, and iPhones, the noise of the world threatens our soul like nothing in the previous history of humanity. The world of cybernetics has its place, but we must not allow it to overwhelm the spiritual dimension of our humanity.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
~Abbot Tryphon, The Morning Offering, https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/morningoffering/2020/01/poustinia-4/.
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