By Fr. Stelyios Muksuris
“THINK of shepherds who are made wise, think of priests who teach, of women who are delighted, when Gabriel teaches Mary joy, when Elisabeth has inside her own womb John kicking. Anna spreads the good news, Symeon opens his arms worshiping the great God inside a little infant, without despising what they see, but glorifying the greatness of His deity. His deity is revealed like light through hymens of glass, through the human body the divine power, transforming to the light of dawn those who have the eyes of their heart cleaned.” (St. Basil the Great, Oration on the Nativity, PG 31.1473)
In my graduate classes on liturgy and worship, a typical discussion that surfaces every year addresses the question of holiness. What does it mean to be holy? Is it a property solely of God? And when we acquire it, what happens to us? How do we become holy? My approach, radical to some, is not to quantify holiness — as if to say God has more than we do — but to understand holiness as a means of participating in the life of God, precisely in His purity and simplicity. When we live pure and simple lives, we imitate God and partake of His sanctification.
In the aforementioned reflection on the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Cappadocia father, St. Basil of Caesarea, offers us a glimpse of God’s holiness as it is manifested within the lives of several saintly individuals. Sanctification occurs when we enter into contact with the living God, when we imitate in faith the purity and simplicity of Christ, when we humbly and lovingly extend ourselves as He did to those around us. The simple shepherds who witnessed the angelic lauds in the fields are bestowed wisdom. The simplicity exhibited by the priests renders them effective teachers and leaders of the people. The Mother of God, in her meekness as a pure maiden from a loving family, is permeated with a joyfulness surpassing all human imagination. St. Elizabeth, Mary’s older first cousin, and the prophetess St. Anna, in the natural purity of their lives and in obedience to the will of God, likewise reflect the jubilant message of the Gospel in their interaction with others, kinsmen and strangers alike. And finally we come to St. Symeon, the God-receiver in the Temple, who in the purity of his life, witnesses the divinity of God when gazing upon the face of the 40-day-old innocent and helpless Babe. God is seen wondrously within the frailty and simplicity of the human body which He assumed for our salvation, but He can only be seen when our eyes and minds have been purged from all uncleanness and vain and incorrect thoughts.
When we have rid ourselves of the excess spiritual baggage we accumulate throughout our lives, sifting through the unnecessary and necessary components that define who we are and dispelling the excessive interferences and distractions of life, we place ourselves in a position of better clarity in order to receive sanctification. As St. Gregory the Theologian taught, all people desiring to be united with God must progress through three consecutive stages: κάθαρσις (“purification”) — φωτισμός (“illumination”) — θέωσις (“deification”), all three of which are typically applied to correspond to Holy Baptism, Holy Chrismation, and the Holy Eucharist. Minimizing the clouds allows us a clearer vision of the sun, and when we know where the sun finally is, we program our internal spiritual GPS to guide us toward its warmth and magnificence.
In the Scriptures, the Lord exhorts His people to “be holy to Me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be My own” (Leviticus 20:26). As God, the Lord is free from all passions and wants and concerns. Nothing limits Him, nothing controls Him, but He is perfectly the “One who is” (Exodus 3:14), the One who surpasses all human intelligibility and wisdom that can only bind Him. His existence He defines Himself as one of absolute purity and simplicity, and He makes the same expectations of us. Who can forget the scene in which the Lord wills to make a revelation to His prophet Elijah with regard to His identity, after Elijah complains that the people have abandoned God and seek to execute His prophets, including Himself?
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (1 Kings 19:11-13)
It is in the plainness of a mere whisper that God manifests the fullness of His presence, not in a violent act of nature. For an act of nature can convey the notion that God’s power is intertwined with the violence wreaked by the weather, a sort of animistic belief in which whimsical spirits live in nature and manifest their power at the expense of another’s fear or intimidation. This manifestation of God’s power in simplicity and vulnerability is rehashed by God Himself when He instructs St. Paul that “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Even Christ looked favorably upon the innocent children of His day, assuring His listeners to “take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). Hence, purity and simplicity within children do not only reflect the image of the Holy Infant Jesus, who is the very face of God the Father, but both states of being allow human access to the divine, for the Lord welcomes those who struggle to imitate Him and to remain obedient to His will.
~Orthodox Christian Network (OCN), “Ho, Ho, Holiness in the Simplicity and Purity of God,” http://myocn.net/ho-ho-holiness-in-the-simplicity-and-purity-of-god/.
THE V. Reverend Protopresbyter Dr. Stelyios S. Muksuris, Ph.D. [BA, MDiv, MLitt, PhD, ThD (post-doc.)], serves the Kimisis Tis Theotokou Greek Orthodox Church in Aliquippa, PA, and is Professor of Liturgy and Languages at SS. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. A native of Boston and a graduate of Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, he received his postgraduate degrees and his doctorate in liturgical theology from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. He is an active member of several academic societies (AAR, SL, SOL, BSC, OTSA), a frequent conference speaker both nationally and internationally, the author of a monograph, Economia and Eschatology: Liturgical Mystagogy in the Byzantine Prothesis Rite (Boston, 2013), and the author of an introductory chapter for a textbook on Christianity, as well as numerous papers and studies in theological journals. He is a frequent consultant on liturgical matters for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh.
