Cândva, de demult, chiar în zilele noastre, un moș și-o babă citeau bloguri.
Moșul citea numai bloguri deocheate, cu furăciuni, cu pervertiri, pe când baba, mai bisericoasă, citea din astea teologice, cu poze, cu rugăciuni, cu învățăminte bune.
Și după ce citeau ei minute bune…își închideau leptoapele lor și începeau să povestească, fără doar și poate, fiecare ceea ce citea în particular.
„Ai văzut, fă, blogul lui A ce prost e? E ca buturuga de prost”, îi zicea moșul, pentru că pe B, rudă cu A, îl plăcea baba. Însă baba îl învăța ce spunea părintele D la predică, și nu ce spunea C, pentru că așa vroia baba să facă.
Moșul, un bețivan și un fustangiu, votase cu PDL.
Baba însă îl votase pe Crin Antonescu în primul tur și, în al doilea tur, pe Mircea Geoană.
Acuși moșul așteaptă pe alba-neagra să se nască, adică pe Alba ca zăpada (care cred că se naște cam zănatică…și degeaba…), pe când baba, pentru că are conștiință națională, și vede cu proprii ei ochi ce de izbeliște a ajuns țara asta, votează USL pe viitor, ca să facă curățenie pentru viitorime.
Moșu’ ascultă online pe un filosof (?) și eseist cu ochelari (?), fost teolog (?), că spune ăla despre creștin-democrație, despre cum o să ne fie nouă bine în somn, despre palavre înșirate pe ață.
Baba însă citește predici în engleză, face acatiste, se roagă, se roagă de bine, și chiar și pentru moșul ei se roagă, ca să îi vină mintea la cap, cât și pentru ca țara, lumea, să meargă în direcția aia bună.
Moșul joacă la loto, baba nici să n-audă de așa ceva.
Și moșul își joacă cam jumate din pensie…în speranța că o să câștige lozul ăl mare, o să divorțeze, și o să ia o tinerică și o subțârică de vreo 25 de ani…că și găina tânără…face clăbuci în ciorbă…
Însă baba, care va să zică, când îl aude, ea, baba, când îl aude spunând despre tinerică, frumușică și blonduță, oricât ar ține ea la leptopul ei, scoate mausul și îl zvârle după el.
Și așa se face că, pe fiecare săptămână, baba coboară șontâc-șontâc pe scara blocului de vreo 4-5 ori, că moșul iar o zâs de aia tânără din visele lui…
Dar omul visează…și la loto tot nu mai câștigă!
De aceea, enervat nevoie mare că nu a câștigat nici săptămâna asta…a downloadat de pe net ultimul album al lui Guess Who…și l-a ascultat pe tot. Și a dat sonorul la maximum…de se zdruncinau pereții…
Dar nici baba nu s-a lăsat mai prejos! Nu…Ea a downloadat un CD de muzică bisericească, ortodoxă, de pe net și l-a ascultat până la capăt…de plângeau toate din jurul ei, alături de ea.
Moșul însă, în acea clipă, se făcea că doarme…Dar oricât de mătrăgună este el…tot i-a plăcut și lui melosul bisericesc, că e și el creștin…chiar dacă e prost direcționat…
Și, după cum vă spuneam, trăiră până la adânci bătrâneți…până când se instală în România un regim politic care le dădu pensia pe care o meritau, vitează mai mare la net…și verdeață în fața blocului.
Numero 1 – (numero di prova) Numero 2 – L’Italia bizantina Numero 3 – L’Impero di Giustiniano Numero 4 – Costantino il Grande Numero 5 – L’Impero dei Comneni 1081-1181 Numero 6 – Bisanzio, narrazione di una civiltà colta Numero 7 – I Paleologi, l’ultima dinastia di Bisanzio 1259-1453 Numero 8 – L’esarcato 554-751 Numero 9 – L’età macedone: dotti, militari, patriarchi Numero 10 La Siria bizantina Numero 11 – Venezia e Bisanzio Numero 12 – Eraclio 610-641 Numero 13/1– Ortodossia XI-XIV secolo Numero 13/2 – Ortodossia XI-XIVsecolo Numero 14 – Arte e scienza a Bisanzio Numero 15/1 – La tyrannis Numero 15/2 – La tyrannis Numero 16/1 – Dall’Italia bizantina all’Impero latino Numero 16/2 – Bisanzio, Venezia e l’Europa in età paleologa
Numeri pubblicati (supplementi)
Supplemento 1 – Breve introduzione al diritto bizantino Supplemento 2 – Lo Strategikon di Maurizio e la tradizione militare romana Supplemento 3 – Il sacco di Costantinopoli nel 1204 e il bottino veneziano Supplemento 4 – „…the equipment of Georgios Maniakes and his army according…” Supplemento 5 – Manuel II Paleólogo,emperador de Bizancio (1391 – 1425) Supplemento 6 – „Los obispos en la temprana edad media italiana: una construccion en la construccion”: a proposito de su iconografìa Supplemento 7 – Sulla presunta tripartizione del senato a Bisanzio. Critica d’un passo della Cronografia di Psello Supplemento 8 – Le trasformazioni della Gallia nella tarda antichità attraverso la riflessione cassiodorea Supplemento 9 – La chiesa di Siria tra Bisanzio e i Sassanidi Supplemento 10 – Regalia Signa Supplemento 11 – Castel seprio
2. 3. The Sight of the Christ’s Gloryand the Path of Deification
We could tell from the beginning, anterior of the laborious textual analysis, that the relation of Saint Symeon with Christ is the central theme of his theology, where pass on, in abrupt mode, to the theology of glory. This thing becomes evident even if we do only a frugal reading of his work.
The person of Christ is one that absorbs the full attention of Symeon and Symeon speaks with Christ and about Him, seeing Him both personally, in his being, but, in the same time, and objectively, as the Pantocrator, the one Who keeps all and is the interior foundation of all creation visible and invisible.
The personal reporting and, in the same time, objective, realistic of Symeon at the person of Christ is the deepest experience and knowledge of his life.
This thing we want to emphasize from good beginning, for that not to by considered the communion of Symeon with Christ right a reality of the domain of the strictsubjectivity, which has nothing to do with Christ as the real person, objective, Who is the Head of the Church and the Almighty, the Pantocrator of the entire existence.
The centrality of the Christ’s person in the theology of Saint Symeon does not start from the fact that our Father has an exclusive initiation, of the textual type in the christology of the Scripture and of the anterior Fathers, but because Symeon saw the glory and the beauty of Christ in ecstatic mode.
The Christ of Symeon is the Christ of the Church, Who is above all, but He is the Lord of his life in the same time, with Who he is in communion, until he no longer live, but Christ lived in Symeon.
We present in this section the mystical economy of Christ, about Who Symeon speaks to us, the continuous miracle that happens with those who deify themselves and, in the frame which, each relives, in personal mode, the whole economy of salvation experienced by Christ in His humanity.
*
2. 3. 1. Birth ofChrist in the Personal Experience
The Ethical Discourse 5 attacks athornyproblem for every generation of believers and theologians, who poste regarding the Sacraments and the mystical experience on the field of the personal unconnection, by grace, at the God’s life.
Saint Symeon discusses here the false orthodox attitude of those who say, that they have the Ghost of God in unknown/ unconscious (avgnw,stwj)[1] face, Whom they received from their Baptism, but that they have no an interior evidence of His by sight (qewri,a|) and revelation (avpokalu,yei), but received Him and keep Him in them only by faith (pi,stei) and thought (logismw/|)[2], ie by the interior attitude that does not touchat all the ecstatic experience of the glory.
Symeon dismounted step by step the affirmations of his opponents, that, after how is observed, they had an intellectualist relation and not a graceal one with God.
Commenting on Gal. 3, 27 (the verse from which Symeon begins his theological contraoffensive), our Father says that Christ, the One with that we dress us in Baptism (a real, mysterious dressing), being thetrue God and the true man, came to make man god through His divinity[3].
Our deification, emphasizes Symeon, is produced by the deified body (dia. th/j qewqei,shj zwopoiei/) of Christ and through this we do not know Christ as man, but as perfect God known in two natures[4].
The deification (qeopoio,n) of man is a reality for all ages, because Christ divinizes us „by His divinity and not just by His body”[5].
According to the christological dogma, where the person of Christ is not divided because of the two natures of His hypostasis[6], Symeon punctuate without right at appeal, that we have clothed in Baptism with God, with Christ God and that the dressing with God wasfelt by our being[7].
If we say that the dressing with God is a metaphor, resulting by the symeonian syllogism, that Holy Baptism is not a Holy Mystery, but a symbol. Those who do not feel that Christ is in them, although they were baptized orthodox, are for Symeon nekroi. kai. gumnoi., namely dead and naked[8].
The dressing in Christ is for Symeon the first part of the equation of our spiritual birth.
Binding to the famous pnevmatological text from I Thess. 5, 19, Simeon says that the address of this verse are those who have lampa.dan, the candle / the torch[9], that „kaiome,nhj kai. avstra,pton evcou,shj to. fw/j” (burns and has a bright light)[10].
[1] SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, V, 1, p. 78 / Ică jr. 1, p. 247.
[2] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 2-13, p. 78-80 / Idem, p. 247-248.
[3] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 14-35, p. 80-82 / Idem, p. 248.
[4] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 38-41, p. 82 / Idem, p. 249.
[5] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 58-59, p. 84 / Ibidem.
[6] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 59, p. 84 / Ibidem.
[7] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 59-68, p. 84 / Ibidem.
[8] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 72-73, p. 84 / Idem, p. 250.
[9] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 78, p. 84 / Ibidem.
[10] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 80, p. 86 / Ibidem.
the Divine Priesthood is a vocation. It is our calling by God for to serve Him, with divine happiness and great suffering. Because this great divine gift comes at package with sorrow, suffering, worry, pain…
And who is not called by God can not resist as a priest. Because it’s a huge pain all day doing things, that you do not wholeheartedly.
And when it’s not a vocation installs into priest routine, nausea, indifference…because he do not enjoy, does not increase, not sanctifying in every day.
But vocation means continuous illumination, help, guidance of the priest. For who that is called by God at priesthood is called to serve, to teach, enlighten them, to save his people through his ministration and his life.
Where is vocation, there is love for God and piety and the priesthood is not only a job of which earns his money. Because where the priesthood is only a social prestige and a source ofmoney, the secularization is at home, for that the source of the secularization of the world is centering of the priest on the material in the detriment of the spiritual.
The Church’s services are the eternal life of people but these must served with holiness and explained. For that only in a pious frame, the more inner peace, a lot of depth, we can be changed and filled with grace through the Sacraments of God.
At Opera House we must listen in silence. Like the Theater…You must know what is sung or what is put in scene for to understand the message of the artistic work. We need by the initiates inart for to know the depths of art.
This is the motive for that the priest must be an initiate into the mysteries of God and not a provider of the religiousservices. For that the priest-functionary makes the Baptism, the Religious Wedding, the Funeral, cuts a quittance at every services in part, he smiles beautifully or sadly as the context…but he is not interested to offer an introduction into the mystical life of the Church. This is because the priest does not want…but also he can not.
And if the priest did not explain what is happening in the Church therefore each understands what he wants and can. And from the understanding after ear comes all superstitions, which secularize the orthodox life.
And secularization of Romania is in full development for that in the Ortodox Church the pastoralexamples are few. Are few the actual pastoral examples.
Because the priesthood begins not with the Theological Seminary or the Faculty of Theology but with the change of life, from childhood, when you feel that God calls you to Him.
You must have a complete training and on many levels for you to be more or less proper for priesthood. And if one who is preparing for the priesthood 30 years, in constant mode, he does not feel worthy of it, how someone would feel able to do this with only four years of theological studies?
The priest must be a theologian, officiant, orator, organizer, educator, philosopher, artist, psychologist…But the one that, through everything he does, makes people to feel the glory of God, who sanctifies us all.
All words and his life must be a passage to encounter with God.
But the postmodern society sees in priest somethingrevolute, from other times, which not sees the purpose. The priest’s salary in Romania is amockery. Between your life and your family, with little money, you can think and to your spiritualflock?
And the desperation includes you, when you see that you do not havewith whom or with what to do the priesthood. And this desperation, holy and profound, arises in the heart of thevocationpriest, as in the heart of Saint Peter, which not caught anything all night [Luke 5, 5].
But for the grace of God in us is stronger than this holy desperation, we turn our pain into obedience to God and we continue our vocation, waiting His voice in our conscience.
And without this voice of God in our lives, without His help permanently, no priest could carry the cross of his priesthood to the end.
Therefore, the orthodox priest with vocation does not look in the first place at much fish of evangelization [Luke 5, 6] but to the quality of it.
For that the qualityfish of the Church are the real believers, which attend it and support it in authentic mode. For those the priest struggles in continual. And his daily work for the Church is seen in the quality of believers, who see it and hear it continuously.
But not only they are watching us, but also those who not come to Church…but and those who do not belong to the Church.
For all the priest must be a light, a breeze of air, a comfort. Yes, the priest who is struggling in poverty, which is regarded with indifference, which is observed only by few!
But many young people in the future, more will want a priesthood of dying of hunger? Why not look for a lucrative profession than the one where you have many headaches?
And the future of the priesthood, from very practical reasons, is placed under the sign of question. Because only men of vocation can make on future, in the proximal future, the orthodox priesthood.
And God always chooses His priests! For even if He allows us all, we should not lay with the fact that Heenjoysall of us.
God tries on the devoted priest and allows one who came at the altar of the Lord only for the personal pocket. For the Lord looks at the human heart and sees the efforts of His faithful priest and these efforts make him: „a fisher of men” [Luke 5, 10, acc. BBE].
For the truly catching is not through a sermon but throughout your life and work. Therefore the priesthood is vocational, is His calling, and a continuous gospel.
And if the priest is not a living gospel, a continuous annunciation, then the world will cover more with the quilt of any ideology, believing that it is good. But the good stays in the holylife, in the ecclesial life and not in anextremistideology.
For all that is not right, clean and holy is something extreme. And the Church’s life in the world means sanctification, both, of ours and of the entire cosmos. And this sanctification starts from the work of the priest in the Church and in the world, because this descends the grace of God in our lives.
And if the orthodox priest does this, how can we neglect just the one, which helps the whole life basically? The answer is simple: because the postmodern ideology taught us, that matter has no spiritualsupport and that the life means joy of supermarket.
The orthodox priest can not give us in the Church sausages, computers, porn movies, rock concerts and free holiday but the divinegrace, that stands on base of the world. But without the God’s grace, which comes through a priest in this world, nothing can be seen clean and deep.
And we can not enjoy in real mode without the God’s grace which comes in the Church through the prayer and the ministry of priests.
That is why we must honor the priests of God and pray for them, because together with them we save us with all. Amen!
