Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas
Who is so great a God as our God? You are the God who does wonders (Ps 77:13-14)
Dear Beloved,
We celebrate today the second station in our way to Golgotha, the Sunday that since 1368 has been dedicated to St. Gregory Palamas, one of the late Holy Fathers, but by no means, less important in his teachings.
His theology may seem complex to the uninitiated eye, but nevertheless there are important things that even the simplest Orthodox Christian can learn from and use in his or hers daily struggle for salvation. Being forced by the limits of time I had to pick one to talk about today and I chose the knowledge of God.
As we discussed many times before, our ultimate purpose is to live an eternity in union with God, to enter in a permanent and indissoluble relationship with Him. The existence of this relation ship is fundamental for the understanding of our God, because our God is a Trinity of persons that exist in a deep interrelationship, extending to us through His undefiled love for His Creation. We are called to be subjects of this love and participate with him in this everlasting relationship.
As in any friendship however, before we can move from a simple acquaintance to a true, passionate, deep relationship, one thing is absolutely: necessary: knowing each other. Each participant to this relationship should know about the other so they can more easily respond and interact in a meaningful way.
From God's side there is no problem, He has created us, he fashioned us in His image, and He knows what secretly lies in the heart of man. He is following us in His divine knowledge from the wombs of our mothers until the day we meet Him face to face in our Personal Judgment day.
What about us? Can we know God enough to say that we have a meaningful relationship with Him? First I have to say that there are no boundaries in knowing God, He is incomprehensible, unattainable, and infinite in His essence. There is however practically possible, to reach the stage in which we can identify ourselves with Him. God Himself has opened this door for us, as He has revealed Himself to us, as Jesus Christ, incarnate, walking on earth, living among us. He said "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."(Mat 16:24)
Our knowledge of God lays in the knowledge and in the imitation of Christ. Only through the sacrifice of our egos we can progress in His knowledge and rediscover ourselves in Christ "I have been crucified with Christ, and I live; yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20)
But how do we achieve this state? How can we be able to know Christ so well, after all He lived 2000 years ago? St. Gregory Palamas may enlighten us in this respect. During His time there were two totally opposed views of the world, one called Pantheism the other Agnosticism. Both Greek words as you can imagine. The Pantheist believed that God is in all things, so by knowing nature, you know God. The others, the agnostic believed that God is so distant in His place of existence and that the gap between the Creator and His creation is so great that no knowledge of Him is possible.
St. Gregory, following the teachings of the Holy Fathers and enhancing it through his own personal relationship with God through prayer and ascetic life, could not accept either of the two, because both contravene to the Orthodox theology.
Gregory Palamas explained that the essence of God, His inner being cannot be known by Man. However God reveals Himself to Man and enters into a relationship with him through his uncreated Grace that flows toward His Creation from His godly Being. By receiving this grace we get to know God through participation and we can be united with Him even from this world.
The experience of the ascetic Fathers, who are the source of the teaching of Gregory Palamas, stands testimony that this is possible. Their simple life, witness of the true life in Christ made possible for them to see God in His uncreated Light fulfilling the Scripture that says:"Blessed are the pure in heart! For they shall see God." (Mat 5:8) The experience of the prayer of Jesus Christ, as taught by the Fathers. brings with it for the ones that strives to practice it, the promise of the knowledge of God. In a God chosen moment, He may choose to reveal Himself to the one that prays and bring him on heights above any human imagination. It is a great and ironic paradox that no systematic theology, no old or neo-Platonism, no masters and PhDs can get us closer to God, but a simple prayer that encompasses the entire theology of the Church: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner! "
St. Gregory proposed the life of the ascetics, a simple and pure life, spent in fasting, prayer and repentance, as an answer to the proud arrogance of intellectual rationality of the West who was, and still is, rejecting anything that cannot be explained, anything that is a mystery, anything that comes trough mystical experience rather then logical deductions. Two different ways of understanding life that, unfortunately perpetuate until nowadays.
This is why St. Gregory's theology continues to be important to us today, because there are many people still that confuse the knowledge of God with the intellectual concept of God. If I deduct logically that God exists that does not mean that I know Him. If I know theoretically that He suffered and died on the cross that does not mean that I can understand His sacrifice.
The ascetic Fathers cry aloud saying: there is no knowledge of God without sacrifice. Unceasing prayer, fasting and repentance are necessary elements of a worthy life in Christ. But what knows the modern man about sacrifice. In this fallen world no one wants to sacrifice anything. No one wants to renounce anything. But the Church says the opposite: Give and you shall receive. Deny yourself to receive Christ.
During Fast we renounce meat, we renounce dairy, and many of the things that have a prominent place in our kitchens. But through denying all the aromas of our abundant cuisine we concentrate on the only one scent that matters, the scent of prayer rising as incense before God, revealing Him on His throne of Glory. There is no other way to know God, but through prayer and askesis. Without renouncing the appetizing aromas of material life we'll never be able to distinguish the perfume of true life that springs from the resurrected body of Christ, and we'll be left to live forever with the stench of dead burnt meat on our grills.
Only by being inside the Church, being organic part of it, respecting its rules for a true Christian life, we can get to know God, unchanged by times and fashions. Only the Church can distill for us what is truly important for us, what is indispensable truly know God Let us therefore try to be genuine theologians, keeping the teachings of our Church of fasting, prayer, repentance and sacrificial love, so we can attain in God's grace union with our beloved Christ, together glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amin.