Sunday, August 10, 2014

Right here and now

In a prayer on the day of Dormition [August 15] we say, “The laws of nature are overcome in you, O all pure Virgin.” God wants our salvation, and when God wishes, the laws of nature are overcome. Spirituality is that supernatural world, which a Christian must enter not “someday,” “somewhere,” but right here and now, on earth in the midst of modern civilization. Entering this spiritual world is itself an act of spirituality. Spirituality is the state of existence of any person who in some way tries to become part of the spiritual world. Spirituality is synonymous with the acquisition of godliness, because God is Spirit. Jesus calls God “Spirit” when He talks to Nicodemus (John 3:1-10) and discloses to him (and in his person to the entire human race) the reality of another divine world, and the difficulty of entering it. Spirituality is the Kingdom of the Divine Spirit. Christianity is a teaching about this Kingdom and about how to enter it.

This is why the Gospel is permeated by the call “to seek the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus was awed and terrified as he realized the concept of new birth into spiritual life, and how supernatural this event is for human beings. We too are terrified by the very concept of spiritual life, and we try to camouflage its demands in philosophy, ecumenism, ritualism, in anything that will serve as a cover up.

— Sergei Fudel, Light in the Darkness

“Remember who your teachers were…”

2 Timothy 3:14

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