GOD AND YOU: PERSON TO PERSON

Developing a Daily Personal Relationship with Jesus

by Anthony M. Coniaris
Revised and Expanded
Third Printing.

Light & Life Publishing Company

Minneapolis, Minnesota
 Light & Life Publishing Company
P.O. Box 26421
Minneapolis, MN 55426-0421

Copyright© 1995
Light & Life Publishing Company

Revised and Expanded

Third Printing. 2005
Copyright© 2005
Anthony M. Coniaris

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
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ISBN No. 978-1-933654-43-0

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword. 4
Preface. 6
“Hold Him in Your Arms Like Mary His Mother” 8
Chapter One: A Personal Sense of Involvement with God. 10
Chapter Two: The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. 16
Chapter Three: God Must be Experienced. 30
Chapter Four: To Know God Personally. 43
Chapter Five: What is Church Membership?. 52
Chapter Six: Jesus: Cosmic or Personal Savior?. 61
Chapter Seven: Prayer is Personal 70
Chapter Eight: The Sacraments are Personal 82
Chapter Nine: The Personal Aspect of Faith and Prayer as
Expressed in Orthodox Worship and Spirituality 96
Chapter Ten: The Personal Aspect of the Creed, the Trinity,
Theology and Sacred Tradition 105
Chapter Eleven: The Bible is Personal 115
Chapter Twelve: Relating Our Faith Personally to Others in Love.
128
Chapter Thirteen: Personal Encounters with God. 137
Chapter Fourteen: Participating Personally In the Resurrection of
Jesus 151
END NOTES. 157
 Foreword

The intention of the well-known and prolific Orthodox author of

this book, Fr. Anthony Coniaris, is to evoke in his readers a deeper
personal relationship with Christ, on a “person to person” basis.

The Orthodox Christian faith, rooted in Holy Tradition and Holy

Scripture has a three sided perspective on the Christian life. These
three sides of the Orthodox Christian life are interrelated so that
each is enriched and given content and meaning by the other two, a
sort of sacred trinity of the Christian way. One of these sides
highlights our membership as Christians together in the Body of
Christ, the Church. The second side is the outreach dimension of the
Christian way of life: mission, philanthropy and social concern. The
third side of the mutually enriching aspects of the Christian life is
the personal experience of the Christian life.

Coniaris helps his readers first, to understand, appreciate and

experience the importance of the personal dimension of our
relationship with Christ. Focusing almost exclusively on the personal
dimension of the Orthodox Christian’s experience of God in the first
part of his book, Fr. Coniaris explores the Orthodox Tradition in a
way that assures the reader of the truth of his message, but also
inspires the desire to enter into this personal relationship with
Christ.

His is not an individualistic approach, however, “Personal” in his

teaching is neither a privatized subjective experience, nor an
exclusion of the other two aspects of the Orthodox Christian
equation. After making a convincing and strong appeal to the reader
to enter into a personal relationship with Christ, Coniaris proceeds
to integrate that personal experience with the Orthodox Christian’s
membership in the life of the Church and in particular with
sacramental life. To a lesser extent, though present, the personal is
also connected with the outreach dimension of the Christian life.
This outreach is essential to rounding out and fulfilling our
relationship with the Trinitarian God who “went out of Himself” to
create and redeem humanity.

The book emphasizes that the experience of God should be

personally, ecclesially and diaconally lived.

The fourteen short chapters are engagingly and interestingly

written, filled with striking stories and illuminating quotations. In all,
it makes for pleasant and compelling reading. This is a book that
can be read through quickly. And then read through once again to
draw more fully from its spiritual waters, its Orthodox integrity, and
its motivating power. You’ll be changed after reading this book. My
advice - put it at the top of your reading list!

- Stanley S. Harakas
 Preface

Pascal wrote, "The God of Abraham…not (the God) of

philosophers." Philosophers come up with all sorts of abstract ideas
about God, ideas which bear little or no resemblance to the Living
God. Trying to tame God and control Him, they manufacture gods of
their own. They make God in their own weak image, a god who
does not exist; a god who bears no resemblance to the Living God.
For, the Living God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor
are your ways my ways, says the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8)

The Living God is not "a god of philosophers." He is the God of

persons, the Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the
Living God Who is in control, not the puppet God of the
philosophers. He is not the god of Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, a
god who is designed to be controlled, manipulated and even
annihilated by man. For the philosophers god is not a person but an
argument, an idea, if He exists at all.

Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." The premise is not

"God is, God thinks, therefore I am," but "I think, therefore I am."
The great "I am" of God is replaced by the little "I am" of the
individual. The great Christian dogma, "God thinks (and loves too),
therefore I am" is replaced with the little, "I think, therefore I am"
of man. In effect, man becomes god and worships himself.

God is the God of Abraham not the God of philosophers. That is

why it is the saints who know Him not philosophers. He the God of
faith Who made himself known to Abraham and reveals Himself
today to believers who love Him, trust Him and obey Him. He is not
the God of books but the God Who encounters us personally. He is
God to whom a Jewish believer could, before dying, address this
terrible cry, found written on a concentration camp wall "O God, you
have done everything to make me lose my faith. But you haven't
succeeded!"

Tertullian, an early Christian teacher, said, "We are taught God

by the prophets and by Christ, not by the philosophers, nor by
Epicurus." For, truly, in Pascal's words God is "the (personal) God of
Abraham…not the (abstract, impersonal) God of philosophers."

The great Romanian theologian, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, has

defined the Orthodox belief in the transcendence and immanence of
God in a way that strikes a balance between the Pantocrator Jesus
and the Personal Jesus:

In Christianity there are two conceptions of God, one which

comes from the Bible and which belongs to Christian life and
experience, and the other which comes from Greek philosophy. The
first presents God as the living God, full of concern and interest for
humankind. The second presents God as unmoved and immoveable.
Eastern Orthodoxy has made a great effort to combine and
harmonize the two conceptions. It has sought to reconcile both
these ways of thinking about God by means of the doctrine of the
divine essence and the divine energies-by saying that while in His
essence God remains unmoved, He comes out of Himself in His
energies.

This is to think of God in a personal way, for a person exists on

many levels at once. A mother for instance, when playing with her
child, is descending to the level of the child while at the same time
remaining an adult; likewise God who enters into the world remains
also beyond and above the world.
 “Hold Him in Your Arms Like Mary His Mother”

Consider how personal our faith in God can be:

Hold Him in your arms like Mary His mother. Enter with the Magi
and offer your gifts. Proclaim his birth with the shepherds. Proclaim
his praise with the angels. Carry him in your arms like Simeon the
Elder. Take him with Joseph down to Egypt. When he goes to play
with little children steal up to him and kiss him. Inhale the sweet
savor of his body, the body that gives life to every body. Follow the
early years of his childhood in all its stages, for this infuses his love
into your soul. Cleave to him: your mortal body will be scented with
the spice of the life in his immortal body. Sit with him in the temple
and listen to the words coming from his mouth while the astonished
teachers listen. When he asks, when he answers, listen and marvel
at his wisdom. Stand there at the Jordan and greet him with John.
Wonder at his humility when you see him bow his head to John to
be baptized.
Go out with him to the desert and ascend the mount. Sit there at
his feet in silence with the wild beasts that sought the company of
their lord. Stand up there with him to learn how to fight the good
fight against your enemies.
Stand at the well with the Samaritan woman to learn worship in
spirit and truth. Roll the stone from the tomb of Lazarus to know the
resurrection from the dead. Stand with the multitude, take your
share of the five loaves and know the blessings of prayer. Go, wake
him up who is asleep at the stern of your boat when the waves beat
into it. Weep with Mary, wash his feet with your tears to hear his
words of comfort. Lay your head on his breast with John, hear his
heart throbbing with love to the world. Take for yourself a morsel of
 the bread he blessed during supper to be one with his body and
confirmed in him forever.
Rise, do not keep your feet away that he may wash them from
the impurity of sin. Go out with him to the Mount of Olives. Learn
from him how to bend your knees and pray until the sweat pours
down. Rise, meet your cursers and crucifiers, surrender your hands
to the bonds, do not keep your face away from the slapping and
spitting. Strip your back to be lashed. Rise, my friend, do not fall to
the ground, bear your cross, for it is time for departure. Stretch your
arms with him and do not keep your feet from the nails. Taste with
him the bitterness of gall.
Rise early while it is still dark. Go to his tomb to see the glorious
resurrection. Sit in the upper room and wait for his coming while the
doors are closed. Open your ears to hear the words of peace from
his mouth. Make haste and go to a lonely place. Bow your head to
receive the last blessing before he ascends.[i]
What is the use of reasoning about the nature of grace if one
does not experience its action oneself? What is the use of
declaiming about the light of Tabor if one does not dwell in it
existentially? Is there any sense in splitting theological hairs over
the nature of the Trinity if a man has not within himself the holy
strength of the Father, the gentle love of the Son, the uncreated
light of the Holy Ghost?[ii]
- St. Silouan the Athonite
 Chapter One: A Personal Sense of Involvement with God

Come, my Light, and illumine my darkness.

Come, my Life, and revive me from death.
Come, my Physician, and heal my wounds.
Come, Flame of divine love, and burn up the thorns of my
misdeeds, kindling my heart with the flame of Your love.
Come, my God, sit upon the throne of my heart and reign there.
For You alone are my God and my Lord.
- St. Dimitrii of Rostov, 17th Century
 A PERSONAL SENSE OF INVOLVEMENT WITH GOD

A sociologist and priest, Thomas M. Gannon of Loyola University,

tested out the platitude that if a boy went to church more often, he
would not get into trouble. His findings were astounding. He tested
150 Roman Catholic teenaged boys at the Cook County juvenile
detention center. Most of the boys in the study were, by any
standard, religious: 53 percent attended church once or twice a
month, and another 27 percent attended every Sunday.

And they did more than simply turn up in church; they believed
in God (only 19 percent denied His existence). Most of them said
they prayed often, they were aware of the doctrines of the Church
in regard to stealing, sex, and gang fighting, and most of them
agreed that these doctrines were right.

Despite their evident religious commitment, however, the gap

between what these boys did and what they said was enormous.
Why?

This is the astounding discovery of this priest-sociologist. He

discovered that in parochial schools and in sermons, these boys had
been taught a creed, and intellectually they accepted that creed as
true. What was entirely missing from their religious experience,
however, was any personal sense of involvement with God. Not one
thought that God took an interest in him personally. Many could not
even think of themselves as worthy of God’s interest or love.

The conclusion was that religious faith exerts its strongest

influence when there is a personal relationship between the
individual and God. If this is lacking, then religious faith is no match
for the adolescent gang.
 Many young people and adults have never had a clear personal
encounter with the person of Jesus. All they’ve experienced in their
church is a discipline or an institution. They learn the
commandments, but not the loving God behind the commandments.
What they need most is a revelation of Jesus Christ as a loving,
compassionate God, Who is vitally and personally interested in each
one of them; like the God of St. Paul who described Jesus as the
One “Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Indeed, a God Who
loves us as if there were only one of us in the universe (Augustine).
Instead of trying to foist commandments on young people and
trying to drag them to church, we need first to introduce them to
the Person of Jesus so that they may literally fall in love with Him.
St. Isaac the Syrian speaks of becoming “drunk” with love for Jesus.
If this happens, young people will want to come to church, and
keeping the commandments will be a joy, not a burden.
 “THOU”

It must be emphasized that a very important word in the Ten

Commandments is the word “Thou,” “Thou shalt...,” “Thou shalt
not...” God addresses each one of the commandments to us
personally. He dignifies each one of us with a very personal “Thou.”
God is not giving these commandments to a mass of humanity. He
is addressing you and no one else in a very pointed and personal
way, “Thou, Mary, Jane, shalt...,” “Thou, Nick, George, shalt not...”

We need to realize this because the Ten Commandments seem

very cold and impersonal to people. This is because we do not hear
the personal “Thou” addressed to us by God. We don’t know the
precious Lord Who is behind the commandments. All we hear is the
dry letter of the law.

That is why we need first to be introduced and to come to know

the Person of Jesus. We need to fall in love with Him. When this
happens our whole relationship with Him changes.
 AN EXAMPLE

Let me mention here the example of a young man who was born
and raised in the Greek Orthodox Church, attended its Sunday
school, participated in the liturgy as an altar boy and sang in the
choir. But he never had an intimate and individual relationship with
Christ. During college he was introduced to the work of the Holy
Spirit through an evangelical campus group. Although he continued
his sacramental participation in the Orthodox Church, he also
attended an evangelical parish for its biblical teaching. After
graduation, working with Campus Crusade for Christ put him in a
situation to respond to his call for the priesthood in the Orthodox
Church where he now serves with what he calls “a true and convert
heart.” This story, which has a nice ending, should serve as a sad
reminder for Orthodox leaders, clergy and parents, about their
many altar boys and Sunday school children, who leave the Church
and never come back.

I shall let this priest speak for himself:

Like many who are born and raised within a particular Christian
expression, I did not have a solid grasp of what it means to be a
follower of Jesus Christ as a young person. In addition to the usual
hurdles and perplexities confronting any young, twentieth-century
Christian, I also faced a serious language barrier: the Orthodox
parishes I participated in as a child held their service entirely in
Greek. As with most Americans, I spoke only English.
During my high-school years I attended Sunday school,
participated as an altar boy and sang in the choir (phonetically, of
course). All of this experience gave me a closeness to my Eastern
Orthodox heritage. Unfortunately, the one thing it did not give me
was an intimate, understandable relationship with Jesus Christ. I
am not saying He was absent from my life, or that I didn’t know of
 Him. I did not, however, have an intimate communion or
relationship with Him, in the words of Saint Ephraim, as “Lord and
Master of my life.
 NOT PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS

Fr. Andrew Greeley, a noted Roman Catholic sociologist,

discovered that children who attend parochial schools and those
who do not, are the same in the final analysis. Attending parochial
school is no guarantee the child will not leave the Church. What
really changes a person, he discovered, is not attending parochial
school or confirmation classes, but the fact that there was someone
in the child’s life who loved him personally and unconditionally, and
who himself had a personal relationship with God in Christ.

Here, then, is our great challenge: to make our Orthodox

Christian faith personal first to ourselves and then to our young
people!

Fr. Henri Nouwen once told a gathering of ministers, “Ministry is

the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in
communion with God. A lot of people are always concerned about:
‘How can I help people? Or help the youth come to Christ? Or
preach well?’ But these are all basically nonissues. If you are
burning with the love of Jesus, don’t worry - everyone will know.
They will say, ‘I want to get close to this person who is so full of
God.’” If your faith is personal, it will be contagiously real.
 CONTAGIOUSLY REAL

When as parents we teach our children, we should not teach just

facts and traditions. We should share with them what our faith in
Christ means to us personally. Sometimes we spend so much time
teaching “about” Christ that we often miss the more important goal
of helping our youngsters get to know Christ personally. There is a
vast difference between learning about a person and actually
meeting and knowing the person himself.

Many young people leave the Church because they are seeking a
real, personal encounter with God which they have not found in
their homes or churches. Let us listen for a moment as one of them
speaks: “All I got at any church I ever went to were sermons or
homilies about God, about the peace that passes understanding.
Words, words, words! It was all up in the head. I never really felt it.
It was all abstract, never direct, always somebody else’s account of
it. It was dull and boring. I’d sit or kneel or stand. I’d listen to or
read prayers. But it seemed lifeless. It was like reading the label
instead of eating the contents. But here (referring to one of the
Eastern cults) it really happened to me. I experienced it myself. I
don’t have to take someone else’s word for it.”

I think there is much we can learn from the above statement.

We need to share our Orthodox Christian faith in a very personal
way with our children so that they come to experience for
themselves the reality of the power, the presence, and the love of
God in their lives.

Within the Muslim community, for example, those who become

Christians do so because they have had a Christian friend, not
because they lost a debate with a Christian preacher. It is the
personal that attracts; it is the personal that saves.
 “There Was a Teacher”

A college professor had his sociology class go into the Baltimore

slums to get case histories of 200 young boys. They were asked to
write an evaluation of each boy’s future. In every case the students
wrote, “He hasn’t got a chance.” Twenty-five years later another
sociology professor came across the earlier study. He had his
students follow up on the project to see what had happened to
these boys. With the exception of 20 boys who had moved away or
died, the students learned that 176 of the remaining 180 had
achieved more than ordinary success as lawyers, doctors and
businessmen.

The professor was astounded and decided to pursue the matter

further. Fortunately, all the men were in the area and he was able
to ask each one, “How do you account for your success?” he asked
them. In each case the reply came with feeling, “There was a
teacher.”

The teacher was still alive, so he sought her out and asked the
old but still alert lady what magic formula she had used to pull
these boys out of the slums into successful achievement.

The teacher’s eyes sparkled and her lips broke into a gentle
smile. “It’s really very simple,” she said. “I loved those boys.” It was
the personal love and encouragement of this teacher that
accomplished the miracle.

In speaking about what attracted her to the Orthodox Church, a

Harvard professor said that it was the humble, loving example of
fellow professor Bishop Trakatellis, who also taught there. “In the
end it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything,”
said Thomas Merton.
Chapter Two: The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob

My God and my Lord, take me away from my own self, and let
me belong completely to You.
My God and my Lord, take away everything that keeps me apart
from You.
My God and my Lord, grant me everything that draws me closer
to You.
- by a Church Father
 THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB

After meeting with Patriarch Alexei II about his Moscow Crusade,

evangelist Billy Graham made the following statement:

The Russian Orthodox Church is unhappy about people

proselytizing, but they don’t mind preaching. The thing lacking in
some Orthodox churches and teaching is a personal, daily
relationship with Christ. This is what we’d like to do - not bring
people out of the Orthodox church, but bring revival to it.
May I highlight the words, “The thing lacking in some Orthodox
churches and teaching is a personal, daily relationship with Christ.”
We find the same problem, of course, in many non-Orthodox
churches. People may know of Jesus, may even say they believe in
Him, but they lack a daily, personal relationship with Him. How can
anyone know someone without a close personal relationship with
that person?

For anything to be real it has to be personal. If it does not

become personal, it will not be real. This is especially true of our
relationship with Christ. Yet what is a personal relationship with
Christ, and how can we attain it?
 GOD IS A PERSON

First of all, we must realize that God the Father is a Person. God
the Son is a Person. God the Holy Spirit is a Person. The Holy Spirit,
for example, is not a “divine blast” as someone once described Him.
He is not an “it.” The Holy Spirit is a Person with Whom we can
establish a personal I-Thou relationship. The word “Person,” as
applied to the Trinity, should help us understand that each Person
of the Trinity is Someone to Whom we can speak, of Whom we may
make a request, Whom we can love, Whom we can praise, and with
Whom we can establish a daily personal relationship.
 GOD: PERSON OR THING?

When some people use the word God, they mean something like
“the Principle of Creation” (Whitehead) or “life Force” (Bergson) or
“Supreme Value” as if God were not personal but impersonal. They
avoid the idea of God as Someone and make Him Something, not
He but It.

The symbol for God in the meditation room of the U.N. building
in New York is a block of black stone. How impersonal! The Bible
does not say, “My Higher Power loves me. The Ground of all Being
is my constant companion.” It does say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I
shall not want. He leads me in paths of righteousness...”

It must be noted that several other world religions do not

believe in a Personal God. Hinduism believes in many gods;
Buddhism does not believe in God, only in an impersonal Buddha
essence; Islam believes that the Creator is unknowable; only
Christianity believes in a Creator who is personal and has made
Himself known and demonstrated His love for us on the cross.
Referring to God as First Cause or Creative Energy or Prime Mover
serves to de-personalize Him.

When the Bible speaks of God it uses personal categories. God is

pictured as Someone with Whom we can communicate; Someone
Who addresses us and Whom we can address. We do not mean
when we say that God is personal that He is a “person” like us, with
arms, legs, hands, etc. We do mean that whatever else God is (and
He is far greater than we can imagine), He is at least One with
Whom we can establish a personal relationship. Since we cannot
communicate with stones but only with persons, we say that God is
personal. Although God is far more than a person, He is also not
less than a person.
 ABRAHAM AND GOD

About 1900 years before Christ, God revealed Himself to a

specific person: Abraham. God spoke to him and Abraham answered
as we would answer any human person.

Christos Yannaras, an Orthodox theologian, writes, “The

knowledge of God which arose from Abraham’s personal encounter
with God, has nothing to do with logical proofs. It was an
experience of relationship only, and like every true relationship, it
was based only on the faith or trust which is born between those
who are in a relationship with one another... And Abraham trusted
God, to the point of being ready to sacrifice the child whom Sarah
had given him in her old age... God is neither an abstract concept
nor an impersonal power. When the Hebrews speak about God,
they say, ‘The God of our fathers.’ He is ‘the God of Abraham, of
Isaac, and of Jacob,’ an actual person Whom their ancestors knew
[iii]
and with Whom they associated.”

If God is the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” then He is the

God of persons; He is not the God of abstract values and principles.
We cannot say, “my God” to an abstract force or an Aristotelian
prime mover. He is not the impersonal “Ground of all Being.”
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not abstract principles. They are
persons whose lives are to be continued. Whoever joins the
covenant of Abraham which is now fulfilled through Baptism in the
new covenant, the new Israel, which is the Church, that person -
who is baptized in the Church - is called to continue the life of
Abraham, the life of complete faith and trust in God; the life of one
who has a personal relationship with God as did Abraham. In a way,
Abraham continues forever. We are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
God’s people who know God personally, love Him, trust Him, and
follow Him.
 COVENANT VERSUS CONTRACT

God made a covenant with Abraham, not a contract

. There is a
vast difference between a covenant and a contract. When God
makes a covenant with us, He says, “I will love you with an
everlasting love. I will be faithful to you even when you turn your
back on me, or betray me.”

We do not hear much about covenants in our society today:

instead we speak much of contracts. When a contract is made one
person says to another, “I will fulfill my part as long as you fulfill
yours. When you cease fulfilling your part, I no longer have to live
up to mine.” Contracts are broken because the partners are
unwilling or unable to be faithful to their promises.

God did not make a contract with us, but a covenant. And He
wants our relationship to Him to reflect that covenant i.e., that we
remain faithful to Him no matter what happens. And if we betray
Him through sin, to repent and thus restore our covenant with Him.
 GOD IS RELATIONAL

When we say that God is personal, we mean, that being

Trinitarian (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), God is, in the words of
Christos Yannaras, “a relational being,” a social being. The three
Persons relate to each other in love. True love requires that there
be another to love. The Father says of the Son, “This is my beloved
Son in Whom I am well pleased.” The Son says of the Father,
“Abba, Father,” and the Holy Spirit seals this awesome relationship
of love. In addition to being relational, God is, as Trinity, dialogic.
He enters into dialogue. He entered into dialogue with Abraham
and He enters into dialogue with us. The famous Rublev icon of the
Trinity shows the three angels, representing the Trinity, not only
looking into each others eyes but also talking to each other. Rublev
is expressing the timeless dialogue of God. God created us in His
image – an image which is essentially personal, relational, and
dialogic. One person said of the Rublev icon, “There are three
angels sitting at a table, but the fourth place, the one towards you,
is empty. They are making room for you to come in.”

Since we are made “in the image and likeness of God,” we, too,
are relational beings who enter into dialogue with God and with
each other in order to establish in our midst a koinoniaof love.
Thus, as God is relational, so we who are created in His image, are
relational. We are persons who relate to God and to other persons.

Relationships, with all the pain and joy they bring, are an
inherent part of life, as unavoidable as breathing. After all, we are
all born in relationship. We are conceived in the relationship of
husband and wife. Nine months later we emerge, not from an egg
to hatch on its own, but from the womb, wet and bawling, literally
tied to our mother. We are programmed from the beginning, from
the moment that first tie (the umbilical cord) is severed, we are
programmed to feel that we are relational beings dependent on one
another. Relationships are central to our lives. Our learning, our
work, the discovery of ourselves all depends on relationships. We
cannot truly know ourselves if we do not have another person to
relate to. Of course, the most important relationship for us
Christians is our relationship with God Whom we are called to know
and love with all our mind, heart, soul, and strength in order to
establish thereby a relationship of love with our neighbor. Thus, the
first and greatest commandment “You shall love the Lord thy God
with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself,” is a personal
call to love and commitment.

In Greek there are two words for person. One is atomon , from
which we get the word “atom”. The word atomon means a person
who has isolated himself. He does not relate to people. He is
impersonal. He is an individual, a person with no relationships to
others. Another word for person in Greek is prosopon. It is derived
from two Greek words: pros, which means “toward” and opsin,
which means “face”. Literally, it means “looking toward another’s
face”, or “looking into one’s eyes.” When God speaks to Moses not
atomon pros atomon but prosopon pros prosopon , face to face,
person to person, it shows how much God desires to enter into a
deeply personal relationship with us. A person, unlike an individual,
is one who enters into relationships with others, The Three Persons
of the Godhead are called Personal because they relate to one
another in love. The true word for person in Greek is not atomon
but prosopon .
 “FACE TO FACE”

To see how personal our relationship to God can be, let us turn
to Exodus 33:11:

Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man

speaks to his friend.
In Exodus 6:7, we hear God speaking personally to His people,
the Israelites, saying:

...and I will take you for my people, and I will be your God.
In Deuteronomy 34:10 we catch another glimpse of how
personal our relationship with God can be:

And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses,
whom the Lord knew face to face...
Commenting on these Old Testament experiences with God, Dr.
Christos Yannaras writes,

We have seen that from the beginning the experience of the

patriarchs of Israel confirmed the personal character of the Divinity:
They meet him “person to person,” they speak with him “face to
face.” The God of Israel is the true God, that is, the really existing,
living God, since He is the God of relationship.[iv]
But now we Christians have in store for us an even closer
fellowship with the Lord than either Abraham or Moses had. The
beloved Apostle John writes about each baptized Christian who truly
follows Jesus: “When He [Christ] shall appear, we shall be like Him;
for we shall see Him as He is” (I John 3:2). One day, as surely as
sunset follows dawn, the Lord Jesus will return, and then we (you
and I, with these very eyes) shall see Him face to face. That
moment of recognition will change us into His glorious likeness.
Because this glorious future awaits us, we are called to consider
carefully now we ought to live here and now. For as St. John goes
on to say, “Everyone who thus hopes in Him, purifies himself as He
is pure” (I John 3:3).

It is to this kind of a “face to face,” in Greek prosopon pros

prosopon relationship to God that we are called.

Christos Yannaras continues,

He who gives us here and now such a wealth of life... has

promised us also fullness of life, direct adoption, a face to face
relationship with Him...How this new relationship with Him will
operate, by means of what functions, I do not know. I merely rely
on it. What I do know from such revelation of truth as He has given
us is that the relationship will always be personal, that before Him,
I will be me, as God knows me and loves me. I will be with my
name and with the possibility ofdialogue with Him, like Moses or
Elijah on Mount Tabor. That is enough; perhaps it is more than
enough.[v]
 ULTIMATELY CHRISTIANITY IS A PERSON

Christianity then is not a theory not a philosophy, not even a

religion. Christianity is a PERSON: Jesus Christ. Christianity is our
personal relationship with Jesus in the Church.

No one can believe in Christ for you. No one can commit your life
to the Lord Jesus for you. No one can trust Jesus for you. You have
to do it yourself. It is personal.
The late Bishop Gerasimos Papadopoulos wrote:

For Christian faith truth is not simply rational, philosophical

knowledge and scientific achievement. It is knowledge of the very
Person of Christ. We need to know Christ Himself and not
something about Christ. Christ Himself is truth itself. The truth in
the Person of Christ is known as a personal relationship and
communion with Christ in a mutual love, for a person is known only
in a personal relationship…God is love and can be known only
through love for Him…That is how the Apostles came to know
Christ, with personal knowledge…The Church is called: “the pillar
and bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:16) precisely because it
knows Christ the Truth.
The following brief paragraph is from a report submitted to
Archbishop Iakovos in 1990 on the future of the Church. As you read
it, try to count how many times the word personal is used:

There can be no realization of the kingdom unless there is a

personal response and a personal appropriation of God’s saving,
redeeming, and sanctifying grace. This goal is realized by the
following: a personal faith commitment; personal and conscious
participation in the Liturgy, worship and prayer; personal obedience
to the will of God; personal growth in love; personal development of
the image and likeness of God within each of us toward Christ-
likeness.
 A DOOR MUST BE ENTERED

Our relationship to Jesus must be personal if it is to be real. How

can it be otherwise? Jesus is love - we must love Him as He loves
us. He is Truth - we must accept His truth and experience it through
obedience. He is Life - we must live in Him. He is the Door - we
must enter through Him. He is the Way - we must follow Him. He is
the Word of God speaking to us; we must listen and obey. We do
not get to know God by accumulating knowledge about Him, but by
knowing Him personally, loving Him, praying, obeying, and
following.

St. John Climacus speaks of our love of God as “passionate”:

“Blessed is the person whose desire for God has become like the
lover’s passion for the beloved.” St. Maximus the Confessor called
our relationship with God eros maniakos , a deeply erotic
relationship of love.

A story is told about William Jennings Bryan, that great

American orator. As he was having his portrait painted, Bryan was
asked, “Why do you wear your hair over your ears?” Bryan
responded, “There is a romance connected with that. When I began
courting Mrs. Bryan, she objected to the way my ears stood out. So,
to please her, I let my hair grow to cover them.” “But that was
many years ago,” the artist said. “Why don’t you have your hair cut
now?” “Because,” Bryan winked, “the romance is still going on.”
Can that be said of us in our personal relationship with Christ? Is
the romance still going on?
 THE GOSPEL OF PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS WITH JESUS

Fr. Raymond Brown states that the entire Gospel of John is a

gospel of personal encounters with Jesus. One by one, Jesus
encounters various people: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at
the well, the cripple at Bethesda, the man born blind, Mary and
Martha, and even Pilate. One by one they make their entrance onto
the stage of John’s gospel to encounter personally Jesus, the light of
the world. And, in so doing, they judge themselves by whether or
not they continue to come to the light or turnaway, preferring
darkness. Is it not the same with us? One by one we encounter in
the darkness of the world Jesus, the Light. Our eternal destiny is
decided by that personal encounter with the Light - whether we
come to it or turn away to the darkness.

John Oxenham has written a beautiful poem expressing the

personal aspect of our Christian faith:

Not what I believe, but whom!

Who walks beside me in the gloom?
Who shares the burden wearisome?
Who all the dim way does illumine,
And bids me look beyond the tomb
The larger life to live?
Not what do I believe.
But whom!
Not what
But whom!
 I-THOU

Metropolitan Antonie of Transylvania wrote,

God defined Himself saying: “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14). This

definition reduces all attributes of God to the most primordial and
ontological characteristics of His being. These characteristics are
existence, being, possession of life, as opposed to non-existence,
non-being, nothingness. We have here “He who is” vis-a-vis
nothingness. On the Orthodox icons, in the image of Jesus Christ,
the painters indicate His name and title on His halo with this short
definition: O On: “He who is.” From this divine name and attribute
all other names and attributes are derived, and without these, all
others have no meaning...
“He who is” is by this very definition a person, somebody who
thinks, feels, loves and acts, a full personality who can establish
relations with other persons, as an “I” in relation with “Thou”
(Martin Buber).[vi]
Martin Buber will always be remembered as the person who
drew the distinction between the I, thou, and it, in relationship to
other people. The I-Thou relationship means relating to people with
the whole of our being. It means genuine encounter, a reciprocal
relationship which puts the I in tune with life. The I-It relationship,
on the other hand, implies treating the other person not as a person
but as an object, a thing to be used and discarded.

Buber summed up his philosophy of life in these two sayings:

“All real living is in meeting,” and “In the beginning is the
relationship.” We either meet the other person as a thou to whom
we respond with our whole personality (I-Thou), or we meet him as
an object, a thing to be used. That is the I-It relationship. The I-
Thou relationship is distinctively personal.

Wherever I go - only Thou!

Wherever I stand - only Thou!
Thou! Just Thou; again Thou!
Always Thou! Thou, Thou,
Thou! When things are good,
Thou! when things are bad-Thou!
Thou! Thou, Thou, Thou!
- An early Hasidic song, from The Oxford Book of Prayer
Vladimir Lossky said, “One prays to have the audacity and the
[vii]
simplicity to say ‘Thou’ to God.” In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus gives
us the boldness to address God as “our Father,” our “Daddy,” Abba.

To relate to God as “Thou” is eternal life. Bishop Gerasimos

captured this thought when he wrote,

Faith is not knowledge, but a meeting. Such a personal

encounter with the divine and the eternal as seen in Christ will
always be the highest and truest kind of knowledge that man can
ever attain. This knowledge is eternal life (Jn 17:3). [viii]
To know God is to relate to Him personally as “Thou.”
Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu wrote, “Each ‘I’ longs for otherness,
for a ‘thou,’ for ‘us’ - each ‘I’ longs ultimately for God. Ontologically,
this feeling of solitude cannot be satiated by human love, since it is
rooted in man’s longing for God. It is, in fact, man’s anguished
longing for the divine origin from which he arose and to which he
shall return.”

For Fr. Sophrony the fact that God revealed Himself to Moses as
“I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14) was like a Damascus road
experience. He wrote, “Great is the word ‘I.’ It designates the
person. Only the person truly lives... Because God says ‘I,’ man can
say, ‘thou.’ In my ‘I’ and His ‘thou’ is found the whole of Being; both
this world and God. Outside and beyond Him, there is nothing. If I
[ix]
am in Him, then I too ‘am’; but if I am outside Him, I die.”

In Orthodox theology we talk much about the

incomprehensibility of the Divine Essence of God. We make
“apophatic” statements about God - definitions of what God is not.
We say that God is invisible (not visible), ineffable (not
describable), eternal (not in time), infinite (not limited), immaterial
(not material), etc. Yet Orthodox theology also emphasizes that this
apophatic, incomprehensible God Who is Lord has willed to reveal
Himself to us.

In revealing Himself to us, God did not merely give us some

information about Himself, but He revealed His very self, His very
person in Christ Jesus. This demands a personal response of love
from us, a personal encounter, a personal relationship: I-Thou, not
I-It.

Commenting on the I-Thou response that God expects of us, Fr.

Georges Florovsky wrote,

Not only in the Old but also in the New Testament we see not
only God, but also man. We apprehend God approaching and
appearing to man; and we see human persons who encounter God
and listen attentively to His Word - and, what is more, respond to
His words. We hear in Scripture also the voice of man, answering
God in words of prayer or of thanksgiving or of praise. It is sufficient
to mention the Psalms in this connection. And God desires, expects,
and requires this response. God desires that man not only listen to
His words, but that man also respond to them. God wants to involve
man in “conversation.”[x]
 Heeding God’s desire for response, the Psalmist cries out, “O
Lord, you are my God, I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, as in a
dry and weary land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1).
 SALVATION IS A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS

Salvation for Orthodox Christians involves a relationship – a

personal relationship with Jesus who is the door to the Trinity. This
relationship takes place in the Church. Relationships, we know, are
fragile. They have their ups and downs. We need to work on them
constantly to keep them in constant good repair. The Psalmist
illustrates this. He loves God. He praises God. But often he gets
angry with God and tells Him off, but then, he comes back to Him
and asks forgiveness. Elie Wiesel said, “I quarrel with God, fight
with Him, make up with Him, but I am never without Him.” This is
what relationships are all about.

If faith is a personal relationship with Christ, what are some of

the factors involved in such a relationship? If you are a spouse or a
parent, you know what they are. They involve saying, “I love you. I
appreciate you. I love to be in your presence. I give myself to you
totally. I’m sorry I hurt you. Forgive me…” In other words, we have
to work hard on a relationship to keep it alive, vibrant, growing, and
in constant good repair. So it is with our relationship with Jesus.

Christ suffered and died on the cross to open the door for us to
enter into a close, personal, intimate relationship with Him whereby
we may have the parrhesia, the boldness, to converse with Him,
love Him, praise Him, argue with Him, seek His forgiveness and rest
in His bosom as does a weary child.

With arms stretched out to us on the cross, Jesus pleads, “Come,

beloved son, daughter! Your sins have been forgiven. My cross has
bridged the distance between us. I have paid the price for you not
with silver and gold but with my precious blood. Come that I may
rejoice in you. Come that I may crown you with salvation and pour
my love and Spirit upon you and present you to my Father. You are
the most precious of my lambs and I have valued you to my Father.
You are the most precious of my lambs and I have valued you at
the price of my blood. I have transferred you from the dominion of
darkness under the shackles of Satan to the kingdom of light. I have
protected you by my grace, upheld you with my victorious right
hand, and engraved your name on the palms of my hands (Is.
49:16). Come!”

Matthew the Poor writes that every name of those who believe
is carved on the palm of Christ’s hand, on His Cross, and even on
His body.

By His Grace, God in Christ is forever reaching out to us. He

desires to establish a personal love relationship with each one of us.
What are we doing to respond to His knock on the door of our
heart? Have we opened the door to let Him into our hearts? Or do
we leave Him standing alone outside on the doorstep?

“Paradise is on you doorstep,” said St. Chrysostom, referring to

Jesus in Rev 3:20. Don’t leave Him standing there. He desires to
come in and have dinner with you. The invitation is personal.

In describing his return to Orthodoxy from revolutionary nihilism

and Marxism, Fr. Sergii Bulgakov said that, having re-discovered
Christianity partly within himself and partly from the writings of
Dostoevsky and Soloviev, he returned to faith in a personal God
rather than to a faith of empty rituals:

Having returned to a faith in a “personal” God (rather than the

impersonal idol of progress), I came to believe in Christ, Whom I
had come to love in my childhood and had carried in my heart, and
then in Orthodoxy and in my native church, personally and without
compulsion.
 IS OUR GOD PERSONAL?

The words of the late Metropolitan Anthony Bloom best

summarize this chapter:

Now, we speak of God as a person. The word “person” indicates

a sense of limitation, at least as it is used in modern languages.
Nevertheless, the Greek word prosopon, which was used from early
times to speak of the three persons of the Trinity, did not mean a
person in the modern sense. Rather, prosopon meant a face. It
meant that God could be met face to face, that we can be face to
face with the living God. God is not a faceless, eyeless being. He
has a beautiful image – of this we are assured in the story in St.
John’s Gospel of the man born blind (John 9). This man was born
blind; he had never seen anything in his life. When Christ gave him
his sight, the first thing he ever saw was the face of God become
human, and his eyes met the eyes of divine love and compassion.
This is what we mean in saying “God is a person.” And so, again,
we must ask ourselves: Is our God personal? Have we ever had the
experience or the certainty that faith gives us that we are face to
face with God, with a living God who listens, who sees, who
understands, who is open to us, and who speaks to us?[xi]
Chapter Three: God Must be Experienced

Jesus died on the cross - that’s history.

Jesus died for me - that’s salvation
 GOD MUST BE EXPERIENCED

God cannot be fully expressed. In fact, a God fully expressed is

no God. God is too infinite to be fully expressed, but He can be
experienced. God expressed Himself once in the Person of Jesus.
The purpose of that expression was that He might be experienced
personally in the lives of His people as Emmanuel - God with us.
For, unless God becomes personal, He will not be real. When He
does become personal to us, St. Isaac of Nineveh says, “We become
inebriated with love for Him.”

Plato belittled manual work and glorified mental work. In his

Republic he put the philosophers in the highest position. Many
followed him, insisting that only mental work is highly esteemed.
Then the experimental method came along and showed the value
of manual work in the laboratory. Then came John Dewey with his
philosophy of Pragmatism in which he proved the value of direct
experience. He believed that the best system of education is based
upon direct experience, i.e., the person experiences truth for
himself and gets in touch with the facts personally. Recent trends in
education have elaborated more upon the concept of experience.
Man experiences truth in order to learn truth existentially and
experientially. Yet experience is not limited to individual
experience. There is also a collective experience. In the Orthodox
Church we have Sacred Tradition, which is the collective experience
of the Church through the centuries under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit.

Fr. Maximos of Mt. Athos described the importance of knowing

God by experiencing him. He said to an inquirer one day, “The
philosophers explain and elaborate without experiencing. The holy
Fathers experience and then they describe their experiences as best
they can. So true knowledge is existential knowledge. Because
philosophers do not have experience they are off the mark. And I
am talking even of great philosophers like Socrates and Plato.”

The call of modern thought to man is to enter into experience in

order to learn. And this is the call of God from ancient times: “Taste
and see that the Lord is good.” The hymns of the Church are highly
personal and existential. “Today Christ is born...” “Today His body
is suspended on the cross...” “Today... Today...” What is this but an
invitation to experience Christmas, Good Friday, Pascha, the
Ascension, Pentecost - to experience them personally as if they
were happening now, to me, today.
 THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A LIVING AND PERSONAL
ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS

The liturgical year not only re-enacts the great saving events in
the life of Jesus, but also places us in each event in a very personal
way. An existential encounter takes place between Christ and us in
the events of His birth, crucifixion, resurrection, etc. These sacred
events are mystically present in the Church here and now. We re-
enter each event in such a way that it becomes a unique and
refreshingly new act of salvation for us today. Thus, far from being
a cold and lifeless representation of the events of the past, the
liturgical year is a living and personal encounter with Jesus today.
Today He comes to be born in the manger of my soul and yours to
bring us new life. Today He offers me His precious Body and Blood
for my salvation. Today He hangs on the cross for me. Today He is
resurrected and I am resurrected with Him. Today He is
transfigured and I am transfigured with Him. Today He ascends into
heaven and I ascend with Him. So it is that the beautiful word
today, used so often in our services, tears down the walls of the
past and the future and makes Christ the eternally present One,
Who is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebr. 13:8).

Each year the liturgical calendar relives and makes present

again the sacred events of our salvation so that we are there
personally when they happen. The past reaches out and joins the
present. The acts of God for His people are not buried in the past.
They live in the present. History does not exhaust grace. God is
present through the centuries. He never ceases accomplishing the
work He has begun.
 FAITH: A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER

Faith is never mere intellectual assent or blind submission; it is

the fidelity of a person to a Person. It is a relationship, a meeting, a
personal encounter with the living Lord Jesus. It is a living,
personal, saving relationship with Jesus, Who is my Lord and my
God. Abraham talked with God person to person as a friend to a
friend. Moses did so “face to face.”

Through the power of the Holy Spirit in His Body the Church we
too can have a deeply dynamic personal relationship with Jesus
Christ, the God-Man. We can experience Him as a God of love.

We need to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives not just
once, as in some “born again” experience, but every day, as we do
when we confess Him in the Nicene Creed. Every day we need to
affirm that Jesus Christ is our Savior and the Lord of our lives, that
His suffering, death, and resurrection have meaning for us today,
that what He teaches and offers in the Bible and in the Church is for
us to accept, obey and experience today.
 ST. SYMEON AND THE CHRIST CHILD

When Symeon saw the Theotokos bringing the baby Jesus to the
Temple on the 40th day, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he recognized
Jesus as the Messiah, and taking Jesus in his arms, he prayed,

Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace according to your

word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which You have
prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the
Gentiles, and for glory of your people Israel.
- Luke 2:29-32
Commenting on Symeon’s famous prayer, Bishop Gerasimos has
written, “This (prayer) of Symeon is repeated by our Church at the
end of every Vesper Service, and by the priest to himself at the end
of every liturgy to reassure us that in going to church and in worship
we have seen with the eyes of our soul the Savior Lord; we have
talked with Him. After that experience, we leave filled with peace
and spiritual joy. We can consider our church attendance a failure if
[xii]
we do not experience this emotion.” Just as Symeon saw Jesus
and held Him in His arms, we, too, can experience His presence
personally in prayer and in the worship services of the Church.
Through the Eucharist we can receive Jesus within us and embrace
Him as did Symeon. Unless our faith is as personal as that, it will
not be real.

What is more joyful than an encounter, a meeting with someone

we love? To truly live is to look forward, to anticipate. What are we
anticipating? What are we waiting for? Are we, like Symeon,
anticipating, waiting, pondering, praying for our ultimate meeting
with God? If we are, then we, too, will experience Symeon’s joy:
“Let me now depart. I have seen the light of revelation in the face
of Jesus. I have met the Child Who has brought God’s salvation, His
love, and peace to the world. I am fulfilled and ready to leave this
world.”

Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote the following about how deeply

personal our Christian faith must be:

Faith, in its very nature and essence, is something deeply

personal, and therefore it is only really alive when seen in the
context of personal experience. Only when a particular teaching of
the Church - or, as we say, a dogma, an affirmation of some
particula truth - becomes my faith and my experience, and
therefore the main content of my life, does this faith come alive. If
one reflects on faith and thinks about how it passes from one
person to another, it becomes obvious that what really convinces,
inspires and converts is personal experience. This is especially
important in Christianity, because in its essence, Christian faith is a
personal encounter with Christ, an acceptance not of this or that
teaching or dogma about Christ, but of Christ Himself. In other
terms, Christianity is extremely personal. This in no way implies
that it is individualistic, for all believers encounter, recognize and
love exactly one and the same Christ. But Christ addresses Himself
to each person, so that each faith is at the same time unique.[xiii]
If a friendship does not grow, it will stagnate and die. So, too,
our relationship with Jesus. Unless we daily try to grow closer to
Him, we will find ourselves falling into indifference, or possibly
losing our faith in Him altogether. As Christians we must always
strive to know Christ Jesus, to know Him personally as one person
knows another. If some people complain that Orthodoxy is too
abstract, it is because they do not really know Jesus in a personal
way.
 I AM THE VINE, YOU ARE THE BRANCHES

For Orthodox Christians, religion is a relationship with God in the

Person of Jesus. It is on this personal relationship to Jesus that the
happiness and the purposefulness of life depends. And it shall be on
the basis of this relationship to Christ that our eternal destiny will
be decided. Jesus is the door Who leads us to the Father and the
Holy Spirit.

What kind of relationship do we have to Jesus? Is it a

relationship that is kept alive through faith, prayer, the sacraments
and obedience to His commandments? Or is it a relationship that
has died through sin and indifference? It was concerning this
relationship that Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.
He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for
apart from me you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me,
he is cast forth as a branch and withers... If you abide in me, and
my words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done
for you” (John 15, 5-8). “Things human must be known to be loved,
things divine must be loved to be known,” said Blaise Pascal.

When asked what he would like to have known as a boy, one

person replied, “That when you get to the top, there’s nothing
there.”

What’s missing? When a person has so much and is still bitterly

dissatisfied – even suicidal – what is not there at the top is a
relationship with God.

The Creator made us with a need for meaning, purpose and

hope that only He can satisfy. He meets the need when we enter
into a personal relationship with Him through His Son Jesus in the
Church.
 THE CHURCH FATHERS: ST. SYMEON THE NEW
THEOLOGIAN

One of the Church Fathers who greatly emphasized the personal

aspect of faith was St. Symeon the New Theologian. He taught that
the Christian life must be more than a routine observance of a rule,
however strict that rule and exact its observance. To be at all
meaningful there must be in the Christian life, says St. Symeon, the
personal experience of the presence and the power of the living
Christ. To reinforce his point, Symeon was not afraid to use his own
personal experience of conversion and illumination. He would say
that just as a pregnant woman knows there is a child within her, so
every Christian should know and be able to experience the presence
of God within. It has been said that many of the Greek Fathers
theologized from their experience of God in His Scriptural Word.

Of course, St. Symeon raised a storm of controversy in the

Church as he challenged the religious formalism of his time. But this
did not prevent the Orthodox Church from canonizing him and
applying to him the great title of “the New Theologian,” thus placing
him in the same category as St. John the Divine and St. Gregory of
Nazianzus, who were both named “the Theologian.”

Let me quote from one of Symeon’s teachings to his monks:

Prayer is conversation directly with God, being always with God,

having one’s soul united with him and one’s mind inseparable, as
David says: “My soul clings to you” (Ps 62:9) and “My soul thirsts for
you” (Ps 62:3); “As the deer longs for the springs of water, so my
soul longs for you, O God” (Ps 121:1); “I will love you, O God my
strength” (Ps 16:2); “My soul is always in your hands” (Ps 118:109).
Speaking on how attentive we should be during the Divine
Liturgy, St. Symeon writes, “Stand with trembling as if you were
seeing the Son of God being sacrificed before you.”

Bishop Kallistos Ware describes St. Symeon’s emphasis on the

personal experience of God as follows:

What Symeon shares is above all is an emphasis upon conscious,

personal awareness of Christ and the Spirit. Christianity, so he is
passionately convinced, involves much more than a formal,
dogmatic orthodoxy, than an outward observance of moral rules. No
one can be a Christian at second hand; the tradition has to be
relived by each one of us without exception, and each should feel
the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in a conscious, palpable
manner:
Do not say, It is impossible to receive the Holy Spirit;
Do not say, It is possible to be saved without him.
Do not say, then, that one can possess him without knowing it.
Do not say, God does not appear to men,
Do not say, Men do not see the divine light,
Or else, It is impossible in these present times.
This is a thing never impossible, my friends,
But on the contrary altogether possible for those who so wish
(Hymn XXVII, 125-32).[xiv]
He goes on to say,

Symeon vehemently repudiates any suggestion that the

charismata granted to holy men and women in the past are no
longer accessible to Christians in the present time. For him this was
the worst of all heresies, implying as it does that the Spirit has
somehow been withdrawn from the Church. We are in exactly the
same situation as the first Christians, he protests; if grace is not
among us today as it was once among them, the sole reason is the
weakness of our faith.”[xv]
 The very personal relationship St. Symeon had with Jesus is
demonstrated in the following dialogue he had with Jesus in a
vision: “Are you my God?” The answer was, “Yes, I am the God who
became man for you. Because you desired me and sought after me
with all your soul, you will henceforth be my brother, my friend, and
the co-inheritor of my glory.”

Elisabeth Behr-Sigel describes St. Symeon’s personal approach

to Jesus and the Holy Spirit as follows:

Symeon characteristically insisted on the indwelling of the Holy

Spirit in every baptized person, and we can rightly underscore the
Christocentric nature of his piety, of his “deeply tender feelings” for
Jesus, as the Monk of the Eastern Church has said. But this intimate
relation with Christ was for him inseparable from the living
experience of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even though Symeon loved
Christ deeply, he was also the herald, the announcer, of the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit which he called upon all baptized
people to make real in their lives. We must take possession of the
Spirit whom we have received in baptism so as to become
conscious, in him, of the fact that we have truly been reclothed by
Christ. In His catechetical instructions, Symeon the hegumen of St.
Mamas never tired of exhorting his listeners to “become conscious
of these things.” His doctrine stated that “mystical experience is
necessary for everyone” and was essentially a call to take personal
possession of grace and an insistence on illumination by the Spirit.
Every Christian, by virtue of his baptism, is called upon to aspire to
this illumination. Symeon proclaimed that eternal life begins here
and now and that we must know it and gain knowledge of it
through experience.
“If we claim that all this is accomplished in a hidden and
unconscious way, so that we are not in the slightest way aware of
what has happened, then what makes us different from dead
bodies?”[xvi]
 ST. GREGORY PALAMAS

Parallel to St. Symeon another famous Church Father, St.

Gregory Palamas taught that by sharing in the divine energies of
God we can enjoy a Taboric vision of God “face to face” as the three
disciples did at the Transfiguration. Both Palamas and Symeon the
New Theologian are considered the theologians of personal
experience. Life in Christ for them involved a direct sharing in God’s
life and glory, a transfiguring union with God “face to face.”

It is interesting that the qualification for the two candidates who

were nominated to replace Judas was that they had to have known
Jesus personally both before and after His death, and could offer
first-hand, personal evidence of the Resurrection in preaching Christ
to the world (Acts 1:22).
 ST. ANTHONY

A great saint whose whole life changed when he accepted God’s

word personally was St. Anthony. St. Athanasius tells the story:

Antony was a rich young fellow, born into a Christian family in

Egypt. His parents died when he was just entering his teens; their
large estate fell to him. He grew up fast, carrying that
responsibility. He had all the money in the world and all the cares
too.
In Church one Sunday the Scripture reading came from Christ’s
reply to the rich young ruler: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell
your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Something in that familiar passage hit Antony. It was as though
Jesus had given those words directly to him personally that very
moment. Antony didn’t even wait for the service to end. He rushed
out of the church and set about preparing his records so that his
property could be sold and the profit distributed to the poor.
From that day, Antony devoted his life to prayer. He went to live
in a hut on the edge of town, farming to keep himself alive. Fifteen
years later he moved into the desert.
Anthony was followed by many other monks who withdrew from
the sinful society of their day to find salvation in personal, one-to-
one encounters with God in the desert.
 ST. GREGORY NAZIANZUS

Another Church Father, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, speaks of Jesus

very personally:

I share everything with Christ, spirit and body, nails and

resurrection.
Christ... Thou art for me my native land, my strength, my glory,
everything.
Christ is my strength and my breath and the wonderful prize for
my running.
It is He Who enables me to run well.
I love Him as my purest love because for those whom He loves
He is faithful beyond all that we can conceive.
In Him is my joy even if He chooses to send me some suffering,
because I aspire to be purified as gold in the fire.
 ST. TIKHON

Consider the beautifully personal way that St. Tikhon, a Russian

saint of the 18th century, prayed to God:

Listen, my soul: God has come to us;

Our Lord has visited us.
For my sake He was born of the Virgin Mary,
He was wrapped in swaddling clothes,
He who covers heaven with the clouds and vests Himself with
robes of light.
For my sake He was placed in the lowly manger,
He whose throne is the heavens and whose feet rest upon earth.
For my sake He was fed with His mother’s milk,
He who feeds all creatures.
For my sake He was held in His mother’s arms,
He who is borne by the Cherubim and holds all creatures in His
embrace.
For my sake He was circumcised according to the law,
He who is maker of the Law.
For my sake, He who is unseen became visible and lived among
men,
He who is my God.
My God became one like me, like a man; the word became flesh,
and my Lord, the Lord of Glory, took for my sake the form of a
servant and lived upon earth and walked upon earth,
He who is the King of Heaven.
According to St. Tikhon every Christian has the right to say, “For
my sake God created the world. For me He became man in Christ.
For me He suffered on the cross. For me He rose from the dead and
ascended to heaven.”
 ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

In describing God’s solicitude for us, St. John Chrysostom

personalizes it by having Jesus say to us:

I am a father for you, and a brother, a bridegroom, and a home,

a nurse and a dress, a root and a cornerstone. Whatever you want I
am for you. I don’t want you to be in any need. I will serve you,
because I came not to be served but to serve. I am a friend, and a
member, and a head, and a brother, and a sister, and a mother. I
am everything for you. Only be in contact with me. I have been
poor for you and a wanderer for you. I have been on the cross and
in the tomb for you. High above with the Father I mediate for you.
You are everything to me, a brother and a co-heir, a friend, and a
member of my body. What more do you desire?
-St. Chrysostom
 FROM “THE WAY OF A PILGRIM”

The seeker after God in The Way of a Pilgrim describes how he

experienced God’s presence personally as a result of praying the
Jesus Prayer:

Sometimes, there was such a bubbling up in my heart and a

lightness, a freedom, a joy so great that I was transformed and felt
in ecstasy.
Sometimes I felt a burning love for Jesus Christ and for the
whole divine creation. Sometimes, my tears flowed all on their own
in thanksgiving to the Lord Who had mercy on me, such a hardened
sinner. Sometimes, my limited mind was illuminated.... Sometimes
the sweet warmth of my heart spilled over into all my being, and I
felt the presence of the Lord with great emotion. Sometimes, I felt
a powerful and deep joy on invoking the name of Jesus Christ, and I
understood the meaning of His saying, “The Kingdom of God is
within you.”
 THE NEED TO EXPERIENCE TRUTH

People hunger to do more than just believe the right things.

There is a hunger for some experience of God in their lives. This is
what Orthodox Christianity has always offered: not only intellectual
understanding but a spiritual experience of the living God. Sts.
Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas, John Climacus and
others defend the legitimacy and even necessity of direct
experience with God. In the Philokalia itself, theology is understood
less in terms of intellectual understanding and more on a level of
spiritual experience. We Orthodox learn our theology not just from
books but more especially from the liturgy, from prayer, from
hysychia (silence), and from the Jesus Prayer. Writing on the
importance of experiencing truth, St. John Climacus says:

Do you imagine plain words can precisely or truly or

appropriately describe the love of the Lord... and assurance of the
heart? Do you imagine that talk of such matters will mean anything
to someone who has never experienced them? If you think so, then
you will be like a man who with words and examples tries to convey
the sweetness of honey to people who have never tasted it. He
talks uselessly. Indeed I would say he is simply prattling.
 NOT AN INTELLECTUAL ASSENT BUT A LIVING REALITY

One of our problems is that we may know of God’s love

intellectually, but most of us fail to experience it, to know it deep
down in our hearts. When we do come to know God’s love
personally, our whole life changes. Someone said, “For each of us
the day on which we realize that our Lord loves us personally and
individually is a red-letter day, a kind of spiritual birthday.”

One person said, “It had been my belief that God loved all of
mankind, but I found it much more difficult to comprehend that He
loved me personally. It finally became a reality through my own son
when he was very small. One night as I stood looking down on my
sleeping child, my love for him seemed to reach out and fill the
whole room; I experienced an overwhelming sense of joy.
Instinctively my spirit rose in thanksgiving to God for the gift of our
son and our joy in him.

At this moment there dawned upon my consciousness the

certainty that God loved me like that - only much, much more. The
assurance of His love ceased to be just an intellectual assent and
became a living reality. It was then that I began to understand
something of my own worth in the eyes of God, and through this
recognition I found a new and growing capacity to love.”
 Chapter Four: To Know God Personally

Evolution is impersonal. You cannot tell your child, “Evolution

loves you,” but you can say, “Jesus loves you.”
 TO KNOW GOD PERSONALLY

“To know” can mean different things to different people. Ask the
man in the street if he knows the president of the United States,
and he will say yes. That does not mean that he knows him
personally; he has probably never met him personally. But it means
that he is acquainted with who the president is.

To be acquainted with God is a start but nothing more. To know

Him in a personal way is what is needed. In the Old Testament the
verb “to know” meant such intimacy of relationship that it was often
used to describe conjugal relations between husband and wife.
“Adam knew Eve... and begat Cain.”

Clearly, to know God means not to know about Him but to know
Him intimately and personally. How does one get to know God
personally? The answer is by experiencing God through faith,
commitment, prayer, repentance, silence, the sacraments, the Jesus
Prayer, and His word. God can and does make His presence felt. He
can and does speak to you in the silence of your soul. He can and
does warm and thrill you until you no longer doubt that He is near.
You cannot force such experience from God. He gives it freely. He
gave it to Abraham, Moses and the saints. There is not one to
whom God refuses His closer presence. But you have to ask... and
ask... and ask. Seek... and seek... and seek. Knock... and knock...
and knock. You have to be persistent and be willing to spend time
with Him.
 TO WHOM DO WE PRAY?

The late Metropolitan Anthony Bloom told of how he responded

to persons who asked him how to pray:

So often people come to see me and ask me to teach them how

to approach a life of prayer; and when I ask them, “Do you believe
in God? Is there within your experience a living God to whom you
could address the words of your prayer, towards whom you could
turn your heart, whom you could invoke – that is, to call to come
and dwell within you?,” so often the answer is, “No, I do not have
such a God. I believe in a first cause of the universe. I believe that
there must be, beyond or in the depth of things, a power that gives
them existence and shape. I believe, with fear, that one day I will
be answerable for my life to a Being whom I do not even know
now.” And at this point I always say, “Do not try to pray. Ask
yourself more questions, because praying is like speaking to a
friend. One does not speak to an imaginary friend beneficially. One
can speak usefully only to a friend who is real, to someone with
whom one can be face to face. We can address only someone to
whom we can open our hearts, who is listening, before whose
judgment we stand, and who will stand by us whether we are in the
right or in the wrong.”[xvii]
 FOUR BOOKS FOR HEAVEN

It has been said that it takes four books to get us to heaven. We

can easily guess what the first two are: the Bible and the
Prayerbook. The last two are not as well known but equally as
important, i.e., the datebook and the checkbook. The datebook is
important because it shows how much time we actually spend with
God in prayer, in the liturgy, in diaconia and service to the needy.
The checkbook, of course, shows how many of our financial
resources we are investing in the work of the kingdom. In the words
of Jesus, our heart will always be where our treasure lies. If our
faith is personal, it will be real, and it will reveal itself through these
four books.

Faith is not something that must be intellectually understood as

much as it is something that must be experienced and lived. It will
find expression in every area of life. It is, in its deepest essence, a
living relationship of love with God the Father, through the Son,
Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.

St. Gregory of Sinai explains that only those who participate in

truth can know truth:

He who seeks to understand commandments without fulfilling

commandments, and to acquire such understanding through
learning and reading, is like a man who takes a shadow for truth.
For the understanding of truth is given to those who have become
participants in truth (who have tasted it through living). Those who
are not participants in truth and are not initiated therein, when they
seek this understanding, draw it from a distorted wisdom. Of such
men the Apostle says: “the natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit” (I Cor. 11:14) even though they boast of their knowledge
of truth.
 Fr. Schmemann said once, “We cannot have trust in someone
whom we know only superficially. We must know this someone, we
must have created a relationship with him. In the end it is
necessary to love this someone in order to have confidence in him.”
He continues, “Our knowledge of God does not come from books,
nor is it the result of reflection. To arrive at knowledge of God, it is
necessary to cultivate a relationship with Him. We do not know God
as an idea, as the result of a process of thought. It is something
else entirely: God is known through an immediate relationship, and
it is this which we must seek.”
 HOW DOES ONE EXPERIENCE GOD?

The big question is HOW? How does one experience God in life?
The answer is through the commitment and surrender of one’s life
to Jesus, by speaking to Him each day in prayer, by turning to Him
for guidance and strength, by reading daily His personal love letter,
the Holy Bible, by praying for and receiving the gift of the Holy
Spirit, by receiving Him in the Eucharist.

In some Orthodox churches in the Middle East, I have seen an

object resembling an ostrich egg suspended immediately above the
flickering flame of hanging votive lights. The symbolism of the
ostrich egg has to do with the heat produced by the flame of the
votive candle. Just as an ostrich must sit on the egg for a period of
time in order to slowly hatch it with the heat of its body, so the
Christian must remain close to the flame of Christ. He must stay
close to the church and nurture his faith through daily prayer and
regular communion with Christ through the Eucharist. Only then will
faith grow, develop, mature and come to life. The ostrich egg
represents the embryonic state of faith which can spring to life
through patient and faithful ascesis, producing a life full of the fruits
of the Spirit, a life that will glorify the Trinity.
 “LORD, DO I REALLY KNOW YOU?”

An anonymous monk of the Eastern Church has written, “Jesus

charged Peter, who gave a sound answer and confessed the
Messias, not to reveal the mystery publicly (Matthew 16:13-20).
Every person has to discover for himself the secret of Jesus. And
even if we learn from others who Jesus is, and even if others are
commissioned to teach this to us, it is only by an intensely personal
experience that we shall come to know who Jesus is.” He continues,
“In fact, of the many souls who believed all they must believe, and
who led a just and pious life, we may wonder: did this soul know
the Saviour? Did he know him intimately... as a man and woman
who love each other can know each other...? A number of acquired
notions (and also true ones) concerning the Saviour are often
substituted for a personal and intense knowledge of the Saviour. It
can be a hindrance just like a screen between Jesus and us. Lord,
do I really know You, or do I only know what I have read about
[xviii]
You, what I have heard about You?”
 BOTH PERSONAL AND COMMUNAL

Our Orthodox Christian faith is anchored in a personal

relationship with God. God is not a machine but a Person with
Whom we can establish a daily personal relationship. It is a
relationship that is nurtured and nourished by our membership in
the Body of Christ, the Church. It is not a “Lone Ranger” type of
relationship. It is a relationship that grows out of our being
connected with Christ in His Body, the Church, and through the
grace we receive from prayer and the sacraments, especially the
Eucharist. Membership in the Church (the Body of Christ) is not
optional but basic.

communal
Our relationship to God is both and personal.But we
often lose the communal because we live in a society that is
radically individualistic. We need to remember that our personal
relationship with Christ is anchored and rooted in the communal
relationship we have with Him as members of His Body, the Church.
Of course, we can also lose the personal in the communal (just
coming to church once in a while but having no personal
relationship with Jesus). We need both! We need both private
prayer at home and communal prayer in Church. The one feeds the
other.

Fr. Georges Florovsky expressed this well when he wrote, “One

is saved only in community, and yet salvation is mediated always
through personal faith and obedience.”

It must be pointed out here that American evangelicalism was

shaped by a revivalistic tradition in which coming to Christ was
divorced from being incorporated into the Body of Christ, the
Church. Evangelicals have so separated the personal from the
communal that finding a church after coming to Christ is often a
mere afterthought or appendage to what is seen as able to stand by
itself: one’s personal, private, individualistic “relationship with
Jesus.”

However, to emphasize a new birth without corresponding

emphasis on the Church is like an obstetrician who goes to great
lengths to help the infant come forth from the womb, only to then
place it on the sidewalk with the exhortation that it go and find
food. The newborn needs its mother: the Church. The Orthodox
Church, as did the early Christians, does not separate the personal
from the communal. We do not confuse “personal” with “individual.”
Our personal relationship with Jesus is anchored on our communal
relationship to the Church as the nurturing and soul-sustaining Body
of Christ.
 APRON-STRING RELIGION

This means that there is no such thing as an “apron-string”

religion. Some people assume that because their mother has a
personal and living faith, she’s going to heaven. And if they hold on
to her apron strings, they believe they’ll get there too. But it is not
enough to have a godly person for an ancestor, even if it’s Abraham
himself. Genes may run in a family but not faith. Of course, it’s a
wonderful privilege to have believing parents and a long tradition of
godly ancestors, but you’re wasting the privilege if you are not able
to confess personally “I believe...” and if following your baptism,
you have not made a personal confession of faith in Jesus as Lord,
which (confession), of course, is renewed in every liturgy when you
confess the Creed, and when you pray the pre-Communion prayer,
“I believe and confess that You are the Christ, the Son of the Living
God...”
 MY GOD

“Religion is a matter of personal pronouns,” someone said, “I,

being able to say to God, ‘My God,’ and I, knowing that God says to
me, ‘My child.’”

For the saints of the Church, such as St. Paul, St. Jerome, St.
Symeon the New Theologian, and many others, Jesus was an
intensely real Person with whom it was possible to establish a
profoundly personal relationship. We can catch a small glimpse of
this in the many instances where the Saints and Fathers of the
Church refer to Jesus not simply as “Jesus” but as “my Jesus,” a
phrase that betrays a wonderful sense of intimacy. St. Paul speaks
of Jesus as the one who “loved me and gave Himself for me.” As
Sister Gavrilia once said, “We are unique because our relationship
with God is personal. It is not a mass relationship.”
 UNTO YOU IS BORN

We read in Scripture concerning the birth of Jesus, “Unto you is

born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Mark these words, “Unto you...” It is not simply to humanity in
general that Jesus comes, it is to each one of us personally that He
comes. He desires to be your Savior in a way that is unique, entirely
personal and exceptional.

The Word is continually being born in the stable of our heart. As

Angelus Silesius wrote, “Even if Christ were to be born a thousand
times at Bethlehem, if He is not born in you, you are lost for
eternity.”

Eternal life is meant to start right here on earth when we

welcome Jesus into the stable of our heart and develop a personal
relationship with Him as living members of His Body, the Church.

Bishop Kallistos Ware emphasizes the deeply personal aspect of

our Orthodox faith when he writes,

Because of the Comforter’s (the Holy Spirit’s) presence in our

heart, we do not simply know Christ at fourth or fifth hand, as a
distant figure from long ago, about whom we possess factual
information through written records; but we know Him directly here
and now, in the present, as our personal Savior and our Friend. With
the Apostle Thomas we can affirm, “My Lord and my God” (Jn. 20-
28). We do not merely say, “Christ died,” but “Christ died for me.”
We do not merely say, Christ rose, but “Christ is risen!” He lives
now, for me and in me. This relationship with Jesus is precisely the
work of the Spirit.[xix]
 WITH CHRIST

Perhaps no one expresses the personal aspect of our Orthodox

faith better than St. Paul. He uses several compound verbs that
begin with the Greek preposition syn (with): “I suffer with Christ... I
am crucified with Christ... I die with Christ... I am buried with
Christ... I am raised and live with Christ. I am carried off to heaven
and sit at the right hand of the Father with Christ” (Rom 6:3-11, Gal
2:20, 2 Cor 1:5, 4:7, Col 2:20, Eph 2:5-6). This is Paul’s way of
underscoring the importance of our personal participation in
redemption by “putting on Christ” and assimilating Him. “I live, yet
not I, but Christ lives in me.”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus expressed it this way:

Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified with

Him.
Yesterday I was dead with Him; today I am sharing in His
resurrection.
Yesterday I was buried with Him; today I am waking with Him
from the sleep of death.
 HOW FAR HE WILL GO FOR US

In the Person of Jesus Christ we can see just how far God is
willing to run to lead us back from the brink. Christ came all the way
down from heaven for us. He became a slave for us even to the
point of washing our feet and dying the death of a slave on the
cross for our sins. He came running after His people in this fallen
world, calling us back to the Father’s house. He even “descended
into hell” in order to bring us back to the Father. As St. John
Chrysostom says He “did not cease doing everything until He led us
into heaven.” He looks at us today, beckoning us to come with open
arms as He says, “I want to gather you together as a hen gathers
her brood under her wings.” How sad that so often He has to add
those terrible words, “But you would not come.”

All of God’s love is for you! It is uniquely personal. His sacrifice

on the cross is for you! His death and resurrection are for you, for
your sin, your inner restlessness, your forgiveness, your peace. He
comes after you even now as you read this book. He opens His
arms and His heart to you. He wants to be part of your life to help
bear your burdens and guide you on the way to heaven.
 WHEN REAL LIFE BEGINS

Go through history, pick out some of the great spiritual giants

and ask them, “When did you really begin to live?” And one by one
they will give you the same answer, “When I met Jesus Christ.”
Whether it be Zacchaeus or St. Paul or St. Augustine or any one of
the saints, the answer is the same, “I began to live - really live -
when I met Christ personally, when I became aware of His love for
me and submitted my life to Him.”

Why did God choose to come into the world as a baby? Simply
because everybody loves babies! And God wants to be loved by you
and by me. Three times He asks Peter, “Do you love me?” He wants
to be loved just as He loves you. He came to earth at Christmas to
tell you, “You are my beloved son or daughter. I love you!” There is
no greater message than this unconditional love of God. This is
what the gospel is all about. Believe it, and your live cannot but be
changed.

The name given to Jesus is “Emmanuel,” which means “God with

us.” God with me! God with you! What this really means is that God
has time for me. God has time for you. He has time for us because
He loves us. The question is: Do we have time for Him?

The essence of Christianity is a love relationship with God. The

more we love God, the more we will love to do His will, to pray, to
serve, to obey, to follow. If faith ever seems to become a burden, it
is because we do not really know and love Jesus personally.
 GET THE MONKEYS OFF YOUR BACK

The trouble with many of us is that we are empty inside, and

we’re trying to fill the inner emptiness with things. Henri Nouwen
says that we are like a banana tree filled with monkeys. Our
problem is one of trying to get the monkeys off our back, to create
a little space inside so God can come and tell us, “I love you. You
belong to me. You are my beloved son or daughter.” So we keep
trying to get the monkeys off our backs by keeping some space
open for God, some quiet time each day for prayer and meditation,
and for the liturgy on Sunday, so we can hear the voice of God as it
tries to get through to us with God’s personal love: “You are my
beloved son or daughter. I created you out of nothing. I redeemed
you with the blood of my only begotten Son. I sealed you with the
gift of the Holy Spirit. I want you to be with me in heaven to behold
my glory. You belong to me.”
 Chapter Five: What is Church Membership?

Orthodoxy is the Church of Christ on earth. The Church of Christ

is not an institution; it is a new life with Christ and in Christ; guided
by the Holy Spirit. - Sergius Bulgakov
 WHAT IS CHURCH MEMBERSHIP?

What is church membership? Is it being baptized? Is it paying

one’s fair share? Is it being born into a church? Is it a building I
sometimes go to? Or is it a personal relationship with Jesus as “my
Lord and my God?” Of course, it is the latter. When we were
baptized we were asked to renounce Satan and to accept Christ. We
were asked, “Do you accept Jesus? Do you believe in Jesus as King
and God?” At baptism we established a personal relationship with
Jesus. Church membership, therefore, is a personal relationship with
Jesus which takes place and is nourished in the context of the
Church, the Body of Christ, through faith, prayer, commitment,
worship and the sacraments.

We are not saved by being members of a building we call

“church.” And we do not pay “dues” to the Church, since it is not a
“club.” The Church is a Person. It is Christ - His very Body. We
receive life from being attached not to a building but to a Person,
and by being in a living and loving relationship with that Person.
Jesus did not come to establish an abstract impersonal institution or
religion. He came to offer Himself, God in Person, living and
dwelling in our hearts through faith.
 NOT BY INHERITANCE

For too many of us religion has come by inheritance. We have

never said to God as Job did, “I had heard of You, Lord, by the
hearing of the ear, but now I have seen You.” In other words, “Now
I have seen You with my own eyes. Now I know you personally.”

Most of us have become disciples of the disciples of the disciples

of someone in the past who had personally experienced God. But it
is impossible to transmit real love or commitment this way.

For many people the Christian faith is a secondhand faith

inherited from their parents. But some things cannot be inherited.
Real estate can, money can, but not prayer, not faith, not
commitment, not the kingdom of God. All the prayers of others in
the past cannot redeem anyone who cannot say as did the blind
man who was healed by Jesus, “One thing I know, that, whereas I
was blind, now I see.” Goethe said once, “The possessions which
you have inherited from your ancestors - earn them in order truly to
own them.” If faith is not personal, it will not be real.
 MATCHING THE SAINTS?

Often we are overwhelmed by the feats of the great saints of

the Church. How can we match what they did? But we are not
called to match what they did. Each of us is uniquely different and
special. We are called to live according to our unique situation with
the special talents God has given us. Few have expressed this
better than Evagrius:

Likewise anyone who wishes to embark on the labours of the

virtuous life should train himself gently, until he finally reaches the
perfect state. Do not be perplexed by the many paths trodden by
our Fathers of old, each different from the other; do not zealously
try to imitate them all: this would only upset your way of life.
Rather, choose a way of life that suits your feeble state; travel on
that, and you will live, for your Lord is merciful and he will receive
you, not because of your achievements, but because of your
intentions, just as he received the destitute woman’s gift.
We read in the book, Come and See, edited by Father
Theodore Bobosh:

What is missing is a living, “practiced” Christian faith to go along

with the strong doctrinal correctness of the Orthodox Church. It is
quite difficult to believe that the ordinary Orthodox Christian has
any personal knowledge of, or relationship with God, at all.
Certainly, outside of the services there is very little direct or
enthusiastic discussion of Christ and His Church among the ordinary
(i.e., non-clerical) folk. And the extent of the Orthodox Christian’s
ignorance concerning his own faith (not to mention the faiths of
other Americans) is both incredible and alarming. Too many are
depending passively upon the historic “orthodoxy” of the Church.
 Too many are trying to live, not by their own personal faith in
Christ, but by the “faith of our fathers.”[xx]
Before the plane takes off we are told that if anything happens,
we are to put our own oxygen mask on first, then that of our
children. If we do not have a personal faith; if we ourselves as
parents, priests, teachers, have not put on Christ first, then we
cannot pass Him on to others. We cannot help save others, if we
ourselves are not saved. We must put on Christ first before we can
share Him with others.
 GRACE AND DISCIPLESHIP

A noted Orthodox theologian, Fr. George Dragas, wrote, “Looked

at from the side of God, theology is grace, the grace of the Trinity.
From the side of man, it is costly discipleship.” Our response to
God’s grace is discipleship. It is the costly discipleship of nourishing
and developing a daily personal relationship with God. Eternal life
begins now with a daily, personal relationship with Jesus lived out
in His Body - the Church.

A book that will help you greatly in establishing and

strengthening your daily personal relationship with God is
Discovering God Through the Daily Practice of His Presence
.
[xxi]
It
explains in practical ways how one may cultivate God’s presence
each day.
 THE TWO BIRTHS OF CHRIST

In order to understand what church membership is all about, we

need to remember that there are not one but two births of Christ:
one is His birth into the world when He was born in Bethlehem; the
other is His birth in the soul when a person is spiritually reborn at
baptism, lives in repentance, and receives Him regularly in the
sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

It was on this second birth that St. Paul insisted when he wrote
to the Ephesians, praying that Christ may dwell in their hearts by
faith and that they may be rooted and grounded in love. This is the
second Bethlehem, the daily personal relationship of the individual
to the Lord Jesus, our Great Lover. This is what church membership
means: the personal indwelling of Christ in the believer through the
Eucharist and the daily practice of His presence. According to the
Fathers, one of the main stages in our spiritual journey is direct
personal union with God ( theosis ).
 I KNOW HIM

Being an Orthodox Christian is far more than being able to

produce a baptismal certificate; it is the personal experience of the
Risen Christ living and reigning in our lives. It is inner peace and
freedom, a new sense of direction and purpose in our lives. “I do
not believe in God,” someone said. “I know Him.” “I know Him in
whom I have believed,” said St. Paul. “Having seen (experienced)
the resurrection of Christ we worship the Lord Jesus,” says one of
the prayers of the Church. “It is one thing to believe in God, and
another to know Him,” said Staretz Silouan.
The following statement is from the previously mentioned report
to Archbishop Iakovos on the Future of Orthodoxy . Again, try to
count how many times the word “personal” is used:

The overall answer to the cultural crisis of faith is a personal

approach to the truths and values of the Orthodox faith. By personal
is meant an internalization of these truths and values so that they
may be held with a conscious personal conviction. To sustain the
Orthodox identity we can no longer count on the spiritual
investments of the past, that is to say, simply on the power of
tradition and formal habits. We must also generate new spiritual
investments ourselves in this secular but thirsting society by means
of a spiritual rekindling of Orthodox souls with the grace of the love
of Christ.
 “BECOMING” PRAYER

The purpose and goal of developing a daily, personal

relationship with Jesus is expressed well by Fr. Goettmann, a French
Orthodox priest in his book, The Spiritual Wisdom and Practices of
Early Christianity:
We first “do” exercises, then we become exercise; we say
prayers but we must eventually become prayer; we go to the liturgy
but our whole being is called to become liturgical and daily life is
meant to be a celebration; we seek to experience God, but in doing
so, we ourselves become gods![xxii]
 DISCOVERING GOD IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

Since the Fathers teach that purity of heart is tantamount to

being “single-minded” we must emphasize the need to make God
central in our daily lives. By believing that God is actively involved
in our daily lives, we can let go of our worries and anxieties about
the future and live for God in the present moment, a moment filled
with His presence and with the possibility of growing in His likeness.
Thus we take no thought for tomorrow (Matt 6:24), knowing that
each person we meet and each situation we are in can be an
encounter with God. We need to learn to discover God in the
present. Too often we are concerned with the future or lost in
memories of the past; in doing so, we “miss” God in the present.
This is why our daily, personal relationship with Christ is important.
It helps us find God and His power in the present moment.
 JESUS CALLS MARY BY NAME

At the end of John’s Gospel, we find Mary Magdalene outside the

Lord’s tomb. When the risen Christ appears to her, she is so near
that she can touch Him, but she does not recognize Him, nor does
she understand the meaning of what has happened. She is
bewildered and depressed because she believes that now that her
Lord is dead the foundations of her world have collapsed. But then
the risen Jesus gets through to her with one word. He addresses her
by name, “Mary.” Upon hearing her name, she recognizes Jesus
immediately, and replies personally and endearingly, “Raboni”
which means “my Lord.”

Jesus loves us personally and calls us by name. He says to

Peter, “Peter, I have prayed for you that you may not fall...” If He
prayed personally and by name for Peter, is He not doing the same
for you and for me right now? Prayer in a sense is listening to Jesus
as He prays for us by name? God’s love is personal!

A foreign student from West Germany visited a young people’s

meeting at a church in the U.S. After he came home that evening he
said to his friends, “They prayed for me by name. I have never
heard my name said in prayer before.” He was impressed because
he had tasted the personal love of God for him. Yet should not we
all taste this personal love? Does not God say to each one of us: “I
have called you by name; you are mine” (Is 43:1)?

One day two boys volunteered to read the Bible every day to a
blind man. They were to start from the Gospel of Matthew. They
started reading the genealogy of Jesus with all the difficult Hebrew
names. “Let’s skip all these names,” said the boys. “No,” said the
blind man, “let’s read them.” They continued reading all those
strange names. Soon they noticed tears on the blind man’s cheeks.
“What’s so emotional about a list of names?” asked the boys. The
blind man replied, “God knowed everyone of those fellers and He
knew them by name. Boys, that makes me feel important to know
that God knows me and He knows my name.”
 A PICTURE WINDOW TO GOD’S HEART

Our personal love for others is but a reflection of His love for us.
The 17th chapter of John’s Gospel records what is known as the
high priestly prayer which Jesus offered to His Father in the Upper
Room at the Last Supper in the presence of His disciples. It is one of
the most treasured chapters in all Scripture.

It shows us Jesus engaged in a wonderful kind of very personal

praying. It is a very warm, intimate praying, a personal
conversation, unhurried, relaxed, basking in the Father’s presence.
He talks with God heart-to-heart, praying for His disciples and all
who through the centuries would come to believe in Him through
their word. This beautiful high priestly prayer that Jesus began on
earth does not end here. It continues in heaven where Jesus now
intercedes for us constantly as our Advocate and Mediator before
the throne of God the Father. How can any of us continue to live in
discouragement if we truly believe that the risen and ascended Lord
is praying for us?

Jesus is praying fervently and specifically for His disciples - those

He would leave behind to continue His ministry. He includes us
among the disciples when He prays in verse 20, “I do not pray for
these only, but also for those who believe in me through their
word...” We are the ones who today believe in Him through the
word of the apostles. So, He is praying for us - for you and me.
 JESUS PRAYS FOR YOU

We can read this chapter (John 17) in a very personal manner

beginning with verse 6, inserting our name in place of the various
pronouns:

I have manifested thy name to ____ whom thou gavest to me

out of the world; ____ is thine, and thou gavest ____ to me; and
____ has kept thy word... I pray for ____: I pray not for the world,
but for ____ whom thou hast given me, for ____ is thine... And now
I am no more in the world, but ____ is in the world... I pray not that
thou shouldest take ____ out of the world, but that thou shouldest
keep ____ from evil.
God loves us personally and prays for us personally and by
name. Such personal prayer is very much in keeping with Luke’s
account of the Last Supper, where Jesus prays very personally for
one of His disciples, Simon Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan
demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have
prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have
turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31, 32).
 MY GREETINGS TO PRISCA AND AQUILA

The warmth of the personal relationship that exists between

God and us transforms our relationships to one another, making
them more personal. St. Paul expresses this personal love in his
warm greetings at the end of his letter to the Romans where he
mentions and sends warm greetings to a host of persons by name
and he takes sixteen verses to do so. At one time I considered
these personal greetings superfluous. Only later did I discover how
they reflect God’s personal love for each one of us by name:

I commend to you our Sister Phoebe, the deaconess of the

Church at Cenchreae. Give her, in union with the Lord, a welcome
worthy of saints, and help her with anything she needs: she has
looked after a great many people, myself included.
My greetings to Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ
Jesus, who risked their lives for me. I am not the only one to owe
them a debt of gratitude. So do all the Gentile Churches.
Greetings also to the Church that meets at their house.
Greetings to my dear Epaenetus, the first person in the province
of Asia to give himself to Christ.
Greetings to Mary who has worn herself out working for you.
Greetings to Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen who were with
me in prison, they are well known among the apostles and became
Christians before I did.
Greetings to Ampliatus, dear to me in the Lord.
Greetings to Urban, our fellow worker in Christ and my beloved
Stachys.
Greetings to Apelles who proved his devotion to Christ.
Greetings to everyone who belongs to the household of
Aristobulus.
Greetings to Herodion, my kinsmen, and those of the household
of Narcissus who belong to the Lord.
 Greetings to Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who work hard in the
service of the Lord; to my friend Persis who has done so much for
the Lord; to Rufus, the chosen servant of the Lord, and to his
mother who has also been a mother to me.
Greetings to Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas,
and all the brothers who are with them.
Greetings to Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and
Olympas and all God’s people who are with them.
Greet each other with a holy kiss. All the Churches of Christ send
you greetings.
(Rom. 16, 1-16)
“I have called you by name. You are mine,” said the Lord.

When you finally appear before God, He will not say to you,
“Well done, good and faithful servant;” He will speak to you very
personally, by name, and say, “Well done, Nick, Mary, Jane, you
have been faithful in little, I will set you over much. Come, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
When you hear your name called out by Jesus at the Second
Coming that will be for you the beginning of heaven.
Chapter Six: Jesus: Cosmic or Personal Savior?

No Russian Orthodox believer would think to

call this Jesus “personal.” He is a cosmic
Savior - He does not belong to me alone
- Fr. Anthony Ugolnik in
“The Illuminating Icon”
 JESUS: COSMIC OR PERSONAL SAVIOR?

In his excellent book The Illuminating Icon Fr. Anthony Ugolnik

writes,

Look to the ceiling of the worshiping churches in Russia and you

will find a majestic icon of Jesus spread across the dome, looking
down upon all gathered in His kingdom. Divine life comes to us in
community. No Russian Orthodox believer would think to call this
Jesus “personal.” He is a cosmic Savior - He does not belong to me
alone...
Russian Christians, for example, are puzzled by the terminology
that identifies Christ as “personal Savior.” I have tried to explain
that phrase to them, and they are somewhat baffled by the word
“personal.” “Like a wallet?” one of them asked with smile. “Or a
toothbrush?” In their cosmology, Jesus is that divine agent by which
all creation is related to divinity. Jesus is a Savior so great that He
defies the personalist category.[xxiii]
A basic teaching of Orthodox theology is that Jesus is a Person.
God the Father is a Person. God the Holy Spirit is a Person. The
three Persons of the Holy Trinity do defy and supersede the
“personalist category,” but they are nonetheless three Persons in
one essence!

To the person who says, “Jesus is not our personal but our
cosmic Savior,” the Church says, “He is both cosmic and personal. If
salvation is to become real, the cosmic Savior must become our
personal Savior. Salvation is personal but it is not private. We can
be damned alone but we cannot be saved alone. We are saved in
the Body of Christ, the Church, through a personal appropriation of
our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection, which begins in baptism and
continues through all of life.
 PANTOCRATOR AND BEST FRIEND

Jesus is indeed the Pantocrator, the all-powerful, all-ruling,

cosmic, Lord of lords and King of kings, but He is at the same time a
Person and our best Friend. We must let Him come down from that
high dome to make His home in our hearts as our personal Savior
and Friend. He is both transcendent and immanent. Though He
cannot be “possessed” like a toothbrush, He desires greatly to dwell
in us by grace. I have known great theologians and scientists who
regard God with the deepest awe, yet at the same time know Him
through Christ as a personal Friend and Savior. We need to
remember that we did not first call Jesus “Friend.” He took the
initiative. He first called us friends. He initiates this personal
relationship He wishes to have with us.

A good example of the transcendence and immanence of God is

John, the “Beloved Disciple” of Jesus. John was the disciple who
was most intimate with the Lord; the disciple who was literally
closest to His heart. John reclined on Jesus' breast at the Last
Supper. Yet in the Book of Revelation, when John saw Jesus in His
infinite power and glory as the Pantocrator, with universal dominion
and divine sovereignty, John literally fell on his face (Rev. 1:17).
Those of us who are His “beloved disciples” today and strive for an
increasingly personal and intimate relationship with Jesus
(immanence), must balance the intimacy with a view of Jesus for
Who He truly is in His all-surpassing holiness (transcendence).

Daniel B. Clendenin clarifies what has often posed a problem for

some in understanding the difference in emphasis in the Orthodox
Church between the divine transcendence (incomprehensibility) and
God’s immanence and nearness to us. He writes,

Have the Eastern theologians stressed the divine transcendence

to the point that they must deny His immanence, His nearness, His
 personal interaction with us? In fact, it seems that we have to
answer in the affirmative. But if we left the Eastern fathers at this
point we would do them a great disservice, for in addition to
affirming the mystery of God, they equally insist on the necessity of
mystical union with Him, and draw our attention to the many
biblical statements about our knowing God in a personal way.[xxiv]
What is it about us Orthodox Christians that makes evangelical
Christians say about us, “Orthodoxy? It’s nearly all superstition. I
pray that they will become born-again Christians. They need to
know Jesus as their personal Savior.” Are they speaking from
ignorance or are they justified? How personal is my faith in Jesus?
Do I try to make it personal to my children, my friends, my fellow
parishioners?
 UNITING OUR THEOLOGIZING WITH A PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIP

We do not merely learn about Jesus. We come to know Him

personally. This is how we come to experience the living power of
His presence in our lives. Sometimes some theologians are so
preoccupied with talking about theology that they never experience
the subject of their theologizing. We need to unite our theologizing
with an everyday spirituality through a daily, personal relationship
with Jesus. We need to proceed from theology to doxology. The
Church Fathers say, “A theologian is one who truly prays. And one
who prays truly is a theologian.” A theologian is one who has a
personal prayer relationship with God, lived out in the community of
God’s people, the Church.

We must not allow our evangelical Protestant friends to deny

what has always been ours as Orthodox Christians, our daily
personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and God.
 BORN IN THE CHURCH

A personal relationship with Christ is essential but it does not

grow on trees. It does not just happen somehow between you and
Jesus. It is born in the Church. It is nourished in the Church. It
grows in the Church. If this personal relationship with Jesus is not
anchored in the Church, the Living Body of Christ, nourished by the
true teachings of Jesus and the Sacraments, it will degenerate into
a prideful egotism, a “Savior complex” that looks down on others as
not saved. The Orthodox Church has always tried to maintain a
balance between the faith of the individual and the faith of the
Church, the community of God’s people down through the ages. The
two must never be separated.

Jesus said, “Anyone who loves me will keep my word and my

Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home
in him.” Jesus states clearly that if we love God and keep His word,
He will make His home in us.

If God has truly made His home in us, how can we not have a
personal relationship with Him through prayer, meditation, silence,
the sacraments, and the reading of His word? How can we not
enjoy and savor His presence each day?

Like the prodigal son who was embraced by his father, we need
to kneel penitently each day before the Father to let Him embrace
us; and as we kneel, to listen to the heartbeat of His love. Eternal
life begins now with a daily, personal relationship with Jesus.

A survey revealed that what most Americans want in their

leaders is “a vague faith strongly held.” What Jesus came to give
us, however, is a deeply personal faith strongly held.
 COLD-STORAGE RELIGION

Someone has come up with what he calls “cold-storage religion.”

In cold-storage religion you believe that God exists; you just don’t
worship Him. In cold-storage religion, you agree that Jesus died and
rose from the dead; it’s just that you don’t follow Him. In cold-
storage religion, you don’t necessarily disagree with the Bible’s
teachings, it’s just that you ignore them. In cold-storage religion,
you may agree that marriage is the right context for sex, but you
have a live-in lover anyway. You don’t deny that all good things
come from God; but you spend your money the way you want and
give little or nothing to charity and the work of the Lord. In other
words, your relationship with Christ is in cold-storage, like a corpse
in a mortuary.
 ST. SABA

Contrast this cold-storage religion with the following very

personal meditation on the life of Christ written by St. John Saba, a
spiritual elder and Syrian Father of the sixth century:

Carry Him in your bosom like Mary His mother.

Come in with the Magi to offer Him your gifts.
Take Him from Symeon so that you may also carry Him upon
your arms...
When He changes water into wine be there to fill the jars.
Raise the stone from Lazarus in order to learn what is the
resurrection from the dead.
Put your head with John upon His breast in order to hear the
beating of His heart which pulsates with love for all the world...
Take for yourself a morsel of the Bread which He has broken
during the Supper in order to unite with His Body and abide in Him
forever...
Go out with Him to the Mount of Olives in order to learn from
Him worship and bending of the knees, till your sweat falls down
like His.
Stand up, my brother. Weary not but carry the cross as it is time
for departure. Stretch your hands with Him for the nails...
Arise early while it is still dark. Go the the tomb to see the
marvelous resurrection.
Go with the others to a solitary place, and bow to receive the
last blessing before His
Ascension... Sit in the Upper Room to be clothed with power
from on high through the divided tongues.
 THE ONE WHOM JESUS LOVED

It seemed like a case of adding insult to injury the other day,

when I received a letter addressed to “occupant” and marked
“Personal and Confidential.”

Is not this typical of today’s impersonal machine age where we

are addressed anonymously by computers and identified by a
number. Not so with God’s love. It is uniquely personal.

For example, the Apostle John writes about Jesus, “No one has
ever seen God; the only Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He
has made Him known” (John 1:18).

The very intimate, personal and loving relationship between God

the Father and God the Son is captured by this beautiful expression:
that Jesus lies “in the bosom of the Father.”

At the Last Supper as the apostles were gathered around the

table with Jesus, we read, “One of His disciples, whom Jesus loved,
was lying close to the bosom of Jesus...” (John 13:23). That disciple
“whom Jesus loved” was John. The intimate relationship of love that
exists between the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity is now
replicated between God in the Person of Jesus and one of us,
represented by the Apostle John (who lies on His bosom).

Jesus wants each of us to be in as close a relationship to Him as

He is to the Father. As Jesus is “in the bosom of the Father,” so God
the Father wants us - you and me - to be “in the bosom of Jesus.” It
is to this kind of tender, loving, personal, intimate relationship with
God that God invites us through prayer, through the Eucharist and
through His word. The disciple “whom Jesus loves” is not only John
or Lazarus but each one of us. This position “in the bosom of Jesus”
is reserved not only for John but also for you and for me as we grow
in our faith and love for Jesus. One cannot get more personal than
to be in the bosom of Jesus. How does one get there? Through
prayer! Through the Eucharist! Through repentance. Through a
daily, personal relationship with Jesus.
 “MY” JESUS

Fr. John Powell describes his own deeply personal relationship

with Jesus as follows:

I should want you to know and love my Jesus, not me. At least,
this is the way it should be. I say “my Jesus,” although He really
isn’t my exclusive possession. I say “my Jesus,” because He is the
Jesus I know. He is the Jesus who is my best friend and constant
companion. My whole day and life is a running conversation with
this Jesus. If others could “bug my brain,” they would be
astonished. “He is talking to someone all day who isn’t really there.”
To which I would respond:
“He is there only to the eyes and ears, to the mind and heart of
faith. He said He would take up His abode in those who would
believe in Him and love Him. And I do believe in Him and I do love
Him.” Would you believe that Jesus and I actually have “nicknames”
for each other? Special names for special friends. It is this Jesus
that I want to share with you. This is what the early Christians felt:
“We want you to know our Jesus.” So they wrote the story of His
life, the Gospels, because they wanted us to know their Jesus. St.
John begins his first Letter: “I want to tell you what my eyes have
seen, what my ears have heard, and my hands have touched. I
want you to know my Jesus.” The Gospels themselves were
intended as a faith-portrait of Jesus. It was indeed a portrait that
was born of faith. The only way to know Jesus is to believe in Him.
We can know Him only to the extent that we believe. Of course, the
Gospels are not objective history. The evangelists couldn’t write an
objective history about someone they loved so much. No one could
write an objective history of his or her mother. Jesus was their life
and their hope. They wanted to share Him, not themselves, with
the whole world.[xxv]
 However great the sacrifice we are making for Jesus, we are not
doing it for anything so cold as duty or dogma or the dictates of a
code: we are doing it for the best Friend we have. We are doing it
for our Precious Lord and Savior Jesus. Anything we do for Him, any
sacrifice, any burden, any price we have to pay is not really a
sacrifice at all but life’s greatest privilege.
 DOCTRINES ARE WRAPPED UP IN A PERSON

When Lazarus died, Mary said to Jesus, “If you had been here...
my brother would not have died.” Jesus assured her that her
brother will rise. Martha replied, “I know that he shall rise again at
the last day.” Martha believed in the doctrine of the resurrection.
But Jesus immediately made it a personal thing: “I am the
resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:24, 25). When we come to see that
all of our so-called doctrines are wrapped up in a Person, then our
theology becomes doxology! A continuous doxology such as that
prayed constantly by the monks: “ Doxa si o Theos ...” “Glory to
Thee, O Lord.”

Daniel B. Clendenin points out how true Orthodox theology

involves not only intellectual erudition but a spiritual experience
with the living God:

God is not merely a transcendent object of detached intellectual

scrutiny. He is also an immanent Subject who, as Gregory Palamas
and Simeon the New Theologian insisted, must be experienced
directly. Cyril of Jerusalem was correct when he observed that God
as the object of intellectual study and God as the Subject of a
personal relationship cannot be separated: “The method of
godliness consists of these two things: pious dogmas and the
practice of virtue. God does not accept dogmas apart from good
works. Nor does He accept words that are not based on pious
dogmas.” For Orthodoxy, true theology involves not only intellectual
erudition but a spiritual experience with the living God; this
conception can correct Western models of theology which tend to
be academic reflection on propositions.[xxvi]
 THE ELEOUSA ICON

One of the classic icons of the Orthodox Church which expresses

the incredibly personal love God has for His children is the icon of
theEleousa .

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has analyzed this

icon in a most profound manner. In fact, Bishop Ware comments in
the Foreword to Rowan’s book, “Speaking of icons thoroughly
familiar to me, he succeeded in revealing within them spiritual
meanings of which I had never been previously aware. He
possesses to an unusual degree the gift of creative imagination.”

Here is the in-depth study of the Eleousa icon by Archbishop

Rowan:

The Eleousa pattern is best known to Westerners through the

great twelfth-century icon of the “Mother of God of Vladimir”: the
child Christ embraces Mary, cheek to cheek, his arm encircles her
neck, one foot is thrust towards us as if he is pushing himself up
against her body with great energy, and his right hand grasps the
corner of her veil. In some later versions, especially in Russia, he
has one hand fondling her chin…
If we begin, as most of us tend to, with a notion that God stands
at a distance waiting for us to make a move in his direction, this
image should give us something of a shock. The Lord here does not
wait, impassive, as we babble on about our shame and penitence,
trying to persuade him that we are worth forgiving. His love is
instead that of an eager and rather boisterous child, scrambling up
on his mother’s lap, seizing handfuls of her clothing and nuzzling his
face against hers, with that extraordinary hunger for sheer physical
closeness that children will show with loving parents.
 Instead of the effort to bridge the enormous gap between here
and there, between God and my sinful self, we have a movement –
direct, intimate, overwhelming, even embarrassing – from God to
us. Just as we might want to say to a child, “calm down”, as it
pushes at us or grabs clothes and hair, so we can imagine Mary in
this image half embarrassed by the urgency and overexcitement of
the child. Behind the stately postures of the icon, we can see
something intensely, untidily human.
This is a child who cannot bear to be separated from his mother.
We have seen that God is not ashamed to be our God, to be
identified as the one who is involved with us; here, though it is as if
he is not merely unashamed but positively shameless in his
eagerness, longing to embrace and to be embraced. It is not simply
that God will deign not to mind our company: rather he is
passionate for it. The image of God’s action we are presented with
here is of a hungry love.[xxvii]
If icons are theology in color, then the Eleousa icon speaks much
more powerfully than words about the reciprocal, utterly personal
relationship of “hungry love” that can and should exist between God
in Christ and each one of us.
 Chapter Seven: Prayer is Personal

For there to be prayer there must be a specifically personal

relationship with theliving God. Evagrius calls it a “conversation.”
 PRAYER IS PERSONAL

What is prayer? It is nothing more than an ongoing love

relationship with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

St. Theophan describes how personal prayer is when he writes,

“The work of God is simple: It is prayer, children talking to their
Father, without any subtleties.” How do children talk to their
parents? Abstractly? Impersonally? No! Very personally! “Daddy!
Mommy!” Did not Jesus teach us to pray to our Father personally
using the word “Abba,” which means Daddy?

Father Alexander Schmemann wrote about the Lord’s Prayer, for

example:

As with the Gospels the Lord’s Prayer is always addressed to

each of us personally anew, in a way which makes it seem to have
been composed specifically for me, for my needs, for my questions,
for my pilgrimage. Yet, at the same time it remains eternal and
unchanging in its essence, always calling us to what is most
important, to the ultimate, to the highest.[xxviii]
 A CHRISTIAN PSYCHIATRIST TESTIFIES

Dr. Paul Tournier, a Swiss psychiatrist, tells how one of life’s

greatest discoveries came to him. He used to visit an old Christian
pastor, who never let him go without praying with him. He was
struck by the extreme simplicity of the old man’s prayers. It seemed
just a continuation of an intimate conversation that the old saint
was always carrying on with Jesus. Paul Tournier goes on, “When I
got back home I talked it over with my wife, and together we asked
God to give us also the close fellowship with Jesus the old pastor
had. Since then Jesus has been the center of my devotion and my
traveling companion. He takes pleasure in what I do (cp. Eccl. 9:7),
and concerns Himself with it. He is a friend with whom I can discuss
everything that happens in my life. He shares my joy and my pain,
my hopes and fears. He is there when a patient speaks to me from
his heart, listening to him with me and better than I can. And when
the patient is gone I can talk to Him about it.” Therein lies the very
essence of the Christian life.
 FOLKSY CHATS WITH GOD

I have always enjoyed the scene in Fiddler on the Roof where

Tevye says, “Dear God, You made many, many, many poor people.
I realize that it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either.
So what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?” We
delight in these fictional scenes where humans have folksy chats
with God, but does not the psalmist do the same constantly as he
converses with God?
 THE JESUS PRAYER IS PERSONAL

What is our Orthodox practice of the Jesus Prayer but “an

intimate intercourse of penitent sinners with the Redeemer,” to
quote Fr. George Florovsky. Praying the Jesus Prayer is part of our
daily personal relationship with Jesus.

When a monk prays the Jesus Prayer in the Orthodox tradition,

he drops his head to the chest, or the heart, to denote that, in
praying, he is descending with his mind into his heart to make his
prayer to Jesus personal. He enters the presence of God not just
with his mind, but also with his heart. He is fully, completely and
personally present to God.

Through the Jesus Prayer we come in contact with the Risen

Christ. He is living and alive in our mind, in our heart, and in our
breathing. Through this prayer “the heart swallows the Lord and the
Lord the heart.” Through the Jesus Prayer we enter into a personal
relationship with God. Our spirit, soul, and body come to experience
the God of peace and love in an intensely personal way as the
heart, breathing rhythmically prays: “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have
mercy on me.”

One of the saints of the Church said, “Heaven is God and God is
in my heart.” Through the Jesus Prayer God is, indeed, in the heart,
and the heart becomes heaven. One of the great tragedies of our
lives is that we do not allow ourselves to experience that presence.
Thus, our faith does not become truly real to us. Yet God wants us
to experience His presence. This is why Christ came, why He
suffered, died, and rose again; why He sent the Holy Spirit - to be
always present to us in a truly personal and intimate way.

The Jesus Prayer is also referred to as “the prayer of the heart”

because it rises from the deepest and most personal place of our
being, from its very center, the heart.
 INTIMATELY PERSONAL

To understand how intimately personal the Jesus Prayer is, focus

on these words by Irma Zaleski:

Why, when we say the Jesus Prayer, do we say “have mercy on

me, a sinner?” Why “me” and not “us”? Should we not pray for
mercy for everybody? Should we not pray for the whole Church? Of
course. In a very real sense every prayer is a prayer of the Church.
Apart from the Church, the Body of Christ, our prayer means
nothing. We cannot pray the Jesus Prayer outside the Church. When
we say “Jesus” we mean the whole Jesus, His whole body, the
whole of the redeemed universe. But, because it is a prayer of
repentance, the prayer of a sinner, it must also be a prayer of each
one alone. In the final analysis, we have to make our own individual
peace with God, find our own relationship with Him, meet Him face
to face. Nobody can do it for us. [xxix]
And so we pray personally and from the heart: “Lord Jesus, be
merciful to me, the sinner.”
 THE AKATHISTOS HYMN TO THE SWEETEST JESUS

If you wish to see how truly personal and intimate prayer can
be, I refer you to the Akathistos Hymn to the “Sweetest Jesus” as it
is sung in the Orthodox Church. Listen to a few excerpts from that
service:

When the light of Thy truth shone in the world, devilish delusion
was driven away; for the idols, O our Saviour, have fallen, unable to
endure Thy power. But we who have received salvation cry to Thee:
Jesus, Truth dispelling falsehood.
Jesus, Light transcending every light.
Jesus, King surpassing all in strength.
Jesus, God constant in mercy.
Jesus, Bread of life, fill me who am hungry.
Jesus, Wellspring of knowledge, refresh me who am thirsty.
Jesus, Garment of gladness, clothe me who am naked.
Jesus, Haven of joy, shelter me who am unworthy.
Jesus, Giver to those who ask, grant me mourning for my sins.
Jesus, Finder of those who seek, find my soul.
Jesus, Opener to those who knock, open my hardened heart.
Jesus, Redeemer of sinners, wash away my sins.
Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.
When the blind man heard Thee, O Lord, passing by on the way,
he cried: Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! And Thou didst
call him and open his eyes. Wherefore, by Thy mercy enlighten the
spiritual eyes of my heart as I cry to Thee and say:
Jesus, Creator of those on high.
Jesus, Redeemer of those below.
Jesus, Vanquisher of the nethermost powers.
Jesus, Adorner of every creature.
 Jesus, Comforter of my soul
Jesus, Enlightener of my mind.
Jesus, Gladness of my heart.
Jesus, Health of my body.
Jesus, my Saviour, save me.
Jesus, my Light, enlighten me.
Jesus, from all torment deliver me.
Jesus, save me who am unworthy.
Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.
O my Jesus, no one else hath been so prodigal as I, the
wretched one, O Jesus Lover of mankind, but do Thou Thyself save
me, O Jesus.
O sweetest Jesus, save us.
 THE PSALMIST

Prayer has to be personal. How can it be otherwise since it is a

dialogue between two people who love each other. This is why the
psalmist prays so personally:

My soul clings to you (Ps 62:9).

My soul thirsts for you (Ps 62:3).
As a deer longs for the springs of water, so my soul longs for
you, O God (Ps 121:1).
I will love you, O God my strength (Ps 16:2).
My soul is always in your hands (Ps 118:109).
I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise will always be in my
mouth (Ps 33:2).
 TRUTH IS A PERSON

For Orthodox Christians truth is not an abstract idea. Truth is a

Person. It is Christ. He Himself said, “I am truth” (Jn 13:16). And
the Christ who is Truth is at the same time life as well. Thus, Christ
is also the way in which we are called to live and walk daily in order
to know the truth. Truth and Life are personal. “I am the Truth,”
said Jesus and “I am the Life.” Ultimate truth is a Personal Being
apprehended by love and prayer.
 RECITE THE WORDS OF PSALMODY AS YOUR VERY OWN

St. Ephrem wrote that all the prayers we utter, even if they are
words from the psalms should be spoken as if they were our own:

In the verses of your psalmody do not be like a man who

borrows words from another, lest…you be left utterly devoid of the
compunction and joy to be found in psalmody. Rather, recite the
words of psalmody as your very own, that you may utter the words
of your supplication with insight and with discriminating
compunction.
A Buddhist convert to Orthodoxy testified as to how personal the
prayers of an Orthodox service were to him,

Every word of the hymn or service seemed to be directed at me.

Every verse about being lost and confused and put upon by life’s
circumstances was read for me. I was found by Love but still lost. I
left every evening feeling that everything that had been sung or
chanted was what I would have said, if I could have said anything
as beautiful and true. I let the choir sing my praises and the reader
chant my love.
He concluded with a moving testimony of how God’s personal
love changed his life,

And I am finally home. God, for some unknown reason, loves

me. Me! I know this is true. He loves me as me – with a name, my
name. God knows my name! God knows my heart and brain and fat
and muscle, and He loves me. God knows my every thought and
fear and pain, and He still accepts me. That is the most incredible
reality possible. Oh, Father, today was God’s great gift to me and
mine to Him. I am poor and empty before this.
 ST. SILOUAN

Archimandrite Sophrony writes about St. Silouan’s deeply

personal experience in prayer:

Christ’s manifestation to Silouan was a personal encounter by

virtue of which his approach to God acquired a deeply personal
character. In prayer he conversed with God face to face. The feeling
of God being personal delivers prayer from the imagination and
abstract argument, transporting everything into an invisible core of
lively inward communion. Concentrated within, prayer ceases to be
a “cry into space”, and the mind becomes all attention and
listening. Calling upon the Divine Name - Father, Lord, and other
appellations - Silouan continued caught up in a state about which “it
is not lawful for a man to speak”. But whoever has himself
experienced the presence of the living God will understand.[xxx]
 COME UNTO ME

All that Jesus did, He did for each one of us personally. As one
saint wrote,

When he said to the weary, “Come unto me,” I know that the
Savior was speaking to me. When he prayed in the garden of
Gethsemane, those sweat drops of blood were flowing for me.
When the sword pierced his side and he felt agony, when the nails
ripped his hands, he suffered for me. When he hung to his death on
that cruel tree, and cried, “Father, forgive them,” he pleaded for
me. Though I can’t comprehend it, I’m certain that he, now sits
beside God, waiting for me!
A wife writes about praying with her husband,

During one difficult period in my life when I was feeling much

inner turmoil, my husband would hold me close and simply ask God
to be with me that day. That brief ordinary ministry was like an
anointing to me. From time to time we share a similar kind of
morning prayer, as we embrace each other while we pray.
Holding one close as one prays - husband with wife, parent with
child - makes prayer so much more personal. It makes us feel
embraced by God’s love.

Since prayer is personal, we should never hesitate to come to

God spontaneously:

When on the verge of losing our temper, to pray,

“Thy patience, Lord.”
When alone, to pray, “Thy presence, Lord.”
When anxious, to pray, “Thy peace, Lord.”
When tempted by lustful thoughts, to pray, “Thy purity, Lord.”
 BEYOND WORDS

Our relationship to God can become so intimately personal that

it will no longer need to be expressed through the use of words.
Bishop Ware emphasized this when he wrote:

Praying, defined in this way, is no longer merely to ask for

things, and can indeed exist without the employment of any words
at all. It is not so much a momentary activity as a continuous state.
To pray is to stand before God, to enter into an immediate and
personal relationship with Him; it is to know at every level of our
being, from the instinctive to the intellectual, from the sub- to the
supra-conscious, that we are in God and He is in us. To affirm and
deepen our personal relationships with other human beings, it is not
necessary to be continually presenting requests or using words; the
better we come to know and love one another, the less need there
is to express our mutual attitude verbally. It is the same in our
personal relationship with God.[xxxi]
 SPEAK TO GOD HEART-TO-HEART

The very personal and intimate way in which Jesus prays to the
Father inspired the great French preacher, Fenelon, to write these
words, encouraging us to be intimate and personal in our prayers to
Jesus:

Tell (God) all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart to
a dear friend... Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you;
tell Him your joys that He may sober them; tell Him your longings
that He may purify them; tell Him your mislikings, that He may help
you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may
shield you from them; show Him all the wounds of your heart, that
He may heal them. Lay bare to Him all your indifference to good,
your depraved tastes for evil... your instability... If you thus pour out
to Him all your weaknesses, needs and troubles, there will be no
lack of what to say; you will never exhaust this subject, it is
continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each
other never want for subjects of conversation; they do not... weigh
their words because there is nothing to be kept back. Neither do
they seek for something to say; they talk together out of the
abundance of their heart - without consideration, just what they
think... Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved
intercourse with God.
 OUR RESPONSE: INTIMACY

There can be no real relationship with Jesus without this kind of

a personal, loving intimacy. All life must be a deeper and deeper
communion, an ever expanding Koinonia fellowship, between us
and the Bridegroom Jesus. St. Ephrem speaks of the body and heart
as the bridal chamber for Christ the Bridegroom. Our love for Him
must be consummated daily in prayer, in His word, and the
sacraments, especially the Eucharist through which we truly become
one with Him. The Eucharist is indeed the celebrated marriage by
which the most Holy Bridegroom espouses the Church as His Bride.

An ingenious teenager, tired of reading bedtime stories to his

little sister, decided to record several of her favorite stories on tape.
He told her, “Now you can hear your stories anytime you want. Isn’t
that great?”

She looked at the machine for a moment and then replied, “No.
It hasn’t got a lap.”

We all need a lap. We all need the closeness of relationship. We

all need to know we are loved deeply and personally. A daily,
personal relationship with Jesus enables us to sit on His lap each
day.
 THE ALTAR OF THE HEART

The Church Fathers have always considered the heart as the real
place of prayer. Sebastian Brock writes:

One of the aspects of the heart is its interior liturgical role: it is

the altar inside the sanctuary of the temple constituted by the body
(1 Cor. 6:19), and on this altar the interior offering of prayer should
continuously be made. Such an idea of prayer as an offering was
already familiar from the Old Testament (e.g. Ps 141:2), while in
the Syriac Bible (Sir 39:5) it is specifically stated that the heart is
where prayer should take place. In the passages from Aphrahat and
Ephrem we find that the location where the offering of prayer
should be made is likewise identified as the heart, on the basis of
Matthew 6:6, “Pray to your Father in secret, with the door shut,”
following an exegesis of the passage also found in Origen and
Ambrose. In the Book of Steps the “altar of the heart” features
prominently: in this work we have the concept of a three-
dimensional liturgy which should take place simultaneously in the
visible church on earth, in the church of the heart of the individual
Christian, and in the heavenly church.[xxxii]
St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite calls the heart a shelter: “St. Isaac
called the heart, ‘the house of understanding.’ As the animals when
troubled and frightened run to their dens to be protected, so the
mind of man, when troubled, runs to the heart and shouts, ‘My
[xxxiii]
Jesus help me! My Jesus save me!’ and is thus liberated.”
 ENTERING THE ALTAR OF THE HEART

St. Syngletike urges us to cense the altar of the heart “with the
divine incense of prayer. For as poisonous creatures are sent away
by certain strong poisons, so are evil thoughts banished by
prayer...”

John Cassian urges us to enter the inner sanctuary, the “altar of

the heart” often. He suggests frequent short prayers which because
of their intensity avoid distraction. He writes,

We are praying in our inner room when we withdraw our heart

completely from the clamour of our thoughts and preoccupations,
and in a kind of secret dialogue, as between intimate friends, we
lay bare our desires before the Lord.
St. John Chrysostom reminds us that for prayer to be truly
personal, it must come not just from the mouth but from the heart:

By prayer I mean not that which is only in the mouth, but that
which springs up from the bottom of the heart. In fact, just as trees
with deep roots are not shattered or uprooted by storms... in the
same way prayers that come from the bottom of the heart, having
their roots there, rise to heaven with complete assurance and are
not knocked off course by the assault of any thought. That is why
the psalm says: “Out of the deep I called unto thee, O Lord” (Psalm
120:1).
St. Theophan the Recluse explains that God responds to a truly
personal prayer with “a certain feeling of warmth,”

When you establish yourself in the inner man by the

remembrance of God, then Christ the Lord will enter and dwell
within you. The two things go together.
 And here is a sign for you, by which you can be certain that this
glorious work has begun within you: you will experience a certain
feeling of warmth towards the Lord. If you fulfill everything
prescribed, then this feeling will soon begin to appear more and
more often, and in time will become continuous. This feeling is
sweet and beatific, and from its first appearance it stimulates us to
desire and seek it, lest it leave the heart: for in it is Paradise.
May we accept the very personal invitation extended by St. John
of Dalyatha:

If you are tired and worn out by your labors for your Lord, place
your head upon his knee and rest awhile.
Recline upon his breast, breathe in the fragrant spirit of life, and
allow life to permeate your being.
Rest upon him, for he is a table of refreshment that will serve
you the food of the divine Father.
 Chapter Eight: The Sacraments are Personal

Each one of us is the person for whom Christ shed that particular
drop of blood.
- Blaise Pascal
 THE SACRAMENTS ARE PERSONAL

The sacraments are not the “machines of salvation,” or magical

contacts that work automatically; they are rather personal
encounters with Christ in faith.

Fr. George Florovsky wrote:

The climax of the Sacrament (Eucharist) is in the Presence of

Christ... and in the personal encounter of the faithful with their
Living Lord, as participants at His “Mystical Supper.” The utter
reality of this encounter is vigorously stressed in the office of
preparation for Communion, as also in the prayers of Thanksgiving
After Communion. The preparation is precisely for one’s meeting
with Christ in the Sacrament, personal and intimate... personal
emphasis in all these prayers is dominant and prevailing. This
personal encounter of believers with Christ is the very core of
Orthodox devotional life.[xxxiv]
The personal aspect of the sacraments as an encounter between
the believer and Christ is expressed in the manner by which the
Eucharist is administered in the Orthodox Church. It is always
personal. The name of each communicant is mentioned by the
priest as one receives the Eucharist.

Repeating the words of our Lord, the priest says, “Take, eat...for
you my body is broken...Drink of it all of you, for you was my blood
shed...” For you the broken Body! For you the shed blood! For the
forgiveness of your sins and for your everlasting life. The invitation
our Lord directs to us for the Eucharist is clearly personal. Try
placing your name before the words, “Take, eat...Drink of it...”
 THE CHAPEL OF ADAM

There is a beautiful tradition which states that Adam was buried

at the exact site on Golgotha where Jesus was crucified, and there
Adam was the first to be baptized in the water and blood that
flowed from the side of Jesus on the cross (John 19:34). Many icons
of the crucified Jesus show the water and blood flowing from Jesus’
body onto the skull of Adam which is depicted at the foot of the
cross. Thus, the first to sin is the first to be cleansed and clothed
with the robe of God’s righteousness. That is the reason the Greek
Orthodox Church to this day maintains a chapel in Jerusalem over
the exact site where Jesus was crucified and calls that chapel: The
Chapel of Adam. To get to it one climbs a series of steep stone
steps in the Church of the Holy Resurrection and suddenly finds
oneself at Golgotha with a hole in the rock where the cross of Jesus
was anchored.

When I see this beautiful icon of the crucifixion with the skull of
Adam at the base of the cross, I try always to see myself in the
skull of Adam. I prostrate myself before the Crucified Christ and I
pray, “Lord, let the water and the blood from your side flow upon
me constantly - the water: to wash me of my sins, in baptism as in
tears of repentance that I shed daily for my sins; the blood: shed for
me and so graciously offered in the Eucharist, to bring your
Presence to me daily ‘for the forgiveness of sins and unto life
everlasting.’” It is only as we try to place ourselves in the icon of
the crucifixion that it begins to have meaning for us. For, it was for
me that He died; for me that He hung on the cross. Blaise Pascal
wrote, “Each one of us is the person for whom Christ shed that
particular drop of blood.”

Bishop Ware writes, “The sacraments are personal. They are

means whereby God’s grace is appropriated to every Christian
 [xxxv]
individually”
 THE EUCHARIST IS PERSONAL

Not until we say “Yes” to a person are we actually married. We

said “Yes” to Jesus in baptism. This love is continually
consummated in the Eucharist through which we not only cleave to
the Body of Christ, but intermingle with it. We become not merely
one body with Him, but one spirit. St. Gregory Palamas wrote:

O many-sided and ineffable communion! Christ has become our

brother, for He has fellowship with us in flesh and blood... He has
made us His friends, bestowing on us by grace these His
sacraments. He has bound us to Himself and united us, as the
bridegroom unites the bride to himself, through the communion of
this His blood, becoming one flesh with us. He has also become our
father through divine baptism in Himself, and He feeds us at His
own breast, as a loving mother feeds her child.
The Eucharist is our personal presence at the Last Supper. It is
our personal encounter with the living Christ. This is where we meet
Him and invite Him into our soul. “Every time we partake of the
Eucharist, we eat of the tree of life” (Matthew the Poor).

Through the Eucharist we are present personally at the Last

Supper. The same Master is present. The same bread. The same
cup. The same sacrifice. The same Upper Room. The same Holy
Spirit. The same Pentecost.

It is a joy for us to hear our name mentioned each time we

receive the Eucharist. It is an assurance that God knows us by name
and that He loves us in a very personal way which each one of us
can hear and understand. Moreover, the prayers of the Eucharist are
all very personal, i.e., “May the communion of Your holy mysteries
be neither to my judgment nor to my condemnation, O Lord, but to
the healing of soul and body.” “I believe, O Lord, and confess that
you are truly the Son of God...”
 THE REAL “ALTAR CALL”

How do we receive Christ personally? In evangelical Protestant

churches people are urged to receive Christ in their hearts as their
personal Lord and Savior through the altar call, i.e., walking down
the aisle once to say the prayer of commitment. In Orthodox
churches for 2000 years people have been walking down the aisle
every Sunday to receive Christ as He said He wants us to receive
Him: “Take, eat…Drink…” “He who eats my flesh…lives in me and I
in him.” This is the real “altar call” through which Jesus comes to
dwell in us and we in Him in a relationship that is deeply and
mystically personal.
 A CLOSE, LINGERING, LASTING RELATIONSHIP

“A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many, and at

the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who
had been invited, ‘Come for all is now ready.’”

Why come? Come because the banquet is now ready! The Greek
word used for “banquet” here is deipnon . The word is significant in
that it tells us about the kind of relationship Jesus wishes to
establish with us once we come to Him. The early Greeks had three
meals each day. Breakfast, akratisma , was not more than a piece of
dried bread dipped into wine. The midday meal, called ariston, was
simply a picnic snack eaten by the side of the road, or under a tree.
The evening meal, deipnon , was the main meal of the day. People
lingered long at this meal, for the day’s work was done and they
were unhurried, with much to talk about. Thus the fact that in the
Eucharist Jesus invites us to a deipnon , a banquet, describes the
close, lingering, lasting, personal, and intimate relationship that He
wishes to establish with each one of us.

The invitation to a meal is an invitation to intimacy with Jesus.

This is especially true with the Last Supper where as we come, we
pray personally:

Of Thy Mystic Supper, O Son of God, receive me today as a

communicant; for I will not speak of the Mystery to Thine enemies;
nor will I give Thee a kiss as did Judas; but like the thief do I
confess Thee: Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom.
Into the splendour of Thy Saints how shall I, the unworthy one,
enter? For should I dare to enter the bridechamber, my vesture doth
betray me, for it is not a wedding garment; and as one bound, I
shall be cast out by the Angels. Cleanse, O Lord, the defilement of
my soul, and save me, since Thou art the Friend of man.
 I am not sufficient, O Master and Lord, that Thou shouldest
enter under the roof of my soul; but since Thou, as the Friend of
man, dost will to dwell in me, with trust I draw nigh. Thou
commandest; I will open wide the gates which Thou alone hast
fashioned, that Thou mayest enter, in Thy wonted love for man,
that Thou mayest enter and enlighten my darkened thought.
May Thy holy Body, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, be unto me for
eternal life, and Thy precious Blood for the forgiveness of sins. And
may this Eucharist be unto me for joy, health, and gladness. And in
Thy dread second coming, make me, the sinner, worthy to stand at
the right hand of Thy glory, by the intercessions of Thine all-
immaculate Mother and of all Thy Saints.
Amen.
How can one pray these deeply personal Pre-Communion
Prayers and not develop, as a result, a personal relationship with
Jesus?
 AN AWESOME RELATIONSHIP

St. Symeon the New Theologian wrote the following as he

meditated on the presence of Christ in his body following the
Eucharist:

My blood has been mingled with your blood, and I come to the
understanding of how I have also been made one with your own
godhead.
I have become your own most pure body:
A member of that body, scintillating and truly sanctified, radiant,
transparent, and light-emitting…
What was I once? And what have I now become?
How awesome to think of it.
Where shall I sit? What shall I touch?
Where shall I rest these limbs that have become your very own?
These members that are now so terrible and so mighty, how
shall I use them, to what work shall I now set them?
One baptized and chrismated convert to the Orthodox Church
said upon receiving the Eucharist for the first time:

I grew up taking communion but I have never really taken part

in the Eucharist. Today I was given through Grace the opportunity
to eat of the Body and drink of the Blood of Christ. There are no
real words for that – it is a Mystery I cannot even begin to speak of.
I am dumb before this. I am only grateful beyond measure and
blessed into silence.
It is by communing with Christ in the Eucharist, in His word, and
in prayer that one begins to develop a deeply personal relationship.
In the words of St. Ambrose,
 Drink Christ, for he is the vine. Drink Christ, for he is the rock
from which water gushed. Drink Christ, for he in the fountain of life.
Drink Christ, for he is the river whose current brings joy to the city
of God. Drink Christ, for he is peace. Drink Christ, for streams of
living water flow from his body. Drink Christ, and drink the blood by
which you were redeemed. Drink Christ and drink his words.
 JESUS FEEDS US WITH HIMSELF

The English mystic and spiritual writer Julian of Norwich

compares Jesus to a mother giving suck to her children,

Mothers give their children milk to suck, but Jesus is the sweet
Mother who feeds us with Himself. His kindness accomplishes this
when we eat the body of the Eucharist. This priceless food is life
itself, and that’s why it strengthens us and helps us grow…
Jesus animates the Eucharist and through it heals us and helps
us live abundant lives, in all goodness, being kind to each other.
Mothers also lay their children down on their breasts, for rest
and succor, but Jesus is the gentlest Mother who takes us by the
hand and leads us into God’s breast through His own satisfying open
side. I saw Jesus look down there at His gashed side and smile and
say to me, “Look here and see how I love you.”
 BAPTISM IS PERSONAL

Just as the Eucharist is our personal presence at the Last

Supper, so Baptism is our personal Golgotha and our personal
resurrection or Pascha. We plunge into the waters of Baptism as if
we were plunging into death, and we come out of them to newness
of life. We die with Christ and we rise with Christ. His death
becomes our death; His resurrection becomes our resurrection.

The fact that Baptism is our personal resurrection is expressed in

the prayers of the Church. After the reading of the morning
resurrection Gospel on Sundays, the congregation prays, “We have
seen the resurrection of Christ...” Saint Symeon the New Theologian
observes that the prayer does not say, “We have believed the
resurrection of Christ...,” but, “We have seen the resurrection of
Christ... that is, the resurrection of Christ occurs in each of the
faithful.” Thus, beginning with Baptism we experience personally
the resurrection of Christ as He raises us by grace through
repentance to newness of life. Daily we die with Him to sin; daily
we rise with Him to newness of life.

At Baptism we were personally betrothed to Christ the

Bridegroom. We entered into a marriage relationship with Him that
requires love and faithfulness. Our challenge as Orthodox Christians
is to make a conscious, personal, deliberate confession of faith in
the Person of Jesus and to keep renewing this confession in every
liturgy as we confess our baptismal faith through the Nicene Creed.
Thus, holiness is personal and relational. It is having a daily,
personal relationship with Jesus through prayer, His word and the
sacraments.

At Baptism I was given a name and I entered into a personal

relationship with Christ. He knows me by name. He says, “I know
my own and My own know Me, as the Father knows me and I know
the Father.”
 PRAYER MAKES BAPTISMAL GRACE PERSONAL

Commenting on the relation that exists between prayer and

Baptism, St. Gregory of Sinai wrote, “Prayer is the manifestation of
Baptism.” Commenting on this statement Bishop Ware indicates
that “For the overwhelming majority... Baptism is something
received in infancy, of which we have no conscious memory.
Although the baptismal Christ and the indwelling Paraclete never
cease for one moment to work within us, most of us - save on rare
occasions - remain virtually unaware of this inner presence and
activity. The prayer, then, signifies the rediscovery and
manifestation of baptismal grace. To pray is to pass from the state
where grace is present in our hearts secretly and unconsciously, to
the point of full inner perception and conscious awareness when we
experience and feel the activity of the Spirit directly and
immediately. In the words of St. Kallistos and St. Ignatios (14th
century), ‘The aim of the Christian life is to return to the perfect
grace of the Holy and Life-Giving Spirit, which was conferred on us
[xxxvi]
at the beginning in divine Baptism.’”

According to this statement, the presence of Jesus and the grace

conferred upon us in Baptism, become manifest and conscious in us
when we pray. They erupt within us to make the presence of God
active and real in our lives. Thus, the more we pray, the more we
begin to feel and experience the baptismal presence of God in a
personal way. As this happens, we are impelled to greater love for
God and man.
 A PERSONAL RESPONSE IS REQUIRED

Just as God’s love for each one of us is personal, so must our

love for Him be personal. For this reason Baptism demands a
personal response on the part of the baptized child when he/she
grows to adulthood. The child must accept what God did for him or
her in Baptism. For Baptism is not a divine pass that will get us into
heaven automatically. Dr. Nikos Nissiotis once said, “A baptized
Christian - especially in the Churches in which infant Baptism is
practiced - needs to make a personal decision regarding the
Christian faith which he has passively inherited from his Christian
environment.”

Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulos agrees,

As the baptized Christian grows from child to adult, and

participates in the sacramental life of the Church, his personal
response to God becomes crucial. Each Christian must personally re-
affirm the baptismal pledge and himself say by free choice to Christ:
Yes, I am yours! Spiritual renewal comes from this adult
commitment to Christ, sharing in the Eucharist, daily prayer, and
sincere efforts to live the kind of life Christ lived and preached.
Fr. John Meyendorff emphasized the importance of the personal
commitment that must take place in a Christian’s life following
Baptism:

We are told in the Gospels that religious education implies a

positive acceptance of Christ. This is the real conversion. If this
marriage does not take place at some time during the life of a
Christian, he is simply not a Christian. We have a very clear
statement about this in the tradition of the Fathers. What makes a
Christian a Christian is this personal commitment to Christ. One’s
formal belonging to the church through Baptism and other
sacramental participation remains a mere potential if the individual
commitment does not take place. The sacramental gifts of Baptism
and Eucharist and of all the sacraments are essential for an
objective membership in the body of Christ; but again they are pure
potentials if they are not taken seriously and if a conversion of the
heart and mind does not occur at some point in one’s life.
The question is often asked by evangelical Protestant Christians,
“Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?” This is a very
Orthodox question. When you were baptized your godparent was
asked to accept Christ for you. Now that you are of age, you must
do this personally. Without such a personal acceptance of Christ and
commitment to Him, one cannot be an Orthodox Christian.
 CHRISMATION: OUR PERSONAL PENTECOST

Just as Baptism is our personal Golgotha and our personal

Pascha, so Chrismation is our personal Pentecost. Bishop Ware
writes,

What happened to the first Christians on the day of Pentecost

happens also to each of us when, immediately following our
Baptism, we are in the Orthodox practice anointed with Chrism or
myron... The newly-baptized, whether infant or adult, is marked
(sealed cross-wise) by the priest on the forehead, eyes, nostrils,
mouth, ears, breast, hands and feet, with the words, “The seal of
the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This is for each one a personal
Pentecost: the Spirit, who descended visibly upon the Apostles in
tongues of fire, descends upon every one of us invisibly, yet with no
less reality and power. Each becomes an “anointed one,” a “Christ”
after the likeness of Jesus... From the moment of our Baptism and
Chrismation, the Holy Spirit, together with Christ, comes to dwell in
the innermost shrine of our heart. Although we say to the Spirit,
“Come,” He is already within us.[xxxvii]
If we pray the Hours for each day, then every day at 9 am
(which is when Pentecost occurred) we invite the same Holy Spirit
to come and dwell in us.

We know that our relationship with God is one that will endure
for all eternity. It will not come to an end as will all other
relationships. It is for this reason that it should be a deeply personal
and living relationship with the One who “loved me and gave
Himself for me.”
 PRAYING THE HOURS

Another way to enhance our daily personal relationship with God

is by praying the hours each day. The Church planted prayer into
each day by breaking the day into the following hours of prayer:

The first hour, 7 a.m. The dawning sun reminds us of Jesus

who is the light of the world. We pray for guidance through the day:

Lord, Lord, both day and night belong to You,

You formed the light and the sun and marked the bounds of the
earth.
And so we pray:
Let Your great mercy shine on our wretchedness like the
dawning light; free us from the darkness and from the shadow of
death, and from all the attacks and snares of the evil one.
VERSE: This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice
and be glad in it.
The third hour, 9 a.m. is the hour of Pentecost. We thank God
for sending the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and we pray for the Spirit’s
presence with us throughout the day:

O Lord, who didst send down Thy Most Holy Spirit upon Thine
Apostles at the third hour, take Him not from us, O good One, but
renew Him in us.
VERSE: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and
right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and
take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
The sixth hour, noon. We pause at this, the moment of His
crucifixion, to thank Him for His great love for us:
 O Lord, who at the sixth hour was crucified for our sake, forgive
us, through Thy great love for us.
VERSE: Before Thy cross we bow down in worship, O Master,
and Thy Holy resurrection we glorify.
The ninth hour, 3 p.m. We remember Him Who expired in our
behalf at this very hour:

O Lord, who at the ninth hour didst destroy the power of death
by Thy death, make us worthy to share in Thy victory and life
eternal.
VERSE: I shall take the cup of salvation and call upon the name
of the Lord. The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, of whom then
shall I be afraid.
The twelfth hour, 6 p.m. As the sun sets and darkness comes
upon us, we remember that Jesus came to be “a light for revelation
to the Gentiles.” We pray:

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this night without sin. Blessed art

Thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and praised and glorified be
Thy name forever.
VERSE: Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,
according to Thy Word; for my eyes have seen Thy salvation.
Compline, 9 p.m. Consists of prayers offered after supper:

Remember, O Lord, Thy departed servants (NAMES). Grant them

rest where there is neither sickness nor sorrow nor sighing, but life
everlasting.
 VERSE: Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and
earth.
Before retiring for the night.

Into Thy hands, I commend my spirit.

VERSE: Grant that I may behold Thy Kingdom all the days of
my life.
A good book to use for praying the hours is, A Manual of the
Hours of the Orthodox Church, which has the prayers for each hour
in abbreviated form. An excellent book to use to help your children
establish their own daily personal relationship with God is Making
God Real in the Orthodox Christian Home. It is filled with practical
suggestions on how to involve children in prayer and church life.
[xxxviii]

How can one pray the daily hours and not develop, as a result, a
deeply personal relationship with Jesus?
 THE SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION IS PERSONAL

To help us understand the deeply personal aspect of the

Sacrament of Confession, allow me to share with you one person’s
experience of confession in the Orthodox Church:

Years before I was married, I was date-raped by a friend. I’m

ashamed to say that for some time after that I had a sexual
relationship with the man who did this.
Later in my life, a few years after I had become Orthodox, I was
preparing for confession one morning when I felt God bringing those
events of years before into my mind and felt I should confess them.
I was mortified and didn’t understand why they had to be brought
up when I had already asked God’s forgiveness. I was also upset
because the priest was brand new at our church – we hadn’t even
met face-to-face. His first introduction to me was going to be the
knowledge that I had voluntary sex with a rapist. What an
impression that would make! So I prayed and said to God
something like, “Can you make me sure You are asking me to do
this?” Then I opened my prayer book and the first thing I read was
something like this, “My child, if you truly desire healing, you must
expose all your sins to the Great Physician.” That was enough for
me.
In confession, through a torrent of agonizing tears, I confessed
those sins plus some others. My priest was very kind. After
confession he invited me to come and talk to him more if I wanted.
He could see that the issue was not resolved.
The journey to healing takes all of one’s life. But this particular
confession opened to me what has been till now the main part of
my healing. Not only did I go to speak with my priest that day but I
spoke with him a number of times after that. Memories I had tried
to bury began to surface. Finally, I was able to recall and reveal the
sexual abuse that had happened to me in childhood and link that
with the depression I had been struggling with most of my life. At
this point he referred me to a therapist.
This is why I see confession as being so important. When I
became honest about my own sins, my healing began to spring
forth. I do not think there is healing without confession, no matter
what the situation and no matter how much you can point the finger
of blame at others. Even regular therapy can be a type of
confession and can go along way in freeing you from disasters in
the past. But the best confession is confession in the church.
[xxxix]
Another person in the same book wrote the following about his
most memorable confession:

I once confessed before a priest who was attached to our parish

and I felt as if I were shining with light afterward. I was also
surprised that he exchanged the Paschal kiss – the kiss of peace –
with me after confession. I talked with him about my surprise and
also the profound relief and joy I experienced. He said Fr. Alexander
Schmemann had been his spiritual father and had taught him that
joy is the aim of confession.
One Protestant convert to the Orthodox Church shared that as a
Protestant Christian she never felt she needed a priest to mediate
between her and God. She confessed her sins directly to God. But
after experiencing the sacrament for the first time in the Orthodox
Church, she tells of experiencing a sense of forgiveness she had
never before felt. God’s forgiveness was made more real and more
personal through this sacrament. She felt truly forgiven.

The Sacrament of Confession is deeply personal since it is the

sacrament whereby God imparts forgiveness and reconciliation to
His estranged children, embracing each one personally as did the
father of the prodigal son. It is indeed a sacrament of joy. It
restores in us “the joy of salvation” (Psalm 51).
Chapter Nine: The Personal Aspect of Faith and Prayer as
Expressed in Orthodox Worship and Spirituality

Faith is not a logical certainty but a relationship…It is to know

God not as a theory or an abstract principle, but as a person. To
know a person is far more than to know facts about that person. To
know a person is essentially to love him or her; there can be no true
awareness of other persons without mutual love.
- Bishop Kallistos Ware
 THE PERSONAL ASPECT OF FAITH AND PRAYER AS
EXPRESSED IN ORTHODOX WORSHIP AND SPIRITUALITY

Speaking on how personal God’s promises are, Fr. Alexander

Schmemann wrote,

Faith surely is this: the mysterious certitude that what Christ did
and said, He did for me, He told me; that neither time nor space
can separate Him from me, that nothing separates Him from me
except my little faith, my forgetfulness, my innumerable betrayals.
[xl]
I share with you this very personal prayer written by a Monk of
the Eastern Church:

O Lord Jesus Christ our God, as you wept over Lazarus and shed
tears of sadness and compassion for him, accept these bitter tears
of mine.
By your passion heal my passions, by your wounds comfort my
wounds, by your blood purify my blood, and spread over my body
the life-giving perfume of your body.
The gall which your enemies offered you brings sweet ness to
my soul and makes it lose the bitterness which the enemy poured
upon it.
May your body stretched on the wood of the cross make my
mind fly toward you when the demon tries to drag it down below.
May your head which had to rest on the cross lift up my head
when I am insulted by enemies.
May your sacred hands nailed to the cross by unbelievers draw
me up toward you from the abyss of perdition, as you yourself have
promised (Jn. 12:32).
May your face which was so often struck by the slaps and spittle
of cruel men make my face shine again after it has been disfigured
 by sin.
May your spirit which you gave back to your Father on the cross
lead me to you by your grace.
I am without a heart that mourns and looks for you; I lack the
spirit of penance and compunction that brings children back to their
heritage.
I cannot weep, O Lord. My mind is clouded with earthly concerns
and cannot direct its attention in sorrow.
My heart has grown cold from a multitude of temptations and
can no longer warm itself with tears of love for you.
But may you, Lord Jesus Christ, treasury of blessings, grant me
perfect repentance and a sorrowful heart that I may set myself to
follow you with all my strength.
Without you I can do nothing good. Give me your grace, O
generous one! May the Father who from all eternity engendered you
from his bosom renew in me the features of your image and
likeness.
A prayer as personal as the above is not unusual. It springs from
the heart of one who has a deeply personal relationship with the
Lord. As Jesus promised: “Rivers of living water shall flow from the
belly of him who believes in me” (John 7:38).
 THE CANON OF ST. ANDREW

Another example of how personal Orthodox prayers and worship

services are is the Canon of St. Andrew. Study some of the hymns
from this service and see how much the personal prevails:

There is no sin in life, no deed, no wickedness, which I, O

Saviour, have not committed, in mind and in word, of intent, of
design, and of thought, and in deed I have sinned as none ever has
done.
In night I have ever passed my life: for the night of sin has been
for me darkness and deep mist: but show me, O Saviour, to be as a
son of day.
I bring tears, purely, O Saviour, from my eyes, and groans from
the depths, crying aloud from my heart: O God, I have sinned
against thee, be merciful to me.
My soul, my soul, arise, why sleepest thou? The end draws near,
and thou shalt be confounded: therefore rise up, that Christ God
may spare thee, he who is everywhere, and filleth all things.
We have sinned, we have trespassed, we have dealt
unrighteously before thee, we have not observed, nor have we done
according to thy commandment. But deliver us, God of our Fathers.
Christ became man, calling to repentance thieves and harlots: O
soul, repent, the door of the Kingdom is already opened: Pharisees
and Publicans seize it before thee, and adulterers repenting.
I am clothed in the raiment of shame, like the leaves of the fig
tree, for reproach of my self-willed passions.
I wear a coat of disgrace, and shamefully stained with blood, the
flow of a life of passion, and of lust.
I have sunk beneath the weight of passions, and the corruption
of material things: and hence the enemy now assails me.
Lover of material things, I preferred, O Saviour, a life in love
with possessions to one unpossessed, and now I am hung about
with a burdensome collar.
 I adorned the image of the flesh with shameful thoughts, the
cloak of many colours, and I am condemned.
I assiduously sought to adorn the outside alone, despising the
inner tabernacle, in the pattern of God.
I have sinned, as the Harlot, I cry unto thee, alone I have sinned
against thee: even so, O Saviour, accept, as myrrh, my tears.
Be merciful, as the Publican, I cry unto thee, O Saviour, be
merciful to me: for there is none out of Adam, who has sinned, as I
have, against thee.
 THE TROPARIA ARE PERSONAL

The troparia (hymns) of the church are very personal.

Example: consider the text for the Sunday of the Pharisee and
Publican. Who is the Pharisee? I am! Who is the Publican? I am!
Consider the following hymn from the Matins for this same Sunday:
“Weighed down by a great multitude of sins, I have surpassed the
Publican in an excess of evil, and I made mine own the boastful
delusion of the Pharisee. I am utterly devoid of good things. Lord,
save me.”

Consider the hymns of the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. Who is

the prodigal son? I am! You are! The prodigal is not the other
person. We all celebrate our feast day on this day. Consider how
personal the hymns for this Sunday are:

With the words of the Prodigal I cry aloud: I have sinned, O

Father; like him, receive me now in Thine embrace and reject me
not.
Open Thine arms, O Christ, and in loving-kindness receive me as
I return from a country of sin and passions.
I was enslaved to strangers, an exile in the land of corruption,
and I was filled with shame. But now I return, merciful Lord, and cry
to Thee: I have sinned.
Accept me now, O heavenly Father, in Thy fatherly com passion
as I return from evil, and reject me not in Thine exceeding mercy.
I have angered Thee beyond measure, O Christ, and I dare not
look up at the height of heaven. But knowing Thy compassion,
merciful Lord, I cry: I have sinned, be merciful to me and save me.
I have wasted in evil living the riches which the Father gave me,
and now am brought to poverty. I am filled with shame and
 enslaved to fruitless thoughts. Therefore I cry to Thee who lovest
mankind: Take pity on me and save me.
I am wasted with hunger, deprived of every blessing, and an
exile from Thy presence, O Christ supreme in loving-kindness. Take
pity on me as I now return, and save me as I sing the praises of Thy
love for mankind.
The divine wealth that once Thou gavest me I have sinfully
wasted. I have departed far from Thee and lived as the Prodigal, O
compassionate Father. Accept me also now as I return.
Open Thy fatherly embrace now and accept me also as the
Prodigal Son, O most merciful Lord, that I may glorify Thee with
thanksgiving.
How can one pray these utterly personal hymns of the Church
and not develop a deeply personal relationship with Jesus?
 PERSONAL PARTICIPATION IN THE LITURGY

Another way by which we may deepen our faith and make it

more real is by participating personally in the liturgy. We are not
mere spectators in the liturgy. The liturgy itself calls for our very
personal participation.

Fr. Stanley Harakas highlights the importance of our

participation in the liturgy when he writes,

The text of the liturgy... invites the participation of the

worshipper in concrete and specific fashion. No, one could even say
that the text of the liturgy begs, requires, yes, demands
participation... without that participation a large portion of its riches
remain closed to us.[xli]
Fr. Stanley proceeds to mention at least ten specific ways of
participating personally in the liturgy. One of the most important
ways, of course, is by receiving the precious Body and Blood of
Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. This is, indeed, a very personal
encounter between Christ and the communicant as is indicated in
the pre-Communion prayers.

Fr. Stanley proceeds to point out that the litanies of the Liturgy
are addressed by the priest not to God but to the worshippers:

The priest or deacon is addressing himself to the congregation.

The liturgy is thus directing the believer to pray, while at the same
time providing the content of the prayer: peace for the world,
ecclesiastical stability, and the unity of all believers, etc. The
singing of “Kyrie Eleison” may be perceived as signifying assent, but
precisely speaking it is not a response to the liturgical directive to
pray for peace, stability and union. The only appropriate response
for the participating worshipper is to, in fact, offer a prayer of his or
her own words in which all or some of these become subjects of a
personally uttered prayer. One way would be to simply rephrase the
petition, directing it as a prayer to God: “O Lord, grant peace to the
whole world, as well as stability and unity for your Church.” This
could be done quietly and quickly as well, so that the worshipper
could join in with the “Kyrie Eleison.”[xlii]
When praying for “the sick and the suffering” we can quickly
pray by name for those among the sick and suffering whom we
know. When praying for “peace in the world,” we can pray for those
who are estranged and need to be reconciled, etc. If the priest is
directing us to pray for peace, for the sick and the suffering, etc.,
and we do not respond to these biddings, then nobody is praying.
Our personal participation is crucial.

Other ways of personal participation in the liturgy are: singing

the hymns of the liturgy, listening attentively to the readings of
Scripture, making the sign of the cross, praying the Lord’s Prayer,
the Creed, the pre-Communion prayers, etc. The liturgy comes alive
when we respond to its call for us to participate in it personally.
 THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A LIVING AND PERSONAL
ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS

Another example is the Orthodox liturgical year which not only

re-enacts the great saving events in the life of Jesus but also places
us in each event in a very personal way.

An existential encounter takes place between us and Christ in

the events of His birth, crucifixion, resurrection, etc. These sacred
events are mystically present in the Church here and now. We re-
enter each event in such a way that it becomes a unique and
refreshingly new act of salvation for us today. Thus, far from being
a cold and lifeless representation of the events of the past, the
liturgical year is a living and personal encounter with Jesus today.
Today He comes to be born in the manger of my soul and yours to
bring us new life. Today He offers me His precious Body and Blood
for my salvation. Today He hangs on the cross for me. Today He is
resurrected and I am resurrected with Him. Today He is
transfigured and I am transfigured with him. Today He ascends into
heaven and I ascend with Him. So it is that the beautiful word today
tears down the walls of the past and the future and makes Christ
the eternally present One, Who is “the same yesterday and today
and forever” (Hebr. 13:8).
 THE DAILY RULE OF PRAYER

The Church has given us what is known as the Daily Rule of

Prayer to help us develop and deepen our daily personal
relationship with God.

The wisdom behind the Daily Rule of Prayer is that one has to
set aside a regular period of time each day and devote it exclusively
to prayer, to uniting oneself to God. In other words, “You cannot
wait to be in the mood of prayer; you have to use the spur of your
Prayer Rule to force yourself to pray,” as Sergei Fudel writes in his
excellent book Light in the Darkness.[xliii]
Our Orthodox tradition also provides a basic outline of content
for the Daily Rule of Prayer which begins with a simple invocation of
the name of God, i.e., we make the sign of the cross and say, “In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.” This is followed by the prayer to the Holy Spirit, “O
Heavenly King....” This is followed in turn by the Trisagion Prayers.
Of course, this is only the beginning of the Rule of Prayer. It may go
on and include a Scripture reading, the Nicene Creed, some of the
petitions from the liturgy, a period of silence, special petitions of
praise and thanksgiving, intercessions for other people,
extemporaneous prayers, devotional readings, etc. It can be as long
or as short as one desires.
 THE DAILY HOURS OF PRAYER

The Rule of Prayer may be used for morning or evening prayers,

or for both. Your spiritual Father can assist you in establishing such
a Rule of Prayer. An Orthodox prayer book can also be very helpful.
A daily devotional book such as Daily Vitamins for Spiritual
Growth[xliv] can be of benefit.
The great advantage of using a Rule of Prayer is that it never
lets a day go by without a personal conversation with God. Soon
prayer becomes a habit that enriches each day and goes beyond
just throwing up a prayer in daily emergencies. Such discipline
makes our relationship with God deeply personal and bears spiritual
fruit. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but
sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it
yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).

St. Symeon the New Theologian tells of a young man in

Constantinople who, as he was practicing his Rule of Prayer one
day, was surrounded by a divine radiance. He forgot the whole
world and became one with the light of Christ. When the vision
vanished, he was full of joy and wonder, his eyes shedding tears of
joy and his heart filled with great sweetness. St. Symeon related
this experience to show that it is possible to live in the world and
still achieve the essence of Christian life - a personal knowledge and
relationship with the living Christ.

Fr. Charles Bell explains the benefits of the rule of prayer:

One of the advantages I have found in using a rule of prayer is

that it takes away the burden of needing to be creatively new each
time I pray. On many occasions I do not feel creative or particularly
inspired. At such times, through the rule of prayer, I am able to
enter into the joy and depth of using prayers that were inspired by
the Holy Spirit and have been used by Christians for centuries.
I have started out with the intention to pray on a daily basis
many times, but usually can only maintain the practice so long as I
feel inspired. When I no longer feel the inspiration that led me to
the discipline in the first place, I gradually stop the practice.
However, by using a Rule of Prayer I have found it possible to
continue a daily discipline of prayer even when I don’t feel like it.
On those occasions when I don’t feel spiritual, and consequently am
unable to be spontaneous in prayer, the rule allows me to pray
anyway and covers all of the areas I would want to cover. Over
time, this daily spiritual discipline bears fruit. [xlv]
 THE ELDER/DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIP

In addition to the prayers of the Church, the importance of a

personal relationship in Orthodox spirituality shines forth in the type
of relationship that must exist between the elder and the disciple.
Bishop Kallistos Ware describes it as a loving relationship in which
the elder, mostly by example, takes great care to respect the
disciple’s human dignity and freedom. He emphasizes,

Here we touch on the most important point of all, and that is the
personalism that inspires the encounter between disciple and
spiritual guide. This personal contact protects the disciple against
rigid legalism, against slavish submission to the letter of the law.
He learns the way, not through external conformity to written rules,
but through seeing a human face and hearing a human voice. In
this way the spiritual mother or father is the guardian of evangelical
freedom.[xlvi]
Chapter Ten: The Personal Aspect of the Creed, the
Trinity, Theology and Sacred Tradition

Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the

dead faith of the living.
- Jaroslav Pelikan
 THE PERSONAL ASPECT OF THE CREED, THE TRINITY,
THEOLOGY, AND SACRED TRADITION

The Nicene Creed - the Symbol of our Faith - adopted by the

whole Church as the official Confession of our Orthodox Faith, is in
the first person singular, “I believe...” It is the formal confession of
faith made by a person or his sponsor at baptism. The Creed is also
an essential part of the liturgy through which each person formally
and officially renews his/her baptism and membership in the
Church. Although the Creed was written originally in the plural “We
believe...” because it expresses the faith of the whole Church, the
singular “I” is used in baptism and in the liturgy to show that our
faith must also be personal.

St. Paul says in Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your lips that
Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the
dead, you will be saved.” How do we “confess” Christ? The
Orthodox Church affords us many opportunities to personally
confess faith in Christ in the manner prescribed by Paul in Romans.
This happens in its prayers, hymns, the Creed, and the liturgical
services. Before receiving the Eucharist we pray, “I believe, O Lord,
and confess that You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who
has come to this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.”
Such confessions of faith are deeply personal.

When we confess in the Nicene Creed, for example, “I believe in

life everlasting,” we must personalize it by using the singular
possessive pronoun, “I believe that in Christ my life is everlasting.”
 “I” BELIEVE

The purpose of the singular “I” is to challenge each one of us to

ask, “Is this really what I believe? It may be my mother’s belief, or
my father’s, or my priest’s, but is it mine? Can I claim as mine the
articles of faith contained in this Creed that I recite every Sunday? If
not, what do I believe? And why? And what are my reasons?”
 LIFE’S MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP

Certain psychologists believe that the condition of our

environment the nine months before birth determines what kind of
persons we are going to be. Others claim the same importance for
the first several years of life after birth. The first two words of the
Nicene Creed serve to express our belief as Orthodox Christians that
the most significant factor in a person’s life is not so much the nine
months before birth or the first few years after birth but a person’s
relationship to God. It is this relationship which determines our
destiny for now and for eternity. It is this all-important relationship
that is expressed by the words, “I believe.” “I believe” not only with
my mind but also with my heart and will. “I believe” enough to rest
the whole weight of my life with its hopes and fears on Jesus, my
Lord and my God.

We live in a society that is so busy with material concerns that

we find it very difficult to establish relationships because
relationships require time, effort, and sacrifice. Instead of
relationships people find it easier to establish “connections” with
other people. We have even invented a word for such connections.
We call them “networking.”

What ties us to God and makes our faith real is not an

impersonal “connection” but a living, personal relationship. Bishop
Kallistos Ware writes, “We are saved by faith, and faith is not a
hypothesis but a personal relationship.”
 FOR OUR SALVATION

The Nicene Creed speaks very personally about salvation. It says

that it was for our salvation that Jesus came down from heaven.
When we see a house on fire on a TV telecast we do not get too
excited. But if we see that it is our own house that is on fire, it’s a
completely different story. We get very excited and do something
about it right away. We are personally involved. “Nothing is real
until it is local,” said G.K. Chesterton.

If the salvation Jesus offers us is to have meaning, if it is to be

real, we must come to realize that it is our own house (not
someone else’s) that is on fire. We must come to see that we are
the ones who are in a predicament from which we need to be
saved. We must become like the alcoholic or the drug addict when
they come to the realization that they have made themselves
prisoners and need someone desperately to save them. Unless we
experience personally the need for salvation, all the talk about
Jesus as Savior will have little or no meaning.
 HE WILL JUDGE THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

When we confess in the Nicene Creed that “He (Jesus) will come
again to judge the living and the dead,” we need to remember that
this is a personal statement of faith. It means that I will appear
personally before the Lord Jesus one day to give an account to Him
of my life. It will be a personal audience, not with the Pope or the
Patriarch, but with the Lord God. This is how much God cares for
each one of us personally. This is how much what we do in life
matters to Him. At the end of life, I will have a personal audience
with the Lord Jesus when He comes to judge the living and the
dead.
 THE TRINITY IS PERSONAL

Some people believe that our belief in the Holy Trinity is highly
abstract and impersonal, so much mumbo jumbo. Not so the
Church! In her beautiful prayer to the Trinity the all-encompassing
personal love of God comes alive:

My hope is the Father

My refuge is the Son.
My protection is the Holy Spirit.
Blessed Trinity, glory to Thee.
Is this impersonal? God above us - the Father! God beside us -
the Son! God inside us - the Holy Spirit! How personal! How
intimate!

I personally derive great strength each day by praying the

following very personal prayer to the Trinity:

I am loved by God the Father Who created me out of Himself, in

His own image.
I am loved and redeemed by God the Son, my
Precious Jesus, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.
I am loved and indwelt by God the Holy Spirit,
God’s power and presence within me.
Blessed Trinity, glory to Thee.
Orthodox Christians believe not because “a God” exists, but
because this particular God exists: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and

the love of God the Father,
and the koinonia (fellowship) of
 the Holy Spirit be with you now
and forevermore.
This ancient apostolic blessing which imparts to us the fullness
of God is deeply personal. We are invited to pray it every day: “May
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with me and all of us today
and every day.”

Just as Jesus prays for us (as He prayed for Peter), so the Holy
Irenaeus pictures the Holy Trinity personally as God the Father
stretching His two arms out to us in love; one arm is Jesus and the
other arm is the Holy Spirit. So we have the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit reaching out to us in love. Surely such love demands a
response from each one of us. To ignore or reject that Trinitarian
love is to miss the whole point of life.

Bishop Kallistos Ware sees the relationship of the Three Persons

in the Trinity as the “supreme structure of interpersonal love.” He
writes,

If God is love, then he cannot be merely one person loving

himself alone, for self-love is not true love. As the God of love, he is
shared, mutual love, a community of persons loving one another.
This has immediate consequences for our understanding of the
human person. Since humans are made in God’s image, to be a
person is to be an icon of the Trinitarian Koinonia. If it is true that
there is no real human person until there are at least two persons in
communication with each other – if I need you in order to be myself
– then the reason for this is precisely the dogma of the Trinity.
What Fr. Dumitru terms the “divine intersubjectivity” of the Trinity
constitutes the model and paradigm of all human relationships, and
more specifically the model and paradigm of the Church. “The
Trinity alone assures our existence as persons,” writes Fr. Dumitru.
“…Salvation and deification are nothing other than the extension to
conscious creatures of the relations that obtain between the divine
persons.”[xlvii]
 THEOLOGY IS PERSONAL: FR. DUMITRU STANILOAE

Essentially even theology is personal. Fr. D. Staniloae, the noted

Romanian Orthodox theologian, wrote, “Theology is a gift of God
which is offered within the context of a personal experience with
God and His acts in history.”

Lucian Turcescu wrote about the personal emphasis in Fr.

Staniloae’s theology:

While translating the Dogmatics of the Greek theologian Christos

Androutsos in 1930, Staniloae realized that his former professor in
Athens had a pronounced scholastic approach to theology. This,
along with the rediscovery of the Fathers of the Church, led
Staniloae to be among the first to break with the scholastic
approach that dominated Christian theology during the first half of
the twentieth century. He increasingly came to view theology as a
personal experience, a living encounter with a living God, rather
than as an abstract system, or a philosophical theory. His own
three-volume Dogmatic Theology published in 1978 is pervaded by
this new spirit.[xlviii]
Dr. Andrew Louth notes the predominance of the personal in Fr.
Staniloae’s theology,

Running through the whole of his theology – from his

understanding of the Trinitarian God to the Church and his
understanding of the development of the human person – there is a
keen sense of the importance of the personal.[xlix]
Describing Fr. Staniloae’s personal approach to theology, Bishop
Ware wrote in his Foreword to Staniloae’s English translation of the
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: The Experience of God (HCO Press.
1998):

Theology, talking about God, presupposes a personal

relationship. It presupposes faith and ascetic purification, the quest
for continual prayer, the thirst for sanctity; the true theologians are
the saints. It presupposes, furthermore, not only human effort but,
much more fundamentally, divine grace and the illumination of the
Holy Spirit; theology is a gift from God. The only genuine theology
is that summed up by Evagrios of Pontos in a phrase which Fr.
Dumitru likes to quote: “If you are a theologian, you will pray truly.
And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.”[l]
Fr. John Chryssavgis writes, “Theology is profoundly personal
and historical, founded on personal experience grounded in
historical events…The Church Fathers are not mere philosophers
speculating about abstract divine concepts…but people who had
personal experiences with the living God.”

Fr. John Breck writes in the same vein, “All those spiritual giants
who are venerated as Fathers of the Church in fact base their
theology on knowledge of God acquired not by rational speculation
but by personal living experience.”
 THEOLOGY AND PRAYER

St. Symeon the New Theologian was a man of prayer who

theologized from profound personal experience, and not from
intellectualized theory.

“A theologian is one who truly prays. And one who truly prays is
a theologian,” wrote Evagrius. One cannot come to know God
abstractly or impersonally; for God is a Person. One can come to
know Him only through faith and a personal encounter with Him in
faith and prayer. One can come to know God only in “the context of
a personal experience” with Christ and His acts in the history of our
salvation as revealed in the Bible and Sacred Tradition. When we
come to know God in this personal way, He will produce “His acts,”
His signs and wonders in our own life.

Olivier Clement describes the relationship of theology and

prayer,

Prayer and theology are inseparable. True theology is the

adoration offered by the intellect. The intellect clarifies the
movement of prayer, but only prayer can give it the fervour of the
Spirit. Theology is light, prayer is fire. Their union expresses the
union of the intellect and the heart. But it is the intellect that must
“repose” in the heart, and theology must transcend it in love.[li]
 SPIRITUALITY IS PERSONAL

Spirituality, which seems so vague and abstract, is just another

word for our personal love relationship with God. Spirituality
essentially is the Spirit-filled life of someone, some person, some
Christian, some saint, some martyr who had a personal relationship
with Christ, who loved Him and whose union with Christ produced a
holy life. All one has to do to be spiritual is to fall in love with Jesus.
The rest will follow. The saints of the Church invite us to experience
God by falling in love with Him as He is already in love with us.

Even the symbols of our Church are personal and we must view
them as such. For example, the acolytes with lighted tapers always
precede the Gospel book when it is carried in liturgical procession.
This expresses the truth that Christ is the light of the world. But the
truth is more personal than that. It means that Jesus provides light
for me through the Gospels as I walk through the darkness of this
world. When I read His word daily He is indeed very personally “a
lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” The truths expressed
by the symbols of our faith are always personal and life-giving.
 SIN IS PERSONAL

Just as theology is personal, spirituality is personal, and the

symbols of the church are personal, so is sin personal. Sin is not the
cold, impersonal breaking of a commandment. All sin is sin against
love. Our relationship to God is like the intimate relationship of
husband and wife. As such, sin is infidelity to love. When we sin, we
break not just a commandment; we break God’s heart, as the heart
of one partner in marriage is broken when the other is unfaithful.
Sin is personal unfaithfulness to Christ our Bridegroom. We need to
look at the cross and say, “I caused that. My sin crucified Him.”
Without a strong sense of personal sin, there can be no repentance.
David expressed this well when he wrote, “I have sinned against
You, O God, only against You and done that which is evil in Your
sight” (Psalm 51).

The hymnographer expresses his humble contriteness to Christ

for his infidelity very personally when he writes,

You were crucified, O Christ, for my sake, to become the Source

of my forgiveness. And Your side was pierced, that you might cause
streams of life to flow for me. You were fastened with nails, that I
may sense the depth of Your Passion and the height of Your power,
and cry out to You: "O Life-giving Christ, glory to your Cross and
Passion, O Saviour."
Look at Jesus on the cross and ask yourself, here is Christ on the
cross; how much sorrow do I feel? You can’t feel sorrow for Christ
on the cross unless you experience the whole thing as directed to
you. When you see Christ on the cross and you see yourself as you
are, you see that your sins that are crucifying Him.

Sin is isolation from God and from our fellow humans. It is the
absence of relationships. In hell, St. Macarius (4th Century) warns
us, we cannot see each other’s face.
 SACRED TRADITION IS PERSONAL

Sacred Tradition, which is such a vital part of our Orthodox faith,

is not abstract, but personal. Bishop Ware writes,

Tradition is far more than a set of abstract principles - it is a life,

a personal encounter with Christ in the Holy Spirit. Tradition is not
only kept by the Church - it lives in the Church. It is the life of the
Holy Spirit in the Church... it is not static but dynamic, not a dead
acceptance of the past but a living experience of the Holy Spirit in
the present. [lii]
This means that the Holy Spirit can speak through each one of
us to better define the truths of our faith, to protect them, and to
share them with the world.

“To many in the twentieth century West,” continues Bishop

Kallistos Ware, “the Orthodox Church seems chiefly remarkable for
its air of antiquity and conservatism; the message of the Orthodox
seems to be, ‘We are your past.’ For the Orthodox themselves,
however, loyalty to Tradition means not primarily the acceptance of
formulae or customs from past generations, but rather the ever-
new, personal and direct experience of the Holy Spirit in the
[liii]
present, here and now.”
 A LIVING TRADITION

Bishop Ware continues, “Tradition requires us to listen to what

the Spirit has said to our predecessors, but it also means listening
[liv]
to the voice of the Spirit in our own day.”

Fr. Florovsky loved to say that for the Orthodox the Patristic era
is not closed and finished, but has continued down to the present
day. The spirit is able in our own time to raise up new Church
Fathers and Mothers equal to those of the ancient Church.

The guardian of Sacred Tradition is the total body of the

baptized, the “royal priesthood” or “holy nation” (I Peter 2:9) in its
entirety, not just the bishops alone but also the laity. That is
personal; it includes all of us. We are the guardians and defenders
of the faith. According to the well-known Epistle of the Eastern
Patriarchs, written in 1849, “The guardian of piety is the very Body
of the Church, that is, the people themselves, who will always
preserve their faith unchanged.”
 THE HANDING OVER OF THE SYMBOL

In the early Church there was a meaningful ceremony whereby

the faith was entrusted to the laity, and the laity took active
responsibility for it. Toward the end of their instruction the
candidates for baptism (catechumens) were given the words of the
Creed, the Symbol of the Faith. This ceremony was called
“tradition,” or the “handing over of the Symbol.” Then, immediately
before baptism itself, the candidates in turn recited aloud the Creed
that had been given to them. This was called the “giving back of the
Symbol.” In this way, it was made clear that, at baptism, the faith is
committed personally to each one of us, and by reciting it aloud we
express our responsibility personally to the Savior to keep the faith,
uphold it, spread it, and defend it, if need be, at the cost of our lives
through the witness of martyrdom. Jesus said, “When the Spirit of
truth has come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). It is
this divine promise that forms the basis of the Orthodox devotion to
Sacred Tradition. And it includes all of us personally, clergy and laity
alike, as members of the Body of Christ, the Church.

Fr. John Meyendorff emphasized the personal aspect of Sacred

Tradition when he wrote,

I do want to emphasize the point that the mystery of the Holy

Spirit, present in the church, is the fundamental reality of Christian
experience, that this experience is a personal and free one... Thus
the personalism of the faith does not result in charismatic
subjectivism or individualism; it initiates each person to think and
act as a responsible member of the body seeking the truth within
the communion of the saints.[lv]
 Chapter Eleven: The Bible is Personal

Insatiable is the sweetness of spiritual thoughts. Just as the

earth that is not watered cannot bring forth wheat even though it
may hold within itself thousands of seeds, so also the soul cannot
show forth any spiritual fruit unless it is first enlightened by the Holy
Scriptures. Again, as wine when drunk helps to put an end to our
sorrow and brings gladness to the heart, so also the spiritual wine
brings joy to the soul.
- St. John Chrysostom
 THE BIBLE IS PERSONAL

A woman once dreamed that she was in the afterlife in a room

crowded with grieving people. Suddenly the door opened and Jesus
walked in. “My child, why are you crying?” He asked the woman.

“I’m crying, Lord, because my husband died when we were so

young, and from then on I was just lost without him. I wanted to
serve You, Lord, but I was too lonely and upset all those years to do
anything.”

“But didn’t you get my letter?” asked Jesus.

“What letter, Lord? Did you write a letter?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jesus. “I wrote you a letter and told you not to
worry, that if you believed in me as you believe in God, I would not
leave you comfortless.”

The woman looked surprised. “You know,” she said, “the priest
read from that letter at my husband’s funeral, but I didn’t know it
was personal, from You to me.”
 GOD’S PROMISES FOR YOU

When He speaks in the Bible, or you hear His word read in the
liturgy, God is speaking to you personally. His promises are for you.
He expects a response. He expects you to claim each promise.

“Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and
it shall be opened to you.” This is God’s promise for you! Your name
is on it. Claim it.

“If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and will forgive
our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is God’s
promise for you! Claim it.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I

will fear no evil; for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff they
comfort me.” This is God’s promise for you! Claim it.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on

Thee” (Isaiah 26:3). This is God’s promise for you! Claim it.

“You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you
and you shall be my witness” (Acts 1:8). This is God’s promise for
you! Claim it.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not on your own
understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will
direct your path” (Proverbs 3:5-6). This is God’s promise for you!
Claim it.

“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who
love Him” (Romans 8:28). This is God’s promise for you! Claim it.
 The statements and the promises God makes in the Bible are
personal. They have your name on them. Claim them. Endorse
them. Cash them. You were not meant to live in this world as a
pauper but as the child of King.

But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
For I am the LORD your God (Is. 43:1-3).
 A CYNIC AT THE ALTAR

We shall never capture the full meaning of the crucifixion and

the resurrection unless we realize that Jesus did it all for us, for
each one of us personally.

One Good Friday three cynics walked down a Paris street and
saw a long line of people waiting for confession outside a church.
Not believing in Christ themselves, they began to make fun of these
people. They thought it was all a joke. They dared each other to
have one of them stand in line and go in and tell the priest so. One
of them accepted the dare. Entering the confessional he said to the
priest, “We were walking outside and saw this line of people waiting
to come to confession. We think it is all a farce and I agreed to
come in and tell you so.” The priest replied, “O.K. But I want you to
do one thing before you leave. Go in the church. Walk up to the
main altar. Look at the body of Christ on the cross and say, ‘You
died for me, O Christ, but I don’t give a damn.’ I want you to say
this three times. Then you may leave.” The cynic walked up to the
altar, looked at the body of Christ and with much difficulty said,
“You died for me...” and quickly walked away. The priest called him
back. “No, you’ve got to do it two more times. You promised.”
Hesitantly, he went back, looked at Christ and could not get the
words out. Finally he did, “You died for me...” and he quickly ran
down the aisle. The priest stopped him. “You promised once more.”
he said. With even more hesitation he went up to the cross again,
stared at it for a long time in pain, then came back to the priest and
said, “Father, I am ready for my confession.” Who can look at Christ
crucified and not say, “God be merciful to me, the sinner”? It is the
personal that makes it real.
 HE DIED FOR ME

St. Paul knew God’s love was personal. That is why he wrote,
“the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” This great
God put on the robe of human flesh in order to clothe me in the
robe of divinity. He took on the form of a slave that He might set
me, the slave, free. “He loved me and gave Himself for me.” Then
St. Paul goes on to say very personally what his life in Christ was all
about: “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of
God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

“The Son of God... gave Himself for me.” He died for Adam. He
died for Judas. He died for John. He died for Mary Magdalene. He
died for both thieves who were crucified with Him, even for the thief
who kept cursing Him. But He died also for me, as if His arms were
stretched out on the cross only for me. For, He loves us, said St.
Augustine, as if there were only one of us in the universe.

God’s word assures us that even if a mother were to forget the

child of her womb, God will never forget us. Our very name is
carved on the palm of His hands, inscribed indelibly in His heart.

“My Lord and my God,” said the Apostle Thomas. “I go to my

God and your God,” said Jesus. How we all need that personal hold
upon our Lord!

“I will be their God and they shall be my people,” says the Lord
(2 Cor 6:16). “My” people, His “chosen” people whom He loves with
an everlasting love; whom He purchased not with silver or gold but
with the precious blood of His only Son.

The heart of our faith is a personal relationship with God - and

we know that relationships thrive on communication. We can’t know
people intimately by merely being in their presence. It takes time,
conversation, sharing thoughts etc. Christians are meant to have an
ongoing dialogue of love with God. We address Him in the language
of prayer, and He addresses us in the language of Scripture.

St. Basil said once, “The voice of the Gospels is much more
magnificent than the other teachings of the Holy Spirit. In the other
teachings God spoke to us through his servants the prophets, but in
the Gospels He spoke to us personally through His Son and our
Lord.”

Non-Christian religions have glimpses of God. But they have not

looked God in the face in the Person of Jesus in whom all the
fullness of God dwells bodily.
 SEEING OURSELVES IN THE SCRIPTURES

When we read the Scriptures, we should read them personally.

We should see ourselves in them. For example, the blind man
groping for the light in John’s Gospel - who is he? Myself! Without
Christ, I am totally blind! The disciples with their stupid and
misguided questions - who are they? Myself! The finical Pharisees
with their built-in traditionalism - who are they? Myself!

St. Theophan the Recluse writes,

You have a book? Then read it, reflect on what it says, and
apply the words to yourself. To apply the content to oneself is the
purpose and fruit of reading. If you read without applying what is
read to yourself, nothing good will come of it, and even harm may
result. Theories will accumulate in the head, leading you to criticize
others instead of improving your own life.
 SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

As a priest I always have to contend with what I call an

occupational hazard. In my daily Scripture reading it is always a
temptation for me to apply to others the insights that the Holy Spirit
brings to me. Instead of saying, “The Lord is speaking to me
through this powerful verse. I need to apply it to my life. It is meant
for my conversion,” I would apply it to others and plan to use it in
my preaching and teaching others. But the word of God is personal.
It is meant for me first. And if it becomes part of me, I won’t even
have to preach it verbally; it will shine through my life.

How personally the Prophet Isaiah foretold the sacrifice of the

Messiah, “He was wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised
for my iniquities. The chastisement that brought about my peace
was upon Him, and by His wounds I am healed.”
 A COLD, IMPERSONAL VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE

Contrast this personal love of God for us with the cold, abstract,
impersonal view of life that science offers us. In his bookDreams of
a Final Theory , Nobel-Prize winner Steven Weinberg casts religion in
the outer darkness of “wishful thinking.” If we stick to science, he
says, what we see is a universe that is impersonal and without
purpose. This may be a “bleak” and “chilling” view of the world, he
says, but it is the only one sanctioned by science.

The world view of Jesus is the exact opposite. Words such as

“bleak,” “chilling,” “abstract,” and “impersonal” are all replaced by
personal pronouns of love: “Peter, I have prayed for you that you
may not fall,” said Jesus. The faith and love He demands of us in
return are equally personal.
 “WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?”

When Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
they all begin to give replies. “Some say you’re this. Others say
you’re that.” But then He gets very personal, “But who do you say
that I am?” And that is the very personal question on which our
eternal salvation hangs. Not what St. Basil believes about Christ.
Not what St. John Chrysostom believes about Christ. But what do I
believe about Him? Who is He for me? Is He is my Lord? Is He my
God?
 “MY GOSPEL”

It is interesting to note that sometimes St. Paul called his faith

“the gospel.” At other times, “the gospel of God” or “the gospel of
Christ.” But sometimes he calls it, “my gospel.” And that’s what
helped Paul through his many hardships. Not just the gospel but
“my gospel.” He believed in Jesus, the Son of God, Who “loved me
and gave Himself for me.”

God, even when believed in, can be many things to many

people. To some people He can be as far off as the rings of Saturn.
To others, He is merely the One Who made the constellations. But
to others He can be like an inner spring or well in a person’s soul.
As Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, “The water that I shall give
you will become in you a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

This is the God we need to come to know personally - the God

Who is not just a theory to explain the universe, abstract, far away,
impersonal, but the God Who is an inner well, an inner presence as
real as bread, and as refreshing as water, sustaining and upholding
us in the darkest of days. “The reading of Holy Scripture is the
opening of heaven,” said St. John Chrysostom. It offers a personal
encounter with the living Christ.

To get a taste of how personal God’s word is, turn to I Cor. 13,
the love chapter. Read it aloud, placing your name wherever the
word “love” is mentioned (I Cor 13:4-7). When God pours His love
in us through the Holy Spirit, do we not become love?

I remember the story of a Chinese man whose name was Lo.

When he heard missionaries read from Matthew 28:20: “And, lo, I
am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” his heart
leaped for joy. “Just think,” he said, “the Lord knows my name and
makes me a promise like that!”
 We need to remember that the Lord has made the same
personal promise to each one of us: “And (your name), I am with
you always, even unto the end of the world.”

We need to place our name in each of God’s promises.

We call the Bible the Word of God. But Who is the Word of God?
The Word of God is a Person: Jesus Christ! (John 1:1-5).

God revealed Himself and His Truth in the Bible through

personal encounters with people, i.e., Abraham, Moses, Isaiah,
Jeremiah and the prophets. Ultimately He spoke to us through His
Son (Hebrews 1:1-2).
 WHY THE BIBLE DOES NOT ATTEMPT TO PROVE GOD

Nowhere do the Bible writers ever attempt to prove the

existence of God. God was so real to them that having to prove His
existence would be like trying to prove that one’s mother exists.
They knew God by experience. They felt His presence in their lives
every day. They felt no need to prove the existence of the obvious.
 READ EXPECTANTLY

Once when a rich member of a family died, all the relatives were
called together by a lawyer for the reading of the will. As it was
being read, each person listened intently, expectantly, eagerly,
waiting to hear his/her name mentioned. One older person, who
had difficulty hearing, brought along an old hearing horn and placed
it in his ear so that he might not miss a single word.

Is not this a picture of how expectantly we should be listening

when God speaks. Everything He says is directed personally to us.
We stand to inherit a kingdom. Everything He promises has our
name on it. That is why we hear the command proshomen ! or “Let
us be attentive!” so often in the liturgy just before a Scripture
reading. It means “Listen! Pay attention. The Lord is about to speak
to you personally.”
 SACRAMENTAL POWER

The Bible is not just another book. It is a sacrament. It is a

personal love letter from God to you, containing a proposal for
marriage. Jesus is the Bridegroom, you are the bride. He wishes to
enter into the most intimate possible relationship of love with you.
He delivers a marriage proposal to you through the Holy Bible. It is
marked R.S.V.P. He expects a response. It is the most important
response you will ever make. Will you say “yes” or “no” to your
Creator, your Savior, your Bridegroom, your God? Your eternal
destiny will depend on that personal response.

Bishop Ware writes about the Bible, “As a book uniquely inspired
by God and addressed to each of the faithful personally, the Bible
possesses sacramental power, transmitting grace to the reader,
bringing him to a point of meeting and decisive encounter (with
God).”

The Bible is the real presence of Christ. It is not an ancient text

to be read with the mind. It is Christ speaking to you personally. Fr.
George Florovsky once said, “No one profits by the Gospels unless
he is first in love with Christ. For Christ is not a text but a living
Person, and He abides in His Body, the Church.”

In John, Chapter 17:6-9, Jesus prays fervently and specifically for

His disciples through the ages, those He would leave behind to
continue His work in His absence and for those who would succeed
them. And that means He was praying for you and me. And Jesus is
still praying for you and me. Someone said, “If I could hear Christ
praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies.
Yet distance makes no difference. He is in the next room praying for
me.”
 PERSONAL APPLICATION

Writing about applying God’s word personally to ourselves,

Bishop Ware wrote,

According to Saint Mark the Monk (“Mark the Ascetic,” fifth/sixth

century), “he who is humble in his thoughts and engaged in spiritual
work, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will apply everything to
himself and not to his neighbor.” We are to look throughout
Scripture for a personal application. Our question is not simply
“What does it mean?” but “What does it mean for me?” As Saint
Tikhon insists, “Christ Himself is speaking to you.” Scripture is a
direct, intimate dialogue between the Saviour and myself - Christ
addressing me and my heart responding.
Thus, as we read God’s word, we need to ask ourselves some
very personal questions:

a. What does the Scripture say?

b. What does the Scripture say to me?
c. How does my life compare with the Scripture?
d. What definite steps am I going to take to line up my life with
the Scripture?
 PERSONALIZING THE WORD OF GOD

When we read the Bible, let’s try to personalize it by placing our

name in every promise. Take John 3:16 as an example. When it is
personalized, it reads,

God so loved me, (name), that He gave His only Son, so that I,
(name), who believes in Him, may not perish but have eternal life. -
(Jn 3:16)
Other Bible promises are already personal and need to be
claimed personally. Here are some:

Fear not, (name), for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am

your God. I will strengthen you (name), I will help you, (name), I
will uphold you (name), with my victorious right hand. I, (name),
sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all
my fears. Look to Him, and be radiant” (Ps 34:4,5). My God shall
supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus
(St. Paul).
Notice that St. Paul does not say just God - some God, any God -
but he says, my God. And he doesn’t say that his God can supply
some of his needs but shall supply all his needs. So, it is my
privilege to take this glorious promise, claim it, appropriate it, affirm
it, and say, “My God shall supply all my needs according to His
riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
 TEKNIA: MY LITTLE CHILDREN

St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain wrote:

In John 13:33 the Lord does not refer to His Apostles as sons,
but rather in a more tender, more authentic and familiar manner.
He calls them teknia “little children,” something He never called
them before: “Little children, yet a little while I am with you” (Jn
13:33). Oh, what great and tender love you have for us, dearest
Jesus, most compassionate and lover of mankind.
The word teknia in Greek is an intimately warm and personal
word that translates as “my dear little children.” If Jesus addressed
His apostles with this beautiful word, will He not address us - His
contemporary apostles - in the same manner?
 AN INHERITANCE... RESERVED FOR YOU

St. Peter writes of an imperishable inheritance reserved in

heaven especially for you:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His
great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an
inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved
in heaven for you... (I Peter 1:3-4)
Is it any wonder that St. Basil urges us to “read the Scriptures
for your own sake, for you will find there the remedy for every one
of your ailments.”
 THE PSALMS ARE PERSONAL

If you wish to see how personal your relationship with God can
be, read the Psalms. No matter how often I read the Psalms, I
never get bored. Always, some new insight speaks to my heart and
its needs for the day. The Psalms make me feel so human. In them
I find another heart that understands and touches mine. Another
mortal has felt before, what I’m going through now; what I’m
feeling now.

The Psalmist had a person-to-person relationship with God. He

held nothing back from God. He laid everything out before Him, his
“ups” and his “downs,” his exaltations and his despair. He told God
everything; even getting angry with Him at times.

Someone described the psalms as “the outpouring of the heart

to God in the most intimate personal communion... springing out of
the needs and aspirations of the soul in the crises of life.”

Listen as David pours out his sorrow to God so very personally in

Psalm 51:

Be merciful to me, God, because of your constant love; wipe

away my sins, because of your great mercy! Wash away my evil,
and make me clean from my sin!
I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins. I have
sinned against you - only against you, and done what you consider
evil. So you are right in judging me; you are justified in condemning
me. I have been evil from the time I was born, from the day of my
birth I have been sinful.
A faithful heart is what you want; fill my mind with your wisdom.
Remove my sin, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter
than snow. Let me hear the sound of joy and gladness; and though
you have crushed and broken me, I will be happy once again. Close
your eyes to my sins, and wipe out all my evil.
Create a pure heart in me, God, and put a new and loyal spirit in
me. Do not banish me from your presence; do not take your holy
spirit away from me. Give me again the joy that comes from your
salvation, and make my spirit obedient. Then I will teach sinners
your commands, and they will turn back to you.
Spare my life, God my Savior, and I will gladly proclaim your
righteousness.
Help me to speak, Lord, and I will praise you.
You do not want sacrifices, or I would offer them; you are not
pleased with burnt offerings. My sacrifice is a submissive spirit, God;
a submissive and obedient heart you will not reject.
God, be kind to Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of
Jerusalem. Then you will be pleased with the proper sacrifices, and
with all burnt offerings; and calves will be sacrificed on your altar.
Since God does not change, we, too, can enjoy the same deeply
personal relationship with Him as David and Paul and Abraham and
Moses. We can choose to have a very open, loving relationship with
Him. Or, we can choose to keep Him at arm’s length and “go it
alone,” rootless, hopeless, restless, incredibly lonely. The choice is
ours.

St. Tikhon wrote about the Bible as a personal letter from God:

If an earthly king, our emperor, wrote you a letter, would you

not read it with joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful
attention. But what, he asks, is our attitude towards the letter that
has been addressed to us by no less than God Himself ? You have
been sent a letter, not by any earthly emperor, but by the King of
Heaven. And yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a
treasure. To open and read this letter is to enter into a personal
conversation, face-to-face with the Living God. Whenever you read
the Gospel, Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read,
you are praying and talking to Him.
Chapter Twelve: Relating Our Faith Personally to Others in
Love

Someone said once, “If you want to fill a dozen milk bottles, you
must not stand back and spray them with a hose. You can get them
wet, but you won’t fill them. You must take them one by one.”
 RELATING OUR FAITH PERSONALLY TO OTHERS IN LOVE

If we truly believe that God loves each one of us personally,

then our faith will translate into a deeply personal love for God’s
living images: His children. Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we
are empowered to relate to others on a personal, one-on-one, I-
Thou level, and thus make real to all the intimately personal love of
God.

A certain author tells how he personalizes his love for his wife.
Once a week they go out to dinner alone so that they may have
time to look deeply into each other’s eyes and soul. And each day
they spend fifteen minutes visiting in depth, listening to each other,
sharing their mutual hopes, surfacing their hostilities, discussing
their worries, praying together. If we make time for such deeply
personal encounters, we shall discover a wonderful way to keep
love alive and growing.

To express this personal love, one father takes each child out to
dinner alone every month. Often it’s just for a hamburger. Father
and son or daughter sit down alone and discuss whatever is on their
minds. Mostly dad listens to junior’s troubles. Can you think of a
better way to make parental love more personal?

Many parishes sponsor small study and prayer groups. The

purpose of these groups is to make the love of Christ more
personal. When ten or twelve people meet together in a circle of
prayer and Bible study, they begin to sense that they are members
“one of another.” The love of Christ becomes personal in the
sharing and praying of such small groups.
 AS IF DELIVERED TO A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL

No sermon or instruction can be truly effective unless it is

delivered to a single individual. Ideally, the teacher should have
only one student. This emphasis on the one-to-one relationship
between master and disciple, and the requirement that the master
lead the student down a path he has already traversed, shows that
the teacher is called to teach with more than just words. He is
called to be a model for the student, a paradigm.

The most effective teaching is accomplished on the personal

one-to-one level.
 A PERSONAL MENTOR

Much emphasized in Orthodox spirituality is the importance of

having a mentor, a spiritual father or mother, as one grows in
Christ. Called geron in Greek, and starets in Russian, what this
spiritual mentor offers is not so much a rule of prayer or a set of
moral instructions as a one-on-one personal relationship. There is
magic in a personal relationship that is nourished and energized by
the Holy Spirit. Things happen, changes are effected, when we
engage in a personal I-Thou encounter that is under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit.
The geron/staretz mentor tradition in the Orthodox Church
testifies to the fact that a life that is just “Jesus and me” is
incomplete and will not progress very far. Our personal relationship
with Christ needs to be anchored in the Church, and it flowers when
it seeks the advice of a spiritual mentor on a one-on-one basis.

Bishop Kallistos Ware describes the personal relationship

between the spiritual father and the disciple as follows:

What the spiritual mother or father gives to the disciple is not a

code of written or oral regulations, not a set of techniques for
meditation, but a personal relationship. Within this personal
relationship the abba grows and changes as well as the disciple, for
God is constantly directing them both. The abba may on occasion
provide his disciple with detailed verbal instructions, with precise
answers to specific questions. On other occasions he may fail to
give any answer at all, either because he thinks that the question
does not need an answer, or because he himself does not yet know
what the answer should be. But these answers – or this failure to
answer – are always given within the framework of a personal
relationship. Many things cannot be said in words, but can only be
conveyed through a direct personal encounter. As the Hasidic
master Rabbi Jacob Yitzhak affirmed, “The way cannot be learned
out of a book, or from hearsay, but can only be communicated from
person to person.”[lvi]
 TWO EXAMPLES

Following are two examples of such one-on-one love. Incident

number one: An old lady was scrubbing the stairs of an Anglican
cathedral in London. She fell into conversation with a priest. “Do
you know the Archbishop of Canterbury?” she asked. “Yes, I do,”
was the reply. “Well, you know,” said the scrubwoman, “he came
here the other day. And he asked me how I was, because he said I
didn’t look happy. And I told him that I couldn’t be happy, with two
sons in a prison camp in Germany, and the old man not able to
work, and me having to work for him, and not much to live on. And
do you know what His Grace did? He sat down on that step there,
listened to me for an hour as we talked about God.”

The second incident is from the life of the late Pope John the
23rd. A husband once stopped him and asked him to pray for his
wife who was seriously ill at home. He said to the man, “Gladly! I’ll
not only pray for her, but I’ll go home with you right now to visit
and pray for her personally.” He got into the Pope’s car and they
drove to the man’s house.
 INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION

We all like individual attention. That’s why we respond favorably

to anyone who singles us out and focuses his attention directly on
us. When first baseman Darrell Evans became a free agent after the
1983 season, he was sought by several teams. But he decided to
sign with the Detroit Tigers because, as he said, “Sparky Anderson
was the only manager interested enough to call me and talk
personally!”
 THE MAGIC OF LOVE

The magic of personal love works miracles as this true story

testifies:

Even one person’s intimate love can deeply heal another. For
example, Tom, a simple person without training in psychotherapy,
worked as an orderly in a mental hospital. One of the sickest
patients in the hospital, a deeply psychotic woman, had been there
for eighteen years. She never spoke to anyone, or even looked in
another’s eyes. She sat alone all day in a rocking chair, rocking back
and forth. One day during his dinner break, Tom found another
rocking chair, pulled it over, and rocked along beside her as he ate
his dinner. He returned the next day, and the next. Tom worked
only five days per week, but he asked for special permission to
come in on his days off so he could rock with the psychotic woman.
Tom did this every day for six months. Then one evening as he got
up to leave, the woman said, “Good night.” It was the first time she
had spoken in eighteen years. After that, she began to get well.
Tom still came to rock with her every day, and eventually she was
healed of her psychosis. [lvii]
As Christians we have the world’s greatest message - Jesus died
and rose again personally for you and me. This gospel message
translates into a love that heals. We must present this message as
personally as Jesus did to the Samaritan woman and to so many
others.
 THE PERSONAL EMBRACES THE UNIVERSAL

When Jesus dwells in us, our personal relationship with Him

incurs a personal relationship with everyone in His family, i.e., the
Father, the Holy Spirit, the Theotokos, the saints, the sick, the poor,
the suffering, the lonely etc. Our personal relationship with Jesus
reaches out to embrace the entire universe. C.S. Lewis once said,
“Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest
object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he
is holy in almost the same way, for in him Christ…Glory Himself is
truly hidden.”
 THE PERSONAL SAVES

Thomas Merton said once, “In the end, it is the reality of

personal relationships that saves everything.” This is especially true
of our relationship with God.

When we look at Christ crucified on the Cross personally for you

and for me, we cannot but utter the words of a penitent sinner who
wrote:

If I had been less proud, the crown of thorns would have been
less piercing. If I had been less avaricious and greedy, His hands
would have been dug less by the steel. If I had been less sensual,
His flesh would not be hanging from Him like purple rags. If I had
not wandered away like a lost sheep, in the perversity of my
egotism, His feet would have been less riven with nails. I am sorry,
not just because I broke a law: I am sorry because I wounded Him
Who died out of love for me.”
 WHO KILLED JESUS

A poet once answered the question, “Who killed Jesus?” in a

distinctively personal way:

No, it was not the Jews who crucified,

Nor who betrayed You in the Judgment place,
Nor who, Lord Jesus, spat into your face,
Nor who with buffets struck You as You died.
No, it was not the soldiers fisted bold
Who lifted up the hammer and the nail,
Or raised the cursed cross on Calvary’s hill,
Or, gambling, tossed the dice to win your robe.
I am the one, O Lord, who brought You there,
I am the heavy cross You had to bear,
I am the rope that bound You to the tree,
The whip, the nail, the hammer, and the spear,
The blood-stained crown of thorns You had to wear:
It was my sin; alas, it was for me.
- by Jacob Revius, trans. Henrietta Ten Harmsel
 THE MAGIC OF THE PERSONAL

“It was me.”What a wonderful change takes place in our faith

when it becomes personal. It is the same change that takes place in
people when they are treated in a personal way. Those who truly
love you and care for you become totally present to you when they
are in your presence. When they listen, they are listening to you
with their whole being. Their eyes are there only for you. Their ears
are there only for you. When they speak, you know they are
speaking only to you. When they ask questions, you know that it is
for your sake and not for their own. Their presence is a healing
presence because it is completely personal. Magic changes take
place in us when we are in such a presence. “Let your religion be
less of a theory and more of a love affair, “said G.K. Chesterton.
 ON BEING COMPLETELY PRESENT

Mark Van Doren said once:

“There is one thing we can do, and the happiest people are
those who do it to the limit of their ability.
“We can be completely present. We can be all there. We can
control the tendency of our minds to wander from the situation we
are in, toward yesterday, toward tomorrow, toward something we
have forgotten, toward some other place we are going next. It is
hard to do this, but it is harder to understand afterward wherein it
was we fell so short. It was where and when we ceased to give our
entire attention to the person, the opportunity before us.
“Those who have fewest regrets are those who take each
moment as it comes for all that it is worth. It will never come again,
for worse or better. It is ours alone; we can make it what we will.”
A truly great example of being completely present is our Lord
Jesus Christ who was always completely present to people. To
mention just a few instances, He notices Zacchaeus hidden up in a
tree and invites him to have dinner with him. He hears the call of
the blind beggar by the roadside and responds with healing. He
hears the cry of the penitent thief on the cross and says, “Today
you will be with me in paradise.”

How often people come to us, children to parents, wives to

husbands, friends to friends, trying to unload their burdens, and as
we sit there listening, our minds and hearts are thousands of miles
away. If we were completely present to each other, we would
rightfully expect miracles to happen. To be completely present to
others is to help them experience the personal love of God.
 DE-PERSONALIZING OTHERS

Dr. Paul Tournier tells of the experience of a Dr. Plattner, a

friend of his. A woman came to him seeking an abortion. Always she
referred to the child she wished destroyed as “a little collection of
cells.” She had completely devalued and de-personalized the child.
Then one day Dr. Plattner had an idea. “What name would you give
the child,” he asked, “if it were to be born?” The atmosphere of the
conversation changed. The woman was silent; one felt that the
child, as soon as she gave him a name in her own mind, was
ceasing to be “a little collection of cells,” in order to become a
person... “It was staggering,” concluded Dr. Plattner. “I felt as if I
had been present at an act of creation.”

I remember a medical doctor who said once, “I have never had

an expectant mother come to me and ask, ‘How is my fetus doing?’”

Science has a way of de-personalizing the unborn child by calling

him or her an “embryo” or a “fetus.” Yet the very word embryo
comes from two Greek words meaning “child within.” Fetus comes
from the Latin and means “little one.”

Someone said once, “In this society, we save timber, wolves,

bald eagles and coke bottles. Yet everyone wanted me to throw
away my baby.”

It is easier to kill when one depersonalizes someone whether it

be an embryo or an enemy soldier. A young American stationed in a
missile silo said once, “I don’t know if I can kill someone up close.
This way I just press a button and I never have to see whom my
missile hits.” It is lifegiving when we treat someone as a person; it
is deadly when we de-personalize people.
 Dostoevsky, in Notes from the Underground , describes the utter
de-personalization that occurs when the underground man, a
disturbed egotist, visits a prostitute, pays his money, she performs,
and then the two of them lie in silence. Suddenly he looks and sees
her two wide-open eyes staring at him. He says, “The look in those
eyes was coldly indifferent and sullen, as though it were utterly
detached, and it made me feel terribly depressed.” Then it occurs to
him that for two hours he has not said a word to the naked creature
beside him, and had not even thought it necessary. He felt creepy
about it, so he finally asks for her name.

Dostoevsky offers us a powerful example of how sin de-

personalizes, treating persons as objects to be used and discarded,
like pieces of Kleenex, the very persons for whom Christ died.
 THE NEW STAMP MACHINE

An elderly Scottish lady went to her village post office one

morning. In the lobby a workman was busy installing some kind of
machine. When she got to the window she asked for her stamps,
and then added, “What is that thing you are putting in the lobby?”
With a smile of pride the postmaster replied, “That’s our new stamp
machine. You won’t have to stand in line any longer. You will put in
your money and out will come the stamps.” The Scottish lady eyed
the machine a bit quizzically for a moment and then asked a
profound question: “But tell me, will it ask about my rheumatism?”

Machines are fine but they are impersonal. They don’t ask about
your rheumatism.
 THE “ANCHOR MAN”

Recently I read the story of a person who had to go through the

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. It impressed me because it
illustrates how personal we can make our concern for others. After
being admitted to the Clinic, this man said, he was ushered into a
doctor’s small office. Each patient at Mayo is assigned to a doctor
who becomes his “anchor man” regardless of how many other
specialists he sees. The doctor came in, introduced himself, and
said, “This is a big place. You may feel lost here. But I want you to
know that every facility of the Clinic is here for one purpose - to
serve you.” He took out a card, wrote down a number and said, “If
you need me any hour of the day or night while you are here, pick
up the phone in your room, call this number, and I’ll be at your side
within five minutes.” The patient went on to say, “That did
something for me. I felt that I was not part of an impersonal
machine; I was the most important element here. I knew that
someone cared. Already, I felt better.”

As I read this story I thought, “Isn’t that exactly the kind of love
we Christians should have?” Our love for people should be personal
- deeply personal - at least as personal as what that Mayo doctor
offered his patient.
 Chapter Thirteen: Personal Encounters with God

With my exposure to Orthodoxy and to Orthodox people, a new

idea began to enter my awareness: that Truth was not just an
abstract idea, sought and known by the mind, but was something
personal - even a Person - sought and loved by the heart. And that
is how I met Christ.
- By a Convert to the Orthodox Church
 PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS WITH GOD

It is interesting to note that it was the pagan world that called

Jesus’ disciples “Christians,” meaning followers of Christ. Jesus did
not call His disciples “Christians.” He called them “witnesses.” Jesus
could have said, “You are my lawyers.” But a lawyer is always
presenting an argument. He is debating and reasoning whereas a
witness simply tells what he knows from personal experience. And
we know that an argument from one’s personal experience is
irrefutable.

If we have developed a personal relationship with our Master,

we cannot but become effective witnesses for Him in the world. The
mouth will always speak out of the abundance and overflow of the
heart. This is especially true for parents, teachers, and priests. We
are not God’s lawyers speaking with contrived arguments; we are
His witnesses speaking and teaching out of the abundance of our
hearts. We speak of that which we have seen and heard and
experienced. It was said of Francis of Assisi that he loved Christ so
fervently, and Christ returned His love so intimately, that he
seemed to have His Savior before his eyes continually.
 THEOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF WORSHIP

This is reflected in how theology is taught in the Orthodox

Church. Unlike most schools of theology of the West, which are so
often merely rational and intellectual enterprises, theology in the
Eastern Church grows out of prayer and worship. True theology
occurs, according to the Church Fathers, within the context of faith,
godliness, and worship. In other words, theology grows from the
experiential, from the personal experience of God in prayer and
worship. “The true theologian is one who truly prays,” say the
Church Fathers. This is why many of the Orthodox seminaries
traditionally have been attached to monasteries where daily prayer,
morning and evening, is the rule and where each novice is under
the mentorship of an elder, geronta staretz,
or with a one-on-one
spiritual tutorship.
 THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD IN THE BIBLE

This reflects the experience of God’s people in the Bible. The

Bible is not primarily a record of people’s thoughts about God, but a
record of their actual experiences of God. No wonder its pages are
filled with such sublime personal statements as, “I know that my
Redeemer lives” (Job); “I know, and am persuaded that He is able
to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day”
(St. Paul). They lived through trials and were given strength. Their
souls were in peril, and God led them into secure places. They said
these things, not because they were taught, but because they had
experienced them; they were martyres, eye witnesses. Their faith
was personal.

What people want to hear is not God’s lawyers presenting logical

arguments for His existence but God’s witnesses sharing from
personal experience what God has done for them. And this is what
the early Christians were: witnesses, martyres. As someone said of
the early Christians: “God? They knew Him! Miracles? They
themselves were miracles! Resurrection? They had gone through it!
Heaven? They were living in it! Hell? They had escaped it!
Reconciliation? They rejoiced in it! Eternal Life? They possessed it!”
It was all very personal.
 TAPE RECORDER TO TAPE RECORDER

Bishop Kallistos Ware said once,

In today’s dehumanized world, in which we anticipate hell by no

longer looking in any profound sense at each other’s faces, one of
our most important tasks as Christians is to reaffirm the supreme
value of direct personal communion. We must not allow the
machines to take over, as happens in the anecdote about the
psychiatrist and his new patient, “It’s easier for me to concentrate,”
said the psychiatrist at their first meeting, “if I’m not actually
looking at you. So I’ll sit over there in the corner behind you as you
lie down on the couch and tell me your story.” After a time the
patient grew suspicious, for it was curiously quiet behind the curtain
in the corner. So he tiptoed across the room, and his misgivings
were confirmed. He saw behind the curtain a door, and near it a
chair, but there was no psychiatrist on the chair - only a tape-
recorder. The man was not unduly perturbed, for he had related his
story many times to different psychiatrists, and he had it all down
on tape. He took a tape-recorder out of his brief-case, laid it on the
couch, and turned it on. Then he went downstairs and across the
road to a coffee shop. Inside he found the psychiatrist, already
drinking coffee; so the man ordered his own cup of coffee and sat
down at the same table. “Look here,” the psychiatrist protested,
“you’re not supposed to be here. You should be upstairs on the
couch telling your story.” “Don’t worry,” the man replied. “My tape-
recorder’s talking to your tape-recorder.”
As Christians we are here to insist on the vital need for
unmediated personal encounter: not machine to machine, but face
to face, person to person, prosopon to prosopon, according to the
model of God the Trinity.[lviii]
 Our relationship to God, our prayer life must be personal, face to
face, not mechanical, not impersonal, not “tape recorder to tape
recorder,” saying certain prayers by rote, which Jesus condemned
when He talked about the people who honor God only with their
lips, but their hearts are far from Him.

Dr. Christos Yannaras states that the Greek word for person,
prosopon, has the literal meaning of “face”: I am authentically a
person only in so far as I “face” others, especially God, and relate to
them personally.

History has shown that murder, slavery, and genocide begin with
the de-personalization of human beings. The U.S. Supreme Court in
its Dred Scott decision decreed the blacks were not persons. The
Nazi Supreme Court decreed that Jews were not persons. The U.S.
Supreme Court decreed that a baby in the womb is not a person. In
war the enemy is looked upon as a non-person. Indescribable
atrocities occur when the image of God in man is erased.

It is to be noted that intercourse among animals is anal. Not so

among humans who are designed to face each other in this sacred
act of procreation which is blessed by God in the Sacrament of Holy
Matrimony. Love among humans is designed by God to be
expressed face to face, person to person, in the most intimate of all
relationships.

In the Old Testament God did not have a face. Moses was
allowed to see only God’s “backside.” In the New Testament God
has a face in the Person of Jesus. Thus, we are invited to relate to
Him face to face, person to person, personally and intimately.
 ARCHBISHOP ANASTASIOS YANNOULATOS

Archbishop Anastasios is an eminent spiritual leader of the

Orthodox Church. He is presently the spiritual leader of the
Orthodox Church in Albania. He has served as missionary to Africa
while he was at the same time professor at the University of
Athens. He is the Father of the modern missionary movement in
Greece.

During World War II young Yannoulatos began to experience his

faith in a very personal way. Abandoning his interest in
mathematics, he pursued theology and graduated from the
University of Athens in 1951 with highest honors. He did post-
graduate work in Germany where he earned a doctorate. So fervent
was his love for Jesus that he said, “It was not enough for me to
give something to God. I had to be given totally to Him. I wanted to
live with my whole being in Christ.” He dedicated his life to making
the Orthodox faith real to his people. For Archbishop Yannoulatos,
ministry began when his faith in Jesus became personal.
 METROPOLITAN ANTHONY BLOOM

Metropolitan Bloom says that his personal relationship with

Jesus began when he was a student in medical school. He describes
the experience as follows,

One day, it was during Lent, and I was then a member of one of
the Russian youth organizations in Paris, one of our leaders came
up to me and said, “We have invited a priest to talk to you: come.”
I answered with violent indignation that I would not. I had no use
for the Church. I did not believe in God. I did not want to waste any
of my time. Then my leader explained to me that everyone who
belonged to my group had reacted in exactly the same way, and if
no one came we would all be put to shame because the priest had
come and we would be disgraced if no one attended his talk. My
leader was a wise man. He did not try to convince me that I should
listen attentively to his words so that I might perhaps find truth in
them: “Don’t listen,” he said. “I don’t care, but sit and be a physical
presence.” That much loyalty I was prepared to give my youth
organization and that much indifference I was prepared to offer to
God and to his minister. So I sat through the lecture, but it was with
increasing indignation and distaste. The man who spoke to us, as I
discovered later, was a great man, but I was then not capable of
perceiving his greatness. I saw only a vision of Christ and of
Christianity that was profoundly repulsive to me. When the lecture
was over I hurried home in order to check the truth of what he had
been saying. I asked my mother whether she had a book of the
Gospel, because I wanted to know whether the Gospel would
support the monstrous impression I had derived from this talk. I
expected nothing good from my reading, so I counted the chapters
of the four gospels to be sure that I read the shortest, not to waste
time unnecessarily. And thus it was the Gospel according to St. Mark
which I began to read.
 I do not know how to tell you of what happened. I will put it
quite simply and those of you who have gone through a similar
experience will know what came to pass. While I was reading the
beginning of St. Mark’s gospel, before I reached the third chapter, I
became aware of a presence. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. It was
no hallucination. It was a simple certainty that the Lord was
standing there and that I was in the presence of him whose life I
had begun to read with such revulsion and such ill-will.
This was my basic and essential meeting with the Lord. From
then I knew that Christ did exist.[lix]
Metropolitan Bloom’s approach to faith was highly existential. He
said once, “I don’t know anything of metaphysical language. What
we (Orthodox) say about Christ is experiential.”
 ST. KOSMAS AITOLOS

St. Kosmas was a missionary who traveled the villages of Greece

during the dark centuries of Turkish occupation, preaching Christ
everywhere he went. Arriving at each village square, he would ask
the people to set up a large wooden cross in the village square.
Placing a bench in front of the cross, he stood on the bench and
preached extemporaneously on the love of God and the teachings of
Jesus. Then he would travel to the next village, leaving the cross in
its place as a reminder of his teachings to the villagers.

Kosmas’ faith was nourished by a deeply personal and intimate

relationship to Jesus Whom he called “our sweetest Master” and
“our sweetest Jesus.” God’s love overflowed Kosmas’ heart. Here is
a sample of what he would say,

The most gracious and merciful God has many and various
names. He is called light, life, and resurrection. But God’s chief
name is love. If we wish to live well here and go to paradise, we
should have two loves: love for God and love for our brethren... Just
as a swallow needs two wings to fly in the air so do we need these
two loves (love of God and love of people) because without them it
is impossible for us to be saved.
 AN IMPERSONAL WORLD

We live in a society in which we are identified by numbers. We

are a social security number to the government. Another number
identifies us at our place of employment. We are a number in
college and a number in the armed forces. We are told that
computer cards can translate all of our personality traits into
numerical digits by which we can be sorted and identified. We are
told that one day we may receive mail addressed to our social
security number, followed by street number and finally a zip code.

One person examined his billfold and discovered that he carried

credit cards and identification numbers totaling twenty-one different
sets of numbers by which he was known. We can sympathize with
the person who said, “I have finally learned how to get attention.
When I receive a computer card, I fold, spindle and mutilate it.
Then it stops the whole machine, and they learn my name and
discover I am a person.”

Dr. Paul Tournier said once, “The more we fill our universe with
machines, the more important it is that we treat each other as
persons.”

A successful defense attorney was asked once how he managed

to win so often in court. He replied, “I tell the jury about Tom Jones
or Bill Green. I never refer to them as ‘the defendant’ or ‘my client.’
I’ve found that juries will hang defendants and clients but that they
are not so anxious to hang Tom Jones or Bill Green.” This successful
attorney had discovered the importance of the personal.
 THE GREATNESS OF GOD

Mrs. Humphrey Ward, the British novelist, once wrote to a

member of Parliament telling him of the great needs of a family
among his constituents. She asked him to give the family his
attention. He replied that he was so busy with the human race that
he had no time for the individual. That night Mrs. Ward wrote in her
diary, “Our Divine Lord, when last heard from, had not attained this
sublime attitude.” The greatness of our God is that even through He
rules the universe, He has time for, and listens to, and cares for
each one of His children individually and personally.

The Lord Jesus demonstrated many times that He thinks of us

not as crowds, or masses but as persons and individuals. We
repeat: He loves us as if there were only one of us in this universe.
And as far as He is concerned there is only one of us because each
one of us is unique. In this vast universe there is no one exactly like
us. The very hairs of our head are numbered and known to God. He
calls us by name. And He is concerned about each of our needs. If
Christ’s ministry among us had any purpose, it was to demonstrate
His personal love for us. Jesus made God’s love personal:

to friendless Zacchaeus sitting alone up in a tree;

to the blind beggar lying by the roadside, crying for help;
to the woman who touched the hem of His robe seeking healing;
to the adulteress who was about to be stoned for her sin;
to the father who came pleading in behalf of his sick daughter;
to the thief who was crucified next to him;
and to the Samaritan woman whom He met by the well.
His days and hours were full, yet He was never too busy to
spend time with individuals to show them that God cared personally
for each one of them.
 When a woman touched Him in a crowd one day, Jesus asked,
“Who touched me?” His disciples were often in crowds that meant
little to them. They were amazed at His question and said, “In all
this crowd you want to know who touched you?” But Jesus didn’t
want anyone to get lost in a crowd. He didn’t want anyone to be
treated impersonally.

How much we need to make the love of Christ personal to

people today. It was said of a great preacher that each person in
his audience felt as though the message was intended for him and
for him alone. Each day we need to throw one arm up vertically to
receive Christ’s love and throw the other arm out horizontally to aim
this love to other people.

One of the most personal encounters Jesus had was with the
Samaritan woman at the well.
 A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER

“There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to

her, ‘Give me a drink.’” Notice that Jesus doesn’t approach the
Samaritan woman brandishing a Bible and talking of repentance. He
just asks for a drink of water. He does not act superior to her but as
inferior. She has something which He needs: water.

The conversation that develops begins in a very informal way,

but before it is finished it has covered some of the deepest
questions of morals and theology. But the really important thing is
not the content of the conversation - significant as that is - as much
as the extremely personal encounter that is taking place. This is a
real person who has met Jesus, and Jesus gives her His whole
attention. She is as real as any of us. And she has met someone
unique - one who seems to look right into her depths and knows all
about her. “Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever
did,” she said to her fellow villagers. She came to know Jesus
personally as a result of this tremendous I-Thou encounter she had
with Him.

Don’t we all need such a personal encounter with Jesus in order

for our faith to grow? Is not this what Jesus offers us in prayer, in
the daily reading of His word, in the Jesus Prayer, in the praying of
the daily hours, in the Eucharist? He sits at the well which is called
prayer or scripture or the Eucharist and waits for us to come to Him
so that we may have a personal, life-changing encounter with Him.
The more personal our encounter with Jesus, the more real our faith
becomes.
 JACOB: STRUGGLE WITH GOD

We read in the Old Testament that Jacob wrestled with God

(Gen. 32:23-31). We are to understand from this story that a great
thing happened in the life of Jacob. Somewhere in his career he
underwent a conversion, an experience with God. At the same point
in his life this ambitious man was truly blessed and touched by
God’s grace. As a result of this very personal experience with God
his life was changed. The new name, Israel, given to Jacob at this
point signifies the new person he became.

Just as Jacob had a personal “struggle” with God, a personal

encounter with Him, so each one of us must meet Christ personally,
usually through some struggle, and decide for Him at some point in
life.
 THE RABBIT AND THE DOGS

The following story comes from the Sayings of the Desert

Fathers,

Abba Hilarion [founder of Palestinian monasticism] was asked,

“How can it be right for a diligent brother not to be offended when
he sees other monks returning to the world?” The old man said,
“Let me tell you a story. Consider the hunting dogs which chase
after hares; imagine one of these dogs sees a hare in the distance
and immediately gives chase; the other dogs that are with him see
this dog taking off and take off after him, even though they have
not seen the hare. They will continue running with him, but only for
a time; when at length the effort and struggle exhaust them, they
give up the chase and turn back. However the dog that saw the
hare continues chasing it by himself. He does not allow the effort or
the struggle to hinder him from completing his long course. He risks
his life as he goes on, giving himself no rest. He does not allow the
turning aside of the other dogs behind him to put him off. He goes
on running until he has caught the hare he saw. He is careless both
of the stumbling blocks in his path, whether stones or thorns, and of
the wounds they have inflicted on him. So also the brother who
wishes to follow after Christ must fix his gaze upon the cross until
he catches up with Him that was crucified upon it, even though he
sees everyone else has begun to turn back.”
If we have experienced God personally in Christ; if we have
experienced His resurrection, His forgiveness, His love, His grace,
His peace, His joy, then like that dog that had actually seen the
rabbit, we shall not easily drop out of the race of life; we shall
persevere in the faith, until one day we stand in His presence and
hear Him calling us by name, “Come inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world.”
 C.S. Lewis described how deeply personal that final meeting
with God will be:

…In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured,

and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee
away, vanish, leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like
the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed.
 FROM EMPTINESS TO FULLNESS

An executive who had achieved success in the business world

wrote, “The success came, all right, but something was missing. I
felt a terrible emptiness. I was running on empty. Sometimes I
would get up in the middle of the night and pace the floor of my
bedroom and stare out into the darkness for hours at a time. I
would go to the office and do my job, but there was a big hole in
my life. One day I saw what was missing: God! I went back to
Church, became an active member, turned my life over to Jesus and
established a deeply personal relationship with Him. Now I feel His
presence with me, His peace within me. I can sense His Spirit in
me. I have come from emptiness to fullness.”

In no other religion does a believer enter into a personal

relationship with God as in Christianity. It is this personal
relationship with Christ that is decisive. Unlike Buddhism,
Confucianism or Mohamedanism, Christianity demands a personal,
intimate bond and union with Christ. We have to be one with Him;
one with Him in such a way that we cannot in any way claim to be
Christian unless we reflect the person, the mind, the will, the heart,
and the humanity of Jesus. “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me,”
said St. Paul.
 BLAISE PASCAL

Dr. Blaise Pascal has been called the greatest mind that ever
lived. In his book A Short History of the Life of Jesus Christ he
wrote, “At midnight 23 November 1654, Jesus spoke to me and
said, ‘Blaise, I was thinking of thee in my agony.’” This experience
caused Pascal to be converted. It made the crucifixion personal.
“Blaise” said the voice of Christ, “it was for you I did all this.” Jesus
suffered, died, was buried, and rose again not for humanity in
general but for each one of us personally. When we realize and
accept this, our whole life changes.
 WHAT A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD WILL
YIELD

Developing a strong daily, personal relationship with Christ will

help us accomplish at least five goals in life:

1. It will help us grow in our faith.

2. It will help us experience personally the presence, the love

and the power of God; making us martyres, effective witnesses for
Him in the world.

3. It will fill us to overflowing with the love of God, enabling us

to create communities of love at home, at work, at church.

4. St. Irenaeus said, “Communion with God is life. Separation

from God is death.” Developing a daily personal relationship with
Christ will enhance our communion with God and fill us with life -
God’s life.

5. If the liturgy seems stale, the sacraments empty rituals, I try

to get to know Jesus. He helps me see that He is at the center of
every liturgy and sacrament, offering Himself to me in love. If the
Bible sounds more like bad news than good news, I try to get to
know Jesus. Then I find that the Bible is Christ speaking personally
to me words of everlasting live. If I find the liturgy on Sunday a
chore, I try to get to know Jesus more personally. Then I find I want
to come to meet Him personally in the liturgy and receive Him in
the manger of my soul. There is no substitute for getting to know
Jesus personally and learning to love Him faithfully. When this
happens, everything comes alive.

6. One thing is certain. Our world that is so wounded, can only

be healed by Jesus. And He calls on us, His disciples, to allow Him
to live in us so that through us, the members of His Body, He may
bring healing to a sick and dying humanity. This will happen when
we ignite His presence within us through a daily personal
relationship with Him.
 A LITTLE BLACK GIRL’S PERSONAL FAITH

When a little black North Carolina girl was being escorted to

school by soldiers in 1962, she said, “I was all alone, and those
(segregationist) people were screaming at me. Suddenly I saw God
smiling at me, and I smiled back.” She continued, “A woman was
standing there (near the school door), and she shouted at me, ‘Hey,
you little nigger, what you smiling at?’ I looked right at her face and
I said, ‘At God.’ Then she looked up at the sky, and then she looked
at me, and she didn’t call me any more names.”

This little black girl had a warm personal relationship with Jesus
that sustained her with an inner equanimity and peace which was
nothing less than God’s presence in her. God smiled the blessing of
His presence and love upon her, and she smiled back!
 AN ETERNAL HONEYMOON WITH JESUS

To understand how deeply personal God’s love is, I bring to your

attention what one Church Father said about his impending death.
He said that he looked forward to death as intensely as a young
groom looks forward to being with his bride on the first night of
their wedding. For him death was to be the beginning of an eternal
honeymoon with Jesus, the Bridegroom, the One referred to in
some of our worship services as, the “Sweetest Jesus.”

God is attempting to do a great work in us. He is forming Christ

in us. Are we letting Him? Do we endeavor to come to know Him
more personally? To grow in our love for Him? Are we yielding our
will to His? Are we repenting? Are we following Him? Is our faith
becoming more personal, and thus more real? Are we reflecting the
personal love of God to those about us? Is our love for people
becoming more personal?

Bishop Kallistos Ware finds a wonderful example of the

importance of personal relations in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
He writes,

The parable of the prodigal is basically the story of the loss and
the recovery of personal relationship. At the outset, the younger son
goes astray because he thinks in terms of things rather than
persons. “Give me the share of the property that falls to me,” he
says to the father (Luke 15:12). He is not interested in his personal
relationship with his father, but only in the property that he expects
to inherit. And the result of this repudiation of personal relationship
on his part is that he finds himself “in a far country” (Luke 15:13),
alienated, in exile, lonely and self-isolated.
The path of repentance that he has to traverse involves a
restoration of personal relationship, a return to his father, his family
 and the community of his home. His return is sealed by a great
feast, and the purpose of every feast is precisely to express
koinonia and fellowship. Food is a mediating bond, and so each
common meal is an affirmation of community. When the elder son
refuses to join the feast, what he is doing is to exclude himself from
relationship and community. This is clear from the way in which he
refers to the returning prodigal; he does not call him “my brother,”
but says to his father, “this son of yours” (Luke 15:30). Until he can
learn once more to say “my brother,” the elder son will inevitably
remain out in the cold, self-excluded from the human community –
in short an “unperson”; for without mutual love there is no true
personhood.[lx]
 Chapter Fourteen: Participating Personally In the
Resurrection of Jesus

We share in the resurrection of Jesus through faith in the Word

of God, through Baptism, through the Eucharist, and through
repentance which is the continuing resurrection.
PARTICIPATING PERSONALLY IN THE RESURRECTION OF
JESUS

Through His resurrection Christ has raised us! The Resurrection

icon shows Christ - not standing alone - but raising, lifting, Adam
and Eve out of the depths through the broken door of Hades. He
frees Adam, Eve, patriarch, prophet and king. But, at the same
time, He frees us. He sets at liberty our own life. The hand that
reaches out to grasp the hand of Adam, reaches out to embrace
Adam’s descendants as well. For we, too, are bound by death. We,
too, are held captive by the power of sin. We, too, have “died” and
been cast into the farthest reaches of the abyss. Yet the risen
Savior comes to us as to lost sheep, descending in His
compassionate love to seek us out in the darkness and to raise us
up with Himself. Like the Hound of Heaven, He pursues us down the
highways and byways of sin. If we make our bed in hell, says the
psalmist, He is there, ever present, ever reaching out to draw us
with Him into the glory of the resurrected life. From anxiety in the
face of death, He raises us to unshakeable hope. From fear of the
future, He raises us to undiminished joy. From loneliness and
alienation, He raises us to friendship with God (John 15:15).
 “TOGETHER WITH HIM”

St. Paul says something astounding in Col. 2:13, “And you who
were dead in trespasses…God made alive together with Him, having
forgiven us all our trespasses.” Ponder these words: alive together
with him , for they summarize the message of our Easter joy. Paul is
saying that God did not stop Easter with the resurrection of Jesus.
He just launched it. As He defeated sin and death and raised Jesus
from the dead, so together with Jesus He raises us from sin and
death. The God Who raised Jesus from the dead offers us a new
life, a resurrected life - here and now - together with Him (Col.
2:13). This new resurrected life is already in us, but will blossom
forth in all its glory at the Second Coming. “When Christ who is our
life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4).
Alive together with Him…in glory!
Thus, the resurrection of Christ is an event that concerns not
only Christ but every baptized believer - you and me included. Christ
died for us so that death should no longer reign over us, but that it
should be a means and a way to resurrection and eternal life for
each one of us. As the Apostle Peter writes, “We have been born
anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead” (I Peter 1:3).
But exactly how do we share in the resurrection of Jesus? How
are we raised and made alive together with Him?
 TOGETHER WITH HIM IN BAPTISM

First, we are raised together with Him in holy Baptism. Baptism

for Orthodox Christians is not merely a symbol of spiritual
conversion. It is a real dying and rising with Christ. We die to sin
and death together with Him and we rise to newness of life
together with Him. Baptism is our personal participation in Pascha,
Easter. That is why Baptism is often referred to among Orthodox
Christians as a “tomb and a womb,” a death and a new birth. That
is why for centuries baptisms were performed only on the Feast of
the Resurrection, Pascha.

St. Paul speaks of Baptism as our personal participation in the

resurrection of Christ when he writes in Romans 6:3-11,

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried with Him
by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall
certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the
sinful body might be destroyed, and that we might no longer be
enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin.
But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also
live with him.
For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never
die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
The death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he
lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to
 sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
- Romans 6:3-11
The second century document, The Shepherd of Hermas says
about those who are baptized, “They go down into the water dead
and they come up alive.” Some Church Fathers speak of Baptism as
our first resurrection in Christ and of repentance - daily repentance -
as our continuing resurrection in Christ.

Father Matta El-Maskeen, a Coptic Orthodox priest, has written,

So we receive the power of the resurrection in baptism when we

undergo burial in the water, but it remains an invisible and
unsubstantiated resurrection power until it is put into effect in
earnest spiritual living. It is like the case of a child who is born with
the natural ability to stand on his feet and walk, but remains unable
to do either before he develops and grows strong.
St. John Chrysostom described the connection between
resurrection and baptism in these words:

For we were buried with Him in baptism, and we have risen with
Him through baptism. This resurrection is deliverance from our sins:
the second is the resurrection of the body. He has given us the
greater (the deliverance from sin); we await the lesser (the
resurrection of the body). The first is greater than the second. For it
is a greater thing to be delivered; it is a greater thing to be
delivered from our sins than for the body to see resurrection.
Through this the body fell: because it sinned. If then this was the
cause of its fall, to be freed from sin is the cause if its rising again.
We have risen in the greater resurrection: throwing off the
greater death of sin, and putting off the old garment: so we need
not despair regarding the lesser one. By this resurrection we rose
when we were baptized.
 Fr. Alexander Schmemann described our personal participation in
the resurrection of Christ through Baptism:

The new life which almost two thousand years ago shone forth
from the grave, has been given to us, to all those who believe in
Christ. And it was given to us on the day of our baptism, in which,
as St. Paul says, “We were buried with Christ…unto death, so that
as Christ was raised from the dead we also may walk in newness of
life” (Romans 6:4). Thus, on Easter we celebrate Christ’s
Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us.
For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power
to accept it and live by it.[lxi]
 TOGETHER WITH HIM THROUGH THE EUCHARIST

In addition to Baptism, another way by which we share

personally in the Resurrection of Christ is through the Eucharist. We
must ever remember that in the Passover Banquet of the Divine
Liturgy, we not only celebrate the Presence of the Risen Christ but
we also partake of His Risen Presence. As we eat and drink of the
precious Body and Blood of Christ, we are nourished with
resurrection life. We touch and taste the new life. Pascha (the
Resurrection) flows into our bodies and we leave the holy table
revived. As we eat and drink of the body of His Resurrection, we
become partakers of the self-same Resurrection.

Fr. Matta El-Maskeen, a Coptic Orthodox monastic, expressed

this well when he wrote,

In the Eucharist we eat the resurrection and it becomes a power

that glows in our spirit giving it spiritual fervor, light, holiness, purity
and all that is needed for the progress of the sons of the
resurrection and the Kingdom in eternal life. Every time we eat the
bread of the Eucharist and drink the cup we are established in the
resurrection of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ is established in
us day by day so that we may perfect the will of the Father as sons
of the resurrection. The Eucharist is the food of the resurrection, the
heavenly cure for all the diseases of the sons of death, the wedding
feast for those invited now to share in the wedding feast of the
Lamb in blissful eternity.
 FOUR WAYS OF SHARING IN CHRIST’S RESURRECTION

Thus it is that we share personally in the Resurrection through

faith in the Word of God, through Baptism, through the Eucharist
and through repentance which is the continuing resurrection. We
begin by believing in the resurrection though faith in the Word of
God. Then we enter into the mystery of the Resurrection through
the door of Baptism (Romans 6:4). Following Baptism this new life
is continually renewed in us by receiving His life-giving Body and
Blood as we live in union and communion with the Risen Christ and
as we follow Him carrying our cross of suffering for the Gospel of
Christ. Resurrection begins at Golgotha where we suffer with Him in
order that we may be glorified with Him (Romans 8:17). Thus, the
resurrection is not something that happened to Christ alone, but to
all of us. Each one of us is called to share personally in the
resurrection of Jesus through faith, Baptism, the Eucharist and
repentance.

When a certain saint was asked the secret of his power, he

replied, “Having been in Him, for 50 years I have had access to the
throne of grace. For 50 years I have had access to the Risen Christ
by faith and through His Word. For 50 years I have received the
risen Christ in the Eucharist. For 50 years I lived ‘together with Him.’
What greater power can there be?”
 A FINAL WORD TO READERS

According to a legend the devil met with his little demons one
day and said to them, “We can’t keep Christians from going to
church, or reading the Bible and knowing the truth. We can’t even
keep them from forming a personal, intimate, abiding relationship
with Christ.
Once they gain that personal connection with Jesus, our power
over them is broken. So let them go to their churches, but steal
their time, so that they cannot nurture and develop their
relationship with Jesus. Distract them by keeping them busy with
nonessentials in life.

Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow,

borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the
husbands to work 6-7 days, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford
their empty lifestyles. Overstimulate their minds, so that they
cannot hear the still, small voice of God.

Pound their minds with news 24 hours a day. Flood their

mailboxes with junk mail and promotions offering free products and
services, and false hopes. And when they go to church involve them
in gossip and small talk. It will work! It will work!”

Has the devil’s scheme been successful?

You be the judge. Has he not been working this scheme on you
daily?
 END NOTES

[i]
St. John of Dalyatha, Homily on Meditation on the Economy of the Lord, in "Spiritual
Elder"
[ii]
Saint Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony. Stavropegic Monastery of St.
John the Baptist. Essex, England. 1991
[iii]
Elements of Faith C. Yannaras. T&T Clark, Ltd. Edinburgh. 1991.
[iv]
Elements of Faith C. Yannaras. T&T Clark, Ltd. Edinburgh. 1991.
[v]
Elements of Faith C. Yannaras. T&T Clark, Ltd. Edinburgh. 1991.
[vi]
Jesus Christ - The Life of the World. Ed. Ion Bria. WCC Publications. 1982.
[vii]
Orthodox Theology. SVS Press. 1978
[viii]
Orthodox Faith and Life: Christ in the Gospels Volume 1. HCO Press. 1980.
[ix]
Sourozh Number 59. February, 1995. Article by Maxime Egger. “Archimandrite
Sophrony: A Man for the World.”
[x]
Creation and Redemption. Nordland Press. 1976.
[xi]
Theology Today. April 2004.
[xii]
Orthodoxy: Faith and Life: Christ in the Gospels. HCO Press. 1980.
[xiii]
Celebration of Faith. Volume 1. A. Schmemann. SVS Press. Crestwood, NY.
[xiv]
The Study of Spirituality. Edited by C. Jones, G Wainwright, E. Yarnold. Oxford
Univ. Press. New York, NY. 1986
[xv]
Ibid
[xvi]
The Place of the Heart. Elisabeth Behr-Sigel. Oakwood Publications. Torrance, CA.
Translated by Fr. Stephen Bigham. 1991.
[xvii]
Theology Today. April 2004.
[xviii]
Jesus: A Dialogue With the Saviour. by a Monk of the Eastern Church. Desclee
Co., Inc. 1963.
[xix]
The Orthodox Way. Kallistos Ware. SVS Press. Crestwood, NY. 1979.
[xx]
Come and See: Encountering the Orthodox Church. Theodore Bobosh, Ed. Dept. of
Religious Education OCA. 1983.
 [xxi]
Available through Light and Life Publishing Company,
PO Box 26421, Minneapolis, MN 55426-0421.
[xxii]
The Spiritual Wisdom and Practices of Early Christianity. Alphonce and Rachel
Goettman. 1994. Inner Life Publishing. Greenwood, IN.
[xxiii]
Illuminating Icon. A. Ugolnik. Wm. B. Eerdmans Co. 1989.
[xxiv]
Eastern Orthodox Christianity. D.B. Clendenin. Baker Books. 1994.
[xxv]
From a video program, Jesus As I Know Him.
[xxvi]
Eastern Orthodoxy: A Western Perspective. D.B. Clendenin. Baker Books.
Grand Rapids, MI. 1994.
[xxvii]
Ponder These Things. Rowan Williams. Sheed and Ward Co. Franklin, WI. 2002.
[xxviii]
Our Father. Alexander Schmemann. Translated by Alexis Vinogradov. SVS Press.
Crestwood, NY. 2002.
[xxix]
Living the Jesus Prayer. I. Zaleski. White Horse Press. 1993
[xxx]
St. Silouan the Athonite. Archimandrite Sophrony. Stavropegic Monastery of St.
John the Baptist. Essex, England. 1991.
[xxxi]
The Power of the Name. Kallistos Ware. S.L.G. Press. Oxford, England. 1974.
[xxxii]
The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life. Sebastian Brock. Cistercian
Publ. 1987.
[xxxiii]
Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain. Translated by Peter A. Chamberas. Paulist
Press. 1989.
[xxxiv]
Aspects of Church History. G. Florovsky. Nordland Publ. Co. Belmont, MA.
[xxxv]
The Orthodox Church. T. Ware. Penquin Books. Baltimore, MD. 1963.
[xxxvi]
The Power of the Name. Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia. S.L.G. Press. Fairacres
Oxford. 1974.
[xxxvii]
The Orthodox Way. K. Ware. SVS Press. Crestwood, NY. 1979.
[xxxviii]
Both books are available through Light and Life Publishing Company.
[xxxix]
Confession: Doorway to Forgiveness. by Jim Forest. Orbis Books. Maryknoll, NY.
2002.
[xl]
Celebrations of Faith,. Vol. 1. A. Schmemann. SVS Press. Crestwood, NY. 1991.
[xli]
The Melody of Prayer. S. Harakas. Light and Life Publishing Company. Minneapolis,
MN. 1979.
[xlii]
Ibid
[xliii]
SVS Press. Scarsdale, N.Y.
 [xliv]
Available through Light and Life Publishing Company. PO Box 26421, Minneapolis,
MN. 55426-0421.
[xlv]
Discovering the Rich Heritage of Orthodoxy. C. Bell, PhD. Light and Life Publishing
Company. 1994.
[xlvi]
The Inner Kingdom, Collected Works, Vol 1. “The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox
Christianity,” Bishop Kallistos Ware. SVS Press. 2000.
[xlvii]
The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Dumitru Staniloae. Holy
Cross Orthodox Press. Brookline, MA. 1998. Foreword by Kallistos Ware

[xlviii]
Dumitru Staniloae: Tradition and Modernity in Theology. Edited by Lucian
Turcescu. The Center for Romanian Studies. West Palm Beach, FL. 2002.
[xlix]
Ibid.
[l]
Ibid.
[li]
The Roots of Christian Mysticism. Olivier Clement. New City Press. 1994
[lii]
The Orthodox Way. K. Ware. SVS Press. Crestwood, NY. 1979.
[liii]
Ibid.
[liv]
Ibid.
[lv]
Doing Theology Today. Edited by T.E. McComiskey and J.D. Woodbridge.
Zondervan Publishing Company. Grand Rapids, MI. 1992.
[lvi]
The Inner Kingdom. Bishop Kallistos Ware. SVS Press. Crestwood, NY. 2000.
[lvii]
Healing the Eight Stages of Life. M. Linn, S. Fabricant, D. Linn. Paulist Press. 1988.
[lviii]
Personhood. Edited by John Chirban. Bergin and Garvey Co. 1995.
[lix]
Sourozh, Number 93. August 2003. Oxford, England.
[lx]
Living Orthodoxy in the Modern World. Edited by Andrew Walker and Costa Carras.
SVS Press. Crestwood, NY. 1996.
[lxi]
Great Lent. A. Schmemann. SVS Press. Scarsdale, NY. 1969.